Anthony Grey

by Peking- A Novel of China's Revolution- 1921-1978 (epub)

  This impression had been heightened by the fact that the Red Guards’ first acts had been to wrench down old street names and replace them with bizarre new signboards. The previous day Abigail had watched a cheering crowd of middle-school Red Guards replace the signs for the Bund, the famous avenue running along the Shanghai waterfront, with nameplates reading Revolutionary Boulevard.

  Bubbling Well Road had been renamed August First Street to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the Red Army, and the Streets outside the Soviet and British consulates had become Antirevisionist Street and Anti-imperialist Street. Normally officious Public Security Bureau policemen had added to the air of unreality by standing quietly aside, watching the Red Guard activity without making any attempt to intervene; many even smiled their approval, ostentatiously respecting the Central Committee’s directives for the conduct of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that had been published in the People Daily under red-banner headlines after the Party’s plenary meeting in Peking. Abigail had heard some Red Guards arguing loudly with the police on Street corners that first day, demanding that the traffic lights be changed so that traffic could go on the revolutionary color, red, and stop on green. Because no agreement could be reached, the Red Guards had introduced an element of farce by switching off the lights altogether, and ever since, the traffic flow throughout the city had become erratic and confused.

  Each evening more and more of Shanghai’s mystified workers, who seemingly had nothing to fear from the Cultural Revolution, had come out onto the streets. With their families they were content to watch the strange antics of the chanting youth groups and on this particular evening Abigail realized that a greater tide of humanity than ever was swamping the city center. When she reached the north side of the square she saw that one militant group of about a hundred Red Guards was adding to the chaos by boarding buses to distribute pamphlets forcibly. Some of the overexcited youths were trying to eject passengers whose clothes offended the Four Olds rules, and scuffles and fistfights began to break out around the halted vehicles.

  As she watched, a line of commandeered trucks heavily laden with confiscated possessions arrived with horns blaring, attempting to force a passage through the crush. Jeering Red Guards waving red flags clung to the outsides of the trucks like conquering heroes returning with the spoils of war and on the leading vehicle Abigail could see an enormous gilded Buddha lolling upside down with its face split open. Its young custodians were shrieking “Making revolution depends on Mao Tse-tung’s thought!” at the top of their voices and their leaders were waving what looked like Chien Lung vases furiously above their heads as they demanded that the way be opened for them.

  When the Red Guards searching the buses refused to clear the road, a violent dispute broke out and the youths on the trucks began to curse and hurl the vases and other heavy ornaments down at them. Several Red Guards crumpled to the ground under the onslaught, with blood streaming from head wounds. On seeing this, their enraged comrades stormed the trucks in a frenzied rush. Crowbars and staves appeared in the hands of both groups and the fighting quickly became savage. The dense crowd which had been attracted to the scene of the conflict retreated suddenly in panic and Abigail was forced to her knees in the confusion. She struggled upright with difficulty and began to stumble away but the sound of an authoritative voice booming out through an electric bullhorn caused her to turn her head. A tall, youthful-looking Chinese in a cadre’s tunic had clambered up onto the disfigured statue of the gilded Buddha; standing commandingly above the mass of fighting youths with the bullhorn in his right hand, he was waving a giant portrait of Mao Tse-tung aloft with his left, and Abigail stopped and turned back, staring hard at the calm face of the young cadre.

  “If you want to topple the old world and build a new one based on Mao Tse-tung’s thought, stop fighting your own comrades!” he roared through the bullhorn, drawing out each word sonorously for maximum effect. “Chairman Mao has launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution . . . to remold the souls of all the people. Everybody can be reformed and drawn into our ranks Chairman Mao has ordered his loyal Red Guards to win victory on the spiritual front first . . . in order to gain greater victories on the material front. . . . Violence is unnecessary. . . . Use persuasion, not coercion. . . . Stop this fighting now. . . once and for all!”

