Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

19. "Where There Is a Will to Condemn, There Is Evidence"

A capitalist-roader was supposed to be a powerful official who was pursuing capitalist policies. But in reality no officials had any choice about which policies they pursued.

The orders of Mao and those of his opponents were all presented as coming from the Party, and the officials had to obey all of them even though in doing so they were obliged to carry out many zigzags and even U-turns. If they really disliked a particular order, the most they could do was engage in passive resistance, which they had to try hard to disguise. It was therefore impossible to determine whether officials were capitalist-roaders or not on the basis of their work.

Many officials had their own views, but the Party rule was that they must not reveal them to the public. Nor did they dare to. So whatever the officials' sympathies were, they were unknown to the general public.

But ordinary people were the very force Mao now ordered to attack capitalist-roaders without, of course, the benefit of either information or the right to exercise any independent judgment. So what happened was that officials came under attack as capitalist-roaders because of the positions they held. Seniority alone was not the cflteflon. The decisive factor was whether a person was the leader of a relatively self-contained unit or not. The whole population was organized into units, and the people who represented power to ordinary people were their immediate bosses unit leaders. In designating these people for attack, Mao was tapping into the most obvious pool of resentment, in the same way that he had incited pupils against teachers. Unit leaders were also the key links in the chain of the Communist power structure which Mao wanted to get rid of.

It was because they were leaders of deparl,uents that both my parents were denounced as capitalist-roaders.

"Where there is a will to condemn, there is evidence," as the Chinese saying has it. On this basis, all unit leaders across China, big and small, were summarily denounced by people under them as capitalist-roaders for implementing policies that were alleged to be 'capitalist' and anti Chairman Mao." These included allowing free markets in the countryside, advocating better professional skills for workers, permitting relative literary and artistic freedom, and encouraging competitiveness in sports now termed 'bourgeois cups-and-medals mania." Until now most officials had had no idea that Mao had disliked these policies after all, the directives had all come from the Party, which was led by him. Now they were told, out of the blue, that all these policies had come from the 'bourgeois headquarters' within the Party.

In every unit there were people who became activists.

They were called Rebel Red Guards, or "Rebels' for short.

They wrote wall posters and slogans proclaiming "Down with the capitalist-roaders," and held denunciation meetings against their bosses. The denunciations often sounded hollow, because the accused simply said that they had been carrying out Party orders Mao had always told them to obey Party orders unconditionally, and had never told them of the existence of the 'bourgeois headquarters." How were they to know? And how could they have acted otherwise?

The officials had many supporters, some of whom rallied to their defense. They were called the "Loyalists." Verbal and physical battles broke out between them and the Rebels. Because Mao never said explicitly that all Party bosses should be condemned, some militants became hesitant: what if the bosses they attacked turned out not to be capitalist-roaders? Beyond the posters and slogans and denunciation meetings, ordinary people did not know what they were expected to do.

So when I returned to Chengdu in December 1966 I sensed a distinct uncertainty in the air.

My parents were living at home. The health clinic where my father had been staying had asked them to leave in November because capitalist-roaders were supposed to go back to their units to be denounced. The small canteen in the compound had been closed down, and we all had to get our food from the big canteen, which went on working normally. My parents continued to receive their salaries every month, in spite of the fact that the Party system was paralyzed and they did not go to work. Since their departments dealt with culture, and their bosses in Peking were particularly hated by the Maos and had been purged at the start of the Cultural Revolution, my parents were in the direct line of fire. They were attacked in wall posters with standard abuse like "Bombard Chang Shou-yu' and "Burn Xia De-hong." The accusations against them were the same as those made against almost every director of every Department of Public Affairs up and down the country.

Meetings were convened in my father's department to denounce him. He was yelled at. As with most political struggles in China, the real impetus came from personal animosity. Father's foremost accuser was a Mrs. Shau, a prim and fiercely self-righteous deputy section chief who had long been aspiring to get rid of the prefix 'deputy."

She considered that her promotion had been blocked by my father, and was determined to take revenge. Once she spat in his face and slapped him. But in general the anger was limited. Many of the staff liked and respected my father and were not fierce to him. Outside his department, some organizations for which he had been responsible, like the Sichuan Daily, also held denunciation meetings against him. But the staff there bore no personal grudges against him, and the meetings were formalities.

Against my mother there were no denunciation meetings at all. As a grass-roots official, she had looked after more individual units than my father schools, hospitals, and entertainment groups. Normally, someone in her position would have been denounced by people from these organizations. But she was left alone by all of them. She had been responsible for solving their personal problems, such as housing transfers, and pensions. And she had done her job with unfailing helpfulness and efficiency. She had tried her best in previous campaigns not to victimize anyone, and had in fact managed to protect many. People knew the risks she had run, and repaid her by refusing to turn on her.

On my first evening back home my grandmother made 'cloud-swallowing' dumplings and steamed rice in palm leaves filled with 'eight treasures." My mother gave me a cheerful account of what had been happening to her and my father. She said they had agreed they did not want to be officials anymore after the Cultural Revolution. They were going to apply to be ordinary citizens, and enjoy a normal family life. As I was to realize later, this was no more than a self-deluding fantasy, because the Communist Party allowed no opting out; but at the time they needed something to hold on to.

My father also said: "Even a capitalist president can become an ordinary citizen overnight. It's a good thing not to be given permanent power. Otherwise officials will tend to abuse their power." He then apologized to me for having been dictatorial with the family.

"You are like singing cicadas silenced by chilling winter," he said, "and it is good that you young people should rebel against us, the older generation." Then he said, half to me, half to himself, 'l think there is nothing wrong with officials like me being subject to criticism even a bit of hardship and loss of face."

This was another confused attempt by my parents to try to cope with the Cultural Revolution. They did not resent the prospect of losing their privileged positions in fact, they were trying to see this as something positive.

Nineteen sixty-seven came. Suddenly, the Cultural Revolution switched into high gear. In its first stage, with the Red Guard movement, an atmosphere of terror had been created. Now Mao turned to his major goal: to replace the 'bourgeois headquarters' and the existing Party hierarchy with his personal power system. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were formally denounced and detained, as was Tao Zhu.

On 9 January, the People's Daily and the radio announced that a "January Storm" had started from Shanghai, where Rebels had taken control. Mao called on people throughout China to emulate them and seize power from the capitalist-roaders.

"Seize power' (duo-quart)! This was a magic phrase in China. Power did not mean influence over policies it meant license over people. In addition to money, it brought privilege, awe, and fawning, and the opportunity to take revenge. In China, there were virtually no safety valves for ordinary people. The whole country was like a pressure cooker in which a gigantic head of compressed steam had built up. There were no football matches, pressure groups, law suits, or even violent films. It was impossible to voice any kind of protest about the system and its injustices, unthinkable to stage a demonstration. Even talking about politics an important form of relieving pressure in most societies was taboo. Subordinates had very little chance of redress against their bosses. But if you were a boss of some kind, you had a chance to vent your frustration. So when Mao launched his call to 'seize power," he found a huge constituency of people who wanted to take revenge on somebody. Although power was dangerous, it was more desirable than powerlessness, particularly to people who had never had it. Now it looked to the general public as if Mao was saying that power was up for grabs.

In practically every unit in China, the morale of the Rebels was immensely boosted. So were their numbers.

All sorts of people -workers, teachers, shop assistants, even the staff of government offices started calling themselves "Rebels." Following the example of Shanghai, they physically beat the now disorientated "Loyalists' into surrender. The earlier Red Guard groups, like the one in my school, were disintegrating, because they had been organized around the children of high officials, who were under attack. Some early Red Guards who opposed the new phase of the Cultural Revolution were arrested. One of the sons of Commissar Li was beaten to death by Rebels who accused him of having let slip a remark against Mme Mao.

The people in my father's depafiment who had been in the posse which had taken him away to be detained were now Rebels. Mrs. Shau was chief of a Rebel group for all the Sichuan government offices, in addition to being its branch leader in my father's department.

No sooner were the Rebels formed than they split into factions and fought for power in almost every work unit in China. All sides accused their opponents of being 'anti Cultural Revolution," or of being loyal to the old Party system. In Chengdu, the numerous groups quickly coalesced into two opposing blocs, headed by two university Rebel groups: the more militant '26 August' from Sichuan University, and the relatively moderate "Red Chengdu' from Chengdu University. Each commanded a following of millions of people throughout the province. In my father's department, Mrs. Shau's group was affiliated with 26 August, and the opposing group mainly consisting of more moderate people whom my father had liked and promoted, and who liked him with the Red Chengdu.

