Son of the Revolution

In Son of the Revolution, the movements and doctrines of the Cultural Revolution tear apart Liang’s family, and Liang witnesses many other families destroyed by this violent revolution as well. Liang learns early in his life that “there was no room for a personal life outside the one assigned to you by the Party” (29), and to the Party, not even the closest family relationships are sacred. 

The first casualty in Liang’s family unit is his mother, who, despite her own loyalty to the Party, becomes a victim of the Anti-Rightist Movement and receives a stain on her record she can never overcome. Father chooses loyalty to the Party over his wife, divorcing her and doing everything he can to keep his children away from her. Liang muses that “the Party had made us strangers to the woman who loved us more than anyone else in the whole world” (29). Though all three children visit Mother secretly a few times, Party doctrine eventually draws them away, especially Liang Fang. Though she goes to see Mother the most and loves her deeply, she “hate[s] herself” for doing so and resolves to “renounce all family ties” to “become a true Revolutionary” (38).