  As the cadre spoke, other determined-looking Red Guards who had arrived with him were flinging themselves into the fray to separate the combatants, and the fighting quickly subsided. Reassured by the official’s firmness, the watching crowd also quieted. When she had regained her composure, Abigail made her way back toward the scene of the fighting, still staring uncertainly at the cadre. She stood to one side, watching while he climbed down from the truck and issued a series of crisp orders to his well-disciplined supporters, who quickly dealt with the injured and dispersed the warring Red Guard groups. Within minutes the convoy of laden trucks was able to move off without interference and the passengers were shepherded onto their waiting buses, When the am was cleared and the traffic had resumed its slow passage through the crowds, Abigail walked over to the cadre and politely touched his arm.

  “I’d like to thank you for dealing with the trouble so efficiently,” she said quietly in Chinese. “Many people in the crowd were becoming alarmed — and I was among them.”

  A faint hint of surprise showed briefly in the cadre’s eyes when he turned and saw that the face beneath Abigail’s cone-shaped straw hat was not Chinese. But his expression remained composed and unsmiling and he quietly dismissed the young Red Guard leaders around him before making any reply.

  “I don’t think I’ve had the privilege of meeting you before,” he said coolly when they were alone. “But I’m glad to have been of help.”

  “My name is Kellner,” said Abigail hesitantly. “And I’ve been wondering if we might have met in Peking some years ago. . .

  The Chinese cadre was looking hard at Abigail but he said nothing. “I attended an international peace rally at Pei-Ta University in 1957 . . . I shook hands with a student leader who gave a very fine address. Could that have been you?”

  “It could have been. I did study at Pei-Ta.”

  “May I ask your name?”

  “I am Chen Kao.”

  “Yes,” exclaimed Abigail. ‘Of course. I remember now.”

  Kao’s face remained expressionless as he subjected the square to a long, careful scrutiny and Abigail noticed that his appearance had changed little in the nine years since she had heard him speak in Peking. Broad-shouldered and dressed now in a well-tailored navy blue cadre’s tunic, his student slightness had gone and his assertive, manner suggested he already held a post which had accustomed him to respect. Seeing him at close quarters, Abigail remembered with surprising clarity the strong impression he had made in her mind on the day that she decided she would return to China. The memory produced a faint tremor of excitement, and although Kao was obviously used to masking his feelings, something in his unwavering gaze when he turned again to look at her suggested he might also have carried a vague memory of her blond hair and blue eyes away from that meeting.

  “What brings you to Shanghai, Miss Kellner?” he asked at last. “Do you have some work here?”

  “I’m a lecturer at the Foreign Languages Institute. I teach English and French.”

  “Then many of your students will already have joined the Red Guard movement?”

  “Yes. Some of them have tried to explain its aims to me — but they sometimes seem confused.”

  Kao glanced quickly around the square again, momentarily distracted by the noise of the demonstrations. One of the Red Guard leaders who had helped him break up the fighting approached hurriedly to seek his advice, and Kao gave him instructions in an undertone before turning back to Abigail. “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution will have considerable impact abroad as well as in China,” he said quietly. “It will be important for other countries too. But there’s some misunder
standing of its purposes among students in Shanghai. I shall be visiting your institute soon myself to help the newly formed organizations there.”

  “Do you live in Shanghai?” asked Abigail.

  Kao hesitated, then shook his head quickly. “No. I’ve come from Peking to. give guidance.”

  “I hope when you visit the Foreign Languages Institute, we might meet again,” said Abigail tentatively. “I will watch for your visit.”

  “That’s not very likely. My work is very demanding. I have little spare time.” Kao inclined his head a fraction in a formal gesture of farewell. “Now I must wish you good-bye.”

  Kao strode rapidly away, and watching him go, Abigail became aware once more of the hubbub of noise rising all around her. The clamor of cymbals and drums was increasing as new columns of chanting Red Guards converged in People’s Square, and the crowds of excited and puzzled onlookers were still swelling although it was getting dark. Automatically Abigail fell into step with the tide of people moving southward, letting its momentum carry her slowly across the square without making any conscious choice of direction herself. Instinctively she realized that the crowd was avoiding the most turbulent areas of Red Guard activity; but she was no longer paying such close attention to what was happening around her, Inside her head she was replaying the conversation she had just had with Kao and part of her mind remained distracted, wondering at the sudden clarity with which she had recognized his long-forgotten name and the strong feeling of attraction which, as before, she had experienced in his presence.

