During China’s Cultural Revolution, pupils murdered their teachers, children betrayed their parents and society was torn apart in the name of progress. Decades on, it inspires both horror and nostalgia — but is rarely mentioned in public. Tania Branigan, authorof Red Memory, tells Ros Taylor how China’s citizens deal with the Revolution’s violent legacy – and what it can teach us about China today.
“There was a kind of idealism there, the inevitable joy and excitement that young people would feel in an upheaval of that kind”.
“Many people in China regard the Cultural Revolution with a certain nostalgia, a time when people were somehow purer and there was more meaning.”
“I certainly don’t know how I would have behaved if I lived through that era, and I don’t think many of us can.”
Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Producer Jet Gerbertson. Assistant producer Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead producer Jacob Jarvis. Bunker music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. Group Editor Andrew Harrison.
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