After the Gang of Four was crushed, family members of victims of the Daoxian massacre made thousands of trips to Changsha and Beijing to petition the authorities for redress; tens of thousands of written complaints flooded prefectural, provincial, and central government offices. All these complaints identified county Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary Xiong Bing’en as the orchestrator of the massacre and “chief justice” of the peasant supreme court and demanded that he be brought to justice. These denunciations likewise implicated the head of the county CCP committee organization department, Wang Ansheng, the deputy head of Xianglinpu District, Yuan Lifu, the commander of the District 6 People’s Armed Forces Department (PAFD), Zheng Youzhi, and Red Alliance heads Zhang Mingchi and He Xia, among others.
The Task Force took these petitions and written complaints very seriously and established special investigation teams to ascertain the facts behind them. However, no strong evidence was ever found that Xiong Bing’en had directly ordered killings.
Deng Youzhi, who was CCP secretary of Lingling Prefecture at the time, personally sought out Huang Yida, who during the Cultural Revolution was Xiong Bing’en’s opponent as county deputy CCP secretary and county head, and asked him, “Comrade Huang Yida, you have a better understanding of the Cultural Revolution killings in Daoxian, so I want you to tell me honestly, did Xiong Bing’en direct any killings?”
Huang Yida replied, “I worked with Xiong Bing’en for many years, and he was always a highly circumspect person, never saying or doing anything out of line. He committed serious errors during the Cultural Revolution killings; as the county’s main leader, he didn’t stop the killings and even supported them, but there’s no evidence that he ever planned or directed any killings. At that time, he was mainly in charge of production, and the actual power was not in his hands.”
The question then arises how the Daoxian massacre could have proceeded with such coordination and speed without some kind of centralized planning and arrangement.
At considerable risk, we managed through an intermediary to interview the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Alliance and ringleader of the armed violence in Daoxian, the former chairman of the county grain bureau labor union, Liu Xiangxi. I already knew that Liu had spent a total of seven years in prison during the Cultural Revolution and had nearly been handed a death sentence, and that he subsequently served a long term of penal labor under surveillance. We were afraid he’d be jittery and unwilling to talk, but on meeting him all our apprehensions were shattered. This was no timid and overcautious man, but rather someone who had long ago set aside any considerations of life and death.
Liu was a wiry man of modest height, and what left the deepest impression on me were his eyes, which gleamed with an enigmatic and somewhat ghastly smile, and the long, deep creases alongside his mouth. Unlike the connotation of the Western term “laugh lines,” the classic Chinese Guide to Physiognomy refers to these creases as “winged snakes” and says that if they “enter the mouth,” the bearer will “starve to death in an alien land.” Liu’s “winged snakes” curved dangerously close to the corners of his mouth but then extended downward. One look at him suggested that this was a very intelligent, capable, obstinate, and conceited man. I had to remind myself to maintain my objectivity and not let him lead me by the nose.
Liu Xiangxi was a native of Daoxian, born in 1931 to a poor peasant family and receiving a primary-school education. He joined the volunteer army in 1951 to fight in the Korean War, and he joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1953. He graduated from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Headquarters Xuanhua Institute of Communications in 1957, and most of his army postings were in the communications field. Following a back injury during training, he transferred to civilian work in February 1966 and returned to Daoxian, and the Cultural Revolution began soon after that. Perhaps his years in prison had frozen his speech and thinking in the patterns of the early Cultural Revolution. He referred to himself as a soldier of the Maoist revolutionary rebel faction, to his opposition, the Red Alliance, as the “counterrevolutionary killing faction,” and to Xiong Bing’en as “Daoxian’s biggest capitalist roader.”
Liu was housed in the grain bureau’s residential quarters, the shabbiness of which evidenced the poverty of its occupant. What stood out were the many scrolls that hung in the living room, all poems of Liu’s own composition and in his own calligraphy. Following his release from prison, Liu had begun practicing calligraphy as a means, he said, of improving his character and healing his wounds. He had suffered enormous physical injury in prison, nearly losing the use of both arms. He seemed to emulate the calligraphic style of Yan Zhenqing, and although of a clearly amateur standard, his writing was bold and firm. One scroll in particular caught my attention:
Qilü: 1 The Cultural Revolution Catastrophe
White Terror August 13
Saving people and city;
The school guarded with hardship,
Gelian2 skill repelled slayers.
Bullets rained August 30,
Honglian3 bloodbath in Daozhao;
Valiant resistance one hour,
Three rebel corps captured.
