As noted earlier, our reporting trip to Daoxian was ideally timed. By the time we arrived, the 1,300 cadres of the prefectural Task Force (nearly half of whom were in Daoxian) had completed two years of inquiries and had just begun preparing a summary report. Had we arrived earlier, they would have still been dealing with their investigation, and had we arrived later, the material would already have been sealed up in top-secret files. It was our arrival at just this moment that gave us access to such a large quantity of comprehensive firsthand material.
Arriving under the official banner and actual intention of “reporting the achievements of the Task Force,” we got off to a smooth start. Indeed, having anticipated all kinds of difficulties and obstructions, I instead found my arms loaded with files; for so much valuable material to be presented to us without fanfare or subterfuge was beyond my wildest imagining. Two years of effort by hundreds of people had gradually peeled away the layers that obscured the Daoxian massacre, and apart from some details requiring our further inquiries, a rough picture of the incident was now clear.
The occurrence and development of any incident are related not only to its deep historical context, but also to a unique sequence of self-generating factors. In tracing the origins of the killings of Daoxian, the narrative that follows draws on the following sources:
(1)materials gathered by the prefectural Task Force from 1984 to 1986;
(2)materials from the 1968 “exposure study sessions” on the Daoxian massacre;
(3)our reporting;
(4)firsthand material from survivors of the massacre.
The first step in comprehending what happened in Daoxian in the summer of 1967 is understanding the political backdrop to the events.
In 1967, China was mired in chaos. July not only brought the steadily increasing heat of summer but also saw the Chinese people’s revolutionary fervor reach its boiling point. On July 18, at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) headquarters in Zhongnanhai, a mass rally was organized to criticize President Liu Shaoqi, whose home was ransacked. Former defense minister Peng Dehuai was subjected to brutal criticism and struggle from July onward, and following factional clashes in Wuhan in late July, Jiang Qing called for “verbal attack and armed defense,” resulting in an intensification of violence throughout China. On August 5, as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Tao Zhu were denounced at a million-strong mass rally at Tiananmen Square, People’s Daily published Mao’s essay “Bombard the Headquarters: My First Big-Character Poster,” accompanied by an editorial titled “Bombard the Headquarters of the Bourgeoisie.” On August 7, Public Security Minister Xie Fuzhi called for “smashing the public-security, procuratorial, and judicial organs,” and a new state apparatus was established under military control.
These directives reached every corner of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including this little Hunan border county. The streets and lanes of Daojiang were full of “cables from Beijing” and “extraordinary glad tidings.” Everyone held aloft Mao’s “little red book” as they recited its quotations; a throb of gongs and drums echoed through the streets, hailing the latest directive from Chairman Mao.
Since its founding, the People’s Republic had already experienced at least 10 major “mass movements,” all on orders from the CCP Central Committee, and in each case the masses of China had eagerly thrown themselves into the campaigns, attacking whatever the CCP told them to attack. The Cultural Revolution was no exception. The difference was that once the masses became involved in this campaign, they quickly split into multiple factions with intensely antagonistic viewpoints. Even the Central Committee was split between a “proletarian headquarters” led by Mao Zedong and a “bourgeois headquarters” led by Liu Shaoqi. But all factions claimed to be defending “Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line” and endorsing the “proletarian headquarters represented by Chairman Mao.”
Initially confused about the intentions of the Beijing leadership, the Hunan provincial CCP committee treated the Cultural Revolution as a combination of the ongoing Socialist Education movement and the 1957 Anti-Rightist campaign. As a result, the early stage of the Cultural Revolution in Hunan adopted past methods of dispatching “work teams” to schools and work units and “cleansing the class ranks” of various “black elements”—targeting not only the usual classes such as landlords and rich peasants, but also new groups such as “reactionary academic authorities” and other alleged “anti-party cliques.” In the popular parlance of that time, the campaign aimed to “sweep away all ox demons and snake spirits.”
