Chinese Museum Looks Back in Candor

"I deeply hope that people can face this period of history squarely and let people in China and the rest of the world see how China lived through this period of its history, and that they never will do anything so stupid again," he said.

Despite official nervousness over the museum, Peng said he had no desire to combat the Communist Party, which he served throughout a long career in the Shantou municipal government. "I don't want to undermine the party's credibility," he said before hanging up. "I just want to remind people that there is a better way to develop."

Peng used his experience as a city official to get public funding and business donations so the museum could be built. A temple-like, circular building surrounded by small monuments, commemorative steles and inscribed tombstones, the museum was constructed in the lush green hills of the Tashan Scenic Area, about 15 miles northeast of Shantou.

The central building is filled with hundreds of photos and drawings depicting events of the Cultural Revolution. Mao has been granted a place of prominence. So has Jiang Qing, a former actress and Mao's wife, who was a Gang of Four member until she and the other three were arrested in 1976 and put on trial.

But ordinary citizens also have their place. There are the Tsinghua University students photographed smiling and clapping as "capitalist roaders" are denounced at a political meeting during the 1960s. And there is the evocative portrait of Cheng Zhuoru, who headed the Shanghai Music Conservatory until she and her husband committed suicide because, according to an inscription, "they could no longer bear the humiliation and torture."

The granite slab that greets visitors heading for the main building has been inscribed with the official party verdict on the tumultuous period, handed down well after it ended: "History has clearly decided," it reads. "The Great Cultural Revolution was a mistake, put in motion by leaders, used by counterrevolutionary groups for their interests, causing turmoil that brought a serious disaster to the party, the country and the people."

Since it opened three months ago, a caretaker said, the museum has received about 100 visitors a day during the week and several hundred on weekends and holidays. The park where it stands, which also includes a lake and pagodas with a view of the city, has long welcomed several hundred thousand visitors a year.

Aside from schoolchildren escorted by their teachers, a caretaker said, most visitors have been middle-age Chinese eager to see a piece of their past. One, who signed himself "Wang Ping, a former Beijing Red Guard," wrote in a visitors' log that the museum offers Chinese a chance to embrace the bad parts of their history as well as the good.

"The Chinese people should take responsibility for their history, not only remember the glorious achievements, but also examine the shame," he wrote.

The visiting army officer, who declined to give his name because of the sensitivity surrounding the museum, said he had returned several times, bringing friends who, he said, deserved to know what happened when they were small children.

"We should get a clear picture of our history," said the officer, 56. "We must tell the next generation."

Researcher Zhang Jing contributed to this report.