Riot on Sept 23,
Rushing the school to snatch guns,
Against the Sept 5 Order;
Ruthless in evil designs!
These three stanzas of doggerel depict three major battles between the Red and the Revolutionary Alliances that resulted in Liu Xiangxi being designated a “beating, smashing, and looting element.” These dramatic battles are not the focus of this book, however, so I will not go into the details here.
Our main objective in interviewing Liu Xiangxi was to listen to him, or more precisely, to hear about the Daoxian massacre from the perspective of the Red Alliance’s opponents, the Revolutionary Alliance.
It appeared that Liu Xiangxi approached the interview with the greatest possible wariness. This was understandable for someone who’d learned of the treachery of human beings through hard experience.
Our interview or, strictly speaking, our conversation revolved cautiously around his experiences during the Cultural Revolution, but shrewd as he was, he couldn’t help but know what we really wanted, and for all the lack of trust between us, I believe that what we wanted was what he was most willing to provide. When we raised the topic of the killings, Liu Xiangxi gave a sardonic laugh and said, “You came to the right person. I’m a ‘living fossil’ of the Daoxian massacre, and I can give you whatever you need.”
He let us read an “exposure report” he’d written on the Cultural Revolution killings in Daoxian, and while he wouldn’t let us take it with us, he did let us take notes. The petition ended with this impressive statement: “If a single word I’ve written is false, may I be beheaded in the public square.” We read this report very carefully and conscientiously, and apart from the different perspective, the basic facts it presented differed little from the Task Force’s investigation files.
Liu Xiangxi told us that when a revolutionary committee was established in Daoxian in early 1968, with the political commissar of the 6950 Unit as chairman and county CCP secretary Huang Yida as first vice chairman, Liu Xiangxi was appointed to the Revolutionary Committee’s standing committee in charge of finance and trade. In March 1968, the 6950 Unit and the county Revolutionary Committee held an “exposure study session” attended by more than 250 people, including work unit leaders, representatives of both alliances, and people implicated in the killings:
This study session lasted 21 days and carried out in-depth and detailed exposure and confrontation regarding the massacre. We sent people into each district and commune and carried out a very thorough and solid investigation. We wrote up an investigative report and a register of individuals, all supported by ironclad evidence. I remember that we printed off dozens of copies of this report and sent it to the prefecture, the province, and the party center. The original draft was preserved in Zhang Fushan’s hands; he was also a Revolutionary Alliance leader, a native of the Northeast who has since returned there. The development of the Great Cultural Revolution in Daoxian was excellent then, and the inside story of the massacre was crystal clear. At the time, I went to see Secretary Huang Yida and suggested that he quickly put the material in order and report it to the Provincial Revolutionary Committee, and then kill a few of the arch-criminals and imprison another batch. But Huang Yida was too softhearted, saying such things as “There’s no rush, let’s leave it for handling at a later stage of the campaign,” and “The material is here, it’s not going to fly away.” The result was that those fellows were spared and allowed to carry out a counterrevolutionary restoration of the old order… .
At that time, Lin Biao’s anti-party clique wanted to make Hunan the strategic base of their counterrevolutionary coup d’état. The Hunan provincial military district’s political commissar, Bo Zhanya, was one of Lin Biao’s “black operatives,” and in order to securely control Hunan as a strategic base, they pushed the 47th Army out of Hunan. In September 1968, the 6950 Unit that was supporting the Left in Daoxian suddenly withdrew secretly overnight, without giving us any kind of notice. Once the 6950 Unit left, the PAFD began to throw its weight around again. The world turned upside down in an instant, and the homicidal maniacs in the Red Alliance took control again. Those fellows feared and hated us, and they came up with a plan to fabricate accusations and arrest me, Secretary Huang Yida, and the other Revolutionary Alliance leaders and send us to prison, where we were bound, beaten, and tortured. Zhang Fushan was also imprisoned, and no one knows what happened to the report and register of implicated individuals following his arrest.
Because I had opposed their arbitrary killings, exposed their true counterrevolutionary colors, and resolutely fought them, they considered me a thorn in their side and would have liked to see me dead. They arrested and imprisoned me twice for a total of four years. They were calling for the death penalty for me, but I hear they repeatedly submitted reports to the upper level and couldn’t get authorization. I, Liu Xiangxi, was loyal to the party and Chairman Mao; I was upright, open, and aboveboard, and it was no easy matter to frame me for some fabricated crime. By the time I got out of prison, both my arms were almost completely disabled, and I healed myself by constantly massaging my hands and practicing calligraphy every day. They wanted me to die, but I insisted on living; every day I live is another day to fight them. I don’t believe there’s no justice in this world. The overlord of this gang of crazed killers, Lin Biao, once said, “Sooner or later, people always get what they deserve, for good or for ill.” I believe that, too, and one day, they’ll receive retribution, just as their overlord did.
