a controversial but popular great helmsman

ART – TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 AT 8:55 PM – DOCUMENTARY

As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prepares to celebrate 75 years of the People’s Republic of China, on^Ahem In October, Arte dedicates a long documentary to its founder. Three fifty-minute episodes are not too long to review the 82 years of the life of Mao Zedong (1893-1976), described here, somewhat unfairly, as“Red Emperor”.

Although no one disputes that he was a red, this son of a well-off peasant, born in 1893, devoted as much time to conquering power at the head of thugs and starving people as to exercising it and maintaining it at the cost of countless persecutions, both individual and collective. Mao, a poor speaker who spoke with a Hunan accent such that many of his compatriots could not understand anything, who had witnessed the fall of the Chinese Empire, did not identify with his predecessors. Despite his megalomania and the cult of personality that he maintained, the Great Helmsman wanted, after his death, to be cremated. Against his wishes, his successors built a mausoleum for him in Tiananmen Square.

The documentary follows a classic chronological sequence: youth and the conquest of power; the 1950s, which began promisingly but ended catastrophically – the Great Leap Forward – with the worst famine in human history; and finally, the misnamed Cultural Revolution. With increasingly rich archive images, all the more fascinating as they bear witness to the progress made in just a few decades by the most populous country in the world, as well as brief interviews with experts and witnesses.

Xi Jinping in the mirror

Obviously, to talk about Mao’s China is, in mirror image, to talk about Xi Jinping’s. From the fifth minute onwards, we see the current leader presiding, in Tiananmen Square, over one of those gigantic ceremonies that totalitarian systems have the secret of. A Chinese woman interviewed on this occasion makes the direct link between the current general secretary of the CCP, whom we are studying “thought” from school, and Mao, whose reflections were included in “The Little Red Book,” which would compete with the Bible in the best-seller section.

Contrary to what the documentary suggests, electronic surveillance of the population under Xi Jinping has nothing to do with Mao’s totalitarianism. At that time, Chinese people could not travel, nor choose a job or a spouse. All that is really over. Moreover, as the third episode acknowledges, Xi Jinping places himself in the lineage of emperors and puts Confucianism back on the agenda, a “old things” in the eyes of Mao.

Above all, Xi rules through order, not chaos. The CCP today embodies order and stability, no small feat given its past vileness. If propaganda plays a major role in this public perception, it alone is not enough to explain it. The Chinese are convinced that the party has put an end to more than a century of humiliation by the West and the Japanese.

“70% positive” rating

If Xi is not Mao, we could deepen the paradox by saying that he is sometimes more of an ideologist than Mao. He did not hesitate to get closer to Nixon’s United States to achieve his goals: to replace Taiwan in the UN and make Beijing the sole representative of China on the international stage. On the other hand, Xi continues to maintain a perfect romance with Vladimir Putin for essentially ideological reasons.

This international recognition is undoubtedly one of the reasons for Mao’s popularity in China to this day. If the documentary addresses the subject, it only touches on it, giving voice only to Westerners and to Chinese hostile to power. This popularity remains a mystery to many Westerners. However, it is real, even among Chinese who are very critical of the CCP. The documentary recalls that, for the party, Mao’s record is “70% positive” – and therefore 30% negative. Although it cannot be proven, it is likely that the Chinese are the vast majority of this opinion.

The documentary concludes that China has indeed become a great modern country again, but it has paid for it. “an exorbitant price”It is not certain that the Chinese share this opinion. A good number of them today have the ability to judge their country and the world. Thanks to Mao or in spite of him? The debate remains open.