The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

by Dikötter, Frank

  24 Hugh Seton-Watson noted how there were three stages in East Europe, namely a ‘genuine coalition’ with some other forces, a ‘bogus coalition’ with those not directly controlled by the communist party, and finally a ‘monolithic regime’ as everything outside the party was brought to heel; see Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution, London: Methuen, 1950, pp. 167–71.

  25 Huang Kecheng, Huang Kecheng zishu (The autobiography of Huang Kecheng), Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994, p. 217; Mao Zedong, ‘Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’, 5 March 1949, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 4, p. 364.

  26 For a more upbeat assessment, see Marie-Claire Bergère, ‘Les Capitalistes shanghaïens et la période de transition entre le régime Guomindang et le communisme (1948–1952)’, Etudes Chinoises, 8, no. 2 (Autumn 1989), p. 22.

  27 Rossi, The Communist Conquest of Shanghai, p. 65; ‘Merchants and the New Order’, Time, 17 March 1952; John Gardner, ‘The Wu-fan Campaign in Shanghai’, in Doak Barnett, Chinese Communist Policies in Action, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969, pp. 477–53.

  28 Loh, Escape from Red China, pp. 85–9.

  29 Report by Luo Ruiqing, 24 Feb. 1952, Sichuan, JX1-812, p. 29; Changjiang ribao, 12 March 1952, quoted in Theodore Hsi-en Chen and Wen-hui C. Chen, ‘The “Three-Anti” and “Five-Anti” Movements in Communist China’, Pacific Affairs, 26, no. 1 (March 1953), p. 15.

  30 Loh, Escape from Red China, pp. 85–9, 95 and 97; Bo Yibo, Report from Shanghai, Hebei, 12 April 1952, 888-1-10, pp. 27–8; Report on a denunciation meeting, Shanghai, 4 April 1952, B182-1-373, pp. 183–5.

  31 Chow, Ten Years of Storm, p. 125; Report on a denunciation meeting, 15 April 1952, Shanghai, B182-1-373, pp. 232–5; Sichuan, 12 May 1952, JX1-420, p. 30; Guangdong, 1952, 204-1-69, pp. 73–4; Guangdong, 10 Oct. 1952, 204-1-69, pp. 45–7 and 55–9; Neibu cankao, 5 Feb. 1952,p. 31.

  32 Loh, Escape from Red China, p. 98; Chow, Ten Years of Storm, p. 133.

  33 Loh, Escape from Red China, p. 98; Shanghai, 27 March 1952, B182-373, p. 144; on the campaign in Shanghai, one should read Yang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo jianguo shi yanjiu, pp. 260–307.

  34 Instructions from the Centre and Report from Tianjin, Hebei, 15 Feb. 1952, 888-1-10, p. 31; Report by Beijing to the Centre, 13 Feb. 1952, Sichuan, JX1-420, p. 6; Shanghai, July 1952, B13-2-287, p. 20.

  35 Hutheesing, Window on China, p. 165.

  36 Gardner, ‘The Wu-fan Campaign in Shanghai’, p. 524; Loh, Escape from Red China, p. 117; Walker, China under Communism, p. 108.

  37 Instructions from the Centre and Report from Tianjin, Hebei, 15 Feb. 1952, 888-1-10, pp. 31–5; Report by Tan Zhenlin to Mao Zedong, Sichuan, 5 May 1952, JX1-812, pp. 180–1; on the collapse of tax income, blamed on the Three-Anti and Five-Anti campaigns, see for instance Report from the North-east Tax Bureau to the Centre, 31 Oct. 1952, Gansu, 91-1-495, pp. 82–91.

  38 Report on Trade, 10 Jan. 1953, Zhejiang, J125-2-29, pp. 1–3; Report by Tan Zhenlin to Mao Zedong, Sichuan, 5 May 1952, JX1-812, pp. 180–1; Report from the South China region, March 1953, Guangdong, 204-1-91, p. 12; Guangdong, 1 March 1953, 204-1-91, pp. 118–20.

  39 Report by Tan Zhenlin to Mao Zedong, Sichuan, 5 May 1952, JX1-812, pp. 180–1; Report by South China to Mao Zedong, Sichuan, 19 Feb. 1952, JX1-812, pp. 16–22; Report from Subei to Mao Zedong, Sichuan, 19 March 1952, JX1-812, p. 106; Neibu cankao, 22 Feb. 1952, pp. 167–8.

