57 pages • 1 hour read
Son of the Revolution
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How Political Upheaval Destroys Families
In Son of the Revolution, the movements and doctrines of the Cultural Revolution tear apart Liang’s family, and Liang witnesses many other families destroyed by this violent revolution as well. Liang learns early in his life that “there was no room for a personal life outside the one assigned to you by the Party” (29), and to the Party, not even the closest family relationships are sacred.
The first casualty in Liang’s family unit is his mother, who, despite her own loyalty to the Party, becomes a victim of the Anti-Rightist Movement and receives a stain on her record she can never overcome. Father chooses loyalty to the Party over his wife, divorcing her and doing everything he can to keep his children away from her. Liang muses that “the Party had made us strangers to the woman who loved us more than anyone else in the whole world” (29). Though all three children visit Mother secretly a few times, Party doctrine eventually draws them away, especially Liang Fang. Though she goes to see Mother the most and loves her deeply, she “hate[s] herself” for doing so and resolves to “renounce all family ties” to “become a true Revolutionary” (38).
Liang has already “lost [his mother] through a political movement” when the same fate befalls his father (142). Father is condemned as part of the Cultural Revolution’s mass criticism of intellectuals, and by the time Liang is 13, Father is sent to a “Thought Study” program and not allowed to return home even on weekends. Soon after, Liang’s sisters must take part in a mandatory movement to bring “Educated Youth” to the countryside to live with peasants. Liang and his eldest sister, Liang Fang, visit Father before she leaves, and they realize “the family ties of a lifetime” are now “stretched to their outer limits,” and their hopes for the future have become “shattered dreams of the past” (146). As Liang Fang departs the next day, a banner on the truck reads “The Poor and Lower-Middle Class Peasants Are Closer Relatives than Mother and Father” (146), underscoring the fact that this family separation is a deliberate tactic of the government, a way to ensure that loyalty to the Party supersedes all personal relationships.
Left alone at the age of 13, Liang finds he’s part of an entire generation whose families have been torn apart: he becomes part of a gang of high-ranking cadres’ children who have all lost their parents to Revolutionary re-education. Liang later befriends the lower-class “hoodlums” (153), including orphans and children whose parents are in Thought Study. All these young people spend their days on the streets rather than in school or with their families.
Liang does get to see his parents and sisters again, though his family can never regain the years of connection they lost. For many other families Liang encounters, the effects of the Revolution are even more devastating. Peng Ming’s mother has no idea what has happened to her son and begs Liang to find him; when Liang learns Peng Ming was imprisoned and humiliated, he can’t bear to tell Peng Ming’s mother the truth, so she’s left with no idea what fate befell her son. Liang also befriends a girl named Bai Ling, whose father was sent away for re-education and who must combat an abusive stepmother and stepbrother. And in Shanghai, Liang meets the family of his step-aunt, one of many intellectuals who died by suicide after being persecuted, leaving behind a husband and two daughters.
At the end of the memoir, Liang hopes his father finds “consolation” in the fact that “all three of [his] children had found peace” (286). After the turmoil and destruction of the Cultural Revolution, such “peace,” and the reconnection of all three siblings with their parents, is a rare, hard-earned gift.
The Danger of Blind Obedience
Liang states that “by experiencing disaster my generation did learn one terribly important thing—the danger that lies in blind obedience” (292). Throughout the memoir, the damage caused by unquestioningly submitting to authority becomes increasingly clear, as does the importance of thinking critically in order to overcome oppression.
The memoir’s first example of blind obedience is Liang’s father, who is so convinced the Party “could never [...] hand down a wrong verdict” that he denounces his own wife when she’s done nothing wrong (9). Liang Fang follows her father’s example to a degree that concerns Liang: she berates herself for missing and visiting her mother, senselessly punishing herself, and hopes to relinquish “all family ties” in devotion to “the glory of Socialism” (38). Liang fears that he, too, might blindly support the Party, and “be led to cut off the last of [his] feelings to try to achieve an impossible goal” (38).
