The first draft of this historical record was completed in November 1986. The second draft was completed in 1989. I shelved the second draft for a long time, partly due to the social environment at that time, but even more because of my own need for soul-searching. But I never stopped thinking about the Daoxian massacre, and I continued my inquiries because it had become part of my life and even part of me. With the help, support, and concern of many friends, I finally finished adding and verifying the material that allowed me to complete the third draft in August 2007, just before the 40th anniversary of the Daoxian massacre.
After the Chinese edition of The Killing Wind was published in Hong Kong and was allowed to circulate online in mainland China, I made a special trip to Daoxian to gauge the book’s reception there. I was gratified to learn that among survivors of the massacre who were still alive and well, the majority opinion was that the book was fair and objective. Inevitably there were other views as well, but these were generally differences of opinion rather than fact. Synthesizing the views of various parties, I took the opportunity to produce this revised and expanded edition to bolster, correct, or clarify content that others disputed, and to restore some passages that had been edited out. Various parties antagonistic to each other are in basic agreement that The Killing Wind provides an authentic depiction of the massacre in its outline and through its individual vignettes.
Several scholars and readers coincidentally raised the same two questions with me:
(1)What happened to those chiefly responsible for the Daoxian massacre, and why does the book avoid this issue?
(2)What’s the story behind the sudden withdrawal of the 47th Army’s 6950 Unit that was sent to Daoxian to halt the killing?
I’ll start with the first question.
It’s not that I avoided this subject, but rather that at the outset I wasn’t sufficiently aware of its significance, and I missed the best opportunity to cover it in the course of my reporting. Fortunately I was eventually able to make some follow-up inquiries.
After the Cultural Revolution massacre in Daoxian and the 10 counties and cities around it, there were two rounds of dealing with the people responsible for the killings. The first round occurred from 1968 to 1974; the second, during the aftermath work from June 1984 to December 1986.
As mentioned before, apart from collective killings of black elements and their offspring, the Daoxian massacre included a substantial number of “purely” criminal homicides. From 1968 to 1974, while the Cultural Revolution was still in progress, the Daoxian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee and revolutionary committee tried 12 people who had aroused particularly intense public reactions, and against whom there was irrefutable evidence of rape and murder or of revenge killings against poor and lower-middle peasants or revolutionary cadres. These people were sentenced to prison terms of 5 to 15 years or more. Even so, the official assessment at the time was that the revolutionary general orientation of poor and lower-middle peasants killing black elements in order to defend themselves and the Red regime “had always been correct,” even if it resulted in the deaths of a few innocents, so apart from those 12 people, others who had been detained and investigated for such crimes were rehabilitated. Individuals who had taken a leading role in organizing, planning, and directing the killings were largely untouched. In all of Lingling Prefecture, 77 people were tried and imprisoned (including the 12 from Daoxian), and 13 were sentenced to death.
After the Task Force began its formal inquiries in June 1984, it was able to gain a sense of the origin and development of the killings. The investigation concluded that 9,093 people had been killed in Lingling Prefecture, including 4,519 in Daoxian, that not one of the 9,000-plus victims had engaged in any kind of counterrevolutionary speech or actions, and that the dozens of “counterrevolutionary organizations” supposedly unearthed at that time (including seven in Daoxian) all were fictitious. A total of 15,050 people in the prefecture were found to have direct involvement in the killings (through organizing and planning, supervising, and encouraging, or actual killing), including 7,281 in Daoxian.
Handling such a large number of perpetrators was a very thorny problem; failing to deal with them would be irresponsible to society and history, but dealing with them too harshly would plant the seeds of instability. In accordance with directives from the CCP Central Committee and Hunan provincial CCP committee, the Lingling prefectural CCP committee proposed a guiding principle of “the big picture rather than the details, magnanimity rather than severity, and fewer rather than more.”
