"To Live" after Accumulating Knowledge

After I read several pages in "China Since 1900," I have gained some knowledge that has cemented my understanding of early Communist China. Well, we already know basic things life in Communist China was very totalitarian. However, in my previous blog post on "To Live," I never mentioned the specific events in history that accounted for occurrences in the movie.

For example, in this movie, it especially shows Fugui and his family during the "Great Leap Foward" which essentially was a motivation with the Second Five Year Plan to surpass the economies of western countries. After everyone smelts steel in their commune in the movie, Mr. Niu states, "with this, we will surpass America in 15 years!" But, Mao adapted his 5 Year Plan's from Stalin's in the Soviet Union. But, in the Soviet Union, the Gosplan coordinated what needed to be produced. The first 5 Year Plan in China also used experts for this same reasoning. However, his Second 5 Year Plan failed. Mao's government actually lied about how much the country produced which was one of the factors of mass famine in the early 60's which killed over 20 million people. Something interesting I constantly hear concerning my last sentence is that "Mao killed more people than Stalin and Hitler combined." I think Mao was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. He stated that he was not completely sure what he was doing with second 5-Year Plan and several man made factors like too many people working in the steel industry, and corruption, as already discussed, led to famine. Additionally, bad weather caused famine. Thus, although 20 million people were killed from the famine, it was not completely Mao's fault. In contrast, Hitler threw people in gas chambers to kill them, while Stalin waged an intentional famine in Ukraine.

I would also like to add that the Cultural Revolution played a huge part in this movie. The Cultural Revolution was when Mao was out of power, but still had substantial influence. At the time, in the 60's, moderates took over and Mao was afraid they would take the "capitalist road." Therefore, he gave every soldier "The Little Red Book" of "Quotations from Chairman Mao." In his quotations, he urges people to get rid of their old belongings. Thus, in the scene when Fugui and Niu are playing "matchmaker", Niu advises that he get rid of his old puppets. Fugui agrees, as if they had no sentimental value, because "Mao said so." Additionally, at Fengxia's wedding, which occurs during the Cultural Revolution, they sing, "Chairman Mao is dearer than Mother and Father" which is a perfect representation of people during the Cultural Revolution.

Therefore, "To Live", is actually a perfect representation of life under Mao. It was a very engaging watch because it binded fact with fiction to represent a the lives of a true Chinese family during the era.