Singing Red Songs: Have the Second Generation of Reds Forgotten the Blood Feuds of Their Families?

In 1966, in Beijing, red flags flew everywhere, slogans resounded loudly. The Cultural Revolution swept across China like a raging storm. Former comrades were pushed onto the struggle sessions, families were torn apart, loyalty was trampled underfoot and turned into ashes. Heroes turned into traitors, honor into shame, yesterday’s comrades became enemies today.

However, half a century later, those whose lives were crushed by Mao Zedong’s iron fist, their descendants – the second generation of red, sing praises to him in unison. Why is this so? Have they collectively forgotten? Or is there some secret that we cannot see?

Today, we will tell you the stories of some second-generation reds about betrayal, suffering, and the inexplicable choices they made. What truth lies hidden in their silence and praise?

Let’s start with a photo. An elderly lady and her two dutiful daughters posing together? Wrong! The lady in the middle is Wang Guangmei, wife of Liu Shaoqi, with Mao Zedong’s daughters, Li Min and Li Ne, on either side. Mao, the mastermind who caused Liu Shaoqi’s demise.

How could Wang Guangmei smile so happily with the descendants of her enemy? Let’s go back to those tumultuous years.

Liu Shaoqi, the second most powerful figure in the Communist Party, once fought side by side with Mao Zedong, shining brightly, the “heir apparent” in the hearts of many people.

But in 1966, the tide turned. With one command from Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi became the “biggest capitalist roader in the party.” He was criticized, humiliated, forced to bow his head in confession at a conference. His wife, Wang Guangmei, also couldn’t escape this storm.

Wang Guangmei, a talented woman from Tsinghua University, the elegant first lady, once shone brightly. In 1967, Red Guards broke into her home, dragged her from her bed, and locked her up in Qincheng Prison. She was forced to wear a tattered cheongsam, a “necklace” made of ping pong balls around her neck, subject to ridicule, hair-pulling, and spitting in a mocking manner. Twelve years later, in 1978, she was finally exonerated and released from prison, looking frail as if a gust of wind could blow her away.

After her exoneration, Wang Guangmei seemed to completely forget that her imprisonment was a result of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, her husband’s death caused by Mao.

She did something astonishing. Upon hearing that Mao and Jiang Qing’s daughter, Li Ne, fell ill and had no one to care for her, Wang Guangmei took the initiative to bring her household maid to help at Li Ne’s home, doing laundry, cooking, taking care of the child, busy all the time.

What was even more surprising was the photo displayed in her living room, a picture of Mao visiting Liu Shaoqi’s family in 1962. She would tell everyone that Mao showed her “mercy,” lightly brushing off her husband and family’s tragedy as a mere “error of the times.”

In 2004, Wang Guangmei hosted a banquet for Li Min, Li Ne, and their families at a hotel in Beijing. The photo taken that day was evidence of this gathering. She faced the camera with a smile, as if the past grievances had long been forgotten.

When asked by a Phoenix TV reporter about how she viewed Mao’s big character poster “Bombard the Headquarters” – a symbol of Mao publicly turning against Liu Shaoqi, Wang Guangmei’s response was shocking: “Look at today’s society, Chairman Mao was right back then.”

She even told a Peking opera artist, Xin Fengxia, “Fengxia, we are all good students of Chairman Mao.” Xin Fengxia also endured torture during the Cultural Revolution, and upon hearing this, could hardly believe her ears: “Her man was killed by Mao, and she can still say such things?”

Not only Wang Guangmei, but her son Liu Yuan also seemed to have forgotten his father’s tragedy. In 1969, Liu Shaoqi passed away in Kaifeng, Henan, with not even a proper bed to lie on, breathing his last on the cold ground. Liu Yuan witnessed his mother being dragged away by Red Guards, her hair disheveled, maligned beyond recognition. He, too, went from being a privileged son to a “black gangster child,” sent to the countryside, shoveling manure, farming, experiencing all kinds of hardships.

Years later, Liu Yuan rose to a high position in the military, becoming a general. But instead of addressing his father’s grievances, he grew particularly close to Mao Zedong’s grandson, Mao Xinyu.

In 2010, when Mao Xinyu was promoted to major general, Liu Yuan personally pinned the shoulder insignia on him, praising him as a “talented individual.” The two often appeared together at events commemorating Mao, laughing as if nothing had happened, as if the past pains had never existed.

Next is Bo Yibo’s story, so heavy that it leaves people breathless. Bo Yibo, an elder of the Communist Party. In 1966, Mao Zedong personally criticized him, calling him the leader of the “Sixty-One Renegade Group.”

He was imprisoned, spending over a decade behind bars, being criticized hundreds of times. His wife, Hu Ming, collapsed in the humiliation of the struggle sessions, ending her own life on the way back to Beijing, at the young age of 47.