  40 Report by South China to Mao Zedong, Sichuan, 19 Feb. 1952, JX1-812, pp. 16–22; Report by Tan Zhenlin to Mao Zedong, Sichuan, 5 May 1952, JX1-812, pp. 180–1; Instructions from the Centre, Sichuan, March 1953, JX1-813, pp. 44–5; Neibu cankao, 25 Feb. 1952, pp. 192–3.

  9: Thought Reform

  1 Michael Bristow, ‘Hu Warns Chinese Communist Party’, BBC News, 30 June 2011.

  2 Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp. 193–4 and 238–40.

  3 Ibid., p. 242; on Wang Shiwei, see also Huang Changyong, Wang Shiwei zhuan (A biography of Wang Shiwei), Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 2000; Dai Qing, Wang Shiwei and ‘Wild Lilies’: Rectification and Purges in the Chinese Communist Party, 1942–1944, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994.

  4 Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp. 240–6; Gao, Hong taiyang, pp. 304–5; see also Cheng Yinghong, Creating the ‘New Man’: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009.

  5 Mao Zedong, ‘Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle’, 14 Aug. 1949, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 4, p. 428.

  6 Cheng Yuan interviewed by Wang Ying, 7 Nov. 2008, Wang Ying, ‘Gaizao sixiang: Zhengzhi, lishi yu jiyi (1949–1953)’ (Reforming thoughts: Politics, history and memory, 1949–1953), doctoral dissertation, Beijing: People’s University, 2010, pp. 121–2.

  7 Liu Xiaoyu interviewed by Wang Ying, Beijing, 27 Nov. 2008, Wang, ‘Gaizao sixiang’, pp. 150–5.

  8 Wang, ‘Gaizao sixiang’, pp. 111–12; Mao Zedong, ‘Letter to Feng Youlan’, 13 Oct. 1949, in Michael Y. M. Kau and John K. Leung (eds), The Writings of Mao Zedong: 1949–1976, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1986, vol. 1, p. 17; Pei Yiran, ‘Zijie peijian: Fanyou qian zhishifenzi de xianluo’ (The ‘disarmament’ of Chinese intellectuals before the anti-rightist campaign), Ershiyi shiji, no. 102 (Aug. 2007), p. 35.

  9 Mao Zedong, ‘Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan’, March 1927, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 24.

  10 Liu Yufen interviewed by Wang Ying, Beijing, 19 Nov. 2008, in Wang, ‘Gaizao sixiang’, pp. 83–7.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Reports on land reform from the Democratic League, Hubei, SZ37-1-7, 11 Aug. 1950; Neibu cankao, 28 Aug. 1950, pp. 88–9; 21 Dec. 1951, pp. 92–3; an example of opposition to land reform appears in the fictionalised account of S. T. Tung, Secret Diary from Red China, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961; Yue Daiyun, Siyuan, shatan, Weiminghu: 60 nian Beida shengya (1948–2008) (Sixty years at Beijing University, 1948–2008), Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2008, quoted in Wang, ‘Gaizao sixiang’, pp. 88–9.

  13 DeMare, ‘Turning Bodies and Turning Minds’, pp. 289–90; Wang, ‘Gaizao sixiang’, p. 93; Mao, Jianguo yilai, vol. 2, p. 198.

  14 DeMare, ‘Turning Bodies and Turning Minds’, pp. 298 and 93.

  15 Philip Pan, Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China, Basingstoke: Picador, 2009, pp. 31–2; Lin Zhao, like so many others, later became a victim of the regime. Arrested as a counter-revolutionary in 1960, she was secretly executed eight years later after writing hundreds of pages critical of Mao Zedong in prison, some of them in her own blood.

  16 On the direct continuation of the Yan’an tradition after 1949, see Gao, Hong taiyang, p. 388; I have taken Mao’s pronouncement from Loh, Escape from Red China, p. 78; a more formal translation appears in Cheng, Creating the ‘New Man’, p. 70; Wu Ningkun and Li Yikai, A Single Tear: A Family’s Persecution, Love, and Endurance in Communist China, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993, p. 7.

  17 Wu and Li, A Single Tear, p. 5; Cheng, Creating the ‘New Man’, p. 65.

  18 Loh, Escape from Red China, pp. 78–81.

  19 Instructions from the Centre and Report from Nanjing, 17 and 18 Feb. 1952, Guangdong, 204-1-253, pp. 28–31; Mao’s endorsement appears in Mao, Jianguo yilai, vol. 3, p. 232, but without the report; on Chengde, see Report from the Centre, Shandong, 11 July 1953, A1-5-49, p. 19.

