Great leap forward
China celebrates 60 years of communist rule today as a global economic, military and political power.
THE People’s Republic of China, the people’s government, today, have been established!”
On Oct 1, 1949, a cold and sunny Saturday, Mao Zedong declared the start of a new era for the Middle Kingdom, amid high hopes and enthusiasm.
Standing next to other top leaders of the new regime, such as Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De, China’s new strongman, 55, looked over a crowd of 300,000 people on Tiananmen Square from the terrace of the Gate of Heavenly Peace.
Gu Xiaoyue, a 44-year-old impersonator of China’s late Chairman Mao, posing during a shopping mall’s celebrations for the anniversary.
He was not sporting a military uniform, but instead a suit that Westerners would soon name after him.
Mao had become leader of the people’s republic, at the head of a 475-million-strong country – a quarter of the world’s population at the time.
Tiananmen Square, still fortified after a devastating civil war with Nationalist forces, and smaller than it is now, had been spruced up for the event, with paving stones laid down.
The Gate of Heavenly Peace, the south entrance of the Forbidden City, had been decorated with huge red lanterns and the now world-famous giant portrait of Mao, which remains in place today.
According to witnesses, the rundown state of China’s capital – neglected after eight years of Japanese occupation and four years of civil war – stood in sharp contrast with the hopeful mood of residents.
Nationalist troops continued to fight in the southwest of China, but victory was but a stone’s throw away.
On that Saturday afternoon, the crowd carried banners, sang and shouted: “Long live the People’s Republic of China! Long live the Chinese Communist Party!”
After the raising of the new flag – red with five yellow stars – the crowd was treated to a military parade, led by the cavalry and US army tanks seized from the Nationalists.
A float heading towards Tiananmen Square where a rehearsal for the anniversary parade was held in Beijing on Sept 18. Authorities shut down a major part of central Beijing to conduct the rehearsal.
Geng Zhifeng, 79, recalls looking up in elation as Mao stood on the Tiananmen rostrum and proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
It is a moment seared forever into Geng’s memory, and which the nation of 1.3 billion people will celebrate today with a military parade and carefully choreographed mass performances in Tiananmen Square.
“Everyone was clapping, waving red flags, and chanting ‘Long live Chairman Mao, long live Chairman Mao’,” said Geng, making sweeping hand gestures as he described the “grand” scene.
“We had been liberated. How could we not be happy about the founding of the People’s Republic of China?” Geng said, sitting outside the tiny brick home in one of Beijing’s historic neighbourhoods where he has lived for 69 years.
For those who remember the old days pre-1949, the holiday today remains a cause for celebration, offering insight into how the Communist Party continues to command strong support among China’s vast population.
Like countless millions of Chinese before the communist came to power, Geng and his family struggled to survive in a traumatised, war-shattered country, and life was full of hardship for the low-paid electrician.
His father and younger brother had died of illnesses they could not afford to treat. Food shortages were routine.
Post-1949, he beams, the Communist Party came through with jobs, a social safety net and medicine for the masses.
“So before liberation our lives were very difficult. But after liberation, there was no comparison,” he said.
Wu Pei, now 81, also was at Tiananmen on Oct 1, 1949. As a destitute 21-year-old labourer then who worried about where his next meal would come from, thoughts of political change were far from his mind.
A man with a haircut featuring the number 60 at a barbershop in Kunming, Yunnan province, Sept 3.
“At the time, the prices of commodities could change eight times in one day. There was a long waiting line every day when I went to buy rice,” he said.
“We knew that after liberation our lives would be better, but we didn’t think much about the country – just our own lives.”
Wu made about 50 yuan a month in 1949. Thanks to the party, his retirement pension today is 2,000 yuan (RM1,018) per month – much more than he needs, he says.
Like other witnesses to the events of 1949, he is full of pride over rising living standards in China and the country’s re-emergence as a global economic, military and political power.
“We could not have foreseen that things could have turned out like this. We only thought it would be better, but never this good,” said Wu.
For those who witnessed China on its knees, even dark times such as the social chaos of the Cultural Revolution and disastrous Communist economic policies are dismissed as bumps in the road that had their upsides.
The Cultural Revolution, for example, was the impetus for Deng Xiaoping’s momentous economic reforms that restored China’s strength, Wu said.
“(The Cultural Revolution) created huge waste in society, and brought much misfortune. But it helped to liberate our thinking,” Wu said.
AFP
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