The “cleansing of the class ranks” that I refer to here was not the well-known Cultural Revolution campaign to “Rectify the Class Ranks” that began in late 1967, but rather one that began during the Socialist Education movement, a campaign of class struggle and political education that Mao launched in September 1962 in response to efforts by some leaders to scale back disastrous economic policies such as the Great Leap Forward. The Socialist Education movement first targeted corruption in Hebei and Hunan and then proceeded nationwide as a campaign to “clean up accounts, warehouses, assets, and work points” in communes and counties, through which it came to be known as the “Four Cleanups campaign,” while in the urban areas it targeted corruption, profiteering, waste, decentralism, and bureaucracy (the “Five Antis”).
The special feature of this movement in Hunan (to which Mao gave a particularly high appraisal) was the reorganization of the class ranks, in particular the formation of “poor- and lower-middle-peasant associations” (hereafter “poor-peasant association” or PPA). The first secretary of the provincial CCP committee, Zhang Pinghua, also held the position of chairman of the provincial PPA, while the second-in-command of the Daoxian CCP committee, Xiong Bing’en,1 was also chairman of the county PPA. This was true in other counties as well. The PPAs, which play a crucial role in the tragic narrative that follows, were a major outcome of the Socialist Education movement. In Hunan, this movement lagged behind Beijing, lasting for more than three years from 1962 until the middle of 1966, and involved two major stages. The second stage, which began in 1965, included “clarifying politics, investigating class background, and launching a struggle against class enemies” (the stage that I refer to in this book as “cleansing of the class ranks”), which lasted through the first half of 1966 and overlapped with the launch of the Cultural Revolution on May 16, 1966. In Daoxian, specifically, the Cultural Revolution did not really begin until student Red Guards began attacking teachers and “black element” students in mid-August 1966. At that point Hunan’s Socialist Education movement hastily transitioned into the Cultural Revolution, and decisions made to purge people during the earlier campaign’s “cleansing of the class ranks” were actually carried out during the early stage of the Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution killings in Daoxian, a substantial number of the people who were killed had been sent back to the countryside as a result of the Four Cleanups campaign, while many others were targeted because they had criticized cadres during the campaign. Throughout this book, any reference I make to “cleansing of the class ranks” refers to that particular stage of the Socialist Education movement (Four Cleanups).
As a result of its misunderstanding of the Central Committee’s (in fact, Mao’s) intentions, the Hunan provincial CCP committee in September 1966 made a decision to “seize Rightists,” and in a matter of days, some 100,000 “Rightists,” “political pickpockets,” and “black demons” had been detained, with “black material” compiled against many others targeted for a new and expanded round. In this way, tens of thousands of ordinary people were sucked into the whirlpool of political struggle. These moves by the Hunan provincial CCP committee were not in line with Mao’s strategic planning, however, and they were criticized by Mao and the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group as “implementing and executing Liu Shaoqi’s bourgeois reactionary line.” The unanticipated result was that people initially labeled as “counterrevolutionary students” and “Rightists” were transmogrified into “militant Red Guards” and “valiant revolutionaries.” These former “black demons” eventually made their way to Beijing and submitted complaints to the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group, and with the support of Beijing’s Third Command Post and other rebel faction student groups, they established their own organizations.
These developments in Beijing exacerbated the uncertainty and chaos as the Cultural Revolution progressed elsewhere in the country. There had been no freedom of association since the founding of the PRC in 1949, and no organizational base for ordinary people outside of the CCP, but people were suddenly able to form their own groups, such as the Red Guards and various “rebel factions,” from mid-1966 to mid-1968. Xiang River Storm was one of the large-scale mass organizations formed in Hunan Province during this stage of the Cultural Revolution, and it serves as a prime example of how a product of chaos became an impetus for the worst kind of violence.
On October 24, 1966, a young teacher at Changsha’s No. 1 Secondary School, Ye Dongchu (who subsequently changed his name to Ye Weidong), and an art designer at the Silver Star Cinema, Zhang Jiazheng, joined with others in Beijing to establish the Maoist Red Guard Xiang River Storm Troopers, more commonly referred to as Xiang River Storm. In late October, Xiang River Storm returned to Changsha and burgeoned into an enormous rebel faction mass organization with some one million members, including many of the workers, cadres, and ordinary people who had earlier been attacked as “black demons.”
