Class Restoration in "Black & White"
Viewing from Western Marxism points
By Xiao Bi
To sing and weep for the people, to bear witness to the era. Only after truly finishing "Black & White" did I grasp the meaning of these simple characters.
There are two major currents in Western Marxism: one is Phenomenological Existential Marxism, and the other is Semiotic Structuralist Marxism. In "Black & White," the characters representing the proletariat—Wang Sheng, Gu Zheng, Luo Zheng, Cheng Guojun, Old Principal, and others—embody the roles of existentialists in the tide of capitalist restoration and the working people being subjected to counter-attacks. They fight for an authentic life against a powerful structure; this is the existentialism in "Black & White."
Conversely, the characters representing the capitalist-roaders—such as Du Wei, Wu Bozhong, Lang Tao, Song Qiankun, Song Xiaofan, Ba Dong, and others—are the subjects revealed by structuralist Marxist critique. For example, the structure of the Du Wei-Wu Bozhong-Lang Tao trio in the capitalist restoration of Dongjiang, the structure between Ba Dong and Hong Taihang in the nationwide capitalist restoration, and the structure between Zong Da, Bai Shouhe, and Song Qiankun in the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution—all reveal the capitalist restoration from a structuralist social critical perspective. That is, the capitalist restoration first destroys the structure of our proletarian society, and then carries out restoration by forging its own structure. In "Black & White," this is embodied in Du Wei and Lang Tao's establishment of the Phoenix Island Entertainment Center and Hong Taihang's creation of the Beijing circle.
Wu Bozhong is a very typical image of a charlatan. He fully utilized the ideological trend of various feudal and capitalist ideologies after the reform and opening up, packaging himself as a master of traditional culture, and sowing seeds everywhere through the prevalent feudal concept of carrying on the family line. This involves a metaphor: Wu Bozhong sowing seeds everywhere actually metaphorically represents the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist ideologies spreading and blooming everywhere.
In terms of feudalism, capitalism, and revisionism, Wu Bozhong represents the feudal element. He created "Yuanji Gong," a mystical, pragmatic practice cloaked in traditional culture, becoming a cultural symbol. The cultural symbols created by Wu Bozhong are, in fact, the sayable parts of the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist ideological restoration. This means that on Phoenix Island, the capitalist restoration activities undertaken by Du Wei and Lang Tao were all conducted under the guise of "Yuanji Gong traditional culture." In other words, Yuanji Gong serves as a series of "sayable" symbols of debauchery on Phoenix Island, the glorious facade for Du Wei and Lang Tao's capitalist restoration.
The character Lang Tao is interesting. Lang Tao is a returned scholar with a doctorate, having studied Heidegger's existential philosophy in Germany. Heidegger in "Being and Time" ultimately arrives at the opposition between authenticity and inauthenticity. Authenticity faces death, while inauthenticity sinks into the world of the common man. Which choice did Lang Tao himself make? Lang Tao's own choice was to sink. As a Communist Party cadre obligated to the people, he nevertheless succumbed to the common people around him, such as his parents who arranged his marriage, and Du Wei who engaged in conspiracies. This shows that although he studied Heideggerianism, Heidegger merely served as a packaging for his dark, sunken inner self.
In terms of feudalism, capitalism, and revisionism, Lang Tao represents revisionism. He is a Communist Party member and cadre, yet not a Marxist. In practice, he conspired with Du Wei to create the Phoenix Island Entertainment Center, a dark and heavy base for capitalist restoration. Lang Tao wields power, holding a position of authority, and he constantly gives Du Wei the green light. Such cadres, who have completely lost the ideals and beliefs of a Communist, are the embodiment of revisionism.
The characters Wu Bozhong and Lang Tao, within the structure of capitalist restoration in Dongjiang, are both external forms, parts of the structure, but they do not fill the content of this grand restoration drama. Wu Bozhong is the "feudal" element, Lang Tao is the "revisionist" element, while the essence of the restoration is "capitalist" restoration.
Du Wei, a character whom the esteemed Elder Liu discussed in the afterword as "an utter 'bad guy'," is the center of the restoration structure in Dongjiang. Du Wei connects upwards with Song Qiankun, befriends Hong Taihang and Ba Dong in Beijing, has Wu Bozhong as his godfather (and biological father), maintains a long-term cooperative relationship with Lang Tao, and employs Li Hong (Xu Ke), who is adept at organizing the prostitution industry. One could say that Du Wei is the center of the relational structure of the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist restoration forces in this book.
Among the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist forces, Du Wei represents the capitalist element. As described by Elder Liu, Du Wei is an out-and-out villain who combines "profit-seeking, sycophancy, debauchery, ambition, unscrupulousness, and taking climbing to the top as his sole life creed." Du Wei's evil lies not only in presenting the form of evil, i.e., facilitating and organizing the restoration, but also in providing the content of evil. This content includes leading enterprises to go public and embark on the capitalist road, corrupting Party members and cadres, organizing prostitution, carving up state-owned property, and destroying martyrs' cemeteries. These actual evil deeds largely involved Du Wei. If Wu Bozhong represents the "sayable part" on Phoenix Island, then Du Wei represents the "unsayable part" of the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist forces in Dongjiang. This means that Wu Bozhong merely provided a form of restoration, a facade for restoration, while Du Wei genuinely provided the content of restoration, the essence of restoration, namely, the capitalist roaders coming to power, capitalist restoration, the suppression and persecution of the masses, and a small clique of feudal, capitalist, and revisionist forces getting rich by betraying the working people.
