Today we continue to talk about the topic of Li Keqiang’s death. After my program was broadcast yesterday, I received an email from a student at Tsinghua University. He told me: “Wang Ju, do you know why Peking University has no memorial activities?” He said that he did not know the specific situation at Peking University, but the students at Tsinghua had received a notice from the school’s Youth League Committee, prohibiting them from participating in any offline and online memorial activities. He guessed that the students at Peking University had also received the same notices. If there were no such notices, he believed that the students at Peking University, including the students at Tsinghua, would also have some memorial activities. So this also explains why Peking University only had a lone bouquet of flowers under the statue of Cai Yuanpei, because even this kind of memorial activity is almost a form of resistance. Because the school has explicitly told you not to mourn, if you send a bouquet of flowers and are discovered, you may be making a mistake.
So, can everyone see? In recent days, the memorial activities for Li Keqiang have presented an outwardly relaxed but inwardly tense situation. What does “outwardly relaxed but inwardly tense” mean? It means that on the surface, the activities to mourn Li Keqiang have not been interfered with, and no one will stop you from mourning, or no one will arrest you at the scene of the mourning, which is also a kind of gathering. But the so-called inner tension has two aspects. On the one hand, if you are within the system, almost all systems within the system have received notices that they cannot participate in online and offline memorial activities. Because you are a person managed by a unit, you have to think twice. Another aspect is aimed at the memorial activities themselves.
I also mentioned in my program yesterday that “blue vests” began to appear at the scene. These blue vests are actually urban management officers. These urban management officers at the scene are, on the one hand, maintaining order, and on the other hand, as I said yesterday, they have to set aside an area to drive away the flower sellers, which is to prevent the public’s emotions from gathering. But these blue vests also have a particularly important job. What is this job? It is to remove those memorial words with text in the middle of the scene. Everyone knows that those who go to the scene to mourn Li Keqiang, in addition to sending flowers, most people will write a memorial word next to them, so these memorial words are particularly dangerous.
The April Fifth Tiananmen Movement
Everyone knows that the “April Fifth Tiananmen Movement” started because of Zhou Enlai’s death, and the public went there to spontaneously mourn. At first, they only sent flowers, but as they sent flowers, some people began to write elegies, some people began to write poems, and some even began to write big-character posters, and then began to recite them at the scene. Ultimately, it was under the atmosphere of this kind of atmosphere and resonance that the April Fifth Tiananmen Movement was formed. Therefore, the Communist Party’s experience in dealing with this kind of mass movement, especially this kind of mass movement caused by the death of a political leader, should be said to be increasing. You can send flowers, sending flowers is no problem, but in addition to sending flowers, you should not speak nonsense, you should not write elegies casually. So now those urban management officers at the scene take away those memorial texts with elegies. As long as these elegies are all taken away, you are just flowers, if you are just flowers, although the relevant departments do not look happy, because you see, Li Keqiang, such a premier, so many people献鲜花, what do you mean, isn’t it just to give me eye drops, who can’t see it, but it can still be tolerated.
But those elegies became more and more outrageous. At first, they wrote about mourning Li Keqiang, some of Li Keqiang’s own words, what he said, and then they began to introduce Li Keqiang, began to evaluate this era, evaluate the past 10 years, who can’t see it. So in my opinion, these elegies in the process of mourning Li Keqiang have actually become a public expression wall for the public. We don’t have the opportunity to express our understanding of this era and our views on politics. So Li Keqiang’s elegies have become a disguised form of public expression.
Elegies: Carefully designed worship is vulnerable, heartfelt love is so touching
Among these expressions, the one that impressed me the most was one I saw yesterday. It said: “Carefully designed worship is vulnerable, heartfelt love is so touching.” I think these two sentences very accurately summarize the true feelings of the public in the process of mourning Li Keqiang. Let’s talk about the second half, “Heartfelt love is so touching.” Although Li Keqiang was not a particularly capable premier, he generally performed relatively close to the people, and he didn’t have much official airs, and he was also relatively clean. So the people’s love for such a political figure, the kind of love he showed, is from the heart. Think about it, no one forced them to send these flowers, no one organized and mobilized them to send them, didn’t the people spend their own money to send them to the scene one by one? In a society like China, if there is no organization and mobilization, this kind of interaction between the public and political figures can form such a great force, which can indeed show that the public’s feelings for Li Keqiang are from the heart, this is the first point.
