Fanshen

by Hinton, William ; Magdoff, Fred;

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  When the Party members finally completed the list of “fruits” to be returned, the non-party cadres were called before the Congress standing committee to add their bit. From the attitude of such men as San-ch’ing, Yu-lai, and Ch’i-te, one could see, by contrast, how far the Party members had progressed. These three men had not had the advantage of the education and discussion inside the branch. They were loath to speak their minds. On trial, as it were, before the representatives of the village, they were anxious to please, worried lest they forget some item, and eager to accept without question what others proposed. This was an attitude which most of the Communists had long since abandoned.

  Only one non-Party cadre spoke out what he really thought. This was Chang-hsun, former secretary of the village government. He offered to give back a padded coat, a mat for a k’ang, a few catties of iron, four pecks of wheat, and four bolts, but when it came to his cart, a vehicle that had once belonged to the landlord Wang Lai-hsun and was without question the best cart in the whole village, he declared that he had paid a hundredweight of grain for it and meant to keep it.

  The matter of the cart provoked long discussion. Everyone thought that Chang-hsun had taken advantage of his position in the village administration when he bought the vehicle. The fact of the matter was that he already had a cart of his own, sold that one for two and a half hundredweight of grain, and then turned around and bought the superior cart from the “struggle fruits” for one hundredweight. This might have been overlooked by the villagers if carts had been plentiful, but because there was no single item in all the inventory of the village in such short supply and in such great demand, everyone looked at this transaction with suspicion. How was it that family after family had no cart, yet Chang-hsun, who already had one, was able to obtain the best in the village?

  By selling his old cart for two and a half hundredweight and buying another for one hundredweight, he had not only ended up with a much better cart, but had made a profit of one and a half hundredweight besides. Chang-hsun was notorious for just such shrewd deals. He was miserly and tight-fisted and had made himself unpopular over the years by consistently getting the better of his neighbors when buying or selling. If he had not been such a covetous man, the peasants would not have made such an issue of the transaction, but the combination of the valuable cart and its crafty owner was too much for the Committee of the Congress to overlook.

  Chun-hsi suggested that Chang-hsun return to the village the profit he had made from selling his old cart and then pay several additional hundredweight for the cart he bought from the “fruits.”

  Chang-hsun offered to give up the profit, no more and no less.

  When the Committee objected to this, he asked for his old cart back again.

  Angry with Chang-hsun and unable to agree among themselves, the Committee members decided to hold the matter over for presentation to the whole Congress.

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  On the last day of July, the whole list of things to be given up by the cadres was finally brought before the Congress for approval. Introducing the subject to the delegates as they sat in the tree-shaded back yard of the mission compound, Team Leader Ts’ai Chin explained the principles under which the property was being returned:

  (1) Only grafted or seized property was to be handed over. All things for which millet had been paid or deducted, even if the purchaser had bought more than other people, were to be kept.

  (2) No one, after handing out “fruits,” should be brought below the level of the average new-middle-peasant, regardless of whether or not he had seized many things.

  (3) If repayment in a lump sum threatened hardship to any family, the Congress should not demand immediate payment in full but should arrange for installments and a gradual liquidation of the debt.

  “According to my understanding,” Ts’ai said, “the corruption in this village is not serious. I personally know of a cadre in another community who had to return BRC 700,000 [about $700 U. S. currency]. In Long Bow all the goods misappropriated by all the cadres put together will not come to BRC 700,000. The main thing is not the value of the goods but the truth, the attitude of the cadres and the Communists involved. By handing out these things they demonstrate that they recognize their mistakes and prove that they keep their word.

  “You Congress delegates are the representatives of the masses, so you must speak the truth and find a proper solution. Do not try to save face for others. Do not give the people cause to say that the new cadres protect the old. At the same time keep the two principles in mind: Only illegal possessions are to be handed back; and no one shall be reduced below the level of a new-middle-peasant by this procedure.”

  The Congress then moved on to check the whole list. It’s 35 members were quite lenient. Even Old Lady Wang tried to save face for everyone. She was in an unusually mellow mood. When the question of Ts’ai-yuan’s bullets came up, she said, “He worked hard at the front, and the bullets should belong to him.” When others argued that he should pay for the mirror which he smashed, she said, “He got angry. Young people get angry easily.” When Szu-har argued that a quilt which he had taken without permission was already worn out, she said, “Why not let him have the quilt?”

  It looked as if she understood that the new pattern of power and leadership in the village had been settled and had decided to make amends all around. It behooved her, therefore, to try and undo the effect of all the harsh words she had spoken in the past. This unusual attitude on her part was too much for her colleagues. They were all much stricter than she. “We have no mandate to go easy on Szu-har,” they said, and they asked him to pay in full for the quilt he had already worn through. They also demanded that Ts’ai-yuan pay for the mirror he had broken and for the bullets that were sold. They were not vindictive, however. They did not demand the last pound of flesh and the last drop of blood.

  Ch’un-hsi, for instance, had run through a whole bag of millet while on a trip to the city for the purpose of delivering tax grains. His expenses were high because he was delayed by rain—20 days of rain on end. It was no fault of his and, since he had gone to the city on public business, the Congress decided that the village should bear the expense.

