Any American can walk into a public library and find books about Mao’s murderous Great Leap Forward or the fanatical Cultural Revolution that followed it. There would be books on the popular movement that culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. A visitor might also find any number of periodicals documenting the sordid history of the Chinese Communist Party, with its appalling human rights record and unfair trade practices.
Not so in China, where the ruling party under President Xi Jinping closely guards the country’s past in schools, the media and across the internet. Chinese citizens have no legal access to accurate renditions of Mao’s terrible reign. But that is not stopping some brave citizens from trying to bring the truth to a larger audience. In an essay for Foreign Affairs, journalist Ian Johnson, who spent nearly 20 years reporting from China, introduces readers to the ordinary people using basic technologies —PDFs and small digital cameras — to produce books, oral histories, and documentaries about victims of China’s past.
In this episode of History As It Happens, Mr. Johnson discusses what inspired these “underground historians” to risk their freedom to disseminate the truth and how the Chinese Communist Party is trying to stop them. After coming to power in 2013, Mr. Xi banned criticism of Mao and considers the control of history of paramount importance to his vision for the country.
“I guess it goes without saying that the Communist Party is not in power because it won an election. It is in power because it defeated the Guomindang party in a civil war that ended in 1949. That’s a historical fact but it isn’t that inspiring a story… and if you look at the history of China over the past 75 years, there have been a lot of crises and debacles, but those are expunged from the historical record so the party can present an unblemished record,” said Mr. Johnson, author of “Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future.” Therefore, any attempt by citizens to challenge the party line is met with repression.
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