Wake up（66）

 

66

 

During the Great Famine, He Jiafu experienced the most difficult time in Xinyang. After the eye-popping Xinyang Incident, the Xinyang Prefectural Committee’s “Report on the Rectification Movement and Production and Disaster Relief Work” in 1961 stated that the enemy’s situation was exaggerated, the contradictions between the enemy and ourselves were confused, and the serious reduction in grain production and the large number of hunger, disease, and The phenomenon of the dead and the dead is all attributed to the bad guys in power and the destruction of the landlord forces. Therefore, it is proposed to rely on the poor and lower-middle peasants, carry out rectification and rectification, and completely isolate and overthrow the counter-revolutionary restoration forces. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China approved and affirmed the report, and demanded that "the rectification of the three types of communes and brigades across the country should be carried out accordingly." This instruction contributed to the development of "Left" errors in the rectification movement.

After the reform and opening up, the investigation and reflection of the incident was brought up again, but it was only made public in a small area. The reflections of the parties were gradually finalized after entering the 1990s, and gradually became known after the 21st century.

However, no matter how time goes by, He Jiafu will never forget the painful memory before and after the Xinyang incident. He collected a copy of "Yanhuang Chunqiu" magazine No. 05 in 2008, because the article "The Great Famine in China's First People's Commune" written by the author Ren Yanfang made him never tire of reading it. This is an interview.

On May 7, 2000, in the dormitory of the Henan Provincial Party Committee in Zhengzhou. The 81-year-old Zhang Shen told his old subordinate Zhou Huamin about his history and how he was labeled a "right opportunist" in 1959. The 74-year-old Zhou Huamin asked questions and interjected while listening, some of which were their common experiences.

Zhang Shen, Secretary of the Kaifeng Prefectural Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1953, was the old leader of Jiao Yulu, and served as Secretary General of the Henan Provincial Party Committee before retiring; Before retiring, he was the deputy secretary of the Shangqiu Prefectural Committee.

The following is the transcript of the interview.

 

Zhang Shen:

In the first half of 1955, Zhengzhou Prefectural Party Committee was renamed Kaifeng Prefectural Party Committee, and Zhang Jianmin, the former secretary of the prefectural Party Committee, was transferred to be the head of the Organization Department of Henan Provincial Party Committee, and I succeeded as Secretary of Kaifeng Prefectural Party Committee. Since I became the secretary of the prefectural party committee, I have lost my peaceful days. It turned out that the rural cooperative work was relatively smooth. In 1953, Deng Zihui, known as an "expert in the peasant movement", became the head of the Central Rural Work Department. The basic idea he proposed is to adhere to the principle of voluntary participation of the masses, and the steps must be steady; the scale of cooperatives should be small, and different regions should be treated differently, not one size fits all; rural cooperatives must not only be developed, but also consolidated. From my actual work experience, this is correct. But I was wrong! Chairman Mao began to criticize Deng Zihui as a "woman with small feet", and in the second half of 1955, cooperation was realized. Greatly speeded up. I'm a little worried. But Geng Qichang, Secretary of the Xinxiang Prefectural Party Committee, has become a prominent figure. I don't want to be a "female with small feet" and follow suit. Some leaders of the Provincial Party Committee already think that I am "right".

In 1958, Chairman Mao wanted to swim on the Yellow River. When he arrived at the east dam of Lankao, Shi Xiangsheng, the deputy secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, accompanied me. When he arrived in Lankao, he also let me board the special train. Chairman to taste.

When I got in the car, I saw Chairman Mao wearing a white coat (pajamas) and looking at the Three Kingdoms. Chairman Mao wanted to swim here, Luo Ruiqing considered safety, but did not agree, so he went to Shangqiu from here.

After that, I led hundreds of thousands of people in eastern Henan to Gongxian and Mixian to make steel.

