Dear Tongzhimen,
All that I have ever wanted was to see the people of the great nation of China thrive. I have dedicated every waking hour for the past several decades–as a young college student who took on this job as a reporter to immerse myself in revolutionary ideas and practice, as a migrant to Yenan, and as a member of a work team in the land reform campaign–to the maintenance of the revolutionary cause. As dedicated as I have always been, I must admit that despite my earnestness, there have been times when I have unwittingly begun to stray towards the Capitalist Road. When I witnessed firsthand some of the hardships that people have faced, including women being subjected to continual patriarchal oppression, middle peasants being mislabeled as landlords and struggled against during land reform, and villagers facing hunger and disease during the three years of natural disasters, my natural impulse was, of course, to look for reasons why things had gone astray. I did this out of a deep love for the people of China. However, I have since realized, after reading my copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong until its pages have become frayed and its margins are filled up with my notes just as Lei Fang does, that some of my reporting may have misattributed fault or blame to certain Party policies themselves. This is the gravest of errors, and I will spend the rest of my life repenting now that I have learned.
The Chinese Communist Party provides the answer to every last one of China’s woes. As Mao writes, “Without the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party, without the Chinese Communists as the mainstay of the Chinese people, China can never achieve independence and liberation, or industrialization and the modernization of her agriculture” [Mao, 10]. The hardships that some people have faced are all in service of the greater good: “Wherever there is struggle there is sacrifice, and death is a common occurrence. But we have the interests of the people and the sufferings of the great majority at heart, and when we die for the people it is a worthy death” [Mao, 82]. During my reporting on land reform, I noticed that some local conditions were not conducive to the Party’s grand narrative of struggle–not all villages had evil, bloodsucking tyrant, large landlords, for instance. I thought this was a weakness, but Mao explains in his writings that the whole of the nation must always be put first, “if the proposal is not feasible for the part but is feasible in the light of the situation as a whole, again the part must give way to the whole. This is what is meant by considering the situation as a whole” [Mao, 110]. I have let myself forget that “a revolution is not a dinner party,” let myself get wrapped up in Soviet Revisionism and the Capitalist Road [Mao, 14]. I am not afraid to acknowledge the mistakes that I have made, and I am dedicated to change. Let us move forth with the great revolution, and Long Live Chairman Mao!
Sincerely, Lei Ju