Second, what does the first sentence mean, “Carefully designed worship is vulnerable”? Isn’t that talking about Xi Jinping? So today we want to talk about this sentence. Everyone knows that in the past two years, there has actually been some international commentary around Xi Jinping, that he is re-treading the path of personal worship that Mao Zedong took. There are several aspects of this, for example, the leaders of each session of the Communist Party will summarize their own theories and write them into the party constitution, such as Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of the Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, then it is Xi Jinping’s turn, of course he is also qualified to write his own thought into the party constitution.
At the 19th National Congress, Xi Jinping wrote his own thought into it, called “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, and this level is relatively high. First of all, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, in fact, their theories were written into the party constitution without their names. There are only two people with names, one is Mao Zedong and the other is Deng Xiaoping, and after that, they are not named, although it is said that it is the theory you invented, but Xi Jinping has a name, this is the first point.
Second, it is not only named, it is also called thought. You must know that in the Chinese discourse system, this thought is the most important. Deng Xiaoping is called theory, and theory is not as high as the level of thought. Then, Jiang Zemin, although it is called “Important Thought of the Three Represents”, but you must know that this thought is preceded by a very important adjective, “Three Represents” important thought. In other words, Jiang Zemin, you only have thought in this area, and you have no other thought. Then, Hu Jintao is called the Scientific Outlook on Development, “view”, it has become a point of view, and the level is even lower. But Xi Jinping is once again called thought, called the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. So think about it, Xi Jinping has obviously surpassed Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, and reached the level of Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong.
Xi Jinping’s personal worship
Not only did he write his characteristic thought into the party constitution, but he also carried out a series of activities, for example, he published a large number of “works”, the so-called works, such as “Selected Readings of Xi Jinping’s Works”, various books by Xi Jinping. If you look at the book rankings now, Xi Jinping now has many works, which is about the same as old Mao back then. There is also one, that is, Xi Jinping now not only has his characteristic socialist thought, but also has many kinds of thoughts now. Just a few days ago, didn’t they hold a “Xi Jinping’s Cultural Thought”, and formally put it forward, and all parts of the country are studying it. What is Xi Jinping’s cultural thought? I also took a look, it is to tell the Chinese story well, establish our own cultural confidence and China’s institutional confidence, and then establish our own right to speak when dealing with the West, and so on. In short, that’s the set.
Then, in the previous period, when they held the Selected Readings of Xi Jinping’s Works, Cai Qi was still saying that they should “enter the brain, enter the heart, and enter the soul”. We once made a program at that time, and these words made people think of old Mao back then, because in fact, these words and these practices are essentially combined with personal worship. So many people are worried that after you, Xi Jinping, have finished this cultural thought, you will engage in military thought, and then engage in diplomatic thought, and after you have done all these thoughts, you will naturally put forward a thought called Xi Jinping Thought. Because if you don’t have an adjective in front of it, you call it Xi Jinping Thought, that is to say, your theory is all-encompassing, you are a god, you are not an ordinary person.
Because now Jiang Zemin can only constitute thought in the three aspects of the Three Represents, and Deng Xiaoping can only be called theory. Once it is called Xi Jinping Thought, it is exactly the same as old Mao. What is old Mao? Old Mao is the all-encompassing founder of the Communist Party’s theory. Many people are so worried, will it come to this step, we don’t know.
