Author: Halle Casey (Cui Shuli)

Dear Tongzhimen, 

It has been many years since I started reporting to you as a young student, and I have come to give my final report on our Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four, and the effect of their horrid crimes in the past few years. Although our great Chairman Mao intended for the urban youth, who were in desperate need of revolutionary education, to become one with the peasantry and end our cultural divide, it did not come to fruition. This is by no fault of his own, of course. Instead, deep-seated cultural divides and fervent chaos launched by Jiang Qing and others are to blame. 

Years ago, during one of my family’s daily Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong readings, I recall being struck by this quote: “How should we judge whether a youth is a revolutionary? How can we tell? There can only be one criterion, namely, whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants and does so in practice. If he is willing to do so and actually does so, he is a revolutionary; otherwise he is a non-revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary.” Back then, I was eager to support Mao’s decision in 1968 to send our youth to the countryside to do what I did all those years ago and integrate themselves into our revolutionary mindset. Since then, I have had the fortune to speak to those who experienced this journey, such as fellow journalist Liang Heng, who has illustrated the reality of the Cultural Revolution that I did not experience in his memoir, soon to be released. 

As an old woman in the city of Beijing, I was lucky to be relatively unaffected by the campaign. Sure, my neighbors, sister-in-law, and nephew were accused of being counter-revolutionary and sent to the countryside, but I was left unscathed. Meeting with Liang Heng was a huge wake-up call into the shortcomings of the campaign. He was initially untrusting of me due to my lack of struggle during the last decade, but he soon told me about his experiences and let me read his memoir pre-release anyway. During the revolution, Liang Heng and his father were split up from their family, struggled against, and were sent to live and learn from the peasants due to their counter-revolutionary ideals. Right off the bat, Liang described to me the obvious divide between the peasantry and the unwelcomed outsiders. As a child, he was spit on, called a “stinking intellectual’s son,” and his new peers were told “to avoid becoming friends with us at all costs, lest we contaminate them with our “bad thought.” Growing up, this same divide was constantly present in Liang’s life. He couldn’t play basketball for the country, court the girl he liked, or support his family because of their counter-revolutionary intellectual background and their time spent in the countryside. 

It is sad to see this anti-intellectualism is still around decades after I experienced it in Yenan. I believe this deep-rooted anti-intellectual mindset that has been cultivated in China is one of the main catalysts to the failure of the Cultural Revolution, specifically its goal to bridge the gap between peasant and urban populations. It seems as if Liang Heng is one of millions of comrades who have been negatively affected by the destructive overly-political culture of the sixties. Luckily, times are changing, and hopefully for the better this time. Farewell to my loyal readers. 

Your Devoted Comrade,

Cui Shuli

My comrades, I come to you today to right my wrongs and offer my apologies for not following the teachings of our great Chairman Mao to the best of my ability. It is my job as a reporter to give factual and credible information that supports the health of our Party and that of China. However, at times, I have not done my great duty and have instead disparaged the campaigns while only thinking of myself and my family. Mao himself has said, “Taught by mistakes and setbacks, we…become wiser and handle our affairs better. It is hard for any political party or person to avoid mistakes, but we should make as few as possible. Once a mistake is made, we should correct it, and the more quickly and thoroughly the better. [LBR 126]. Now is my time to correct my mistakes. 

It is sad to say I have not been a founding believer of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1950, I doubted Marxist teachings and the goals of the Communist Party. Although I was present in Yenan, I was simply reporting rather than spreading the words of Mao in the party’s time of need against the Japanese imperialists and the Nationalist Party. Furthermore, I was firm in my criticism of the Agrarian Reform Acts of 1950 and did not agree with the mass-line teachings. Mao has repeated time and time that “The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.” [LBR 62]. However, I saw the sexual violence and corruption while I was on village work teams and started to doubt the campaigns, fearing the same happening to my family and my village. I was wrong to think these actions of a few reflected the teachings and values of the many within the Party. I have since realized this mistake and dedicated my career to spreading the benefits of the CCP’s campaigns rather than sitting worrying about my well-being and that of my family. I understand not to “divorce myself from the masses” because the end goal will be the success of China through the teachings of the Communist Party [LBR 84].    

