Cultural Revolution in My Workplace

Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.

                    --Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Stray Birds, #248

When the Cultural Revolution began in the summer of 1966, I had already graduated from college and had been teaching English to part-time adult students in the province (Fujian province) through a radio and correspondence course for a couple of years. I liked my work of compiling reference materials for my unseen students and of doing Q&A (Questions & Answers) for them. I had wanted to go on with graduate studies, but had not been permitted to even sit for the examination. But I felt that I was just less qualified—not being discriminated against. As the offspring of a Red family, I did not experience the stress and strain of those elderly teachers who, having unfortunately been born earlier, had lived a number of years in the old society. Presumably they might have joined the Kuomintang, or might have been Kuomintang sympathizers, or at least might have been their ill-fated relatives or friends. Now that the Cultural Revolution had begun, old scores were to be settled. They had lengthy personal histories to recount, and endless written and oral confessions to make to the masses. One of the professed goals of the Cultural Revolution was to uncover hidden enemies of the revolution—those who might have joined counter-revolutionary organizations but had not admitted it, or those who had admitted it but had not transformed their minds thoroughly.

There were no more curriculum to learn or to teach. All day long, all week long, all year long, political discussion followed upon political discussion as one campaign evolved into another. The PLA (People's Liberation Army) men were sent to schools and institutions to control the movement. In other places, selected workers and "poor and lower-middle peasants" were called into schools to take up the role of "the leadership class."

When I was out touring the country as a Red Guard in November, 1966, I stopped in Shanghai to fulfill a long-cherished dream of seeing for myself this metropolis—the biggest city of China. There I read in a big-character poster about an interview between a group of Red Guards and officers from the reception office of the Central Military Commission. The army officers supported the Red Guards’ view that during "the unprecedented Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao’s personal sponsorship and direct command," everyone faced tests. Everyone, every Party Branch was to be tested. Not a single person, not a single organization could be exempted from suspicion. "This," the army officer stated, "is the mass movement. The masses love the Party, the masses love Chairman Mao. Out of their love for The Great Commander, they suspect you, they test you. You must stand the trial. It is a test of your attitude toward the Cultural Revolution, toward Chairman Mao—the great, great leader of the Chinese people, the red, red sun of the revolutionary peoples all over the world."

"Does it mean that we can suspect anyone, any directives?" a Red Guard asked. "Yes, everyone—except Chairman Mao and his close comrade-in-arms Lin Biao, and personnel trusted and dispatched by them." "It depends," the officer went on to elaborate, "from whose ‘headquarters’ they have been sent. You must obey every order coming from Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Headquarters, while you have every right to resist those coming from Counter-revolutionary Revisionist Headquarters."

That was November 1966. The Cultural Revolution had been going on for six months. It was being widely hinted that Liu Shao-qi, the State Chairman, and Deng Xiao-ping, the General Secretary of the Party Central Committee, were none other than "the biggest representatives of the Revisionist Headquarters" whom Chairman Mao had in mind when he published his own big-character poster "Bombard the Headquarters." Eight times in the past four months, Liu Shao-qi and Deng Xiao-ping, still in their capacity as "Party and state leaders," had dutifully joined Mao in Tian An Men Square in Beijing (Peking) in reviewing approximately twelve million "Chairman Mao’s little generals"—a complimentary title that Jiang Qing (Mao's wife) had just awarded the Red Guards. Both men little knew, perhaps, that, thus inspired, these "little generals" were to shout out "Down with Liu Shao-qi! Down with Deng Xiao-ping!" and triumphantly set out to "carry the Cultural Revolution to the end" in a tour of the country in which free food and transportation were provided at the expense of the state—a move known as 大串连( Great Liaison).

I used to be politically inactive. Born with a silver spoon in my mouth, that is, born into a Red family, I considered myself naturally revolutionary-oriented. I did not think that I had to make special efforts to win myself the status of an activist. I did not even join the Youth League in college because some League officials in my class had failed to impress me. Besides, it was the early 1960’s when, in an attempt to recover from the economic setbacks of the previous years, the leadership had created for itself a comparatively less tense and more conciliatory political atmosphere.