First of all, I want to analyze such a problem, that is, why Xi Jinping wants to do these things. In my opinion, one very important reason here is to engage in a lifelong leadership, he actually has to engage in personal worship. Everyone can look back at history, didn’t old Mao actually engage in personal worship after the founding of the country? In fact, he started doing it in Yan’an, and the Seventh National Congress put forward Mao Zedong Thought. However, there was not such a direct connection between Mao Zedong Thought and personal worship. After the founding of the country, in fact, for a period of time, there were still restrictions and criticisms of old Mao within the party, especially after the failure of the Great Leap Forward, Liu Shaoqi, including other people within the party, believed that Mao Zedong had made such a rash mistake at that time. Didn’t he admit his mistakes and make a self-criticism at the Eighth National Congress? So old Mao’s authority, he is not completely, absolutely.
But in the end, he overthrew Liu Shaoqi and all those who questioned his power by engaging in the Cultural Revolution, and built a personal worship that reached its peak. Why did he engage in personal worship? He once said a sentence, he said, “Why did Khrushchev step down? It was because Khrushchev did not engage in personal worship.” Everyone knows that when Stalin was in power in the Soviet Union, Stalin’s personal worship was also at its peak. After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev came to power, and Khrushchev opposed Stalin’s personal worship. Therefore, he held a secret report at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As a result, after Khrushchev overthrew Stalin, he also removed his own political divinity, and eventually he was driven out by others. So old Mao believed that Khrushchev was actually lifting a rock to smash his own feet. If you engage in socialism, how can you not engage in personal worship?
So old Mao invented a theory, saying that personal worship is divided into two types: one is good personal worship, and the other is bad personal worship. Old Mao believed that your worship of me is good personal worship. You worship our enemies, or people we think are not good, that is called bad personal worship. So a huge personal worship against old Mao was launched all over the country, and this kind of personal worship is actually a kind of deification of power, that is, we cannot question this person, we cannot even criticize him. That is, we regard him as a species that is completely different from us ordinary people, because he is a god, he is different from us ordinary people, so you cannot restrict him, you cannot supervise him, you cannot even casually contact him, his information is completely isolated from ordinary people. What can this ensure? Ensure the absolutization of his power. In fact, the personal worship of all power holders is the act and process of deifying power. Because old Mao, it was through the various political worship and personal worship he carried out that he gained god-like power. Old Mao, I once said, he is the person with the greatest power among the feudal emperors of all dynasties in China. He not only enjoyed the absolute and unrestrained power enjoyed by feudal emperors, but also enjoyed the halo of the public’s worship of him.
So for the possessor of absolute power, the way he most easily thinks of consolidating power is personal worship.
But after Deng Xiaoping came to power, everyone knows that he broke the lifelong tenure of leading cadres, so the power holder does not need personal worship. Because personal worship emphasizes that you must be absolute, your power is absolute, and the obedience of others to you is also absolute. When your power enters a state of normal replacement, everyone serves for 10 years, and you retire when the time comes, and after retirement, you become an ordinary person, no longer the owner of power, personal worship naturally has no market.
But now the situation has changed again. After Xi Jinping came to power, as everyone knows, at the 20th National Congress, he officially began to serve his third term, and he has not made it clear how many terms he will serve in the future. The way it looks gives people the feeling that he is going to engage in a lifelong system. So he is facing a problem, he must build the legitimacy of his power. What is the legitimacy of this power? It is to change from a term system to a system that has absolute power and is always unconstrained and unchallenged. So what to do? The most effective way is to engage in personal worship. “Selected Readings of Xi Jinping’s Works”, “enter the brain, enter the heart, and enter the soul”, all these practices, in my opinion, are Xi Jinping’s attempt to build the process of deifying his own absolute power among ordinary people, including his party system.
Changes of the times
Then I would like to say a word, is this set effective? Can it achieve its effect? I personally think it is impossible, why? Because this era is already different from the era of old Mao. In the era of old Mao, first of all, it built an area of absolute information isolation between China and the outside world, which is a bit similar to North Korea today. Everyone can see that North Korea worships “Kim Jong-un” with added, we look at it as a joke. Why do ordinary people still have such an expression of cheers and shouts when they see “Kim Jong-un”? That is because their information is isolated. They live in an information island, they cannot see how politics in other countries works, they cannot see how the political figures in those countries are supervised. So he used that kind of information isolation to feed information, and built the power system of the Kim dynasty.
