Chapter 12
Return to Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison
Chapter 12
Rick: A month after my clash with Jin over the soap he was moved to another compound. About the same time Jiang was transferred also. This left only four of us, Liao, Ma, Han, and myself. We missed the others, particularly on that day in mid-March, 1953, when a workman appeared to remove for the summer the stovepipe which had run through our cell, bringing heat from the potbellied coal stove in the corridor. The warmth which Jin’s bulk had provided would have been welcome. As it was, the four of us sat close together, bracing ourselves against the sudden change in the room’s temperature.
We looked up with more than ordinary interest when a new arrival was ushered into the cell, only to see at a glance that he would be a poor substitute for Jin as far as heat generating was concerned. He was so small and slightly built that I thought at first he could be no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. I was surprised to learn later that he was almost as old as I.
After introducing himself as Li Cheng-ming, he explained briefly in answer to Liao’s questions that he had been arrested for providing information to Nationalist agents. He appeared to be a completely inoffensive little fellow, but from the first I felt there was something sly about his movements and the furtive way he avoided meeting one’s gaze. During class he had little to say but would sit nervously working his long, feminine fingers, sometimes flexing the joints, sometimes rubbing the tips with his thumbs, sometimes bending them backward as if they were made of rubber. I took this as just an idiosyncrasy, although it did seem strange to me that he always picked things up between his middle and index fingers rather than with his thumb and index finger as people normally do. It did not take Liao, with his secret police training, long to spot it, however.
A couple of days after his arrival, while we were playing cards, Li picked up one of them in his peculiar manner. Leaning forward quickly Liao snatched it out of his hand. “What are you doing?” he roared. “So, you’re a dip. I knew there was something fishy about you from the start.”
Li squirmed and looked around desperately as though trying to find escape, but as Liao pressed the point he admitted to being a professional pickpocket. From then on, every time any one of us noticed Li working his fingers or picking up things in an unnatural way we would immediately pounce on him, but all our shouting, arguing, and lecturing seemed to do little good. The crisis came one day when Li was caught with a silk handkerchief he had stolen from Han. We stopped our regular study immediately to concentrate on “helping” Li. It was a futile attempt, for his only reaction was a frightened silence.
The following day Liao took the matter up with Supervisor Shen. When he had heard the story through the supervisor nodded and said, “We know all about Li. He was trained that way as a child. These habits of his have become so ingrained they cannot be changed overnight. We’ll put him in handcuffs to make him realize it’s a serious matter, but when you help him, make him tell why he did it.”
Shortly after Liao returned to the cell the supervisor came and took Li away to put handcuffs on him. While he was gone Liao told us what the supervisor had said. “Simply reprimanding him won’t do any good,” he explained. “We’ve got to dig deep into the reasons why he does these things.”
When Li returned, hands pinned behind his back, Liao immediately began by asking, “Why did you steal that handkerchief?”
Li hung his head and replied in a weak voice, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You took it, didn’t you? You must have had a reason for it. Why did you take it?”
“Because I wanted it,” was the hesitant reply.
‘Wanted it!” everyone roared in unison. “Was it yours?”
“No.”
“Why did you want it?”
Li was silent.
“Answer,” shouted someone. “Why did you take that handkerchief?”
“Because I didn’t have one.”
“Is that any excuse for taking something that belongs to someone else?”
“No.”
“Then why did you take it?”
On we went, trying to make Li think out himself why he was addicted to stealing, but we were able only to scratch the surface. We could go only so far and then Li would say he did not know. We still could not get him to think out why he had become a habitual criminal, how he looked upon stealing itself, or what his justifications for it were. Largely this was our fault, because at that time we knew too little about Li to be able to penetrate deep into his motivations.
After two days we gave up, on the promise from Li that he would never steal again. Then, after a long lecture by each cell member on the contemptibility of stealing, and warnings that if he kept on he was certain to be treated severely because in the new society there was no place for criminals, the matter was dropped and the handcuffs removed. A few days later Li was transferred to another cell.
