Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

  A boy was called to do this, and found a big bunch of keys on him. Our commander acted as though he had been genuinely careless, and gave Plumpie a victorious smile.

  The rest of us searched each other. This roundabout way of doing things reflected a Maoist practice: things had to look as though they were the wish of the people, rather than commands from above. Hypocrisy and playacting were taken for granted.

  The early-morning streets were bursting with activity.

  Red Guards were marching toward Tiananmen Square from all over the capital. Deafening slogans surged like roaring waves. As we chanted, we raised our hands and our Little Red Books formed a dramatic red line against the darkness. We reached the square at dawn. I was placed in the seventh row from the front on the wide northern pavement of the Avenue of Eternal Peace to the east side of Tiananmen Square. Behind me were many more rows.

  After lining us up tidily, our officers ordered us to sit down on the hard ground cross-legged. With my inflamed joints, this was agony, and I soon got pins and needles in my bottom. I was deadly cold and drowsy and exhausted because I could not fall asleep. The officers conducted nonstop singing, making different groups challenge each other, to keep up our spirits.

  Shortly before noon, hysterical waves of "Long live Chairman Mao!" roared from the east. I had been flagging and was slow to realize that Mao was about to pass by in an open car. Suddenly thunderous yelling exploded all around me.

  "Long live Chairman Mao! Long live Chairman Mao!" People sitting in front of me shot up and hopped in delirious excitement, their raised hands frantically waving their Litfie Red Books.

  "Sit down! Sit down!"

  I cried, in vain. Our company commander had said that we all had to remain seated throughout. But few seemed to be observing the rules, possessed by their urge to set eyes on Mao.

  Having been sitting for so long, my legs had gone numb.

  For some seconds, all I could see was a boiling sea of the backs of heads. When I finally managed to totter to my feet, I caught only the very end of the motorcade. Liu Shaoqi, the president, had his face turned in my direction.

  Wall posters had already started attacking Liu as " China 's Khrushchev' and the leading opponent of Mao.

  Although he had not been officially denounced, it was clear that his downfall was imminent. In press reports of the Red Guard rallies, he was always given a very undistinguished place. In this procession, instead of standing next to Mao, as the number-two man should have done, he was right at the back, in one of the last cars.

  Liu looked subdued and weary. But I did not have any feelings for him. Although he was the president, he did not mean anything to my generation. We had grown up imbued with the cult of Mao alone. And if Liu was against Mao, it seemed to us natural that he should go.

  At that moment, with the sea of youngsters screaming their loyalty to Mao, Liu must have felt how utterly hopeless his situation was. The irony was that he himself had been instrumental in promoting Mao's deification, which had led to this explosion of fanaticism in the youth of a nation which was largely unreligious. Liu and his colleagues may have helped deificao in order to appease him, thinking that he would be satisfied with abstract glory and leave them to get on with the mundane work, but Mao wanted absolute power both on earth and in heaven. And perhaps there was nothing they could have done: the cult of Mao may have been unstoppable.

  These reflections did not occur to me on the morning of 25 November 1966. All I cared about then was catching a glimpse of Chairman Mao. I turned my eyes quickly away from Liu to the front of the motorcade. I spotted Mao's stalwart back, his right arm steadily waving. In an instant, he had disappeared. My heart sank. Was that all I would see of Chairman Mao? Only a fleeting glimpse of his back?

  The sun seemed suddenly to have turned gray. All around me the Red Guards were making a huge din. The girl standing next to me had just pierced the index finger of her right hand and was squeezing blood out of it to write something on a neatly folded handkerchief. I knew exactly the words she was going to use. It had been done many times by other Red Guards and had been publicized ad name am "I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our Great Leader Chairman Mao!" Watching her, my despair grew. Life seemed pointless. A thought flickered into my mind: perhaps I should commit suicide?

  It vanished almost the next instant. Looking back, I suppose the idea was really a subconscious attempt to quantify my devastation at having my dream smashed, especially after all the hardships I had suffered on my journey. The bursting trains, the inflamed knees, the hunger and cold, the itchiness, the blocked toilets, the exhaustion all in the end unrewarded.

  Our pilgrimage was over and a few days later we headed home. I had had enough of the trip, and I longed for warmth and comfort, and a hot bath. But the thought of home was tinged with apprehension. No matter how uncomfortable, the journey had never been frightening, as my life immediately prior to it had been. Living in close contact with thousands and thousands of Red Guards for well over a month, I had never seen any violence, or felt terror. The gigantic crowds, hysterical though they were, were well disciplined and peaceful. The people I met were friendly.

  Just before I left Peking, a letter came from my mother.

  It said my father had fully recovered and everyone in Chengdu was fine. But she added at the end that both she and my father were being criticized as capitalist-roaders.

  My heart sank. By now it had become clear to me that capitalist-roaders Communist officials were the main targets of the Cultural Revolution. I was soon to see what this meant for my family and for me.

  19. "Where There Is a Will to Condemn, There Is Evidence"

  My Parents Tormented (December 1966-1967)

  A capitalist-roader was supposed to be a powerful official who was pursuing capitalist policies. But in reality no officials had any choice about which policies they pursued.

