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The list of goods confiscated from the rich peasant widow omitted any mention of the garments altered to fit Pu-ch’ao. This so upset Hu Hsueh-chen, the dogged, hardworking leader of the Women’s Association, that she protested vehemently to the Congress when it next met.
But Hsin-fa, backed by a solid majority, insisted on giving Pu-ch’ao everything that fitted her. According to the regulations, he saw no other way to handle the matter. “As long as they agree to divide the family, Pu-ch’ao must have what is hers,” he said. “All we have to do is to call her in, find out what things are hers, and give them to her.”
“But almost everything is hers now,” said Hu Hsueh-chen, holding back tears with difficulty. “She remade her mother’s clothes to fit herself long ago and her sister’s clothes as well. She is so smart. She made fools of us, and you are going to let her get away with it!”
When the rest of the Congress backed Hsin-fa’s view, Hu Hsueh-chen lost her temper.
“What’s the use of the struggle then? Everything will be Pu-ch’ao’s. People like me can’t get a thing.”
As she said this she looked down at her own frayed, three-year-old tunic, and passed her hands across it with a gesture of disgust. Then, realizing how selfish her words sounded, she hastened to add, “Don’t think I’m thinking only of myself. I only want to solve this with reason. As far as the masses are concerned, no matter how much they get they’ll want more, so there is nothing to be gained by fighting for them. The real thing is the trickery—it’s not right. Since she never did divide with her mother before, it’s Pu-ch’ao’s fault, not ours, that her clothes are involved. I say they belong to all of us.”
“Well, then, are we to divide her dowry too?” asked Hsin-fa. “When we call her in we must adopt a severe attitude and warn her that she will be punished for telling any lies, but still she must be allowed to say what things are hers. As long as she describes the articles correctly and they fit her, they must be given to her, and the same goes for the daughter-in-law.”
As he spoke Hsueh-chen shook her head.
Team Leader Ts’ai suggested that the matter be immediately brought to a vote, but Hsin-fa opposed this.
“If we vote on it now and Hsueh-chen is voted down, she will carry a burden and maybe she will never raise another opinion again. Better discuss it further. Let everyone speak what is on their minds.”
Every other member of the Congress standing committee including all 15 of the remaining women, supported Hsin-fa.
But Hsueh-chen still objected.
“Do you think we want to give things to Pu-ch’ao because we like her?” asked Hsin-fa, still sensitive about the past.
“Who says you like her?”
“Now look here,” exclaimed Ta-hung, the militiaman. “If you two are going to quarrel, the rest of us will go to sleep.” But quarrel they did until Team Leader Ts’ai Chin intervened for the second time.
“Hsueh-chen’s attitude is not reasonable,” he said. “We must abide by democratic methods and obey the majority. There must be some reason why, after you have voiced your opinion several times, the others don’t want to follow you. And if you are upset because your idea has gone awry, that is still more serious.”
Hu Hsueh-chen fell silent then. A decision was made without her participation. Though she did not oppose it, she was obviously very angry. She remained sullen for a week and hardly contributed at all to the many important discussions that took place in the Congress during the critical period that followed. All the work team cadres and the comrades of the Party branch were dismayed to see the woman who had always been the most forward looking and progressive in the whole village, suddenly draw into herself, relapse into apathy, and nurse a grievance because she had been outvoted in a small matter very close to her heart. It was an individual reaction that might have been anticipated, however. The village had already witnessed a similar phenomenon in the case of Kuei-ts’ai. It was not easy for any peasant, even the most advanced among them, to understand and support a policy based on over-all considerations when it conflicted with a strong personal demand. Here the outlook of the petty producer, ingrained from birth, acted as a screen that blotted out the larger long-term interest in favor of the lesser immediate one.
In Hu Hsueh-chen’s case, the very bitterness of her poverty was the genesis of her narrow attitude. She envied Pu-ch’ao her fine clothes, her spoiled life, her beauty, and success with men. When Hsueh-chen contemplated her own plain face, her big-boned frame, her lonely state, the lean years of her childhood, the way in which her first husband had beaten and starved her, the straw she had slept on for lack of a quilt, the rags she had worn and the frayed garments that were still her lot, and when she thought of all the hard work she had done to lead the women in the fanshen movement, and contrasted this with the way in which many had turned on her, called her selfish, criticized her leadership, told her she must give up paltry things like one lady’s collar and one small strip of cloth, while at the same time they leaned over backward to see that Pu-ch’ao got her silk tunics, her embroidered shoes, her velveteen jacket, the enormity of the injustice overwhelmed her. As far as she was concerned, a policy that brought such results was no policy at all. She could not think it through.
Hu Hsueh-chen’s reaction to the settlement made with Pu-ch’ao was an extreme one. In kind, however, it was no different from the negative response of almost all the members of the Communist Party branch when the Congress finally got around to that important matter—the return of “illegal fruits,” which was the next item on the agenda.
