If they [comrades who adopt an absolute attitude towards the mistakes of others] … understand that even mankind, with all its weaknesses, can in the long course of struggle, be steeled, educated, and converted into highly civilized Communists, why can they not educate and reform the Party members who have joined the Party but who still retain to some degree or other the remnants of the ideology of the old society?
Liu Shao-ch’i
MORE DRAMATIC than any stage play, the Party consolidation meetings inevitably became the center of all village activity. All day long the 33 delegates stood guard at the gate. In the evening they met with their respective sectional groups and reported what had happened. The hundreds of rank-and-file peasants who came to these meetings evaluated each day’s events and recommended appropriate action in regard to those Communists who had been heard. Then they went on to make accusations and register complaints against those who would be heard on the morrow.
All the grievances of three tumultuous years came to light. So eager were the peasants to make known their opinions and to hear what happened that dozens continued to gather outside the windows of the meeting hall each day while that vast majority who, because of the pressure of work, could not be there in person hour after hour, impatiently awaited the delegates’ reports each evening. Whereas a few days earlier the work team cadres had to wait for a quorum to show up in the Poor Peasants’ League groups, and even had to send runners to round up the laggards, now the people were already waiting for them when they arrived to open the meetings. The composition of the groups themselves had also changed. The designation “Poor Peasants’ League” was no longer correct because the middle peasants who had been invited to participate in all proceedings were turning up in increasing numbers. From a campaign which began by involving only a few activists among the people this Party purification took on the proportions of a truly mass movement, an evolution which bore out the realism of the Central Committee’s prediction: “At times it is even necessary to begin the reorganization of the Party before the initiative of the masses can be aroused.”
The Party members also met every evening after a full day at the gate. They took up the manner in which each comrade had reviewed his or her past and the reaction of the delegates. In an effort to encourage sincere self-criticism, they went over each person’s record point by point and demonstrated that the truth, no matter how terrible or embarrassing, met with better response than evasion. Those who were to appear the next day received special attention, as did those who, like Man-hsi, had failed to pass.
A campaign as intense, as all-pervading as this could hardly have taken place in any but an agrarian community, restricted to grain culture and therefore burdened with a long slack season. In no other private-enterprise society could a whole village have taken the time out to carry through such prolonged meetings. The results promised to repay the effort many-fold.
The village would never be the same again!
***********
If all confrontations at the gate were not as tense as that between the delegates and Man-hsi, still each added its own peculiar element of conflict to the developing movement. The change in pace and tone thus generated kept all participants alert and sometimes brought them to their feet.
After the notorious militiaman had been rejected and dismissed, the teen-aged Little Mer was asked to take the stand. As the lamb follows the lion, she stood up and trembled from head to foot. Her shaking hands were clearly visible even to those sitting at the back of the hall. When she finally opened her mouth to speak, her voice quavered.
“I can’t remember my grandfather,” she began, evidently quite worried because she could not match Man-hsi in this respect. “My father was a hired laborer. I was married at 13. I became a leader of the women’s small group in the southwest corner, but my attitude was not good. When I remade clothes for the school children, I grafted a collar lining. I must give it up. Hsiao Lao-chang’s wife was a foolish woman who sold corn. She stole the corn from her husband. I swore at her and slapped her.”
That was all. There was a silence in the room.
“Please, you criticize her first,” pleaded An-k’u, her husband, beside himself with embarrassment. His face flushed red from the collar of his tunic to the roots of his hair.
Old Tui-chin struck flint to steel in an effort to light his pipe. “We haven’t any criticism for her,” he said.
Other members of the northwest contingent nodded in agreement.
“How can we make false criticisms?” asked Old Lady Wang with surprising affability. “Whenever we say anything to her, she always smiles and says, ‘I am wrong.’ So really we can’t find fault with her.”
This in itself seemed like a rather grave fault for a Communist, as Ch’i-Yun remarked for my benefit, but the delegates did not seem to find it so and fell silent once again.
“During the Hide the Grain Movement my thoughts were like this,” volunteered Little Mer, remembering the discussion in the branch meeting. “I will follow the Eighth Route Army wherever it goes. I dared not beat the landlords in the struggle because I was afraid that when their forces returned I would be beaten.”
“You are a good but useless cadre,” said Hu Hsueh-chen, under whose guidance Little Mer had worked in the Women’s Association.
“Ask her what punishment she should receive,” suggested a peasant delegate.
“Advice,” said Little Mer.
“From now on you must do your best to serve the masses,” said Tui-chin blowing on the glowing tinder that he had at last managed to set on fire. Before he could light his pipe with it, Little Mer’s ordeal was over.
