The Cult of the Red Martyr

Politics of Commemoration in China

Bibliographic Data

ID10074866
AuthorsChang-Tai Hung (Division of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume43
Issue2
Pages279-304
Publication date2008-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0022009408089033
OpenAlexW2066748021
LanguageEN
Citations received14

Facing an increasing number of deaths among its rank and file in the wars against Japan and the Kuomintang (Nationalists), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to promote the cult of the red martyr during the late Yan'an era, and then developed it in a systematic fashion after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In the 1950s, the CCP cultivated the cult to honour those who had died in the revolution with commemorative practices such as the launching of the Martyrs' Memorial Day and the building of a national cemetery — the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery — in the western part of Beijing as a place of national pilgrimage. The cult served the purposes of diverting attention from the destruction of war, justifying armed conflict as a means to fight enemies, providing psychological comfort for the bereaved, and, finally, educating future generations about socialist goals, serving, in the words of Zhou Enlai, 'to commemorate the dead and inspire the living'. However, the CCP's political aims did not always dominate how the cult was interpreted, for the bereaved often expressed less political and more emotional views about their grief and personal loss. In recent years, as revolutionary fervour wanes and material gains have come to dominate the lives of the Chinese people, war memorials have fallen into oblivion. The cult is rapidly losing its influence, and, with that, the Party's ability to control its people is deteriorating

Ancient history · Archaeology · China · Communism · Cult · History of China · Honour · Martyr · Pilgrimage · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies