Time on a Work Farm
On the truck I broke down in tears because I was so overwhelmed with relief and I had not eaten in so long. I realized that I was beyond hunger. I needed food soon or I would die of lack of energy to breathe.
The truck stopped at a farm that belonged to our Company in San Yuan County, 50 km from Xian. This was an area of saline-alkali soil. Water was pumped from a well and irrigated saline-alkali soil in order to grow rice. But what I remember the most is what a dinner I had that night! I had enough to eat. Also I obtained a lot of salt. It had been one year since I knew the taste of salt. The head farmer saw that I was eating so much. He was afraid that I would burst my stomach, so he informed the cook to limit my quantity. But whenever I could, I went to the little shop near the farm to buy more food in secret.
At the work farm I was able to see the life of the poor and lower-middle peasants of this locality. Their lives, the little food they ate and their shabby apparel made me feel sad and my eyes filled with tears. I felt that as long as the Communist Party did nothing, the Chinese people could live well. Oh my God, I prayed please let them do nothing more!!!!
I hadn’t thought much of the plight of the farmers and peasants, but now I remembered in 1962, that Mao Zedong had made a speech on seven thousand people’s plenary session. He said, ”Our peasant’s hearts are so kind, they would rather die in a famine than ever rise up in a rebellion.” Today the famine has passed away and some of them have lived. But, he had forgotten what our peasants had provided. He punished them again.
In the early 1960’s political movements were coming back. At first was required learning about Lei Feng who was a soldier-peasant killed in 1962 after leaving an “inspirational” diary about unswerving devotion to the Maoist cause. Then came the cruel “ four cleanups movement.” Shortly after people started being able to eat their fill, the movements also started to create other misery in our lives. In 1964 to1965 the “four clean ups movement” pressed us harder and harder. It was a fresh campaign against “right revisionists.” We held political meetings every night. The high-level work team was accountable for every action. There was emphasis on the value of “class struggle.” This movement was mostly aimed at the countryside, but in the city, all areas of work also became very stern. The pattern was to identify “ideological enemies” and then criticize and denounce, hit and make them kneel. They needed to be “cleaned-up” in whatever way possible.
Another “land reform” was issued. Many families were replenished as landlords or rich peasants, but also many families were swept out of the door. At my company, many workers were punished too. A bricklayer, my close friend who was in the same workshop ??said to our secretary was “hand up a sheep’s head and sells dog meat.” He was punished as an “evildoer” then an incantation of the golden hoop was tied on his head. His whole life would come to an end because of the “four clean ups movement.”
Fatiguing interrogations continued all day and all night and cruel hit of impelled our works. One man, the storeman, was hanged by the neck.
Another man, a worker in the mess hall, jumped from a high place, but instead of dying, he experienced the continuing horror of being a cripple. He admitted that he had stolen one sack of wheat flour during the famine. When criticized he was accused of stealing 5 sacks of flour. But he adamantly would not admit to having stolen 5 sacks. Regardless what the pressure, he would not admit. They would not let him sleep and they hit him until he was covered with bruises and injuries. What could be the basis of accusing him of having stolen 5 sacks of flour instead of one? The work team investigated his family members. They asked his wife and she said “one sack.” They asked his father who also said, “one sack.” They asked his son and daughter, who both said, “one sack.” He had admitted stealing one sack and so instead of considering that they were all referring to the same sack, it became a more serious accusation of stealing five sacks, which he would not admit to, because it was not true. The “four clean ups movement” soon undermined the very people who had survived and recovered from the famine.
Unfortunately, my new location allowed me to have new insights into the horrors of the Chinese Communist Party in a new way, of how the farmers and peasants were treated. Previously I had experienced what the CCP did to intellectuals and highly talented and competent Chinese workers. I had never focused my awareness on the plight of the Communist farmer.