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Notes and Comments Ph.D. Dissertation

  • Writer: Bennie Wang
    Bennie Wang
  • May 21, 2022
  • 3 min read

Stepanic, Stanley Joseph. “The GULag and Laogai: A Comparative Study of Forced Labor through Camp Literature.” Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia. December 2012.


Groundbreaking dissertation on camp literature comparison

limitations: Few Chinese archives can be accessed


Research Topic and Purpose

Description of forced labor in Laogai,

Comparison of laogai literature and Gulag literature,

Attempt to answer the similarities and differences,

Emphasis on individual vs government relationship


Research Scope and Methodology

Interdisciplinary (literature & history ), Camp Literature comparison.

1) Ivan Solonevich’s The Soviet Paradise Lost

2) Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales

vs.

1) Bao Ruo-Wang’s (Jean Pasqualini) Prisoner of Mao

2) Harry Wu’s Bitter Winds.

( Apart from the two, there are other popular works, like A Single Tear by Wu Ningkun, Memory of Jiabiangou by Yang Xianhui discussed.)


Findings

“On the Chinese side, one can find a much more accepting narrator, who seems to view his situation as somehow necessary, whereas in the Soviet context the prisoner almost always condemns the government.”

“ [i]n Laogai, there is an overwhelming presence of the importance of ideology…and…Chinese prisoners…largely accept the political indoctrination that takes place and the political system behind it.”

p. 159 – 160 quotes from Harry Wu & Ruowang Bao, penetrating into the cultural tendency as an explanation.

I agree: though it’s relevant to find explanations in culture, institutional reasons might be more direct.


“China has a prison system with roots in forced labor. ”

Isn’t forced labor a common practice in prison in other cultures, even today? Shouldn’t a prisoner work for his food? The emphasis, as I see it, should be on the lack of due process and the mistreatment of the detainees.


“China’s Laogai still exists”(p.2)

The name of Laogai was changed into prison in 1992. And the content was changed as well. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, political prisoners and counter-revolutionaries accounted for a large part of Laogai. I’d prefer to discuss laogai in the narrower sense when it was called Laogai.


Does this cultural background make the Chinese more accepting of Laogai?

“The system itself either crushes the spirit of the individual, the cultural tendency to respect authority takes precedence, or a more likely combination of the two comes into play.” “[I]t should be clear at this point that the intensity of political indoctrination…is the major difference between Russian and Chinese camp life.”

I find no fault if cultural background or cultural mentality was taken as the reason, but I feel that the answers pertaining to the institution itself would be more convincing, in Deckwitz’s terms—the psychological function of Laogai.

Useful Sources

- Ruo-Wang, Bao, Prisoner of Mao, Coward, McGann & Geoghega, 1973.

- Tsetung, Mao, Quotations of Chairman Mao, Foreign Language Press (Peking), 1975.

- Williams, Philip F. and Wu, Yenna, Remolding and Resistance Among the Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp, Routledge, 2006.

- Wu, Hongda Harry, Bitter Winds, Wiley, 1995.

- Wu, Hongda Harry, Laogai: The Chinese GULag, Westview Press, 1992.

- Wu, Hongda Harry, Troublemaker, Newsmax.com, 2002.

- Zedong, Mao, Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao, The, Harvard Contemporary, 1989.


Literary Representatives after the Cultural Revolution

“Scar Literature”

Lu Xinhua: The Scar


“Prison Wall Literature”

Cong Weixi (22years in Laogai Camp)– Reddish Magnolia Blossoms Beneath the Prison

Wall,Into the Primordial Darkness (Autobiography about laogai)


Zhang Xianliang (21years in Laogai Camp)– Half Man is Woman, Getting Used to Dying, Agony is Wisdom


伤痕文学

卢新华:《伤痕》

大墙文学

丛维熙 (劳改22年):《大墙下的红玉兰》,《走向混沌》(个人劳改自传)

张贤亮(劳改21年):《男人的一半是女人》、《绿化树》

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