Jung Chang (Wild Swans author) — Living through history's largest man-made famine

1. 0:00 – 15:58

   Growing up during Cultural Revolution

   1. JCJung Chang0:00

      And my father spoke up against Mao's policies. He was arrested, tortured, driven insane. And my mother was under tremendous pressure to denounce my father. She refused, and my mother was made to kneel on broken glass, um, she was paraded in the streets where children spat at her and threw stones at her. The desire to write never left me. So in the following years, when I was working as a peasant, and as a barefoot doctor, as a steel worker, and an electrician, I was always writing in my head with an imaginary pen.

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel0:42

      Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Jung Chang. Her first book, Wild Swans, has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. The US diplomat, George Kennan, described the Gulag Archipelago, he said, "This is the greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be leveled in modern times." And when I read that quote, I realized this is exactly how I describe your books. Um, Wild Swans obviously, but also your biography of Mao, titled Mao: The Unknown Story, both of which we'll talk about today. Um, it is a true honor to speak with you.

   3. JCJung Chang1:17

      Thank you very much for having me.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel1:19

      So w- we will get into Mao and his atrocities in a second, but let us begin by, w- would you mind laying the scene for us? What was it like? Y- you grew up under, in China, under Mao. L- let's begin there, what was it like as you, as you started to grow up during this time?

   5. JCJung Chang1:35

      I was born in China, in Sichuan, in 1952. So I grew up under Mao. Um, when I was a child, I led quite a privileged life because both my parents were communist officials and we lived in this compound with, um, uh, you know, servants, cooks, drivers. It was very class-driven society and I grew up so much taking, um, class and privilege for granted, that when I first came to Britain, I thought Britain was wonderfully classless. (laughs) And my, of course my views were slightly modified over the years. Um, and then in 1966, when I was 14, Mao launched his cultural revolution which was his Great Purge. And my father spoke up against Mao's policies. Um, so as a result, he was arrested, tortured, driven insane. He was exiled to a camp and died, um, tragically and prematurely. My mother was under tremendous pressure to denounce my father. She refused. As a result, she went through over 100 of these ghastly denunciation meetings, which were everyday features in China at the time. And basically the victims, uh, were put on the stage and their arms were ferociously twisted to the back and their heads were pushed down, um, they were kicked and beaten and my mother was m- once made to kneel on broken glass. Um, she was paraded in the streets where children spat at her and threw stones at her. Um, but she survived. And today, she still lives in Chengdu, at age 92. My family was scattered and I was exiled to the edge of the Himalayas and worked as a peasant and then as a barefoot doctor, uh, which was a doctor basically without any training, because Mao had said, "The more books you read, the more stupid you become." So schools were closed, you know, books were burned. Um, I mean China was literally a cultural desert without books, cinemas, theaters, museums for ten years. Um, and um then I became an electrician, and again there was no training so I had five electric shocks in one month. (laughs) Um, and then in 1973, mm, partly, if you know, after Nixon's visit to China, mm, I mean, uh, but more, more also because for the internal political reasons, and universities have began to reopen and I was able to get into Sichuan University to learn English. Uh, but you know, our teachers had never seen foreigners themselves, because China had been closed to the outside world after the communists took power in 1949. So our textbooks were written by these teachers who'd never been abroad. I remember the first lesson was long live Chairman Mao.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel5:22

      (laughs)

   7. JCJung Chang5:22

      And the second lesson was greetings, um, because the Chinese in those years, when we bumped into each other, we said (Chinese) 　 which means, "Where are you going? Have you eaten?" So those were the English greetings I learned.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel5:42

      (laughs)

   9. JCJung Chang5:42

      So when I first came to London, I used to go around and ask people where they were going, whether they had eaten. Um, well, the only foreigners I had, um, spoken to were some sailors in a port in South China.... where we, as English language students, were sent to practice our English. So, um, and that was up when I was 23. Um, but, um, I mean, of course, we- we- w- we were at the port eagerly awaiting for our sailors, and we had no idea what must be on their minds, uh, how different this must be from the expectation of a port life. In 1976, Mao died, and China began to change. And in 1978, um, I... there was a m- um, national exam to- to select the people to go abroad. For the first time under the communist rule, going abroad was, uh, based on, mm, on an academic basis.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel6:56

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JCJung Chang6:56

       And so I did very well at the exam, so I became one of the first 14 people to come to Britain. And I'm... As far as I know, I was the first person to get out of Sichuan province, a province then of 90 million people, to come and study in the West. So when I got my doctorate in linguistics at the University of York in 1982, um, I became the first person from Communist China-

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel7:32

       Wow.

   13. JCJung Chang7:32

       ... ever to get a doctorate from a British university.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel7:37

       Wow.