  2

  Be resolute . . . fear no sacrifice . . . surmount every difficulty to win victory!’

  The mass chanting of one of Mao Tse-tung’s most famous quotations swelling from tens of thousands of young throats all around him penetrated slowly through the fog of sleep that shrouded Liang Kung’s mind. His sixteen-year-old body was stiff and shivering from lying on the cold ground in a narrow street off Chang An, the gigantic ten-lane Boulevard of Eternal Peace which bisected Peking east to west, and for a brief moment a terrible panic surged through him. He had fallen asleep and ruined the greatest day of his life! He had missed the moment for which he had been longing, it seemed, since the day he was born. He had missed seeing Chairman Mao on the Gate of Heavenly Peace!

  The first thing his newly opened eyes fell on were the blurred, black-ink characters of the People’s Daily beneath his head; like the hundreds of thousands of other Red Guards from all over China who had been marshaled into position west of the Square of Heavenly Peace during the hours of darkness, he had spread sheets of newspaper on the cold, damp ground beneath him before lying down. The heavy predawn dew had soaked the newsprint as well as his military green cotton uniform and as his vision cleared, Kung saw that in the warmth of the rising sun his own damp tunic and those of the shivering Red Guards sitting or lying all around him were beginning to give off gentle clouds of steam. But the sight of the sun’s crimson disc, lifting into view above the roofs of the capital’s eastern suburbs, calmed his panic in an instant. He knew that Chairman Mao would appear on the Gate of Heavenly Peace promptly at ten o’clock, as he had done at all the other Red Guard rallies in the past month — and the position of the sun indicated that dawn had only just broken! In that same moment he felt the hand on his shoulder and realized that his sister, Ai-lien, had been shaking him gently to waken him.

  “Look, Kung! The east is really red this morning!” She was thumbing through the pages of her red-covered copy of Mao’s Quotations, searching dutifully for the next extract to be chanted. “We’ll never forget this day as long as we live.”

  Liang Ai-lien’s round cheeks were aglow with excitement. Two years older than Kung, she also wore a paramilitary uniform of green cotton, and her dark hair was clipped short in revolutionary fashion beneath a peaked military cap. A plain, sturdy girl, she had espoused the Red Guard movement just as enthusiastically as her brother in the ecstatic aftermath of the first Red Guard parade in Peking, on August 18, and she seized every opportunity she could to demonstrate that her devotion to Chairman Mao was as great as that of any male Red Guard.

  “Thank you for waking me,” said Kung, sitting up quickly and fumbling in his tunic pocket for his book of Mao’s writings.. “WI was afraid for a moment that I might have missed the whole parade.”

  He glanced apprehensively toward the nearest People’s Liberation Army soldier, who was leading the chanting. The soldiers had given them firm instructions not to sleep on the cold ground after buses had brought them to their positions shortly after midnight. The troops had stayed and led them in the singing of revolutionary songs for an hour or two, but few of the Red Guards had been able to remain awake all the time. Since arriving in Peking they had spent most of their waking hours practicing drills outside their dormitories under the supervision of the soldiers, Marching and countermarching in broad files 150 strong hour after hour, they had rehearsed carrying flags and giant signboards bearing red and gold Chinese characters that would form massive moving Mao quotations in the final parade. They had caught only a tantalizing distant glimpse of the upswept golden eaves of the Gate of Heavenly Peace as open trucks transported them from the railway station to their dormitory in a middle school in the suburbs, and this had served to heighten the tension and their growing sense of expectancy.

  ‘Everything reactionary is the same,’ “yelled the soldier, reading another extract from Mao’s works that had become a Cultural Revolution watchword. “ ‘Unless you hit it, it won’t fall.’

