THEC,™ANDcoMMuN|sTv|c^
, from the peasants' committees and the tendency, a"dfrts and farm labourers in the land reform 2COünterpoSe * PcaSan1ncome from exploitation should be cWbVCo*em * *• poor per centos
of -..-to-do m.dd.e peasants must not consent- vthout the ^
p.-Some Concrete Problems of Policy in the Und FW
18 January 1948. |n s*l*cudwlfa^^*** ^«menti»
' '96S). PP. 182-3
^ri^^udent Protest in ' W
utfom Seweft a British Quaker, tought Biofcgy Jn Chengdu at the West Chi„„ .r^"'2"1 SeWe" ^Tcougnt up by the Japanese invasion of Hong fen* hewa   > "n'W <l uSU at Chengdu (which he co//ed Dai   I »Z 27,?'' !** * Jed to stay on offer some other Westerners had left ^ m 1947 «*
^ economic situation was beginning to dominate everything Duliang is situated in fertile rice country, and the well-bemg of the people was indicated by the price and availabiJof nee. A teacher eats about a bushel of nee every month, though a manual worker needs more In |939 it cost two Chinese dollars a bushel, but, as a result of the Japanese occupation of part of China, it had risen to $45 before I left on my ill-fated trip to the coast in 1941. [Sewell was caught up in the occupation of Hong Kong and interned throughout the war.] When I returned to Duliang in 1947 it had risen to $50,000 a bushel, but already by the spring of the following year it was $110,000. Paper money was almost worthless; we were most of us millionaires, but quite unable to rope. We began to know the terror that comes from a galloping inflation, the lack of sea■;• *:/ when money received on Friday has lost half its value by Saturday, and is useless on Mor day. We knew, moreover, that there was no end in sight
Dr David Fan, the President of the University, was worried about his Chinese staff, as indeed we all were. In his long years of wise guidance he had never faced a problem like this. Only the previous month, salaries had been doubled. Although they were linked to the cost of living index, prices rose too quickly for the University to be able to keep up. When I asked my Chinese colleagues in the Department of Chemistry how they were managing, they looked blankly at one another. It was the youngest, Fu May-Ian, who spoke up for all. 'When I must have a new pair of shoes, my salary is sufficient to buy one shoe and then I must trust to being able to buy the other shoe the following month1 - and the bitter laugh from all who were gathered round the bench showed that they felt she had spoken well
ln the days when students had paid their fees in silver, it was easy work for *,W -«ion came hardship. Parents of a student, living two days travel away, ^™£d
* later there was sufficient only for one term, or perhaps just for a month..*m ^ ^
25° 3 tCrm had increased »five million and Were Sti" ri$i? bought, often from Sh0uld b* Paid in kind; and specia. stores were built for the rice that was brought,
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C1N1CE 19,9 - REVOLUTION AND REFORM CHINA SINCE I*"
T
114
•_ j an<j rice was soon infested with insects if * l0„gdist>nc«saway.Butqu>l,tyvar,ed,andr
cared for... mi|rary men, who were becoming ricL "
Ri« was frequently hard to gee ^ se|ling er ^
others got poorer, were ^mf*Z,Z^° rice at a nominal price for much higher. The government ^edto^p ^ ^ ^ «**0
^Tgr^
had been willing to give it -mdous, could stand it no longer. A demon™
A, last me students• ri« that he had promised on J?J?S
panned to ask a distance. A thousand strong, they m^<»
^SSS^*.....w,shushed.Th,n.atagivensign>Uun
of Zd£ and police, who had been hidden round about ran out brandishing carrying rope, Those students whom they caught they bound and drove indoor,*^ were tLpled on and injured, but many escaped. The captured stents were whippy mosdy set free; but some were confined overmght and kept without food until ^ ** released. When they straggled back to the campus. President Fan was there to mee-"* tears streaming down his face with emotion that students should have been treated in suthl manner.
Thus the tide was turned. The situation was never the same again. 'Others have shed their blood. What about you?' was the question in blazing red characters that screamed from the walls of every building at Jen Dah. The Military Governor had kindled a torch.
