Ian Johnson’s new book examines an underground historical movement that represents a genuine challenge to the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2012, I took a five-week bullet-train tour of China’s East Coast. Hoisted on pylons, I soared above the fields and villages of old China, to the surging cities of a bold new country. My final stop was a visit to Mao’s mausoleum in Beijing. A long stream of mourners filed through to view the Great Helmsman, wrapped in the hammer and sickle.
China is ruled by what Johnson calls “documentary politics” in which history is rigidly hierarchical, communicated through resolutions. These rare documents have extraordinary implications, issued only thrice in the past: by Consider Tan Hecheng, a devout historian who gathers evidence around Dao county where in August 1967, 9000 people were murdered in a brutal chapter of Red Guard terror. In the aftermath, the massacre has been papered over. Too many party officials have blood on their hands for any kind of broad reckoning. Hecheng has assembled one million words of interviews and documents about the event. His subversive act is refusing to forget.