by Cheng Nien
“You have been here more than two years already, but your attitude has not improved. You are still hoping to slip away. Don’t you realize that a great victory has been won by the Proletarian Revolutionaries? The situation is now very different from the time of your last interrogation. Did you not hear the announcement of the resolution passed by the Central Committee against Liu Shaoqi? Even he could not slip through the net of the Proletarian Revolutionaries. What hope have you of escaping?”
“I have nothing to hide. All I request is that you get at the facts,” I said.
“We’ll get at the facts about you just as we did about Liu Shaoqi. He was the agent of the imperialists abroad, the Kuomintang in Taiwan, and the capitalist class in China. He was the number one capitalist-roader and the backstage boss of all of you. Now you should understand fully that the whole intrigue to destroy socialism in China is exposed and defeated.”
“Who wanted to destroy socialism in China? I don’t know what you are talking about,” I told him.
“All of you who belong to the capitalist class are actual or potential agents of the imperialists and the Kuomintang. Liu Shaoqi and his clique were hidden agents who infiltrated the leadership of the Communist Party,” the interrogator said.
His argument was so absurd and the accusation against Liu Shaoqi was so ridiculous that I felt disgusted. Mao Zedong and the other radical leaders insulted the intelligence of the Chinese people when they expected them to believe the Central Committee resolution against Liu Shaoqi. Furthermore, I looked upon these men seated in front of me with contempt because they were obviously cowardly enough to want to be a part of Mao’s despicable scheme against Liu Shaoqi. My one wish at that moment was to irritate them. Pretending to be stupid, I said, “I always had the greatest respect for Chairman Liu Shaoqi. I’m not at all sure he is really guilty of the charge against him. Perhaps there was some mistake. It’s well known that he fought against the imperialists, the Kuomintang, and the capitalist class and risked his life doing so.”
I was pleased to see that my seemingly innocent remarks had the effect of a bombshell. All of them stood up and shouted at me, “How dare you defend a traitor to the Communist Party! How dare you oppose the Central Committee resolution! How dare you oppose our Great Leader Chairman Mao!”
They were behaving as required by their position as representatives of the Revolutionaries, but strangely, only one of the younger workers and the military officer appeared really angry. The other three were staring at me with curiosity and amusement, definitely not anger or disapproval. I thought they looked quite pleased to hear me defend Liu Shaoqi and surprised that someone who was supposed to be opposed to the Communist Party could feel so strongly about their deposed leader.
Intrigued by the discovery that among the seemingly ardent supporters of the radicals there were some who harbored sympathy for Liu Shaoqi, I decided to prolong this dialogue a bit further. “I do not oppose the Central Committee resolution, and I do not oppose Chairman Mao. Who would dare to do that? I merely suggested that the evidence against Chairman Liu Shaoqi might not be completely reliable,” I said.
“Shut up! You are not allowed to refer to a traitor as ‘chairman,’ ” the young worker shouted vehemently. The interrogator was gazing at the paper in front of him, and so was the man taking notes. The old worker seemed to be enjoying the situation. The ghost of a smile hovered at the corners of his mouth.
“You are not allowed to refer to somebody denounced by the Central Committee as ‘chairman,’ ” said the interrogator.
“I did it from habit,” I said. “For sixteen years, in the newspapers, in daily broadcasts, and in books published by the government printing press, Chairman Liu …” I paused when I caught sight of the interrogator glaring and saw the young worker stand up.
“Liu Shaoqi,” I continued, “was always presented to the Chinese people as a revolutionary hero who had made a tremendous contribution to many aspects of the work of the Communist Party, including the development of the Party apparatus and the education of its members. I have found in Chairman Mao’s books several complimentary references to Liu Shaoqi. It’s so difficult to turn around now and think of him as totally bad. Perhaps he has just made a mistake. If that is the case, I hope Chairman Mao will forgive him. After all, they were close comrades for many years.”
“You are dreaming! Chairman Mao will never forgive him!” the young worker said.
“Well, the outside world must be laughing at us now. How could such an important man who was chairman of the Chinese People’s Republic suddenly be discovered to have been a traitor all these decades? It’s incredible that he could have fooled all the other leaders, including the Great and Wise Leader Chairman Mao himself. It just doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t this make Chairman Mao lose face too?” I asked them.
“We don’t care what the imperialists and capitalists in other countries say. They don’t have anything good to say about us anyhow. What happens in China is none of their business,” the young worker replied heatedly. “To defend Liu Shaoqi is a criminal offense. He’s a counterrevolutionary and so are you!”
“I’m not a counterrevolutionary, that I know. I’m a supporter of the People’s Government and the Communist Party. I have the greatest respect for our Great Leader Chairman Mao. I challenge you to produce concrete facts to prove that I have ever done anything or said anything against the People’s Government or the Communist Party,” I said calmly but firmly.
“You think you can slip away through bluffing. That’s the game you are playing. Who do you think you are to challenge the People’s Government? Even if you have never committed any crime, you are still just a dirty exploiter who has lived all her life on the blood and sweat of the laboring class. In any case, we have irrefutable evidence that you are a spy for the imperialists,” the interrogator declared, and he banged the table.