Then in Shanghai in January 1967, former propaganda official Zhang Chunqiao (eventually a member of the infamous Gang of Four) headed an overthrow of the city’s existing CCP establishment. This power seizure, referred to as the “January Storm,” was replicated elsewhere in China as campaigns criticizing the “bourgeois reactionary line” shifted their emphasis to seizing power from an alleged “capitalist-roader faction in power” within the CCP. In compliance with Mao Zedong’s directives, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) made a full-scale intervention to “support the Left, industry, and agriculture, and establish military control and training,” a de facto military junta. The “Support the Left” campaign in Hunan Province was the responsibility of the provincial military district.
At this point, the question of how to carry the Cultural Revolution forward caused a split in Hunan between organizations such as Xiang River Storm and the Hunan Province College Red Guard Revolutionary Rebel Faction Command Post (known as the College Command Post), giving rise to two camps, the “moderate faction” (also known as the “revisionists”) and the “radical faction.” The Hunan provincial military district unequivocally supported the moderate College Command Post and sent a report to the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group depicting Xiang River Storm as a “conservative organization engaged in violent activities.” On February 4, 1967, a brief directive by the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group designated Xiang River Storm and another group called the Red Flag Army as “reactionary organizations” against which immediate dictatorial measures should be taken to “divide and demoralize the hoodwinked masses.” The provincial military district launched its operation that night, and all key members of Xiang River Storm were rounded up before dawn. According to conservative estimates, during this three-day campaign more than 10,000 individuals were arrested throughout the province, and many were subjected to public denunciation.
One of the key characteristics of the Cultural Revolution was constant reversals. Even as Xiang River Storm and the Red Flag Army were being suppressed, divided, and demoralized, an energetic movement to reverse the verdict against these groups had already been launched and was intensifying, with a rebel faction made up largely of workers as its nucleus. Even more critically, the central leadership did not completely approve of the Hunan provincial military district’s “Support the Left” operations and had not endorsed the power-seizing movement led by the College Command Post.
On June 3, the provincial military district declared that Xiang River Storm was not a counterrevolutionary organization but did not allow it to resume its activities. The next day, however, Xiang River Storm held a rally to reestablish itself and its headquarters and began engaging in public and organized activities. Conflict intensified between the College Command Post faction and the Hunan Province Working Class Revolutionary Rebel Faction Alliance Headquarters (the Worker Alliance, which included Xiang River Storm), presaging armed conflict between the two factions. The violence reached a climax in August and September with heavy gunfire exchanged in localities between Changsha and Xiangtan.
This phenomenon was not unique to Hunan; most other regions of China experienced similar chaos and violence, in particular where actions by “revolutionary rebel factions to seize power from capitalist roaders” did not initially gain the support of the central leadership. The conflict between antagonistic mass organizations deepened and gave rise to larger umbrella factions, with successive rounds of mass factional violence becoming increasingly intense.
In the early morning of July 27, at a reception for representatives of Hunan’s various factions who had come to Beijing for negotiations, the central leaders who were present explicitly instructed that Xiang River Storm be rehabilitated. On August 10, the Central Committee formally issued “Certain Decisions regarding the Hunan Issue” (known as the “August 10 Decision”), which reversed the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group’s February 4 directive.
This mass confusion and repeated reversals from the Beijing leadership form the general backdrop to the events in Daoxian in late summer 1967. In Daoxian, as in other parts of China, two irreconcilable mass organizations emerged: one was called the Mao Zedong Thought Red Warrior Alliance Headquarters, or “Red Alliance,” and the other was called the Proletarian Revolutionary Struggle-Criticism-Transformation Alliance Headquarters, or “Revolutionary Alliance.” The Red Alliance referred to the Revolutionary Alliance as the “Revolutionary Bandits,” and the Revolutionary Alliance referred to the Red Alliance as the “Red Fogies.” The two groups indulged in mutual recrimination and frequent small-scale clashes. Each was determined to defeat the other.
The Revolutionary Alliance was a hodgepodge of students and teachers, townspeople, craftsmen, lower-level intellectuals, and a few cadres. Its members were relatively well educated, and many had suffered injustice that engendered resistance toward the bureaucratic class and the status quo. This faction was stronger in the county town of Daojiang, its stronghold in the No. 2 High School blaring constant strident broadcasts of “Forge On against the Tottering Foe,” the editorial published on the first anniversary of the Central Committee’s formal decision concerning the Cultural Revolution.