  When Hu Hsueh-chen enumerated the pitiful list of things she proposed to give back, all said, “These are but trifles, hardly worth a peck of millet.” They told her to keep them all and pay the Congress two quarts of grain. Hu was much relieved.

  Shen Yu-hsing had misappropriated 20 feet of cloth, one pair of shoes, a sweater, and half an acre of land. The sweater came from the body of Shen Chi-mei, the traitor who was shot at the meeting that followed the liberation of Long Bow. Old Lady Wang said that Yu-hsing ought to keep the sweater, for it would have been buried with the body if he had not had the gall to remove it. Others disagreed. “That was also public property,” they said. “He had no right to take it.” And they asked him to hand it over. The shoes were a different matter. They had been given to him by the village when he was called out for rear service. He had no shoes of his own at the time and could not go to the front barefooted. They told him to keep them. “To ask them back would be to box our own ears,” they said. “He wore the shoes on a public mission, nor for his private gain.”

  Thus a line was drawn between what was fair and reasonable and what was unfair. The line was drawn so responsibly and with such precision that everyone appeared satisfied.

  Chang-hsun’s cart alone aroused prolonged controversy. After two hours of discussion the Congress finally decided that he should pay three more hundredweight of wheat and keep the cart.

  The final list, as approved by the 35 delegates to the Congress, was then taken back to the sectional groups of the Peasants’ Association and read off item by item. In the southwest section all the small items, especially those on the women’s list, only bored the peasants. Each time it was announced that millet would be paid in settlement, but only after the fall harvest, snickers could be heard fro
m those who were skeptical that any grain would ever be paid. When the list of goods offered by San-ch’ing was read out with an explanation that he had confessed it all himself, someone said, “Who knows, perhaps he stole more things. How do we know that he spoke out everything on his conscience?”

  “That’s right,” said another. “Plenty of things were grafted.”

  “Can you prove that?” demanded Yuan-lung, a Congress member.

  “No, I have no proof.”

  “Then you can’t just make it up out of your imagination,” said Yuan-lung. T’ai-shan’s mother backed him up.

  The meeting in the southwest corner of the village was a poor one. The people were still excessively concerned with the amount of millet they stood to gain, and when they saw that there was very little forthcoming, they fell silent, urged Ch’i Yun to read faster, and began to drift away. In the north and east sections the attitude of the peasants was much better. The list engendered a lively discussion, name by name, and on the whole the decisions of the Congress were supported. Criticism centered around one thing only—the disposition of Chang-hsun’s cart. From all three sections of the village came the opinion that three hundredweight was too little for Chang-hsun to pay. They demanded that he pay four hundredweight and give up half the cart.

  Comrade Ts’ai Chin was disturbed by the lack of unanimity. He decided that this matter of the cart, though a nuisance, was important enough to get to the bottom of, even if it took a week. He singled it out as an issue that could serve as an education for everyone. It turned out that many delegates to the Congress had not supported the decision of the Congress when they sat with their Peasants’ Association groups. Back among the people they opposed a plan which they themselves had made in the higher body. They not only opposed it, but they led the people to reject it. Ts’ai felt that there was something radically wrong about this. If any delegate disagreed with the decision of the Congress, he should have had the courage to speak out, argue then and there, and settle the matter instead of keeping silent, only to rise and oppose the decision he himself had voted for when the issue came before the whole, people. What was the use of bringing to the people for approval a decision they could not possibly accept? If it were a reasonable decision, all likely objections to it could have been anticipated and considered and the delegates armed with strong arguments for an overwhelming “yes” vote. Democracy, said Ts’ai Chin, could only work if people were frank with one another.

  The matter of the cart was therefore taken up as a main topic by the whole village, and first and foremost by the Party members in their branch meeting. In the branch, because the Communists had already acquired the habit of speaking out, the question of the cart could most easily be examined in its many-sidedness. One by one, the issues involved in the dispute were brought out and settled by unanimous agreement. Below are listed the questions posed by Ts’ai and the answers given by the Party.

  Question: Was three hundredweight a cheap price to pay for a cart that was worth ten?

  Answer: At the time of the distribution in 1947, all prices were low. They were not a real reflection of market value. The “distribution prices” were never meant to be market-value prices. They were set up simply as a means for comparing one article with another so as to facilitate equitable division, and no attempt had ever been made to equate the Long Bow “fruits” with the prices commanded by similar items elsewhere. Therefore, it was not fair to say that three hundredweight was too low a price.

  Question: Why was Chang-hsun, who already had a cart, able to buy another?

