Commentary: In Mao’s China, They Even Monitored Talking in Your Sleep

When the recently deceased Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot sang, “I heard you talking in your sleep… from your lips there came that secret I was not supposed to know,” he was talking about marital infidelity.

Not long after Chairman Mao came to power in China, idealistic college students learned that political fidelity to Mao and the Communist Party was the most important virtue they needed to demonstrate. Party or Youth League members were present at every meal and in every dorm room. Historian Frank Dikötter described in his book The Tragedy of Liberation, “These Communists took notes on the day and night behaviour of every student. Even the words of a student talking in his sleep were recorded and considered for political significance.”

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