Chapter 5

Late in 1955, yet another political movement was pressed down upon us from above. This time it was called The Campaign to Ferret Out Undercover Counter-Revolutionaries. I first learned of this new movement on a hot summer morning. I was studying in the library when Ms. Shi Cuo, came up to me. She was one of the Party cadres in our class. With a terribly cold face, she said, “Stop reading! Go back to your room and make a clean breast of your background and your problems. Write it down clearly and hand it over at once.”

We had studied in the same class together for almost six years. Still, her sudden change from love to hate was so abrupt that it left me totally confused. Why? What need was there for her to behave like that? What had I done that was so terrible? Soon after, I was notified that I was suspended from both my studies and my work, confined to my small room, and not allowed to communicate with anyone. I begged a fellow student, Zhao Yi, to take care of my little niece for me. How could such a child make sense of this investigation of her uncle.

In fact, she never did understand the sudden change that came
upon me. She just gazed at me with those big dark eyes as if to
say, “Tell me please, dear uncle, what’s the matter with you?
What’s this all about? What can I do for you?” Looking at this
lovely Little Pearl, I could say nothing. How could I explain
this insanity to a child? I hid my agony deep within my heart
and tried in every possible way to make her feel secure in
staying with me. But still, she could only wonder why her
uncle’s life had changed so suddenly, he sitting there writing all
day long rather than going to class like the others. No smiling,
no talking, and no singing, his brow constantly knit in
constrained effort. He didn’t take her to the zoo, cinema, or
anywhere else anymore. All I could do was to ask one of my
closest friends, Guo Rui, to take her to some of these places for
me.

Of course I was not a counter-revolutionary, especially
not an undercover one. I had done nothing wrong, and I had told
them very clearly and openly about my background when I was
in the PLA Air Force in 1951. I understood the need to
investigate those who had worked for a government they had
overthrown. But I had already been investigated. I could not
understand why they were continuing to treat me as a suspect or
as one who had concealed his past record. Why was it
necessary to put me under house arrest without any new reason
or evidence, and force me to clear myself again? I could do
nothing but write down all my background over and over again
in vain. They never really wanted to believe me, they just
needed an enemy. What more could I say?

It was as though it had become government policy to
formulate preconceptions, making false assumptions as a matter
of course or as a deliberate prejudice against whomever they
chose. When they read what I wrote, they always responded,
“What we want is your essential problems, not all of this. You
must clear yourself honestly or it will be no good for you!” Then
they would announce the controlling policy, “Leniency towards
those who confess their crimes and severe punishment to those
who refuse to do so.” I was frustrated and very vexed. What
could I do if no one believed me? The investigation was clearly
not based on any legal procedure. It was as if they needed to
extort a confession from me.

It was as though I had some exotic disease. People dared
not get in touch with me or even speak to me. People were all
afraid to appear involved with me, or even to be criticized for
straying from correct behavior by talking to me. They could not
judge the facts of my case because they could not know them,
but they did it anyway out of fear. All that they knew was the
Party’s attitude toward me. I spoke to no one for about three
months, and actually almost lost my voice for the solitary
cruelty. Several months later, after it was over and I tried to
speak, I uttered only a weak and raspy squeak.

Once acknowledged again, I was first called to the
personnel office. The person in charge told me that my problem
originated from my complicated social relationships. This
meant that all of my friends I had during the Kuomintang rule,
both during and after the war with Japan. They were especially
concerned with those friends I had in the army and my uncle
who was a high officer in the National Defense Ministry, and
also my friends in the United States. The party cadre in our
school concluded that while I was not classified as an enemy,
my case was still one of contradiction within the people’s view
and that I, therefore, must break all of these social relations. It
wasn’t until 1966, during the Cultural Revolution, that I began
to understand that these cadre were unable to reach a final
conclusion in their investigation of me. They could neither find
anything criminal in my past, nor rightfully charge me with any
specific crime. But neither would they trust me. So, they
resorted to what they called, Guaqilai. Which means literally to
hang something up until it has cleared out. In other words, I
would be under suspicion until the contradictions were resolved.
I didn’t understand it then, but in fact it meant that I would be a
man under their direct control for the next twenty-three years.
How could I ever escape the past experiences and relationships
in my life?

