How Yukong Moved the Mountains

Interviewer: Are you satisfied with four daughters? Don’t you wish you had a boy too?

Chairman: At first I was disappointed… later on, I understood men and women are equal.

Interviewer: Did you go to school when you were young?

Chairman: Since I was born in the old society and my family was very poor, I couldn’t go to school. I learned in the People’s Liberation Army. We all studied together and the leaders helped. Now I know how to read and write.

Interviewer: You’re the chairman of the Revolutionary Committee. How are you paid?

Chairman: Even though I’m in charge, we’re all equal. I earn points according to the work I do.

Interviewer: Is your salary higher than the fishermen?

Chairman: No, since I work a little less than the fisherman, I earn less than they do. Twice a year, we discuss the distribution of work points. Each person proposes their own salary and everyone discusses it. Sometimes people ask for more than they deserve.

Interviewer: Do you really practice democracy in the brigade?

Chairman: In our brigade, the cadres must consult the people before making a decision. For instance, when a problem comes up, cadres consult the workers. They exchange opinions. The discussion goes from the workers, back to the workers, many times. Decisions made unanimously carry more weight. In all, there are more than 1,200 families. Our production brigade is quite large. To improve the standard of living, we also have a nursery, a kindergarten, a public bath, a clubhouse, a reading room, and a sports field.

Interviewer: In your opinion, why did Chairman Mao say, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, that doctors were like lords in the big cities?

Doctor: The city doctors thought they were above it all. They didn’t care about peasants like us. When we went for a consultation, the doctors treated us slightly and weren’t very helpful. That’s why we didn’t like them very much. Now the city doctors help us a lot. Sometimes they come to the country with knapsacks full of medicine and instruments. They come to pay house calls so the peasants really like them now. They also do minor surgery on the spot.

Interviewer: Can you tell us what the barefoot doctors are?

Doctor: Our country has a large population. The rural regions, especially the more remote ones, need doctors in medicine. The hospitals alone can’t take care of all of the patients. We asked for help from the high school students who are good workers and very willing. After they finish school, they spend time doing manual work and then they come here. We send them to the local hospital as apprentices, and then they come back here again to practice work. At the same time, they study and improve their professional skills. Even though they haven’t been to medical school, they take care of the rural population wholeheartedly, and they’re welcome everywhere. After a while, we send them back to the hospital again to perfect their skills. Now medical care is more accessible to the peasants in our brigade. Common illnesses are treated on the spot.

Commander: I'm the commander of this regiment. My name is Wu Hi Hi. I enlisted in 1953. I'm from a poor peasant family. There are five people in my family: three children and my wife. My wife works in a soap factory. I live with the deputy commander.

[...]

As for becoming an officer, the best men are chosen from the ranks by their fellow soldiers. We discuss the candidates in our party group, and the party committee approves the choice. That's how you become an officer.

Interviewer: Are there any military schools?

Commander: There are military schools, but they're not so important. They're mostly used to help the officers become more competent and improve their skills. For the most part, officers are trained in the field.

Interviewer: How is the workweek organized?

Commander: Each week, we have four days of military training, one day of political studies, half a day for the party activities, and half a day for the Youth League. Saturday afternoon is for the Youth League activities. Time is allotted for the company's needs too, for example, for growing crops or catching up on a class.

Soldier: I've summarized the comments my squad made yesterday about the company officers. Now I'll explain them here. There are three points. First, about our company commander: he's not struct enough about our company regulations, more specifically, the routine cleaning of weapons is routinely overlooked. Also, we're not careful enough about the way the mess hall is run. We've started to notice that we've been wasting food. We waste a little every day, and in a year this adds up to a lot of food. If everyone wasted food like this, it would be disastrous. Commanders should be more strict about this. Our commander has a strong sense of responsibility. He's very demanding and quite strict during training. His criticisms aren't always right, and he's sometimes over-critical. For example, some of the new recruits aren't in shape yet. They need practice. Instead of making ineffective criticisms, the commander should help them by pointing out their weaknesses.