“It’s all done,” “You pass the gate.” “We approve you.” Many delegates spoke at once, each trying to demonstrate good will.
Everybody in the room heard An-k’u’s sigh of relief as his gentle, teenaged wife stepped down.
***********
If Little Mer passed with ease, the same could not be said for militiaman Chou Cheng-lo. This 25-year-old man, cousin to Chou Cheng-fu, was neither an ox in strength, like Man-hsi, nor one of the tall finely-featured sophisticates like Chun-hsi, but a plain, energetic man of the soil who was also skilled as a carpenter and mason. He wore a sparkling white towel on his closely-shaven head, and his patch-free tunic and trousers were neatly sewn and clean. These were all signs of the affectionate care which he received from a wife and a mother, engaged in a contest for his favor. That the competition between them also had its drawbacks was soon made evident.
Cheng-lo’s difficulties before the gate were not due to the fact that his record was particularly bad or his self-criticism poor. He freely admitted having beaten several people, having taken several items from public stores—a knife, an umbrella, a pair of foreign scissors—and having been involved in several illicit affairs of the heart. But no one questioned him about these transgressions. What upset the delegates was a matter that he did not even mention, the way in which he treated his mother.
It turned out that his wife had quarrelled with and then come to blows with his mother, and that he had sided with his wife.
“Why did you take your wife’s part?” asked Old Lady Wang.
“My wife fought with my mother because she did not want to share the fine clothes I gave her from the distribution. I gave them all to my wife and forgot my mother who brought me up. I thought, my mother is old. What if she does wear ragged clothes?”
“You had better think it over,” Old Lady Wang warned. “You don’t care if your mother has to sleep on straw. Everything you have you give to your wife. Your mother wept all day in the field. If your wife went out and wept like that, what would you do? I know how you feel. You think your mother is old and useless. You wish she would soon die.”
“I got all my land and house from my uncle,” Cheng-lo replied. “And my uncle found a wife for me. So I cared little for my mother. In the future I will be a filial son.”
“Who brought you up anyway?” demanded several voices at once.
“If your wife told you to throw your mother in the well, you’d do it,” said T’ai-shan’s mother. “You say you will correct your conduct. But what about your wife? Will she go tearing up silk clothes rather than give your mother a share?”
“I always obeyed my wife before, but I am a man. Why should I bow down before a woman? In the future I will consider what my wife says, but I will not follow her blindly. I’ll treat my mother better than my wife, for it was she who brought me up.”
“We will watch your filial behavior in the future,” declared Delegate Spokesman Yang. Then, mindful that this hardly seemed a matter for official concern, added, “We are only helping you to solve your family affairs. This is quite a different thing from corruption. Do you accept our criticism?”
“I am very glad for it,” said Cheng-lo, but there was certainly no trace of gladness on his face.
It was not easy for me to understand at first why the peasants made such an issue of this. When I thought it over, I realized that it was the older women who had “mounted the horse,” and with millenniums of tradition on their side, no one dared contradict them. They saw in the new equality which gave a daughter-in-law the right to challenge her mother-in-law a threat to the only security they had ever known: filial obedience from their sons and absolute command over their son’s wives. Bought, sold, beaten, and oppressed as they had always been, they traditionally had but one chance for power, one opportunity for revenge, one possibility for prestige, and that was as a mother to a grown son, as mistress to a daughter-in-law. Now, it would appear, even this was threatened. Young women no longer obeyed. Sons sided with their wives. Old women might well pass out of life as girl babies came into it, unwanted, neglected, and quickly forgotten when gone. Unable to comprehend the many-sided security which the land reform and the new property laws were bringing in their wake, many older women were fearful lest reforms destroy the one traditional prop, the one long-awaited support of their old age.
Old Lady Wang felt this keenly because her only son was soon to marry. She herself had handpicked the girl and had tried to choose a compliant one. But she still feared that new ideas might transform even this young bride. What would happen then?
***********
That the Party members and village cadres had made many mistakes and committed a number of serious crimes was confirmed by the meetings at the gate. But that these people took all the good things for themselves and let the poor peasants fan an empty shen, as we had been hearing ever since we arrived in the village, proved to be an exaggeration. Another six Communists passed the gate in the next few days, and none of them had misappropriated anything worth worrying about.
One of these was Hu Hsueh-chen, suspended head of the Women’s Association. We had heard, mostly from Old Lady Wang, that Hu was a tyrant, that she oppressed everyone and that she took piles of valuable clothes and ornaments while others got only rags. But when it came time for the women’s leader to go before the gate, people had no important grievances against her.
In the preparatory meeting held the night before, only Pao-ch’uan’s mother spoke up. “She forced our small group to make shoes. Twelve of us had to make six pairs. It wasn’t fair.”
