Fanshen

by Hinton, William ; Magdoff, Fred;

  As the Settling Accounts Movement gathered momentum, the poor laborers who led it suddenly found themselves the objects of solicitous attention from women who had formerly never so much as glanced at them, much less spoken to them.

  In Long Bow there was a young hired laborer named Ch’un-hsi who worked for a landlord in the neighboring Kao Settlement. The family treated him as one of their cattle, lodging him in the stable with the ox and the sheep, and giving him nothing but millet and chaff to eat. During the famine year his own mother appeared at the gate one day to beg for something to eat. When he slipped into the kitchen and took a bowl of millet for her, he was thoroughly beaten for his pains. When his mother came back again he was so afraid of another thrashing that he drove her away.

  After the liberation of the region, the landlord’s daughter-in-law, who had formerly winced when he with his sheep dung odor went by, suddenly began to flirt with him. She cooked meat dumplings and other delicacies for his dinner, mended his torn clothes, and ultimately invited him to sleep in her quarters. All this was not for nothing, however. As soon as Ch’un-hsi’s head was well turned, she persuaded him to hide clothes and other valuable things for her father-in-law. When the peasants of the village launched a sharp attack against the family, which owned over 70 acres and had financed one member through the university at Peking, Ch’un-hsi protected them in every way that he could. When this property finally was divided, the daughter-in-law went out to work as a nurse; only then—when the family could no longer afford to hire him—did Ch’un-hsi return to his mother’s home in Long Bow. But he took no part in the struggle. He refused to accept any land, houses, or other property in the division then going on and persuaded his mother not to make any accusations because, he said, the Kuomintang would soon be back and punish them all.

  This type of seduction was repeated many times with many variations. Even though a number of small exploiters were attacked in Long Bow, there was one rather wealthy family whose property was never seized. This was the family of the widow Yu Pu-ho. There were many reasons for her miraculous immunity but not the least of them was her very beautiful daughter, Pu-ch’ao. This girl had married a poor peasant from a distant village, a former puppet trooper who volunteered for service in the Eighth Route Army. After he left for the front she returned home to stay with her widowed mother. As a soldier’s wife she was entitled to help from the peasants of Long Bow Village. She lost no time in getting acquainted with the village leaders. She carried on flirtations and liaisons with a number of them simultaneously and even bore a son. No one knew who the father was, but since the baby died within a few days his parentage never became an issue. Disarmed by her status as a poor peasant’s wife and soldier’s dependent, and personally fond of her, the cadres made no move to confiscate her mother’s property.

  A further twist to this motif was the man trap. The landlords used their daughters-in-law to entice the village cadres, encouraged them to sleep together, and then exposed the whole affair to the peasants in an attempt to discredit their leaders and destroy their prestige with the people. Carrying this one step further, they spread rumors about liaisons that did not in fact exist.

  Simple bribery was another often attempted method. How Sheng Ching-ho came to Kuei-ts’ai and San-ch’ing with a bag of white flour has already been related. Other landlords did the same but on a more massive scale. They invited every cadre in the village into their homes to eat wheat, definitely a luxury meal, and thrust gifts of clothing, leather shoes, and watches at them. In Long Bow such invitations were not too successful, due in large part to the influence of T’ien-ming, but in Wang Village, in the same district, a large proportion of the young men newly catapulted into leadership compromised themselves in this way.

  Here again, when the gentry were not successful in bribing leaders, they spread rumors to the effect that the leaders had been bribed, mentioned valuable things which they claimed had disappeared from their homes, and in every way tried to discredit the young cadres and cause friction between them and their followers.

  In Long Bow a big issue was made of the altar lamps, cloth, and candles that were confiscated from the Church. Rumor had it that the altar lamps were made of solid silver—some said gold—worth hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars. Once they left the Church they were seen no more, yet no equivalent sum of money or grain found its way into the wealth available for distribution. The truth of the matter was that the lamps were made of brass, not silver or gold. They brought only a modest sum in the Changchih market and the money had immediately been spent on ammunition and rifles for the militia. In regard to other items that rumor claimed “missing” there were also explanations. The cloth had been made into shirts and quilts which were presented free to every volunteer who enlisted in the army. The wax candles were burned by the militia in their temple lodgings since they had no other source of light. But in the absence of a clear accounting, rumors of misappropriation gained wide currency, and the reputation of the village cadres was tarnished accordingly.

  The most sophisticated tactic used by the gentry was infiltration. Able young men posed as revolutionaries, won the confidence of local Party organizations and village governments, and then carried on their wrecking activities from the inside. Although such infiltration was common in the Taihang region, in Long Bow no member of any wealthy family attempted such a thing.

