Frank Dikötter > Quotes

“But even as every promise was broken, the party kept on gaining followers. Many were idealists, some were opportunists, others thugs. They displayed astonishing faith and almost fanatical conviction, sometimes even after they themselves had ended up being devoured by the party machinery. A”
― Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

“The key to understanding the appeal of communism, despite the grim reality on the ground, lay in the fact that it allowed so many followers to believe that they were participants in an historic process of transformation, contributing to something much bigger than themselves, or anything that had come before.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

“But in reality a dictatorship never has one dictator only, as many people become willing to scramble for power over the next person above them. The country was full of local hegemons, each trying to deceive the next one up into believing that their achievements were genuine.”
― Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62

“It was all about the world in the making, not the world as it was. It was a world of plans, blueprints, and models”
― Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

“from the broader picture, may very well have been invaluable: a dam that worked, a nursery where children fared well, a prison where the inmates were treated humanely. The campaign to eliminate illiteracy in the countryside was laudable, until it was given up. But when seen in the overall context of what happened to the country between 1949 and 1957, these isolated achievements did not amount to a broad trend towards equality, justice and freedom, the proclaimed values of the regime itself.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

“Zeng Xisheng began to allow farmers to rent the land. Tao Zhu, a powerful Politburo member, supported the move. ‘This way people won’t starve to death,’ he said, adding that ‘if this is capitalism, then I prefer capitalism.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“Mao wished to purge the higher echelons of power, so he could hardly rely on the party machine to get the job done. He turned to young, radical students instead, some of them no older than fourteen, giving them licence to denounce all authority and ‘bombard the headquarters’.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“One of the many paradoxes of the Great Leap Forward was that everything was for sale, as bricks, clothes and fuel were bartered for food. Millions also left the countryside to work in underground”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“people performers in an extravaganza for Mao.’34 But in reality a dictatorship never has one dictator only, as many people become willing to scramble for power over the next person above them. The country was full of local hegemons, each trying to deceive the next one up into believing that their achievements were genuine.”
― Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962

“Is there a single political force which has been able to work with him from beginning to end? His former secretaries have either committed suicide or been arrested. His few close comrades-in-arms or trusted aides have also been sent to prison by him . . . He is paranoid and a sadist. His philosophy of liquidating people is either to not do it or to do it thoroughly. Every time he liquidates someone, he does not desist until he puts them to death. Once he hurts you, he will hurt you all the way; and he puts the blame for everything bad on others.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“The campaign also had another visible effect. Many residents, from traffic police and food handlers to street sweepers, started wearing cotton masks, which always surprised foreign visitors. This habit would last for decades. In the words of William Kinmond, it gave ‘even young girls and boys the appearance of being fugitives from operating rooms’.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

“Farmers were given a plot of land in exchange for overthrowing their leaders. Violence was an indispensable feature of land distribution, implicating a majority in the murder of a carefully designated minority.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

“Their labour exploited, their possessions confiscated and their homes demolished, villagers were presented with an opportunity to share in their leaders’ vision. Communism was around the corner, and the state would provide. ‘To each according to his needs’ was taken literally, and for as long as they could get away with it people ate as much as they could. For about two months, in many villages throughout the country, people ‘stretched their bellies’, following Mao’s directive at Xushui: ‘You should eat more. Even five meals a day is fine!”
― Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962

“The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s second attempt to become the historical pivot around which the socialist universe revolved. Lenin had carried out the Great October Socialist Revolution, setting a precedent for the proletariat of the whole world. But modern revisionists like Khrushchev had usurped the leadership of the party, leading the Soviet Union back on the road of capitalist restoration.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“they attended endless indoctrination classes to learn the new orthodoxy, studying official pamphlets, newspapers and textbooks. And like everyone else, they soon had to write their own confessions, making a clean breast of the past by ‘laying their hearts on the table’. They were asked to re-educate themselves, becoming New People willing to serve the New China.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

“Anti-party’ cliques were uncovered almost everywhere. Mao prodded the provincial leaders on. ‘Better me than you as dictator,’ he declared in March 1958, invoking words from Lenin.”
― Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962

“In communist parlance, after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production had been completed, a new revolution was required to stamp out once and for all the remnants of bourgeois culture, from private thoughts to private markets. Just as the transition from capitalism to socialism required a revolution, the transition from socialism to communism demanded a revolution too: Mao called it the Cultural Revolution.”
― Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976

“就要煽動多數人起來反對少數人，只有讓人人都牽扯到暴力當中，大家才會永遠跟著黨走，因此在這場鬥爭中，沒有人可以袖手旁觀，人人都得參加群眾集會和批鬥大會，每個人的雙手都得沾上鮮血。”
― Frank Dikötter, 解放的悲劇：中國革命史1945-1957

“我們早知道，在共產主義國家裡，沒有言論的自由；現在我們更知道，連沉默的自由，那裡也沒有。”
― Frank Dikötter, 解放的悲劇：中國革命史1945-1957

“In what is one of the most bizarre and ecologically damaging episodes of the Great Leap Forward, the country was mobilised in an all-out war against the birds. Banging on drums, clashing pots or beating gongs, a giant din was raised to keep the sparrows flying till they were so exhausted that they simply dropped from the sky. Eggs were broken and nestlings destroyed; the birds were also shot out of the air. Timing was of the essence, as the entire country was made to march in lockstep in the battle against the enemy, making sure that the sparrows had nowhere to escape. In cities people took to the roofs, while in the countryside farmers dispersed to the hillsides and climbed trees in the forests, all at the same hour to ensure complete victory. Soviet expert Mikhail Klochko witnessed the beginning of the campaign in Beijing. He was awakened in the early morning by the bloodcurdling screams of a woman running to and fro on the roof of a building next to his hotel. A drum started beating, as the woman frantically waved a large sheet tied to a bamboo pole. For three days the entire hotel was mobilised in the campaign to do away with sparrows, from bellboys and maids to the official interpreters. Children came out with slings, shooting at any kind of winged creature.77 Accidents happened as people fell from roofs, poles and ladders. In Nanjing, Li Haodong climbed on the roof of a school building to get at a sparrow’s nest, only to lose his footing and tumble down three floors. Local cadre He Delin, furiously waving a sheet to scare the birds, tripped and fell from a rooftop, breaking his back. Guns were deployed to shoot at birds, also resulting in accidents. In Nanjing some 330 kilos of gunpowder were used in a mere two days, indicating the extent of the campaign. But the real victim was the environment, as guns were taken to any kind of feathered creature. The extent of damage was exacerbated by the indiscriminate use of farm poison: in Nanjing, bait killed wolves, rabbits, snakes, lambs, chicken, ducks, dogs and pigeons, some in large quantities.”
― Frank Dikötter