Jung Chang - Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China

When they finished their term of formal surveillance, they would join people like Yu-lin in a looser category of 'quiet' surveillance. One common form of this was the 'sandwich' being kept under close watch by two neighbors who had been specifically assigned this task, often called 'two reds sandwiching a black." Of course, other neighbors, through the residents' committees, were also entitled and encouraged to report and inform on the unreliable 'black." The 'people's justice' was watertight, and was a central instrument of rule because it enlisted so many citizens in active collusion with the state.

Zhu-ge, the scholarly looking intelligence officer who had married Miss Tanaka, my mother's Japanese teacher, was sentenced to forced labor for life and exiled to a remote border area (along with many former Kuomintang officials, he was released in an amnesty in 1959). His wife was sent back to Japan. As in the Soviet Union, almost all of those sentenced to detention did not go to prison but into labor camps, often working in dangerous jobs or highly polluted areas.

Some important Kuomintang figures, including intelligence men, went unpunished. The academic supervisor at my mother's school had been district secretary of the Kuomintang, but there was evidence that he had helped to save the lives of many Communists and Communist sympathizers, including my mother, so he was spared.

The headmistress and two teachers who had worked for intelligence managed to hide, and eventually escaped to Taiwan. So did Yao-han, the political supervisor who had been responsible for my mother's arrest.

The Communists also spared big shots like the 'last emperor," Pu Yi, and top generals because they were 'useful." Mao's stated policy was: "We kill small Chiang Kaiosheks. We don't kill big Chiang Kai-she ks Keeping people like Pu Yi alive, he reasoned, would 'be well received abroad." No one could complain openly about this policy, but it was a cause of much discontent in private.

It was a time of great anxiety for my mother's family.

Her uncle Yu-lin and her aunt Lan, whose fate was hitched inexorably to that of her husband, "Loyalty," were in a state of acute uncertainty about their futures, and suffering ostracism. But the Women's Federation ordered my mother to write one self-criticism after another, as her grief indicated she had 'a soft spot for the Kuomintang."

She was also sniped at for visiting a prisoner, Hui-ge, without asking for permission from the Federation first.

Nobody had told her she was supposed to do this. The Federation said that they had not stopped her before because they made allowances for someone who was 'new to the revolution'; they were waiting to see how long it would take her to reach her own sense of discipline and ask the Party for instructions.

"But what are the things for which I need to apply for instructions?" she asked.

"Anything," was the answer. The need to obtain authorization for an unspecified 'anything' was to become a fundamental element in Chinese Communist rule. It also meant that people learned not to take any action on their own initiative.

My mother became ostracized within the Federation, which was her whole world. There were whispers that she had been used by Hui-ge to help him prepare for a comeback.

"What a mess she got herself into," exclaimed the women, 'all because she was "loose." Look at all these involvements with men! And what kind of men!" My mother felt surrounded by accusing fingers, and that the people who were supposed to be her comrades in a glorious new and liberating movement were questioning her character and her commitment, for which she had risked her life.

She was even criticized for having left the meeting of the Women's Federation to go and get married a sin termed 'putting love first." My mother said that the city chief had asked her to go. To this the chairwoman retorted: "But it was up to you to show your correct attitude by putting the meeting first."

Just eighteen, recently married, and full of hope for a new life, my mother felt miserably confused and isolated.

She had always trusted her own strong sense of right and wrong, but this now seemed to be in conflict with the views of her 'cause' and, often, the judgment of her husband, whom she loved. She began to doubt herself for the first time.

She did not blame the Party, or the revolution. Nor could she blame the women in the Federation, because they were her comrades and seemed to be the voice of the Party. Her resentment turned against my father. She felt that his loyalty was not primarily to her and that he always seemed to side with his comrades against her. She understood that it might be difficult for him to express his support in public, but she wanted it in private and she did not get it. From the very beginning of their marriage, there was a fundamental difference between my parents. My father's devotion to communism was absolute: he felt he had to speak the same language in private, even to his wife, that he did in public. My mother was much more flexible; her commitment was tempered by both reason and emotion. She gave a space to the private; my father did not.

My mother was finding Jinzhou unbearable. She told my father she wanted to leave, right away. He agreed, in spite of the fact that he was just about to receive a promotion. He applied to the City Party Committee for a transfer, giving as the reason that he wanted to go back to his hometown, Yibin. The Committee was surprised, as he had just told them this was exactly what he did not want to do. Throughout Chinese history, it had been a rule that officials were stationed away from their hometowns to avoid problems of nepotism.

In the summer of 1949 the Communists were advancing southward with unstoppable momentum: they had captured Chiang Kai-shek's capital, Nanjing, and seemed certain to reach Sichuan soon. Their experience in Manchuria had shown them that they badly needed administrators who were local and loyal.

The Party endorsed my father's transfer. Two months after their marriage and less than one year after Liberation they were being driven out of my mother's hometown by gossip and spite. My mother's joy at Liberation had turned to an anxious melancholy. Under the Kuomintang she had been able to discharge her tension in action and it had been easy to feel she was doing the right thing, which gave her courage. Now she just felt in the wrong all the time. When she tried to talk it over with my father he would tell her that becoming a Communist was an agonizing process. That was the way it had to be.

Just before my parents left Jinzhou, my mother was granted provisional membership in the Party, thanks to the deputy mayor who oversaw the Women's Federation, who argued that she needed it because she was going to a new place.

The decision meant she could become a full member in one year's time, if she was deemed to have proved herself worthy.

My parents were to join a group of over a hundred people traveling to the southwest, most of them to Sichuan.

The bulk of the group were men, Communist officials from the southwest. The few women were Manchurians who had married Sichuanese. For the journey they were organized into units and given green army uniforms. The civil war was still raging in their path.

On 27 July 1949 my grandmother, Dr. Xia, and my mother's closest friends, most of whom were under suspicion from the Communists, came to the station to see them off. As they stood on the platform saying goodbye, my mother felt torn by contradictory feelings. With one part of her heart she felt like a bird which was now going to burst out of its cage and fly to the sky. With the other part she wondered when or if- she would ever see these people she loved, particularly her mother, again. The journey was fraught with danger, and Sichuan was still in the hands of the Kuomintang. It was also 1,000 miles away, inconceivably far, and she had no idea if she would ever be able to get back to Jinzhou. She felt an overwhelming desire to cry, but she held back her tears because she did not want to make her mother sadder than she already was.