  Kung repeated the quotation in unison with Ai-lien, shouting at the top of his voice and waving a clenched fist above his head. In an instant he had come wide awake; all his tiredness evaporated and suddenly he felt more alive than he had ever done before in his young life. With the dawn light flooding across Peking from the east to warm him and the Gate of Heavenly Peace only a few hundred yards away at his back, he imagined he felt a rich new strength coursing through his body. He had chanted that quotation and many others repeatedly in recent weeks but now he was squatting on the very earth of Peking in the red dawn close beside Chang An. Close too to Chung Nan Hai, the walled enclosure of Ming dynasty pavilions where Chairman Mao lived, and in sight of the towering walls of the Great Hall of the People, which heroic workers had built in ten glorious months following the triumph of the revolution in 1949! Streets and monuments that he had previously known only as remote photographic images in his Changsha schoolbooks had sprung vividly to life before his eyes. He had never expected to visit the distant capital of China as long as he lived, and as thousands of voices about him rent the early morning air in unison he felt he understood the meaning of the words in the quotation more intensely than ever before. When he raised his fist above his head, he longed for something reactionary to appear before him so that he could strike it down with all his might! Glancing sideways at his sister, he saw that her eyes were shining and he knew without asking that she shared his feelings.

  “We must try to keep each minute of today bright in our memories,” said Kung in an awed voice. His clothes, like those of his fellow Red Guards all around him, were still steaming and he smiled happily as he glanced again at the eastern sky. “I truly know that Chairman Mao is the reddest sun in all our hearts this morning. I can feel his presence nearby. It’s warming my body, inside and out.,,

  His sister nodded, lifting her face toward the sun, and Kung saw that tears were glistening in her eyes. “I swear I’ll never be disloyal to Chairman Mao. I don’t know how anybody ever could be. I understand now why Grandfather risked his life to capture the bridge of chains for Chairman Mao and the Red Army.”

  At their Changsha middle school, Ai-lien had helped organize one of the first Red Guard groups to be set up in the Hunanese capital. Given a melodramatic name like most groups throughout China, it was called the Red Defense Corps of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought. Because their father, now a Trade Union Federation cadre, had been a Young Vanguard on the Long March and their grandfathe
r was a Gold Star hero of the Luting bridge assault, Kung and Ai-lien were numbered among the Five Red category of candidates — the children of cadres, revolutionary martyrs, soldiers, workers, and poor peasants — who had automatically been guaranteed membership in the Red Guard movement. In Changsha, as in other provincial capitals throughout China, the appearance of newspaper pictures of Mao Tse-tung accepting and putting off a Red Guard arm band at the August 18 rally had electrified students and middle-school pupils. Kung and Ai-lien, like all their school friends, had flung themselves with enormous enthusiasm into the local Seven Kinds of Black campaign against former landlords, rich peasants, and those who could be dubbed a counterrevolutionary, a rightist, or any other kind of “bad element.” A ballot had been held to elect Changsha representatives to travel to Peking as part of Ch’uan Lien, the Exchange Revolutionary Experience movement, and Ai-lien and Kung had been beside themselves with excitement when they found they were included in the delegation of several hundred Hunanese Red Guards.

  Their fervor had mounted during the long train journey in railway coaches crammed to overflowing with Red Guards from other cities and provinces. After studying Mao’s revolutionary writings every day of their school lives, the prospect of meeting their legendary leader in the ancient heart of Peking had seemed more like a dream the closer they came to the capital. It scarcely seemed possible that they would see in the flesh the man who had previously appeared only as a remote figure in newspapers and in the pages of their history books. Wasn’t Chairman Mao the greatest savior of China in all history? Hadn’t he founded the Communist Party and the Red Army and led the nation twenty thousand Ii across China on the Long March? That he should suddenly want to review a parade of young Chinese with no experience of anything except school and have them serve as “a reserve force for the People’s Liberation Army” — all that to Kung and Al-lien was almost beyond belief. But they knew they weren’t dreaming because they had seen overcrowded trains and buses filled with wide-eyed Red Guards like themselves converging every day on Peking from all directions.