I am a youth of the 69th class in Beijing. In August 1969, I came to the 2nd Company of the 15th Regiment of Inner Mongolia Corps to “receive re-Education“. During the six years in the countryside, I experienced the process from the beginning of the regiment to its rapid decline.
Before we non-agricultural and non-military students arrived, the Second Company was part of the Jianfeng Labor Reform Farm. In order to receive the Corps soldiers, the former farm personnel were moved to the mainland, leaving only a small number of employed farm workers.
Memories of not having enough to eat
Listen to the farm workers left behind, the original second company of more than 10,000 acres of land, can produce hundreds of thousands of pounds of wheat each year, but also raise pigs, sheep, chickens, horses. People were able to get enough to eat, and a lot of surplus Food could be handed in. After we took over, year after year, grain production is getting lower and lower, logistics platoon livestock more and more thin, raising chickens soon disappeared, raising pigs, not to mention the people eat meat, even maintain the accumulation of fat are difficult.
We, the male youth of Dada platoon, were in a state of hunger for a long Time. Compared to the girls, the amount of food is large, eat more, compared to the logistics platoon, labor intensity, long hours. Potatoes boiled in salt water, sticky buns (two per meal, limited number) millets and rice, cotton clothes made of recycled cloth. In such conditions, a few winter boiled down, most people are depressed, tired of dry energy.
A platoon of soldiers, by chance, came across a good opportunity to eat freely, he opened his mouth to eat a meal. After the meal collection out of work, he had a stomach attack, to the regiment hospital for surgery. During the operation, half a pot of undigested food was pulled out of his stomach. He died after several attempts to save his Life to no avail.
I also had two close calls for a full meal. Once was with the same platoon of Yang Shiwei, bought a wild duck from the hometown, hastily cooked and eaten. After eating it, I learned that the wild ducks sold by the villagers were all poisoned with pesticides accompanied by wheat grains as bait, and the ducks did not bleed after death, and the internal organs were black. At that time, the food was quite fragrant, and there was no reaction. Years later, and then see has become a police officer, working in the Chongwen Branch of the old Yang, we are still a little afraid.
The other time was when we went to the Wuliang Suhai to pull reeds. When we arrived at the reeds of the sea, we took several dead ends one after another and got lost in a roundabout way.
The night we spent in the reeds, I completely experienced what it is to be hungry and cold. The bone chilling cold and intense hunger made my organs tremble. My instinct to live drove me to keep moving my body. I thought, “I’m not even 20 years old, so I’m not willing to die quietly and silently in this strange reed field. I had only one hope, to survive until dawn, to get out of the reeds and have a hot meal.
We found ourselves not far from the shore at last, and when we got out of the reeds in time, we met a PLA soldier who was herding cattle in the army’s horse farm. A large pot of lamb stew with potatoes and a pot of rice with millets were brought up, and I said to myself that this was a blessing in disguise. I hadn’t tasted the smell of lamb for more than two years, so I couldn’t wait until now. I could not wait to swallow all the rice and meat in one gulp. I ate bowl after bowl, until I could not swallow.
I didn’t expect to get sick before I had time to taste the meat. After I returned to the company, I was very sick for a week, with a high fever for three days, vomiting, and finally even vomiting out the yellow bile. I couldn’t get up before I couldn’t get a leave slip. The doctor in the company infirmary was the old Dr. Pei who came with the decentralized telecommunication bureau personnel, and usually borrowed books from me to read, but now he could only give me the idea to go to the regimental hospital to see a doctor, so that I could perhaps get a few more days off. For me, who was recovering from a serious illness, it was difficult to walk to the regiment on foot. I had to reluctantly go out to work.
The platoon leader, who was a demobilized soldier, was not half as merciful. As soon as I resumed work with my weak body, I caught up with the ditch digging meeting, and he set the head quota for digging earth and assigned it to the squad. The daily volume of earthwork could not be completed until the work was finished. I gritted my teeth and persevered. Often, my legs were shaking and sweating, and I was extremely tired. I did not complain, I knew he would not care about my hardships. The slightest dissatisfaction would be reprimanded by him, said to be lazy and then also to the class line.
Fan Pingguang, who was in the same class, argued with him a couple of times, and he started to talk about Fan’s Family background. He said, “Now is a new society, if in the past, we poor peasants would have to work as cattle for your family.” I knew that after depriving us of the right to go to school, we were forced to change the course of our lives, and in the eyes of leaders like the platoon leader, we were objects of transformation.