Worker #1: Any lateness was penalized. If it happened more than once, you would lose your bonus, your salary could be lowered - everything was put in terms of money. No one believed in our political consciousness. It was a way of dividing the workers. We don't punch in anymore. Everyone is conscienscious. There are only a few who arrive late, and they just explain why. [...] You just tell your comrades what happened. Everything is explained and that's the end of it.

Worker #2: There are still some workers that lack discipline. We have to try and educate them patiently. We try to convince them.

Worker #3: Since the Cultural Revolution, we take our work more seriously. We've progressed ideologically, and our consciousness is higher. People are seldom late now, and show a lot of initiative, so our production has increased considerably.

Worker #4: If you have confidence in the workers, they'll show initiative, but if you don't trust them, they'll lose interest in their work.

Interviewer: How do you establish production standards?

Worker: We used to use a stopwatch to calculate the time needed to make each part. We thought this was a scientific method. We’ve done away with these methods. The production schedule used to be decided by a small minority, and now the workers set it up themselves. [ . . .] Before, there were jobs we couldn’t finish on time, and now with our new standards, our production has increased.

Jing: A factory must be run by everyone together, not by a few officials. The workers help run the entire factory from general administration down to each workshop and group. They also take part in the leadership of the Revolutionary Committee, and of the party committee.

Huang: The workers actually run the factory themselves and make all of the important decisions.

[...]

Jing: Before making any decisions, the Party Committee must consult the workers. We listen and discuss. Whenever our opinions conflict, we ask the workers for advice. This way, the management staff and the workers can always come to an agreement.

Huang: Since we’ve become managers, we’ve often been temped to sit back and relax, work less, and spend more time in the offices than with the workers.

Jing: If you stop manual work, you forget what it’s like to be a worker. Besides, we must stay in close contact with the workers to really understand all of the production problems. Our presence gives the workers a chance to tell us what's bothering them, and to criticize our weak points. It's very important in changing our ideas and in our work.

Student: We were playing soccer, but the teacher wanted us to stop since it was after 7am. A ball was right in front of me, so I kicked it. The ball hit the teacher. It wasn't aimed at her; I didn't do it on purpose.

She took me to her office and criticized me, and the teacher took the ball away from everybody just to punish one person. The teacher already criticized me previously about something else, so she probably was looking for another reason to do it again."

Interviewer: Will the student who kicked the ball be punished?

Teacher: No, no punishment. We'll deal with it politically, that's all. We used to punish them by making them stand in a corner, or sending them out of class. We would call their parents and even expel them. We don't do that anymore. Teachers and students are equals now. The problem itself isn't so serious; what's serious is that he defends himself when he knows he's wrong.

Mama Su-e: I came here in 1961. The Great Plains seemed to go on forever. I got the idea that the housewives could organize themselves to clear the land, so we went from door to door asking who wants to take part in the work and who doesn't. If the women answered no, we'd have political discussions with them to get them to participate in clearing and farming the land. At first 25 women signed up, but the day we planned to leave, only 5 showed up. As for the others, one had a child, another a sick relative - it was impossible to get them to come. What could five of us do?

I said 'nobody's ever gone out there, let's go and see for ourselves. The others can come later.' There was nothing alive out there, not a living thing. The grass came up to our waists and there wasn't even a path. As we walked, we had to wade through the tall grass. We set up a simple tent with stakes.

[...]

The next day, we started shoveling. After having cleared an acre of land, General Headquarters sent news that they had mobilizxed some more women, and 18 more housewives arrived, which made 23 women in all, but it was late in the season and shoveling went too slowly. We found a wooden plow and pulled it by hand. The work went faster that way. [...] In 1962, we harvested over 3,000 pounds of soubeans and more than 40,000 pounds of vegetables. We only had a shovel to work with. By 1963, there were more of us, and we were able to farm more land. Little by little, our village is growing this way.