It was a couple of years before I saw Li again, but in the meantime I heard that he had been caught stealing once more. This time he was put into handcuffs and ankle chains and, with help from prisoners who had come to know him better, he had been forced to make a thoroughgoing self-criticism. The question of why and the search for the chain of cause and effect had gone deep. Layer after layer of his motivations had gradually come to light, until the heart of the matter had been reached.
Li, as a child, had been abandoned by his parents and picked up by a gang of thieves. At first he was used as a beggar, and then, because of his slight build, to wiggle through small windows and openings in walls to rob houses. Later he had been taught the art of a pickpocket. Whatever he got was turned over to the gang. He was virtually their slave, and when he displeased them was beaten and starved.
He had lived in a realm of fear: fear of his masters, fear of the police, fear of everything around him. Even when he had grown up and become a full-fledged member of the gang his situation changed little. He had been caught several times and once imprisoned for many months by Nationalist police. They had let him loose only after he had paid the usual bribe and consented to work for them as a stool pigeon.
After liberation he had been arrested once as a pickpocket, but had been allowed to go after promising to reform. However, with no conception of how to work for a living, he had quickly drifted back to the only things he knew— stealing, informing, and running away. As his pathetic story had unfolded he had broken into tears and had begun to realize the hopelessness and sordidness of his former life. He realized that he had never looked upon stealing itself as something wrong. For him it was just a way of making a living. He had never really hurt anybody. Other people all had more than he had. If he could get away with it, why shouldn’t he? Being a pickpocket was as much an art as that of a juggler, magician, or storyteller.
His cell mates then reasoned with him that there was nothing that did not come about through someone’s labor, and that stealing the fruits of another man’s work was criminal. How would he like it if he had been forced to work all day and then was given no reward for it at all? They managed to break down Li’s fear a little and helped him come to understand his relationship to society and the wrongness of what he had been doing. Other people had been able to live honestly, free of fear and contempt. Why hadn’t he? Partly, they said, it was because of his own desire to get something for nothing, but for the most part it was the old society which was to blame.
Thus, while never being allowed to forget that he himself had been wrong, Li developed a passionate hatred for the old society which had produced not only himself but countless others like him. The dream of a world in which there would be no fear or want became almost an obsession with him. The authorities then did what seemed a strange thing. This spineless pickpocket, the dregs of humanity, was made leader of a cell. For the first time in his life, he was given some responsibility and a position of respect. In coming to a realization of his own background he found that he could help others and in so doing help himself. His fears gradually disappeared almost completely.
I hardly recognized Li the next time I saw him, almost two years later, when we were exercising in the same compound. He seemed inches taller and when he looked at you it was straight in the eye. There was not a shadow of his former cringing self. I heard he had joined the prison literacy classes and applied himself so well that he could now read and write. Just before I was released I read in the prison newspaper that he had been given an award for a proposal he had made for increasing production in the prison sock factory. I had no doubt that he was well on his way toward building a new life and would soon be released.
Although Li’s problem was a special one in that he was a habitual criminal, the process of his reform was in many ways typical of what happened to most of the men in the prison. The American reader who is acquainted with modern psychiatric techniques has undoubtedly noted strong similarities between the methods used in helping Li and the rest of us to reform through criticism and self-criticism and those used in group therapy here in the United States. Yet it was clear from my experience with both the authorities and the prisoners themselves that none of these people had any systematic training in psychology.
Indeed, as far as I know, the Chinese have never tried to work out the techniques of thought reform in the sense of a textbook science. Rather, the entire process seems to have developed in a rule-of-thumb manner based on a common-sense insight into human character, something for which the Chinese have always been noted, a concept of self-criticism borrowed from general Marxian practice and techniques which grew out of the need to reform the troops and intellectuals in the early days of the revolution.
