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Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution
Born Red is an artistically wrought personal account, written very much from inside the experience, of the years 1966-1969, when the author was a young teenager at middle school. It was in the middle schools that much of the fury of the Cultural Revolution and Red Guard movement was spent, and Gao was caught up in very dramatic events, which he recounts as he understood them at the time. Gao's father was a county political official who was in and out of trouble during those years, and the intense interplay between father and son and the differing perceptions and impact of the Cultural Revolution for the two generations provide both an unusual perspective and some extraordinary moving moments. He also makes deft use of traditional mythology and proverbial wisdom to link, sometimes ironically, past and present. Gao relates in vivid fashion how students-turned-Red Guards held mass rallies against 'capitalist roader' teachers and administrators, marching them through the streets to the accompaniment of chants and jeers and driving some of them to suicide. Eventually the students divided into two factions, and school and town became armed camps. Gao tells of the exhilaration that he and his comrades experienced at their initial victories, of their deepening disillusionment as they utter defeat as the tumultuous first phase of the Cultural Revolution came to a close. The portraits of the persons to whom Gao introduces us - classmates, teachers, family members - gain weight and density as the story unfolds, so that in the end we see how they all became victims of the dynamics of a mass movement out of control.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 1, 2023
A hard read which lays bare the errors and complications that arose from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It seems clear that in execution the GPCR was messy and incorrect. Some of the ideas were correct, but the dissemination to the masses of this information was poorly handled and lead to grievous crimes committed by the masses themselves. Nowhere was that more evident to me than when the author early described how classes teaching Leninist philosophy (he specifically mentions dialectical materialism) were cut short to begin the GPCR; he himself seems to imply how serious an error this was in allowing youth total anarchic freedom without the proper ideological base, well before things in the book devolve to such an extent that Mao and the CPC call in the PLA to establish order.
Many Maoists denounce memoirs of the GPCR because they are typically from officers and intellectual types that they insist were bourgeois deviators or imperialist agents if they have anything negative to say. However, this memoir is from the perspective of a teenager cum ground level cadre with a revolutionary peasant backing. He may have eventually emigrated to the US, but he leaves anticommunist speculations at the door. It seems his sympathy lies with the communist movement, in other words— he just is not afraid to point out the paradoxes (and eventually, horrific behavior) that arose in the chaos of the early GPCR days.
Many Maoists denounce memoirs of the GPCR because they are typically from officers and intellectual types that they insist were bourgeois deviators or imperialist agents if they have anything negative to say. However, this memoir is from the perspective of a teenager cum ground level cadre with a revolutionary peasant backing. He may have eventually emigrated to the US, but he leaves anticommunist speculations at the door. It seems his sympathy lies with the communist movement, in other words— he just is not afraid to point out the paradoxes (and eventually, horrific behavior) that arose in the chaos of the early GPCR days.
January 8, 2013
This book is amazing. It's well written, entertaining and educational. I felt like I had really been there and had really lived through this experience. My eyes were completely opened to this different time and different culture. Some parts are extremely graphic and unbelievably sad. I cried at least 3 times, imaging the horror of these situations. The read is worth every word.
August 7, 2021
A memoir of youth, specifically a boy of middle school age who writes a personal account of being swept up in China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (commonly known simply as the Cultural Revolution) - first as an ardent participant and ultimately as its victim. Unlike other similar books about the Cultural Revolution, Born Red chronicles a very specific point in time (1966 - 1969) and doesn’t offer much in terms of redemption for the narrator, other members of the movement, or the PRC. Instead what we have here is something that reads like a novel: some have compared it Lord of the Flies and The Crucible; to me it reads more like a dystopian novel, rife with struggle sessions, thought police, etc. For those interested, the foreword to this book provides a more general yet thorough description of the circumstances that preceded the Cultural Revolution (e.g., the failings of the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s feeling that the revolution had lost its fighting spirit as well as Mao’s desire to reclaim power), how the Cultural Revolution could become so pervasive (including the use of propaganda through media), its end (e.g., the arrest of the Gang of Four and Lin Bao’s death fleeing China), and the ironic resulting era of Deng Xiaoping (which many argue was antithetical to Mao’s communist ideals). Imo, good book but I think there are better memoirs out there, such as Son of the Revolution by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro.
