is excellent for us, the proletariat!
‘The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is an opportunity for all of us to study the Thought of Mao Tze-tung more thoroughly and diligently than ever before so that our political awareness is sharpened. Only then can we truly differentiate between those who are within the ranks of the People and those who are on the side of the Enemy.
‘The enemies of socialism are cunning. Some of them raise the red flag to oppose the red flag, while others present us with smiling faces to cover up their dirty scheme. They cooperate with the imperialists abroad and the capitalist class within to try to sabotage socialism and lead the Chinese people backwards to the misery and suffering of the old days. Should we allow them to succeed? Of course not! No! A hundred times no!
‘It’s seventeen years since the people of Shanghai were liberated. Yet, until recently, foreign firms remained in our city. Their offices occupied prominent locations and their cars sped through our streets. The foreigners and the few Chinese who forgot their national identity and worked with them swaggered around with insolence. We all know these firms were agents of the imperialists, who hoped to continue their exploitation of the Chinese people. We could not tolerate this state of affairs so we have closed their doors and thrown out the foreigners. Most of the Chinese on their staffs have been contaminated and their way of thinking is confused. But we must also recognize the fact that some of them are downright reactionaries. It’s our job to implement our Great Leader Chairman Mao’s policy of educating and reforming them. For several months we have conducted political indoctrination classes for them. But no one can be reformed if he himself does not come face to face with reality and recognize and admit the facts of his own mistakes. Self-criticism and confession are the first steps towards reform. In order to make a real effort at self-criticism, a man must be helped by the criticism of others. Today’s meeting is called to criticize Tao Fung and to hear his self-criticism.
‘You all know who Tao Fung is. For nearly thirty-five years he was a faithful running dog of Shell Petroleum Company, which is an international corporation of gigantic size with tendrils reaching into every corner of the world to suck up profit. This, according to Lenin, is the worst form of capitalist enterprise.
‘Capitalism and socialism are like fire and water. They are diametrically opposed. Tao Fung could not have served the interests of the British firm and remain a good Chinese citizen under socialism. For a long time we have tried to help him see the light…’
I was surprised to learn that Tao Fung, the former chief accountant of our office was the target of the meeting, because I had always thought the Party looked upon him with favour. His eldest son had been sent to both the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia for advanced studies at the government’s expense in the fifties and the young man had later joined the Party. I knew that when a student was selected to go abroad the Party always made a thorough investigation of his background, including his father’s character, occupation and political viewpoint. Tao Fung must have passed this test at the time his son was sent abroad. I could not understand why he had now been singled out for criticism.
Since the very beginning of the Communist regime, I had carefully studied books on Marxism and pronouncements by Chinese Communist Party leaders. It seemed to me that socialism in China was still very much an experiment and no fixed course of development for the country had yet been decided upon. This, I thought, was why the government’s policy was always changing, like a pendulum swinging from left to right and back again. When things went to the extreme and problems emerged, Peking would take corrective measures. Then these very corrective measures went too far and had to be corrected. The real difficulty was, of course, that a State-controlled economy stifled productivity, and economic planning from Peking ignored local conditions and killed incentive.
When a policy changed from above, the standard of values changed with it. What was right yesterday became wrong today and vice versa. Thus the words and actions of a Communist Party official at the lower level were valid for a limited time only. So I decided the meeting I was attending was not very important and that the speaker was just a minor Party official assigned to conduct the Cultural Revolution for the former staff of Shell. The Cultural Revolution seemed to me to be a swing to the left. Sooner or later, when it had gone too far, corrective measures would be taken. The people would have a few months or a few years of respite until the next political campaign. Mao Tze-tung believed that political campaigns were the motivating force for progress. So I thought the Proletarian Cultural Revolution was just one of an endless series of upheavals the Chinese people must learn to put up with.
I looked round the room while listening with one ear to the speaker’s tirade. It was then that I noticed the banner on the wall that said, ‘Down with the running dog of imperialism Tao Fung’. The two characters of his name were crossed with red Xs to indicate he was being denounced as an enemy. This banner had escaped my notice when I entered the room because there were so many banners with slogans of the Cultural Revolution covering the walls. Slogans were an integral part of life in China. They exalted Mao Tze-tung, the Party, socialism and anything else the Party wanted the people to believe in; they exhorted the people to work hard, to study Mao Tze-tung Thought and to obey the Party. When there was a political campaign, the slogans denounced the enemies. Since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the number of slogans everywhere had multiplied by the thousand. It was impossible to read all that one encountered. It was very easy to look at them without really seeing what was written.
The man was now talking about Tao’s decadent way of life resulting from long association with capitalism. It seemed he was guilty of having extra-marital relations, drinking wine and spirits in excess and enjoying elaborate meals, all acts of self-indulgence frowned upon by the Party. These accusations did not surprise me because I knew that when a man was denounced, he was depicted as totally bad, and any errant behaviour was attributed to the influence of capitalism.
When the man had thoroughly dissected Tao’s private life and exposed the corrosive effect of capitalism on him, his tone and manner became more serious. He turned to the subject of imperialism and aggression against China by foreign powers. To him Tao’s mistakes were made not because he was a greedy man with little self-control but because he had worked for a firm that belonged to a nation guilty of acts of aggression against the Chinese people more than a hundred years ago. He was talking about the opium war of 1845 as if it had taken place only the year before.
Though he used the strong language of denunciation and often raised his voice to shout, he delivered his speech in a leisurely manner, pausing frequently either to drink water or to consult his notes. He knew he had a captive audience, since no one would dare to leave while the meeting was going on. A Party official, no matter how lowly his rank, was a representative of the Party. When he spoke, it was the Party speaking. It was unthinkable not to appear attentive. However, he had been speaking for a long time. The room had become unbearably hot and the audience was getting restive. I looked at my watch and found it was nearly twelve o’clock. Perhaps the speaker was also tired and hungry, for he suddenly stopped and told us the meeting was adjourned until 1.30. Everybody was up and heading for the exits even before he had quite finished speaking.
Outside, the midday sun beat relentlessly down on the hot pavement. In the distance, I saw a pedicab parked in the shade of a tree. I ran to it and gave the driver my address, promising him double fare to encourage him to move away quickly.
The man who had led me into the building in the morning dashed out of the building, shouting for me to stop. He wanted me to remain there and eat something from the school kitchen so that I would not be late again. So anxious was he to detain me that he grabbed the side of the pedicab. I had to promise him repeatedly that I would be back on time before he let go.
My little house, shaded with awnings on the windows and green bamboo screens on the verandah, was a haven after that hot, airless meeting hall. The back of my shirt was wet through and I was parched. I had a quick shower, drank a glass of iced tea and enjoyed the delicious meal my excellent cook had prepared for me. Then I lay down on my bed for half an hour’s rest before setting out again in the pedicab, which I had asked to wait for me.
When I arrived at the meeting hall I was a little late, but by no means the last to arrive. I found a seat on the second row next to a pillar so that