Seamstress #1: According to metaphysics, material objects are unchangeable, but Mao's philosophy has taught us that things can be transformed into their opposites. That's how rags are turned back into cotton. You discover truth by putting ideas into practice. We started out with the idea that cloth was made of cotton. Then we asked 'if cotton can be transformed into cloth, why can't cloth be turned into cotton again?' Practical experienced proved that it was possible. When we tried to find a way to do this, we sometimes got discouraged, but finally we succeeded in making cotton from cloth. We were really excited.

Seamstress #2: At first our experiments didn't work, but we thought that since these rags were made of cotton fiber, there must be a way to make cotton again from the rags. It's a dialectical process.

We tried seven times before we finally got it. Since 1970, we made three hundred thousand pairs of gloves with only ninety thousand pounds of recycled cotton. Our interest in philosophy keeps growing because we can apply it to concrete situations. It's fascinating and it encourages us to study philosophy.

Researcher: Up until the 1950s, geologists from the imperialist countries claimed that China had very few oil resources. Their main point was that China was made up of land sediments instead of marine sediments. We weren't taken in by this. Mao explained that in order to see if the theory is correct, you must put it into practice. We found oil in Da-shing, quite a lot of oil, in the sandy clay layers. When you talk about land and marine sediments, you're only looking at things superficially. You need to look more deeply to understand how oil is formed.

Policeman #1: Our two main responsibilities concern traffic regulation. The first is our accident prevention program, and the other is on-the-spot traffic control.

Policeman #2: As my comrade just said, we go to the workgroups and factories, organizations and schools to give out information. Our job is to explain things clearly. We use a blackboard and we post up dazibaos, which are handwritten wall-posters. We write out the traffic regulations and give examples of actual accidents, in order to explain how they happened, and to learn from them.

The important thing is to educate the drivers and the bicycle riders in the spirit of socialism. We pay special attention to the way people relate. We do our work with this in mind. The most important thing is for people to care about each other and help each other out. That's why, even if someone breaks a rule, I can let him go on his way.

In general, people do care about each other and respect each other. It's very important to have safe streets. For the most part, rules are welcome but there are some people who don't obey the rules, because their consciousness is low, or because it's too inconvenient. That's why we emphasize people's attitudes toward each other.

You can see for yourself that the street’s been taken over by pedestrians, and that the bicycle riders and drivers don’t always stay in the right lane. That’s why we work on people’s concern for one another. If a pedestrian walks in the street, and not on the crosswalk, the cars will still have to give him the right-of-way to avoid an accident. Just because someone breaks a rule doesn’t mean you have the right to run him over. You can’t do that. That’s why we work on improving people’s respect and concern for others.

Policeman #1: You may have seen in our streets a situation in which the people themselves took part in criticizing the offenders to make them aware of their mistakes. Let's say we're dealing with the problem and the people in the streets don't agree with us. They say what they think about it, and if it's valid, we try to take it into account and reevaluate our positions. If what they say isn't helpful, well, then someone else will help us out.

Professor's Wife: In the old days, a pen, a piece of paper, and a book were his entire life. He wasn't interested in anything else.

Professor's Daughter: When Papa used to come home, he didn't look at anything except his books.

Professor: In those days, I believed the American and Soviet educational systems should be our models, so I thought the best thing for our university was to imitate the most famous American and Russian univerisities. The main characteristic of these universities as a professor is that the professors have all of the power. As a science professor, I held that since Sciences were taught one way in both the US and Russia, we had to do things the same way here. In the past, I treated knowledge like merchandise to be sold to students, and I sold a lot of it. I did all the talking in my classes. I talked but no one got much out of it. Although I only taught science courses, even my scientific explanations were biased by my worldview.

For example, I always placed the most emphasis on theory, by insisting upon theory, because I thought concrete applications were not that important. And because I didn’t stress the practical side of things, my students looked down upon the real world. I told them ‘just learn what I’m teaching you and I guarantee you your theses will be good’. Their only goal was to write a thesis, but studying Mao Tse-tung’s thought raised their consciousness, so they thought I was really difficult to deal with. The whole university called me ‘the helpless case’. I spent about twenty years like that at the university.

At a Western university, my situation might seem normal, but here in a socialist society, people's consciousness is so high that my behavior was unacceptable.