From that time, in 1956, all my former schoolmates and
all others in my institute, took me to be a suspect and kept their
distance from me. After this investigation was complete and I
left the personnel division office for the last time, I rushed to
Zhao Yi’s to get my darling Little Pearl, the only one in my life
who loved and believed in me, more so even than my wife.
This sudden resurgence of political trouble also caused
me to miss another treasured cultural opportunity. While I was
confined my fellow students traveled to different parts of China
to view our country’s ancient classical cave art. It hurt both my
career and my spirit to have missed such a valuable
opportunity. I was still so naive about the complex political
struggle then going on throughout China, not knowing there
were thousands more like me who were trapped throughout the
country in this political quicksand. We were all like bugs stuck
senselessly in place, like flies in sap. With a big shoe
suspended over our heads, we were all getting nowhere and
always in danger of being crushed.

My growing political disfavor was also eliminating me
from any assignments to do commissioned works of a
significant nature. It was an assumed part of the procedure for
the creation of a commissioned work that the artist would
personally study the subject or events that were to be the topic
of the work. Therefore, if I were to work on a military
monument, I would have to visit the army to observe and
understand my subject for the particular tribute. If the work was
commissioned from abroad, I would probably have to go abroad
to understand what was required of me in the work’s creation.
So, to the Party, the person who was assigned a commissioned
work must be politically reliable. Confronted with that logic, I
was only assigned works considered relatively unimportant,
such as decorative sculpture for gyms, hotels, or exhibition
buildings, but never something so important as the Chinese
Volunteers Monument in Korea.