   15. JCJung Chang7:37

       So, okay, so I was, um, mm, in Britain, and for 10 years, I didn't want to think about the past, um, because it was too painful. Uh, my- my father died, my grandmother, who brought us up, died. And, uh, there was too... You know, I just- I just wanted to spend time enjoying the West. Um, I had actually always wanted to be a writer. Um, uh, when I was a child, I loved writing. Um, but when I- when I was growing up under Mao, it was impossible, um, to dream of even become a writer, because nearly all writers were condemned, you know, sent to the gulag, um, driven to suicide. Some were even executed. Um, even writing for oneself was dangerous. Um, I wrote my first poem when I was 16, uh, on my 16th birthday in 1978. Uh, I was lying in bed, polishing my poem, when I heard the door banging, and some Red Guards had come to raid our flat, and if they had seen my poem, I would get into trouble, and my family would get into trouble. So I had to quickly rush to the bathroom, uh, to tear up my poem and flush it down the toilet. And so that ended my first venture in writing. W- but the desire to write never left me. So in the following years, when I was working as a peasant and as a barefoot doctor, as a s- mm, a steelworker and electrician, or when I was spreading the manure on the paddy fields and, um, um, checking electricity supplies on top of the electricity poles, I was always writing in my head with an imaginary pen. Um, but I couldn't write in China. When I came to Britain, I, for 10 years, I didn't want to write. And then my mother came to stay with me in 1988, and first time, she told me the stories of, um, of her life and stories of my grandmother, and then while I was listening to my mother, um, I thought, "I- I must write all this down." And then I realized that how much I wanted to be a writer and how much I had always wanted to be a writer. And so, um, I... When... Uh, after my mother left, I transcribed the tapes that she left for me, 60 hours of tape recordings, and then I wrote Wild Swans, um, which was published in 1991 first, um, and I became a writer.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel10:37

       Yes. And, um, uh, the- the- the- saying you became a writer is understating it. The global impact of glo- uh, Wild Swans has been, um, tremendous. And in fact, I, you know, I, um... A former guest of mine, uh, Sarah Payne, recommended it to me, and I read it, and it- it- it's the- it's the most moving book I've ever read. It's- it's truly tremendous. Let me begin by asking what it was like growing up there in terms of the psychology of living in a totalitarian system? You mentioned in the book that until very late, you could not even bring yourself to question Mao despite seeing the consequences of his policies and the cult of personality that was there. Um, t- tell me about the psychology of living in a system like that.

   17. JCJung Chang11:21

       Well, when I was growing up in China, um, and, you know, we were all subject to intense brainwashing and indoctrination. Uh, when we were children, Mao was, we were told... You know, M- sorry, Mao was like our god, and if we wanted to say, "What I say is true," we would say, "I swear to Chairman Mao."

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel11:46

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JCJung Chang11:46

       So Mao was a... Mao had, um, been given this godlike status.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel11:52

       Yeah.

   21. JCJung Chang11:53

       Um, so... And also, at the same time, we could see, um, how dangerous it was to question Mao.... you know these, in China, there were these periodical political campaigns, and many people were victimized. And the biggest crime was to question Mao.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel12:14

       Mmm.

   23. JCJung Chang12:15

       Um, and my father, mm, in the Cultural Revolution, s- suffered tremendously. Um, and it was also because he had so questioned Mao. So when I wrote my poem when I was 16 years old, I had already, um, started to doubt and to dread the society I was in. And we were always told, you know, a socialist China was paradise on Earth. And I, I thought on that day actually, um, "If this is paradise, what then is hell?" Because my parents were away being detained. Um, my grandmother was weeping next door, because she's heard, you know, these ghastly things that were being done to my mother. Um, so I questioned the society, but Mao never entered my mind, and he was beyond questioning. And this may be difficult for people-

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel13:23

       Mmm.

   25. JCJung Chang13:23

       ... to, to understand maybe, I mean, in the West. Um, but in China, in those days, um, there were two most important things that enabled this brainwashing. One is the complete isolation of the society from the outside world, from alternative information, and from any other information. Even parents never told their children, uh, you know, things that were different from the party line, because they were worried about the future of their children, and they were worried that if ch- um, children blabbed, it would be disastrous for the children as well as for the family. Um, so no alternative information. And the other is terror, this intense terror, um, which, um, really, really scared people into suppressing any unorthodox thoughts. Um, so I was living in that kind of, uh, society. And it took me a long time to question Mao. Um, since my, mm, birthday, 16th birthday thought in 198- 68, um, for many years, I blamed what was happening in China to Madame Mao and to the so-called the Gang of Four, which were basically assistants of Mao's. Um, but I never dared to question Mao. Um, and then I remember very well, 1976, I had learned a little English, and a friend showed me a copy of Newsweek, and there was an article about Mao, and there were two little pictures with the caption, "Madame Mao is Mao's eyes, ears, and mouth." And suddenly, you know, Mao's name was spelled out for me. And I suddenly realized, of course, it was Mao. You know, mm, without Mao, mm, none of this could have happened, and Mao was responsible. And, uh, you know, I'm, uh, intelligent person, but it took me eight years-

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel15:49

       Yeah.

