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作者：朱迪思-夏皮罗
2006年10月8日
毛泽东的最后一次革命
作者：罗德里克-麦克法夸尔
and Michael Schoenhals.
有插图。693页。
贝尔纳普出版社/哈佛大学
大学出版社。$35.
中国的无产阶级文化大革命从1966年持续到1976年，估计造成了一百万人的非正常死亡。它被广泛认为是历史上最可怕的政治灾难之一。然而，在中国，有一种特殊的失忆症在起作用，这个政权的合法性取决于保护共产党及其创始人毛泽东的记录，它压制了对过去的讨论。受强调社会和谐的儒家传统的影响，普通中国人也是沉默的帮凶，他们宁愿隐瞒对暴力的指责，避免反思个人责任。事实上，在今天迅速变化的中国背景下，红卫兵的告发、广泛的酷刑、对毛泽东的崇拜、烧书和政府策划的大规模搬迁的噩梦似乎是一个遥远的记忆。然而，除非中国正视文化大革命的根源，否则不太可能出现一个真正开放的政体和法律体系，以支持极大地改变了中国人生活的经济自由。
Roderick MacFarquhar和Michael Schoenhals的《毛泽东的最后一次革命》一书，是第一部关于该时期精英政治的重要历史，可能会在中国国内掀起一股文革学术研究的热潮，并鼓励对国家操纵历史记忆进行健康的辩论。然而，这本书并不适合那些缺乏中国近代史知识的人阅读。书中的人物包括相对知名的人物，如毛泽东、他的妻子江青和超左派四人帮的其他成员，以及最高军事领导人林彪、敬爱的周恩来总理和文化大革命的最高受害者刘少奇主席和邓小平总书记。但是，除了专家之外，该书还介绍了许多在西方不为人知的其他人。由于作者的指导不多，读者很可能会混淆听起来相似的中国名字、清洗和反清洗以及意义不明确的陌生事件。
然而，这本书是确立事实的第一个重要努力。哈佛大学历史学家、前英国首相麦克法夸尔和瑞典学者迈克尔-舍恩哈尔斯因精通文化大革命的修辞和奥秘而在汉学界享有盛誉，他们联手利用新获得的文件和回忆录，努力解决这个时代的一些重大问题。毛泽东对暴力事件的责任是什么，他与四人帮的关系是什么？周恩来是革命过度的同谋，还是像人们普遍认为的那样，是一个温和的人物？党的领导人是如何部署红卫兵、工作小组和军队来进行革命的？当林彪试图刺杀毛泽东时，实际上发生了什么？毛泽东去世后，是如何完成对四人帮的逮捕的？邓小平是如何取代毛泽东指定的继承人华国锋的？
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By Judith Shapiro
Oct. 8, 2006
MAO'S LAST REVOLUTION
By Roderick MacFarquhar
and Michael Schoenhals.
Illustrated. 693 pp.
The Belknap Press/Harvard
University Press. $35.
CHINA'S Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976, caused an estimated one million unnatural deaths. It is widely viewed as one of history's most horrific political cataclysms. Yet there is a peculiar amnesia at play in China, where the regime, whose legitimacy depends on protecting the record of the Communist Party and its founder Mao Zedong, suppresses discussion of the past. Ordinary Chinese, influenced by Confucian traditions that emphasize social harmony, are complicit in the silence, preferring to withhold blame for the violence and to avoid reflecting on personal responsibility. Indeed, in the context of today's rapidly changing China, the nightmare of denunciations by Red Guards, widespread torture, Mao worship, book burnings and government-orchestrated mass relocations seems a distant memory. Yet until China comes to terms with the root causes of the Cultural Revolution, it is unlikely that a genuinely open polity and legal system will emerge to support the economic freedoms that have dramatically transformed Chinese lives.
Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals's book, "Mao's Last Revolution," the first major history of the elite politics of the period, may generate a wave of Cultural Revolution scholarship within China and encourage healthy debate over state manipulation of historical memory. It is not, however, a book for those lacking some knowledge of recent Chinese history. Its cast of characters includes relatively well-known figures like Mao Zedong, his wife, Jiang Qing, and the other members of the ultraleftist Gang of Four, as well as the top military leader Lin Biao, the beloved Premier Zhou Enlai and the Cultural Revolution's top-ranking victims, President Liu Shaoqi and General Secretary Deng Xiaoping. But it also features numerous others who are unknown in the West except among specialists. With little hand-holding from the authors, readers are likely to confuse similar-sounding Chinese names, purges and counterpurges, and unfamiliar events whose significance is unclear.
Yet the book is an important first effort to establish the facts. MacFarquhar, a Harvard historian and former British M.P., and Michael Schoenhals, a Swedish scholar legendary in Sinological circles for his mastery of Cultural Revolution rhetoric and arcana, have teamed up to use newly available documents and memoirs in an effort to address some of the great questions of the era. What was Mao's responsibility for the violence, and what was his relationship with the Gang of Four? Was Zhou Enlai complicit in the revolution's excesses or was he a moderating figure, as is widely believed? How did party leaders deploy Red Guards, work teams and the military to carry out the revolution? What actually happened when Lin Biao tried to assassinate Mao? How was the arrest of the Gang of Four accomplished after Mao's death? How did Deng Xiaoping manage to supplant Mao's anointed successor, Hua Guofeng?
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