In 1956, I was assigned to do a bust commemorating a
naval officer of the Song Dynasty from about 1000 A.D. His
name was Tang Fu, and he was the first man in the world to
recognize the principle of the missile and to employ it in battle.
My sculpture was placed in front of the History of Chinese
Artillery section of the China Military Museum in Beijing.
There was no recorded information about Tang Fu’s physical
appearance, so I had to create his image out of my own
imagination. I created an ancient Chinese military officer of
that period as I thought he should look. To give him an
animated appearance, I took helpful hints from the flamboyant
army characters in the Beijing opera. Through my work on
Tang’s sculpture, I was thrilled to see my own skills take a
great leap forward. Even though I knew I was not allowed
nationally significant projects, I still looked forward to many
other commissions that would prove my value to society as an
artist. But, at the time I was unaware that due to China’s ever
changing political landscape, this would be the last major
commission permitted to me until 1983, twenty-seven years
later.

~~~

The anti-Communist turmoil in Hungary and Poland in
1956 really stirred the political scene in China. Early in that
year, Mr. Jiang, the President of our school and an upright man
by nature, returned from a trip to Europe as a member of a
Chinese Cultured Delegation. His trip had made a strong
impression on him. He called on us, “To think things out
independently.” He advised, “As a student, one should not be
too involved in political activity, but should concentrate on
studying. Keep your mind free to think about and explore
various art forms.” From that moment a new emphasis on
studying, exploring, and researching became evident in our
institute. Our ideas became more lively, as the political
pressure seemed to ease.

However, it was later that year, after the anti-Communist
turmoil in Eastern Europe, that Mao published his article, “On
the Dictatorship of the People.” In this essay, Mao called on
the people to draw a clear distinction between themselves and
the enemy, between right and wrong. It became the theoretical
political basis for his later ruthless movements which were to
eventually plague China. People all over China were required
to study it as a document central to our national revolution. In
1957 it was followed by another article, the national
“Movement of Rectification of the Incorrect Style of the Party’s
Work.” In this essay, Mao called on the Party to solicit the
opinions, suggestions, and criticisms of the masses to aid in the
Party’s own rectification. To quiet people’s fears of
repercussion, the Party declared in meetings, newspapers, and
in other media, “Speak your mind and speak it without reserve.
Don’t blame the speaker, but be warned by his words.”
Regrettably, these words of free speech, like so many to come,
were empty promises. So began the great disaster in China’s
long and rich history. Time came to prove that this movement
was actually aimed at China’s intellectuals, in a continued
effort to discipline the ones who dared to say “no” or even say
“why.”

The Chinese people had been suffering year after year for
generations. We yearned for a change that would end the
suffering. I shall never forget what I saw, with both my eyes and
my imagination, that first day the Communist troops marched in
to occupy Shanghai. The dream of every Chinese seemed to be
coming true. In those early days our country was radically
changing. The contrast with the days before 1949 was sharp.
The discipline of the People’s Liberation Army, their
relationship with the citizens, and the relations between the
officers and their men was something I had never dreamed
possible in any army. Prices were stabilized. Drug taking,
prostitution, and gambling were wiped out. Farmers were given
land and our industry was reconstructed. Medical care that
people couldn’t even dream of before was now freely enjoyed.
Young people went to school without charge. Even their board
and lodging was free. I felt that for the first time in centuries,
our country was really free and independent and would never be
bullied by greedy warlords or foreign nations again. I was so
proud of all these great advances. But, as the years passed, we
began to feel that something was going wrong. Something was
not on the right path. Worst of all, we could not speak freely of
what we felt or saw. I believed that our nation’s direction in
international relations were far too extreme and dangerously
paranoid. Our relations with individual countries in the world
were stated as exclusively either positive in all respects or
negative in all respects. There could be no open international
dialogue or disagreement among fellow countrymen. Such
extreme views had to be based upon a form of prejudice. How
could they be based on fact?

So many times the government had told us to “lean on
one side,” in our political thinking. This meant lean to the
Soviets. But this soon provoked me to ask our political
instructor, Mr. Chao Xin, why the Soviet Army had taken all
the equipment from our large factories in Manchuria with them
when they withdrew from China after Japan’s surrender in 1945.
I had also heard that the Soviets killed our people and raped our
women. But Chao defended the Soviets. “It was for our sake
they stripped our factories. They tried to keep all that
equipment from falling into the hands of the Kuomintang. And
those savage acts of rape and murder were all rumors, slanders
spread by evil international enemies. I knew later that the
charges were true, but as I continued to ask for the truth, I was
threatened for being “anti-Soviet.”

On the other hand, I was also labelled as pro-American,
for I had told my fellow students what things had impressed me
while I was in the United States. It didn’t matter what was true
or not, right and wrong were determined by some higher
political need. Being labelled pro-American was a very serious
political charge during those days of the Korean War.
Later, I also saw many undeserved privileges given to
Party members, at the same time that China suffered under the
lack of our promised democracy, and the total disregard for our
human rights. But what could I do about such inequalities? I
could only bury my questions deep within my heart. I knew that
if I refused to do so, I would find myself in big trouble. I had
dreamed of our country being truly democratic, and people free
to speak their minds. Therefore, when the movement for Party
Rectification came and the Party announced its public policy
to, “never blame the one who speaks,” I poured out all that had
been built up in my heart for years. But of course, I was still too
naive to understand the meaning of political struggle and how I
fit into it.

There was an extraordinary amount of activity during the
early stages of the Party’s Rectification movement.
Newspapers, magazines, and the radio were full of discussion
which went on to stir still further discussion throughout the
nation’s streets, restaurants and homes regarding this curious
phenomenon, Rectification. People spoke freely for the first
time since 1949. They said what they had not dared to say
before. It was truly a public catharsis.

We were stirred, agitated, and happy that the Party
seemed to be so aware of all these many problems after all.
