Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

  Physical abuse finally caught up with my mother. It did not come from people working under her, but mainly from ex-convicts who were working in street workshops in her Eastern District robbers, rapists, drug smugglers, and pimps. Ulalike 'political criminals," who were on the receiving end of the Cultural Revolution, these common criminals were encouraged to attack designated victims. They had nothing against my mother personally, but she had been one of the top leaders in her district, and that was enough.

  At meetings held to denounce her, these ex-convicts were particularly active. One day she came home with her face twisted in pain. She had been ordered to kneel on broken glass. My grandmother spent the evening picking fragments of glass from her knees with tweezers and a needle. The next day she made my mother a pair of thick kneepads. She also made her a padded waist protector, because the tender structure of the waist was where the assailants always aimed their punches.

  Several times my mother was paraded through the streets with a dunce cap on her head, and a heavy placard hanging from her neck on which her name was written with a big cross over it to show her humiliation and her demise. Every few steps, she and her colleagues were forced to go down on their knees and kowtow to the crowds. Children would be jeering at her. Some would shout that their kowtowing did not make enough noise and demand that they do it again. My mother and her colleagues then had to bang their foreheads loudly on the stone pavement.

  One day that winter there was a denunciation meeting at a street workshop. Before the meeting, while the participants had lunch in the canteen, my mother and her colleagues were ordered to kneel for one and a half hours on grit-covered ground in the open. It was raining and she got soaked to the skin; the biting wind sent icy chills through her wet clothes and into her bones. When the meeting started, she had to stand bent double on the platform, trying to control her shivers. As the wild, empty screaming went on, her waist and neck became unbearably painful. She twisted herself slightly, and tried to lift her head a bit to ease the aching. Suddenly she felt a heavy blow across the back of her head, which knocked her to the ground.

  It was only some time later that she learned what had happened. A woman sitting in the front row, a brothel owner who had been imprisoned when the Communists clamped down on prostitution, had fixated on my mother, perhaps because she was the only woman on the platform.

  The moment my mother lifted her head, this woman jumped up and thrust an awl straight at her left eye. The Rebel guard standing behind my mother saw it coming and struck her to the ground. Had it not been for him, my mother would have lost her eye.

  My mother did not tell us about this incident at the time.

  She seldom referred to what happened to her at all. When she had to mention something like the broken glass she said it casually, trying to make it sound as undramatic as possible. She never showed the bruises on her body, and she was always composed, even cheerful. She did not want us to worry about her. But my grandmother could tell how much she was suffering. She would follow my mother anxiously with her eyes, trying to hide her own pain.

  One day our former maid came to see us. She and her husband were among the few who never broke off with our family through the whole of the Cultural Revolution. I felt immensely grateful for the warmth they brought us, especially as they ran the risk of being accused as 'sympathizers of capitalist-roaders." Awkwardly, she mentioned to my grand mother that she had just seen my mother being paraded through the streets. My grandmother pressed her to say more, then suddenly collapsed, the back of her head hitting the floor with a loud bang. She had lost consciousness.

  Gradually, she came to. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she said, "What has my daughter done to deserve this?"

  My mother developed a hemorrhage from her womb, and for the next six years, until she had a hysterectomy in 1973, she bled most days. Sometimes it was so severe she would faint and had to be taken to a hospital. Doctors prescribed hormones to control the flow of blood, and my sister and I gave her the injections. My mother knew it was dangerous to depend on hormones, but there was no alternative. It was the only way she could get through the denunciation meetings.

  In the meantime, the Rebels in my father's department stepped up their assaults on him. Being one of the most important in the provincial government, the department had more than its share of opportunists. Formerly obedient instruments of the old Party system, many now became fiercely militant Rebels, led by Mrs. Shall under the banner of 26 August.

  One day, a group of them barged into our apariment and marched into my father's study. They looked at the bookshelves, and declared him a real 'diehard' because he still had his 'reactionary books." Earlier, in the wake of the book burning by the teenage Red Guards, many people had set fire to their collections. But not my father. Now he made a faint attempt to protect his books by pointing at the sets of Marxist hardbacks.

  "Don't try to fool us Red Guards!" yelled Mrs. Shau.

  "You have plenty of "poisonous weeds"!" She picked up some Chinese classics printed on flimsy rice paper.

  "What do you mean, "us Red Guards"?" my father retorted.

  "You are old enough to be their mother and you ought to have more sense, too."

  Mrs. Shau slapped my father hard. The crowd barked at him indignantly, although a few tried to hide their giggles Then they pulled out his books and threw them into huge jute sacks they had brought with them. When all the bags were full, they carried them downstairs, telling my father they were going to burn them on the grounds of the department the next day after a denunciation meeting against him. They ordered him to watch the bonfire 'to be taught a lesson." In the meantime, they said, he must burn the rest of his collection.

  When I came home that afternoon, I found my father in the kitchen. He had lit a fire in the big cement sink, and was hurling his books into the flames.

  This was the first time in my life I had seen him weeping.