 

Zhou Huamin interjected:

In 1958, the Party Central Committee proposed to hold high the three red banners of the general line, the Great Leap Forward, and the People's Commune, and work hard to enter communism in the third five-year plan. People put forward slogans:

"The eyes are broken, the legs are broken, and the axis is spinning. If you live and do it, you will die!"

"How bold people are, how productive the land is!"

"Stand on the earth and hold the sky in your hands, we must double the output!"

At that time, my head was hot to the extreme! It is said that communism is heaven and the people's commune is the bridge. The first people's commune in the country is called the Yashan People's Commune, which is located in Xinyang, Henan. ...

 

Zhang Shen:

Geng Qichang, Secretary of the Xinxiang Prefectural Party Committee, accompanied Chairman Mao to inspect the Qiliying People's Commune. Chairman Mao affirmed the name: "It's better to call it the People's Commune!" Suddenly, the whole country was full of People's Commune.

 

Zhou Huamin:

There is a canteen supply system everywhere, and there is no money for meals, and they live a "communist" life. I went to visit Heilongjiang Province and saw "unmanned food outlets" and "unmanned outlets"; Force farmers to tell lies and report high yields. Chang Mulin, a farmer in his 50s in Changzhuang, Tongxu Liancheng Commune, used to work as a long-term laborer for the landlord. He said to the old county magistrate of Qi County in his village who went home to visit his relatives: "Now they are forced to report the output. If they fail to report, they have to be beaten. , It is the decision of the Party Central Committee. The fucking 'Party Central Committee' is so bad, I don't believe that even Chairman Mao can't control this 'Party Central Committee'!" He is an honest farmer, and he mistook the "Party Central Committee" for It's a person.

In August 1958, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held an enlarged meeting in Beidaihe, and decided that the steel output in 1958 should double that of 1957, reaching 10.7 million tons. At that time, the five counties in the west of Kaifeng area were mountainous areas, and some iron ore could be used for iron smelting. At that time, I was concurrently the director of the iron and steel office of the prefectural party committee. I wanted to go to the front line of steelmaking. I went to the provincial iron and steel meeting. The secretary of the provincial party committee asked: Has Zhang Shen arrived yet? You go back and tell him that the secretary is going to be in command...

Zhang Shen nodded and said yes, Zhang Shen continued:

I was in command and was in the front-line headquarters, and the secretaries of the county party committees were also in command and went to war. According to the instructions of the provincial party committee, 350,000 people were mobilized in the Kaifeng area to arrange on-site arrangements in the five counties of Gongxian, Dengfeng, Mixian, Xinzheng, and Xingyang West to form headquarters at all levels. If there is no coal, trees are cut down and transported. The building of a small blast furnace needed hair, so the girls were asked to cut their braids, and the little girls cried when they cut their braids. The blast furnace needed lead iron, so the pots and door locks of the people's houses were all smashed.

 

Zhou Huamin:

The scene was really spectacular, with a sea of people during the day and lights at night. Regardless of whether it is a mountainous area, hills, urban or rural areas, large or small iron-making furnaces, one by one, one by one, long and square, are everywhere, and you can't see the edge at a glance. The length is ten meters or even hundreds of meters, called earth furnace. The small one is a wood bellows stove. In the heat of summer, sweat and smoke, everyone's face is dark and covered with dust, and people who are familiar with each other do not know each other when they meet.

At that time, Dengfeng was an "advanced county" in the province's large-scale iron and steel industry. This started with eliminating the "four pests" (flies, mosquitoes, sparrows, and rats) and improving hygiene. "Henan Daily" published photos, asking farmers to brush their donkeys' teeth and put on masks, making people laugh and cry.

