Life and Death in Shanghai

by Cheng Nien

  “Nonsense!” the interrogator said. “The guards are not allowed to kick or beat prisoners.”

  “This one certainly did.” I hobbled out of the room behind a male guard.

  I was famished and feared that I had missed the only meal of rice of the day. The evening meal of potatoes always caused me indigestion. But while she led me towards my cell, the female guard on duty at the women’s prison told me that my portion of rice was being kept warm for me. “If you want, I can give you some hot water to drink,” she said.

  Even though she was one of the nicer guards whom I always thought of as the “mild” ones, such humane consideration was unheard of. I found the container of rice and cabbage wrapped in a towel and a blanket. It was not yet completely cold. The guard came to the small window with her thermos of hot water and poured a generous amount into my mug. I sat down on the edge of the bed to eat my rice while trying to sort out the impressions of the morning.

  The interrogator was definitely the best educated and most intelligent of those five men. Judging by his air of self-confidence, I thought he must be a seasoned Party official. Whether he was a true Maoist or not I couldn’t tell. But he was certainly acceptable to the Maoists, because he had been given the job as interrogator. The old worker was not a true Maoist. I thought he had probably been chosen because he was an old industrial worker of many years’ standing, the sort of man put on the Workers’ Propaganda Teams for cosmetic purposes. The young man who took notes appeared indifferent. He merely participated as a secretary; that was probably his job. I detected no real annoyance in his voice or in his expression when I spoke up for Liu Shaoqi. The young worker and the military man were the true Maoists. They looked and behaved like Mao Zedong-era young people from poor family backgrounds who had received so much political indoctrination that they had completely lost the ability to think for themselves.

  The behavior of the guard on duty at the women’s prison was the most strange. What had I done that morning to earn her goodwill? That was the question I puzzled over as I chewed the tough cabbage leaves. The only thing I had done that could be considered unusual was speaking my few words in defense of poor Liu Shaoqi. Did she reward me because I had said what she thought but could not say because of her position as a prison guard?

  Personal relations had always been important to the Chinese, in a tradition that dated back thousands of years. The Communists were no exception. When a Communist leader fell from grace, all those who had ever worked with him were disgraced, no matter how remote the connection. Since the entire Public Security Bureau had been denounced by the Maoists, there must exist in the No. 1 Detention House a number of men and women whose fate was linked to that of Liu Shaoqi and who would be sympathetic to him. If my defending Liu Shaoqi would earn me better treatment and more humane consideration, it was worth doing. To improve my chance of physical survival must be my primary concern. However, this was a situation I had not anticipated when I impulsively defended Liu Shaoqi because my sense of justice was outraged.

  When I was called to the interrogation room again in the afternoon, the interrogator waved his arm towards Mao’s portrait. I bowed. Then he selected the following quotation for me to read: “All reactionaries are paper tigers. Superficially the reactionary clique looks strong, but in actuality the reactionary clique does not have great strength.”

  After I had finished, the interrogator said, “You may go on with your account. Describe the circumstances under which your husband joined the British spy organization.”

  “My husband never joined any spy organization. Shell is an international oil company of good repute,” I said.

  “Its Shanghai office was a spy organization.”

  “It was not.”

  The interrogator took a stack of papers from under the counter and started to read in silence while the two workers watched me closely. Every now and then, when the interrogator turned a page, he would look at me and shake his head disapprovingly as if he had found something about me that shocked him. I knew he was acting, and the paper he was pretending to read might be about astrology for all I knew, so I assumed a blank expression and quietly waited for the interrogator to speak again.

  After a while he laid the papers down and said, “The other members of your staff are more enlightened than you are. They know where their interests lie. They have already confessed everything.” He pointed to the papers and continued, “These are some of their confessions. The ones written by the various heads of departments, including your ex-chief accountant, give very interesting details of the spy activities of your office.”

  “All right, then. Since you have got what you wanted, why bother to press me to make a false confession?” I said.

  “Each of you must speak for himself.”

  “If you want me to speak, I can tell only the truth. Shell is a trading firm. It has nothing to do with politics. Shell was in China because Shell wanted to develop trade with China. In any case, it was here in Shanghai because the People’s Government allowed it to be here. Both my late husband and myself were given the impression by the officials we dealt with that the People’s Government encouraged Shell to maintain an office in Shanghai.”

  “Exactly. The capitalist-roaders in the Communist Party tried to shield a foreign spy organization. It’s obvious,” the interrogator said.

  “I advise you to be careful about what you are saying. It was the State Council that gave permission for Shell to remain in China.”

  What I did not mention was that the order permitting Shell to retain its head office in Shanghai had been signed by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. The interrogator must have been aware of this. I couldn’t help wondering whether Prime Minister Zhou was one of the leaders the Maoists hoped to topple next. But they would never dare to come out with an accusation openly as long as Zhou remained the prime minister.