   27. JCJung Chang15:49

       ... even from the moment I said to myself, "I dislike this society," to the moment that I felt Mao was responsible.

2. 15:58 – 34:09

   Could officials have overthrown Mao?

   1. JCJung Chang15:58

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel15:58

      You mentioned that your father, uh, w- was purged because of his criticism, uh, of the government at the time. And, in fact, your father's story, uh, through the book is, you know, a sort of tragic tale that, um... But the, uh, what I found, uh, interesting was that the way he criticized the party was-

   3. JCJung Chang16:18

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel16:18

      ... to go through the official mechanism. He wrote a letter to Mao, which suggests that he, even then, still believed that sort of the mechanism of the party worked and that, you know, it would be imagining like somebody has a problem with North Korean government today and he then writes a letter to Kim Jong-un, you know, which is, obviously you're going to get, uh, in trouble for that. So, um, tell me about how your father thought about that. And in retrospect, how should a high official, like your fa- your father was the governor of, uh, Sichuan Province, which you said 90 million people-

   5. JCJung Chang16:46

      Wasn't a governor, sorry.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel16:48

      Oh.

   7. JCJung Chang16:48

      My father was the governor of a region-

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel16:50

      Oh, okay.

   9. JCJung Chang16:51

      ... in the, in, uh, initially, and then by the time of the Cultural Revolution, um, in 1966, he was the di- head of a department-

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel17:02

       Oh, I see.

   11. JCJung Chang17:02

       ... uh, of the, of the Sichuan, well, party, government, whatever they were.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel17:07

       Yeah.

   13. JCJung Chang17:07

       Not the same.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel17:08

       A high official.

   15. JCJung Chang17:09

       A high official.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel17:10

       What, what should he have done when he realized things were going...

   17. JCJung Chang17:13

       Well, there was nothing one could do. I mean, if you tried to say your- spell out your thoughts to, uh, other people, you will be instantly denounced and instantly, uh, you know, publicly executed. I mean, nobody was allowed to say anything against Mao. Um, my father... And, and theoretically, in the charter of the Communist Party, a party member had the right to write to the leadership. So my father was using that as, as the kind of, uh, theoretically permitted way to voice his dissent. Um, so that's why he wrote to Mao. And in any case, the, all these things, the ho- atro- atrocities, the violence, I mean, only Mao could stop them.Um, so writing to Mao was the, was the only way, um, was the only way he could express his opinion. And of course, he also, uh, said something, you know, in the context of the denunciation meetings. But if there were not, um, there were outbursts at denunciation meetings-

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel18:31

       Right.

   19. JCJung Chang18:31

       ... rather than his well-thought-out-

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel18:35

       Sure.

   21. JCJung Chang18:35

       ... expression of dissent.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel18:37

       So, th- this is, uh, this is something that I thought was, um, confusing when reading accounts about the Cultural Revolution, is China as a society, you, you know, they've re- they've rebelled in the past. They rebelled against the emperors. They rebelled against the Japanese occupation. They, th- the nationalists were in, uh, at one point in charge of lots part- parts of China. The communists rebelled against them. How was Mao able to instill a regime where that became unthinkable, uh, despite the fact that it was an incredibly chaotic and destabilizing time? How did the Chinese, which, uh, who as you have a great sense of history, how would they allow this to happen?

   23. JCJung Chang19:13

       Mm. Well, that's a very (laughs) good question. That's the, is the key of a communist society, of a totalitarian society, is the con- the control, the organization. I mean, neither the emperors nor any other rulers under the, the nationalist, under Chiang Kai-shek, was China so thoroughly organized down to the grassroots, controlled by layers of party organizations. Um, it was, um, it was totally thorough. That's why the 20th century, totalitarianism was very different from the previous-

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel19:58

       Mm.

   25. JCJung Chang19:58

       ... authoritarianism. I mean, the key was the control.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel20:02

       Mm.

   27. JCJung Chang20:02

       Is the, uh, this total control, um, of a society and with the power highly concentrated at the very top, the one person.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel20:13

       Mm-hmm. The thing that's really interesting is M- Mao is obviously a person who doesn't understand economics, and we'll talk about the Great Leap Forward and the disastrous consequences it had because of his m- um, c- complete ignorance, uh, when it comes to, um, you know, economics and industry and things like that. But what he did seem to have an incredible sense for, and, uh, Stalin and other totalitarian leaders as well, is the psychology of people and how to organize a society that has 800 million people, how to organize it so that... You know every society has petty, sadistic, uh, arrogant, uh, and c- cowardly people and how to organize them so that they're elevated and you use them to your advantage so that there's no nook and cranny in the entire society where a single person can be a, has a dissenting voice or even have an independent life. M- maybe you can talk about the commune life and the way in which... How can you possibly have a society of 800 million people where each person is under such strict totalitarian control? How, how is that even possible?