That's why, in the Cultural Revolution, there was a real explosion against me. From the first day, the walls outside were plastered with political posters as soon as they opened the doors. That's all I saw.

Then the Red Guards came to the house saying, 'we'd like to see if you have any reactionary books'. They saw I did have many books, including foreign books, scientific books, and books on mathematics. They didn't think these books were reactionary but they asked me 'In what way do these books contribute to the economic and scientific development of our country?' And since clearly they didn't contribute to it directly, the Red Guard said that they weren't really necessary - although for me, they were all treasures.

So we had different ideas on this, but they were nice about it. They didn't insist at all that my books should be thrown away. They just asked me to think about how many of these books met the needs of the working class.

I thought about this question a lot. It made a profound impact on me.

Professor's Wife: We agreed completely with the Red Guards. They pushed him to change his thinking.

Professor: At the time, the far-left implied that intellectuals like myself would have to leave the univeristy, would be kicked out to go work in the countryside. I told myself, I'm almost 60 years old, too old for that. If I have to go work in the fields, I won't make enough to live on.

I felt sorry for myself and that was all that mattered. This shows that up until then, it spite of some self-awareness, I was still basically selfish. I was very pessimistic. I heard there were rumors that I'd hung myself, but I didn't commit suicide, I lived through it all.

And, well, I thought that, since liberation, China had become a great country which was rapidly developing. I really wanted to see my country progress and I really didn't want to kill myself.

[...]

In those days, I wrote a lot of articles, and several books too. It was signing my name that motivated me to continue writing. Each one of my publications glorified my name - on the other hand, workers never think of signing their names to the things they make. It doesn't even cross their minds.

Professor: I have one son. He went to work in a factory after he finished high school. He's been there for more than 10 years. He didn't want to attend University. This was a great loss for me. It was inconcievable that my son would never go to college and would be a worker instead. Only later did I come to understand that he'd chosen a better path than I had. I had taken the road of an elite intellectual. Even after he'd become a worker, I kept trying to convince him to go to college, but he didn't have the lease desire to do so.

For a long time, our relationship was strained. But then I changed, and I finally gave my son the respect he deserves.

Professor's Wife: There used to be great differences in our thinking. For example, my husband was angry with our son for having discontinued his studies, but the girls and I supported him.

Professor: My scientific theories were highly respected. I ignored all other ideas. I was very arrogant, but it was at the factory that I realized all of my theory didn’t amount to much. I saw there were things I didn’t know, because I never learned them. But then I discovered I didn’t know things in my own field, things I studied and taught my students. I hadn’t even learned these things very well. I asked a worker for help, and they responded, "Don’t be embarrassed. What just happened is an example of the split between theory and practice. You’ve had this problem without ever realizing it. We knew you had it. And today, you’ve learned it for yourself.”

Employee #1: Up until the Cultural Revolution, medical care and medical products were two separate worlds. The drugstore only sold medicine, but if you’re sick, you’d go to the hospital. That wasn’t practical. People didn’t agree. Since then, we’ve criticized the profit motive. We’ve asked ourselves ‘for whom are we really working?’ That’s a fundamental question, a matter of principle, and also one which makes us take sides. If you’re only interested in profits and reveal increases along with your rising sales, you’re on the way to serving the bourgeoisie.

Employee #2: That’s what we call putting profits at the helm.

Manager: In my case, I was influenced by Liu Shaoqui before the Cultural Revolution. That was when our drugstore preferred to deal only with big orders. We used to encourage the consumption of expensive medicines and stimulants. We were always eager to handle the big deals. Small business had no interest for us.

Interviewer: Do you get a bonus as well as your salary?

Manager: Bonuses no longer exist. Bonuses used to depend on the profits of each enterprise. They increased along with the profits.

Employee #1: I was only interested in my bonus. As soon as my bonus was in sight, I cared only for the bonus - not for the people.

Employee #2: We’re the ones who criticized you - you the managers. But when we questioned your attitude, in fact, we were putting ourselves on trial.