The Red Alliance had inseparable ties both to the new and old powers in the locality, most of whom were CCP stalwarts on whom the regime depended either nominally or in terms of vested interests. This group tended to defend the entrenched political order and felt a deep antipathy toward those who boldly claimed the right to revolt. The Red Alliance enjoyed the support of the entire local government and CCP organization as well as the de facto leadership, which was composed mainly of the county’s People’s Armed Forces Department (PAFD).
County-level PAFDs were the grassroots appendage of the PLA’s local regiments and came under the departmental jurisdiction of the provincial military district as well as the geographic jurisdiction of the county CCP committee. In a sense, members of the PAFD were both military personnel and local cadres. For example, at that time, Daoxian PAFD commander Cui Baoshu and political commissar Liu Shibin also served on the standing committee of the Daoxian CCP committee. China had been gradually moving toward virtual military control since January 1967, when the CCP Central Committee, State Council, Central Military Commission, and Central Cultural Revolution Small Group issued the “Resolution regarding the People’s Liberation Army Resolutely Supporting the Revolutionary Masses on the Left.” Daoxian had established governing bodies at the county, district, and commune levels under the name of “leading groups to seize revolution and push production” (known as seize-and-push groups). In the national context, these tripartite entities consisting of cadres, military personnel, and ordinary people were usually called revolutionary committees. In Daoxian, this new power establishment of seize-and-push groups included PAFD cadres, representatives of revolutionary mass organizations, and “cadres who had taken sides with the revolution,” with PAFD personnel at its core, and it effectively governed the county.
Daoxian’s climate has been described as a “year-round summer refreshed by rain,” suffering neither cold winters nor sweltering summers. However, some elderly people recalled that the summer of 1967 was unusual, with an overcast August unrelieved by rain and oppressively hot and humid; they remarked, “Heaven knew what was coming!”
The people of Daoxian have a tradition of composing doggerel, and one was dedicated to the “killing wind” of the Cultural Revolution:
The August 5 meeting sent up the flare;
The August 8 gun snatching planted the fuse;
The Xiaba production brigade started the killing;
Xique Zhengjia set the fire.
Accordingly, we will examine each of these key events in detail.
From August 2 to 5, the Daoxian Leading Group to Seize Revolution and Push Production called an urgent meeting of the leaders of all district seize-and-push groups. Some people say it went beyond its ostensible purpose and actually mobilized the killings. The minutes of that meeting include the following quote from Xiong Bing’en, county CCP secretary and deputy head of the county seize-and-push group:
At present a new situation has emerged in class struggle: the class enemy’s activities have become highly aggressive. A few days ago, a reactionary poster appeared in District 6. The class enemy was creating rumors of war, saying the Chiang Kai-shek gang is about to launch an offensive on mainland China, that the American imperialists are about to launch a world war, and that once the war starts, CCP members will be killed first and then probationary CCP members. District 1 has an old collaborator who goes every day to the production brigade CCP secretary and the chairman of the poor and lower-middle peasants’ association and argues about getting rehabilitated. In District 11’s Tangjia Commune, the landlords and rich peasants of the Xialongdong production brigade openly launched an attack to settle old scores, claiming they were going to take back the property distributed to poor and lower-middle peasants… . In some places we’ve had land divided among households, disputes and fighting, an outflow of the labor force, speculation, and profiteering. Comrades, we must raise our revolutionary guard against these new trends in class struggle and not lower our defenses for an instant. District 6 has done well in this regard, taking the initiative to attack class enemies and showing signs of improvement in revolution and production. This shows that seizing class struggle is the answer, and that failure to seize class struggle makes it impossible to push production and development… . We must boldly seize the net and pull the string of class struggle and strike hard against sabotage by class enemies. We must organize the masses to criticize and struggle against the incorrigible Four Black Elements and mobilize the masses to impose dictatorship. We must mercilessly attack the most heinous offenders by assembling dossiers and reporting them to the higher levels for punishment in accordance with law.
