Fanshen

by Hinton, William ; Magdoff, Fred;

  “And there is another reason,” said Ch’en, again looking directly from man to man—across the whole group. “There are those who prefer to work outside in other villages because they fear they cannot pass the gate. But the spirit of the policy is to educate and help you, not to beat you down. Really, even though you work outside, you cannot escape the gate because in the end you must return to your own village. Anyone who would do otherwise is just an opportunist, even worse than the landlord who slips into our ranks to disrupt them. If a Communist cannot stand the examination of his own Party, how can he stand firm under the blows of the enemy? The purification is a sort of revolution within our own Party. It is inevitable that some will be left behind. There are always some who cannot keep up. That cannot be helped.

  “Suppose I buy a ticket and get on the train without giving a thought to my destination, but the train is on its way to Moscow, and when we pass Shanhaikuan and reach Siberia, I suddenly find I don’t want to go there. Of course I will try to jump off. It’s just the same with someone who joins the Party without any desire to serve the masses. When things get tough, he wavers. So you had better examine your aim now and decide whether you want to go to Moscow or New York. So do not complain if the Party examines you. It is just for this reason that the Party must be purified.”

  If the land reform cadres were Communists, they had to go forward and face the difficulties. I could sense, sitting in the midst of the audience in the temple, that his words had made an impression, that his challenge had been taken up. At the same time it was very clear that the basic frustration and confusion remained. The cadres were still unhappy. They did not intend to give up, but neither were they moved to sing as they worked. They were ready to put their heads down and plod like oxen. They were not ready to gallop forward like spirited horses.

  In the Secretary’s speech I found part of the answer to the question: Why didn’t the cadres give up and go home?

  They didn’t give up because the Communist Party held them together. In spite of mistakes and confusion, these men and women had faith in the Communist Party, they had faith in Mao Tse-tung, and they had faith that Mao and the Party would lead them through this period as they had led them through the Anti-Japanese War. The Party in its turn did not cast them out because they had made mistakes. It asked them to reform, to correct past errors, and it gave them a huge new job to do. It placed more responsibility on their shoulders, not less. Even though they did not see how the future would work out, even though they did not see how their dependents would live through the year, they resolved to prove their mettle in the face of all difficulties. They resolved to carry on with their work.

  ***********

  Even as the work team cadres made their way back to their basic villages in Lucheng County, the County Party Committee met to sum up and think through all the facts that had been brought to light at the Conference. As they laboriously pieced together the information available, they saw a new pattern emerging which must, if confirmed, alter still further the over-all estimate of conditions and consequently of the work to be done. The figures on land holding and property distribution brought in by the teams indicated that most of the land and property of the feudal classes had already been divided and that the majority of the poor peasants had already fanshened. Even in the worst organized villages of the Fifth District most families had enough land. If as many as 30 percent still needed other essentials, this high proportion was due to special circumstances. The real task therefore was not to launch a new land reform drive but to “fill holes” here and there, particularly the holes created by illegal expropriation, and to fill them moreover with what was available, rather than to seize more property from families as yet unharmed. An pu ting k’ulung (patch the holes according to the cloth on hand) was the principle to be followed. If there were not enough goods to make everyone a middle peasant, then there simply were not enough. There was no help for it. Some people would have to be satisfied with less.

  As this estimate emerged more clearly, the County Committee made several important decisions. First, they sent out word that all the villages should be reclassified as Type I—communities where the land reform had been successfully carried out. Second, they appropriated BRC 22,000,000 (U. S. $22,000) to be used to repay middle peasants who had been wrongly attacked, announced the appropriation to the teams, and asked for estimates of how much each “basic” village needed. Third, they reversed the decision concerning aid to full-time cadres’ families and ordered all team members to plant, hoe, and harvest their own crops by taking leave, when necessary, from public work.

  The first two decisions considerably eased the task of the work teams. The third, however, almost cancelled out any good done by the other two. When the cadres learned that they would not receive help at home after all, their morale was badly shaken and more people asked for immediate leave than could possibly be spared from the work.

  PART V

  Recapitulation

  Only through the people’s own struggles and efforts can their emancipation be achieved, maintained, and consolidated. It cannot be bestowed or granted by any outsider. Nor can it be fought for or secured through the efforts of anyone except the people themselves. Hence, an attitude of gratuitously bestowing emancipation on the masses or of fighting in their stead is wrong.

  Liu Shao-ch’i

  46

  The Native’s Return

  A tiger that has wounded too many men is liable to fall into a mountain ravine.

  Old Proverb

  THE SHARP-TONGUED old woman, Ch’ou-har’s wife, was preparing supper one April evening. The sun had already set, and the light in the sky was fading fast. In the courtyards of Long Bow dusk blurred vision even though, in the open fields, one could still see far into the distance. Ch’ou-har’s wife, impetuous by nature, fanned the straw fire in her stove a little too vigorously. Her fanning propelled a cloud of cinders and ashes up into her face. One hot ember found its way to her eye. She jumped to her feet and rushed for the door, rubbing her eyes with both hands as she went. She stumbled as she stepped over the sill and dropped her hands just in time to see a figure distinctly resembling Yu-lai come noiselessly through the courtyard gate. To her moisture-filled eyes it seemed to be floating above the ground. The hair stirred on the back of her head. Cold beads of sweat broke out on the skin up and down her spine. Was she not face to face with a ghost?

