Lenin's Kisses (54 page)

At the meeting, Mao Zhi instructed the villagers to tell the visitors the truth, and report how much land they had twenty years earlier. She warned them not to exaggerate, because if they did they’d risk being branded rich landlords. At the same time, however, they also shouldn’t underreport how much they had, because if they did they would be classified as poor peasants. Every household included some blind and crippled members, and consequently if a family was classified as a poor-peasant household it would mean that another family would need to be classified as a landlord household, and the members of the first family would have that on their consciences for the rest of their lives.

The members of the work unit set up a square table in the middle of the village, where they recorded the amount of land and property that each household had owned before Liberation. Everyone gave reports orally, while the work team members wrote everything down. But after they finished recording everything, they discovered to their surprise that before Liberation, every household in the village of Liven had had more than ten
mu
of land and more grain than they could eat, and that if a household didn’t have an ox, it would share its plow, hoe, or metal-wheeled cart.

Someone asked a blind man whether his family had enough grain during that period.

The blind man answered, How could we eat it all?

On New Year’s, were you able to eat a white bun and half a bowl of dumplings?

Normally, we could eat whatever we wanted. Those were considered to be delicacies.

You are blind, so how did you manage to work the fields?

I would help other villagers build bamboo fences, and when they were done plowing and sowing their own fields they would come help me with mine.

They asked a cripple, How much land did your household own?

More than ten
mu
.

You are a cripple, so how did you work the fields?

We had an ox, which we would lend out to others to use, and after they finished working their own fields they would help us with ours.

Did you live well?

Better than now.

How well did you live?

We had more grain and vegetables than we could eat.

Finally, they loudly asked a deaf man, Given that your family had so much land, did you hire farmhands to help you?

No, we didn’t.

Then how did you work all that land?

Our household didn’t have an ox, but we did have a cart that our neighbors would often use. After the neighbors finished working their own fields they would come help us with ours.

In the end, it proved impossible to divide the villagers into poor peasants, rich peasants, and landlords. They all had more land than they could manage, and every family had more grain than they could eat. Everyone asked others to help them out, while at the same time helping their neighbors. During that period, a cripple might use a blind man’s legs, a deaf man might use a mute’s ears, and a mute might use a deaf man’s mouth. The entire village behaved like a large family—peaceful and prosperous, and with no struggles or conflicts. In the end, the visitors issued each family a black booklet the size of a man’s fist. On the cover was written the name of the head of household, and inside there were just two pages—on one there was a quote from Chairman Mao, and on the other there was a passage asking you to be law-abiding and serve the people.

The visitors left Liven and, after returning to the commune, sent Liven a notice instructing all the villagers to line up at the head of the village every two weeks and to then have one household send someone—whether blind, crippled, or deaf and mute—to the commune with that black booklet. While there, the villager had to wear a tall dunce hat and parade through the streets, or else appear on stage during a rally and allow people to struggle against him.

The first villager sent was asked: Are your family landlords?

No.

Are they rich peasants?

No.

If you are neither a landlord nor a rich peasant, then why do you have a black booklet?

Several people slapped the villager in the face and kicked him in the groin, whereupon the villager grunted and knelt down on the stage in front of the hundreds or even thousands of people who had come to attend the meeting.

He was asked, What have you stolen?

I haven’t stolen anything. The people of Liven have never been thieves.

Even when you didn’t have enough to eat, you didn’t steal any sorghum or sweet potatoes?

If it hadn’t been for all the wholers in the county coming to the village to steal our grain over the past several years, every household would have had enough grain saved up to last a decade or more.

The people then beat the villager some more, saying, Regardless of whether someone is disabled or not, a bad person is still a bad person. After all, just look at how much grain this household has stored up. The people asked for their grain back, but the villager replied that other people had already come to his house to confiscate it. They therefore beat him even more severely than before, their fists raining down on his nose, mouth, and eyes, and their clubs striking his head and legs. When they punched his nose, it started bleeding, and when they hit his mouth, his teeth were knocked loose. They hit his face so hard that they left him with a huge black eye, and struck his legs so violently that he would have been left a cripple if he hadn’t already been one.

When he returned home half a month later to recuperate, it was someone else’s turn to take that black booklet and endure this black crime and black disaster. The person who returned home to recover from his wounds would run into Mao Zhi in the village, and stare furiously at her. When he saw her household’s pigs, he viciously kicked them, and when he saw her household’s chickens, he would throw a rock at them. When he saw the squat melons
¹
and beans she and her family had planted behind their house, he would pull them and throw them to the ground, and then stomp on them, grinding them into paste, which he would use to feed his own pigs and goats.