But can you do it in China today? You can’t. Because after all, after 40 years of reform and opening up, although our information has a so-called “firewall”, but this “wall” still has information exchange with the outside world. And in the past 40 years, everyone has also seen foreign leaders, how foreign political operations operate, how they run. They know that in a normal country, leaders cannot have a lifelong system. They know that in a normal country, leaders cannot be absolutely correct. They also know that in a normal country, political leaders should be subject to the constraints and supervision of the people. They also know that in a normal country, these so-called political leaders should not accept the worship of the people, on the contrary, they should be the protectors of the interests of the people. So this is the second point, in fact, after 40 years of enlightenment of reform and opening up, I think most of the Chinese people have awakened in their thinking. What does this awakening mean? It means that the relationship between ordinary people and political figures, as I just said, is not that the people prostrate themselves at the feet of political figures, but that political figures should seek welfare for the people, this relationship has penetrated into the bone marrow, almost every Chinese, especially the educated Chinese, has become their own consciousness.
So under this kind of cognition, it is difficult for you to engage in personal worship again. Because what does personal worship build? The relationship between you and political figures, as I just said, is a relationship between a god and a person. He is always more intelligent than you, he is always more correct than you, and you are always in a state of ignorant humility in front of him. But when the public has awakened, it can be said that it is more difficult than ascending to heaven if you want to rebuild this kind of state.
Because of this, in the memorial activities for Li Keqiang all over the country, the public wrote these two sentences: “Carefully designed worship is vulnerable, heartfelt love is so touching.” What does it mean? It means that no matter how much effort you spend to build the public’s personal worship of you now, although we have no way to express our dissatisfaction, or even disdain, in the information system you control, but as long as there is a little spark, as long as there is a little opportunity, you will find that your so-called “emperor’s new clothes” is really vulnerable. This is actually the most powerful shout of the public in the memorial activities for Li Keqiang.
From this, you can also know why the relevant departments have to take away these memorial words with text. Because these memorial words express the voice of the people, and this voice cannot be allowed to spread, it must be suppressed, and a so-called personal worship must be carefully rebuilt. However, in an awakened era, in my opinion, all of this
are in vain.
The people’s heart scale of political figures
In the final analysis, whether a political figure can be recognized or even loved by the public, in the current era, there is only one standard, that is, whether you are working for the welfare of the ordinary public during your term of office, rather than adding all the power to yourself as much as possible. When your term is up, do you transfer this power to others, rather than holding on to this power and not letting go, and if anyone wants to challenge you, you put the other party in a S place. I think this has become the basic consensus of modern political civilization.
You can imagine that we have also had that kind of worship of political strongmen in history, such as old Mao. When old Mao S, he was still holding power tightly in his hands, because he built a so-called deified scene through personal worship. But you can imagine, how many Chinese people now worship Mao Zedong, or respect Mao Zedong? Of course, I do not exclude that many people are still quite emotional about old Mao now, but in my opinion, that is also because the information itself is not particularly transparent. If, if you understand Mao Zedong’s arbitrary behavior during his term of office, and his ugly face of holding on to power and not letting go, or his cruel打击 of others in the political struggle, I believe that not many people will respect him from the bottom of their hearts.
I think that many political figures, in fact, when they seize these powers, on the one hand, may be for their own interests, but also want to pursue a historical positioning? But you can imagine, although you can protect your own power through this so-called careful personal worship when you are alive, but what about after you S? If you S after three hundred years, after two hundred years, when people evaluate you, they show complete disdain for you, or even contempt, do you think that you really have so much value in holding these powers today?
So in my opinion, the so-called “carefully designed personal worship is vulnerable”, is talking about the people’s heart is the most important scale in the current political process. Any political figure, even if you have the power that surpasses all institutional constraints, but you cannot win the people’s heart, cannot win the people’s recognition of you, all these political worship are really vulnerable.
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