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Tan Hecheng
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The Killing Wind: A Chinese County's Descent into Madness during the Cultural Revolution

by Tan Hecheng (Author), Stacy Mosher (Author), Guo Jian (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 10 ratings
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Over the course of 66 days in 1967, more than 4,000 "class enemies"--including young children and the elderly--were murdered in Daoxian, a county in China's Hunan province. The killings spread to surrounding counties, resulting in a combined death toll of more than 9,000. Commonly known as the Daoxian massacre, the killings were one of many acts of so-called mass dictatorship and armed factional conflict that rocked China during the Cultural Revolution. However, in spite of the scope and brutality of the killings, there are few detailed accounts of mass killings in China's countryside during the Cultural Revolution's most tumultuous years.

Years after the massacre, journalist Tan Hecheng was sent to Daoxian to report on an official investigation into the killings. Tan was prevented from publishing his findings in China, but in 2010, he published the Chinese edition of The Killing Wind in Hong Kong. Tan's first-hand investigation of the atrocities, accumulated over the course of more than 20 years, blends his research with the recollections of survivors to provide a vivid account exploring how and why the massacre took place and describing its aftermath. Dispelling the heroic aura of class struggle, Tan reveals that most of the Daoxian massacre's victims were hard-working, peaceful members of the rural middle class blacklisted as landlords or rich peasants. Tan also describes how political pressure and brainwashing turned ordinary people into heartless killing machines.

More than a catalog of horrors, The Killing Wind is also a poignant meditation on memory, moral culpability, and the failure of the Chinese government to come to terms with the crimes of the Maoist era. By painting a detailed portrait of this massacre, Tan makes a broader argument about the long-term consequences of the Cultural Revolution, one of the most violent political movements of the twentieth century. A compelling testament to the victims and survivors of the Daoxian massacre, The Killing Wind is a monument to historical truth: one that fills an immense gap in our understanding of the Mao era, the Cultural Revolution, and the status of truth in contemporary China.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0190622520
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0190622527
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  4. Publication date
    January 11, 2017
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    6.1 x 1.8 x 9.3 inches
  7. Print length
    534 pages
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The author's documentation of the recollections culminates in a powerful chapter of interviews with surviving perpetrators many years later, who carry little to no remorse for the crimes." -- A. Cho, CHOICE

"The author's documentation of the recollections culminates in a powerful chapter of interviews with surviving perpetrators many years later, who carry little to no remorse for the crimes."--A. Cho, CHOICE

"The Killing Wind documents one of the most shocking atrocities during the Cultural Revolution. Tan Hecheng, a brave Chinese journalist, has risked his life to tell the world the truth about this crime against humanity perpetrated by a brutal totalitarian regime. This is a book those who want to preserve China's collective memory must read."--Minxin Pei, Tom and Margot Pritzker '72 Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College; author of China's Trapped Transition

"Politics can cause wars-we know that. But can politics also lead to mass murder? It did in the Holocaust, Pol Pot's killing fields, the Rwandan genocide. Where else? One case, from China in the late 1960s, is very hard to read about, and for two quite different reasons: for one, the Chinese government has done what it can to keep the story away from you; and second, once in your hands, you may find parts of it extremely difficult to get through."--Perry Link, University of California, Riverside

"The Killing Wind represents an important study and new scholarship. The analysis of the massacre at Daoxian, including its sociological and political dimensions, reveals the devastating human toll on ordinary people that has for too long been ignored about the Cultural Revolution and the making of the modern Chinese state."--Joyce Apsel, President of the Institute for Study of Genocide; Clinical Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies, New York University

"That we know the truth about Dao County is due to one person: a garrulous, stubborn, and emotional editor who stumbled over the story thirty years ago and decided that it was his fate to tell it. His name is Tan Hecheng...[The Killing Wind] is masterfully translated by the team of Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian."--The New York Review of Books

"It is hard to exaggerate the force of Chinese journalist Tan Hecheng's The Killing Wind... A truly remarkable testament to the ways in which Chinese historians, working within China, have been able, despite all the restrictions and restraints there, to write some of the most amazing, powerful material."--South China Morning Post

Book Description

A gripping insider account of a massacre in one town during China's Cultural Revolution

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (January 11, 2017)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 534 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0190622520
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0190622527
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 1.8 x 9.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 10 ratings

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Tan Hecheng

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
10 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kim Booker
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2017
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Fantastic
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Zofia
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2017
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Good book, educational reading..
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Top reviews from other countries

Scalam
4.0 out of 5 stars Why after 50 years is still diffficult to discuss the Cultural Revolution in China
Reviewed in Italy on January 19, 2017
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Very interesting report on the results of a Task Force inquiry (1984-86) on mass killings in a district of the Hunan Province during the Cultural Revolution. Were these killings accidental fall-outs in a civil war and spontaneous mass initiativesr or responsibilities existed among the local leaders?. At the end of the 70's the petitions of the families of the victims succeeded in gaining Hu Yaiobang's engagenent in trying to ensure redress and justice. But in vain: the liberal reformist attitude was short lived.. Only limited punishment of a small minority of responsibles was ensured (54 sentences under 10 years of prison) and the results of the enquiry were censored. The author, who, had been sent to report on the Task Force activitie,s had to publish this account on its own initiative, and expandend it with further research an interviews. If Tombstone was a major research on the disasters of the Great Leap Forward, this account is precious to explain the difficulties of seeking the truth in recent past events and to understand why it is still so difficult to discuss the Cultural Revolution in China.
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