Outside our apartment, beyond the compound walls, 26 August and Red Chengdu each rigged up loudspeakers to trees and electricity poles, which blasted out abuse of each other day and night. One night, I heard that 26 August had gathered hundreds of supporters and attacked a factory which was a stronghold of Red Chengdu. They captured the workers and tortured them, using methods including 'singing fountains' (splitting their skulls open so the blood burst out) and 'landscape paintings' (slashing their faces into patterns). Red Chengdu's broadcasts said several workers had become martyrs by jumping from the top of the building. I gathered they had killed themselves because they were unable to stand the torture.

One major target of the Rebels was the professional elite in every unit, not only prominent doctors, artists, writers, and scientists, but also engineers and graded workers, even model night-soil collectors (people who collect human waste, which was extremely valuable to the peasants). They were accused of having been promoted by capitalistroaders, but were really the object of their colleagues' jealousy. Other personal scores were also settled in the name of the revolution.

The "January Storm' triggered brutal violence against the capitalist-roaders. Power was now being seized from Party officials, and people were spurred on to abuse them.

Those who had hated their Party bosses grabbed the opportunity to take revenge, although the victims of previous persecutions were not allowed to act. It was some time before Mao got around to making new appointments, as he did not know whom to appoint at this stage, so ambitious careerists were eager to show their militancy in the hope that this would get them chosen as the new holders of power. Rival factions competed to outdo each other in brutality. Much of the population colluded, driven by intimidation, conformism, devotion to Mao, desire to set He personal scores, or just the releasing of frustration.

Physical abuse finally caught up with my mother. It did not come from people working under her, but mainly from ex-convicts who were working in street workshops in her Eastern District robbers, rapists, drug smugglers, and pimps. Ulalike 'political criminals," who were on the receiving end of the Cultural Revolution, these common criminals were encouraged to attack designated victims. They had nothing against my mother personally, but she had been one of the top leaders in her district, and that was enough.

At meetings held to denounce her, these ex-convicts were particularly active. One day she came home with her face twisted in pain. She had been ordered to kneel on broken glass. My grandmother spent the evening picking fragments of glass from her knees with tweezers and a needle. The next day she made my mother a pair of thick kneepads. She also made her a padded waist protector, because the tender structure of the waist was where the assailants always aimed their punches.

Several times my mother was paraded through the streets with a dunce cap on her head, and a heavy placard hanging from her neck on which her name was written with a big cross over it to show her humiliation and her demise. Every few steps, she and her colleagues were forced to go down on their knees and kowtow to the crowds. Children would be jeering at her. Some would shout that their kowtowing did not make enough noise and demand that they do it again. My mother and her colleagues then had to bang their foreheads loudly on the stone pavement.

One day that winter there was a denunciation meeting at a street workshop. Before the meeting, while the participants had lunch in the canteen, my mother and her colleagues were ordered to kneel for one and a half hours on grit-covered ground in the open. It was raining and she got soaked to the skin; the biting wind sent icy chills through her wet clothes and into her bones. When the meeting started, she had to stand bent double on the platform, trying to control her shivers. As the wild, empty screaming went on, her waist and neck became unbearably painful. She twisted herself slightly, and tried to lift her head a bit to ease the aching. Suddenly she felt a heavy blow across the back of her head, which knocked her to the ground.

It was only some time later that she learned what had happened. A woman sitting in the front row, a brothel owner who had been imprisoned when the Communists clamped down on prostitution, had fixated on my mother, perhaps because she was the only woman on the platform.

The moment my mother lifted her head, this woman jumped up and thrust an awl straight at her left eye. The Rebel guard standing behind my mother saw it coming and struck her to the ground. Had it not been for him, my mother would have lost her eye.

My mother did not tell us about this incident at the time.

She seldom referred to what happened to her at all. When she had to mention something like the broken glass she said it casually, trying to make it sound as undramatic as possible. She never showed the bruises on her body, and she was always composed, even cheerful. She did not want us to worry about her. But my grandmother could tell how much she was suffering. She would follow my mother anxiously with her eyes, trying to hide her own pain.

One day our former maid came to see us. She and her husband were among the few who never broke off with our family through the whole of the Cultural Revolution. I felt immensely grateful for the warmth they brought us, especially as they ran the risk of being accused as 'sympathizers of capitalist-roaders." Awkwardly, she mentioned to my grand mother that she had just seen my mother being paraded through the streets. My grandmother pressed her to say more, then suddenly collapsed, the back of her head hitting the floor with a loud bang. She had lost consciousness.

Gradually, she came to. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she said, "What has my daughter done to deserve this?"