   29. JCJung Chang21:16

       The thing is that in the Cultural Revolution, for example, Mao used the, the young people and used the, the bad things in their nature, they're prone to violence, um, d- destructive, um, you know, sadistic. I mean, any society there were these people.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel21:35

       Right.
3. 34:09 – 48:12

   Great Leap Forward

   1. JCJung Chang34:09

      purge Liu.

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel34:10

      So I- I ... Maybe for context, it'll be helpful first to th- start talking about The Great Leap Forward. The number you gave was around 40 million people, and this- this becomes a statistic for people. You just think, "Oh, 40 million people died. Whatever, it's a number." Um, I- I want to make it concrete for people what it ... How much tragedy and suffering is involved in just a single person dying from starvation. C- can you talk about the months-long agonizing process of what starvation is, when you see it happening to you, your family, your children, your spouse, your village, uh, and what peasant life was like during- during The Great Leap Forward?

   3. JCJung Chang34:49

      Well, during The Great Leap Forward, m- my family was among the privileged.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel34:57

      Yeah. Yeah.

   5. JCJung Chang34:57

      So I personally didn't starve, but there was a lot of starvation around us. Um, for example, I remember when I went to school, I was mm- ... I was eight. Uh, I was eight, nine, and when I went to school, one- one day, I was munching a steamed bread. And a so- a young lad, a child, a boy darted over and snatched the bread from my mouth and I s- then he stuffed those into his mouth and disappeared. And then afterwards, I told ... When I, mm, told my father, m- my father was very sad and he sort of ... He s- um, touched my head and said, "You know, you are very lucky. You know, other children are starving." Another thing that happened near home was our, mm, our maid, our, you know, domestic help would come from a village.... and her family had been classified as a landlord, which was one, one of the categories of the desirables, destined for discrimination, um, and, um, horrible treatment. And, um, I remember very well, one day sh- she, she, after visit to her family, she came back and, um, she was weeping, and I remember we lived in this courtyard, and she had so much flood- uh, floods of tears that the frogs that were actually thriving in the courtyard were leaping up and down. So that was in my memory as a child. And, uh, m- my grandmother, mm, with whom she was very close, uh, was sitting in a mosquito net and also crying and said, "The communists are good, except all these people are dead." I mean, so I, I was... because th- this was so much against my indoctrination about the communists. That's one of the few things I heard that made me really scared. Mm. And, um, and then, and before she, um, her whole family died. In fact, before that, her mother came to see her to report the news that her father and, um, the brothers or something had died. And her mother, as soon as she came into the house, she threw herself on the, on the ground and then called out to my mother, and said, you know, "Thank you," you know, "for having saved my daughter." Otherwise, you know, they, um... she would have been dead.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel37:58

      Yeah.

   7. JCJung Chang37:59

      I mean, after... soon after the mother went back, she died herself.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel38:05

      Right.

   9. JCJung Chang38:05

      But when she came, she was already like a skeleton, you know, as though any wind could blow her away.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel38:13

       Yeah.

   11. JCJung Chang38:13

       It's just unterr- terrible. And one thing that made my father speak up during the Cultural Revolution, which is, uh, only a few years later, was, um, he felt so guilty-

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel38:27

       Yeah.

   13. JCJung Chang38:27

       ... and he volunteered to go to stay in a village. Um, and th- and then he saw these horrible things, which I didn't see. I mean, he... and, and one day, a man was sort of walking on the ridges of the paddy fields, um, unsteadily, and suddenly he disappeared. And my father rushed over and this man, um, had, had died.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel38:54

       Right.

   15. JCJung Chang38:54

       Um, it's just like that. Just... my father, just for his month of living in, in the, uh, in the village, he was... he came back, um, very seriously famished and suffering from this illness called enema, or s- it was-

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel39:13

       Ema-

   17. JCJung Chang39:14

       ... which was because of lack of food.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel39:16

       Yes.

   19. JCJung Chang39:16

       Um, and, um, oh, yes, and my... even my family, and we all, n- n- and we all drank this, this little thing, this little seed that fed on urine. I remember we all had to collect urine. We don't pour, throw away our urine. We collect urine in order to grow this seed, which was supposed to have a lot of, um, um, vitamin or a lot of some, some nutrition that could s- me- uh, sustain people. And I remember how revolting the taste was. I mean, w- I didn't suffer much because my family put all our food together and the adults were starving. I knew my mother, my father and my... particularly my grandmother, um, in order for, for us children, um, not, not to starve. And also now, today, if you read, if you see the memoirs of China's super-riches-

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel40:23

       Yeah.

   21. JCJung Chang40:24

       ... I mean, I think most of them had memory of the... o- of my generation, of the generation who had lived in the countryside. They all, um, remembered being hungry.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel40:37

       Yeah.