April 11, 2018
With experiences as interesting as Gao Yuan's it is hard to conceive of a retelling that isn't at least 3 stars. I must admit that this is the first chronicle of the cultural revolution that I have read so far. As a result I do not have much to compare to. In the book Yuan states that he had journalistic aspirations and eventually became a journalist. I feel that this has influenced his writing style to be more of a traditional journalist type, where information is given without much or any interpretation. "Born Red" is written in incredibly simple syntax, leaving the story itself to awe the reader instead of Gao's writing skills. Unfortunately, Gao doesn't do the best job at detailing unique qualities of other characters. Instead a focus is given on major actions, not general feelings or temperaments. This might be a pro for those who are looking for the most accurate representation possible, as it is hard to remember past feelings. Anyways, as a result you are unable to create a complete mental representation of the characters or see why Gao liked or disliked some characters over others, etc. However this criticism isn't universal throughout the book. Briefly in the beginning Gao attempts to establish the characteristics of his classmates.
My second thought on the book deals with the political and historical context that is, or isn't, given. Some might find this a negative of the book, however I found it interesting to go through the events like a normal student would, without the clarity hindsight gives.
Overall reading Born Red was a great experience and I hope to follow up on this book with other chronicles of the cultural revolution.
March 8, 2024
Born red was recommended to me in the most unlikely of places, in a video on a computer game where the reviewer made a joking reference that the developers obsession with making everything as red as possible bordered the manic obsession some of the red guards had during the cultural revolution, insisting red and green traffic lights should switch function with the foreseeable results. Good joke, but his recommendation of the book stuck by me. Published in the early 80ties this memoir is that, a memoir, it is not an attempt by the author to place what happened to him and his school in context of the wider cultural revolution only rarely making a reference to wider events and only if it had an impact on what happened at the time. That is both the strength and weakness of the book, it is journey one undertakes and the events twists and turns hit you often as unexpected as it did Gao Yuan himself.
A few things that did stuck by me, the students had to pay for their school lunches and richer parents could give their students more and better coupons to do so. This intrigued me tremendously, you would think that such inequality would have been done away with long before the cultural revolution, but no not even during the revolution did this topic ever come up apparently. Only when it came to punishing the enemy of the week and whomever this happened to be in their community did access to food came to the fore. What also stuck by me, was how for all the claims of modernizing socialism, how obsessed all these red guards were with blood, heritage and sins as something to be cleansed. The title of the book is in reference to this attitude, as the story teller was born red, his father a former communist guerrilla leader whose children were considered, born in red. Unexpectedly I was impressed with the teenagers cultural background which included sizable references to the warring states period and more so the three kingdoms period regularly used to make a point or an allegory. Finally I was reminded of the western cultural upheavals of the 60ties with the amount of travelling, at first for visiting Bejing as a sort of school trip but later on transforming into sight seeing and travel for the fun of it, not unlike hippies did in the usa and Europe albeit with sights of importance to the Maoist cult as focus.
I can heartily recommend the book for its accessibly and a good starting point to read about the cultural revolution which should pair nicely with a more academic in depth study of the how, whys and impacts. One does wonder; if with the current change of politics in China back to a more nationalistic tendencies, whether the memory of the cultural revolution will change again.
A few things that did stuck by me, the students had to pay for their school lunches and richer parents could give their students more and better coupons to do so. This intrigued me tremendously, you would think that such inequality would have been done away with long before the cultural revolution, but no not even during the revolution did this topic ever come up apparently. Only when it came to punishing the enemy of the week and whomever this happened to be in their community did access to food came to the fore. What also stuck by me, was how for all the claims of modernizing socialism, how obsessed all these red guards were with blood, heritage and sins as something to be cleansed. The title of the book is in reference to this attitude, as the story teller was born red, his father a former communist guerrilla leader whose children were considered, born in red. Unexpectedly I was impressed with the teenagers cultural background which included sizable references to the warring states period and more so the three kingdoms period regularly used to make a point or an allegory. Finally I was reminded of the western cultural upheavals of the 60ties with the amount of travelling, at first for visiting Bejing as a sort of school trip but later on transforming into sight seeing and travel for the fun of it, not unlike hippies did in the usa and Europe albeit with sights of importance to the Maoist cult as focus.
I can heartily recommend the book for its accessibly and a good starting point to read about the cultural revolution which should pair nicely with a more academic in depth study of the how, whys and impacts. One does wonder; if with the current change of politics in China back to a more nationalistic tendencies, whether the memory of the cultural revolution will change again.
