Dear Teacher,
In 1955 there was another movement, this one for the elimination of counter-revolutionaries. This time the movement was popularized for the whole people. One location for counter-revolutionary action was at Hutfeng and it became known as the Hutfeng Counter-revolutionary Group.
The Hutfeng Counter-revolutionary Group picked up my uncle (the husband of my mother’s sister). My uncle had been interrogated and criticized all day and into the night. For some reason, after he was released in the middle of the night, he lay on the road and was run over and killed. Many thought that he actually took his own life. He left behind his wife and five children. There were no jobs available for such widowed women and their lives and those of their children would be hard to imagine. No one could provide relief for my aunt and no one dared to help her. A large number of people were arrested and/or murdered in strange ways in this movement.
A colleague of mine was arrested, with the accusation for something he did during the period of the War of Resistance against Japan. He had been an interpreter for the US Army at Yannan—on the Burma Highway. He had also been the head of the Koumintang’s broadcasting station. So he was considered now to be a counter-revolutionary. The evidence was that they searched his home and found a radio receiver. He was immediately cast into prison. After nine months he was set free on what was called an inculcated release. An inculcated release means that it was decided the person could not be held responsible because the misbehavior was from the past. It was decided that some people should not have to pay retroactive punishment. This colleague of mine was older and had graduated eight years ago from Shanghai Communications University. He had an old mother, a wife and six children who were not supported during his imprisonment. During that time his mother got a mental disease due to her anxiety and concern for their lives.
Several close schoolmates and I subsidized his family five yuan / month in secret. At that time our wages were fifty yuan every month. It was a dangerous thing for us to do, but we admired him and had great esteem for him. He was very intelligent and a great thinker.
From 1953 to 1955 he had lead four people, I was one of them, to translate “Automatic Control of Rolling Mill.” (Russian edition) We had learned Russian at Anshan Iron and Steel Co. When we gathered at his home for translating the book, there were many spies arranging around. He was looked at with suspicion and he also was proud and somewhat arrogant about his abilities. He looked down upon the leaders and that was the real reason for his arrest.
Sincerely, Robert