Interview With Cultural Revolution Worker

Interview From "Discovering China: The Middle Kindom"

I interviewed Chen Zuen, who experienced the Cultural Revolution at a factory in Shanghai when he was young. When I exchanged letters with him, Mr. Kikuchi, my schoolteacher, helped me. Although Mr. Chen was busy editing and writing "History of Shanghai", he spared much time for my questions. I wish to express my deep appreciation to Mr. Chen and Mr. Kikuchi, and I hope that you can learn the Cultural Revolution more.

Question

1. What does revolutionary activity mean?
   
   
2. How did conventions of criticism against party's high-place leader or intellectuals?
   
   
3. Did worker begun to work normally just after the end of the Cultural Revolution?
   
   
4. What impact did the Cultural Revolution have on the household economy in those days?
   
   
5. What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?
   
   
6. What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?
   
   
7. When reaction did the people show when the Cultural Revolution was over?
   
   

Question 1: I heard workers were ordered to take part in revolutionary activities working at the same time at Shanghai. What does revolutionary activity mean? Was it possible to do both revolutionary activities and work at the same time?

Answer 1: The Cultural Revolution at Shanghai was caused by the Red Guards first. They were all the students of junior and senior high school and college in those days. They took the influence of Beijing, and showed "rebellion" for slogan, trying to destroy "four olds", that is old thought, old culture, old manner and old custom. For this reason, they robbed a prosperity of others arbitrarily, beaten many people and thrusted many people. Taking the other cruel ways, they criticized many people for "a monster of cow and a snake". That had great impact on society.

At the same time the Red Guards rebelled, they advertised the reason of rebels to workers at factory, and tempted them to battle against those who had authority. CCP didn't hope that the Red Guard went to factories and then tempted workers, because destruction of the order of production must lead to the great impact on economic of China.

The Cultural Revolution, however, had been excessive then, so the control of CCP didn't effect. A part of workers who wasn't able to concentrate on their work began to rebel, and made headquarters in factory. They battled to dig out the capital-roaders and "a monster of cow and a snake"and tried to reform the rule that had been existing since before. Among another group, a part of party's members and Communist Youth League was dissatisfied with what rebels was doing, so established a conservative group. In this way, the conflict between two group arose in factory.

The organization of rebels of worker at Shanghai was the Worker's General Headquarters, called WGH. On the other hand, the conservative one was "the Scarlet Guards". Before "January Revolution" Mao had supported in 1967, the Scarlet Guards had been already destroyed, so Shanghai got to be the world of rebels. So was the condition in factories. Revolutionary Activities in those days arose among the struggle with authorities, the criticism against the thought, consciousness and culture of bourgeois, and oppression against those who thought freely. Production was had a great impact by carrying out the revolutionary campaigns constantly at factories. But considering the situation of all area of China, that of Shanghai was the best.

There is a lot of factor for the fact. First, stuff of workers at Shanghai, on the whole, was the best among the all area of China. There were a lot of people of workers at Shanghai who complained about the situation, and desired liberty of thought by working entirely. Second, CCP imposed a lot of important work on the workers at Shanghai because CCP needed the help from abroad. So CCP encouraged the workers to not only carry out revolution, but also make a point of production.

Question 2: How did conventions of criticism against party's high-place leader or intellectuals? And when were the conventions of criticism held the most frequently?

Answer 2: To criticize the party's high-place leaders and intellectuals, the following ways were mainly adopted:

1. The criticism was carried out through media such as wall newspapers or broadcasting in factories. Against those who had a power to influence on all the China, articles of criticism was informed through mainly newspapers and radio.

2. Some kinds of convention was held. The smallest convention was carried out in small group of production in each factory, and the number of the participants was about fifteen. The biggest one was held at a center of convention or square at Shanghai and the some air of it was broadcasted on TV directly. More than several hundreds thousands people took part in the convention. In the convention of criticism, those who were criticized were covered with triangle hat. Some pregnant women was bound their hands. At even the most generous case, the people being criticized was forced to bow down their head, stopping over. It was in the latter half of 1966 and 1967 that the conventions of criticism were held the most frequently. After 1971, the year of Lin Biao Incident, such conventions got to be not seen so much frequently.