  The figure moved to Yu-lai’s own front door, glided over the sill, and spoke to the girl within. The sound of the voice that boomed across the courtyard convinced Ch’ou-har’s wife that this was no ghost, but Yu-lai himself, returned from jail. Better by far a ghost than that terrible man in the flesh, she thought. A new terror gripped her heart. She began to tremble from head to foot. A veritable deluge of sweat dampened her back. She turned and ran into her own house, crying, “Ch’ou-har, Ch’ou-har!”

  Ch’ou-har, startled, sat up on the k’ang.

  “Yu-lai has returned,” wailed his wife. “I am sweating all over. Feel it. Do you feel it here on my back.”

  Ch’ou-har felt his wife’s back and true enough, her tunic was wet clean through.

  When the white-haired old woman turned again to the stove she found that the millet in the pot was already burned.

  Ch’ou-har’s wife had good reason to be frightened. She had taken advantage of Yu-lai’s absence to exact revenge for the beatings his son had administered to Ch’ou-har in the past. In the process, she had not neglected to skim off a few advantages for herself. On the very day that the four men were taken away to jail she had started to assert herself in the courtyard and to strut like a peacock. She announced to Yu-lai’s daughter that her father would most certainly be executed. When the girl began to weep, the old woman plunged into further lurid predictions concerning the fate of the arch-criminal’s family, then feigned sympathy and announced that she would look after his luckless daughter if only the girl would give her something useful in return.

 
Yu-lai’s daughter was so shaken that she wept for the better part of three days. In the meantime, Ch’ou-har’s wife came and went in Yu-lai’s house as she pleased. She even went up in the loft and rummaged around. When she came down she demanded potatoes for her supper. When Yu-lai’s daughter refused, she swore and spread a rumor that the girl was as vicious as her father. Finally she ordered the bewildered youngster to spin some thread and, when the job was completed, refused to pay for it.

  Obviously, Ch’ou-har’s wife never expected to see Yu-lai again.

  When Yu-lai walked in, the sky fell down. Ch’ou-har’s wife decided to go back to her mother’s village, thereby putting 30 long li between herself and the vengeful ex-bandit. Her husband was of the same mind, but when they announced their decision to their neighbors, they found little support.

  “If you go back to Chao Settlement,” said the neighbors, “who will prove all the bad things that Yu-lai has done? All the things that you have spoken of in the past will be buried. Why not wait at least until the work team returns from the county seat?”

  Since Yu-lai made no move to harm the couple, never even spoke to them, in fact, and since flight had certain obvious disadvantages, they decided to wait.

  Ch’ou-har’s wife was by no means the only villager to be frightened by the unexpected reappearance of the four cadres. The return of the erstwhile prisoners as free men at a time when the work team was away struck the whole village like a thunderbolt. Many peasants who had spoken up boldly in the investigation meetings, even demanding the death sentence for Yu-lai, now wished that they had remained silent. In conversations over steaming supper bowls they denied that they had ever sought the execution of the four and assured each other that they had really meant something quite different, or had not expressed any opinion at all.

  Old Shen Ch’uan-te worried more than most. He lived just around the corner from Yu-lai and met him face to face on the street the day after the ex-vice chairman of the Peasants’ Association came home. Yu-lai turned his back on Shen and walked away without saying a word. Shen stood there, trembling so violently that he could not light his silver pipe. “I accused the four,” he said to several friends afterwards. “I spoke out everything I knew at several meetings. Unfortunately we have many people who would like to pat the horse’s back. Surely the bad ones will soon learn what was said and who said it. I can’t help being afraid.”

  Those who had not spoken out at the investigation meetings congratulated themselves. “I’m not afraid of anything,” said Pao-ch’uan’s mother. “I never said anything against them publicly. So what if they have returned? Since I have not wronged anyone, why should I be afraid?”

  Dozens of people began to follow the handsome widow’s prudent example. They decided it was better, after all, not to talk too much in public meetings. One of these was Chin-ming’s wife, whose husband had returned from Hungtung about the same time Yu-lai was released. The brother-in-law sent to find Chin-ming had talked with him for several days and had assured him that things had really changed in Long Bow and that he would be safe there. Two things finally convinced Chin-ming to come home—-the fact that his wife had been elected delegate to the gate and Yu-lai, Wen-te, Hung-er, and Hsi-yu were in prison. When he arrived home and found the four “bad cadres” walking around the village as big as life, his heart skipped a beat. He went straight to his hut and had a long talk with his wife. He persuaded her that her daring activity had been a mistake. From that day onward she never left her courtyard, but busied herself making shoes, sewing clothes, and spinning thread. With her own grievances settled (the work team had not only arranged for her husband to come home but had loaned her an extra acre of land to be used pending the final allocation of plots), she suddenly became a dutiful housewife. She took no interest in meetings, protests, accusations at the gate, elections, or any other public activity.

