Fanshen

by Hinton, William ; Magdoff, Fred;

  The split between the Catholic clique and the rest of the community was far more difficult to overcome. For one thing, the quarrels and mutual suspicions were deeply rooted, tracing back to the years before and immediately after the Boxer Rebellion, when the Catholic hierarchy lorded it over the people and imported converts from as far away as Hopei to settle in Long Bow on Church lands. This historical division was greatly aggravated by the Anti-Traitor Movement because of the predominantly Catholic nature of the puppet regime. By making peace with all rank-and-file collaborators, some of these wounds were healed, but the struggle against the Church itself opened new and deeper ones, particularly among the older believers. For one thing, charges of disloyalty arising out of the escape of Father Sun continued to be pressed with vigor. The three who had originally been arrested for aiding him—Lu Hsien-pao, Wang Hu-sheng, and Fan Ming-hsi—were released from the county jail after eight months, but since they themselves confessed that they had helped the father escape under orders from the Kuomintang leader, Wang En-pao, they were kept under surveillance.

  Fan Ming-hsi, the landlord’s son, decided that his life was not safe. He met with Hsien-pao and Hu-sheng and suggested that the three of them join forces, assassinate one or two leading cadres, and flee to Hungtung. When he went to Horse Square to raise money for this flight, T’ien-ming became suspicious and ordered his arrest. Before a large public meeting, Fan Ming-hsi admitted his plans and was beaten to death by the militia. Hu-sheng and Hsien-pao lived on in Long Bow under a heavy cloud of suspicion thereafter.

  A small group of believers who continued to attend mass also aroused suspicion. By that time the only services held in the district were held in Horse Square. There, one mile to the north of Long Bow, a Catholic priest still lived. The cadres wondered, often out loud, if those who walked the long mile every Sunday morning really did so only to worship God.

  On Easter Sunday in the spring of 1946, an incident occurred that fanned all the latent suspicion and hostility into flame. Because of the religious importance of the day, more than the usual number of Catholic peasants went to Horse Square that Sunday. After the services some of the Long Bow contingent gathered in a Catholic leader’s courtyard. A man whom everyone said had led Father Sun to Hungtung was also there that day. A rumor started that he met in secret with the peasants. When those who had come from Long Bow returned home, every one of them was arrested and questioned and, in the course of the questioning, beaten. Not only were they believers in an “agent” religion, not only did they support a Church tainted with collaboration, not only were they present at a meeting with a notorious agent, they also went to Horse Square without applying for travel passes.*

  Because they went to Horse Square without passes, T’ien-ming crowned all the Easter Sunday worshippers with “agents’ caps”—i.e., he charged them with being Chiang Kai-shek’s agents and enemies of the Liberated Areas.

  After that, those who still wanted to go to Church were afraid to ask for passes. When they went secretly without passes, they aroused even sharper suspicion than before and were beaten whenever they got caught. Among those who, in spite of all this, continued to go to Horse Square whenever they found a way to leave the village undetected were three whom the village cadres especially distrusted. These were Li T’ung-jen, former assistant village head under the puppet regime, his brother, Li Ho-jen, also a minor puppet official, and their close friend and neighbor, Shen Ch’uan-te. Each time they were detained and questioned they insisted that they only went to attend the mass, but rumors of meetings that had nothing to do with religion persisted and kept the issue very much alive.

  The suspicion under which these practicing Catholics lived deepened the traditional rift in the community. A clique grew up, with Li Ho-jen at its center and Shen Ch’uan-te as its mouthpiece, that hated the revolutionary cadres, opposed the work they were trying to do, and developed in time into a potential center for counter-revolutionary activity. That this potential never flowered was not due to the efforts of the Party branch at the time. On this question they were unable to rise above the prejudices of the past and the fears of the moment and consequently took no effective remedial action.