Now that the Cultural Revolution had begun, I, too, was filled with political passion. The repeated broadcasting and widespread brainstorming of Chairman Mao’s teachings were at work, and the nationwide political campaign was exerting an irresistible impact on the life and mind of every Chinese. I destroyed some of my books of classical literature and an imitation plaster bust of the Venus de Milo, having come to view them as bordering on the "Four-Old’s": old ideas, old customs, old culture, old habits. I was even considering destroying a valve radio that I had bought with my first salary, thinking it was a luxury such as revolutionaries were not supposed to own. Luckily, before I had laid hand on it with my hammer, the movement had shifted from being personal ideological reformation to, as Mao ordained, "screening enemies from friends." I did not have to be too hard on myself. The targets of the movement were untrustworthy elements of society. In this revolutionary movement, I was to join ranks with the moving force, not with the one being removed. It was, as I took it, a revolution to transform other people’s souls.

All faculty and staff were put into groups to embark on this enemy-finding assignment that went on almost every day. When night fell, the activists—Party members, League members and persons from Red families—were summoned for closed-door meetings to decide on steps to be taken the next day. The list of persons to be screened was proposed and discussed. Their personal data that had been kept in dossiers were disclosed so that we knew who had joined what organization in the pre-Liberation days, who had aired what views in the Hundred Flowers campaign of 1956-1957, whose father or grandfather had been a landlord, and whose relatives or friends had held unorthodox political views. During the night, big-character posters were prepared, written in Chinese ink on white paper. Early the next morning, they would be posted in conspicuous places on the campus, sometimes across long walls outside the street. The posters revealed the accused persons’ personal histories and their alleged counter-revolutionary background. Their crimes were listed one by one. Their names were written upside down or crossed out in red ink—traditional condemnation symbols for convicts heading to the execution ground.

Those whose names had been singled out in the posters became condemned persons whom everyone could attack. More posters would follow, both from those who knew them and from those who did not. Those who knew them would cite what the condemned persons were alleged to have said on one occasion or another—something, everything, that now turned out to be in opposition to Chairman Mao’s teachings, and was evidence of the accused persons’ counter-revolutionary nature. Those who had not known them before could make a study of those citations and say how infuriated they felt on reading such counter-revolutionary sayings. Extracts—fragmented, unconnected passages without context—were taken from their past writings (even if unpublished, or just personal diaries) or speeches (including what the accused allegedly said, even in a private conversation), and analyzed in the new light of Chairman Mao’s doctrines that had now inspired the broad revolutionary masses. The newly-found enemies’ homes would then be searched painstakingly with the aim of uncovering objects associated with, or reminiscent of, pre-Liberation days—souvenirs, KMT (Kuomintang) army uniforms, old photos, papers, clothes, etc., whose presence would prove the prophetic judgment of Mao that "as our enemies are still alive, their dreams of a restoration of the old society have not died out."

As days dragged on, more and more of yesterday’s colleagues and friends became living enemies who would then be kept in seclusion to write voluminous memoirs exposing and condemning themselves and their fellow sinners. I took part in my comrades-in-arms’ nightly preparations of the following morning’s surprise raids on remaining enemies. One night, however, I discovered that they were going to single out a lady staff member whose job was to sort mail sent by our students of English correspondence course. She used to bring the mail to our office and sometimes stayed to ask questions about the English language, which she was learning in her spare time. Now, because her husband’s father was still alive in Taiwan, the activists were going to charge her with attempted treason. Another lady in the same office who had been her friend and who had always appeared benign and considerate to everyone, now insisted that as English had little to do with her job, she must be learning that foreign thing in the hope of going abroad to join her Taiwanese father-in-law. I did not sign my name. I did not think that lady activist’s accusation justified, although I could not openly object to her accusation. In a mass campaign like this, the accused never got a chance to respond. If he or she ventured to respond, it would be taken as a bad attitude toward the revolutionary masses, and would meet with more fierce punishment. The most frequently quoted slogan in the circumstances would be: 坦白从宽，抗拒从严 (Confess, and you will be leniently treated; deny, and you will be severely punished.).

The next morning the poster was out, and the amateur English student was summoned before the daily group meeting began. "Wang Zhen-zhen!" the lady activist bellowed, addressing her yesterday’s friend by her full name (family name + given name), "from today on you cannot join us here. You must stay in the detention room to think of your past sins and repent. You must disclose your sinister intentions in learning a foreign language. You must give up your Taiwanese connections. Now get out! Out!!" In disgrace, the spare-time student retreated to the room where other problem persons had been kept. One more chair was removed from the office in which the revolutionary masses would continue their enemy-finding campaign.

