Raising Sheep on Wolf Milk: The Politics and Dangers of Misremembering the Past in China

Abstract After Mao died, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) decided that the CCP’s continued legitimation required a cover‐up of the crimes of the Mao era and a building of patriotic support for the ruling party based on a myth of how it saved the Chinese people from the savagery of imperialism, especially from Japanese invaders. Forgetting how much the Chinese people suffered from the horrors of the CCP’s Great Leap Forward, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, etc. and harping ceaselessly and vividly on how much good Chinese have been the innocent victims of barbarous foreigners has created among Chinese great anger and a popular desire for revenge that does not make the world safer.