Emulating reparation work carried out in Guangxi, the Task Force recommended criminal charges and CCP discipline against those responsible for major killing incidents. Apart from the groups dealt with in the first round, these included three kinds of people: the main planners of killings at the commune level and above, under circumstances that were especially horrific and had particularly serious consequences; those who enthusiastically volunteered to kill people under circumstances that were especially horrific and had particularly serious consequences; and those who continued to kill people after the upper levels had explicitly forbidden further killing.
Daoxian announced the arrest of 9 people on May 26, 1985, and another 21 were arrested on October 4. Following vehement demands by the family members of victims, another 12 were subsequently arrested, for a total of 42. Among them, 24 had been state cadres prior to their arrest. Among the 23 arrested for planning killings at the commune level and above, 11 were accused of revenge killings against poor peasants or revolutionary cadres; 3, of raping their victims before killing them; 1, of enthusiastically volunteering to kill people; another, of continuing to kill following the official prohibition; and 3, of acting under orders to organize killings under especially horrific circumstances and with particularly serious consequences.
A total of 124 people were arrested in Lingling Prefecture, which combined with the 77 convicted during the first round made a grand total of 201.
The Lingling prefectural CCP committee produced sentencing guidelines that required the rate of criminal prosecution to be kept under 2 percent and for the majority of those convicted to be handed prison terms of 10 years or less. These guidelines quickly encountered a major technical problem, however: China’s Criminal Law, no matter how leniently applied, required prison sentences of 10 years or more for all these crimes.
On December 26, 1985, the Lingling prefectural CCP committee sent several of its most senior judicial officials to the provincial capital to report to the Hunan Province Politics and Law Committee, which held a special meeting to discuss the matter. The Politics and Law Committee agreed in principle with the prefectural CCP committee’s guidelines and called for the application of Article 59 of the Criminal Law (1979 edition), which gave the courts leeway to pass sentences below the statutory limit if circumstances warranted, thereby making the guidelines legally tenable. Hunan’s leaders then issued a major directive: “On the question of sentencing, consider the policy implications and extensive scope of this matter and unite everyone’s understanding.”
After the technical problems were resolved, the Daoxian People’s Court in late 1985 and early 1986 tried Jiang Wenjing, Yuan Lifu, Zheng Youzhi, and 39 others accused of major responsibility for the killings. One was sentenced to life in prison; seven, to prison terms of eleven to fifteen years; fifteen, to prison terms of eight to ten years; twelve, to prison terms of four to seven years; and two, to prison terms of three years. Among the 24 former state cadres, the most harshly sentenced was Yuan Lifu, at 13 years, followed by Zheng Youzhi, sentenced to 10 years, and then Jiang Wenjing, Zhou Renbiao, and others, sentenced to 8 years. Huang Shangrong, Jiang Guangde, Zeng Qingsong, and Zheng Jitian were among those sentenced to five years. The lightest sentence of three years went to He Tian. Added to the 12 people sentenced during the first round, 54 people were convicted and sentenced, just 0.74 percent of the total number of people responsible for the killings. Among the 42 prosecuted in the second round, not one protested his innocence or appealed his conviction or sentence.
Another 948 people were disciplined by the CCP or government, composing 13 percent of those held responsible for the killings. Among them, 631 were CCP members, 449 of whom were expelled from the CCP and 181 of whom were forbidden to register as members during CCP rectification, while one other was stripped of probationary CCP status. Among 402 local administrative cadres (i.e., “cadres released from production”) who were directly implicated in the killings, 209, or just over half, were disciplined; 108 were expelled from the CCP, 2 were forbidden to register, and 1 was stripped of probationary status, while 98 were dismissed from their official positions, demoted, or handed demerits. Among the 114 who committed serious errors during the killings and subsequently joined the CCP, 96 were expelled, 10 were forbidden to register, and 1 lost probationary status.
The popular saying in Daoxian that “three lives cost party membership” was no exaggeration.