Meetings were held inside and outside of the Party. A new term
was added to our vocabulary, Open-door Rectification. The
more we openly talked the more excited we became. In
classrooms, on playgrounds, in dining rooms, on trains and
buses, even on their beds at night, groups of people were
ardently discussing China’s future and her various needs for
change. At a school meeting we had an organized discussion of
the status of sculpture in China. One of my former classmates,
Mr. Qiu Hai, then working for the China Youth Paper, was there
at the meeting, and asked us to compile an article based upon
our discussion for publication in his paper. We agreed to do it
and I penned the article, Save the Art of Sculpture. It was
published in the China Youth Paper in May of 1957. Later this
article became one of my great criminal acts. It was eventually
labeled as an article that ostensibly instigated and fomented
trouble.

We spoke our minds freely for a couple of months more,
then once again the mighty storm burst suddenly upon us. Our
first hint came in The People’s Daily, the tongue of the Party.
Without warning it indicated that the Party’s Rectification
movement was changing into a Struggle Against the Bourgeois
Rightist. The strong smell of gun powder was suddenly in the
air. The news began to focus on who was attacking the Party by
taking advantage of the Party’s Rectification movement. Who
was “viciously attacking the Socialist road, and who demanded
the Communist Party step down from the stage.” Supposedly
there was even someone in China’s vastness, named Ge Lumin,
who was wildly and arrogantly shouting that the people should
kill the Communists. All the other newspapers soon began
making other sensational claims against this mysterious Mr. Ge
as well. The published accusations against Ge were made in
letters supposedly from workers, peasants, and soldiers. Later,
however, both history and logic proved that most of these
criminal charges were fabricated, as may have been Mr. Ge
himself. The Struggle Against the Bourgeois Rightist, in fact,
became a nationwide movement to suppress those who
accepted the invitation to criticize the Party. A trap set for
those who said ‘no’ to what they believed was wrong. This
became a major turning point for the Chinese Communist Party
as it began a steady slide down from the pinnacle of its early
idealism. The movement began, in typical Chinese fashion, to
“persecute one person as a warning and example to a hundred.”
The consequences were catastrophic. China abruptly spun
backwards many years. People would not even dare to say “no”
again for many years to come. Once again the ground was being
prepared for an even greater suffering.

People read the newspapers. They understood that
China’s supreme authority had decreed that they once again
keep silent. Unable to contain my frustration, I spoke out once
more at a public meeting just a few days later. I said, “It was a
rectification without sincerity.” This was foolish on my part,
and I knew better by this time. I had avoidably added yet
another infraction to my growing list of “criminal acts.”
I began to realize that all those condemned in the newspapers
as rightist, anti-Communists, and counter-revolutionaries,
were those, like me, who had honestly pointed out simply
what they had seen as wrong in our society and in the Party. I
did not want to believe what was becoming more and more
obvious. It cast a dark and cutting chill over me. The warm
excited feelings and the hope I sincerely cherished just a few
months earlier, froze and disappeared into thin air.
Soon an editorial appeared in The People’s Daily signed,
“Commentator.” It was believed by all that the Commentator
was the supreme authority, most often Mao himself. This
editorial was entitled, “What It’s All For After All.” It pointed
out, “Though drunken, one’s real interest is not in wine.”
People often “had ulterior motives.” “The Bourgeois Rightists
are desperately attacking the Party.” “We must strike back!”
Thus, the so-called Struggle Against the Bourgeois Rightist
Movement officially began, and in earnest.

This was, in fact, all planned beforehand to prevent the
kinds of uprising that occurred in Hungary and Poland the year
before. A July newspaper article quoted Mao as saying, “The
purpose (of Open-door Rectification) was to let demons and
devils, ghosts and monsters air their views freely, and to let the
poisonous weeds sprout and grow in profusion so that the people
could take action to wipe them out.” In other words, the
Communist Party foresaw this inevitable class struggle between
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, “...only when ghosts and
monsters are allowed to come out into the open can they be
wiped out; and only when poisonous weeds are allowed to
sprout from the soil can they be uprooted.”

The Party had worked out six criteria for setting the
fragrant flowers apart from the poisonous weeds:

1. Words and actions should help to unite, and not divide, the
people of our various nationalities.

2. They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to socialist
transformation and socialist construction.

3. They should help to consolidate, and not undermine nor
weaken, the people’s democratic dictatorship.

4. They should help to consolidate, and not undermine nor
weaken, democratic centralism.

5. They should help to strengthen people, and not weaken nor
encourage them to deviate from the leadership of the
Communist Party.

6. They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to international
socialist unity and the unity of the peace-loving people of the
world.

These basic principles were stated very abstractly. The
problems would come as people judged particular instances in
real life. If people can’t speak their own mind freely and,
therefore, have no right to defend themselves, how can one
judge what helps to unite or divide? What is actually beneficial
or harmful and how is that judged? What helps to consolidate or
undermine? What strengthens or weakens? How can these
questions be judged, evaluated, or even understood?
Yet these six criteria became the basis for the fabrication
of the many shocking accusations which would follow. If we
spoke out against some Party member that enjoyed undeserved
privileges, we would be accused of slandering the Party and
blackening the image of a Party member. We would be
violating criterion No. 5, and no one would admit or even dare
try to find out if our observation was true or not. There was no
justice.

Soon after Mao’s call in the newspaper, our institute held
a meeting for the Mobilization for Struggling Against Rightist.
Walking to the auditorium, I saw that everyone’s facial
expression was set and serious. No words passed from one to
another. The air was tense and quiet. People’s feelings were
complicated and confused. They sensed it was an ill omen that
the Party’s Rectification had been called off so suddenly and
now this Struggle Against Rightist was immediately launched
right on its heals.

Our school President, Jiang’s, position was particularly
difficult. He had to follow the Party’s order for us to throw
ourselves into this struggle even though he shared our feelings
and objections. Later he was actually labelled as the No. 1
Rightist in Chinese liberal art circles. The voice of the people
was now strangled just as we were learning to speak.