  “Shell is a multinational corporation. As such, according to Marxism, it is the worst form of capitalist enterprise. It exploits the working class of many countries. Politically such companies are invariably the most anti-Communist and reactionary. It should never have been allowed to remain in China after Liberation,” the interrogator said.

  “I don’t agree with you. I think it was an extremely clever and subtle move to allow a British oil company to remain in China when the United States was imposing an oil embargo against China. It created dissension in the enemy camp. What could be more clever than that? I understand from reading Chairman Mao’s books that he advocates creating dissension and friction among the enemies as an effective tactic of class struggle,” I said.

  The young worker joined in. “Our Great Leader Chairman Mao taught us to be self-reliant. We do not need foreign companies.”

  “Our Great Leader Chairman Mao said, ‘We do not refuse foreign aid, but we rely chiefly on our own strength.’ He did not rule out accepting aid from friendly sources.”

  “You cannot classify trading with a company like Shell as aid from a friendly source,” the interrogator said.

  “For years Shell did not trade with Taiwan or maintain an office there. What could be more friendly to the People’s Government than that?”

  “You certainly have a glib tongue. First you defended Liu Shaoqi. Now you defend a reactionary multinational organization. Even if you have never committed any other crime, what you have said in this interrogation room today is enough for us to pass sentence on you,” said the interrogator.

  “Everything I have said is the truth. Everything you have said is just wild accusation based on imagination. Yet you are supposed to be an enlightened Revolutionary representing the People’s Government and the Communist Party, and I’m merely a backward old woman.”

  Angered by my remark, the interrogator banged the table again. “You are forgetting yourself! This is the interrogation room of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!”

  “Stand up! Stand up! Remain standing! You must be punished for showing contempt for the Dictatorship of the Proletari
at,” the young worker joined in excitedly.

  I stood up.

  “Give an account of the circumstances in which your husband joined the British spy organization,” the interrogator said.

  “If you put it like that, I simply cannot answer you.”

  “You are very careful, aren’t you? The imperialists trained you well, didn’t they? You do not concede a single point,” said the interrogator.

  The old worker said, “Answer the question the interrogator asked you. We’ll leave the matter of ‘spy organization’ aside for the time being.”

  “Exactly! Conclusion should come after investigation. That’s what Chairman Mao taught us also. He said, ‘Without investigation, you have no right to speak,’ ” I told them.

  The interrogator banged the table again and shouted, “Did we ask you to lecture us? You are impertinent. You seem to forget that you are a prisoner and we are the representatives of the People’s Government.”

  “I expect the representatives of the People’s Government to be reasonable, to abide by the law, and to get at the truth of my case,” I said.

  “That’s exactly what we are trying to do. But you refuse to confess.”

  “It would be irresponsible of me to make a false confession. I do not believe a false confession serves the interest of the government or anybody else. It would only create confusion. I have never done anything against the law. To help you ascertain the true facts, I will be glad to answer any question you may wish to ask me. I’ll speak the truth. If I lie and try to cover up, you may punish me severely. In fact, I’ll gladly sign a statement to that effect, if you will give me a sheet of paper.”

  After checking with the interrogator, the secretary held out a sheet of paper to me. I walked up to the counter and wrote down the following: “I am a patriotic Chinese and a law-abiding citizen. I’ve never done anything against the People’s Government. If the investigators of the People’s Government should ever find anybody in the whole of China from whom I have tried to obtain information of a confidential nature, I’m prepared to accept the death penalty. At the end of the investigation of my case, when I am found to be completely innocent, the People’s Government must give me full rehabilitation, including an apology to be published in the newspaper.”

  I signed my name and wrote down the date before handing the paper over to the interrogator. He read it and passed it on to the others. The old worker took out his reading glasses, carefully wiped the lenses, and put them on. He read my pledge while nodding with approval. Pointing to the chair for the prisoner, the old worker said to me, “Sit down, sit down!”

  Both the soldier and the young worker refused to read my pledge. The young worker said with a sneer, “You are just bluffing like a poker player!”

  The interrogator handed my pledge to the secretary, who stored it in a folder.

  “In what circumstances did your husband become the general manager of the Shanghai office of Shell?” the interrogator asked.

  “To invite a national of the country in which it operated to be general manager was a policy adopted by Shell after the Second World War,” I told them.

  “Was it not because they believed that being a Chinese national, your husband would be able to obtain information more easily than a British manager?”

  “The only advantage my husband had over a British manager was that he did not need an interpreter when he talked with a representative of the Import and Export Corporation of the People’s Government.”

  “Your husband made trips to Hong Kong several times, and both of you went to England and Europe in 1956,” the interrogator said. “We are especially interested in your trip to Europe because we know you received instructions from the headquarters of the British intelligence organization.”