  In the meantime, among the majority of the non-Catholic peasants in Long Bow, the Easter affair and the continued illegal travel to Horse Square only confirmed the already deeply rooted suspicion that the Catholics were in fact agents who were not to be trusted. The popular reaction to the emergence of the Li Ho-jen clique was to spread rumors that isolated its members even further.

  This widespread suspicion did not touch, or touched only slightly, the many ex-Catholics or nominal believers like Cheng-k’uan, who joined wholeheartedly in the struggle against landlord domination and against the Catholic Church as one of its aspects. Wang Yu-lai, vice chairman of the Peasants’ Association, and his son, Wen-te, both of whom were ex-Catholics, actually took the lead in denouncing other Catholics as agents and traitors, an activity which won them the confidence of the other cadres and the intense hatred of the Catholic community.

  The most serious rift in the ranks of the peasants was that which began to show up in the course of the Settling Accounts Movement between the land poor on the one hand, and the independent small holders or middle peasants on the other. It was serious because of the numbers involved. Even if the Catholic community as a whole had been alienated by the attack on the Church, which it was not, this would have involved, at most, one fifth of the village. The small holders made up two fifths of the village. Since the poor peasants were in no position to “go it alone,” a split between them and the small holders could doom the revolution.

  The Anti-Traitor Movement made a solid alliance of all peasants difficult because there were small holders among the collaborators who were dispossessed. The attack on the Catholics as agents greatly aggravated the difficulty because among them there were also small holders.

  The Settling Accounts Movement threatened the very basis of cooperation between the two groups because no clear line was drawn between friends and enemies, between the peasants and their exploiters. Many prosperous peasants who owned their own land did not see much difference between their economic status and that of certain “objects of struggle.” They remembered loans given out to neighbors in the past and the hiring of help during the harvest season and broke into a cold sweat. “Maybe we are exploiters too?” they said to one another. They quietly withdrew from active participation in village affairs, could be brought to meetings only if the militia went knocking on doors and ordered them out, and were often overheard making sarcastic remarks about fanshen.

  The leaders of the Party branch saw this change in the attitude of many families, heard the warnings issued constantly by higher Party and government bodies against damage to “middle-peasant” interests, and decided to do something about it. Through the Peasants’ Association, special meetings were held to talk things over with the independent tillers. They were urged to speak their minds. One who had been attacked as a puppet block leader said, “I have already been punished. If things go on this way I’m afraid the same thing will happen all over again.” Another asked, “What is going to happen when you equalizers run out of oil (landlord and rich peasant property)? Who will be next?” Others asked why they had not been in the “grades.” Even though they had many difficulties, lacked implements, stock and tools, they received nothing from the “fruits.” “Why,” they asked, “should we be active in the struggle?”

  All welcomed the cancellation of debts and the new progressive tax system designed to reward hard labor. But they feared that if they took advantage of it by laboring hard, they would eventually be cut back like chives whose flat green leaves were cut off for food each time they pushed their way above the soil. Was this to be the ultimate reward of thrift and hard labor?

  In order to dispel “the chive cutting outlook,” branch members urged the Peasants’ Association to “open the grades” to all families who lacked anything vital to everyday
welfare, and even to those who really had everything they needed, as a demonstration of solidarity. Furniture, grain, and clothing were then handed out much more widely than before. Two hundred and ten out of 252 families in the village received at least something in the later distribution. This relieved the fears of the more prosperous to some extent, but it did not solve the problem because there were still tremendous pressures from below for further expropriation. Since all the really wealthy people, the well-known “money bags,” had already been cleaned out, the moderately prosperous could hardly feel safe.

  In the summer and fall of 1946 the worst fears of this group were realized, for during these months a new wave of struggle was launched.

  21

  All Out War—Retreat

  Those who advocate “halting the enemy beyond the gate” oppose strategic retreat on the ground that retreat means losing territory, endangering the people (“breaking up. the pots and pans,” so to speak), and creating an unfavorable impression on the outside world. If we will not let the pots and pans of a section of the inhabitants be broken for once, then the pots and pans of the whole population will go on being broken for a long time.

