A Crusade Against the Corrupt Class

—Reading "Li Hong's Monologue" in Black and White

By Li Haixu, 2025

"Li Hong's Monologue" (Chapters 5 and 6 of Part 3, Volume 9 of Black and White) is a letter from the "goddess of vengeance" Li Hong to her good friend Gu Zheng. After reading it, one feels a stirring, heartrending sensation. The character's experiences and the theme of transformation run throughout, revealing the fighting spirit within human nature and the profound influence of social environment on individual destiny. It merits detailed analysis.

Marxism consistently emphasizes class struggle in society and the interaction between individual destiny and social environment. Without a corrupt social environment, revolutionary sparks cannot be born. Starting from social reality, we must first expose the bourgeoisie's behavior of constructing and stabilizing society through abstract concepts like "love" and "harmony." Individual development cannot be separated from social community, yet not all communities are conducive to promoting individual development. False communities are social communities established by a certain class for its own class interests in societies where classes exist. Such communities are "not only illusory for the ruled class, but also new shackles."

In Black and White, Li Hong experiences tremendous misfortune. After going through the torrent of social struggle, her family is destroyed and she herself suffers greatly. Under these circumstances, Li Hong develops a strong desire for revenge, yearning to make those who harmed her pay the price. This revenger psychology reflects the anger and helplessness produced by individuals when oppressed in their social environment, and also hints at the significant impact of social class differentiation and interest conflicts on personal destiny.

What kind of people develop this psychology? Combined with capitalist social reality, proletarians engage in high-pressure labor in factories every day, being expelled from the production system after exhausting their life vitality like machines—this comprehensively reflects the "making full use of things" in the capitalist production system. As the broad masses of people, regardless of what profession we currently pursue, have we ever imagined what kind of survival environment these workers' children and descendants face? As the most powerless broad proletariat, when their children desperately struggle for survival and ultimately harvest despair, batch after batch stepping onto the path of struggle, bourgeois moralists jump out to condemn and stigmatize them as thugs. What a ridiculous phenomenon! "Today's society vigorously protects people's spacious mansions while letting the poor live in the small huts they build themselves. Aren't all the various benefits of society enjoyed by the strong and rich? Aren't all the high-paying positions occupied by them? Aren't all the tax reduction and exemption regulations made for them? Isn't the exercise of government power biased toward their interests? When high-level people default on debts or engage in other fraudulent behavior, aren't they guaranteed to be fine and go unpunished? They abuse people with violence and even send assassins to murder others; aren't all these evil deeds minimized, and after a few months, dropped completely without anyone even mentioning them? However, if their property is stolen, won't all the police in the city mobilize, and won't innocent suspects suffer? When they pass through a dangerous place, aren't they protected by a large group of people? If their carriage axle breaks, aren't there many people competing to help? If someone makes noise at their door, won't everyone fall silent as soon as they speak? If someone blocks their path, don't they all step aside with just a wave of their hand? If a cart driver doesn't yield the road, what happens? Their two-legged servants immediately give that driver a severe beating. In their convoy, even if someone dies from exhaustion, no one is allowed to lag behind. All these benefits cost them not a penny; these are the rich's privileges, not needing to be exchanged for with wealth. How different is the poor's situation! The more society should show humanitarian concern for the poor, the more it ignores them, closing doors to them everywhere; even when they have the right to demand doors be opened, people don't open them, keeping them outside. Although they sometimes receive fair treatment, they expend more effort than the rich do to receive preferential treatment. Isn't this the current state of a class-based society?" (from Political Economy)

When the masses raise the revolutionary red flag, do the well-fed, pot-bellied vested interests who reap without sowing ever repent their actions? From this perspective, Li Hong's is not ordinary revenge, but a crusade against the corrupt class. Revolutionaries conduct this vengeful crusade from the people's standpoint. What revolutionary vanguards seek to collect is debt—the bloody facts of exploitation covered up by capitalists' sweet lies, shackle-like systems, and opinion blockades.

In this chapter of "Li Hong's Monologue," the antagonist Wu Bozhong, as one of the representatives of society's upper class, uses power and wealth to seek private gain for himself. Wu's behavior embodies the typical corruption phenomena that appear in capitalist society. His existence undoubtedly enriches Li Hong's character development and proves the collusive and sordid behavior of the privileged class. From a Marxist perspective, there exists irreconcilable interest conflict between the privileged class represented by Wu and the class represented by Li Hong—those framed by the privileged class. This conflict directly affects the characters' destinies and choices.

As a reader identifying with Li Hong's character, I deeply empathize with her. Facing family breakdown in loss and despair, "I" would similarly be willing to embark on the path of revenge, finding the value of existence in social struggle. Hatred doesn't arise from nothing; only by severing the social roots that produce hatred—that is, establishing a classless new world—is the only way out for the masses to equally enjoy happiness. The novel's portrayal of antagonists like Wu Bozhong also helps those of us from ordinary backgrounds recognize vested interests' behavior and the necessity of struggle.

Through Li Hong's monologue, we can see that Black and White employs Marxism's profound insight into social class struggle and individual destiny, rich and diverse character personality descriptions and the background stories behind their creation and interactions between characters, demonstrating historical materialism's methodology for understanding society, reminding us to pay attention to social class differentiation and interest conflicts, calling for the pursuit of social fairness and justice.

In this chapter, we can see that characters' psychology and behavior are constrained by social environment, and the conflicts and contradictions between them also inject new momentum for society's progress and development, showing us that only by truly standing with the people can we avoid being tainted by bourgeois interests, see all of society's ills clearly, and march forward with firm steps on the road of continuing revolution.