One morning when Mao Zhi got out of bed, she saw that her family’s pig, which they had raised from when it was a mere piglet, had been poisoned and was lying dead on the floor of the pigsty. The chicken that they had for laying fresh eggs had eaten some of the poisoned pig’s slop and was also lying dead in the courtyard. Mao Zhi stared in shock, then opened the courtyard gate and saw that all of the villagers—the ones who had been sent to the commune to be struggled against as well as those who had not—were standing at the door to her house. Each of them was holding a black booklet, and when they saw her, they stared at her coldly. Then, someone suddenly spit at her and hit her with the black booklet, saying that she was the one who had instructed them to tell the truth to the higher-ups, after which all the families in the village had been deemed to be landlords and rich peasants, and had to be struggled against. They said, Go look, yesterday Blind Man Lin went into town and was beaten to death. People asked him if he was a landlord or a rich peasant, and he replied, I am neither a landlord nor a rich peasant. Then, they beat him over the head with a stick, and before they had finished venting their anger, he died right there on stage.

Mao Zhi immediately hurried over to Blind Man Lin’s house, where she found that Lin had, in fact, passed away. His corpse was laid out on a door plank, and his family was standing around it weeping inconsolably.

She didn’t say anything else.

Mao Zhi returned to her house, where she picked up a black booklet that was lying on the ground in front of her door. Then, leaning on her crutch, she proceeded to the Boshuzi commune. It was almost dark by the time she arrived at the revolutionary committee. She found one of the people who had distributed the black booklets to the residents of Liven, and knelt down before him and asked, How is it possible for everyone in Liven to be a landlord? How can there possibly be a village in which every single family is a landlord?

The revolutionary replied, It is also impossible for there to be a village in which there are no landlords.

Mao Zhi said, I’ll tell you the truth. Before Liberation, my family had several dozen
mu
of land, together with several long- and short-term hired hands. Our entire family enjoyed a life in which they only had to reach out to get their clothes, and open their mouths to get food. You should classify my family as landlords.

The revolutionary stared at her in delight. He asked her many questions, then took the black booklet she was holding and returned to the office to exchange it for a red one. The red booklets were the same size as the black ones, and also had only a few pages. The cover was printed with the names of the heads of household of each family in Liven, while inside one page was printed with Chairman Mao’s sayings while the other contained a statement regarding the nation’s policies and future path. The revolutionary handed her a pile of red booklets, saying, You should go now. We haven’t mistreated the people of Liven. According to the land reform policies and ratios specified in the land redistribution program, before Liberation Liven must have had at least one landlord and at least one rich peasant. Therefore, now that we have identified you as a landlord, we are set. You should go back to the village tonight, and return tomorrow with your bedding. The following day, the commune will host a mass rally, at which everyone must struggle against you.

Mao Zhi returned to Liven that night and distributed the red booklets to every household in the village, explaining that they were indicators of revolutionary status. She explained that everyone was classified as a poor lower-middle peasant, and the village had only one landlord, which was her. She said that afterward, if the village had anything that needed to be done by a landlord or a rich peasant, she would take responsibility for it. After she finished distributing the red booklets, she collected her bags and bedding, then cooked a pot of food and steamed some buns for her daughter Jumei, who was already nine years old. After she fed Jumei and put her back to bed, Mao Zhi took the village’s only black booklet and, carrying her bedding, returned to the commune to receive the black crime.

The sorghum was already ripe, and its sweet fragrance enveloped the entire mountain region. Moonlight streamed over the village, and as Mao Zhi was about to leave for the commune, the residents of Liven all came out to see her off. They said, Go on, we’ll look after Jumei while you are away. They said, Go on, even revolutionaries are good, honest people, and if they tell you to say something, you should just say it. That way, they won’t viciously hit and kick you.

She said, You should all go back inside. While I’m away, separate the sorghum. Everyone should continue doing what should be done. After you have separated the sorghum, you should plow the fields, and after plowing the fields you should quickly sow the wheat.

Then she left.

The mass rally the next day was held along the riverbank on the east end of Boshuzi Street. This area had previously been full of running water, but several days earlier the commune had altered the course of the river so that the sandy bottom could be used as a meeting place. The main attraction of the rally was the public trial of a counterrevolutionary who, after teaching school for only three days, was writing the phrase
Long Live Chairman Mao
on the blackboard when he accidentally wrote
Long Live Shi Jingshan
instead. “Shi Jingshan” was the teacher’s own adult name, and his infant name was Shi Heidou. Before he had an adult name, he’d had only a child’s name, but after being appointed as a teacher he felt that the name “Heidou,” or “black bean,” was not very appropriate, and therefore, inspired by the revolutionary site of Mount Jinggang, gave himself the name “Shi Jingshan” instead. He had intended to tell his students that his name was Shi Jingshan, but as he was writing his name on the blackboard he instead accidentally wrote the phrase
Long Live Shi Jingshan.

Needless to say, in doing so he committed a grievous transgression, and when the revolutionaries seized him, he immediately confessed.

The revolutionary asked, Do you know what crime you have committed?

I do.

What crime?

I wrote “Long Live Shi Jingshan” on the blackboard.

The revolutionary pounded the table and said, You must not utter the words that you wrote on the blackboard. Each time you repeat them, you are committing another crime.

Then what should I say?

You should tell the truth, and if you have something to say, then say it.