  “We have wronged Yu-lai,” she said with a voice full of sarcasm when anyone asked her opinion. “He is obviously an innocent man.”

  *****************

  Why this man Yu-lai and his son so frightened people was hard to understand. Somehow they had convinced the villagers, or at least the majority of them, that they were absolutely ruthless and sooner or later would take revenge. This revenge seemed to the villagers as certain as fate. Yu-lai had once been a bandit, people said; he had killed in cold blood. With his son’s help he would do so again—unless the people settled with him first, and not by criticism or censure but by force. Method, it turned out, was the crux of the matter. Yu-lai, his son, and their henchmen had been able to paralyze the village only because physical assault had been ruled out. Education and persuasion, not beating, was the method indicated by the work team, but the peasants had not yet learned to have faith in this method, especially where “rotten eggs” were concerned. Their principle of operation up until the arrival of the work team—“Don’t beat good people, but beat bad people”—was one they all understood and knew to be effective. But now the authorities had come out against all beatings, and in the minds of many a suspicion lurked that this principled stand had unprincipled roots. Wasn’t this peaceful method favored only in order to prevent bad Party members from being beaten to death—to prevent, in other words, their receiving their just deserts?

  The majority were quite ready to do away with Yu-lai and his son. They had no fear of corpses. They would even have settled for a thrashing so severe that the two would think twice before ever threatening anyone again. But since the Party and the work team insisted that this must be a mental struggle, all militancy collapsed like a goatskin float that has been punctured.

  Yu-lai’s bearing and manner did nothing to belie these misgivings. After their triumphant return from jail, Hung-er and Hsi-yu kept to their houses, but Yu-lai and Wen-te walked about the village as if nothing had happened. “The county police could do nothing against me,” said the latter, frowning ferociously as of old. “They held me for 40 days, but in the end they had to let me go. What makes you think you can beat me down?”

  Only a handful of persons opposed the general retreat of the population before Yu-lai’s chih kao ch’i yang (spur-flashing, fighting-cock strut). Among them were two or three of the more outspoken delegates chosen to man the gate and several Party members who had resumed their political activity after winning the approval of the masses. Together they tried to rally the village for some sort of counter-offensive.

  Among the communists, the bold ones were Ts’ai-yuan, the Eighth Route Army veteran, and Hsin-fa, the branch secretary. The latter had evidently taken seriously the charges made against him at the gate that he was too much of “an old good fellow.” He was eager to show his mettle.

  Among the delegates the boldest of all was Old Lady Wang. She reminded people that the four released men still had to pass the gate. “Even if they are not responsible for the ‘accident,’ that still doesn’t mean they did nothing wrong. We may not have proof that they beat up Little Ch’uer, but we certainly have proof of many other wrong things they did. Since they were under arrest and everyone thought they would never return, many other cadres blamed everything on them. Before the gate they said Hung-er did that, Yu-lai did this. I think it is a good thing that they came back. Now we can really clear up the facts. As long as they were stuck in jail, that was impossible.”

  Another peasant who seemed to fear nothing was Old Tui-chin. He had realized long since that very little in the way of material benefits could result from any re-examination of fanshen, but he saw beyond that to the political ferment that was taking place in the village. He summed up the situation in a little rhyme all his own. “Ts’ung hsien kai hui ch’ih mi, hsien tsai kai hui shuo li.” (For millet alone we spoke before, now it’s reason we rally for.) He too assured his friends and neighbors that the four must still face the people. In his opinion they were no match for the Communist Party and the Provisional Poor Peasants’ League.

  The four militants prevailed upon Ch’un-hsi, the acting vill
age head, to call a mass meeting.* Their purpose was to reassure the people, solve any problems that had emerged since the departure of the work team, and plan an energetic sowing and hoeing campaign for the weeks ahead. But the meeting did not go well. Many people did not show up. Those who did appear soon began to drift away. The Party members who had always worked together to make meetings successful were timid, afraid of criticism, even sorry that they had been so active in the past. They did not try to stop anyone from leaving as they might have done a few months earlier. Thus this first attempt to rally the healthy forces of the community ended in a fiasco.

  By the time the work team returned from the County Conference, morale in the village had dropped to a very low level indeed. When the cadres scattered out through the homes and huts of Long Bow’s three sections, they heard over and over again: “What’s the use of speaking out? The old cadres mount the horse as if nothing had happened.” “Yu-lai has returned and he is the same as ever.” “It is better to work hard at production and let those meet who want to meet.”

  “We are gloomy because our opinions are no use at all,” said Old Shen testily when Ch’i Yun and I went to his hut. “We offered such clear proofs, but the police said they were no good. Wen-te went out and in less time than it takes to smoke two pipes we heard Little Ch’uer moaning. Surely he must have done it. I can’t think it through. Did a star beat Ch’uer down?”