The nearest approach to an organized theoretical basis for thought reform is to be found in Mao Tse-tung’s two philosophical treatises, “On Contradictions” and “On Practice,” and his various essays dealing with the practical application of Marxist principles to human relations. In these works, as well as those of Liu Shao-chi, who next to Mao Tse-tung is considered China’s leading Marxist theoretician, the stress is placed on the necessity for using criticism and self-criticism as a means to foster personal honesty and social responsibility. These are supplemented by numerous articles in newspapers and magazines describing particular problems, such as selfishness, graft, male supremacy, conservatism, and the manner in which certain individuals overcome them.
Though this group activity of thought reform was going on all over China, it perhaps found its most systematic application in prison, where the process was concentrated to an intense degree. Where, on the outside, participation in thought reform was largely voluntary, with the only force that of social pressure, in prison it was a matter of compulsion. Therefore, the actual process could be observed more clearly there. In our discussion and talks with the authorities certain basic concepts were emphasized again and again.
The point of departure in almost every one of our discussions on thought reform was the premise that the individual is a product of his environment, both from the point of view of the historical period into which he is born and the class to which he belongs. From birth he begins to develop mental habits which reflect his material surroundings. The old, highly competitive class society presented the individual with a constant struggle for his own survival and thus instilled in him a highly self-centered set of mental habits and outlooks. At the same time this society set up certain ideals of conduct which it considered necessary for the preservation of workable human relations.
The Judeo-Christian doctrines of the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule found their counterpart in China in the Six Confucian Standards of Behavior and the saying, “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.”
It was only natural that the individual, then, would be faced constantly with contradictions between what society presented to him as morally true and what experience in daily life clearly demonstrated was pragmatically true. Such contradictions existed for everyone, but they were particularly sharp among members of the old ruling classes who had to resolve the problem of preaching industriousness, thrift, and morality to others while living in idle luxury themselves.
In order to resolve these contradictions, the individual would build up a set of rationalizations which he used to justify his every action. The housewife who did not tell the butcher when he had undercharged her, the clerk who made personal use of office supplies, the politician who embezzled millions of the taxpayers’ money, and the general who ordered the annihilation of a defenseless population—all had their excuses.
It was no different for any of us in prison. Even though we had been forced to confess our crimes, we too all had our excuses. Thus, the first step in our reform was to break down our justifications and rationalizations and make us face up to our true selves. To do this the attack was launched on two fronts. Our study discussions provided us with a yardstick to measure the rightness or wrongness of our actions. This yardstick was basic socialist morality. That is to say, what is best for the greatest number of people in a specific historical context determines right from wrong.
Under socialism— the goal of the Chinese revolution— with the elimination of man’s exploitation of man, the individual is no longer compelled to engage in a life-and-death struggle against the rest of society. It then becomes possible in practice for men to live by the ideal of the Golden Rule and seek their own personal happiness within the common good. Self-criticism forced us to take this yardstick and compare our own actions and attitudes with it by criticizing them.
Merely being able to criticize, however, did not mean that one had reformed. Mental habits are not so easily changed. It requires a long and constant struggle and a sincere desire to change on the part of the individual himself. Many people in prison, after overcoming their initial distaste for revealing their shortcomings before others, became what we called chronic confessors. They would confess endlessly but never change. Most often this was because they were not interested in reforming but only in making a good impression on the authorities. Some would also resort to confession merely to gain emotional release from the stress and strain of prison life.
Most prisoners at some time or other went through a stage in which, though somewhat conscious of it, they had no genuine understanding of their guilt. Therefore, they tended to indulge in highly emotional exaggerations of their crimes without trying to bring about any real change in their character. Their situation often resembled that of the alcoholic who may be sincerely alarmed about his condition and most vehement in his promises to swear off drinking, but still, because he lacks any real understanding of his problem, is never quite able to do so.
In line with this almost every prisoner met with the problem of having his original rationalization broken down only to find he had built up a new set to justify the old habit. This again was like the alcoholic who, having come to realize the fallacy in his former rationalization “I know how to handle my liquor.” substitutes as a new rationalization, “One little drink won’t hurt.”