This is an opportune moment to introduce the three main leaders of the Daoxian CCP committee and county government at that time:
(1)County CCP First Secretary Shi Xiuhua, 39, was from a poor peasant family in Hebei’s Yutian County and had been sent south as a cadre. Shi had an explosive temper and an overbearing attitude that earned him the nickname Nan Batian.2 In addition, he had “fallen into the class enemy’s honey trap” by marrying the daughter of a landlord, which made him a target for overthrow. After being exposed by the Red Alliance, he was sent to a rural village to labor under the supervision of poor and lower-middle peasants.
(2)County CCP secretary Xiong Bing’en, 39, was a local cadre from a farmhand family in Dongmen Township. Xiong had come under attack early in the campaign for “executing a bourgeois reactionary line” but was now stepping forward to take charge of operations as a “cadre taking sides with the revolution.”
(3)County deputy CCP secretary and county head Huang Yida, 33, was a local cadre from an upper-middle peasant family in Shenzhangtang Township. In the early stage of the Cultural Revolution, he had been attacked for “executing the bourgeois reactionary line,” and by this time he was locked up in the Revolutionary Alliance headquarters (the No. 2 High School) to “confess his problems and accept the criticism and struggle of the revolutionary masses.”
The crux of the matter was Xiong Bing’en’s position in Daoxian’s political life at that time, combined with the content of his speech on August 5.
Available evidence indicates that among those seated on the rostrum, no one could be said to have directly issued orders to kill, but the implication of killing was there, in particular the implication of killing black elements.3
The heads of most of the district seize-and-push groups were also the heads of district or commune PAFDs or public-security or political-affairs cadres. Once the meeting ended, they dashed back to their respective districts and communes to relay the gist of the meeting and arrange follow-up.
The August 5 county seize-and-push meeting was closely followed by a sudden occurrence that accelerated the advent of the slaughter. This was the August 8 gun-snatching incident constantly alluded to with such notoriety in the course of Daoxian’s Cultural Revolution. The process was in fact quite simple. On August 8, the Daoxian Revolutionary Alliance (which at that time enjoyed the advantage over the Red Alliance) with the help of Lingling Prefecture rebel faction organizations obtained a letter of introduction from Deputy Commander Zhao of the Lingling Prefecture Military Subdistrict, then burst into the office of the county PAFD, broke down the door to the armory, and forcibly “commandeered” firearms and ammunition. The next day the Revolutionary Alliance returned and seized firearm parts (specifically firing pins) stored in the ceiling. Most of the seized firearms were taken by Xiang River Storm and another local rebel faction organization, with the Revolutionary Alliance retaining 150 guns and firing pins for its “verbal attack and armed defense.”
Differing versions of this key event demonstrate the difficulty of establishing the facts behind the Daoxian massacre.
An “exposure and confession” written one year later by Red Alliance leader and county production command post cadre Zhang Mingchi provides collateral verification of the August 8 incident. Zhang said that when he went to political commissar Liu Shibin to get weapons for the Red Alliance, Liu showed him the shattered armory door and claimed that the Revolutionary Alliance had carried out a counterrevolutionary coup d’état:
He told us, “The Revolutionary Alliance has taken armed occupation of our headquarters. I’ve lost my personal liberty, and they’re watching everything I say and do. They’re treating us like the enemy. I never guessed the Cultural Revolution would turn out this way. Those above won’t let us rebel; otherwise, I’d go to Beijing and rebel!” When he avoided the topic of weapons, we insisted that he take us back to his room at the production office. After inviting us to sit down, he told us, “Class struggle has become intense in Daoxian. It’s very complicated. The actions of the Revolutionary Alliance fully expose their reactionary character. I understand how you’re feeling now, but we haven’t any weapons; if we did, we would support you. The Revolutionary Alliance has snatched the guns and left you unarmed, but don’t worry, the district and commune PAFDs have guns, and there are more guns in the villages than the Revolutionary Alliance has. …” Liu also divulged to us, “The Revolutionary Alliance is planning to bring all the district and commune PAFD heads to the county seat so they can round them up and leave the district and commune militia without leadership. I’m not in a position to make telephone calls, but you should get word to all the districts and tell them not to fall for it.”