We asked, “From what you know, who orchestrated the Daoxian massacre at the county level?”
He answered decisively, “Xiong Bing’en!”
“Is there evidence?”
“Of course there’s evidence. First of all, his August 5 speech and August 11 telephone conference directive were general mobilization orders for the Daoxian killings.
“But in his speech, he didn’t explicitly order anyone killed, did he?” I countered.
“You’re a reporter. How can you not understand how things work in China? When does any leader make his directives that explicit? They always depend on those below understanding and acting accordingly. Isn’t it always the case that when a leader says something, each level downward ups the stakes?”
“Back then, it wasn’t only him saying this kind of thing. Secretary Shi Xiuhua, who had been unseated at that time, said ‘Chiang Kai-shek wants to launch a counterattack on the mainland, and we have to kill people so he won’t have anyone leading the way for him.’ ”
“Then you have to distinguish the time, place, and target: when Xiong Bing’en said what to whom, and what district PAFD commanders and public-security cadres were doing.”
“All right then, please go on to the second point of evidence.”
“The second is that his wife, He De’e, was ‘honorary chief justice’ of the ‘Supreme People’s Court of the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants’ in Dongmen Commune’s Fengjia production brigade, and she was very active in the killings.”
“Can what his wife did be attributed to him?”
“Why not? If he hadn’t advocated killing people, why would his wife be so involved? This is just like corruption and bribe taking—you send your wife in your place. You think I don’t understand Xiong Bing’en’s schemes?”
“And the third piece of evidence?”
“The third is the most important: during the killings, his secretary, Wang Enchang,4 telephoned the lower levels many times to get progress reports on the killings and to supervise and push forward the killings.”
“But Wang Enchang won’t agree with what you said. That was the time of the double-rush planting and harvesting, and Xiong Bing’en was in charge of production. If his secretary telephoned each district and commune to check on how production was progressing, and in passing expressed interest in the killings, that can’t be equated with supervising and pushing forward the killings, can it?”
Liu Xiangxi looked rather anxious: “Why can’t you understand even that much? Sometimes all that’s needed is one mispronounced word and the meaning changes completely. Those people were his people, and of course they’ll protect him. Xiong Bing’en was a county head, and when the head of a county supports killings, that’s the same as directing them!”
“You can say that, but there’s still a need for evidence. Besides which, this all happened nearly 20 years ago, and a clear and thorough investigation is easier said than done.”
“Easier said than done? Give me a chance to investigate, and within a month I guarantee that I’d get to the bottom of it. No one who engineered the killings would get off. They’d all end up confessing to me.”
I looked at Liu Xiangxi and laughed: “No wonder they wanted to sentence you to death!”
Liu Xiangxi said, “I don’t blame them for wanting me dead. If I were in power, I’d sentence them to death. I’m not as softhearted as Huang Yida. ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ I would take out each article of law and party discipline and act accordingly and without apology. I long ago prepared myself to fight them to the bitter end to protect Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line. After Chairman Mao passed away in 1976, they imprisoned me for another three years, and on the day they released me after I was exonerated, I rushed over to the county party committee and grabbed that old counterrevolutionary Yang XX, the head of the county special-investigation group, wanting to throw him into the Nanmen River and turn him into turtle food.”
As we prepared to leave, Liu Xiangxi suddenly said, “Let me give you another clue: you should go and interview He Xia. That fellow is a reactionary scholar and theoretician, and he has evidence.”
“How do you know?”
“Last time [1985] when they held the study sessions at the XX guest house, three leaders from the Task Force, Director Liao, Headmaster Guo, and Secretary Chen, went to get him to confess. He was very arrogant and said he had original records, but he wouldn’t hand them over until they arrested him. Now they don’t dare arrest him, because they’re afraid of what he has. You can go ask him for it.”
“If he wasn’t willing to hand it over to the Task Force, why would he give it to us?”
Liu Xiangxi smiled and said, “That’s not my problem.”