Intense labor and inadequate food became the norm of life in the countryside. In winter, when the ditches were dug, the wagons that delivered meals were loaded with steamed buns, boiled potatoes, and rice Soup. Rice soup was indispensable, and it was essential for hydration. Although it is covered with cotton wool, to the ground is only a little warm air, but better than smashing ice to moisten the throat ah. Winter days are short, and it was already dark when we returned to the site. After dinner, Dada platoon to participate in the ditch digging meeting inside and outside the dormitory, excluding the baked cotton shoes, is a silent, labor intensity can be imagined.
Such a battle year after year, month after month, day after day. After the spring, summer, spring planting and summer harvest, winter and autumn water conservancy. Production relies on learning from Dazhai, engage in the war. With a large dial bombing, flooding the way to manage production. Soil salinity aggravated, increasingly sclerotic. Grain harvest is deteriorating, year after year. The milk of strength are made out, sold the strength of sweat, is not to see the harvest to improve and increase the benefits. The first three years, each person monthly allowance of 5 to 7 yuan, food is also getting worse, most of the time not enough to eat.
The instructor and company commander were active duty soldiers who earned officer’s wages and fired up their own cooking in their own homes. The company itself is in agriculture, food and oil near the solution, not much spending on food, but also do not have to be subject to a variety of ticket restrictions, the cost of living is very low, the quality of life are good. I have been to the instructor’s Home twice in 6 years, both because I went back to Beijing to visit my family over leave and was afraid of being disciplined. Carrying a cigarette, I stepped into the house with trepidation. I saw a few girls and a youngest boy eating around a small table, he sat alone and ate from a high place, sweeping the food out of the corner of my eye, much better than the intellectuals eat.
In the eyes of the instructor, the youth should suffer. His favorite thing was to give lectures and night checks at lights out, speaking for two hours at a time in the cold and dimly lit dining hall. He could say more than ten “wants” in a row. Yes, yes, yes! Want the soldiers to work hard, want everyone to transform their souls, want this, want that, as if never thought, under so many demands, should give a little something to the soldiers. I never heard him say that he should care for the soldiers.
The relationship between the cadre and the group began to be strained, and unless followed by cadres, the phenomenon of work without effort spread into the wind. Inefficient labor and all kinds of waste caused by blind command were widespread.
In the cold days of the ninth, two meals a day were not enough to eat, that is, idle stay would feel hungry. The company arranged for everyone to go to the field to level the ground. In the frozen water in the field, every day standing in the cold of -20 degrees, back and forth to pick up that bit of sunburned topsoil. This kind of work is purely for show.
I heard that in previous years when the farm, winter are idle to avoid the cold. But when it comes to the youth, the leaders believe that the cold at home is greedy to enjoy, and the cold days in the field is the revolutionary spirit. The wind in the ground in winter is cold and hard, drilling into the bones. By this cold wind blowing on the day, than in the hot sun a day more uncomfortable.
The youths were discontented and spouted: “Tie a rope around the waist, the top ten or so layers.” With the grass rope casually to the waist a wrap, clip the shovel, scattered to follow to work. Everyone was dark and thin, poorly dressed, and uninspired. So much so that in later years, the winter out flat, dry a few to find a back of the ditch sunny place enough sun to say. The squad leaders also turned a blind eye, closed an eye and pretended not to see.
I was so mixed up in the harsh winter, also tired, also hungry, also struggling. I eagerly await the arrival of spring, and every day I simmer, I secretly breathe a sigh of relief.
Being criticized in the movement
However, what followed was an even colder winter. Using the guiding ideology of “class struggle every year, every month, every day”, the instructor tried to catch the struggle, find the enemy, and fix the youth movement one after another. The company had been transformed from a school for reforming ideas into a battlefield for class struggle. The diary I keep records the state of life in those years, a few excerpts.
Friday, December 1, 1972.
I was given a five-meter-long drainage canal every day and dug nearly 12 square meters of soil. I heard that there will be a battle for the drains in the winter, so I will have to pick up the skin even if I am not exhausted. Starting today, I will take a short break and work for 6 and a half hours a day, study for 2 hours and eat 2 meals. In the morning, after breakfast, almost 10 o’clock, to the northwest of the barracks by the small woods to prepare soil, 3 days for the 10, 11 two classes for the brick kiln to prepare 2500 square meters of soil, pile up to 70 centimeters high. The work was not too tiring. But it was too cold and my face was frozen, so I went to Old Pei for Medicine. After the second meal, go to the auditorium to listen to the summary mobilization of the instructor Wu Lin rectification report, he spoke for nearly 3 hours, listening to me more tired than work, and cold feet. He talked about the mess, from the beginning of the year a dozen three anti to two memories of three checks, and now mobilization of the whole wind to catch the bad guys, what to study the forest documents, what Lushan on the letter, I listened to like a heavenly book.