   23. JCJung Chang40:38

       They... as, as children when... how hungry they were in the villages and that, that sort of was partly what gave them the impetus to, to change.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel40:49

       Mm. Oh, y- you know, while we're on this, let me just ask you about this before we return to The Great Leap Forward, now that you've mentioned it.

   25. JCJung Chang40:56

       Okay.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel40:56

       So, Xi Jinping actually had a v- a very similar experience to you in that his father is also a high communist official. He also gets denounced and purged. Xi Jinping is also... has to go through these denunciation meetings and then he has to work as a peasant, um, and in fact, there's a story where he tries to come back, but his mother... uh, to get a meal from his family but is- he's supposed to be an exile, but his mother then chases him away and denounces him and, you know, so it's like gruesome stuff, right? And then when he gives these speeches, he talks about, "We need to return to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought." How is it possible that somebody who has gone through your experience c- c- can still have any sort of sympathy left for Mao or Marxism-Leninism? I, I, I actually don't understand. I'm, I'm trying to understand.

   27. JCJung Chang41:42

       Well, then, I'm afraid I- I don't understand either. I mean, don't fully understand. There was... and, I mean, everybody is different. Um, a lot of people had similar experiences, um, and they still, um, would sing Mao's praise, um, and wanted to return to the Mao era. I think only... th- m- you know, not seriously return to Mao era, but they would dreamed of the... perhaps the type, you know, the culture or something of, of the Maoist era, but not really. I mean-Well, everybody was different, but I mean, there were more indoctrinated people than others under the same indoctrination system. I mean, maybe he was just not, he was just, um, more thoroughly indoctrinated and there were many reasons and among the communist officials whose parents suffered the children of, um, a lot of them regard, identify Mao with the rule of the Communist Party, um, and they do- they don't want the Communist Party to be discredited, so because they are the beneficiaries-

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel42:59

       Mmm.

   29. JCJung Chang42:59

       ... of communist rule. I mean, in the, mmm, this is not mis- not necessarily Xi, he, um, but- but y- in a more general sense because I haven't studied Xi. Again, I don't know the inner workings of the- of the- of the regime, but I think a lot of children of the communi- old communists, in spite of the sufferings from their parents, they still want China to be under this one-party dictatorship. And I think one reason now is this made them a lot of money.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel43:39

       Mmm.
4. 48:12 – 1:03:24

   Modern support of Mao

   1. JCJung Chang48:12

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel48:12

      Yeah.Yeah. How, what has been the impact of your books? You know Wild Swan sold 50 million copies. Your biography of Mao is also a bestseller. I know they're banned in China, but have they secretly been able to access... How has that revised their understanding of their own history?

   3. JCJung Chang48:29

      Well, when these books were first published-

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel48:32

      Yeah.

   5. JCJung Chang48:32

      ... in 19, the 1990s and year 2000s, there were lot of wo- lots of, lots and lots of ways to get them into China. Hong Kong, for example, and Taiwan, um, pirated editions, which there were many, many, many. Um, but now, I mean since particularly Mr. Xi came to power in 20, like, 2012, 2013, um, China has a total clampdown or of banned, of banned literature. And you could go to jail if you, um, and for an official to possess these books, I mean banned books, including mine, you, you, you could face, you know, ghastly punishments which you, you don't want to face. And for the general population as well. And when you enter China now, you see on this screen, uh, warnings of not to bring in bad literature.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel49:36

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JCJung Chang49:37

      Um, and, and not, not, particularly not to bring, um, books that, um, said not very nice things about the previous revolutionary leaders, or, or revolutionary martyrs, or someone. So, total, total clampdown, forbidding of people doing research on history, trying to understand history, um, which, um, which created another generation of brainwashed people.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel50:12

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JCJung Chang50:12

      And there was one, also one very important thing. The Chinese are very pragmatic, and they don't want trouble. They're very different from a lot of other peoples. Um, and so parents who exper- who had bad experiences under Mao tend not to tell their children. And so there are a lot of children who were gen- just genuinely not getting any alternative information, um, mm, from different from the, uh, from the official line.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel50:48

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do want to get back to the actual, uh, Great Leap and Cultural Revolution in a second, but on this theme, um, you know, Xi Jinping's own daughters got, studied at Harvard. A bunch of Chinese elites are, their kids are studying in America. Uh, when they take power in a generation or two, will they still be devoted Marxist-Leninists? I can't imagine them having, coming back from Harvard and then, uh, still believing in...

   11. JCJung Chang51:15

       (laughs) Well, I mean, in the West, in American universities...

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel51:21

       Yeah.