Therefore, it was only when a prisoner ceased confessing for confession’s sake or setting up false rationalizations and began to understand his true self and the harm his actions had caused others that he could develop a real desire to reform. At this point he could begin to struggle against his old, selfish, anti-social habits and outlooks and replace them with a new sense of social responsibility. In describing this process, the analogy was sometimes made to teaching a person to throw a ball correctly after he had acquired the habit of throwing it incorrectly. Even though such a person may realize his mistake, his instinctive reaction is to continue to throw in the old way until an entirely new set of muscles and reflexes have been developed.
For the drifter elements who made up the vast majority of counterrevolutionaries in the detention quarters reform was particularly difficult because they had spent most of their lives trying to get something for nothing. Never having taken part in productive work, they not only had to be impressed with the necessity and desirability of becoming constructive members of society but had to be taught how to do so. This was the reason for the labor reform which most of the prisoners took part in after leaving Tsao-lan-tzu Hu-tung. The pickpocket Li was typical in the sense that his reform went through all these stages.
In contrast to men like Li, Ma, Liao, and Jin, who were all drifters in varying degrees, were a few prisoners who were anti-Communist more as a matter of principle than for lack of moral values. For these people the crux of their reform was different and their change in outlook often came about rather suddenly. One afternoon in the spring of 1953 a tall, thin Chinese in padded clothes was ushered into our cell. His hands were cuffed behind his back and for a moment we watched him silently as he stood uncertainly just inside the door.
“Just arrived?” asked Liao finally.
“No, I’ve been here three days.”
“When did you get those?” he asked, nodding toward the handcuffs.
“Just now,” was the subdued answer.
“Bu-lao-shr [dishonest], eh?” sneered Ma.
The man was silent.
Finally, Liao asked, “Why were you brought here?”
“Because I’m a Catholic.”
“Nobody ever came here just because he was a Catholic.”
“What are you charged with?”
“I can’t tell you,” was his answer.
“We know,” replied Liao. “The new regulations do not permit us to discuss the details of our crimes with each other, but you can give us a general idea.”
“They said it was sabotaging land reform and helping Nationalist agents.”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” was the reluctant answer.
“Then why those?”
The man hesitated.
“Come on.”
“The interrogation officer and I had a difference of opinion. He said I was a traitor.”
“Aren’t you?” snapped Ma.
There was no reply.
“Aren’t you?” pressed Liao, his face becoming tight, his eyes narrow.
The man still hesitated and then finally, after the others had told him to answer, said, “No. I was only fighting for God.”
“Since when does fighting for God involve sabotaging land reform and giving information to your country’s enemies? Isn’t that being a traitor?”
“Well, it seems to me that the term traitor can have a broad or narrow interpretation.”
“Ta-ma-di” swore Ma. “You’re not a priest; you’re a lawyer. What’s your interpretation of a traitor?”
“Well, I’m not one.” said the man, his eyes blazing. “The Communists want to destroy all religion.”
“Listen,” commanded Liao. Then during the brief silence which followed, we heard the bells of the big Catholic cathedral nearby tolling six o’clock. “We hear those bells every day.”
Han spoke up, “Liao is a Christian but nobody has tried to interfere with his religion.”
The man’s eyes showed a flicker of interest. “Catholic?”
“No, Protestant. And don’t get the idea you’re here because you’re a Catholic,” answered Liao.
The new arrival’s interest was replaced by a look of disdain.
“Let’s get back to the point,” resumed Ma, always eager for a fight. “Are you or are you not a traitor?”
“I’m a servant of God. I’m no traitor. May God punish you all for accusing me so.” His eyes flashed as he strained at the handcuffs behind his back.
The others began shouting at him and the new man, Han, yelled, “Traitor! Traitor!”
Suddenly the commotion came to a halt when the door was thrown open to reveal the short, stocky figure of the warden himself. “What’s going on here?” he demanded in his quick accent.
Liao hastened to explain that the man was trying to maintain he had been arrested because he was a Catholic and he was only fighting for Christianity.
