Engineering Communist China: One Man's Story

ENGINEERING COMMUNIST CHINA

ENGINEERING COMMUNIST CHINA One Man’s Story

Youli Sun with Dan Ling

Algora Publishing New York

© 2003 by Algora Publishing. All Rights Reserved. www.algora.com No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976) may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 0-87586-240-3 (softcover) ISBN: 0-87586-241-1 (hardcover) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sun, You-Li, 1955Engineering Communist China : one man's story / by Youli Sun, with Dan Ling. p. cm. ISBN 0-87586-241-1 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-87586-240-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. China—Politics and government—1949- 2. Ling, Dan, 1933 or 4- I. Ling, Dan, 1933 or 4- II. Title. DS777.75S855 2003 951.05'092--dc21 2003011311

Printed in the United States

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

1

Chapter 1: Communist Victory

7

Chapter 2: The Tank Factory

21

Chapter 3: the Great Leap Forward (1)

33

Chapter 4: the Great Leap Forward (2)

45

Chapter 5. Arrest

59

Chapter 6: Detention Center

71

Chapter 7: Release

87

Chapter 8: The Yaohe Farm

95

Chapter 9: Beijing Interlude

103

Chapter 10: Black Commissar vs. Vicious Commissar

113

Chapter 11: Survival of the Fittest

125

Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands

135

Chapter 13: Village Life

151

Chapter 14: Bajia Village

167

Chapter 15: Blind Migrants

183

Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement

191

Chapter 17. Contract labor

207

Chapter 18: Mountain Clearing Team

219

Chapter 19: Exoneration

231

VII

PREFACE Since 1949, when the communists took over the country, Chinese society went through tremendous and fundamental changes. Many of these changes, such as the liberation of women, have become irreversible achievements that moved the nation forward. However, for the most part, the three decades from 1950 to 1980 marked a juvenile period of development characterized by enthusiastic inexperience, misguided overconfidence, political turmoil and oppression, with the Cultural Revolution standing as a stunning adolescent outburst. The Chinese communists convinced themselves of the absolute truth of their belief and noble purpose, very much like most millennial movements — the Puritans in New England, who were building a City on a Hill, or the French Revolution and Russian Revolution that were creating new epochs in human history. They viewed any other ideas, institutions and social practices as incompatible with their ultimate goals. Individuals who differed from the new social and political norms were by definition enemies of the state and deserved to be either locked up or socially “reformed.” Only after the passing of the Mao Zedong era did the communists under Deng Xiaoping mature and recognize flaws in the ideology-driven social and economic institutions. Now reforms, economic and, to a limited extent political, are transforming China into a society that would appall Karl Marx or Mao Zedong — they would think it was time for another revolution. During those radical and tumultuous years, how did Chinese citizens fare individually? People from different walks of life view this period from different perspectives. Some, in the early 21st century, will view the period positively and

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Engineering Communist China with nostalgia; others take a more negative view. Those who were imprisoned for one reason or another will certainly look at this part of history as regrettable, at best. Viewed as threats to the newly created utopian society, political prisoners fell victim to those ideological zealots in power who found it imperative and convenient to lock up subversive elements. This practice sparked protests in the West during the Cold War, for ideological reasons, and continued to be condemned after the Cold War as violations of human rights. In addition, the reform of the ideological and social misfits through hard labor has been controversial and is often criticized as harsh and inhumane, and also as an institution of slave labor. It is a formidable challenge to objectively describe China’s penal practice within the cultural and political contexts. It is especially difficult and complex for this period. For example, even the president of China and Mao’s successor, Liu Shaoqi, was not exempt from imprisonment and physical abuse. Most descriptions of the penal system tend to be political rather than historical and fail to take into consideration that the general conditions for China as a whole were dismal, not just for prisoners. For example, the societal attitude toward the use of violence as a correctional means was widely shared. Spanking children was a parental right, in fact it was the right thing to do, quite different to today’s America. Though there were rules on the books against institutionallysanctioned violence, people who administered the system only half-heartedly enforced them and they could not free themselves from the general social values of the day. Corruption was also prevalent. In spite of numerous executions of high officials for bribery and embezzlement, official corruption has been on the rise. The usual attacks on China’s penal system tend to oversimplify the complex social and cultural factors underlying these abuses. The Chinese government tends to regard international criticism as an affront to China’s national dignity. In a culture where saving face is so important, people simply do not expose their dirty laundry. As the popular saying goes, “domestic quarrels and disgrace should be kept within the family.” However, such criticism cannot be rejected out of hand, merely because it seems insensitive; criticizing the critics does nothing to disguise the fact that there are serious problems in the society. Chinese officials know very well that all kinds of abuses in the prison system exist and they could actually use the help of international community to make progress in the area of human rights. Instead, driven by patriotic emotions, the government sometimes ended up defending the indefensible.

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Preface Ironically, perhaps, the communists who created the current penal system, especially reform through labor, were the most idealistic people one could find in 20th-century China. As young cultural iconoclasts of the May 4th era, the communists vowed to rid China of both foreign imperialism and what they called feudal cultures and traditions. Torture and arbitrary applications of justice were part of the old system and unsuitable for a communist society. Yet, once they were convinced of their moral rectitude, the government leaders defined the world in black and white terms. There was right and wrong, but no middle ground. Compromise, held up as a virtue in American politics, was a dirty word that connotes selling out and betraying principles. Deviations from the prescribed norms of any kind would not be tolerated and the place for those who deviated was in the correctional facilities: prisons, labor farms, or work units. Today’s China is of course different from the fanatical years of the 1950s through 1970s. But many of the fundamental problems still persist. Designed to serve the grand, ideal society called communism, the penal practice became a means that justified the end. There is a growing literature in English on the subject of prison life, mostly written by former political prisoners: Yang Xiguang’s Captive Spirits, Pu Ning’s Red in Tooth and Claw, Wu Hongda’s Bitter Winds, Liu Zongren’s Hard Times, to name just a few. Though they were all exposés of prison abuses, Liu Zongren works now for the Chinese official magazine, China Today, in Beijing; Wu Hongda, known as Harry Wu, is an anti-communism crusader. Of the many scholarly books on the subject, the best is New Ghosts Old Ghosts by James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson. Though it focuses on China’s northwest, the book is very objective and refutes extremist claims like Harry Wu’s or apologetic arguments on both sides of the prison polemics. There have been many accounts of prison life in Chinese, as well. Some of the literature paints a 100 percent black picture of China’s system, as though the entire communist system was an evil totalitarian regime created by evil man to enslave the population. Such a simplistic view distorts the total and historical experiences of China. What they describe is not untrue; but they make part of the social and political experience to represent the whole; secondly, blinded by their own tinted glasses, they fail to see the obvious — that most communists intended to bring about an ideal society for the good of the people. Communism is perhaps the noblest idea one may find and that was why so many young people were attracted to it. But an absolute belief in one ideology leads

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Engineering Communist China logically to the persecution of any other idea, which is automatically considered heretical. I am no expert in this field. What I want to do here is to describe aspects of Chinese experience during these three tumultuous decades by focusing on an ordinary Chinese citizen, Dan Ling. Whether good or bad, beautiful or ugly, I will let the personal experiences speak for themselves. Dan’s adult life coincided with the life of the Peoples Republic of China. In 1949, he was a 15-year-old high school student in Beijing, and then a technician in a tank factory in the 1950s. Then he became a political prisoner in the 1960s who worked on a labor farm, and later in a village under the supervision of peasants. In the 1970s, Dan ventured out to China’s frontiers in the northeast trying to get away from the system. There he joined thousands of Chinese migrant workers and others who left their homes to “Brave the Guandong,” meaning to pioneer a new life in the harsh Northeast. During his 17 years of incarceration, Dan experienced all the political movements (though at the lowest level and as a social outcast, never on the outside as a full participant). He was arrested because he criticized the follies of the Great Leap Forward and made policy proposals to the state, suggesting measures to improve Chinese society. Instead of being rewarded for such an activist attitude, Dan was labeled a follower of Marshal Peng Dehuai, the defense minister who criticized Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward programs. Both of them were proven correct by history and yet both lost nearly 20 years of their freedom. Dan was finally exonerated when Deng Xiaoping came to power. He became an engineer again, in the Academy of Agricultural Machinery, and went into business for himself in the 1980s. I happened to meet Dan in 1999 during a trip to the mountains north of Beijing. I was deeply impressed with his life story, his youthful energy and his optimism after so many years of suffering. I offered to write up his story for the sake of history. There are books on this period that describe the lives of the highbrows; I hope this book will add something different with its depictions of the ordinary people, the lowbrows, and the life at the bottom of the heap. There is also an aspect of self-education. At the time Dan was arrested, I was not yet in elementary school. But I grew up during the Cultural Revolution and was familiar with the political and social institutions he worked under. In 1975, I was sent to a village, like most urban high school graduates, and was elected one of the production team leaders at the age of 19. For two years I worked among the peasants in a village near Beijing and had firsthand

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Preface knowledge of the rural life, the kind of artificial class structure and class struggles that Dan was subjected to. However, he was a class enemy — on the victim side, whereas I, though young and innocent, was on the ruling side, with the system. Dan shared with me the reminiscences he had written down for his young boy, now in the US. More important were the numerous conversations we had, recalling and discussing events of the past decades. He also gave me a copy of his policy proposal to the State Council, the proposal that cost him his freedom. In the collaborative effort of writing this book, I bear the responsibility for any mistakes, errors or mischaracterization of events.

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CHAPTER 1: COMMUNIST VICTORY Like many people in his generation in the 1940s, Dan grew up with an unshakable admiration for the Chinese communists. When Dan was in middle school, the Civil War between the Communists and the Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government was going on. To him and his friends, the communists were real folk heroes; they were called the Eight Route Army. The KMT (Kuomintang), or the Nationalist, government called them “the Communists Bandits.” Ironically the concept of the bandit, or outlaw, has also had a positive connotation throughout history, especially in times of popular discontent when a change of regime is desired. As often happens in folk legends, the outlaws were the good guys, fighting evil and corrupt government officials. Dan first came into contact with communists in 1947 when he was fourteen years old. That year, some Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members were arrested and imprisoned in a nearby courtyard in Dan’s alley. Dan’s family lived near Hou Hai, the Back Lake, in the northern part of Beijing. The neighborhood boys did not know if all of these political prisoners were real communists, but in their minds, they were. Sometimes the men were let out for a while and they gave boys like him haircuts. In spite of their status, these prisoners remained cheerful and optimistic, singing and putting on all kinds of shows and dramas. The boys were impressed; they often waited outside the courtyard for them to come out and play. Some of the prisoners were actually college students from the northeast provinces of China who were forced to leave their homes due to war. Once, they organized a big parade that passed in front of Dan’s house near Guang Hua Si, a temple that was still standing in those days. “Anti-hunger” and “Anti-Civil War”

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Engineering Communist China were the slogans. The demonstrators were met by gunshots and clubs. Many of the students were arrested. This left deep a deep impression on Dan and the people of Beijing. Dan and his friends idolized the communists; they believed that poor people had enough to eat in the communist areas and that people were happy because of the equal treatment they received. They learned that there were communists in the mountains west of Beijing, but did not know precisely where. Under the KMT rule, any connection to the communists was treated as a crime and meant serious punishment. However, the temptation to meet the communists was strong. One day, Dan and two other boys decided to go off and join the communists. They were too young to expect their parents to approve such a rash action. However, since the Sino-Japanese War started in 1937, there seemed to be a trend or fashion among idealist young students to join the CCP. Many college students actually made it to Yenan, the communist headquarters in northern Shenxi province. And so the three planned to take a few essentials from their families and slip away. In the end, one boy’s parents found out the plan and stopped him from going; but Dan and the other boy started their journey. They took some food, water and a knife. Outside the walled city of Beijing, there was nothing but farm fields and graveyards. There was no light of any kind in the evenings. Electric lights came to the city and the surrounding villages much later. Several miles into the countryside, the desolation began to seem spooky. Nonetheless, they continued their journey and made it as far as today’s Haidian area, where Beijing University is. They spent a night in a small village. Without any adult company and with a limited food supply, they gave up the next day. In spite of this misadventure, Dan’s enthusiasm for the communists remained unabated. People hated the KMT government for a variety of reasons, among them corruption and inflation. The word corruption in those days referred loosely to embezzlement, bribery and networking of officials who did favors for each other at public expense. (The exact same problems are just as rampant, if not more so, in contemporary China, half a century later). Although the KMT government did conduct the “crushing tiger” campaign, the effort to wipe out corruption, nothing had changed noticeably and the popular discontent with the government and the officials remained strong. Dan was too young to understand precisely what corruption entailed, but he felt the impact of inflation that inflicted heavy wounds on the population, rich and poor alike.

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Chapter 1: Communist Victory The KMT forced people to exchange silver dollars, gold bars, and other valuables for paper money. The paper money was deemed worthless. However, if anybody refused to follow the government instructions, they would be punished as communist saboteurs. Rising prices ate away people’s savings and their confidence. Dan’s family tried hard to buy and store grain to feed the five children; no matter what they did, they were always on the verge of starvation. Hatred of the KMT regime was naturally extended to its supporters, the Americans. Following the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, American soldiers appeared in the streets of Beijing in increasing numbers. As Dan and his neighbors perceived it, American GIs in Beijing did not behave very well. There were reports in the newspapers many times that American cars hit people in the streets. Dan saw one such incident with his own eyes. Near Xidan, an American GI was driving a truck very fast; swerving to avoid a trolley car, the truck hit a taxi tricycle, dragging it all the way onto the sidewalk. The tricycle driver was an old man. The onlookers thought he was dead. Somehow, he crawled out from underneath the truck, covered with blood. His legs broken, he reached out his hand, calling for help. His passenger, a well-dressed middle-aged man, was thrown some twenty yards and died instantly. The GI driver came out of the truck, blood on his forehead, and just stared, speechless. The KMT police would not dare to intervene or to investigate the case. For the first half of the 20th century, the term “foreigner” implied wealth, power and prestige, and foreigners formed an impervious privileged class in all colonial societies. Incidents like this fanned a hated of Americans for their arrogance and recklessness. In another incident, Dan’s nationalist pride was permanently and irrevocably insulted by foreign arrogance. Beijing, like any other city, had a bell tower, and it was located in the northern part of the city near Dan’s home. One day in front of the Bell Tower, two foreigners, most likely Americans, were taking pictures of Chinese children in ragged clothes. One of them suddenly took out a wad of paper money, actually not worth much, and tossed it into the sky. When children scrambled to catch the bills, the two foreigners happily snapped pictures of the amusing little scene. They did this repeatedly, obviously enjoying their superiority and ability to make lower beings scramble. To maintain his dignity, Dan cursed the two foreigners quietly and walked away, utterly humiliated. Soon after came the famous case of the Shen Chong Rape. A college student in Beijing was raped by an American GI. This widely reported case infuriated the Chinese people. The reaction to the rape and the hostile attitude in general

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Engineering Communist China contrasted sharply with the sense of gratitude towards Americans that had prevailed for almost half a century up until then. Americans were perceived as friends of China at all the key moments in modern history, especially during World War II — when the US was viewed almost as a savior and the GIs, as symbolized by the Flying Tigers, were heroes. In addition to normal Chinese feelings of nationalism, the US support for the unpopular KMT regime contributed to the decline of American popularity in the postwar years. In late 1948 and early 1949, the Chinese communists won many decisive battles during the ongoing civil war. Beijing was surrounded by the communist forces. Fu Zuoyin, the KMT general in charge of Beijing’s defense, cleared all the houses close to the city wall. Rumor had it that at the small airport located in the east part of the city two airplanes sat waiting, one for General Fu and the other for Liu Yaozhang, the principle of Dan’s middle school. At this time, the school was closed. It was being used as a hospital and convalescent home for wounded soldiers. There were wounded soldiers all over the city. Unlike the imprisoned communists, these people bullied everybody in the neighborhood and even the policemen were afraid of them. They seemed to gamble every day. The city was becoming a chaotic hell. Because of the food shortage, the KMT air force sometimes air-dropped food supplies and these soldiers would fight each other to get them — like wild animals, only with guns. Sometimes the sound of gunfire rang out all over the city. KMT propaganda machines capitalized on this and painted the communists as bandits who indiscriminately fired upon ordinary people. However, these assertions did not have much effect, as people firmly believed that communists would have to be better than the present government. One day, Dan went by the school after the random gunshots had died down. General Fu had surrendered the city to the communists after extensive negotiations. His forces were incorporated into the communist army and he accepted a high level post in the new government. Now, the wounded soldiers were gone from the school building and everything seemed to have returned to normal. The students were making all kinds of decorative materials: some were making flags; some were making star-shaped paper lanterns on frames made of sorghum stems. The People’s Liberation Army (the Eight Route Army’s new name) was about to enter the city and they were preparing to welcome the communist troops. When the much anticipated day came, the school cancelled all classes. Dan was given a triangular flag to carry. Students lined up and went to what is now

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Chapter 1: Communist Victory Xidan, a crossroad area a mile or so west of Tiananmen. There were thousands of people milling about. Dan and other students were pushed back and forth by the expectant crowd, and soon were separated. Dan was not a tall boy and he fought his way forward many times so that he could catch a glimpse of the People’s Liberation Army. However, he was always pushed back. His flag was torn to pieces and only the sorghum stem was left. When he saw that a trolley bus was halted nearby, he snuck inside. On that particular day, the conductor did not bother to check tickets, partly because he himself was busy looking around. Comfortably ensconced by the window, Dan saw the soldiers’ rifles with bayonets, bullet bands, shabby but neat uniforms: all items of boyhood admiration. He also noticed that there were no shoulder bars indicating rank, as in the KMT army. Excellent discipline was maintained, a sharp contrast to KMT soldiers who cursed all the time. The troops were marching northward from Xuanwumen and the exuberant crowds made a narrow alley for them to pass through. The passionate support for the communists was genuine in those days, totally unlike the organized crowds in later years — even though most people at this initial parade were also organized by various communist cells. At the end of the day, Dan and the others were totally exhausted and their legs could barely take them home; but this was an exhaustion linked not to hard labor but to joy. The next day, school started again. A new politics class was added to the curriculum and it was taught by a communist instructor. He was seen as a brave fellow who had risked his life for his political belief under the KMT rule. The KMT regime often killed people who were thought to be communists. The instructor explained in detail what communism was and why it would bring good life to the poor. In this class, the students behaved and thought that they had gained important new knowledge and new ideas. Marxism and Leninism also impressed these young minds as a science, and communism as something that was predestined to happen. Catchy new terms were introduced: class warfare, exploitation, revolution, liberation. Everybody learned to look up to the Soviet Big Brother (as it was called then), and learned that the Soviet Union today would be China’s tomorrow. For a long time, a question had lingered in the minds of the Chinese: Why was their country so far behind the others? The communists seemed to have explained it very well, pinning the blame on foreign imperialism and the wealthy class that exploited the masses of ordinary Chinese. A special phrase came into the vocabulary of these youngsters: “The three big mountains on the back of the Chinese people” — namely, imperialism, official

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Engineering Communist China capitalism, and China’s feudalism. The CCP represented the poor masses in the fight against these heavy mountains. Dan and his schoolmates were determined to follow the communists. His family was also poor, and he readily identified with the cause. It felt as though a new era had dawned. Dan followed the political instructor around and eagerly participated in communist activities, such as cleaning up Tiananmen Square in preparation for the founding ceremony of the Peoples’ Republic of China. The square was dirty, littered with trash, and overgrown with wild grass and errant trees. The surface was pitted and full of holes. Two tall walls stood right in front of the Tiananmen Tower Gate. On one Sunday morning, the students set to work energetically. The founding ceremony for the People’s Republic of China came on October 1, 1949. For Dan and his fellow students, it was a day they had looked forward to for months. The students were asked to meet at school at 2:00 AM so they could get to Tiananmen Square before dawn. Dan arrived early, having no clock and no intention of missing the occasion. He had to wait outside the gate, in the cold. When all the students came, they lined up and marched. Many other groups also went to the square in formation. It was very well organized, and despite a drizzle that began after dawn, people poured into the square. Dan and his friends were assigned to stand in a place that had not been leveled yet; it was dotted with deep pits. Nobody had expected rain, so they had no umbrellas or raincoats. They sheltered in these pits, cuddling together to be warm. Some students wanted to go home to fetch umbrellas, but were told that the rally would be over soon. Nobody at the time had any notion about big mass rallies, which later became the trademark of communist political campaigns; everyone waited patiently. When the ceremony formally started, the first speaker was Ye Jianying, a communist general and mayor of Beijing. Then came Mao Zedong, the communist leader whom everybody loved and wanted to see. When he spoke, the storm of applause lasted for a long, long time, and the crowd’s euphoria was palpable. This was the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Many people spoke at the rally. For the young people, the military parade that followed was the most exciting part of the day. Troops, tanks, and even airplanes were on display. Without food, drinks, or raincoats, people stood for more than ten hours. It was midnight by the time Dan got back home. Dan (and many others, no doubt) came down with something. His stomach ached and he developed diarrhea, which lasted for a month. Like most people

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Chapter 1: Communist Victory then, he could not afford to go to a doctor. People just tried to tough it out and let heaven decide their fate. By the time the whole family thought that he was going to die, a visitor gave his mother a folksy medicine prescription, the kind poor people have to rely on. Dan was to drink some sesame paste mixed with red sugar, then sit on a hot shoe sole for a long time. The sole was made of cotton cloth of several layers. After it was heated near the fire, it was placed under his seat. And for one reason or another, he was cured. Dan’s faith in communism was undaunted by this near-death misfortune. To hope and work for a better life meant supporting the communists. Dan’s faith in the CCP was further strengthened one day, when the political teacher took all the students to see a picture exhibition on Soviet life. Dan was particularly struck by a picture of a Soviet worker’s family. Parents and two children sat at a dinner table covered with good things he could only dream of: bread, eggs, fruits and many kinds of food he could not even name. His stomach grumbled. He had never seen such a luxurious dinner. He had never tasted apples or eggs. The political teacher said that it would take China about ten years to achieve that standard, if people worked hard; he assured the group that the Communist Party’s ultimate aim was to bring about a society where everybody would live like that. Dan had no idea how long “ten years” could be. Back at home, he exaggerated what he had seen at the exhibition and carried on like an expert on Soviet life, trying to win converts among his family and neighborhood. His parents’ reaction was cool — perhaps they’d had too many false hopes dashed, or perhaps their hard life had washed away their imaginations. Two of his younger brothers were captivated, however — their mouths watered. Dan did not omit to tell them they would all have to work hard for the next ten years, to get there. For a long time, Dan was a respected hero among the neighborhood boys. Dan discovered that four older students had joined the Communist Youth League, an organization that had just come to his attention. He sent in an application and was accepted as a member at the age of 15, younger than the norm. He participated in all activities and vehemently defended the communist cause against any skeptics and critics. At the time the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association was established, a huge debate took place among the students at the school. Some older students argued that the Soviet Union was not a good country. They had occupied China’s northeast and removed a lot of machinery to the Soviet Union. It was also charged that the Soviet soldiers had raped Chinese women during their

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Engineering Communist China occupation of the northeast provinces. These facts were well known at that time. But youthful ignorance and the promise of food won the day. Dan would not allow anybody to insult the Soviet Union; he fought and argued with other students, for days, and called these stories rumors from the KMT agents (who, indeed, spared no efforts to sabotage the new society). One day, students were dancing in the school yard and one chanted a folk rhyme: “poor, poor, every family poor; empty, empty, every family empty; selling tables and selling stools.” Dan jumped on these students and bitterly chastised them. That kind of song was heard rarely, in those days, compared to the songs and popular sayings that lauded the communists for their achievements. In 1949, as the communist forces were sweeping southern China, they needed educated people to establish and maintain new government institutions in the newly liberated areas. They were called communist “working teams.” Therefore, in the cities they already controlled, the communists set out to recruit and train qualified people. One propaganda song went like this: “Let’s march, march into the military school; young hearts are pumping for the new China; young hearts like fire, let’s follow Mao Zedong forward.” Many college students joined the southward movement of the troops, after several months training. Dan also wanted to join the army, as a member of these working teams. For one thing, it was glorious and much admired. Also, he realized that if he left home, there would be one fewer mouth to feed. Therefore, he followed older students to the recruiting station, a temple just outside of the western wall of the Beihai Park. It was crowded; perhaps these would be recruits had the same personal economic incentive as Dan. He told the recruiting officer that he was sixteen years old, but he replied: “My little brother, you are too young to be around here. Come back next year.” Many of his friends were accepted, though — including one tall fellow who had been especially close to him. Dan never saw him again, but heard from his family that he had participated in the land reforms movement in the south and was killed by “local bandits.” Hopes for a better society could not replace the poverty and harsh reality. This was the time that Dan’s family experienced the greatest difficulties. He was the oldest of five children; in that year one little sister and one brother had already died. His mother stayed home, taking care of the house and family. Father worked in Tangshan, a city about 100 miles away; he barely earned enough money to keep the family alive. In 1949, he lost his job and came back to Beijing. If there was little food before, now the family was in real trouble. One day, his father somehow got his hands on a sack of wheat flour and locked it in a

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Chapter 1: Communist Victory cabinet for fear others would rob it. Every day, the family had sorghum porridge — sorghum was the cheapest kind of grain around. They rarely ate vegetables or, certainly, fruit, and of course never any meat or eggs. They only had a kind of salted mustard root to go with the porridge, day in and day out. One of the neighbors was making good money selling herbal medicine at the Dongdian Airport (now an abandoned lot). Dan’s father had no money to launch such a business, but the good neighbor arranged to supply the herbal medicine for Dan’s father to sell in Zhangjiakou, a city 150 miles to the northwest. The profits were to be divided evenly between him and the neighbor. The family borrowed money from friends and bought a wreck of a used bicycle, and off Dan’s father went. On the day he was supposed to return from his first business trip, there was no sign of him. Two weeks later, the newspapers announced the frightening news that there was a plague in the Zhangjiakou area and the entire area was quarantined. Luckily, Dan’s father was not infected and eventually got home by breaking through the quarantine lines. He had indeed earned some money and was able to keep the hungry mouths fed, for the time being. After the quarantine was over, he made several more trips and the family was able to survive a few more months. By the time of the Korean War, Dan’s father (like innumerable other workers and students) was out of work again and the whole family was on the verge of starvation. The new government could not and did not provide for all of them. Finally, he was given a job because one of Dan’s cousins died as an officer in the communist army. Dan’s father was the next of kin. The local authorities asked him to collect his nephew’s body and have him buried in their native village. Dan’s youngest uncle, too, had lost a leg while fighting the Japanese and died as an Eight Route Army soldier: so Dan’s family was promoted to the status of relatives of revolutionary martyrs. Martyrdom carried with it glory and respect, but also material benefits and preferential treatment. The martyr’s relatives might be privileged, for example, with a job offer. And so, Dan’s father was given a job in the local government. Unfortunately, this job did not last very long. Like many families in Beijing, Dan’s native town was in the countryside in Hebei province. (Except the upper class, most people in Beijing have their roots in nearby country and in the peasant society.) At this difficult juncture, the government notified Dan’s father that his native village was going through land reforms and he might be given some land. With no other means of supporting his family, Dan’s father took all of

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Engineering Communist China them back to his village, leaving only Dan in Beijing to continue his schooling. The family was given eight and half mu (a little over an acre) of land, more than enough to keep a family alive. Dan was in high school by 1951. Unable to pay tuition or buy books, he had to quit school. A very determined young man, he decided to carry on his studies in the Beijing Public Library. There, he could use all the books for free and could even get free hot water on the second floor. With no distractions, he actually learned more than in school. He went through all the high school courses faster than his friends. Every day, he would take a piece of cheap steamed corn bread and a piece of salted mustard root as lunch. Malnutrition left him with dizziness and nose bleeds. Unable to go on that way, and worried about his family in the countryside, Dan tried to find a job. There was no money in the countryside, not even for kerosene or salt. In the library, to his surprise, the newspapers listed many jobs available in various government agencies and in business for people with a bit of education. He was interested in cars, so he headed over to the government agency called the Preparation Group for the Auto Industry, under the Ministry of Heavy Industry. There were not many government ministries in those days. Later, Heavy Industry was divided into several ministries. A certain Mr. Guoli was the head of the group; he later became chief engineer for the First Auto Factory. Chai Zemin was the second head; he became an ambassador to the US in the 1970s. The vice head was Meng Shaonung, an engineer who returned from the US and had once worked for Ford. In the same group there were many graduates from Qinghua University’s Department of Auto Engineering. The job of this agency was to lay the foundation for China’s automobile industry. Dan passed the exams and was accepted as a trainee. Dan was assigned to develop a specialty in design and metal materials dynamics. All the trainees also had to study the Russian language. Dan’s earnings astonished him: 160 jin millet per month. His father had never made that much. (A jin is a weight measurement slightly more than a pound. Millet, a type of grain, was used as measurement of income. At the beginning of the PRC, people were not actually given millet but used it as a price reference due to inflation. Every day the newspaper listed the price for millet and accordingly, people were paid paper money. Dan started off at 16,000 yuan a month. Later, the government made monetary reforms, in which 10,000 old yuan were exchanged for 1 new yuan.

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Chapter 1: Communist Victory By the end of 1951, there were economic problems, in part precipitated by the Korean War. There was also increasing corruption among the communist officials, who had used to live a simple and hard life in the country and now were enjoying their power and wealth. In the first month of 1952, the government decided to launch a campaign against tax evasion and other malpractice by private businesses. Another campaign was simultaneously carried out against communist corruption. As a Communist Youth League member, Dan dutifully took an active part in these campaigns to clean up the government and society. He joined a Beating Tiger Team at his work unit. (The term “Tiger” referred to any corrupt official who siphoned off funds for personal gain.) Such a Beating Tiger Team was organized in every government agency. Dan’s team was divided into several groups, each of which was given a specific task, to investigate and to supervise suspects, about whom they were given some kind of preliminary information. After analyzing the given material, they would then decide whom to suspend from work and to place under investigation. These suspected tigers were asked to confess their crimes: where, when and how much money they had embezzled. If their confessions were different from what the authorities knew, these individuals would be locked separately in small rooms, “to reflect and to explain the discrepancies.” They were also supposed to expose other tigers. At the auto industry group, Sheng Jingfang, a former KMT member who was employed as a manager because of his technical expertise, was thought to have stolen a special (and expensive) piece of material. Dan’s team was given a list of his crimes and told to question him at a meeting — that is, to attack and pressure him to tell everything. People screamed at the man, “Confess!” After his initial confession, people were still not satisfied. Dan and others had to “squeeze the toothpaste,” that is, to force more material out of the guilty party. After the meeting was over, Dan was also given the job of drawing cartoon pictures of corrupt people like Sheng. Another case involved an auto repair worker. He was suspected of pocketing some money during a business trip to the Northeast to buy wood. He was not allowed to go home and was publicly criticized. Later, he was released for lack of evidence. Everybody had to clear him or herself in this campaign and go through a thought-cleansing process, even every member of the Beating Tiger Team. Dan also had to report to the group any unsavory activities or even potentially harmful ideas. By so doing, people would be well-armed against corruption and

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Engineering Communist China have the strength not to be influenced by “bad elements” later. The whole group would sit together and help each other by pointing out problems and inconsistencies. In format, this was similar to modern day group therapy meetings. Younger participants sometimes laughed in these meetings; the boss would remind them to maintain a serious attitude. The Ministry of Heavy Industry held a huge “struggle rally” in Zhongshan Park. All suspects of serious crimes, the Big Tigers in the ministry, were dragged out there. Their crimes were publicly announced, and so were their punishments. A meeting of this sort normally lasted a whole morning or afternoon. It served as a public warning to anyone who dared to succumb to corruption or any unsavory behavior. Within the Beijing municipal government, the biggest tiger was Song Degui, an officer in the administrative division of the Public Safety Bureau. He was convicted of embezzling a huge sum of money, having an affair (with the wife of a former rich capitalist! and also with her daughter!), and being a drug addict — another major item on the list of social vices. Song was given the death penalty. Such a celebrated case was good material for Dan’s whole team. Every member would study it and use it as a guide for their investigative endeavors. In the nationwide campaign against corruption, the most famous case was Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, heads of communist governments in the city of Tienjin. Mao Zedong and other top leaders had them executed, despite past service to the communist cause, as a warning to government officials. In all, thousands of communist officials nationwide were exposed and punished and more than 40 received the death sentence. During this period, Dan and others in the campaign were told to study the tale of the peasant rebel Li Zicheng and his followers, who at the end of the Ming Dynasty in the 1640s overthrew the ruling dynasty. They were soon corrupted by the dazzling city lifestyle and lost the will to fight. Soon afterwards, they were defeated by the Manchus. Mao Zedong sought to avoid such a defeat among his followers. The communists were more determined than the previous KMT government in cracking down on corruption and “going soft,” and therefore they were both more effective and more appealing to recruits who hoped for an end to oppression from above. When Dan finished his training as an engineer, he and two others were given an opportunity to further their studies at a nearby university on a part time basis. He was elated. Even as a student, he was given part of his salary, almost enough to feed the whole family of five, so his family was able to move to Beijing

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Chapter 1: Communist Victory again. His parents carried with them all that they possessed: a bag of corn and a bag of sorghum. As a revolutionary martyr’s relative, Dan’s father was offered another job by the newly organized neighborhood committee. With their combined income, Dan’s family finally could live together and breathe a little, and his two brothers could go to school.

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CHAPTER 2: THE TANK FACTORY Dan aspired to become an auto designer like Yakovlev, the Russian engineer who rose up through the ranks and designed the best Soviet airplanes. In 1952, Dan was sent to what was called, on the outside, Harbin First Machinery Factory, and inside was known as Factory 674 under the Second Machinery Ministry. It was a large industrial enterprise designed to produce tanks, and employed about three thousand people. Dan was an assistant technician, the lowest ranking technical personnel, but this was the first rung on the ladder. Dan felt like the luckiest man in the world. He worked extremely hard, and as a single man he devoted every hour to work. At the factory, virtually in every workshop, there were Soviet advisers of military rank, majors and colonels, about thirty in all. The Chinese personnel, even the factory head, had to listen to the Soviet experts. These Russians were quite arrogant and were quite devoted skirt-chasers, much entertained by the White Russian women in town. Harbin was a place that still felt the old Russian influence in Manchuria. Since late 19th century, Russia had dominated this area. Only they had the right to build railroads, post offices, industrial plants, and mines. After the Russian Revolution, many wealthy Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks had come to stay in Harbin. During early 1930s, when Japan took over this area, the Russian influence subsided. However, the Soviet Red Army crushed the Japanese in August of 1945 and again occupied the area, albeit briefly. The Russians at Factory 674 were the elite in town, much envied by the Chinese population. In the first half of the 1950s, Sino-Soviet relations were at their best. The official media referred to the Soviet Union as Elder Brother and Soviet influences

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Engineering Communist China were felt everywhere. Even though Mao Zedong was in some conflict with Stalin, the Soviet leader was still deified in the minds of the common Chinese. Stalin came in fourth in the Chinese order of world communist icons, after Marx, Engels and Lenin. When he died in 1953, everybody was expected to mourn his death. About 2000 people from Factory 674 went to Nangang, part of Harbin city, to the Soviet Representative Office. It was a very cold day and snowing heavily. Because so many people went to mourn Stalin’s death, they had to take turns. Once again, Dan and his peers had to get up at 2:00 AM and hike to the scene. There, everyone had to bow to Stalin’s portrait and then quickly leave so that others waiting in a long line could also pay their respects. Factory 674 never really produced any tanks; it repaired damaged Soviet T34 models from the Korean War. Sometimes the damage was serious — maybe a big hole through the 50mm-thick front cover. Repairs were done as quickly as possible and the tanks came and went at night. In the factory, workers sometimes only had two hours of sleep a day. It was common in those days for employees to work extra long hours, willingly and with no complaint. People truly believed that they were building a new society and that socialism would soon bring them relative prosperity, like that which was enjoyed in the Soviet Union. The selfless spirit of devotion to a cause was very close to a religious belief. By contrast, the Soviet advisors worked an eighthour day. Dan convinced himself that the Russian comrades did not have to work hard because they were in communism already whereas China had a long way to go. Dan was promoted very rapidly, in part because of his technical capabilities and in part because of his devotion. His boss, who was known for his command of English, was transferred in 1955 to Baotou, a new city being built in Inner Mongolia on the north side of the Yellow River and next to the Mongolian Desert; he took Dan with him. The city was about 500 kilometers west of Beijing and about 200 km to the border with Outer Mongolia. Under the same government ministry, this new factory was being built from ground up, in the wilderness. Known internally as Factory 617, its public name was Inner Mongolia First Machinery Manufacturing Factory. This one did eventually manufacture tanks, T-54 five-speed tanks, which boasted a top speed of 120 km per hour; this was considered to be a fast, tough tank. All the factory equipment was imported from the Soviet Union. In fact, everything from the factory design to production equipment was Soviet work, and again the plant was full of Soviet technical experts. The factory later employed 30,000 people,

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Chapter 2: The Tank Factory but at the beginning only the technical people were sent, along with some laborers. The head of the factory, Guo Yun, was a 9th grade official; his rank was even higher than the mayor of Baotou, who was at 11th grade. The official ranking system was divided into 24 grades. Mao Zedong, the Communist Party chairman, Zhu De, the army chief, Zhou Enlai, the premier, for example, were given the first grade with a salary of 400 yuan per month. The 24th grade officials, the lowest, were paid about 30 yuan. Dan’s rank, 17th grade, was compensated at 99 yuan per month. One’s rank therefore meant one’s exact position in the Party apparatus and hence in the society. With each grade also came a different set of benefits. Just as work was about to begin, in 1955, a political campaign called the Anti-Hu Feng Campaign was launched — “the campaign to cleanse counterrevolutionaries.” Hu Feng was a leftist literary critic before 1949 and was a close friend of Lu Xun, the leftist writer lionized by Mao Zedong and the communists as the greatest revolutionary writer of China. An influential writer in his own right, Hu Feng was given high position and visibility in the new society. He was a communist, though not a formal member of the Communist Party. Hu wrote to Mao expressing the opinion that communist writers should be loyal to truth and real life; he criticized the requirement that writers follow rigid doctrines laid down by party officials. “Revolutionary realism” was a term all communists accepted as the guiding principle, but Hu Feng seemed to have an interpretation different from the official one approved by Mao Zedong. In his famous speech at Yenan Literary Conference. Mao demanded that literature should serve workers, peasants and soldiers, i.e., the revolutionary cause. He essentially treated literature as a propaganda tool for political purposes, whereas the naïve Hu Feng opposed any restraint on writers beyond those imposed by real life. Hu was branded a counter-revolutionary. Dan’s factory was not a cultural organization, but when orders came down to organize activities, they did so. Dan participated in meetings and read all the required newspaper articles, although most of the technical people had little interest. The most unpleasant part was that people were encouraged to tell on each other, to expose anyone who shared Hu Feng’s ideas. Misfortune did fall upon a number of individuals at the factory. One was a close friend of Dan’s, Zhang Ruisheng. He graduated from Qinghua University in 1951. In 1955, Zhang was the director of labs for the tank factory and was very popular among factory employees. He spoke fluent Russian and was held in high

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Engineering Communist China esteem for his technical expertise. Suddenly, three plainclothes policemen came to his room and searched it thoroughly. They found nothing incriminating. How could Zhang be a member of the Hu Feng Clique? Even though Zhang was the son of a wealthy Tianjin capitalist, he was a CCP party member. He had no interest in literary matters. He had openly sworn to betray his capitalist family and given allegiance to the Communist cause. And yet, nobody could protect him politically. When the police left, the factory held meetings condemning him and forcing him to reveal his “counter-revolutionary secrets.” The factory authorities justified the search and struggle against Zhang: he had once visited an airplane factory, and out of curiosity, measured the caliber of the machine gun on the plane — a pure engineer’s instinct. However, someone at the airplane factory reported him as a suspected spy for the KMT. Dan kept silent during the meetings attacking Zhang, partly because they were friends and partly because he was convinced of Zhang’s innocence. But most people shouted at him and called him a liar. Someone reported that Zhang had once complained about the food; such a complaint was treated as an antisocialist attitude. Zhang insisted on his innocence, and in the end his vehement denial paid off. After a long investigation, he was cleared and was later promoted to be a tank bureau head under Second Machinery Ministry, now called Weapons Ministry. In another case, a Qinghua University graduate and deputy director of the Casting Section nicknamed Long Neck He (his real name is He Changbai) was accused of being a secret agent of the KMT. Long Neck He used to be a mail inspector for a KMT post office. He was asked to confess to having opened letters from communists. In fact, he had simply been trying to earn some money as a mail inspector while he was a student. No criminal acts could be confirmed and he was freed. He later became deputy chief engineer for the whole tank factory. These campaigns were justified in the name of revolution, and most people did not really react very negatively. For a new government, just a few years old, the effort made some sense to the general public. Because its strategic importance, the tank factory had a large security apparatus of its own to safeguard its secrets and operations. People thought that China still faced espionage and sabotage by enemies of the revolution, the KMT in Taiwan and the US imperialists, and they cooperated for the sake of security. As a stable economy was restored by the mid 1950s, support for the regime was solidified. In most areas of China, the living standard kept rising. Dan’s

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Chapter 2: The Tank Factory salary went from some 30 yuan per month in 1951 to 99 yuan by 1956. From then onward, it stayed the same. In fact from then on, perhaps for the whole country, wage levels remained the same all the way to the 1980s. Wages for apprentices, beginning workers, were 20 some yuan per month. An apprentice would stay in that status for three years before attaining a wage of 40 and so on. A worker with the highest rank could get about 100. For people with a steady job and income, the 1950s were good. There was no inflation. In Baotou, plenty of simple consumer goods were in circulation. Food staples, such as wheat and corn flour, meat, eggs, vegetables, and chicken were cheap and plentiful. A dish of stir-fried fish was about 0.5 yuan at a restaurant and only about 0.20 yuan at the factory cafeteria. The best dish at a restaurant was stewed chicken, at 1.8 or so yuan; Dan often treated his subordinates to dinner. There were also plenty of cloth and clothing, too. Dan could buy everything he needed. There were no medical or housing expenses. Dan was truly enjoying life. It also seemed that the CCP was doing a very good job of organizing people according to their talents and abilities in order to build a successful society. Housing, albeit very simple or even primitive, was free. The lack of modern amenities did not bother most people and everybody seemed satisfied. The government provided housing not just for officials and technicians like Dan, but for most employees. There were different levels of housing benefits according to one’s ranks and marital status. With marriage, Dan would be entitled to a tworoom apartment. Instead, he went to share a room with two other engineers who were also single. Most workers were normally given one room, if they were married; dozens of singles had to share a big room. By the end of the Anti-Hu Feng Campaign in late 1955, the construction of the tank factory was completed. About 10,000 employees went there to work. By 1957, the number swelled to 30,000. This was one of army’s the biggest manufacturing facilities; everyone was proud of its position and importance in the society. Forming a huge military-industrial complex with the factory were the Baotou Steel Factory, Baotou Cannon Factory, Baotou Power Plant and the Mining Company, also designed by the Soviets. The mining company supplied the steel plant, which produced all kinds of steel for the tank and the cannon factories. The nearby power plant supplied electricity. Soon after the Anti-Hu Feng campaign, the government launched a similar one, called the Anti-Rightist Campaign. “Right” meant reactionaries and enemies of revolution; “Left” meant the opposite. The origin of this political

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Engineering Communist China campaign was almost comical. Following the Hungarian Revolt of 1956, Mao felt that the government was plagued by bureaucracy and complacency. To make the Communist Party more efficient, Mao decided to invite non-communists to criticize the ruling party. Confident in Mao and the new government, the noncommunists cooperated, unsuspectingly, in May 1957. But Mao did not appreciate the calls for true democracy and a change of regime; he soon ordered a nationwide crackdown, labeling these criticisms vicious attacks on socialism and tarring the people as Rightists, enemies of the state. Half a million people were punished, most of them sentenced to prison or at least deprived of their jobs. Although the Rightists were exonerated in the 1980s, that page in history represents one of the darkest hours of the PRC. Dan was just coming back from a business trip in the spring of 1957 when this campaign was announced. On fairly short notice, all officials, party members and Youth League members were called to a special meeting. Employees were encouraged to be present, as well. The meeting was moved outside because there were too many people. With loudspeakers mounted all around, the meeting began with a young woman reading out the Communist Party document. She was the chief of staff for the general manager and wife of Baotou’s mayor. In the political report she delivered, she called upon all employees to help the CCP by pointing out its mistakes and criticizing its abuses. The next day everybody was asked to lay out in concrete terms any problems and abuses they had found within the Communist Party and the government. For the most part, it was a dull meeting; few would really bother to raise any issues. Dan had followed the Communist Party faithfully, so far. He thought that the Party had done so much for the country that everybody should be grateful to it, and trust it to work out any imperfections. The nation was stronger than ever before; the Party punished its own corrupt elements; inflation was under control; there was no unemployment; the standard of living was still going up. The tank factory was proof of the Communist achievement: building a strong country that would never be bullied by foreign imperialists again. Most employees at the factory shared those sentiments; and few people at the factory had much understanding of political issues. Most of them were either engineers or ordinary workers, not politically or ideologically-oriented. Dan had work to do and was anxious to get to it; his boss understood that and did not ask him to say much. After a couple of days, however, the quiet meetings turned a bit more active. The factory leadership now had some material by which to guide the

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Chapter 2: The Tank Factory employees. In the newspapers, especially in the People’s Daily, the government published many articles inviting criticism. Famous intellectuals criticized the CCP’s monopoly and advocated political parties working together to redesign China’s political system. In Dan’s discussion group, people found the newspapers a good source of ideas and most of them simply echoed what was said there. In such a free and open atmosphere, a few employees did earnestly take part in discussions. Zheng Xiaoqian, one of Dan’s roommates and a graduate of Shanghai Communications University, was one of the most active. He came from a poor worker’s family and was also a Communist Youth League member. Another was Ding Decong, a graduate of the same university and also a Youth League member. They did not take on the national issues of democracy or corruption. Instead, they focused on what they knew about the factory. Specifically, they criticized the factory leadership for being too bureaucratic and for lack of efficiency. Two weeks into the campaign, a variety of opinions and criticisms had already been voiced. To spur more participation, the factory leadership suspended work, allowing people to talk about issues during normal working hours. It was also decided that opinions were to be written in big Chinese characters on paper that was glued to the walls. This format allowed opinions to be widely read and exchanged. Soon there were so many of these posters that more space had to be created. By early June, an important article entitled “Why is it?” suddenly appeared in the papers. While Dan did not know that this was actually drafted by Mao, to launch a counter-attack, he did know that the newspapers were organs of the Party and what they said always reflected the positions of the government. This article said something to the effect that during the past month, some people had taken advantage of the opportunity to criticize the Party and unleashed their plan to topple the government. It called on people to expose these anti-CCP elements, now labeled Rightists. Thus a campaign to criticize the Party was suddenly turned into an all-out attack on those who had offered the requested criticisms. People were shocked and baffled by such an about-face. Now, fear of retribution hung in the air. At various meetings small and large, the erstwhile activists refused to admit wrong-doing or any hatred of the CCP, but the pressures mounted. Eventually, most people chose to admit that they had made innocent mistakes in their opinions, while insisting that their intention was to

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Engineering Communist China help the Party, not to harm it. These people went through a lot of pain to prove themselves. They had to stand on chairs or tables in the meetings, facing hostile crowds. Some were locked in small rooms to reflect and others were put under the supervision of co-workers at the factory. Dan had not said much and therefore was not a target. But his situation was worse — he was asked to tell on others. One day, the secretary of the Youth League, Zhao Chunbi, called Dan to his office. Dan was reminded that it was his duty to defend the Party and the only way to show loyalty was to expose antiParty plots. Zhao was a party member and he told Dan that the Party organization was considering giving him a Communist Party membership. And he had somehow learned that Dan’s roommate and friend, Zheng Xiaoqian, had written against the Party committee and factory management. Party membership promised many benefits: fast promotion, salary raises, city residence permits for those coming in from the rural areas. But Dan was a technical person with no political ambitions, and very satisfied with his salary. But Zhao was about to call a meeting of the Youth League members and declare Zheng Xiaoqian a Rightist. He would need people like Dan to provide evidence at the meeting and also to persuade Zheng to confess. That would make the whole process legitimate and convincing to others. Dan knew that Zheng was no Rightist; he was as loyal to the Communist Party as Dan was. In the afternoon meeting, several thousand Youth League members and the young employees were present. Following the opening remarks, Zhao Chunbi grabbed the collar of Zheng’s jacket and forced him to stand on a stool to confess. Dan’s friend confronted the accusations directed against him. Regardless of what he said, Zheng was given the title of Rightist and thrown out of the Youth League. For the next twenty days or so, he went through the cruel ritual of being attacked at various meetings. Gradually, most people became thoroughly tired of all this, and few had anything left to say at these meetings. In the end, these meetings almost became a one-man show led by a pockmarked man (nicknamed Pockmark), who sought to advance his own political ambitions by taking an activist role. Pockmark was a short man, whose disfigured face held him back socially; he worked in the same department as Zheng and Dan. He volunteered to tell the Youth League head what were supposedly Zheng’s anti-party ideas. To the dismay of most people, Pockmark waved his fist and shouted slogans against Zheng at every opportunity, especially after Zheng’s rebuttal. Almost every day, Pockmark would lead a group of young people to drag Zheng out of his dorm

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Chapter 2: The Tank Factory and apply pressure. Under such circumstances, Dan’s friend eventually admitted to anti-party crimes. The Rightists were classified into three kinds. The most serious offenders were sent to prison or labor camps; the second type were sent to the countryside to work under the supervision of primitive peasants; the third kind, considered less dangerous, remained under surveillance at the factory and were given the lowest wage. Fortunately for Zheng, the Party Secretary perhaps regarded his confessions as too far-fetched or not credible; or, possibly, he wanted to protect an innocent young engineer. In any case, he called Zheng into his office and had long conversation during which he asked Zheng to be grateful to the Party for forgiving his mistakes; he was not called a Rightist but was allowed to stay on his former job. Pockmark did benefit from the campaign. He was promoted and given a Communist Party membership because of his “outstanding” political performance and loyalty to the Party. Proud of his new status, he took to trotting around with his head held high and a sneer on his face. Did he not know that he was despised even more than before? The political campaigns seemed endless during the fifty years of the PRC. Barely a year had passed when, in the summer of 1958, another similar but short campaign was started. It was called “Daming Dafang” (Speaking Out), again calling on people to point out any problems in the Party and government. Memories were still vivid of outspoken people being crushed as Rightists. Who would dare to speak out again? Knowing the widespread fears too well, Chen Zhixiang, the Party Secretary at the factory, personally delivered a speech to the factory employees and made a distinction between the anti-Rightist campaign and the Speaking Out campaign. Rightists wanted to overthrow the Communist Party. But this Speaking Out campaign was among the working class members themselves, so that the society and the factory’s work could be improved. Every Communist Party member and every employee should participate. The party secretary further guaranteed that there would be no retaliation against any participant, no matter how severe the criticism. Even after such a solemn guarantee, few people spoke up in the first a few days. They were very awkward and embarrassing occasions for everyone, especially for the factory leaders. Consequently, they increased pressure on the whole factory and put the point very bluntly: If you love the Party, you should point out its problems. Everybody had to speak, party members first, then Youth League members, and then the rest.

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Engineering Communist China The leadership again encouraged people to use the big character posters as a means to raise issues. Several days after the first speech, many such posters appeared on the walls outside the factory management offices. Section chiefs were required to take their employees to these walls. After careful consideration, Dan chose to mention some problems related to factory work, rather than talking about social or political problems of the society at large. Inefficiency and redundancy of factory personnel, Dan argued, could be corrected for the benefit of all. First, there were too many officials and too many layers of leadership in various posts. (At the top were the Party committees, at the factory level and in different units; the second layer represented factory managers.) In addition, there were Youth League leaders, Labor Union leaders, the Women’s Association Office, etc. The same situation prevailed among the technical people. The ranks of the bureaucracy and technocrats had swelled to three or four times more than necessary. Not only was there not much for these individuals to do, but they often engaged in bitter rivalries. A section might have two chiefs, a party secretary and a manager, dueling each other and constantly demanding loyalty from the workers. Dan put out a big character poster saying that they should not fight each other and should cooperate, instead, for the good of the factory and the country. Dan also made concrete suggestions on how to make the best use of manpower. Dan’s opinions incidentally touched on a widespread problem: nepotism. It was a common practice that whoever was in a position of power or influence would bring in his relatives and close friends to fill job vacancies. This was, to a limited extent, an informal institutional policy. If a man worked at the factory, the management would have to consider offering jobs to his wife and children. Even in the 1980s, a man’s offspring would be given jobs in the companies from which their fathers had retired. Dan was sometimes upset by the problems this caused; most college graduates were likely to be children of high officials. And some of the people under Dan were relatives of other workers. Once, Dan was assigned an assistant, a lady aged about forty whose little bound feet showed she was from the countryside. She did not know anything and could not do anything. And yet, Dan had to accommodate her. Dan’s rather straightforward views on nepotism had begun to make him very unwelcome among the officials, especially his section chiefs. Dan’s criticisms were not entirely driven by idealism. He also harbored some personal resentment against the section chiefs. For one thing, he looked down upon them for their impotency; they had also once refused Dan’s petition

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Chapter 2: The Tank Factory to go to college. Shortly before this political campaign, Dan had passed the college entrance exams. Unable to attend the university of his choice, Dan had earn a college degree by correspondence. Another reason was that the section chiefs had refused his request for a transfer. He preferred the automobile industry to the military, where the discipline was too strict. He had even volunteered to go to Xinjiang, in order to get out. (Xinjiang is China’s equivalent to Russia’s Siberia.) Now, so long as there would be no political reprisals, Dan decided that he could risk offending his section chiefs. This Speaking Out campaign was short-lived and, as promised, there was no reprisal. Dan was still head of a department and remained popular among the employees. By now, he was a tall man (six feet), in his twenties and with a good income. Naturally, he was seen as a good catch by the young girls in town. (After the promulgation of the marriage law, free love was encouraged and arranged marriage, which had been practiced in traditional China, was made illegal. However, in the countryside, arranged marriages were still seen as preferable.) At the tank factory, most employees were young men and women who were away from parental influence. To promote an appropriate social life, the factory organized dances and other activities where courtships could proceed. Of course, many people also found their spouses simply by working together in the same group. Among the laborers from the countryside, mostly young peasant men, still had to take wives from their native villages. This was partly because of tradition and partly because their income was not high enough to attract city girls. Economic status as well as personality has always played a role in marriage decisions. There were several unspoken rules about marriage. First, political loyalty to the Party and state had to be considered. Enemies of the revolution or those associated with the old regime were to be avoided. Since this was a tank factory and all employees had already gone through extensive checks, political loyalty was not a serious issue. Girls admired the so-called three yuan cadres (first yuan, 100-yuan income; second yuan, party membership; third yuan, technician). Dan was not as sociable as some of the others and was not actively seeking a fiancée, but he met someone by accident. Skating on a pond one winter, Dan recognized a girl from his old neighborhood in Beijing. She had been transferred to the factory, where her work skills were in demand. Once a young couple made their intentions known to each other, they were called “friends,” meaning engaged. There was not much sign of the modern

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Engineering Communist China concept of “girlfriend” or “boyfriend,” nor could an engagement be broken without suffering dishonor. In most cases, parental approval was still needed for marriage; otherwise, one’s relationship with his or her own family would be strained (as happened quite often). Dan and Xiaolan had no such concerns, as he was making good money and had a promising career. Everything was set for a happy future; they would just save up some money, first.

