2 JUNE 1979, Page 23

Prat crit

John Scott

China: The People's Republic, 1949-1976 Jean Chesneaux (Harvester £12.50) On the cover of this third volume in a modern Chinese history series, the author, Professor Jean Chesneaux of the Sorbonne, is described as 'Director' of the project and sports this appellation after his name on the title page, but better still, he is, so we are further told, 'one of the world's leading sinologists.' Though in the sinological world, there exist no league tables, if they did this work should see Chesneaux heading for speedy demotion to Division Four.

Doubtless Director Chesneaux is a great believer in democratic centralism, so it would be unfair of me to pass any judgment about his unfortunate myrmidons or directees Messieurs Bellassen, Dubois, Le Barbier, Olivier, Peemans and N. Wang since their role in this grand project remains secondary and somewhat obscure, and the mistakes are therefore all ultimately the Director's.

But when he insists on studding his text with a whole host of incorrectly romanised Chinese terms — ranging from Xinghai for Qinghai (a region of China about the size of the Director's homeland), to Zhonggua ('plant melon'?)when he meant Zhonghua (a posh word for 'China') — and even mistranslates maodun as 'shield-sword' instead of 'spear-shield' such a gratuitous display of, let us be charitable, carelessness should not unduly puzzle the first-year student of Chinese since, in so doing, the Director may not be emulating Chaucer's Pardoner with his excuse for his flashy use of Latin in his sermons — And in Latyn I speke a wordes few, To saffron with my predicacioun And for to stire hem to devocioun but is instead simply striking a blow against 'elitism' with all its irritating insistence on accuracy, for on this subject, in spite of his soft billet in the groves of academe, he has much to say. Indeed, the Director comes out ever strong for the sweaty masses of workers, peasants and soldiers, and would even have us believe that the Cultural Revolution and all its subsequent nastiness were simply inspired by the following: 'In areas such as teaching, cultyre, and health, elitism and conservatism were rife, which widened the gap between leaders and led, intellectuals and masses, theory and practice'. Again the Director shares the same degree of admiration for the so-called 'people's poems' as did the late Chairman: It was important to recognise the work ers' and peasants' intellectual capacities in all areas, from technical invention to poetry; if according to Mao, the 'professionals" was uninteresting CI myself would not read it unless I was given a hundred dollars'), then 'perhaps we will discover millions and millions of people's poems . . . and these will be easier to read than the poems of Du Fu and Li Bo.'

Perhaps this would explain the Director's inclusion in the section called 'documents' at the end of the chapter, of one easily readable and plangent little lyric for which Du Fu and Li Bo, the two greatest Tang poets, have to yield place since their own works do not share that same degree of eminent readability so prized by Chairman Mao and Director Chesneaux — Chimneys High, high by the white clouds They spout their black smoke.

What tree will ever be so tall What wild bamboo could ever have their charm?

They are arms of iron Pointing to Heaven's watchword; They are enormous brushes Painting the homeland's beautiful spring.

(trans. Michele Loi.) Among other things, the initial pathetic attempt at antithetical complementation helps to underline the poem's utter lack of sincerity — for sincerity, students, is the hallmark of that elitist professionalism so frowned on by the New School of prat crit at the Sorbonne and Peking. But whilst on the subject of 'documents' such as the above, it is interesting to note that Prof Chesneaux conveniently confines himself in his use of sources almost exclusively to secondary ones amongst which the works of Han Suyin (another League Division One romantic sinologist) and the handouts of Peking's propaganda department together with those of their overseas admirers and hacks form the major part. In his uncritical reliance on the easily obtainable is reflected the Director's sympathy for all students groaning under the yoke of that same professional elitism which he infers sparked off Mao's second wholesale persecution of 'tyrannical' intellectuals, plus a few million other poor devils, during the late Sixties: Here, the students, most of whom came from the families of cadres, old capitalists, or landowners, were burdened by a very heavy course load, sometimes as much as thirty-five hours per week; they lived in fear of exams and were taught in a more or less apolitical way; some of them were later directed into research that was cut off from all practical application. In 1964 Mao Tsetung said that this manner of teaching 'is destroying the young people'.

In much the same way he attempts to explain away the mowing of the Hundred flowers: Hundreds of thousands of intellectuals and cadres were sent into villages to be re-educated through work; this was the xia fang movement ('dispersal to the base'). But only a few were sent to prison.

Personally I can't wait to see the Director dispersed to the base to do a spot of labour shovelling dung or churning butter on a Normandy farm. Such a dispersal would hearten his anti-elitist students and the British housewife, not to mention the stinking rich peasantry of Normandy and all true sinologists regardless of grading or rating.

Yet perhaps the most bizarre of all is the Director's truly original interpretation of Chairman Mao's jottings: Mao Tsetung's Selected Works, which became the best-selling Chinese book after the Liberation of 1949, attests to the richness of this collective national tradition. Mao's writings abound in political and cultural references that are well known to all Chinese but incomprehensible to a foreigner: proverbs and quotations, distant historical situations and episodes from the revolutionary struggle, popular legends, and literary allusions and anecdotes. They evoke the sage Zhu Geliang who fooled his adversary by having two old soldiers sweep the open gates of a city empty of troops and unable to defend itself; the crafty Sun Wukong, the tireless Monkey King, the intrepid traveller over the Himalayas; Wu Song the indefatigable, who was strong enough to kill a tiger with one blow of his fist.'

For a start Zhu Geliang should read Zhuge Liang but, though I could well dispute the esoteric quality of Mao's writings and the richness of their classical reference, I will simply ask the question when did the Director last, if ever, read the description of Wu Song's fight with the tiger in the classic novel The Fenland Saga (Shut Hu Zhuan)? Since, as any of my third or fourth-year students could tell him, it took that hero a whole page of detailed hard fighting with the beast till finally, not with one blow, but as the text so vividly states, 'He raised his steel hammer sized fistsand with all his might went on smashing away, striking that mighty pest some 50 to 70 blows, pounding on with his fists until blood gushed from its eyes, mouth, nose and ears'.

The Director could try reading the rest himself in the Chinese original (pp. 260-261 of the 71 chapter edition, Peking 1972) but perhaps elitists have a different attitude to the 'collective national tradition', unlike Director Chesneaux who not only manages to misromanise the Chinese K.G.B. as Gonganqu instead of Gonganju but then describes that repressive apparatus as 'efficient and discreet'.

Turning from the Director's treatment of matters cultural to Mao's very own economic fiasco, the Great Leap Forward, the Director finds it necessary to quote the time-serving Han Suyin: 'The Great Leap Forward. . . was a fundamental and original political choice; through "the struggle against complacency, superstituion, prejudice and bureaucracy . . . it would reshape the land of China, remake Chinese man."

It is sad, indeed, to see any sinologist and then one lucky enough to occupy such an exalted position as the Director's defending every squalid 'mistake' and sordid personality that China has disgorged over the last 30 years, particularly when he gives such a monster as Zhang Chunqiao — one-time henchman to Mao and a leading member of the Gang of Four — good press and again manages to misromanise the scoundrel's name. Here I am sure any reasonably discriminating reader will surely question the claim made by the publishers that this miserable history offers a 'sweeping and penetrating account of a singular historical era'...Sweeping, yes . . .