 

  

Dear Tongzhimen, 

Once again, my correspondence is infrequent, but take it as a sign of the prosperity of the People’s Republic of China and the Party! The last you heard from me, I moved back to my beloved city of Beijing, where I started writing all those years ago. It is almost unbelievable to imagine the immense change our great nation has gone through in the past thirty years. Of course, anyone can see that the last three years have been hard, for some more than others. I have immense faith in the Party, especially Chairman Mao, and their efforts to get everything back on track! However, society will forever be changed if my observations in the countryside are accurate. 

I truly believe the worst is behind us. Unfortunately, the combination of natural disasters and Mao’s great campaigns, such as collectivization, the Four Pests, and the mass steel melting movements in the countryside, have had detrimental effects on the health and wellness of our country and people. Until 1959, I had no idea anything was wrong until millions of people rushed into Beijing looking for food. This caused me immense worry. As you know, my family is located in the countryside in Anyang. I was eager to return home and investigate other areas to see why this mass exodus was occurring. What I found in 1959 was horrific. All around me, there were almost too many problems to report on in my village, and others I passed through on my way back to Beijing to write this. 

First, I noticed the lack of housing and basic necessities. In 1958, my village, like many others, collectivized all private property, and communal housing was developed. However, many were left homeless and left to survive in the elements if they were not fit for agricultural production in the eyes of the greedy cadres who do not reflect the values of our beloved Party. When I arrived, I learned my elderly father was cast out of the village commune in 1958 by the cadres due to his inability to work. There was no reason to do this because I have been told the Henan province is now completely infertile and unworkable due to over-irrigation. After visiting other villages, I heard many of the same cruel and tragic tales. Furthermore, many families lack clothing, blankets, and other essentials. I have witnessed women working fields with no tops and orphans running around entirely naked. Much of the melted steel that these people donated for the backyard steel furnace campaign has been rendered useless. Just years earlier, I was teaching these same cadres and communes how to implement policies that have so deeply strained the countryside. The Great Leap Forward did not aim to cause these issues, and I believe our great Chairman Mao had no knowledge that these greedy cadres and a lack of revolutionary spirit would convolute his policies. Little did I know that homelessness was the least pressing problem I would soon find.

I quickly came to understand why so many peasants were rushing into urban areas, a total lack of food, and utter inhumanity. Unfortunately, it seems repeated years of bad weather and the quick transitions to CCP collectivization campaigns have rendered the countryside with barely enough grain to feed themselves, let alone export it to the cities and debt-collecting countries such as the USSR. This is not because Mao is ignoring their plight. I have visited numerous towns in which the cadres over-report their grain production to placate the leaders with false numbers that leave their village with no leftover grain and even more problems. In every village I went to, there were starved bodies piling up, some even being eaten for food or dug up and boiled for ineffective fertilizer. The makeup of our nation will forever be changed as children, and the elderly have become the most likely to die in these horrible times. Besides the constant visage of death, there is a health crisis among the living. In the countryside and in the cities, the healthcare system has collapsed. People are suffering en masse from edema, babies are developing rickets, and women have a multitude of gynecological problems, including infertility! My sister-in-law can no longer produce milk for her 2-week-old baby. These are dire times indeed.

Fortunately, the Party seems to be making moves towards recovery after these three years of struggle. No thanks are needed to our former ally, the USSR, who have shown they would rather exacerbate our plight than help us in our time of need. We are incredibly fortunate to have such thoughtful leadership, and it is exciting to see we will soon be able to resume the work we had started all those years ago in Yenan. Although our nation will not be as it was before due to immense population loss, economic decline, and agricultural problems, I am sure we will come back stronger from these Three Hard Years. 

To Future Prosperity,

Cui Shuli

Dear trusted readers,

 

I long for my years as a mere student in Beijing when my reporting was frequent. Now, I go decades without writing. Since you last heard from me in Yenan, Japanese imperialism was devastating, the horrid Nationalists were in Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China under Mao came out victorious. Back then, I did not understand the full plight of the proletariat and the benefit of the Party, but thanks to the 1942 mass study campaign in Yenan, I understand now is the time that the CCP has been waiting for. The work has now begun, and the light is shining on the working class. It is time to see if Mao Zedong will successfully utilize the masses to enact his vision of a great new China. With the Agrarian Reform Act of 1950, our new leader has set out to utilize the peasantry and transform the inequitable structure of our agrarian nation just as promised. Although I am now a loyal member of the CCP party, I am still willing to risk my life to bring my dear readers the reality on the ground. 