  The orders of Mao and those of his opponents were all presented as coming from the Party, and the officials had to obey all of them even though in doing so they were obliged to carry out many zigzags and even U-turns. If they really disliked a particular order, the most they could do was engage in passive resistance, which they had to try hard to disguise. It was therefore impossible to determine whether officials were capitalist-roaders or not on the basis of their work.

  Many officials had their own views, but the Party rule was that they must not reveal them to the public. Nor did they dare to. So whatever the officials' sympathies were, they were unknown to the general public.

  But ordinary people were the very force Mao now ordered to attack capitalist-roaders without, of course, the benefit of either information or the right to exercise any independent judgment. So what happened was that officials came under attack as capitalist-roaders because of the positions they held. Seniority alone was not the cflteflon. The decisive factor was whether a person was the leader of a relatively self-contained unit or not. The whole population was organized into units, and the people who represented power to ordinary people were their immediate bosses unit leaders. In designating these people for attack, Mao was tapping into the most obvious pool of resentment, in the same way that he had incited pupils against teachers. Unit leaders were also the key links in the chain of the Communist power structure which Mao wanted to get rid of.

  It was because they were leaders of deparl,uents that both my parents were denounced as capitalist-roaders.

  "Where there is a will to condemn, there is evidence," as the Chinese saying has it. On this basis, all unit leaders across China, big and small, were summarily denounced by people under them as capitalist-roaders for implementing policies that were alleged to be 'capitalist' and anti Chairman Mao." These included allowing free markets in the countryside, advocating better professional skills for workers, permitting relative literary and artistic freedom, and encouraging competitiveness in sports now termed 'bourgeois cups-and-medals mania." Until now most officials had had no idea that Mao had
disliked these policies after all, the directives had all come from the Party, which was led by him. Now they were told, out of the blue, that all these policies had come from the 'bourgeois headquarters' within the Party.

  In every unit there were people who became activists.

  They were called Rebel Red Guards, or "Rebels' for short.

  They wrote wall posters and slogans proclaiming "Down with the capitalist-roaders," and held denunciation meetings against their bosses. The denunciations often sounded hollow, because the accused simply said that they had been carrying out Party orders Mao had always told them to obey Party orders unconditionally, and had never told them of the existence of the 'bourgeois headquarters." How were they to know? And how could they have acted otherwise?

  The officials had many supporters, some of whom rallied to their defense. They were called the "Loyalists." Verbal and physical battles broke out between them and the Rebels. Because Mao never said explicitly that all Party bosses should be condemned, some militants became hesitant: what if the bosses they attacked turned out not to be capitalist-roaders? Beyond the posters and slogans and denunciation meetings, ordinary people did not know what they were expected to do.

  So when I returned to Chengdu in December 1966 I sensed a distinct uncertainty in the air.

  My parents were living at home. The health clinic where my father had been staying had asked them to leave in November because capitalist-roaders were supposed to go back to their units to be denounced. The small canteen in the compound had been closed down, and we all had to get our food from the big canteen, which went on working normally. My parents continued to receive their salaries every month, in spite of the fact that the Party system was paralyzed and they did not go to work. Since their departments dealt with culture, and their bosses in Peking were particularly hated by the Maos and had been purged at the start of the Cultural Revolution, my parents were in the direct line of fire. They were attacked in wall posters with standard abuse like "Bombard Chang Shou-yu' and "Burn Xia De-hong." The accusations against them were the same as those made against almost every director of every Department of Public Affairs up and down the country.

  Meetings were convened in my father's department to denounce him. He was yelled at. As with most political struggles in China, the real impetus came from personal animosity. Father's foremost accuser was a Mrs. Shau, a prim and fiercely self-righteous deputy section chief who had long been aspiring to get rid of the prefix 'deputy."

  She considered that her promotion had been blocked by my father, and was determined to take revenge. Once she spat in his face and slapped him. But in general the anger was limited. Many of the staff liked and respected my father and were not fierce to him. Outside his department, some organizations for which he had been responsible, like the Sichuan Daily, also held denunciation meetings against him. But the staff there bore no personal grudges against him, and the meetings were formalities.

  Against my mother there were no denunciation meetings at all. As a grass-roots official, she had looked after more individual units than my father schools, hospitals, and entertainment groups. Normally, someone in her position would have been denounced by people from these organizations. But she was left alone by all of them. She had been responsible for solving their personal problems, such as housing transfers, and pensions. And she had done her job with unfailing helpfulness and efficiency. She had tried her best in previous campaigns not to victimize anyone, and had in fact managed to protect many. People knew the risks she had run, and repaid her by refusing to turn on her.

  On my first evening back home my grandmother made 'cloud-swallowing' dumplings and steamed rice in palm leaves filled with 'eight treasures." My mother gave me a cheerful account of what had been happening to her and my father. She said they had agreed they did not want to be officials anymore after the Cultural Revolution. They were going to apply to be ordinary citizens, and enjoy a normal family life. As I was to realize later, this was no more than a self-deluding fantasy, because the Communist Party allowed no opting out; but at the time they needed something to hold on to.