  Answer: At the time, many people were afraid. They feared “change of sky” and although they were willing to take millet, which was almost as anonymous as money, something big and conspicuous like a cart was too obvious. Should Chiang’s troops ever return, they would be marked. At that time Chang-hsun was the only peasant in the whole village who had the courage to buy the cart. As soon as he bought it others became jealous and began to criticize him. He went to the district magistrate and asked if he should give it back. The magistrate said no, to give it back would make it appear that he also was afraid. In order to encourage others to join in the struggle for fanshen, he should keep it. So keep it he did. Everyone knew that even Chang-hsun was frightened when he took possession of the cart, but he was so greedy that he could not resist the bargain. His avarice overcame his prudence, and almost against his will he took the lead where others feared to tread. Since that was so, how could Chang-hsun be blamed for having bought the cart?

  Question: Why were the people so vindictive when it came to this cart?

  Answer: Everyone disliked Chang-hsun’s miserly nature and his sharp manner. Since he was no longer a cadre, they thought they could squeeze something out of him. “That’s all very easy now,” said T’ien-hsi. “I know how the people are thinking. They want to compel him to give up the whole cart. Now everyone wants more things—carts, animals, two-story houses, everything. For they all know that the Eighth Route Army will stay forever. Suddenly the cart is worth 20 hundredweight.”

  Question: Should Chang-hsun pay anything more at all?

  Answer: Yes. For even in 1946 other good carts went for three hundredweight, and he paid only one. And besides, he made a very good profit by selling his old cart. He certainly owed the village something.

  Question: Why shouldn’t Chang-hsun be asked to give up at least half of his fine cart, since carts were so scarce in the village?

  Answer: No one wanted to share a cart with him. He was too hard to get along with. Who wanted to buy quarrels? Who wanted to pay good millet for the privilege of fighting with Chang-hsun over the use of this cart? Besides, the principle of sharing carts hadn’t worked out very well in the past. When several people owned one cart, no one took full responsibility for it, and it was apt to be left out in the hot sun after a rain to dry, shrink, and crack. Under such treatment even the best cart in the world would not last long.

  Having settled all this in detail, the Party members tried to arrive at what they considered to be a fair value for the cart. Hsin-fa again said he thought three hundredweight was right. No one disagreed.

  Team leader Ts’ai Chin immediately remarked that this was strange. He knew that there were at least three opinions on this matter. Why didn’t someone else speak up? Under such prodding Chou Cheng-lo suddenly began to talk. He said he supported the opinion of many people in his part of the village which was that Chang-hsun should pay the Congress four and a half hundredweight. This brought the disagreement into the open, and the merits of the two positions were then thoroughly reviewed.

  The issue was finally resolved, inside the Party branch, at least, with the recommendation that Village Head Ch’un-hsi had originally made—that is, that Chang-hsun should pay back the hundredweight and a half profit he had made on the deal, plus two more hundredweight for the cart itself.

  When this suggestion was again brought before the people, it was accepted. When the branch met later, Ts’ai Chin, on behalf of the work team, went out of his way to congratulate Chou Cheng-lo for having had the courage to start the argument.

  “The point is,” said Ts’ai, “that only through hot argument can we get at the truth. Real democracy means speaking out one’s own opinion. Only when we ourselves understand this can we lead others to understand and use democracy.”

  From millions of just such small incidents the fabric of political life in revolutionary China was being woven.

  65

  Arrests and Restitutions

  Extreme democracy is almost universal in this county. As for the people, since they have suffered dictatorship without democracy for thousands of years, surely they find it difficult to accustom themselves to democracy. They go to extremes. That is to be expected. We can divide those who go to extremes into two kinds: those who do not understand democratic centralism, those who do not know that the minority must bow to the majority, and those who take advantage of the new situation and defy the majority because
they think nobody can do anything about it.

  Secretary Wang,

  Third Administrative District

  Taihang

  ONE DAY just as the Congress assembled in the mission yard, an old man ran in. He was smeared with mud from head to foot. The right side of his face was so swollen that he could not open his eye. Panting and weeping simultaneously, he described the terrible beating he had received from his son Po-t’ai. He even got down on his knees, laid his head on the ground, knocked his forehead against the bricks of the court and beat and kicked himself to show that he had been attacked while he lay prostrate and helpless.

  The Congress Committee sent for Po-t’ai, locked him up overnight, and asked him to atone for the beating by doing ten days’ extra labor on the land of a soldier’s family.

  Family quarrels such as this were common enough. What made the incident significant was the fact that Po-t’ai’s father came to the Congress with his complaint. A few weeks earlier he would have come crying for Team Leader Hou. Now he sought out the Congress and by his action indicated that the people were beginning to recognize the existence of the new government.

  This was an important step forward. The position of the new Congress as the supreme ruling body in the village was further consolidated when, a few days later, the District Office turned over to it a serious criminal case.

  The crime occurred in broad daylight halfway through a hot, humid August afternoon. Behind the District Office, Village Head Ch’un-hsi was ladling manure out of a privy. The night soil in this privy had been allocated to a plot of land that still belonged to the village school. Since nobody would volunteer to transport the stinking liquid, the Village Head had to do it himself.

  Suddenly he heard an angry voice on the other side of the walled enclosure.

  “We struggled against the landlords,” said the voice, “but the district cadres live in the Church and oppress the people. Everyday they eat wheat while we eat millet. Who built the Church for them anyway? Who told them to occupy the people’s fruits?”