I sent out invitations to summon guests.
I collected together all my friends.
Loud talk and simple feasting:
Discussion of philosophy, investigation of subtleties.
Tongues loosened, and minds at one.
Hearts refreshed by discharge of emotion!
Sui Ch’eng-kung
(died, 273 A.D.)
THE HUMAN consciousness may be compared to an artichoke. Its tender core is enclosed in layer upon layer of defenses, excuses, rationalizations, approximations. These must be peeled off if one is to discover the true complex of motives driving any individual. Such a process would hardly be possible if an individual’s acts, as distinct from his words, did not reveal in a multitude of unconscious ways something of the core of his thought. Even then, with acts serving as guides to motivation, no progress can be made unless the individual is willing to co-operate. What made self-revelation possible for the work team members that day was the deep commitment every one of them had to the success of the land reform movement. They freely examined themselves and their comrades, not for partisan advantage, not for the sake of exposure, not as an exercise in mea culpa, but in order to remove obstacles in the way of more effective work. This was the objective framework around which the unfolding of the subjective attitudes revolved. And this, not coercion, not curiosity, not some narcissistic self-torture made self-and-mutual criticism viable and grounded it in necessity.
By first taking up some of the objective problems that weighed on the cadres’ minds and slowly moving from there to subjective reactions, the Party Day meeting began to pull the group together. I could feel that this was happening but could not find any decisive reason for it. No major problem had been solved. It seemed as if the mere exposure of trouble had brought about a changed relationship between these people. As they gained insight into the background of each others’ weaknesses, they felt a growth of mutual sympathy, of common ground. Still, the most important barrier to trust and cooperation had not been touched. This was the question of the relationship between Team Leader Hou and the rest of the group. It was not until Hou began to criticize his own outlook and examine his own motives that the incipient change of atmosphere that had begun to penetrate the consciousness of the group crystallized into something new.
The discussion came around to Hou obliquely, by way of Li Wen-chung’s wife. Everyone knew that Li’s new-found happiness had distracted him from his work, but only Little Li knew that shortly before Team Leader Hou came to Long Bow, his wife had left for her home village alone. According to local custom, a bride that went back to her mother’s home unescorted rarely returned. Hence, those who knew Hou best thought his marriage had come to an end. Little Li, as was his wont, brought up the subject in the form of a joke. He asked Hou how he liked being a bachelor.
This brought a response far too vigorous to be taken at face value.
“We married of our own free will,” said Hou. “I told her when she left for home to do as she liked. If she doesn’t want to come back that is all right with me. That doesn’t worry me at all.”
Did this self-assurance cover up hurt pride, perhaps even a broken heart? It was hard to tell. Hou did not discuss the matter further. He launched instead into an over-all appraisal of his own work. Looking intently at his large feet clad in outsized cotton shoes and now propped against a broken brick, he spoke in the slow deliberate manner that had become his trademark. Clearly it was not easy for so proud a man to reveal what he proposed to talk about.
“When I arrived in Long Bow I put everything aside. I was very proud and confident at that time and made light of the job we had to do. I thought that with so many members we would easily fulfill our task. But as soon as we began to work I ran up against many difficulties. I began to hesitate and worry. I began to realize that this work was more difficult than anything I had ever tried before. Then I went to the other extreme. I feared the dragon in front and the tiger behind. I got timid and dared not fix a plan. I depended on the other members of the group and sometimes followed the people blindly, but the other members of the group kept silent a good deal of the time, and everyone worked on his own. This upset me and made me even more timid. I found I could not draw a proper conclusion at a meeting or make clear and definite decisions to help guide the others. I found I was very green and I felt the other cadres were much better qualified than myself, since many of them had worked as cadres for eight years or more. I dared not criticize them even when I found fault. I was unable to sift our good experiences from our bad ones, and before each meeting I found I didn’t know where we were going or what to say. We began the meetings blindly and closed them blindly.