This campaign is in full effect. Intellectuals and students from urban areas, such as myself, have been tasked by Mao and the PRC leadership to carry out land reform and bring “fanshen” to the exploited peasants residing in every village. Fanshen destroys the inequitable and exploitative system by establishing a class consciousness within China’s peasant farmers. Given my background as a student in Beijing and the daughter of a well-off peasant farmer in Anyang, I was placed within a work team in a small village. I wish I could remember the name; however, I have been to so many villages in the past year, some only for a week, that most blur together. To say I was naive about what I would find is an understatement. I have not participated in village life for many decades, and even when I was, my station was significantly better than poor peasants. It is sad to say I was disillusioned when I arrived in my first assigned village. Despite my efforts to practice unbiased and raw journalism, I found myself entering my first work team with the image of Ding Ling’s Old Gu and a monstrous landlord looming over the masses. In reality, village relationships and inner workings are much more nuanced than all the literature and songs make it out to be.   

Although land reform has been successful in redistributing the land to the peasants, the campaign is not perfect. In fact, oftentimes, I question if the benefits of land reform outweigh the multitudes of disadvantages. As a work team member, my colleagues and I have seen and heard stories of the worst of the worst. Reports of the mass killing and sexual violence against women in Shandong have unfortunately become the norm during the “struggles” our work teams have been instructed to manipulate and carry out. Furthermore, some villages I have been assigned to simply do not have tyrannical landlords or even enough land to go around. It keeps me up at night thinking about myself, as an outsider, entering these villages, tasked with educating these peasants, and placing these people I know nothing about into classes and categories. I have voiced my concerns to the leaders I report to in Yenan, but I am afraid nothing will be done. I am anxious to see what the long-term effects of this campaign will be, and I am worried about the next one. 

 

Until Next Time,

Cui Shuli

Dear loyal readers,

Who could have anticipated China would be in an even worse place than it was when I last wrote? Since I last left you all those years ago, I traveled the long, arduous journey to Yenan in 1937, hoping to leave behind the Japanese imperialists in Beijing. A group of like-minded students and I were lucky enough to leave the city prior to the Japanese invasion! The trip was exhausting and dangerous. I doubted I would even make it through. Our group started with 25 and ended with 11 of us in Yenan [China: A Century of Revolution – China In Revolution]. I was determined to make it after reading Edgar Snow’s interview with Mao in 1936. I felt that the CCP in Yenan was the obvious choice in this time of chaos [Snow]. Reading the tales of his intellectual background, his novel ideals, and his lack of ego, Yenan seemed to be the only option [Snow 185]. Unfortunately, Yenan is not the utopia it was made out to be.

I risk my life even writing this. While there are many things that are favorable in Yenan, it is in no way a paradise. Do not twist my words; I would rather be here than anywhere else. However, I need to set the record straight for others who are about to make the deadly journey in hopes of finding a heaven on Earth that doesn’t exist. There are many great things about Yenan. In comparison to our former dynastic regimes and even Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership, there is an absence of megalomania and ego in Yenan that China has been due for [Snow]. Currently, Mao Zedong and his wife live in a humble dwelling just down the road from me [Snow 185]. 

Additionally, women are given far more opportunities for themselves [Johnson 66-67]. As someone who left their home to shed the gendered mold set for me since birth, I was naturally drawn to the CCP. In fact, one of my first friends in Yenan was He Manqiu, a female Red Army doctor with a similar background as me [Young 531]. Furthermore, Mao Zedong’s emphasis and value placed on the masses is something China needs! Two years ago, Mao himself said, “The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge.” [LBR 62]. Despite all of my praise, there are a few drawbacks I believe the population of China needs to be made aware of before they risk their lives like I did.

I have a list of concerns. Firstly, despite the importance placed on the masses, there is a coercive nature to get us to think how the leaders think [LBR 65]. Mao’s plan, in his words, is as follows: “Take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own” [LBR 66]. Although this is somewhat unproblematic, the issue lies with what happens when the masses don’t subscribe to their regurgitated thoughts [LBR 66]. Re-education or murder is commonplace in Yenan when this happens. 

Second, gender equality is commonly swept under the rug or outright ignored to placate the feelings of the large male peasantry [Johnson]. One of the reasons I admired the CCP was due to their progressive feelings towards traditional marriage practices in China [Johnson]. However, these ideas have been scrapped to pacify the worries of married peasant men who are fearful their bought wives will finally have the right to divorce them to increase CCP numbers and soldiers [Johnson 68]. Furthermore, women are given opportunities outside of the home, and it is only because the men are not here to do it themselves [Johnson 65]. Once again, history continues, and I find myself, my feelings, and my rights worth less than a man.

