What of the Ringleaders, Chinese Ask About Cultural Revolution Case

BEIJING â€" It’s reminiscent, perhaps, of the trials of people accused of Nazi-era crimes, a John Demjanjuk, or a Samuel K.: in China this week, a man was tried for murdering a doctor during the Cultural Revolution, the China News Service reported.

A rare episode of justice for a neglected era Judging by a discussion on Chinese microblogs, ordinary people don’t necessarily see it just that way; rather, they are angry that a little guy, and not the masterminds of the violence, is being punished. What about the “ringleaders,” chief among them Mao Zedong, they are saying, often obliquely

According to the report, which was widely disseminated online via news aggregators and other sits, the defendant at the rare trial this week, in Ruian in Zhejiang province, was a 80-plus-year-old man identified only as Mr. Qiu. He strangled a Mr. Hong with a rope in 1967, on the orders of a civilian militia, which suspected Mr. Hong of spying for a rival militia, the report said. Mr. Qiu had been on the run for decades and was arrested last July.

(For an English-language account, see this article in the South China Morning Post, which may be behind a paywall.)

After the killing Mr. Qiu cut off Mr. Hong’s lower legs with a shovel “to make it easier to bury him,” and then he buried him, the report said.

Violence was common during the era: yesterday, I examined this painful time in a Letter from China and Rendezvous post about Ping Fu, the businesswoman who wrote a controversial memoir.

As I wrote in my Letter, to this day, the state tightly controls discussion about the era - when many got away with, literally, murder, including very senior officials. At least some netizens know it, and are pointing out the problem.

“Actually, the biggest criminals of the Cultural Revolution have not been held responsible,” wrote a person with the handle Keji huangdan menwei chuangxin. “To pursue an ordinary criminal, decades later, is absurd.”

“Have the main culprits who started the Cultural Revolution been punished” asked a person with the handle Sansu dage, who added an angry red face to the posting.

A_Jing wrote: “There should be mandatory courses in universities to talk clearly about the crimes against humanity during the Cultural Revolution!”

Wrote another: “All the cases from the Cultural Revolution should be tried.”

p>That’s extremely unlikely. A few key players were tried beginning in 1980, when Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife, and other members of the Gang of Four received lengthy sentences.

Yet, “I was Chairman Mao’s dog,” Ms. Jiang said in her defense. “Whomever he told me to bite, I bit.”