In 1970, according to Mao Zedong’s strategic steps for the Cultural Revolution, the movement entered the stage of cleaning up the class ranks, and the Cultural Revolution shifted from the struggle against capitalists to the struggle against people with historical problems, who were called “class dissidents” at that time.
According to the report of the masses, Zhu Yunxiu, a 54-year-old shopkeeper of the state-run Wuxi City Confectionery and Pastry Company, came from a family of industrialists and landlords and had a “vicious habit” of looking down on the working people, “living the life style left over from the old society, treating the proletariat working people with hatred to the bone, and nine out of ten families No accent ……” (from the March 6, ’70 revolutionary mass reporting letter). On June 17 of this year, the North Street Police Station under the Beitang Military Control Group of the Wuxi Municipal Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army sent people to Zhu Yunxiu’s hometown, the Lu Zhuxiang Production Team of the Dongfeng Brigade of the Wuxi Lotus-root Tang Commune, to look for Zhu Yunxiu’s “class roots”. They were received by the brigade’s security director, Li Lingen, who came from a poor peasant background and was 39 years old at the time. According to the chronology, Li Lingen had lived in the old and new society for half of the time. Holding the attitude of responsibility for the reception work, fear of the old society that paragraph can not say, Director Li found a 64-year-old poor peasant, who worked as a tenant in the landlord’s house Li Jinzu tell the situation of Zhu Yunxiu’s father and brothers. Here, the investigators heard a “landlord and his sons” story.
Zhu Yunxiu’s father named Zhu Pangsheng, is a well-known landlord in the lotus root pond area, occupying more than 360 acres of land, 23 houses, which is rare in the land and wealth of the Jiangnan water township occupying so much land. The Zhu family had no production tools, and all farm work was contracted to the tenants. In order to maintain a good life in the fields, the Zhu family employed one long worker and one short worker, and another 12 or so temporary workers during the two busy seasons (i.e. summer harvest and summer planting and autumn harvest and autumn planting).
Zhu Bangsheng had three sons and five daughters, and was a large family in name only. The sons and daughters were usually involved in field management and rent collection. According to available information, the old landlord Zhu Pangsheng passed away in 1929. On the eve of the war, the three brothers of the Zhu family divided the property left by their father.
The oldest, Zhu Jianpei, was given more than 80 mu of land, and during the period from 1937 to 1945 (coinciding with the eight-year war), Zhu Jianpei, who had property autonomy, specialized in eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, and all kinds of vices, and sold all the land, and when the red regime was established and land reform was carried out, Zhu Jianpei’s composition was rated as small land rent.
The second Zhu family’s second name is Zhu Shipei, at that time, also received more than 80 mu of land, the second, like his elder brother, was involved in various vices, especially gambling, and within a short time, became what Wuxi people commonly call “inverted head light”, not only lost the land, and even sold the house, in desperation, had to find a way to make a living, to work in the town’s cocoon company, in the land reform At the time of the land reform, was rated as a staff, has been close to the ranks of the working class.
The youngest brother of the Zhu family, named Zhu Rongpei, was also given more than 80 mu of land. This man treated his land and wealth as his life, and worked hard to manage it, employing a long-time worker during the week and several short-time workers during the farming season, so his property kept growing.
In the decades after the founding of New China, the landlords were subjected to “tests” that no one could imagine. By the early 1960s, China had just survived three years of natural disasters, but Zhu Rongpei’s life was still unbearable, and he tried to ship some of the family’s only furniture to Changxing and Yixing on the western shore of Taihu Lake in an attempt to sell it. Huzhou farmers often ship carrots and yams to Wuxi to sell, and the return is a beautiful, fresh Wuxi girls to be married. In fact, at that time, Changxing and other places could barely fill their bellies, and the people did not have any cash to buy his household goods, so they ate up all the food on board and spent all the money they had.
From the legal point of view, Zhu Jianpei and Zhu Shipei two brothers squandered their own property, the onlookers are not entitled to say anything, the public opinion at most in the moral sphere of their behavior to criticize and condemn. And Zhu Rongpei’s respect for wealth and wealth creation should be even more praised and respected. The problem is that the assessment and treatment of the two different behaviors during the land reform was “reversed”, with the squanderers approaching the leading class and the creators dying without a burial place.
An economist once said that a good society must have two systems: a system that encourages people to create wealth and a system that distributes social wealth fairly. It should be a good sign for each of us to celebrate that half a century after the division of the Zhu brothers’ family, society has returned to respecting social wealth.
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