Dear Teacher,
Generally speaking, young people placed their hopes on the Communist Party. I did too without exception, but after so many incidents. I could no longer feel hopeful or positive. I felt that they did not take the masses (the common people) into account. They had become imperious and despotic. They did not keep their word to the masses, no one had the right to say anything against them, and they bullied and oppressed anyone they wanted.
In 1954 a civil war in Vietnam had just finished. Vietnam had just been divided into two parts. Part of the truce agreement stipulated that neither of the two Vietnams was permitted to station foreign troops. In very little time Northern Vietnam began a civil war. Yun You Sou was the deputy to the Northern Vietnam Communist Party and he also launched a civil war in the Southern Vietnam. China had secretly joined in the fighting in both places. At that time, I saw through the Communist Party’s swindle to the people. I started to look upon the Communist Party as my enemy.
In 1956 the situation in the country seemed to be getting better, but then there was a new movement of reform for privately owned industrial and commercial enterprises. There was still some capitalism in this area of the economy. But, private enterprises in the whole country were reformed as joint state-private enterprises in one night. Some brave people beat drums and gongs in the streets to protest. I wonder what happened to them?
Sincerely, Robert
JOAN’S BRIEF HISTORY OF CHINA—PART VI
In 1956 Chairman Mao Zedong made a speech urging that among artists and writers ‘a hundred flowers should blossom,’ and among men of science ‘let all the schools of thought contend.’ Despite this encouragement for criticism and debate, most intellectuals had become cautious and did not respond. Late in 1956 it began to appear that the government was indeed considering a policy of relaxation. Gradually in 1957, university professors and students joined in expressing objections to the rigidity of the Party, inefficiency, arrogance and selfishness of Communist cadres.
It is certain that the rulers of China never expected the response they got and it appeared to them that things were getting out of hand. By June, limits were placed that commentary could not be made against the policies of socialism. By July, critics were under personal attack as rightist elements. They were harangued and humiliated in public until they confessed to their faults and errors in ideology.
For intellectuals, writers, thinkers, professors and students of the universities, the destruction of the Hundred Flowers marked the end of an era and the demise of a dream. The hopes that so many had for Communism were permanently destroyed.
Basically, no government like the Communist regime in China can tolerate open and vocal opposition. The enforcement of censorship is limited only by the government’s power, which must remain limitless. A Chinese intellectual has been quoted as saying, “It has been said that tyranny makes men cynical; now we know that a republic, as the one in China, makes men silent.”