A report by a Revolutionary Alliance leader and former chairman of the Daoxian Grain Bureau Labor Union, Liu Xiangxi, verifies the gun-snatching incident from another angle:
Around 7:00 p.m. on August 8, 1967, the county PAFD’s deputy commander, Zhao Decai, and two staff officers rushed over to the Revolutionary Alliance headquarters at the No. 2 High School and reported … that the head of the Lengshuitan Paper Mill’s production department, Mao Jiansheng, and the head of the Lingling Resistance (a Lingling Prefecture rebel faction organization) had brought a letter of introduction from the Lingling Military Subarea Headquarters (this letter is now filed in the county archives) authorizing them to take control of the weapons and ammunition in the county PAFD’s armory, and to remove everything that night. Deputy Commander Zhao said, “In consideration of the urgency of anti-airdrop defense at Qianjiadong and the Xiangyuan tin mine, the PAFD hopes Revolutionary Alliance leaders will rush over in person to the PAFD headquarters to take part in negotiations between the PAFD and Lingling Xiang River Storm and Lingling Resistance, urging them to place national interests first and leave some weapons and ammunition behind for defense against airdrops of enemy agents.”
. . . The next day that I learned that … the outcome of the negotiation was that all of the good weapons (Soviet-style carbines) were taken over by Xiang River Storm’s Lengshuitan “Fire Spark Detachment”; Lingling Resistance required only one heavy machine gun and some small firearms. The remaining 150 guns, which had parts missing and were malfunctioning, were handed over to the Revolutionary Alliance for anti-airdrop defense. These guns were subsequently repaired by a demobilized serviceman, Wu XX.
Liu Xiangxi’s statement was written after 1986 and was filtered by memory. I have in hand a six-part report from September 16, 1967, titled “Report Material by the Hunan Province Daoxian Revolutionary Alliance Headquarters to the 47th Army.” The fifth part describes the August 8 gun seizure as follows:
The possession of the guns on August 8 transpired as follows. Around eight o’clock in the evening, the Xiang River Storm Lingling Regional Headquarters and the Lingling Resistance Headquarters dispatched two vehicles full of people to the armory and sent someone to tell us to send someone to the armory as well. Comrades Mao [Jiansheng] and Huang [Chengli] of the Leftist organizations Xiang River Storm and Lingling Resistance Headquarters had a letter of introduction from the military subdistrict, and from midnight until 3:00 a.m., they met in the PAFD conference room with PAFD commissar Liu [Shibin] and leader Zhao [Decai] to discuss the question of handing over arms to the rebel faction. Hu Xianzong also took part in the negotiations, and following study by the four sides it was unanimously agreed to turn over guns and ammunition to the Daoxian Revolutionary Alliance Headquarters. After 3:00 a.m., the handover was carried out in accordance with formal procedure. Our people lined up to accept the weapons.
Conflicts in the versions of events are natural, given the different interests involved as well as the timing of the statements. At the time, gun snatching was a glorious revolutionary action of proletarian revolutionaries, but after the Cultural Revolution, during investigations of people and incidents tied to the Gang of Four, taking part in gun-snatching incidents qualified one as a “beating, smashing, and looting element.”4 What is indisputable is that from late July to early August 1967, such gun-snatching incidents occurred throughout China; in some places, even cannons and tanks were seized. This may have been a strategic plan on the part of the proletarian headquarters, since documents show that in late July, Mao Zedong explicitly instructed Jiang Qing to distribute arms to the revolutionary Leftist factions. That is the only way to explain how unarmed civilian organizations were able to seize such a large quantity of arms and ammunition from the PLA.
After the August 8 gun-snatching incident, the Revolutionary Alliance considered themselves the Leftist victors, and the opposing Red Alliance, which had seized power in January, now felt under enormous pressure. On August 10, 1967, the CCP Central Committee issued “Certain Resolutions regarding the Hunan Issue,” but the gist of its content had by then already spread throughout Hunan in the form of “cables from Beijing” and “extraordinary glad tidings.” The main content of these resolutions was:
(1)The standing committee of the Hunan Province Military District CCP committee had committed political errors by attacking Xiang River Storm and suppressing the Worker Alliance and other revolutionary rebel factions during the previous phase of its “Support the Left” work but had carried out sincere self-criticism and displayed a good attitude. The Central Cultural Revolution Small Group’s memo on the Hunan Provincial Military District’s February 3 report regarding Xiang River Storm was also in error. On this issue, the Central Committee took responsibility.