My mother developed a hemorrhage from her womb, and for the next six years, until she had a hysterectomy in 1973, she bled most days. Sometimes it was so severe she would faint and had to be taken to a hospital. Doctors prescribed hormones to control the flow of blood, and my sister and I gave her the injections. My mother knew it was dangerous to depend on hormones, but there was no alternative. It was the only way she could get through the denunciation meetings.

In the meantime, the Rebels in my father's department stepped up their assaults on him. Being one of the most important in the provincial government, the department had more than its share of opportunists. Formerly obedient instruments of the old Party system, many now became fiercely militant Rebels, led by Mrs. Shall under the banner of 26 August.

One day, a group of them barged into our apariment and marched into my father's study. They looked at the bookshelves, and declared him a real 'diehard' because he still had his 'reactionary books." Earlier, in the wake of the book burning by the teenage Red Guards, many people had set fire to their collections. But not my father. Now he made a faint attempt to protect his books by pointing at the sets of Marxist hardbacks.

"Don't try to fool us Red Guards!" yelled Mrs. Shau.

"You have plenty of "poisonous weeds"!" She picked up some Chinese classics printed on flimsy rice paper.

"What do you mean, "us Red Guards"?" my father retorted.

"You are old enough to be their mother and you ought to have more sense, too."

Mrs. Shau slapped my father hard. The crowd barked at him indignantly, although a few tried to hide their giggles Then they pulled out his books and threw them into huge jute sacks they had brought with them. When all the bags were full, they carried them downstairs, telling my father they were going to burn them on the grounds of the department the next day after a denunciation meeting against him. They ordered him to watch the bonfire 'to be taught a lesson." In the meantime, they said, he must burn the rest of his collection.

When I came home that afternoon, I found my father in the kitchen. He had lit a fire in the big cement sink, and was hurling his books into the flames.

This was the first time in my life I had seen him weeping.

It was agonized, broken, and wild, the weeping of a man who was not used to shedding tears. Every now and then, in fits of violent sobs, he stamped his feet on the floor and banged his head against the wall.

I was so frightened that for some time I did not dare to do anything to comfort him. Eventually I put my arms around him and held him from the back, but I did not know what to say. He did not utter a word either. My father had spent every spare penny on his books. They were his life. After the bonfire, I could tell that something had happened to his mind.

He had to go to many denunciation meetings. Mrs. Shau and her group usually got a large number of Rebels from outside to increase the size of the crowd and to lend a hand in the violence. A standard opening was to chant: "Ten thousand years, another ten thousand years, and yet another ten thousand years to our Great Teacher, Great Leader, Great Commander, and Great Helmsman Chairman Mao!" Each time the three 'ten thousand's and four 'great's were shouted out, everyone raised their Litfie Red Books in unison. My father would not do this. He said that the 'ten thousand years' was how emperors used to be addressed, and it was unfitting for Chairman Mao, a Communist. This brought down a torrent of hysterical yells and slaps.

At one meeting, all the targets were ordered to kneel and kowtow to a huge portrait of Mao at the back of the platform. While the others did as they were told, my father refused. He said that kneeling and kowtowing were undignified feudal practices which the Communists were committed to eliminating. The Rebels screamed, kicked his knees, and struck him on the head, but he still struggled to stand upright.

"I will not kneel! I will not kowtowl' he said furiously. The enraged crowd demanded, "Bow your head and admit your crimes!" He replied, "I have committed no crime. I will not bend my head!"

Several large young men jumped on him to try to force him down, but as soon as they let go he stood up straight, raised his head, and stared defiantly at the audience. His assailants yanked his hair and pulled his neck. My father struggled fiercely. As the hysterical crowd screamed that he was 'anti-Culttu'al Revolution," he shouted angrily, "What kind of Cultural Revolution is this? There is nothing "cultural" about it! There is only brutality!"

The men who were beating him howled, "The Cultural Revolution is led by Chairman Mao! How dare you oppose it?" My father raised his voice higher: "I do oppose it, even if it is led by Chairman Mao!"

There was total silence.

"Opposing Chairman Mao' was a crime punishable by death. Many people had died simply because they had been accused of it, without any evidence.

The Rebels were stunned to see that my father did not seem to be afraid. After they recovered from their initial shock, they began to beat him again, calling on him to withdraw his blasphemous words. He refused. Enraged, they tied him up and dragged him to the local police, demanding that they arrest him. But the policemen there would not take him. They liked law and order and Party officials, and hated the Rebels. They said they needed permission to arrest an official as senior as my father, and no one had given such an order.