  20 Pei, ‘Zijie peijian’, p. 36.

  21 Loh, Escape from Red China, pp. 78–81.

  22 Liu Xiaoyu interviewed by Wang Ying, Beijing, 27 Nov. 2008, Wang, ‘Gaizao sixiang’, pp. 152–3.

  23 Pei, ‘Zijie peijian’, p. 37.

  24 Instructions from the Ministry of Education, Shandong, 7 Feb. 1952, A29-2-35, pp. 1–4; Report from the Centre, Shandong, 23 June 1953, A1-5-49, p. 8; Report to and from the Centre and the Ministry of Education, 14 May, 9 June, 13 Sept. and 8 Oct. 1953, Shaanxi, 123-1-423, entire folder.

  25 Cheng, Creating the ‘New Man’, p. 75; Loh, Escape fr
om Red China, pp. 71 and 78–9.

  26 Loh, Escape from Red China, p. 82.

  27 ‘No Freedom of Silence’, Time, 2 Oct. 1950; the story about Mao trying to audit Hu Shi’s course comes from a witness, the librarian Tchang Fou-jouei, as told to Jean-Philippe Béjà; on Hu Shi and his son Hu Sidu, see Shen Weiwei, ‘The Death of Hu Shi’s Younger Son, Sidu’, Chinese Studies in History, 40, no. 4 (Summer 2007), pp. 62–77.

  28 Report from the Centre and Letter from Liang Shuming, Hebei, 30 Jan. 1952, 888-1-10, pp. 18–19; Mao Zedong, ‘Criticism of Liang Shuming’s Reactionary Ideas’, 16–18 Sept. 1953, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 5, p. 121; the exchanges between Mao and Liang in September 1953 are in Dai Qing, ‘Liang Shuming and Mao Zedong’, Chinese Studies in History, 34, no. 1 (Autumn 2000), pp. 61–92, although this article does not mention the 1952 confrontation which set the stage for the dispute a year later.

  29 Kirk A. Denton, The Problematic of Self in Modern Chinese Literature: Hu Feng and Lu Ling, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998, p. 88.

  30 See Merle Goldman, ‘Hu Feng’s Conflict with the Communist Literary Authorities’, China Quarterly, no. 12 (Oct. 1962), pp. 102–37; Andrew Endrey, ‘Hu Feng: Return of the Counter-Revolutionary’, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 5 (Jan. 1981), pp. 73–90; Yu Fengzheng, Gaizao: 1949–1957 nian de zhishifenzi (Reform: Intellectuals from 1949 to 1957), Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 2001, pp. 358–427.

  31 Wu and Li, A Single Tear, pp. 35–8.

  32 Charles J. Alber, Embracing the Lie: Ding Ling and the Politics of Literature in the People’s Republic of China, London: Praeger, 2004; Pei, ‘Zijie peijian’, p. 40.

  33 Sun and Dan, Engineering Communist China, pp. 23–4.

  34 Yearly report from the Ministry of Public Security, Shandong, 28 April 1956, A1-1-233, pp. 57–60; Report from the Provincial Party Committee’s Five-Man Team to the Central Ten-Man Team, Hebei, 22 Sept. 1955, 886-1-5, p. 31; the overall number of arrests in 1955 was much higher, as we see in the chapter on the gulag.

  35 Lu Dingyi, in his report at a conference of eighteen provinces, reported 500 suicide attempts: Shandong, 4 Aug. 1955, A1-2-1377, p. 21; Luo Ruiqing, who knew better, put the figure at 4,200: Report by Luo Ruiqing, Hebei, 16 July 1956, 886-1-17, pp. 30–1; Wu and Li, A Single Tear, p. 40; Pei, ‘Zijie peijian’, p. 37; Report by Luo Ruiqing, Hebei,27 April 1955, 855-3-617, pp. 14–17; Report by Luo Ruiqing, Hebei, 20 June 1955, 855-3-617, p. 21.

  36 Walker, China under Communism, pp. 193–4; Beijing, 14 March and 6 Sept. 1956, 2-8-184, pp. 10 and 40; Beijing, 23 and 27 Oct. 1954, 2-2-40, 50-4; Beijing, 1955, 2-8-186, pp. 43–7.

