waning influence of the Gang of Four radicals suggested a very real possibility of their being completely sidelined from power, as well as an abandonment of the hard won Maoist radicalism and a shift towards a more moderate social and economic system. In this climate, the Gang of Four, which still held influence over national cultural policy, used this “capitulationist” theme as a clear allegorical criticism of Zhou Enlai, the upright Confucian hero of the Chinese revolution, beloved of the people and their primary obstacle to power upon Mao’s death. Also targeted was Deng Xiaoping, Zhou’s heir apparent and the pragmatic economic planner who had been previously purged as a “reactionary” and “capitalist roader” and recently rehabilitated and reinstated.37
In 1976, the most senior of the surviving veteran revolutionaries, the heroes of the earliest days of the Communist Party, Zhou Enlai, the “Prime Minister,” Zhu De, the “Marshal” and Mao Zedong the “Emperor” all died (in April, July, and September respectively). Echoes of allegorical criticism of Song Jiang’s “capitulation” were still heard in the purge of Deng Xiaoping, orchestrated by the Gang of Four following Zhou Enlai’s death in April 1976.38 However, Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four’s political aspirations came to naught as they were quickly arrested following Mao’s death by his successor Hua Guofeng, with the backing (or prompting) of the senior Generals of the People’s Liberation Army and the surviving elder revolutionary leaders. In the end, The Water Margin turned full circle. The classic that inspired Mao Zedong’s brilliant revolutionary and military works of the Long March and civil war became the absurd “final chapter of Maoist political culture” and the last gasp of Maoism itself.39
Can The Water Margin still be used as a mirror to the present?
At the time of writing, China is about to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic on October 1st 1949. It has been 60 years since Mao Zedong and his “bandit army” marched into Beijing and founded a new dynasty. After all this time, is The Water Margin still relevant as a work of fiction that inspires, guides, and shapes history?
In Chinese terms of 4000 years of recorded history, of Twenty-four Dynasties and two Republics, 60 years is nothing. 60 years merely marks the end of one complete cycle of the 60 year Chinese calendar of the Heaven Branches and the Earthly Stems. In China, dynasties can last for hundreds of years. As the Chinese nation celebrates in 2009, the Chinese government faces numerous critical, but familiar challenges. It must maintain equality in the share of the wealth of China’s massive free market economy. It must face the eternal challenge of corruption and of self-serving public officials. It must face the challenge of rising unemployment, especially amongst its highly educated young graduates. It must also face the social challenges of a large migrant population of perhaps some 230 million from the interior of the country that flock to work in the booming cities of the southern and eastern provinces and their factories and construction sites. It must face the challenge of providing equitable health care for a population of over 1.3 billion. It must deal with the challenge of providing clean air, water, and food for this enormous population. It must deal with the challenges of a population with a skewed sex ratio that currently stands at 1.2:1 boys to girls. This means that for every 10 million women, there will be 12 million men, for whom 2 million may not have a chance of a wife or family.
What may be the result of an inability to successfully manage these challenges? Perhaps we can take history as a mirror to guide the present, and consider the traditional response of hungry, angry, and poverty stricken unmarried men. Perhaps we only have to turn to history, and the historical fiction of The Water Margin to find out.
Footnote
9 The “Four Great Novels” include Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Journey to the West, and The Dream of the Red Chamber.
10 Mencius 5A:5 in Wing-Tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. 4th ed. (Princeton University Press, Princeton 1969). p78.
11 Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, History and Legend. Ideas and Images in the Ming Historical Novels. (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1990), p136.
12 Ibid.
13 John Ching-yu Wang, Chin Sheng-t’an (Twayne Publishers Inc, NY 1972). p61.
14 See Irwin Op.cit, pp43-51.
15 Ibid, p82.
16 Wang, Op.cit, p62.
17 After Irwin, Op. cit, p90.
18 Wang, Op. cit, p60.
19 Buck Op. cit and Jackson Op.cit.
20 Wang, Op.cit, p24-26.
21 Irwin, Op.cit, p87.
22 Wang Op.cit p29.
23 Ibid, p32.
24 Ibid p34.
25 After “Kumiao Jilue” (“A Brief Record of the Lamenting in the Temple”), T’ung-shih (Bitter History) Commercial Press, Shanghai 1912, in Wang, Op. cit, pp34-36.
26 For a full description of this concept, see Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, History and Legend: Ideas and Images in the Ming Historical Novels. (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1990).
27 David L. Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary: Reading and Writing Between the Lines. (Stanford University Press, Stanford 1997), p104.
28 Buck (1968) Op.cit, p.vi.
29 Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China. First Revised and Enlarged Edition, (Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth. 1972), p156.
30 John Fitzgerald, “Continuity Within Discontinuity The Case of Water Margin Mythology,” Modern China, Vol. 12 No. 3, July 1986, p381.
31 Buck (1968) Op.cit, p.ix.
32 Mao Zedong, “Problems
