In that year, factories and mines were still in the fashion of troop establishment, and the good workshop was not called a workshop, but a “company”. The water supply workshop I was in had an “instructor” surnamed Cui; there was also a “company commander” surnamed Fan. Old Cui has a humanistic temperament, even literary temperament, good at thinking, also good at ideological work, belongs to the “rebel faction”; Old Fan is a typical technical cadres, dry, hard, tense, emphasizing enterprise management, technical specifications, belongs to the “conservative faction”. The “instructor” and “company commander” have contradictions, and I, a young worker, only felt them later.
Lao Cui arranged for me to go on a business trip to Fengqiu County on the north bank of the Yellow River to investigate the family situation of an old worker to see if he should be given a hardship allowance. I plugged into the household origin, the rural hardship is not unexpected, but often the master’s family is so poor that they do not even have a case, is the pot lid turned upside down rolling noodles, I held the bowl of noodles in my hands and squatted on the ground to drink, a freeze two hungry, inwardly shocked. After returning to the pot lid rolling noodles into a report, Lao Cui very appreciated, that the observation of subtle investigation, can be trained.
Old Fan lent me a lot of technical books, but also about the early 50s in the Dabie Mountain area to do geological exploration of the adventure experience. He said that there were really secret agent activities at that time. Once when he raised the binoculars to observe the forest on the other side of the mountain, he found a peasant woman with food on her head, pushed away the tree branches, went into a cave and suddenly disappeared. But I think it may not be a secret agent, that cave may be just a mutual friend, peasant woman with food into the rendezvous?
The movement to criticize Lin and Confucius continued, and workers met to criticize Lao Fan’s “control, card and pressure”, while Lao Cui evaded, did not stop, and did not show up. That time is also the same, before the meeting, old Fan suddenly asked me to go to his dormitory, said the first day in the house fire heating, may be hit by gas, it seems that only back to Kaifeng home to recuperate. After saying that let me call, he was waiting by the phone. I looked for a large circle in the phone, finally found Lao Cui, asked: Lao Fan is sick, to go home, is not sent back to Kaifeng? Lao Cui was I rushed too fast, there is no room for maneuvering, can only agree against their will. When I sent Lao Fan back, the first thing Lao Cui said when he saw me was: “You, this person, politically immature!”
The plant meets nightly, and the rebels “help” the old cadres to “turn the corner”, called “ideological encounter study class”. Old Cui once recommended me to participate as a representative of the young workers. I was full of anti-bureaucratic and anti-establishment rebellious passion, but I didn’t realize that a round of power redistribution was quietly emerging on both sides of the “ideological encounter”. The leader of the new cadres was Wang Shizhong, who had been suppressed by the military representatives and was very sympathetic to us. One night, I went to Wang Shizhong with a small book to “talk”, the book is full of pre-drafted various democratic concepts, not marginal, Wang Shizhong listened and listened and got bored, I myself also felt bored, and returned in defeat. The next day old Cui knew, once again shaking his head and sighing: “You, this person, politically immature.”
We have two collective households from Lankao in the past, all key middle schools of the old three, excess ideas, excess energy, a party, full of high-talking room. Day work, debate at night, read more, the movement of the situation in the factory set in the “play”, all over-analysis, enlarge the “interpretation”, the teapot poured into the teacup, the teacup burst, the teapot still do not know. For example, that study class, an amateur thinker thought too much, heard that I attended, like Lenin in October, patted me on the shoulder and said: “Good, you are our MP!” At that time there was a strange instruction from Mao Zedong that “the back door may not be all bad”, and there was a heated debate among us: should we insist on democracy against privileges, or should we maintain the overall situation and not dwell on the details? The next day, we posted a big, shocking poster, citing German philosophy on one side, quoting from all sides; on the other side, we imitated the cynical and cold Lu Xun style, with the pen name “Xun Weng”. We fought fervently, as if the sky would collapse tomorrow if we didn’t, ignoring the fact that the workers read these words like a book from heaven, and the cadres observed them coldly, already smelling something strange. I because of “political immaturity”, “seat” deserted, there is another amateur literary person to replace it, indeed, more mature than me, and gradually enter the core confidential, become Wang Shizhong, Lao Cui inseparable pencil. Our excess thoughts were poured into his dormitory, saying he had given up his “democratic ideals” for the power struggle. The ideologue who at first tapped me on the shoulder and called me a “parliamentarian” was now sarcastic about the fact that he was not a “parliamentarian” but a “third secretary of the consulate”. The “third secretary” once argued with me and snapped back, “I am a poet, but I am a poet only when I am doing poetry, while you are all poets when you should not be!”
He had a line of poetry I still remember today: “Twenty-six years the tung wind rises, the south wind and the north wind are not so close.” Twenty-six, the age; Tongfeng, the paulownia tree, a specialty of Lankao, refers to Henan in general; Nanfeng, the ideals of the Cultural Revolution of the radicals in Shanghai; Beifeng, the pragmatic orientation of the old cadres in Beijing. He yi yi, inner conflict, difficult to decide where to belong. This poem reflects not only his own inner struggle, but also the general contradiction of our group: various gossips spread in the late Cultural Revolution, suspicion and disgust of the upper level of the South Wind, sympathy for the pragmatic tendency of the North Wind; while the unique anti-establishment and anti-bureaucratic democratic pursuit of the youth was still there, and sympathy for the persecuted losers of the grassroots units.
This comical situation came to an abrupt end in October 1976. When the Huairintang Incident occurred in Beijing, the criticism of Lin and Confucius was abruptly suspended and turned around to purge three kinds of people. Wang Shizhong, Lao Cui, and the poet “Three Secretaries” were invited into the study class, but instead of “ideological encounters,” they were held in isolation in a dozen mountainous kilns. At this time we celebrated outside that the upper level of the South Wind had finally been defeated, while worrying about our old classmates and even voicing our discontent. The “poet” in the kiln, on the other hand, worried night and day about whether our criticism of the Gang of Four outside would bring out the political debate we had previously had. His non-poetic reasoning really worked at this point: he only confided in his working relationship with Wang Shizhong and Lao Cui, and did not involve the political debates between classmates as much as possible. When he came out, he told me that the task force was encouraging us to expose and criticize them outside, while inside they were pressing him night and day about what this group of high school students from Shanghai had said in private that was out of line.
The Cultural Revolution had to end, but the Cultural Revolution ended in the way the Cultural Revolution ended, and that was my general impression of 1976. Lao Cui had hated me for being untalented, and then he became a dissipated man himself, a stamp collector. When I left the chemical plant, I went to his house to say goodbye, and he gave me three words: “It’s better to do your studies, but don’t sit up at night, and don’t lose your health after you’re fifty”, very true. The poet “three secretaries” got sick from the cold in the kiln and went to the village health center to get a hangnail, which touched a female nurse from a cadre family, resulting in a story about a talented woman in the backyard. The beautiful woman came to the factory to look for the fallen showman, I do not know where he was transferred to. The “swift man” and I, carrying poor quality soju and homemade sausages, accompanied her to the northern mountain pass to look for old classmates in the kiln. It was cold and snowy, and the three of us walked up the mountain road, one foot high, one foot low, one step slippery, just in time for the last day of 1976.
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