~~~

One morning, a few days later, I was preparing to hand
over the completed schedule I had drawn up for works of art in
process to Miss Zhao, the Party’s secretary in our studio. I
asked her when we should hold a meeting to pass on it. With
cold and deliberate seriousness, she ignored my question and
said, “Quit it and go at once to a meeting on the second floor of
the Art Research Building.” The two of us had once been close
as fellow students and colleagues, but, like Ms. Shi more than a
year earlier, her manner had turned one hundred and eighty
degrees. We were now total strangers. What caused the
change? I asked myself that question over and over again as I
put my things away and went up to the meeting. Her words gave
me a deep sense of foreboding of coming evil. Looking at her in
what I am sure was utter shock, I turned and left for the
meeting without a word. When I got there, I learned it was
called to Unmask and Inform Against the Offenders. Actually,
unknown to me, there had been some previous meetings to
prepare for this one, and to decide who were the Rightist targets
that needed to be exposed. Everything was already planned and
organized, even the sequence of statements by the accusers had
been prearranged. However, what shocked me most was that the
final verdicts on some victims had already been secretly
decided by the Party’s officials, and I was one of the victims.
For me and others there was no true legal procedure on our
behalf. Really, it did not matter whether we had said anything
or not during the Party’s Rectification. We were still accused as
Rightist.

This first meeting was only an overture of things to come,
with only preliminary matters discussed. They didn’t mention
anyone’s name. They didn’t need to, as everyone already knew
who they were speaking about—me. They went on to point out
that they had heard many anti-Party thoughts expressed during
the Party’s Rectification. What they then brought out as
evidence of guilt startled me. This evidence, for the most part,
was what had actually been said under the Party’s
encouragement in the Rectification meetings. I was puzzled by
why they had led us to do something, then later planned to
charge us for following their directions. What was going on?
Why?