  Mao Tse-tung

  IN THE SUMMER of 1946, the fragile truce between the Communist Party of China and the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek broke down completely. The Truce agreed upon on January 13th was for six months only. It officially expired June 30th. Although both sides acted to extend it pending further talks, spreading battles in July made this impossible. Civil War began in earnest during that month.

  Both sides blamed the other for the breakdown of the truce. General Marshall, in his report to President Truman, tried to apportion the blame equally between the two Chinese parties and thus absolve himself and his government completely, but it soon became obvious from the trend of the war, if from nothing else, that the truce came to an end because Chiang Kai-shek and his American advisers thought they had accumulated enough strength in North China, and Manchuria to wipe out the Liberated Areas. During the entire six months of the truce, military supplies poured into Nationalist-held ports for allocation to armies being trained by American officers and transported to strategic positions in North, Northeast, and Central China by American ships and planes. This was done under the innocent cover of delivering lend-lease supplies already “in the pipeline” and completing the 39-division program inaugurated while the Anti-Japanese War was still in progress. Between V-J Day and the end of July, over $600 million worth of lend-lease supplies reached China—more than had come in throughout eight years of international war. In addition to this, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of surplus property, abandoned in the Pacific theater by the American Army, Navy and Marine Corps, were turned over to Chiang Kai-shek. This included over $17.5 million worth of guns, ammunition, communications equipment, and miscellaneous supplies owned by SACO (Sino-American Co-operative Organization), a joint espionage and sabotage operation carried on by the American Navy and Chiang’s security police under the notorious Tai Li, China’s Himmler.*

  By the time the truce expired, most of the 39 American-equipped and trained divisions, plus 167 re-armed regular divisions of Chiang’s army, were ready for battle and strategically placed throughout the North. They moved confidently for a showdown. In the campaigns of that summer and fall it was Chiang’s armies that took the offensive and Mao’s armies that were on the defensive.

  The White Paper issued by the American State Department in 1949 makes this quite clear:

  During the period of General Marshall’s mission in China, the government considerably improved its military holdings. Government armies in mid-1946 comprised approximately 3,000,000 men, opposed by something over 1,000,000 Communists of whom an estimated 400,000 were not regular troops. During the latter part of 1946, the Nationalists made impressive gains, clearing most of Shensi, Kansu, north Shansi, south Chahar, part of northern Hopei and Jehol, and nearly all of Kiangsu. The government seized Kalgan, Tatung, Chengte, and gained control of the Ping-sui Railroad.

  In Shantung the Nationalists achieved a major advance, clearing much of the Tsin-pu Railway (Tientsin-Pukow). Communist gains during this period were limited to minor advances into Honan and Hupeh, and infiltration around government positions in Manchuria. By the close of 1946, the superiority of the Government’s forces was in most areas as yet unchallenged.**

  The pressure exerted by Chiang Kai-shek’s American-backed offensive increased tension throughout the Liberated Areas. No attempt was made to conceal the gravity of the situation as important cities and railroad lines on all sides of the Taihang region fell to the enemy. The reaction of the peasants in Long Bow was mixed. Some were badly frightened and wondered if they ever should have begun the struggle. Others strengthened their determination to win in the end, come what might. The national leaders of the Communist Party took the forced withdrawals calmly. This was but another encirclement similiar to the five that Chiang Kai-shek had mounted in the 1930’s and to countless others carried out by the Japanese during eight long years of occupation. With many years of experience to draw on and a vastly stronger position than they had ever held before, the members of the Central Committee were confident that the encirclement could and would be smashed.