  37 Walker, China under Communism, pp. 193–4.

  38 Ibid., pp. 195–6; Renmin ribao, 29 July 1953, p. 3; on restrictions in the use of gold, see Instructions from the People’s Bank of China, 10 June 1954, Shandong, A68-2-920, pp. 4–6.

  39 Maria Yen, The Umbrella Garden: A Picture of Student Life in Red China, New York: Macmillan, 1953, p. 171.

  40 Kang, Confessions, pp. 17–19.

  41 Walker, China under Communism, p. 199.

  42 Dikötter, China before Mao, pp. 78–80.

  43 Yen, The Umbrella Garden, pp. 173–5; Mark Tennien, No Secret is Safe: Behind the Bamboo Curtain, New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1952, pp. 119–20.

  44 Beijing, 2-5-32, 7 Oct. 1953, p. 1; 31 March 1954, p. 6; 23 Aug. 1954, p. 20.

  45 Yen, The Umbrella Garden, pp. 166–7.

  46 He Qixin, ‘China’s Shakespeare’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 37, no. 2 (Summer 1986), pp. 149–59; Simon S. C. Chau, ‘The Nature and Limitations of Shakespeare Translation’, in William Tay et al. (eds), China and the West: Comparative Literature Studies, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1980, p. 249.

  47 Willens, Stateless in Shanghai, p. 228; on revolutionary theatre in the 1950s, see Constantine Tung, ‘Metamorphosis of the Hero in Chairman Mao’s Theater, 1942–1976’, unpublished manuscript.

  48 Dikötter, Exotic Commodities, pp. 252–5.

  49 Priestley, ‘The Sino-Soviet Friendship Association’, p. 289; Clark, Chinese Cinema, pp. 40–1; Yen, The Umbrella Garden, pp. 178–9; see also Julian Ward, ‘The Remodelling of a National Cinema: Chinese Films of the Seventeen Years (1949–66)’, in Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (eds), The Chinese Cinema Book, London: British Film Institute, 2011,pp. 87–94.

  50 Hu Qiaomu, Talk at the United Front Work Department, 1 Feb. 1951, Guangdong, 204-1-172, pp. 118–19.

  51 Holmes Welch, Buddhism under Mao, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972, pp. 1 and 69–70; Richard C. Bush, Religion in Communist China, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970, p. 299.

  52 Peter Goullart, Forgotten Kingdom, London: John Murray, 1957,pp. 291–9.

  53 Report from the South-west China Region’s Party Committee, Shandong, 31 Dec. 1952, A1-5-78, pp. 48–50.

  54 Walker, China under Communism, pp. 188–9; Welch, Buddhism under Mao, pp. 48–9.

  55 Welch, Buddhism under Mao, pp. 68 and 80; Report by Wang Feng, Shandong, 18 March 1955, A14-1-21, pp. 32–7.

  56 James Cameron, Mandarin Red: A Journey behind the ‘Bamboo Curtain’, London: Michael Joseph, 1955, pp. 104–6; Welch, Buddhism under Mao, p. 150 and ch. 6; the role of the United States in forcing China to tolerate some religion is stated in Report by Wang Feng, Shandong, 18 March 1955, A14-1-21, pp. 32–7.

  57 Report from the Centre, 17 April 1953, Jilin, 1-7(2)-7, pp. 101–4 and 120–5; Report by Wang Feng, Shandong, 18 March 1955, A14-1-21, pp. 32–7.

  58 C. K. Yang, A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959, pp. 194–6.

  59 Hebei, 15 Feb. and 2 March 1951, 855-1-137, pp. 2 and 9; Bush, Religion in Communist China, pp. 386–8; Kou Qingyan, Report on Border Defence and the Campaign against Counter-Revolutionaries, 28 Oct. 1951, Guangdong, 204-1-27, pp. 152–5; Report by Luo Ruiqing, 18 Feb. 1953, Shandong, A1-5-85, pp. 10–11.

  60 C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their Historical Factors, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961, p. 400; Sichuan, 4 Aug. 1955, JX1-418,pp. 117–18; Neibu cankao, 3 Jan. 1955, pp. 2–4.