The things that Liu Xiangxi said were also in the Task Force’s files, but it wasn’t enough to designate Xiong Bing’en as the main orchestrator of the Daoxian killings. There was plenty of evidence that Xiong supported the killings, but very little suggesting that he directly ordered them. In our heart of hearts, we secretly hoped that Xiong was the main leader of the Cultural Revolution killings in Daoxian. That would make the matter so simple: the ringleader identified and all the cause and effect wrapped up neatly for presenting the public with a clear and complete answer. Of course, Xiong Bing’en had already been transferred away from Daoxian to serve as assistant director of Lingling Prefecture. We hoped to interview him and hear his side, but he refused. I guess he thought we wanted to interview him as the main behind-the-scenes instigator of the killings, but if so, he was wrong; we didn’t bring preconceived assumptions to interviews with anyone, whether members of the Task Force, the family members of victims, or even those involved in the killings. We felt only that if he were willing to talk, it would be more profound and essential than what anyone else could say.
The first time we came to Daoxian to carry out our reporting, our plan included interviewing He Xia and other Red Alliance leaders, but because interviewing them presented even-greater difficulties than interviewing Revolutionary Alliance head Liu Xiangxi, they were left for last. When problems arose that resulted in our reporting being suspended midway, our interviews with He Xia and others also went by the wayside. The opportunity to meet He Xia finally came 20 years after my first reporting trip to Daoxian, and 40 years after the killings. By then, He Xia was an old man of 76, and I myself was becoming rather long in the tooth.
He Xia was passing his twilight years in leisurely comfort and indifference to fame. Since retiring as a department head, the orbit of his daily life was simple: after rising in the morning, he would go to the market to buy vegetables and then to Zhou Dunyi Square to exercise, after which he would read the newspaper and watch television to keep up on national current events. Apart from this, his main interest and favorite topic of conversation was maintaining his health. He never talked about what had happened during the Cultural Revolution, and even when asked by leaders of the prefectural and county CCP committees, he always politely declined comment.
During my fourth visit to Daoxian at the end of 2007, I finally made contact with He Xia through the help of a friend who was close to him. However, he would not accept an interview or provide information: this was only a “conversation on topics of mutual interest, as between friends.” I felt this suggestion was a good one, because by then interviewing He Xia was no longer so important, and meeting him was merely the fulfillment of a long-cherished wish. I only wanted to hear his observations and thoughts about the social changes over the past 40 years, and whether his views regarding the killings had changed. The Revolutionary Alliance had referred to him as a “hack,” a “theoretician,” a “reactionary scholar,” and a “dog-headed advisor,” presumably an indication of his outstanding qualities. I didn’t know what considerations had led He Xia to agree to see me, but my wish to see him was as simple as that.
My friend took me to He Xia’s home. It was a small, two-story house, spacious and immaculately clean, located along the Lianxi River. He Xia himself lived on the second floor above a little computer school. He came downstairs, opened the heavy security grate, and very graciously invited me to his parlor upstairs.
A diminutive old man less than 1.6 meters tall, he had a kindly and gentle appearance. His eyes, although somewhat clouded, retained the self-confidence of a former department head, and one caught glimpses of the intelligent and capable official he’d once been. He spoke at a moderate pace and in an orderly and logical fashion. His recollection of the Cultural Revolution killings was amazingly clear: names, dates, and places were all accurate.
We sat down as guest and host, exchanged conventional greetings, and eventually parted as friends. Because we both were mentally prepared, I didn’t ask what I shouldn’t ask, and he didn’t talk about what he shouldn’t talk about, so the atmosphere was one of mutual understanding.
He Xia first spoke of the killings as he saw them, and although from a different perspective, the basic contours of the process he described differed little from what I knew. Without waiting for me to ask, he took the initiative in talking about his own role during the killings:
I know there have been a lot of rumors about me, and many petitions by survivors have lumped me together with Zheng Youzhi and Yuan Lifu as a ringleader of the “killing wind.” I can responsibly state that I never at any time or any place ordered any killings; rather, on many occasions I gave speeches calling for adherence to the party’s policy boundaries that prohibited indiscriminate killing. I also saved people on four occasions: the first time, on the morning of August 28, a cadre from the Yingjiang seed multiplication farm, Wang Shoubo, told me the farm wanted to kill Zeng Mengyun and Zhou Dejun and had already bound them and taken them out. I told Zheng Youzhi to hurry and save them. Zheng Youzhi told Zhang Mingchi, “You’re tall and a fast runner, so go with Liao Mingzhong to save them.” Zhang Mingzhi yelled as he ran, “Stop the execution! Death sentence suspended for three days!” By the time he got there, Zeng Mengyun had already been blown up with dynamite, but Zhou Dejun was saved. When the three days were up, the poor and lower-middle peasants of the seed multiplication farm went to Zhang Mingchi demanding that he hand Zhou over. Zhang telephoned Zheng Youzhi for instructions. Zheng said, “If they really insist, hand him over but tell them to save on bullets.” As a result, Zhou Dejun was ultimately executed.