The warden stared steadily at the man for a moment and then said in a contemptuous tone, “You’re a fine Christian. I’m a Communist, but I have a great deal of respect for Christ. In His time, He too fought for the people. He was the man who drove the moneylenders from the temple. But you? What have you been doing, huh? Not only helping the moneylenders, but lending out a little of your own on the side! Christ died for His people, betrayed by reactionaries and crucified by imperialists. But you? What have you been doing, huh? Betraying your people and working side by side with the reactionary Nationalists in order to serve the imperialists. And you call yourself a Christian, huh!”
His words came forth in staccato blasts punctuated by frequent “huh, huh.” Then, more quietly, he went on, “We Communists are materialists and don’t believe in a God. We believe that religion grew out of early man’s superstitious fears of the natural phenomena around him which he could not explain and as soon as man can understand these things there will be no need for religion. Soon science will discover how to create life. Then the last hold that religion has on the minds of men will be gone and it will die its own death.
“We Communists know we are right, but we are no fools. Religion is a way of thinking and you can’t use force to wipe out thought. The ancient Chinese emperors often tried to suppress certain sects and their beliefs. They killed a lot of people but they only succeeded in driving the beliefs underground. The laws of our land specifically guarantee religious freedom. However, that does not mean that you can use religion as a cloak for counterrevolutionary activities. There’s no conflict between the teachings of Christ and socialism. If you want to be a real Christian, that’s all right with us. But in the meantime, just take a look at yourself. Compare what Christ stood for with what you have been doing.” With that he left.
There was a silence for a few minutes as the man stood dejectedly, his head bowed.
“You sit down over there and think about what the warden said,” was Liao’s only comment. The rest of us turned back to our chess games and mending.
During the evening class we went on with the discussion. The new arrival, Pu, still clung to his contention that he was not a traitor. But he had obviously been shaken by the warden’s words. That night I noticed that while the others slept Pu’s eyes remained open.
The next day Liao continued the discussion, pointing out that now for the first time in China’s history the people were being given the chance to lead a decent kind of life, the kind that Christ would have wanted His people to enjoy. If Pu were a real Christian, why wasn’t he supporting this instead of trying to tear it down? Pu now had little to say for himself.
That afternoon he was called out and about an hour later returned, this time without handcuffs. He had barely sat down when a supervisor arrived with an order for him to collect his things and move to another cell. We had no opportunity, therefore, to learn the details of his interrogation, but a week later we noticed that Pu had been transferred to the prison labor detail, the most coveted position in the entire prison because of the chance it afforded one to move around freely outside.
No matter what our backgrounds and initial attitude, for all of us in prison there was a big question— when could one be considered reformed? Often it seemed as if we were chasing a carrot on a stick, for, except for a nebulous injunction to learn to serve the people and help others, the government never gave us any specific indication of its expectations with regard to us. However, as time went on, though each man had his individual problems, those who demonstrated a rejection of the old, selfish attitudes began to stand out. It was usually, however, a major crisis of self-interest, such as Liao’s divorce, which presented the real test of progress.
By early 1953 most of the prisoners who had been there any length of time were beginning to show some signs of change. Their discussions showed little trace of their former longing for the past and for the return of the Nationalists. Partly this was due to the effectiveness of the Communist arguments, but even more it was history itself which brought this about. The progress of the war in Korea had exploded the myth of American invincibility and the dreams that a Nationalist-American landing might bring about their release. The anticipated internal revolt and economic collapse had failed to materialize. Instead, the country was united as it never had been before, and in 1952 overall production stood 9 per cent above the record levels in Chinese history.
But it was not just a matter of giving up hope; much more it was a case of the prisoners no longer having any interest in these things. This was brought out with particular clarity one day in January, 1953, while the Korean war was still on. The announcement of China’s first five-year plan came over the prison loud-speaker and when Mao Tse-tung was quoted as saying, “If the Americans want to talk, we’ll talk; if they want to fight, we’ll fight, but in the meantime we are going on with our economic reconstruction,” a tremendous wave of applause and cheers resounded throughout the prison.