The people’s responses to this sudden change in the Party
politics varied widely, but they could be roughly grouped into
three categories. First, were those so naive in politics that they
still thought white was white and black was black, and that
truth would always prevail in the end. These people were
comparatively calm and unperturbed in the early stages of the
meeting. However, they were the ones likely to be shocked the
most when they were wrongly accused as Rightists.
Consequently, during this movement they would likely behave
badly and be taken as the most diehard. Of course these people
defended themselves, constantly pressing for truth.
The second group were the worldly wise who always
played it safe. They were sensitive to political change and
knew when things were not going right. They had the sense to
be afraid of any developing force. They were restless and
worried. During this meeting’s struggle they basically kept
silent, only occasionally uttering a few words of criticism, or
taking one or two sniper’s shots at the victims to show they
stood firmly on the Party’s side, and thus pass safely through
the storm.

The third group were the opportunists, the chameleons.
Their philosophy was blatantly everyone for himself and the
devil take the rest. They knew how to take advantage of
everything that would serve their own interests. They danced in
all weather. During the Party’s Rectification, the saliva foamed
from their mouths as they spoke with vehemence of the Party’s
problems. They wanted it clearly understood that they were the
most revolutionary of anyone. But when the wind changed from
Rectification to Struggle against the Rightist, they completely
changed their faces within a twinkle of the eye. They shouted
themselves hoarse until they dropped from exhaustion to make
it known they would never live under the same sky with any
enemy of the people. They ranted against various anti-Party
speeches, speeches that were, in fact, just like those they
themselves had given during the Rectification. Utterly
shameless, they never blushed. They had to paint white as
black. To save their own hides in messy situations, they heaped
blame on others, sometimes even playing the butcher as well.
They had not the least trace of civilized human spirit.

After this first meeting I went on home, since there were
no more classes that day. I told my new wife—we were married
just four months earlier—all that had happened in the meeting
that morning. Of course she was puzzled and very worried for
my safety. I was comparatively calm, for I still mistakenly
thought white was white and black was black. I knew in my
heart that there should be nothing to worry about. I wanted her
to feel at ease as well. I had no real duties at the school for
several days, so I worked at home on class preparations. Then I
was suddenly asked to attend another meeting. It was only after
I reached the meeting room that I realized I was the subject,
the main target, of the meeting. I was identified as the
“chieftain of the anti-Communist party clique,” “the root of the
anti-Party.”

I had thought it strange that all along my walk to the
meeting no one would speak to me or even look at me. It was
as if I were a stranger, even though they had been my
classmates and colleagues for the last eight years. It quickly
became obvious that there had been a meeting about me
beforehand. It seemed as though everyone had to behave as
they did to show the Party that they knew right from wrong,
friend from enemy. In time I understood, that for them to do
otherwise would have gotten them into serious trouble. But at
that moment, I still felt very hurt. Crushed. Betrayed by my
fellow countrymen. On the wall were hung banners with such
slogans as, “Wu Jieqin must confess his crimes!” “Leniency
toward those who confess their crimes and severe punishment
for those who refuse to do so.” There were also cartoons, where
I was caricatured as the root of an old tree with ferocious
features. The caption read, “We have dug out the root of the
anti-Party.” Another pictured me fiercely striking the name of
the Party’s secretary from a list of Party leaders. The caption
read, “Tried wildly to usurp the Party’s leadership.” Even all
this did not make me really nervous, for I knew I was innocent.
It all seemed so preposterous. So totally irrational. How could a
nonparty member usurp the Party’s leadership? I did not doubt
for a moment that it would all be cleared up soon.

Those who presided over the meeting were my
colleagues who had become Party members. The atmosphere
was tense. Unknown to me, I was already a caged bird, since I
had previously been found guilty by the Party without legal
defense. People interrogated and accused me one by one, as
they had been programmed to do. Some even read from the
prepared scripts they held in their trembling hands, trying hard
to perform like well qualified actors or actresses. Impassioned,
they shouted themselves hoarse to show they were full of
proletarian feelings—that they stood firmly before the enemy.
Actually they were trying hard to protect themselves from also
being labeled as Rightist. They seemed to be saying very
loudly, “You see, I am 100% the revolutionary, the leftist.”