The second time, on the morning of August 30, it was Wang Shoubo who told me again that the farm wanted to kill its director, Long Yunfu. Having learned a lesson from attempting to save Zhou Dejun, I found a way to have Long Yunfu handed over to me, and his life was saved.
The third time, on the evening of August 29, core members of the Daojiang Town militia had prepared dynamite and rope for an attack on two men in Chengguan Street. When I learned of this, I told them firmly that I wouldn’t allow any killing in Daojiang Town, and that anyone killing under any circumstances would be called to account. This not only saved the two men—more important, it prevented Daojiang residents from killing anyone. Once the taboo against killing was broken, who knew how many people would have met with disaster.
The fourth time, on the morning of September 9, Revolutionary Alliance “Rulers of Destiny”5 commanders Xu Jiayu, Zhou Jiaming, and another educated youth sent down to Dapingpu Farm were seized by Dapingpu functionaries in the county seat, and after being beaten they were taken back to the farm and locked up in cages in the cotton press machine room, with the intention of killing them. When I heard of the matter, I immediately went to the farm’s director, Zhou Yuan’en, and worked on him, saying that they were sent-down educated youth who absolutely could not be killed and must be released right away and given money for treatment of their injuries. After thinking it over for a while, Zhou said they could be released but they wouldn’t be given money for medical treatment. I quickly found the farm’s driver and asked him to take the three educated youth back to Daojiang overnight, and I took 30 yuan out of my private funds to pay for their medical treatment.
You may not know this, but all the leaders and comrades know that I, He Xia, have always been a moderate in everything I’ve ever done over the decades. After the Task Force began its work in 1984, it opened a file on me, and the party organization came to talk to me. At the time I took the stand that if they identified any instance in which I directed killings in any place, they should execute me. They carried out repeated investigations, and when they finally reached a formal conclusion, the prefectural party committee sent the county party committee’s deputy secretary, comrade Hu Canzheng, to carry out the final interview with me. Secretary Hu said, “Old He, they originally treated you as a focal case, but after repeated inquiries they ascertained that you weren’t involved in the killings and even found ways to save people. When so many other county leaders got carried away, only you were a solid moderate.”
I wasn’t a hothead like Zhang Mingchi and Zheng Youzhi. I’ve never done anything against party policy. On the night of the battle on August 13, Zhang Mingchi and Zheng Youzhi rounded up more than a thousand militiamen and piled explosives around the enclosing walls of the No. 2 High School, planning to blow it up. I was in a panic thinking how many would be killed—only a few among them were really bad, and all of them were class brothers. I kept trying to dissuade them, but they wouldn’t listen, so I ran to the PAFD headquarters and asked them to come forward and put a stop to it. This averted a disaster—you can ask around and confirm this.
At this point I interjected, “Since that’s the case, why was everyone pointing the finger at you?” He Xia continued:
That was because of rumors. For example, it’s always said that I was political commissar for the Red Alliance—even official documents state this. But in fact, I was never the Red Alliance’s political commissar. During the Cultural Revolution, I was just an ordinary cadre in the county party committee’s rural work department. When the Cultural Revolution started, I was still in the countryside carrying out “socialist education,” and by the time I returned to the county seat, the Cultural Revolution was going full blast. At the direction of the county party committee, I joined the rebel corps of the “Red Warriors,” and I served as political commissar for the Fifth Unit of that rebel corps. That’s the only capacity in which I served as a political commissar in the Red Alliance. After the Red Alliance headquarters withdrew to Yingjiang and established its frontline command post there, they gave me the official title of deputy political commissar, but the actual people in charge were Zheng Youzhi and Zhong Changyou. My assignment was to take charge of the everyday needs of the Red Alliance masses. When the PAFD’s political commissar Liu and Commander Cui arrived in Yingjiang, people always went to them and not to me, and we were never let in on what was said behind closed doors.
The reason I became so well known in Daoxian was because after the January power seizure, the operations of the county party committee organs were suspended for a time. At that time, the Lingling military subdistrict and county PAFD were in charge of Support-the-Left work, and in mid-February, the Lingling military subdistrict’s deputy commander Kuang assumed command in Daoxian, establishing two groups: a “seize revolution and push production headquarters” and a “Cultural Revolution office.”