Last year he also stood on this stage, talking about creating four good companies, striving to be five good soldiers, conveying the same instructions of Vice President Lin, the movement is really like turning pancakes ah. He said, “Whoever does not work well is a bad guy, who does not learn from Dazhai, who is a reactionary.” He was too angry, and anxiously read a paragraph (the higher food work conference documents). “This year than last year’s annual production of more than 200,000 pounds of grain, the regiment’s production of more than 1 million pounds, their own rations can not be self-sufficient, but also need to Wuyuan County to eat, other regiments are worse.” Heard all let the guys next year to do a good job, the batch of forest rectification campaign to contact the second company’s bad phenomenon to expose and rectify. I don’t understand: work hard for a year, hungry eyes blue, seven dollars a month, every day to catch the bad guys.
Sunday, December 10, 1972.
After a cold night, there were a few piles of coal powder and loess left in front of the door, so it was impossible to make a fire, and people started to visit their relatives and go away, so they did not care to look for coal firewood. At dawn, with Chen Shaomin to a company to stay a day. Old Wang, Old Wu, Ma Pingping chatted all day.
Content: We people have no future, abandoned. Now and to campaign, we must pay attention to words and deeds, find a port to avoid the wind, less talk and less walk, books do not pass around, hide the book, I heard that some companies are searching for books. Lao Wu said: he began to drum up semiconductors. Ma Ping said: 4 days after visiting relatives home. Back to the 2nd company, it was 9:00 pm, walking on the deep and shallow road, Lao Chen said: Today is the Apollo 17 moon landing. We both looked up, the sky full of black clouds, heaven and earth without light ……
Wednesday, January 3, 1973.
He can really talk, mobilized for more than 6 hours, only to take a break at noon, sitting back pain, and sleep at night, was called up in the middle of the night to patrol the field grain depot. The day before yesterday, the commissary was broken into, lost 5 bottles of canned goods, 3 pens.
Instructor Wu told the main content: now the company class struggle complex, the bad guys in trouble, some people create rumors that: eat 2 meals is to starve the soldiers, pretend to be sick not to work more and more people, some people often exchange things with the village folks, the regiment is checking our company people, there are clues, and people steal food. This time, the uncovering and criticism of the investigation does not catch the troops. In the afternoon, the new trends in the society, the five-seven cadre school assigned to the place does not go to work, there are also to 2 company scurrying. Mainly refers to the telegraph building of the devolved personnel. The corps is under the command of the central government to crack down on the Wang Yazhou elements who are unhappy with the education revolution. The Corps is going to crack down on the bad guys who are attacking the upcountry downcountry and are unhappy with the food, wage and employment policies. Activists who ask to join the party and the corps should approach the organization and expose these reactionary words and deeds ……
After the mobilization of the instructor, a campaign of two memories and three investigations, followed by a campaign of one fight and three counter-attacks, entered the climax of the uncovering and criticism in the second company.
The company’s first criticism conference was held after several weeks of the uncovering and reporting phase, and the target of the criticism was Beijing Zhiqing Xiao Cao. I was also assigned as the 6th speaker. Before the conference, the speakers had a small meeting, and Cao’s class leader introduced his crimes. Then each person contracted a different subject of criticism. I received one: to criticize his bourgeois ideology of not working hard enough and talking about food and clothes. The main facts were: once he had a meal of remembrance of hardship and he threw it away. Also he often pressed his pants out of the trouser line to wear. A few days after the criticism of Cao, our third platoon became the eye of the campaign. First, Lao Chen was confined for two days and told to explain the problem of exchanging things with the old folks. He was locked up in the vacant granary. I went to deliver quilts to him and pried open the flaps with a sickle. The instructor ordered me to be confined as well. I was locked up from 5:00 p.m. to 12:00 at night. I was released by the company commander who checked the night.
The next day, the instructor asked me, “Why did you pry open the baffle of the warehouse?” I replied, “Because I couldn’t get the quilts in.” After a pause, he suddenly changed the subject and asked me, “Where did you go to transmit the black book, and who told you to go?” This question scared me dumbfounded, bowed my head and did not know how to answer. I soon learned that a conference to criticize me would be held in the evening.