64
“Illegal Fruits” Returned
So it occurred inside the Party that in the course of struggle certain comrades admitted more mistakes than they had committed. In order to avoid attacks, they thought that they had better accept all accusations. But although they admitted all the mistakes, as a matter of fact they still didn’t know what it was all about. Here is proof that such methods of struggle cannot cultivate the firmness of a Communist in sticking to the truth.
Liu Shao-ch’i
THE ONLY other surplus property still left in the village consisted of those items which the village Communists and cadres, when questioned at the gate, had promised to give up. Since the Congress was empowered to receive these goods, promises had now to be transformed into deeds. This process proved almost as difficult as the expropriation of Yu Pu-ho.
The nub of the problem lay in the fact that most of the Communists and cadres felt that they had been treated unfairly. Under the influence of an erroneous line that had first characterized the fanshen in Long Bow as incomplete and then blamed the local leaders for it, most of them had promised to return things which had in fact been quite openly distributed to them with the approval of the distribution committee and paid for with millet. “Paid for” must be understood to mean that the price of these things was subtracted from the total amount of millet allocated to them. In other words, the goods and chattels they received were a part of their just share, insofar as that had been determined by the committee.
No one objected to returning “illegally seized” property. What they could not agree upon, however, was a definition of “illegal seizure.” After one distribution session Hu Hsueh-chen had taken home a small box. There was no record of this box in the lists, and no millet had been deducted for it. On the surface this was a case of “illegal seizure.” But the other Communists all backed Hsueh-chen up when she said that every single person at that meeting had taken something home. It was the result of a common decision. If Hu had seized her box, then dozens of people, cadres and common folk alike, had been guilty of seizure that day. If Hu was to be asked to give up her box, then everyone else ought to give up what they had received.
Another case in point was An-feng’s shawl. An-feng’s husband had been an active militiaman before he joined the People’s Liberation Army late in 1946. Day after day the militiamen had been called upon to do guard duty in bi
tterly cold weather. At a mass meeting the people had voted to give each militaman a shawl. This was done as a favor to the men and as a token of thanks. But before the gate the shawls had been labelled “seized fruits” and An-feng had been asked to return the one given to her husband. Now this request did not seem fair.
As soon as these cases came up, all the Party members began to grumble. They made quick comparisons between the total amount they had received and the amount received by other peasants and concluded that for the most part they had received less. How could it be said that they had fanshened ke tui (in excess)? And if by chance they had received something especially valuable or especially useful, was it not because at the time no one else dared to take it? They recalled how Cheng-k’uan and Hsin-fa, at the time of the struggle against Wang Lai-hsun, had led a donkey around the village for a whole day and not found anyone courageous enough to claim it. It was not that people did not want the donkey, but that their eagerness was stayed by fear. They were afraid that Chiang’s troops would soon return. Then anyone who had accepted anything would pay for it with his life. Under the circumstances those who finally were persuaded to take things were the bravest and most active people in the village. Should they now be punished for that?
Many Party members also recalled that when other peasants hesitated to voice their grievances at the meetings, it was the Communists who brought up the charges in their name, and that when such grievances won property or millet, it was the Communists who carried the articles or the grain to the beneficiaries’ homes. At that time, in the heat of the battle, they had not asked who was getting more and who less; they had simply worked night and day to carry through the people’s demands. But what thanks did they get for it? No thanks at all, but only accusations that they had themselves seized all the “fruits” and had fanshened in excess.
Discussion revealed that all the vindictive statements and unfair opinions voiced by the delegates before the gate had burned themselves into the consciousness of the Party members. They tended to forget about those who had been impartial, delegates like Ch’ung-lai’s wife and Old Tui-chin who from the very beginning had stood for an equitable solution and had always spoken out against vindictiveness.
The Communists remembered unfairness and forgot fairness because the atmosphere at the gate had been extreme. In the first place, the self-and-mutual criticism practiced there had been something new to both cadres and delegates. They had little or no experience with the kind of limited struggle necessary for solving problems that arose among the people. Uncompromising struggle against class and national enemies they knew well. Close unity with friends and relatives they also knew. But how to struggle and unite simultaneously, how to deepen unity through struggle, how to conquer weaknesses with criticism, how to exorcise the bad in friends and allies while developing the good—all this had to be learned.
In the second place, there was the influence of a wrong line. Proper use of self-and-mutual criticism depended on the full realization that one was in fact dealing with contradictions between friends and allies, not contradictions between oneself and the enemy. Under the impact of the idea that poor peasants should conquer and rule the countryside, however, it was just this concept that had been upset. The fanshen of the poor had been called incomplete. Not only had the cadres been blamed for it, but suspicion had spread far and wide that many of them were in fact class enemies, landlords and rich peasants in disguise.
At the first gate inexperience in this form of struggle, combined with a wrong line that distorted the very basis of the struggle, had produced an atmosphere which all but precluded the possibility of reconciliation. The heavy pressure which was consequently brought to bear on the cadres caused some of them to accept blame outwardly while rejecting it, or most of it, inwardly. Now that the time had come to settle accounts with concrete goods the bitterness engendered by that acceptance bore prickly fruit in the form of an exaggerated rejection. The fruit had to be harvested and digested before the problem could be solved.
