caught off guard, but he also involuntarily raised his arm. The slogan-shouting wasn't uniform, and the voice of the senior cadre boomed through the amplifier even more loudly and immediately drowned out any stragglers.
'I support my comrades in opening fire on all Ox Demons and Snake Spirits! Now, please note that I say all Ox Demons and Snake Spirits, all of those reactionary scoundrels skulking in dark corners waiting to jump out and act brazenly as soon as the climate is right.
Chairman Mao put it well: 'Those reactionaries simply aren't going to be overthrown unless you strike them down!''
At this, all around, people stood up and, with raised fists, began shouting loudly.
'Down with all Ox Demons and Snake Spirits!'
'Long live Chairman Mao!'
'Long live!'
'Long, long live!'
This time, the slogans rose and subsided in waves, which became more uniform and forceful. After this had been repeated a few times, the whole gathering was shouting uniformly, like an all-engulfing wave, like an unstoppable tide that instilled terror in people's hearts. He no longer dared to look around and, for the first time, perceived that these familiar slogans possessed a menacing power. Chairman Mao was not far away in Heaven, was not an idol that could be stored away, Chairman Mao had supreme power. He had to keep up with the shouting and he had to shout clearly and, moreover, absolutely without any hesitation.
'I just don't believe it! So many intellectuals have been crammed into this workplace of yours; can everyone assembled here really be so revolutionary? I'm not saying it's not good to have knowledge, I didn't say that. I'm talking about those two-faced counterrevolutionaries. In their writings, they use our revolutionary slogans, they put up the red flag to oppose the red flag, they say one thing but mean something else! I reckon, they would not have the guts to openly jump out to present themselves as counterrevolutionaries. Are there any such people at this gathering? Would any of you dare to stand up and say you oppose the Communist Party, oppose Mao Zedong Thought, and oppose Socialism? If there is, I invite you to come onto the dais to speak!'
The gathering fell silent, breathing virtually stopped, and the air congealed. If someone had dropped a needle, it would have been heard.
'But it is after all the world of the dictatorship of the proletariat! So they are forced to assume a disguise, take up our revolutionary slogans, and, with a shake, transform themselves. Wasn't I just now talking about groping for fish in muddy waters? While we are engaged in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, they are out there fanning up evil winds and lighting malicious fires, colluding with people in high positions and jumping down to work on the people below. They are intent on wrecking every level of our Party in the workplace and are making out that we are a sinister gang. They are wicked and crafty! Comrades, you must be vigilant! Look around yourselves carefully and haul out all those enemies, scheming careerists, and despicable worms inside and outside the Party who have infiltrated our ranks!'
After the senior cadre departed, everyone quietly filed out, nobody daring to look at anyone else for fear of showing the terror in one's heart. But, back at the offices where all the lights were on, people came face to face with one another and everyone went through hurdles of confession and remorse. People all requested individual sessions, at which everyone, sobbing and weeping, reported their misdeeds to the Party. People were easily manipulated. They were softer than dough when they wanted to make themselves pure, although they were vicious when it came to exposing others. Around midnight, people were most vulnerable, wanting the comfort of their partner in bed, and it was at this particular time that the interrogations and confessions took place.
Some hours earlier, at the after-work political study session, everyone had a copy of Mao's Selected Works on the desk as they browsed through the newspapers or pretended to be doing something to fill in the two hours before they would go home, laughing and joking.
Revolution was seething in the upper echelons of the Party but hadn't yet fallen onto the heads of the masses. When the person from the political department came into the office to tell people to stay for the all-staff meeting, it was already eight o'clock at night.