   13. JCJung Chang51:22

       ... there were a lot of Marxists.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel51:24

       (laughs)

   15. JCJung Chang51:24

       (laughs) I mean, you know, a lot of people, if they're interested in the subject-

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel51:28

       Sure. (laughs)

   17. JCJung Chang51:29

       ... I mean they come to the West to have their views confirmed. And Maoists, you know, for example, when our Mao biography was published, there were some academics, uh, who publ- even published a book, a collection of their criticisms against our book (laughs) . And the title was, Was Mao Really a Monster?

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel51:51

       Yeah.

   19. JCJung Chang51:52

       I mean, you know, the preface was written by someone who was a, was a senior lecturer for, in LSE, London School of Economics. I mean, the language was Maoist language. You know, Mao was a great, a great, uh, revolution, a great Marxist-Leninist and so on. I mean, so, I mean... (laughs) I mean the West would certainly not put off the, this, um, put off a potential Mao, uh, successor.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel52:24

       Yeah. And, uh, uh, I'm glad you brought that up actually, because I read that book actually in preparation for this interview, and, because I wanted to see if there were criticisms that I, I should be aware of. And honestly, uh, the, I mean there were certain quibbles about the, the part before Mao got into power, about The Long March and stuff, which I don't know enough about to comment. But the actual, when they start talking about the important things, the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, they're not at all contesting the facts. They're, it is the most, um, uh, the, the most sort of, um, excusatory language of... It is the same sort of stuff, by the way, that is said about Cuba and Stalinist Russia, of, "Well, the literacy went up," and this and that. Um, North Korea today has high literacy. Are you gonna say that North Korea was okay? Did the ex- Uh, actually, can you talk about this? What I- what do you think explains the Western, uh, some parts of the left who want to find excuses for these regimes, whether it's Venezuela or whether Edgard Snow, uh, Edward Snow writing his, um, book about Mao. There's a sort of need to excuse these, um, these communist regimes and socialist regimes. Wh- what, why are, what explains this?

   21. JCJung Chang53:34

       (sighs) From what I know, I think there, there were people who had illusions about these regimes. And a lot of the academics, um, who were kind of, um, controlling the faculties, um, to do with Mao and in universities, probably had got their, um, their, their, their sort of illusions because they had access to, um, Edgar Snow's, um, book. They were radicals in the 1960s. I mean, they, you know, they want to hang onto their own... No, sorry, let me just not get into this. The subject... Sorry. I'm- I'm faltering on this because...... I don't know. I don't know why, but I mean, I don't know why, I don't know why they are like that. I mean, they, they, they don't, they don't know the facts. They, they, they don't care to know the facts. And also, I think probably some people think, "Oh, China has always been awful, you know, under the emperors and so on." And so they n- somehow the Orientals, uh, must feel different today.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel54:50

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JCJung Chang54:51

       Um, and I know when, you know, when Deng Xiaoping visited America in 1979 and established diplomatic relations with America, um, with Carter, mm, and, um, he, he was seated at a banquet with some, uh, um, with some, uh, some deluded film star-

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel55:15

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JCJung Chang55:15

       ... or something. And then, then people were saying to him that when they were visit- when they visited China, um, they'd seen professors, uh, who'd been subject to forced labor. Mm. And but they told, they were told that they enjoyed it-

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel55:34

       Mm.

   27. JCJung Chang55:34

       ... because all these hardships and being in a labor camp had turned them into the new men.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel55:41

       Yeah.

   29. JCJung Chang55:42

       And Deng Xiaoping just said they were lying.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel55:45

       Yeah.
5. 1:03:24 – 1:21:30

   Life as peasant

   1. JCJung Chang1:03:24

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel1:03:24

      Yeah. But then at least we can say the, the... one of the problems with the ideology is that it attracts and is highly conducive to peop- to, um, opportunists like Mao and Stalin and, uh, the Kim family. But... So let's go back to the Great Leap Forward and to these communes. These communes are... Really, what it's like to be a peasant is like chattel slavery. Can you talk about the working conditions, how hard they worked while not being given food, um, the punishments? Tell, tell us more about what the peasant life was like.

   3. JCJung Chang1:03:55

      Well, I was working in the commune for several years-

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel1:04:00

      Yeah.

   5. JCJung Chang1:04:00

      ... in the, in the Cultural Revolution in two places. And our lives consisted mainly of work. I mean, there were fixed hours. You were given... You were allocated food and, you know, fuel and other things, depending on how many hours you worked. So, so your life is, is centered on work. I mean, you know, they're... Um, everything, the commune controlled everything. If you want to travel, go somewhere, you need the commune to give you, um, a kind of note, a kind of passport to allow you to travel. Um, if you want to get married, you have to get permission from the commune. And during the famine, this is how Mao ensured that the peasants didn't rise up in arms because the control from the commune. I mean, there is a thing, um, they... Every now and then the regime would, would issue these stiff orders to stop peasants fleeing their villages. I mean, if they, the peasants did manage to flee into the cities and they beg, for example, for some food, the communes were told to get them back. So the commune is, is this thing way to control, to control our entire lives. And of course, when I was in the communes, I was, again, in a privileged position because when we s- were sent down from the cities, we were guaranteed a certain food. I mean, it's too complicated, the details. But basically, the communes is, is the organization. It may be in some ideology, but in reality, it's how the party controls China's 500 million peasants. I mean, there were only, I think, some, some... a few tens of thousands of communes. I mean, imagine this highly concentrated organization.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel1:06:13

      Yeah.

