Nine Commentaries

Part 6d

In Part 6c, we heard that Lenin once said, “the easiest way to take a fortress is from within.” The CCP sent underground communist party members to infiltrate the Buddhist and Taoist religions directly, subvert them from within and transform them into secular organizations. In the 1950’s The Chinese Buddhist and the Taoist associations were founded. During that time, Buddhist spiritual precepts were abolished, and the religious associations declared that they would be under the leadership of the people’s government and implement government policies. Those remaining true Buddhist and Taoist monks who upheld the spiritual precepts were labeled as counter-revolutionaries, and classified as members of superstitious sects and secret societies. And, under the revolutionary slogan of “purifying the Buddhist and Taoists” they were imprisoned, forced to labor and even executed.Part 6d: Elimination of belief can often be more effective and long lasting than physical destruction alone. The thought reform movement initiated in 1951, Targeted intellectuals. The CCP required that college students and all teachers in every level of education confess their history so as to cleanse out any counter revolutionary elements. In 1957 Mao Zedong and the CCP called upon intellectuals to voice their criticism and offer suggestions to the party, promising no retaliation. But once people stepped forward to voice their views, they were labeled as rightists and the CCP began to humiliate, terrorize and murder them. Mao Zedong said, “what can Emperor Huang brag about? He killed 460 Confucian scholars, but we killed 46,000 intellectuals.”

Mao did more than just kill intellectuals, he destroyed their hearts and minds. In this way the traditional “scholarly class” – the exemplars of social morality – was obliterated.

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