As some of those imprisoned for the massacre began to be released in 1989, someone pointed out that arrangement had to be made for them, or they might become a source of future instability. Following a request for instructions form the Lingling prefectural CCP committee, the Hunan provincial CCP committee’s organization department on December 20, 1989, issued its Document No. 55, stating, “Taking into consideration that these people committed their crimes under the special historical conditions of the Cultural Revolution, it is appropriate to follow the principle of strict handling on the political side while providing them with a way out in respect of livelihood, and following completion of their sentences, they should be settled appropriately.”
Following the release of this document, state cadres and workers punished for the Cultural Revolution killings were typically released before completion of their sentences on a variety of pretexts, with people such as Zheng Youzhi serving only three years and Yuan Lifu serving only five years. Initially provided with temporary work, they eventually resumed their official positions as a matter of course. A small number met premature deaths. He Tian died of cancer soon after his release. Zeng Qingsong died after falling off a scaffold while building a new house. The unluckiest of them was Zheng Youzhi; badly beaten in prison during the Cultural Revolution, he was imprisoned again by the Task Force, at which point his wife divorced him. Following his release, his health went from bad to worse and he died within a few years, his body rotting for three days before it was discovered. Apart from these few, however, the majority of those convicted of the killings ultimately retired with honor. From what I’ve heard, the situation in the other 10 counties and cities was much the same.
Now for the second question: why did the 47th Army’s 6950 Unit withdraw from Daoxian overnight in September 1968? This remains a mystery to the present day.
I took a strong interest in this matter all along, but given the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s revered status as the cornerstone of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the chances of a direct interview were close to nil, and I could only prod the topic through indirect methods. The first time I did my reporting in Daoxian, informed sources gave me three explanations: (1) the Task Force said it was simply a routine transfer to relieve the garrison, (2) the Red Alliance said it was because the unit committed the error of “supporting a faction instead of supporting the Left,” and (3) the Revolutionary Alliance said the unit was pushed out by Bu Zhanya (at that time political commissar of the Hunan Provincial Military Region), described as a backstage manipulator planted in Hunan by the Lin Biao Counterrevolutionary Clique. No one produced evidence to support any of these theories.
A book called Record of the 47th Army’s Three Supports and Two Militarizations in Hunan, published as a pamphlet for internal circulation, is effectively an official history of the 47th Army’s Support-the-Left work in Hunan.1 The author, Li Zhenxiang, was head of the 47th Army propaganda department and a Support-the-Left cadre, and the consultant, Li Yuan, was head of the Hunan Provincial Revolutionary Committee Preparatory Group, chairman of the Revolutionary Committee, and commander of the 47th Army. The book includes a section relating the official version of the Daoxian Cultural Revolution massacres, which departs little from the facts but connects some incidents with no actual causality between them, and uses the exquisite succinctness and ambiguous but logical construction of the Chinese language to create a misreading of the incident as largely the result of factional struggle and intensified class struggle.
Although Record of the 47th Army’s Three Supports and Two Militarizations in Hunan provides no account of the 6950 Unit’s withdrawal from Daoxian, the book does provide one additional piece of information, which is that after the Hunan Provincial Revolutionary Committee was formally established in April 1968, it made the military districts and subdistricts responsible for “Support-the-Left” work in all 15 prefectures and cities under the direct jurisdiction of the province, with the exception of the cities of Zhuzhou, Xiangtan, and Hengyang. It would be natural under those conditions for the 6950 Unit to be ordered out of Daoxian and for the reorganized county People’s Armed Forces Defense Department (PAFD) to take over the county’s Support-the-Left work.
Even so, why did the unit leave in such a hurry and without prior notice to other leading members of the county revolutionary committee that it had single-handedly organized? There should have been at least a routine handover process.
