Posted on 09/08/2001 9:56:32 PM PDT by super175
BEIJING, Sept 9 (AFP) - Twenty-nine-year-old physical education teacher Chen Donglin considers Mao Zedong a hero, despite the fact his grandfather was persecuted during the Mao-orchestrated Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
"I rather worship him," Chen said as he ate dinner at McDonald's last week.
"He was really an exceptional person. China was in quite a bad shape at the time, but he was able to unify the country and fend off foreign powers."
Mao is blamed for some of the darkest periods in modern China -- including the Great Leap Forward which resulted in a famine which killed at least 30 million people and the Cultural Revolution, a campaign he launched to attack his enemies, which spawned violence and chaos.
But on the 25th anniversary of his death Sunday, analysts said the late chairman's status has risen as a growing number of people frustrated by the pains of economic reform, the growing gap between the rich and poor and widespread corruption romanticize the past.
In recent years, millions have been thrown out of work and many more have lost socialist-style government-provided housing, medical care and education benefits while corruption runs rampant.
"Back then, everyone was poor, but our thoughts were healthy," Wang Yucheng, a 55-year-old goat herder from Inner Mongolia, said last week after visiting Mao's mausoleum for the first time.
Most Chinese people today are either unaware of or have forgiven Mao's actions, remembering him instead as the founder of modern China, who liberated the country from feudalism and foreign aggression.
"His philosophy was great. ... That's why our first stop in Beijing was to see him," said Wang.
Seeing Mao's body, preserved and encased in the mausoleum, is considered a pilgrimage for Chinese people.
The mausoleum is thronged by long lines of tourists each day, most of whom are Chinese. Many of them buy a bouquet of flowers for him on the way in.
Peasants, especially, remember Mao fondly.
"He was our savior," said Wang Rongcheng, an elderly farmer from Mao's hometown in Changsha, central Hunan province.
"He ruled the country from the bottom up. Now the top leaders don't care about average people's lives. ... They make us pay this fee and that fee. We have to pay a fee for slaughtering our pigs, for our grandkids to take tests and even the police demand a fee before they would investigate a crime.
"The leaders now only care about stuffing their pockets. Under Mao, who dared to be corrupt?"
It's not only the losers in economic reform who admire Mao. Winners -- including successful entrepreneurs, yuppies, and students -- also see him as a hero.
"He did some things that were not so good, but everyone has a good and bad side," said Li Jianyu, 18, a medical student. His father was forbidden from going to school and endured "struggle sessions" because his family had a landlord background -- ranked one of the lowest by Mao.
But Li, like many young people, refuses to believe Mao was to blame.
"He couldn't have known about all that was happening at the lower levels, about who was attacking whom. Besides he was already in his 70s," said school teacher Chen.
Mao is a powerful symbol of national pride which feeds directly to the strong nationalistic sentiments of Chinese people.
"The Soviet Union wanted to station troops here at the time, but Mao refused and stood his ground. I really admire his attitude towards foreign countries. He had guts," Li said.
China's current leaders are seen as being too accommodating towards foreign countries, especially after their handling of the 1999 NATO bombing of a Chinese embassy in Belgrade and more recently the downing of a Chinese fighter in a collision with a US spy plane.
"Mao ended China's history of humiliation. He made China stand up to the rest of the world," said Lau Siu-kai, a political scientist from Hong Kong's City University.
A main reason for the continued hero worship of Mao is that the communist regime has never told its people the whole truth about him, for fear that rejecting Mao would lead to a rejection of the communist party.
History books acknowledge he was partly responsible for the Cultural Revolution, but put almost all the blame on the "Gang of Four" led by his wife Jiang Qing.
The result is people, especially the younger generation who did not live through those times, are clueless as to Mao's role in masterminding the movements which led to much bloodshed and suffering.
"Mao is the personification of the Chinese Communist Party. ... The CCP still needs Mao. If you destroy Mao, it's inevitable it'll lead to people questioning the legitimacy of the CCP," according to Lau.
The government, while not rejecting Mao, has also been careful to not promote him heavily. For one thing his theories are outdated and he remains an uncomfortable thorn in the side of the current leadership because people will always compare them with Mao.
"He will always be an icon Chinese people can use to criticize the current government," Lau said. "People still want the things Mao advocated for in the past -- equality in society, cadres working for the good of the people and China not being subservient to other countries. These ideals are still here."
And Americans FDR.
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