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CHAPTER 3: THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD (1) By the end of 1957, the government had transformed much of the old economy that was based on private ownership. In the cities, businesses were gradually taken over by the government; in the rural areas, cooperatives were established to share resources. Such developments were still shy of communism, the ideal society where there was no private ownership of businesses and hence no exploitation of the laboring classes. Now, Mao Zedong thought that China was ready to make the transition, and he decided to catapult China into the ideal format. He conceived the Great Leap Forward Campaign as a means to drastically increase both industrial and agricultural production. Perhaps he was intoxicated by the success in rural collectivization that had gathered over 90% of the peasants into cooperatives. Everything seemed to be poised for the communization of the whole country. Though most communist leaders urged caution, Mao’s optimism gave him confidence. And the Soviet launching of Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, seemed to be an ironclad proof that communism was indeed superior to capitalism — and that miracles were possible under such a system. No doubt inspired by the Soviet slogan that the USSR would catch up with the US in 15 years, Mao declared at the world Communist Party conference in Moscow in November 1957 that China would catch up with and surpass Britain in 15 years. Even more amazing was Mao’s bold claim just a few months later that China would surpass Britain in 8 years and the US in 15 years!

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Engineering Communist China Dan first witnessed the Great Leap Forward in the countryside. Before it started, he and many of his colleagues were sent to a small village: in January 1958, the factory authorities asked its intellectuals and cadres to go out to the country. The rationale given was that officials living in the city would be out of touch with the rest of the country which was, by the vast majority, rural. To stay close to the people and to appreciate the hardships of peasant life, cadres should periodically to the country and work as laborers. Every official was encouraged to volunteer — even if it meant being, in effect, exiled there for the rest of his or her life. Nobody wanted to leave the comforts of urban life and the privilege of being surrounded by relatively educated and cultured people, but no one wanted to be considered a coward, either. Thus, they all wrote application letters to the factory party committee. Written in the most revolutionary and idealisticsounding language one could find, these letters were put on the walls outside the factory management offices. Once their applications were publicized, the cadres were very quiet for the next few days for fear that they might actually be chosen to go. Dan was young and single, so it did not matter much to him. On the day the list of chosen candidates was made public, on a big red poster, cadres crowded in to see who was among the unlucky. Some of those selected burst into tears and found all kinds of excuses to change their status. Some claimed serious illness and others claimed family problems. Some even petitioned to give up their official rank and be made into be a worker. Faced with so many refusals, the factory leadership had to rely on the application letters people wrote in the first place to calm them down. After all, they had volunteered — and with such an undeniable, written determination, too. Dan was among the chosen. They were given three days to prepare. Dan gathered his clothes and some personal belongings and packed them in a big chest, and his quilt which he rolled up into a bundle. To console the departing “chosen,” every section held a big farewell party. The factory leadership came to speak at Dan’s section, using the standard hypocritical slogans of the day, such as, “It is glorious to be a part of the peasant masses,” “Reform the backward situation in the countryside,” “To live in the country forever.” Some of these would-be peasants took these slogans literally and were deeply afraid that they would have to remain isolated in the country for the rest of their lives. So many people were crying that the Party was ended early. Very embarrassing for the factory leaders.

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Chapter 3: the Great Leap Forward (1) Right after the farewell party, Dan was called to the office of the factory’s party secretary, Chen Zhixiang. Dan had never talked with Chen in person. He was a very high official who used to be one of the top leaders in the province of Inner Mongolia, and was well known for his literary and management talents. He carried an 8th rank in the official system, one level higher than the mayor of the city of Baotou. Dan wondered why he should care to talk to a technician like himself. In his big office, a beautiful young secretary showed Dan to her boss’s room. The party secretary was in his forties and was very thin — he looked quite malnourished. He also dressed so plainly that nobody would have thought he could be the head of such an important tank factory. He smiled at Dan and politely gestured him to sit down on an armchair. Chen Zhixiang first asked about Dan’s family, work and other everyday topics. Then he encouraged Dan not to be pessimistic about going to the country, and to take it as an opportunity to understand the society. The conversation was all the standard official material, nothing new. Why did the Party Secretary bother to talk to him? The only thing Dan could think of was the bold opinions he had stated during the Speaking Out campaign. He had criticized the bureaucracy and rivalries among factory officials. Perhaps, the Party Secretary knew Dan’s opinions, and perhaps he was showing some respect? Dan felt greatly honored and told Chen that he would gladly obey the organization’s decision. The most important fact bolstering Dan’s optimism was that he still had his full salary, although he would be doing peasants’ work. This suggested to him that his stay in the countryside would be very short. How could the state afford to pay 99 yuan to a peasant? The village where Dan and others settled in was not really far, about two or three hours’ walk from the factory. It is now a suburb of Baotou. It was a very small village, with only about twenty families. For the next eight months, Dan and twenty-two of his colleagues from the factory settled down here with their simple luggage and belongings. They were divided into two groups. Among Dan’s group, seven were women and four were men; none was over thirty years of age. Professionally, they were quite diverse: a self-styled artist, a writer, an accountant, a nurse, several technicians, one assistant to the head of the tank factory. Most people in Dan’s group were college graduates; the leader only had a high school diploma, but he was the only party member. Already by 1958, that was the most important criterion for choosing officials, regardless of merit or preparation. Of course, the leader was not well respected by the rest of the group, because of his lack of higher education, and neither did he know anything

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Engineering Communist China about farm work or peasant life. He began to stutter, and became a laughing stock. His salary was only 45 yuan, half of what Dan made. He failed miserably in his position. Since Dan’s salary was that of a department chief and he was about to be promoted to the section level, he commanded respect. The village leader, by the name of Guang Ji, was thin and short, about forty years old. He seemed extremely happy to see so many officials coming to his village. Peasants did not have much chance to see the outside world. In his difficult-to-understand accent, the village head assigned the city people to various peasant households that had extra rooms. The typical peasant house was dominated by an enclosed courtyard with three rooms facing south. A few of the families that were better off also had one room on the east or west or both sides of their courtyard. Beds, like the entire house, were made of adobe bricks covered with straw mats — if they could afford them. Windows were covered with paper rather than glass, which was far too expensive for most. Cooking was done outside in fair weather and inside the central room on the north side in case of rain and also during winter months; when the heat would also help to warm the beds. Dan and three others were given a side room in one peasant household. Formerly used as a tool room, it was so small and so low that four people could barely fit inside. Another side room off the same courtyard was used as a cooking and dining room for all the cadres. It had two big cauldrons and some corn husks to use as fuel. The city people and the host shared the courtyard with a bunch of chickens and five goats. Life here was harsh to say the least. Dan’s hosts were about forty and thirty something; they had seven children already. The oldest was a girl of twelve. In the frigid winter, she did not even have a pair of shoes to wear. Two babies were still on the bed, constantly crying and demanding attention. There was barely any furniture in the chilly house. The children sometimes huddled together on the earthen bed to fend off the cold. They were far tougher than the city people. The girl and a little brother of five came to Dan’s room on the first day. Seeing that they did not know how to heat their room, the girl quickly went out and brought back some straw and dried cow dung and started a fire inside the earthen stove. The impoverished life had made the girl an experienced laborer already. After several attempts by the city people failed, the girl showed them how to do it again. She made fires for Dan and also offered to cook for them. Dan could see the pity in their eyes.

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Chapter 3: the Great Leap Forward (1) These exotic visitors from the city paid the peasant a small rent. Perhaps this was the reason why the village leader had selected this poor family as host. Guang Ji, the village leader, had fared a lot better than the host of Dan’s group. Among other things, he was raising 20 goats, which was a good sized property then. For some reason, he and his wife did not have any children. His house was in much better condition than those of most villagers. He had no need for extra cash and he gave the opportunity to others. The peasants admired the city folks for their luxuries and easy life. They had nice clothes, wrist watches, and other fine things. Most important of all, they were still being paid their former salaries. Dan’s monthly 99 yuan was more than this peasant family’s income for a whole year, and they had to feed a family of 9. The children were curious about everything the city folks had or did. Since there was no school here, they stayed inside their yard most of the time, playing games to amuse themselves. Now, the city people became the biggest source of amusement, especially the stories they told. Dan and his colleagues were very snobbish toward the peasants and refused to use their bowls or to eat peasant food: too dirty, by their standards. The local peasants ate mostly corn and millet. Rice and wheat flour, considered to be more expensive and much finer, were beyond their reach. People in this part of China preferred the sour taste. They would cook a thick porridge and let it stand until a sour smell developed. Then they would eat it. Vegetables were not a major part of their diet; the only vegetable was potato. Meat was unimaginably expensive and served only on very special occasions, such as Chinese New Year’s day. Dan and his colleagues had been required to eat, live and work together with the peasants; theoretically, no privileges were permitted. In reality, they lived very segregated lives. In such a small village, two cities coexisted and the line between the rich and the poor could not be clearer. The city folks actually bought their food supplies, such as wheat flour and rice, and had them transported from the city. Though Dan and his colleagues kept their distance from the peasants, they could not avoid hard labor. One of the lowest and dirtiest jobs was to collect human waste. In the country, crops were fertilized by animal manure and human waste, as had been the tradition for thousands of years. Chemical fertilizers were not available; in fact they were quite unheard of in this corner of the world. Since the village was so close to Baotou, peasants drove their carts to the city to collect human waste. The city put out its waste during the day at a designated place on the outskirts of town. Peasants could only go at night to pick it up and bring it

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Engineering Communist China back to spread in the fields. The waste had to be scooped out of toilets in the cities and carried in a pail on the back of the collectors. Collecting waste was the dirtiest and most despised job, especially during the winter. It was so despised that the government felt the need to change people’s attitudes and made one such waste collector, Shi Chuanxiang, a national model worker with high honors. Dan and his colleagues had no choice but take turns performing this task. On Dan’s turn, the village leader gave him a furry leather coat. He had never driven the ox cart before. Together with four other carts, Dan drove off to the city. The ox was extremely slow, no matter how hard Dan whipped it. Nor was there any light on the roads. None of the drivers dared to sit on the cart. They all walked, to keep themselves from freezing. Dan was glad that this job was done at night — at least nobody from the city could see him. It would be an unthinkable loss of face for an engineer to do this kind of work. Dan did not pretend to like the work; but he realized that the Communist Party did have a point in sending sheltered city officials out to the country for a dose of reality, at least for a brief time. Lack of water had been a big problem for the village community. Because of poor soil conditions, crops never grew very well in that part of the country. That spring, the local government decided to dig a canal to get water from the Yellow River. The city folks and villagers from surrounding areas all participated in this project. On the first day, about two hundred or so people showed up for work. To encourage competition and speed up the project, several youth crack teams were formed so that young people could give the most of their brawn. A team was normally made up of about 15 people with a leader. Each village had a youth team, separate from the city youth, and they were each assigned to a section of the canal to complete the village, according to the specifications. Dan was the leader for his team. There were no machines of any kind. All the digging was done with shovels and picks, and the soil was carried away in baskets on poles. The village people, used to agricultural work, always finished ahead of the city teams. Work on the canal could only proceed when there was a break in the farm schedule; it was dug on and off for the next three months and was not finished until summer. By then, the city folks had become quite used to hard work. They were a lot stronger and were starting to feel a little closer to the common people. In the summer of 1958, the government ordered the establishment of the People’s Commune. The Great Leap Forward was now in full swing. The

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Chapter 3: the Great Leap Forward (1) peasants had been organized into cooperatives of about a dozen households to share land, draft animals and tools. The coop members would work together and were paid according to the amount of work they put into the cooperative. In a natural village, there might be three or four such cooperatives, which were later called production teams. A small village, like the one Dan was in, could only organize one cooperative. Whatever their sizes, the cooperatives served as independent accounting units where each member could see clearly the relationship between labor and reward. Personal property, such as houses, however, still remained in the peasants’ own hands. Under the commune system, even personal property would be abolished and members of the rural society would share everything. Once the government issued directives calling for the establishment of large communes, the craze for “an entry into communism” started in earnest. By 1959, the average size of the communes was about 3,000 households, covering about ten villages. Peasants had to hand in everything they owned to the commune: food, livestock, etc. with no compensation. Instead of cooking their own meals, they would eat in public canteens and their children would be taken care of by public nurseries. Indeed, it was communism. Such a national campaign was faithfully and sometimes fanatically carried out by local commune leaders. The township was an administrative unit, below the county and above the villages; normally, a township controlled a dozen or so villages. One night, the township party secretary, Liu, called peasants from all the surrounding villages together for a meeting to proclaim the establishment of the People’s Commune. He was only a 24th grade cadre, the lowest in the official ranking system. Originally Liu was a cart driver from a village, dirt poor but extremely loyal to the Communist Party. He later joined the Party and was very active in forming a cooperative in his native village. Partly because there were very few party members, Liu was selected to be the Party chief for the commune. There was no electricity and the meeting place was lit by kerosene lamps. At the podium, Secretary Liu gave a speech praising the People’s Commune. He quoted Mao Zedong’s words, “the People’s Communes are good,” and said that this township was falling behind the progress of the whole country. He then named the commune Jin Xing (gold star). A commune, Liu continued, would have everything for everybody. It would have a factory to produce tools and other industrial products, a school to educate all children, a hospital to treat illness, an old people’s home, and so on. The most important question that concerned the peasants was the status of personal property. He asked that all

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Engineering Communist China land, draft animals, tools, and even pigs, goats, and other animals should be handed over to the commune. There would be no wages and money was not necessary any more to buy food, since food would be provided free for all. Not only food, everything else would be provided by the commune and the communist government would take care of everybody’s need. This head of the new commune was as ignorant of the commune system and how it worked as his audience was. He was unable to answer people’s questions and merely read some government documents and related materials. Most of the people present were stunned. The city folk like Dan were frightened by the news that wages and salaries were to be abolished. How could they support their families? Would similar communes set up in the cities as well? After the initial confusion, Dan learned that he would still get his salary; communal sharing at that time only applied to the peasants. The reaction from the peasants was mixed. They certainly did not want to give up their personal property. One example is telling. The village leader, Guang Ji, was a Communist Party member and pledged his loyalty to the new order on behalf of the whole village. However, he and his wife must have feared that they would have a lot to lose under this new arrangement. They spent the whole night killing all their 20 goats before they were considered public property. The next morning when Dan met him, Guang Ji was busy loading fresh meat onto a cart and getting ready for the local market several miles away. His shirt, pants and arms were covered with blood. His eyes were red from lack of sleep. They spent the whole day selling the skin and meat. They did, however, keep one very old goat and turned it in to the commune. Poor peasants actually welcomed such a millenarian system. If the communist society would provide food and every other necessity, how could you go wrong? For the peasants, this would mean that they no longer had to work like mad and live in fear. For people who were used to subsistence living, it was heaven. In fact, when the news reached everyone in the village, the commune idea was greeted with enthusiasm and great expectation. Dan’s landowner was one of the poorest men in the village. He had nothing to lose and was somewhat excited about communization. Popular slogans like, “Great Leap Forward,” “General Line of the Party,” “People’s Commune,” sounded too abstract to him; the most important thing on his mind was putting food on the table and having enough cloth to dress his children. The notion that they were to be provided by the commune was like a dream. He asked Dan several times what kind of society they were to have. Dan believed in

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Chapter 3: the Great Leap Forward (1) communism as an eventual goal and looked to the Soviet Union as a model for China. But he, too, did not comprehend what was going on. He could only give the standard explanation that communism meant plenty of food and clothes and good houses for every member of the village. He described the good life in the Soviet Union and suggested that China would eventually become so industrialized and so rich that there would be no worries of any kind. For the first time, he saw hope and joy in the eyes of the landowner’s wife. Hardship had aged her tremendously. To feed and care for her seven children was a daunting, almost impossible task. She was normally a shy and quiet person, but even she asked several times when that good society would arrive. Even as he was “educating” his hosts, Dan had mixed feelings about the arrival of communism. He could not be happy to think he might lose his high salary; he convinced himself that communism would also reward the talented and the industrious with better things. He was too elitist to consider peasants as his equals. He comforted himself with a body analogy. He and other intellectuals were the heads, whereas peasants and city workers were the limbs, each doing its naturally assigned job and each being an indispensable part of the body public. And yet, the head was in the commanding position. Perhaps having read too many newspaper articles, commune secretary Liu became very keen on the creation of factories — although he had no idea what it might take to build and to manage such industrial enterprises. But Secretary Liu was smart enough to realize that the expertise of the city slickers like Dan would be valuable assets; after all, most of them used to be high-level technicians at the tank factory. He had read somewhere of the coming mechanization of farming, and thought that the central government would give each commune a fleet of tractors. Therefore, Secretary Liu decided to set up a tractor training school to teach the peasants and get them ready for the wonderful life ahead. Dan’s colleagues naturally became the instructors. But in the end, not a single tractor came to the commune. During the Great Leap Forward, newspapers were full of reports of wonderful inventions, new methods of crop production, new records being broken. These reports all asserted that simple peasant folks, rather than engineers, were inventing new machines and new products that increased efficiency. Under the influence of this invention fever, Secretary Liu wanted a bearings factory. He became fixated on the idea of bearings. He had heard that some communes were equipping their ox carts with bearings and that such carts could run faster and take heavier loads. The old carts only had wooden axles

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Engineering Communist China grinding against the wheels, and hence were very primitive and slow indeed. He ordered that bearings be made and be put into every cart in this commune. Dan was asked to be in charge of the project. He was told to investigate a newspaper report on a particular commune’s success. Dan took two commune members with him and went to a model commune’s bearing factory. He discovered that it was primitive beyond imagination. There were no industrial bearings as reported in the newspapers. They simply cut up thin iron rods of about two centimeters in diameter and made them into short pieces of five centimeters long. Packed in grease, these so-called bearings were put between the wooden axles and the wheels. Such was the famous production and application of bearings to revolutionize rural transportation. Dan was an expert on metal materials and bearings. He debated in his mind whether or not to report the truth and to oppose the project. By scientific principle and by his conscience, he should point out the flaws of this model factory. It was set up by an engineer from the Baotou Steel Plant and its “achievements” were widely reported; it was hailed as a model for other communes to emulate. The newspapers represented the Communist Party and the government, whose opinions could not be challenged. Once the reports were in print, they became truth. Questioning their validity would entail public criticism and political risk. By now Dan understood the necessity of going along with this method of making bearings; he decided to keep his mouth shut and look for an easy way out: he would just do everything the commune leader wanted him to do, from setting up a pseudo bearings factory, a garment factory or a food processing plant. In fact, officials and peasants alike had been led to think that communism had arrived, and popular enthusiasm was overwhelming. People now believed that if they worked hard, they could achieve anything, and in the near future. Sputnik still soared as a shining example of the invincible human will. Myriad newspaper articles were reporting production figures indicating that the time of plenty had indeed arrived; grain yields supposedly increased by ten times. Even in some counties near Beijing, where the central government resides, there were claims of over ten thousand kilograms of grain yields per mu. Instead of being investigated for fraud, and punished, those who falsified records were promoted and made heroes. It may have been good for public morale in the short term but its long term effect was devastating, as it encouraged false reporting and irresponsibility. But the undeniable impact on the populace was unparalleled and it generated a blind enthusiasm against which levelheaded individuals felt

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Chapter 3: the Great Leap Forward (1) powerless. During those days of religious fervent, the mass enthusiasm alone would crush any critics or silence skeptics. Coming back from their learning trip, a workshop was set up for Dan to start making bearings. But there were no materials and no electricity. The only tool Secretary Liu gave him was a hand-operated drill. Dan was asked to go back to the tank factory and draw on his connections there. Off he went to visit the Youth League secretary who had tried to persuade him to speak out during the Anti-Hu Feng Campaign. He did write Dan a note introducing him to the factory storage department head. This little note paved the way for Dan to get what he wanted: a variety of tools, and even a truck to deliver them to the commune. Back came Dan to the commune. Now he was seen as a well-connected and highly effective person, a hero who would deliver the genie of mechanization to his people. The pressure to produce something was as unbearable as his bad conscience. Dan was far from certain that without deviating from the model bearings factory he would be able to make any bearings at all out of the thin steel rods he had brought in. He first asked that several more people be assigned to him. Then, he cut the 2-centimeter thick rods into standard 6-centimeter pieces, more or less matching the width of the usual cart wheel. But as he was installing these pieces in between the axles and the wheels of a few sample carts, he realized that the axles of the peasants’ wooden vehicles were all different and the space between the axles and the wheels therefore varied accordingly. In other words, there was no standard to follow. Dan tried packing in more grease to compensate for the gaps; but none of the first few carts worked. Secretary Liu personally tried one for a while, but the cart performed miserably and the iron pieces all started to fall out. Nor could these carts go faster than before. Liu then pressured and begged Dan to improve the technology. Among other things, he added iron plates at the sides to prevent the “bearings” from falling out. But, in the end, the experiment fell apart. Surprisingly enough, nobody was really sad: Just a heroic effort and no shame in its failure. Good intentions were what counted. While Dan was working on the project, the Baotou newspapers already proclaimed it a great success. Knowing that the officials and the newspapers were engaging in deception, self-deception, and outright fraud, Dan and others would not dare to blow the whistle. Shortly after this little failure, Secretary Liu called a meeting and discussed how they could produce electricity. Their brainchild was the windmill generator project. However, none of them knew anything about the technology. Dan was

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Engineering Communist China given the job. The project was correctly deemed crucial to the commune’s planned industrial enterprises; and it would be a smart move to utilize the wind resources. But, Dan had no more experience in this area than anyone else at the meeting. Among his group were graduates from well-known universities such as Qinghua, whose specialty might well have included the design of generators. He did not understand why they were not chosen for the project. Still, the work was politically charged and Dan had to do something. It should not be an impossible task, but it was complicated technologically and without proper equipment and personnel, he might be in trouble. He was given no technical assistants; just two peasants. Off Dan went to the tank factory; he stayed for a whole month in the factory’s guest house, free of charge. He tried to draw a design for the blades; but it would be hard for a rural commune to produce a windmill. The blade had special requirements, metal parts which needed to be heat treated. Where could the peasants get a furnace of sufficient temperature? Electricity was needed to begin with. Why build this by hand? It would be simpler to purchase one. But that would cost money and, more important, would contravene the inventive spirit of the times, the mantra that the simple man could produce anything. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” implies that if you don’t find a way, it’s because you weren’t willing. So in spite of the problems, Dan went ahead. Meanwhile, Dan’s name and the project (or farce, as was already clear to some) were already reported in the newspaper, the Baotao Daily, as a scientific and technical achievement. Dan did his best to design the windmill from the ground up: from the angles of the vanes to the supporting structure. Then he gave it to the commune leaders. Even if the design was flawless, the commune could not really build a large windmill; they did not have the materials. Nothing ever came of the project. This was representative of a spate of wild and simpleminded dreams from those days. At this awkward juncture, Dan was saved by a sudden order from the factory: half of the technical cadres sent to the country had to return to the factory for reassignment. The Great Leap Forward was taking place in the city as well in the country. The factory needed its technical people back to make miracles in industrial development.

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CHAPTER 4: THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD (2) Dan got back to the tank factory in mid-October 1958 to find the same communistic frenzy in full swing. He was appointed head of a department in the Assembly Section. Now a nationwide steel-making campaign was started by Mao that marked the ultimate folly and ignorance of the Great Leap Forward. Mao Zedong and other senior leaders of the CCP considered the production of steel to be a barometer of industrialization. Mao said that Steel was a commander-in-chief in the economic war and, now that China could produce enough grain, the next most important job was to boost steel production. This was also a matter of national pride, especially important for a country under the domination of Western powers for so long. Steel production had to be given priority by leaders at every level of government in their industrialization plans. Mao demanded that the heads of provincial governments and of central government ministries personally take charge of the task, so that the country could double its output to 10 million tons by the end of 1958 and 2030 million tons by 1959. A sixfold increase in two or three years! Well, this was an era of miracles. The newspapers made it clear that incredible breakthroughs were being made in every discipline. Those who failed to make miraculous claims appeared to be wet-blankets, foot-draggers and slackers. The provincial leaders were given quotas for steel and they in turn assigned quotas down the line, which eventually fell on local leaders in every village and factory. The tank factory was given a large quota, since it was such a huge industrial establishment. Yet, it had never made any steel of its own, of course, and always relied on the nearby Baotou Steel Plant. Chen Zhixiang, the Party

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Engineering Communist China Secretary, became Chief of the Steel-Making Command Center. He organized a mobilization rally to drum up enthusiasm. There he emphasized Mao’s determination to catch up with Britain and the U.S. industrial development in fifteen years. Chen ordered every section of the factory to assign a specific number of people to finish the given quotas. Against this backdrop, Dan was appointed assistant head of the iron producing team for the Assembly Section. The section’s party secretary was from a Mongolian minority tribe and ill-qualified for such work. Instead, the general manager, Old Jiang, was chosen to head the operation. At about forty years old, Old Jiang was an experienced technician, skilled at repairing automobiles and tanks. He called Dan into his office and announced that Dan would actually be in charge of the whole project; if anything went wrong or the production target was not met on time, Dan would be held responsible. At least, Dan knew that nobody would be really punished it the quotas were not met. That was merely a pro forma warning. Dan was given 50 workers from the Assembly Section. About 15 of them were tank operators discharged from the army. The rest were new recruits from the countryside, with no training. There seemed to be an upsurge of new employees from the villages. With the government calling for greater industrial production in general, laborers were encouraged to move to the cities. Dan assigned these workers simple jobs, such as smashing iron ore into small pieces. A hammer was the only tool needed. Dan did not have much time to pick up all he needed to know about steel making. He stayed in the factory library for days, poring through everything relevant. He also went to the Baotou Steel Plant to observe and to learn the trade secrets. The plant had a huge furnace, built by the Soviet Union. It was out of the question that he could get access to such advanced equipment. He would have to do this the old way. In fact, people all over China had to create their own primitive furnaces to meet the steel production quota. It was a time of innovation and imagination. At the tank factory, the Steel Command Center distributed pamphlets with detailed instructions on how to build a furnace. Although they varied in size, these primitive furnaces were of roughly the same type. They were later designated “backyard furnaces,” synonymous with low quality and failure. Dan’s team was supplied with fire resistant bricks and other materials; they spent three days building the furnace in an open field alongside others

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Chapter 4: the Great Leap Forward (2) constructed by neighboring groups. The furnace was about two meters in diameter and about three meters in height. Standard instructions for making steel were followed by all groups. But nothing came out of the furnace. None of the teams was successful. The first try was a dismal failure, was blamed on low temperature. Dan lost face in front of his workers; but other teams fared no better. They all had their furnaces. The failure did not dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd. People were always upbeat. Dan had never seen the level of optimism and enthusiasm now displayed by the workers. Immediately they went about constructing new furnaces. To raise the temperature, Dan went to the section chief for support. Dan wanted to change the structure of the furnace and make it bigger one. For that, he needed steel sheets and a better ventilation system. Afraid that he might lose face again if the furnace failed this time, Old Jiang gave Dan whatever he wanted, an air blower, an electric motor and steel sheets. Old Jiang attached a serious warning: these materials were very expensive and if the new furnace was no good, he would be charged with dereliction of duty and also with waste of resources. The pressure was on. Dan had the workers dig a huge pit so that the furnace could be placed half in the ground; maybe that would help retain the heat. Dan built a platform above the furnace and made four observation holes around the furnace that would allow people to measure the inside temperature. To make sure that his crew would understand and follow his instructions, Dan was always on the spot to supervise the process. It was crucial to have the correct ratio of iron ore and other materials placed inside the furnace. He had a scale brought on site to weigh the elements. First, they burned the coal to achieve the right temperature. The moment he saw, through the observation holes, that the fire was white hot, he would order his men to put in the iron ore and fluorite. His efforts finally paid off and his furnace was the first to produce iron. Dan and his men were congratulated by Old Jiang personally. The chief also reported the success to the Steel Command Center to be recorded. With his success, Dan felt that his men could afford some rest. Since the whole thing began, nobody had been allowed to go home; nobody had a bath; none had more than a few hours of sleep a day. Dan ordered them to be divided into two groups, each working only one shift. Now, Dan and his crew were heroes. Dan was well aware that making iron was only the first step towards producing steel. Next, he ordered his men to shape the melted iron into ingots. They used sand to form molds in the ground. Dan’s group was the only one to produce high quality, small, regularly shaped iron pieces. Other groups just let

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Engineering Communist China the iron run out into whatever shape it might come to; their iron pieces tended to be huge, like a round table, too heavy to handle. Most of these iron pieces could not be cut and in the end were used to build roads. It was an absolute waste of manpower and materials. Because of his newly acquired reputation, the factory Steel Command Center now charged Dan with converting the iron to steel. By now, even Dan was becoming infected by optimism and misplaced confidence, and more than willingly took the job. His technical mind was over-ruled by his human response to the surrounding craze. Dan was given a row of furnaces and more materials. Then Old Jiang sent for him: his furnace had quit working. In fact, everything at his former work site had come to a complete standstill. The furnace was not burning at all and the air blower also stopped. Everybody was sleeping. They were simply too exhausted to work. Who could work around the clock for days on end and still remain alert and energetic? However, Dan pushed them, over their curses and objections. Finally, they managed to restore the production process. Dan never had a chance to make steel. A horrible accident brought it al to a halt. One of the new furnaces exploded, burning several people terribly. A young apprentice from the countryside was burned so badly that the factory had to ask the air force to fly him to Beijing. His life was saved but he was permanently handicapped, and the factory had to provide for him for the rest of his life. It turned out that a control the valve on an air compressor had been misadjusted by a worker from the countryside, who never knew what it was for. He liked to play with the control to hear the sound it made. The day the accident happened, he had blown too much air into the furnace. No criminal prosecution was pursued; the young man was simply fired. Because the factory was afraid of more bad publicity, the Command Center canceled the steel-making project and decided to concentrate on the iron. Thus, Dan’s new job was finished before it seriously began. Lucky for Dan. Since he had restored the troubled furnace, Dan expected to have an easy time back at the iron-making project. Only then did he realize how tired he was. He found a low spot on the ground and fell deeply to sleep; he slept a good, long time. When he woke up, the work site was quiet and everybody was asleep. So much for “round the clock” teams. The air blower was turned off. The furnace was not as hot as it needed to be. The workers had deliberately put in more iron ore, much more than the instructions called for. Come to think of it, even before Dan had gone to sleep, one of the tank men had been trying to block his view

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Chapter 4: the Great Leap Forward (2) while the workers were filling the furnace. What was going on? The scale where the ores and coal were weighed seemed to be in good order. The workers themselves must be up to something. Their enthusiasm had worn off. Led by a tall tank man, the workers eventually came to Dan and told him that they were simply too tired to go on. Their furnace was the only one producing good quality iron, while others were still either not operational or were putting out junk. Their unit had already made a greater contribution than any other section in the factory. Dan made a deal — he would not report this to the authorities, and there was to be no further sabotage. Anyway, he calculated that he needed only three more days to meet the production quota. He promised them that once their job was finished, they would have two days of rest. They went back to work. Dan took up a position on the upper part of the furnace, keeping a close eye on what went into it. After another grueling two days, a hole developed in one side of the furnace and the molten iron began pouring out. To keep the whole rig from tipping over, they had to pour out the rest of the iron, too. Old Jiang showed up to take stock. In fact, with this last portion they had actually more than met the production target! A wave of relief swept over the men; and the chief gave everybody three days to rest. Dan collapsed and had to be helped him to a public bathhouse inside the factory, where he was greeted as the hero who had made the iron. He slept for more than 24 hours. Public baths, for each gender, were located all over Chinese cities, as in many other parts of the world until recent years. Most people had no private plumbing in their homes. Public baths ere available for both sexes, with two or three pools for hot, medium hot and warm water. Wood or ceramic benches lined the room around the pools, where people lathered up. There were also enclosed, private bath tubs available at a small additional cost. Outside the bathing area, there were rows of beds, all connected but separated by a board. Attached to each bed was a headboard box for storage of personal belongings, and a nightstand. Clean towels and slippers were provided. The cost for a visit was about 0.2 yuan. Most factories gave their workers free tickets for the public bath, if they did not have such facilities on the work premises. Because of the failures, the Steel Command Center decided to build “disposable” furnaces. They were totally sealed; after a session, when the furnace cooled down, molten iron was supposed to come out. But some of these furnaces produced “sponge iron,” due to overheating, and some produced a twisted mass of ores, because the temperature was not high enough. Quick, but futile. The

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Engineering Communist China quality of the iron produced was so uneven as to be mostly unusable. Fortunately, quality was not the goal; quantity was. Once the factory managed to produce enough iron, it reported victory to the government. Dan’s group not only produced beyond quota, but ahead of schedule. Dan was awarded a special title: Provincial Model Worker. During this period, a new expression took hold of the Chinese imagination: “Launching Satellite.” Used in relation to any technological breakthrough or extraordinary achievement, and derived, of course, from the Soviets’ stunning success in launching Sputnik, the phrase “Launching Satellite” came to be a generic term for cutting-edge technology and the superiority of communism, and for twenty years it was a call to arms. Making a technological contribution became the duty of every citizen. Skepticism over the innovative spirit and technical capabilities of the common people, masters of the new society, was unacceptable. News items were now proclaiming astronomical grain outputs; ten thousand jin (five thousand kg) per mu (1/6 acre), and later, four times that. There were even photos of a child sitting on top of rice stalks growing so densely that they could holdup his weight. At the Assembly Section, “launching technical satellite” was the technical director’s problem. He would be judged by how many “satellites” the Section could launch. He was highly regarded by both the factory leadership and the workers, and had been on a study trip to the Soviet Union. He could not tell the authorities that most of the so-called achievements were shams; they were simply not technically feasible. One night, he and Dan decided to focus on something that would fulfill the obligation with something real: they could build two more assembly lines. There was no need for two more assembly lines, at that time; this was something purely to appease the leadership. But at least the work might not be entirely wasted, if the assembly lines came into use some day. They kicked off the project with more posters: “Work Hard, Work a Lot, Work Around the Clock,” “Never Leave the Frontline until a Satellite is Launched from Our Block,” and “Fight 30 Days to Finish Two Assembly Lines with No Delays.” In fact, the project was completed within one month. It was indeed a remarkable accomplishment. The section chief organized a huge ceremony and personally pushed the button to start the lines moving. The success was quickly reported to higher authorities. Of course, there were no extra parts available to build tanks with anyway, so the lines remained idle, for the most part.

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Chapter 4: the Great Leap Forward (2) People were encouraged to believe that they could create all kinds of scientific and technological miracles, if only they worked hard and possessed basic scientific knowledge. Scientific achievements were no longer the monopoly of a few smarty-pants but were within the reach of the masses. Now came an order to invent ultrasonic devices: every employee was to come up with at least ten. People were told that ultrasonic waves had a sound frequency of 22,000 hertz and more, and they had a wide range of applications in all kinds of industries; the new miracle could clean dishes and bake cakes. Ultrasonics was the solution to every problem. Even agricultural production could be increased by ultrasonics. The factory authorities distributed pamphlets on ultrasonics. Engineers and all the lowly workers had to read these materials. Simple illustrations showed how an ultrasonic device could be made using nothing more than a short pipe and a piece of thin metal. When wind went through the pipe, it was supposed to produce ultrasonic waves by making the iron sheet vibrate. Devices of different shapes and applications could be derived from this basic principle, for various uses. Workers went all over the factory in search of pipes, and the storage department was under siege. Employees from the Assembly Section lined up in groups to request materials. The copper pipes went first, since they were easy to cut. Then, steel pipes, iron water pipes, and others were handed out. The demand was so high that the factory could not supply them anymore. The storage chief was criticized for resisting and had to give out the most expensive alloy pipes, hard to come by, essential for tank manufacture, and now to be expended in elementary school experiments. But nobody could stand in the way of invention and discourage the people’s enthusiasm. Cutting up the pipes and welding bits of iron sheet to them, everybody became an expert in ultrasonics and a technological inventor. It was quite a sight when people lined up to hand in their inventions. Piles of devices filled the storage room. There was no testing; nobody was in position to verify all the claims. The factory earned a title as a Pioneer in Technological Innovations. Of course none of these ultrasonic products was ever sold to anybody, never used, and ended up as scrap metal. While all these experiments were going in, the communization in the countryside in 1958 was causing a serious food shortage in some areas and outright famine in others. Peasants now ate in the commune canteens according to an “all you can eat” policy, and quickly exhausted their food supply. At the same time, their exaggerated productivity figures justified the collection of more taxes, to support urban industrialization. The simple result was famine.

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Engineering Communist China Communization was Mao’s policy, so those who foresaw the famine did not dare to speak up. Instead, officials whitewashed the situation, making it harder to rectify. At the Lushan Conference, held in the summer of 1959, Marshal Peng Dehuai, the defense minister, tried to bring the harsh reality to Mao’s attention. He criticized abuses, such as false reporting, that were damaging the Great Leap Forward. Mao treated these criticisms as an attack on his authority, and Peng spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Peng and those who supported him were collectively labeled the “Peng Dehuai Anti-Party Clique.” The Lushan Conference could have corrected the situation. But placing personal interests ahead of the nation’s, the leaders allowed the ongoing famine to spread, unchecked. Later estimates put the death toll at 30 million. Jasper Becker’s book, The Hungry Ghosts, offers a detailed account. The three years from 1958 to 1960 were called the “Natural Disasters Period,” though in reality this disaster was almost entirely manmade. For the next thirty years, people in many parts of the country were led to believe that natural disasters were to blame, rather than the blunders of government. Inevitably, food shortages began to be felt in the cities as well, by late 1958. Because of its military importance, the tank factory had always supplied its employees with good food, but at this time the quality was deteriorating. The workers were used to rice, wheat flour, vegetables and meat. These disappeared from the menu, and steamed corn bread, a second rate food item, was served. Soon, red sorghum bread was the only thing available. Fights began to erupt between the workers and the cooks. Nobody knew that mass starvation was ravaging some parts of the country; even sorghum was better than nothing. The factory leadership finally called a general meeting and explained that in one province, there had been a natural disaster and people were starving. Other provinces had to do their share by sending relief food. Certainly, in the spirit of fellow proletarian brotherhood and revolution, everyone understood the need to be patient. The factory dining service decided that once a week steamed wheat bread would be served. On that particular weekday, people lined up in long queues and bought all the bread they could carry. The supply was sold out before any but the first few people had been served. Complaints and curses were soon heard everywhere. On the next try, the dining service guaranteed three pieces of wheat bread per person. People would go through the line many times over, still taking more than their share. Inspectors had to stand watch to check everybody at the

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Chapter 4: the Great Leap Forward (2) doors. Even the factory security guards were overwhelmed by the angry crowds. Eventually, the problem was solved by a ration system. Everybody was given a certain number of coupons per month, and only received bread in exchange for the coupons. Baotou, a small, new industrial city became a very crowded place during the Great Leap Forward as thousands of peasants moved into the city area looking for jobs. They were driven from their villages by hunger and also by rumors that city life offered better opportunities. These hungry peasants almost doubled the city population. Most of them were young males, but many also brought their wives and children. Many of them were reduced to begging, since they had no industrial skills and no relatives to help them. The railway station became a free flop house. Most of the time, it was fully occupied by peasants who would commandeer any relatively flat spot and spread out cloth or paper, making it their home. Beggars filled the streets and shops. They had absolutely nothing left in their villages, not even cooking pots; people who kept food at home and cooked for themselves were criticized. Neither could families raise chicken or pigs or vegetables. Yet in their communal dining halls, there was no food anymore, either. Sometimes, a food substitute made of ground corncobs, for instance, was used. Trees were stripped of their leaves and bark. In some nearby villages, people were already dying. What mystified Dan and others was that vegetables were selling for very high prices in the cities. For example, a turnip cost 0.5 yuan. Why wouldn’t the leaders allow these peasants to grow some turnips and make a decent living? Peasants were left with the same choice they had always had: to starve to death in the village or try their luck in the cities. The Chinese term, “Escaping famine” (tao huang)” was an old, familiar expression. Famines (caused by real natural disasters, and by incessant wars before 1949) drove much of the migration of people throughout Chinese history. But this time, the peasants were tragic victims of a utopian dream, social engineering gone bad, a communization that sounded good in theory but in practice was hard to get right. Communization aimed to rid China of miseries and famines but, ironically, had brought disaster all the quicker. With no food and no hope, many resorted to crime, in the cities. Those who were employed by the government factories were not seriously affected. They paid a very small price — reduced food rations and a slightly reduced amount of food. The monthly grain ration was 15 kilograms per person. No meat and not much in the way of vegetables could be found to supplement to official quotient. Even in Beijing, food was more tightly rationed than before.

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Engineering Communist China Street traffic might seem normal, except when food supplies were sold — then people came streaming in from every direction and lining up in very long queues in front of the shops. Every family seemed to have own a scale of some sort. They weighed food for every meal, making sure that they did not over eat so that their food supply would last until the end of the month, when a new round of coupons would be issued. Hunger and the threat of starvation took at least a psychological toll even on the urban population. Every family lived in fear. Two of Dan’s roommates had swollen legs, the first sign of malnutrition. A popular saying was circulating among the young people: men are afraid of wearing boots (referring to swollen legs) and women are afraid of wearing hats (swollen heads). Sometimes, a doctor might write a prescription for special nutritional foods, canned meat, for example, allowing them to legally bypass the ration system. According the ration system, everybody received same amount of rations for grain, cloth, and other necessities. One’s status was not supposed to make much difference, and by and large it did not — especially compared to the modern capitalist society in which CEOs routinely take home many hundreds of times the salary of the ordinary worker. Certainly officials, according to their rank, always received more non-grain food items such as meat, eggs, and sugar than the ordinary people, but higher ranks only meant a little more of these luxury items. There were also cases where officials abused their positions. The party secretary of the Assembly Section, He Dekun, was known by his nickname “Scratching Palm.” He always volunteered for extra hours in the evening, so that he could play cards with young women in the dorms. One of the rules of the game was to scratch the loser’s palm. Of course, he often won and was addicted to the sight of girls giggling as their palms were scratched. For some reason, while everyone else was looking thinner and thinner, he always seemed healthy and full of bounce. Eventually, it was discovered that He Dekun had stored away three big vats, of oil, rice and wheat. The monthly ration of vegetable oil was 100 grams per person, not enough to cook with; but he had tucked away over 50 kilograms. For food, the monthly ration was only 15 kilograms per person; and where did he get all that grain? The factory authorities ordered an investigation. During the night shift a lot of valuable machinery, electric motors and the like, and materials like steel had been smuggled out. He Dekun had been trading these with nearby commune factories that needed equipment. He and a number of his accomplices were punished; He Dekun lost his position but was not arrested. For a long time,

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Chapter 4: the Great Leap Forward (2) he continued to walk in and out of the factory as if nothing had happened. Eventually he was kicked out of the Party and out of the factory. At this desperate juncture, the province established an Office for Support of Agriculture to move resources, materials and man power from big government factories in Baotou and other Inner Mongolian cities to the countryside, to boost food production. This was the province’s attempt to rescue agriculture, which by 1960 had fallen into total disarray. Every major factory sent a representative to this Office as a coordinator, and Dan was chosen from the tank factory. Dan had heard about the luxurious conditions at the new hotels. Only high officials, foreigners (Soviets) and people on special business were allowed in these places. At the first lunch, Dan was overwhelmed by the amount of food. There were eight people at each table, and eight different dishes plus a soup tureen. Some of the dishes had meat; one was a rib dish. No one wasted time on table manners or tried to disguise his lust for the food. They pounced on the meat dish and finished it in no time. The waitresses, pretty girls specially selected for the job, laughed in contempt. Besides vegetables and meat, there were rice and steamed bread of pure wheat, and there was no limit. Outside the hotel, people were getting by on food substitute, ground corncobs and roots. One such food was called “melon and vegetable substitute.” Once the mission of this office was made known, county officials came to request assistance. People were starving in every county and these local officials were striving to bring back as much as possible to their counties. One official offered Dan a whole pig or a goat; he offered to send it to Dan’s home in Beijing so that nobody would know about it. Actually, no one in this new office had much power to control resources anyway; everything depended on the willingness of the factories to spare anything they might not require. Next, Dan was sent on a purchasing/inspection trip to various factories all over China that supplied materials and tank parts. Due to lack of training in the purchasing department, the plant often wound up receiving materials of poor quality or to the wrong specifications. Dan’s job was to talk with these factories and correct all the problems resulting from poor communication. He carried a shopping list of badly needed materials on his trip to Canton and also to Guizhou Province. Guizhou was perhaps the poorest province in China. As a Chinese popular saying about the province goes, “There is no more than an acre of flat land; no clear sky for more than three days, no people with more than three ounces of silver.”

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Engineering Communist China Dan took a train to Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou Province, and went straight to the hotel assigned to him by the tank factory leadership. It was a Chinese traditional courtyard type of hotel, well decorated and well maintained — one of the best in the city. An introduction letter from a government agency was required. The receptionist tossed Dan’s letter right out the window, not realizing that the tank factory was at the same administrative level as the Guizhou provincial government. The Economic Commission of the provincial government called the hotel and set her straight. Now, Dan got red-carpet treatment. The factory he was to visit was in Zunyi, a famous site along the route of the Long March, the 6,000-mile trek by which the communist army fled from KMT troops (October 1934-fall of 1935) and during which Mao Zedong rose to power in the CCP. There was only bus service between Guiyang and Zunyi and tickets were difficult to get. The receptionist had Dan’s ticket sent to his hotel room. Before he left for Zunyi, Dan took a walk in the streets. There, in the midst of the greatest famine in Chinese history, walls were plastered with slogans praising the Great Leap Forward. The streets looked dreary and almost abandoned. Stores were practically empty. People walked slowly, especially the elderly. One old man (about sixty years old), shuffling along with a cane, fell down right in the street. No one stopped to help. The man’s exposed legs, swollen and shining, showed that he had collapsed from hunger; he was dying. To his surprise, Dan found a crowded restaurant flooded with people lining up to buy noodles. Made of acorn flour, they fell outside the grain rationing system and could be purchased without grain coupons. (The coupons Dan carried were National Grain Coupons that could be used in any province. Most people in China had local grain coupons.) The acorn product was hard to digest and made bowel movements painful and difficult. The price was 10 Chinese cents a bowl, plus a one-ounce food coupon, even though it was not formally considered a food substitute. Still, because it cost just a one-ounce coupon for three ounces of noodle, most people considered it a good deal under these excruciating circumstances. At the hotel, however, the food was beyond belief: plenty of rice and no limitations. Dan even found small pieces of meat in the vegetable dish. In the hotel shop, the government officials and guests could purchase items not available outside, like good cigarettes. Guests could only get two packs, valuable for barter even if one didn’t smoke. That was a good way to get things done in

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Chapter 4: the Great Leap Forward (2) China, from the 1950s to the 1970s, at least. Cigarettes were preferred gifts to people in power, most of whom were men. Zunyi is only about 100 miles from Guiyang. At Xifeng, a small town in the vicinity, there was only one hotel with an attached restaurant. The rooms were dirty, and the dining room was dirtier yet. Its floors were littered with trash; the unpainted tables and stools were covered with a layer of grime. Quite a number of people there were barefooted. There was no meat, or even oil, in the dishes being served. This was a big eye-opener for a city dweller. Still, not everything was bad in this area. There were bicycles in the stores and they did not require a bicycle coupon, as in Beijing or other big cities. Dan also found small pillow towels, another a hard-to-get item in Beijing, and decided to buy two. As he was paying, an old lady beside him thought that he was buying something good, so she took out her money — wrapped in several layers of cloth — and tried to count out her three yuan. The store clerk helped her, but she didn’t have enough. Embarrassed and frustrated, she scowled at the rich city slicker, carefully wrapped up her money, and slipped away. In Zunyi, he visited the alloy metal factory, part of the national strategic 156 Project. It produced alloy material for defense and other key industries. Dan greeted his counterparts with cigarettes and other gifts, and they spent some time talking about quality control and other problems. On the whole, he was well received and put into the best hotel in town. From Guiyang, he took a train to Canton. While changing train in Liu Zhou, Guangxi Province, he bought a used book entitled Hunger Geography. The author was a professor from Brazil and only one thousand copies of the book were printed in China. Dan was fascinated to learn how famine could be linked with geography. The book described the food structure and supplies in various parts of the world, and the deformities and illnesses that resulted from lack of certain elements. In Canton, the capital city of Guangdong Province, there was no sign of famine. The city was prosperous by any standard. It was a much better and richer city even than Beijing, and there were several modern hotels. There were plenty of goods in the stores. Curiously enough, the food at the hotel was no better than that in a Baotou Hotel, although Canton was a lot more prosperous. Apparently, the officials in the north were more corrupt. Cinemas in the city were crowded, and other forms of entertainment were also visible. Dan bought a pair of leather shoes for his fiancée. His host also showed him to a free market, where individuals were selling everything, even

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Engineering Communist China live monkeys, snakes, owls, cats and dogs — for food, not as pets. This kind of market was prohibited in northern China. Despite the centralized government, the provincial leaders either deliberately pursued or allowed considerable regional differences to exist. Dan’s southern trip was an extraordinary education. His disturbed conscience was no longer at peace with the world around him. Hunger was not just limited to Baotou; the whole country was indeed suffering. It was also a turning point in his personal life, since his guilty feelings eventually led him to write a policy proposal to the central government. And that was what landed him in jail.

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CHAPTER 5. ARREST In China, a Communist Party membership was something every young man and woman desired. It was the surest route to prestige, status and career advancement. A Party membership marked “progress” towards personal perfection and, collectively, towards the ideal society, communism. It was used to measure devotion to the noble cause of communism. A lack of enthusiasm smacked of the retrograde or reactionary, the old society. The Communist Party had always done a good job arousing the idealism of the young and the educated; the student movements from the 1920s to 1940s were examples of organized mass movements. As recent as the 1960s and 1970s, the Cultural Revolution, with all its chaos and upheaval, offered an outlet for young idealism. Dan was no exception. In spite of his dislike for corrupt officials, he was devoted to the communist cause, partly because of his poor background and partly because of the peer pressure from his age cohorts. He had applied several times, while still a young student; and he studied up on the history of communist movements, both domestic and worldwide. Personal experiences convinced him that there was a qualitative difference between the communist government and the past dynasties: this one worked for the common people. The ongoing famine did not mean, as he saw it, that the communist system was fundamentally flawed. Rather, this was a temporary difficulty and only some of the people who were running the system were flawed. At the factory, he also wrote a membership application letter to the Party, but nothing happened. An applicant needed recommendations from two party members, who essentially would serve as guarantors of political reliability and good character. Dan thought that He Dekun, as head of the section party

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Engineering Communist China committee, would be a sure bet. He had a decisive say in who would be accepted as a Communist Party member. One young girl who came to the factory at the same time as Dan was introduced into the Party by He Dekun after just a oneyear waiting period. Dan was advised by some party members that he had to routinely report his thoughts to the Party, so as to gain complete trust. “Reporting thoughts” was a standard term; it meant expressing loyalty by, in theory, revealing one’s inner self and reporting what one thought, to the Party organization, on a regular basis. Sometimes, this reporting was done in groups of like-minded people with a party member present and sometimes individually to the Party Secretary at the lower level. He Dekun finally agreed to have a meeting Dan. Dan sincerely explained why he wanted to join the Party: to make a better society and to make himself a better person, etc. Secretary He was from a working class family and was not educated. That did not prevent him from giving Dan a long lecture on how to reform his thoughts so that the Party would accept him. He said that he regarded Dan as a bourgeois intellectual who needed to be transformed by the working class. He also thought the only way to do this was to work hard and build a good relationship with the masses, the common people. He used one example from the factory. One senior engineer had wanted to join the Party for years, but the Party committee still refused to admit him on the grounds that he was very haughty. On the other hand, the young girl mentioned above came from a poor family background and always did what the Party told her to. She was very popular among the workers. He Dekun was very proud of being a member of the working class. In his opinion, the anti-Rightist movement was a timely and wise policy to crush the bourgeois intellectuals, who were not trustworthy. Dan would have to show the Party a complete transformation from this intellectual class to working class. He Dekun demanded that Dan report his thoughts to him frequently, since he represented the Party in this section. At the end of the conversation, He Dekun intimated to Dan that he had promoted a lot of people who showed loyalty to him, and he gave several examples. It is true that Dan did not have any particular regard for the common laborer with no education, even though he was from such a family himself. Dan was confident that the world had always been run by educated people and always would be. Wasn’t Karl Marx an intellectual? Mao Zedong? But he did indeed learn something new from the conversation. First, he had been classified as a bourgeois intellectual, a category he did not want to be in. How could a poor

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Chapter 5. Arrest boy who had worked so hard to get an education be bourgeois? He did not raise this question to He, for fear that he might be offended. The second thing he learned was that he had to please the secretary, personally. Dan’s desire to join the Party was considerably dampened by this conversation. Dan tried to behave in a manner acceptable to the secretary, but he no longer entertained high hopes. It had already been rumored for several months that Dan was slated to be a section chief. He was young, knowledgeable, energetic and a member of the Communist Youth League. Perhaps because he was not a party member, his promotion never came about. Party membership was required for all high-level officials. To Dan, the designation as a bourgeois intellectual was very disheartening. Even in the midst of famine, politics went on as usual. A so-called counterrevolutionary slogan appeared on a wall in a toilet room, saying: “Pitiful China in catastrophe.” The next day, He Dekun called a meeting of all the employees and demanded that the author of this graffiti step forward. Of course, nobody did. Then the toilet room was sealed off. The Assembly Section had the tightest security in the factory. If this place was not safe from counter-revolutionaries, He Dekun reasoned, the whole factory would not be safe. Handwriting samples were collected and analyzed. A witch hunt began. It turned out that the culprit was a young worker who was out on sick leave while the investigation was underway. Coming back to find the whole place in an uproar, he naively presented himself to the Party Secretary’s office and told He Dekun that he had merely felt a bit down, while in the men’s room, and casually wrote something on the wall. He was not attacking the government, not by any means. What he’d written was an objective fact, he argued; this was perhaps the most serious famine in Chinese history. He was sent to a labor camp to be reformed. The tank factory’s total dependency on the Soviet Union resulted in a disaster in 1960. The Soviets withdrew their technical experts and stopped supplying vital equipment and materials. Production slowed down and there was little to do. If the Soviet Union was a model communist society, Big Brother of China, and if Sino-Soviet relations were rock solid, where had their mentors gone? On a personal level, too, the Soviet and Chinese engineers had formed close relationships. No satisfactory explanation was forthcoming. The Soviet and Chinese press conducted an open ideological debate, but none of the issues seemed as important as communist solidarity against the capitalist world.