My father was to be beaten up repeatedly. But he stuck to his guns. He was the only person in the compound to behave like this, indeed the only one I knew of at all, and many people, including Rebels, secretly admired him.

Every now and then a complete stranger passing us in the street would murmur stealthily how my father had impressed them. Some boys told my brothers they wanted to have bones as strong as my father's.

After their day's torment, both my parents would come home to my grandmother's nursing hand. By then, she had set aside her resentment of my father, and he had also mellowed toward her. She applied ointment to his wounds, stuck on special poultices to reduce his bruising, and got him to drink potions made with a white powder called bai-yao to help cure his internal injuries.

My parents were under permanent orders to stay at home and wait to be summoned to the next meeting. Going into hiding was out of the question. The whole of China was like a prison. Every house, every street was watched by the people themselves. In this vast land, there was nowhere anyone could hide.

My parents could not go out for relaxation either.

"Relaxation' had become an obsolete concept: books, paintings, musical instruments, sports, cards, chess, teahouses, bars all had disappeared. The parks were desolate, vandalized wastelands in which the flowers and the grass had been uprooted and the tame birds and goldfish killed. Films, plays, and concerts had all been banned: Mme Mao had cleared the stages and the screens for the eight 'revolutionary operas' which she had had a hand in producing, and which were all anyone was allowed to put on. In the provinces, people did not dare to perform even these. One director had been condemned because the makeup he had put on the torn red hero of one of the operas was considered by Mme Mao to be excessive. He was thrown into prison for 'exaggerating the hardship in the revolutionary struggle." We hardly even thought of going out for a walk.

The atmosphere outside was terrifying, with the violent street-corner denunciation meetings and all the sinister wall posters and slogans; people were walking around like zombies, with harsh or cowed expressions on their faces.

What was more, my parents' bruised faces marked them as condemned, and if they went out they ran the risk of being abused.

As an indication of the terror of the day, no one dared to burn or throw away any newspapers. Every front page carried Mao's portrait, and every few lines featured Mao's quotations. These papers had to be treasured and it would bring disaster if anyone saw you disposing of them. Keeping them was also a problem: mice might gnaw into Mao's portrait, or the papers might simply rot either of these would be interpreted as a crime against Mao. Indeed, the first large-scale factional fighting in Chengdu was triggered by some Red Guards accidentally sitting on old newspapers which had Mao's face on them. A schoolfriend of my mother's was hounded to suicide because she wrote "Heartily love Chairman Mao' on a wall poster with one brush stroke inadvertently shorter, making the character 'heartily' look like the one meaning 'sadly."

One day in February 1967, in the depths of this overwhelming terror, my parents had a long conversation which I only came to know about years later. My mother was sitting on the edge of their bed, and my father was in a wicker chair opposite. He told her that he now knew what the Cultural Revolution was really about, and the realization had shattered his whole world. He could see clearly that it had nothing to do with democratization, or with giving ordinary people more say. It was a bloody purge to increase Mao's personal power.

My father talked slowly and deliberately, choosing his words carefully.

"But Chairman Mao has always been so magnanimous," my mother said.

"He even spared Pu Yi.

Why can't he tolerate his comrades-in-arms who fought for a new China with him? How can he be so harsh on them?"

My father said quietly, but intensely, "What was Pu Yi?

He was a war criminal, with no support from the people.

He couldn't do anything. But…" He fell into a meaningful silence. My mother understood him: Mao would not tolerate any possible challenge. Then she asked, "But why all of us, who after all only carry out orders? And why incriminate all these innocent people? And so much destruction and suffering?"

My father replied, "Maybe Chairman Mao feels he could not achieve his goal without turning the whole place upside down. He has always been thorough and he has never been fainthearted about casualties."

After a charged pause, my father went on: "This cannot be a revolution in any sense of the term. To secure personal power at such cost to the country and the people has to be wrong. In fact, I think it is criminal."

My mother scented disaster. After reasoning like this, her husband had to act. As she expected, he said, "I am going to write a letter to Chairman Mao."

My mother dropped her head into her hands.

"What's the use?" she burst out.

"How could you possibly imagine Chairman Mao would listen to you? Why do you want to destroy yourself- and for nothing? Don't count on me to take it to Peking this time!"

My father leaned over and kissed her.

"I wasn't thinking about your delivering it. I'm going to post it." Then he lifted her head and looked into her eyes. In a tone of despair he said, 'what else can I do? what alternatives do I have? I must speak up. It might help. And I must do it even if just for my conscience."