 

Zhang Shen:

Dengfeng used local methods to smelt iron before it started a big iron and steel business. At this time, Dengfeng became a model, and people from all over the country came to visit, including the philosopher Ai Siqi. He was sent here to serve as deputy secretary of the county party committee, and the secretary of the county party committee was Cai Zhenzhong. Cai Zhenzhong falsely reported the output and engaged in formalism. I criticized him, but he didn't say a word. After Dengfeng proposed the "four nos" counties, he asked the masses to dig out maggots in the toilets, beat flies, and brush the teeth of livestock and sheep... The province promoted the establishment of four noes special areas based on this model. If I don’t agree, it’s okay, the minority obeys the majority, and the leaders of the prefectural committee agree, so I can’t do anything about it. Chairman Mao came to Henan to engage in agriculture for 40 articles. Cai Zhenzhong answered Chairman Mao's question and said: Three years can enter communism.

In the winter of 1958, the big iron and steel smelting could not go on.

In December 1958, the central government approved the abolition of the organizational structure of Shangqiu area and merged it into Kaifeng area. The five counties in the west of the original Kaifeng area were included in Zhengzhou City. The new Kaifeng area has 21 counties under its jurisdiction and a population of more than 11 million. I am the second secretary of the prefectural committee.

In the winter of 1958, there was no food. That year, there was a bumper harvest but not a bumper harvest, and the waste was astonishing. It was even more serious in Shangqiu. The higher-ups didn't know the truth, and held a grain harvest meeting in Dancheng in winter. But I saw a large store of grain. There was only a layer of grain on the top, and the bottom was full of wheat straw and chaff. However, the "anti-production" became more and more serious.

After the Spring Festival this year, people began to starve to death.

 

Zhou Huamin:

The five winds in Shangqiu area were serious. Ren Xiuduo, the former district commissioner, and Ma Zhenzao, the organization director of the prefectural committee, commanded the construction of the "Pankou Reservoir" and destroyed dozens of villages. Tens of thousands of men and women were organized to dig the reservoir in cold weather. Organize dozens of girls to participate in the "Yangko Team" twisting Yangko and dancing in skirts. A large number of crops were destroyed, a large piece of land was barren, life was extremely difficult, and labor intensity was high, resulting in the death of hundreds of people. In 1958, they dug a "Dongfeng Lake" in the northern suburbs of Shangqiu, which was personally directed by Ma Zhenzao after visiting Suzhou and Hangzhou with medical staff and designers. There are many bridges and rockeries in the whole lake. For three or nine days, the north wind was biting, and Ma Zhenzao lived in a hospital not far from "Dongfeng Lake" to recuperate. He forced government officials, workers, and farmers to jump into the waist-high water, dig the lake and lift mud, and died of starvation. , freezing to death, exhausting some people...

 

Zhang Shen:

In the winter of this year, Zhao Wenfu, the vice-governor, and Chen Bing, the secretary of the prefectural committee, took a secretary down to visit Duji, Yucheng. As soon as they entered the village, they saw that people were swollen. up. Chen Bingzhi walked into a house from the west end of the village, and saw an old man sleeping in a grass nest, with no food in sight. He saw a small tank in the house, filled with a tank of meat, and asked: What kind of meat is it, dog meat? Cat meat? The old man cried and said it was my granddaughter's meat!

Hungry people eat human flesh! Chen Bingzhi couldn't stay still any longer, so he went to Zhao Wenfu and looked at the small vat that was filled with the girl's flesh! ...

I wanted to tell the truth, I told the real situation, but I didn't dare to say how serious it was, but in August 1959, I was labeled as a "right opportunist"!

At that time, I was the second secretary of the prefectural committee in charge of industry.

August 1959...

 

Zhou Huamin's narration is more detailed than Zhang Shen himself.

In August 1959, the Henan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China held an industrial meeting and notified the secretaries in charge of industry and ministers of industry from all localities and cities to attend. Comrade Zhang Shen, the second secretary of the prefectural party committee, and I attended the meeting. The meeting was originally to study how to organize the Great Leap Forward of Industry, but later it became "anti-rightist"...

One morning, the Standing Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee presided over the meeting, saying that he wanted to "emancipate the mind and get rid of superstition" and truthfully reflect the shortcomings, problems, and difficulties in the Great Leap Forward. You can also say...