That evening, I walked past the problem persons’ detention room and saw Wang Zhen-zhen staring into the four bulky volumes of Mao’s works with red swollen eyes. I went in and sat down in front of her. Smiling, I asked her how she was doing and told her to "have faith in the Party’s policy that no one will be wronged"; then I left, bidding her good night, to the astounded looks of her fellow sufferers. I was not unaware of the risk I was taking by paying her such a visit under such circumstances. Anyone whose name was publicly denounced became an outcast. He dared not speak to anyone, nor dared anyone speak to him. Even a nod could be taken as an expression of sympathy, if not as an act of collaboration, with the enemy. But I did not do it without second thoughts.

In the political atmosphere of China of those years, I, like many of my countrymen, had developed a shrewd political awareness. But as the son of a martyr, I felt secure enough not to have to impress people by showing off—not to have to be aggressively active, so to speak. Quite a number of people chose to pose as Leftists, for they feared that they might otherwise be regarded as Rightists. This perhaps accounted for the harshness of that gallant lady who had so mercilessly charged her friend, for she came from a family that had background problems of its own. But however ready she and her like might be to attack a defenseless person such as Wang Zhen-zhen, they might not find an easy target in me, for I had my strength.

In a society featuring class struggle as an underlying mechanism, everything had to be viewed from that perspective. "Never forget class struggle," Mao said. "Class struggle is the key to everything." Children’s illustrated books abounded with tales of ex-landlords, "capped" Rightists seeking every opportunity to ruin the brigade-owned crops or to murder farm animals. And if the son of a landlord quarreled with a lad whose father happened to be a poor peasant, the incident could be interpreted as an act of class retaliation. As it was, anyone would think twice before he set out to challenge the son of a martyr. Besides, I only said what had been carefully worded and measured. Wasn’t it true that she should "have faith in the Party’s policy?" I was just illuminating the Party’s policy to her, wasn’t I?

That was the year 1968. Whatever political passion I might have had about the Cultural Revolution had all gone, thanks to the PLA officers who, in that interview with the Red Guards that I had read about in Shanghai, had taken the trouble to unveil the true nature of the "two headquarters’ struggles within the Party." The criterion of a directive or a policy, then, would solely rest on its source rather than its soundness. Any directive from the "Revolutionary Headquarters" would have to be taken as it was, and executed unconditionally, whether—in Lin Biao’s words—"you feel puzzled or not." "Well," I asked myself, "how shall I know who’s from whose headquarters?" The Cultural Revolution had been officially interpreted as "a class struggle between two political lines: the proletarian and the bourgeois." If one did not wish to make "lineage" blunders, that is, did not wish to side with the wrong headquarters, he would have to find out local leaders’ political affinity or alliance before he could take sides. What was important was not what was said, but who said it. There would be no question of truth or falsehood, but lineage affiliation, or partisan identity. It was, after all, a struggle between rival factions, who fought for their own good, for their own political power—not for a just cause, as my father and his comrades had done. I knew better than to get involved in other people’s thirst for power.

So, as soon as armed fighting among rival factions broke out at the end of 1966, instead of associating myself with any of them, I cheerfully fled home to associate myself with various tools and machines for almost a good year, by which time the PLA men had been sent into most units to restore order, and I had come back to console my ex-student by saying those guarded graceful words. I did not see Wang Zhen-zhen in the detention room for a second time, for she was soon "liberated"—a term used when one who had been wronged was released. A document from the Central Party Committee had set a 5% percentage quota of persons to be detained and scrutinized. "Ninety-five percent of the masses are revolutionary and love Chairman Mao and the Party," the document stated.

Twelve years later I heard from her again. I was then teaching in a secondary school in my hometown while she was doing her old clerical work, but in a different college, and with her husband, who later became dean of the history department. I was not sure what other qualifications her husband had for that position, but I guess his Taiwanese connections might have helped. What was a curse to him and his wife a decade earlier could, under the new policy, turn out to be a blessing. Well, she wrote to me after she found where I was from an essay I published in an educational journal. She thanked me for that singular visit I had made in her time of fear and desertion. My brief visit gave her the signal that her detention was not necessarily a collective move and need not be taken too seriously. I had given her strength, it seemed.

Related Links:

• Photos of My Colleagues in Fuzhou
• 1966 in Beijing