Jung Chang - Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China

On 25 October 1971, Specs came to see me in Deyang with a dynamite piece of news: Lin Biao had been killed.

Specs had been officially told in his factory that Lin had attempted to assassinate Mao and that, having failed, he had tried to flee to the Soviet Union, and his plane had crashed in Mongolia.

Lin Biao's death was shrouded in mystery. It was linked with the downfall of Chen Boda a year before. Mao grew suspicious of both of them when they went too far with their over-the-top deification of him, which he suspected was part of a scheme to kick him upstairs to abstract glory and deprive him of earthly power. Mao particularly smelled a rat with Lin Biao, his chosen successor, who was known i l for 'never letting the Little Red Book leave his hand, nor "Long live Mao!" leave his lips," as a later rhyme put it.

Mao decided that Lin, being next in line to the throne, was up to no good. Either Mao or Lin, or both, took action to save their own power and life.

My village was given the official version of events by the commune soon afterward. The news meant nothing to the peasants. They hardly even knew Lin's name, but I received the news with blinding joy. Not having been able to challenge Mao in my mind, I blamed Lin for the Cultural Revolution. The evident rift between him and Mao meant, I thought, that Mao had repudiated the Cultural Revolution, and would put an end to all the misery, and destruction. The demise of Lin in a way reaffirmed my faith in Mao. Many people shared my optimism because there were signs that the Cultural Revolution was going to be reversed. Almost immediately some capitalist-roaders started to be rehabilitated and released from the camps.

My father was told the news about Lin in mid November At once, the occasional smile appeared on the faces of some Rebels. At the meetings, he was asked to sit down, which was unprecedented, and 'expose Yeh Chun' – Mme Lin Biao, who had been a colleague of his in Yan'an in the early 1940s. My father said nothing.

But although his colleagues were being rehabilitated, and leaving the camp in droves, my father was told by the camp commandant: "Don't you assume you can get off the hook now." His offense against Mao was considered too serious.

His health had been deteriorating under the combination of intolerable mental and physical pressure, with years of brutal beatings followed by hard physical labor under atrocious conditions. For nearly five years he had been taking large doses of tranquilizers in order to keep himself under control. Sometimes he consumed up to twenty times the normal dose, and this had worn out his system. He felt crippling pains somewhere in his body all the time; he began to cough blood, and was frequently short of breath, accompanied by severe dizzy spells. At the age of fifty, he looked like a seventy-year-old. The doctors in the camp always greeted him with cold faces and impatient prescriptions of more tranquilizers; they refused to give him a checkup, or even to hear him out. And each trip to the clinic would be followed by a barked lecture from some of the Rebels: "Don't imagine you can get away with faking illness!"

Jin-ming was in the camp at the end of 1971. He was so worried about Father that he stayed on until the spring of 1972. Then he got a letter from his production team ordering him to return immediately, or he would not be allocated any food at harvest time. The day he was leaving, my father went with him to the train a railway line had just come to Miyi because of the strategic industries relocated to Xichang. During the long walk, they were both silent. Then Father had a sudden attack of breathlessness and Jin-ming had to help him sit down by the side of the road. For a long time Father struggled to catch his breath.

Then Jin-ming heard him sigh deeply and say, "It looks as though I probably don't have long to live. Life seems to be a dream." Jin-ming had never heard him talk about death.

Startled, he tried to comfort him. But Father said slowly, "I ask myself whether I am afraid of death. I don't think I am. My life as it is now is worse. And it looks as if there is not going to be any ending. Sometimes I feel weak: I stand by Tranquillity River and think, Just one leap and I can get it over with. Then I tell myself I must not. If I die without being cleared, there will be no end of trouble for all of you… I have been thinking a lot lately. I had a hard childhood, and society was full of injustice. It was for a fair society that I joined the Communists. I've tried my best through the years. But what good has it done for the people? As for myself, why is it that in the end I have come to be the ruin of my family? People who believe in retribution say that to end badly you must have something on your conscience. I have been thinking hard about the things I've done in my life. I have given orders to execute some people…"

Father went on to tell Jin-ming about the death sentences he had signed, the names and stories of the e-ba ('ferocious despots') in the land reform in Chaoyang, and the bandit chiefs in Yibin.

"But these people had done so much evil that God himself would have had them killed.

What, then, have I done wrong to deserve all this?"

After a long pause, Father said, "If I die like this, don't believe in the Communist Party anymore."

It was with deaths, love, torment, and respite that 1969, 1970, and 1971 passed. In Miyi, the dry and rainy seasons followed hard on each other's heels. On Buffalo Boy Flatland the moon waxed and waned, the wind roared and hushed, the wolves howled and fell silent. In the medicinal garden in Deyang, the herbs flowered once, and then again and again. I rushed between my parents' camps, my aunt's deathbed, and my village. I spread manure in the paddy fields and composed poems to water lilies.

My mother was at home in Chengdu when she heard of Lin Biao's demise. She was rehabilitated in November 1971 and told that she did not have to return to her camp.

But although she received her full salary, she was not given back her old job, which had been filled by someone else.

Her department in the Eastern District now had no fewer than seven directors the existing members of the Revolutionary Committees and the newly rehabilitated officials who had just returned from the camp. Poor health was one reason Mother did not go back to work, but the most important reason was that my father had not been rehabilitated, unlike most capitalist-roaders.

Mao had sanctioned the mass rehabilitation not because he had at last come to his senses, but because, with the death of Lin Biao and the inevitable purge of his men, Mao had lost the hand with which he had controlled the army. He had removed and alienated virtually all the other marshals, who opposed the Cultural Revolution, and had had to rely almost solely on Lin. He had put his wife, relatives, and stars of the Cultural Revolution in important army posts, but these people had no military record, and therefore received no allegiance from the army. With Lin gone, Mao had to turn to those purged leaders who still commanded the loyalty of the army, including Deng Xiaoping, who was soon to reemerge. The first concession Mao had to make was to bring back most of the denounced officials.

Mao also knew that his power depended on a functioning economy. His Revolutionary Committees were hopelessly divided and second-rate, and could not get the country moving. He had no choice but to turn to the old, disgraced officials again.

My father was still in Miyi, but the part of his salary which had been held back since June 1968 was returned to him, and we suddenly found ourselves with what seemed to us an astronomical sum in the bank. Our personal belongings that had been taken away by the Rebels in the house raids were all returned, the only exception being two bottles of mao-tai, the most sought-after liquor in China.