The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 (58 page)

22
    
Two examples of a provincial party committee that later confessed to ignoring the meeting of 17 May are Jilin and Shandong: see its self-criticism in Jilin, August 1955, 1-7(4)-1, pp. 72–9, and Report from the Provincial Party Committee, 17 Aug. 1955, Shandong, A1-1-188,pp. 204–6; the meeting on 11 July is detailed in Pang and Jin,
Mao Zedong zhuan, 1949–1976
, pp. 380–1; see also Liu and Wang, ‘The Origins of the General Line’, p. 730.

23
    
Mao Zedong, On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture, Shandong, 31 July 1955, A1-2-292, pp. 19–42.

24
    
Meeting with Provincial and Municipal Party Secretaries, Shandong, 15 Aug. 1955, A1-2-292, pp. 11–17; Peng Yihu wrote a letter critical of the grain monopoly to the Central Committee.

25
    
These statistics, as well as the overall development of the co-operatives during the Socialist High Tide, have been provided many times, and I take them from Kenneth R. Walker, ‘Collectivisation in Retrospect: The “Socialist High Tide” of Autumn 1955–Spring 1956’,
China Quarterly
, no. 26 (June 1966), pp. 1–43; the ban on the blind was passed in Hailong county; see Jilin, 4 Feb. 1956, 2-12-37, pp. 87–90.

26
    
Instructions from the Centre, 15 March 1956, Guangdong, 217-1-8, p. 2.

27
    
Li Choh-ming, ‘Economic Development’,
China Quarterly
, no. 1 (March 1960), p. 42.

28
    
Loh,
Escape from Red China
, pp. 149–50; Guo Dihuo, ‘Wo he Pan Hannian tongzhi de jiaowang’,
Shanghai wenshi ziliao xuanji
, vol. 43 (1983), pp. 26–8, quoted in Bergère, ‘Les Capitalistes shanghaïens et la période de transition entre le régime Guomindang et le communisme (1948–1952)’, p. 29; the reasons behind the arrest of Pan and Yang, who were rehabilitated decades later, are complex, and the most up-to-date guide is Xiaohong Xiao-Planes, ‘The Pan Hannian Affair and Power Struggles at the Top of the CCP (1953–1955)’,
China Perspectives
, no. 4 (Autumn 2010), pp. 116–27.

29
    
Report from the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, 27 Sept. 1955, Hebei, 855-3-617, pp. 24–31.

30
    
Pang and Jin,
Mao Zedong zhuan, 1949–1976
, pp. 448–9.

31
    
Loh,
Escape from Red China
, pp. 179–80.

32
    
Ibid., p. 188.

33
    
Ibid., pp. 181–92; Rong Yiren’s later career is described in Becker,
C. C. Lee
, p. 63.

12: The Gulag

1
      
On the early period, the work of Patricia Griffin remains the best on the subject; see Patricia E. Griffin,
The Chinese Communist Treatment of Counterrevolutionaries, 1924–1949
, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976; on Shandong, see Frank Dikötter, ‘The Emergence of Labour Camps in Shandong Province, 1942–1950’,
China Quarterly
, no. 175 (Sept. 2003), pp. 803–17; for a more general history of the Chinese gulag, nothing to date surpasses Jean-Luc Domenach,
L’Archipel oublié
, Paris: Fayard, 1992; in English, the work of Harry Wu is essential: Harry Hongda Wu,
Laogai: The Chinese Gulag
, Boulder: Westview Press, 1992; see also Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu,
The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage
, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

2
      
Dikötter,
Crime, Punishment and the Prison in Modern China
.

3
      
Frank Dikötter, ‘Crime and Punishment in Post-Liberation China: The Prisoners of a Beijing Gaol in the 1950s’,
China Quarterly
, no. 149 (March 1997), pp. 147–59; the terms for these political crimes were
juntong
,
zhongtong
,
Guomindang
,
hanjian
and
pandang
.