  My father also said: "Even a capitalist president can become an ordinary citizen overnight. It's a good thing not to be given permanent power. Otherwise officials will tend to abuse their power." He then apologized to me for having been dictatorial with the family.

  "You are like singing cicadas silenced by chilling winter," he said, "and it is good that you young people should rebel against us, the older generation." Then he said, half to me, half to himself, 'l think there is nothing wrong with officials like me being subject to criticism even a bit of hardship and loss of face."

  This was another confused attempt by my parents to try to cope with the Cultural Revolution. They did not resent the prospect of losing their privileged positions in fact, they were trying to see this as something positive.

  Nineteen sixty-seven came. Suddenly, the Cultural Revolution switched into high gear. In its first stage, with the Red Guard movement, an atmosphere of terror had been created. Now Mao turned to his major goal: to replace the 'bourgeois headquarters' and the existing Party hierarchy with his personal power system. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were formally denounced and detained, as was Tao Zhu.

  On 9 January, the People's Daily and the radio announced that a "January Storm" had started from Shanghai, where Rebels had taken control. Mao called on people throughout China to emulate them and seize power from the capitalist-roaders.

  "Seize power' (duo-quart)! This was a magic phrase in China. Power did not mean influence over policies it meant license over people. In addition to money, it brought privilege, awe, and fawning, and the opportunity to take revenge. In China, there were virtually no safety valves for ordinary people. The whole country was like a pressure cooker in which a gigantic head of compressed steam had built up. There were no football matches, pressure groups, law suits, or even violent films. It was impossible to voice any kind of protest about the system and its injustices, unthinkable to stage a demonstration. Even talking about politics an important form of relieving pressure in most societies was taboo. Subordinates had very little chance of redress against their bosses. But if you were a boss of some kind, you had a chance to vent your frustration. So when Mao launched his call to 'seize power," he found a huge constituency of people who wanted to take revenge on somebody. Although power was dangerous, it was more desirable than powerlessness, particularly to people who had never had it. Now it looked to the general public as if Mao was saying that power was up for grabs.

  In practically every unit in China, the morale of the Rebels was immensely boosted. So were their numbers.

  All sorts of people -workers, teachers, shop assistants, even the staff of government offices started calling themselves "Rebels." Following the example of Shanghai, they physically beat the now disorientated "Loyalists' into surrender. The earlier Red Guard groups, like the one in my school, were disintegrating, because they had been organized around the children of high officials, who were under attack. Some early Red Guards who opposed the new phase of the Cultural Revolution were arrested. One of the sons of Commissar Li was beaten to death by Rebels who accused him of having let slip a remark against Mme Mao.

  The people in my father's depafiment who had been in the posse which had taken him away to be detained were now Rebels. Mrs. Shau was chief of a Rebel group for all the Sichuan government offices, in addition to being its branch leader in my father's department.

  No sooner were the Rebels formed than they split into factions and fought for power in almost every work unit in China. All sides accused their opponents of being 'anti Cultural Revolution," or of being loyal to the old Party system. In Chengdu, the numerous groups quickly coalesced into two opposing blocs, headed by two university Rebel groups: the more militant '26 August' from Sichuan University, and the relatively moderate "Red Chengdu' from Chengdu University. Each commanded a following of millions of people throughout the province. In my father's departmen
t, Mrs. Shau's group was affiliated with 26 August, and the opposing group mainly consisting of more moderate people whom my father had liked and promoted, and who liked him with the Red Chengdu.

  Outside our apartment, beyond the compound walls, 26 August and Red Chengdu each rigged up loudspeakers to trees and electricity poles, which blasted out abuse of each other day and night. One night, I heard that 26 August had gathered hundreds of supporters and attacked a factory which was a stronghold of Red Chengdu. They captured the workers and tortured them, using methods including 'singing fountains' (splitting their skulls open so the blood burst out) and 'landscape paintings' (slashing their faces into patterns). Red Chengdu's broadcasts said several workers had become martyrs by jumping from the top of the building. I gathered they had killed themselves because they were unable to stand the torture.

  One major target of the Rebels was the professional elite in every unit, not only prominent doctors, artists, writers, and scientists, but also engineers and graded workers, even model night-soil collectors (people who collect human waste, which was extremely valuable to the peasants). They were accused of having been promoted by capitalistroaders, but were really the object of their colleagues' jealousy. Other personal scores were also settled in the name of the revolution.

  The "January Storm' triggered brutal violence against the capitalist-roaders. Power was now being seized from Party officials, and people were spurred on to abuse them.

  Those who had hated their Party bosses grabbed the opportunity to take revenge, although the victims of previous persecutions were not allowed to act. It was some time before Mao got around to making new appointments, as he did not know whom to appoint at this stage, so ambitious careerists were eager to show their militancy in the hope that this would get them chosen as the new holders of power. Rival factions competed to outdo each other in brutality. Much of the population colluded, driven by intimidation, conformism, devotion to Mao, desire to set He personal scores, or just the releasing of frustration.