In the afternoon, I climbed up alone to a surveying iron frame on the edge of the Ugar River and stood 6 or 7 meters above the ground. I took the letter home from my brother and read it over and over again, thinking of the years of suffering I had left my relatives at the age of 16 to come to this remote frontier. I sent a quilt to my comrades, I read a few books to be humiliated by the station to be criticized, the ideal was crushed by reality, how to live such a day? Looking at the barracks in the distance is like a detention center at this time. My face full of tears wipe not finished, people are also frozen numb.
A few hours passed, the platoon leader found that I was missing and went around looking for me. It was Wang Guangze, a youth in the same platoon, who found me sitting on the iron shelf, and he hurriedly climbed up the shelf and pulled me down.
At the criticism meeting, I was made to stand for nearly two hours. Just like when I spoke to criticize Xiao Cao, the speakers were also representatives of each platoon. The content of the criticism was: opposing the study of Chairman Mao’s writings, destroying public property, and passing around pornographic books. My mind was blank, my head down, not daring to look at the speaker, and I could not hear clearly what the speaker had said. Shivering, cold sweat on the head, legs can not stand straight. Later, the first platoon of Ye Xiaobing stopped calling me by my name and gave me the nickname “Crooked”.
Within a month, two more company-wide conferences were held in succession to criticize Fan. Fan was a graduate of Beijing Yucai High School, the third oldest class. He was multi-talented, knowledgeable, and open-eyed. On the electric jukebox he brought, I heard for the first time Lina Yu’s violin concerto “Liang Zhu” borrowed Balzac’s “The Human Comedy” from him. I learned about Shakespeare and Shelley from him. He was like an enlightening teacher for me and many other young people in the lower grades. In those closed and ignorant times, I was lucky to meet him and be influenced by him.
Such a person would not be tolerated in the eyes of the company leaders. The main crimes listed for Fan were spreading bourgeois ideas, having small organizational activities, and interfering with the Dazhai movement. After all, Fan is a strong person inside, he was criticized for his calm performance, much stronger than me.
After another two months, the instructor announced the punishment of three people.
Little Fan: a major demerit. Stay in the Corps for a year to see what happens, sent to the back of the mountain coal mine. He later transferred to the Inner Mongolia rural insertion, went to university, became a professor, and now retired, still busy on the university campus tutoring students.
Lao Chen: a demerit penalty. He was a graduate of the oldest class of 47 high school. The first time I heard him talk about Hegel was in 1971. He talked about the law of negation and negation in depth. It was also when he chatted with me about his classmate, Old Ghost, son of Writer Yang Mo. Old Chen retired and indulged in his years of collecting ancient porcelain piles, happy and old.
Among the three, I have the lightest discipline, is a serious warning. But it is in the file to record a: there are opposed to learning Mao’s words and actions. It turned out that someone had written a whistleblower report, revealing that I had said: “It’s useless to read every day”. This record can affect one’s future even today.
When I returned to the city and joined the workforce, I could not carry this black pot again. I found his uncle, Officer He, through his classmate He, who was also a neighbor and a youth in the same company. In the spring of 1979, I took a personal letter from the officer and took a cadre from the personnel section of the factory to the chemical fiber factory in Hoh, and found the director. He wrote out a detailed supporting document stating that the matter had not been carefully verified, that I had not been consulted, and that my disciplinary action was a wrong decision. After all this trouble, the painful experience of the corps life was turned over.
In 1999, the second company had a gathering of comrades. During the meal, Instructor Wu raised a glass to me and Ye Xiaobing. He said, “Please forgive us for the past.” I looked at the aging instructor Wu, who was able to ask for forgiveness from the youth in his old age. I replied to him, “It’s over.”
After the party in 1999, Instructor Wu passed away.
After I returned to Beijing, I worked like a bee in the business for more than 30 years. The road to employment for the youths back in the city was not smooth, and I did my best to transfer six comrades to work in our factory. Some of them are the same company comrades who are facing layoffs, some of them are the sheepherders I met on the way to borrow books from the Corps, and some of them are the youth friends who used to quench their thirst with a dollar or so in Wuyuan County.
We sometimes talk about the experience from the Corps to the factory, deeply felt: we are in the hard years together through the trials and tribulations of the youth comrades, the later years should be more warm. Most people of our generation are living in the “gears of the times”, belonging to those who rarely capture the life experience and life state. Without us, without these unnamed people, the mosaic puzzle called history would not be completed.
October 18, 2017
Memories, Issue 288
Recent Comments