Between 1851 and 1864, China was convulsed by a civil war which led to the deaths of millions, and yet is little known outside of the country. The war resulted from the rise of a political-military movement opposing the ruling Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), known as the Taiping Tianguo, which translates as the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace" in English. The founder of Taiping Tianguo was Hong Xiuquan, a peasant who failed multiple times to pass the imperial civil service exam, thus thwarting his dream of becoming a government official. As a result of a series of dreams and reading a Christian missionary tract, Hong became convinced that he was the younger brother of Jesus, and had been chosen by God to overthrow the ruling dynasty and create a "Heavenly Kingdom" on earth. Thanks largely to their fanaticism and the leadership of a number of talented military commanders, the Taiping succeeded in gaining control of much of central China before finally being crushed. The conflict between the Taiping and the Qing Dynasty had an ethnic aspect to it, as the Qing emperors were not ethically Chinese but Manchus, while the Taiping and their supporters were Chinese. The story of the rise and fall of the Taiping is well described by American historian Stephen R. Platt in his book Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War, which I finished reading a number of weeks ago.
China's current rulers, the Communist Party, have long had an interest in the country's history, or perhaps more correctly, the "correct" interpretation of its history. This is due, at least in part, to the Communist Party's claim that its rule is the culmination of a series of inevitable historical events. Thus, perhaps not surprisingly, the Party has its own perspective on the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace." Ironically, despite its fervent atheism, the Chinese Communist Party has viewed the Taiping in a relatively positive light. This is because the Party views the Taiping as proto-Communists, due to their efforts to socialize land ownership, do away with private trade, and abolish "feudal" customs like foot-binding for women. As evidence of this positive assessment of the Taiping by the Chinese Communists, one need only read the caption to a picture that appears in Platt's book: "The Brave King [a Taiping military commander], depicted as a socialist superman on a contemporary frieze in Anqing.China." This favorable view of the Taiping contrasts dramatically with the Communist Party's usually negative view of anything relating to religion, as evidenced by its efforts to control and even suppress various religious communities, including the Falun Gong movement, Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and "house church" Christians.
Paradoxically, the reputation of Zeng Guofan, the Chinese general most responsible for defeating the Taiping, has experienced a dramatic reassessment in contemporary China. According to Platt:
General Zeng's legacy has followed a rocky course in modern China: reviled for generations as a traitor to his race for supporting the Manchu ruling house, he has lately been resurrected as a model of what it means to be Chinese--or, more specifically, what it means to be moral and strong and disciplined in a truly native and Confucian way, uninfluenced by the West. He is one of the most popular historical figures in China today, with dozens of books on his life and letters readily available at any airport bookstore. (Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War, p. xxv).
In other words, Zeng, the man who destroyed the Taiping's "proto-Communist" revolution, is somehow also a hero in today's Communist China--irony piled upon irony!
All of this just serves to show, I suppose, how putting history into an ideological straight-jacket can lead to some rather absurd results.
Image of Hong Xiuquan from Wikimedia Commons