At fourteen, a boy is caught up in the 1966 Cultural Revolution created by Chairman Mao to enforce the leader’s vision of Chinese ideology. Huge bands of children and young adults, known as The Red Guard, were persuaded to accept this concept and became involved in humiliating citizens accused of being counterrevolutionaries, school teachers of spreading anti-Mao propaganda, and any individual accused of individual thought or emotion. “Red Fire” is Wei Yang Chao’s memoir of his awakening after early, rather uncomfortable, participation in the madness.

At first, Wei was entranced by the concept and fervor behind this revolutionary behavior. But, after witnessing his family being subjected to “struggle sessions,” i.e. public humiliation and beatings, for their role as landowners that put them at odds with Mao’s mandated policies, he began to doubt his commitment. As time went on, his resistance to the radical behavior cast him as a pariah and he became an outcast in his own country. He was sent for re-education far from home and his family.

There is pathos in his story. The cruel and thoughtless actions of the controlled and witless devotees to Mao’s policies began to send vibrations of doubt and disgust through him until actual rage took over and he could no longer accept the mind control that swept China. The author’s confusion is obvious and one can only wonder how the revolution was ever accepted by the masses in the first place. But, as Wei explains it, “loyalty worked a kind of black magic in those years, and we were all of us thoroughly bewitched.”

As further explanation of the hypnotism of the nation during the Cultural
Revolution, the author tells of the massive “pilgrimages” of 1966, actually journeys to spread revolutionary ideas and to learn from one another, when a hundred million people went on the road to visit locations that served as a “sacred” base for revolutionary action. Although China is an atheist nation, Mao was considered a god and his mandates were blindly followed.

There is murkiness in this memoir that sometimes makes it hard to follow, but Wei forges ahead and drags the reader through struggles that even his own mind labored to comprehend.

The book is a vivid study of ruthless power and convoluted thinking that challenges the freedom of people everywhere. It’s a must read, particularly during this time of world disorder and division. Although the reader might still be perplexed at all the confusion, I strongly recommend reading it. It is very enlightening.