Through personal connections, I made a special effort to consult several former 47th Army Support-the-Left cadres who had worked in the provincial revolutionary committee and remained in Hunan. Most pleaded ignorance or hazy memories, but one old comrade’s recollections shed some real light. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhong Zhenhua had accompanied 47th Army commander Li Yuan to Daoxian as his confidential staff officer, so he had an in-depth understanding of the situation. He read the earlier edition of my book from start to finish and wrote many comments in the margins. This is what he told me:
When I heard about the situation in Daoxian at the time, I was deeply shocked, but the Cultural Revolution was full of violence and there were many major incidents. In comparison, the Daoxian killings didn’t seem all that extraordinary, but they came to be regarded with increasing importance later [after the Cultural Revolution]. At the time, it was felt that this was just a small and localized countercurrent to the Cultural Revolution, and that once troops were sent there, the situation would be quickly resolved.
After taking up Support-the-Left work, the 6950 Unit was supporting the Revolutionary Alliance—on this point we requested instructions from the 47th Army’s senior officers and the provincial leadership. At that time, the opinions of the provincial military district differed from those of the 47th Army command, so the Lingling Military Subdistrict (and Daoxian PAFD), being under the jurisdiction of the provincial military district, was naturally in conflict with the 6950 Unit. The crux of the disagreement was the composition of the county revolutionary committee, and the 6950 Unit and Lingling Military Subdistrict became deadlocked over the issue. Some members of the county revolutionary committee were in fact problematic; the county PAFD reported issues relating to them to the provincial military district, and many were at a particular disadvantage since the province had just ferreted out the “Liang-Shang Counterrevolutionary Clique. The senior 47th Army officers and the provincial leaders ultimately decided to put the Lingling Military Subdistrict in charge of the Support-the-Left work, which meant that the 6950 Unit had to be transferred out.
Why leave in such a hurry, without giving notice? It’s because time was too tight and the situation was too complicated. The evacuation order came very suddenly—Comrade Li Yuan personally telephoned and ordered the troops to report to army headquarters [in Changsha] within three days, saying the provincial military district would take over Support-the-Left duties. That was a very tight deadline at a time when transportation was so inconvenient, and there was no time to waste. In any case, the local troops taking over the Support-the-Left work had different views from ours, and we had no way of knowing what they would do, so what was the point of giving notice?
When asked if the 6950 Unit’s Support-the-Left work had been criticized or if the unit could be said to have been “pushed out,” Mr. Zhong said very decisively, “No. At that time, the armed forces placed the greatest emphasis on unity and mutual assistance and on not undercutting each other. The focus wasn’t on the Daoxian killings but on restoring revolutionary order. Chairman Mao said there could be no more chaos. The [47th] Army leaders and provincial leaders were focusing on the game plan for the entire province.”
Mr. Zhong provides us with the key to a historical puzzle that is ripe for future inquiry.
While reporting in Xianzijiao District, we read a poem in the notebook of one of the Task Force comrades.
Qilü on the Task Force’s Work Based on the Chairman’s “Long March”2
The Task Force fears no hardship,
Lab’ring without food or sleep.
Endless stacks of lawless death,
Human heads roll like clay orbs,
The Xiaoshui full of corpses,
Chilling hearts even today.
The Third Plenum guides the course,
Order brought out of chaos.
I copied down this poem, not because it is particularly well written or profound, but because it revealed a particular attitude and emotional inclination and reflected the difficulties the Task Force faced. Was it merely by chance that such a poem appeared in the notebook of a Task Force official in Xianzijiao District, where the killings were fewest and the issue was uncovered with relative thoroughness? We found that the knowledge and attitude of individual investigators determined the scope and depth of what they uncovered. In some localities, members of the Task Force socialized with people responsible for the killings, sometimes even staying in their homes, and in these localities little was uncovered; indeed, some cases became even more unclear the more they were investigated.
The Daoxian CCP committee’s summary report on dealing with the aftermath of the unlawful Cultural Revolution killings states: “Through this work, we accomplished three things: the first was to ascertain the origin and development of the killings, the second was to make appropriate arrangements for the family members of victims, and the third was to properly deal with the crimes and errors of those responsible. Through this work, we established the facts, drew important historical lessons, and enhanced the sense of law and discipline. The vast majority of the surviving family members are satisfied, and the vast majority of those responsible have admitted their guilt and error.” I feel this summary lacks basis in fact. What we saw while reporting in Daoxian was that the origin and development of the killings were basically ascertained, but important historical lessons were not truly drawn. The majority of surviving family members felt frustrated in their efforts for justice. Most of those responsible for the killings refused to admit error, much less guilt. It grieves me to write this, and I feel it is letting down the comrades in the Task Force, especially those who gave us so much support in our reporting; I know they will be deeply disappointed and consider me ungrateful.
