Ma Sicong talked about his tribulations and abuses during the Cultural Revolution.
On May 16, 1966, the dreaded Cultural Revolution was unleashed on the Chinese people by the Despot, Mao Zedong. Central Conservatory of Music students put up posters for their Dean, Ma Sicong, at the end of May. Overnight, Ma Sicong became a target, branded a “bourgeois reactionary, “and was criticized by the regime.
Detained and force-fed deranged Party culture
In mid-June, Ma Sicong and more than 500 other well-known figures in the literary and art circles were held in a “socialist academy” on the outskirts of Beijing for intensive training and Marxist “re-education.” There, under the supervision of military control officers, they studied communist texts, changed their backward thinking, and wrote materials criticizing themselves and exposing others as “anti-Party” in words and deeds.
On the morning of August 3, more than 10 so-called “gangsters” from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, among them Ma Sicong, were escorted back to the academy to face repeated shock, criticism, excoriation, and humiliation.
When Ma Sicong got off the truck, a bucket of slime was poured over his head; a large-character newspaper was pasted on his body, and a tall paper hat with the words “Bull, Ghost, Snake” was crowned on his head. Two signs were hung on the front and back of his neck, with the words “Bourgeois Music Authority — Ma Sicong” written on the front and “Vampire” written on the back. To mock him further, a Red Guard shoved a broken enamel basin and a wooden stick into his hands, forcing him to bang on them as they marched him along.
One day, Ma Sicong was sent to pull weeds. A rebel yelled at him: “You deserve to pull grass! You are a horse and can only eat grass!” After saying this, he forced Ma Sicong to eat grass on the spot. Another time, some Red Guards threatened him with sharp knives and said: “You have to be honest! Otherwise, I’ll stab you with these knives!”
All doubts disappear — get out now and get out fast!
On the evening of August 14, rebels barged into Ma Sicong’s house to put up big-character posters, and the next day, they vilified Ma Sicong’s wife. Under these circumstances, with the help of the family chef, his wife and daughter left Beijing in panic, first to Nanjing, then to Shanghai, and then to Guangzhou. Fearing for the family’s lives, Ma Sicong’s wife decided that the family would flee to Hong Kong.
In November 1966, Ma Sicong’s liver disease relapsed, and he was allowed to return home. In late November, his daughter, Ma Ruixue, secretly returned to Beijing from Guangdong to discuss taking refuge in Hong Kong with her father.
Ma Sicong initially disagreed, but his daughter tried to persuade him for over two hours. Finally, Ma Sicong agreed to go to the south to recuperate first and look for an opportunity before taking further action. After that, with the help of his chef, Jia Junshan, and his acupuncturist, Ni Jingshan, Ma Sicong left Beijing in disguise and came to Guangzhou.
At that time, there was chaos everywhere in China, from Beijing to all parts of the country and Guangzhou. Ma Sicong was worried that if he continued to stay in mainland China, his life would be in danger, so he and his family fled to Hong Kong.
Regime alarmed by his escape to the U.S.
The news that Ma Sicong and his family fled to the United States alarmed the highest level of the Communist Party of China (CCP), and the incident was listed as a significant case.
In May 1967, the Ministry of Public Security and the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau established the “Ma Sicong Task Force.” After eight months of review, Ma Sicong’s escape was classified as “treason and defection.”
Dozens of Ma Sicong’s relatives in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Guangzhou were implicated. Five of the six members of his eldest brother Ma Siqi’s family were labeled as active counter-revolutionaries.
Ma Siqi and his wife were sentenced to surveillance; their eldest daughter, Ma Dihua, died tragically in the Shanghai Public Security Bureau detention center; the second son, Ma Yuliang, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and the youngest son, Ma Yuming was sentenced to eight years in prison. His second brother, Ma Siwu, a French professor at the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute, was brutally criticized and forced to commit suicide by jumping off a building.
When the news reached the United States, Ma Sicong wrote sadly and indignantly in his diary: “Are the people at home to blame for this catastrophe? What is the crime of my family? I am not immune to the loss of my family.” His younger sister, Ma Sisun, a piano professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, was locked up in the college’s basement for over a year “confessing and reflecting.”
His wife’s family faced pitiless revenge
None of the brothers of Ma Sicong’s wife, Wang Muli, escaped persecution. Her eldest brother, Wang Heng, spent eight years in prison, and her third brother, Wang Yougang, and his wife, He Qiong, were sentenced to five years. Ma Sicong’s acupuncturist, Ni Jingshan, was sentenced to eight years in prison, and his chef, Jia Junshan, was imprisoned for four years and tortured until he was disabled.
Incomprehensible slaughter and exodus of artists, scientists, and business leaders
A generation of literary, philosophical, artistic, and musical giants like Ma Sicong and many other great men and women of conscience were persecuted and fled; many more perished at the hands of the treacherous regime. This is an enormous tragedy and a significant loss to the Chinese high cultural and humanitarian tradition.
Ma Sicong, a native of Haifeng, Guangdong Province, studied twice in France in his early years and was an outstanding composer, violinist, and music educator in China in the 20th century. He is known as “The King of Violins.” His Nostalgia, composed in 1937, is one of the most famous pieces of 20th-century Chinese classical music.
Looking back on Ma Sicong’s life, he has had many creative achievements, along with 18 solo violin pieces, piano accompaniments, two violin concertos, two ballets, one opera, seven piano pieces, seven orchestral pieces, four choral pieces, and two solo pieces. His ability to continuously create many musical masterpieces without interruption is inseparable from his fortunate escape from the mainland during the Cultural Revolution.
On May 20, 1987, Ma Sicong died of pneumonia in a hospital in Philadelphia at the age of 75.
After being forced to flee in 1967, although the Party later “rehabilitated” him and repeatedly invited him to return to China, Ma Sicong never set foot on the soil of his motherland again.
The Chinese Communist Party tears out the soul of humanity
People in Western countries are ill-prepared and ill-equipped for the debt of deviousness of the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy. They are avowed Marxists, intent on destroying every government, every faith, every border, every family unit, and everything decent about humanity.
When they affirm these policies in words and deeds, people think they don’t mean it; it’s harmless talk, all bluster. The Chinese Communist Party is a foul, evil darkness that has befallen the entire planet. They are intent on undermining and ripping out the heart and soul of every country, every society, and every decent human being.
We should not look the other way and pretend that the Chinese Communist Party will disappear. We must raise the alarm and awareness and peacefully stand against it. The Book of Revelation warns that cowardice is the most deadly and grievous sin, even worse than murder.
See Part 1 here.
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