  It was agonized, broken, and wild, the weeping of a man who was not used to shedding tears. Every now and then, in fits of violent sobs, he stamped his feet on the floor and banged his head against the wall.

  I was so frightened that for some time I did not dare to do anything to comfort him. Eventually I put my arms around him and held him from the back, but I did not know what to say. He did not utter a word either. My father had spent every spare penny on his books. They were his life. After the bonfire, I could tell that something had happened to his mind.

  He had to go to many denunciation meetings. Mrs. Shau and her group usually got a large number of Rebels from outside to increase the size of the crowd and to lend a hand in the violence. A standard opening was to chant: "Ten thousand years, another ten thousand years, and yet another ten thousand years to our Great Teacher, Great Leader, Great Commander, and Great Helmsman Chairman Mao!" Each time the three 'ten thousand's and four 'great's were shouted out, everyone raised their Litfie Red Books in unison. My father would not do this. He said that the 'ten thousand years' was how emperors used to be addressed, and it was unfitting for Chairman Mao, a Communist. This brought down a torrent of hysterical yells and slaps.

  At one meeting, all the targets were ordered to kneel and kowtow to a huge portrait of Mao at the back of the platform. While the others did as they were told, my father refused. He said that kneeling and kowtowing were undignified feudal practices which the Communists were committed to eliminating. The Rebels screamed, kicked his knees, and struck him on the head, but he still struggled to stand upright.

  "I will not kneel! I will not kowtowl' he said furiously. The enraged crowd demanded, "Bow your head and admit your crimes!" He replied, "I have committed no crime. I will not bend my head!"

  Several large young men jumped on him to try to force him down, but as soon as they let go he stood up straight, raised his head, and stared defiantly at the audience. His assailants yanked his hair and pulled his neck. My father struggled fiercely. As the hysterical crowd screamed that he was 'anti-Culttu'al Revolution,"
he shouted angrily, "What kind of Cultural Revolution is this? There is nothing "cultural" about it! There is only brutality!"

  The men who were beating him howled, "The Cultural Revolution is led by Chairman Mao! How dare you oppose it?" My father raised his voice higher: "I do oppose it, even if it is led by Chairman Mao!"

  There was total silence.

  "Opposing Chairman Mao' was a crime punishable by death. Many people had died simply because they had been accused of it, without any evidence.

  The Rebels were stunned to see that my father did not seem to be afraid. After they recovered from their initial shock, they began to beat him again, calling on him to withdraw his blasphemous words. He refused. Enraged, they tied him up and dragged him to the local police, demanding that they arrest him. But the policemen there would not take him. They liked law and order and Party officials, and hated the Rebels. They said they needed permission to arrest an official as senior as my father, and no one had given such an order.

  My father was to be beaten up repeatedly. But he stuck to his guns. He was the only person in the compound to behave like this, indeed the only one I knew of at all, and many people, including Rebels, secretly admired him.

  Every now and then a complete stranger passing us in the street would murmur stealthily how my father had impressed them. Some boys told my brothers they wanted to have bones as strong as my father's.

  After their day's torment, both my parents would come home to my grandmother's nursing hand. By then, she had set aside her resentment of my father, and he had also mellowed toward her. She applied ointment to his wounds, stuck on special poultices to reduce his bruising, and got him to drink potions made with a white powder called bai-yao to help cure his internal injuries.

  My parents were under permanent orders to stay at home and wait to be summoned to the next meeting. Going into hiding was out of the question. The whole of China was like a prison. Every house, every street was watched by the people themselves. In this vast land, there was nowhere anyone could hide.

  My parents could not go out for relaxation either.

  "Relaxation' had become an obsolete concept: books, paintings, musical instruments, sports, cards, chess, teahouses, bars all had disappeared. The parks were desolate, vandalized wastelands in which the flowers and the grass had been uprooted and the tame birds and goldfish killed. Films, plays, and concerts had all been banned: Mme Mao had cleared the stages and the screens for the eight 'revolutionary operas' which she had had a hand in producing, and which were all anyone was allowed to put on. In the provinces, people did not dare to perform even these. One director had been condemned because the makeup he had put on the torn red hero of one of the operas was considered by Mme Mao to be excessive. He was thrown into prison for 'exaggerating the hardship in the revolutionary struggle." We hardly even thought of going out for a walk.

  The atmosphere outside was terrifying, with the violent street-corner denunciation meetings and all the sinister wall posters and slogans; people were walking around like zombies, with harsh or cowed expressions on their faces.

  What was more, my parents' bruised faces marked them as condemned, and if they went out they ran the risk of being abused.

  As an indication of the terror of the day, no one dared to burn or throw away any newspapers. Every front page carried Mao's portrait, and every few lines featured Mao's quotations. These papers had to be treasured and it would bring disaster if anyone saw you disposing of them. Keeping them was also a problem: mice might gnaw into Mao's portrait, or the papers might simply rot either of these would be interpreted as a crime against Mao. Indeed, the first large-scale factional fighting in Chengdu was triggered by some Red Guards accidentally sitting on old newspapers which had Mao's face on them. A schoolfriend of my mother's was hounded to suicide because she wrote "Heartily love Chairman Mao' on a wall poster with one brush stroke inadvertently shorter, making the character 'heartily' look like the one meaning 'sadly."