"Why is your conscience so important?" my mother said.

"More than your children? Do you want them to become "blacks"?"

There was a long pause. Then my father said hesitantly, "I suppose you must divorce me and bring up the children your way." Silence fell between them again, making her think that perhaps he had not made up his mind about writing the letter, because he was aware of its consequences. It would surely be catastrophic.

Days passed. In late February, an airplane flew low over Chengdu spreading thousands of sparkling sheets which floated down out of the leaden sky. On them was printed a copy of a letter dated 17 February and signed by the Central Military Committee, the top body of senior army men. The letter told the Rebels to desist from their violent actions. Although it did not condemn the Cultural Revolution directly, it was obviously trying to halt it. A colleague showed the leaflet to my mother. My parents had a surge of hope. Perhaps China 's old and much-respected marshals were going to intervene. There was a big demonstration through the streets of central Chengdu in support of the marshals' call.

The leaflets were the result of upheavals behind closed doors in Peking. In late January Mao had for the first time called on the army to support the Rebels. Most of the top military leaders except Defense Minister Lin Biao were furious. On 14 and 16 February, they held two long meetings with political leaders. Mao himself stayed away, as did Lin Biao, his deputy. Zhou Enlai presided. The marshals joined forces with Politburo members who had not yet been purged. These marshals had been the commanders of the Communist army, veterans of the Long March, and heroes of the revolution. They condemned the Cultural Revolution for persecuting innocent people and destabilizing the country. One of the vice-premiers, Tan Zhenlin, burst out in a fury, "I've followed Chairman Mao all my life. Now I'm not following him anymore!" Immediately after these meetings the marshals began to take steps to try to stop the violence. Because it was particularly bad in Sichuan, they issued the letter of 17 February especially for the province.

Zhou Enlai declined to throw his weight behind the majority, and stuck with Mao. The personality cult had endowed Mao with demonic power. Retribution against the opposition was swift. Mao stage-managed mob attacks on the dissident Politburo members and military commanders, who were subjected to house raids and brutal denunciation meetings. When Mao gave the word to punish the marshals, the army did not make a move to support them.

This single feeble attempt to stand up to Mao and his Cultural Revolution was termed the "February Adverse Current." The regime released a selective account of it to generate more intense violence against the capitalistroaders.

The February meetings were a turning point for Mao.

He saw that virtually everyone opposed his policies. This led to the total discarding in all but name of the Party.

The Politburo was effectively replaced by the Cultural Revolution Authority. Lin Biao soon began to purge commanders loyal to the marshals, and the role of the Central Military Committee was taken over by his personal office, which he controlled through his wife. Mao's cabal now was like a medieval court, structured around wives, cousins, and fawning courtiers. Mao sent delegates to the provinces to organize "Revolutionary Committees," which were to be the new instruments of his personal power, replacing the Party system all the way down to the grass roots.

In Sichuan, Mao's delegates turned out to be my parents' old acquaintances, the Tings. After my family had left Yibin, the Tings had practically taken control of the region. Mr. Ting had become its Party secretary; Mrs. Ting was Party chief of the city of Yibin, the capital.

The Tings had used their positions to engage in endless persecutions and personal vendettas. One involved a man who had been Mrs. Ting's bodyguard in the early 1950s.

She had tried to seduce him several times, and one day she complained about having stomach trouble and got the young man to massage her abdomen. Then she guided his hand down to her private parts. The bodyguard immediately pulled his hand back and walked away. Mrs. Ting accused him of trying to rape her and had him sentenced to three years in a labor camp.

An anonymous letter exposing the whole affair reached the Sichuan Party Committee, which ordered an investigation. Being the defendants, the Tings were not supposed to see this letter, but a crony of theirs showed it to them.

They got every member of the Yibin government to write a report on some issue or other in order to check their handwriting. They were never able to identify the author, but the investigation came to nothing.

In Yibin, officials and ordinary people alike were terrified of the Tings. The recurrent political campaigns and the quota system provided ideal opportunities for them to engage in victimization.