The comrades who participated in the meeting had all experienced the "anti-rightists" in 1957, and most of them had lingering fears. However, after hearing the inspiration from the leaders of the provincial party committee, they asked some questions and expressed some opinions and suggestions. Comrade Zhang Shen made a systematic and truthful summary speech. I remember that the content of your speech was roughly: Hundreds of thousands of people went up to build iron and steel, and some iron was smelted, but the quality was not high and there were many problems. People from the plains were not used to going to the mountains, and they kept fleeing. Several people fell into the reservoir and drowned when they fled. They lost a lot of money, and we couldn't solve it financially. We asked the provincial party committee to make up for it.

The agricultural situation was originally good, but like last year (1958), there was a bumper harvest but not a bumper harvest, and there was a lot of food waste. Was the establishment of the People's Commune too fast? In a short time, it developed into a commune. Just keep your steps steady. ...

When Zhang Shen talked about the issue of large-scale steel production, I added many examples: Dengfeng County's "outside the satellite" was a fake, it was to peel off the surface of the coal field, and there was no digging down at all, and no coal was seen. The "satellite number" was issued on the reported output. The quality of the iron was very poor. The chief of the Central Materials Department came to adjust our steel. I took him to the site in Dengfeng County to have a look. He dared not say that the quality of the iron was poor. ", but refused to allocate according to the plan... I also talked about many problems in the big iron and steel industry...

At about 3:00 p.m. on the second day after our speech, a deputy governor and a deputy secretary-general of the provincial party committee came to our station. They said that Zhang Shen's speech was wrong, and asked him to conduct a review tomorrow in the auditorium of the North Hospital of the Provincial Party Committee.

The next afternoon, Yang Weiping, standing secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and second in command, presided over the meeting. He said: "Today's meeting is to arrange for Zhang Shen, the second secretary of the Kaifeng Prefectural Party Committee, to conduct a review. The People’s Commune started too early, messed up and made a series of erroneous remarks, and Zhang Shen will make a review next.”

Zhang Shen came to the stage to conduct a self-criticism. He talked about his thinking, admitted that his thinking was "rightist", and admitted that there were mistakes in his speech. When he talked about the class roots of the mistakes, he said:

"I am from Xinyang, and I was born in a small land renter. This is a reflection of the inferiority of petty bourgeois thinking in the party..."

Yang Weiping, who presided over the meeting, immediately interrupted: "Zhang Shen, tick off the word 'small'! It's a reflection of bourgeois ideology in the party!"

After Zhang Shen finished speaking, Yang Weiping asked all cities to speak and criticize. It seems that the critics can't understand their thinking, their level is not high, and they are all limp.

The host Yang Weiping made a concluding speech. He said: "Now the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee is being held in Lushan. Peng Dehuai wrote a letter of ten thousand words to Chairman Mao, and he jumped out. This meeting of the Central Committee is criticizing them! Zhang Shen's thoughts and Peng Dehuai Similarly, it is also a big argument that the gains of steel are not worth the losses, echoing Peng Dehuai. Zhang Shen also opposed the People's Commune and the Great Leap Forward... This is a struggle between two lines. We must resolutely draw a line with Zhang Shen and fight to the end..."

After returning from the meeting in the province, the Provincial Party Committee immediately sent Li Li, Secretary of the Secretariat, and Zhang Jianmin, Member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and Minister of Organization, to the Kaifeng Prefectural Party Committee to personally grasp the anti-rightist movement. Taking the anti-right deviation in Kaifeng area as a typical example of the whole province, the first thing to do is to start with Zhang Shen's "right deviation" and criticize Zhang Shen. It is to hold a meeting of responsible cadres of various departments in the local government to organize the exposure and prosecution of Zhang Shen, and then to criticize the struggle . The next step is to criticize Xu Kai (Deputy Commissioner), Yang Tize (Deputy Commissioner), and Wang Xiangming (Deputy Director of the Organization Department of the Prefectural Committee) for their "right deviation".

