The life of a Chinese peasant during the Cultural Revolution imposed by Chairman Mao was one fraught with struggle and suffering. One of the best chronicles of this struggle is the novel To Live. The story follows a man named Fugui, who was born into a rich household and enjoyed wasting money at brothels and on gambling, through which he eventually managed to lose his family’s house and property to a landlord named Long Er. Following this loss, Fugui was forced to rent land from Long Er and become a farmer to sustain his wife, daughter, and mother. Fugui did not even know how to farm the land he rented, but “learned from watching the other farmers.”[1] Even his mother was forced to help him farm the land, because he was so unskilled that it took him far too long to do the work himself.
However, regardless of the irresponsibility Fugui displayed in this scenario, losing his land was inevitable. After the communists defeated the nationalist forces in the Chinese civil war, one of the primary objectives of Mao Zedong was social leveling on a massive scale. One of the processes through which he intended to do this was by targeting wealthy peasants and landlords, taking their land and redistributing it to the peasants. In To Live, the new landlord Long Er is confronted and “the people’s government had him arrested, calling him a despotic landlord.”[2] Had Fugui not gambled away his home and all of his land, it would have later been seized and given back to the peasantry regardless, while Fugui himself might have faced the possibility of execution.
By 1958, Mao had established communes in the rural sectors of China. These group farms took the peasants’ private lands and transformed them into communal lands, to be used under the direction of a team leader. Fugui’s “five mu of land all went to the commune,” leaving him with only his hut and cooking supplies.[3] Soon after that, all of the commune residents’ pots were taken by the head of the commune in an attempt to smelt iron in a backyard furnace, as part of Mao’s attempt to increase steel production. Fugui strongly opposed to giving his pot to the commune, but was not able to keep it, as the team leader threatened to “go in and smash it” if Fugui refused to comply.[4] Thus, aside from land, any attempt to retain personal property became equivalent to rebelling against the new communist party’s policy of egalitarianism, which was simply impossible for the individual peasant to do.
The perpetuation of the terrible lot had by the Chinese peasant is illustrated later in the novel by the arrival of the fengshui expert, Mr. Wang. While searching for an appropriate location for the backyard furnace, he came to Fugui’s home, which at that point, was all that remained of Fugui’s earthly possessions. Mr. Wang believed that the exact location of Fugui’s hut was a “great spot, [because] the fengshui [there was] good,” meaning that Fugui was to be forced out of his home.[5] By chance, however, Fugui’s wife happened to know the man, allowing Fugui’s hut to escape unharmed. However, Old Sun, another resident of the commune, had his home chosen and refused to leave. The response of the people’s commune was to have several men physically “pull Old Sun out of his house,” which was then burnt down.[6] This house could have easily been Fugui’s, and there was nothing that he could have done to prevent its destruction.
Another pivotal event in the story that illustrates the harsh realities of the Cultural Revolution is the death of Fugui’s son, Youqing. Following victory over the Nationalists during the Chinese civil war, Mao stressed the importance of “the education of the peasantry” as a means to improve the economic output of those situated in rural areas, which, in turn, would improve China’s total economic output.[7] Thus, Fugui and his wife decided that it was a good idea for their son Youqing to attend school. When notified of their principal’s need of a blood transfusion, the children were required to donate blood. Being able to donate blood to the principal made them “so happy you would have thought it was a holiday,” a notion which reinforces the cult of personality surrounding Mao at the time through a reverence of his prioritization of education.[8] Coincidentally, Youqing is the only student there with the corresponding blood type, and the doctors extracted far too much blood from Youqing, killing him.
The communist focus on the education of the peasantry and the notion of egalitarianism were the driving forces behind this tragedy, not Fugui’s decision to send the child to school. In fact, Youqing was so excited to be able to give blood that he was actually “afraid he’d be the last one and that by then they wouldn’t even need his blood.”[9] Such a dedication to the people and to education was exactly in line with what the Maoist regime asked of him. He was even excited that he was the only one whose blood could be used because he desired to be the individual known for making a difference. Mao stated that “parents have the duty to rear and to educate their children” and accordingly, Fugui had done what any parent would have done in the face of this new communist priority: sent his child to school.[10] He even gave his own daughter away for a period in order to accumulate enough money to educate his son. It was impossible for him to know that a blood transfusion would be needed and Youqing would be the only one with the correct blood type. Fugui and Youqing were only following the new edicts passed by the communists and consequently, became victims of Maoist policy.
The radical changes that occurred in China during the communist revolution permanently altered the lives of everyone in China, especially the peasants. Many of the reforms enacted by Mao were supposedly done for the good of the peasantry and the advancement of China, but the only result was an incredible loss of life and terrible living conditions for those who survived. Many peasants like Fugui were forced to pay this price. The communist revolution was a powerful force, one that took the citizens of China down the revolutionary path whether they chose to accompany it or not.
Works Cited
Hua, Yu. To Live. New York: Anchor Books, 1993.
Zedong, Mao. “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” in Fall of the Guomindang State. In
The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection. Ed. Pei-kai Cheng, Michael Lestz,
with Jonathon Spence. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.
[1] Yu Hua, To Live (New York: Anchor Books, 1993), 48.
[2] Ibid., 83.
[3] Ibid., 100.
[4] Ibid., 101.
[5] Ibid., 104.
[6] Ibid., 107.
[7] Mao Zedong, “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” in The Fall of the Guomindang State, in The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection, edited by Pei-kai Cheng, Michael Lestz, with Jonathan Spence (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999), 357.
[8] Yu Hua, To Live, 149.
[9] Ibid., 150.
[10] Mao Zedong, “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” 353.
The Cave 
He look weird