“All this made me sensitive. I thought the vice leader (Little Li) was just standing aside and waiting for me to lose face. I thought he was cracking jokes to show me up. But later I understood his character better. I know now that he was only joking and making fun with everyone. At night I couldn’t sleep. I tried to estimate the comrades one by one. Finally I concluded that I myself must be the one to be blamed because I had no ability. So I wanted the authorities to relieve me of my position. I wanted to join the army, or at least ask that another leader be chosen and let me become just an ordinary member. Ever since I heard Secretary Ch’en’s report I have felt this even more strongly. I have been very depressed.
“I hope you will all give me a lot of help in the future, but still I wish you would choose another leader. I am very reserved. I don’t know how to relax and fool around with others. I was once given the nickname Ta Kung Niu (The Great Ox) because I carry such a long face, such a serious face, and this long face is easily misunderstood. People thought I was angry with them. Of course I am crude and impatient. I wish you would give me more opinions.”
I was impressed by the frankness of Hou’s statement and with the humility which he projected. Hou seemed to take on stature as he made this first attempt at self-analysis. But it was just this humility that the others criticized most sharply. They told Hou that he should not underestimate his own ability. In fact, from the way he worked, it was obvious that he made all important decisions himself and didn’t sufficiently trust the rest of the group.
“You are too sensitive,” said Little Li. “You lack confidence in others. Instead of criticizing them to their face you criticize them to the Party Secretary. I am thinking of that time when you told Ch’en that we didn’t have any material on the village. It made us all so angry. Why didn’t you consult with us? Actually you have a streak of individual heroism. You want to be a hero; therefore any failure is your personal failure. I remember once when we went to the County Office to report. The Secretary did not take any notes of what we said. You were very unhappy. You said, ‘It seems as if we had done nothing, for our report made no impression.’ Your criticism was correct. They should have taken notes of our report, but in the back of your mind what you were really thinking was that the authorities would know nothing about our merits.
“As for your relations with me,” Li continued, “I was afraid you would think I wished to take the spotlight from you, so I always hesitated when I thought we ought to work in some new way. But you thought I was just standing aside to wait for you to lose face.”
This opinion broke the ice. In its wake other team members began to say the things they had long suppressed.
“You always emphasize your lack of ability,” said Ch’i Yun. “But in fact you don’t trust the rest of us, so you always think of trifling things; you are sensitive beyond reason and don’t pay sufficient attention to basic principles.”
“Lying awake at night, thinking things over, that is a very subjective way to make decisions,” said another. “It is much better to talk with others and judge from reality. Take the accounts meetings, for instance. Many comrades told you they ought to be stopped. But you neglected their opinions. You were so busy with the branch that you didn’t have time to think it over. Your working style is not democratic enough. You are timid about criticizing others but at the same time you don’t like to be criticized either. You think the investigation of our work from above, by the county leaders, is sufficient. But because you work blindly you were always busy, even worn out, but still the results were not so good.”
Hou’s offer to step down and find someone else to lead aroused even more opposition than his self-deprecation.
“Such a thought is quite wrong,” said Little Li. “You just want to escape in the face of trouble. A Communist should never think like that. Mistakes are unavoidable. The thing to do is to examine and correct them, not run away.”
“If everyone were to talk like you do, who would be the leader?” asked Ch’uer. “That is quite wrong. When we return to the village and begin work again we shall be quite frank with each other, exchange reports frequently and help one another. In that way we can surely overcome our mistakes.”
Hou did not reject these opinions. Although the criticism was sharp, the other cadres were speaking out, showing concern for his problems and taking on a share of the burden. He felt a sense of relief that at last some communication, some real give and take was developing between him and the rest of the team. He even raised his head a little as he spoke in reply.