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Engineering Communist China By mid-1961, Dan and his fiancée decided to return to Beijing. He managed to get transferred to a new military factory in Beijing, and Xiaolan also got a transfer. The new factory, oddly enough, was built in the city contrary to the normal practice of constructing military industrial establishments in the mountains. All the employees were from the countryside. Dan was considered to be a young but senior engineer. While the factory was being built, there was no serious work to be done; so Dan was assigned to train new recruits from the middle schools. Back in Beijing, Dan was glad to see his family. As the political center of the country, Beijing was protected from starvation. The ration system worked in a very orderly fashion — although this was no Canton. Economic difficulties were visible, not just in tight rations but also in the high prices of non-rationed food items. Sweet cakes cost three yuan a pound, one tenth of many laborers’ monthly wages. Dan earned a monthly salary of 99 yuan. A meal at restaurant could cost as much as 20 yuan. Trying to save up some money for his marriage, he could not dream of dining out as he used to do just a few years before. Rations were, indeed, tight. Both his parents and his fiancée’s mother began to develop swollen legs, and he had to spend all his savings to supplement the diet for them and his two brothers. There was nowhere else to get food but the restaurants. Eating less, himself, Dan too began to show signs of malnutrition. At this crucial juncture, the government issued a new policy for intellectuals. They could receive extra food from the government: three pounds of soybeans and two pounds of Cuban sugar per month. People with higher ranks received little more. That does not sound like much, by today’s standards; but it made a huge difference. For a long time, there was no business at the new place. Dan and others thought they were waiting for equipment according to contracts with the Soviet Union. But nothing came, as the Sino-Soviet relations went into a deeper chill. The entire industrial project was scratched. Dan never knew what really happened. The army was always given the first right to choose employees. They came and selected 18 young engineers, including Dan, for a small repair factory under the Surveying Bureau of the PLA’s General Staff. The bureau’s business was to make accurate maps. Most of the equipment it used was produced and repaired at the factory. However, the factory was staffed mostly by discharged soldiers — politically reliable and obedient, but not technically capable.

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Chapter 5. Arrest Dan moved to the army’s factory. There were four very senior engineers already there, who were much more knowledgeable than any of the newcomers. Due to the fact that they were educated before the revolution, they were considered bourgeois intellectuals. None of them was in charge of any serious work or had any authority, even in technical matters. Again, there wasn’t much to do but ponder the social and economic issues of the day. Dan was a politically inexperienced and single-minded young man. He sincerely cared about the future of the country and the ongoing economic disasters upset him. His trip to the south had strengthened his nerve to offer some policy proposals to the government on various issues. He spent months working out the details. His was the path of a classic Confucian high-minded intellectual: risking one’s life, at the wrath of the emperor, in order to save the masses and the country from destruction. Chinese history is full of heroic tales that displaying ultimate loyalty and integrity. Dan immersed himself in the problems of the nation and gave little consideration to the personal risks. By May, 1962, he finished his proposal, entitled “Opinions on National Policies.” On May 15, Dan sent it to the State Council, the highest administrative organ of the government, headed by China’s premier, Zhou Enlai. Dan analyzed 36 problems including population control and eugenics; agricultural productivity; selection criteria for, and supervision of, officials; wage structures and incentives; a 90% reduction of factory personnel; how to study and surpass the US; etc. Perhaps some of the suggestions were not practical; some might have sounded ludicrous. But any sincere desire to help one’s country ought to be welcomed. One of the issues Dan raised was nutrition. Like many Chinese in the 20th century, he attributed some of the physical differences between the Caucasian and Asian races to their diets. Thus, the first item on his list of 36 was “Change the national diet and improve the physical and intellectual qualities of the people.” While most Asians ate predominantly grain, meat was an important part of the European diet. Presumably that was why the Asians tended to be short and the latter were tall and strong. And the impeded physical development must affect intellectual capabilities, Dan thought. He went into great details talking about the dietary habits of Indians, Chinese, Tibetans, and Japanese, to buttress his point. To remedy the situation, emphasis should be put on agriculture and production of meat. Certainly, after three years of famine, when people had barely anything to eat, this concern with the nuances of diet must have seemed out of place!

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Engineering Communist China An issue related to the health of the Chinese race was population control. Wouldn’t a population with fewer but healthier people be more productive? Less intelligent, less able people were consuming valuable resources. The idea of eugenics was very popular in China in the decades before the revolution, and had a firm grip on Dan’s thoughts. Not realizing that Darwin and Thomas Malthus, and their followers, had elaborated such ideas much earlier, Dan proposed using medicine, diet, and contraception to reduce the weaker elements and favor the stronger parts of society. Obviously, Dan was not well versed in the social sciences; neither did he know that the Malthusian population theory had been branded “bourgeois ideology” during the Anti-Rightist movement, just five year earlier, when Professor Ma Yinchu, a Yale-trained economist and chancellor of Beijing University, was attacked for advocating population control. Another sensitive topic Dan discussed was the selection and supervision of officials. After pointing out serious problems with government personnel policies, Dan deplored the low quality of cadres. Dan proposed some 20 detailed measures to improve government personnel policies, and in particular suggested returning to a variation of the traditional Chinese civil service examination, clothed in modern and communist terminologies. The reality was that most government and factory officials were former soldiers and generals who had fought in the war; they were given high positions as a reward for their military services and political loyalty to the Communist Party, not for their technical or managerial expertise. Many of them were not even literate. Dan represented a new breed of young communist technocrats who disdained such people for their incompetence. Still, nothing in Dan’s missive could be construed as hostile to the Party and the government. He deliberately avoided criticizing government policies during the Great Leap Forward and made no mention of the famine. Nothing happened after he sent in his proposals. As the year went by, Dan sensed a tense atmosphere developing in the neighborhoods — as if some kind of ongoing crisis was unfolding. One night, he came back from work around midnight and found a little crowd in front of his neighbor’s courtyard. It had been the home of a wealthy businessman, before the revolution, and then it became a housing compound for a government agency. The next day, he heard that a counter-revolutionary had been arrested — probably, a KMT secret agent. (The term secret agent was synonymous with counter-revolutionary.) In the 1950s, the KMT not only talked about mounting counterattacks on the mainland, but sent agents of various kinds to collect

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Chapter 5. Arrest information and create disturbances. The Cold War confrontations between China and the United States went on unabated, as shown in the offshore island crisis of 1958. Naturally, KMT infiltration and sabotage were a major theme in the press and in the movies, shaping a mass paranoia toward the outside world in general and contempt for any arrested individuals, who were presumed to be KMT agents. The popular attitude mirrored the periodic Red Scare that would sweep through the US, where the term “Communist” automatically invokes hostility in the popular mind. There were also various rumors relating to the war between India and China. Prior to the Communist takeover, wars and famines were twin brothers that terrorized the population. At this time there was a famine, already; and the people feared that the war might make it worse. The press explained that India was trying to take over Chinese territories along two sections of the border — territories that belonged to China but that the India’s colonial master, Britain, had always coveted. It was said that they’d made secret deals with local Tibetan authorities, without the approval of the Chinese central government. This was the so-called McMahon Line, which the Indians insisted on but which was not recognized by China. Naturally, Dan and everyone else responded to the news with patriotic and supportive fervor. However, many people were puzzled by the war. Just months before, the Indian leader, Nehru, was considered to be a great friend and supporter of China in the common fight against world imperialism. What had changed? The 18 engineers who were transferred together to the new factory sometimes discussed the war situation. Some thought the action might be intended to divert attention from the famine. China’s easy and decisive victory over India strengthened the suspicion that the war might be a deliberate charade put up for political purposes. Dan found that a bit of a stretch, and considered that genuine territorial disputes must exist; but anxiety was rising in everyone’s mind. In the Chinese press, as in many societies that feel under pressure, the propaganda divided the world into good guys and bad guys, nothing in between. People who bought such stories found it hard to follow the shifts over time. Now, Dan had to be very careful in voicing his opinions. A tradition was developing: whenever there was a crisis, the public security forces would make some arrests and call their victims counter-revolutionaries. Dan’s perception of a tense political environment was reinforced by an emergency meeting in the new factory, among other things. The political commissar, who carried the rank of colonel, was canceling all vacations. He said

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Engineering Communist China something to the effect that the surviving KMT regime in Taiwan was planning a counterattack on the mainland, to take full advantage of the “natural disaster situation” (the famine). Everyone would have to obey orders, just like in the army. Nobody should be afraid of hard work, or even death. There were class enemies still at large in the society, he continued, and we must be determined to eliminate any one of them whenever they were discovered. In the first couple of weeks, Dan felt that coming back to Beijing had been a terrible mistake. The new place was far stricter than the tank factory, and there were very few intellectuals, to begin with. The four most senior engineers were not trusted because of their pre-1949 education. (The prevailing logic was that only the wealthy had the means to get an education before 1949, and only people with a poor working-class background were politically trustworthy — the backbone of the factory.) The four senior engineers were not consulted on anything; yet, whenever there was political campaign, they were ready targets. Their fate boded ill for Dan’s future. The political commissar was the most classconscious person he had ever met. Two days before New Year’s Day, 1963, Dan was told to pick up his food subsidies in the new office building. There sat the political commissar, behind a big desk, and flanked on both sides by a bunch of officers. They all stared at Dan as if he was a stranger. He was told that he’d been suspended, and would have to confess his mistakes. A few officers stepped up to him and searched him. His pass to the factory, keys, money and food coupons, were placed in temporary custody of the factory. That afternoon, Dan was put on an army truck and guarded by several riflescarrying soldiers. The truck, followed closely by an American-made jeep, took Dan to his dorm in a three-story building, where soldiers searched every corner of his room. Even the toilet room was searched, for fear that some secret document might be hidden there. The search went until dark. Most of the time was spent on Dan’s books, notebooks, and other written materials. Apparently, the soldiers expected to find weapons or radio equipment — most people’s notions of a counter-revolutionary were based on cheap movie-like ideas. All these books were beyond them. Then Dan was taken back to the factory and locked up. Guarded by soldiers, he was supposed to write confessions. Dan was stunned and frightened. After the Anti-Rightist Movement and similar events, he thought he had learned to be discreet in what he said and did. Then it dawned on him. Was this the answer to his proposals, submitted months before? He was appalled by the famine and poverty that had plagued

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Chapter 5. Arrest China in recent years; what could be wrong in making suggestions for improvement? Writing a proposal to solve economic and other problems of the country was not criticism of the Party or the state. Was it? His youthful idealism had clearly got the better of his budding sense of real politics. He had never expected this. And he had never shared any of those proposals with any of his colleagues, knowing that they would not be able to understand his ideas and most likely would suspect his motives. In his confinement, he was asked to write about his mistakes. There was no mistake to acknowledge. He hoped that the leadership would talk with him soon, so that he could explain away the apparent misunderstandings and still be home for the New Year. However, the officers of the factory had all gone home for the holidays, already. Three days after New Year’s Day Dan was interrogated by three officers. The captain repeatedly told Dan to acknowledge his anti-Party and anti-socialist thoughts and behavior. Dan maintained that he did not have any such ideas. Then the captain pulled several sheets of paper from his thick briefcase and read some of Dan’s letters to his friends. Dan had complained about some corrupt officials, and criticized government policy as the cause for the nationwide famine. He had told some of his friends about the starvation he saw during his trip to the southwest. While it was true that he had written those letters, Dan was shocked at the possibility that so many of his friends would betray him. Then he realized that his mail might have been under surveillance for a long time, perhaps ever since he came to the factory. Some security-sensitive military units checked personal correspondence; but he had never believed that it would happen to him. Now, he admitted to the things he had said about the famine and the Great Leap Forward in general. He also had to assume that they had his proposal to the government, and that it was the proposal that had caused his mail to be checked in the first place. Now that his views were known to the leadership already, Dan decided to spell out in great detail his motives for writing the proposal and for holding negative opinions on the “Three Years of Natural Disasters.” He observed that most people were selfish and were too influenced by the past feudal values to carry out socialist programs. For example, when the common dining halls were established throughout China, peasants simply ate more than they would have eaten at their own homes, and thus depleted food supply faster. Moreover, people worked harder on their own lands than on the public lands. Dan did not dare to criticize the commune directly, but wrote that China was not ready yet

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Engineering Communist China for such a system. It might take a few more years of education before a program like communization could be introduced. He hoped that, by writing a proposal to the government, he could help avert serious problems for the country. In fact, his views were not much different from the measures being taken by the Communist Party to deal with the “Three Years of Natural Disasters.” In late 1961, a new CCP directive, the Sixty Articles on Agriculture, was issued to correct the communistic frenzy. Big communes were abolished and smaller production teams became the basic unit of communal farming; peasants were allowed to keep their private lots and properties again. There was already a retreat from Great Leap Forward on all fronts, not just in agriculture. Early in 1962, the CCP convened a meeting called the Seven Thousand Cadre Rally. At this meeting, even Mao was forced to openly criticize himself, acknowledging responsibility for the disasters. The fundamental shifts of policy and the politics behind them were not widely known at the time. After Peng Dehuai was disgraced and removed as defense minister, his successor, Lin Biao, promoted a personality cult of Mao in the army, in spite of Mao’s horrible misjudgments that had cost millions of lives. Lin Biao’s political fortunes rose dramatically. In the army, now controlled by Lin Biao, Mao and the policy he favored (such as the Great Leap Forward) could not be doubted, let alone criticized. This might be another reason why Dan was regarded as a counter-revolutionary in the army. What he wrote was simply interpreted as an attack on Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Little wonder that Dan was later called “Peng Dehuai’s follower.” It was one thing for the top leaders to quietly repudiate and change their own policies. It was quite another for an ordinary citizen to peek behind the curtain and say the same things. Two days later, the captain came back. After reading Dan’s explanations, he said that Dan apparently still did not realize the seriousness of his problem and was still trying to spread counter-revolutionary ideas. Obviously, the captain was not as well-informed as Dan on national policies or on the extent of the famine. He sincerely believed the government story, that the famine was caused by natural disasters. Thus, Dan’s opinion that the famine was largely man made was a clear evidence of counter-revolutionary thinking. Worst of all, Dan showed no sign of remorse for having such wacky ideas. This was disrespect and disloyalty. How could he, a Communist Youth Leaguer, resist the Party organization?

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Chapter 5. Arrest The ignorance of the army officers sometimes caused some funny moments during the interrogation. Among the materials the soldiers confiscated from Dan’s dormitory were the names of historical figures from various periods of Chinese history, including contemporary personalities. The captain did not know most of the names; he asked who was Wei Zheng and what was his connection to Dan. Maybe Dan was forming some kind of secret counterrevolutionary organization. Wei was a high ranking official during the Tang Dynasty, more than a thousand year before. The captain did not even have the grace to be embarrassed by his lack of education. Likewise, Dan was interrogated in detail about his proposal to the government by a captain who had no comprehension of the issues. Dan’s opinion on population control was at odds with the government publicly stated policies; ironically, because of his fame, Professor Ma Yinchu, who had been denounced already during the Great Leap Forward as a bourgeois economist, still lived in his luxury two-story house with an expensive car and many servants assigned by the government. Worse still was Dan’s suspected connection to a counter-revolutionary clique. Dan was not aware of the details of Peng Dehuai’s dismissal; his supporters were purged from the Party and the army. But his interrogator might have known more, about that, and may have suspected that Dan had some connections with Peng’s anti-Party clique, as it was called. Dan was repeatedly asked about any higher officials in the Party and army that he was acquainted with. He was even asked about possible methods for a coup d’état. Dan was more puzzled than frightened by these questions, and denied any connections with people at the top. He patiently explained that his opinions came from his personal experiences in the Great Leap Forward, from his observations of official waste and luxury in the hotels, and from his trip to southwest China. His sincerity was received as intransigence and non-cooperation. The officers were disappointed. They wanted to discover a counter-revolutionary plot. A month passed and the traditional New Year was fast approaching. Dan requested several times that his suspension be terminated so he could return to normal life. One day, the captain came and kindly told Dan that everything would be all right if he wrote a self-criticism for what he had said and written. Eager to go home for the holidays, Dan spent several days writing a harsh criticism of his own opinions on the Great Leap Forward. He thought that once his suspension was over, he would collect his salary and then buy food and other things for the holidays. He understood that his

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Engineering Communist China family and fiancée, Xiaolan, must be beside themselves with worry. His release would bring great joy to the whole family. One day before the Chinese New Year, Dan was given a piece of paper to sign. To his disbelief, the document declared he was a counter-revolutionary and sentenced him to three years of re-education through labor. Dan was unceremoniously loaded into a jeep and carried under armed escort to a temporary detention facility north of the city. It was called Beijing No. 6 Labor Reeducation Team.

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CHAPTER 6: DETENTION CENTER The No. 6 Labor Reeducation Team was in fact a detention center. China’s prison system was a labyrinth that defies clear definitions. There were normal prisons, and special prisons for high level political prisoners, such as Qincheng north of Beijing. Common criminals have been sentenced to labor reform camps for a fixed term. A third kind of incarceration, termed “reeducation through labor,” was designed for lesser offences and juvenile criminals. People who were sent here were not theoretically considered to be convicts and therefore no formal legal procedure such as a court sentence was required. They were people who had “made mistakes.” The principle behind it, in the Communist ideology, was that through labor ill-doers would understand the hardships of the common people and would be reformed by identifying with the toils of the working class. Three years of labor was usually considered enough to reform someone’s thoughts and behavior. However, in reality, such prisoners were treated no differently than common criminals. The institution of reeducation through labor was the same as labor reform camps. During the anti-Rightist Movement, many college students were put into the reeducation labor camps. Political prisoners were supposed to benefit from such as a system, as well. The detention center had a huge, square courtyard, with a big iron door guarded by two soldiers with rifles. The high walls were built with large bricks taken from the ancient city walls of Beijing. Above the walls were electric wires with red lights at 10-meter intervals, reminding the detained that escape attempts would be suicidal. There was a guard tower every 40 meters or so along the walls and all of them were equipped with search lights. Armed guards at

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Engineering Communist China these towers could see every corner of the prison. In the center of the yard was an abandoned brick kiln. East of it, a group of tents shivered in the cold winds and served as temporary accommodations, supplementing in addition to some cave-like houses along the walls. Dan’s belongings were taken away at the entrance and he was told that his relatives could pick them up when they came to visit. Then Dan was led through the yard to a cave house. He was terrified by loud cries from a nearby tent. A man was shouting, “I want to go home!” while he was being beaten up by four or five inmates. This was the first time Dan saw such a brutal beating, though he had heard plenty of horrible stories about prison. Now, he was really scared. Almost everybody in the compound was a convict. Inside the cold, damp room of about 200 sq. feet, about 15 people crowded together, some sitting on the earthen bed and others standing. A man in his forties sat behind a small desk and ordered Dan to register his name, age, the nature of the crime, duration of sentence, etc. He sternly remarked, “You’d better acknowledge your crimes, so that you can be reformed.” Then he whispered: “Take it easy. It’s no use to be sad anymore. Just acknowledge whatever you were told to. Otherwise the government will punish you even more. Just be careful.” This person was obviously the group leader. Shortly afterwards, it was dinner time and the group leader ordered two inmates to fetch the food. People were ordered to make room for the food box and everybody got out his bowl and chopsticks. That day the dinner was not bad — stewed pork with turnips and starch noodles. Even though it was the eve of the Chinese New Year, Dan was surprised to see meat, when it was rare even for ordinary people. Everybody was given three small pieces of steamed bread. Like everybody else in China, the prisoners’ monthly food supply was rationed to 28 pounds of grain plus vegetables. Before eating, the group leader declared that because of the holidays, they would have two days off with no study sessions; and he repeated the standard prison rules prohibiting exchange of information of any kind among the inmates. Dan was too sad and too shocked to have any appetite. From childhood, he had hated counter-revolutionaries. He was under no illusion that he could aspire to have any future, now. Would his fiancée, Xiaolan, wait three years for a disgraced person? Even if she would remain loyal, how would he find a decent job with a bad record; how could he support her and a new family? Dan had been in government factories long enough to realize that good jobs demanded political reliability. He would belong permanently to a counter-revolutionary class; there was no hope of redeeming himself and proving his innocence.

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Chapter 6: Detention Center As he was brooding, an inmate asked him if he would give up his share of food. Once he nodded, there was chaos among the inmates. The group leader had to step in and declared a new rule: nobody could give food to each other. Dan’s food was put back into the box and redistributed evenly in the group. After dinner, Dan was told that all the people here were new inmates and would stay and study for a month or two. Then labor reform farms would select people for permanent placements. On these farms, inmates would have to work and were given 45 pounds of grain. This was why everybody wanted to get out of this temporary detention center as soon as possible. Obviously, people preferred more food, even if it meant hard labor. The three year famine had a terrible grip on people’s minds. The group leader was accused of being a Rightist. He used to be a textile engineer. He had been around in this temporary facility for several years and somehow was not sent to any labor camp. There was another Rightist in the group, a student from Beijing Film College. He was 24 years old and before the Anti-Rightist Campaign, he criticized the Communist Party leadership. Since he was young, he was ordered to be reformed at the same school. He was asked to do heavy labor and felt hungry all the time. His food ration was not enough and often he resorted to stealing food from the cafeteria. Once it was discovered, he was considered to be resisting reform; the college officials sent him to the detention center instead. The young man was very handsome and physically strong. After he was released — twenty years later, in the 1980s — he became a movie actor. Dan was particularly sympathetic to him because he also had a pretty fiancée waiting for him. As the two got to know each other, the young man showed Dan the pictures of his fiancée and a lock of her hair. Unlike Dan and this young man, who were sent here by their work units, most inmates were sent by the Public Security Bureau as petty criminals. Several in the room were pickpockets who had been in and out of here many times already. Prison life seemed quite normal for them. In the evening, thirteen more young men came from the Public Security section. Not all of them were thieves, however. Their arrests were part of what might be called a seasonal pattern. In their efforts to maintain public order and before every major holiday or special occasion, the police department would arrest people who either had criminal records or had committed petty offenses. This was normal before May 1, the International Labor Day, October 1, the National Day, and Chinese New Year’s Day. Now, in such a limited space, there were thirty people crammed together like sardines. The group leader ordered the newcomers to sit on the floor, simply

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Engineering Communist China because there was no place on the earthen bed anymore. That night, there was no place to sleep and hardly any space to sit. At around ten o’clock, they were allowed to visit the men’s room in two separate groups, under escorts by older inmates. All the inmates cherished this opportunity to breathe some fresh air and tried their best to prolong their stay outside as much as possible. Also that evening, a man dressed in expensive clothes, with shiny black leather shoes and a wool hat, was pushed into the room. He looked like an official. He was so outraged that he cursed and shouted at the policemen who were shoving him around. This was something that no inmates dared to do. The group leader managed to calm him down. This man was indeed a cadre in a factory. This was his wedding day. He was arrested because somebody reported to the authorities that he had spread rumors about the famine; he was accused of engaging in anti-Party and anti-socialist activities. He did not even know where he was. After being told that this was a detention center for criminals, the man became even more angry. When a policeman came at midnight to count heads, the man refused to answer the roll call. In the morning, he was taken away and sent to a northeast labor farm. Four years later, Dan saw him by chance on a labor farm, working as a cook. The next day, Dan was led to one of the big twenty-man tents. There were no beds, only thick straw mats laid along two sides. There was an inmate-onduty, usually one who had been around for a long time and was trusted by the authorities, who would give the order for one man to lie down first, on his side. Then the other men had to line up, lying on the same side, so that more people could be squeezed in. Once they were all in place, the inmate-on-duty would cover them with the quilts they had brought from home. Hardened criminals, thieves, would not bring their own quilts — only first-timers did so, not realizing that these quilts would be shared by the whole group. Normally, one quilt was intended to cover one or two persons, but now they were spread to cover three or four. There was no room to roll over. Once, Dan got up to go the men’s room at night, and he could not find his space again. For the first time in his life, the thought of suicide crossed his mind. The traditional New Year was over and prison life turned into a routine: 6:00 AM wake-up and trip to the men’s room. Then washing up, with four people sharing wash basin with cold water, provided by the inmate-on-duty. Breakfast was a bowl of porridge, one fist-sized chunk of corn bread and some salted vegetables. Then a whole morning of “study session.” The People’s Daily, the Communist Party newspaper and the real national paper, was available. The

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Chapter 6: Detention Center group leader or inmate-on-duty would read the editorials and most important. Then, inmates were supposed to criticize themselves according to what was read on a particular day. For example, if there was a report of increase of productivity at a certain village, the inmates would use the occasion to confess that their dissatisfaction with the economy and the Party was a mistake. Or they would have to say that they had failed to understand the inspiring power of socialism and of the Party. Self-criticisms and confessions were required from everybody every day, whenever an opportunity could be found. This was thought reform par excellence. In a couple of weeks, Dan began to experience a deep hunger. The ration of 28 pounds of grain was not enough for a young man. There were few vegetables and no meat. He began to dream of food, in the study sessions and in sleep; so did other prisoners. Conversations would turn to food, whenever possible, and inmates would slide into “psychological feasting.” It was so widespread that the group leader had to call a meeting and prohibited the mentioning of food in study sessions: “Eating, or thinking about eating or lavish feasts, are all bourgeois ideas. We are here to learn proletariat ideology and to reform ourselves.” In those days, nobody really knew what the terms proletariat or bourgeois really meant, but it was understood that one implied good, and one bad. “Psychological feasting” was avoided briefly, but shortly afterwards returned as the dominant topic in conversations. Another favorite pastime was picking lice off their clothes. On sunny days, the group leader would order everybody to sit in the open yard and pick lice. There was no bath or shower facility at this detention center — or, for that matter, for most people in China. Almost every peasant carried lice in his clothes and somehow got used to the parasites. Dan and most of the inmates were city folks, but over time they, too, gradually grew accustomed to sharing their life with lice. Every hole in their clothing was full of lice, and the underwear was the worst. This was a battle without end and without winners. After a while, the itching was no longer as unbearable and they could go for days without bothering to pick lice. Still, Dan became a very efficient lice killer. When he got to work, in a few minutes his fingers would be covered with blood. Due to the meager food rations, every inmate sought to be chosen for the labor reform farms. Most of those establishments were in China’s northeastern provinces, formerly known as Manchuria. One day, an official with a fur hat and an overcoat came to the detention center — obviously from the northeast. All the inmates were ordered to line up in the yard. Recruitment time. His interest was

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Engineering Communist China to select those who were physically strong. Dan was an intellectual with glasses, hardly the type a farm manager’s first choice. However, he did his best to look fit and tough. When his name was called, he stepped forward like a soldier. The official looked him up and down, then quickly called the next person. The next day, when the chosen list of people was announced, Dan was not among them. This batch of detainees was sent to a farm near Lake Xingkai, a lake in Heilongjiang Province, bordering Russia. The inmates were told to inform their families to come and say farewell on a certain day. However, they were told that nobody could write in their letters or reveal in person any complaints against the detention center, and that nobody must ask the relatives for food. In the next few months, several hundred inmates were chosen and sent to Yinhe labor reform farm in Heilongjiang Province and Yaohe farm in Jilin Province. Dan was not picked; he was not deemed fit for work in the cold northeast. As inmates came and went, Dan became an old timer. In late spring, a new three-story building was completed and its windows were covered with iron bars. He was put into a room on the first floor with 30 people, most of whom had been there for a year or two. The group leaders tended to be those who had been there longer than others. The leader responsible for several groups on this floor had been in this detention center for four years and was trusted by the prison guards. His name was Lin Shengran. Newcomers all thought that he was a policeman because of his pompous manner. He wore a wristwatch, which was not permitted of other inmates. The watch was a symbol of authority. His clothes were in better condition, too. This Lin was arrested on a charge of treason, but was not given a fixed term. There seemed to be some mystery surrounding his imprisonment. It was said that Lin was a meteorologist who had been studying in East Germany. On a visit to Berlin, he was supposed to have walked over to West Berlin, deliberately or accidentally. He was captured and detained, and had no idea when he would be released. Lin always pleased the guards by acting as their eyes and ears, which made him the most vicious, in the view of the inmates. In the new building, he was made responsible for the inmates on the first floor. Under him were three or four group leaders, each of whom in turn controlled a few inmates-on-duty. These inmates in leadership positions lived in rooms with only a dozen people and had wooden beds. The inmates-on-duty carried out orders from group leaders. Sometimes they fetched food from the cafeteria or escorted inmates to the toilet room. Most of the time, they supervised inmates and brought them under control if there was any trouble. As a reward, they generally enjoyed greater

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Chapter 6: Detention Center freedom and a larger food ration, 35 pounds of grain per month rather than the standard 28 pounds. Among this privileged class, only the group leader was given some monetary incentives. Lin was said to have a monthly bonus of 20 yuan — a huge sum, considering no inmates received any payment whatsoever. Lin Shengran seemed to be a well-educated man. But contrary to the popular image of intellectuals, this short and fragile man was cruel. As was the custom, the leader of a group had to receive newcomers and to make sure the latter behaved according to regulations. Dan was ordered to appear before him in his office. Lin sat behind a small desk, looking at Dan like a judge. Dan was given a tiny stool to sit on, right in front of Lin’s desk. Lin interrogated Dan about his case and then gave him a long political lecture on how to reform his bourgeois thoughts through labor. He went on for almost an hour. For a prisoner who was himself a victim of politics to lecture a fellow political prisoner in such a manner was pathetic, or even absurd, but neither Lin nor Dan realized the absurdity of it at the time. Lin Shengran was released and in the 1990s; he became an associate editor of the Chinese Encyclopedia. There were all kinds of criminals at the detention center. One was a boy about 15 years of age; he claimed to be 16. His family was too poor to send him to school. Although the education was free, students had to pay about 5 yuan a semester for books and other materials. That was a lot of money for a struggling family, especially during the famine period. One day, he could not tolerate the hunger anymore and stole some rice cakes from a store. He was sent down for six months. Another man was a professional thief; he had learned his trade from a master. But when Beijing was taken over by the Communist government, his master was put into prison; so he gave up the trade and became a worker in a factory, processing coal. Once he spotted a man with 400 yuan: too much to resist. However, he was a little rusty and he wound up being caught by a plainclothes policeman. The public security people refused to believe that this was the first time he resorted to stealing after so many years, and sentenced him to three years of labor education. Because of the fast turnover rate at the center, Lin promoted Dan and the film student to inmate-on-duty. Dan moved to the privileged room, and he enjoyed some freedom of movement. He could go to the men’s room anytime he wanted. To show his loyalty to the warden and to the government, Lin demanded that inmates-on-duty record what prisoners said at all times, even during their dreams. According to his logic, dreams revealed the true ideas and feelings. He often used this dream material to interrogate inmates, in hopes of

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Engineering Communist China finding incriminating evidence. Even inmates-on-duty, such as Dan, detested Lin. Yet, they had no choice but to follow Lin’s orders. A few more pounds of food and freedom to move around were sufficient to buy one’s soul, for the time being. Shortly after he was promoted, Dan witnessed the serious beating of three juvenile delinquents. One day, Lin called a meeting of the leadership class and told them that three young hooligans would be sent here soon. These three were so tough that not even the public security police could control them. They were being removed from a detention center for minors to this adult facility. Lin told his men to “give it” to these kids, so that they would behave. Both Lin and the inmates-on-duty were accustomed to beating recalcitrant members of the prison community. What was worse, they enjoyed it, since it gave them a sense of power. It was decided that five inmates-on-duty would deal with one kid. The next day, the three kids came; the oldest was about 16. They were taken to three separate rooms. Lin personally dealt with the oldest one. He had one of the inmates-on-duty put a quilt over the boy so that he could not see anything. Then several adults jumped on him and started beating, punching, and kicking, until the boy could not move anymore. About two hours later, he recovered a little and Lin started a conversation with him and two other kids. The younger ones were so afraid that they pledged that they would obey orders, but not the oldest one. For a long time, he refused to talk. At one point, he jumped up all of a sudden and dashed to Lin, shouting “I will remember you forever! Your life is mine!” He was stopped by others and was beaten again. Since nobody could control him, this kid was sent to the northeast a few days later. Dan was assigned to the group that was to beat the oldest kid. He had never really beaten anybody in his life; he just stood aside and watched. His behavior annoyed Lin, but somehow he forgave him and never assigned him to this kind of dirty work again. Lin, or for that matter the prison guards, rarely beat the inmates. It was always the inmates themselves who maintained order, on instructions from the authorities. The frequency of sanctioned physical violence was depressing. Dan decided to report it to the detention authorities. Such brutality was abnormal in a socialist country, Dan thought; surely, once the authorities knew what was going on, they would put a stop to this animalic practice. Thus, he took full advantage of his privilege of free movement and spare time and wrote a full account of several major incidents. Passing his report to the officials in charge of the detention center behind Lin’s back was a tricky business. He found his

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Chapter 6: Detention Center chance one day and hastily passed the report to a prison official on his way out of the inmate quarters. That was a terrible mistake. Lin no longer trusted him. They bumped into each other in the hallway and Lin let him have it. He began taking his revenge the next day. He put Dan on the food-carrying team. It was a hard job and normally only the strong were assigned to it. Two people had to carry a big pail of porridge weighing more than 200 pounds back from the cafeteria. Refusing to carry out orders would definitely invite harsh punishment, namely a beating. Dan mustered all his strength and with another man carried the big pail on their shoulders, using a flat bamboo pole. His shoulders ached terribly and he developed a serious back pain. After a couple of weeks, he collapsed in a shivering heap. He asked permission to visit the clinic. Lin refused outright and told him that prison life was not meant to be easy. That evening he fainted, and woke up in the clinic bed already with a thermometer in his mouth. He was running a high fever. He was moved to one of the cave-style rooms where the sick were sheltered. Here, the leader was a kind old man and he ordered other sick inmates to pay keep an eye on Dan. Because of his high fever, Dan drifted in and out of consciousness and could not eat. Even under such conditions, he had to participate in the study sessions, though the group leader let him lean over his pillow and quilt instead of sitting up. The only medicine he was given were some aspirin-like tablets intended to reduce fever. He didn’t eat for two days; not even porridge with sugar, a luxury, would stimulate his appetite. The inmates in the group discussed his situation and urged the group leader to get Dan a thorough checkup. The next day, Dan was diagnosed with pleurisy — an inflammation and fluid in the chest cavity — which was putting pressure on his heart. The only remedy was to suck the fluid out, every other day. Using a huge needle, they managed to hit the right spot — usually on the second try. Dan went to the clinic for more than a week. Thanks to the hard work of the doctors, they drained the fluid, his fever went down and he returned to normal. These doctors were inmates, too. The two who treated Dan were classified as Rightists. One was a highly regarded doctor from a well-known medical school and the other from an army hospital. Both were highly skilled and even at prison were highly respected by inmates and police guards alike. Another good doctor had served as a medical officer in the KMT’s army and carried a rank of

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Engineering Communist China brigadier general. They were the gentlest people at this facility and contrasted sharply with the rest of the population. Beatings were frequent in the building and so were the “Struggle” or “Criticism” meetings. Since many of the inmates were detained for politically incorrect thoughts, these studies of the People’s Daily, self criticisms, meetings and hard labor were an important part of the program purporting to reform their thinking and bring them in line with socialist values. Aside from the routine reading and criticism exercises, sometimes special sessions were organized for specific individuals. Once, the warden of the detention center called a meeting of group leaders and inmates-on-duty. He declared that a certain Professor Xie of Qinghua University would be coming to the detention center. He was a wellknown scholar who got his degree from the United States and had been at Qinghua, one of China’s top schools, for a few years. However, instead of being grateful to the Communist Party and the government, the warden continued, he considered China undemocratic and set up a so-called Third Party. Even after this scholar was initially given a prison term, he continued to advocate that he had a right under the constitution to form a political party. Because of his intransigence, he was considered a tough character. The warden called upon everybody to prepare a speech for a struggle session against him and to make him change his bourgeois way of thinking. Specifically, the warden wanted them to contrast the present communist society with the previous society when the KMT ruled. Such a contrast was a preferred way to educate the whiners. Indeed, life under the KMT during the 1930s and 1940s was miserable and most of the people truly loved the Communist Party, until the famine hit. Dan and others were also told to criticize the hypocritical democracy in the West as a sham, since the poor people never could have a significant influence on politics, as the rich did. When this Professor Xie came, the prison authorities welcomed his coming with a big criticism rally. Because of his reputation and stature, nobody expected to apply any corporal punishment to him. The rally took place in a cave-style room with only the privileged inmates, policemen and Xie in attendance. Everybody present made great pains to display loyalty to the government. They took turns attacking Xie for his anti-socialist thinking and his stubborn refusal to be reformed. Some explained how they had suffered from hunger in pre-1949 days, whereas under communism, people always had enough to eat and to wear. Some cited newspapers reports that said in the capitalist countries the working class was exploited by the rich, so that some had to sell their blood for a living. It

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Chapter 6: Detention Center was a well-rehearsed meeting, where almost uniform scripts were read; this went on all morning. However, the professor closed his eyes and maintained a defiant silence from the beginning to the very end. He never even looked at anybody. Dan took part in the meeting as required. In fact, he had no quarrel with the notion that the new society was much better than the old one, especially for the common people. He still thought that the Great Leap Forward was a temporary setback. However, Dan hated the political oppression from which he personally was suffering so much, and so of course he empathized with Professor Xie. It was a rather strange meeting. Although everybody criticized the professor, everyone secretly admired him for his renown, knowledge and even his defiance. The warden and police officers were no exceptions. Politics aside, most people were from commoners’ background and looked up to the professor as a famous celebrity. Even the common criminals who heard about him called him a real man for his courage to defy the authorities. Dan wished he could talk with him. Once, on his way to fetch food, Dan happened to meet him in the yard. He was short and wore a fine wool jacket, very expensive material, when most people had only cotton clothes. The professor was on his way to the toilet room, accompanied by two inmates-on-duty. When the two inmates were not looking carefully, the professor jumped into the pit full of human waste, trying to commit suicide. He was perhaps the most important political prisoner the detention center had ever had. The two inmates-on-duty were scared out of their wits and one of them ran across the yard to the warden’s office, crying for help. The other on quickly regained his senses and jumped into the pit to rescue him. If the professor died, he would be held responsible and might be punished. With the help of other people, they pulled the professor out and washed him with a water hose. Later, that professor was taken away, perhaps to a better facility. Another bizarre case took place in the sick group. A forty-year-old man called Mr. Huang was sent there on a summer day. Although it was very hot, he still wore his shabby, long gown. He looked very pale and grew his hair very long, a typical image of a mad man. When ordered to sit up and to participate in the study sessions, Huang simply ignored the group leader. When others forced him to sit up, he started cursing everyone around. “You are bandits! You are all sons of bitches.” He refused to take orders. Sometimes, in the middle of a discussion, he would sit up unexpectedly and shouted: “It’s all a lie. You wanted me to express my opinions. But when I did, you called me a Rightist. You are all

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Engineering Communist China crooks, evil people.” Ordinarily, people sent there to be reeducated through labor expected to do time for three years. Mr. Huang refused to acknowledge any crime from the moment he was imprisoned. His sentence was prolonged from 1957 to 1963, and still no end in sight. Huang never wrote to his family, never mended his clothes, and had no desire to interact with others in the detention compound. Since he was widely regarded as a mental patient, he was more or less let alone; he was the only inmate who openly attacked government policy and got away without serious punishment. He never reported to the group leader for anything. Whenever he wanted to visit the men’s room, he just took off. Sometimes, he would give a long lecture about democracy and freedom of speech and ask why the Party invited people to offer constructive criticism and then imprisoned those who did. The group leader would not dare to engage in any discussions with him for fear that he himself might say something wrong and self-incriminating. The group leader in the sick ward was a very patient man. He used to be an official in charge of food services for the State Council. When he entered Beijing with the communist troops, he abandoned his peasant wife in his native village. It was a trend among officials, most of whom had peasant origins. They tended to be dazzled by glamorous city life and captivated by cultured women. In Beijing, he married a widow with a daughter. He then developed a long incestuous relationship with his stepdaughter. His wife found out and reported him to his boss. As a punishment, he was put into this detention center supposedly, for three years. Such a penalty was rather lenient for his offence and it was largely due to the fact that he had a meritorious record in the communist troops. In his heart, he was still loyal to the communist cause and to the government and seemed genuinely regretted what he had done. He behaved very well and was quickly promoted to be the leader of the sick ward, the best job possible in the detention center. In this ward, he distrusted all but the simpleminded, and preferred inmates from lower classes as his assistants. The official thinking was deeply rooted in his mind as he regarded intellectuals as enemies of the states whereas the criminals from lower classes were still part of the working class. Once, in the middle of the night, the deranged Rightist got up and shouted: “I have 3,000 heavenly soldiers and generals. They all obey my orders. I am going to call them down to earth and kill all of you.” The group leader dutifully reported this incident to the warden. The Rightist was very angry at this and resorted to hunger strike. For three days, he did not eat anything. The group

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Chapter 6: Detention Center leader became so worried that he ordered five inmates-on-duty to hold the Rightist’s limbs and head and forced some salted porridge down his throat. The salty food made the Rightist very thirsty and he demanded water the next day. He was again given porridge. Eventually, the hunger strike came to an end. Another hunger striker was treated in the same way. The prison officials and the doctors managed to get him to the clinic. Somehow, the inmate closed his month very tight and doggedly refused to open it. Using a rubber tube, the officials and doctors forced corn porridge into him. After a few days, he, too, gave it up. In this sick group, inmates had a full day off, completely to themselves, every two weeks. Normally, they would play Chinese chess, play cards, write letters or simply rest. On one of these days, the group leader was playing Chinese chess when the mad Rightist came up and hit him, hard, right in the glasses. Broken glass jabbed into his right eye. He was taken immediately to the clinic, but there was nothing the doctors could do for his bleeding eye. The warden sent him by car to the Public Security Hospital. However, he returned with just one eye. The Rightist was put into solitary confinement (not for the first time), and the sick group became a quiet place again, with no disruptions and no unsettling thoughts. Quite a relief, for most inmates. Many of the prisoners were, of course, misfits of various kinds to begin with; others were warped by the conditions of prison life that was so demeaning and soul-destroying. In order to improve one’s existence and make life a little easier, a person would do almost anything. Virtues, such as loyalty, faith, integrity, were in short supply. One pathetic example was a young man with a lame leg due to childhood paralysis. At 21 years of age, as a student in a teachers’ college when he was incarcerated. Handicapped people were abhorred in general and opportunities open to them were very limited, for jobs or anything else. No girls would date a crippled person unless they, too, had some physical defects. Having no access to women, he raped his younger sister. His parents, both teachers, beat him badly. They were so ashamed that they disowned him and sent him to this detention center. Rapists were despised as shameless animals, even in prison; raping one’s sister was even worse. During visitation days, when other inmates had family members coming and giving them food and clothes, he was alone. His parents never showed up, although he wrote many letters home. Nobody ever visited him. So lonely and despised, the rapist tried to gain some recognition from others and also the trust of the prison officials by spying on other inmates. He figured that his only hope for a meaningful life was to get out of this place and to

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Engineering Communist China acquire a new identity outside. Reporting on others, or ferreting out an antirevolutionary group, would shorten his time and gain early release. During the hot summer days of 1964, the room temperature often reached over 100°. In order to prevent a possible health disaster, the warden allowed the sick inmates to find places to rest and to walk freely around the compounds. They were given minor jobs, such as killing flies and sweeping the prison yard. During one of these special days, Dan rested in the shade and had a conversation with another long-term inmate who used to be a college student. His crimes originated in a dormitory discussion in 1957. The government described the nature of the communist society as “People’s Democratic Dictatorship.” He took issue with this official concept during the discussion and argued that the terms democracy and dictatorship were contradictory. A government had to either practice democracy, allowing people to speak out freely and to elect officials, or to let one party decide all policies of the country. His remarks were reported to the authorities, and thus he was branded as a counter revolutionary. As the two were swapping their personal stories, Dan caught the crippled rapist listening in on. Dan spit on him as he stood up and walked away. The next day, as anticipated, Dan and the other inmate were called into the warden’s office and interrogated. Dan tried his best to discredit the cripple and denied everything. Luckily, the warden found their story more credible than the rapist’s report. Dan was merely given a warning. People at this institution were so sick of the cripple that nobody, inmates or policemen, would give credence to anything he said. Despite of his isolation, the rapist was shamelessly active in the group study sessions, as he considered himself to be a college student above all others. Soon, he met his match. Zhang Jingping was a graduate of Beijing University, the best school in China. Zhang was a writer who had published many articles in newspapers and magazines in the 1950s and 1960s. He was arrested on charges of treason. Every time the rapist spoke, Zhang would attack him as a sham and an ignorant idiot. The two would then verbally abuse each other. Their rivalry brought a dramatic liveliness into the group. Presumably due to tuberculosis, Zhang coughed a lot, sometimes with blood. He was very thin, obviously not in good health. He slept next to Dan and they developed a rapport. Zhang admitted his crime readily and proudly. Zhang had written many short stories and reports praising the agricultural and industrial achievements during the Great Leap Forward. He was caught up in the frenzy of exaggeration. Even though he knew that he had never seen such high crop yields as 10,000 pounds per mu (1/6 acre), Zhang still wrote glowing

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Chapter 6: Detention Center reports. When his pieces were published, he was paid and felt good about participating in the raising people’s morale with his writing. Never for a moment did he feel guilty of making up data and other stories. Because of his good record, he was chosen as a member of Chinese delegation to visit foreign countries. It was during his tours abroad that Zhang realized how advanced other countries were and how backward China was. He began to admire and long for the lifestyle of European countries. As a result, he was determined to go to Hong Kong for good. Unfortunately, his little scheme was discovered and he was arrested in Canton. Anybody who attempted to sneak to Hong Kong, a British colony, was considered a traitor. Zhang’s wife a government official. As was frequently the case with the wives of political prisoners, she asked for a divorce. Zhang refused, and sought advice from Dan. Zhang also revealed some personal details about his relations with his wife, which were not entirely satisfactory, and his fear that this was what was driving her to ask for a divorce. Dan persuaded Zhang to change his mind: whatever his possible personal inadequacies, he was definitely a political liability for his wife. She would lose any chance of promotion and advance in her career and be shunned by other people. It was not really ethical to drag her into all this. After many long conversations, Zhang indeed felt guilty for refusing a divorce and also for writing false stories all these years. Zhang even gave Dan his permanent address, even though exchanging personal information and addresses was against regulations. Also in this detention facility, there was a somewhat retarded young man about 22 years of age. He had committed the same crime as the cripple, raping his own sister. There were mental hospitals available, but because of the cost, his parents sent him to this facility. His parents never visited out of shame, and he, too, became the butt of jokes. Suicide attempts were rare at this prison. Those who tried, like those on hunger strike, wanted more to make a point than to end their lives. However, a handsome young man once made a very genuine attempt. He swallowed a bag of needles, nails and small pieces of glass. Other, more obviously dangerous items, were watched closely but not those. Needles were given to each inmate for mending their clothes. He thought that he would die quickly and never expected the intolerable pain in his stomach. Soon after he swallowed the needles, his head was sweating and he admitted his suicide attempt. The prison had good doctors but no equipment for an operation. So he was immediately taken to a

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Engineering Communist China hospital and operated upon. About three weeks later he returned, a much changed man and with a big scar on his stomach. He was the last person anyone expected to try suicide. His father was a wealthy businessman who owned factories and shops. In the 1950s, his father voluntarily gave up his businesses to the government and was awarded an official position as vice chief of Beijing Bureau of Chemical Industries. In spite of what happened, there was no visible change in his family’s lifestyle. The family house, car and bank accounts were still there. This young man grew up as a spoiled brat and a womanizer. He never wanted to go to college. Instead, he chased women in Beijing and spent lavishly on his amorous adventures. His parents did everything to change him, including finding him a wife, but to no avail. He continued to spend money even when he was broke. Knowing that his father would pay for his debts, he borrowed heavily. Eventually, he resorted to lies and stealing from family to sustain his habits. Once he was chasing a very beautiful girl. To show the girl that he was a man of wealth, he opened up his father’s safe and sold several expensive pieces of jewelry. His parents lost all hope for him and as a last resort sent him to this detention center, thinking that perhaps the harsh prison life would straighten him out (or reform him, as the standard term went). But detention life proved too hard for him to take. When Dan persuaded him to do something better or more meaningful, the young man laughed at Dan’s naivety and gave him a lecture instead on the meaning of hedonism. Pleasure seeking was the purpose of human existence, he insisted. He befriended Dan and even invited Dan to escape to Hong Kong, if Dan ever got out. Hong Kong, as a rich city, was his next target. Apparently, he was aware of the tight border control and planned to buy bicycle tubes to craft a floating device and swim to Hong Kong. Perhaps a month or so after his return from hospital, his parents moved him somewhere else.

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CHAPTER 7: RELEASE In late 1964 Dan was released, though his term was supposed to be three years. No reasons were given. But soon after his release, Dan was rearrested, again with no reasons given. While Dan was imprisoned, he wrote to his fiancée a few times begging her not to come to see him but just to wait at home. Dan was afraid that she might be implicated in his misfortunes. She came twice, anyway. Visits were allowed for fifteen minutes. The occasion was always a tumultuous emotional and sad moment. During their first interview, Dan was separated from his fiancée by a big board the size of a door. They could see each other but they were under close watch. His fiancée said that she had brought a lot of food, but the guards did not allow it. They said that prisoners ate well enough, and only vitamins were permitted. The real situation was more than Dan would dare to tell. She said she would wait for him no matter what happened, and wanted him to take care of his health. Dan missed her so much that she often appeared in his dreams. However, at this moment, they could not express anything personal and intimate. Family visits were very painful for Dan. He couldn’t bear to see their sad faces and insisted that none of his family should visit. However, after his operation, he had a craving for food, more and tasty food. He realized that to recover from his illness, he had to rely on vitamins and other more nutritional food, so he wrote home requesting these items. To his surprise, his mother came to prison, with his fiancée. He was so ashamed to involve his mother. She repeatedly asked why he was locked up in such a place. It was a real dilemma. To admit wrong doing was against Dan’s will and was not true. Not to admit would

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Engineering Communist China confuse her, and might even cause trouble if the guards overheard. Moreover, his mother had a very limited background and could not possibly understand the issues that were involved. Dan did his best to assure her that he had done nothing immoral and nothing to harm the country. When he got back to the sick ward, he discovered ten pieces of fried dough in his package. His fiancée had slipped them to the bottom of the package and smuggled them in. Fried dough was and still is the preferred breakfast item for most Beijing local residents. Salt, or very rarely sugar, was added to dough before it was fried. It was a delicious treat, the best food he had ever tasted in his entire life. His desire for food was never so strong and he was awfully tempted to eat them all at once. Finally, reason prevailed and he divided one piece into three part, respectively for three meals a day. The fried dough lasted him ten days. By the time he had his last piece, mold had grown on it. He rinsed it off and savored it still. By October 1964, Dan had been in prison for almost two years. Normally, people sentenced for reeducation through labor should stay for three years. Although somehow he never did any labor, he had certainly been through plenty of political studies and reeducation. Dan was not sure when his term would actually finish. Nor did he dare to make inquiries. Judging from experiences in this detention center and stories he heard about labor farms, some inmates were out in three years and others’ terms were extended due to unsatisfactory performance. To his great surprise, the warden summoned Dan to his office one evening before dinner, and asked a lot of questions about his family, his address in Beijing, and so on. A couple of days later, the warden gave him formal notice that he was free to go. Their conversation was brief; they exchanged good wishes. Dan tried to maintain some composure and control his excitement, but he was elated and everything seemed like a dream. This was in late November, 1964. It was a very cold day; Beijing’s weather turns cold and bleak around this time. It was also in winter time that Dan was arrested two years before. Walking out, Dan did not dare to look back. Only after he had walked quite a distance away, he took a good look at this prison where he had spent two years behind electric wires and high walls. It was just several miles from the Beijing city walls. When he was a little boy, he used to come out of the city to catch crickets in the north. The prison was an old brick kiln. It was used first as prison to house the captured KMT secret agents and other enemy personnel. Thus it earned a nickname, “secret agent camp.” Perhaps in late 1950s, it was converted into a temporary detention center for reeducation through labor elements.

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Chapter 7: Release His family did not know that he had been released and nobody came to meet him. There was no public transportation out in this area, so Dan had to walk for hours to reach the city. This was a kind of freedom march for him and several miles seemed like nothing at all. He was so happy that he did not really feel the fatigue. Before he knew it, Dan was already back at his family courtyard. During his absence, Dan’s family had joined the ranks of the poor. When he was around, the family could count on his 99 yuan salary, money that accounted for two-thirds of the family income and put them into the middle class category. Now the whole family depended on his father’s job, at only 43 yuan. His father still worked as a storage keeper outside the city wall. It cost about twenty cents or so to get back and forth. To save money, his father only came home twice a month. With Dan coming back, there were five mouths to feed, instead of four — his father cut down his family visit to once a month. Dan had two brothers of high school age. After Dan was arrested, one brother had to quit school and try to find work. He was too young to find a decent-paying job; he could barely earn enough to fed himself. Now, how to make a decent living was the only pressing issue for Dan and his family. For ex-convicts, it was impossible to find jobs in state-owned companies. They were the undesirable elements politically and socially. The only jobs available to this population were temporary or menial ones assigned by the Street Affairs Office: jobs for carpenters, bricklayers, janitors, porters, loading workers who went with trucks, and many others, for hourly pay, with no benefits. Their wages were from 20 yuan per month and up, depending on the kind of work. The Street Affairs Office was the lowest government agency. Among many of its responsibilities is the care and supervision of ex-convicts. Jobs had to be provided for them and so did the coupons for food rations, and cloth rations. Established in the mid-1950s, this local office has always operated closely with the police stations that were in control of city household registrations. Household registrations determined the status of an individual, whether urban or rural. If classified as an urban resident, a person would receive a variety of benefits the rural peasants, the vast majority in China, could only envy. From the 1950s to 1980, such benefits included food rations with government guaranteed low prices, employment and old age pension for the working population, almost free housing, free medical services. Naturally, the urban household registration card has been extremely valuable and much coveted by peasants. This Street

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Engineering Communist China Affairs Office also cooperates with the local police station to maintain order in the district. Very often, their offices were close to each other. Under the Street Affairs Office are many neighborhood committees providing services for and surveillance of all residents. Dan had to report to both the Street Affairs Office and the local police station and was under the constant watch of the neighborhood committees that were staffed by housewives called Street Activists. The release from prison made Dan appreciate the value of freedom he never experienced before. The depressing family circumstances notwithstanding, Dan was so happy to see his mother and his brothers. The person he most wanted to see and yet also afraid to see was his fiancée, Xiaolan. She had suffered so much because of his misfortunes. Dan had no idea how she was faring, since she came to prison only twice in the first year and never showed up again. Had she changed her mind about waiting for him? Had her family found her a husband? The first thing he did was to give her a call in the morning. No family had a telephone at that time, but making phone calls was still easy. There was a telephone at the neighborhood committee. People would pay a few cents to the person in charge of the phone. The phone attendant would also go to fetch the person being called in the neighborhood or pass a message in case of absence. Dan and his fiancée lived in the same neighborhood and there was no need for a phone call; but, unsure of his position and her parents’ attitude, Dan would not dare to show up in front of her house. By sending the telephone person to relay a message, his fiancée could quietly reject his gesture and everybody’s face would be saved. Dan gave a message and went back to paste papers on his windows and to do some other chores, hoping that she was still available and would visit him. Xiaolan came immediately. It was a very sad moment dominated by embarrassment, guilt, and memories of suffering in the past two years. She had been struck with TB and had been on sick leave for quite a long time. On the day Dan was arrested, she fainted when she heard the news, and wound up in the hospital. The doctors kept her under observation for several days before releasing her and wrote a certificate for a long sick leave. She had no rest; the police came to bother her many times, requesting all kinds of information about Dan and encouraging her to expose Dan’s supposed counter-revolutionary activities. As was common in those days, she was advised by many people to cut off relations, because connections with a counter-revolutionary would ruin her entire life. Under heavy pressures from all sides, she avoided writing anything or doing anything harmful to Dan. Yet, her hopes for marriage, family and a good

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Chapter 7: Release life had evaporated. She had been sick ever since, and whenever she went out, felt that someone was following her. After two visits to the detention center, Xiaolan was told that she was not allowed to visit again because “fiancée” did not qualify as family relative. Xiaolan believed that Dan had done nothing wrong and there had been a mistake. It was against all logic that a Communist Youth League member from a poor family background would oppose the communist government, his benefactor. She was determined to stay with Dan, no matter what happened. She would even quit her job, if necessary, and pick up a temporary job in order to stay together. With such a loyal and devoted woman, Dan felt encouraged. There were numerous hurdles ahead, but maybe some hope. The first decision they made was to appeal his case to the appropriate authorities. On the same day, Dan had to go to the Street Affairs Office to transfer his food rations, cloth rations, and household registration from the prison. Such a transfer was necessary whenever a person moved to a different city or a place of employment outside of the jurisdiction of the Street Affairs Office and the local police station. The next day, a local police officer came by bicycle to pay a visit to Dan. He informed Dan in all seriousness that he had to report to the police station once a month and that whenever he traveled far from home, he had to keep the police informed. The police visit was a depressing reminder that now he belonged a special class of people under constant watch by the government. Even one of the neighbors in Dan’s courtyard, a woman in her fifties, kept an eye on him. (A traditional Chinese courtyard is a square shaped housing complex with three or five connected rooms on the north side, two or three rooms each on the west and the east sides, and three or five rooms to the south. These were quite commonly occupied by five or six families). The woman was a street activist who participated in all kinds of activities organized by the neighborhood committee. At these meetings, this woman always spoke and praised the Communist Party and government and often cried with tears whenever the hard life in the past was mentioned. She did this with such regularity that people became skeptical of her sincerity. Dan discovered that whenever he went out, she would peep through her window curtain. Dan’s mother warned him to be careful, as this woman had a reputation of reporting people to the police. A couple of years later, during the Cultural Revolution, it was discovered that she was a rich landowner from Hebei province and had successfully hidden her identity. She lost her status

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Engineering Communist China as a street activist and was disgraced. She soon died of shame and depression. She was so reviled that nobody came to help her in her last days. Dan thought that he had been wrongly imprisoned and decided to appeal his case, even if it would be a long and arduous process. Most people failed in such efforts. The government at various levels did have special offices for handling people’s petitions, but in Dan’s case, there was little hope except to try to overturn his convictions through the army system. Pressed by the poverty of the family, he saw his exoneration as the only chance to save himself and them. First he took his case to the State Council, the highest government office, where his political trouble had begun. He had sent his policy proposal to this office in 1962. The State Council is located inside the Middle and South Sea compounds together with the Communist Party headquarters. A man in his early thirties received him. After listening to Dan’s case for about ten minutes, the official gave him to a piece of paper with the address of the Public Security Ministry and directed him to take the case there. The Public Security Ministry was not far away. The police officers there explained that since Dan had been sent to prison by his army unit, logically, the original handler of the case should be responsible to rehabilitate him, not the police system. But when Dan returned to his former factory, the people in charge were cold and refused to even reconsider his appeal. Worse still, they insisted that he was a counter-revolutionary and had been removed from the public employment system. The army had no relationship with him anymore. Now, the local police did consider his case and promised that they would report it to their superiors, even though in their opinion he should continue to appeal to the army. The ball was kicked back and forth among various government bureaucracies for a long time, leaving Dan nowhere, else to turn for help. It was a hopeless situation. A family of five could barely survive on a subsistence salary of 43 yuan. His family was not alone. In the city, there were families that tried to supplement income by searching trash dumps for incompletely burned coal pieces, pieces of paper for recycling, anything with a bit of nominal value. The neighborhood committee had a cash assistance program for families with per capita income below 8 yuan per month, but Dan’s family’s income was three yuan above that level. For people at the bottom of the society, frugality and picking trash were among the few available options. For a man who used to be a highly regarded professional engineer with a good salary, Dan could not tolerate such poverty and humiliation. He wanted to go to

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Chapter 7: Release Xinjiang in China’s northwest where labor was scarce and highly paid. After discussing this with Xiaolan and getting her approval, he did further research on the life and employment opportunities in Xinjiang, and determined to venture out. Before he knew it, with the Chinese New Year just a week away, a policeman appeared in his courtyard and told Dan to go to the local police station for a talk. Dan suspected that the coming conversation might be related either to his appeals or to his plan to get out of Beijing. He rushed to the station, only to discover that there was no conversation at all. With no explanation whatsoever, Dan was put into a car and sent back to prison again. He was angry and puzzled. Why was he released in the first place? Did the police authorities disapprove of his appeal efforts and consider him a troublemaker? Were they trying to prevent Dan from leaving the city? Did they suspect that he might escape the country? Or was this a routine roundup of troublemakers before important holidays? Whatever the reason, his newly gained hopes were dashed as suddenly and as quickly as they had been born. Somehow, he instinctively adjusted to the new reality and was not as upset as the first time. By now, he was a seasoned veteran. Dan was put in the same detention center but assigned to a different group, similar to the sick ward. In the new group were people who had suffered various forms of disabilities. What Dan did not expect was that he was be shipped out of Beijing to the northeast, where he would spend more than ten years in exile, away from his loved ones and away from his hometown.

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CHAPTER 8: THE YAOHE FARM Another Chinese New Year passed. Dan was still in the detention center, doing the routine political “studies.” One day, the prison warden called a meeting and declared that everyone, except the Rightists, was to be sent to the Yaohe Farm, in the northeast. The news came pretty suddenly and caught everyone by surprise. This was what the inmates had long hoped for. Following the warden’s instructions, most of them wrote home, asking their families to see them and to bring some necessities. Dan was overwhelmed with guilt at the thought of bringing so much trouble to his family, and remembered vividly how they had felt when he was at home during his free month. Dan did not write anything; he left Beijing without telling anyone. He was determined to cast aside his known world and tough it out in his new environment. Guilt, and shame. No matter what he thought of himself, the society had clearly fixed a criminal label on him that would be almost impossible to erase. The psychological impact was unbearable. Life out in the northeast might be a better choice. It took more than two days to reach their destination, the Yaohe Farm in Jilin Province. About 400 inmates were transferred. They were sent to the train station under armed escort. On the train, police guards with guns and handcuffs stood watch in each car. They all disembarked at a small station, where trucks took them to the farm. It was a huge farm with several thousand inmates already. Dan and about 100 others were organized into one team that consisted of 6 groups of 20 or more. Only the team leader was a free citizen, an official of the lowest rank. The living conditions were better than the detention center. First of all, there were no electric wires around, nor any armed guards. More living space

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Engineering Communist China was available for prisoners, too. Houses were made of packed clay, the simplest traditional type, very common among the peasants. Roofs were made of mud and stems of corn or sorghum. Each 20-man group was given a big room, inside which two long earthen beds were built on two sides with a middle corridor for people to pass. Ten slept on each bed, and each person had a space about three by six feet. The farm was originally a kind of swamp. Now, part of that had been reclaimed by prisoners and converted into a farm complex. Four main crops were grown here: wheat, soybeans, corn and rice. Farming the rice fields was the most difficult, backbreaking job. Before the planting season, when it was still very cold and when the wetlands surface was frozen, prisoners would dig ditches to drain water into the Yaohe (River Yao) and then level the field. Farm work was hard in general and, as one might expect, harder for the inmates at this farm. They were ordered to work the next day. Everyone was given a spade and their job was to level the rice paddies, that is, to move soil from the high ground to the lower parts. The water already had been drained. Although it was April, the field was muddy and still covered with thin ice. Ordered to step into the icy fields, nobody moved. These city people had tasted hardship, but nothing like this. The team leader, who was not an educated man, lost his temper and shouted: “Get the f--- into the water! You are not here to enjoy luxury. You are here to be reformed.” Dan’s group leader was the first to take off his socks and shoes; others followed him into the cold, muddy field. In just a moment his body was shaking and his teeth chattering. Except for a lunch break, the inmates worked until dark. After dinner, the team leader them together and said, “Is this hard work? Yes! But this will help you to get rid of your bourgeois ideas and become a socialist citizen.” Nobody had realized that the farm was this demanding. Had they known, they would never have wished to come. Reality set in. Hard labor became a clear concept. At this new place, sleeping next to Dan was a factory worker, a very reticent and sincere young man named Lu Huan-zhang. Apparently, Lu was politically naïve at best. At his factory, he was interested in studying technology and was promoted very rapidly to the sixth level. Workers nationwide were classified into 8 grades, according to their skills and experiences. Wages varied, with the 8th grade highest around 100 yuan. Normally, only very experienced workers could get into the top grades. Lu Huan-zhang also joined the Communist Party. His party membership was another indication of his good job

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Chapter 8: The Yaohe Farm performance. His misfortune was linked to the ideological debates between the Chinese and Soviet communist parties. During one political study session, Lu came to know Khrushchev’s doctrine of peaceful coexistence and of peaceful competition with the West. After reading the newspapers, he could not criticize Khrushchev as he was supposed to do. On the contrary, Lu Huan-zhang thought that war was not necessary between the two ideological camps, socialism and capitalism. Since both claimed superiority over the other, let them compete with each other peacefully, without destroying the world and without killing so many people. The superior socialist system would eventually outperform capitalism and thus prove its superiority. As innocent as many people were in those days, Lu uttered his opinions right before all people in the study sessions. Nobody else expressed any opinion, pro or con. The next day, Lu Huan-zhang was so naive that he went to the reception room of the State Council and told the people there of his opinions. He thought that as a communist party member, this was his democratic right guaranteed by the Party constitution. He argued that Khrushchev was right and should be supported. If China and Soviet Union stopped quarrelling and formed a solid bloc as it used to, the socialist world would definitely surpass capitalism in production and people would enjoy a higher standard of living as a result. While he was told to wait for a reply, a jeep came and hauled him to the detention center in Beijing and soon afterwards, his party membership was also taken away. A very simplistic and stubborn person, Lu Huan-zhang continued to hold his views no matter what happened to him. While other inmates were interested in playing cards or games during recess, Lu spent his free time working to develop a machine of perpetual motion, drawing pictures and blueprints. He wanted to invent a watch without rewinding and a bicycle that kept on going unless stopped. Lu knew that Dan used to be a high level engineer, so he discussed various designs with him. Dan patiently explained to him that the laws of physics did not permit a machine of perpetual motion; this was high school stuff. But, born into a very poor family, Lu never went to high school. He still persisted in his belief. He was ridiculed by almost everyone in the group. However, he never cared about them and carried on his work as usual. In the summer months, the inmates spent most of their time working in the rice fields. In theory, at this farm, every inmate was given the same amount of work and more or less the same amount of food, regardless of age or physical condition. But those whose job performance was rated excellent would be given

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Engineering Communist China more food, to the amount of almost 50 pounds per month. This was a huge attraction to most inmates, especially those in their twenties and thirties. Most of these people were young hooligans and thieves who were in and out of prison all the time. For them, a strong body meant power and leadership in this environment dominated by physical endurance and crude muscle. Having the highest amount of food ration was important. These young hooligans were also bullies who terrorized other inmates. Whenever the team leaders were absent, they would initiate ritual fights to show off their power. Group leaders who were inmates themselves normally would not dare to challenge these hooligans. In Dan’s team, the hooligan leader went by the nickname of Little Hegemon, a well-known desperado who made a habit of bullying others. Sometimes, he would kick the legs of people from behind and laugh when they fell. For his behavior, Little Hegemon was locked up in solitary confinement quite a number of times. And yet, every time he came out, his reputation among the hooligans and thieves soared, for he thumbed his nose at the authorities. He very much enjoyed his status and showed no fear for solitary confinement. Whenever he was confined, his “iron brothers” would sneak food and cigarettes to him. The hooligans used violence to silence people who informed authorities about their carrying on. There was a young man nicknamed “reporter,” because he was known to have told authorities about all the bullying activities at the farm. In one hot afternoon, while the team leader was away from the field, the “reporter” was surrounded by Little Hegemon and his gang. They ordered him to stand like a soldier in the middle and the started ridiculing him: “Who did you tell on this time?” “I did not tell on anyone. I stopped that long ago and will never do it again,” he timidly replied in a shaking voice. The hooligans were not satisfied and Little Hegemon started smacking him. When others joined in, the “reporter” was on the ground already with ferocious kicks landing on him from all directions. He was saved by the group leader who shouted: “Back to work!” After he was rescued, the “reporter” was hardly recognizable, his nose bleeding and one ear swollen out of all proportion. He could barely walk. This was one of the many signals Little Hegemon sent to potential informers. The incident was an insult to the team leader and was totally unacceptable. He was determined to punish the guilty party; he had to protect his informers or he would lose control of the team. During the routine study session after dinner, the team leader declared that Little Hegemon and two others would be locked up in solitary confinement. No sooner did he say it than several others raised

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Chapter 8: The Yaohe Farm their hands, acknowledging their parts in the beating and volunteering to be locked up. The hooligans had a stronger sense of solidarity than the other types of prisoners. They despised the others as cowards, traitors and weaklings. Dan had never seen the team leader so angry before. He ordered that first person to stand up to be locked up as well, and due to the lack of space, he sent others to the farm headquarters for punishment. With these hooligans locked away, the team leader demanded that everyone resist the pressures from the bad elements and continue to report to the authorities. This was not the end of the story for Little Hegemon. After his punishment, he became a kind of arbitrator for disputes among the inmates. In that new role, Little Hegemon was involved in the most bloody incident for the ten months Dan was here. He deliberately smashed one eye of an inmate-on-duty and almost killed him. The inmate-on-duty had served the team leader very faithfully and was above all other inmates. People in such positions rarely went out to work and stayed at the dorms, taking care of logistics and maintaining order at the compound. The incident was caused by a rapist’s personal quarrels with this inmate-on-duty, in particular an incident wherein the rapist complained that he had been given a piece of corn bread that was smaller than the others. The inmate-on-duty tried to settle the matter, but the rapist was incensed. The rapist was also from Beijing. He was a troublemaker and a pickpocket. Back in Beijing, he had ripped off a homeless girl who was begging for food coupons. He lured her to the moat outside the city wall and he and his gang raped her throughout the night. The girl fainted; the men left her one food coupon. Now that he had a grudge against the inmate leader, he complained to Little Hegemon. Normally an inmate needed permission to walk out of his room. But without telling anyone, he walked directly to the room where Little Hegemon and Dan were staying. The head hooligan promised that he would resolve the problem, and left it at that. Dan knew trouble was brewing. The inmate-on-duty was a large man and had been a soldier. What would Little Hegemon do? The following day after work, he took a piece of whetstone from his windowsill and walked straight up to the inmate-on-duty, in the courtyard, and suddenly hit the ex-soldier in eye with the stone. Everybody in the compound heard a terrible cry as his eyeball was popped out; it dangled two inches from the eye socket on his bloody face. Little Hegemon whacked him again, wrestled him

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Engineering Communist China to the ground and beat him further. Other inmates-on-duty sent for the team leader and dragged the rascal away. Little Hegemon and the rapist were handcuffed and sent away. Shortly afterward, the whole team was called together. The head of the labor farm and the political commissar also attended the meeting, each giving a long speech about the necessity of labor reform and importance of discipline. Then they declared that Little Hegemon had received an additional eight years and been sent to another team. The rapist was sent to a maximum security team. Since the bully was sent away, Dan’s group experienced a period of relative peace during the summer harvesting season. It was the busiest time of the year. First, the inmates had to cut wheat and get it to the threshing ground as quickly as possible. Otherwise, wheat would rot in the fields, if rains came. Then the rice and soybeans had to be dealt with. People had only five or six hours sleep every day during the harvest season. Everybody complained, although they understood that this was the typical life of peasants all over China. What was most intolerable was not the hard work per se, but the hunger in the midst of harvest. All this hard physical labor made them hungrier than ever. However, the food ration, about 45 pounds of grain, remained unchanged. It was quite inadequate for men in their prime, especially when oil, eggs and meats were so rarely served. Most inmates had to resort to their own ingenuity to find food substitutes. They would pick edible wild grasses to fill their stomachs, just as people had done during the three years of famine. During breaks, in the fields, they also tried to catch voles. Some became expert hunters. Whenever they caught one, they would cook it right on spot over a small fire. Fresh meat, even in such conditions, was a superb treat. Driven by hunger, most inmates also resorted to theft. It was rare to find anybody who worked at the threshing machine and had not stolen rice or soybeans. They just put the raw grain in their mouths, while working, and chewed it for a long time. There was a teenager pickpocket in his group who respected Dan’s knowledge and education, and they began to be friendly. His name was Lu Guobin, about 17 years old. Although he was officially classified as a peasant, he had none of the qualities of an honest and hardworking country boy. Instead, he was deceptive, shameless, lazy, and opportunistic, having no sense of obligation and just living from one day to another and enjoying anything he could lay his hands on. His family originally lived in Beijing. During the early 1950s, Lu’s father had what was termed a “historical problem,” meaning association with the previous

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Chapter 8: The Yaohe Farm KMT regime or had been a landowner who exploited peasants before 1949. Once that was discovered, the whole family was sent back to his father’s native village, like everybody else in the same situation all over China. Lu was 7 or 8 years old at that time. Ironically, although classified as a landowner family, the Lus no longer had any land or house in the village anymore. Lu Guobin’s father had to build a simple house on a lot designated by the village leaders. The Lus went through the Great Leap Forward as a former landowner. In addition to that pejorative label, they were also despised by the whole village for having been ejected from city life. The peasant folks believed that good and capable people always prospered in the cities and were never sent back to their native villages. By implication, this family had lost in the survival game and therefore did not deserve any respect. As a little kid, Lu was often attacked. He was called the son of a landowner, a very derogatory name. Lonely and friendless, Lu had developed a strong anti-social attitude and often got into fights. Even his teachers were influenced by the state ideology that landowners were inevitably class enemies of the people. The image of the powerful and rapacious landowner was generalized until everyone labeled as such was assumed to be a ruthless oppressor. One of the popular images of such an evil landowner was Huang Shiren, a character in a play and a ballet, who forced a debtor to commit suicide and his daughter to live in the mountains alone for years until all her hair turned white. Plays were the most influential tool for disseminating the class theory of the Communist Party. All over China, people who grew up in the 1950s to 1980s know the story by heart. There was no way a kid like Lu could understand any of the class struggle ideology and why he was treated badly by almost everyone around. Because of his troubles, he was kicked out of elementary school. At home, his parents scolded him all the time for not getting along with others. By about 14, he had had enough. Without telling his parents, he left the village and hopped on a train headed to Beijing. He contacted some old neighbors to see if it was possible to go back to their old house. Of course, it was reassigned to a different family. Lu had no idea that food was rationed in the city and that a city household registration card was required for every kind of daily necessity. To stay alive, he needed money and food coupons. Also he needed a place to stay. He started sleeping at Beijing Railway Station and ate leftover food from the restaurants. Very often he went to sleep without any food in the stomach. Stealing was the only option, and despite his timidity hunger drove him to become quite bold. He joined a gang at the

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Engineering Communist China station. Now, he dressed better and ate better than ever before and could even travel to other cities in northern China to ply his trade, especially the nearby Tianjin. Lu told Dan that he paid a heavy price for thievery. People hated thieves, especially during the famine period. Loss of money or food coupons could mean that the victim’s whole family might go hungry for weeks. Whenever thieves were caught, they were always brutally beaten, so bad that sometimes Lu could not move or eat for days. However, as soon as he recovered, Lu would resort to stealing again, since money came so easily that way. The thief bragged that he had a conscience, too. If he had enough to get by, he would limit himself to stealing only from the military officers who were so well supported by the army, or from well-dressed cadres. He often wondered why some people were wealthy and others poor, and why his poor family was given the name of landowner. He sometimes laughed at Dan’s political mistakes and asked him sarcastically: “Why did you write about state affairs that had nothing to do with you? You lost your good job and got locked up here for nothing.” Lu was especially proud that his crime was classified by the government as a “mistake among the people,” whereas Dan’s political crime was one “between enemy and people.” In other words, Dan was a state enemy, and he was not. Lu could still marry a good girl when he got out. But no girl would marry a class enemy and risk her future. As an engineer, Dan despised Lu Guobin as an ignorant, selfish low life; but he sometimes did think that there was something to what the thief said.

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CHAPTER 9: BEIJING INTERLUDE By January 1966, Dan’s three-year term was up. He had been in prison long enough to know that completion of one’s reeducation through labor did not mean complete freedom, as the law openly stipulated. Quite to the contrary, most inmates who had served their time were not allowed to go back to the cities anyway. They were merely transferred from one quarter to another, on the same farm, where they were reclassified as “farm employees.” To keep ex-convicts on labor farms was a policy designed to guarantee the safety of the cities, where government agencies and various industries were located. This was particularly true of Beijing, the national capital. Undesirable elements were regarded as a threat and also a liability. During major political campaigns from the 1950s to the 1970s, many of these people were sent back to their native villages. Thus, the prison population was kept on the labor farm beyond their terms. On January 24, 1966, Dan was terribly anxious, wishing that he might be among the lucky few to be released. The team leader would normally come to make the announcement in the morning. However, he waited for the whole day and nothing happened. Finally, at 10:00 PM, after the evening study session, the team leader walked into his dorm and told him to pack up. He was being moved to a different group, made up entirely of ex-prisoners “farm employees.” He was told to take a day to rest and then start work with the new group. Just like that, Dan became a member of the farm employee system. This was basically a labor army, organized just like the inmates into groups of 20 people, and teams of 6 groups, with team leaders in charge of production and political

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Engineering Communist China commissars who had authority over policies and personnel. The farm employees did exactly the same work the inmates did and were treated little differently. However, in theory, their civil rights were legally restored. They could apply for leaves to visit their families back in the cities. They were also paid, starting at 25 yuan per month. Most labor farm employees earned 36 yuan a month. Only a few ex-inmates made it to 41 yuan; they tended to be those who were imprisoned right after 1949, or were group leaders. There were few women around, but technically they could get married and have a family. Thus they enjoyed the freedom of limited movement within the farm and at the same time were closely controlled by the labor camp administration, the same agency that managed the inmates. Dan immediately applied for a family leave. It took three agonizing months to get it; by the time the news came, he had almost forgotten about it. Still, the moment Dan got the OK, he rushed to the train station four miles away, hoping he could catch the last train out. He had no idea of the train schedule, but any place would be better than one more night on the labor farm. The train station was just a shabby two-room shack. No one was there, neither passengers nor clerks. There was a stove for heating in the center of the room, but it was not being used and the station was bitterly cold. Dan settled in as best he could, buoyed by the sense of liberty. There were three types of train service: express train, fast train and slow train. Only slow trains stopped at this type of small, rural station. After four hours, a train came in, and off he went at midnight for Siping, the city where his cousin had died in 1948 while fighting the KMT as a soldier of the People’s Liberation Army. At Siping train station, Dan waited six hours for a fast train to Beijing. Siping was a small city, famous for one of the most ferocious battles fought between the Communist and the KMT forces. In a square next to the station stood a monument commemorating the liberation of the city from the KMT government. Here was Dan, a relative of a revolutionary martyr and a firm believer in communism, but classified as an enemy. What an irony! Dan saw some green apples in a grocery store, wrinkled and not very appealing; there was not a single customer. In all these years in prison, Dan had not had one apple. However old they were, he’d like to have one right now. After he paid for the train ticket, Dan had 27 yuan left. He stepped forward and asked the price. The girl coldly replied: “Do you have the required document?” “What document?” A note under the counter said: “Doctor’s prescriptions for TB

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Chapter 9: Beijing Interlude required to buy up to two pounds.” Little wonder there were no customers around. So the apples went to waste, without any “legitimate” buyers. Back in Beijing, not much had changed at home, except that his mother seemed to have aged quickly from all the hard work and endless worries. As before, Dan contacted his fiancée by telephone and, remarkably, as before, Xiaolan showed up as soon as she got the message. She was still very much in love with him. In the inner room of Dan’s house, they hugged, kissed and wept together. What was more poignant was Xiaolan’s persistent question: Why would Dan not come home after serving his time? Already thirty years old, she was still as innocent as a teenager and could not comprehend Dan’s status as an ex-prisoner who was forced to stay at the labor farm. In fact, Dan could not come to grips with the situation himself. It was a state policy adopted in the 1950s, he explained to Xiaolan. Out of desperation, she proposed quitting her job and taking up temporary work, and Dan could do the same rather than return to the farm. It was no solution, as Dan knew very well. Even though the government would not force him to go back, they would not have access to food rations and cloth coupons. These items were strictly controlled by either work units or the Street Affairs Offices. There was some underground trade involving coupons, but it was far too expensive. There was simply no way to hide from the government. All cities and villages have registration systems to account for a person’s work, life and whereabouts. The life of a vagrant was free, all right, but it was not a viable choice for a family. Nor could Dan even mention the choice of living on the labor farm. That was no place to bring a decent girl, and besides, Xiaolan’s health was no longer robust. A young police officer suddenly walked into the room and curtly told Dan to report to the police station within 24 hours. Dan was angry this time, and let it out on the policeman. He was not really afraid of anybody at this point. “Comrade Police, there is something I do not understand. I have finished my three-year sentence. But why am I not allowed to come back home? By the constitution of our country, I am a free citizen now, with civil rights. Why should I report to the police station? Does every city resident do that?” Of course, there was nothing this young police officer could say. He was put on the defensive and replied that he was just carrying out orders. He also explained that Dan now was a farm employee within the Public Security system and that he belonged to the small population called “controlled personnel.” Whatever else might happen, Dan thought that he had a good day in letting out some steam.

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Engineering Communist China The policeman next walked into his neighbor’s room — that fat woman who reported his arrival early that morning. She was a neighborhood activist, the eye and ear for the Street Affairs Office and the local police station, the kind everyone feared and despised, the traitor who would betray neighbors and friends for self interest. For the next few days, Dan pretended to go out several times, and told his mother in very loud voice where he was heading. The fat lady would take out a booklet and recorded the time, and watch to see if Dan went out. Dan would go around the corner and then come back, just to play tricks on her. This was repeated many times and the lady was not even ashamed; she must have thought she was doing a great job for society. Unlike the year before, when he was released from the detention center, Dan did not appeal his case. He accepted his fate and was ready to go back to the farm. As for his fiancée, he felt sorry to have dragged her into his trouble and for so long. One morning, as he was talking with Xiaolan, the same policeman came and told him to see his superior at the station. Remembering the sudden arrest the previous year, Dan sadly but emphatically reminded Xiaolan again that she should seriously consider other marriage possibilities. Whomever she would marry, he would remain a good friend and would come to visit her if he was in Beijing. He indicated to her that if the government continued to hold him at the labor farm, he might consider an escape back to Beijing. Xiaolan no longer had tears and she appeared to understand the harsh reality. At the police station, Dan waited two hours for the head of the police and still nobody came. He told the other policemen that he would be back anytime he was wanted, and headed for the door. Suddenly, he was blocked by four strong men and pushed back into the reception room; shortly, a jeep came to the front gate of the station and they dumped him in. Two hours with no explanations, and the car came to a stop at a building northeast of Beijing, a building with electric wires all around and high observation towers along the walls: Shunyi County Brick Factory. Every room was full, about forty people in each. Many of the people in this facility had already been released from prison long before the labor farm employee system was created in 1961. They had enjoyed a normal life for many years. One person even became the head of a factory operated by a Street Affairs Committee. Another person was a teacher in an elementary school. Suddenly, they were rounded up and thrown back into prison. And that was the beginning of the Cultural Revolution that wreaked

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Chapter 9: Beijing Interlude havoc over China for the next ten years and ruined the lives of millions of Chinese, ordinary people and communist officials alike. The next one to be brought in was a man in his late twenties, from Yinhe Farm (Silver River), another labor farm in the northeast. He also had come back to Beijing on a family visit. But only two days after he arrived in the city, he was called to the police station and sent to this place. He protested and fought with the four policemen, who carted him away, broken glasses and all. There was blood on his torn clothes and on the policemen’s as well. This time the car did not stop and drop off the inmates at the front gate; it came all the way to the doorway to Dan’s room and threw the unconscious young man on the bed. He was respected by everyone at the detention center for daring to take on four cops. Another hero was a young man called Li Tianwang. His mother went blind, just days before he was arrested. He had worked for two years after his release from prison. Li felt that he had been put back in prison for no reason at all, and cursed all the time. One day, Li simply walked out the prison gate and it wasn’t until he was already outside that the guard realized that he was an inmate. The guard chased him about ten yards and ordered him to come back. He threatened Li with his rifle. The young convict grabbed the gun and shouted: “I dare you to shoot me! I am a citizen and did nothing wrong. Why did you guys arrest me?” The guard was also a young man and was completely flummoxed. The two wrestled for a minute, until more policemen came up and wrestled Li to submission. He was subsequently put in solitary confinement, yet he never backed down and cursed the whole time he was confined. The warden could not tolerate such open defiance. He ordered that a group meeting be held to criticize this young man’s anti-government behavior. The group leader was left in charge of the meeting when the warden was gone. Before the group leader could say a word, Li broke a brick off the earthen bed and got on his feet, screaming, “Which of you sons of a bitch dares to criticize me? I’ll bust your head!” No one dared to even look at him, let alone speak. People knew he was serious; and, in fact, everyone including the group leader were very much in sympathy with him. Who really wanted to speak on the government side? The failure of this particular meeting sent a clear signal to the warden: there was a general discontent among the inmates and it could be explosive. Two days later, he lined up every inmate in the yard and gave a long speech. “Now the boss for all bad elements in society has been exposed. His name is Peng Zhen. Your are his filial sons and grandsons (meaning loyal followers). You are

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Engineering Communist China cow’s ghosts and snake’s spirits.” This phrase was a negative way of describing evil people in society and later became the standard term referring to class enemies during the Cultural Revolution. Peng Zhen was none other than the mayor of Beijing and a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo. He was one of the Party hardliners responsible for arresting thousands of Rightists. Now, together with many communist officials, he was purged by Mao Zedong at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and attacked as a counter-revolutionary. This kind of reversal made people’s heads spin. Even the mayor of Beijing was a bad element? Outside the prison wall, the Cultural Revolution was in full swing. Mao Zedong used the movement to get rid of his political opponents. Instead of working within the communist apparatus, Mao took advantage of his prestige as the founding father of the People’s Republic and called upon people, especially the young people, to rebel against the government. He called the government and officials “bourgeois travelers in power.” In the next few years, most high officials, including the president of China, Liu Shaoqi, and also Deng Xiaoping (who reversed Mao’s policies in the 1980s), were disgraced and removed from their positions. Mao’s status was elevated to near god-like status. The Red Guards, the idealist, enthusiastic and often destructive college and high school students, carried out Mao’s call for revolution. In their misdirected devotion to communism, these young men and women were ready to even attack their parents. Most government officials were treated as criminals and had to confess their crimes against Mao and the revolution on a daily basis. Not even police officers were spared. It was rumored in the detention center that public security chiefs in Beijing were being brought down and imprisoned. The highest of them all was Luo Ruiqing, the most loyal official in charge of Mao’s security, minister of public security and chief of staff of China’s armed forces. To protest against his treatment, Luo tried to take his life by jumping from a building. In the newspapers, there was nothing but attacks on counter-revolutionaries and expressions of loyalties to Mao. For all his interest in politics, Dan could not get a meaningful picture of what was going in the country. The news or rumors he heard seemed to suggest a time of total confusion How could even Luo Ruiqing become a counterrevolutionary? He was responsible for China’s prison system and army operations and should be the most reliable person. Sometimes rumors said that there was a split in the Party and Beijing was encircled by troops, or that prisoners might be all shot one day. When one rumor said that this detention

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Chapter 9: Beijing Interlude facility would be occupied by the army and prisoners had to be moved elsewhere, some of the inmates panicked. They planned and prepared for such an eventuality: they would destroy the roofs of their buildings and use the beams and rafters as weapons for a showdown. In late 1966, the inmates were indeed moved to a different prison, further east of Beijing. Several buses came to the yard and the warden ordered inmates to get in by groups. On each bus there were at least two police officers. When the caravan got to the center of downtown Shunyi, the warden ordered people to sing a song, perhaps to show morale. The popular hero, the young man who fought four policemen, rose up and suggested a song, the Internationale. All the inmates joined in and actually shouted the lyrics. First, it was one bus, then all the buses followed. The passing through Shunyi became a public spectacle indeed with people looking at the prisoners. The Internationale was the rallying song for communism composed during the Paris Commune uprising in 1870 France. It called upon the working class and all oppressed classes of the world to rise up and to fight against the oppressors and to establish a communist society. For most inmates, they sang it out of respect for their leader, but for Dan and many others, the lyrics were actually heartfelt. In the Chinese translation, the first line said: “Rise, hungry and poor slaves; Rise, sufferers in the world…” Since it was a communist song, even the warden had no reason to stop it. If he had tried, he would have been accused of being counter-revolutionary. In the new facility, the original inmate groups were reshuffled so that personal bonds and group solidarity would be broken up. Now, each group was put in a smaller room, with even tighter control. Similar to what was going on outside the prison, the warden organized struggles against individuals, demanded confessions for crimes against revolution, and used torture to exact such confessions. If people’s rights were ignored or taken away from them in the general society, here in prison inmates never had any rights to begin with. There was no work of any kind at this place. The only thing inmates had to do was to participate in these struggle meetings, where everybody would confess crimes by turns and swore to become a new person. Initially, some of the inmates argued that they had no crimes to confess since their release from prison in the 1950s. Now, they were charged with no crime but locked up in prison anyway. So many people refused to do self-criticism that the warden became frustrated and ordered the new group leaders to apply pressure. These new leaders were all tall and strong men selected specifically by the warden to make sure that his orders were carried out.

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Engineering Communist China The pickpockets were the first to be beaten with belts when they refused to confess. One particular form of punishment was “riding the jet,” a method commonly used during the Cultural Revolution on people ranging from high officials to common criminals. Two people would bend a person forward with his arms cranked upward from behind and his face toward the ground. The gesture looked like an airplane. Most of the time, a big plaque would hang from the person’s neck with pejorative names and supposed crimes written on it. This form of corporal punishment was an invention of the Red Guards and was imported into the prison after it became widely practiced. Two other forms of torture made “riding the jet” look like child’s play; they were invented by the prisoners. One was called “meeting of small and big heads,” referring to the head and the penis. If a person was deemed to be dishonest in not telling his crimes, he would be hung from the ceiling by his waist. Then two men would press his head against his penis. When the two body parts touched each other, it was considered to be one round. Then the second round, the third,... until he “told the truth.” The other one was “five-faces-to-heaven.” The subject was made to sit with his legs crossed and feet on the opposite thighs, like a Buddha, with the soles of his feet pointing upward to heaven. His hands were tied behind his back with the palms facing upward, thus achieving another two faces (palms) to heaven. When the back was pushed downward to the legs, his back also faced upwards. This exerted excruciating pain over the entire body. Little wonder that a supposed thief would say he had stolen hundreds of wallets. The people who carried out these tortures were inmates themselves, the group leaders and their cronies. Although they rarely did it on their own initiative, they would not hesitate for a moment to carry out any torture. Some enjoyed it. One day, a young pickpocket refused to confess and was administered a five-faces-to-heaven by three bullies. By dinner time, he was untied. He could not move anymore and had had a bowel movement inside his pants. No matter how hard he tried to get on his feet and walk, holding onto the wall, he fell every time. At the next meeting, he confessed to all the accusations and much more. Then he told the crowd, with the warden present, that some of the people who had just “done” him were actually his bosses. Now, that scared them. This amounted to a public accusation, and the warden was obligated to put them on trial. The angry crowd, appreciating the pickpocket’s method, were glad to give him his revenge by beating up the three bullies. They acknowledged the trumped up charges, but the inmates all insisted that that was not enough. Five-faces-toheavens were applied to them as well.

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Chapter 9: Beijing Interlude These cruelties were not daily occurrences, nor were they applied to most people. Oddly, Dan neither witnessed nor heard of deaths resulting from the violence in prison — but he heard plenty of stories of people being beaten to death outside prison. In the name of revolution, the naïve Red Guards in cities routinely used torture to deal with class enemies, bad elements, and most officials — who were accused of being capitalists. Mesmerized by revolutionary rhetoric to make a better society, the Red Guards could rationalize and justify almost everything they did. The end justified the means. During these depressing times, Dan came across another inmate who had learned Russian. Geng Xiao was about thirty years old. Geng used to be a student at Beijing University. His father was a well-known intellectual who returned to China from overseas and a friend of Guo Moruo, a famous literary figure and president of Chinese Academy of Science. Perhaps because of such special relationships, Geng was admitted to Beijing University to study physics. In 1959, when Geng was a senior, he wrote a novel about the famine, satirizing the unrealistic and fanatic policies of the Great Leap Forward, and sent it to a publisher. In a couple of weeks, his manuscript was turned over to the security department at Beijing University; it was determined that Geng was bewitched by reactionary thoughts and he was sent to a labor farm in the northeast. Three years later, his term was finished and Geng was forced into the farm employee category. He escaped to Beijing that year; now a fugitive, Geng could not openly establish contacts with his family or with his fiancée. She was a graduate of Beijing Foreign Languages College and by 1962 was employed by a science research institute as a translator. She encouraged Geng to appeal his case. But neither Geng nor his father even tried; this was a political problem and there was nowhere to go for redress. Geng often visited his fiancée and family secretly, pretending to be on leave from the farm. Because he had no way of sustaining himself, Geng went into thievery. While on the labor farm, he had heard enough about the stories and techniques of pickpockets. Being a clever man, it took him no time to master the trade. He always dressed neatly, wore a pair of fashionable gold rimmed glasses, and a cadre’s clothes (called the Sun Yatsen jacket, in China, or the Mao jacket in the US). Naturally no one would suspect an educated and well-mannered man to be a pickpocket. He was quite successful. In the end, he was caught not for stealing but because a visit to his fiancée was reported by the neighborhood activists, and he was rounded up as a prison escapee. Geng told Dan that he never stole anything from ordinary poor folks; he, too, preferred to hit the officials or army

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Engineering Communist China officers. And quite unlike the common pickpockets, who had to sleep in train stations or in concrete pipes at utility construction sites, Geng always stayed in good hotels with fake ID and the official letters of introduction required of all guests. Much of his work was carried out in expensive compartments on trains. Geng was a knowledgeable man who had traveled to virtually all the famous cities in China. He even visited Dazhai Village in the mountainous province of Shanxi, the communist model village supported by Mao Zedong himself. Its leader, Chen Yonggui, gained fame by turning a poor village into a prosperous one and changed the lives of peasants. For that, he was rewarded with the government title, “model worker.” During the Cultural Revolution, this model worker even became China’s vice premier. After spending a couple of days there, Geng concluded that the government must have pumped a lot of money into the place to create the image of a prosperous village; even so, a lot of villagers were still living in poverty. Geng gained a reputation for his generosity. As one underground legend went, two labor farm escapees visited him, hungry and empty of pocket. By the rules of the underground circles, he was expected to help. Yet Geng happened not to have any money on him. He nonetheless treated the two men to a restaurant meal. While they were eating, he walked into a crowd at the bar and picked up three wallets. Then he went to the men’s room to clear out the money and coupons. It took him less then ten minutes. They ate well and got a cash bonus, too. By late 1966, both Dan and Geng were sent back to the northeast, to their labor farms respectively. They never met again.

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CHAPTER 10: BLACK COMMISSAR VS. VICIOUS COMMISSAR One day in September 1966, all inmates were ordered to pack up and return to their respective labor farms in the northeast. Instead of buses, they were put on army trucks. Escorted by armed police, they were carried to the train station in Tianjin. There the armed police with motor cycles and machine guns were replaced by plainclothesmen. Inside the train, they sat in assigned seats. At each end of the car, a soldier guarded the entrance with a rifle in his hands. They were controlled all the way back to the northeast. Back to the farm, Dan was assigned to a new team. It was hard to adjust to the backbreaking labor. He and the other farm employees were victims of the political commissar’s personal ambitions. The team leader was a retired army man. He was illiterate, but very honest. Because he could not read or write, he was not promoted in spite of his long service record and ended up in charge of ex-inmates/labor farm employees. His monthly salary was very high, almost 100 yuan. However, the real decision maker was Political Commissar Bai, also an exarmy officer, but a much younger man in his forties. He was always the best dressed person on the farm. His surname, Bai, means white. But he was known as an evil man and thus earned a nickname, the Black Commissar. The administrative level above the team was the brigade, and that also had a commander and a political commissar. When Dan returned, both of the brigade commander and political commissar were being attacked as capitalist leaders and were removed from their positions. They were made to clean the roads and do other demeaning chores. A group of officers at the labor farm took over in the name of Cultural Revolution and called themselves Revolutionary Rebels. Such a phenomenon was taking place nationwide. It was rumored that some disgraced

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Engineering Communist China officers had committed suicide and others suffered broken legs at the hands of these revolutionary rebels. There were two main factions among the officers competing for control of the farm. It should be noted that even as government authorities both inside and outside the prison system were being smashed by Red Guards, ex-convicts on labor farms were never allowed any freedom to criticize the government or voice their opinions. Specific orders were issued forbidding the formation of any political groups, factions or organizations among the inmates or ex-inmates. Any such activity would be deemed counter-revolutionary and hence subject to punishment. The ex-inmate population was never part of this Cultural Revolution. The Black Commissar (hereafter BC) was competing with Team No. 2, also made up completely of farm employees, led by “the Vicious Commissar” (hereafter VC), seeking to replace the ousted leaders. The more they vied with each other, the more victimized the ex-inmates became. BC invented an intensive working schedule during the summer harvest season. First, it was 18 hours of work per day, followed by 8 hours of sleep. The workers were so exhausted that few washed themselves and they all dropped dead, fast asleep on the beds. In the next two days, nobody even bother to take off his clothes. They slept on their way to the fields and slept whenever there was a slight opportunity. But no one objected, so he thought he could squeeze some more. He lengthened the day to 24 hours, with a break of 8 hours for sleep. Then the 24 hour work started all over again. Production figures did go up a little, but at great human cost. Out in the fields, cutting wheat in almost total darkness, the laborers would fall asleep willy-nilly. Accidents started to happen, with sickles and other tools. BC would occasionally show up in the fields, but most of the time he stayed in his office. Whenever he was not around, Dan and the others would take turns sleeping, with somebody keeping watch. The summer harvest season did call for longer working hours and most peasants in northern China had very little sleep during the most critical three or four days. But a 24-hour nonstop day was inhuman and in total disregard for the realities of life. On the fifth evening, Li Changhai fell to the ground and died. Only then did BC reduce the work schedule. Li had fought in the Korean War. After his leg was wounded, he retired in Beijing. He had picked up some English expressions in Korea and continued to study the language. He liked to spend time in the Dongan Market, one of the two most popular shopping centers in Beijing, talking with foreigners and sometimes

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Chapter 10: Black Commissar vs. Vicious Commissar acting as their interpreter. In the 1950s, talking with foreigners was more or less forbidden; it raised suspicions of secret or treasonous activities. Li was caught, and although the police did not find any evidence of treason, they gave him a three-year sentence. As a wounded veteran, Li had a small pension plus his earnings at the farm. He could not stand living without a woman and in order to increase his chances of eventually getting a wife, Li became a miser, cutting down on his food expenses in order to save money. Most people agreed that he died of selfinflicted malnutrition. Of course, without BC’s inhuman work schedule, Li might have survived and eventually married a female ex-prisoner. BC’s rival, VC, was no better. He set a similar work schedule and, after such exaggerated schedules had proved impractical, he still ordered his team to get up before sunrise and work until after dark. He was first to adopt some popular political fashions. Just as the sun appeared, he would have his team sing, “The East Is Red” — a song that compared Mao Zedong to the sun and praised him as a savior of the Chinese people. The whole nation was singing or at least hearing that song on a daily basis. After that, they would shout three times, “Long Live Chairman Mao!” Again, this was a slogan every Chinese in those days had to say every day while waving a little red quotations book of Mao Zedong. The last course in this daily ritual was three phrases: “Confess crimes and obey the law; accept incarceration; the future remains bright.” Then everyone in the whole team would have to make a ritual left turn in a military style. Turning left meant that these inmates would turn around their lives toward the Left, which meant revolutionary. Once VC adopted such an elaborate ritual before going to the field to work, every other team had to follow suit. Otherwise, the team leaders would be accused of being less revolutionary than the others. With the previous leadership overthrown, the new farm administration was called Revolutionary Committee. Throughout China in the late 1960s, Revolutionary Committees replaced the regular party and government apparatus at various levels, from central government ministries down to every village. At the farm-wide political rallies to criticize previous leaders, VC was the most active. He personally jumped up to the podium and pushed his former superiors into “riding the jet” positions. Everyone knew that he believed he could become head of the revolutionary committee by being super active. VC’s team was in a quadrangle next to Dan’s team separated only by a wall. Whatever happened in one courtyard was heard by the other side. Almost every day, there

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Engineering Communist China were loud sounds of slogans during struggle meetings. Someone was being criticized and maybe beaten up. In the fall of 1966, one farm employee died from heavy beatings. It was in the corn fields. A man was missing when VC’s team was called to line up and go home — he was not trying to get away, he was just so busy eating a piece of corn that he did not hear the call. Though it was against the rules, stealing green food in the fields was a common practice. Nothing unusual. There was even a nickname for eating a stolen ear of corn, “blowing the harmonica.” This time, VC became outraged. Under his instructions, a group of employees-on-duty attacked the man and started beating him. It was dark, and one of the sticks hit the fellow on the temple. When people realized that he was dying, he was sent to the clinic. He died en route. Nobody dared to say a word. A simple notice was sent to the dead man’s relatives in Beijing claiming that he died of illness. Another death at this time was caused, strangely enough, by a news broadcast. It was reported that Chairman Mao had issued a new instruction. During the Cultural Revolution, whatever Mao uttered was always termed “supreme instructions.” People all over China would treat the publication of his words as a kind of political festivity and would parade in the streets, lighting fireworks, singing the new dictum, and so forth. According to the farm broadcast station, Mao said that the Cultural Revolution was a continuation of the struggles against the KMT reactionaries and its remnants. An old inmate in charge of irrigation became so scared that he committed suicide. He used to be a KMT police chief before 1949; he was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. When he was released, he found that his wife and children had cut off relations with him. Considered to be a historical counter-revolutionary, he was not allowed to return to society. He became one of the farm employees and was given the job of controlling water pumps. He spent all his time working and never socialized. Clearly, he was classified as a remnant of the KMT. Taking his life was better than another round of brutal beatings and public humiliations. When he disappeared, a manhunt was conducted over the whole farm. The supposed escape of a former KMT person became a good political material for VC to exploit. He called a meeting of his entire team and lectured them on the disguised nature of the new class struggle. A few days later, a new man was sent to operate the pumps and by chance discovered a pair of boots in the iron water pipe. Head down, this former KMT police officer had jumped into the pipe and drowned himself.

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Chapter 10: Black Commissar vs. Vicious Commissar VC established quite a political record. Among his “achievements” was the discovery of a counter-revolutionary clique. It involved the escape of two people who wanted to go back to Beijing. They took advantage of the late return from work in the dark and changed to clothes they had brought along earlier. They deserted the team and ran in the opposite direction of the railway station, apparently having learned from past escape failures. Too many people were caught at the station, the easiest way to go home. The next day, they were arrested in a nearby village, begging for food. They did not know that the farm authorities had notified all the villages around to watch out for any suspiciouslooking individuals with a Beijing accent. The peasants in this area believed that everyone held on the farm was a counter-revolutionary — a dirty criminal, in other words. They never hesitated to carry out instructions from the farm authorities. The two escapees were immediately interrogated and a struggle meeting was organized forcing them to confess. They were asked if they had support from others and if they had any organizational links with people outside the farm. The two replied that they just wanted to go home. Infuriated by their defiance, VC ordered the two men be hung by their thumbs using a thin rope. One man confessed to everything he was accused of, but the other man still refused. Then he was tied to the rafter by one thumb, to increase the pain. As he was hanging, he was pushed back and forth like a swing. In a short while, he, too, started to admit to all sorts of things and implicated other people in this supposedly anti-revolutionary escape plot. His thumb of course was permanently damaged. Those who had been implicated would now have to go through the same torture, if they dared to refute the charges. One of the men in Dan’s team was named as a member of this counter-revolutionary clique and was called over to VC’s team for interrogation. When it was over, his left arm was hurt so seriously that he could not work with it for over a month. VC’s success put pressure on BC. Coincidentally, a man named Li Ronghai from Dan’s team also tried to escape and was caught by the train station at this time. At a team meeting that evening, BC asked Li Ronghai if there was a counter-revolutionary clique supporting his escape. Li’s answer was, of course, no. He was given a pen and some paper to expose the supposedly underground organizations. Li Ronghai was a welcome target for BC because he was classified as a practicing counter-revolutionary, different from ordinary criminals: Li’s crime was a deliberate attempt to explode grenades in front of a Beijing police

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Engineering Communist China station. As a teenager, Li had found some old grenades left over in his neighborhood by the KMT troops, and decided to have some fun intimidating the police. He was easily recognized as a class enemy, trying to attack the authorities. Two days later, Li still could not invent any story about a counterrevolutionary organization. Another team meeting was called and this time, Li was beaten badly, especially by Zhao Shun. A powerfully built but stupid man, Zhao had been a bully in his own peasant village. After he joined the army, Zhao somehow made it to the captain’s rank. He seems to have been arrested for women-related problems. Whenever the subject of women came up, he always came to life, boasting and full of excitement. He was also known for hitting where it hurts, and this time was no exception. Assisted by two others, Zhao jumped up and wrestled Li into a “riding the jet” position. The evening meetings went on for two more days until Li gave in. Zhao stripped Li almost naked and bound his arms tightly with twine. Li was lying on the ground, pleading; BC threatened to hang him from the ceiling. Li kneeled before BC and asked: “If I confess, what will happen if the other accomplices refuse to acknowledge their crimes?” “That is not for you to worry about. The government will deal with them. I have to warn you, though. If others confess ahead of you, then you will be more severely punished and probably put you into a real prison.” Li’s apparent willingness to cooperate was understandable, but sent chills through everyone. Whom would he name? “Tell me what your secret clique wanted to do?” BC raised his first question. “I did not join any secret organization. Just acted alone.” Li replied. “Nonsense! Tell the truth. I heard you wanted to rebel against the government. Is that true?” BC yelled. “No. Not really.” came Li’s answer, still puzzled by the question. VC banged on the table and shouted: “Do you want to be hanged up there and ruin your arms? Nobody will pity you for that!” Li was afraid at the word “hang up” and he tried to give answers that would satisfy the Black Commissar. “What does your clique want to do?” “Rebellion.” “When?” “I really do not know.”

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Chapter 10: Black Commissar vs. Vicious Commissar “You son of a bitch. Somebody had already told me that you were to rebel on August 15!” “Oh, yes. I forgot.” “What kind of flag were you to use?” “White flag.” Li obviously thought of the white flag that represented the KMT, “the white army,” while the communist color was red. “Any guns?” BC pressed on. “No guns.” “You are not cooperating! How could you rebel without guns? Did you plan to seize guns from the guard platoon?” “Yes, that was the first step.” “Where do you plan to go after that?” “To carry on a guerrilla warfare on the Northeast Plains.” Li was turning out to be a better liar than expected. This “judicial” process taught people many new skills. He did not name any names that evening; nor did BC ask in front of everybody. He just asked Li to sign his confession record. A record of political and military conspiracy was thus established. After that evening, BC treated Li very nicely, giving him the comfort of his office to write a fuller confession. Li was not only exempt from daily labor but also given good food, egg noodles. Li named half of the 120-man team as members of his counter-revolutionary clique. He was thinking was that “laws could not be applied to the majority,” as one Chinese saying went. How could BC act against most of the people on his team? As Li was producing names, BC demanded that everyone in his team write confessions and expose others. Few, if any, followed his instructions. In the next few days, BC selected a few names from Li Ronghai’s list and started to publicly “struggle” against them. Dan was one of the selected few. He was a political prisoner, known for counter-revolutionary crimes, whereas most others committed petty offences. To protect himself, Dan talked with most of the people in the group and decided to refute the allegations. In other groups, several people had already been beaten up and confessions were extracted due to Zhao Shun’s brutality. Only in Dan’s group nothing was happening. BC suddenly came to Dan’s room in the midst of a meeting and scolded the group leader for being too lenient. At one point, BC even accused him of “wearing the same pants with Dan,” meaning to act hand in glove with the counter-revolutionaries. The next day, BC pushed the group leader aside and

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Engineering Communist China organized the meeting personally. BC’s presence immediately showed results. Almost everyone in the group spoke against Dan and some even came to beat him as he was pushed to the ground. Now that the counter-revolutionary was dealt with, BC left the room and went to the other groups. The meeting continued, but the shouting subsided and the beating also stopped, with only Zhao occasionally hitting Dan. Knowing that Dan was smart, most people were afraid that he might deliberately implicate them as conspirators if they didn’t watch their step. With BC gone, Dan stood up and stared at Zhao, his eyes bursting with hatred and a killer’s determination. A Korean that BC had sent in did not take part in beatings; his role was to challenge anything Dan said. When he saw that the other people had backed off, the Korean jumped up and grabbed Dan’s hair and spit in his face. To everybody’s surprise, Dan spat back at the Korean. At this point, he had little to lose. Since it was already very late, the group leader announced that the meeting would be continued the next day. In most cases, these meetings were only organized after dinner. During the day, people had to work. On his way to work the next day, Dan was carrying a sharp iron fork. He bumped into BC. Instead of being afraid, Dan looked right into BC’s eyes showing that he was no longer scared, in spite of what had happened. There were indeed incidents at the farm when angry individuals killed officials after being pushed too far. Out in the cornfields, that Korean came over to Dan when the others were not around and said to him: “You will understand later that I am actually your friend.” Dan was totally disgusted and spat on him. Somehow, the Korean was not annoyed but just walked away. A month later, Dan heard that he had disguised himself as a woman and escaped. It was said that he crossed the border and went to North Korea. Perhaps as a reward for his confession, Li Ronghai, the head of this imaginary secret rebellious organization, was exempted from hard labor and could roam around the premises freely, a privilege that only group leaders and employees-on-duty enjoyed. Seeing that he was well treated by BC, Zhao Shun befriended him. Li sold his 40 yuan overcoat to him for only 20. He also borrowed 30 yuan from Zhao, promising to return it in a month, plus a can of meat. Li must have sensed that as head of this counter-revolutionary organization, his future was grim. Nobody knew at that time that he was actually planning to escape. Li was called into the office one day and interviewed by two strangers, perhaps officials from the public security bureau, about the secret organization.

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Chapter 10: Black Commissar vs. Vicious Commissar As he hesitated to speak, the two men asked BC to step outside, and they had a private conversation with Li. According to what Li, he told the two officials the truth — that BC had used torture to obtain false confessions. Officially, that was forbidden, and to believe what prisoners said under these circumstances was foolish, as well. Li kneeled on the ground, crying and vigorously denying any counter-revolutionary clique. The interview lasted for the entire morning and Li wrote a brief denial of his previous signed statement. The two strangers showed the document to BC and treated him very coldly. As soon as they left the room, BC slapped Li’s face and had him locked up in solitary confinement. In spite of this, the news destroyed any hope BC might have for promotion. Soon afterwards, Li successfully escaped by making a hole in the roof. Because people hated Zhao, they deliberately reported to BC that Zhao had helped Li to escape. Now the man who took pleasure in beating others was publicly struggled against in a team meeting. “Is it true that you lent him money?” “Yes,” Zhao replied timidly, “I saw that he was well reformed already and agreed to lend him 30 yuan. I did not know he was plotting an escape.” “If you did not help Li, how come Li’s coat was found in your case?” “He sold it to me.” “For how much?” “20 yuan.” Zhao had really gotten a good deal. Even in an era when making a profit was looked down upon as immoral, Zhao was despised for taking advantage of Li’s misfortunes and buying the overcoat so cheap. BC became so angry that he stepped forward and slapped Zhao’s face himself. He revoked his status as an employee-on-duty. People jumped up and pounded Zhao, with real enthusiasm, this time. After order was restored, Zhao could barely stand up. Since Zhao was demoted, he had to move out of his room and join the ordinary employees. Poor Dan — now they were side by side. And he had to go out to work in the fields. The whole drama discredited BC, who now felt pressured to reestablish his reputation. He created a “controlled group” of seven individuals, people who were thought to be rebellious. They were moved into one room under special supervision. They had to leave for work one hour earlier and come back home one hour later than the rest of the team, all under supervision. They had to eat lunch after everyone else was done and had to go straight to work, no nap time. On the day this was declared, the special seven were called out of the ranks and stood in the fashion of “riding the jet.” BC recounted their crimes one by one and

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Engineering Communist China gave the reasons why they had to be closely supervised. In his speech, BC especially attacked one short old man for not admitting his crime of attempted rape. This man was somewhat of a hunchback, so of course he had a hard time attracting a woman. He made a living by hanging paper ceilings in homes. Once, he was doing ceilings for a family and only the wife stayed at home; she helped him by holding the ladder. As he was coming down from the shaky ladder, he touched the woman by accident. By the traditional moral standard, a man could not touch a lady. Any such behavior was deemed a sexual offence. The woman accused him of sexual attack and even told the police that he attempted to rape her. Probably, the woman just wanted to get a free ceiling. Ever since he was sentenced for three years of labor reeducation, this old man never stopped writing letters to appeal his case. Another person in this “controlled group” used to be a student in Beijing Music College. He had lost any hope of returning to a normal life and adopted a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care attitude. He was reported to have sung “yellow songs,” a derogatory term for love songs. Open expression of love or anything indicative of love was called “yellow,” contrary to the revolutionary spirit. Today, the term “yellow” refers to pornography. Even in terms of conjugal love, people had to refer to it as “revolutionary feelings.” A marriage was a proletarian union to reproduce the next revolutionary generation. “Yellow” stuff was Western, bourgeois decadence. All these cultural prohibitions notwithstanding, sex was on everyone’s mind, including BC. Most of the workers felt the sexual deprivation keenly. Whenever a woman passed by, they would stare at her with eyes fixed for a long time. Many men seemed to get sick and made frequent visits to the clinic. It turned out that a 25-year old unmarried nurse had been employed there. She was said to have stolen some medicine at a Beijing hospital and sold it in the black market. She was not really pretty, not at all, but she certainly was an attraction in these surroundings. To avoid trouble, she quickly married a farm employee on Dan’s team. The nurse was lovingly called Little Swallow among the men, because she often accompanied laborers into the fields and “flew” from person to person taking care of minor injuries. Some of the injuries were deliberately selfinflicted so these men could have some time with Little Swallow. A clinic was organized at each brigade and was staffed also by ex-inmates. Soon after the arrival of Little Swallow, rumors of adultery between her and BC became a hot topic. People noticed that Little Swallow tended to follow BC around and both of them dressed more neatly than usual. The affair was

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Chapter 10: Black Commissar vs. Vicious Commissar discovered eventually in the married housing units. There were more and more spouses and dependents of the farm employees as more and more inmates were released from prison and sent to the farm employee category. Special houses were built for these families about half a mile west of the dorms for singles. Probably several people already knew what was going on, but did not know what to do. BC was the boss. BC had secretly flirted with Little Swallow for a long time. To make sure that her husband would not know about the affair, BC assigned him to water rice fields at night. Over the years, BC had developed a network of ears among the laborers. He soon learned the rumors of his affairs. Retaliation followed very quickly. One day, BC personally led the team into the fields. After moving people in a circle and all sitting down, BC spoke: “Now there are some rumors in our team smearing the reputation of revolutionary cadres. This is libel, a retaliation against the proletarian class. We must deal a counterblow to this kind of enemy attack.” Following the speech, four employees-on-duty suddenly grabbed Little Swallow’s neighbor and gave him a “riding the jet.” The man refused to bow down. BC’s four hatchet men beat him up. Nobody else stood up or criticized the man. Little Swallow’s neighbor’s hands were tied to his feet. After receiving the kicks, everyone could see that he was in great pain. He clutched his teeth very tight, his face full of sweat. However, he still denied any wrongdoing. The attack lasted for two hours and the man eventually lost consciousness. Though BC ordered people to fetch water from a nearby river and pour it over him, the man never regained consciousness and had to be carried back to the team headquarters. Even though nobody dared to say anything publicly, in private and among close friends people hated BC and encouraged Little Swallow’s neighbor to take some action such as reporting to higher authorities. Adultery was a serious affront, and here was BC’s crime unpunished while they all had to endure a prisoner’s treatment for the rest of their lives. Little Swallow’s neighbor was highly respected by the rest of the laborers; but as a punishment, he was not allowed to go back to his wife anymore and instead had to sleep with the single laborers. BC’s womanizing was finally exposed. The brigade operated a small shop that supplied daily necessities to farm laborers. The attendant was a girl who had just married a young farm official. BC somehow managed to seduce this innocent country girl. One night, it was the old team leader’s turn to be on night duty. The shop was always a place for night patrols to check for possible theft.

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Engineering Communist China Past midnight already, the old team leader heard some noise in the shop and was surprised to see a naked man on top of the girl. He thought that it must be one of the farm employees, and bashed him on the head. It was none other than BC. The old team leader was embarrassed and angry and did not say anything. But by the next day the news had traveled to every corner of the farm. It must be that the old team leader was disgusted and reported the case. BC was punished by the new farm authorities, now composed of active military officers. He lost his position and pay. In disgrace, he was fired from public employment and kicked back to his native village.

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CHAPTER 11: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST In 1967 and 1968, there was serious factional fighting among various revolutionary rebel groups, sometimes even armed conflicts. As a result, a general chaos reigned, with factories and schools closed down completely. Thus the military was called upon to take over various government institutions, factories, schools, etc. Military officers also took over the labor farms. However, this took place only at the level of farm administration and in no way affected the farm laborers, directly since there was no change of personnel among the team leaders. Under the military, Dan and his fellow men felt frightened, on the one hand, and on the other, secure from abuse by the low-level officials. Once, they were given a day off from work and to participate in a big rally at the farm headquarters, which was located about four miles away from their dorms. It was a huge rally of several brigades from various places of the whole farm. The meeting place was surrounded by men with rifles. It was quite a scene. A uniformed military officer formally declared the military takeover of the farm and gave a speech warning everyone that, since they were “cow’s ghosts and snake’s spirits,” they had better behave according to regulations and seriously reform themselves. What ensued was a standard public meeting and a group of hardened criminals was dragged onto the platform, as their names were called, and publicly shamed. A so-called “presenting loyalty” movement started among the farm officials. Everybody had to pledge loyalty to Mao in various forms, singing, dancing, and reading poetry. They paraded with banners and on trucks. Every one of military men had to put a big badge on their chests, the bigger the better. Or they would display special big Mao buttons. The controlled personnel, inmates and ex-

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Engineering Communist China inmates were not allowed to join this movement. Mao’s pictures, Mao buttons of many sizes, little red book of Mao’s quotations were everywhere. Any word or action that showed potential slight disrespect to these icons would be considered blasphemous. Many people during this period were publicly disgraced or even imprisoned because of such counter-revolutionary acts. One such act took place on Dan’s team. Since toilet paper was very expensive, most people in those days would use ordinary newspaper instead. It so happened that a piece of newspaper used for such purpose had Mao’s picture on it. This was interpreted as an insult to Chairman Mao. The military commander heard about it and ordered a thorough investigation. Not only were the men’s rooms, but also the work sites in the fields. At a meeting, an army man demanded that the farm laborers expose each other, but nobody did. Every one of them used newspapers, and no one stopped to see what was on it. The intensive search went on for more than a week, but turned up no suspects. In late 1960s, counter-revolutionaries were suspected everywhere and everyone was searching for possible clues that would lead to their arrests. At the farm, everybody had a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book. In a new edition, a picture of Mao’s chosen successor, Lin Biao, appeared on the reverse of Mao’s. It was rumored that a counter-revolutionary had deliberately put the two pictures back to back on one page, so that if you held it up to light, a terrible ghost picture would be revealed. At the farm, people were curious and examined all the new editions of Mao’s Quotation Book. Some agreed with the rumor and others did not. The farm military authorities confiscated all the new editions and handed them over to higher authorities as evidence against Chairman Mao. Examples like this abounded. Every book and every picture seemed to be a legitimate vehicle for counter-revolutionary slogans or tricks.

The labor farm was populated mostly by criminals, with less than 10% political prisoners. Violence was a part of their everyday life, a brutal test for survival. It was especially tough for Dan and other educated people. Needless to say, his gentle manners and behavior did not help him in this environment. Even Dan changed over the years into a man who saw violence as the only means for justice and for survival. No education was needed to understand the Darwinist principle, survival of the fittest. Fights were the way to establish order in this special society.

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Chapter 11: Survival of the Fittest Dan was respected in his group and often resolved disputes. It was in that role that he got into a big fight with the group leader, Dong Guobin. Dong used to be a low ranking officer in the KMT. When the city of Changchun was besieged by the communist troops in the late 1940s, he was in charge of defending one of the city gates. According to his confessions, he made a fortune off the wealthy people in town by charging a fee to let them escape the impending battle. He was later captured as a historical counter-revolutionary and was put on the farm as an employee, after serving his sentence. As a group leader, he had the power to assign work to his 20 men and always gave lighter work to his friends. One who was not his friend was a former air force pilot. He was an arrogant man and despised the group leader. After all, Dong had worked for the KMT, the enemy of the Communist government, and the pilot fought on the side of the communist army. Yet, here in this prison world, the normal order was reversed: an ex-communist army officer had to obey an ex-KMT army officer. Though he never dared to challenge Dong openly, the pilot rarely spoke to Dong and was always slow to carry out his orders. The fight took place in a room next to the threshing machine. After cutting wheat, Dan’s group was feeding straw into the big threshing machine in the morning. When the food cart came, the pilot was the first to buy his lunch. Naturally, he was the first to enter the little room to avoid the hot sun and sat on the long bed to eat his meal. Others soon followed him. Very quickly the room was full, some sitting on the bed and others just standing to eat. Dong came in last, and seeing that the pilot occupied the best place and also sat on a piece of straw mat, Dong ordered him to stand up and move somewhere else. The pilot did not move, at first. Dong then shouted to him: “You are deaf? Get up and leave!” The pilot weighed the situation and left. Dong took up the mat and waved it, shaking dust in the pilot’s direction in an attempt to further assert his authority. Dust also fell on everyone’s precious lunch. Dan was eating a sweet melon he had just bought from a peasant peddler. He turned on Dong, saying: “This is not your place and this is not your mat. Whoever comes first should sit here and use the mat. Why are you bullying him?” Now, that was totally unexpected. “Who are you? Counter-revolutionary busy body!” And so on. “How dare you to call me names?” Dan stood up. “You’re damn right! I’m calling you names! So what?” Dong shook his mat some more.

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Engineering Communist China Dan threw his half-finished melon in Dong’s face. Dong, the chosen leader for this group, was backed by the team leader and farm authorities. Striking one’s superior was not to be tolerated and normally would result in serious punishment. “You want to rebel against the authorities? I will have a struggle meeting for you this evening and beat you to death!” Dong threatened — but did not dare to hit back. For one thing, he was afraid that others might join in on Dan’s side. Encouraged by the other inmates’ silence, Dan jumped in front of Dong and punched him hard, on his jaw, and knocked him to the ground. Dong got up and shouted: “You son of a rabbit! How dare you hit me? If you’re a man, let’s go out and get it over with.” He afraid that others would help Dan in this small room, but he was also afraid he would lose his leadership and respect if he did not fight Dan. Before Dan stepped out, the old team leader showed up. Somebody had reported to him what had happened. “Which son of a bitch is sticking a pole in my eyes [slang, meaning making trouble for me]? Don’t you know that this is the busiest season and we have a lot of work to do?” The team leader scolded Dan and everyone around. Dong thought that his support had arrived and pointed to Dan: “Dan disobeyed orders. He also dared to hit me.” As he spoke, Dong showed the team leader his bleeding mouth. The old team leader asked for details, but nobody said anything — not even the pilot, victim of Dong’s bullying behavior. He then ordered Dan and Dong to go outside and kneel down in the yard. Dong felt wronged and disappointed, but he would not dare to disobey his boss. As for Dan, he just stood there and did not move, perhaps taking advantage of the old team leader’s good nature or because he was too upset. The old man was angry and he ordered everybody out of the room and back to work without finishing lunch. Dan apologized to everybody in the group for causing them to miss lunch. Of course, most of them were rather grateful that he’d taught Dong a lesson. Hunger did not delay their work. On the contrary, they worked faster and better and the old team leader was very pleased with the result. Dong did not take part in the work and he knelt down in the hot sun for almost two hours. Later Dong was put in another group. In the routine evening study session, the old team leader mentioned Dan and Dong’s names, but only criticized Dong for his behavior. After the harvesting season, the old team leader was away on business when the most horrible killing took place. On Sundays, most people would do washing, sewing or other chores. There was only one manual water pump in the

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Chapter 11: Survival of the Fittest quadrangle and laborers often had to stand in long queues to get water. One Sunday morning as people lined up, a strong young man jumped the line and placed his basin under the tap, signaling to others that he was the boss. Then he pushed aside a much shorter person who was pumping water and started pumping himself. The short person came back and grabbed the pump handle, refusing to give in. But a few minutes later he was thrown on the ground and most onlookers jeered and laughed at him. Humiliated, the short man left without saying anything. Nobody thought much of the incident; fighting like this was a frequent occurrence. Even though the short man was observed grinding his sickle in the afternoon, that too was quite common and few paid much attention. But then everyone went to sleep. It was a rule at the farm that people had to sleep with their head towards the edge of the long bed, not towards the window side. The short man cut the bully’s stomach open at the first blow. Nobody dared to move or intercede. The short man continued to hack at him with the sickle, altogether seventeen times and all over his body. By the time he stopped, the thin, long sickle was twisted out of shape. The man was tied up and sent away. He was given a life term and locked up in maximum security. Miraculously, the bully survived, but was permanently disabled. For the next few months, there was almost no fighting among the laborers and the known bullies in the team seemed to modify their behavior considerably. Though fighting and violence happened among men, among the women there was one case of a desperate action by the wife of an employee. She set fire to the storage barn. Since women did not participate in hard farm labor, they were offered employment by the farm to make ropes and bags in the married housing units. Most women earned at least 27 yuan a month making straw products. The fire burned up all of the straw material. This meant no employment, and no income for the women for at least several months. The arsonist, who had joined her husband about six years before, was widely respected for her decision to give up her job in Beijing. Both her parents were government officials who were against her relationship with the imprisoned fiancé. However, she married him anyway in this harsh, northeastern environment. When she made the decision, perhaps she did not expect life was to be so hard, or did not realize that she would be discriminated against so severely as the wife of an ex-inmate. They were given a room in the married housing units and offered a job in the spouse unit, producing vegetables in summer time and making straw products during winter months. She made 27

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Engineering Communist China yuan a month and her husband 36. With their combined income, life was fairly good until three children came along. The youngest was only one year old. Her job was given to a new arrival, a country girl from Shandong Province who had just married a young official at the farm headquarters. Since she was the wife of official, she would be given priority in terms of jobs or other benefits. Because jobs were limited, someone had to be laid off and the ax fell on the young mother. With five people in the family, her husband’s meager income simply could not cover all their needs however frugal they might be. She was outraged when she was notified of the decision and went straight to the farm leadership. Her complaint did not result in her reinstatement. She felt totally hopeless and set the fire to the storage at midnight. When questioned, she readily admitted the arson and told the authorities that she wanted revenge. She was publicly sentenced to seven years of imprisonment. Her crime was “hatred of the socialist system and sabotage.” Ironically, with her locked up, the authorities had to take care of her children and the family food problem was solved. The farm authorities could not find anybody who would take care of the children, so she was allowed to serve out her time in her room. But its windows were covered with boards and the door was locked, with only one hole for delivery of food. Her baby was taken to her a few times a day for breastfeeding. The two other children were taken care of by her husband. Whenever Dan and other people passed the married housing compounds, they could not help but look at her room. She was regarded as the bravest person on the farm, having more guts than all the men. As indicated in earlier chapters, escapes were very common among the farm employees who theoretically had finished their terms but were still forcefully kept on as de facto prisoners. Ever since the forced employment system was created, it faced an obvious inconsistency: If the ex-inmates civil rights were stored, why were they kept against their own will and why were they not given complete freedom of movement? One could ask similar questions on a general level. Why were the peasants in China not allowed to seek jobs in the city? Why couldn’t people speak freely, as guaranteed by the constitution? The answer to these questions may be linked to a desire and also a need to exercise tight control of society, which was deemed necessary for the transition to communism. Since 1949, the new government wanted to keep all the undesirable elements away from the cities, political and economic centers of the country. This seemed to be the justification also in the 1960s behind this policy of forced employment for ex-

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Chapter 11: Survival of the Fittest inmates, though the original purpose was to permanently lock up enemies of the revolution, or at least to have them reformed. Maybe it also helped fill a labor gap in the always struggling agricultural arena. The household registration system was justified in terms of economic necessity and in the name of making life easier for both urban and rural resident. During the Great Leap Forward debacle, it was difficult to feed excess laborers in the cities. Sending them back to the countryside and keeping them there was the best solution the authorities could find. Silencing other political viewpoints, such as the Anti-Rightist movement, was done in the name of defending the Socialism against its enemies, real or imagined. It might be acceptable if these methods had been applied to those defined as enemies of state. However, most inmates in the reeducation through labor were not classified as such, at least not when they finished their terms. Moreover, they there clearly told at the time of their sentencing that they would serve for three years. In the perspective of ex-prisoners, this permanent imprisonment was foisted upon them without any convincing justification. They felt betrayed and felt unjustly treated. Therefore, the majority of them entertained various thoughts of escape. Some brave souls took full advantage of the limited freedom they had, and tried to get away if conditions were right. Whether they were troublemakers, thieves, or political prisoners, they all found escape legitimate. One particular escape attempt may illustrate the dilemma farm authorities faced and the injustice the forced laborers felt. A petty thief nicknamed Devil King was about thirty years old. Before his arrest, he was the head of a gang in Beijing and constantly got involved in street fights. During three years of reeducation through labor, he became the best known criminal on the entire farm and virtually everybody respected him. He also truly felt remorse and was sorry that he had caused trouble for his family. His mother was getting old and he wanted to turn over a new leaf to make his mother happy. When he was reclassified as a farm employee, and still in captivity, he protested and felt that he was being kept here illegally. As he no longer saw any hope of going back to Beijing, Devil King escaped with two fellow laborers in the fall of 1969. Having learned from others’ failed attempts, the three hid themselves in the cornfields until dark, and then changed clothes. Instead of getting on the train near the farm, they walked along the tracks for two days and got on the train several stops down the line.

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Engineering Communist China Once the old team leader discovered that three people had gone, he reported it to the farm authority. Very quickly an official was dispatched on the next train for Beijing and notified various police stations there. Because of the extensive network of social control, escapees were often caught when they returned to their neighborhoods in Beijing. By pure accident, this official met Devil King and the other two escapees right on the train. Afraid to deal with them alone, the farm official notified the train captain of the situation. It was then broadcast on board: “Revolutionary masses and revolutionary rebel comrades!” (the announcer addressed passengers using this standard title during the Cultural Revolution), “there are three convicts in the dining car. They have just escaped from prison under our proletarian dictatorship. Please help us to catch them.” Hearing the news, a lot of people came to the dining car and wanted to take part in the action. People in those days were somehow not afraid of criminals, partly because of revolutionary enthusiasm. In the dining car there was chaos and confusion, since nobody knew who were the escaped convicts. Finally, the farm official came in and pointed out Devil King and two others to a military officer. Before the army man acted, two young Red Guards came to Devil King and shouted: “You cow’s ghosts and snake’s spirits. Surrender to the revolutionary people!” Devil King had heard of Red Guards but never seen one, and he simply had no idea why these young people should be respected. As one of them tried to grab his coat, Devil King caught the young man’s arm and threw him under the table. In the meantime, he and his friends each picked up a chair, ready to fight anyone who dared to come forward. The army officer pulled out his hand gun and pointed at Devil King. “Hold there!” he said firmly. Not only was Devil King not afraid, he pointed to his chest and replied: “I dare you to shoot me. Come on! Shoot here!” Seeing that the army officer hesitated, Devil King inched forward. “Who says we are convicts? Let him come out. We are ordinary people. Your gun is for shooting enemies, not ordinary citizens.” Devil King could see that the army officer was totally confused and didn’t to shoot anyone. As Devil King inched forward, the army officer had to retreat, still pointing his gun at him. At this moment, the farm official had to step forward and identified himself. Then he called on Devil King and the others to go back to the farm. By this point, Devil King knew what kind of treatment he would get if he agreed to go back. He questioned the farm officer: “Did you say we were convicts? Show us the proof!” The farm official was embarrassed and began to stutter. He knew very well that they were considered

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Chapter 11: Survival of the Fittest employees at the farm, not convicts anymore. They also had the right to visit their families in Beijing. The only thing the farm official could do was continue trying to persuade Devil King. No one knew what to do. The issue would have to be decided when the train stopped at a station where police were available. Near the train station in Shengyang, the largest city in the northeast, the train slowed down. Devil King and his two followers opened the window and jumped out. The farm official shouted, but it was too late. Only, they hurt their legs landing and were caught by the train station police. Since they had not committed any crime and just wanted to go back home, the police could not charge them and simply sent them back. It surprised everyone at the farm that Devil King and his friends were not punished at all. There was no struggle meeting of any kind. Perhaps the farm authorities were afraid of Devil King because of his influence among the farm population. Or, maybe, they also felt the dilemma of the forced employment policy.

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CHAPTER 12: EXILE IN THE HINTERLANDS On December 29, 1969, Dan’s life as a forced laborer ended and a new page began. For reasons he never came to know, Dan was sent to the remote rural villages in the northeast along with about 200 other farm laborers, to “accept education and supervision from poor and lower-middle peasants.” The order came as a mystery and a surprise to these men accustomed to a controlled life already. Nobody knew what kind of life awaited them. The terms “poor” and “lower middle class” peasants had specific meanings under the Chinese communist theory on social classes. Poor and lower-middle peasants were those farmers who, around 1949, were so classified according to how much land they owned. Poor peasants owned little or none; the middle peasant owned some land and draft animals but did not hire farm hands; lowermiddle peasants were somewhere in between. According the official theory, they together now formed the ruling class against the former rich peasants and landowners, who had owned a lot of land and exploited the labor of other people; they were the target of communist revolution. Even after their land was redistributed to the poor peasants, they still carried their designations as landowners or rich peasants and were considered to be enemies of the people. The designations of poor or middle peasants continued to be used into the 1980s as a way to differentiate social classes in rural communities. Class struggle had been consistently emphasized in Mao’s theory of Continued Revolution under Proletariat Dictatorship. Although ex-prisoners were considered to be bad elements, a sort of class enemy, classifying them was a murky business. They tended to come from all sorts of class backgrounds that did not fit into the rigid communist

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Engineering Communist China classifications. What kind of social identity would be pinned on Dan and his fellow laborers? It was not just a theoretical question. It meant all the different in how they would be treated by the general society. At a sort of farewell meeting organized by the whole team, Dan felt somewhat encouraged. There were no emotions attached to such occasions; the old team leader just gave a speech in which he repeated the official lines, advising the ex-inmates to accept continued reeducation by the peasants and to take advantage of this opportunity provided by the government for thought reform, etc. Terms like reeducation were used for ordinary people. Reform was the term used for class enemies. The old team leader was not an educated man, and yet he specifically mentioned that the government was doing this as a reward for their good behavior and hoped that they would “establish proletariat thinking.” The uncharacteristic choice of words did not sound like his own, but were a reflection of the official view. Did it mean that they were now members of the proletarian class? Hopefully, life might be a little better; but they had no idea whether to allow any such hope to bloom. All of those selected to go were single men. Married men had become lifetime employees. They packed their few belongings and got on the big trucks waiting for them outside their dorms. There were no special flags designating their inmate status anymore. Nor were there any armed policemen. On the train, there was no security guard of any kind. The windows had no iron bars; the cadres had no handcuffs; they could move freely around. Dan and the others became quite optimistic, in an environment where optimism was in severe short supply. It took them six hours to get to a remote part of Jilin Province. The station was full of people who were welcoming the return of a model person in the study of Mao Zedong thoughts. Studying Mao’s thoughts, by reading his little Red Book of Quotations or other works, was organized as a religious ritual and sometimes as a kind of competition. Factories, villages, army units were supposed to select people who excelled in this regard. They could recite hundreds of Mao’s lines and supposedly used Mao’s teachings as guiding lights to their daily work. For all this display of loyalty, they were bestowed special honors. There were special meetings at various levels, such as county or provincial, to provide a forum for sharing their experiences. People at the station were all dressed in clean and colorful clothes and beat drums, the scene of a grand ceremony for a small station. These ceremonies had nothing to do with the ex-inmates. Once they disembarked, the 200-some men were told to sit down together and wait to be picked up. For the people at this station, it was rare to

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Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands see so many poorly dressed ex-convicts sitting down in formation. They were curious, and came to look at them as if they were circus animals on display. On the farm, since most people were convicts, the sense of shame was notably absent. But here, they were re-entering society with a stigma attached, whether prisoner or ex-prisoner. Trucks took them away, but still nobody was told where they were heading. It was already late afternoon and they had not been given any food; just some water. Obviously, the farm authorities no longer considered these people their responsibility; nor were there new institutions obliged to feed them. They went north past the Songhua River and finally stopped in the middle of a courtyard at the local commune government, in Fuyu County, Jilin Province. Only about 40 people were carried to this locality; the others were distributed elsewhere, perhaps to nearby communes. It took another couple of hours for officials to finish the transfer process with all the documentation. Finally, almost by midnight, they were assigned to different villages (called production brigades, at the time). Dan’s village was Wanfa Brigade. It was a very encouraging name, meaning 10,000 prosperities. A representative from Wanfa village came to pick them up. He was a handsome young man who wore a big dog fur hat and a heavy coat, both covered with snow. Altogether, twelve people were assigned to Wanfa. In complete darkness, the young man drove them and their luggage to the village. Nobody bothered to talk. They reached the village some 20 hours after their last meal. Their new home was a three-room house typical of the northern China peasant style. The middle room had a door and an earthen stove and utensils. Two rooms, one on each side, each had two large earthen beds about six by nine feet in size. Underneath the beds were heated tunnels connected to the stove in the middle room. When dinner was being cooked, the beds were heated as well: a fairly cheap and efficient way of utilizing energy. The young cart driver helped them to light up a kerosene lamp. The smell inside the rooms was suffocating. Although Dan was not unfamiliar with country life, he could not identify all the components in the strange stench: perhaps mildew, smoke, and something rotten. It seemed that this house had not been used for a long time. Dan opened a window to let in some fresh air but it was so cold that after a while, people chose to tolerate the bad smell rather than the outside air. As one might expect, these twelve ex-prisoners did not have much in the way of manners. The moment they were let into the rooms, some quickly occupied the best spots on the long bed, the place closest to the middle room and

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Engineering Communist China the stove, because that was the warmest. Dan found it undignified to fight for a spot. At the farm, the best position was reserved for the group leader, but now few people cared about authority. Dan took the last spot, farthest away from the stove. After unpacking their things, the first order of business was to heat up the earthen beds. Dried corn stalks were available in the courtyard for heating and cooking. Hungry and exhausted, they all fell fast asleep that night, although the cold woke some of them up periodically. The next morning, they stayed in bed until about 10:00, now that there was no strict discipline anymore. Of these twelve people, one, named Yang Jinzhu, was an employee-on-duty on Dan’s team and another was Zhai Suizhong. These two used to be good friends at the farm; but for some reason, they had a falling out. As their relationship worsened, Yang took advantage of his privileged position and accused Zhai of counter-revolutionary ideas. The whole team had had a big meeting just two weeks before they were sent to this village. Zhai Suizhong supposedly confided to Yang that people living under the communist rule were like sheep and the government wolves. Sheep were tied to a place and had no freedom. They could be slaughtered and fleeced at any time. The charges were serious; nobody in late 1969 dared to attack the government with such a derogatory analogy. Zhai steadfastly denied all charges and instead he counteraccused the accuser for his anti-communist ideas. But Yang was an employee-onduty and trusted by the authorities. Zhai lost, and was officially classified, or “capped” as it was termed between 1949 and 1980, as a practicing counterrevolutionary. Such a cap had put him in the class enemy category, together with other caps such as landowner, rich peasant, Rightist, etc. Zhai more or les acknowledged saying those things; he resented the Communist Party for personal reasons. His father was a high communist official. When Beijing was first taken over from the KMT, his father was a member of the takeover committee in 1949 and later was appointed Director of the Commerce Bureau. However, he could not resist the temptation of city life and of attractive urban women. His wife was an illiterate country woman with bound feet. By contrast, the city was light years ahead. Although he did not divorce his wife, Zhai’s father did have affairs with other women and was demoted because of that. Zhai grew up and lived in an environment of privileges. At the time his father was penalized, Zhai was already working in a government agency. He often complained about government policies and developed a hatred of government itself.

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Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands Yang was incarcerated for political reasons. Back in junior high school, Yang liked to show off his leadership abilities. In early 1960s, he organized a government cabinet among his friends and appointed himself as the president and others as his ministers. The school found out about it and reported it to the police. Today, it would be considered a case of kids playing government. At that time, it was seen as a serious political misdemeanor, at least. Yang was charged with counter-revolutionary activity that aimed at overthrowing the government. Back on the farm, Yang tried his best to gain the favor of officials by reporting others; thus he earned a very bad reputation among the prisoners who hated him, especially for betraying the trust of his friend. Now, how much freedom would they be given? How would they arrange their lives, twelve people together? What would be their relationship with the villagers? What rights would they have as citizens? Would he be able to go back to Beijing anytime he wanted? If not, what should he tell his fiancée? Although Dan had told his fiancée to marry someone else, a generous and responsible gesture on his part, he in fact still harbored the hope that she would come to marry him at an appropriate time and place. The next day, some of the group’s questions and worries were answered by the village leaders. One was the brigade leader in charge of the whole village; two were leaders of the production teams; the last one was called head of the “Dictatorship Group,” whose business was to keep a constant check on people designated as class enemies. At the meeting, everybody was introduced, including the former inmates. Most of them had barely known each other before. The village brigade leader was in his forties. He gave a standard speech to the group. He was very nervous. It became obvious that he was afraid of these ex-criminals. Local people had heard many tales of bandits and criminals in this area and the mere mention of criminals was enough to scare them. In addition, Dan’s group was from Beijing, the political center of China; the peasants had at the very most been to the provincial capital, Changchun. He began his talk with the standard lines popular during the Cultural Revolution, such as, “Chairman Mao teaches us: ‘we should not forget class struggle.’ Now our national revolutionary situation is very good due to the great leadership of Chairman Mao....” The men in the group did not even look up and show no respect. After a series of official clichés, the village leader explained, in his peasant honesty, the village situation. “We are a very poor village.” he acknowledged. “The reason is that we do not have many men. This is why we need you in the village. The poor and lower-middle peasants here receive an annual amount of

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Engineering Communist China 440 pounds of unhusked grain per person. You will get the same amount. If our production goes up, your income will be increased as well.” Among the dos and don’ts he mentioned was the class structure in the village. “The class struggle in our village is fierce and we must carry out firm policies toward class enemies. You should maintain a clear line between yourselves and class enemies. One easy way to do it is to look at the flag in front of each house. A red flag indicates a poor and lower-middle peasant household. These are the people you should associate with and to be reeducated by. The landowner household was marked by a white flag. You should maintain a distance from these enemies.” Except the flags, nothing was new to the newcomers — all they cared about at this point was food, for they had not eaten anything for more than 24 hours. When he finished, there was a silence. Nobody had anything to say. Then he got up again and added: “By the way, you will be under the leadership of the ‘Dictatorship Group.’ There is a person among you who is still capped as a counter-revolutionary and another as the offspring of a landowner.” He rummaged through his pockets and found a piece of paper and read the two names. Ashamed, the two had to raise their hands to identify themselves. The village leader’s speech sent a mixed signal. What kind of people were they, anyway? On the one hand, they were supposed to receive reeducation from and associate with the poor peasants. That meant that they were considered to be part of the revolutionary class. But on the other hand, the village leader reminded them that they were under the control of the “Dictatorship Group,” the same office that controlled all the class enemies. Dan sensed that the simple villagers were as confused as he was, and nobody was sure what all these labels meant. The peasants were merely trying to carry out orders from above. But the peasants clearly did not regard them as class enemies except the two “capped elements.” Taking the whole country into consideration, these class lines and status delineations had thrown most people into confusion that did not end until the radicals were overthrown eight years later. The head of the “Dictatorship Group” was asked to speak. He was a humble and unpretentious man. Unlike the village leader, he did not have a slew of popular revolutionary terms at his disposal. “You people are all from the big city, Beijing. You have seen the world and certainly know more than us country folks, especially in such a poor mountain village. I wholeheartedly welcome you here. You may not feel comfortable or may come across difficulties from now on. Please let me know anytime. I will do my best to help you. My family name is Li. Why don’t you just call me Old Li?” This plain peasant immediately gained their

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Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands respect. For the first time in six years, a free person offerd to be addressed as Old Li, an informal way only friends or colleagues could use. This was especially significant coming from the head of the “Dictatorship Group.” It was decided then that six people would be assigned to each production team. The Beijing Twelve was divided in two. Yang Jinzhu was appointed the leader of the first group because of his previous status at the farm. Another former employee-on-duty, Zhang Lianfa, a very quiet and easygoing man, was appointed to lead the other group. Finally, Dan could not tolerate the hunger anymore and respectfully raised his hand, asking: “Where do we eat today?” When they told the villagers leaders that they had not had anything to eat for a day and a half, they realized that they had better provide something for their new, prized workers. Each production team would have to lend some 55 pounds of corn flour to the new collective household. But after that, they would receive unprocessed grain, mostly corn, from their respective teams — the same treatment as the peasants. They would have to grind their grain in the village mill. Their vegetables would be sent to their cellar and so would fire wood or other fuel. After harvesting, crop stems such as, corn, sorghum, and wheat straw were used as fuel. These suddenly helpless Beijing men were now on their own as far as cooking and cleaning. They would function as one big family, commonly called a collective household. The moment the villagers left, they started to get materials to prepare food — though they had never really cooked before. Yang Jinzhong, the newly appointed leader, showed off by giving orders to collect fuel and vegetables. He and his assistant went to the village to get the corn flour. It took them two full hours to get it back; having no bags of their own, they had to borrow bags from peasants. Other problems also popped up. In the cellar, there was no cabbage, only some rotten leaves. Nor was there even one cartful of corn stems for heating and cooking. What vegetables would they eat? What would they use to heat their stove and for cooking? When Yang came back, he found the situation hard to believe. He paid an immediate visit to Old Li and they inspected the vegetable cellar together. Perhaps someone had helped himself to the cabbages and the fuel. There was little he could do about it. In the conversation, Old Li told the Beijing gang what he had heard. The government had provided funds for their resettlement. But the army representative controlling the farm refused to give the whole amount. He only gave the village about fifty yuan per person for all the resettlement cost. His justification was that the ex-inmates should not live above the level of poor

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Engineering Communist China peasants. According to Old Li, the amount the village received could hardly cover the cost for the long winter months. They were just poor peasants, barely surviving themselves. Still, very sympathetic to their situation, Old Li took two cabbages and some potatoes from his own home. Although there was a possibility that the village had pocketed the appropriated money, he might have been telling the truth. Otherwise, why should the Old Li give some of his own food to the whole group? Finally, the hungry men had something to eat. The corn cakes, cabbage soup, and potatoes really just fine, even though there was no cooking oil whatsoever. They had to be delicious after thirty hours with nothing in their stomachs. The afternoon was free. Dan went out with some of his fellow settlers to look around. There were altogether about 40 families. He was intrigued by the flag phenomenon, white ones indicating landowners and rich peasants and red for the poor peasants. Their own house had no flag at all. Now they realized that their house was situated in the center of the village. Indeed, as the brigade leader had said, there were red flags all over. At the west end of the village, Dan saw a white flag on a poor, shabby house made of pounded earth. It was very low, too. The people who lived here must be the poorest in the village. At the far eastern end of the village was another house with a white flag. But it was a decent house, just like most other families’. Many of the houses had neither white nor red flags. Were they middle peasants, between the class enemies and the poor and lowermiddle peasants? The peasants were friendly to them. Although few came up to chat, everyone smiled at them. Back at their own house, a quarrel was going on between Yang Jinzhu and some others. Yang continued to behave as if they were still on the farm. He gave orders not only to others but also to the other group leader, Zhang. Yang insisted that nobody could go out without his permission and he argued that they were still under strict supervision by the government, no different from the farm days. He said that the village was a second farm, as far as their labor reform was concerned. Everybody laughed at him. The person who attacked Yang most was nicknamed “Fake Cop.” He used to be real policeman. Once he disappeared from the police station for three months, with his gun. By the time he returned, no satisfactory explanations could be given and he ended up at the reeducation through labor program. Because of his background, he was quickly appointed a group leader at the farm. He was known for treating the 20 men in his group as soldiers. Whenever there was an opportunity, he would demand his group members to line up and march

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Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands to work. The selection of Yang as a group leader here disappointed him a great deal and he did everything possible to undermine Yang’s authority. Seeing that he had no real control, Yang left the room and everyone assumed that he had gone to report what had happened to the village leaders. Considering themselves superior to peasants, most people in the group were not afraid of the local authorities in the same degree they feared the militaristic farm apparatus. Of the whole collective household, the only people who continued to worry about their status were the two “capped” class enemies, the practicing counterrevolutionary Zhai, and Little Landowner, the son of a landowner. Being a son of former landowner was a social stigma, but not a crime. The real cause for his arrest was “treason” in the early 1960s. His parents, though classified as landowners, were actually middle school teachers whose family had owned land before 1949. Little Landowner was always a good student and dreamed of studying in a foreign country. His family lived in Beijing’s foreign embassy district. Near the gates of every embassy was a display window to show the achievements of their countries, the best propaganda materials showcasing their countries. For ordinary Chinese, these pictures painted a series of paradises. The rich life style of the diplomats added to the Chinese admiration. Influenced by the propaganda materials in the Yugoslav embassy’s showcase, the Little Landowner wanted to study there. He wrote a letter to the embassy and considered going in to make some inquiries. As he was hesitating in front of the embassy, he was caught by the guards; his letter became evidence of betraying the country. Communist Yugoslavia was officially classified as a “Revisionist” country that betrayed Marxist-Leninist principles. In the mid-1960s when the Cultural Revolution started, the title “Revisionist” was also applied to the Soviet Union and some disgraced Chinese high officials such as Liu Shaoqi, the president of China. Communicating with any other country except perhaps Albania would have raised suspicions of treason, especially for a son of a landowner. Yang’s group included five other people, “Fake Cop,” the practicing counter-revolutionary Zhai, a historical counter-revolutionary in his fifties and his son, Little Buddha (nickname for a pickpocket), and a young man about 20 years old who was called Martial Arts Master. In the other group, Zhang Lianfa led another five Dan, a tall man called Buffalo, Little Landowner, a burglar, and a youth who used to be a member of a street gang. Prior to coming here, the historical counter-revolutionary had petitioned the farm authorities that his son, Little Buddha, be assigned to the same village so that he could keep an eye on

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Engineering Communist China him. During the Japanese occupation of the Northeast, the historical counterrevolutionary was the general manager of a big railroad station. Graduated from University of Tokyo, he was very well educated and spoke good Japanese. But, the Japanese committed horrendous crimes in China and now association with the Japanese was equivalent to treason. Virtually every Chinese person hated Japan. As a head of a Japanese railroad station, he had served the wrong master and thus was classified by the KMT as a traitor and by the Communists as a historical counter-revolutionary. Nobody sympathized with him, not even himself. Whether at the farm or in the village, he never complained about the conditions and always worked hard, obeying every order given to him. His son, however, was different. He was a pickpocket who had lived in the streets for a long time, a wild man by nature. The Beijing people learned about the village through a somewhat retarded man. He was unable to get a wife and was given the nickname Half-cooked (or unripe, undeveloped — not intelligent). Half-cooked often came to visit the Beijing settlers and found good company in this bachelors’ community. The local peasants did not have any sense of privacy or individuality. The folks had lived in this small community for a long time and everybody knew on an intimate basis what other people were doing. News traveled fast. Half-cooked told all kinds of interesting stories about the village — who stole the vegetables allocated to them by the village leaders; who took their cooking fuel; who had an incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law... Winter was the slack season. The peasants had little to do, but the government demanded that they find some work, such as leveling the field or preparing manure. Before going to work, everybody had to perform revolutionary rituals such as making three bows to Mao’s portrait and then chanting: “Long live Chairman Mao and long, long life to Chairman Mao.” In addition, people had to wish good health to Mao’s chosen successor, Lin Biao. The same rituals had to be done after work. The number one man in the village was the Communist Party Secretary, Deaf Qin (he had hearing problems). The two production team leaders were quite fond of the newcomers and so was Old Li. However, as Half-cooked told them, Deaf Qin wanted to impress the Beijing gang with a tough policy, perhaps in an attempt to preempt any trouble. His strategy was to “scare the monkey by killing the chicken,” as characterized by a Chinese proverb. Namely, he would severely punish someone to show his authority and intimidate the Beijing settlers.

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Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands For this purpose, Deaf Qin selected as target the son of a rich peasant, about 22 years old. The young man was very thin, perhaps as a result of malnutrition. His mother had died of heavy bleeding after giving birth to him. The widower raised him up by feeding him porridge. At that time, the communist land reform was going on. The widower’s family had been poor peasants for three generations and never owned much land; he had saved every penny and bought some land — right before Communist victory in 1948. History did not treat him kindly. The land reform was designed to take land from the rich landowners and redistribute it to the poor. In that process, a person’s class status was also determined on the basis of per capita ownership of land. In his family, there were now only two people, father and infant; therefore, the widower officially became a rich peasant — a class enemy. He not only lost his land but he was constantly discriminated against. Now, with the son reaching adulthood, the family was still the poorest in the village. The ordinary village folks were actually sympathetic to them. Though he had reached a marriageable age, no family would give their daughter to the young man. In the countryside there were two things girls (or, rather, their families) looked for: net worth and a good political position that might eventually result in more material possessions. Wealth was shown in the form of houses, bicycles, sewing machines, wristwatches. Young girls, depending on how pretty they were, commanded different prices. The prettiest commanded 1,000 yuan in around 1970; that’s a huge sum, almost enough to buy a new house. And the fact that there were fewer women than men in these areas tended to drive up bride prices. The widower and his son lived in the humble shack on the western edge of the village. Even among other disgraced families of class enemies, the young man’s poverty was an obstacle. There was little likelihood that the young man would ever get married. One day, field work was suspended and all the men gathered at No. 1 Team’s headquarters, a big room next to the threshing ground. As soon as everyone arrived, the brigade leader declared: “Now the class struggle meeting begins. First let’s bow to Chairman Mao.” He asked everybody to open their copies of Chairman Mao’s Quotations Book. “Page 11, please. Chairman Mao teaches us: ‘A revolution is not a dinner party. Nor is it writing an article or painting a picture. It is not a gentle process. A revolution is a violent movement, an action of one class overthrowing the other.” Then he turned to page 15 and continued, “After the armed enemies were defeated, those without guns still

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Engineering Communist China exist....” The format of reading from the scripture and the way it was used to open a discussion was highly reminiscent of sermons. More striking was the similarity in applying these lines literally to real life as guiding principles. The brigade leader said: “Now, in our village, we have class enemies and a fierce class struggle. Some have even dared to corrupt our revolutionary cadres.” As he gave orders, two men dragged the rich peasant’s son into the room and forced him to stand facing the crowd. “Tell us why you wanted to corrupt the revolutionary cadres?” the brigade leader demanded. “I do not understand. I did not corrupt anyone,” the young man answered very timidly. “You have to tell the truth. Why did you secretly call No. 1 Team leader to your house? Confess!” “It is not my fault. The No. 1 Team leader was working in the fields to the west of our village. He became thirsty and came to our house to ask for some water.” “Nonsense. Why didn’t he go to other families? You have to confess today. Some poor peasants with their sharp eyes saw everything and reported to us already.” The brigade leader refused to believe his story. The event had taken place the previous summer. The No. 1 Team leader was actually sitting in the room, but didn’t say anything. The young man looked at him, hoping that he would clear things up, but the just kept quiet and went on smoking his pipe. He would not dare to contradict Deaf Qin. The brigade leader could not tolerate the youth’s resistance. He jumped up and slapped his face. As he continued to deny the charges, Deaf Qin also got up and moved closer. Once he could hear clearly, he, too, joined the beating. He took off his shoes and beat the young man on the face, the head, other sensitive parts. The meeting lasted for about two hours and the “rich peasant” didn’t dare to say anything. Compared to the labor farm, the beating was minimal but the signal to the Beijing group was loud and clear. The following day, the Beijing gang refused to go to work. Only Yang and Zhang went out. The ten people who stayed behind discussed ways to deal with the situation. If giving water to a team leader was “corrupting revolutionary cadres,” nobody could be certain that such treatment would not fall upon them. Fearing the worst, they wanted to stick together against the village leaders. Some wanted to write letters to the higher authorities. Others wanted to fight with their lives, and suggested that if the villagers dared to beat any of them,

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Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands they should set fire to the village leaders’ houses and then become fugitives. Dan pointed out that most of the peasants did not participate in the beating, nor did they show much interest — not even the team leaders. They were plain folks with whom the Beijing gang should maintain good relations. Once they consolidated such relationships, they only had to deal with the two top village leaders. Dan also advised others that they should use Half-cooked to broadcast to every villager that if they were mistreated, they would burn down the houses of whomever was responsible. As this discussion was going on, Half-cooked was sent by No. 2 team leader (called Harelip) to see why they had stayed home. Harelip had broken his two front teeth when he was a boy; he was a kind and honest man. The villagers also said that he had a sense of justice and refused to be the team leader many times until everybody in his team insisted on his acceptance. Harelip knew that Halfcooked was a friend of the Beijing gang and sent him here to talk. The Beijing gang pretended to be extremely outraged. Fake Cop started first: “If anybody messes with me, I will burn down his house.” “If anybody dares to touch me, I will kill his whole family,” said the Little Buddha. “I will kill all their pigs.” “I am a single guy and I am not afraid of anything.” Half-cooked joined the conversation and told them that the meeting had been directed against the Beijing people and that Yang had persuaded Deaf Qin to do the struggle meeting. In the next few days, peasants were scared of the Beijing gang and of the possibility that they might do what they said. Deaf Qin was eager to find out how the Beijing gang had reacted to the meeting. The following morning, he met with Yang and Zhang Lianfa. Yang, knowing nothing about the Beijing gang’s angry reaction, reported to Deaf Qin that everything had gone as planned and the Beijing gang was properly frightened. They would “obey the village leaders and accept the proletarian dictatorship.” To establish his authority among the Beijing settlers, Yang urged Deaf Qin to organize a similar struggle meeting just for them. When Deaf Qin hesitated, Yang lied that the Little Landowner was the only one who resented the village authorities and opposed the struggle meeting. However, Deaf Qin refused to do anything. In the evening, Yang came back to the house and criticized everyone for not going to work that day and not asking for leave beforehand. To his surprise, he was attacked by every member of the group. Fake Cop was the first to speak. “Go to hell! It’s none of your business we stayed home today. Who are you to tell us what to do? We have our team leaders.” Little Buddha, who was otherwise

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Engineering Communist China the most despised in the group, cursed him: “Don’t poke your ------ nose around here anymore. If you dare to say anything bad about us, I’ll kill you.” As people were calling him names, someone said: “Let’s beat the hell out of him, damned informant!” Yang ran out of the house, perhaps to report to the village leaders. For the next few days, Yang was totally isolated and did not dare to come home. He had to stay with the peasants. However, he was not welcome among them either, now that Half-cooked had already spread the news that he was hated by every man from Beijing and that he never had been a gun-carrying officer. The peasants were also afraid that the Beijing men would burn down their houses. Yang spent his time visiting Deaf Qin and did not go to work. The No. 2 team leader refused to give him credit for his absences, which he thought he was entitled to. At the village, only the village leaders were free from farm labor. After about a week, Deaf Qin finally agreed to Yang’s request for a meeting. But the village leaders already knew the real attitude of the Beijing gang. One evening after dinner, the brigade leader, Deaf Qin, Old Li and two team leaders all came to the house. Some of the villagers, even children, crowded in to see what was going on. Two kerosene lamps were lit. Deaf Qin was very careful in his choice of words and said that the meeting was to solve some problems in the Beijing household, rather than attacking anybody. He then asked all present to turn to page 13 of Chairman Mao’s Quotation Book and read: “Those who stand on the side of the people are revolutionaries.” Before he could finish, Yang eagerly raised his hand and spoke to the whole group. “I would like to speak. First, get the practicing counter-revolutionary to stand up.” He grabbed Zhai from the bed and forced him to “ride the jet,” screaming at him to lower his head. The village leaders were surprised; they had never seen anything like it. Yang then pushed Little Landowner to the floor, as well. He started spouting accusations that the two were a reactionary clique. “The serious class struggle is right around us. These two get together all the time and complain about the village. They also went to the house of revolutionary cadres, just like the rich peasant’s son, and tried to corrupt our cadres. Let them confess.” Nobody said anything; Deaf Qin was embarrassed. Then Dan spoke. He took out his Little Red Book and read one quotation. “Chairman Mao teaches us that the whole world fears sincerity, but the communists base everything on sincerity.” After he talked about the importance of telling the truth, Dan stated that there was no problem at the Beijing household whatsoever. Everything Yang had reported was false. He demanded

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Chapter 12: Exile in the Hinterlands that Yang reveal what he had reported to the village leaders. But Yang remained silent, knowing that he would be in trouble if he answered, and insisted that it was confidential. Fake Cop asked for permission to speak. So did many others. They all exposed Yang’s lies, one after another. Taking advantage of the situation, the No. 1 Team leader, Harelip, without asking for permission from Deaf Qin, asked Zhai, the “practicing counter-revolutionary,” to sit on the bed rather than standing there. It was a gesture indicating that Zhai had done nothing wrong and should be treated fairly. The No. 2 Team leader quickly followed suit and asked his team member, the Little Landowner, to sit down as well. Even the villagers spoke against Yang. The tables were turned. Deaf Qin remained on the sidelines most of the time and did not show support for any side. But his silence was interpreted as a signal for free discussion and in effect encouraged people to attack Yang. Finally, Deaf Qin guided their attention to actual problems, such as the shortage of vegetables and firewood, and roof leaks. He insisted that this meeting was intended to solve problems facing the whole Beijing community. When he suggested that the two teams provide vegetables and firewood, the two team leaders replied that there was nothing in their storage rooms anymore. It was decided on the spot that the Beijing settlers should purchase what they needed from the peasants. Some of them offered to sell firewood at 5 cents per bundle, a very low price, and shared vegetables at low prices as well. Deaf Qin still wanted to find a way to control the Beijing gang, since they were such a big threat to his authority. About two weeks after the failed meeting, he called for a general meeting of the Four Elements, a term for landowners, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements. In the cities or on the labor farm, the enemy classes were called Five Elements and included Rightists. Old Li had to come to the Beijing house and accompanied them in darkness to the brigade headquarters. This time the meeting seemed to have nothing to do with Yang, who was also classified as a member of the Four Elements and sat together with the Beijing group. Yang was very depressed; he certainly looked more like a convicted class enemy than a leader. At the meeting, Deaf Qin was hard on the Four Elements in the village and scolded them roundly. But for some reason, he never dared to speak to anyone in the Beijing group in the same tone. Deaf Qin was the only one who spoke. His point was that, as Four Elements, those present should accept supervision from the village leadership

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Engineering Communist China and should behave themselves according to their class status. The meeting lasted for only about fifteen minutes or so. As the village Four Elements left, Dan asked the Beijing group to stay on and had a talk with Deaf Qin. “Comrade Secretary,” Dan deliberately stressed the word comrade, because it was a term used among the communists or the common people, never for class enemies. “I do not understand the Party policies and hope that you can help us out.” Deaf Qin, uneasy and uncertain about what this might be leading to, agreed to have a conversation. Dan asked pointedly: “If we attend these meetings for the Four Elements, does it mean that we are Four Elements? Could you show us the related Party documents that capped us as Four Elements? As far as I know, we were sent here to receive reeducation from poor and lower-middle peasants. A lot of high school students are being sent to the countryside by Chairman Mao also to receive reeducation from peasants. Reeducation is not the same as receiving proletarian dictatorship, which was for class enemies.” As if to help Dan, Old Li, the supervisor for Four Elements, also asked for clarification so that he could do his job well. Deaf Qin knew that Old Li was on very good terms with the Beijing people and so were the team leaders. On the defensive, he promised to look into it and give a response as quickly as possible. No response ever came. But ever since then, the Beijing group was never called to such a meeting. For a short while, Zhai and Little Landowner continued to be called because they were officially classified as class enemies. But both of them were very popular among the peasants. Some even wanted to give their daughters to Zhai. The village matchmaker approached him many times. Only because Zhai could not come up with the required money did a marriage not materialize. Zhai did not even have a hundred yuan, let alone 500 or more. Men normally got married at around 27 or 28 years old; it took that long before they and their families could pull together enough money and, preferably, build a house. Pretty soon, not even Zhai and Little Landowner went to the meetings for Four Elements. It was a complete victory for Dan and his fellows.

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CHAPTER 13: VILLAGE LIFE The Beijing group stayed in Wanfa Village from December 1969 to November 1970 and they enjoyed a degree of freedom for the first time in years. It was a short but peaceful period. The only thing they had to struggle with was how to stay warm and fed. Grain, mostly corn, was provided on a loan basis by the production teams; they were supposed to pay it back at the end of the year when everybody’s labor input was computed against the grain loan. If the value of labor exceeded the value of grain received, one could expect a cash payment from the production team. Otherwise, one would be in debt to the team. Their house was provided by the village free of charge and was not part of the calculation. Life was hard, but they enjoyed since it compared so well to the recent past. Following the colossal disaster of the Great Leap Forward, production teams, rather than communes of several villages, became the basic accounting and production units. It meant that each production team functioned as an independent business and was responsible for the well-being of its members. Depending on the size of the village, the number of such teams ranged from one to four. Teams that fared better than others could give their members more food and cash benefits. For example, in Wanfa village, Harelip’s No. 2 Team was behind No. 1 Team in production and its team members got 20 pounds less grain. Because of such a gap, the six Beijing men in No. 1 Team wanted to separate from those in No. 2 Team and to keep and cook their food. Zhai, the counterrevolutionary, did not like Yang and he joined Dan’s team; the hooligan in Dan’s group moved into his place in No. 1 Team. Now that they belonged to two separate entities, they could no longer live in the same room. Dan’s team leader,

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Engineering Communist China Harelip, sent several villagers to the house and helped Dan’s group members make a new earthen bed in a different room. The most pressing need for the months of January and February was fuel for heating and cooking, namely stalks of corn and sorghum, and straw. They needed at least a few bundles of sorghum stems every day. At first, they bought these bundles from peasants at 5 cents a piece. At almost one yuan a day, it was simply too expensive. On average, they had about 100 yuan and had to purchase other daily necessities. To cope with the shortage of fuel, the six people in Dan’s group decided to quit working for one day and to gather twigs and any other fuel they could find. Harelip was very supportive of their move and offered to haul back everything they gathered with the team’s horse drawn cart. The first day’s effort was totally wasted — the villagers had picked most of the fields clean already. Half-cooked came to their rescue. He told Dan that about two miles away there was a large area called the Wild Graves and there was firewood and other fuel there. People who did not have money or land for a formal burial would bury their relatives in that area. That was also the place where people who died under unfortunate or ominous circumstances were buried: anyone who had been hanged, poisoned, drowned, or crushed, and so on. According to superstition, they would want to come back to life — and the only way they could do it was to find substitutes among the living. Keeping them away from the village had been a long tradition. The villagers also believed that anybody who passed through this area was likely to fall under the spell of these ghosts. Half-cooked told of one person who hanged himself in that area, for no reason at all. The men got a huge pile of firewood, perhaps the largest in the whole village. Even more important, they earned a reputation for being fearless. The next problem was food. Their ration was the same as the peasants, only 440 pounds of unhusked grain, corn, wheat, sorghum. Once processed into flour, the ration amount would be reduced by almost 1/5. In terms of processed food, their monthly ration would come to roughly 29 pounds, far less than the 50 pounds they used to have at the farm. The work was not as hard, either, but still that was an inadequate diet. They could not eat half as much as before. Harelip came to the Beijing house one day and warned Dan of the serious situation. They would run out of food long before the month’s end, and they would have to purchase grain with cash. They discovered a thriving grain trade among the villagers. The grain ration was allocated on a per capita basis, and families with more children would get

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Chapter 13: Village Life more rations. This built in an incentive that encouraged peasants to have more children. At the end of the year, these families due to lack of adult laborers could not accumulate enough work credits to cover the cost of the grain they received. On the team’s accounting books, it would show a negative balance, in other words, debt. However, 440 pounds of grain was guaranteed ration by state policy regardless of when peasants could pay back the debts. So these families with little children, who ate far less, would have surplus grain. On the other hand, families with more adult laborers would accumulate more work credits. The extra credits, after paying for the grain, were translated into cash payments. The result was obvious. In addition, peasant families also had their private vegetable plots, allocated to them on per capita basis after the Great Leap Forward. These were fairly small, but very productive. Peasants significantly supplemented their food ration by growing potatoes and other high yield crops. In their front yards, they also grew vegetables and raised chickens and pigs, all of which would give them food and some extra income. Unfortunately, the Beijing settlers had no private lots. Hence, they had to buy grain. Most peasants regarded these men as rich and wanted to sell them something — pigs, eggs, grain. These items earned the peasants cash to purchase cloth, salt, and kerosene. They sold grain to the state at a low price, roughly 7 cents per pound. Selling as much as 3,300 pounds of unhusked grain would bring home a bicycle, and about 2,000 pounds, a wristwatch. Many of the men wanted to return to Beijing to see their families. Some had not seen their relatives for several years. The New Year is the most important holiday in Chinese culture. Peasants understood the importance of this holiday for these men. Harelip and the other team leader encouraged them to go home. Eventually, of the Beijing 12, seven did go. Dan, Little Landowner, Zhai, Little Buddha and his father opted to spend the New Year in the village. About ten days beforehand, Dan got sick and was running a high fever, and had a severe ear infection. Puss was coming from his ear. There was no doctor in the village and nor did he believe in folk remedies for this kind of problem. The commune did have a hospital ten miles away. But he was not going to waste money on himself. Zhai helped out by getting some hydrogen peroxide solution and antibiotic tablets from the manager of the cooperative (coop), a kind of general store operated by the village. By New Year’s, Dan was recovered. He was indebted to the store manager and paid him a visit at the coop, about a mile away from the village.

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Engineering Communist China The coop manager was a very sharp and energetic man in his thirties. After some formalities, he invited Dan and Zhai to his bedroom rather than his office, thus indicating that their relationship was that of close friends rather than of customers. He also insisted that they stay over for lunch. Dan hesitated and let the manager know that he used to be a political prisoner. The manager replied that, weeks before the Beijing people came, the whole village was told repeatedly about them. He seemed delighted to make friends, political prisoners or not. That was Dan’s first happy day in the village. In spite of his official status and social stigma, here was a man who respected and admired him. The young manager said: “We in the country do not care about class struggle and stuff like that. Peng Dehuai was an anti-Party element during the Great Leap Forward. But we love him because we think that he spoke for the common people. He did not want us to starve. So he is a good man. You intellectuals from the city must have told the truth and that’s why you got sent down to our village.” What a daring statement, and how heartwarming! The man’s attitude was especially significant considering that there had been many thefts committed by the common criminals who made up most of the re-settled ex-convicts in Fuyu County. Only in Wanfa village had most of the Beijing settlers been political prisoners. In the villages, peasants did not steal from the store or from each other. They had lived together for generations. They had to guard their reputation and honor, without which they could not expect a decent existence. However, criminals from Beijing, especially before the New Year, would take anything they could get their hands on to bring home as presents. The commune had to order the coops to cover their windows and doors with iron bars. The local government even demanded that the ex-prisoners be returned to the farm. The issue subsided later, in large part due to the fact that many of the thieves never came back to the villages as they found better opportunities in the cities. The traditional New Year was the most important holiday for country folk. China officially adopted the New Year set by the Christian calendar but neither that nor the new holidays such as May 1 (Labor Day), or National Day (October 1), resonated with them. Those were regarded as city holidays, when workers had time off. The traditional New Year fell in the slack season when peasants did not have much work to do. For about two weeks, they would put on their best clothes and prepare the best food of the year. This was the time children and adults alike looked forward to eating some meat. For many, this was the only time they could afford to slaughter a pig, or chickens or goats.

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Chapter 13: Village Life For their first free New Year, and deeply affected by the festive atmosphere, the six Beijing men decided to buy a pig from the villagers. After much negotiating, they found that the price was about 40 cents per pound — a lot cheaper than buying pork in small amounts. Once the villagers heard that they were interested, several of them came over to offer their pigs. The Beijing men decided to buy from a very poor family headed by a forty-year-old man who had seven children. This poor man was prematurely aged, had a terrible cough, and was obviously not in good health. He wore just a black cotton padded coat and no shirt underneath that. His family belonged to those with extra grain, which they had to sell in order to pay for their other food rations. By selling the pig to the Beijing men, he would make a little more than by selling to the government. They paid him about 60 yuan for a pig of about 160 pounds. On the New Year’s Day, they made corn cakes and pork stew. Zhai was so eager to have meat that he didn’t eat any corn bread, he just held a piece in his hand and helped himself to two bowls of meat. The men were so hungry for pork that they didn’t mind the belly ache that was sure to follow such a feast. On the second day, they invited over their friends from labor farm days who were settled in nearby villages. About ten men showed up and shared their joy. They ate, chatted and relaxed all day long. A former musician in a Beijing orchestra brought a six-stringed musical instrument; there was also a professional singer. Theirs seemed to be the most festive house in the village. The peasants also had some group activities. Harelip secretly invited a storyteller to the team headquarters and for three days, all the families on the team listened to a traditional story that told how the Yang family in the Song Dynasty in the 11th century fought against northern invaders. The main characters were national heroes and household names that every child knew. Like other forms of traditional culture, this novel about the Yang family was considered to be an example of the old culture. Harelip had to do this behind Deaf Qin’s back, and warned his team members that if anyone told Deaf Qin he would quit his job as their team leader. The local government organized traveling dancing teams. Every brigade (village) was asked to form such a team. Only those young men and women from poor and lower-middle peasant families were permitted to join. Their days of practice were given work credit. In the week after New Year’s Day, they would go around to different villages to perform. These officially sponsored teams were given meals and accommodations everywhere they went. The peasants enjoyed

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Engineering Communist China the traditional dancing, even if the songs had been replaced with some out of place revolutionary lyrics. There were many reasons for Dan not to return to Beijing. He had nothing to offer his family, except to share his burden. His clothes were almost all worn through. And with the Cultural Revolution going on, cities like Beijing were dangerous. Another reason was very personal. Having heard nothing from his fiancée, Xiaolan, he guessed that something might have changed. She might have given up, or she might have been forced by her family to marry someone else. Anything could have happened. So he just wrote two letters, one to Xiaolan and the other to his family, describing his new situation as a settler in Wanfa village and the newly gained freedom. His letter to Xiaolan was not answered promptly. Her brother finally wrote to tell him that Xiaolan had been happily married for two years and had a child. He suggested that Dan not write again, for everyone’s sake. Well, this was a tragedy that Dan had braced himself for; personal tragedies like this were common now, in their country. Only when Dan returned to Beijing ten years later did he find out the true story. Xiaolan told him in 1980 that her family did receive the letter — but never showed it to her. At that time, the Beijing municipal government was clearing the so-called Eight Undesirable kinds of people out of Beijing. She was already thirty years old and her mother wanted her to marry. Men were introduced to her, but she showed no interest. Her family thought that there was no hope of Dan returning to Beijing and becoming a legitimate resident, so they cut her off from him. Still, she waited for a couple more years before giving up. Her brother and mother persuaded her to marry a factory worker in Beijing in the mid-1970s. Her meeting with Dan in 1980 was not as sentimental as one might think — years of inhuman and cruel torments had taken away their sense of romance and passion. Many people got married during the holiday season. Peasant marriages were in essence financial transactions. In a kind of reverse dowry, the bride’s family expected payment in money or in kind for their daughters. A bride price of some 1,000 yuan was considered a precondition for marriage. If the man’s family was an official at the commune level or had a good non-farm job, less money was asked since the girl’s family could be assured that she would not suffer from poverty or material want. However, if the groom was an ordinary peasant with no good economic prospects, the girl’s family would demand a high price so that she might take this money as a basis to build a new life. In order to

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Chapter 13: Village Life get a wife for their sons, many peasant families even went in debt. In addition to the cash, or material possessions such as a sewing machine or bicycle, the groom’s family had to build a house for the newlyweds or at least give them part of the old house. As anywhere, pretty girls commanded better payment. At the east end of the village, the landowner’s family held a marriage ceremony. His son married a girl from a poor peasant family, across class lines. But the man was a very quiet and sincere person, very well liked by his fellow villagers. The official status as a class enemy had not caused the family much suffering except that their land was redistributed to the poor. Both father and son were hardworking men and never missed a day’s work; they always earned the most work credits on a per capita basis. His wife was no less diligent. She raised pigs, goats, and chickens. His house was one of the best and his family was considered to be well-to-do. And yet, few girls wanted to marry into the family, for political reasons. One impoverished family in a nearby village agreed to give their daughter but demanded an inordinately high price. Eager to see his son married, the landowner not only paid in full but also made many sets of clothes for her and bought her a sewing machine. Somehow, Deaf Qin, the Party Secretary, learned about these transactions and came to the landowner’s house with two militiamen. He scolded him for a “commercial marriage” and threatened to confiscate all the clothes and the sewing machine, the new quilts, thermos bottles and so on. However, the family was very conciliatory and gave a solemn promise that it would never happen again…Deaf Qin left without actually taking anything. Ever since the communists had adopted the Marriage Law of 1950, protecting the rights and interests of women, the sale and trafficking of women against their wishes had been illegal. Thus, demand or payment of a bride price was illegal. However, in the countryside the practice still continued, though it might take different forms. Deaf Qin was in full compliance with the law; however, a double standard was practiced. If the poor peasants got married and paid bride a price, they were not likely to be punished. Shortly after this, Deaf Qin had his own daughter married. He demanded 1,000 yuan. The family steadfastly refused to pay so much and threatened to break it off; he finally settled for 700 yuan, with the help of a middleman. Similarly, the village director for women’s affairs was a very pretty young woman, about twenty two years old. She had been promoted to the position by Deaf Qin about six months before. Somehow, she became pregnant without getting married; there were many rumors and she was totally disgraced. Now,

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Engineering Communist China ordinarily no decent man would marry her. But, in the Northeast provinces the shortage of women made them more valuable. She demanded 1,500 yuan even so, and eventually a tractor driver from another village met the conditions and married her. At the end of the holiday season, Deaf Qin was annoyed by the Beijing household. Several months earlier, Martial Arts Master had been so upset by the beating of the rich peasant’s son that he wrote a letter to the provincial authorities exposing Deaf Qin and the brigade leader. The matter was referred to the county government. Eventually, the commune was asked to deal with the situation. However, it was not likely that the commune authorities would punish a party secretary for beating a class enemy. If it had been a poor peasant’s son, it might have been different. In the end, nothing was done. But Deaf Qin was a vindictive man and felt humiliated by the fact that the Beijing group, the ex-convicts under his supervision, dared to report him. He was determined to find out who wrote the letter. He suspected Dan. He called a meeting of village leaders, but Old Li, Harelip and the others were not very interested in tracing the matter. How would it help them, to offend the Beijing gang? Dan got wind of all this, and he was both surprised and worried. Now he called a meeting himself, and asked the Beijing settlers who had written the letter. No one admitted to it, so they resorted to their old tricks: spreading rumors among the villagers that if any Beijing person was attacked, the whole group would fight back, burning down houses, killing livestock, etc. They also spread rumors that Zhai, the practicing counter-revolutionary, had connections in Beijing and that his father had been promoted to his former high position again. If the village leaders bullied them, Zhai and the Beijing group would take the matter to the highest authorities. Later, privately, Martial Arts Master told Dan whole story. In the meantime, Deaf Qin asked each Beijing man for a written report on how he felt about country life. The men could not refuse this legitimate request, even though they knew that Deaf Qin wanted to compare their handwritings with that of the secret letter. The day after they handed in their compositions was a nerve-breaker. But Martial Arts Master had deliberately changed his handwriting when he wrote the letter and there was no way that an uneducated villager like Deaf Qin would be able to figure it out. According to Half-cooked, their threats worked again. Deaf Qin did not dare to challenge the Beijing group. He merely tried to protect his authority or his face by making threats.

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Chapter 13: Village Life Yang and Zhang were group leaders of the Beijing collective household but they were not on good terms with the rest of the group. In the spring, they seemed to spend even more time away from their fellow Beijing men. They took to changing their clothes often and dressed very neatly. It turned out that they were offering free labor to two peasant families: they carried water to their houses, cleaned their courtyards, dug up manure from pigsties. The villagers thought they were after the wives. It was said that the women, too, seemed to be paying more attention to their appearances. The rumors were confirmed when these two women came to the Beijing household to visit after Yang and Zhang had been too busy to show up at the houses for a while. One day, as Yang and his peasant woman were dallying, her husband came back and saw everything. He slapped his wife’s face and kicked Yang out. The next day, the woman went back to her family in another village and left behind a four-year-old son. It was customary that children, especially boys, carried the man’s surname and were considered to belong to the father’s family. When divorcing, the woman was not supposed to take the children away. This was a serious family crisis for the man. Emotional stress aside, he had paid a heavy bride price for his wife. He could never afford another. And how could he raise his son? On the other hand, he had to look tough to save his reputation in the village. For a couple of weeks he didn’t contact his wife. But, eventually he had to cave in. He sent a middleman to his wife’s village and pleaded for her to come back. After some negotiations, and to preserve the woman’s face, the man borrowed a bicycle and fetched her back in person. Men were afraid to divorce because the financial cost was too much to bear. Although the woman’s family was supposed to return the bride money, there was never any guarantee. So Zhang went on with his affair, openly, and even carried the woman on bicycle back to visit her own family. That woman was pretty, by village standards, and was also a well-known “tigress,” a woman who dominated her husband. The husband would not dare to confront her. He appealed to the village leaders. Deaf Qin and others could not find any evidence of adultery and refused to get involved. Soon the victims of Yang and Zhang’s womanizing could not take it anymore. One day at lunchtime, three peasants attacked Yang and chased him to the team leader’s house, where he tried to take refuge. The team leader was not at home. Half-cooked came rushing to Dan and told him what was happening. Everyone at the Beijing household hated Yang and was happy that he was finally being punished. Deaf Qin was very cold to Yang and no longer treated him with

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Engineering Communist China courtesy as a group leader. Old Li was even more so and went so far as to scold Yang in front of the Beijing gang. From then on, Yang stayed in the Beijing household all the time and never ventured out in the village. Given the new situation, the village leaders wanted somebody else to be responsible for the Beijing group. One evening Old Li invited Dan and Zhai to his house. Old Li was by no means rich and his household items were plain. To make Dan feel at ease, Old Li began the conversation by telling Dan that he, too, used to work for the army. “I was stationed in Harbin near the factory you used to work in.” Old Li was familiar with Dan’s personal history and had read his files. “You are a Party member. Why didn’t stay in the army? You could have been promoted to higher ranks.” Dan asked. “Well, I wanted to come back, as I am the only son and have parents to support. How have I treated you Beijing people since you came to our village?” “Couldn’t be better. All of us like you very much.” “I am a man with a clear conscience. Although I am given this job as head of the Dictatorship Group, I never regarded or treated you as class enemies. You can ask him.” Old Li pointed to Zhai, who was a frequent guest. Old Li’s wife joined in the conversation, as she poured tea for Dan. “My husband is a kind man. He never mistreats anyone, not even the Four Elements in our village. It’s not like that in other villages.” “That’s none of your women’s business.” Old Li put her in her place, as was typical for the place and times. He continued: “We are lucky you are here and bring so much to our village. Ordinarily, even if we sent an imperial sedan chair to invite you, men like you would never come to such a remote place. Maybe one of these days there will be a change in the country’s policies and you will return to Beijing as officials again. I hope that by then you will not forget me.” Dan was grateful, but preferred to talk about something else. After some small talk, Old Li told Dan the real purpose of inviting him over. The village leaders wanted Dan to be the head of the Beijing household. Dan was the most respected. He refused outright, saying that he would not be able to hold the group together. Old Li felt very awkward and said that he was merely passing the opinion of the village leaders and they had to listen to everyone’s opinion. He promised Dan that he would report his opinion to Deaf Qin. A few days later a meeting was called at the Beijing house. The brigade leader announced that according to the opinion of most villagers, the Beijing household should change leaders. They were here to conduct a free election.

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Chapter 13: Village Life Knowing Dan’s unwillingness to serve, Deaf Qin declared that once a leader was elected, the village would have to appoint him, and that would be final. Then every Beijing man was given a ballot. When twelve votes were collected, they were read by the brigade leader: ten votes for Dan, one vote for Fake Cop (Dan’s vote) and one for Yang (his own vote). Dan still refused to take the job. He knew that it would be a lot of trouble. After a brief silence, Deaf Qin said: “This is a matter for the Beijing household to decide. Why don’t we listen to every Beijing man’s opinion?” They all (except Yang), spoke in favor of Dan and insisted that if anybody refused his orders, the whole group would beat him up. In the end, Dan proposed a comprise solution. He agreed to serve for one group of six men. After another round of voting, Fake Cop was chosen to head the other six, with the understanding that he would assist Dan in matters concerning the entire Beijing household. Just as people were gearing up for the busy season, two ox calves belonging to Dan’s production team drowned in a pond. The meat was distributed to every member of the team, including the six Beijing members. Beef was hard to come by and the piece Dan was given weighed about eight pounds. Later Dan learned that the deaths were caused by a young boy’s negligence. Harelip did not punish the boy. Instead, he thought that his team was under the spell of spirits and ghosts. Although this kind of superstition was forbidden by the government, peasant folks were firm in their belief. Draft animals were valuable property. The team had a couple of horses, two mules and some oxen and donkeys. Harelip secretly brought in a geomancer, who was respected as an expert on the link between geographical positions and fortunes. The geomancer walked around the team headquarters for a while and told Harelip that a chimney behind the stable was blocking their good luck and that it was responsible for the death of the calves. Seriously concerned, Harelip treated the geomancer to a big dinner with meat and alcohol. The geomancer proposed that in terms of Yin/Yang balance, the chimney was destroying the team’s Yang; it would have to be moved to the front part of the team headquarters where Yang, not Yin, would be nurtured. Then the team would be blessed. The next day, Harelip followed these instructions and had the chimney dismantled and rebuilt. This kind of business was going on even in the most radical times, the Cultural Revolution. The locals’ active interest in geomancy contrasted sharply with their lukewarm reaction to any government-sponsored activities. Dan and

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Engineering Communist China other Beijing men were all educated enough to look for rational causes, and had a good laugh. The Beijing men were highly valued as additional labor for the village. When Wanfa heard that they would be given some ex-prisoners, they were very happy and demanded as many as possible. While other villages received three or four, Wanfa got twelve. Yet the village leaders had miscalculated. They thought the convict labor would be free, and the only thing the village had to do was to feed them, nothing else. Soon after the Beijing gang arrived, they were given government documents that specified that these men be treated exactly the same as peasants. Namely, they would get the same number of credits for the same work and they would participate in the end-of-the-year compensation. The peasants were alarmed because these men, without any dependents, would earn the most credits and therefore take more money out of the system. The peasants in Wanfa had not really been working very hard until then. Once they realized what a terrible mistake the village leaders had made, they all showed up to work as many days as possible so as to accumulate more credit points than the Beijing settlers. The work credit system was designed to reward the capable. Strong men were given ten credits a day. Weak men and adolescents were given eight credits. Even though the government mandated that women were to be treated equally, few of them could expect to get ten credits. Women in their twenties and early thirties stood the best chances, if they did not have too many family chores to do and could compete with men in the fields. Most women earned eights points. In other villages, Dan was told, most women did get ten points a day. In this system, men were given the most difficult jobs, though during the busy season, everyone worked to the limit regardless of how many credits they were worth, and all had to do the same job, such as cutting wheat. In order to assign fewer credits to these city people, the villagers decided to give them a test — hoping they would fail. In the fields, every member of the production team was given a quota. When work started, a leader or a pacesetter went first. He was normally the strongest and most skillful in the team. Others were supposed to follow the pacesetter and finish their quota within a fixed time period. The Beijing men had done hard labor on the farm, but they were still less adept than the peasants and they had never worked to a quota. In Harelip’s team, Dan and Buffalo could follow the pacesetter closely and were rewarded with ten credits. Burglar got eight credits. Zhai and Little Landowner were the weakest and could finish only half; they were given five credits a day.

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Chapter 13: Village Life Hard work and long hours revealed the problem of malnutrition. As leader, Dan tried to get more protein and vegetables; he urged the group to buy three chickens to produce eggs for them. It cost only three yuan, and thus a steady supply of eggs was assured. Second, they turned their yard into a vegetable garden. They used their own fertilizing materials — primitive but effective. And cheap. Third, they purchased a female pig — not for its meat, but to breed. They should be able to get more than a hundred yuan per piglet. By summertime, life was improving noticeably. They had plenty of fuel, eggs and squash to eat every day. The other group, under Fake Cop, did nothing. The six people were not on good terms. Yang was now with the group all the time and was a source of tension. One day, when it was Burglar’s turn to cook dinner for Dan’s group, he discovered that Yang had stolen some straw from their pile and used it to cook his meal. When he was questioned, Yang said that they should share everything as they all came from Beijing. Now that these two were alone together, Yang, who had been jeered and attacked by almost everyone, started a fist fight. When Dan and others returned from working the fields, Yang and Burglar were still tearing at each other’s clothes, bloody and bruised, both of them. Fighting was frequent among the relocated ex-prisoners in Wanfa and other villages. After all, these men had been shaped by all the vices of prison. Profanity, bullying and tough conduct had become part and parcel of their lifestyle. The most serious fight in Wanfa village took place between Little Buddha and Fake Cop. Now that Fake Cop was the group leader, he started to push others around as if he was still a group leader back on the labor farm. Initially, when he sent people on errands, nobody really minded. They wanted to respect him as their leader. He mistook such respect for obedience and became rather bold. Fake Cop often scolded Little Buddha in front of others. One day, Little Buddha refused his order to fetch a tool from a peasant family. Fake Cop was angry and slapped his face; the two got tangled up in a fight. Little Buddha managed to get on top of Fake Cop and bit his left eyelid. For a long time, Little Buddha refused to let go in spite of Fake Cop’s cries. The others did not intervene; they resented Fake Cop, too, and were all bent on teaching him a lesson. Fake Cop’s left eye was swollen like a red ball and was bleeding. When he was freed, Fake Cop grabbed a bottle and chopped off its bottom, shouting to Little Buddha: “One of us has to die today!” He was stopped and was taken to the commune hospital for treatment. After that incident, they never fought each

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Engineering Communist China other and for a while the Beijing settlement was freed of skirmishes that characterized their village life. In other villages, similar occurrences were quite common. The ex-prisoners in Fuyu County came from the same labor farm and knew each other personally. Once scattered all over in various villages, they could not possibly formed strong bonds with local peasants who were ignorant, docile and simply uninteresting. Another factor preventing them from complete immersion into local society was their low status as bad elements “under supervision.” There was a confrontational atmosphere between them and the local government. Thus, they formed an even stronger bond among themselves, even though they lived in different villages. They often visited each other and had parties together. Similarly fights in this special population sometimes involved Beijing settlers in other village. Late one night a young man with glasses came to Wanfa village. Everybody was woken up. When he entered the room, some of Dan’s men recognized him. Dan had heard stories about this man — he was found out to be a homosexual. Such behavior was condemned as unnatural and immoral. His family and friends were ashamed of him and he never requested a leave to visit his folks in Beijing. On the labor farm and also in the village, he was despised and laughed at by almost everyone, Beijing men and villagers alike. He was bullied constantly by his fellow Beijing settlers, especially two well-known petty criminals. A few days before, they took away a pair of his pants, the only decent ones he could wear if he wanted to go back to Beijing. He came to ask for help because Dan was respected far and wide. Dan was sympathetic to this man’s plight, even though he found his behavior morally repugnant. He thought the Beijing men should not fight among themselves, since they were all outsiders to the local population. The next morning Dan went back to the man’s village. There were ex-prisoners there and they all lived in one room. After some greetings, Dan invited the two aggressors out for a walk. They talked about their labor farm days and friendship, and finally Dan asked them to give the pants back to the man. They denied that they had taken anything from him. Dan gave a long discourse on the importance of sticking together, how to help each other, and how to forgive a man for his past mistakes (being gay), and so forth. They finally softened. In another case, a man walked in from a village seven miles away and asked Dan to help him out in a dispute. There were only three Beijing men in his village. They used to get along very well until, as this man claimed, his valuables were

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Chapter 13: Village Life stolen and a fight broke out. In the early 1960s, he was a student at Beijing Foreign Languages Institute. His professor and he happened to be after the same girl; the professor won and eventually married her. In revenge, this man ran up a lot of expenses and wrote nasty letters in the professor’s name. His vendetta backfired. Although Dan had heard of him, on the farm, they had not met. Since the other two settlers in the village were ordinary thieves, Dan felt compelled to help a fellow intellectual. When Dan appeared in their room, one of the thugs said: “I respect you for your generous desire to help your friend. But one of you would have to win a fight with me to get back your stuff.” Then the two thugs challenged Dan to a fight in the open field. Normally, such a duel would take the form of wrestling or boxing. The loser would have to show respect to the winner by acknowledging defeat and promising obedience in good grace. They all walked toward an open field outside the village. Just as Dan was struggling to come up with a strategy, the two stopped and told him that they would return all the things — on condition that the former college student also returned some things that he had taken. After some further discussion, Dan found out that in fact they had taken each other’s stuff and the two hooligans were not entirely to blame. Both sides shook hands and let bygones be bygones. However, that was not the end of the story. A former thief from yet another village considered it unfair and disgraceful for a well-known thug to challenge an intellectual like Dan. That meant a loss of face to those of the underworld who maintained a strict sense of street fairness. Two days later, he went to that village and challenged the two men there to a fight. They knew that he had a large following and did not dare to offend him. As they refused to fight, he pulled a knife and slashed one of the men in the arm. Once blood was spilled, he called it square and warned that in the future nobody should bully Dan. Then he went to Dan’s village and told him about it and offered to back Dan up whenever he needed it. Dan did not even know the man, and was stunned and grateful. A year later, the man went to the northernmost province in China, Heilongjiang, where he became a miner. Gangster violence sometimes did affect the villagers. In one instance, a village party secretary was beaten up by two Beijing hooligans. It happened shortly after the Chinese New Year. Since there were only two of them in the village, they had to do the cooking themselves. These single men were used to being provided with food in prison or on labor farms. They were tired from working in the fields and cooking was an extra burden. For several days they

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Engineering Communist China refused to go to work. The village did not really need these two men. However, the Party Secretary still wanted to teach them a lesson. He showed up with two militiamen at their house. This was the story the two of them told Dan as they were passing through Wanfa on their way back to Beijing: As the Party Secretary walked in, they simply ignored him; that made him very angry. “Why haven’t you shown up for work in the past few days?” “We have nothing to eat.” “Why?” “We have no firewood.” “Why didn’t you try to solve the problem like everybody else?” “Haven’t got any time. Haven’t got any tools.” “Do you have any respect for the regulations of the village? Are you not afraid of being hanged up and beaten?” “No. We only beat others and have never been beaten ourselves.” “Tie them up and take them to the brigade headquarters!” the Party Secretary ordered the militiamen. There was nothing the two thugs enjoyed more than a fight. They took on the two peasants, who were scared silly — no one had ever resisted them before. After they were beaten up, the Party Secretary was also knocked to the ground and tied up. The party secretary was the head of the village; every villager was afraid of him. The two hooligans then came to Dan’s village. After they finished a simple meal, they quickly went in the direction of the railway station. What happened to them was a mystery. They do not seem to have been caught; they left a legacy behind that the Beijing men had taught the local bosses a lesson.

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CHAPTER 14: BAJIA VILLAGE Following the autumn harvest, Dan and most of the other Beijing settlers were transferred to other communes in the same Fuyu County. No reasons were given, but it might have been related to the disturbances caused by the Beijing men. Dan happened to learn about the impending transfer when he was at the brigade headquarters. His vegetable garden was a huge success and yielded plenty of carrots, onions, and beans. Dan wanted to buy a big pot to store salted vegetables for next year. At the commune store, this kind of pot was in short supply. As a standard policy, a letter was needed from the brigade. Dan showed up at the brigade office and bumped into the third man in charge, the brigade accountant. This was the first time they had met and after writing the necessary letter, the accountant confidentially told Dan that most of the Beijing men would be transferred out of the village. The village wanted to retain four, two for each production team. Deaf Qin, the brigade leader, and Harelip all wanted Dan to stay; but they were afraid that Dan would reject their offer. Dan was flattered to hear what the accountant said of him. “We know you were an official in Beijing. Someday the state policy will definitely change and you will be given back your old position. Every dynasty exiled high officials to the country and then recalled them again. You are the talent of the country. We would all like you to stay with us as long as possible.” By now, Dan had established a good relationship with the villagers and enjoyed respect from almost everyone. Back in the village, Harelip invited Dan to his house. Harelip’s wife put on the table fresh toasted sunflower seeds, like peanuts they were hard-to-get snacks. During the Cultural Revolution, they were rationed in the cities. In

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Engineering Communist China Beijing, a person could get only half a pound of peanuts and half a pound of sunflower seeds, and only at New Year’s time. In the country, these items were in good supply. Harelip wanted Dan to stay in Wanfa village and offered to build a new house for him in the spring. He also promised to give him a big plot of land to grow vegetables and hoped that he would teach the peasants, as well. Harelip was sincere and insistent; Dan seemed to have little choice, and agreed. The end-of-the-year accounting was finished and one work credit was calculated at 10 cents. In the previous year, it was only 2 cents. Everybody was happy. Dan had most the work credits and expected to get about 200 yuan. Even Yang, with the least credits, would get about 100 yuan. After deducting about 35 yuan for the unhusked grain they received from the production team during the year, everyone would have some cash left. The transfer order was issued at a meeting in an auditorium of the commune government. About sixty or so people attended the meeting, exprisoners, leaders of the Dictatorship Groups from various villages and some officials from the commune. A deputy party secretary of the commune, after mumbling some standard official jargon, read the names of those to be transferred to new locations. He insisted on everyone obeying the orders. But when he finished reading the list, Little Buddha refused to go. Dan raised his hand and volunteered to trade places with him, and the issue was settled. The next morning, eight people including Dan loaded a horse cart with their luggage. Most of the village showed up to see them off. Harelip, though upset by Dan’s decision to go, still came to wish him well. About three hours down the road, Dan stopped the cart and got off. All the others followed except Yang and Zhang, who did not know what was going on. Fake Cop shouted to Yang: “Get off!” The others joined Fake Cop in glaring at him and Yang realized that he was in trouble. Buffalo jumped on the cart and dragged him off. “Do you want me to beat you now? You behave and stand straight!” Buffalo ordered him to stand up the way labor farm treated offenders. Dan ordered Yang to bow three times to each person and then to take out any written report he might have on him. When he denied that he had reported anybody behind their backs, Zhang was the first to slap his face. Because he was also a group leader, Zhang knew Yang’s dirty secrets. Dan then said he would count to five and if Yang did not confess at the sound of five, he would be punished. Yang was truly scared. Not only did he bow to everybody three times but also slapped his own face, promising that he would never report anyone in

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Chapter 14: Bajia Village the new village. In the end, Dan and others believed him and they seriously threatened to kill him if he dared to betray anyone ever again. The next day, the party of eight arrived at Sanyi Commune in Fuyu County. A young clerk received them. In his opening remarks, he emphasized to the men that this was a model political commune in the sense that they followed and carried out political instructions from Beijing faithfully. In the radical years of the Cultural Revolution, it meant that they would maintain a high level awareness of class struggle — bad news for Dan and the others, because they would be put under strict control as a sort of class enemy. At the meeting, however, they were told that they were free to go back to Beijing or their native towns and the commune government would provide proper identification papers. This was unbelievable. Previously, they could visit Beijing legally but always had to return to Wanfa village. Otherwise, either the local police in Beijing or the local villages would report them missing and put them on the wanted list. Now, at least the local government would not hold them against their will. The puzzled men did not know what to make of such an offer. In practical terms, it was difficult to make a living without having a job lined up in advance. Beijing had written these men off and would not give them a household registration, so that not even temporary, menial jobs were available. The only alternative was to join the ranks of migrant workers wandering from place to place on a permanent lookout for employment, and that would be far worse than staying in a village with a low but stable income. After the meeting, two horse carts came and took Dan, Burglar, Yang and Buffalo to one place, the other four to a different locality. Dan’s group was sent to join the Xujia Wopu Brigade, which was made up of five small villages (now referred to as production teams). Each village had about 20 or 40 households within a three-mile radius. The village Dan and his men settled in was called Bajia, Eight Families. It was just a mile from the main road and about thirty miles from the Fuyu county government center. The village had no empty house available so the newcomers were put in a small room in the production team headquarters right in the middle of the village. This was actually a four-room house made of pounded clay, with a big courtyard. The poorest village in the brigade, Bajia could not afford a brick house. Although the daily earnings of each peasant were calculated at 1 yuan, it did not translate into real income. It was said the brigade leaders cooked the production data to look better. There was a good chance that much of the production team’s income was taken away as contributions to the brigade and

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Engineering Communist China its various projects. The living conditions for Dan’s group were worse than in Wanfa village and they had to start all over again to make it inhabitable. The Burglar was a lazy man and also an incorrigible criminal. The night they left Wanfa village, he stole Dan’s socks, among other things, and then denied it. Of the four people, Yang was a proven traitor and only Buffalo was reliable. Now, Dan worked closely with Buffalo on almost everything, and sometimes the Burglar joined in. In spite of his criminal inclinations, the Burglar hated all authorities and remained Dan’s friend. Shortly after they settled down, Yang, ignored and despised by the other three, put in a request for a transfer and was sent to another village. Bajia was a small world dominated by the Fan family that made up the majority of the 19 households. The next was the Yang family, with five or six households, and then the Lin family with three brothers. The production team leader was a young man called Fanfan. He was about 22 or 23 years old and was one of the two Communist Party members in the village. The other Party member was an illiterate man from the Yang family. He had become a Party member while serving in the army. Joining the army was seen as a way up, for young village men. The army not only offered cash (6 yuan a month), but also provided soldiers with clothes and quilts — valuable possessions. In addition, if one were promoted to be an officer, he could make a good salary and most likely live in the city. The fact that officers were chosen from the ranks of common soldiers in the 1960s and 1970s played a key role in the thinking of village youngsters. This Party member was not promoted, and at the end of his three years he was discharged back to the village. Not a member of the majority family, and lacking the most desired qualities, he was made an associate team leader next in rank to the youngster. The Lin family also provided one associate team leader, Lin Yongxiang, though he was lower in rank. Here, the production team leaders never participated in the work, quite unlike Harelip in Wanfa who always worked in the fields with the others. They walked around the fields inspecting and assigning work to others. Except for the Lin family, Dan never interacted with other peasants, partly because of his status. Lin Yongxiang befriended Dan, to some extent, and often asked him in private what to do to improve production for the team. Lin even admitted to a personal secret: he had a gambling habit. He was actually regarded in the village as a magical gambler who could control the dice. But in public, Lin had to show contempt for Dan — a political necessity that Dan understood. They maintained

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Chapter 14: Bajia Village a cordial distance. After all, they belonged to two different classes and also two groups of people, villagers and outsiders. The head of Xujia Brigade, Li Fengqi, was a political rascal. He was about 30 years old and had an elementary school education. Before the start of the Cultural Revolution, Li was a good-for-nothing in a village next to Bajia. The Cultural Revolution offered people like him an opportunity as the old order was breaking down and the government was paralyzed. Then physical fights broke out between two revolutionary factions, both claiming to be more loyal to Mao and attacking the other faction as defenders of the old order. Like Bajia, Li’s village was close to the county seat and he took an active part in these fights. Li’s faction won the battles in Fuju County and established a new government, called the Revolutionary Committee, in which Li was made a member. Then he was sent back to be in charge of Xujia Brigade. In the whole commune, few people could rival Li’s radical credentials. Nepotism was widely practiced, no matter who was in power. As a party secretary of the brigade, Li Fengqi controlled some “fat” jobs and resources. The brigade did not have land and its function was to carry out government policies and coordinate the five production teams. However, the brigade could commandeer whatever it needed from these production teams in the name of the common good of the five villages, such as irrigation projects and administrative costs for the brigade. The most valuable property belonging to the brigade were two tractors that were used in the fields and as a means of transportation, since they had no trucks. The two tractor drivers’ positions, the best in the whole brigade, were naturally given to Li’s relatives. They were paid full work points 365 days a year, regardless of rain, snow, or cold weather, whereas other peasants could not earn any points in bad weather. Thus, at the end of the year, their income was always higher than anybody else. In addition, they could expect extra income. Whenever they transported materials away from the brigade, they were paid an over-generous subsidy for meals and hotel expenses. When they came to work for various production teams, they had to be wined and dined. Normally, the teams had to provide them with cigarettes, even though peasants and maybe the team leaders had to smoke self-rolled, cheaper tobacco. If the tractor drivers felt they did not get what they deserved, they would do poor work, which the production teams could not afford. Similar “fat” positions included the brigade electrician, and the accountant. Li Fengqi also appointed one of his cousins to head the brigade’s militia. The peasant militia had been in existence ever since the communist movement in

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Engineering Communist China China and it had played a role in assisting the CCP forces in battle. Such militia groups were still organized under the commune’s Militia Department and were supposed to play its old supporting role. All able-bodied young men from the villages would go through training for a certain number of days, with paid work credits. They were called basic militiamen who were used, on rare occasions, to maintain order. Dan’s first encounter with the militia head was in spring, four months after he came to Bajia. The occasion was a celebration of the new brigade headquarters; every member of the Xujia Brigade was required to attend. Someone gave Dan a hard shove as he was entering the yard; he turned to give a resentful stare to a thin man in his late 20s. As a member of the controlled personnel, Dan could not afford to be more hostile than that. “Why do you look at me like that? You dare to take me on?” the man said. A peasant from Dan’s production team pulled him aside by the sleeve and let him know that this was the militia head, Li Zhixin. Li Zhixin had terrorized the whole brigade. In fact, he was a self-styled policeman who considered it his responsibility to supervise every peasant, especially the Four Elements, and who would not hesitate to use his fists. Just three years ago, Li had had them build a new headquarters. The old building had just six rooms — Li Fengqi deemed them not presentable and not befitting his status. He ordered each production team to contribute labor and wood material for two rooms. When it was finished, the headquarters contained ten rooms, with all the windows and doors beautifully painted in blue. But just a year ago Li had decided that that was not enough, either. First, there was no room large enough for a major gathering, and there was no kitchen. As a member of the county CCP committee and head of Xujia Brigade, Li frequently received guests and he wanted to be able to provide lunches. Li gave the ten-room complex to the elementary school and ordered a second new brigade headquarters built. The new one had a small auditorium for 70 or so people. It also had a kitchen, a dining room, offices and an impressive gate. Again, the cost was born by the production teams, much against the will of the team leaders, who cursed Li behind his back. Few people dared to challenge Li’s authority. Dan witnessed a case which was very typical of Li’s high-handed rule. A miner settled down in Bajia with his wife and a sixteen-year-old girl. Having worked in the cities, he held himself above the peasants and resented Li a great deal. Before the Beijing men came, the miner was a lone voice in the village and did not dare to say much. Dan’s arrival

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Chapter 14: Bajia Village seemed to have strengthened his position. One spring day when the villagers were weeding in the fields, Li and a few others came to Bajia to inspect the work. The militia head, Li Zhixin, was not pleased with the miner’s work and asked him to weed his furrow again. To his surprise, the miner replied: “My furrow is as clean as the others. If I have to re-do it, then all of us do.” Li Zhixin told him to shut up and get to work; the miner ignored him. Li Zhixin and Li Fengqi knocked him to the ground and gave him a few good kicks. That evening, the whole brigade was ordered to hold a public struggle meeting. The miner was not the only one to be attacked. Also on stage was a peasant who had committed adultery. His crimes were dealt with first. Publicly disgracing such individuals was very common. What interested Dan was the question Li Fengqi asked. “Why did you sleep with another man’s woman? Did you pay money and did you marry her?” “No. I did not.” “Then you have no right to sleep with her,” Li shouted. On the adulterer’s neck hanged a big sign that said “Hooligan Element.” The miner did not get such a bad treatment and was merely a sideshow. But unlike the adulterer, the miner fought back on every accusation thrown at him, “sabotage of production,” “resisting revolutionary leadership,” what have you. He was not a bit afraid. Li Fengqi kicked him again. The miner then fell to the ground, claiming that his back was seriously injured and he could not get up anymore. He claimed he could no longer work; Li cut his grain ration. The miner was definitely hurt, but not as badly as he pretended. He pleaded his case up and down the administrative hierarchy but no one would take it on. In the end, the miner wasted all his money and had to work in the village again. The bully got a little bit of a come-uppance finally with a young man from the city. His father was a provincial official sent down to the commune and the young man was temporarily stationed in Bajia to participate in manual labor. As a city youth, he was not paid for his work. Not knowing how to cut wheat, his performance was the worst — slow and inefficient, he left valuable wheat in the field. During one inspection tour, Li Fengqi mistook this young man for a new settler in Bajia and gave him a good kick. When the father found out, he wrote confidential letters to the higher authorities. Nobody was certain exactly what transpired, but Li Fengqi no longer kicked people as frequently as before. Even the established villagers were not exempt from Li’s abuses. Bajia’s resource manager was a conscientious 40-year-old man. Every time Li and other leaders came, the Bajia production team had to be responsible for their meals. This poorest team felt that burden particularly, and the resource manager let

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Engineering Communist China everyone know that it was a problem. Li Fengqi used the loudspeaker system to intimate that the resource manager had diverted village resources to feed his two pigs — no family at that time had extra grain or feed for livestock. The keeper was sufficiently intimidated that he stayed home for a few days and asked Lin Yongxiang, the associate team leader and his relative, to plead his case to Secretary Li. Although no official inquiry was opened against him, he never dared to complain again. Thus, under the new regime, bosses were still carrying on as “local emperors.” The high degree of personal rule opened endless opportunities for corruption, even during the radical era when corruption was not as rampant as it is today. The granary director was in a particularly tempting position. At harvest season, peasants had to sell all their surplus grain to the state at fixed (low) prices, and pay tax in the form of grain. At the granary, officials would weigh the grain and classify its quality into several grades. The peasants had a great incentive to send “gifts” to the director and other officials. These gifts were not substantial and normally took the form of liquor, cigarettes, and local products. In one case, the team leaders collected a bag of sunflower seeds and a couple of large bottles of soybean oil as gifts to the granary director, and the cart driver made the delivery after dark. When their first delivery of corn was made, the granary officials classified it in the lowest grade, at 6 cents per pound rather than a normal 8 cents. For a small village, the 2 cents difference was a huge loss (the total amount of grain was over 40,000 pounds). The cart driver would not dare to unload the grain and had to carry it back. The news angered everyone on the Bajia team. Would the granary officials actually take their gifts and then treat them so badly? Fanfan, the team leader, carried gifts personally to the granary director and the re-delivered grain was rated at Grade 2, 8 cents per pound. Meanwhile, everyone knew very well that the grain was indeed of inferior quality. The political status of Dan, Burglar and Buffalo was as ambivalent as in Wanfa village. Nominally, they were citizens with full rights and not class enemies. Yet, as ex-prisoners, they were always treated differently than ordinary people. At one of the meetings, Fanfan called them “internally controlled class enemies,” a characterization that referred to people who were not openly “capped” as class enemies and were theoretically still within the people’s camp — their crimes were not as serious as those of the actual class enemy. The

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Chapter 14: Bajia Village Burglar got tired of the discrimination and went back to his native Hebei province and married a woman there. This awkward status was evident when Dan was told to spend twenty days at the commune government center, three miles away, for a study session. He had to bring his own quilts and clothes; food was provided but no work credits were given, unlike normal study sessions for officials. The director of the Militia Department in charge of this study group, Fu, was about thirty years old; with him were two other officials, also very young, and very cocky. The study session was being held at a stable for horse carts. There were altogether thirty or so Four Element people in this group. Two other officials assisted the director conducting and supervising all activities. One participant was an evil-smelling prostitute in her mid-20s; another case was a compulsive gambler. He was actually the uncle of the Associate Director, who earned a good reputation for himself by putting his own uncle into a class enemy category and upholding principles. He was later promoted to be an assistant director of a tobacco and alcohol sales company. The format of the study was to read from Mao’s books, then do selfcriticisms. A copy of the Quotations of Vice Chairman Lin Biao was also floating around — Lin Biao was the acknowledged successor to Mao in the constitution of the Communist Party. Mao’s Quotations Book was in the hands of every man and woman in China. However, Lin’s Quotation Book was something new. Nobody out in the hinterland knew that a fierce power struggle was going on just then between Mao and his chosen successor, although it was already known in the highest circle inside the CCP that Mao was trying to get rid of him. In September 1971, according to CCP documents, Lin in his desperate attempt to seize power or to avoid an impending downfall, tried to kill Mao in a coup d’état. What is known for sure is that Lin and a few others died in a plane crash while en route to the Soviet Union. Late one September evening, the production team accountant paid Dan a visit. He was a relative of Lin Yongxiang. The accountant had a middle school education, pretty good for a village youth. After they lit the kerosene lamp, the accountant went out to check and make sure nobody was around. Then he quietly informed Dan that Lin Biao was dead, according to foreign radio (enemy radio, as it was called). Lin Biao had been hailed as Mao’s most loyal comrade in arms. As Mao’s designated successor, Lin’s downfall was politically significant. If the news was false, the accountant could easily be thrown into jail and start a life like Dan’s. The fact that he shared such important news with a class enemy

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Engineering Communist China was a sign of stunning naivety; he wanted to cheer Dan with the thought that there might well be a change of policy allowing him to return to Beijing as a high official again. To check the reliability of the message, the accountant invited Dan to his house. Together they tuned in to several stations. Finally, a Japanese station came in clear enough to leave no doubt. Dan was grateful to the young man for his trust. Only last month, he was toasting the Vice Chairman and studying his ideas; now, even the closest follower of Mao was a counterrevolutionary! Listening to foreign news broadcasts was a crime: “secretly listening to enemy radio stations.” Before the 1980s, the monopoly of news was an effective means for the control of ideas and thoughts, and limited the influx of real propaganda from outside sources. By definition, any news not sanctioned by the government was subversive. This was especially true during the Cold War years. On short wave radio, many people could hear Voice of America, or a Russian broadcast in Chinese that provided different versions of what was going on in China. People believed that these foreign radio stations were more truthful than the official Chinese media and of course, to some extent, they probably were. They certainly gave a different slant. Although nobody in China today would be punished for listening to foreign stations, news control is still in place. For example, some internet websites deemed unfriendly or subversive are blocked. Several months later, Li Fengqi called a general meeting of all five production teams. Then he read a Communist Party internal document prepared for public consumption. It listed the crimes of Lin Biao. Instead of laudatory titles such as “Chairman Mao’s closest comrade in arms,” Lin’s title was changed to “counter-revolutionary,” the same hat Dan wore. What was most startling was Lin’s 571 Project, a plan to assassinate Mao and to take over the government. Supposedly Lin’s son, chief of Air Force Operations, was in charge of the plan. The anti-party clique also included China’s Chief of Staff of the armed forces and the chiefs of staff for Air Force, Navy and Logistic departments. More internal documents were read out in two subsequent meetings. This was indeed shocking news to the unsophisticated country folks and became the main subject of conversation for the next few months as well as focus of all political study meetings in Bajia village. Even for the simplest minds, the shift from hero to villain was hard to swallow. Had Mao made a mistake in choosing this villain to be his successor? That was not possible, or at least it was not possible to say — for Mao was supposed to be infallible. Then, the entire propaganda about the Party and Lin’s glories must have been wrong. Although

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Chapter 14: Bajia Village most people kept their thoughts to themselves, this incident seriously shook everyone’s faith in Mao. The entire government had lost credibility. For an entire generation that used to worship Mao and firmly believed in communist ideals, this was a turning point in their attitudes towards politics. Mao’s infallibility disappeared and skepticism was born in the most credulous minds. “Street news,” rumors, gained further stature over official news. For Dan, who still had faith in the system in spite of being its victim, the event was the best political education he ever received. His mind was becoming more sophisticated. The downfall of Lin Biao was followed by a nationwide political campaign called “Criticizing Lin and Confucius.” Among the Chinese intellectual radicals, especially the communists, Confucius and the Confucian tradition of China embodied a feudal heritage. Ever since the May 4th New Culture movement in the late 1910s, Confucian philosophy had been under attack and was held responsible for China’s lack of modern development and social progress. Although after the communists took over power, Confucianism was regarded as part of history, it still represented a non-Marxist tradition and thus a negative part of China’s cultural heritage. Thus in the early 1970s, Mao and those in power tried to defame Lin by linking him to Confucianism. History is always twisted to serve contemporary political purposes. Thus, the sayings of Confucius and quotations of Lin were selectively juxtaposed to show their similarity. Bajia village was told to hold study sessions to help them understand the reactionary nature of Lin’s thoughts. As it happens, not even the best educated peasant had any idea what Confucius stood for. Asking them to attack Confucian thoughts was like asking medieval European peasants to criticize Socrates. However, during every political campaign class enemies were checked and warned to behave in public meetings; they, too, were referred to as disciples of Confucius. One day, a new brigade cadre came to Bajia; he had been discharged from the famous Red 9th Company, one of the original army units under Lin Biao’s command back in the 1940s. Now, many officers and soldiers from the unit were sent back to their native villages for fear that they would be loyal to Lin, not to Mao. This man was put in charge of controlling the Four Elements, and he took it very seriously — although he himself was a victim of politics and had lost his army position as a lieutenant. He put together several meetings at the brigade and talked with every member of the controlled personnel in order to flush out

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Engineering Communist China any problems and establish a good record for himself. His attempt proved fruitless. The peasants were told to “cut capitalist tails,” namely, to tell on anyone engaged in profit-oriented activities. Lin Biao was charged with trying to restore capitalist society in China — pretty laughable. Lin was a lifetime communist, a general who was to the left by even communist standards. The villagers never comprehended the political theories floating around anyway. However, this “capitalist tail” meant something very concrete to them. Their private plots were allowed only to grow food, corn, sweet potatoes, and so on to supplement their diet. No commercial crops were allowed. Over the years the rules were relaxed. Peasants had gotten used to growing whatever they needed, including tobacco, and vegetables they could sell in local markets. When Li Fengqi came to Bajia village, he saw that nobody in Bajia was doing any cutting of tails. He took Fanfan and a few cadres around the village and singled out two households for punishment. One was a cart driver’s family that lived next the village well. He had dug a little ditch all the way to a vegetable garden in his yard, and whenever possible he would water his vegetables. His vegetables, of course, grew better than any others in the whole village, since the others could not afford to carry water every day to their gardens. Li called all the village people together and he personally pulled out the onions and turnips in the garden. Others had to follow suit. Pretty soon, nothing was left of the “capitalist” garden. At the village accountant’s house, Li destroyed all the tobacco in spite of the owner’s insistence that he never sold it to the market and only grew it for his own use. Both of these penalized households were relatives of the team leaders. When Li left, the villagers and the team leaders refused to carry out Li’s orders to treat every peasant household accordingly. So there was not much impact. Meanwhile, while “capitalist tails” were to be cut, socialist, selfless principles were to be exalted. Products had to serve the needs of the people; they were not to be sold for whatever prices the market could command. To demonstrate that socialism was superior to capitalism, the whole Fuyu County organized what was called a “socialist market.” All the villages were ordered to carry at least a cartload of their best products and sell them at half the market price. Bajia was a poor village and the only products the team leaders could pull together were green onions and turnips. The cart driver and Buffalo were sent for this mission. The money they got from the sale was barely enough to cover the

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Chapter 14: Bajia Village food for themselves and the two horses. Luckily, only one such a socialist market was organized and this “cutting capitalist tail” fashion lasted for only a month. Aside from vegetables, many peasants raised pigs as a major source of income. Throughout the 1970s, there had been a severe shortage of meat in the urban areas. Each city family was given a ration book with a monthly supply of, say, one pound. It varied from city to city. Peasants could not sell their pigs on the open market; they were encouraged to sell them to the government so that the urban population could be guaranteed a minimal meat supply. Like everything else, the meat industry was monopolized by the government — in part, because it was a god source of revenue, even for the middlemen. However, peasants could slaughter their pigs for their own consumption or for sale in their own village. Fish, although rationed in the cities, was available for the peasants in this area. Fuyu County is surrounded by three rivers. Those villages along the rivers had traditionally sold their fish to the local markets on a small scale. Some fishermen came to Bajia, for example, to trade for grain or sell for cash. Commercial crops were forbidden on peasants’ individual plots of land; yet selling fish, also a capitalist activity, was tolerated. Now, no fish peddlers were coming to the area, so Li Fengqi decided to make a pond to ensure a year round supply of fresh fish. He liked to eat fish. The five acres selected for the pond were very close to the brigade headquarters. Whatever the motive, this project was done in the name of improving the life of poor and lower-middle class peasants. Very much in the same manner of traditional corvée labor, the brigade required all five production teams (villages like Bajia) to supply labor at their own cost for the month of November. Each village was given about an acre of land to dig. Whichever village finished the assignment first was allowed to go home. The surface soil was already frozen. The peasants had only primitive tools, picks and spades and wheelbarrows. It was exhausting work, and they could not go home to rest. Instead, they slept at the brigade headquarters on temporary beds so they could be at work again early the next day. Each village had a cook making meals for its own laborers. In the third week, it became obvious that Bajia was far behind the other teams. The villagers began to ask for sick leave or went home under the pretext that their family was having some emergency. Dan and Buffalo, however, had no such excuses. Because of their class status, they had to do the heaviest and dirtiest work. Buffalo came up with some story and refused to work; now, Dan

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Engineering Communist China got into a fight with a foreman, a new addition to Bajia and a relative of Li Fengqi. Dan was called into the headquarters where Li Zhixin, the militia head, and two other people were smoking their pipes. By now, Dan despised most peasants and village leaders alike. He helped himself to a seat and sat down. Li Zhixin was infuriated and he shouted at Dan: “How could you fight the poor and lower-middle peasants! How could you sabotage the work! We will organize a struggle meeting against you tonight!” “I am not afraid of you or anybody! Why don’t you investigate what happened, first?” Dan stood up to leave. Another man, perhaps in charge of the fish pond project, calmly asked Dan to go ahead and explain. Eventually, even Li Zhixin acknowledged he would look into it. At the rate things were going, competent workers who were politically vulnerable would be the last ones working, killing themselves for the benefit of the rest. Dan went directly to the commune government more than ten miles away and talked with the new party secretary, Fu, the one who had organized study sessions for bad elements. Uncharacteristically, Secretary Fu treated Dan very cordially, as if he was an official from Beijing. After Dan explained the purpose of his visit, Fu did not discuss it at all; he just inquired about life in Bajia and asked whether he needed anything. And then he told Dan not to work at the fish pond anymore. Dan was quite surprised at all this. Perhaps there was some sort of intellectual solidarity at work — Fu being a high school graduate — or perhaps it was because of past encounters. Or was it because Fu had made much of Lin Biao’s Quotations, which now put him in a vulnerable position? On his way back to Bajia, Dan paid a visit to some Beijing students who had settled at a village just two miles from the commune government. Since 1968, secondary school students in urban areas were sent to the countryside to be “reeducated by the poor and lower-middle class peasants” as directed by Mao Zedong. Theoretically, the young urbanites were there to gain an appreciation of the life of the peasants. However, after the two years of political and social chaos at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1968), it may also be that the government was forced to send urban youth down to the country. First, fierce fighting among various radical factions was dominating the so-called revolutionary ranks, with enthusiastic and naïve young people at the forefront. Second, it was easier to feed them in the countryside. And, it had been the

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Chapter 14: Bajia Village government policy to assign jobs to secondary school graduates, but that was not much of an option because the political chaos had caused many factories to shut down. Sometimes the urban youth came into conflict with the locals, especially when they took an interest in the girls. There were rumors of rape. And there were physical fights, in self defense or otherwise. The young men came to admire the ruffian valor of the bold, tough ex-criminals. These urban youth enjoyed a much higher living standard than the exprisoners and most peasants. They were allowed a ration of 650 pounds of grain. Their housing units were newly built, of brick. In this particular village, about ten students from Beijing lived in a big enclosed yard with five rooms and shared a common kitchen. Depending on the location, the government paid local villages a settlement fee so that the villagers were not burdened by their presence. Politically, these youngsters enjoyed the best treatment, in sharp contrast to Dan’s status as an “internally controlled enemy.” But here nobody paid any attention to the official classifications. Dan’s visit was a pleasant surprise for the Beijing young people. They treated Dan to a good dinner. Some uninvited villagers also came to join the fun. In the peasant society, no invitations were necessary. People just dropped in, with no regard to time or convenience. The young people paid a peasant three yuan for a big goose and the girls cooked a delicious meal: stewed goose, plus wheat bread and sunflower seeds as a snack afterwards. At dinner, one of the topics that came up was a Beijing young man who was beaten by a village leader in Dan’s brigade. Dan had heard about the case but felt powerless to intervene. The youth in question was also from Beijing. He did not like the way the production team leader ordered people about and, before a big crowd, refused to obey his work assignment. The team leader punched him. Because there were only two Beijing students present, they did not dare to take on the whole village. But in the evening, these two young men ambushed the team leader and beat him badly. Since then, the Beijing young people refused to go to work. The village leaders would not dare to approach them because they were sent by the government and had to be taken care of. The problem was still unresolved. They decided to go to the commune government together and show solidarity; they arrived late in the evening. The discussion between officials and young men did not seem to be going anywhere. When Dan came in, neither the

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Engineering Communist China commune official nor Li Fengqi showed much courtesy. But the two young men stood up immediately and offered Dan a seat. In fact, they were so close that the officials were embarrassed. Theoretically, Dan was a class enemy and the urban youth were members of the working class. The line between them should be strictly maintained. With new people on the scene, the Beijing youth insisted on an apology from the team leader and then they would offer their apology in return. No solution was reached that night. The matter was never resolved. Neither were the two youths punished in any way. And ever since then, the villagers never dared to mistreat the urban youth.

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CHAPTER 15: BLIND MIGRANTS Two years had passed since Dan came to Bajia village. Here, he and Buffalo were regarded as Four Elements and were under constant surveillance by the politically sensitive brigade leaders, especially Li Fengqi. This was worse than in Wanfa village, where the peasants not only liked and respected them, but also accorded them equal treatment. After the autumn harvest season, there wasn’t much farm work to be done and endless political meetings formed the main activity of the village. Dan decided to leave, but where to? The highly charged political atmosphere in Beijing made it an unlikely choice. Quite by chance, Dan bumped into a brick maker in another village. Brick making was a skill that was especially respected in local areas; all the better buildings were made of brick. This man had worked for a brick kiln in Liaoning Province to the south and migrated to this region as thousands of peasants were doing in search of a better life. He belonged to what has been called “blind migrants,” people who left their homes without any specific goal in sight, searching for employment all over China. He had in mind heading off to a place deep in the mountains in the province of Heilongjiang, that used to be a part of Inner Mongolia; it was sparsely populated, and there was plenty of available land. Trees were free for building houses. They would also be their own masters. This seemed like a fairytale, and Dan doubted it could be like that under the control of the ever-present government. How could such a place exist in China? Still, the constant humiliations Dan had suffered in the past years made it seem worth a try. He paid a visit to the brick maker again in early January, 1973, and agreed to go with him. Dan made a bet with history. Since the late 19th century, the northeast, also called Manchuria, had been attracting immigrants from northern China. In hard

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Engineering Communist China times, destitute peasants would leave their native villages and migrate to this vast region. This migration process was called “Braving the Guandong” (northeast). Not a whole lot was known about the region or how it might have changed in recent years, but the northeast was clearly less populated than the developed parts of the country. As recently as two years earlier, the middle school graduates had all been sent there as members of the Production and Construction Corp, a state farm system under the command of Ministry of Land Reclamation. These farms were organized as paramilitary units. The first groups of the Construction Corps were actually demobilized army units following the Korean War. Dan set to work picking up carpentry skills to give him more options in the supposedly utopian new land. Carpentry might even be more useful than making bricks. He bought some tools, planes and chisels, and an axe. As an engineer, Dan had a strong mechanical sense and he was confident that he would have no problem with the new trade. The brick maker and Dan walked for several hours to a major town, where Dan bought more tools; he ended up carrying a forty-pound box for the last three miles to the train station. As Dan was about to approach the ticket office, the brick maker stopped him and led him behind the station. They walked around to the back of a couple of freight cars; the brick maker skillfully threw his luggage into one of them and Dan followed suit; then they jumped into the car with no windows. Five people were already on board. They seemed to be quite used to this means of travel; they all knew where to get off. The brick maker had an uncle in Da’an County, so they jumped out there. Although it was already late at night, his uncle gave them detailed instructions on how to get their destination, Dayangshu. The uncle had been the head of the county until he was brought down a few months before. He knew all about the situation of the blind migrants. According to him, a lot of people were settling in the mountains. Household registration was generally not required and whoever farmed land first would be given official registration by the local governments. Anybody willing to venture out there had to be a pioneer in every aspect of life. The first station they were supposed to reach was Qiqihar and from there to Dayangshu. Proceeding north from Dayangshu, they would start to see migrant settlements along roads, rivers, and mountain valleys. The northernmost place of these settlements was Jiagedaqi. Thus, they reached Dayangshu after a 17-hour train ride. It was already dark at 5:00 PM. There was a restaurant just 150 yards away from the station. It

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Chapter 15: Blind Migrants was the only house with lights on and business seemed to be booming. Inside the restaurant were people with all kinds of accents. Most people just bought steamed wheat bread and no vegetables. Some of them bought dozens of pieces of bread and hustled off quickly, perhaps carrying hot meals to their friends or relatives. Dan bought a bowl of cabbage soup and two pieces of bread. Dayangshu was an immigrant town crawling with people looking for jobs. Thieves, smooth talkers, honest peasants, all mixed up in this swarming community. The brick maker was an outgoing person and he greeted everyone coming his way, asking for information and getting to know people. Soon they discovered that most poor migrants used the train station as their hotel, so that is what they decided to do. Every space on the long benches was occupied. Many people simply slept on the floor. Here, they picked up another bit of information about the settlement situation. All the good places within forty miles of the train station, near rivers or on flat ground, were occupied already. To the west of the station was a state farm where migrants were not welcome. Most of the good land lay to the east of the station, but that was long since occupied by the Elunchun and other ethnic natives. Han Chinese were resented in these ethnic minority areas, and some of the people had guns. Further north was too cold. Only the south presented good opportunities. There were many settlements and most of them were named after a person. When these new settlements grew to a certain size, the local governments would recognize them as villages and give them household registrations. In other words, these settlements were legalized. If Dan wanted to stay near the station, the peasant man continued, he would have to join one of these settlements by paying a fee. If one wanted to found his own settlement, he would have to venture further into the forests, perhaps sixty miles away. After listening to this peasant, Dan felt reassured. He agreed with the brick maker that he would go north to investigate the Jiagedaqi area; the brick maker would visit settlements close to the station. Then they were to meet up at the station in ten days. The train ride to Jiagedaqi took only five hours. The train was so crowded that some passengers had to stand in the aisle. Almost everybody on board was a blind migrant looking for or returning to the new settlements, and that is all they talked about: the politics at these new settlements, the membership fees, factional fighting, and fights with other settlements over land. There were stories about local bullies, womanizing, bribery and many other tales that would not be told to any but this anonymous crowd. Jiagedaqi was a mid-sized city, a lot bigger than Dayangshu, and new. The city was administratively classified as district level, i.e., higher than a county but

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Engineering Communist China lower than provincial administration. As Dan arrived, it was getting dark. Rather than waste his time, Dan figured he would spend the night at the train station. Everything he owned in this world was his toolbox plus 200 yuan cash; he had to find work quickly. As he was pondering what his next step should be, a well-dressed, good-looking young man stopped and asked him: “Can you make night stands?” “Yes!” Dan confidently answered even though he did not understand what a night stand was. He was very relieved when he heard that room and board were included, and he accepted the offer almost without thinking: 21 yuan per nightstand. The young man was quite direct; he said that 21 yuan was the going price and a carpenter with basic skills would make one box a day or, at the very most, two days. He put Dan’s toolbox on his bicycle handlebars and then carried Dan to his home. Bicycles were used as means of transportation in cities as well as in rural villages. In a half hour they arrived at a “new workers’ village” with several rows of standardized houses, each with a small front yard. There were two rooms to each house, the outer one for cooking and the other as bedroom/living room/dining room. In the inner room, there was a big earthen bed to the north side of the room and connected to the outer room stove by a heating tunnel. Unlike the houses in Wanfa and Fuyu, these houses had hollowed walls to allow the heat to travel. Winter here was so cold that the house had to be heated all around. In the yard, every family had a pile of wood. Wood was extremely rare and precious in cities like Beijing or even in the countryside, but here in the middle of vast forests, it was plentiful. The young man’s wife came out to greet Dan, even though he was only a hired hand. They made Dan a dinner like nothing he’d seen in years, with pancakes, noodle soup, eggs, stewed potatoes, stir-fried cabbage. His host was from a village in Jilin Province and served three years in the army. Then he was discharged and transferred here, moving up one step in life. He now earned wages, 45 yuan a month, and was provided with a house. He had a good job as keeper of his factory’s warehouse. The next day, Dan started making two nightstands. He figured that he would be able to finish them in three or four days, based on the young man’s estimate. Then he would have some time to look for settlement information. In only three days Dan finished both boxes, without a nail. The couple was extremely happy. The man admitted that he had recognized that Dan was not a real carpenter just by looking at his tools. He was surprised to find that the final work was similar to a professional carpenter’s quality.

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Chapter 15: Blind Migrants In fact, having once been a highly respected engineer, it was humiliating for Dan to be employed by a young, uneducated worker. Furthermore, the wife asked him to chop some firewood; even though that was not part of the deal, Dan did it out of gratitude for their hospitality. Dan was paid 42 yuan. Now that they were good friends, Dan refused to take that much, and after some argument back and forth, he settled for 40. Dan learned a lot in the evening conversations. Apparently, it was no longer possible to set up any more settlements. The three established settlements had reached their full capacity and were under strict control of the city. Moreover, only wheat and potatoes would grow in this area, whereas in Dayangshu it was possible to grow all kinds of vegetables. Having given up hope of finding a suitable settlement, Dan toured the city on foot for a whole day. There were impressive shops and buildings four or five stories high, relatively luxurious. In the center of town, there was a big department store — full of shoppers, but few were buying anything. On the seventh day, Dan left his tool box at the host family and told them that he would come back someday to get it. Then he was bicycled back the train station and boarded a morning train back to Dayangshu. The brick maker was nowhere to be found, and Dan had to spend a few days at the train station. One evening, a run-down looking man of about forty came to sit right beside him. He was dressed in a cotton quilted jacket whose color had long since faded; he did not seem to have washed in a good long time. However, he surprised Dan with his pure Beijing accent. “You are from Beijing, aren’t you?” he asked. “Yes. I suppose you are too,” Dan replied, happy to see a fellow Beijing man in whatever condition. They shook hands like old friends. The man’s hands were delicate; this was no laborer. By now, Dan’s own hands were full of calluses. “What did you do and why are you here?” the tramp asked. “I used to work for the army, but now I was sent down to the country. I did not like the low income there. So I am looking for better opportunities.” Dan did not want to tell him or anybody about his past. A man with a prison record was not particularly welcome. “Allow me to be frank. You are ‘from the River,’ aren’t you?” Most of the prisons around Beijing have names that include the word River. “From the River” meant from the prison system, in Beijing criminal jargon. Even though Dan denied it, his answer revealed that he was familiar with the term and thus he was connected to the prison system in some way.

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Engineering Communist China Knowing that Dan might be embarrassed, the tramp did not press further. Now he told his own story. He used to be a police officer working in Section 5 of Beijing Public Security Bureau. His job was to control prisoners in Yanqing County north of the Great Wall. He joined the Communist Party very early and was assigned to the municipal police force. He was making 99 yuan a month and had three children. He worked hard for the bureau and was careful to avoid any political mistakes. But when the Cultural Revolution came, he was upset by the chaos and could not understand why higher officials were publicly disgraced and humiliated. Many police chiefs suffered the same fate and were kicked out of their positions by young rebels who answered Mao’s call to overthrow the corrupt “bourgeois bureaucrats.” In his unit, there was a fierce factional struggle and the tramp was on the losing side. He was fired. However, he had a family to support and ended up here in the freezing northeast. Dan was skeptical. How could a police officer lose his job, even if he belonged to the wrong faction? He seemed well-educated and spoke like an official. A con man or a criminal could also tell many vivid details about the public security operations. Still, no matter what they were before, now Dan and the tramp became instantly bonded. At dinner time, Dan treated the tramp to a meal in the same restaurant. Dan bought five pieces of steamed bread and a bowl of cabbage soup for each. The tramp ate fast, as if he had not eaten for days. Normally, people would only have two pieces, or three if they were especially hungry. Dan ate three pieces and put the other two in his pocket. The tramp was very grateful and talked more about himself and what he was doing in town. In the month he had been here, the tramp had thought he would find a suitable settlement and then fetch his family. However, he learned that the work here was so hard that his frail body would fall apart. Since he had some connection in Beijing that dealt with tractors, he though he would try to eke out a living by buying tractors for the new settlements. Dan very much doubted that he would ever be able to sell tractors. He might have indeed had some connections, but the new settlements in this area were so poor that they were not likely to buy any heavy equipment. Industrial machines were tightly controlled by the government and any sale would require reams of documentation. For a tramp who could not even count on the next meal, it was impossible to broker any tractor sale. Before the evening fell, the tramp proved that he was more capable than Dan gave him credit for. After slipping away for about an hour, the tramp ran back to the station and told Dan that he had found a room in the hotel; they would not have to sleep with the migrants anymore. The hotel was just two

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Chapter 15: Blind Migrants hundred yards away from the station. The state farm to the west of town leased two rooms from the hotel on a long term basis. The head of the farm often came here to receive guests or to work. The tramp had managed to get to know the farm chief through his friendship with many of the Beijing students that were assigned to the farm. When the farm chief went back, he gave the room keys to the tramp. A Beijing man in this area carried a lot of weight and was always treated differently than the majority, the poor peasants. The two rooms were not connected. One was arranged as an office with two desks and some chairs. In the other room were four single beds, with quilts. The two of them spent the whole evening chatting about their past and the contemporary situation. Now Dan told his personal history and how he was mistreated by the political system, and later. As a former prison officer, the tramp felt somewhat guilty. “I was kicked out of my unit because I was accused of following orders from a superior who is now imprisoned as a revisionist.” In the communist lingo, “revisionist” generally meant traitor to the communist cause; in the 19th century it was used to attack those who deviated from Marxism and later to attack the Soviet leaders in the post-Stalin era. Now, during the Cultural Revolution, the term was applied to some Chinese leaders, such as the former president Liu Shaoqi. The tramp thought it was not fair that he, as a lower level officer, had to lose his job for following orders. Furthermore, he complained about Mao being addressed as a great leader and that people had to shout “Long live Chairman Mao” on a daily basis. Dan understood that they could stay in this hotel for a whole week; but the next day, three farm workers showed up at the room. They had come to town for shopping and had to stay overnight before returning to their farm. Since the room belonged to their farm, Dan had to share one bed with the tramp and let the three men each take a bed. Not ideal, but better than the train station. But there was no sign of the brick maker. For the next two days Dan was very uneasy. The brick maker was a man of his word — had something terrible happened to him? Without him around, Dan contemplated his options: go back to the horrible village ruled by Li Fengqi, or try his luck in Beijing. However, during this dark moment, the tramp seemed to rekindle Dan’s desire to try the northeast. He brought an encouraging piece of news: a state farm not far from Dayangshu was recruiting temporary workers. To work for a state enterprise was considered the best job among the blind migrants. Except for retirement and married housing, temporary workers were treated more or less the same as regular workers in pay and working conditions. Moreover, the temporaries could expect to be transferred into regular employment when the economy

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Engineering Communist China expanded. The tramp went to the train station and brought back a dozen of his migrant friends. By 2:00 PM, a factory truck indeed showed up at the hotel. Now, they had a long, cold ride, exposed to the wind. In an hour, they reached the farm; they were almost too frozen to get off the truck. A young official met the group in front of the farm office. He was considerate enough to send them to the cafeteria first, and he ordered the cook to prepare hot meals for them, as much as they wanted. These migrants were all hungry and some might have been actually starving for quite some time. The next half hour was a messy scene in the dining room. Afterwards, the official briefly explained the requirements. First, they have to have letters of introduction from their former work units, be they state factories or villages. Those who had not brought these letters with them would have to get them in the next few days. Some of the old migrants were familiar with these requirements and showed these letters of introduction on spot. But Dan and the tramp did not have such documents. Nor could they furnish them in a short time. Now he knew: everywhere you went, you had to have letters of introduction with official seals on them, even in this remote area. He and the tramp spent the night at the farm and the next day returned to Dayangshu in the same truck. They stayed in the hotel for two more days. The tramp was not lucky. No settlement wanted tractors. When he learned that Dan still wanted to find the brick maker, in the settlements to the south, the tramp drew a simple map and pointed the way to get there. He warned Dan that many of those settlements took fees from migrants but never delivered official membership documents; better make sure that it was approved by the government, with proper documentation, before he paid his fees. Factional fights were also common. Dan thanked him for getting him off to a good start and promised to come back to Dayangshu to visit him again, once he settled down. However, Dan never found him later. Rumors said that the tramp stayed in the train station so often that the local Mass Dictatorship Office arrested him on suspicion of being a pickpocket. When he mentioned that he was a policeman from Beijing, the local people became even more suspicious and beat him up. Eventually, he was released for lack of evidence and he disappeared from Dayangshu.

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CHAPTER 16: FRONTIER SETTLEMENT Directions in hand, Dan set out on a path into the mountains. In about eight miles he came across a settlement called Friendship. It was a welldeveloped place with rows of newly built single-story houses and big front yards. Although most houses were thatch-roofed and few were made of bricks, people here seemed quite prosperous judging by the furniture they had in the houses and piles of firewood in the yards. The settlers also dressed a little better. Because he carried a Beijing accent, the settlement head received him warmly. Dan asked him how they managed to make a living. In addition to growing wheat and other crops, they collected Mu-er, known in America as cloud-ear or tree-ear fungus and widely regarded as a delicacy. After every rain, these fungi would grow spring up, providing unlimited supplies. One pound of the dried Mu-er would sell for 8 yuan per pound to a local dealer and it cost about 20 yuan in the cities like Beijing. Unfortunately for Dan, they no longer accepted new applications. A few hours walk further west, the rugged dirt road came to an end. There was no sign of human settlement. All around were snowcapped mountains in the distance, and trees and tall wild grass nearby. It was very difficult to walk and a bit intimidating, as tigers, wolves, and other predators could well be lurking in the tall grass. He had no knife, no food and no water. Dan turned back and rested in an open area. Then Dan walked south along a narrow trail. After about six hours, he finally came across a settlement sandwiched between two mountains. There was a small river flowing through the valley. The settlement had only about five households, the most primitive Dan had ever seen. They were only about three

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Engineering Communist China feet above the ground — more like covered pits, three quarters underground. A man in his forties came out eagerly to greet Dan, and asked his wife to cook some dinner. He then called out to his younger brother next door, who was head of the settlement. The dinner was served with wheat pancakes and stewed potatoes, not really bad given the shabby appearances of the settlement. The brother invited Dan to join their settlement and mentioned that he would charge less than other places. Their settlement was also legitimate, and had been around for two years. But many people had come and gone because they did not like the location. The spot they had chosen could only see the sun from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, because the mountains blocked the sky on both sides. However, they were not here to farm but rather to collect Mu-er fungus and other forest products with commercial potential. Pretty smart. Most peasants were shortsighted, they argued, and could not see the advantage of a commercial operation. Such operations were called Fuye, “side business,” and were legal insofar as they did not undercut the official agriculture-based economy. That evening, Dan slept with the family on their earthen bed. Because the house was low and small, it turned out to be fairly warm. Dan found out that the brick maker had been by this way, but said that he would not make a decision alone and had to consult Dan. Judging by the rest of the conversation, Dan concluded that it was just an excuse. The brick maker, like other peasants, was not interested in this settlement; he had gone on to a Korean settlement 15 miles east and was waiting for him. Although he truly believed in the younger brother’s line of reasoning, Dan could not make a decision without discussing first with his friend, either. He too promised that he would talk with his partner and come back later. Now that Dan had found out where his partner was, he eagerly set out again. After walking three hours, he came to a river. To the north was a small village (about thirty houses, taller than those in Dayangshu or other towns, though they were made of thatched roof and pounded earth walls) surrounded by trees, and behind the village was a hill beautifully situated along the river. There was plenty of fertile land to each side of the village. Around the outskirts of the village Dan noticed tractor tracks, an indication of prosperity. In the street, Dan saw a unique ox-drawn cart. Its wheels were bigger than normal and the whole cart was made of wood, with no trace of iron nails. Instead of using a whip, the driver used a wooden stick. He sang as he drove by. When Dan stepped forward and asked for directions to the Korean settlement, the driver did not understand him. After Dan repeated himself, slowly, a couple of times,

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Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement the driver pointed his stick eastward across the river. This was a village of ethnic minorities who spoke a totally different language. He crossed the frozen river and walked along for another hour. Then he came upon two small earthen houses on the north side of the road and six on the south side. A bearded man came out to look at him, but he was unfriendly and refused to answer any questions. A woman with a child on her back smiled at Dan and told him that this was the Korean settlement; the bearded man was a brother-in-law of the settlement head. Because they were not on good terms, he was not friendly to Dan or others who came to this settlement. Dan walked a bit further on, and noticed that the mountains had sunk into low hills along a small plain. A wealth of deciduous trees grew there, poplar, hazel, elm, and birch, and willows along the creek. But most of the land was covered with tall grass. The grassland stretched out for miles. At the foot of a hill Dan saw a group of men building a house. This appeared indeed to be an ideal pastoral land, almost matching those utopian dreams. Dan was surprised to find the brick maker among those men building the house. “Finally, you are here! I have been waiting for you for a long time!” The brick maker excitedly greeted him. Dan was not so pleased. Dan complained that he had waited for the brick maker for nearly ten days at Dayangshu and faulted him for not keeping his word to meet up at the train station. The brick maker quickly defended himself. He and another fellow had set out, going around various settlements within forty miles of Dayangshu. Of the dozen settlements they investigated, none seemed suitable; the good settlements demanded too much money and others were either in undesirable locations or were poor in land or resources. The Korean settlement was by far the best, for two reasons. The family in charge was friendly; they did not demand a high price. Secondly, land was plentiful and there was room for development both for growing food and for collecting Mu-er or medical herbs for commercial purposes. So he had gone back to Dayangshu train station and gathered a group of seven single men and brought them to this place. The head of the Korean settlement advised them to build houses before spring planting season arrived. Now that the brick maker was the leader of this motley group, he could not leave. So, he personally had left word with the poor settlement family between Dayangshu and the Korean settlement. Figuring that Dan would pass that way eventually, he left a message to let Dan know how to find him. And all of that seemed to ring true, as here they were with the brick maker organizing his men to build the first house.

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Engineering Communist China Dan admired his organizing ability. Every one of his men worked very hard and there was no pay of any kind, only the hope that they would be allowed to stay here and that their houses would be built next. Dan took off his overcoat and joined the work. The house they were building was also half above the ground. Two Y-shaped tree trunks were placed about ten yards apart and connected by a long tree trunk as a roof beam. Rafters were added, making an Ashaped roof. Underneath it or inside the room an earthen stove was built, connected to a bed, temporarily made of stone slates. These men carried the slates from the hillside piece by piece and without any tools. A big cauldron borrowed from the Korean family was placed on the stove. The house’s twig frame was in place and now the men were covering it with straw and mud. There was no river nearby and no well, yet. To get water for dinner, a couple of young men carried snow from the hillside with a bed sheet. Millet was the only food available; no meat, no vegetables. When boiled millet porridge was ready, salt was added and that was dinner. Every member of his group chipped in and they carried millet from a commune shop seven miles away. The most unbearable thing was not the lack of food but lack of housing. These men simply had no place to sleep. When night fell, they just huddled together on the slates in the half finished shed frame. Inside, it was less cold and less windy, but it was far from comfortable. The only luxury item they had was a kerosene lamp. Now Dan was introduced to everyone in the group, especially to Black Face, the tall and strong man who had come down here with the brick maker originally. A question on their minds was how to make mud when the ground was frozen, and how to spread mud and straw onto the roof and the walls. They decided to would borrow a pick from the Koreans and chop pieces of frozen earth and bring them back to the construction site. Then they would heat them with fire. They would have to bring snow for water. As for spreading mud, they would have to use their hands. In spite of such prehistoric methods, Dan still felt happy about the new place. Here they were, as free members of a community, and nobody felt inferior or humiliated for political reasons. Dan felt great. His grandfather had Braved the Frontiers at the beginning of the 20th century, for economic reasons. There were too many people inside the Great Wall, and anyone who wanted to do a little better had to take the risk of expanding beyond the known (and crowded) interior of China. There was some similarity to this modern period, 70 years later, only now political as well as economic reasons — to varying degrees — were driving people forward.

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Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement Before sleep, the brick maker quietly told Dan that the Korean settlement wanted a fee of 120 yuan from each household. He said that the Korean family had the permission from the commune to establish this settlement, called Korean Production Brigade. Once they secured government household permits, Dan and the rest would be legal residents in this part of China. The next day, the men continued to work. The surface of the walls and the roof turned out to be very uneven and ugly. But it kept the wind and cold away, and thus served its purpose. To make doors and windows, Dan offered to get his carpenter tools from Jiagedaqi. But the men realized that Dan’s engineering skills were needed onsite and wanted him to stay to direct the building work. A young man from Shandong Province was sent to Jiagedaqi to fetch Dan’s tools. Dan wrote a letter introducing the young man and proving his identity. That evening, the house was indeed warm and cozy. Lying on his stone bed, Dan could see joy on everybody’s face. They were talking about establishing their own production team within this Korean brigade and discussing what tools they would purchase, and carts, draft animals, oxen. These were peasant men from all over China and knew what was required to build an agricultural community. They were rather uneasy, however, about sharing tools and equipment. Once these tools became public property, people might not take good care of them. The general consensus was that every family (once their family members were brought here) would purchase and keep its own tools and that they would help each other with farm work and building houses, as was customary. The most crucial problem for these men was to obtain a residence permit. The Korean family had to petition the commune government in the name of the Korean Production Brigade. Of this group, everybody had a little money but none had enough to pay the 120 yuan required. Without securing these permits, all their labor would be lost and they would be illegal residents subject to harassment, extortion and possibly expulsion. It was vitally important to negotiate with the Korean family. The brick maker and Black Face were asked to get a precise understanding. The Korean family agreed that once the permits were approved by the government, they would give them to the settlers on the spot — as soon as they handed over their payment. The migrants would not pay until they actually saw the resident permits with their own eyes. The Korean family also urged them to get their families here before the planting season. However, nobody dared to do it without getting the permit first. About six days later, the young man from Shandong brought back Dan’s carpenter tools and also a piece of disturbing news. While in Jiagedaqi, he was

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Engineering Communist China rounded up at the train station by militiamen. It was the local government policy to clear blind migrants out of the area. He was stuck in jail for three days until the militia found Dan’s letter to his host and believed his story. They called Dan’s host, who bailed him out and passed along a message saying that there would be a province-wide movement to clear the blind migrants. They’d better have identity papers on them, household registrations, or letters of introduction from their work units or villages. That was bad news, indeed. None of them had any identity papers. The only thing they could do was to take comfort in the fact that they were in the mountains away from the city and that the Korean brigade had verbally granted permission to stay and promised work permits in the near future. According to common understanding at the time, such explanations would suffice, especially with the support of the Korean family. The Chinese frontier society in some way embodied the Darwinian survival of the fittest. The law of the jungle wielded as much influence as the law of the civil society. Despite all government regulations over land reclamation and the right to settlement, land claims were contested in these frontier areas whenever and wherever the government power could not reach. Only a week after Dan came to the Korean settlement, a group of twenty or so people burst into this small world and challenged the legitimacy of their claims for settlement. They brought five donkeys carrying five carts full of building materials and bags of grain, enough to last for a long time. They had about fifteen men plus four women and tools of every imaginable kind, axes, picks, and saws. They unloaded their material next to the brick maker’s new house, blocking it in such a way that it became impossible to build a house next to it. Black Face went up to the man in charge of that group, who wore a faded green army jacket, and tried to throw him out. A fight nearly ensued. The Korean brigade leader was summoned to the spot. This was the first time Dan saw the head of the Korean settlement. He was a very short and thin man, about thirty years old, named Kim Yongnan. In very fluent Chinese, he asked the headman of the new group: “Are you in charge of these people?” “Yes. So what?” “I am the brigade leader here. The commune government has granted this area to us as a Korean settlement. You have no right to build houses here.” “Show us the proof.”

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Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement “Of course I have the proof. It is a certificate with the official seal of the commune. Show me your proof. If you do have proof, we will have to go to the commune government together.” Kim was not giving an inch. “You said this was a Korean settlement. But are these men Koreans?” the man in green avoided answering the question of proof and questioned Dan’s men’s identity instead. His men laughed at Kim. “That’s not your business. They contacted us and got permission to build. If any of you wants to settle here, you have to apply to us and get permission.” Kim hinted that it would cost some money; and that he was definitely in charge. “What permission? This is China’s land and we are Chinese citizens. Everybody has the right to use the land here.” There was nothing Kim could do except to report to the commune at an appropriate time. But it was in his interest to attract people to his settlement so he could charge them 120 yuan. Therefore, he did not report to the commune immediately and instead worked on each individual in the new group, threatening possible legal action. In the next month or so, many people from the new group got to know Dan and the others. Some of them became friends. A tacit understanding developed that as blind migrants they should be sympathetic to each other’s already unfortunate circumstances. Since there were plenty for everybody, there was no need to fight. Soon after that, another four men came and built two houses on the bank of the Kuile River’s confluence with the Gan River. The Korean settlement leader went to drive them out, but these men claimed that they had permission from the county government — one level higher than the commune. Of course, Kim knew this was a lie, and yet he was unable to move these people out or to get any payment out of them. So, in less than two months, there were three groups of people who had come here without any documentation. Dan’s group was called the East Point and the second group, with the most people and the best equipment, was referred to as West Point since they later moved west of Dan’s group, to higher ground. The four people by the river were interested in fishing rather than farming and hence that was called the Fishermen’s Point. The long anticipated resident permits were finally granted to the Korean settlement. Altogether, there were only five of them and Kim told the others that more were on the way. Originally, all the men thought they would get these resident permits at once and as a group. But now the eight people assumed that the brick maker and Black Face would get them first, since they were the leaders from the beginning. The other three would go to whoever could pay the required

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Engineering Communist China 120 yuan. But, except for Dan, nobody had that much money and would have to wait. As they finished building half of the primitive pit houses and the settlement became a reality, a delicate power struggle developed between Black Face and the brick maker who both wanted to be the leader of the group that in the near future would be officially designated as a production team. During their meeting with Kim, Black Face boasted that he had brought all the eight men to the settlement and he should be a contact person for all of them. Kim did not care who the contact man was, so long as the application fee was paid. After the meeting, the brick maker asked Dan to help him thwart Black Face’s ambitions. Dan persuaded him not to bother with it — it was pitiful to fight over such tiny authority over just eight men. For the time being, Dan’s views prevailed. From that day onwards, Black Face spoke to the whole group as if he was the elected leader. Among other things, he demanded that the resident permit fee of 120 yuan would be given to him first and then he would pay Kim. Dan was the only person with money and he gave it to him. That very night, the brick maker secretly kept an eye on Black Face throughout the night. What would Black Face do with the money? 120 yuan was a huge sum in the 1970s, three months’ wages for most workers. The next day Dan, the brick maker and Black Face were invited to the home of Korean leader, about a mile away. It was Dan who had actually been invited. The Korean family had heard of Dan even before he came and Kim had seen him already. He told the brick maker that the Korean family respected intellectuals but wondered, or rather mildly complained, why Dan would not pay them a visit. They thought that Dan was putting on airs. Dan knew that such a visit was a social necessity. He walked the seven miles to the commune shop and bought a few bottles of liquor, ten pounds to carry, as he knew that Kim loved to drink. While in town, Dan realized that this commune was officially called the Er Wen Ke ethnic minority autonomous commune, even though it was an area of mixed Han Chinese and Er Wen Ke ethnic minorities. The town was fairly well-to-do compared to most rural places Dan had seen; there was a shop, a hospital, and a post office in addition to government offices. On their way to the Korean family, the brick maker said to Dan: “You must be tired from all this walking. Let me carry the liquor for you.” Dan knew what the brick maker was up to. He was a very poor and had no extra cash. The whole time he’d been in the area, he always went to the Korean family empty-handed. But Chinese culture required a gift when visiting another family, let alone your

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Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement superior’s house. If he carried the liquor into the house, the host would think that the brick maker had brought the gift. Dan saw through the little trick but decided to do the man this favor — the brick maker had done a fine job to locate and establish this place. The brick maker also borrowed 50 yuan from Dan as a partial payment for his resident permit. Otherwise, he would not be able to secure it and thus could not bring his family up to the settlement. The Korean house was situated by the river. It was a very low and simple house, no better than the ones Dan’s men were building. Kim had come to this area to join his father. They were from the Yianbian Korean Autonomous area in Jilin Province. Kim’s sister and her husband also came, about a year later, with two children. But Kim’s brother-in-law was jealous of the income they made on the newcomers.PMnewcomer Before they knocked on the door, Kim came out to welcome them and showed the way into the house. They paid respect to the elder man and presented the liquor to him. Kim introduced himself as brigade leader and his father as the Party Secretary of the settlement. Though only three households, it was, nonetheless, officially called a brigade. Over dinner, Black Face did not mention Dan’s 120 yuan fee for the resident permit. Was he thinking of keeping it for his own use, or perhaps giving part of that as his partial payment? Finally, the brick maker could not tolerate such a behavior and told Kim straight out that Dan had paid his permit fee to Black Face, and wanted his permit. Kim opened a folder and picked one permit out of five and handed it to Dan. Dan was surprised at how smooth the whole thing had been. Now, he could expect to have a peaceful life, free of oppression and humiliations. Moreover, the Korean family were the most honest people Dan had dealt with in a long, long time. He wished that he had come and chatted with them earlier. Except his wife, Kim and his father spoke very good Chinese. The next day, the brick maker talked with Kim in private, and also got his permit — though he only paid 50 yuan. He promised Kim to make up the rest of the payment as soon as his family arrived. Dan (and the Korean, presumably) knew that the brick maker was banking on income from Mu-er sales next year. Seeing that two people had obtained resident permits ahead of him, Black Face was indeed worried and he managed to get a permit by paying 50 yuan as well, 20 borrowed from his two followers and 30 out of his own pocket. The three real resident permits distributed to East Point stirred up trouble in West Point community. All of these men had come here with their families and had sold their possessions in their native villages in other parts of Inner

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Engineering Communist China Mongolia. They were promised resident permits by the man in green and they had given him some down payments. Since they heard that the government was going to clear out the blind migrants, they wanted to get the permits as soon as possible. Otherwise, they could be driven out of this place; they would lose their newly built houses and maybe all their possessions. Unlike Dan and the others, these people had nowhere to retreat to. Deeply worried, three men from West Point bypassed the man in green and went directly to Kim’s house. They were promised resident permits — when the commune issued new ones. The news had a devastating effect on West Point. The man in green felt insulted and had his other men beat up the three who had gone behind his back. The Korean did not intervene on their behalf and the commune leadership avoided getting involved, as the men were not yet members. Frontier life was still brutal, dangerous and vile: no utopia, after all. Now that he had obtained a resident permit, Dan went back to his commune in Fuyu County to transfer his household registration. The commune government provided all the necessary legal documents and surprisingly, Dan experienced no trouble. Then he went back to the village to fetch his possessions and also to get his end-of-the-year cash payment. By the number of work credits he had accumulated and the worth of each credit, Dan estimated that he could get about 200 yuan. Dan’s return was exciting news for the village. Buffalo and the others could not believe that the Dayangshu area had so much free land and firewood. Buffalo was keen to avoid the worst of the work, and said he would come the next year when everything was already organized. Dan drew a detailed map for him and promised to help him out in the first few weeks. To get his money, Dan was told he would have to treat Fanfan, the team leader, to dinner. Otherwise, he might not release the money, on the grounds that the team was short of cash. Reluctantly, Dan prepared a meal at his residence. He was a bit upset when the team leader’s father showed up instead. He claimed that his son was busy that evening. The father liked to eat good food and the son would let him go whenever there was such an invitation. The man promised Dan that his money would be released, but not all of it. The next day, the village account met with Dan. He was only given two-thirds of what he was owed. That was good enough for Dan; he packed up his belongings and bid goodbye to village life. The brick maker went back to his native village to fetch his three daughters. While he was there, he quickly married again, this time to a widow

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Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement with three children of her own, two daughters and a son of about two years old. Since it was impossible for him to support such a huge family, he convinced two of his younger brothers to join the new settlement. To house so many people, the brick maker took an example from the Korean family and built two more houses by the river. The main job in spring was land reclamation. Even though the settlement was officially defined as a collective, individuals had to clear land and cultivate it on their own. Some of the settlers teamed up. In East Point, the brick maker and his two brothers worked as a team. The land they worked was extremely rich and except for Dan, they were all experienced peasants. Clearing grass, especially roots, was hard work and it was even harder given their primitive tools. Dan calculated that he had to clear at least two mu of land, or one third of an acre, before planting time, so that he would have enough grain for next year. Within a month, Dan reached his goal and planted corn and potatoes. All kinds of crops could grow in this area, wheat, barley, beans. After the seeds were planted, Dan cleared another half mu land and planned to create a vegetable and fruit garden. Black Face led four of his followers as a team. Since the other young peasants did not have enough money, he collected ten yuan from each of them and managed to list his name as head of a collective household on the permit. The legality was questionable. The permit was for one family in the normal sense of the word. However, these four peasants did not know that, and agreed to pay him the full settlement membership fee of 120 yuan at a later date. Since they had already paid ten yuan deposit, they had to work under Black Face or they would lose their hard earned money. Black Face was a shrewd businessman. He somehow managed to bring in a tractor and driver from an Er Lun Chun minority village. The tractor driver was treated to good meals and cleared about forty mu, or seven acres, the largest tract in this area. However, he was no peasant. The land he chose was not as fertile as Dan’s or the brick maker’s. It was close to the river and fairly sandy. Shortly after the planting season, the local people would wait for rain and get ready to collect Mu-er. As Dan later discovered, this settlement was only several miles away from a train station. Every year around this time, people would pour into the region in groups to collect Mu-er. They were kind of professional collectors who relied on such fungi for a living. They would carry food, clothes, cooking pans, plastic sheets, everything they needed, and would put up a temporary shed close to the river as a base. For about two weeks, they

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Engineering Communist China would go into the hills or mountains to work. The fungi they collected were then spread around the tent to dry. One man always stayed behind to guard the fruit of their labor. Incidents of theft or even murder for these fungi did happen. Robbers would tie people up and carry away their fungi. There were also some rifle-toting men who claimed to be government officials and confiscated fungi from the blind migrants. Nobody knew whether they were real or fake. These men would set up checkpoints along major roads and if people failed to produce proper identity documents, they would be detained and of course their fungi confiscated. Dan and all the men at East Point joined the fungi-collecting crowd. However, Dan did not venture very far into the mountains. He found some dead oak trees on a hill behind his house and waves of these black fungi grew on them. On his first try, Dan easily carried back a full basket of them. When dried, they would weight about one pound, about 8 yuan in value, very rewarding for a day’s work. For the next few days, Dan walked all over the hill and managed to bring home plenty more. He estimated that he could get 40 yuan for his labor. Nature was very kind to him indeed. One day as Dan returned from his foraging, he was horrified by shouting, crying, and commotion in the settlement. Migrants were running for the hills. Several men on horses were chasing them and rounding them up. The slow and the unlucky were ordered to kneel on the ground — here was the local government round up. Orderly immigration sanctioned by the local government did not pose a threat to their control, but the spontaneous movement of people was periodically checked. The brick maker’s house was set on fire by the government “Mountain Clearing Team.” Although he was a legitimate settler, he was in the mountains collecting fungi and his wife failed to produce the resident permit. Dan had a resident permit and did not run. When the government horsemen came to his house, Dan remained calm. One horseman dismounted and asked him where he was from. Dan answered that he was from Beijing and that he was a member of the Korean settlement. Then he showed them his permit. Dan could see that these men were surprised at his composure and did not bother with him beyond the usual questioning. These horsemen did not speak fluent Chinese and he judged that they must be ethnic minorities. Those who were rounded up were given a warning by the Mountain Clearing Team to either move out or to be arrested if they were caught a second time. A few days later, the horsemen came back with a bulldozer and tore down

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Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement the houses of those who did not have resident permits. It was a heartbreaking scene, women and children crying and their men hopelessly pleading with the bulldozer driver. On the newly cleared fields, crops were bulldozed as well. The man in green and his whole group at West Point had no permits and everything they had built was wiped out. He had taken money from his group and promised them that the permits were on the way. He dared not face his men again and disappeared without a trace. With no food, no houses and nobody to turn for help, one of the married men hanged himself from a tree. After this tragedy, the rest of the West Point population decided to sell their donkeys and carts, whatever they had, to pay the settlement fees — or at least part of them. The Korean family wrote a temporary certificate for each family, saying that their application to village membership was pending approval. The Korean family had to hand in part of these fees to the commune as contributions and had to spend more on gifts to officials in order to obtain these permits. Kim asked the West Point people to move closer to him and build houses next to his on the river bank. Then, whenever, the Mountain Clearing Team came, he could vouch for them as members of his production brigade. None of the people at East Point suffered much, except that the brick maker’s house was mistakenly burned down. They all had permits, even though Black Face’s permit for five people was of dubious. Dan’s behavior during the crisis established him firmly as the most respected person in the settlement. Kim often came to Dan’s house for advice. He did not have a wrist watch, a popular item in the 1970s, and he did not dress like a man with money. He told Dan about his family in more detail. His family had lived in Yanbian Korean area for generations. His father joined the Communist Party in the 1930s and fought the Japanese as a guerrilla fighter. At the time of the Korean War, he was ordered to form an army unit of pure Koreans and wore North Korean uniforms throughout the war. When it was finished, his father was ordered as many Chinese of Korean ethnicity to stay in North Korea. Because he had his family inside China, he returned and was assigned to be a vice president of a school. Because his father had no educational experience, he never enjoyed respect nor had any power at the school. Yet, the Red Guards still publicly humiliated him as a bad person. He was a very stubborn and hottempered man. He thought that he had given his life to the communist cause and did nothing wrong that deserved such treatment. So, after Kim’s mother died, the old man decided to become a hermit of sorts and came to this area two years earlier. His father particularly liked to fish in the river. The local Da Wo Er

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Engineering Communist China ethnic population was not interested in fishing for some reason. Therefore, there were plenty of fish to catch and families could almost survive on that alone. He made a traditional fishing device, a kind of willow twig mat. The old man could catch plenty of fish and sold most of them in the local market. Kim also talked about himself. He used to be lower level official in a government agency in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region. Because of his father’s downfall, he was accused of having bourgeois thoughts and often criticized. When he heard from his father that this area was full of natural resources, he brought his whole family here. Initially, they never wanted to set up a formal settlement. They just loved the land around and wanted to open up and cultivate several dozen mu and to live a good and peaceful life. Later, his brother-in-law was also attacked by the Red Guards. They also decided to join his father in this utopia. The commune officials often passed through their houses and urged them to set up a settlement and promised to take care of all the paper work. It was the government policy that ethnic minorities would be given priority in terms food supplies and other opportunities. If a minority family had difficulties, it could always get emergency grain from the commune. There were many government assistance programs to the minorities. But an ethnic Chinese had to be self reliant. The settlement was thus established with Kim as production brigade leader and his father as Communist Party Secretary. A few days later, Kim came to see Dan again. Most of the settlers would face starvation before the autumn harvest season. Kim wanted to help, but did not know where to start. Although the settlement carried a formal designation as a production brigade, it did not have any money or assets. And yet, Kim had received some money from these people and felt responsible. Dan heard that there was a village of mixed Chinese and Da Wuer ethnicity about three miles north of the Kuile River and that they were short of labor. Dan and Kim decided to probe for some opportunities. By the time Dan reached the village, he was relieved to find that there a number of Beijing high school graduates had settled here. A Beijing girl married one of the production team leaders. One team leader was a Beijing student who had married an ethnic minority girl. Dan found it surprisingly easy to establish a relationship with these young people. The village was indeed very well-to-do. The land was fertile and they had horses and mules. They offered Dan work, immediately. Because of the shortage of labor, weeds were choking their crops. More than a dozen people answered Dan’s call to work and went to that village

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Chapter 16: Frontier Settlement to hoe and do other work; they were paid in grain that would last them until harvest time. A crisis was thus avoided. The frontier region, with its abundant other resources, attracted all kinds of people but mostly from the bottom of the society. Even a sixty-some year old peasant/barber from Fuhu County came to try his fortune. Perhaps he learned about Dan from Bajia and somehow traced him all the way to the Korean settlement. To make sure Dan would help him out, he pretended to be the uncle of Dan’s village party secretary. It was a standard trick to raise one’s status by claiming a relationship with officials. Seeing that Dan was not interested, the barber took out his tools and offered to give Dan a haircut. Dan had not had a haircut in months. He looked like a wild man. The stranger proved indeed to be a skillful barber. For the next seven days, the old barber stayed in Dan’s house and fed himself without paying a penny. The barber spent his time visiting various people and somehow became acquainted with Kim’s brother-in-law, Zhongyu. The barber gave everyone in his family a haircut. Zhongyu pretended to be the Party Secretary at the settlement and got a sizable down payment from the barber in exchange for a permit. Then Zhongyu stole two residence permits from Kim. Once the barber had secured the permit, he went back to his village in Fuyu County and resold the permit to five families by putting all of them on his resident permit form; he collected a large sum of money from each family. After the autumn harvest, the barber took the five families plus six young men to the settlement. Zhongyu knew that he had cheated and demanded 100 yuan from each of the five families. His demand was refused, because these families had paid the barber all the necessary fees to join the settlement. Instead, they demanded that the settlement should give them help to set up in the new place. When the barber’s scheme was exposed, he disappeared, leaving behind all these people to fight it out themselves and to face a possible expulsion, courtesy of the frontiers.

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CHAPTER 17. CONTRACT LABOR Winter came early in 1973. Dan was well prepared. He had harvested more than 500 pounds of grain. For most settlers, there was little to do while the weather was so cold. Mostly peasants, they were used to preparing fertilizers for the coming spring or taking care of their livestock. Now, they barely had their houses built and had no time nor money to raise pigs, goats and other animals. Kim and Dan discussed how to bring in more income. They decided to try their luck at reed farming. Dan had heard in Jiagedaqi that there was a lot of swampland in Lin Dian County, Heilongjiang Province. These reed-growing swamplands were turned into farms by the local governments, where reed was cut to supply paper mills. During slack seasons, the reed farm attracted many seasonal workers, most of them blind migrants. Cutting reed was a backbreaking job that few people did if they had a choice. Those who ended up at reed farms were the poorest, and they were the worst paid as well. Because these people were not permanent employees, they were not given food coupons, so they had to buy food at higher prices. Due to heavy labor, most of their pay went to food expenses. But for Dan and other settlers, it was certainly an opportunity to make some money, better than sitting around at home. Although Dan knew nothing about cutting reed or how to get work contracts, he volunteered to investigate at his own expense. Kim promised him that the production brigade (the settlement) would reimburse him at a later date. By now Dan had become a seasoned migrant. The only thing he needed for the trip was a map and an official letter of introduction stamped with the brigade seal. The letter was needed not only for personal identity but also for transacting businesses.

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Engineering Communist China There was no train going through Lin Dian County. Guided by his map, Dan took a train first to Taikang County, Heilongjiang Province, and from there he took a long distance bus. By the time he got to the county seat, it was already dark. Now that he had an official letter of introduction, Dan stayed in a low cost hotel and chose the most inexpensive room, with ten other people — al good sources of information. They were mostly purchasers or salesmen for their factories. Because they have been here frequently, every one of them spoke about the reed farm as an expert. Their advice was to bring some gifts to the officials in charge of contracts — the usual cigarettes, liquor, etc. Otherwise, it would be hopeless. As an important part of traditional culture, gift bearing seemed to be the way to show respect or acknowledgment of gratitude. This was a tradition of such long standing that no one questioned it. The problem for Dan was that he simply had no gifts, and even if he had, he would not know how to present them. Early next morning, Dan went with a big crowd of people to the reed farm. He walked about four miles and when he reached the farm, Dan was surprised to see that there were hundreds of people there already. He entered a large office, where about twenty people lined up to see the farm contract official. On the white walls of the office were some popular slogans, such as, “We must be on guard against spontaneous capitalism!” “Class struggle must be discussed every day, every month and every year!” Those people in the room were contractors who supposedly represented various villages. In fact, many of them were brave blind migrants who either bought official letters of introduction — or forged them. Once they had signed contracts, they would turn around to those hundreds of peasants waiting outside and organize them into work teams. The farm paid these teams collectively and then the contractor would decide how to divide the money among his men. Many of these contractors had made good money and used it to cement a close relationship with the farm officials. The official who signed contracts was a very stern looking and arrogant man. Sitting behind a large desk, he received and examined letters of introduction from contract seekers. Not having any connections, Dan carefully observed the others to see what he would need to get a contract. Some letters were thrown out because they obviously had been tampered with; their presenters displayed no sense of shame and just left the room. Besides problematic documentation, there was also some arbitrariness in his judgment. One letter was deemed not appropriate and not specifically made for this purpose — was that an excuse, or was it a good reason to reject a person’s request for work? The official was dressed in woolen cadre uniform. A county

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Chapter 17. Contract labor magistrate or party secretary was paid about 100 yuan and those on the farm were paid far less, at most 60 yuan for this particular official. How could this man afford expensive clothes? Those who got the contracts were very happy and called their men to the dorms built for the seasonal laborers. There were several courtyards and each had a row of houses. As a rule, they faced south and had two long earthen beds on both north and south sides of the room. The houses and the courtyards were full of trash and nobody seemed to mind. As Dan was shaking his head at the conditions, a young man came out of one of the houses and hailed him as “Comrade Dan.” It was one of the poor souls who had been chased away by the “Mountain Clearing Team.” He had seen Dan in action at the Korean settlement, and remembered him well. During the raid, he and his two brothers lost everything they had. To stay alive, they came over to the reed farm. The low pay and hard work were counterbalanced by free lodging. The three Wang brothers could earn enough to support themselves. They had a sad history. They came from Shandong Province. Their grandfather was a landowner, and therefore that was the family’s status — even though their father was a middle school teacher. When the Cultural Revolution came, the middle school carried out an order to “purify class ranks,” meaning to expel employees of dubious heritage. In any case, teachers were in for it during the Cultural Revolution, even if they weren’t the sons of a landowner. The Wang family did not want the boys to starve and to be attacked as class enemies, so they sold off many family possessions and sent the brothers to join the blind migrants on the frontier. As they were talking, a big crowd of laborers swamped Dan, obviously thinking that he had got a contract. Surprised that it was so easy to get laborers, Dan called everybody into the house and asked questions. The farm actually provided all the tools for the job. Food could be bought at nearby villages and the farm would carry the food back in its trucks. Cooking facilities were provided. Among the laborers, there were “professional” cooks who had worked here for years. Just as Dan walked out, the three brothers pulled him aside. He was new here, and his efforts might threaten the interests of the long time contractors. These people, all blind migrants themselves, had been around for many years and their henchmen would beat up anybody who undermined their business. They offered to go with Dan as protection. Dan declined their offer, not believing that in broad daylight anybody would dare to attack him.

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Engineering Communist China In the courtyard, two poorly dressed young men rather timidly addressed him as “Big Brother Dan.” They too had been driven away from the Korean settlement. The Chian brothers’ cotton padded jackets were dirty and full of holes. Their shoes were the kind people scavenged from trash dumps; in such cold weather, they did not even have socks. They asked Dan to take them on as laborers. The reed farm was huge, several square miles of ground covered with ice. In some parts of the field, laborers were at work with a kind of long-handled scraper, a blade about two feet long, held in place between two long, narrow boards with handles at the end. They would push the blade across the ice to cut the reeds. The stems were bundled together to be weighed, and the laborers got paid according to the weight. It was real hard work. By the time Dan got back to the dormitory, the head of the blind migrants, Head Zhang, was there waiting for him, accompanied by several young men. Dan was prepared for a fight but, to his surprise, the man warmly greeted him and invited him for lunch. This was not the time to let one’s guard down, and Dan thought he’d better avoid the banquet-and-drinking scene; but the man would lose face, now, if Dan turned him down. When he used the term, “you intellectuals,” Dan understood that the Wang brothers had let the word out about Dan’s background. In this world of poor peasants, an educated man was indeed rare and highly respected. So, off they went to Zhang’s dorm. Head Zhang had already organized a team and his cooks had prepared several dishes and liquor on a small table in the middle of the earthen bed. Head Zhang said he was originally a worker at Daching Oil Fields, an industrial model enterprise for the whole country. He often pretended to be sick and avoided showing up at work. Although his bosses had trouble firing him, due to the employment guarantees of the socialist system, they did punish him by assigning him to all kinds of dirty and undesirable jobs. After quitting this secure job several years ago, Head Zhang came over to the farm. Whether or not this story was true, the man behaved as a popular hero, especially with his generosity. Zhang claimed to be happy here, in charge of, and helping, the poor migrant people. He told Dan that he would help him secure a contract. The lunch went on for three hours, and Dan was the lucky beneficiary of his status as an intellectual. By evening, Head Zhang came again and with another head of blind migrants. This man was short, fat and shrewd. Fat men were rare in China, for obvious reasons, and had to be either unwell or mighty clever. He too invited Dan for dinner.

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Chapter 17. Contract labor The question of contracts had not even been raised when the short man offered to get him letters of introduction. Both Head Zhang and the short man knew people in many places. They said they would get him the contract that very evening, and directed Dan to a general shop. It had been closed for a couple of hours, already, but Head Zhang got the manager to open up and Dan bought some cigarettes and two bottles of liquor. The three of them went straight to the home of the official in charge of contracts. The farm official’s house was big and clean, with large glass windows. He was an old friend of Head Zhang, and after a round of courtesies, he accepted the gifts. He was originally an official in the county government, demoted to this reed farm due to the ongoing radical politics. Since Dan’s accent and manner gave him away, anyway, he candidly told the official his own story and why he was here in search of work for his settlement. The evening went very smoothly and the official promised Dan a contract. Thus, by chance, Dan became the luckiest man in the world. With the help of Head Zhang, he was given a large field where the reed was of a good height. The tallest reed would yield the most reward for the same labor, but the best fields were given to people who were most favored by the contract officials. Dan was fortunate to have the middle grade fields that could still produce adequate income. He already had five people to rely on as assistants — the Wang and Chian brothers. Once the news was out, these five young men were courted by other laborers, who offered cigarettes and other inducements. One cigarette in the early 1970s could win friendship in this social setting. Dan estimated that he would need 80 men to work for a whole month. How quickly could he pull them together? He wrote a letter to Buffalo, in the Fuyu village, inviting him to take the opportunity. He also to Kim, asking him to send over the settlers. But not many people expressed interest. The brick maker and his brothers were contacting another village for work; Black Face did not want his people to participate in a business set up by other bosses. In the end, only six people came with Kim to the reed farm, and Buffalo showed up within ten days. Others were picked up from the waiting crowds. The laborers were divided into two teams about forty men each. Before work started, Dan called a meeting and asked Kim to give a speech on behalf of the Korean Brigade. In addition to the standard revolutionary slogans, Kim assured the laborers that the Korean Brigade was a real, reputable entity and would guarantee that everybody’s labor would be paid. It did happen that many contractors refused to pay the laborers when the work was finished.

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Engineering Communist China They would claim that food cost had eaten up the income, among other things. Some even tried to scare laborers away by spreading news that the government was cracking down on illegal migrants. Kim’s talk was crucial in securing loyalty and good labor output. Without these hardworking men, Dan would not be able to finish the contract, and would be unable to get another contract later. Knowing that people like the Chian and the Wang brothers were from class enemy backgrounds, Dan urged Kim to declare that in the Korean Brigade, everybody was a poor-and-lower-middle peasant and nobody would be treated differently. Kim left after two days, leaving Dan in charge. Since pay was linked to the weight of cut reed, there was strong incentive to work hard. The laborers all got up at dawn, and most of them did not even eat breakfast in the dorm. They just took a couple of cold corn cakes and headed for the fields right away. After a brief lunch break, they would go back again and work until dark. No supervision was needed. The leader’s job was to assign them to various patches in the fields, making sure that these assignments were equal and fair. After about a week, Dan could see that his men had drained a lot of energy and were losing weight. To provide better nutrition, he decided to buy a pig. These peasants could rarely afford meat and for most of them, meat was available once or twice a year. By giving them meat, Dan thought that he could boost morale as well as keeping men in good health. Pigs in this area were big and fat. Contrary to expectations, morale went down after the pork was served for the first time. The cook had been blatantly unfair in distributing the meat. A quarrel broke out, and people were upset. At lunch time, Dan asked the cook what happened — in front of all the laborers. The cook said that he was tired yesterday and his hand could not control the ladle as well as he normally did. On the cooking platform, there was still plenty of cooked meat stored in a wash basin; Dan ordered it to be equally distributed. The cook explained that he had set it aside for Dan and his possible guests. Dan was disgusted by the cook’s tactic to associate him with privileges and to cover his shady dealings. After the cook refused to carry out his order, Dan stood up and personally distributed meat to those who were not given their fair share in the previous evening. In the afternoon, Dan had a discussion with Buffalo and the Chian and the Wang brothers, and decided to fire the cook. He seemed to be some kind of thug, and he also claimed to have ten buddies on the team. Firing hi could erupt into a brawl, but they decide to do it anyway.

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Chapter 17. Contract labor After dinner, a general meeting was called. Dan declared that according to the demands of the people, Buffalo would be replaced in charge of the kitchen. The cook was welcome to stay on or join the field work. The cook pulled a cleaver from under his seat and axed the wooden bed frame with it, shouting: “Who dares to get rid of me? I will kill anybody who dares to challenge me. I have ‘traveled more bridges than the roads you have covered’ (an old expression).” Dan calmly told the cook that he had “abused your position and embezzled the fruit of the labor of the poor-and-lower-middle peasants. You are the class enemy. I will send you to the public security bureau!” He grabbed the stunned cook by the collar and pulled him upright, announcing, “Now the class struggle meeting begins!” Buffalo was the first to jump. He dragged the cook to the door so that he would face all the people in the room, and forced him into a “riding the jet” position. “Confess now! What did you do with our meat? Who did you invite to eat our meat?” Following Buffalo, a young man slapped the cook hard and demanded: “You dared to use our sweat and blood money to treat your rotten friends! Tell us who they are and what did you exactly do?” After a good beating, the cook left the reed farm for good. His so-called buddies revealed that they did not really know each other very well. They became friends only after joining Dan’s team and only because the cook often gave them more food than other men. The frontier was indeed a fluid place where friendship came and went quickly and everything was justified in the name of survival. The meeting was a complete victory for Dan and his men. Soon afterwards, Dan bought another pig. This time he learned to divide up meat the way it was done at the labor farm. Meat was placed in bowls first. When all people were in the room, Dan would ask a person from the south bed to say a number and then a person from the north bed would say another number. The two numbers added together would identify which bowl was first. Then people would line up, one by one, to take the bowls in sequence. Nobody could know in advance which bowl he would get, and thus fair treatment was assured. At this point, Kim sent a man from the settlement with an urgent message. There was a serious problem; could Dan take ten strong men and return immediately? The brigade headquarters (Kim’s house) had been burglarized and documents stolen. Dan had no trouble finding ten strong men. The first to volunteer was the young man who had slapped the cook during the struggle meeting. He was from nearby Long Jiang County and used to be soldier. He came to work here because his family had too little income; his parents had seven kids

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Engineering Communist China to support. Dan decided to put the elder Chian brother in charge of production and left with the ex-soldier, Buffalo and seven other men. It was the first time Buffalo would see the Korean settlement. Buffalo was very impressed by the progress Dan had made since he left the village. Now an ex-prisoner had became a leader of men and a trusted member of a new society on the frontier. Buffalo had, in fact, already made up his mind to throw his lot with Dan. Back at the settlement, Dan found himself in the middle of a power struggle between Kim and his brother-in-law, Zhongyu. As a city man, Zhongyu had a clear distaste for farm work. For the past two years, he had not cultivated any land. He either borrowed grain from Kim’s father or caught fish. The rivalry with Kim had started with the influx of settlers. Kim officially charged 120 yuan for a residence permit, and Zhongyu thought he ought to get a share of it. Kim did not see it that way. In fact, Kim had received barely 300 yuan from all the potential settlers. Of the 20 households, Only Dan paid the full price; the brick maker and Black Face paid 50 yuan each. The rest of the settlers only promised to pay at later dates. Zhongyu did not know that; and anyway, he wanted to play a part in the running of the brigade. Zhongyu managed to transfer his Communist Party membership from Yanbian to this commune. A Communist Party membership carried weight; the credential was required for most official positions, even at the brigade level. Kim was not a Party member. The Korean family quarrel was brought out into the open when the commune officials asked Zhongyu to carry two resident permits to Kim. Instead of handing them over, Zhongyu used them to make some money from the barber. He was emboldened by the five households plus five young men the barber brought from Fuyu County. Although he did not have as many settlers as Kim, Zhongyu now had a large following and claimed to his people that he was the Communist Party Secretary of the brigade. Even some of the settlers on Kim’s side began to be neutral, realizing that Zhongyu’s party membership was a factor to be reckoned with. Black Face and his people secretly cooperated with Zhongyu. They all hoped to get resident permits without paying the required fees. Kim ignored his brother-in-law’s threat, on the advice of his father. After all, they were relatives and Zhongyu’s family did not have much income. However, when Kim was away at the reed farm, Zhongyu took the opportunity to stage a coup. He came to Kim’s house with his men and searched for the brigade record books, hoping to find incriminating evidence for embezzlement or any wrongdoing. He had already filed many reports on Kim and he needed something to back up his claim and drive Kim from his position.

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Chapter 17. Contract labor Zhongyu searched Kim’s house inside out and took away all the books and official seals. Kim’s father, who could not stop the attack, almost fainted on spot. Not knowing what was going on, Kim stayed in Dayangshu for two days on his way back to the settlement. Once he saw what happened, Kim tried to recover everything. He called upon the brick maker and Black Face. Neither of them wanted to get involved. Siding with the wrong person might result in expulsion from the settlement. The only people Kim could count on were a few households from the West Point group, and yet they were too weak to fight for him. Once Dan’s men came, Kim promised them that they would be allowed to settle at the brigade once additional resident permits were issued, and their time would be compensated by work points. They went first to the home of one of Zhongyu’s followers. When he refused to tell where the stolen documents were, he was taken to Kim’s house. Kim then went to his sister’s house but was told that Zhongyu had gone back to Yanbian. In fact, he was hiding in the hills. At his house, Kim forced the captured man to kneel down and interrogated him, but without any result. He refused to tell anything except to say that Zhongyu was responsible for everything and he had the documents. The ex-soldier who came with Dan pulled out his leather belt and on orders from Kim, beat the man. He was eventually released, after kneeling for two full hours. The next day, Dan took his men to his own house, having in mind to treat them to lunch. He was shocked to find that his house was broken into and everything was stolen except a stone grinder. He suspected Zhongyu’s men, but it could have been anybody. In the cold harsh winter, the poor settlers needed food and other supplies. Dan and his men had to stay and eat at Kim’s house. After a couple of days, Kim let them go back to the farm since he could not afford to feed so many people. Dan stayed behind. Kim’s brother-in-law came out of hiding. He put the beaten man on a cart and sent him to the commune government, pretending that he was badly beaten and fainted away. Zhongyu also told the commune leaders that Dan should be held responsible for the beating. That very day, the commune government sent ten militiamen to arrest Dan and to summon Kim and his father to the commune for explanations. The ten men with guns made quite a scene at the settlement. Most people thought that it was the “Mountain Clearing Team” again and ran for the hills. Zhongyu, who personally led the militia here, seized the moment to show off his power. It was a statement that the commune government backed him, not Kim. Dan happened to be out borrowing grain from a West Point

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Engineering Communist China family. Once he learned of the order to arrest him, a few hours later, he volunteered to go to the commune, even though most people around advised him to run away. By the time Dan reached the office, the Kims had reported what had happened and explained that Dan had nothing to do with the incident. The official was not the rude type that tended to take positions as lower level cadres; he listened to Dan’s explanations and took a few notes. As they were talking, the doctor who examined the so-called wounded man came in and reported that he was faking it. The official advised Dan to report to the public security bureau in Hongyan to recover his stolen property. The case was decided in his favor. Kim went with Dan to Hongyan, about seven miles away. It was dark already. Near the train station, they found the public security office and reported the robbery; Dan was asked to make a list of his clothes, quilts, amount of grain and other personal belongings. He was also told to not to remove all the evidence and that the police would start investigations as soon as possible. Nothing happened for the next week. In fact, the case was dropped. Dan had nothing left at the Korean settlement and almost nothing to do, so he went back to the reed farm. To his surprise, his team had finished the reed cutting job, under Buffalo and the Chian brothers, in twenty days instead of thirty. Most other teams were far from finished. The farm officials were so impressed that they offered Dan another contract, this time to dig drainage ditches around the farm. While other men were leaving when their jobs were completed, Dan’s seventy-some men continued to be employed. For the next two months Dan enjoyed his leadership position, feeling for the first time that he was respected again. Buffalo, the Wang Brothers, and the Chian brothers remained loyal and reliable. He invited Head Zhang and his friend to dinner twice to repay his debts. Without these two men, Dan might not have gotten the contract in the first place. They too left the farm once the job was done and went on to other places that needed laborers. By March 1974, there was no more work at the reed farm. Dan paid the labors after deducting all the food expenses and 100 yuan for the Korean Brigade. On average, the migrants netted 70 yuan per person and Dan got a little more. Dan’s men looked to him for more opportunities, but he had nothing to offer. The ten people who had gone with him to the Korean settlement could not count on Kim’s promises anymore. The commune was upset over the family intrigues and refused to issue more resident permits; further development was impossible. More than half of the seventy men went their separate ways.

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Chapter 17. Contract labor For the rest, about thirty men, Dan found jobs in the minority village near the Korean settlement. Accompanied by his Beijing friends, Dan paid a couple of visits to the village leader and found that they needed more men than Dan could supply. Most settlers or migrants, who were Han Chinese from northern China, preferred other places. Buffalo liked the easy money and stayed in the village. Dan went back to his house in the Korean settlement and kept in close touch with Buffalo and his men at the minority village.

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CHAPTER 18: MOUNTAIN CLEARING TEAM After coming back from the reed farm, Dan stayed at the Korean settlement for two more years. By the spring of 1976, there were more than 30 households and about 100 people. People like the brick maker and Black Face had paid their settlement fees in full. In other settlement areas, it was more or less the same. More and more people were trying to make their way, out in the frontier region, and they came from all over China. The whole year of 1975 was uneventful. Dan began to enjoy the pastoral life. Only the Mountain Clearing campaign lurked as a menace in the background. It was made into a yearly event. Every late spring, when the plowing season had passed, the commune would organize a team of young men to search for illegal settlers. Most members of the Mountain Clearing Team were chosen from local ethnic minorities. The majority of the new settlers were Han Chinese, and ethnic rivalry fanned the flames of the campaign. The members of this team would use their own horses and were reimbursed for their time and expenses with work points at their villages. However, the situation was complex; there was more to it than locals vs. outsiders, or government vs. illegal settlers. On the one hand, the issuing of resident permits acknowledged that there was a shortage of manpower and hence actually encouraged poor peasants to settle in the frontiers. Following the border war with the Soviet Union in 1969, the need for border defense also called for more population into this area. The locals had an incentive to employ these poor peasants as a source of cheap labor. During the busy seasons, every household there employed two or three blind migrants. Even some members of the Mountain Clearing Team hired people they were supposed to expel. Dan was

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Engineering Communist China on good terms with the village leaders, who would leak the dates of the Mountain Clearing operations in advance so that people could hide. Blind migrants in northeast China fulfilled important economic functions and could not, in fact, be chased away without consequences. But on the other hand, the government cracked down hard on migrants without proper papers. The policy made little sense because there was still vast amount of land available and the frontier region needed further development. Most of the migrants were only looking for work; they were by no means fugitives or ex-prisoners. Perhaps the chaotic situation due to the Cultural Revolution might explain the lack of a coherent policy. The government inherently distrusted anything initiated by the people, such as a spontaneous migration into the northeast frontiers. Political reliability seemed to be given priority over economic benefits. Then again, that rationale of the Cultural Revolution was, “Politics Takes Command.” It only encouraged organized migration. For example, the entire middle school graduating class in 1969 was sent to the Production and Construction Corps in the frontiers regions. These youngsters enjoyed good pay and good living conditions, which cost the government dearly; it cost nothing to encourage peasant migrants. In the spring of 1975, the Mountain Clearing was a routine phenomenon like any in previous years. Settlers without permits hid in the mountains, with the help of Kim’s timely tip off. Most of them survived without serious losses. However, in 1976, the government adopted a new policy. A deputy party secretary of the commune was put in charge of the Mountain Clearing operation. Having just been promoted to second in command, he was eager to establish a good record. In particular, he vowed to keep the Five Elements, class enemies, away from this area. In the past the government had sent a team of horsemen to various settlements to warn the illegal settlers and burn down their homes. Bulldozers were used to level their crops. But when the government men were gone, most of the illegal setters would return from their hideouts, rebuild their homes and salvage what they could. Most of them had sold everything they had in their original villages and had no choice but to stay on, hoping that they would be given resident permits soon. Luckily for these people, there were plenty of trees around and building a home was relatively easy. This time, however, the government set up a Mountain Clearing Group in each settlement and the head of each one was appointed by the commune. Their job was to investigate the situation first and to find out the exact number of

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Chapter 18: Mountain Clearing Team illegal settlers. These groups would stay in the settlements until all the illegal settlers were cleared. Only those who went deeper into the mountains were to be pursued by the mounted team. The man sent to the Korean settlement to head up the Mountain Clearing Group was a Beijing youth from the minority village nearby. Of the twelve Beijing students who settled there, he was the most unpopular and was called Diehard, meaning a 100% revolutionary rebel. Back in Beijing, he was known for smashing government property and for physically attacking officials accused of being capitalists. When he came down here, Diehard got involved in local politics. Peasants, especially minority peasants, were not interested in the Cultural Revolution and all the radicalism; Diehard thought that it was his duty to stir things up. He took the lead by publicly disgracing the previous commune party secretary. Known for his brutality and insincerity, Diehard had no friends. Most of the Beijing youngsters refused to participate in the Mountain Clearing operations because the job was so cruel, but Diehard volunteered. It was said that Diehard was actually a coward. Once he was driving an ox cart back to the village in the evening, and a big dog started following the cart. He thought it was a wolf and beat the ox with a stick; but the ox just ambled along as usual. To protect himself, Diehard poked the stick into the backside of the ox, and the hurt animal started to run wild. They got to the village in no time and he started shouting: “Help! Wolf! Help!” Villagers came running, only to discover one of their own dogs following Diehard — who had wet his pants. He was reprimanded for mistreating public property (the ox) and became a laughing stock in the village. Perhaps he meant to clear his reputation by showing valor in the Mountain Clearing Team. Zhongyu, Kim’s brother-in-law, also joined the team at the Korean settlement, perhaps partly because he was a party member. He reported to the commune a detailed list of people considered to be illegal settlers and the fact the Kim helped illegal migrants to avoid Mountain Clearing Teams. Kim, as brigade leader for this settlement, was not made a member of the Mountain Clearing Group. His omission was seen as a sign that he had fallen out of favor with the commune leaders. This helped shift the balance of power toward Zhongyu. The commune wanted to expel the households without resident permits. However, most households were doubled up on permits that, strictly speaking, were supposed to register only one family. Was this legal or illegal? It was up to the

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Engineering Communist China interpretations of men like Diehard and Zhongyu. The policy left room for all sorts of personal relationships, corruption and abuses. All of Zhongyu’s people, five households and five single men, were registered on two permits, legally as two big families. The five young men were brothers and cousins with the same surname. A loose interpretation would easily qualify them as one family. However, of the other five families, only two were headed by two brothers, each having a family of seven people. These people knew that even though Zhongyu was a member of the Mountain Clearing Group, Diehard could decide if their papers were in violation of the government policies. The two brothers each had a daughter about 18 or 19 years of age. As soon as Diehard entered the settlement, they noticed his interest in their girls. Young girls of marriageable age were a very rare find in the mountains. The frontier was a wild world for men, especially young men, to try their fortune. Older men tended to come here with their families. Nobody knew exactly what happened between Diehard and these families but the fact that the girls cooked for Diehard every time he was in the settlement indicated a very special relationship. Perhaps upon a suggestion from Zhongyu, Diehard even made the two girls’ fathers members of the Mountain Clearing Group three days after it was organized. The Mountain Clearing campaign was turning into an anti-Kim campaign. Kim was powerless to protect the settlers who had registered with him and were awaiting resident permits. Some of them had already paid token fees as deposits. Kim was disheartened and discussed with Dan the possibility of moving out to establish a new settlement further into the mountains. He had a Korean friend who settled in a place about sixty miles south under the jurisdiction of E Lun Chun minority county. According to Kim, the settlement was a failure because most people were not able to tolerate such hard work. Only three households remained. However, there were more black fungi and more trees than at Kim’s current settlement. Many people fell victims to the Mountain Clearing campaign. But Black Face, who betrayed Kim and went over to Zhongyu’s side, was the worst victim. Having a resident permit already in hand and solidified a relationship with Zhongyu, he was very confident of his security. And yet, Zhongyu had never liked him, and moreover he coveted the seven acre terrain, the largest patch of land in the whole settlement, that Black Face and three other households owned. Most families had barely an acre.

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Chapter 18: Mountain Clearing Team While Diehard played cards with the girls all day, Zhongyu and the girls’ fathers were actually in charge of the Mountain Clearing. One day, Zhongyu sent one of his people, now deputized as a militiaman, to Black Face’s house, telling him and that he would be among the first to be cleared out; he was given three days to leave. Black Face was shocked and protested violently, arguing that he had a resident permit. He also pointed out that Zhongyu’s men had arrived much later than he did and yet they were added to the militia team to expel others. Black Face and his friends refused to go. Two days later, Zhongyu led his so-called militiamen to Black Face’s house and forcefully took away all the food supply. Black Face and his wife fought them ferociously, but it was no use. That evening, his whole family cried together. They had three little children. Kim did not show up, since he resented Black Face for his betrayal. The brick maker and other families tried to comfort him and encouraged him to appeal to the commune officials. The next day Zhongyu’s men came again with a cart. After they smashed all the windows and doors, they threw Black Face’s luggage and belongings onto the cart and then pushed the children aboard and drove off in the direction of the railroad station. Black Face gave up and ran after them. Dan saw Black Face begging the militiamen to stop, and then covering his children with straw to protect them from the freezing weather. Escorted by three militiamen, Black Face and his family had to go through the commune town in order to get to the train station ten miles away. By a stroke of luck, Black Face saw a man dressed in a standard cadre suit. Not knowing that this man was the party secretary of the commune, Black Face and his whole family got off the cart and knelt down in front of him, crying and pleading for justice. The scene attracted a big crowd. The party secretary had to stop and ask what was going on. Black Face told him his version of the story. After it was confirmed by the records, the party secretary met with the deputy secretary and forced him to right the wrongs, and all decisions regarding the Korean settlement expulsions were ordered to be reviewed. The party secretary personally ordered the militiamen to help Black Face back to the settlement. As this was going on in the afternoon, Dan was called into Zhongyu’s house. There, Diehard informed Dan in the name of Mountain Clearing Group that he had to pack up and return to where he came from. Although both were from Beijing, they were on opposite sides. Also present in the same house were Zhongyu’s men who did not even have clear and legal resident permits. Dan argued, but to no avail.

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Engineering Communist China He and Kim sensed that there was no point in confronting Diehard because he was merely carrying out orders from the commune. As Dan went back to his house, he was surprised to find Black Face and his family returned. Once he learned what had transpired at the commune, Dan was extremely relieved since he, too, was a legitimate resident. Black Face’s whole family cried in front of their ruined house and wondered how they could spend the night in cold March weather. He cursed Zhongyu as a faithless and heartless bastard. His own behavior had actually been no better when he betrayed Kim; however, Dan was sympathetic to the family, especially the three children. He let Black Face use his house for the next few days and he stayed at Kim’s place. Black Face was so grateful that he confessed having spoken ill of Dan and Kim behind their backs; now, he promised to be a loyal friend forever. Dan had no time to listen to him. To get an official explanation of his legal status, Dan went to the commune and met with the deputy party secretary. He was horrified to find that the commune official was on the side of Diehard. Having nothing to lose anymore, Dan argued with him. But he was adamant about removing anyone with a dubious past. Under the circumstances, Dan’s only hope seemed to be to go with Kim to establish a new settlement. He went to the general store and bought some daily necessities before returning to the settlement. When he met Kim, there was more bad news. One of the young men Kim had sent to the reed farm had been captured by Zhongyu. Because he did not have a resident permit, it was almost certain that Diehard would expel him. Far worse, Zhongyu had questioned him about the reed farm operation, hoping to get some evidence of financial wrongdoing. The young man was seriously beaten and hanged up from the rafter. Dan and Kim saw no hope of regaining influence at the Korean settlement. Furthermore, they concluded that Diehard and Zhongyu were colluding to frame them with something. The sooner they got away, the better. The next morning, Kim and Dan set out to the failed Korean settlement sixty miles to the south. They walked for several hours along a valley. There were a few burned down houses here and there along the road. But there was no major settlement in these mountainous areas. By the evening, they came to a fire station. There was a row of red brick houses and a tractor parked in front of them. The fire station chief was a good friend of Kim’s and received them warmly. The station was set up to deal with forest fires and was staffed with eight people. Most of the rooms were used to

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Chapter 18: Mountain Clearing Team store their equipment and all of the eight people slept in one room. The host invited them to a modest dinner of noodle soup and steamed bread. Vegetables especially were in short supply in this area. Dan and Kim had had nothing to eat for the whole day and they finished more than their share of the food. Except for the lack of vegetables, life at this small fire station seemed to be quite good. The next morning, before they resumed their journey, the fire chief gave them a good stash of steamed bread for lunch and also warned Kim to watch out for black bears, wolves and wild boars. Dan picked up a thick stick, but Kim was not afraid. According to him, the wolves rarely bothered with humans because there were plenty of rabbits and pheasants available. As for bears, so long as humans ignored them, they would not attack first. (And if they did, a stick or even a gun was no use.) Again, they walked for a whole day. There was no road. They had to pick their own way along the valley. It was completely dark by the time they reached a town called Xiao Er Gou. Xiao Er Gou meant Second Ditch. The town was inhabited by a variety of minority groups, Da Wo Er, E Lun Chun, E Wen Ke, in addition to Han Chinese. The most attractive buildings belonged to the government’s Forest Bureau. Not only were their houses impressive but they had their own power generators, a status symbol. The commune office, by contrast, was a shabby wooden house, no better than other residential houses. They walked through the main street and reached a shallow, fast flowing river about a mile out of town. Kim seemed to know his way in the dark, and the two of them took off their shoes and waded across the river. It was more than 100 yards wide, bitterly cold, and reached thigh level. Their pants and jackets were all wet. Once on the other side, they took off their clothes and squeezed out the water. They walked as fast as they could to keep from freezing. They continued walking for another hour until they got to a house by a small river. The owner was a Korean, Kim’s friend. The first thing to do was to heat up their clothes by the stove. The man was the head of the Korean settlement and was a drunk — and that is why the settlement was a failure. They did not talk much and squeezed onto the bed right away, warming up and quickly falling asleep. The next morning, Kim and Dan toured the place. It was indeed beautiful and promising. It was a small basin with about 40 acres of flat land and a river full of fish. Beyond the basin were high mountains covered with trees. Except two Korean families, nobody else lived in this area. Between the small plain and the mountains was a dirt road used by forest workers who rode horses into the

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Engineering Communist China mountains. Occasionally, a truck carrying logs would come out of the mountains and go in the direction of Second Ditch. Although Dan agreed to settle down here, he still had a number of questions — first and foremost, how to deal with Mountain Clearing campaigns. Kim was confident that they would be the pioneers and leaders of the new settlement and that he would win the backing of the commune party secretary. Then he explained why the present settlement had failed. Other Korean families were disgusted with the behavior of the drunkard leader, and so was the commune party secretary. As a result, no more resident permits were issued and the settlement came to a stop. Kim had a strategy to convince the commune leaders to support his efforts. Since only potatoes, wheat and soybeans were grown in this area, rice was in high demand and would be a welcome addition. The local people did not know how to grow rice. Once such a plan was presented to the commune, it would guarantee their enthusiastic support. They went straight to the commune in the late morning. In the office, Dan was struck by a slogan which read: “Special Good News: Deng Xiaoping, the biggest capitalist inside the Party is relieved of his position.” Nobody, not even the commune officials, seemed to care about the news. But Dan knew that Deng Xiaoping was viewed by most people as a moderate, as opposed to the Gang of Four, the radicals. In 1974, Mao had called Deng back from exile and given him power for just two years. But now he had fallen out of favor again. Being out on the frontier for a couple of years, Dan rarely had the opportunity to read newspapers. Whoever was in charge, he would still be a social outcast. But with their emphasis on class struggle, the Gang of Four would certainly make life more unbearable for people like him. The commune party secretary was a member of one of the ethnic minorities. However, he spoke Chinese very well and he appeared to be a reasonable man. Kim introduced himself first, as a Korean minority, and this seemed to have an immediate effect. Minorities enjoyed a special preferential status in terms of government policy. The party secretary, a minority man himself, stood up from behind his desk and shook hands with Kim and Dan. Kim also introduced Dan as a college graduate, a highly respected person and rare in this area. The secretary was so thrilled to hear Kim’s plan to produce rice that he promised to support their settlement with all his power. He also told Kim that his commune would not tolerate any blind migrants coming into this area because this was a forest region with strict fire regulations. An uncontrolled population and vagabonds would be more likely to cause trouble; however, those

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Chapter 18: Mountain Clearing Team who wanted to develop agriculture and who would obey fire prevention regulations would be welcome. The conversation was a great success and Kim and Dan went back to prepare to relocate. When they returned, the Mountain Clearing was still going on. As before, the campaign was characterized by many tragic events. Stories of suicides by hopeless peasants circulated among the settlers. These fears, in fact, would make Kim and Dan’s plan more attractive to poor peasants. Dan was to organize a group of people to develop the new place first. Kim had a family and his father to support. Once the new settlement was put in good order, he would relocate with the rest of the families who were willing to go along. Dan kept his activities secret from Zhongyu and Diehard, contacting only those who were most trustworthy. Three men at East Point, who had gone with Dan to the reed farm and now were close friends, were invited. The brick maker was not. For one thing, he had a large family, not easy to move; for another, he had failed to support Kim during the dispute with his brother-in-law. Neither did they trust Black Face anymore. Among Dan’s men from the reed farm, he selected his prisonmate Buffalo, the two Chian brothers, the three Wang brothers and the ex-soldier who worked for Dan. They were working in that nearby minority village and were easily organized. As tough and single men, they needed no time to prepare for the new venture. They simply packed up and left for the new place only three days after getting the word. The eleven frontiersmen walked for more than thirty hours and without much sleep — it was too cold at night to sleep anywhere. They trusted Dan and placed their faith in the new commune’s desire for rice to safeguard their future. When they finally arrived, Dan gave some of their grain to the Korean drunkard as a token of gratitude for his support. Although he was in charge of this failed settlement, his family was not doing very well. Dan advised him to stop drinking, but the man could not. At least, he never interfered with Dan’s plan. The newcomers were free to do whatever they wanted. There were some poorly built houses, or rather sheds, still standing and also a couple of homes that had been burned down by the Mountain Clearing Teams. Dan and his men moved into these houses temporarily. Since every man had some money and no family burden, they could endure a few months without any income. Good thing — it was already late August, too late to grow anything. Dan planned two rows of houses in a flat area and everybody was given a large piece of land to build on. They were identical in size and included large front yards. He asked them to build as many houses as possible before the cold winter

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Engineering Communist China set in. Once the houses were built, each man would be responsible for clearing land for himself. That ought to give them all the incentive to work hard. Unlike building a house, no cooperation was really needed in opening up new land. Thus, after assigning the work, Dan left for a week to deal with his illegal status caused by the Mountain Clearing Group at the Korean settlement. In the political system there was a process called Shangfang, meaning appealing to higher authorities. For those who had suffered injustice, such a process theoretically allowed them to take their grievances to higher levels of government for redress. At the provincial level, a specific government office was created to receive people with grievances. If a case was serious enough, the higher authority might send a team of investigators to look into it and come up with appropriate solutions. However, since these offices were flooded with people who suffered at the hands of lower level officials, it was impossible for such a system to solve even a tiny percentage of the problems and abuses reported. Normally the provincial authorities would send these cases down to county level governments that in turn would send them down the commune level. Ironically, it was often the people who committed crimes or abuses who were charged with solving these problems. Instead of righting wrongs, the local governments very often dealt with the cases in a half-hearted manner. There was another aspect to this. At various levels of government, most officials belonged to an informal network where everyone owed everyone else a favor. They might be old classmates, colleagues, distant relatives and people who shared mutual friends. Given the fact the Chinese culture placed so much emphasis on personal relationships, it was next to impossible for these officials to punish each other for the sake of poor peasants or ordinary people. There was no incentive for the officials to offend their colleagues who might one day render them valuable services. From ancient China to the contemporary era, that has always been the norm. Once in a while, there might a be an official like that idolized Bao Zheng, a Song Dynasty judge who sentenced the emperor’s son in law to death and who earned his reputation as an absolutely upright and honest person. Even that was as much a literary creation as history. There was, however, an eventual mechanism that prevented the most serious abuses from going unchecked. If the number of people appealing to higher authorities or the number of reported abuses reached critical mass, the abuser might eventually lose his job. But for the most part, such an appeal process rarely worked.

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Chapter 18: Mountain Clearing Team In spite of Dan’s legal resident status that should have been recognized by any local government in China, the commune officials backed Diehard and declared him persona non grata. This was a blatant violation of government regulations regarding resident status. Dan decided to take his case to the provincial government and to apply pressure on the commune to correct its mistake. The provincial government was in Harbin. From Second Ditch, Dan caught a once-a-day bus to Muoqi. From there, he walked several miles to the train line, and eventually made it to Harbin. The provincial government was called the Provincial Revolutionary Committee. Dan was directed to the Appeals Office, located in a different part of the city. Finally, Dan found the place in a small alley. The reception rooms were extremely crowded, some groaning and weeping, others staring hopelessly at the wall. Every one seemed to have a tragic story to tell. Dan was curtly informed by the clerk that only poor and lower-middle peasants were received. Five Elements (class enemies, in other words) were not welcome. And ex-prisoners were, generally speaking, included in the Five Elements category. It was useless to appeal again. Dan was reminded of his proposal to the central government in 1962, when he raised the problem of bureaucratic and corrupt officials. Apparently, he had been on target even more than he knew in calling for reform. However, by now he felt helpless to do anything about it; he couldn’t even reform his own status. Legal resident or not, he was comforted by the fact that he was welcomed by the new commune and the failure to appeal was not the end of life for him. Off he went, back to the new settlement. He took a train to Dayangshu and then walked for two days and nights to the new home. To his surprise, one house had already been built and his men were working on the second one. Everyone was giving his best effort, working from early morning till dark. Nobody uttered a word of complaint. In the next few weeks, something new was added to this group of single men. The oldest of the Wang brothers and one of the Chian brothers went back to their hometowns to fetch their parents. Chian’s mother and Wang’s father came. The old lady still had partly bound feet. When the communists liberated her village she was not yet fully grown, and she was urged to let loose her feet; the communists were against the oppression of women. As a result, her feet were neither tiny nor as large as those of the post-liberation generation. She had suffered a great deal since the Chian brothers left the village. For one thing, she had to appear before the frequent struggle meetings to be denounced as the wife

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Engineering Communist China of a landowner. Now, she found the new settlement a gift from heaven. She happily took up cooking for these hardworking men. Once everything was in good order, Dan went back to the old Korean settlement to harvest his corn. While he was there, Dan learned that his status had been restored and Kim had regained the confidence of the commune leaders. During the Mountain Clearing campaigns, Kim had been suspected of taking money from would-be settlers without giving them actual resident permits; but the commune found no evidence in the books. Indeed, few people had money to pay him. As a result, Kim continued to be the brigade leader and Zhongyu was totally discredited. Now, Kim had no incentive to move to the new place. Meanwhile, Dan had nothing to connect him to the old settlement and, more important, he felt responsible for the ten men who had gone there with him. He and Kim parted company. Before he left, the news of Mao Zedong’s death reached this remote frontier settlement. Diehard, although he had finished his Mountain Clearing job already, was sent by the commune to organize memorial services. According to commune orders, women made white flowers for each person attending the funeral service. About thirty people at the settlement participated in the service. Like hundreds of millions of people in other parts of China, they stood in silence for three minutes. Many people wept. However, Dan had no tears for Mao. He no longer felt he was part of anything going on in the society. The only thing on his mind was to develop his own community, far removed from politics. Diehard wanted to stay on at the settlement. However, the commune never approved his request. Once the Mountain Clearing was done, nobody at the settlement showed any interest in him. Zhongyu became an ordinary member, ignored and despised by Kim. Of course it was the two pretty girls that attracted Diehard; however, their parents ignored him as well, and let it be known that anybody who wanted to marry their daughters would have to pay 2000 yuan. Eventually, Diehard returned to the minority village and became an ordinary peasant. His Mountain Clearing efforts had brought misery for Black Face, Dan and a couple of other families. But in the end, except for one family that left permanently, the others all weathered the storm and their lives improved. For Dan, life was starting to look up.

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CHAPTER 19: EXONERATION Mao’s death was followed one month later in October 1976 by the arrest of the Gang of Four, the radical group including Mao’s wife that was responsible for most of the abuses of the Cultural Revolution. The military coup that caused their downfall was hailed as the October Revolution, like the Russian Revolution in 1917. This was indeed an epoch making historical event and a turning point in modern Chinese history. Ideology-laden radicalism was reversed in favor of a pragmatic approach to economic development that in turn caused the demise of the entire communist economic system in the 1990s. The arrest of the Gang of Four triggered a spontaneous celebration throughout China, for people resented the endless political campaigns, the shortage of food and reduced living standard that were all attributed to radicalism. When the news of Gang of Four’s downfall came, Dan was on his way from the Korean settlement to the minority village. First, he paid a visit to the principal of the village school, a 25-year-old married to a Beijing girl. It was not uncommon for such a marriage between locals and Beijing youth. He was admired by the villagers as a lucky man. His father was a Dawuer but his mother a Han Chinese. As always, Dan was warmly received by the school principal. While they were talking, a young Beijing man who had become a production team leader, came over and insisted on treating Dan to dinner. He had been in the village for seven years and married a Dawuer girl. By now they had a baby girl already and lived in a big house. He and Dan had met during the reed-cutting days; every time Dan passed through the village, he would spend the night at his house. The wife cooked several dishes, and three bottles of hard liquor were put on the table. They were joined by the school principal and the

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Engineering Communist China head of the village. Dan knew that the minority people here were hospitable, and the only way to show friendship was by drinking. As a guest, it was impolite to refuse their offer. In this large village, there were three production teams and all of them were prospering. The village leader was a very popular man. But Dan was rarely treated to such a lavish dinner and was a bit puzzled. Given his official status as a social outcast, Dan felt especially honored by their hospitality. The host first proposed a toast for Dan, saying that this was an important day for him. Then he told Dan that they had heard from a foreign radio station that the Gang of Four was arrested. This was stunning news. Maybe all the urban officials who were wrongly accused and banished, including Dan, would be rehabilitated and allowed to return to the cities. Dan was grateful and deeply moved by their good wishes; he had not seen a newspaper for a long time and had no idea what was going on in Beijing. They showed their trust by telling him news of such magnitude, especially when it was not official yet. The fact that he was from Beijing was enough to add weight to his opinions and they were keen to hear what he thought of this. After dinner, they all went to the principal’s house to listen to the short wave radio. With the principal’s wife standing guard at the door, they caught a Japanese station. It reported that a gun fight had taken place inside the compounds of Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party headquarters, and two people were wounded during the arrest of the Gang of Four. It was clear and simple. Dan believed the news. Though he did not see much relationship between the downfall of the radicals and his own case, he nonetheless shared the hatred for radical government policies that in part were responsible for his fate. Anything that repudiated Mao’s radicalism was good news to him. A couple of weeks later, there was a nationwide celebration. But Dan was at the new settlement already and was not part of it. Few people could comprehend what was going on in the country, and on the frontier especially, no one much cared. Dan’s new life resumed. In the spring and summer, they cleared more land and grew corn. In addition, they went into the mountains and set traps to catch animals. Fish were easy to catch and added protein to their diet. Now Dan and his men concentrated their energies on building homes for themselves. The most serious challenge was how to grow rice in the cold climate. Dan was allowed to stay in the area because he had promised to bring rice cultivation to this region; their success was vital. The first thing they did was to block water

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Chapter 19: Exoneration from a brook right by their settlement and create a small reservoir. From there, they cut a few openings to direct water to the rice fields. Next, they bought rice seeds. The Koreans were well known for their expertise in rice farming, so Dan sought out a Korean settlement twenty miles away and sent one of his men to purchase the needed seeds. However, they were cheated by a middleman and ended up with nothing but a sack of poor grain. So far, the pool was doing better as a fish farm than a rice paddy. In fact, it attracted outside people to fish and buy from them. There were basically two kinds of people who came to the settlement area — hunters and officials, especially from the Forest Bureau. The hunters, minority folk who passed through on horseback, they would leave their guns outside as a courtesy to the host and would bring gifts or liquor or leave something in exchange for the fish. By contrast, the officials often demanded good meals and a feast of fish, but rarely paid anything. Dan’s people often gave the officials the cold shoulder. Once, the head of the commune militia department came. Most of Dan’s people left their homes when they saw the approaching horses. When he was asked to prepare some fish, Dan said that he did not know how to cook and offered only two dry fish (usually used for feeding dogs). The militia head was so angry that he threw the fish on the ground and left. In the summer of 1977, Dan wrote a long letter to Hua Guofeng, Mao’s successor and head of the government. There were many notable policy changes at the central government aiming at reversing the Cultural Revolution. The college entrance examinations, abolished since 1966, were restored and gave hope to millions of young people with educational aspirations. Dan thought that it would not hurt anything to make an appeal. The long letter detailed his case and asked for redress. Maybe, by going to the highest authorities, he could catch some attention. Six months later, when Dan had given up hope, the local commune government sent for him; perhaps to discuss rice production. To his great surprise, Dan learned that it was about his letter. This was in January 1978. Dan was pleased to get any response, whether he would be exonerated or not. The mere fact that the government was willing to hear his case after fifteen years of suffering made him a happy man. They did indeed talk about rice production, but the main topic was his letter to Hua Guofeng, or Chairman Hua as he was called. His appeal, the commune leader told Dan, had been referred to the Inner Mongolia government, which in turn referred it to him. The officials at the provincial and country levels did not know how to deal with it. Nor did he, as a commune leader. However, he

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Engineering Communist China was willing to write official letters on Dan’s behalf and assist him in his effort to solve this problem. Though nothing substantive came from this conversation, Dan got more than he expected. He and the party secretary became very good friends and spent considerable time discussing how to reverse radical policies. Dan had evolved from class enemy to cherished guest. Now that he was supported by the local government, Dan decided to personally appeal his case to anyone who would listen. In the spring, he first went to the county government. There he had a long talk with the head of the organization department. She patiently explained that her department dealt only with cases that had originated in the county. The decision to punish him was made in the army and she suggested that Dan go directly to Beijing. Again, like the commune leader, she offered advice and assistance if necessary. Again, Dan felt grateful. In the summer and fall, Dan was busy. When winter arrived, he went back to Beijing. His parents were getting old but were still in good health. Only the news that Xiaolan was married weighed down on him. Dan did not contact her, and that was the end of the iron-tight committed couple. By now, Dan took it so calmly that there was no sense of tragedy, just a blank, emotionless occurrence. Perhaps that was the saddest part. The years of suffering and the passing of time had robbed them of their normal human emotions. Dan went to the Army’s Survey Bureau. At the gate stood two soldiers with rifles. Nothing much had changed. Dan brought a long letter and some documentation to the attention of an officer in the reception room. After reading his materials, the officer replied that the government had not issued any new policy regarding a case like Dan’s. They were only dealing with those who were wrongly punished during the Cultural Revolution. Dan’s case happened earlier, in 1963, outside their authority. However, the man took Dan’s address and told him that once there was encouraging news, he would be contacted. No matter how hard Dan tried to argue and explain his case, the officer showed no sign of sympathy and sternly told him to wait. The term exoneration, or rehabilitation, was catch word after the downfall of the Gang of Four. Perhaps millions of officials had lost their positions or been penalized in the ten year period. Many people lost their lives. Those who were imprisoned or lost their jobs were the lucky ones. Now, appeals were flying fast and furious as people sought to retrieve their positions — and their back salaries. Every government agency, especially the CCP’s Organization Department that dealt with high official cases, was crowded. Thanks to the new

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Chapter 19: Exoneration policy under Deng Xiaoping, thousands of wrongs were rectified, even those going back to the Anti-Rightist Campaigns. Even though Deng himself thought that some of the Rightists deserved the punishment, he could not stop the tide. But the appeals process could be slow and time consuming. Dan made a second try in 1979, and a third in early 1980. By accident, he came across a newspaper article exonerating Marshal Peng Dehuai, the former defense minister who was punished for opposing Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Dan could not believe his eyes. This was indeed the respected Marshall who spoke for millions of hungry people in China and thus earned their admiration. When Dan was arrested, he was called a little follower of Peng Dehuai because he also expressed views against the Great Leap Forward. He read the article several times. Then he sold some herbal medicine and black fungi for cash and boarded a train for Beijing. He went straight to the Survey Bureau. Besides the materials he had prepared last time, Dan now had the article on Marshal Peng. The Bureau must reverse the verdict, now. But he was told that the punishment for his mistakes was justified and there was no government document on which they could base the reversal of such a historical decision. The dumbfounded Dan fought the officer in charge and shouted: “You called me Peng Dehuai’s follower, didn’t you? That was my crime. Now Peng Dehuai is already rehabilitated. What he did was right, not wrong! What I did was also right! There was nothing against the Party, nothing against the government. Now you deny I am Peng’s follower? I am indeed. I am a member of Peng Dehuai’s clique! You have to correct my case!” Dan’s hysterical shouting did not move the officer in charge, but it did attract attention from several people in the reception room who were also there to appeal their cases. Dan was at a total loss. This might be his last chance. For a long time, he just stood by the gate. Finally, a man in his fifties came up to him and suggested that he tried the Central Military Commission, the highest military authority. The man was working at the Bureau when Dan was arrested and the whole Bureau knew his case. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, some 200 people from the Bureau were punished. He was one of them and was stripped of his rank and sent to work in a factory. He earned a meager salary of 45 yuan a month. Now, he and several others had come to demand exoneration and get their jobs back. They were met with resistance, at first, but their stubborn persistence forced the Bureau to change its policy. Now they were put in the Bureau guesthouse with free meals every day until a new job assignment could be made. He also

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Engineering Communist China mentioned, however, that the assistant director of the Bureau was the same person who had persecuted Dan in the first place. In his opinion, it was not likely that the Bureau would take a sympathetic look at his case. He advised Dan to report the assistant director to the Central Military Commission. Instead of being punished, this man was currently under consideration for a promotion. Once he was promoted, Dan’s case would meet more resistance. This was a godsend. Dan immediately went to the Central Military Commission. There were no armed guards at the gate. No sign indicating that it was the highest military authority. Dan patiently explained his case to a rather senior officer. He listened to the whole story and then asked Dan about the Survey Bureau’s attitude. The officer then suggested that Dan would be received differently — or he could report everything back to him. The next day, Dan went to his former Bureau again. Indeed, several officers came out to meet him and led him to a very nice office instead of the reception room. They half jokingly told Dan that he should not report his problem to the Central Military Commission; they would create a special investigative group for his case and asked him to wait for the verdict. A 180 degree change of attitude! When Dan explained that he had no place to stay, the officers somewhat reluctantly offered the Bureau’s guesthouse. Dan accepted the offer, and stayed for several months. His original verdict was overturned. He was given a piece of paper saying that the decision to penalize him was wrong and that he was restored to his former rank and salary. He was offered a job at the Academy of Agricultural Machinery, where he could apply his experience in tank manufacturing to the tractor industry. And there Dan remained until retirement. Just like that, he became a respectable engineer again, after a seventeen-year nightmare. Now eligible to marry — at least, to marry a woman who might be a bit past her prime and, like him, might have had a difficult past — he found a wife and had a son in the 1980s. After a few years, his wife took the boy and left for the US. Ever resilient, Dan re-married and enjoys a peaceful family life with his new wife and her son. Most cases of rehabilitation were accompanied by some kind of restitution, namely back salary. Most of the people Dan met at the guesthouse received whole sacks of cash from the bank. Dan did not get as much, as the government was not in a position to compensate people going back to early 1960s. Still, Dan did very well. During his tenure at the Academy, in the early 1990s, there was a

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Chapter 19: Exoneration nationwide craze to make money and Dan ventured into business. Entrepreneurs were very much encouraged by the government, and Dan prospered. He actually bought a car and ended up with an investment account worth more than $60,000. For a Chinese citizen, especially one who had missed the most productive part of his life, this was quite an achievement. Dan remains convinced that communism is based on the values of an equitable social system, but his faith in the system by which it was implemented was irreparably broken. He remains committed to the idea that if governments, as well as individuals, can learn from mistakes, there is always hope of recovery.

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