The seize-and-push headquarters was under the command of county PAFD political commissar Liu Jinbin, and Xiong Bing’en and another county deputy party secretary, Yu Shan, served as deputy commanders. The Cultural Revolution office, due to a failure to reach consensus among various conflicting parties, wasn’t formally established until April 20. County PAFD commander Cui Baoshu was director, and I was first deputy director, with a Revolutionary Alliance member named Zhou Donglin serving as second deputy director. Originally both sides had agreed on this, but the Revolutionary Alliance went back on its word, and as soon as the office was established, the streets were plastered with posters calling for me to be unseated, saying I was Shi Xiuhua’s proxy and Daoxian’s biggest royalist. They also organized people to attack the Cultural Revolution office and smashed up its sign. Less than a week after it was established, the Cultural Revolution office was forced to disband, so I served as first deputy director for less than a week. After the Cultural Revolution office was disbanded, Cui Baoshu called a meeting of the leaders of all of Daojiang’s Red Alliance organizations and said that the Cultural Revolution office couldn’t be established, and the Red Alliance hadn’t set up a headquarters, so from now on comrade He Xia would be convener of the Red Alliance, and that the PAFD’s views would be communicated through comrade He Xia. In that way I was transformed into a Red Alliance leader without portfolio, and that’s how the county came to know that there was a person named He Xia.
“From what I understand, the main leaders of the Red Alliance Frontline Command Post in Yingjiang all were PAFD commanders of various districts,” I said. “What was their relationship with the Red Alliance?”
“They could be considered members of the Red Alliance. They joined the Red Alliance collectively under orders from the county PAFD headquarters… . After they joined the Red Alliance, they naturally took over its leadership. After the Frontline Command Post was established in Yingjiang, it replaced the Red Alliance headquarters.”
“I see. Director He, as someone who experienced the Cultural Revolution in Daoxian, in your view, what was the main reason the killing wind emerged there?”
“There are six main reasons, and I discussed all of them with the Task Force as well as with the leaders of the prefectural and county party committees. The first was the Revolutionary Alliance’s gun-snatching incident on August 8, which sent shock waves through the whole county.” He Xia sounded as if he’d spent a lot of time thinking about this question.
“Gun-snatching incidents were widespread throughout China during the Cultural Revolution,” I interjected. “Why didn’t massacres result from gun snatchings in other counties?”
“Don’t be in such a hurry, and listen to what I have to say! After the August 8 gun snatching, the PAFD gave off the wrong signal. At that time, the county PAFD headquarters designated the August 8 gun snatching as a counterrevolutionary coup d’état by the class enemy and an attempted takeover by black elements. The poor and lower-middle peasants became very anxious, truly believing that black elements were planning an overthrow. After hearing this news on August 9, I immediately ran to the county PAFD headquarters to learn more. I saw Commander Cui Baoshu in his room, and he was very upset, actually crying, and he told me a lot of things, the gist of which was that this gun-snatching incident was class enemies organizing and planning a counterrevolutionary coup d’état, and he wanted us to organize the poor and lower-middle peasants and revolutionary masses to defend the Red regime. While we were talking, people arrived from the Revolutionary Alliance. Many of the guns they’d taken didn’t have firing pins, so they’d run back to the PAFD to get them. Commander Cui lowered the mosquito net and had me hide in his bed while he went to deal with them. At that time, everything was very simple and crude, and the PAFD office was right outside Commander Cui Baoshu’s bedroom, a very large room furnished with many tables where everyone was squeezed together working. I hid in the bed and listened to them negotiate outside. I stayed there until the Revolutionary Alliance people left.”
“Did they give the firing pins to the Revolutionary Alliance?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes. The Revolutionary Alliance people took them from the ceiling of the PAFD headquarters.”
“How did they know the firing pins were stored in the ceiling?”
“There must have been a traitor in the PAFD.”
The second reason He Xia gave was the 47th Army’s “Cable on the Social Situation” being misconstrued to encourage further killing of “troublemakers.” The third was the “tense situation of class struggle” in Daoxian and the discovery of counterrevolutionary organizations and KMT [Kuomintang] agents operating in the county.
“But I hear all these were bogus cases,” I pointed out.
“Bogus? They may have been exaggerated, but it’s not possible that they all were bogus! I personally saw some of those reactionary leaflets defaming Chairman Mao and the Communist Party, and the language was truly venomous. Some of them are still on file at the Public Security Bureau.”
“All right. And the fourth reason?”