“Why have I been so sensitive?” he asked. “I think it is because before I came here I was leader of all work in 13 villages and everything went smoothly, but as soon as I came here everything became very hard. I thought, ‘Little Li has more experience than I.’ We divided the work. I took the Party branch, and he took the village as a whole. When I asked him about the detention of the cadres he said, ‘Don’t worry about it. If it is wrong, I am responsible.’ And he always laughed as if caring for nothing at all, while I was always earnest and worried all the time. Whenever I brought up a problem, he turned it into a joke. At night when I talked to him he fell asleep. So I thought to myself, ‘If we have made such errors he must also take some blame. If I am to be kicked out of the Party, he must be too.’ So I turned against him, and I thought, ‘If you despise me, I shall never ask you for help.’
“Now I understand how wrong that is. That is a subjective, individual point of view. It has nothing to do with the needs of our work. In the future I shall study problems with the rest of you and read carefully all the reports.”
Hou paused here, as if he had finished, but then he thought of something else, of the accusation that he had spoken to the Party Secretary behind their backs, and he went on. “I have a very stubborn character. When I disagree with someone I just keep silent—seven or eight days—and never say a word. That’s the way it was when I quarrelled with my wife. I never said a word to her afterwards. So when I came to Comrade Ch’en he pried it out of me. It wasn’t that I wanted to talk to him, but I came to him for advice and he dug to the root of the matter. It was because I met trouble that I thought of many unreasonable things in the middle of the night. In the future, whenever I have some opinion, I shall speak it out and consult with other comrades.”
Having said what they thought about Hou, the other cadres found themselves suddenly free of the bitterness they had felt toward him, and Hou, having heard their opinions and found them reasonable, suddenly felt warm and friendly toward them all. The “Great Ox” turned out to be a far more likeable human being than anyone had suspected. Right then and there they decided never to hold back their ideas again but to speak out frankly and help each other in the future.
***********
If one crucial drag on the work of the team was the friction between the team members and their leader, a second and almost equal drag was the friction between the intellectuals from the University and the uneducated cadres of local origin. The Party meeting did not remove this friction in one session, but some progress was made in the direction of mutual understanding. Before the meeting ended each of the intellectuals critically examined his or her own work and listened to suggestions from the whole collective.
Of the five University people on the team, Comrade Hsu had made the worst impression and established the worst relationships. Ever since the failure of the accounts examination meeting which he led, he had been morose. He sat through meeting after meeting looking bored. He never took part in any debate unless it touched on his own abortive project. He more often than not ignored the proceedings altogether, sat off in a corner by himself, and read some newspaper or pamphlet. At the Lucheng Conference he found the straw in “Temple Row” distasteful. He was afraid he would catch some disease from the other cadres and was openly distressed about the lice that invariably sought him out no matter how clean he kept his clothes and his person. No one ever picked lice from his garments with more fastidious repugnance than did Comrade Hsu.
This professor’s real problem was one germane to intellectuals everywhere—how to translate theory into practice. He was like the revolutionary described by Mao Tse-tung, who held the arrow of Marxism-Leninism in his hand, caressed it and exclaimed ecstatically, “What a fine arrow! What a fine arrow!” but never let it fly.
Hsu himself said, “I have been criticized for swinging first to the Right and then to the Left. That is true. I had never been in a village before I came to the Liberated Area. I had some grand ideas. I thought I would collect material for future study. So I brought along many books. But my plan failed. So I became unhappy. My aim in joining this work was to learn something, but suddenly along came the accounts meeting and I was made responsible. I had to do something. Then I became very hesitant about speaking out. I found I couldn’t speak the peasants’ language at all and I didn’t really understand the village. At the same time I was afraid I would be thought proud. While in Chiang’s area, I always stayed in a small room and studied. Now I want to break that habit but I can’t break it very quickly.”
The reaction of the local cadres to this speech was polite. They praised Hsu’s skill with figures and his familiarity with the writing brush and added that since his background was so different from their own it was hard for them to understand him. Remembering how he had questioned landlords for material against cadres, several suggested that his class stand was not firm. He should look into it, they said.