In 1959 the Tings got rid of the governor of Yibin, the man who had succeeded my father in 1953. He was a veteran of the Long March, and was very popular, which made the Tings'envious. He was called "Straw Sandal Li' because he always wore peasant's sandals a sign that he wanted to keep close to his roots in the soil. Indeed, during the Great Leap Forward, he showed little alacrity in forcing the peasants to produce steel, and in 1959 he spoke up about the famine. The Tings denounced him as a 'rightist opportunist' and had him demoted to purchasing agent for the canteen of a brewery. He died in the famine, although his job should have meant he had a better opportunity to fill his stomach than most. The autopsy showed there was only straw in his stomach. He had remained an honest man to his death.

Another case, also in 1959, involved a doctor whom the Tings condemned as a class enemy because he made a truthful diagnosis of hunger victims and the famine was officially unmentionable.

There were scores of cases like these so many that people risked their lives to write to the provincial authorities to denounce the Tings. In 1962, when the moderates had the upper hand in the central government, they launched a nationwide investigation into the previous campaigns and rehabilitated many of the victims. A team was formed by the Sichuan government to investigate the Tings, who were found guilty of gross abuse of power.

They were sacked and detained, and in 1965 General Secretary Deng Xiaoping signed an order expelling them from the Party.

When the Cultural Revolution started, the Tings somehow escaped and got to Peking, where they appealed to the Cultural Revolution Authority. They presented themselves as heroes upholding 'class struggle," for which, they claimed, they had been persecuted by the old Party authorities. My mother actually bumped into them once at the grievance office. They asked her warmly for her address in Peking. She declined to give it to them.

The Tings were picked up by Chen Boda, one of the leaders of the Cultural Revolution Authority, and my father's old boss in Yan'an. Through him, Mme Mao received them, and immediately recognized them as kindred spirits. Mme Mao's motivation for the Cultural Revolution had much less to do with policy than with set fling personal scores some of the pettiest kind. She had a hand in the persecution of Mme Liu Shaoqi because, as she herself told the Red Guards, she was furious about Mme Liu's overseas trips with her husband, the president. Mao only went abroad twice, both times to Russia, and both times without Mme Mao. What was worse, on her trips abroad Mme Liu was seen wearing smart clothes and jewelry that no one could wear in Mao's austere China.

Mme Liu was accused of being a CIA agent and thrown into prison, barely escaping death.

Back in the 1930s, before she had met Mao, Mme Mao had been a minor actress in Shanghai, and had felt cold-shouldered by the lite raft there. Some of them were Communist underground leaders, who after 1949 became leading figures in the Central Department of Public Affairs. Partly to avenge her real or imagined humiliation in Shanghai thirty years before, Mme Mao went to extreme lengths to find 'anti-Chairman Mao, anti-socialist' elements in their work. As Mao went into retreat during the famine, she managed to get closer to him and whispered much venomous pillow talk in his ear. In order to bring her foes down, she condemned the entire system under them, which meant the departments of Public Affairs all over the country.

She also took revenge on actors and actresses from the Shanghai period who had aroused her jealousy. An actress called Wang Ying had played a role which Mme Mao had coveted. Thirty years later, in 1966, Mme Mao had her and her husband imprisoned for life. Wang Ying committed suicide in prison in 1974.

Another well-known actress, Sun Wei-shi, had once appeared decades before with Mine Mao in a play in Yan'an in front of Mao. Sun's performance was apparently more of a hit than Mme Mao's, and she became a very popular figure among the top leaders, including Mao.

Being Zhou Enlai's adopted daughter, she did not feel the need to butter up Mme Mao. In 1968, Mme Mao had her and her brother arrested and tortured to death. Even Zhou Enlai's power could not protect her.

Mme Mao's vendettas gradually became known to the general public by word of mouth; her character also revealed itself in her speeches, which were reproduced on wall posters. She was to become almost universally hated, but at the beginning of 1967 her evils were still little known.

Mme Mao and the Tings belonged to the same breed, who had a name in Mao's China -zheng-ren, people persecuting officials." The tirelessness and single mindedness with which they engaged in persecution, and the bloodthirsty methods they used, were on a truly horrific scale. In March 1967, a document signed by Mao announced that the Tings had been rehabilitated and empowered to organize the Sichuan Revolutionary Committee.

A transitional authority called the Sichuan Preparatory Revolutionary Committee was set up. It was composed of two generals the chief political commissar and the commander of the Chengdu Military Region (one of China's eight military regions) and the Tings. Mao had decreed that every Revolutionary Committee should have three components: the local army, representatives of the Rebels, and 'revolutionary officials." The latter were to be chosen from among former officials, and this was at the discretion of the Tings, who were in effect running the committee.

In late March 1967 the Tings came to see my father.