4
      
The figure of over 1 million appears in Report from the Third Conference on Public Security, 1 June 1951, Sichuan, JX1-834, p. 101; on Hunan see Report on Labour Camps, 8 June 1951 and Report from Li Xiannian on the Campaign against Counter-Revolutionaries, 1951, Hubei, SZ1-2-60, pp. 51, 79–85 and 115; Report from the Guangxi Provincial Party Committee, 7 July 1951, Sichuan, JX1-836, pp. 78–82, also Hebei, 7 July 1951, 684-1-59, pp. 12–15.

5
      
Sichuan, 1951, JX1-839, pp. 486–7; Inspection Report on the Chongqing County Prison, 24 July 1951, Sichuan, JX1-342, pp. 33–4; see also Public Security Bureau Report on Prisons in Western Sichuan, 1951, Sichuan, JX1-342, pp. 92–3; on death rates in south-west China see Sichuan, 5 Sept. 1951, JX1-839, pp. 386–7; Hebei, 31 May 1951, 855-1-137, p. 47; Quentin K. Y. Huang,
Now I Can Tell: The Story of a Christian Bishop under Communist Persecution
, New York: Morehouse-Gorham, 1954, p. 22.

6
      
Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping, Rao Shushi, Deng Zihui, Ye Jianying, Xi Zhongxun and Gao Gang, 20 April 1951, Sichuan, JX1-834, pp. 75–7.

7
      
The decision to put 300,000 prisoners to work is in Minutes of the Third National Conference on Public Security, Shandong, 16 and 22 May 1951, A1-4-9, pp. 14, 38 and 43; Report by Luo Ruiqing, Shandong, 4 June 1951, A1-5-20, pp. 149–51.

8
      
Report from Luo Ruiqing to Mao Zedong, 5 Dec. 1951, Sichuan, JX1-834, pp. 240–5; the tin mines at Lianxian are mentioned in Report from Qian Ying, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, to Zhu De, 25 March 1953, Sichuan, JK1-730, p. 36.

9
      
Yearly report from the Ministry of Public Security, 28 April 1956, Shandong, A1-1-233, pp. 57–60; Sichuan, 21 June 1953, JK1-13, pp. 40–1; the experts in the gulag are mentioned in Order from Deng Xiaoping, 24 July and 13 Aug. 1956, Shandong, A1-1-233, pp. 74–5.

10
    
Duan,
Zhanfan zishu
; Report from the Inspectorate, 14 March 1953, Hebei, 855-2-298, pp. 16–27; Report from North-west China to the Centre, 21 March 1953, Hebei, 855-2-298, p. 30.

11
    
Sichuan, 20 March 1953, JK1-729, p. 29; Report on the Three-Anti Campaign in Judicial System, 16 March 1953, Beijing, 2-5-18, p. 6; the electric device is described in Huang,
Now I Can Tell
, pp. 22–7 and 89.

12
    
The comment about the Auschwitz of the mind is from Harry Wu, who is quoted alongside Robert Ford and Wang Tsunming in Kate Saunders,
Eighteen Layers of Hell: Stories from the Chinese Gulag
, London: Cassell Wellington House, 1996, p. 73; a good description of cellmates being forced to beat each other appears in Harold W. Rigney,
Four Years in a Red Hell: The Story of Father Rigney
, Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1956, p. 156; see also Huang,
Now I Can Tell
, pp. 106–10; Simon Leys commented a long time ago on the two alternatives facing anyone caught up in the gulag, one being suicide, the other a complete renunciation of one’s former self: see Simon Leys,
Broken Images: Essays on Chinese Culture and Politics
, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1980, p. 146.

13
    
Report on Re-education through Labour Camps, 10 Jan. 1956, Shandong, A1-1-233, pp. 33–7; the figure of 300,000 comes from the Third National Conference of the Ministry of Public Security on Reform through Labour, 27 Oct. 1955, Shandong, A1-1-233, p. 39.

14
    
Report on Western Sichuan to the Fourth National Conference on Public Security, 19 July 1952, Sichuan, JX1-843, pp. 53–5; Report by Changwei County Party Committee, 22 May and 1 June 1953, Shandong, A1-5-85, pp. 86 and 992–4; Report by Luo Ruiqing, 6 Feb. 1953, Shandong, A1-5-85, pp. 20–3.

15
    
Loh,
Escape from Red China
, p. 69.

16
    
Report by Luo Ruiqing, 6 Feb. 1953, Shandong, A1-5-85, pp. 20–3.

