Revisiting the Dangers of Cultural Amnesia

Memories of the Cultural Revolution were invoked by Premier Wen Jiabao at a March press conference that closed the annual National People's Congress.

Speaking to reporters from home and abroad, Wen repeatedly urged his countrymen not to forget that the Cultural Revolution, which ended more than 30 years ago, still has a lingering impact on China's reform efforts.

He warned China's reform process has entered a critical stage. A failure to reform the political structure could mean "social and economic development achieved through reform over the past three decades may be lost, while new social problems may not be fundamentally resolved," the premier said.

"A tragedy like the Cultural Revolution may be repeated in the future," he said. "Every single responsible party member and government official should feel compelled by the urgency to spearhead reform."

The collective memory of a nation or a society can be affected by who controls power. Forcing people to forget the Cultural Revolution by imposing rigid regulations that permit only certain "positive" historical recollections has gradually reduced memories of the Cultural Revolution's national disaster to brief flashbacks of events during which only a few powerful elites were persecuted or tortured, even while society supported a noble, moral and snow-white spirit.