at a great disadvantage and opened the way for the Maoists to escalate their attack against him and his followers in the government.
Mao’s victory at the Central Committee meeting enabled a special committee of left-wing Maoists to be appointed to conduct the Cultural Revolution. As time went on and the Party and government apparatus became paralysed under the attack by the Red Guards and the Revolutionaries, this committee became the highest organ of government and its members, including Mao’s wife Chiang Ching, enjoyed extraordinary power and were all elected to the Party Politburo. Throughout the years of the Cultural Revolution, Chiang Ching made use of her position as Mao’s wife to become his spokeswoman and representative, supposedly transmitting Mao’s orders and wishes but in fact interpreting them to suit herself. A ruthlessly ambitious woman who had been kept out of Chinese political life for decades, she now was to tolerate no opposition, imaginary or otherwise. Tens of thousands of Party officials, artists, writers, scientists and common people who fell under the shadow of her suspicion were cruelly persecuted. Scores of them died at the hands of her trusted ‘Revolutionaries’.
At this August Central Committee meeting, the Defence Minister Lin Piao emerged as Mao’s most ardent supporter. His eulogy of Mao was embodied in the meeting’s final communique published in the newspapers. Lin claimed that Mao was ‘the greatest living Marxist of our age’, with one stroke placing Mao ahead of the Soviet leaders, including Stalin, as the true successor of Lenin. During the entire ten years of the Cultural Revolution, even after Lin Piao was disgraced, this claim was maintained by the Maoists.
One day, soon after the publication of the communique of the Central Committee meeting, Mr Hu, a friend of my late husband, called on me. Because in China male friendship usually excluded wives, after my husband’s death his friends ceased coming to our house. Only Mr Hu continued to appear on Chinese New Year’s Day to pay me the traditional courtesy call. He generally stayed only a short time, inquiring after my daughter and me and wishing us good health and happiness in the new year. He always mentioned my husband and told me how much he had esteemed him as a man and how much he had valued his friendship. Then he would take his leave, placing on the table a red envelope containing a dp for my servants, an old custom observed by only a few conservative people in China after the Communist Party took over. I was amused by his visits and thought Mr Hu rather quaint but charmingly sentimental.
When Lao Chao announced him, I was surprised. But I told Lao Chao to usher him to the drawing room and serve tea.
Mr Hu had been the owner of a factory manufacturing paint. His product was well known in China and was exported to Hong Kong and South-East Asia. After the Communist Army took over Shanghai, he continued to operate under the Communist Government’s supervision. In 1956, during the Socialization of Capitalist Enterprises Campaign, his factory was taken over by the government who promised all the capitalists an annual interest of 7 per cent of the assessed value of their enterprises for ten years. While the assessed value of each of their enterprises was only a fraction of its true worth, the capitalists had no alternative but to accept. Because of his technical skill, the government invited Mr Hu to remain with his factory as the chief engineer and assistant manager when Party officials were appointed as Party Secretary and manager to run his factory.
A well-educated Chinese, Mr Hu was quite untouched by western civilization. He wrote excellent calligraphy; his conversation was interspersed with traditional literary allusions. He was not bothered by the anti-foreign attitude of the Communist regime because his own knowledge and interest did not go beyond the borders of China. On the whole he fared better during political campaigns because Party officials were less suspicious of people like Mr Hu who had no foreign contact than they were of those who had been educated abroad. His philosophical attitude towards the loss of his own factory and his ready acceptance of a subordinate position never ceased to amaze me. My husband once told me that while most capitalists found the Party officials assigned to their factories extremely difficult to deal with, Mr Hu managed to establish a friendly relationship with his Party Secretary who had superseded him as head of his factory.
‘I heard you are involved in this latest political movement, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. I wonder how you are getting on,’ Mr Hu said, explaining the reason for his visit.
‘Not very well, I’m afraid. The Shanghai office of Shell is being investigated. I have been questioned and I had to attend a struggle meeting against our former chief accountant,’ I told Mr Hu. ‘The men who talked to me seemed to imply there were some irregularities in the firm’s activities. But they won’t say what they mean. I’m really rather puzzled. I have never been involved in a political movement before.’
Lao Chao brought in the silver tea set, my best china and a large plate of small iced cakes as well as thinly cut sandwiches in the best British tradition, something I reserved for my British and Australian friends who understood the finer points of afternoon tea. This was Lao Chao’s idea of treating Mr Hu as an honoured guest. As he placed the tray on the coffee table in front of the sofa, the telephone in the hall rang and he went out to answer it. He came back almost immediately and said, ‘It’s those people again. They want you to go over there straight away for another interview.’
‘Tell them I’m busy. I will go tomorrow,’ I said.
Lao Chao went out. I could hear him engaged in a heated argument on the telephone. Then he came back and said, ‘They insist you must go at once. They say it’s very important.’
‘May I ask who is calling? If it is important, don’t delay going because I’m here,’ Mr Hu said to me.
‘It’s those officials who have been questioning me,’ I told him.
‘Oh, you must go at once. How can you refuse to go when those people call you! Please make haste. I’ll stay here and wait for you. I want to know more about your position. I owe it to your husband, my dear old friend, to give you some advice. It’s my duty. You are inexperienced in dealing with those men. They are mean and spiteful. You must not offend them,’ Mr Hu said. He appeared really worried.
I was glad that he was going to wait for me because I very much wanted to hear what he had to say about the Cultural Revolution and the recent Central Committee meeting. I left the house just after four. When I returned at eight, Mr Hu was still there. As I walked into the house, he came out of the drawing room to welcome me back and beamed with pleasure and relief.
‘I’m sorry I have been so long.’
‘Do sit down and rest. Tell me, how did it go?’
Lao Chao brought me a cup of hot tea. While sipping it, I described to Mr Hu my interview with the Party officials.
In addition to the usual two men, there had been a third person present who might have been their superior. Perhaps to impress this new man, they were even more unpleasant than usual. When I entered the room, one of them said sternly, ‘Why didn’t you want to come?’
‘I was busy. You should have telephoned this morning.’
In the past, one of them had always indicated the chair for me to sit down. But today they just let me stand.
‘We are not conducting a dinner party. We are conducting an investigation. Whenever we need to talk to you, you just have to come immediately,’ he said with a sneer.
I decided to sit down anyway.
‘Look at this long list of your foreign friends! How come you have so many foreign friends? You must like them and admire their culture.’ He looked at me accusingly. Then he went on, ‘You said they were all friendly towards China and the Chinese people and that some of them were born here and spent their childhood years here. You claim some of them admire Chinese culture and speak our language. Yet included here are men whose ancestors made fortunes in the opium trade. They used to own factories, warehouses, ships, everything under the sun, in China. Now they have lost them all. So how could they have friendly feelings towards the People’s Government? Yes, they might have liked China when the Kuomintang was here, when they exploited the Chinese people as much as they wanted, and were able to amass huge fortunes. But they definitely cannot like China now. And you talked about the diplomats having