It perhaps seems unbelievable that these men, almost all Nationalists and American agents facing long prison terms under the Communists, should be applauding so enthusiastically the man they had looked upon a short time before as their worst enemy. But much of the answer lay in Liao’s remark when he turned to me with shining eyes and said enthusiastically, “Nowadays it really feels good to know you have Chinese blood in your veins. Truly, as Chairman Mao says, we Chinese have stood up in the world.”
The continuous progress of the revolution had a positive effect on the prisoners. Especially after 1953 the building of the new China absorbed the attention of almost all of them. Few could help but be infected with the spirit of challenge. While in the United States people grab their newspaper to find out the standing of their favorite ball team, in China interest was centered on the fulfillment of production goals. It was the same in our cell.
The announcement of a new invention, the building of a new factory, or the surpassing of a production target would bring forth excited exclamations, and the news of a drought or flood would throw the cell into deep gloom. The activities and accomplishments of model workers, such as the railroad engineer Yo Sheng-wu and the girl textile worker Ho Jien-hsiu, were followed with the same interest as those of a Mickey Mantle or Grace Kelly here at home.
The smallest incident affecting our lives in the cell could be related to China’s industrial development. In early 1953 I had bought a pack of Chinese playing cards for 7,000 JMP (35¢). They were made of such poor grade cardboard they could not be shuffled without splitting. When a year later I bought another pack, this time for only half the former price but of much superior quality, they were passed around to be handled admiringly and acclaimed as proof of the improvements being made on the outside.
My cell mates were fired with the desire to be a part of the new China, and the feeling that they were criminals outside of it all weighed heavily on them. Thus, there began to grow a new incentive to reform. No longer was it just a question of reforming simply to avoid punishment. Now there was the positive hope for a vital and fruitful future in helping to build their country.
The change was greatly assisted by the attitude of the authorities toward the prisoners. They were merciless in their contempt for the counterrevolutionary and spy, but they were careful never to let the prisoner feel this contempt was leveled at him as a person. We were told over and over again, “It is not you but your thinking which is bad.” Although discipline was strict, we were at all times encouraged to be frank in our relations with all of the prison staff from the warden on down to the kitchen help. Any sign of obsequiousness was taken as either an indication of concealed hostility or a holdover from the “feudal” mannerisms of the past, and was sure to be met with a blast, “Speak out like a man!”
The prisoners were impressed by the fact that the staff applied the demand for reform to themselves as much as to us. This was especially brought home to us in the case of Supervisor Wang. He was a tall, good-looking man with a hot disposition which often got the better of him. Regulations strictly forbade striking a prisoner, but early in 1951 he had lost his temper and hit one of the inmates. Subsequently he had been given a year to think things over in a cell right along with the other prisoners. During this time, he had come to a sincere realization of his mistake, and in the end returned to his old job of supervisor. By 1953 the change which had taken place in him was clearly evident.
One day a new prisoner was placed alone in the cell opposite ours. The man was like a wild bull, shouting curses at everyone, and the cell door had no sooner been shut than he gave it a tremendous kick, knocking the bolt loose and sending parts of it flying across the corridor. My cell mates were furious at the man’s unreasonable violence, but we could hear Supervisor Wang saying in a calm voice as he reopened the door, “Now what problem do you think that is going to solve?”
Then, after a pause, we could hear him just as calmly closing the door again. The man in the cell, who had been primed for a fight, must have been left speechless by the supervisor’s tranquil air, for we heard no more from him for some time.
When it was over, Liao shook his head. “Two years ago, Supervisor Wang would really have slapped that character down. And they say people can’t change!”
Of extreme importance in the reform of every prisoner was the direct help given him by the prison staff. From the very beginning the authorities made a point of studying each individual’s history to discover the dominant elements in his character and the roots of his thinking. But it seemed to me that during 1951-52 much of their effort was mechanical and negative. Undue stress was placed on class background and initial attitude displayed during the confession. They were harsher toward landlords and professional agents, and in dealing with the prisoners as a whole the emphasis was definitely on suppression. Prisoners who showed signs of being particularly dishonest or obstinate were often simply put in handcuffs or leg irons without much attempt being made to learn the real reasons for their attitudes.