I got so angry and disgusted with them that I marched up and banged the table right in front of him. All of them stood up, surprised by my action.
The soldier pulled his revolver from its holster. Pointing the gun at me, he shouted, “What do you think you are doing?”
I stood in the middle of the room and faced him squarely. I said, “You may shoot me if you can prove me guilty with concrete evidence.” There was stunned silence in the room as we confronted each other.
“Quiet! Quiet! You are a hysterical woman given to mad fits, I have heard already. Try to control yourself. Go back to your chair. If you dare to get out of that chair again, I’ll have you chained to it.” The interrogator raised his arm to order me back to the prisoner’s chair. The soldier pushed his gun into its holster while he continued to glare at me.
During the commotion, the only one who remained calm was the old worker. He looked at me with an expression akin to sympathy. Perhaps he was beginning to realize that I could really be innocent.
I returned to the prisoner’s chair and sat down. The interrogator assumed an air of gravity and gave me a few words of education.
“To defend someone denounced in a resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party is a very serious offense. On that account alone I could sentence you to several years of imprisonment. But in consideration of the extenuating circumstance of your having had no opportunity to follow developments of the Cultural Revolution, so that your understanding has not caught up with events, we will overlook your mistake this time.
“The Revolutionaries under the leadership of our Great Helmsman Chairman Mao are determined to expose all hidden enemies of socialism in our midst, no matter how senior their rank or how cleverly they are disguised. You should have no doubt on this point. You must cast away your illusions and realize you cannot escape,” the interrogator said.
“I understand the situation perfectly. And I think it quite right to punish the real enemy. But you should not mistake for enemies innocent people who have not opposed the People’s Government. I request you to make a thorough investigation of my case.
If you should find real evidence that I have lied and I have indeed committed crimes against the People’s Government or the Communist Party, you can give me the death penalty. But if you find that I am indeed innocent, the People’s Government must apologize to me and you must have the apology published in the newspaper for everyone to see,” I said with sincerity.
“You want an apology?” the young worker sneered. “Who do you think you are? You have an inflated idea of your own importance.”
“All men are equal in the eyes of the law. Although I am not an official, I’m a citizen of this country.”
“You have just repeated a statement of the revisionists. No wonder you defended Liu Shaoqi. He was truly your backstage boss. Men are not equal. Men are divided into conflicting classes. The victorious class imposes its will on the vanquished class. As long as there are classes, there cannot be true equality,” the interrogator said.
“Do you mean to say that you will ignore the law and punish an innocent person simply because that person is a member of the bourgeois class?”
“Why not? If it’s necessary to punish somebody, we will certainly do so. The bourgeois class is our enemy. We hope to reeducate most of its members and make them labor for their food. Those who resist and oppose us will certainly be eliminated. In any case, the victorious proletarian class makes the law to suit its purpose and to serve its interest.”
“Well, that seems to simplify matters greatly. Since you have already classified me as a member of the bourgeois class and I’m too old and weak to labor for my food, why not just shoot me and be done with it? Why waste time having an interrogation?”
“We want you to confess because others are involved. You yourself are of no importance. We couldn’t care less whether you are dead or alive,” the interrogator said with an air of indifference.
He said others were involved. Whom did he mean? I became more than ever puzzled at the situation in which I found myself.
“Who is involved? Do you mean the ex-staff members of the Shanghai office of Shell?”
“No, of course not! They are completely unimportant, like you. We are interested in those who made it possible for you and others like you to undermine the security of China on behalf of the imperialists.”
“Who do you mean? Do you mean Liu Shaoqi? I assure you I have never met him.”
“Liu Shaoqi was one of them. But he doesn’t matter anymore. There are others who are still raising the red flag to oppose the red flag. They are yet to be exposed. It’s their policy which made it possible for you to carry on your dirty work against China on behalf of the imperialists.”
How incredible! It seemed that their persecution of me and the denunciation of Shell was not simply due to their antiforeign attitude or their adherence to the principles of class struggle. The problem was much more complicated than I had thought. Their targets, I saw, were the Party officials whose policy permitted foreign companies to operate in China. If they could make me and others like me confess to being foreign spies, they could claim that allowing foreign firms to operate in China was providing a safe haven for the intelligence activities of foreign agents. Whether I liked it or not, I was a pawn in the struggle between the two irreconcilable policies of the Communist Party. When I argued and fought back, I was defending some officials in the Communist Party whom I did not know and who did not know me. This bizarre situation was too ridiculous! It was like a surrealist painting, understandable only to the initiated.
The voice of the interrogator cut short my speculations. “Now, cast your mind back to 1949, just before the People’s Liberation Army took over Shanghai. Under what circumstances did the Kuomintang order your husband to remain in Shanghai? Did they order him to work his way into the People’s Government and undermine it from within?”