As the Cultural Revolution begins, the Party encourages blind obedience to an even greater extent, as citizens are forced to take part in “political study” (40) and write “self-examination[s]” (44) where they espouse the Party’s opinions rather than their own. When Liang asks Father’s opinion on this new Revolution, Father says “the Party understands far more than we ordinary people ever can what is right for our country” (42)—a dangerous creed that encourages acceptance without question.
Many others share Father’s belief, as citizens eagerly follow the Party’s directive to criticize anyone with capitalist thought—a situation that forces many innocent people to suffer, including Father himself. Even after being humiliated as a capitalist sympathizer, Father maintains his faith in the Party, believing he’s been accused in error and that “someday all of this will be straightened out” (90). By trusting the government’s authority, Father avoids questioning or criticizing the situation. His self-blame only increases his suffering, and his choice—along with countless others who make similar choices—allows government officials to abuse their power without having to account for their actions.
As the Revolution continues, the people’s blind acceptance of its ever-changing policies leads to destruction and disaster. Ancient artifacts and entire temples are destroyed in a campaign to criticize old customs and culture; Red Guards beat a boy, and their action is “hailed as ‘Revolutionary heroism’” (68). Armed with weapons they don’t know how to use and determined to spread the Revolutionary agenda at any cost, Revolutionary Rebels turn China’s cities into “a nightmare sprung up from the darkest place in the human mind” (137).
Near the end of the memoir, Liang briefly teaches in a middle school and is disappointed to find the students are still being taught communist dogma, and “no one [is] being taught how to think” (289). He realizes that unless children are “taught to evaluate things for themselves” (291), the Revolution could easily happen again. Liang is inspired to write his memoir to encourage people to think critically, to retain and share knowledge of the past, and to understand the perils of “blind obedience” (292).
Compassion in Times of Violence and Oppression
China’s Cultural Revolution was so devastating partly because it forced citizens to betray and dehumanize one another, turning a blind eye to others’ suffering in order to save themselves. Liang, however, finds himself unable to condemn others without reason and, as a result, becomes more critical of the Revolution than many of his peers.
The seeds of Liang’s compassion are planted when he witnesses his own father being publicly criticized and humiliated, even though Liang knows Father would never attempt to undermine the Party and has done nothing wrong. When Liang travels to Peking and takes part in rebel activities there, he can’t participate in similar criticisms without experiencing moral qualms, no matter how he tries to ignore his doubts and support the Revolution. Assigned the job of guarding a musician before and after his criticism, Liang can’t stop himself from giving the pitiful, suffering man water, and he thinks “about how Father was criticized,” though he tries “to push [his] thoughts away” (121). From then on, Liang feels there is “something personal” between him and the musician—unlike the other Rebels, Liang cannot help but see this man as a human being (121).
Liang still tries to clamp down his compassion and become a true rebel, but a turning point occurs soon after, on the train ride home from Peking, when he witnesses a female Red Guard being raped by several male guards. Liang and his friends leave the victim behind, unsure of how to help her, and the incident transforms Liang “in some fundamental way”; afterward, Liang is “much more aware of others in trouble, as if always trying to atone for that first failure to help” (127).
Liang witnesses and empathizes with others’ suffering in a way many others do not, and he tries to help. He gives money to Guo’s wife, the peasant with a tragic past, so she can see a witchdoctor, and he helps young Bai Ling resolve a difficult situation with her stepfamily. However, on another trip to Peking, Liang realizes how rare his behavior is. After the betrayals and violence of the Revolution, “the basic relationships between people had become twisted,” and “loyalty no longer counted for anything” (235). Liang leaves Peking “determined to reaffirm some kind of basic kindness and concern toward people,” which he does through his relationships with Bai Ling, Little Gao, and Judy Shapiro (237).
Liang’s experiences demonstrate how a lack of empathy allows atrocities like those of the Cultural Revolution to occur; Liang’s memoir forces readers to witness, and identify with, the suffering of so many. Liang’s story suggests that only by acknowledging others’ pain, and doing everything possible to help, can tragedies like the Cultural Revolution be prevented.
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