  61 Walker, China under Communism, p. 190.

  62 Bush, Religion in Communist China, p. 113; Zhang Yinxian interviewed by Liao Yiwu, God is Red, pp. 18–19.

  63 Order from the Provincial Party Committee, Shandong, 24 June 1952, A1-5-59, pp. 115–16.

  64 Bush, Religion in Communist China, p. 116; Cameron, Mandarin Red, p. 190.

  65 The numbers are from Report from the Centre, 7 May 1954, Shandong, A14-1-16, p. 2; the revival of religion is in Shandong, 28 Sept. 1955, A14-1-21, pp. 39–42; Sichuan, 4 Aug. 1955, JX1-418, pp. 117–18.

  66 Bush, Religion in Communist China, pp. 124–7.

  67 Report on religion from the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee, Shandong, 1952, A1-5-78, pp. 75–7.

  68 Neibu cankao, 26 June 1950, pp. 97–101; 123-1-83, Zhang Desheng, Report on Pingliang Rebellion, Shaanxi, 24 June 1950, 123-1-83,pp. 92–6.

  69 On Ningding see Sichuan, 6 Feb. 1952, JX1-879, pp. 3–6; on other uprisings see Shandong, A1-5-78, entire file.

  70 Bush, Religion in Communist China, p. 269; Tyler, Wild West China, pp. 138–40.

  71 Bush, Religion in Communist China, pp. 274–5 and 281; James A. Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, pp. 248–9.

  72 Willard A. Hanna, ‘The Case of the Forty Million Missing Muslims’, 20 Sept. 1956, Institute of Current World Affairs.

  10: The Road to Serfdom

  1 Mao Zedong, ‘On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship: In Commemoration of the 28th Anniversary of the Communist Party of China, June 30, 1949’, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 4, p. 419.

  2 There is an abundant secondary literature based on published statistics that shows how grain output increased gradually between 1949 and 1958 (one good example is Carl Riskin, China’s P
olitical Economy: The Quest for Development since 1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). While the more optimistic of these accounts can be disputed on the basis of archival evidence, the point of this chapter and the following one is that even moderate growth in grain output is only part of the story, as the obsessive pursuit of more grain was carried out at the expense of other economic activities, was achieved only thanks to huge inputs of manpower and ultimately did not benefit the countryside as ever larger proportions of the crop were procured by the state. This chapter also highlights the other social and economic costs of collectivisation.

  3 Report from Yichang County, Hubei, 5 and 15 April 1952, SZ1-2-100, pp. 58–60.

  4 Tung, Secret Diary, pp. 94–5.

  5 Sichuan, 20 March 1953, JK1-729, pp. 26–7; Sichuan, 23 Feb. 1953, JK1-729, pp. 56–7.

  6 Guangdong, June 1953, 204-1-94, pp. 122–8.

  7 Ibid.; Report by the Provincial Party Committee’s Bureau for Policy Research, 1952, Hubei, SZ1-2-114, pp. 53–4.

  8 Jilin, 19 Jan., 16 and 22 March and 23 June 1951, 2-7-56, pp. 2, 14–15, 26 and 84.

  9 Report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sept. 1952, Zhejiang, J103-4-71, pp. 42–5.

  10 Ibid., pp. 44–5; Report from the Ministry of Agricultural Work, 28 Aug. and 18 Sept. 1953, Jilin, 1-7(2)-7, pp. 101–4 and 107–9; Jilin, 20 Nov. 1950 and 7 Aug. 1951, 2-7-47, pp. 23–4 and 127–8; Reports on the Three-Anti Campaign by the East China Region, Shandong, 1 July and 29 Aug. 1952, A1-1-45, pp. 13 and 81.

  11 Sichuan, 21 June 1953, JK1-13, p. 42.

  12 Shaanxi, 24 June 1950, 123-1-83, pp. 152–4; Hubei, 1951, SZ37-1-39, n.p.; for a long-term analysis of the decline of sideline occupations, see Gao Wangling, Lishi shi zenyang gaibian de: Zhongguo nongmin fanxingwei, 1950–1980 (How history is changed: Acts of resistance among the farmers in China, 1950–1980), Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2012.

  13 Hubei, 23 May 1952, SZ37-1-174, n.p., and Hubei, 30 May 1951, SZ1-5-75, p. 60; Hubei, 1951, SZ37-1-39, n.p.

  14 Neibu cankao, 25 March 1953, p. 605; 4 April 1953, p. 83; 9 April 1953, p. 185; 20 April 1953, p. 417; 29 April 1953, p. 559; 22 June 1953, pp. 354–5; Report from the Ministry of Agricultural Work, 28 Aug. and 18 Sept. 1953, Jilin, 1-7(2)-7, pp. 101–4 and 107–9.