“The fourth reason was the influence of Left-deviating thinking. Class struggle had long been a guiding principle under the interference and sabotage of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, and it had become absolute. The truth taken a step further becomes error. The fifth reason was that the public-security, procuratorial, and judicial organs were in ruins, and the legal system had been severely compromised. The sixth reason was that rumors were circulating everywhere that the class enemies had organized ‘black killing squads’ and were planning an uprising, that they wanted to kill the poor and lower-middle peasants and Communist Party members. Some cadres and masses didn’t make inquiries in accordance with party policy but instead took extreme measures that resulted in the killing getting out of control.”
After hearing He Xia list out the six reasons, I couldn’t help laughing inwardly. How ludicrously naive I’d been to hope for even the slightest expression of regret! It was too difficult to change a person’s thinking. Likewise, a nation’s advancement requires the untiring effort of generations of people over a very long time frame. Many matters simply cannot be turned around by those who were involved. Repentance, like democracy and science, requires genuine study and effort on the part of the Chinese people as a whole.
I decided to put my question in more-concrete terms: “Director He, what responsibility do you feel Xiong Bing’en should bear for the killing wind in Daoxian? He’s dead now, so this isn’t a matter of calling him to account but rather of rethinking the question.” This is what I’d wanted to ask him 20 years earlier.
“He doesn’t bear a great deal of responsibility, in my opinion. If he’s to be blamed for anything, it’s for his ambiguous attitude.”
“When the leader of a county takes an ambiguous attitude toward what’s going on in his jurisdiction, shouldn’t he bear responsibility for what happens as a result?”
“From our present perspective, what you say is absolutely correct. But the Cultural Revolution created a special situation. Comrade journalist, you experienced the Cultural Revolution, so you should know what I mean.”
“Can we say that Xiong Bing’en sympathized with and supported the killings?”
After being immersed in thought for a long time, He Xia said, “You could say that. In the situation of that time, a person’s attitude was determined by the position he was in. Xiong Bing’en wasn’t the only one in the county party leadership who maintained that attitude at that time; you could say the vast majority held basically the same views. The ‘killing wind’ had its fortuitous and inevitable aspects. This can be seen from the way that it drew in so many party members and cadres, and from the way that once the killings began in Daoxian, they spread to surrounding counties and towns. Surely it can’t be said that someone in the prefectural party committee gave the order? This is a historical tragedy and the inevitable result of expanding the scope of class struggle. It couldn’t be bent by human will; no one person could give the word to start the killings, and no one could end them just by saying so.”
I asked, “So who do you think bears the greatest responsibility?”
I expected him to say Zheng Youzhi, and didn’t expect his swift and straightforward reply: “the PAFD headquarters.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Comrade journalist, I can see you’re very well informed about the killing wind. Tell me, which district or commune had killings that weren’t carried out through the PAFD? At that time, they were the ones who had the say in Daoxian. As for people such as us, whether we wanted people killed or didn’t want people killed, what could we actually do about it?”
At this point I suddenly recalled the clue that Liu Xiangxi had given me years earlier, so I tossed out my last question: “I hear you still have some original records of meetings that were held back then.”
He Xia was immediately put on guard: “Comrade journalist, didn’t we agree not to talk about this kind of thing?”
I knew that I was in the wrong, and fearing that I would cause problems for my go-between, I quickly smiled and changed the subject. We talked about some irrelevant matters, and sensing there was nothing left to be said, I stood and took my leave.
Leaving He Xia’s home, I strolled to Zhou Dunyi Square, a new landmark construction in Daoxian, situated on the west bank of the Xiaoshui River and with a concrete bridge leading to Xizhou Park in the middle of the river. The square was immense and paved with granite, and a granite statue of Zhou Dunyi towered more than 20 meters high in the middle of the square. This was Daoxian’s busiest spot, filled with elderly people early in the morning, swarming with people going about their daily business during the daylight hours, and at night becoming a sea of gleaming neon, music, and dancing. Daojiang is rather strange that way—a small county town that no one talks about much, so tranquil and carefree, can give such a sense of radiating vitality. Leaning on a carved stone railing, I looked down at the Xiaoshui River flowing peacefully below my feet. Ever since knowing its story, I never came to Daoxian without walking along this river and sitting and gazing at it as if visiting an old friend, but a visit that produced agitated feelings, like weeping without tears. The river was always calm, rippling, and silent, but at night, when people were at home resting, if you came quietly up alongside it, you could hear its labored panting.