“My husband stayed in Shanghai because he hoped the People’s Government would rescue China from economic chaos and political confusion after so many years of war and build a strong and prosperous country for all the Chinese people. Both my husband and I were idealistic and ignorant. We knew nothing of class struggle. Essays written by Chairman Mao were being circulated in Shanghai by the Communist Party underground. Our friends who were professors at various universities gave them to us to read. None of these essays mentioned class struggle. Chairman Mao talked about the formation of a united front and cooperation with all patriotic Chinese,” I pointed out.
“That was the correct policy at that time. It was meant to win the support of the bourgeois class and to undermine the Kuomintang. After the Kuomintang was successfully overthrown, naturally that policy was no longer needed. In every circumstance, we unite the lesser enemies to fight the major enemy. When the major enemy is overcome, one of the lesser enemies will become the new major enemy. So the struggle goes on. That’s dialectical materialism.”
There was nothing for me to say. The interrogator had put the philosophy of Mao’s regime in a nutshell. It was entirely my own fault that I had not understood it before. After a moment, the interrogator asked, “Did your husband discuss his plan to remain in China with anyone? Perhaps he discussed it with some of his foreign friends?”
“No, it was entirely his own idea. Early in 1949, my daughter and I were in Hong Kong. My husband asked us to come back to Shanghai. After my return, he told me that he had decided to remain in China. It seemed he was influenced by his old university friends in the Democratic League. As you know, the Democratic League supported and cooperated closely with the Communist Party and helped to foster friendly feelings for the Party among intellectuals and Kuomintang officials with a liberal outlook. I knew quite a number of intellectuals who decided to remain in China at that time because of the efforts of the leading members of the Democratic League.”
“The Democratic League was an instrument of the American imperialists. Its leaders wanted to establish parliamentary democracy in China and share political power with the Communist Party. They were absurd dreamers with absurd ideas. Without an army, what can politicians achieve? In 1957, during the Anti-Rightist Campaign, most of the league’s leaders were exposed as rightists. They deserved it.”
“They did render service to the Communist Party in 1949,” I reminded the interrogator. The fate of the leaders of the Democratic League was a chilling example of Mao’s habit of using people and then ruthlessly discarding them when they were no longer needed.
“Circumstances changed …” The interrogator started to explain dialectical materialism again.
“I understand. It’s another case of the application of the theory of dialectical materialism to real life,” I said hastily to save myself from another lecture.
“It’s our conclusion that your husband remained in Shanghai under orders from the Kuomintang and the imperialists in order to infiltrate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Government.”
“Zhang Hanfu, who later became vice-minister of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, was the man who took over my husband’s office in Shanghai when the Liberation Army came into the city. When he was about to go to Beijing to take up his new appointment as vice-minister, he asked my husband to join the People’s Government and go with him to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My husband refused Zhang Hanfu’s invitation. If my husband had wanted to infiltrate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, why did he refuse to go to Beijing in 1950?”
While I was answering him, I was thinking of the few former Kuomintang diplomats who did go to Beijing to join the Communist Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A former ambassador to Burma was imprisoned as a counterrevolutionary. All the others suffered persecution during one political campaign or another. I used to feel deeply thankful that my late husband had refused Zhang Hanfu’s invitation.
“Zhang Hanfu is a member of the dirty Liu Shaoqi clique. When he was arrested by the Kuomintang before Liberation, he betrayed Communist Party secrets. He is now under arrest.” I was shocked by this revelation because I knew Zhang Hanfu was a follower of Prime Minister Zhou Enlai.
“The fact remains that he was vice-minister of Foreign Affairs when he invited my late husband to go to Beijing to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Government. My husband refused. You can check the record. If my husband had wanted to infiltrate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would he have refused to join it?”
The point I made was such simple logic that even the interrogator was momentarily at a loss for words. I took the opportunity to settle the issue once and for all.
“In fact, by remaining in Shanghai and not following the Kuomintang to Taiwan, my late husband demonstrated his goodwill towards the Communist Party. He was an official of the Kuomintang government. Yet he disobeyed their orders. It’s the Kuomintang in Taiwan who should loot our home and put us in prison. They are powerless to do so. You have done it for them. Now who is acting for the Kuomintang?”
Being accused of acting for the Kuomintang was an intolerable insult to the Revolutionaries. I could see the face of the interrogator turning pale, and the veins on his temple stood out as he tried to control his temper. The soldier stood up and made a gesture of pulling out his revolver again.
“Shut up!” he shouted.
But the old worker said in a conciliatory voice, “It’s all right for you to state your point of view. Our Great Leader said, ‘Lay out the facts and speak with reason.’ We permit you to defend yourself. But you mustn’t malign the Revolutionaries and accuse them of acting for the Kuomintang.”
The interrogator looked at his watch and whispered something to the others. Then he said to me, “You may go back to your cell now. We’ll resume in the afternoon.”
I had been called for interrogation before the first of the two daily mealtimes for the prisoners. Now I was hungry and exhausted. When I stood up, the room whirled and everything went black in front of my eyes. I had to steady myself by holding on to the arm of the prisoner’s chair. My legs were so wobbly that I did not think I could walk away steadily. But I did not want the men to misinterpret my unsteadiness as a sign of nervousness, so I pointed at my swollen ankle and said, “I want to lodge a protest against a guard who came into my cell and kicked me last night.”