The following were the main crimes they charged me
with, which would nearly ruin the rest of my life:

1. Slandered by saying that the Chinese people did not have
freedom of speech. (Unfortunately it was true. The people had
the freedom to say only what conformed to what the Party
decreed.)

2. Vilified Party members by saying they enjoyed undeserved
privileges. (That was indeed the reason why so many Party
members had joined the Party.)

3. Slandered by saying there was no freedom of the press. (Not
slander, but truth. We could not know what really happened,
what was really the truth from what our newspapers told us.)

4. Slandered the socialist personnel system. (I thought one had
a right to see one’s own personnel record. This would be an
important means of avoiding mistakes and frame-ups. History
later proved that tens of thousands suffered brutally because
of unreliable personnel records.)

5. Charged that I said the Party’s Rectification lacked good
faith.

I was astonished as one after the other of these
accusations slammed into me with the full force of the Party’s
fury. All of these accusations were in a loose sense true, but
were not crimes, particularly not at the time they were
committed. Throughout the Party’s Rectification I had spoken
the evident living truth, and I was not alone in seeing and
voicing this truth. What I said was being said by the majority of
people during the Party’s Rectification movement. Why had
this truth become a crime all of a sudden? Gazing at my
classmates of many years, now attacking me jointly from many
sides, I found a harsh reality in their eyes. I could see that most
were also at a loss in this sudden change of reality. All they
wanted was to protect themselves from being drawn into the
coming storm, the great suffering ahead. The truth, right and
wrong, purity, conscience, morality, these did not compete with
their own personal fear. Forget them all! In some of their eyes I
was surprised to even see a sense of gloating over another’s
misfortune—pure evil. Some of the eyes belonged to those who
had been in the vanguard criticizing the Party just a few days
before. As quick as a blink of the eye they turned themselves
into heroes struggling against the Bourgeois Rightist. And, of
course, in some eyes I was saddened to see an honest belief
that they were fighting against the enemy. Everything to them
seemed to be a matter of course, without doubt. They were in
step and depended upon each other for survival.

For the first time the cold reality of China’s political
situation began to chill me. How was it going to be possible to
live in such a world? How would it be possible for me to say
straight out what I saw and what I felt? In the middle of it all, it
was now impossible to explain clearly to myself all that was
surging through my mind.

As the meeting progressed, I became aware that the
seriousness of my crimes was growing and growing. They had
even invented the charges that I had tried to usurp the Party’s
leadership—me, a nonparty member—and that I had raped
women. When I later found out that I had been secretly labelled
as a Rightist long before this meeting, I suddenly understood
that this meeting had only been designed to demonstrate and
confirm my previous secret conviction. Back then, of course,
Rightists had to exist to prove the need for the Struggle Against
Bourgeois Rightist, which in turn empowered the Party. Even if
they had to be created.

A key feature of such proceedings was that the accused
were never permitted to plead for themselves. Whenever I tried
to defend myself, I was stopped and they immediately tried to
force me to admit to the charges against me. After several
agonizing hours, the meeting finally ended with an order for me
to write my confession immediately when I returned home. I
knew that I was being terribly and viciously wronged. Knowing
that, I could not calm myself. I began to write at once and
continued until early the next morning. I had no lawyer to
consult. There was no legal procedure available to challenge
the ruling. No one dared show his or her sympathy. My new wife
stared at me with her big, but now puzzled and frightened eyes.
I was completely alone again in a hostile world.