We know very well that the Task Force’s work was enormously difficult, and without their effort, Daoxian’s Cultural Revolution killings may well have disappeared into the fog of history.
One of the leading comrades of the Task Force told us: “The Cultural Revolution killings that occurred in Daoxian and surrounding counties left enormous scars—quite apart from the dead, the survivors were also profoundly damaged. Especially since 1982, because of the new situation and new problems accompanying the implementation of the production responsibility system in the countryside, some of the ways for collectively supporting and looking after surviving family members have disappeared. According to preliminary figures, more than 40,000 family members of victims in this region are in dire financial straits. Some are homeless and sleep with cattle or pigs or in public toilets or under the eaves of other people’s homes or under trees. They rummage through garbage piles or beg for food, and some even resort to robbery. When we first arrived in Daoxian, we saw beggars everywhere in Daojiang Town. It was impossible to sit down in a restaurant and enjoy a peaceful meal. The minute you raised your rice bowl, you would be surrounded by ragged and famished-looking beggars staring at the bowl of rice in your hands. You could only set your bowl down and leave. Then the beggars would swarm over it, and the bowl would be licked clean.”
There was still a big market for the notion that killing black elements had been justified, that it was meritorious, and that it aided the preservation of the Red regime. As soon as the Task Force arrived at the scene, its members were surrounded by a chorus of opposition. Some said, “It was just a few black elements killed more than 10 years ago, why are you stirring up trouble?” Some said, “There’s so much work to be done, but you come here for this bullshit!” Some said, “Chairman Mao is dead and now the landlord restitution corps has come!” Some said, “Why are you speaking up for the class enemies?” Some went about day and night crying at the top of their voice, “Chairman Mao! Chairman Mao! Come back and save us!” Some even took poison or hanged themselves in protest, while others fled, fearing they’d be called to account. One commune secretary put it most concretely: “If you’d come here to help us manage our crops or deal with family planning, we’d have feasted you with chickens and ducks. But no one’s going to support you on this.”
When the Task Force came to talk to one man who helped orchestrate the killings, he said, “I killed on order from above. I was acting under orders.” His wife, standing next to him, broke in: “It was you higher-ups who gave the word to carry out the killings, so what the hell are you investigating? If the higher-ups told us to kill you Task Force members right now, I’d do it!”
At the same time, conflict was intensifying between those responsible for the killings and surviving family members.
The Lingling prefectural CCP committee and various county CCP committees held a special meeting to discuss the situation and proposed a series of measures for the task forces in each county to carry out. The Daoxian Task Force went down to the grassroots and held symposiums and study sessions refuting the Cultural Revolution and impressing on the cadres and masses that the killings had resulted from the ultra-Leftist thinking of the Lin Biao-Jiang Qing Counterrevolutionary Cliques, the serious breakdown of the legal system, and paralysis in CCP and government organs, and that the aftermath had to be handled on the basis of the specific historical conditions and in accordance with specific policies. No one was allowed to take things into his own hands or raise additional demands.
The Task Force members ran themselves ragged and talked themselves hoarse as they carried out what would now be called “truth and reconciliation” efforts, while also resolving the livelihood issue of survivors of the massacre. The Task Force provided new homes to 40,000 survivors, and 401 investigation groups carried out focused investigations.
Given this prodigious effort, it may seem presumptuous for me to question the outcome of the Task Force’s work. Yet, dear friends in the Task Force, what choice do I have? How much say did you have in what you did? How much of it transcended or even acknowledged the limitations of that era? In facing the darkest chapter in our nation’s history, it is only through “the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind”3 that we can save ourselves. We have no choice but to bravely and loudly state the truth about this incident.