Little Li, who as clerk, editor, and judge had some pretensions to intellectuality himself, spoke more sharply. “You started out with a great deal of enthusiasm, but ever since the accounts meeting failed you have been in low spirits. That’s because you think you made a bad mistake. The trouble at those meetings was that you did not try to educate the delegates and help them see things clearly. You tried to do everything yourself. When you sensed the least bit of injustice, you became very angry and tried to crush it all by yourself. That’s why you were persuaded to go to the landlords for help. The main trouble is that you don’t think before you start working. But now if you are timid, and dare not work at all, it will be hard for you to correct anything.”
Ch’i Yun, whose background closely paralleled Hsu’s and hence was more aware of what was going on in his mind than the others, spoke even more critically. She was of the opinion that he had not revealed his true thoughts.
“You say you wish to study and learn from village life. But what? We all have to combine concrete work with theoretical study—only that way can we gain real knowledge. But it has been very difficult even to make a suggestion to you. Sometimes you do not even listen, but turn and walk off. I think you have problems that you yourself have not thought through. You don’t want to speak them out here. You’d rather avoid criticism. But the right way to learn is to speak frankly and to listen to others. You only work at what interests you. If you continue with such a style and such an attitude you will only isolate yourself.”
Cadre Hsu listened carefully to all this and took the opinions down in his notebook. Perhaps even he could change if he faced himself honestly. The mere fact that he had made a beginning at self-analysis removed some of the barrier between him and the rest of the cadres.
It was an hour after midnight when discussion ended. We had been sitting and talking since eight in the morning with only a short break for meals. The meeting broke up in silence as all moved off toward their respective sleeping quarters.
***********
My own reaction to the Party Day meeting was one of wonder—wonder at the perseverance of these people, especially the stubborn perseverance of the local men. What kept them working under such conditions? Why didn’t they give up and go home? Certainly it had nothing to do with money. Right there in the middle of the meeting the county clerk had come round to ask them to sign their monthly vouchers. I knew exactly what each received for his work. This was a bundle of millet tickets sufficient to provide 30 days’ food and the cash equivalent of eight catties of millet for spending money (50¢ U. S.). In addition to this, they got two summer suits and one winter suit a year. That was all. At home on the land they could easily earn more.
No, they had no material incentive to be cadres. Nor was their chosen road a path of glory. Only a stubborn devotion to the cause of fanshen made sense as a motive. I had never known men who consistently put principle above self-interest as these men appeared to do.
I wondered also at the new level of tolerance and understanding attained by the whole group through the method of self-and-mutual criticism. The method, I began to realize, was something that had to be learned. It did not flow naturally out of the extremely individualistic, face-conscious culture in which the majority of the team members had been reared.
To practice self-and-mutual criticism well one had to cultivate objectivity in several ways. First, one had to be willing to be objective about oneself. One had to be willing to seek out that kernel of truth in any criticism regardless of the manner in which it was presented. Second, one had to be objective about others; one had to evaluate others from a principled point of view with the object of helping them to overcome their faults and work more effectively. One had to raise others up, not knock them down. In practice these two considerations meant that one had to pay great attention to one’s own motives and methods when criticizing others, while disregarding in the main the motives and methods used by others towards oneself.
Above and beyond this, one had to cultivate the courage to voice sincerely-held opinions regardless of the views held by others, while at the same time showing a willingness to listen to others and to change one’s own opinion when honestly convinced of error. To bow with the wind, to go along with the crowd was an irresponsible attitude that could never lead to anything but trouble for oneself, for the revolutionary movement, and for China. The reverse of this, to be arrogant and unbending was just as bad.
The work team members practiced all these things much more effectively than the Communists of Long Bow or the rank-and-file delegates who faced them had done before the gate. As I listened I began to think that the distortions which had marred the gate—the pressures which had caused people to attack the cadres as if they had been enemies, and the pressures which had caused many cadres to respond by admitting more than was objectively true—were not something inherent in the method but a consequence of its unskilled application. They were a consequence of the low level of political understanding of most of the participants. As their understanding and experience increased their objectivity could well increase, and the method thus serve more effectively to unite the whole village for the future.