(2)The Central Committee decided to reorganize the provincial military district and set about establishing a Hunan Province Revolutionary Committee Preparatory Committee, led by Li Yuan, Hua Guofeng, Zhang Bosen, and others, and including representatives of revolutionary mass organizations, military representatives, and revolutionary leading cadres, which would lead the province’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and industrial and agricultural production.
(3)All mass organization should, under the leadership of the Hunan Province Revolutionary Committee Preparatory Committee, firmly seize revolution and vigorously push production. They should be on guard against the enemy’s creation of division and plots to instigate violence and should carry out internal rectification of work styles to bring about the great revolutionary alliance.
(4)The “Agreement on Immediately and Resolutely Curbing Violence” signed by the Hunan Province delegation reporting to Beijing was very good, and all mass organizations should resolutely put an end to violence. From this time forward, no faction was authorized under any pretext to seize weapons from the PLA or to loot military armories.
The day before the formal publication of the resolutions, on August 9, the head of the Red Alliance’s logistics department, Zhang Mingchi, called an urgent meeting of Red Alliance stalwarts to explore emergency measures. After this noisy and argumentative meeting, it was finally decided that the Red Alliance would withdraw from the county CCP committee compound to Yingjiang Commune and would adopt Mao’s anti-Kuomintang tactic of “rallying the villages to surround the town and eventually capture it.” Yingjiang Commune was less than 4 kilometers west of Daojiang and was a commune under the direct jurisdiction of the county, with equivalent status to a district or township.
At this point, Daojiang Town was basically under the control of the Revolutionary Alliance, while anything outside of town was Red Alliance turf.
Following the August 8 gun-snatching incident, the Daoxian PAFD (at the county level organized by the PLA, and at the district and commune levels organized by local bureaucracy) became even more at odds with the Revolutionary Alliance, and its ties with its old comrades-at-arms in the Red Alliance became even closer. County PAFD commander Cui Baoshu, commissar Liu Shibin, and others regularly went to the Yingjiang Red Alliance headquarters to direct operations, and the PAFD’s operations chief and logistics head were stationed at Yingjiang. Evidence shows that in the slaughter that followed, the Daoxian PAFD played a key role in creating rumors, exacerbating conflict, and hatching plots, and that it bore an undeniable responsibility for the killings.
On August 11, the heads of all the district PAFDs (most of whom were also the heads of their district seize-and-push groups) and some of the Red Alliance heads held a battle-readiness meeting at the clubhouse of Qingtang Commune’s Yingleyuan production brigade. They decided to assemble the core members of people’s militia in each district (those possessing weapons) to attack the Revolutionary Alliance headquarters and root out that “fortified village.” District 6 (Qingtang District) PAFD commander Zheng Youzhi and others formed a frontline command post, with Zheng as commander in chief and Red Alliance leaders providing logistical support and intelligence work. The meeting also looked into establishing a solid “rear base area” and other such measures, emphasizing the need to strictly manage black elements (and offspring) and firmly suppress any “careless words or actions.”
On that same day, at the county production headquarters, county PAFD political commissar Liu Shibin and county CCP secretary Xiong Bing’en held a telephone conference with the heads of all district and commune seize-and-push groups. After arranging for districts and communes to focus on rushing the harvest of midseason rice and sweet potatoes, Xiong Bing’en once again emphasized the need for ruthless class struggle and also stressed the looting of the PAFD and public-security arms as an indication that class enemies were planning a rebellion. Indignantly tapping on the microphone, he said, “Every locality must mobilize the masses to take decisive action, strengthen dictatorship over the class enemies, and organize people’s militias … to defend the safety of the people’s lives and property, and to safeguard the ‘double rush’ planting and harvesting.”
Everything followed as a matter of course. No one appeared to arrange for any killings, yet the killing wind intensified and only awaited a spark to ignite it.