Not long after, Geng Huawu, the deputy secretary of the prefectural committee, came to talk to me: "After research and decision by the prefectural committee, the provincial committee approved you to suspend your post for self-reflection, confess honestly, thoroughly expose and report Zhang Shen, accept criticism and struggle, and strive for lenient punishment. Since then, in the prefectural committee The industrial and transportation system of the agency held a meeting and conducted numerous criticisms against me.

Twenty-one counties of the Kaifeng prefectural committee approved us for more than half a month, and they took turns to approve us when we returned to the district, and the upper and lower couplets were hung.

From September 1959 to March 1960, for about half a year, there were countless times of critical struggles against me, and there were people guarding me. Of course, there was no personal freedom...

Approved by the Standing Committee of the Prefectural Party Committee on January 31, 1960, Zhou Huamin was turned into a right-leaning opportunist.

When the criticism was over and I was waiting to be dealt with, I was asked to go to Yongcheng County with a disaster relief team to check the disaster situation and arrange the lives of the masses. After our group of eight arrived in Yongcheng, the secretary of the county party committee, Mr. Han, arranged for us to have dinner at Xiaozao, a county party committee, but we refused. At this time, the food on the small stove was fine powder, and life was very special. This secretary spent his days drinking and drinking, eating and drinking;

At that time, Yongcheng County had a population of 600,000, and as many as 100,000 had died of starvation. Secretary Han decided: the masses are not allowed to leave to beg for food, and they are not allowed to shout that there is no food or money. He blocked the news from us, concealed the truth, said that the lives of the people in Yongcheng were fine, and refused the state to distribute food money. We saw 8 people starved to death in a small temple in a small village in the north of the city with our own eyes. When we returned to the county, we had to report to him. He stared and said, "That's pretending to be from Yongcheng, to discredit me! Don't lie about the disaster! Don't be deceived! Don't lean to the right!"

Wearing the hat of "rightist", I still reported the truth when I came back!

On February 20, 1960, the Chief of the Administrative Section of the Prefectural Party Committee called me in and ordered me: "You are a right-leaning opportunist. Now you have to send your "work permit" and "public-funded medical certificate" to the administrative section within a day or two when you are released from labor reform. In the future, you will not be able to enjoy the treatment of state cadres, and you will not be able to enjoy public medical care!"

The next day I gave him two certificates, these two documents related to my political life and physical health!

On March 25th, I was notified to go to Xiaogan Iron and Steel Plant in Gongxian County for labor reform, for a whole year and nine months...

 

Zhang Shen:

After being denounced, I was designated as a right-leaning opportunist, dismissed from all positions inside and outside the party, demoted from administrative rank 10 to 12, and then went to Fuji Farm in Qixian County for labor reform.

Personal setbacks and pains are nothing, the most distressing thing is: since then there is no democracy in the party, and they dare not speak out different opinions, just like the intellectuals dared not speak up after the anti-rightist movement in 1957, the whole country fell silent, and the people suffered An even bigger disaster, the appalling "Xinyang Incident" occurred in my hometown of Xinyang, because of telling huge lies, causing a huge disaster.

My old father Xia Youming was a democrat. He used to live with me and opposed my right opportunism. He returned to his hometown of Xinyang and became a witness to this incident. In 1961, after I was rehabilitated, he returned to Kaifeng. He was a librarian of the Kaifeng City Museum of Culture and History. When democrats held a meeting, he was very excited when he brought up the Xinyang incident: Dead people are everywhere! Much more people died on both sides than when we liberated Xinyang City and fought against Zhang Zhen, the commander of the Kuomintang Corps!

According to statistics at the time, in Xinyang alone, more than one million people starved to death!

 

When Zhang Shen said this, he couldn't go on. Tears welled up in his eyes. Although this happened forty years ago, it was still vivid in his memory, as if it was yesterday!

I listened with a heavy heart, and I said to Lao Zhou: Can anyone explain the Xinyang incident in detail? If I want to write about the tragedy of lies, I should not forget the great tragedy of this nation.