There is so much more to write, and that I would like to write, but completing this historical record requires the effort of all Chinese society and its people. The only purpose I can serve is as a camera and recorder.
Chinese history, especially modern history, is full of erasures and falsification and portions inked out or obscured by mold. Discussion, reflection, or even recollection of appalling incidents of violence has repeatedly been made taboo, while the vacuum is filled with monstrous lies and the brainwashing of one generation after another. Each of these junctures has sealed the tragic fate of China’s people. Once a group or even a generation of the duped and misled regains consciousness through personal experience, the creators of lies can easily find a new group of victims and of the credulous in the next generation. Truth is a tonic for the conscience of a nation. There is nothing more toxic to a society than the lies imposed by those above on those below.
We must treat all bogus truths, bogus history, bogus incidents, and bogus models as we treat fake merchandise and tainted food, relegating them to the rubbish heap of history. Only then will our people truly have hope.
This is living for truth.
We need to reflect on the Cultural Revolution massacre in Daoxian for the sake of the survivors, for posterity, and for the future of our people. New problems and conflicts will continue to arise, and although we can’t foresee what methods will solve these problems and conflicts, we should know which methods must never be used.
In a sense, the Daoxian massacre can become a precious national legacy, depending on how we deal with it. Societies that refuse to acknowledge and reflect on history have no way to establish a stable value system and sense of ethics and therefore have difficulty producing a sense of security and belonging. The best test of a nation’s strength comes through confronting the darkest chapters of its history.
With the onset of the 21st century, the grand spectacle of the mass movements of the 1960s and 1970s is mentioned less and less, and scenes from the Cultural Revolution that appear on television or in the movies are so superficial and stereotyped as to become a running joke. There’s nothing even remotely funny about an episode involving so many human lives and so much blood. The Cultural Revolution provided a 10-year performance space for China’s politics, economy, culture, and even national character; all the absurdity and evil of China’s past and present finds its fountainhead and footnote here. Yet, distracted by the lures of progress and prosperity, we’ve missed a prime opportunity for a radical overhaul of Chinese culture and a rejuvenation of our people’s spiritual health as we’ve emerged black and blue from physical and mental trauma only to swarm onto the next train to our desires, final destination unknown, trampling all remaining morality, justice, conscience, and shame into oblivion.
Who was actually the chief instigator, and what was the real reason for this barbarous slaughter? The victims have the right to demand that the truth be brought to light; otherwise, how can we be sure that another such horrific incident won’t occur? Most of those responsible for the killings had no personal grievances against their victims. Who sparked the fire of hatred in their hearts? Who opened the door to their animal passions? Who gave them guns and knives and entrusted them with the power over life and death? A family member of a Daoxian victim put it well: “They were pathetic. They were slaves with only one pair of trousers controlling slaves like us who had no trousers at all.” The reason all this happened was the slave mentality that had become entrenched among the Chinese people, which grew from the soil of the autocratic system, planted there by autocrats for their use.
How long must we wait for the day when it will be possible to fairly and objectively bring the actual perpetrators of the Daoxian massacre to the court of history, giving justice to the victims and comfort to their families, as well as a clear explanation for future generations?
The Chinese national spirit is often described as one of pressing resolutely forward under the greatest difficulties. But this spirit requires “iron-shouldered torchbearers of justice,” intellectuals with a profound and critical mentality, not theorists for hire. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, “Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth—more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid… . Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”4 In a sense, the history of humanity is the history of human thought. Without thought, we would still be eating raw meat and clawing our way up the evolutionary ladder through natural selection. A nation that holds that “the more intellectual a person is, the more reactionary” is doomed for self-destruction, while an emphasis on cultivating educated people to become mere parrots and yes-men results in a castration of the soul.
I’ve left these words so that posterity will not be duped by history, because there’s nothing in the world more duplicitous and mercurial than the human condition.
The Buddha said: Lay down your butcher’s knife and become a buddha.