I suddenly recalled something that happened in 1988. That year, a publishing house in Beijing expressed strong interest in this historical record and wanted to publish it but needed to confirm the veracity of its contents, so the publisher sent two editors, Yue Jianyi and Huang Xiaozhong, to accompany me to Daoxian. Arriving at noon, we stopped at a small restaurant at the end of town. This little restaurant specialized in wild game, and coming from Beijing, Xiao Yue and Xiao Huang had little opportunity to eat such food, so we ordered platters of pheasant, bamboo rat, catfish, smoked pork, and wild mushrooms, as well as a flask of warm rice wine, taking our time to enjoy the feast. Pointing to the plate of fish, Xiao Yue jokingly asked me, “Did this fish ever eat human flesh?” I said, “If it had, it would have become immortal by now.” We ate and drank and joked together, but Xiao Yue and Xiao Huang kept glancing sideways at the people who hustled along the road. I knew they were thinking the same thing I had thought when I first came to Daoxian, trying to see how people here were different from those anywhere else.
Across the road was a supply-and-marketing cooperative, where a peasant in his 50s was carrying a load of bamboo products to sell. After the peasant was paid for his wares, he took his money to the cooperative’s sales counter, where he bought a bowl of liquor and a packet of crispy snacks and sat on the steps of the cooperative to enjoy them while basking in the sun. It was winter, but the temperature wasn’t very cold, in the mid-40s, and the peasant was wearing unlined trousers and an unbuttoned old quilted jacket, squinting in the sunlight as he snacked. Once the liquor put him in a good mood, he began crooning to himself.
Xiao Huang asked me, “Do you think that old guy knows about the killings?”
Looking at the peasant, I said, “On the basis of his age, I’d say he not only knows about them but personally experienced them.”
“Do you think he’s related to a victim, or that he was one of the killers?”
“That’s hard to say. But seeing him so happy and pleased with himself, I’d say he’s unlikely to be a surviving family member.”
“Can I go ask him?”
“Of course!”
Carrying his bowl of wine, Xiao Huang crossed the road and struck up a conversation with the old peasant. Suddenly he stood up, walked to in the middle of the road, and cried up toward heaven, “The wretched ignorance!”
We were more than a little startled.
When Xiao Huang came back, I asked him what had happened. He said, “I asked him if he knew what happened during the Cultural Revolution. He said he knew. I asked if anyone had been killed in his village, and he said yes. I asked who had been killed. He said it was class enemies and bad guys. I asked how they were killed and he said they were dragged out and stabbed. I asked if it was right to kill them and he said yes. …”
Now, pulling my gaze back from the Xiaoshui River, I turned toward the square and watched people walking back and forth, and the thought suddenly occurred to me: if I went up to someone right now and asked them about the Daoxian killings, how would they respond? I knew this was a taboo topic in Daoxian, but I couldn’t restrain the impulse to do it just as Xiao Huang had done years ago.
I purposely selected a fairly young man wearing fashionable glasses, and intercepting him I asked, “Excuse me, but during the Cultural Revolution, there were mass killings here, and I was wondering if you knew about it.”
He looked at me and said, “I know about it. Everyone in Daoxian knows about it.”
“Are you clear about how the killings happened?”
“Not too clear. I wasn’t born when it happened.”
“Do you think that during that particular historical period, it was reasonable to kill people this way?”
“It wasn’t reasonable. It’s never reasonable to kill people.” He looked at me and asked, “What is it you want? Why are you asking these questions?”
I said, “I came here on a trip, and when I heard about this matter I was curious.”
He said, “It happened decades ago. It’s hard to be clear about what happened at that time, and people don’t like to talk about it now. It’s a disgrace to us here in Daoxian.”
The young man’s words made me somewhat heavy-hearted. Since my reporting in 1986, I had come to Daoxian three more times, and it seemed different each time. This county town was changing too much too quickly, and so were its people. If this young man were transplanted to a big city such as Changsha or Beijing or even a coastal city such as Shanghai or Shenzhen, he wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Still, a thought lingered in my mind and was hard to dispel: if one day some senior official called for the killing of China’s newly regenerated bourgeoisie, would people respond to the call with another bloodbath?
Anything that could occur on such a grand scale could not possibly die out so easily.
It takes personal awakening and historical enlightenment to allow a nation to leave behind its wicked propensities and tragic disposition. This can’t be avoided, nor is there a shortcut.
After my reporting trip to Daoxian in 1986, I didn’t write poetry for a very long time, but after interviewing He Xia, I wrote this poem at Zhou Dunyi Square:
The branch bears less fruit
But it’s sweeter,
My mind bears more fruit
But more bitter,
Love’s wasteland has no seasons,
Harvest songs are always sung
Toward the horizon
I have the patience to wait,
To wait
For when the ancient lotus blooms.