Guobin Yang
Bo Xilai and the soon-to-be CCP chairman Xi Jinping and premier-to-be Li Keqiang share more than a little in common. The most important commonality is that they are all of the Cultural Revolution generation. Xi was born in 1953. In 1969, he became a "sent-down" youth in a village in Shaanxi province, where many young people in Beijing were sent. Bo Xilai was born in 1949. It is unclear whether he was sent down, but he was a worker for several years in Beijing in the 1970s. Li was born in 1955. He was a sent-down youth for a few years in the mid-1970s.
In 1966, when the Cultural Revolution began in earnest, Bo was 17 while Xi was 13. Youth at that age in 1966-1968 would be involved in the Red Guard movement to varying degrees, though I have not studied the details of Bo's and Xi's involvement. Li was 11 years old in 1966 and could be too young to be involved in the Red Guard movement in any significant ways, but I have read stories of kids as young as 10 or 11 who earnestly participated in the Great Linkup (da chuanlian) and traveled around the country with classmates. If I remember correctly, Liang Heng (of Son of the Revolution with Judith Shapiro) was that age.
Because of Xi's and Li's experiences in the Cultural Revolution, there has been plenty of speculation as to how their biographies might shape their leadership style and their attitude toward political reform. The consequences of the experiences of the Cultural Revolution on the generation will be the main theme of my forthcoming book China's Red Guard Generation: Loyalty, Dissent, and Nostalgia, 1966-1999. Here I'd just like to mention a few points:
1. To begin to understand this connection, it is helpful to differentiate three types of historical experiences for this generation: a) their education and socialization in the years before the Cultural Revolution; b) their experiences in the Red Guard movement period, 1966-1968; and c) their experiences in the sent-down period, 1968 - 1980.
2. It's important to stress that the Cultural Revolution generation consists of different types of people from different social strata. The relative, facile homogeneity imposed on the cohort by the ideological and education systems before the Cultural Revolution was shattered by the factionalism of the Red Guard movement. Social conflicts became more visible afterwards. Because of social class differences among members of the generation, they experienced the Red Guard movement and the sent-down movement in different ways. For example, youth from more privileged families were more likely to be sent to more desirable destinations in the sent-down campaign. They were also more likely to return to city jobs first.
3. Having said the above, it is possible to make and defend several general claims about the historical experiences of the Cultural Revolution generation as a whole. Generally speaking, a) the educational experiences prior to the Cultural Revolution turned this cohort into idealists and dreamers; 2) the Red Guard movement initially provided an occasion for the radical members of the generation to realize their revolutionary dreams, but later shattered their dreams, as they discovered that their loyalty to Mao had been made use of and then betrayed; 3) the sent-down experience brought them down to earth and turned them into realists as they saw first-hand the harsh realities of rural life. Many of them began to critically reflect on the rhetoric and realities of Chinese socialism. Some would emerge from the Cultural Revolution to become the most influential poets, novelists, painters, scientists, etc. in the reform era.
A list of my articles on these and related issues can be found on my personal web site here.
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