  To the methods of disruption mentioned above must be added the power of the landlord’s religious and superstitious authority. As has been pointed out, Confucianism and ancestor worship were deeply ingrained in the consciousness of the majority of the peasants. By claiming that their land and property came from their ancestors and therefore should remain inviolate, the owners caused many a peasant to hold back in the struggle. They also summoned fate to their side once more. “If you are poor, that is your fate. That is determined in heaven and no man can go against heaven,” they declared; or, “If you are poor, that is because your father’s tomb is poorly located. No one can defy the influence of air and water.” In the face of adversity they preached patience. If one went bankrupt, one could only wait for one’s luck to change, select a more suitable spot for one’s own grave, and hope that the eight ideographs of earth and heaven would be in better conjunction when one’s son was born. They also prophesied destruction from on high of all those who struggled against the existing order. They said the gods would punish all rebels for their temerity. “Can the sun rise in the west?” they cried once again, and pointed to the strikingly red sunsets in the summer of 1946 as a portent of the destruction of the Communist Party.

  To lend weight to such ideas they used the spirit-talking technique for all it was worth. “The return visit” and the “distant view” turned out to be highly political. Those peasants who could be enticed into a seance together held up a tray that was sprinkled with a coating of sand. Then a medium, usually a young girl in an induced trance, held a chopstick suspended in her outstretched hand so it just touched the sand. As both the tray and the chopstick moved, lines were drawn in the sand which were immediately interpreted by the master of the seance as ideographs prophesying doom for those who raised their hands against the owners of property. “Chiang Kai-shek will return,” was another common message.

  This last idea was the most persistent theme of the landlords’ propaganda activity. By spirit talking, by rumor, in conversation, and in public announcements, the gentry stressed over and over again the inevitable return of the Kuomintang and the swift punishment in store for all active participants in the Revolution. Weight was given to their words by the activity of the Home Return Corps, a semi-military organization created to take over and hold any area won back from the Liberated Areas by the Nationalist offensives. This corps, composed of landlords’ sons, their “dog’s legs,” hired thugs, and miscellaneous adventurers, instituted a white terror in the wake of the Central troops wherever they returned. They hunted down and killed not only active cadres but also their wives, children, a
nd relatives, buried whole families alive, flayed people, and cut off their heads. The Home Return Corps also sent individuals deep into the Liberated Areas to carry out assassinations, poison wells, loot, kill, and spread panic. Assassinations, carried out at night, were common enough to acquire a name of their own, “black shots,” and there was no person in the revolutionary ranks, no matter how brave, who did not feel a twinge of fear when stepping outdoors after dark or travelling at night on deserted paths between one village and another.

  To co-ordinate and direct all the elements of this offensive, the gentry built and rebuilt the Kuomintang Party and tried to maintain underground branches in every village. It was through the Party organization that information was gathered about developments in the countryside, lists of active revolutionary leaders and their peasant supporters were drawn up, money distributed where it would do the most good, and the over-all strategy and tactics of the conflict planned and put into practice. This whole effort depended for ultimate success on victories on the field of battle. Such victories could only be won by a strong, well-trained, militant army. With all the manpower of South, Central, and West China to draw upon, with thousands of American officers to train the conscripts, with all the surplus weapons of the Pacific War as their basic armament, and with the arsenals of America pouring in new arms all the time, the gentry felt confident of the future. Should all these fail, America still had, did she not, a monopoly on the atomic bomb? If they could not hold China, then they could destroy her.

  To meet this many-sided offensive of the gentry the peasants had one basic weapon—unity—a weapon which, in the past, they had never been able to forge. That the peasants were able to forge such a weapon after the Second World War and employ it in the face of landlord disruption, terror, and massive, foreign-supported military mobilization was due to one primary factor—the leadership of the Communist Party.

  18

  Founding the Village Communist Party Branch

  The Communist Party of China is the organized vanguard of the Chinese working class and the highest form of its class organization. The Party represents the interests of the Chinese nation and the Chinese people. While at the present stage it works to create a system of new democracy in China, its ultimate aim is the realization of a system of communism in China.

  Constitution of the Communist Party of China, 1945

  ONE NIGHT in April, T’ien-ming, the former underground worker now in charge of public security, and Kuei-ts’ai, the vice-leader of the village, stood guard together on the road that led south out of Long Bow toward the walled town of Changchih. Under the soft light of a full moon they walked up and down in silence. Several times during the first hour T’ien-ming slowed down his pace and turned toward Kuei-ts’ai as if prepared to say something, but apparently he thought better of it and walked on as briskly as before. Finally, he did speak.

  “Comrade,” he said, looking Kuei-ts’ai straight in the eye. “In regard to the Eighth Route Army, what are your thoughts?”

  Kuei-ts’ai was a little taken aback.

  “What are my thoughts?” he exclaimed, hoisting his rifle onto his other shoulder. “What should my thoughts be? In the past I had nothing. I had an empty bowl. Now I have fanshened. Everything I have the Eighth Route Army gave to me. Wherever the Eighth Route Army goes I will follow.”

  “And the Communist Party?” asked T’ien-ming.

  “The Communist Party?” said Kuei-ts’ai, drawing his heavy eyebrows together so that a crease ran up the middle of his forehead. “The Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army—it’s all the same, isn’t it?”

