In the winter of 1979, I was seconded to work in a research institute in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and participated in the institute’s efforts to set things right and rehabilitate unjust cases. During that Time, I took the opportunity of going to the countryside to check the “village telephone” project for a cadre in the institute’s file confusion, and went to a commune in the cadre’s hometown in the Luliang Mountains with a director of the science and technology division surnamed Li.
The cadre surnamed Geng, work has always been active, but a long struggle to join the party has not been resolved, and then a new pattern: the file materials, Family members should have been surnamed Geng, the middle surname Mao, and then suddenly surnamed Geng, the mystery no one can explain. After a trip to his hometown, we finally learned about a rare and absurd incident that happened there during the Cultural Revolution. It started in 1969, the year of the Ninth Communist Party Congress, and lasted for seven years.
The Commune celebrated the 9th Congress of the Communist Party of China on December 26th (Mao Zedong’s birthday) by holding a meeting of “Mao’s activists”, where activists from each brigade came up to represent the brigade to express their “loyalty” to Mao Zedong. Some said, the brigade will be in a month everyone memorized “old three”; some said: the brigade in half a month to put up the portrait of Chairman Mao at the door of each family; finally the cadres surnamed Geng brigade activist representative, brigade militia company commander jumped on the podium, waving his fist and shouting: “loyalty, see action! I all brigade poor peasants in three days all change their surname to Mao.”
Once these words were spoken, the representatives of other brigades were all defeated.
This brigade is a large natural village, near the Fen River Bay, the natural conditions are not bad, but is known for being poor. “Geng” is a big surname there, but the villagers’ names are all “Erkuan”, “Dogwa”, “Shan Dan’er” and so on. In the Cultural Revolution, those who were more flexible changed their names to the most fashionable “Weidong”, “Weibiao”, “Weijiang” and other red names. “But this can only be considered piecemeal, the revolution is not complete. This time to participate in the “learning Mao writings cumulative generation meeting” of the militia company commander in the meeting proposed the whole brigade to change the surname for Mao, is to solve such a situation.
After he returned to the village, he launched the brigade party branch overnight to discuss the establishment of “change the surname Mao” leading group, the provisions of the poor peasant component of all change the surname Mao.
This militia company commander is thick in the fine, considering that after changing the surname due to the same surname does not marry the village habits, will bring the brigade surnamed Mao boys to find a match difficulties, also suggested a preferential policy: “foreign girls who want to marry the brigade surnamed Mao boys, can be given the surname Jiang”, to show the great leader Mao Zedong and the revolutionary flag bearer Jiang Qing The “revolutionary Marriage” has been passed down from generation to generation.
This absurd proposal was actually passed in the brigade party branch, they decided to set up a temporary agency under the brigade poor peasant association “to change the surname Mao office”, hanging out the plate, and entrusted the militia company commander to preside over the implementation.
Everything is ready, early the next morning, using the tannoy to inform the village of the previous night’s decision, requiring unified action. The village was in an uproar: “Which son of a bitch who is not afraid of extinction came up with this idea of vipers, even his ancestors do not recognize! Let’s just dig up his family’s ancestral grave.”
So the militia company commander called a meeting with representatives of the poor peasants to clear their minds, repeatedly explaining that “the sky and the earth are not as big as the Party’s benevolence, father and mother are not as big as Chairman Mao”. After a day of bickering, two of the seven squads in the brigade agreed to “change their surname to Mao”, including the squad where the family of the cadre surnamed Geng is located in my institute.
Then the militia company commander personally visited the two squads of poor peasants from door to door, registering the change of surname Mao’s roster, so even for three days before it was completed. In these three days, the two squads of poor peasants, who are from the bottom of their hearts, are proud to have the world’s most noble “surname”. And the half-thought will not be able to break the stool, drop the bowl, hit his wife. But three days later, the two small groups of poor peasants all surnamed Mao. So picked an auspicious day, will be the roster along with the account book knocking drums to the commune police station registration.
The head of the commune police station heard this absurdity, was furious: “You are crazy! Once the surname is changed, all the class enemies are gone.” The militia company commander was not convinced: “We poor peasants are surnamed Mao, who is the class enemy is not clear, all those who are not surnamed Mao, all class enemies, the future public security has nothing to do, squatting pits, drinking two pot head is.” Both the prosecution and defense arguments to the class struggle as the platform, the struggle is difficult to separate, the village of “change the surname Mao” campaign was put on hold.
That year, shortly after the “Ninth Congress”, a new round of power grabbing climaxed, and the chief of the commune police station who opposed the “change of surname to Mao” was taken away, one of the charges was actually: “the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the poor peasants. The chief of the commune police station who opposed the “change of surname to Mao” was seized, and one of the charges was: “practicing bourgeois dictatorship over the poor peasants and preventing them from changing their surname to Mao.
“The problem of “changing the surname to Mao” was finally solved. “Mao three” …… with household electrical products, all digitalized.
After “change the surname Mao” really have endless bad luck: outside remittance money, because the name does not match, the post office does not give the collar, anxious; to buy pig feed in the livestock farm, because the name of the breeder with the original bottom of the inconsistency, do not give the goods, the pigs in the bar hungry; sent to the military because the name on the account book does not match the name in the file, is suspected of trying to The one who was sent to be a soldier was suspected of trying to infiltrate into the army because his name on the account book did not match his name in the file. Of course, there are also indirect bad luck, such as the cadres in my institute at the beginning of this article, the cadres surnamed Geng, because his father and siblings’ names in the file are not the same before and after and affect his entry into the party, to name a few.
“A few years after the death of Mao Zedong, the poor peasants in the Luliang area, who had changed their surname to Mao, took on the role of “Mao’s family” and set up a memorial service in style, wearing mourning, and taking their daughters-in-law, who had been given the surname Jiang, to Beijing to send letters of condolence to Jiang Qing. They also brought their daughters-in-law, who were given the surname Jiang, to Beijing to send letters of condolence.
Just when they were waiting for their “in-laws” to write back to them, Jiang Qing became the number one counter-revolutionary and was arrested. Immediately, the village was in turmoil, and the daughters-in-law who had married into the village and changed their surname to Jiang were up in arms: “Give me back my original surname, or I’ll get a divorce!”
Their husbands, who had taken the surname Mao, finally woke up and demanded to change their surnames back.
The Community, No. 3, 2005
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