Liu Wencai
Liu Wencai (Chinese刘文彩; * 1887, † October 17, 1949 ) was a landowner from the Chinese province of Sichuan and brother of the warlord Liu Wenhui. In communist propaganda of the Mao period, he was regarded as the archetype of the cruel exploiter of poor tenant farmers.
Life
Liu Wencai is considered one of the most colorful figures of the Sichuan Province in the time of the Chinese Republic ( 1911-1949 ). His father had been a small land owners and liquor distributors. He himself passed through patronage of influential family members to upscale administrative positions and had good relations with political, administrative and military. His peasants to Liu Wencai have cheated when submitting the lease so that they lived in permanent lease debt. To redeem this, they are forced to sell one's children have been forcibly recruited for military service or expelled from their homes. He also said to have had contacts with the underworld and religiously influenced secret societies. He died in 1949, shortly before the People's Liberation Army of the Communist Party of Sichuan occupied. In contrast to the frequent re- adjusted and as part of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s repeatedly " revised " version of the story he died in 1949 of natural causes.
Afterlife
Since the 1950s, designed the Communist Party propaganda Liu Wencai the archetypal arch-villain of the conquered feudal society. Publications with canonical stories of his evil deeds were spread across the country. Today, the truth of the traditional stories is difficult to assess and it remains unclear which facts were provided with propagandistic embellishments.
Long after the Cultural Revolution was Liu Wencai in China as arch-villain, to whose image was not to be shaken. When the Sichuan writer Xiao Shu 1999, his book " The True Story " by Liu Wencai ( Liu Wencai Zhenxiang ) published that draws a clear version of the official deviant, Liu's positive image, it was taken to the highest intervention go immediately from the market. And when in 2003 the Hong Kong Phoenix TV aired a positive television Portrait of Liu, the mission could not be repeated. Today in Chinese Internet forums will be held an extensive discussion about who Liu Wencai really was. The forbidden four years ago TV movie can be seen on the video portal of China's largest Internet service provider Sina.com online and Xiao Shu published a new, freely available book on Liu Wencai.
Since Liu Wencai still is a controversial historical figure in China, no independent research on his biography seems possible today.
Museum Anren
The superbly equipped residence of his family in Anren in a circle Dayi is now a museum with an extensive collection and one of the most important cultural monuments in the country, it houses among others the famous monumental statue group The Court Rent Collection, the Liu Wencais alleged malice in bright colors shows.