Another two hours were wasted, and still there was no sign of people being assembled. Old Liu, the department chief, kept tamping more tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, and someone asked him how many more pipes he'd need to smoke. Old Liu smiled without replying, but it could be seen that he was deeply worried. Old Liu was normally not officious, and the fact that he had put up a poster about the Party committee had endeared him to everyone. However, when someone said you couldn't go wrong if you followed Old Liu, he immediately raised his pipe and corrected him, 'We must follow Chairman Mao!' Everyone laughed. Right until then, it seemed that no one wanted this class struggle to erupt among colleagues in the same office. Furthermore, Old Liu was an old Party member from the time of the War of Resistance against Japan, and this was reflected in his salary and rank. And as for that curved leather chair with armrests in his department chief's office, not just anyone was entitled to it. His room that smelled of his pipe tobacco with its chocolate aroma still had a relaxed feeling.
After midnight the political cadres and the staid, expressionless Party secretaries separately ensconced themselves in their own offices. One after another, people went through the cycle of confession, remorse, crying if they wanted to, and then entered the phase of informing on one another. Big Sister Huang, in charge of receiving and dispatching documents, had her turn to speak ahead of him.
Her husband, who had worked for the Nationalist Government, had abandoned her to run off with his mistress to Taiwan. The old woman said that the Party had given her a new life and, whimpering uncontrollably, took out her handkerchief to dry her eyes and nose. She was so frightened she was crying. He did not cry, but only he knew that sweat was running down his back.
The year he started university, when he was just seventeen and virtually still a child, he attended a struggle session against rightist senior students. It was in a lecture room with stairs, and new students had to sit on the floor at the front for their initiation in political education. As a name was called, the rightist student stood up, walked to the bottom of the stairs, and, head bowed, faced everyone. Sweat on the forehead and nose, tears and mucus splashing on the floor, the student would be absolutely wretched, just like a dog floundering in water. Those who came forward were fellow students, and, one by one, they went through the emotional routine of listing their anti-Party crimes. Some time later, these rightist students who never said anything and always sat at a separate table, leaving as soon as they had eaten, disappeared from the big dining hall. No one ever mentioned them again. It was as if they had never existed.
It was not until after he graduated that he heard the expression reform through labor,' there seemed to have been a taboo on any mention of it. He didn't know that his father had been investigated and sent to a reform- through-labor farm, he had only heard a few vague remarks about it from his mother. He had already left home and was in Beijing studying at university, and his mother had written about it in a letter, but as 'labor training.' When he returned home during summer vacation a year later, his father had returned from the farm and had been reinstated in his job but he had been smeared as a rightist. His parents kept all this from him and it was not until the Cultural Revolution, when he asked his father, that he found out that he had been implicated because of his old revolutionary maternal uncle. His father's workplace had a much higher percentage of rightists than the quota, so his father was not branded a rightist, instead he only had a salary cut and a record made in his file. His father's problem was that he had written a hundred-character piece on the news blackboard where he 'spoke freely' in response to the Party's call for people to freely voice their views to help the Party improve people's work habits. At the time his father did not know that this was called 'luring snakes out of their lairs.'
What had happened to his father nine years earlier also happened to him. He fell into the same trap. Indeed, all he had done was put his signature on a poster. It had on it Chairman Mao's call-all of
YOU MUST CONCERN YOURSELVES WITH THE IMPORTANT AFFAIRS
of the nation-in bold-type print from the People's Daily. When he was on his way to work, someone was putting up the poster in the big hall downstairs and was soliciting signatures, so he took up a pen and signed his name. He was unaware of the motives of this anti-Party poster nor of the political motives of the person who had written it. He couldn't work it out, but he had to acknowledge that it was aimed at the Party Center. By signing his name, he lost his bearings as well as a class standpoint. Actually, he had no idea what class he belonged to-after all, he couldn't count as a member of the proletariat-and so he didn't have a clear class standpoint. If he didn't sign this poster then he would have signed a similar poster. He confessed to this. He had, without doubt, committed a political error and from that time on, it was on his file. His personal history was no longer clean.
Prior to that he had truly never thought to oppose the Party. He had no need to oppose anyone and simply
