After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, not only were the so-called “Four Olds” “broken” at the behest and with the support of Mao, but some officials from the top to the bottom of the Communist Party were also beaten down, and their children were also affected. On July 29, the children of the cadres of the students of the secondary school affiliated to the Beijing Aviation Academy posted a striking couplet. On August 1, they posted the couplet at Beijing University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University and other major universities. On August 1, they posted the couplets on the campuses of Beijing University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University and other major universities.
Controversy over the couplet
The couplet caused heated debates on various campuses, with both supporters and opponents, and the couplet, which was based on the “lineage theory,” soon spread throughout Beijing.
According to the book “History of the Cultural Revolution”, on August 2, Chen Boda, then head of the Central Leading Group of the Cultural Revolution, met with representatives from both sides of the debate and pointed out that the couplet was “incomplete” and suggested that it should be changed to “Parents of revolutionary children take over, parents of reactionary children betray, as it should be”. This is how it should be. When the supporters of the “lineage theory” couplet heard of Chen’s suggestion, they were very excited and defended the couplet with frenzied enthusiasm. In the afternoon of the same day, nearly 1,000 people from Beihang High School marched to Tsinghua University, chanting: “The old son is a hero and the son is a good man, the old son is a reactionary and the son is a bastard, basically”. This led to discontent and tit-for-tat debates among opponents in Tsinghua Park.
In this dispute, starting with schools such as Tsinghua and Peking University, the trend of setting up “poor associations” was started, and many schools divided people into two main factions based on their origins, and through this division, the parents of children of “noble” origins were more heroic. These “noble” origins included: revolutionary soldiers, revolutionary cadres, workers, poor peasants and lower-middle peasants, sometimes called the “Red Five”. In contrast, the “Black Five” included landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements and rightists.
In order to show the nobility of the Red Guard bloodline, the old green uniform of the father and brother with the Red Guard armband together, tightly tied with a wide belt, became the standard for the Red Guard, some Red Guards also mounted black leather boots, full of mouth “Laozi”, “boy”, “son”, “son of a bitch”, “son of a bitch”, “son of a bitch”, “son of a bitch”, “son of a bitch”, “son of a bitch”. Some Red Guards also mounted black leather boots, full of “Laozi”, “boy”, “son of a bitch”, “bastard” and other indecent words and unbeatable attitude, as if they were hooligans and proletarians.
Soon after, a big debate at the Tianqiao Theater in Beijing further spread the “pedigree theory” in the society. Mao, who had used the Red Guards to fight for himself, received the Red Guards and people from all over the country at the Tiananmen Tower on August 18. This move not only showed Mao’s support for the Red Guard movement, but also included support for the “lineage theory.
On August 20, Tan Lifu, a third-year student at Beijing Institute of Technology, gave a speech at a rally at the university, in which he not only proclaimed the “lineage theory” in a high profile manner, but also expressed some of his views on the Cultural Revolution, such as saying, “I still have the power in my hands anyway, so I dare to scold people. After I finish scolding, I will step down with my belly full, like a proletarian, not like a dog or a bear”, etc.
Under Mao’s supportive attitude, after Tan Lifu’s speech spread throughout Beijing, almost all schools saw “non-Red Five” students being gathered by the Red Guards to read newspapers and study documents, and they had to ask the Red Guards for leave even to go to the toilet. When they went to the countryside to work, they had to do the dirtiest and most tiring work. They were also deprived of the right to hang Mao’s statue and sing quotations, and they were discriminated against and humiliated. However, there were some such students who took the initiative to get close to the Red Guards and acted as their thugs in order to protect themselves. The danger of the “lineage theory” is obvious.
Yu Luo Ke criticizes the “lineage theory”
Born in 1942 to an engineer father and a capitalist mother under the Chinese Communist dictatorship, Yu Luoke was undoubtedly a “pariah” after 1949. According to his family’s recollection, when he was in elementary school, he was smart and studious, loved reading extracurricular books, and actively participated in various singing competitions, poetry recitation, and literary performances organized by the school, and was a good student for his teachers, a “young scholar” in the eyes of his classmates, a good son for his parents, and a good brother for his siblings.
However, when his parents were both labeled as “rightists” in 1957, he was “looked at differently” when he entered junior high school. The classroom teacher began to change his conduct rating from “excellent” to “moderate” in previous years, and, like other students whose parents had suffered bad luck, he always looked disdainful when he saw him, even going so far as to say on one occasion: ” A student who comes from a bad background is like a cracked gong that can’t make a sound.” The response of met Roque is: “I am a broken gong, but also to knock a shock them.”
In 1959, Yu Luo Ke graduated from high school. Although his grades were excellent, he did not go to college because of his origins. He held on to a glimmer of hope, at home to study for another year, but still for the same reason can not go to college. The fact that he could not go to college and was not eligible to join the army made him realize a harsh truth: in China, there is a group of people who have been inferior since they were born.
Why is that? Yu Luoq was deep in thought. When he was in high school, he started to read Chinese and foreign philosophical works. He said so: “Only a person who knows everything can compare which system of thought is more correct, and his beliefs are firm.” After failing in the college entrance examination, he began to study Chinese language courses at the university on his own, reading everything from the line ancient books “The Records of the Grand Historian” and “The Art of War” to the “New Testament” and “Old Testament”. His extensive dabbling taught him to think.
In 1963, he began to write film reviews and published them in the press, and in 1964, he returned from the suburbs of Beijing to work as an apprentice in a factory. At this time, he also studied Russian and Japanese. The beauty of life seemed to be unfolding for him.