Question 3: Did worker begun to work normally just after the end of the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 3: Even after the Cultural Revolution was over, the activity that the people examined "Gang of Four" and purged the influence was often carried out, so the order of work was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution was not normal. However, the more effort to tidy the confusion and put it right the people made, the more rapidly the situation of work was improved.

Question 4: What impact did the Cultural Revolution have on the household economy in those days?

Answer 4: The outbreak of the Cultural Revolution operated against the production, so supply of materials were decreased relatively. Although the common people got the conventional wage, they lacked the material badly. For example, the stuffs like a watch and bicycle was all supplied with the exchange with tickets, and just decided amount of food was given up to the people. And chicken egg and fish was also decided the amount. Food of foreign countries was not seen at the home of common people. The color of clothes was all brown or the color of grass.

Because China experienced disasters in succession for three years (it means disasters after Great Leap Forward), it cannot be said that the life in the Cultural Revolution was hard compared with the life when disasters occurred. But the Cultural Revolution made the mentally suffering. For instance, there were no book, no music and no art. It was these things rather than the lack of material that still remain in the mind of the people for unforgettable memory,

Question 5: What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?

Answer 5: Imperatives of the Revolutionary Committees was informed to students and workers via many organizations. For example, imperatives from Shanghai Revolutionary Committee was first told to the each division as division of education, that of electricity, and so on. And schools and factories lying at more under place was informed the imperatives from the each division. And from each school and factory, imperatives was told to each faculty and working place, where the leader of each group told the message to common students or workers. If emergency or big incident had occurred and it needn't be secret, it was told to the people directly with wallpapers, radio or television. As far as the many instruction of Mao was concerned, the way that it was told in advance was taken, so students and workers had been waiting in front of TV from a lot of time before the broadcasting started. And after they listened to the information from announcer, they took to the streets to celebrate the instruction.

Question 6: Even among workers, did many people worship Mao enthusiastically?

Answer 6: Workers were more matured than young Red Guard, so the workers who worshipped Mao enthusiastic were not so much. But the great number of people believed Mao sincerely in those days. During the Cultural Revolution, each home was displaying a portrait of Mao, and having the Quotation of Mao. And before the people works, they studied the Mao's Quotation, and in the working place, Mao's figure was laid. The Lin Biao Incident intended the failure of the Cultural Revolution. From around this time, the people's trust for Mao began to shake.

Question 7: It is said that a lot of people mourned when the Cultural Revolution was over by the death of Mao, but in fact what reaction did the people show then? And, how did you take the end of the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 7: The end of the Cultural Revolution must be fatality of history. The death of Mao had impact on the end of the Cultural Revolution, but it was not absolute factor. When Zhou Enlai died a lot of Chinese mourned very deeply, and Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square occurred in 1976. This spontaneous the mass movement implied the people's suspicion about the Cultural Revolution, and outburst of rage against "Gang of Four". The Chinese objected to despotism and Cult of individual, and desired that China was going forward reform and the world sincerely. Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square had a large ground of the masses, which reflected the feeling behind the people. In this sense, I think that when Mao died in 1976, the people grieved, but the feeling was not the same with that for the death of Zhou.

The end of the Cultural Revolution was the end of a hard decade. It cannot help looking at the statistic to know how damage the Cultural Revolution gave to China. The Chinese who underwent the hardship of the Cultural Revolution was all pleased with the end, and they will learn instruction, and never allowed such a tragedy to happen again.

When The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, I was working as a propagandist at a famous factory. The Factory epitomized the Cultural Revolution at Shanghai. The workers of this factory and I was pleased with the birth of new times, feeling the extremely liberty. The feeling was like a smile of the Mona Lisa who said farewell to Middle Ages, and it was the smile arisen sincerely.