A Native Son

AT THE AGE of twelve, Liang Heng found wall posters in a public square denouncing his father as a "foreigner's dog" and a "thoroughly capitalist newsman. "His father, Liang Shan, had become one of the scape goat intellectuals of the 1966 Cultural Revolution. In tears, Heng ran home to demand of his father "Is it true that you're a bloodsucker?" His father could only respond with "You should always believe the party and chairman Mao...I should examine myself thoroughly "Throughout Liang Heng's autobiography Son of the Revolution, his father's response to the repeated political catastrophes that afflict the Liang family continues to be an expression of faith in the party and Mao for a Western reader, this acquiescence stretches credibility at first, but in the context of the powerful mass ideology described throughout the book it seems natural.

Liang Shan stands as a salient example of the gap between the Chinese and the American man Like a Maoist Job, he suffers repeated indignities and hardships without losing faith. He is not a Western man with democratic ideals on whom communism has been forced Rather, he has a selfless devotion to the state personified by Mao. In this unusually impartial view of life in modern China, Liang Heng successfully expresses the strength of the communist faith as it conflicts with filial loyalty, romance love and urge for a better like. Unlike foreign visitors or disillusioned exiles, Liang Heng can reveal the psyche of the Chinese people to the West, for though he brings a certain skepticism to bear on China's politics, he remains an accepted member of Chinese society.

Liang married an American, with whom he co-wrote his memoir, and he presently studies at Columbia University, but he clearly has not abandoned socialism His expressions of the fervor of past political movements can be excessive, but they reveal an undercurrent of loyalty. The influences shaping this loyalty started at birth. Heng's original given name (in China the family name comes first) was Dien-Jie, or "Good news from Dienbienphu", celebrating the Vietnamese victory over the French in 1954. The political naming of children is the first step in a long process of indoctrination centering on Mao which continues throughout a citizen's life.

Through Liang's eyes, Mao appears as a cult figure, as widely known as a Pope and with equal mystical power. Liang recalls feeling guilt for nursery school wrondoing until told, "Chairman Mao has forgiven you." Later he goes on a pilgrimage to the civil war mountain stronghold of Mao, and on another to Peking, where he glimpses the party leader, Far from presenting a cool, outsider's perspective, or reactionary scorn, Liang's descriptions of these journeys are filled with personal pleasure and excitement.

SUCH EMOTIONAL TREATMENT demonstrates Liang's conviction that political movements must be founded on personal motives. In a simple, direct style he describes the special motives of members of each mass movement he witnessed--motives which vary from true love of Mao to a yearning for rank and privilege--and shows how the totalitarian system manipulates these individual motives to assure that the mass remains loyal, Criticism of Mao appears as virtual sacrilege in this society, and no one dares voice it directly, Instead, politics becomes a competition to prove who is the most zealous supporter of Mao.

This general fervor has miraculously persisted in China through years of ideological flux. The Chinese government's efforts to form a model communist state are thwarted for the same reason Liang's father could not fulfill the communist ideal: the ideal keeps changing. Liang follows his father's tribulations with a deep filial love that prevents acrid criticism. With the same concern, he describes China's painful progress through successive "revolutions", criticizing particular people and policies, but never attacking the system that allows such "revolutions".

Even in narrating the tragedies that the changing ideals brought his family, Liang avoids explicit criticism. His continuing loyalty prohibits him from ever directly confronting the implications of what happened to his family, By bad luck or ideological foolishness, the Liang family became drawn into each new movement, and the result conflict between political and familial loyalties tore the family apart.

THE FIRST TRAGEDY struck in his childhood, when his mother criticized a superior in a mandatory criticism session during the Hundred Flowers movement. Then that movement became the Anti-Rightist movement, and her superior got revenge by labelling her a rightist, Liang's father divorced her and the children shunned her to avoid being politically "questionable", but the party which claimed to transcend family ties would not ignore them. The father's accusers used his ex-wife as evidence against him later, and when the sister proved her loyalty enough to become a Red Guard member, she faced the anguish of finding that her new political group persecuted families such as hers. Always, the Liangs did their best to fulfill the communist ideal, but the family continued to suffer the scorn of society.

Even the neighborhood children joined in the systematic humiliation of the Liang's throwing rocks at the family's windows and beating up Liang Heng. Liang makes little criticism of them, for no one expects rationality from children. But when the cruel methods of public humiliation and torture spread to adults during the "Traveling Struggle" movement, the parallel is disturbing.

The book's lack of direct criticism of the society which allowed such cruelty may be as much a product of Liang's caution after his past troubles as of his belief in communist society. Even his father, always a devoted Maoist, tells him at one point to "never give your opinion on anything...even if you're asked directly. "Liang's book may present an inglorious picture of China's past, but political changes after Mao's death make such a picture politically safe for the author. Deng Xiao-Ping, the new premier, entered office with a movement to discredit the "leftist" policies of Mao's widow, Jiang Qing, and her "Gang of Four", Liang sees those policies as the source of the problems he narrates, and properly disassociates the new from the old regime. Significantly, the book shows almost no opinion on the new regime or its policies, and that reticence renders many of Liang's observation ambiguous--even the questions which he presents at the memoir's end. Still, this insider's view, with all its uncertainties, allows Westerners a rare look at the Chinese as a people rather than simply as the propagators of a political ideology. Liang Heng is more than a son of the revolution; he is very much a son of China.