For Visitors, Graveyard Holds Memories of a Bloody Era (China)

One of the many unexpected things about the small graveyard here where Xi Qingsheng buried his mother during the mayhem of the Cultural Revolution is that it still exists.

The rusted front gate, locked for many years, opens into a walled cemetery that amounts to a time capsule from an era the Communist Party wants to forget. Revolutionary slogans, long since discredited, are etched onto huge, ornate tombstones, including the large concrete marker that Mr. Xi built for his mother when he was a teenager.

"It is my obligation to speak about this history," said Mr. Xi, now 54. "It is the Communist Party's crime. Of course, they don't want to talk about it. No one wants to talk about shameful things."

This year is the 40th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, a milestone that has met with official silence and only glancing attention in the state news media. Here in Chongqing, the industrial hub of central China, the obscure graveyard is one of the few reminders of the bloody fighting that erupted across the city between rival factions of Red Guards.