This book is Gao Hua's next masterpiece after *How the Red Sun Rose*. It entails a selection of papers published by the author between 1988 and 2004, covering the fields of Republican history, Communist Party history, and contemporary Chinese history. It captures the historical interaction between the present and the past. Gao reflects deeply on the far-reaching Chinese Communist Revolution. With a rigorous and empirical research methodology, he sketches a complex and colorful picture of history, presenting the multiple facets of twentieth-century China's history.
<i>Spark</i> tells the story of a group of young intellectuals who risked their lives to voice their opinions about the Chinese Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s. Following the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1957, many intellectuals were branded as Rightists and banished to work and live in rural China. A group of students from Lanzhou University were among those sent to the countryside. There, they witnessed mass famine which resulted from government policies to collectivize agriculture and force industrialization in rural China. Shocked and angered by the government’s lack of response to the Great Famine, these students banded together to publish <i>Spark</i>, an underground magazine that sought to alert the Chinese population of the unfolding famine. The first issue, printed in 1960, included poems and articles analyzing the root causes of failed policies. However, as the first issue of <i>Spark</i> was mailed and the second issue was edited, many of these students, along with locals who supported the team, were arrested. Some of the key members of the publication were sentenced to life imprisonment and later executed, while others spent decades in labor camps.
In this 2014 documentary, Hu Jie uncovers the stories of the people involved in the publication of <i>Spark</i>. He conducts interviews with former members of the magazine who survived persecution, and also shows footage of the manuscripts of the magazine. A digital copy of the original manuscript of the first volume of <i>Spark</i> is also held on our website.
This film was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Chinese Documentary at the 2014 Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival and the Award of Excellence in the Asian Competition. Later, it won the Independent Spirit Award at the Beijing Independent Film Festival.
This book is a compilation of some of Gao Hua's speeches, book reviews, commentaries on current affairs, reviews of student papers, and lecture transcripts. It includes his studies and reflections on themes around revolution, civil war, and nationalism, his comments on the works of Long Yingtai, Wang Dingjun, and Mao Zedong, and his observations on Taiwan's social and political realities during his visits to Taiwan. In addition, the book contains a selection of Gao Hua's lecture notes on the theory and methodology of historiographical research, as well as on the production of official historical narratives and the development of folk history, enabling readers to gain further understanding of the philosophy and methodology behind Gao Hua’s research.
The book was published by Guangxi Normal University Press in November 2015 before the fourth anniversary of Gao Hua's death, for which the publisher was disciplined by the Central Propaganda Department and the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