Manager: It used to be very simple before. I gave orders and the workers obeyed me. That didn’t encourage them to use their own initiative. Collective management might seem to take more time. We have to discuss, get together… all that takes time. Before the CR, I made all of the decisions alone. Now we talk everything over and encourage personal initiative.

Employee #3: Before, you practically never consulted anyone. Since you never listened to us, well, we finally kept quiet.

Employee #2: One single person managed everything and that person was the only one who had the right to make himself heard. If I’m asked to speed up the work because a lot of people are waiting, I can think about it and hurry. But if I’m ordered to hurry, I just couldn’t care less. And that brings us to a dead end.

Manager: I used to think: the leaders have entrusted me with a specific job. I have to carry out their orders, step by step as they want. In other words, I reacted like a robot. That’s why my conduct was criticized by others. They said I was being too servile.

Employee #2: Before the Cultural Revolution, it was a privilege to voice an opinion. We condemned that attitude. Today everybody can speak their minds. Today the leaders do the same work as the other employees.

Manager: I wait on the customers, since the drugstore is open day and night. I also work the nightshift. In other words, we do all the same studies, the same work, and perform the same services.

Employee: When I started to work in the drugstore, at that time, I didn't like the work they made me do. I used to think only the doctors performed a service worthy of respect and I only did the work of a servant. That's why I wasn't happy with my career. I wasn't interested in politics or in political studies. I only had one idea in mind: that was to become a doctor. That was my only goal.

It was only after the Cultural Revolution that I started asking myself this: Does one try to become competent in order to become famous or to serve the people? In fact, you must become competent in order to serve the revolution. I understood the real importance of the idea of serving the people and how to serve them.

[...]

Interviewer: Do you think that women's liberation is a reality in China?

Employee: In principle, I can say the problem has been resolved. Women are no longer victims as they were under the old regime, subject to marital and religious power. There might still exist inequality from certain couples - women in China are not 100% liberated. We still need some more time to get to that stage.

Interviewer: What exactly does your work consist of?

Hong: I'm an employee, and as an employee I work at all the different aspects of this business.

Interviewer: Your salary is higher than that of the other employees. Why is that? Do you find that normal?

Hong: No, it's not normal. I make the same wages as I did in the days of private enterprise. The state hasn't reduced my salary. My comrade workers and employees who do the same work as I, make at most 82 and a half yuans while I earn 107 yuans.

Interviewer: Do you participate in the management of the drugstore?

Hong: Before, I used to participate, but, since I'm an old capitalist, my thoughts aren't always well-adapted to the socialist system. And for that reason, when it comes to administrative problems, I don't always adapt very well. For example, the problem of inventory: well, I like to have a big stock on hand. I like things to move easily. It's better for a business. But that's a bourgeoisie idea. Workers and employees don't think the same way, therefore I think it's better that I don't participate.

Grandmother: I was 8 when I became engaged. My father had no money, so he went to see his cousin to borrow a pig. He sold the pig to get some money, but then he couldn't pay back his cousin. So he said, 'here, take my daughter instead'. His daughter for a pig! My father said, 'take my daughter and we will be even'. His cousin said 'all right, we'll forget the 8 yuans for the pig'.

[...]

Feet were bound up very tightly, and the bindings were sewn up. Binding was part of our oppression. I cried a lot, but they forced me. It was very painful. I had to learn on something in order to stand up. I couldn't even walk.

Interviewer: At what age was it done?

Grandmother: Around 6 or 7. Now it's all over. It's wonderful. In those days, in spite of our tears, they would bind tighter and tighter. Our feet were deformed. They would get infected. The toes were crushed together, bones were broken, it was unbearable.

If you had big feet, no man would marry you. Before taking a wife, a man would look at her feet. On the wedding day, when the bride arrived, everyone came to look at her, or rather at her small feet. They would admire her small slippers and their fine embroidery.

In the old society, people thought the more sons you had, the richer you'd get. People don't think like this anymore.

Father: Parents aren't always right. Children have the right to disagree. Family relationships are different now. We discuss politics.