They wanted to include him in their committee. My father enjoyed high prestige among his colleagues for being honest and fair. Even the Tings appreciated his qualities, particularly as they knew that when they had been in disgrace my father had not, like some, added his personal denunciations. Besides, they needed someone with his abilities.

My father greeted them as courtesy required, but my 'grandmother welcomed them with enthusiasm. She had heard lit He about their vendettas, and she knew that it was Mrs. Ting who had authorized the precious American medicines which had cured my mother of TB when she was pregnant with me.

When the Tings went into my father's quarters, my grandmother quickly rolled out some dough, and soon the loud rhythmic melody of chopping filled the kitchen. She minced pork, cut a bundle of tender young chives, hashed an assortment of spices, and poured hot rapeseed oil onto chili powder to make the sauce for the traditional welcoming meal of dumplings.

In my father's study, the Tings told him about their rehabilitation and their new status. They said they had been to his deparisaaent and been briefed by the Rebels there about the trouble he had gotten himself into. However, they said, they had always liked him in those early years in Yibin, still had high regard for him, and wanted to work with him again. They promised that all the incriminating things he had said and done could be forgotten if he cooperated. Not only that, he could rise again in the new power structure, taking charge of all cultural affairs in Sichuan, for example. They made it clear it was an offer he could not afford to refuse.

My father had heard about the Tings' appointment from my mother, who had read it on wall posters. He had said to my mother at the time: "We mustn't believe in rumors.

This is impossible!" It was incredible to him to see this couple placed in vital positions by Mao. Now he tried to restrain his disgust, and said, "I'm sorry, I can't accept your offer."

Mrs. Ting snapped, "We are doing you a big favor. Other people would have begged for this on their knees. Do you realize what a spot you are in, and who we are now?"

My father's anger rose. He said, "Whatever I have said or done I take responsibility for myself. I do not want to get mixed up with you." In the heated exchanges that followed, he went on to say that he thought their punishment had been just, and they should never have been trusted with important jobs. Stunned, they told him to be careful what he said: it was Chairman Mao himself who had rehabilitated them and had called them 'good officials."

My father's outrage spurred him on.

"But Chairman Mao could not have known all the facts about you. What sort of' good officials" are you? You have committed unforgivable mistakes." He checked himself from saying 'crimes."

"How dare you challenge Chairman Mao's words!" exclaimed Mrs. Ting.

"Deputy Commander Lin Biao said: "Every word of Chairman Mao's is universal absolute truth, and every word equals ten thousand words"!"

"If a word means one word," my father said, 'it is already a man's supreme achievement. It is not humanly possible for one word to mean ten thousand. What Deputy Commander Lin Biao said was rhetorical, and should not be taken literally."

The Tings could not believe their ears, according to their account afterward. They warned my father that his way of thinking, talking, and behaving was against the Cultural Revolution, which was led by Chairman Mao. To this my father said he would like a chance to debate with Chairman Mao about the whole thing. These words were so suicidal that the Tings were speechless. After a silence, they stood up to leave.

My grandmother heard angry footsteps and rushed out of the kitchen, her hands dusted with wheat flour into which she had been dipping the dumplings. She collided with Mrs. Ting and asked the couple to stay for lunch.

Mrs. Ting ignored her, stormed out of the apartment, and started to tramp downstairs. At the landing she stopped, turned around, and said furiously to my father, who had come out with them, "Are you crazy? I'm asking you for the last time: Do you still refuse my help? You realize I can do anything to you now."

"I want nothing to do with you," my father said. "You and I are different species."

Leaving my startled and fearful grandmother at the top of the stairs, my father went into his study. He came out almost at once, and carried an ink stone to the bathroom.

He dripped a few drops of water onto the stone and walked thoughtfully back into the study. Then he sat down at his desk, and started grinding a stick of ink round and round the stone, forming a thick black liquid. He spread a blank sheet of paper in front of him. In no time, he had finished his second letter to Mao. He started by saying: "Chairman Mao, I appeal to you, as one Communist to another, to stop the Cultural Revolution." He went on to describe the disasters into which it had thrown China. The letter ended with the words: "I fear the worst for our Party and our country if people like Liu Jie-ting and Zhang Xi-ting are given power over the lives of tens of millions of people."

He addressed the envelope to "Chairman Mao, Peking," and took it to the post office at the top of the street. He sent it by registered airmail. The clerk behind the counter took the envelope and glanced at it, maintaining an expression of total blankness. Then my father walked home to wait.