  Such an outcome depended, in the last analysis, on the kind of support which millions of peasants were willing to give to the Revolution. The crux of the matter lay in the land question. With land in their own hands the peasants could be counted on to volunteer for service in the regular armed forces by the hundreds of thousands, to support the front with transport columns and stretcher brigades, and to organize irregular fighting units in every corner of the Liberated Areas. Land ownership was capable of inspiring both at the front and in the rear the kind of determination among the rank and file that no terror could shake and no reverses deter. Land ownership could also release among the people that infinite capacity for concealment, harassment, ambush, and surprise attack that is the despair of enemy commanders. It could serve as the foundation for a wall of silence capable of sealing the ears and stopping the eyes of the enemy’s offensive intelligence so that both the regular and irregular forces of the Revolution could concentrate and disperse, attack and retreat with relative freedom.

  In short, only the satisfaction of the peasant’s demand for land could provide during the coming period of Civil War the kind of inspiration and cohesion that the spirit of resistance to national subjugation had provided during the war against Japan. Furthermore, “Land to the Tiller” was a necessary step in the transformation of China, the key to the destruction of the old pattern of society and its replacement by an independent, modern industrial society. In the land question both the short- and the long-range interests of the people coincided.

  In order to insure that the full potential of the people for victorious defense against the impending Nationalist offensive was aroused in good time, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party had already issued a directive which reversed the wartime policy of “Double Reduction” and called once more for “Land to the Tiller” inside the Liberated Areas. This policy declaration, issued on May 4, 1946, came to be known as the May 4th Directive. It was at one and the same time both a call for all-out land equalization wherever such a program had not yet been attempted and a recognition of the kind of struggle that had already taken place on the initiative of local Poor-and-Hired Peasants’ Leagues and Peasants’ Associations in the Taihang Mountains and elsewhere. The directive said, in part:

  In the struggles of opposing traitors, settling accounts, reducing rent and interest, the peasants have been acquiring land directly from the hands of the landlords and have thus been carrying out the system of “Land to the Tiller”....

  Under these circumstances our Party must of necessity have a consistent policy: we must resolutely support the direct action adopted by the masses to carry out land reform and assume a planned leadership so that in every Liberated Area land reform may be quickly
accomplished in accordance with the scale and intensity of the development of the mass movement.

  In line with the defensive aim of all policy at this stage, the provisions of the May 4th Directive were relatively mild. Rich peasants were to be subject only to rent-and-interest reduction. Expropriations were to be carried out against landlords but, as David and Isabel Crook have pointed out:

  Distinctions were to be made between “tyrants,” traitors, and big landlords on the one hand and ordinary small and medium landlords on the other. Wherever possible the latter were to be dealt with by negotiation … It goes without saying that even the former were to be left with means of livelihood. Commerce and industry, even that belonging to landlords, was to be protected, and in general a policy of magnanimity was to be pursued, with no physical violence and above all no taking of life except by formal legal procedure. All, including people of the landlord class, who had co-operated in the struggle against Japan were to be treated with consideration. Together with the various non-peasant elements, they were, so far as possible, to be drawn into a united front against feudalism and Kuomintang dictatorship and for peace, democracy, and national unity.*

  In regard to the status of middle peasants the May 4th Directive was unequivocal. Middle peasants were to be drawn into the movement as allies, encouraged to participate fully in all decisions, and under no circumstances were their lands or their interests to be harmed.

  The May 4th Directive reached Lucheng County after the Civil War had already reached flood tide. In the heat of a defensive campaign, with a large Nationalist army advancing to within 50 miles of the county seat, its moderate proposals were honored more in the breach than in the observance. The struggle that actually developed became even sharper and more violent than that which had gone before. The County Committee of the Communist Party called for san t’ou, szu yu, wu pu liu, which meant “three things thorough, four things possessed, and five things resolved.” The three basic goals were to accuse thoroughly, to struggle thoroughly, and to fanshen thoroughly.” “Food to eat, clothes to wear, land to till, and houses to live in” were the four things to be possessed by all landless and land-poor peasants. “Let no poor peasant remain poor, let no backward element remain backward, leave no question between the people be unresolved, leave no feudal remnants in the people’s thinking, and leave no landlord in possession of his property,” were the five problems to be resolved.