WHEN Zhang Qinli’s ashes were carried to his native village in a white pickup truck in May 2004, mourners lined the streets. They wept and clapped and set off firecrackers as the vehicle started its journey from the county seat of Lankao. “He died a wronged man,” shouted some. It was a hero’s send-off; so many knelt before the truck, sobbing, that it took about five hours to make its way from the dusty town to the hamlet, tucked in a grove of poplars 30km (20 miles) away.
It is rare indeed for someone who once served as the Communist Party chief of a county, as Zhang did, to be so adored by its residents that his death would provoke such spontaneous displays of sorrow. But Zhang’s funeral went unremarked in the official media. That is because popular affection for him revealed an uncomfortable fact: though Mao’s Cultural Revolution caused the suffering and death of millions, to some in China the era—a time of idealism and little corruption—was not all bad. A few, even, would like another one.
In 1978, two years after Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping muscled diehard Maoists out of the leadership and took over himself. To secure his...Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/2aToxpd
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