   7. JCJung Chang1:06:14

      So, people were no- no longer individual farmers-

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel1:06:17

      Yeah.

   9. JCJung Chang1:06:17

      ... like, um, like what they were before the communist rule.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel1:06:21

       And this is exactly also what happened in Russia. And you-

   11. JCJung Chang1:06:25

       The collectivization, yeah.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel1:06:26

       And when the famine happens, again, they're not allowed to leave Ukraine. They, they're forced... There- there's roadblocks, so they're forced to starve there. Um, so you, uh, you have this really remarkable anecdote in the, uh, in the book about, um, talking to these peasants about what, um, life was like during the Great Leap Forward while, while you were working there, because now there's no fuel left. All the trees are taken down. And how at the time so many of the village starved, uh, you... Because they were all distracted keeping the furnaces. Talk about the... How the, the effort to double steel output and how, how that... What, what catastrophes that caused.

   13. JCJung Chang1:07:00

       Well, basically, um, Mao's ambition after he took power in China was to build a superpower-

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel1:07:08

       Yeah.

   15. JCJung Chang1:07:09

       ... to, to, um, dominate the world. He needed to buy these machines, military-industrial complexes, mainly from Russia and from Eastern Europe.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel1:07:19

       From Eastern Europe.

   17. JCJung Chang1:07:20

       But he didn't have the money to pay. China wasn't rich as today, so he exported food. So, he needed a lot of food. Whereas in China, traditionally, we didn't... We never produced enough food to feed the population. The emperors banned food export and bought a lot of food into China. I mean, so traditionally, China was a food importer for a few hundred years, and Mao stopped that. So, to start with, there was always a food problem-

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel1:08:00

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JCJung Chang1:08:00

       ... throughout his rule. Um, now, the Great Leap is basically to import vast quantities of, uh, technology and equipment of mainly from Russia. That's why it's called the Great Leap. He wanted to build an industrialized whatever system, um, in, in a few years, um, f- to be fast, fast, fast, you know?

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel1:08:27

       Yeah.

   21. JCJung Chang1:08:27

       That, that's what he... What he said. I mean, that's why his demand for food was vastly elevated, Mao's demand for food. This food had to come from the peasants. I mean, so he basically seized this food to im- to export to Russia and Eastern Europe, knowing his people would die of starvation. I mean, there was a time Mao was... Well, kept saying seemingly philosophically, I mean, "Death is a good thing. If, if we don't have death, you know, m- we... And the, the Earth can't contain us." You know, these seemingly philosophical things which were taken at face value by some academics, uh, you know. But what he really... He said these things to his officials in order to harden their heart when they went to seize the food from the peasants, seeing how pitiful their conditions were. And that's the or- origin of the famine. It's as simple as that. It's food export. I mean, Liu Shaoqi, his number two and his main target in the Cultural Revolution, it was thanks to a visit back to his old village that made up his mind to stop Mao's policies, 'cause he went back to his village. His brother-in-law had died of starvation. His sister was on the edge of, of dying of starvation. He saw the villages, saw the just heartrending things, and then he, he... You know, he op- he opened them, opened the lid of, of a wok, a saucepan, and he saw there was nothing, just water, a few drops of grain. And he was... He, he did a very unusual thing, and he bowed to the peasants and just said, you know, "I'm very sorry." Uh, it was after this, in 1961, he made up his mind to stop Mao's policies, which led to the Cultural Revolution and his, his tragic death.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel1:10:41

       And then you, you also talk in the book about how these peasants... Not only was all this grain being exported, which caused them to starve, but they weren't even allowed to harvest their grain because they had to t- Talk about the turning their own woks and their own stuff into iron and just spending time-

   23. JCJung Chang1:10:58

       Yeah.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel1:10:58

       ... doing that instead of farming.

   25. JCJung Chang1:11:00

       So, Mao was... Mao was partly defeated by his own ignorance about economy. I mean, because if you... When you... When you want to build a modern s- super industry, you needed steel, and steel was the most important thing. And China's steel-producing capacities in the 1950s was very low. So, he had this idea of making the whole population to, to make steel. I mean, it's... It really is quite ridiculous-

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel1:11:37

       Yeah.