Du Wei is the nexus of form and content for the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist forces in the entire "Black & White." Wu Bozhong's Yuanji Gong provides the external form of restoration, and Lang Tao provides the representation of restoration within the Party. Wu Bozhong provides the "sayable" formal structure, and Lang Tao provides the "unsayable" formal structure, and the combination of these two forms and contents is completed in Du Wei.
Du Wei represents "capital." This means that although feudal forces returned, they could not re-implement their content after Chairman Mao's death. The same applies to the revisionist forces represented by Lang Tao. These two forces collectively imposed their forms onto the bourgeois forces represented by Du Wei, thus finally achieving the combination of form and content in restoration, and specifically, the combination of the "sayable" part represented by Wu Bozhong and the "unsayable" part represented by Lang Tao.
This is the structure that exists within the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist power relations in Dongjiang. In return, Du Wei provides Lang Tao with the "political achievements" needed for promotion and wealth, provides prostitutes to his godfather Wu Bozhong, and provides vast sums of money to the entire restoration syndicate. Even minor characters like Zhang Xin and Yan Kui are benefiting handsomely.
Such a structure can also be seen in the Hong Taihang-Ba Dong forces in Beijing. Ba Dong is the head of the Hurricane Group. Ba Dong's position can be likened to Wu Bozhong in Dongjiang—a legitimate, even glorious, external, sayable form. Hong Taihang's power and connections, however, come from his father, Hong Hu. Hong Hu, in the Hong-Ba forces, occupies Lang Tao's position (although Hong Hu himself is intellectually superior to Lang Tao, his position allows his power to be seized by his son Hong Taihang), i.e., power and the unsayable part. At this point, Hong Taihang is at the nexus of form (Ba Dong and Hong Hu) and content, similar to Du Wei. Hong Hu's power and Ba Dong's reputation can only penetrate the content of restoration through Hong Taihang's position.
This implies that Wu Bozhong and Lang Tao for the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist forces in Dongjiang, and Hong Hu and Ba Dong for the feudal, capitalist, and revisionist forces in Beijing, are all external and formal. The true substance is the content represented by Hong Taihang and Du Wei. Hong Taihang organizes the Yanshan Forum, where figures like General Manager Ma and Zhang Wuchang are present, subtly hinting at the large number of capitalists who have risen since the market economy, specifically billionaire capitalists. Du Wei, on the other hand, is single-mindedly pursuing company listings and assisting Lang Tao in acquiring Donggang Steel, essentially acting as a capitalist. The villains presented in "Black & White," led by Hong Taihang and Du Wei, are essentially one and the same: bourgeois restoration!
"Black & White" reveals nothing less than the restoration of the bourgeoisie. What does it mean "to sing and weep for the people"? It means singing and weeping for the tragic fate of the people in such a restoration, a mournful song full of lament! Cheng Guojun, Luo Zheng, Gu Xiaole, and Wang Sheng are imprisoned; Li Hong, Cheng Lei, Meng Fei, and others are forced into prostitution; the workers' leader A Mao is shot for resisting foreign capitalists; Wang Shengli's meticulously managed brick and tile factory is stolen by capitalist-roaders. These are just the tragic songs of some named characters in "Black & White." Even more tragic are the laid-off workers, the women forced into prostitution, and countless other socialist builders from the Mao Zedong era who shone brightly but were then persecuted!
What does it mean "to bear witness to the era"? Look at "scar literature," look at another so-called "realist" bestseller "The Ordinary World"—they praise this restoration, bearing false witness to the era of restoration. Now, "Black & White" also comes forth to bear witness, to bear "true" witness to this era. This truth and falsehood are not the truth and falsehood of revisionist traitors, capitalists, or landlords, but the truth and falsehood of the people themselves, the truth and falsehood of an era in which the people have lived!
Finally, let us read this passage from Elder Liu's afterword to "Black & White":
"Balzac said that a novel is the secret history of a nation. I would rather say that a novel is the testimony of an era. A novelist is not only the compiler of a nation's secret history but also ought to be a witness to the era. An ideal novel should strive to reveal the reality obscured, distorted, and emasculated by various dominant and popular discourses. Regarding reality, people of different positions have different understandings and perspectives. Therefore, not only so-called official histories and unofficial histories, but also novels, what they tell is not absolute objective history and reality, but a reflection and projection of the author's subjective stance. Thus, when people choose a certain angle to enter history and reality, they are also choosing a way to approach truth. 'Black & White' is also like this. I do not know whether I have achieved my ideal of a novel in this work, but one thing is certain: I have faithfully recorded everything I have seen, experienced, and thought. In this sense, it is not only a novel but also a testament of time."
January 24, 2025