Ts’ai-yuan, for instance, could not forget Old Lady Wang’s question: “What did you do during those eight years in the army? Eat the people’s millet?” It was as if all he had experienced throughout the Anti-Japanese War, the battles he had fought, the wounds he had received, the times he had risked his life—as if all this was nothing and the bringing home of a few paltry bullets had cancelled everything out. It was so unfair that his heart beat faster and his skin flushed whenever he thought of it. All the big equipment he had helped to capture—the trucks, the machine guns, the uniforms—he had of course turned over to division headquarters, but these few bullets that he had personally taken from a puppet prisoner were but a souvenir of his army life that he felt he had well earned. When the village militia found themselves short of ammunition, he had sold the bullets for enough cash to buy a quilt and several suits of clothes. Now that he was asked to give up the quilt and the clothes, it seemed to him that his whole army career was called into question.
Or take the question of proven thefts. Did the fact that Man-hsi had taken ripe fruit from certain peasants’ trees or the fact that Hung-er had stolen some salt, make the whole branch a group of thieves? Who else had stolen anything at all? Some of the comrades, women who themselves had never been in a position to graft or steal anything in any case and so had never been tested, even took the position that there had been no illegal seizures in the village whatsoever. They urged that the matter be dropped. But to this the work team could not agree.
The Communists were asked to review their past once again and themselves speak out what they thought should still be given up. Their response was sarcastic.
“I’ll hand out three acres,” said Ta-hung.
“Why so much? What’s the reason for that?” asked Hsieh Hung.
“Since I am a Communist I should be highly conscious and help all those who have not fanshened.”
This set T’ien-hsi off. “Really, it’s true,” he said. “Communists must sacrifice. Whatever the Communists do, even though the masses do the same thing, the Communists must be criticized.” He spoke in a tone of indignant injury.
“When the masses do something it is right, but if the Communists do the same thing, it is wrong,” said Ts’ai-yuan, echoing the others.
“Really, Communists should not eat or drink,” added Ta-hung in disgust.
This last remark was too much for Team Leader Ts’ai Chin. Brusquely he brushed the hair from his forehead and took the men to task. “If the masses take things without paying, of course it is wrong. But it is because we are Party members and highly conscious, just as you say, that we should take a leading part and return the “fruits” or pay back with millet. Then the masses may well follow us. Otherwise, if we just sit and wait for people to hand over and pay out, what is there to show that the Communists are highly conscious? What difference would there be between us and the masses?”
Unable to reply to this, Ta-hung went off into a corner and sat down in silence. He didn’t stir for many minutes.
The two militiamen, Ta-hung and T’ien-hsi, were most upset by the idea of surrendering “fruits.” This could well have been because they had received very little to start with. This was especially true of Tien-hsi, who, because he was a middle peasant, never needed very much in order to fanshen. Certain other Party members accepted the idea more willingly. With their help a list that seemed fair was finally drawn up. It was not very imposing. Hsin-fa promised a basket, a piece of wood, a stump, and one of the three jars which he had been legally allocated but felt guilty about possessing. T’ien-hsi promised an acre of land, one burlap bag, and a jar. When his comrades reminded him of the chicken he had seized, he got angry. The chicken, he said, had died long ago and the chicks that hatched from the eggs she laid had also long since died. He saw no reason to replace the bird or her ill-starred brood. His argument did not seem very reasonable to me, but his colleagues did not press him further.
Cheng-k’uan promised a well
basket, ten pounds of iron, four bags of wheat, one waist band, and two silver dollars. Hu Hsueh-chen agreed to give up a piece of cloth an inch wide and one foot long, two small kit bags, a lamp, and two balls of yarn. As for the box, which had never been listed, she offered to pay for it with millet. Ailien promised an iron basin and two ladies’ collars. An-feng promised two balls of wool, two collars, a leather belt, and a manure fork.
And so it went. With the exception of the acre of land promised by T’ien-hsi and the half cart promised by Jen-kuei, these offerings represented no great wealth. Their return to the Congress for distribution had significance far beyond the value of the articles, however. This was the first time anyone could remember that any of the spoils of power and privilege had ever been tracked down and returned.
In truth, the strip of cloth promised by Hu Hsueh-chen was nothing but a worthless rag, and the eight rounds of ammunition brought home by Ts’ai-yuan were hardly more than a souvenir of his eight years under fire. Could one not, perhaps, afford to be indulgent? The answer was “No!” The articles were nothing in themselves, but the principle they represented was as wide as the world. Twenty years earlier the Old Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army had started out with a few rifles, a few lances, and three rules: (1) Obey orders in all your actions; (2) don’t take a single needle or piece of thread from the people; (3) turn in everything captured.
These rules meant what they said. The Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, and the new democratic government of the Border Region took them seriously. Public servants were expected to serve, not to graft. To overlook the misappropriation of one small rag or a single bullet was incompatible with a sincere revolutionary stand.
Fanshen Page 73