The handsome widow was quickly silenced.
“To make shoes was our duty. If she forced you to make more, it was only because she wished to fulfill the quota. It had nothing to do with her private interest.”
“As soon as I open my mouth, you cover it,” complained Paoch’uan’s mother. “I’ll not criticize others again.”
But no one sympathized with her.
“Hu Hsueh-chen’s attitude is very good. She is gentle and modest,” said T’ai-shan’s mother. The others agreed.
The secretary of the branch, Hsin-fa, certainly the most important Communist in the village, also passed easily. The fact that he had never been a leading cadre in the village administration helped. Everyone seemed to like him and only criticized the fact that he was too easy-going. They called him a lao hao jen, or “old good fellow,” meaning someone who wanted to get along with everyone and have pleasant relations all around. This was a serious fault for a Communist and particularly for the leader of the local branch, but at that moment the peasants had their eyes on more concrete matters and so were lenient with him.
How strict the delegates could be where property was concerned was revealed when they got around to Ts’ai-yuan, the village storekeeper, a man whose popularity was legendary. They forgave him a fairly notorious record as a ladies’ man when he said, “I didn’t force anybody, they were all willing.” Considering his good looks, his charm, and his prestige as a local man with the longest Eighth Route Army record, no one had any reason to doubt his word. They criticized him sharply, however, for smashing the big mirror that his brother Fu-yuan lent him for his wedding but would not let him have as part of his share of the “fruits.” They criticized him even more sharply for bringing home from the front eight rounds of captured ammunition and then selling them for cash. They made him promise to turn over the proceeds to the government.
As a wounded soldier, Ts’ai-yuan was entitled to free help in the fields, a privilege which he had taken full advantage of in the past. But by now his wound had healed. He was able to do a man’s work. He was, therefore, asked to pay for whatever help he might need in the future. This he also agreed to.
The strictness shown by the delegates in the above matters was balanced by their generosity when it came to an expensive quilt which Ts’ai-yuan offered to give up because it had not been allocated to him by any committee. They told him to keep the quilt as a token of their gratitude for the services he had rendered in the war.
***********
Of those who had so far come before them, only Man-hsi was still barred by the delegates from passing the gate. He appeared the second time on April 15th, and for the second time he was held over. The intervening period had helped him but little if at all. He continued to deny ever having returned to Fu-hsu’s house, insisted that he had not taken the by-now-famous salt, and also claimed that he knew nothing about a finely woven flour-sifting screen made of copper which had also disappeared from the warehouse.
No matter how angry the examiners became, no matter how many people shouted at him, he held to his original story. There was something admirable about his stubbornness. I got the impression, this time, that he was telling the truth. Whereas Ch’un-hsi, who had a comparatively good record, had exaggerated his transgressions to please his hearers, Man-hsi, whose crimes had really been serious, stuck to the facts and would not bow his head. The only difference between his second hearing and his first was a slight change in the manner with which he denied the accusations. Defiance had given way to dogged insistence, but this made little difference to the delegates.
***********
The only man whose record rivaled Man-hsi’s was Shen Yu-hsing. Like Man-hsi, he failed to pass. The incident which barred his way involved a ridiculously small thing—one piece of steamed bread. The story behind it, however, was complex.
One day the mutual aid group to which Yu-hsing belonged was working on the land of a soldier’s family. Yu-hsing volunteered to go back to the village and bring out lunch for the whole group. The lunch, prepared by the family that owned the land, consisted of steamed bread, not a luxurious food, but still something of a treat since it was made of wheat flour in an area where the staple diet consisted of millet and ground corn. The head of the family, a widow, carefully counted out three buns apiece, or 36 in all.
When Yu-hsing returned to the field the bread was soon devoured, but one member of the group got only two pieces. He accused his hoeing partner of having taken his third bun. The latter blamed someone else. The quarrel that ensued so embittered relations among the members of the group that they split up. Since that time these particular peasants had been working as individuals rather than together.
As part of his self-criticism, Yu-hsing made a surprising admission. “Halfway to the field I got hungry. I ate one bun. I delivered 35 instead of 36. I will pay for it.”
Instead of welcoming his frankness, the delgates were exasperated by his obtuseness. What good would it do to pay for one bun? The damage could not be measured in money. The whole aid group had fallen apart.
“You must examine your thoughts,” said Old Pao. “Look at the harm you did. This trifling bun created such hard feeling. What were you thinking of?”
“I stole the bread,” repeated Yu-hsing. “I had no purpose in mind. I was just hungry.”
This was probably the truth, but the delegates refused to believe it. They began to shout at him.
“Plenty of people get hungry.” “Tell the truth.” “Speak what was in your mind.”