Partly, this impatience was due to the great bitterness engendered by the violence of the counterrevolutionaries at the time and the open defiance many of them displayed even in prison. There seemed to be a general feeling on the part of the authorities that only the constant threat of severe repression could keep these men, many of them hardened killers, in check. But also, it was often a case of the prison staff being too busy or too inexperienced to deal in any other way with the situations which arose.
By 1953 the characters of the men in the detention quarters had changed considerably. Even the newcomers showed little rebelliousness, and the authorities acknowledged that their former overemphasis on suppression had been a mistake. From then on there was much more flexibility displayed in analyzing the problems of each prisoner and the means to help him overcome them.
Sometimes suppression was still required to make the individual realize the seriousness of his situation and maintain discipline. But sometimes extreme leniency was also required to help him overcome his fears and doubts. We were all espionage or counterrevolutionary cases and therefore regulations forbade any direct contact with the outside, but some prisoners were even allowed to see their families if it were thought this might help them toward reform.
Typical of the type of help administered by the authorities was that given to a man who came into our cell in late 1953. He had been a soldier under the war lord Yen Hsi-shan, and had been tattooed— as was often the case with Yen’s troops to make them afraid to surrender —with a hideous anti-Communist slogan across his forehead. His crime was not serious, and he seemed not a bad fellow at heart. He had joined the Nationalist underground only because Chiang Kai-shek’s agents had convinced him the Communists would certainly kill him for that slogan on his forehead.
After long arguments and citing many examples we managed to convince him he had nothing to fear from the People’s Government, and he seemed to regret his past actions. But instead of reacting with enthusiasm to the prospect of a quick return to society, he would sit during class staring glumly into space, and no amount of prodding would move him to participate.
Finally, after several self-criticism discussions, we discovered what was troubling him. True, he was no longer afraid of dying, but how could he ever take part in the new society with such a slogan on his forehead? We tried to reassure him that no one would blame him for it, but to no avail.
One morning he was called out of the cell and was gone all day. When he returned, his forehead was bandaged but his eyes were shining. The government had taken him to the hospital where a specialist had removed the tattoo. The change which followed in the man’s personality was almost miraculous. As he said, he felt he had been relieved of a “ten-thousand-ton burden.”
I myself was particularly influenced by the high standard of conduct the staff set for themselves. It was probably Supervisor Shen who made the deepest impression on me. He was about my age, obviously of country background and little education. But his conscientious attitude toward work more than made up for any lack of schooling. He was on the run from early morning to late at night. Yet he always seemed to have time to listen to the troubles of one or another of the prisoners or to do countless little things which showed how serious he was in looking out for the welfare of his charges.
No matter how tired he might be, if there occurred a sudden change in the weather he was bound to make the rounds of the entire compound to see that everyone was well covered before turning in himself. “Hey, keep your stomach covered,” we could hear him say as he checked each cell. “You don’t want to catch cold.”
At such times I had to repress a smile, for I was never able to take seriously the Chinese household science which regarded the stomach as particularly vulnerable to cold.
At first I was inclined to look upon this concern for our welfare as merely so much propaganda. It was a seemingly unimportant incident which caused my first thoughts that this suspicion might be unfounded.
One wintry Saturday the prisoners hung their wash out as usual on the line which stretched the length of the alleyway behind our cell block. That afternoon, in violation of the regulations, I looked through the crack in the palisade built around our cell window to obstruct the view. There was Supervisor Shen patiently going along the line turning every article of the prisoners’ clothing to make certain they would be dry by the time we were to take them in after supper.
It came to me that the man could not be doing this to impress anyone. No one was supposed to be looking. Perhaps I had been misjudging these people after all, and I remembered my first impression of the Communists, received from the troops who had rescued my bicycle during the siege of Peking.