  One day in February 1967, in the depths of this overwhelming terror, my parents had a long conversation which I only came to know about years later. My mother was sitting on the edge of their bed, and my father was in a wicker chair opposite. He told her that he now knew what the Cultural Revolution was really about, and the realization had shattered his whole world. He could see clearly that it had nothing to do with democratization, or with giving ordinary people more say. It was a bloody purge to increase Mao's personal power.

  My father talked slowly and deliberately, choosing his words carefully.

  "But Chairman Mao has always been so magnanimous," my mother said.

  "He even spared Pu Yi.

  Why can't he tolerate his comrades-in-arms who fought for a new China with him? How can he be so harsh on them?"

  My father said quietly, but intensely, "What was Pu Yi?

  He was a war criminal, with no support from the people.

  He couldn't do anything. But…" He fell into a meaningful silence. My mother understood him: Mao would not tolerate any possible challenge. Then she asked, "But why all of us, who after all only carry out orders? And why incriminate all these innocent people? And so much destruction and suffering?"

  My father replied, "Maybe Chairman Mao feels he could not achieve his goal without turning the whole place upside down. He has always been thorough and he has never been fainthearted about casualties."

  After a charged pause, my father went on: "This cannot be a revolution in any sense of the term. To secure personal power at such cost to the country and the people has to be wrong. In fact, I think it is criminal."

  My mother scented disaster. After reasoning like this, her husband had to act. As she expected, he said, "I am going to write a letter to Chairman Mao."

  My mother dropped her head into her hands.

  "What's the use?" she burst out.

  "How could you possibly imagine Chairman Mao would listen to you? Why do you want to destroy yourself- and for nothing? Don't count on me to take it to Peking this time!"

  My father leaned over and kissed her.

  "I wasn't thinking about your delivering it. I'm going to post it." Then he lifted her head and looked into her eyes. In a tone of despair he said, 'what else can I do? what alternatives do I have? I must speak up. It might help. And I must do it even if just for my conscience."

  "Why is your conscience so important?" my mother said.

  "More than your children? Do you want them to become "blacks"?"

  There was a long pause. Then my father said hesitantly, "I suppose you must divorce me and bring up the children your way." Silence fell between them again, making her think that perhaps he had not made up his mind about writing the letter, because he was aware of its consequences. It would surely be catastrophic.

  Days passed. In late February, an airplane flew low over Chengdu spreading thousands of sparkling sheets which floated down out of the leaden sky. On them was printed a copy of a letter dated 17 February and signed by the Central Military Committee, the top body of senior army men. The letter told the Rebels to desist from their violent actions. Although it did not condemn the Cultural Revolution directly, it was obviously trying to halt it. A colleague showed the leaflet to my mother. My parents had a surge of hope. Perhaps China 's old and much-respected marshals were going to intervene. There was a big demonstration through the streets of central Chengdu in support of the marshals' call.

  The leaflets were the result of upheavals behind closed doors in Peking. In late January Mao had for the first time called on the army to support the Rebels. Most of the top military leaders except Defense Minister Lin Biao were furious. On 14 and 16 February, they held two long meetings with political leaders. Mao himself stayed away, as did Lin Biao, his deputy. Zhou Enlai presided. The marshals joined forces with Politburo members who had not yet been purged. These marshals had been the commanders of the Communist army, veterans of the Long March, and heroes of the revolution. They condemned the Cultural Revolution for persecuting in
nocent people and destabilizing the country. One of the vice-premiers, Tan Zhenlin, burst out in a fury, "I've followed Chairman Mao all my life. Now I'm not following him anymore!" Immediately after these meetings the marshals began to take steps to try to stop the violence. Because it was particularly bad in Sichuan, they issued the letter of 17 February especially for the province.

  Zhou Enlai declined to throw his weight behind the majority, and stuck with Mao. The personality cult had endowed Mao with demonic power. Retribution against the opposition was swift. Mao stage-managed mob attacks on the dissident Politburo members and military commanders, who were subjected to house raids and brutal denunciation meetings. When Mao gave the word to punish the marshals, the army did not make a move to support them.

  This single feeble attempt to stand up to Mao and his Cultural Revolution was termed the "February Adverse Current." The regime released a selective account of it to generate more intense violence against the capitalistroaders.

  The February meetings were a turning point for Mao.

  He saw that virtually everyone opposed his policies. This led to the total discarding in all but name of the Party.

  The Politburo was effectively replaced by the Cultural Revolution Authority. Lin Biao soon began to purge commanders loyal to the marshals, and the role of the Central Military Committee was taken over by his personal office, which he controlled through his wife. Mao's cabal now was like a medieval court, structured around wives, cousins, and fawning courtiers. Mao sent delegates to the provinces to organize "Revolutionary Committees," which were to be the new instruments of his personal power, replacing the Party system all the way down to the grass roots.