Lastly, I was worried and eager to hide my intellectual history and background when I arrived in Yenan. There is an air of anti-intellectualism here. In fact, my friend He Manqiu hid that she was literate for quite a while to prevent the party from mistrusting her [Young 540]. To be able to think differently is a threat to a party in its infancy, like the CCP. While I agree with most of the Party’s teachings, I sometimes find myself at odds with the Party due to my background as a woman and a student. There are little issues here if you’re a peasant simply trying to survive, but if you are like me, keep these issues in mind before you leave everything behind.

Good Luck,

Cui Shuli

Dear loyal readers,

While it is a beautiful day here in Beijing, the whispers, or rather screams of unrest, have been haunting my thoughts as of late. I left Xinxiang to pursue my studies and leave behind the decided fate that has been forever imposed upon my gender, and yet it seems all of China is suffering in one way or another. Everywhere I look, there are new issues, whether it is the persecution of communist party members, the child labor in the cities, or the stagnant move towards gender equality; China is suffering [Dietrich 22-23]. Things need to change. 

Writing this piece is already putting a target on my back, but I must do what I have to do as a journalist. Last week, I traveled to Shanghai, a staple of the Nationalist Party, to see what was going on. I owe a lot to the efforts of both the CCP and the Nationalist Party during their United Front, as their visit to my province in 1919 showed me I could forge a different path for myself as a young girl [China: A Century of Revolution – China In Revolution 7:00]. I am not the only one who has experienced the influence of these new parties. In Beijing, I met a former child laborer, Qiu Hui-Ying, who worked seventeen hours a day in silk factories since she was twelve [China: A Century of Revolution – China In Revolution 24:00]. Hui-Ying was exposed to Marxist teachings by a fellow worker at her factory job. Marxism is an enticing ideology for the working class in these trying times, but the consequences of following the ideals ever since the unfortunate massacre of 1927 are a huge risk [Dietrich 24]. I hear rumors in Shanghai of Nationalists hunting down innocent people in the street to rid China of the CCP [China: A Century of Revolution – China In Revolution 23:00]. The more I hear about Chiang Kai-Shek policies, the more resemblance I see to the traditional system I left behind in Xinxiang. 

Fortunately, Beijing is a bit more forgiving than the deeply entrenched Nationalist cities like Shanghai or Nanjing. Although I am partial to the efforts of achieving gender equality in China, I recognize the need for ground-breaking change. Some could argue the Nationalist Party is achieving that change; however, simply examining the warlords in the East or the patriarchal qualities of the Party would eradicate that idea [China: A Century of Revolution – China In Revolution]. Visiting Shanghai made me realize the Party is simply putting a Western spin on traditional Confucianist ideals, products, and infrastructure that have brought our country to its sad state [China: A Century of Revolution – China In Revolution]. 

Apologies for the forlorn tone of this report. It seems as if the life I am leading in our Chinese state is forever stained by the constant unrest of our nation. Being born mere months after the 1911 revolution, my early years spent groomed for marriage, the protests of 1919, and now the constant push and pull of the CCP and Nationalist Party, I fear the change that is to come [China: A Century of Revolution – China In Revolution]. It is becoming increasingly obvious people can not go on living in this unorganized and inequitable society. 

Hoping for the Best,

Cui Shuli

Hello, my name is Cui Shuli! I was born August 28th, 1911. My family and I live in Anyang in the Henan Province. I am the youngest of four children, with two older brothers and one sister. My father inherited a successful wheat farm from his father, which my two brothers and other local farmers help run. Since my grandparents have both passed, my mother runs our household with the help of my two sisters-in-law. My older sister was recently married off to a young man living in the city of Xinxiang. Given that I am the youngest daughter of a relatively well-off family, I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to Beijing University and pursue my studies in journalism. 

Watching the cycle of my monotonous domesticity that my grandmother, mother, sisters-in-law, and now my beloved sister have endured has inspired me to carve a different path for myself. During these trying times, I am willing to risk my safety to change the traditional ways that have subjugated women for centuries. Hopefully, writing for On the Ground in China will raise awareness of the growing issues in Chinese society.