The very next morning I presented my confession, which
became my appeal paper, to the campaign office of the
Struggle Against Bourgeois Rightist. Their response was to call
another special meeting on my case, this time called The
Meeting for Striking Off Evil Behavior. What irony that they
called me evil. They once again accused me of making vicious
attacks against the Party in the appeal I had just written.
Attacks in this meeting poured onto me from all sides. I was
like a cornered beast. They shouted at me, “You, the persistent
anti-Communist! You not only didn’t confess your guilt, you
dared to strike back! If you remain incorrigibly obstinate we
must put you under the proletarian dictatorship!” That veiled
threat of imprisonment was then made even more explicit, “If
you refuse, you’ll be severely punished” “You are an anti-
Communist in your bones. Don’t you dare deny it!” “Wu
Jieqin’s crimes are undeniable. His only choice is to confess he
is guilty!” “Down with the Rightist! He’s anti-Communist and
anti-people!” I quickly realized there was no way to reason
things out. I was cornered in a world of upside down reality.
From then on I said as little as possible.

On my way home I wondered, what was really going on?
Where would it end? Mao called us to “speak up boldly, to air
views freely, to put up big character posters and to hold great
debates.” So I did, and what was the outcome? Was it really
only a trap, as many had warned? What I had said during the
Party’s Rectification was true. It was how things stood, and the
difference between truth and falsehood was clear. But the point
of this meeting was to show that I, the accused, had no right
even to speak in my own defense. If only I could speak freely!
Then everyone could judge the truth of these charges very
easily.

Doubts and suspicions finally began to rise in my own
mind. We were disciples of Marxism, yet were we really to see
and do as Marxism prescribed, or were we to go in the opposite
direction? My accusers would not regard all the facts. They
deliberately blinded themselves to reality. The leaders of this
Struggle Against the Rightist who shouted at me knew the facts
well enough themselves. Most of them did as I did during the
Party’s Rectification. Where did all this come from? What was
really happening? Why?

~~~

An exciting city full of smiling faces had suddenly
disappeared from the streets. Who knows how many people,
how many dear ones, were then caught in this growing national
culture of suffering? That same day, from an apartment in a
grey building near my home, I overheard a woman’s sobbing
cries mixed with the same harsh accusations that had been
shouted at me in my meeting. I felt a strong bond of sympathy
and understanding for her, even though I knew nothing about her
other than that confusing discord of terrible sounds. I knew what
she was suffering through. She could do nothing but cry. My
heart felt her pain. We never knew that this could fall upon us,
as our idealism had not prepared us for this level of insanity.
For day after day I was isolated as if I were a most
hideous enemy. No one would dare to even look at me. The
pressure weighing down on my mind grew heavier and heavier
with each passing day. Then came a terrible day in the middle
of winter. I was called to another meeting at the same place as
the last. When I entered the building I once again felt the tense
atmosphere and noticed some unusual people were in
attendance. Something extraordinary was obviously about to
happen. Leading persons in our school’s administration were
participating. No one uttered a word. No facial expressions were
shared with me to soften the steel cold chill in the air. I felt as
though I was appearing as a guest at my own execution.

The presider, one of my former classmates, broke the
deadly quiet, reading the verdict from a paper laid out before
him, “He is persistently anti-Communist, anti-revolution, and a
member of the Three People’s Principles (of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s
1911 revolution) and the Kuomintang. He has been trained in
the United States, and has bombed liberated areas while in the
KMT Air Force. He has taken advantage of our Party’s
Rectification Movement and slandered our Party desperately.”
Then the criminal acts I previously listed as forced upon me
were read. “He is an Ultra-Rightist. Approved by higher
authorities, we hereby declare that he is sentenced to reform
labor...”

I felt darkness all around me. Everything stopped. I could
only hear my own heart pounding. No attorney, no right to
defense, no one else dared to challenge the verdict. My life was
now to be thrown away by the country and society I loved so
much. I knew there was nothing for me to do but keep silent.
The Party would do whatever it felt was needed. To whom
could I appeal for justice or help? Would they exile me to a
distant land, away from my family? But how could I leave my
world, my motherland, even though it no longer wanted me? I
mechanically held the pen and signed my name to the verdict
as they insisted. There was no use any longer resisting the now
inevitable. The results would be the same whether I signed or
not. I was a sparrow in a cage, with no hope to live freely to
fulfill my own life’s destiny and dreams.