On November 10, 1965, Yao Wenyuan threw out his “Review of Wu Han’s New Historical Drama ‘Hai Rui Dismisses the Official'”, which was supported by Mao. With the intention of fighting back for Wu Han, met Roque wrote two articles, “From ‘The Dismissal of Hai Rui’ to the Inheritance of Historical Heritage” and “Time to Fight with the Mechanists”, and sent them to Red Flag magazine and Wen Wei Po respectively. When the former article was returned, Shourok wrote in his diary that day, “Some boring literati in the newspaper shouted, ‘Come out with a clear attitude, Wu Han’s supporters! Today there is an article with a clear attitude that I dare not publish again.” Another article was redacted and published, but met Roque found that the layout was unfavorable to him, “My article is just like a counter-text for the workers’ peasants. But the truth was on my side.”
In May 1966, the Cultural Revolution officially broke out, and the “breaking of the Four Olds” became more and more intense. Yu Luoke found that the article he had published in Wen Wei Po had put himself in opposition to the Cultural Revolution, which meant that danger would come at any moment. In order not to let his diary and reading notes fall into the hands of copycats and implicate his family, Yu Luoke torched them all, leaving behind only the “Beijing Diary”, a blue-skinned collection of the essence of his thoughts, containing criticisms of Yao Wenyuan and Chen Boda, among others. He entrusted the diary to his youngest sister, M. Yorojin, and hid it. Sadly, when she hid the diary, she accidentally lost it and was sent to the police station by a Red Guard.
Soon, the incident came to light, and met Luoke was taken away by a group of Red Guards from this factory to review and criticize in a study class. However, the storm gradually subsided. If he had given up his thinking, he would have survived, but when he heard about the Red Guards’ atrocities, and when the “lineage theory” became so popular, he picked up his pen again and wrote his famous essay “The Theory of Origin”, criticizing the “lineage theory” and advocating democracy and human rights. He advocated democracy and human rights. He also called for “equal political treatment for all revolutionary youth, regardless of their origins.”
Yu Luoke had 100 copies of the article printed and signed as the “Family Problem Research Group” and sent them to the Party Central Committee and the Central Cultural Revolution Group, and posted them in large numbers on the streets of Beijing. Mou Zhiging and Wang Jianfu, students of Beijing No. 4 Middle School, were deeply impressed by the views and arguments of the “Theory of Origin” and found Yu Luoke according to the contact address on the mimeograph. After discussion, they decided to make some modifications to the “Theory of Origin”, delete some of the remarks that were too sharp, and launch it to the whole society under the name of “Propaganda Department of the Revolutionary Rebel Command of the Capital High School Students”. Afterwards, “The Theory of Origin” was published in the “Middle School Cultural Revolution Newspaper” and quickly sold out. The article was widely disseminated and resonated among the poorly-born and had a great impact.
After that, in later issues of High School Cultural Revolution, he published articles such as “Talking About Purity” and “What Does the “Linkage” Riot Tell Us? and other articles that systematically criticized the “lineage theory”. In debates with supporters of the “lineage theory,” the sharp-tongued Shourok often rendered his opponents speechless.
In order to win Mao’s support, he wrote to Mao five times, presenting the “Theory of Origin” and arguing for his views. However, on April 14, 1967, Qi Benyu’s statement on behalf of the Central Cultural Revolution characterized the “Theory of Origin”: “The Theory of Origin” was a big poisonous weed, maliciously distorting the Party’s class line and provoking young people from bad backgrounds to attack the Party.
The people who were killed and implicated in the death of Yu Roque
On January 5, 1968, he was arrested. In a diary entry a few days before his arrest, met Roque wrote: “It would be the saddest thing in my life if I deceived myself or gave in to the search for something other than the truth.” In prison he added, “History is going to evaluate my merits and demerits.”
On March 5, 1970, he was sentenced to death on charges of “vicious assault” and “organizing a counter-revolutionary group” and was executed immediately. The article was published in Beijing Spring on August 23, 2003. According to the article, according to a friend, Y., Wu De’s son told him personally that it was Zhou Enlai who ordered the killing of Shourok. Zhou Enlai said, “If such a person is not killed, who will be killed?”
In Beijing, a young teenager was sentenced to eight years in prison for posting a sign that read “The author of “The Theory of Origin” will never die! Those who were inspired by the “Theory of Origin” and had contacted with M. Loke were designated as members of the “M. Loke Counter-Revolutionary Group” and were persecuted; Zheng Xiaozhou, a female student of the Beijing Geological Institute, treasured and propagated the “Theory of Origin” and publicly raised 18 questions to challenge the Central Cultural Revolution. In prison ……
The poet Beidao has this poem: “The End or the Beginning – Dedicated to the Martyrs of Shiluoq”, which reads
Must admit
In the white cold light of death
I, trembling with fear
Who would like to be a meteorite
Or a cold statue of the victim
Watching the unquenchable fire of youth
Passing in the hands of others
Even if a dove falls on the shoulder
They don’t feel the warmth and breath
They groom their feathers
They fly away again in a hurry ……
Conclusion
Sadly, the Red Guards were forced to go to the countryside for rehabilitation after Mao had used them to achieve his goal of bringing down Liu Shaoqi and other senior party officials, thus changing the fate of many of them. As for the “lineage theory”, Mao later criticized it through the Central Cultural Revolution Group for his own needs. The CCP’s ability to turn its hands into clouds and its hands into rain was once again evident.
Only after the end of the Cultural Revolution did the term “lineage theory” gradually disappear. But the brave man who criticized the “lineage theory”, Mr. Shourok, will be remembered by future generations.
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