  “No, not exactly,” said T’ien-ming. “The Communist Party organized the Army. In the Army there are Communist Party members. The Communist Party directs the Army, but there are many soldiers in the Army who are not in the Communist Party. And it is the Communist Party, not the Eighth Route Army, that leads us in the battle against the landlords. It is the Communist Party that leads our fanshen.”

  “I understand,” said Kuei-ts’ai, still not too clear as to just what the Communist Party was.

  “If only we follow the Communist Party the working people will certainly win victory. We will overthrow the old capital holders and we will become masters in the house,” said T’ien-ming starting to walk again, this time very slowly.*

  “Where is the Party then?” asked Kuei-ts’ai. “I want to see it.”

  “It’s far away but there are Party members in the Army and also in the countryside. I too would like to see the Party. Will you go with me to find it?”

  “Yes,” answered Kuei-ts’ai without a moment’s hesitation. “Let’s go as soon as possible.”

  After that, every time Kuei-ts’ai found T’ien-ming alone he asked him when they would start out, but T’ien-ming put him off several times. Finally T’ien-ming said, “Why are you so anxious? Don’t you know that it is a long journey, and a very difficult and dangerous one?”

  “Never mind how difficult or dangerous it is,” said Kuei-ts’ai impatiently. “You say the Communist Party leads us to fanshen. There is no other way out for us except with the Communist Party, so let’s go find it.”

  “Think it over some more,” said T’ien-ming. “Are you willing to risk your life for the Party? In the future there will be many dangers, many hardships. You must be willing to sacrifice even your life, maybe even the safety of your family.”

  “I have already made up my mind,” said Kuei-ts’ai. “Why do you keep talking about dangers, as if we weren’t in danger already?”

  “In that case, your journey is over,” said T’ien-ming, smiling broadly. “The Party is right before your eyes. I am a member of the Communist Party.”

  Kuei-ts’ai was astonished but he was also angry.

  “Why did you trick me?” he asked.

  “Because the Communist Party is a secret organization. If the enemy should ever come back we would all be killed. No one is allowed to tell of his membership. Even if you are arrested and beaten to death, you should never tell. You can say you belong to the Eighth Route Army but never that you belong to the Communist Party.”

  Thus did Kuei-ts’ai first come into contact with the Communist Party. He was formally enrolled as a member a few days later.

  T’ien-ming, who recruited him, had only been a member for a few weeks himself. He was picked as the first Party recruit in Long Bow Village by District Leader Liang when it became obvious that without a Party branch in the village itself the work of the Revolution could not progress. The gentry had made it very clear that their strategy was to split the peasants, set them to quarrelling with one another, undermine their morale, frighten them into inaction, isolate them from their political allies, and undermine the leadership of the Communist Party. The strategy of the peasants therefore had to be to unite all working people, overcome differences in their ranks, instil confidence in ultimate victory, isolate the gentry, and undermine their political leadership—the Kuomintang.

  Such a strategy required a far-sighted, politically conscious, guiding core of individuals with close ties to the masses of the people at every level. None of the existing organizations in Long Bow could satisfy these requirements.

  The village government was essentially an administrative organ in the service of the fanshened peasants. The village functionaries had their hands full solving the daily problems of the people, and acting as a two-way liaison between the village and higher levels of government.

  The People’s Militia was the peasants’ own armed force. On the local level, it was their chief guarantee that their will would be carried out, but the militia did not determine what that will was. It was the servant, not the leader, of the peasant community. The problem was to keep it that way, for there was a strong tendency for those with arms in their hands to become an independent political force and follow the road to banditry and militarism.

  The Women’s Association, organized to represent and mobilize “half of China,” could not very well
be the guiding force for the other half, the males.

  The Peasants’ Association was the militant popular organization of both men and women formed for the express purpose of carrying on the struggle against the gentry. But just because it was a popular organization open to all working people, it required a core of conscious, disciplined, dedicated people able to give guidance and unselfish service as leaders. There was no guarantee that such a core of leaders would be generated spontaneously by the struggle itself. Nor was there any reason to think that if such a core did develop it could break through the limitations imposed on the average peasant consciousness by the small-scale, fragmented private economy of which it was a product.

  With four important organizations in the village a further problem arose, the problem of co-ordination. How could the village government, the People’s Militia, the Women’s Association, and the Peasants’ Association maintain a unified outlook? How could the contradictions that arose between them by virtue of their different functions be adjusted? Only a political party that drew its membership from among the leaders and active rank and file of all four of them could guide and co-ordinate the many-faceted revolutionary movement and solve the problems that faced the peasants in their drive to fanshen. This was exactly the role played by the Communist Party in every village in which a Party branch existed.

  In the absence of such a Party organization in Long Bow, District Leader Liang, a Communist Party member of several years’ standing, guided the work of the young cadres for many months. Since his headquarters were in the village, he was often on hand when they needed him. But Liang was only one person. His presence was demanded in a dozen places every day. As the responsible leader of a whole district he could not possibly keep in close touch with all the problems of any one village. Even if he could have done so, no individual, no matter how brilliant, could match a dedicated collective body in wisdom. As the peasant uprising in Long Bow developed momentum it became imperative to organize a Communist Party branch that could guide it from within.