This book won’t be complete without a description of the situation in production brigades where no one was killed. I originally planned to focus on this while writing about Xianzijiao District, but ended up writing about the killings there instead. In Daoxian, murder cases were plentiful while instances of no killings or outright resistance to them were few and far between, and we devoted a great deal of effort and energy to this aspect, with minuscule returns. Still, what we learned is an essential addition to the record.
(1)The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary of Shouyan District’s Niulukou Commune, Tang Renhan, had been sidelined as soon as the Cultural Revolution began, but he was still called in for commune cadre meetings. At one such meeting, he heard the commune People’s Armed Forces Department (PAFD) commander suggest, “Other places have already taken action, so we should discuss whether we want to get rid of a couple [black elements].” Tang immediately rose to his feet and declared his stand: “What Commander Liu said just now is wrong and has to be ignored.” Because of his relentless opposition, the commune’s other cadres were ashamed to raise the matter again, so no killings were arranged on this occasion. Among that commune’s 23 production brigades, the cadres of two brigades held the same views as Tang Renhan, and as a result, no one was killed in those two brigades.
(2)Qin Tingliang, dismissed as head of the Daoxian Agricultural Bureau for being a “capitalist roader,” had been “sent down” to Jiujia Commune’s Jianshe brigade to oversee the rush planting and harvesting. When the killings began, the other 15 cadres who had been sent down with him all fled, and he was left on his own to continue his ideological remolding. The brigade CCP secretary and militia commander had already called two meetings to discuss killing people and had drawn up a name list, planning to take action the next day. When Qin Tingliang learned of this, he risked accusations of “taking the side of the class enemies” and went to talk with those two grassroots cadres: “Killing has never been allowed. Since ancient times, killing has brought the death penalty, and wounding has brought imprisonment. Chairman Mao has taught us that people are not like chives to be cut down as we please. Sooner or later, people will be called to account for what’s happening now. If someone’s calling for killings, tell them do it themselves. We absolutely cannot get involved in this nonsense!” The CCP secretary and militia commander saw the reason in Qin’s words and changed their minds, releasing those who had been detained. As a result, no one was killed in that production brigade.
(3)In Youxiang Commune, cadres of the Huangjin brigade returned from a commune meeting on August 28 and called a meeting during which it was decided that 26 people should be killed. Throughout the discussion, the brigade’s CCP secretary, Jiang Renjun, sat to one side smoking and said nothing. When the poor-peasant association (PPA) chairman solicited Jiang Renjun’s opinion as a representative of the CCP leadership, Jiang said, “If you insist on killing people, I can disregard it, but that’s the most I’ll do. If you want me to give the word to kill people, I absolutely refuse.” Seeing Jiang Renjun’s attitude, several others from the brigade’s CCP committee came forward and said that if Secretary Jiang didn’t support the idea, it should be dropped. Jiang Renjun said, “In that case, this meeting is adjourned.” As a result, the killings never took place. Even so, word got out, and among the 26 people on the death list, 3 were so terrified that they killed themselves, while several of the bolder ones fled.
On August 31, the commune’s public-security deputy telephoned the brigade and told militia commander Chen Yuxian that one of the brigade’s fugitive class enemy offspring, Deng Jiansheng, had been captured, and that the brigade should send someone to fetch him. By then, the upper levels had handed down the directive prohibiting further killings, so Chen Yuxian and brigade public-security head Deng Jiangqing were sent to the commune to bring Deng Jiansheng back. While they were there, the commune’s public-security deputy, Li Benyue, asked them, “What’s going on with the lack of activity in your brigade?”
Deng Jiangqin said, “It’s mainly because Jian Renjun is so conservative. He’s the party secretary, and if he won’t give the word, there’s nothing we can do.”
Li Benyue said, “He can represent only his own views. Party leaders still have to listen to the views of the masses. In my opinion, a person like Deng Jiansheng can be killed.”
Encouraged by Li, and convinced that they’d be unable to kill Deng Jiansheng once they returned to the brigade, Chen Yuxian and Deng Jiangqing killed him on the way back.