Liu Lo-iah had shed blood - at least just a trifle. She and Min-lah had both been in the procession. Next day she had knocked at my door. I saw her face pressing against the glass % I went to open. 'Shien-sen', she cried, 'look what they have done', and, turning, she lifted her gown to show die red weals behind both her knees. They were the sign of a change in her life I saw them again and again until they had faded, leaving no discernable mark, though the scar on her soul increased until it consumed her.
'Now I have hate', she spoke the words deliberattiy and so low that I could hardly hear them. 'Only those with great hate can have great love . She told of her longing to love with ever greater intensity the poor of the land, the ignorar- peasants, and all to whom privilege is denied. 'And the Chinese women especially I would love', she told me. 'You have heard from my brother of our misery. We are not born just for ourselves, but for the multitude who suffer. You can never know what Chinese women have suffered, the agonies and the humilia-uons they have endured. They are suffering now, as my mother suffered, and her mother's mother. But now is the time; now is the change. If we fail now, if we are weak, the chance will
iland ™ery Wi" continue to mX daughter, and my daughter's daughter. I am uneasy
Zl^tT^:^but 1 must beco- «• °< *• p-p- •™^
wordshLXredrd Li Tmed imp°rtant SimP'y to lj*en to her as she talked, yet her ^SE^"6? I™' '°n,y ^ who ha- greatly suffered are capable of deep * ' tritd t0 PerSUade her' ** they were not of net*
net S^T^^: "? th!end 1 bel-e she has driven some of the bitterness fro*
-ke it    ^!ev :e e: rjt wou,d doud her ** ™>her judgement
iici great purpose.
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THE CIVIL WAR AND COMMUNIST VICTORY
^ac this purpose was seemed dear to me. There w* n„ " 5
Zr before she gave ,t Apart from Communis   nMd »•* her fer,, <for the masses of her people". Though I t„Zíí "!* *•» k
nt eovernment must go', and she tightened her fZV   k"ow-l[ « our JS"' „ 'Ä<'<"'        words with which to eXpr«Sľ my ha"d ** Ä,?"'
(London: «^^^Ä^<^ ^fjjTcommunist army enters Nanjing, April 1949 "---
^"^W"^ reporter wid, Assorted Pre,,
nuring the upheaval of the civil war, most liberal students chose th. c~~~ %Z asceacis. and dedication, and repe .led by the co^^"^^ Kuomintang. Thousands went ,nto the 'liberated areas' to work for the Commľ «1« without any prior intellectual commitment to Marxism-Leninism. The students whom *1 Communist troops met on the morning of April 24 near the Northwest Gate had elected to remain in the Nationalist areas, to continue their schooling and agitate for peace and good government from within. This was not enough to elicit the trust of the Communists. Several weeks after the Communist entry, I saw a column of thousands of students escorted by soldiers being marched down to the river to strengthen the dykes against the spring floods. The students were being indoctrinated not only through political lectures by army commissars but also by participation in manual labor, from which the classical tradition exempted intellectuals and to which they were not accustomed. The Party would be ready to greet those who passed the ideological tests.
The orderly entry of the Communist army was marred by in incident at [US Ambassador] Stuart's residence. At 6.30 a.m., ; 2 peasant soldiers sightseeing round the big city chanced on the embassy, forced the night gs ?keeper to open the iron gates, and several blundered into the ambassador's bedroom, a^'ening the 72 year old envoy. 'Who are you? What do you want?' the Ambassador shouted. The armed soldiers left muttering and returned with the others, one of them explaining that they were simply looking round and meant no harm...
The incident was widely publicized after the embassy reported to Washington, making the Communists appear provocative and belligerent ...
I. too, became involved in an incident with the Communist soldiers at the Associated Press House. Upon my return from the Northwest Gate, three soldiers entered my office as ' « at a typewriter. They were accompanied by Liu, my number one servant^ Pointe^ dressing themselves to Liu, they asked what I did. 'Oh, he sends messages » *e Urn* States' Liu said casually, not seeing he was arousing the
'What does he say in these messages?" the spokesman "^J^^^Ä •*» Uu replied: 'He reports about everything/ That did it With fixe^ Stion marched Quti an(J wjtnjn a few mjnutes     house was diin Embassy],
"ot 'eave, nor could my cook go to the market for food. Ronn.ng [at the ^ hearif* of my plight, delivered food packages through the barbed w.re
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