17
    
Neibu cankao
, 27 May 1950, pp. 80–1.

18
    
Report on the Huai River, 14 Oct. 1950, Nanjing, 4003-3-84, pp. 143–4.

19
    
Neibu cankao
, 24 March 1951.

20
    
Neibu cankao
, 23 March 1953, pp. 548–55.

21
    
Report on the Jingzhou region, 15 Dec. 1951, Hubei, SZ37-1-63, p. 3; Shaanxi, 27 Dec. 1953, 123-1-490, n.p., first document in folder.

22
    
Beijing, 30 March 1956, 2-8-58, p. 17.

23
    
Beijing, 1 Dec. 1956, 2-8-58, p. 34; Report by Xie Juezai on Migration, 27 July 1956, Beijing, 2-8-47, p. 4; Letters from the Public, 8 Dec. 1956, Beijing, 2-8-247, pp. 113–14.

24
    
Tyler,
Wild West China
, pp. 192–5.

13: Behind the Scenes

1
      
Valentin Chu,
The Inside Story of Communist China: Ta Ta, Tan Tan
, London: Allen & Unwin, 1964, pp. 13–14.

2
      
Ibid., pp. 37–48.

3
      
Cameron,
Mandarin Red
, pp. 33–5; see also Hung Chang-tai,
Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic
, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011, pp. 92–108; letter fom Cai Shuli, 24 April 1957, Beijing, 2-9-230, p. 58; Liang Jun, one of China’s first female tractor drivers, was eulogised in posters, novels and films after 1953 (later she appeared on 1-yuan banknotes).

4
      
Some wonderful pages on this sense of idealism appear in Sheila Fitzpatrick,
Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s
, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 67–72.

5
      
Kinmond,
No Dogs in China
, pp. 27 and 171; see also the chapter on China in the excellent book by Paul Hollander,
Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society
, Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, pp. 278–346.

6
      
Loh,
Escape from Red China
, pp. 161–2.

7
      
Some of the best pages on the tourist circuit are in Chu,
The Inside Story of Communist China
, pp. 256–61; see also Hollander,
Political Pilgrims
.

8
      
Peter Schmid,
The New Face of China
, London: Harrap, 1958, p. 52; Wu,
Remaking Beijing
, p. 105; on Beijing, see also Wang Jun,
Beijing Record: A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing
, London: World Scientific, 2011; Hung,
Mao’s New World
, pp. 25–50.

9
      
J. M. Addis and Douglas Hurd, ‘A Visit to South-West China’ and ‘A Visit to North-West China’, 25 Oct. to 21 Nov. 1955, FO371-115169, pp. 4, 16 and 29; Kinmond,
No Dogs in China
, p. 113.

10
    
Sun Jingwen, Report at the First National Conference on City Building, 14 June 1954, Shandong, A107-2-307, pp. 49–67; Report by Gao Gang on capital construction at the Second National Conference on Financial and Economic Work, 29 June 1953, Shandong, A1-2-144, pp. 53–9.

11
    
Kinmond,
No Dogs in China
, p. 26.

12
    
Sun Jingwen, Report at the First National Conference on City Building, 14 June 1954, Shandong, A107-2-309, pp. 49–67, quotation on p. 55; see also the report on urban planning by the Soviet expert Balakin, 15 June 1954, Shandong, A107-2-309, pp. 68–89; besides these official reports, complaints about housing figure prominently in letters from the public written to the People’s Congress, for instance in Beijing, 27 Dec. 1956, 2-8-247, pp. 125–6 and 181; Instructions by Liu Shaoqi to the Ministry of Textile Industry, 22 Feb. 1956, Shandong, A1-2-387, p. 72; the Dongjiao Railway Station is mentioned in Beijing, 10 Nov. 1956, 2-8-247, p. 52.

13
    
Li Fuchun, Report at the First National Design Conference, 24 Sept. 1957, Shandong, A107-1-67, pp. 138–47.

14
    
Report from Anshan Party Committee, 22 March 1956, Shandong, A1-2-393, pp. 42–3.

15
    
Report from the Workers’ Union, 25 June 1956, Nanjing, 4003-1-107, pp. 370–6.