“If you don’t want to talk, we’ll leave your case and go on to someone else,” threatened Team Leader Hou in anger.
“I ate it, I ate it, I will pay,” Yu-hsing yelled back, quite angry himself now.
“Why are you so stupid now, but so cunning when you stole the bread?” asked Delegate Spokesman Yang.
“He only began to recognize one piece of money from another last year,” exclaimed Old Lady Wang in disgust. “Now he wants to resist us by keeping silent just like a dead pig who is not afraid of scalding water.”
They decided to hold him over until the next day.
***********
With the examination of so many persons already successfully completed, the peasant delegates began to feel more and more confident, and so did the Party members. The atmosphere in the meeting hall relaxed. There was a growing tendency to laugh when something funny was said, and to enjoy sharp repartee when it was clever. The gulf which existed between the Party members and the delegates at the beginning of the campaign gradually disappeared and was replaced by a growing camaraderie between those who had passed the gate and had consequently been restored to full citizenship and the delegates who had allowed them to pass.
There was far more humor than anger when Meng Fu-lu came before the meeting. He was almost twice as old as any other Party member and looked it. His broad face was weathered and wrinkled like the skin of a dried persimmon. This man, who had been in charge of education in the branch, said he joined the militia because he thought his brother was going to be attacked as a landlord.
“My attitude toward the masses was bad, wasn’t it?”
He asked the question in such a quizzical way, as if he needed the assurance of the delegates that he was bad, that everyone burst out laughing.
A little later he was asked, “Why did you quarrel with your wife?”
“Because I have another woman—only one though,” he added, as if this meager number made the affair reasonable.
This produced a second wave of laughter.
“Ch’un-fu’s mother’s grave is in your field. Whenever you plow you make it smaller,” said Old Tui-chin.
“I wanted more land,” admitted Fu-lu. “Since I am a militiaman I thought I could get away with it. I thought, ‘A grave is not so important.’ “
“What did you say when Ch’un-fu complained to you?”
“I said, ‘Ah,’” said Fu-lu.
“What was your thought?”
“I was a militiaman; I had a gun. I thought I could cheat the grave.”
“How will you settle this matter?”
“I will pay it,” said Fu-lu slowly and deliberately.
“What? The grave?” asked Yuan Lung.
Everyone laughed once more.
Later, as Fu-lu walked back to his seat a woman delegate asked him, “Is your heart jumping?”
***********
After eight days of hearings, four Communists, Man-hsi, Yu-hsing, K’uan-hsin, and the rich peasant’s daughter, Ch’uan-e, were still outside the gate. They all had not only a second but also a third chance to speak, but the delegates either did not like what they said or the way they said it.
Actually Man-hsi’s attitude had continued to improve, but nobody was sure that he really had reformed, and so they thought it better to keep him waiting for a few weeks.
As for Yu-hsing, he proved unable to understand that eating one piece of steamed bread was more than a piece of petty thievery.
Chao Ch’uan-e, who admitted that she had joined the Party and had become intimate with several important cadres in order to protect her father’s property, wept before the meeting. The delegates understood her tears as an attempt at coercion. They therefore treated her more roughly each time she appeared. What really barred her path was her insistence that she had sold two silver bracelets and a fur-lined overcoat during the Settling Accounts Movement only because her husband was sick and the family needed money to buy medicine. In the opinion of the peasants she was afraid of expropriation at the time and had tried to liquidate her assets.
The fourth Communist barred by the delegates, the handsome, slightly built K’uan-hsin, vice-captain of the militia, made the last session lively by admitting that he had tried to rival Police Captain Wen-te in the number of his mistresses and by denying that he had ever kicked K’ao-lur’s wife, Li Hsin-ai. Old Lady Wang, who had been asked to present this latter grievance, went in person to summon the young mother to the hall. When Li Hsin-ai came, she held her pretty head high and told in a quiet but firm voice how K’uan-hsin had come to her house and had asked her to call his sweetheart-of-the-moment over.
“When I refused, he kicked me.”
“No, I didn’t,” interrupted K’uan-hsin. “If that were true, I’d go to the People’s Court myself.”
“Yes, you did,” retorted Hsin-ai, her voice already choked and her eyes filling with tears.
“Her husband joined the army, and she is all alone at home. But you, you want her to be your servant and help you out with your rascal affairs,” said Team Leader Hou with all the scorn he could muster.
“I went there, but I didn’t kick her,” replied K’uan-hsin, weeping now himself.
The two young people, rendered speechless by sobs, ended up pointing accusing fingers at each other, as they stood before us.
“Even the People’s Court can’t take in the likes of you,” declared Old Lady Wang, shaking her fist at K’uan-hsin.