  “You are getting things mixed up. We went to London to visit the head office of Shell. Then we traveled to The Hague for the same purpose, because half of Shell’s head office was there. My husband held discussions with the directors about trade prospects in China. The Import and Export Corporation as well as the Chemicals Corporation in Beijing were anxious for him to make the trip. They wanted to purchase many things from Shell. Trade prospects looked promising, and British experts were invited to come to China to help Chinese organizations with research. But soon after we came back the Anti-Rightist Movement was launched. This was followed by the Great Leap Forward Campaign. Everything had to stop. The Beijing officials who were so enthusiastic could no longer make decisions. Shell experts already on their way to China had to turn back. Nothing further could be done.”

  “How did you obtain your passports? Who gave you permission to go to Europe? Private people are usually not allowed to make trips abroad,” the interrogator said.

  “My husband applied for our passports at the Foreign Affairs Bureau in Shanghai. We were given permission to go, I suppose, because the government considered his trip useful to China’s interest.”

  I remembered accompanying my husband to Beijing when he was invited by the Import and Export Corporation to discuss the supply of insecticides and chemical fertilizers to China by Shell. Mao Zedong wanted a dramatic increase in China’s grain output to prove the superiority of the agricultural cooperatives formed in 1955 as his first step towards the collectivization of agriculture. The day before we were due to return to Shanghai, my husband went to the Import and Export Corporation for a last interview. The man there, with whom he had had pleasant business discussions for a week, informed my husband that our passports were approved and waiting for us at the Foreign Affairs Bureau in Shanghai. Then he added in a confidential manner, “The prime minister personally gave approval to issue you passports.” Normally Party officials did not give more than the bare minimum of information when dealing with an outsider like my husband. We thought the official mentioned Prime Minister Zhou’s personal approval of our trip to encourage my husband to obtain from Shell in London all the things the corporation wanted.

  The interrogator had alleged that our trip to London was “to visit the headquarters of the British intelligence organization to receive instructions.” If that had really been the case and I was made to confess to it, the prime minister’s approval to issue us passports would have been tantamount to facilitating spy activities, to put it mildly. Was it possible that the Maoists were hoping to cast doubt on Prime Minister Zhou Enlai? The whole thing seemed farfetched and absurd. But the allegations against Liu Shaoqi were equally farfetched and absurd. When the interrogator said that he wanted me to confess because others were involved and that there were officials who were still “raising the red flag to oppose the red flag,” could he possibly mean to include Prime Minister Zhou Enlai? I could only speculate. I would probably never know, I said to myself. But I did not think it out of character for either Lin Biao or Mao’s wife Jiang Qing to wish Zhou Enlai out of the way. Every Chinese knew that Jiang Qing hated Zhou Enlai. Lin Biao probably considered the prime minister an obstacle to his ambition.

  The voice of the interrogator brought me back to the interrogation room again. He was saying, “Your trip was not useful to China’s interest.”

  “The officials my husband saw in Beijing gave him to understand that he would be rendering service to China if he could obtain what China needed from Shell. They also said that trading with foreign countries was beneficial to China,” I told him.

  “That was the policy of the capitalist-roaders in the Party, and against the teachings of our Great Leader Chairman Mao,” the interrogator said.

  “You can’t expect us outsiders to have known that. To my husband and myself, the People’s Government was the government, and the officials representing the government were the people we had to listen to and believe in,” I said.

  “Give a truthful account of your activities in England and other European countries you visited, and confess what information you divulged.”

  “My husband visited the offices of Shell in London and in The Hague. He met several directors and other
s concerned with the Far Eastern area. He also visited factories and installations. We saw some old friends.”

  “Did you see any British government officials?”

  “Yes, some of our friends were diplomats we used to know.”

  “Did they not ask you about conditions in China?”

  “Conditions in China in 1956 and 1957, before the Anti-Rightist Campaign, were very good. We were very happy to tell them about it. For the first time, after many years of war, inflation was brought under control. The first five-year plan was successfully accomplished. People were contented. There was peace. They all knew it.”

  “There must have been something you told them that they did not know already. You must confess everything,” said the interrogator.

  “What could we have told them? If you bother to look into our friends and contacts in China, you will find we did not know anybody who could possibly tell us anything of any importance. Since we obviously could not get into a government office to steal documents, everything we knew must have come from our friends. If we did not know anyone who knew anything important, we couldn’t tell our British friends anything important, could we?”

  “It’s not up to you to judge what is important and what’s not important. It’s up to us to judge. I want you to write a detailed account of your trip to Europe in 1956-57. Give a list of all the people you saw, and put down everything you said to them. We will see if you told them anything that was important.”

  “It’s an impossible task that would serve no purpose. How can I remember every sentence we ever spoke ten years ago? Besides, I was not with my husband when he went to the office or to oil installations and factories. How am I to tell you what he said? And how are you to check what I have written? You can’t carry your inquiry to England. What you should do is examine our Chinese contacts to see if we had any possible source of secret information inside China. I can assure you we did not know anybody who could possibly tell us anything that could be interpreted as ‘intelligence.’ “