Though, along with my cell mates, I could admire the integrity and sincerity of such people as Shen, the other factors which were influencing the prisoners on the road to reform had little effect on me. The revolutionary spirit pervading China and the country’s great economic and social transformation which they found so inspiring seemed far removed from me. I could envy my cell mates in their growing feeling of security and hope for the future, and understand their willingness to reform, but, as an American, I could see little use in any thoroughgoing change in myself.
My only desire was to gain my release somehow and return home, but even there the future looked anything but bright. I had already made up my mind that I could not recant my confession, as I had once so lavishly planned, and still live with myself. Yet, if I did tell the truth, and refused to cooperate with Naval Intelligence, I was certain that with McCarthyism still running rampant in the United States I was bound to be labeled subversive. Then all my high hopes for a teaching career would be gone. In fact, even making a living might prove difficult.
This contradiction in my longing for home and my fear of returning to an impossible situation dominated my thoughts to such an extent that any positive thinking toward reform was pushed aside. At the same time, my lack of any feeling of guilt in connection with my crime hindered progress in the direction of reform. I was willing to concede that what I had done had been a mistake from the point of view of my own self-interest, but this contained no sense of having harmed others nor a feeling of need to question the foundations of my own character.
Our self-criticism movements which occurred every few months demanded a deep searching into our thoughts and motivations, with a view to checking up on our progress toward reform. Since I knew that I had actually made little or no progress and was only desirous of escape from it all, I could look upon these movements only with dread. At the announcement by the authorities of a new self-criticism movement, my stomach would be gripped with fear and I would begin to wonder if this time the government’s patience would be exhausted and I would end up in handcuffs and leg irons. Indicative of my state of mind was the care I took to put on clean clothes at the beginning of such sessions in expectation of a long period with hands fettered behind my back.
Each time when the discussions got under way I would wait until the others had all made their self-criticism, hoping to glean from the points they made something I could say myself. But this never seemed to help me. When it came my turn I would search desperately for something to say which might appease the demands of my cell mates for an honest accounting of myself without admitting completely that I had made no progress. Such tactics, of course, failed to satisfy anyone, and my cell mates would start hammering away with their endless “why, why, why” —why hadn’t I changed?
Finally, I would be driven to admitting the same things I had admitted time and time before— I had no feeling of guilt, all I wanted to do was go home, etc. Sometimes my cell mates would terminate my self-criticism after I had promised to try to reform. But the release thus gained was more than offset by the depression which engulfed me at the thought of the hopelessness of my situation. How was I ever going to get out of this place if I could not prove to them that I had become convinced of the wrongness of my actions? Often my soul would rebel within me. I would want to lash out and let them shoot me if they wished; at least that would settle the matter. But then I knew I would not be shot. I would only end up in handcuffs and leg irons, and that would solve nothing.
Since it was so obvious that my self-criticism had done no good, my cell mates would soon call for another “to help me solve my problem.” The same cycle would then begin all over again. Once, I was reduced to such a state of despair that I said in exasperation, “If you will only tell me what you want—”
“If we did, you wouldn’t understand,” broke in Liao impatiently.
Then he went on, “Do you want to reform?”
“Ye-e-s,” I replied, without much conviction.
“Why?”
“So, I can leave here, of course.”
“Well, if that is the only reason you have for wanting to reform, you haven’t a chance.” After staring coldly at me for a minute, he continued, “As long as you keep looking at things from your present self-centered point of view you never will understand anything. Why don’t you stop thinking about leaving here for a few minutes— just long enough to take one half-way objective look at yourself? You know, we Chinese have a saying, ‘In the search for truth the selfish are eternally blind.’ That applies to all of us, but to you in particular.”
Thus, although I was able from an academic standpoint to go through the mechanics of reviewing my past life and analyzing myself rather successfully, still, because it was done primarily from the point of view of pleasing others, it had little effect as far as changing my basic outlooks was concerned. It was this failure to face squarely the weakness and dishonesty in my own character and the refusal to admit to myself the need for reform that led me into the worst mistake of my stay in prison. And yet it was this very crisis which was finally to bring me to my senses.