(4)In Yingjiang Commune, where the Red Alliance Frontline Command Post was located, there was a village called Zhenggangtou, which at that time was called the Heping (Peace) production brigade. The brigade had nine class enemy households as well as more than 20 offspring and other “elements,” yet not a single person was killed during the Cultural Revolution, allowing the brigade to live up to its name. Why was this?
We interviewed the elderly Jiang Liangzhong, who was the brigade’s CCP secretary during the Cultural Revolution. When we arrived in Zhenggangtou, he was busy building a new house, but when he heard that “leading comrades from the provincial capital” (at the time we were being described as provincial cadres) had come to talk to him about the Cultural Revolution killings, he dropped everything he was doing and came to receive us. He was the classic image of an old Daoxian peasant—of modest stature and noticeably stooped, his feet bare. He was obviously a person accustomed to manual labor, although his experience as a cadre had also left its mark. He wasn’t terribly expressive and simply gave us a bland smile by way of greeting.
We expressed amazement that he’d been able to hold back the killing wind during that dark and oppressive time. He replied, “That was quite a wind! As soon as the leaders called for killings, those below went about it energetically and wantonly. The ‘Five Evil Winds’ had blown up just that way, and look how many starved to death! After I came back from the meeting at Yingjiang, they asked me, what should our brigade do? The way I saw it, even killing a pig required a permission slip, so how could it be so easy to kill a person? Even during Land Reform killing hadn’t been that easy—the Land Reform Law had to be followed, and the higher authorities issued written directives. Ever since ancient time, killing people required official authorization as well as supervision of the execution and specifying exactly which law had been broken, so how could we be so unruly? The ones stirring up the killing were pushing for promotion, but I didn’t want promotion, so I just hung back. Since the higher authorities were paralyzed, we just joined them in their paralysis. Poor-peasant representative Jiang Zhongshang supported my views. He told me, ‘If the other brigades want to kill people, let them; we’re not activists, so we won’t kill.’
“Later, the killing wind became increasingly fierce, and other brigades were killing more and more people. Some people in our brigade couldn’t sit still any longer, and they tied up landlord Jiang Fubao and his son and called a cadre meeting at the grain-drying yard to force me to take a stand. Jiang Fubao and his son figured they were dead men and had changed into their best clothes to meet their fates. I don’t know what class enemies were like in other brigades, but hadn’t everyone here seen with their own eyes how Jiang and his son had behaved? Apart from Jiang Fubao having benefited from exploitation before Liberation, he’d never done anything bad, and now we were supposed to go through Land Reform all over again? I refused to take a stand. They began to press me on it, and I said it was getting chilly and I needed to put on some more clothes, and I ran home and hid. When they couldn’t find me, they didn’t dare make the decision themselves, and after discussing the matter for a while they finally let Jiang and his son go.”
With sincere admiration, we said, “Secretary Jiang, you are a man of elevated awareness and high standard.”
Jiang Liangzhong shook his head like a rattle. “You say I had elevated awareness and a high standard, but deputy county head Pan, who is now chairman of the county People’s Congress, came here and gave me a hiding, saying I was a cowardly devil and unrevolutionary.”
We were stunned. We could believe that deputy county head Pan might feel that way, but for him to act so brazenly was surprising. After a brief pause, all we could say was, “History will judge.”1
In the context of the Cultural Revolution, I refer to the situation here as the Zhenggongtou phenomenon. As with the Lucaoping phenomenon, it tells us as much as those brigades that racked up the most killings, only from a different perspective. In our investigation of brigades with few or no killings, we discovered a universal phenomenon, which was that they almost without exception met the following five conditions: (1) the brigade’s grassroots CCP organization was rather lax, (2) the brigade was relatively behind other brigades in all its operations, (3) the brigade’s geographical location was relatively distant from the administrative hub, (4) the brigade didn’t have commune cadres sent down to direct operations, and (5) the brigade’s leading cadres had a rough time of it in the years that followed; for example, Jiang Renjun was dismissed from his post as brigade CCP secretary. Discovering or rather recognizing this last point dealt a heavy blow to us; I felt physically and mentally sapped as if by a serious illness.
I swear that our original intention was to write a report that would find something positive to praise in this dark time. Unfortunately, that proved impossible.