Red Azalea

Part 2 ends tragically as both Lu and Yan are punished so that Anchee can leave the farm and pursue her acting opportunity in Shanghai; Yan and Leopard end whatever inchoate romance exists between them; and Little Green, still experiencing mental distress, dies. These tragic ends suggest that The Pursuit of Freedom in this cultural environment comes with a heavy cost. For those who choose to embrace their own unique identities despite social and political oppression, The Pervasive Reach of Mao’s Propaganda becomes dangerous and, for some, absolutely lethal. Furthermore, complete fidelity to the Party becomes impossible when the power of rumor and false charges becomes systemic. If people lack individual personalities or a sense of agency, they also lack any basis upon which to fight charges and attacks against them. By the end of Part 2, Lu herself is ironically forced to face the same consequences that she has been so single-mindedly inflicting upon others.

These personal tragedies also take place within a larger and even more problematic context, for the farms that the government plans to use to both feed its followers and to emphasize the class struggle of the Cultural Revolution instead produce nothing but more hunger and famine. The distance between Party ideals and Party realities becomes clear in this particular section of the memoir, as Anchee notes that the farm itself is no more sustainable than a revolution that dehumanizes those in and out of power. The workers themselves pillage from the farm because they are unable to earn enough to feed themselves. Blaming their loss of crops on such peasants, Anchee nonetheless notes, “[the] salary I received was not enough to cover my food expenses, so in late evening I became a thief. I dug into the mud for beets, radishes and sweet potatoes” (111). Anchee also notes that the farms succeed only because of subsidies provided by the government. All 10 farms in the region, “with a total of over 200,000 city youth sent to work and live in the area, didn’t even grow enough food to feed themselves” (123). Because such farms cannot exist without government subsidies, these experiments demonstrate the harsh reality that the women’s revolutionary ideals are truly nothing more than a mirage.

As Lu’s open hostility spreads from Yan to include Anchee, Anchee notices the violence that drives this revolution, as the oppressive structures grind down personal identity and obviate individual agency. Recognizing the gulf between ideal and reality, Anchee realizes,”[T]he life we were living was our assigned future, just like our parents’: one job for a lifetime—a screw fixed on the revolutionary running machine, not until broken down does it pass” (135). As she considers her own miniscule place within the revolution, Anchee sees no option other than being worn down, unable to display her love for Yan or to pursue her freedom and identity.

The Cultural Revolution, with its emphasis on the proletariat and dismissive attitude toward the so-called bourgeois individual, inadvertently undercuts its own aims when special visitors come to the farm in search of authentic peasants to act in films designed to spread Mao’s propaganda. Seeking to dismantle the bourgeois influence on film by concentrating on actors who look the part of the proletariat, these visitors instead seem to produce more of that bourgeois behavior as the idea of landing an acting role causes the women to focus more intensely upon their physical appearance. Although Lu, ever the staunch supporter of the Cultural Revolution, lectures the women about the “invisible ideological enemies” (139) that surround them, she remains powerless to quell their desire to pursue fame and individual identity. Thus, it is clear that the workers push back implicitly against the invisibility and facelessness that the Party demands, for as Anchee states, “Lu’s lecture did not stop people’s movie-star fantasies. They wore their best clothes and made all kinds of excuses to go to the headquarters to pass by the windows of these unusual guests” (139). Thus, this section of the memoir demonstrates the complex interplay between Identity, Resilience, and Oppression in the Cultural Revolution.

When Anchee lands herself an acting role in Shanghai, Lu’s simmering resentment and distrust comes to a crescendo, and because she has marked both Yan and Anchee as enemies, she secretly complains first to Headquarters and then the film studio in an attempt to thwart Anchee’s good fortune. However, Yan triumphs over Lu’s false reports by recognizing the absurdity of the charges, embracing a strategy based on lies to defeat lies. In the absence of a solid and stable identity, only something as preposterous as a lie can defend Yan and Anchee, and so Yan tells Anchee that she “denied everything,” for she “had mastered the Party’s tricks” (147). Although Lu’s charges seem to turn the film studio against Anchee, Yan lies again in full view of the farm and manages to implicate Lu in an unbelievable crime. To accomplish this, she tricks Lu into following her to the brick factory and arranges for Anchee to return quickly with her own platoon, where they discover Yan and Lu in a compromising position. At this point, Lu realizes that she has fallen into a “trap in which two reactionaries had planned to murder a revolutionary” (154). Anchee observes that “anybody in the company who had a brain would not have believed for a minute that Yan would have a relationship with Lu” (154). However, because their Party supervisor does not view anyone as an individual, the Party’s habit of demolishing individual character leaves Lu open to her own charges. Ultimately, Yan and Lu both pay the price for Anchee to be able to go to Shanghai.