Bo Yibo’s second son, Bo Xilai, lost his mother at 17, with his father also imprisoned. During the Cultural Revolution, he had his ribs broken by Red Guards and bore many scars. He later recalled that in prison, due to frostbite and malnutrition, his feet rotted to the point of bones showing. He once bitterly said to his peers at Peking University, “Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution destroyed our family!”

Who would have thought that this scarred second generation red would later become a super “fan” of Mao Zedong. In 2007, when Bo Xilai was in office in Chongqing, he launched the “Sing Red, Fight Black” movement. Red songs echoed through the streets, Mao Zedong’s portrait was hoisted once again. He seemed invigorated, proclaiming in his speeches, “During Chairman Mao’s era, the people held power!” He even wrote a letter to Mao’s daughter Li Ne, expressing his “infinite admiration” for Mao.

It wasn’t until 2013, when Bo Xilai fell from grace due to corruption, that this “red song dream” came to an abrupt end.

A senior media person revealed that before Bo Xilai’s downfall, he personally heard Bo Xilai praising Mao.

Bo Xilai said, “In theory, I shouldn’t like Mao Zedong. My father was persecuted for twelve years during the Cultural Revolution, and I also served time in prison. But, after pondering on it, China can only follow Mao Zedong’s path.”

Now, let’s talk about Xi Zhongxun, the esteemed father of today, the pioneer of the Shan-Gan-Ning Border Region, an old comrade of Mao Zedong. In 1963, he was labeled as “anti-party” due to a novel, plummeting from a high position into the abyss.

Over the next 16 years, he was subject to scrutiny, criticism, confined to a small room of seven to eight square meters in the Beijing military compound, for a staggering seven years.

Xi himself was also a victim of the Cultural Revolution. When Xi Zhongxun was overthrown, his son, Xi Jinping, was not even ten years old, transitioning from a privileged child to a “puppy” or “black five categories,” facing discrimination at every turn.

At the age of 13, because he uttered a few words opposing the Cultural Revolution, he was branded a “counter-revolutionary element” and listed as an “enemy.” He was detained at the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China.

During the conference where the criticism of the six “capitalist roaders” was held, Xi Jinping was the only child amidst the adults. All six were falsely accused and labeled with iron-made high hats.

Due to the weight of the hat, pressing down unbearable, Xi Jinping had to support it with both hands. Eventually, he was sent to a “Gangster’s Children” study class at a juvenile reformatory. It’s difficult to imagine a child of ten enduring such torment.

In 1969, Xi Jinping was sent down to Liangjiahe Brigade in Yanchuan County, Yan’an, Shaanxi.

During his time there, due to the harsh conditions in the countryside, Xi Jinping often faced hunger and cold. He later recollected a time when he was so hungry he had to gnaw on tree bark and was often awakened by bedbugs at night.

Perhaps the heavens allowed him to suffer so much hardship in hopes that he would remember the lesson of the Cultural Revolution, so as not to repeat the mistakes in the future.

But fate has its twists. In 2012, Xi Jinping ascended to the highest position. Instead of settling old scores, he raised Mao’s portrait even higher, seeming to have completely forgotten that this person caused his father to suffer persecution for over a decade, and deprived him of a normal childhood.

In March 2011, in his capacity as a member of the Political Bureau Standing Committee and Vice President of the country, Xi Jinping’s first stop during a research visit to Hunan was Shaoshan.

It was during this inspection that he left a saying still repeated by officials in Shaoshan to this day: “(When the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi), without Chairman Mao, my father would’ve been killed! Where would I be today! Our family is grateful to Chairman Mao!”

In 2013, on the 120th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s birth, he expressed, “Chairman Mao was a great revolutionary.”

On Mao’s 130th anniversary of commemorating his birth on December 26, 2023, he took six members of the Standing Committee and a group of officials to visit Mao’s memorial hall.

That same year, he made a special trip to Shaoshan, standing in front of Mao’s former residence, bowing in respect. In the footage, his expression was solemn, as if honoring a benefactor rather than the person who had tormented his father and himself.

From Wang Guangmei, Liu Yuan, Bo Xilai to Xi Jinping, their loved ones became victims under Mao Zedong’s rule during the Cultural Revolution, and they themselves suffered, yet why do they all sing praises to Mao?

Do they truly respect and idolize Mao? Of course not.

Liu Yuan supports Mao Xinyu to consolidate his position in the military; Bo Xilai sings red songs to win over hearts; Xi Jinping worships Mao to appease the conservative faction within the party.

In the world of the red second generation, Mao Zedong is not just an individual but a banner. This banner upholds the “legitimacy” of the CCP and maintains the power and privileges of these red second generations.

They bow not because they have forgotten family feuds, but because power is more important than personal grievances.

Their stories resemble a farce, full of contradictions and reversals. They lost family, dignity, and even freedom during the Cultural Revolution but gained high positions and glory through praise and silence.

Their choices may be hard to understand, but they reveal that in the world of politics, there are no permanent enemies, only eternal interests.

This is the story of the red second generation’s “repaying grievances with virtue” and “enemy-honoring with grace.”