25 must read books - XVI

Life and Death in Shanghai

Life and Death in Shanghai is an autobiography published in November 1987. After the "Great Leap Forward" in th 1950s, China was on the thores of "Cultural Revolution" in the 1960s.

ONE night in August of 1966 the home of Mrs. Nien Cheng in Shanghai was broken into by some 40 young people wearing Red Guard armbands. Mrs. Cheng barred their way and asked for their search warrant. ''The Constitution is abolished,'' they replied. ''We recognize only the teachings of our Great Leader Chairman Mao." They ransacked her home destroying books, household things, artefacts, and antiques of great value. 

During the weeks of harassment that followed, Mrs. Cheng did her best to understand what lay behind the mindless destructiveness and cold lack of humanity of her Red Guard persecutors. 

Nien Cheng spent six and a half years in detention, in a jail in solitary confinement, on the sparsest of diets, subjected to relentless interrogation and finally to torture, all with the object of making her confess to spying for the West while employed by Shell Oil in Shanghai.

The charge made no sense and was clearly trumped up. Years later, as the full extent of the intrigue and back-stabbing within the party and the army emerged, did it become clear that her confession was intended to be part of a power play put together by the faction supporting Defense Minister Lin Biao against Premier Zhou Enlai.

''Life and Death in Shanghai'' provides fascinating insights into thought reform in Mao's China which affected hundreds of thousands of Chinese born on the wrong side of the social and educational tracks. Indeed, Mrs. Cheng might count herself lucky to have escaped with her life. Her daughter was not so fortunate. She was taken away in 1967 and later found dead, one of some 10,000 victims of the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai alone.

A fascinating memoir.

Namaste. 

Prabir