“Mao’s Mountaineers”, a captivating story “in the heart of the ice struggle”

It is said that faith can move mountains. If biblical references were not common in Mao’s China, where people instead drank in quotes from the little red book, the quasi-religious fanaticism of mountaineers for the great Helmsman undoubtedly allowed them to climb to the highest peak on earth. But did Qu Yinhua, Wang Fuzhou and Gonpo really reach the 8848m altitude of Qomolangma (Chinese name of Everest) by its northern slope on the night of May 24 to 25, 1960? Cédric Gras, who investigated from Russian and Chinese sources, doubts and seems to us with so much implausibility the official account of this eminently political expedition. His last and fascinating work, Mao Mountaineers (Stock editions), retraces the conquest of the roof of the world in the light of the tumultuous history of a country subjected to the cult of its leader and to the benefits of the class struggle.

Propaganda and fabrications

We discovered three years ago the trajectory, between glory and decline, of the Abalakov brothers, valiant mountaineers who were victims of the Stalinist purges despite their feats of arms. While searching for the already captivating Stalin’s Mountaineers, Albert Londres Prize 2020, Cédric Gras had come across documents that related the training in the high mountains of Chinese novices by the Soviets in the 1950s. An astonishing story that piqued the curiosity of this fine connoisseur of the former USSR and surveyor of the Himalayan slopes. The difficulty in finding sources makes the task complex. But the release in 2019, for the national holiday, of the film The Climbers with Jackie Chan,”an ultrapatriotic turnip“never distributed in France that he was able to watch on the internet, convinced him to pick up the thread of an adventure which retraces, with forceful propaganda and fabrications, this first ascent of the North face of Everest. At least that is what what the official statement says…

“For Stalin’s Mountaineers, it was not too complicated since I speak Russian and I knew where to looksays the author, interviewed during a meeting on the occasion of the Adventure and Discovery Film Festival in Val d’Isère. For the Chinese, it was much more. Not only do we not have access to the archives, but we don’t even know if they exist. Despite everything, I gathered a lot of partly unpublished information, and a lot of testimonies from the Russians who had supervised the Chinese.”

Contacts dug up a text for him in the library of the equivalent of an Alpine Club in Sichuan. “A blessing“that this kind of autobiography of Liu Lianman, one of the protagonists, which gives too few details about his life, even if the 20 pages devoted to the 1960 expedition have been torn out. There is also a “highly confidential document“which reveals interesting technical details about the hardware and geopolitical considerations,”as the territorial claim of the southern valleys of Everest“, still a source of tension with neighboring India today. And then there are the press articles of the time and the accounts of expeditions, monuments of lyricism polluted by propaganda. “I became quite strong in exegesis of Maoist texts” laughs Cédric Gras.

A matter of state

It is very difficult to disentangle the true from the false in the beginnings of this Himalayan epic to be placed in a particular historical context. In the 1950s, ten of the fourteen peaks over 8000 meters were climbed one after the other. Among them, Everest, conquered in 1953, on the Nepalese side, by Tenzing and Hillary. The Soviets are lagging behind but they dream of it. By training, at home and then in the Himalayas, the very first Chinese mountaineers, they intend to give birth to a “socialist himalayanism“which will open the doors to a Tibet now forbidden to them. The disappearance of Irvine and Mallaury in 1924, without it being known whether the two Englishmen have reached the summit or not, offers the possibility of a first The date was set for March 1959, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the People’s Republic, but the Tibetan uprising at the same time decided otherwise.

On the Chinese side, the ambitions are quite different. It was a time of the “Great Leap Forward” and the forced march of the colonization of Tibet. Never mind the famine that is decimating the country. Taming the Qomolangma is “a matter of state” in which we invest huge sums. “Maoist Himalayanism is above all political and not the freedom of a Westerner who loves altitude“ writes the author. “It is not even just a matter of glory and patriotic achievement. It is a military conquest of a territory up to its most vertiginous eminences“.

The Tibetan rebellion put down in blood, the Chinese therefore set out alone in the spring of 1960. Trained in record time, Xu Jing, Liu Lianman, Wang Fuzhuou and their companions, carefully selected and loyal to the Party, will find themselves struggling with altitude, cold, frostbite and avalanches. These very inexperienced men are endowed with a “obstinacy“, of a “will to win” and a “sense of duty“Exceptional will remember their Russian trainers. They never share their personal feelings. They will face everything to try to carry the bust of their leader to the top and raise the red flag there.

Rather die than betray the Party

Rather die than abdicate, betray the Party and the expectations of the people will retain the official narrative, “full of gray areas“, bewildering episodes and tearful mantras that make you laugh. In addition to the inconsistencies, there is no proof, no photos even though the men really climbed very high. In China, there is no room for doubt.”They claim their victory and the steamroller of propaganda does the rest.” emphasizes Cédric Gras.

The epic of the Chinese Himalayas does not stop there. Last virgin 8000m, the Shishapangma was climbed in 1964. Everest remains in sight. But the whirlwind of great history invites itself again into the projects. With the Cultural Revolution sweeping through the country, there was no longer any question of expeditions. Most of the heroes of a mountaineering suddenly become useless, elitist and counter-revolutionary are sent to “study class”, like thousands of their compatriots, or rather to a humiliating “labor camp”, as the only one will recognize , years later, Xu Jing. After this particularly dark period, the desire for ascent resumed thanks to new political changes. And on May 26, 1975, better equipped, nine “comrades” reached the top of the world, without a doubt this time.

Of the first heroes, only Gonpo remains today, which persists in the official version. Cédric Gras did not wish to question him, he would certainly not have learned anything more. Despite the frustration of not having the end of the story, this Himalayan crusade which reads like an adventure novel is very rich and reveals an unknown part of the history of China today. now more than ever at the forefront of the international scene.

“Mao’s Mountaineers” by Cédric Gras, Stock editions

Cédric Gras will be this Sunday, April 23 at the Paris Book Fair, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on his publisher’s stand.