   27. JCJung Chang1:11:37

       ... because I was at primary school. I was six years old. I was in the primary school, and I remember (laughs) that my main occupation was somehow my contribution to steel, which is every day we walked on the street trying to find the little nails, the cogs, something of steel to... And to hand in to our teachers because there is a backyard furnace in our school.... or the teachers had to, had to feed things into the furnace, um, bec- ... The furnace also had to be kept going 24 hours a day. You couldn't be, uh, you know, couldn't go off. I mean to feed that furnace consumed everything. I mean, in my village, I mean, they, we, we struggled every day to find a little fuel, when, you know, fast-forwarding to 1960s. And because the mountains which used to be covered with great trees have been laid bare to, for, for, for the fuel, to feed the backyard furnaces, um... And the teachers were, um, exhausted in my school, and so we were organized to babysit for them when I was a child. Um, it was just, it was hugely wasteful, hugely wasteful. I mean, this w- ... I mean because for all this effort, um, this was 1958, um, actually most of what the backyard furnaces, um, produced were completely useless.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel1:13:14

       Yeah.

   29. JCJung Chang1:13:15

       So he died, Mao died thinking of himself as a failure, because China was still poverty stricken at the time of his death, and he felt himself a failure. But he was partly sabotaged by his own ignorance-

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel1:13:31

       Yeah.
6. 1:21:30 – 1:31:15

   Psychology of communist society

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel1:21:30

   2. JCJung Chang1:21:30

      Exactly, exactly.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel1:21:31

      So, le- let's go back to the Cultural Revolution. One thing that I find really interesting about communism, especially in China, is the need for the victims to then incriminate themselves, to confess. When, when (laughs) , even Hitler wouldn't have the, the Jews in Auschwitz, you know, talk about renouncing their Semitic ways and, you know, "I've been an enemy to Germany in World War I." The, the... So what, what was... Explain why it was important that the victims of these purges had to then talk about, "Oh, oh, you know, I'm guilty, I'm complicit." Why couldn't they just be ostracized?

   4. JCJung Chang1:22:11

      I, I think Mao knows people's psychology-

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel1:22:13

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JCJung Chang1:22:14

      ... um, very well. Um, and, um, I, I think he uses this as a weapon to break people. I mean, to humiliate them and to break them.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel1:22:26

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JCJung Chang1:22:26

      I mean, so even his opponents then started to grow doubt about their own opposition. So I, I think that's the main thing. I mean, it's... I tell you, it's, it's not very nice. I mean, China, when I lived in China, I wasn't denounced, but we all had to attend criticism and self-criticism meetings. I mean, it really, it stirs up some very basic discomfort-

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel1:23:00

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JCJung Chang1:23:01

       ... and, um, u- upsetnes- unsettling upset feelings if you have to criticize yourself. I mean, n- you know, not do it cynically because you have to win. Nowadays, it's not... You, you couldn't do it cynically because nobody has reason to understand the whole thing in order to be cynical.

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel1:23:22

       Yeah.

   12. JCJung Chang1:23:23

       So you are starting with being quite sincere.

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel1:23:26

       Oh, yeah.

   14. JCJung Chang1:23:26

       I mean, so it's, it certainly breaks people, and also it makes people denun- it makes peop- turn people against each other, because when people-

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel1:23:38

       Yeah.

   16. JCJung Chang1:23:38

       ... are criticizing each other, you create a lot of animosities among the people, which is one reason why no opposition can get organized.

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel1:23:50

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JCJung Chang1:23:50

       I mean, people can't, uh, don't dare to, to, um, talk to each other in case they were denounced.

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel1:23:56

       Yeah.

   20. JCJung Chang1:23:56

       I mean, um, in case there were... It's always very, uh, very... It's a psychological warfare-

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel1:24:02

       Right.

   22. JCJung Chang1:24:03

       ... against his own population, which is quite effective.

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel1:24:07

       So, so meaning that it wasn't just a campaign against political opposition, it was literally every part of your life.

   24. JCJung Chang1:24:15

       Yes.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel1:24:16

       Y- y- your... I, I think even in, in the book, you talk about embracing your family is anti-Maoist because it shows you're closer to your family than you are to Mao.

   26. JCJung Chang1:24:25

       Exactly. It's this warm feeling is just... I mean-... the, and, the, you know, I'm, I was constantly criticized of, um, because my feelings for my family. And Deng, Deng Xiaoping, when he wrote to Mao about his son, the son you talked about who was crippled, he wrote to Mao to ask Mao to allow his son to join him so he could look after his son. He and his wife, uh, who was so s- heartbroken seeing his son, um, she wanted to kill herself. Anyway, um, Deng had to preface his appeal with, "I'm afraid, you know, I'm committing warm feelingism."

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel1:25:11

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JCJung Chang1:25:12

       Um, "But could you allow, you know, my son to join me to be looked after?"

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel1:25:18

       Yeah, that, that, uh, is-

   30. JCJung Chang1:25:19

       It's, it's device that really separates a society, um, making people against each other and being on guard-

Episode duration: 1:31:15