December 28, 2023
Written in a more similar way to a diary, and having a lot borrowed from a journalist reporting a minute-by-minute expose, the book gives a first hand account of just over more than a couple of years of Cultural Revolution in China, the Cultural Revolution that reads to me like a series of mini civil wars between parties that yet storming to coagulate whilst already fighting. It's a description of pure chaos of little educated self associated parties ruling over violently on starry-eyed masses all in a hodge-podge of communist propaganda, aimless ruling and misguided well intentions.
To believe such world existed on a scene of 700 million people is mind boggling, and had me multiple times having to do parallel research and see if this could even be so. But, I'm afraid I had to report is was true and happened with people that are still around. Communism in China was something different, and surely it was as wrongly guided as everywhere else, but the size of China made the mistakes monumental.
I must read book! I loved the characters, almost all a coming-of-age arriving on a scene on chaos, in which even being misguided is not giving one more chances than being a focused achiever. Welcome to a modern hell story.
To believe such world existed on a scene of 700 million people is mind boggling, and had me multiple times having to do parallel research and see if this could even be so. But, I'm afraid I had to report is was true and happened with people that are still around. Communism in China was something different, and surely it was as wrongly guided as everywhere else, but the size of China made the mistakes monumental.
I must read book! I loved the characters, almost all a coming-of-age arriving on a scene on chaos, in which even being misguided is not giving one more chances than being a focused achiever. Welcome to a modern hell story.
January 5, 2019
An absolutely riveting story of one man's experience with the Cultural Revolution. My only complaint is that the writing was somewhat uneven - the opening chapters struck me as being somewhat repetitive and could have used some trimming around the edges. The later chapters, though, are beautifully written, and some of them brought me to tears. Definitely worth the read for anyone interested in Chinese history (or, for that matter, authoritarian movements).
December 28, 2020
This was recommended reading for a college course I took on modern China. It's from the perspective of a first hand account of the changing landscape of China during the Communist take over.
I enjoyed the insight of how different groups within China would literally violently fight each other over who was more dedicated to Communism.
I enjoyed the insight of how different groups within China would literally violently fight each other over who was more dedicated to Communism.
May 2, 2022
"Amintiri din Copilărie" if it took place in a society where all norms of respect, benefit of the doubt, and trust broke down. A good example of how easily influenced people are by an ideology, especially when it benefits them. I can't really judge an autobiography.
January 7, 2019
Great inside look at the Chinese cultural revolution
November 16, 2022
I had to read it for school but I enjoyed it very much. It’s a story I think everyone should know. It’s well written and very engaging.
January 20, 2024
Human nature cannot be uprooted by suppressing it
August 15, 2012
Gao Yuan gives his personal account of life as a Red Guard with all the struggles both emotionally and physically during China's Cultural Revolution. At times I felt I was reading Lord of the Flies, children as military leaders. What an ordeal for anyone to endure.
July 12, 2007
This book was a frank discussion of what it was like to participate in the Cultural Revolution, and how a person might come to terms with that participation after the bloody events were all over.
August 31, 2007
Tragically disturbing just what humans are capable of. Great book. Highly recommend, especially for those trying to understand China.
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August 1, 2009Chairman Mao created a hell for his people back in the day. Hopefully they'll fully recover from it as time passes by.
July 10, 2010
My favorite line from this book is; "the future is uncertain as the past is elastic."
What a horrible time period to live through, assuming you survived. Great book!
What a horrible time period to live through, assuming you survived. Great book!
June 23, 2010
A powerful memoir of a participant in the Cultural Revolution.
October 3, 2014
Fasinating story about China from a young man's perpective. I enjoyed learning about China during this time.
February 19, 2015
A truly engrossing account of an incredible and uncanny time. And very readable to boot.
June 29, 2017
Fascinating. Very educational.
May 18, 2007
A real life Lord of the Flies.
March 30, 2017
Little Bawang was really asking for it. Seriously, I hated that kid. Yuan's time in the Red Guard felt as fanatical and intense as the Hitler Youth or any other cult of personality. Gao's depictions of the school system during the Great Leap sounded like the 9th Circle of Hell. It's amazing to think the teachers were put on trial daily by the students or had their lives ruined. It must have been terrifying just to step up to the blackboard every morning. I would recommend Gao write a second book detailing his adjustment to American culture and how he broke away from the trappings of China. Maybe call it: Reborn: Red, White, And Blue.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews