“Say everything definitely and clearly. How much, what, when, how will you pay?” This advice came from Team Leader Hou who interrupted now for the first time.
But Ch’un-hsi was unable to think in concrete terms.
“Surely I will repay the millet, and I beg your pardon,” he said in a voice choked with distress.
“What about the money then?”
“I spent the villagers’ blood so I must give it up.”
This well-intentioned offer turned out to be a mistake.
“You say that two of you spent the money. Why promise to pay all of it back by yourself. You aren’t sincere.”
This time the speaker was a woman from the Party members’ ranks. She sat very straight on the bench in front of us. The black hair that showed beneath the white towel on her head was bobbed, a very unusual style in Long Bow.
Ch’i Yun nudged me. “That’s Hu Hsueh-chen, leader of the Women’s Association.”
Ch’un-hsi, taken by surprise by the reverse twist in Hsueh-chen’s question, admitted, “Four of us spent the money.”
“Well then, say so. We only want the truth from you. We don’t want you to take the blame for what four people did.”
Having led himself into a corner by his eagerness to admit all charges and make good all wrongs, Ch’un-hsi had only himself to blame when the pressure against him increased. Once Hsueh-chen had exposed the fact that he “bowed with the wind” and did not always answer questions objectively, new questions came thick and fast. They ranged from the disposal of the tax grain to the accounts of the village consumer co-op, from a grindstone which Ch’un-hsi jointly owned with the co-op to the management of the Western Inn, that Mecca where cadres were wont to get a free meal. From the Western Inn, the barrage shifted to the Enlarge the Army Movement, in the course of which several “sour and slippery” dissidents were sent off to war and twice as much grain was collected for the send-off banquet as was spent on the affair. From the Enlarge the Army Movement the questioning jumped to the distribution of Church property and especially the disposal of such valuable things as candlesticks, white robes, and one enormous wool blanket that no one could ever forget.
When the sun reached its zenith, the meeting finally adjourned for lunch, but it reconvened as soon as everyone had eaten and continued as intensely as before.
“Why did you beat me?” “Why did you collect seven percent on the government seed loan?” “Did the Party tell you to oppress us?” “Do you know anything about Fu-kuei’s donkey?” “Why was Li Ho-jen sent off to join the Army?” “Are you speaking fine words now only to take revenge on us in the future?”
These and a score of other questions cascaded down upon the helpless Ch’un-hsi, who, because he was the first to come before the gate and because he had been village head, was expected to know everything and clear up everything, even matters in which he was not directly involved. He patiently answered every question, apologetically assumed responsibility, and methodically promised to make amends. The more the delegates pressed him the more he admitted and the more he promised.
Late in the afternoon the emphasis finally swung back to Ch’un-hsi’s personal record. The delegates asked him to tally up the total amount of the goods and property he had illegally taken. The list that he then ran through was pitifully small.
“Altogether I took BRC 9,000, eight pecks of millet, some shoes, a few clothes, four feet of cloth …”
Nobody questioned the amount or disputed the items.
“Will you be happy to give all this up?” asked Lao-szu.
“Yes,” said Ch’un-hsi. “Because in the past I had nothing to eat, and now since Liberation I have everything. In the past I was a bad laborer for the people. In the future, if you still want me, I will double my effort and become a good servant of the people.”
Because the sun was already bumping the rim of the hills in the West, Team Leader Hou intervened to conclude the session. “It is late,” he said. “Let us consider what we should do about this man.”
The delegates filed outdoors in order to be able to discuss their conclusions freely and immediately entered into hot debate among themselves.
“Two or three pieces of clothing! That’s not enough,” snorted Old Lady Wang, all primed for further battle.
But Old Tui-chin, the bachelor peasant, who was more and more emerging, by virtue of his extreme objectivity, as spokesman for the northern group, disagreed. “We don’t want the things. Our aim is to get him to admit his mistakes and speak the truth.”
At this, Old Lady Wang spat furiously on the ground. “Who can eat self-criticism?” she asked.
Delegate Spokesman Yang skillfully sidetracked a quarrel by proposing that they set a date on which Ch’un-hsi must give back all that he had illegally taken, and ask him to name what article of the Agrarian Reform Law he should be punished under.
The delegates quickly assented to this, more perhaps as a way to get home to supper than as a just solution to the problem, and filed noisily back into the room. There, with a hint of newly-acquired pomposity, Yang announced the collective decision.
“As for the gate, we must report back to the people and ask their opinion before it can be decided, but now we want you to say something about your future. You yourself can decide your punishment.”
Ch’un-hsi’s eyebrows almost met over his nose as he considered his sentence. “According to the rules inside the Communist Party I should be suspended for five months. If I should fail to correct my mistakes I should be thrown out by the Party and sent to the People’s Court for punishment. If the masses pardon me for my past crimes I shall do my best to turn over a new leaf. I am ready to receive your criticism. I wait patiently for the decision of the masses.”
With that the sesssion ended but not the day’s work.
***********
“He himself suggested five months’ suspension.”
“That’s no concern of ours, that’s inside the Party.”
“He should be punished according to law and sent to build the highway.”
“Send him to the People’s Court. Make him give back everything he grafted.”
So argued members of the southwest group of the Poor Peasants’ League as they gathered after dark in T’ai-shan’s mother’s sagging hut. Elated by their delegates’ report on the confrontation with Ch’un-hsi and dizzy with their new-found power, they had already persuaded each other to impose a vindictive punishment on the village head. They only disagreed as to the precise nature of that punishment.
Work team cadre Liang was disturbed by the rising spirit of revenge. He decided to temper enthusiasm with reason. In his quiet, persuasive way he took the floor. “The People’s Court is for serious cases that we cannot solve ourselves. As for Ch’un-hsi, his case is big, but not, in my opinion, big enough for that. Suppose you punish him severely? Are his crimes as big as those of others? Then what will you do with the others? Their punishment must be even more severe. I think it would be better to compare records. Let’s balance his crimes against those of others. Let’s consider his attitude. Did he speak frankly?”
Part of the problem was the assumption by most of the peasants that punishment within the Party had no meaning. In order to clear this up, Liang summarized the four grades of discipline inside the Party. These were (1) personal warning; (2) warning before the masses; (3) suspension; (4) expulsion. “To be expelled is the most serious punishment the Party can impose,” Liang explained. “It is just as serious as execution, for every Party member leads two lives, his social life and his political life. To kick him out of the Party is to kill one life.”
Liang’s explanation swayed the group. A more realistic discussion of Ch’un-hsi’s role followed. The peasants finally agreed that suspension from the Party would be a serious blow to the village head and recommended five months. They also decided that outside the Party he must pay back what he owed the public after the autumn harvest. His future—whether he would ever again be e
ligible to hold public office—would be determined by the way in which he behaved in the next few weeks.
This last point was most bitterly argued. Old Lady Wang joined the Catholic dissidents in the conviction that Ch’un-hsi should never again be allowed to be a cadre, but there were at least a dozen peasants who thought he had a good record on the whole and should be allowed to continue.
The very idea that the Poor Peasants’ League might actually allow Ch’un-hsi to serve as village head once more caused several Catholic peasants to lapse into moody silence. Liang sensed what was on their minds and tried to bring it out. “In the past many members of our group wanted to beat the bad cadres. But now it seems they have changed their minds and lean too far the other way. They think even to criticize is no use at all.”
“I have just such a thought now,” said Ch’ou-har’s wife, a white-haired woman who lived next door to Yu-lai. Her husband had been beaten by him, and she was both bitter and fearful.
“The reason you feel that way is because you have been beaten,” said Liang. “Now we oppose beatings and this makes people gloomy. They think it is no use. They think, ‘It will be just like last year; the men will speak out but everything will continue as before.’ That is quite natural. He beat you. You want to beat him. But that is feudal behavior. We are now in a new society. We must investigate facts and examine behavior. If the crimes are big enough, people will be sent to the court.”
But some were still not convinced.
“Only those who have been stung know the pain,” said a voice from the back of the room.
37
“I Dare Not Say I Have Finished”
It is inevitable in the course of inner-Party struggle for everyone to meet with correct or incorrect criticisms, attacks or even injustice and humiliation. This must be undergone by every comrade. It is not because our Party is merciless but because this is an inevitable phenomenon of the Party in the course of the class struggle. However, [some] comrades fail to take this into account; therefore, the moment they come across such phenomena they are surprised and feel exceptionally miserable and disheartened.
Liu Shao-ch’i
“TRAVEL PASSES ABOLISHED” “LOYANG LIBERATED AGAIN” read the headlines in the People’s Daily of April 11th. Before the second day’s proceedings began, Comrade Hou read both announcements and postponed his opening remarks long enough to give everyone a chance to discuss them.
The first news item concerned a step as important to the development of democracy in the villages of this area as was open Party membership. It was living proof, if proof were still needed, that the Communist Party and the Border Region Government really meant business. The right to withhold or grant permission to travel had put enormous social leverage into the hands of local cadres. Although security in wartime could not have been maintained without this leverage and without the cooperation of hundreds of thousands of children who enforced the pass system on the highways and byways, there was no question but that the regulations had often been abused. If the incursions of counter-revolutionary agents had been restricted, so too had the legitimate movements of normal dissidents and many honest peasants who, for one reason or another, had fallen out with the leaders of their village. To deny a travel permit had meant de facto denial of the right to appeal decisions made in the village. This was because all appeals had to be carried to the district or county seat and if the injured party was prevented from going there, there was no assurance that his appeal would ever see the light of day. Now if any person felt that he had been wronged he could himself take his case to the county Party secretary or the county magistrate or the People’s Court. He need not ask anyone’s permission, and nobody could stop him on the road. This was a great gain.
Like other gains it entailed a risk, the risk of uncontrolled counterrevolutionary activity. Many peasants immediately asked, “What’s to stop agents and disrupters now that everybody can come and go as he pleases?”
Hou told them that suspicious persons could still be legally detained and interrogated. The whole people must now be on the alert to help maintain security. They could not simply depend on the pass system, as before.
The second news item also stirred discussion. Loyang city—a former capital of ancient China—had been taken once in 1947 when Liu Po-ch’eng’s armies crossed the Yellow River on their way to the Yangtze Valley, but it was relinquished a few days later because the People’s Liberation Army did not have sufficient forces to hold it. Now it had been liberated once more, and for good. Chiang’s armies had retreated westward in disorder and would hardly be able to launch a successful offensive in the same area again. Since Loyang was only a few days’ journey to the south, its liberation heartened the people of the whole area.
The good news in the paper, coupled with the successful confrontation at the gate the day before, had raised morale noticeably in the village. People talked more, moved faster, ate more quickly, and got more done than they had a few days earlier.
***********
The rising morale was a lucky break for Man-hsi, who faced the delegates as soon as the discussion ceased. He was a very different type of man from the suspended village head, Ch’un-hsi. He had none of the natural poise or sophistication possessed by that leading cadre. On the contrary, he was a stolid, one might almost say dull-witted, peasant but strong as a Taihang Mountain ox. Even the thick cotton quilting of his black jacket could not conceal the bulging muscles in his arms or the enormous expansion of his chest. The padded winter clothes of North China made people look chunky whether they had any flesh on their bones or not. But Man-hsi’s powerful physique shaped his clothes and threatened to burst them. One look at him confirmed his reputation as the strongest man in the village. Yet he was by no means a giant. He stood a good three inches shorter than Ch’un-hsi and just reached my shoulder.
“They say he was very brave in the struggle!” Ch’i-yun said to me as we both made the most of our first real chance to study this “King of the Devils.” “‘Change of Sky’ thought never bothered him. He always took the lead in every attack!”
But this confrontation at the gate was something different. Now Man-hsi was called upon for introspection, and he was perplexed. A man of action, unaccustomed to speaking even at home, he looked at the rows of Party comrades in front of him and at the delegates in solid ranks behind and found it hard to begin. He stepped back, as if to sit down, glanced around for a word or sign of encouragment, but met only several score of eyes, most of them hostile, all of them stern, waiting for him to say something. This was surely the most difficult trial of his life. What he revealed at that moment was youth-fulness. He was, after all, only 23.
“My grandfather had six acres, eight sections of house,” he said, beginning on neutral ground. “My father had two and a half acres and four sections of house. He was a hired laborer and a poor peasant. He had to sell one acre in the famine year. After the Liberation I got land, and now we have five acres and five sections. Since that time I have been a new upper middle peasant …”
The delegates stirred uneasily. They knew his history as well, if not better, than he did himself. Why waste time with that? But no one spoke out, and Man-hsi went on, fumbling for words.
“When I was nine I studied two years in school. When I was young I stole a quilt from Kuei-hsing’s shop. After the Liberation …”
He was already lost, rambling from one thing to another.
“When you speak out wrongs you must also criticize your behavior,” said one of the Party members in an effort to encourage him.
“At that time I had no quilt and took one,” said Man-hsi, grasping at this early straw which really had very little to do with the case. “Later I was afraid I would be caught so I returned it. Now I know it was wrong to take the quilt. The village leader fined me.”
“You must confess honestly the behavior of your whole life, all the things you stole. You often stole things,” suggested another Party member.
“You can’t hope to conceal anything before the masses. We know what you did,” added a delegate in a tone designed more to intimidate than to encourage.
“Today is not your day. We are the masters now.”
“I’ll tell you everything I stole,” said Man-hsi.
His large black eyes set wide apart in a round, surprisingly honest face, cast desperately around the room for help.
“Even if you want to conceal something you can’t. You must admit all your crimes, not only the stealing.”
“I stole a pair of pants,” said Man-hsi. “And I stole more than two packs of hemp seed from Li Pao-chin’s house. Pao-chin’s wife found it out and went to Fu-yuan. I had to own up then and I returned the hemp.”
“I saw you steal that,” said Lao-pao. “If it hadn’t been for that, you would never have given it up.”
“Let him talk, let him say it himself,” admonished several other delegates, impatient with all the interruptions.
“I stole fruit from Fan Hsi-le at night, four or five times. I stole the fruit because I had no money. I ate Pao-chin’s mother’s fruit also. I said I would pay for it but I never gave her any money. I also stole garlic from Huai Lao-p’o’s mother’s garden.”
“Was it garlic or leeks you took?”
“I took both. That’s because I was a militiaman. I thought I could take anything I wanted. I took fruit from Yu-hsien many times. Once I went to Chang’s home to make a night-time check-up. I climbed a tree to pick some fruit and broke off a whole branch.”
“He’s always eating other people’s things,” said a delegate.
“That’s right, he’s just like a bear,” responded another.
“I must pay for all that now … Once, I can’t remember when, I went with Hu-le to open the door of the storehouse. As soon as we went in someone came. We ran out and each of us took a mirror. Whoever it was told Fu-yuan we had been there, and he accused us of stealing 80 catties of salt. Hung-er backed him up, but we didn’t know anything about the salt. Once I kept watch on the storehouse while K’uan-hsin went to take a letter to the County Office. Someone came and took a small box. I didn’t know about it, but later it was found under K’uan-hsin’s quilt.”
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