The Great Leap Dream to Surpass UK and US
All the political movements in the history textbooks in China are represented in a revolutionary and romantic fashion. For example, the “Great Leap Forward,” launched by Mao Zedong in 1958, was a four-year campaign that sought to push the country to exponentially increase its steel production while collectivizing agricultural farming. The goal was to “surpass Britain in 10 years and the U.S. in 15 years.”Slogans in the Great Leap Forward include “the size of harvest matches the degree of audacity; whatever imagined can be achieved; go all out, aim high; and achieve greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism.” It was a nationwide collective exercise in lying.
Exaggeration was taken as revolutionary, and one would be lagging behind and regarded as unpatriotic if one didn’t actively take part in the false, exaggerated, and empty business. The situation in Hong Kong today is no different from China at that time.
The result of the Great Leap Forward was national burnism, a man-made calamity euphemistically known as the three-year Great Famine leading to the unnatural death of up to 55 million mainland Chinese. It is only natural to cause massive deaths and national misfortune if a government truly thinks it can make up something out of nothing. In this case, targets were set, and the officials said that the targets were achieved but in actuality, they were not, leading to the depletion of food supplies and famine.
The above burnism in mainland China affected Hong Kong with the huge Chinese influx to this ex-colony, but the impact was relatively minor. However, to a regime that got used to burnism and romanticism, another catastrophe would not be far away.
‘Mao Zedong’s Red Book Is Invincible’
In 1967, as influenced by the China Cultural Revolution, the leftists in Hong Kong made up their minds to have their own riot against the Hong Kong government during British colonial rule. The then Hong Kong government had a hard time coping with it, to the extent that Britain thought of retreating from the colony.In August 1967, the British Hong Kong government ordered the closure of three minor leftist presses, causing fear and rumours in the leftist camp.
The leftists, from Xinhua News (CCP mouthpiece) leaders to the revolutionary masses in general, were all in a frenzy, from which we have many stories of revolutionary romanticism. One comes from the memoirs of Kam Yiu-yu, former editor-in-chief of Wen Wei Po news media (CCP mouthpiece), as follows:
One day in September of that year, Huang Guangyu, director of Xinhua News’ propaganda department, summoned Kam to a meeting and told him that the riot squad would soon besiege Wen Wei Po. Huang ordered Kam to “resist resolutely,” build a fire on the rooftop, and call on support from the revolutionary masses nearby to fight against the riot cops.
Kam expressed his doubt about the scheme. Huang instructed that the Wei Wei Po staff “cut down a few riot cops with iron water pipes, hoses, and axes, and they will be scared; then you will be able to cut a bloody path and join the vast sea of revolutionary masses, who will immediately protect you and let you win the final victory!”
Kam was taken aback by Huang’s instruction. “The riot cops have guns, so what if they discharge them?”
Huang’s answer was in line with the CCP’s usual romantic style. “You have Chairman Mao’s Red Book in your hands, so how dare they shoot? You have Mao Zedong Thought, which is invincible!”