Lao Zhou said: Yao Xuezhi, secretary of the Disciplinary Inspection Commission of Kaifeng, who lives above me, is retired, and he knows best. When we go back, we will visit him, and he is also willing to tell others about this situation, so that people can remember this period of history...

Back in Kaifeng, Lao Zhou led me to meet Yao Xuezhi, the former Secretary of the Disciplinary Inspection Commission of Kaifeng City. He is 80 years old, in good health, with a straight back, a flushed face, and a loud voice. He started working in 1944 and served as the principal of a primary school in Wangwushan, where "Foolish Old Man Moved Mountains" moved; in 1955, he served as the director of the production department and deputy director of the office of the Rural Work Department of the Provincial Party Committee.

Yao Xuezhi's position enabled him to witness and personally investigate the ins and outs of the great historical tragedy that happened in Xinyang, Henan...

Mentioning that past event, the 80-year-old man still remembers it vividly.

 

Yao Xuezhi:

Chayashan People's Commune, Suiping County, Xinyang, is the first people's commune in China! That is, China's first high-yield wheat "satellite" released by China's first people's commune!

One afternoon in June 1958, Peng Xiaoqian, the vice-governor in charge of agriculture, and Zhao Dingyuan, the vice-minister of the Rural Work Department of the Provincial Party Committee, asked me to go to the provincial government to discuss production issues. When I arrived, I saw Zhao Guang, secretary-general of the Xinyang Prefectural Committee who was staying at the Chayashan People's Commune in Suiping, reporting with a handful of ears of wheat in his hand: "This is the wheat from the Hanlou Brigade of the Chayashan Commune, two acres and nine subdivisions. It is absolutely true that the yield per mu is more than 3800 catties, and there is nothing wrong with it!"

I was shocked when I heard this figure: We deal with agriculture all day long, and usually more than 200 catties of wheat per mu is not bad, why would there be 3,800 catties? Everyone was surprised, but no one said "don't believe it"!

Zhao Dingyuan said: "Old Yao, you put Comrade Zhao Guang in the Provincial Guest House and ask him to write a report and hand it in tomorrow morning."

I took Zhao Guang to the guest house, made arrangements, he wrote the report, and I left. The next day, I took his report and handed it over to Vice Minister Zhao Dingyuan. The next day, it was canceled on the front page of "Henan Daily"!

This is the first wheat high-yielding "satellite" released nationwide.

In the autumn of 1958, when wheat was planted, the Provincial Party Committee organized a working group. I was the leader of the group and went to Xinxiang to inspect production. People are going to make a big deal of steel, and the wheat can't be planted. The more they tell lies, the more they want to praise them, which is called "the anger can't be vented"! The steamed buns in the canteen were thrown everywhere. I asked the production team leader: "How many months can I eat this way?" The production team leader said: "Three months." "What should I do after eating?" Are you hungry?"

I went to Wangwu Commune in Jiyuan County and met with the secretary of the county party committee. I asked, "Your labor is already making steel, and no one is farming. Do you still eat?"

He didn't make a sound, and later, he told me in a low voice: "The province will call his name, I won't go to make a big deal on steel, okay?"

Xinxiang Huojia County Party Secretary saw that the labor situation was serious, so he transferred back the labor force from the big iron and steel smelting. The secretary of the prefectural party committee called him. Ask him why he did this? He said: I can't eat, I don't farm the land, can I eat iron lumps? The secretary of the prefectural party committee asked him to write an inspection, and he said, "Yes!" As long as the common people are fed, it’s fine for me to check!

It was not easy at the time!

The purchase of grain in the summer and autumn of 1958 brought disaster to the common people in the mountainous areas, and they were terrified! The actual grain output in Suiping County is 24.4 million catties, but the task of collecting grain is 90 million catties. Because the county's book is 1,002.79 million catties, an increase of 3.1 times compared to last year.

Who can blame this? Isn't this number blown out by you? The grain output per capita has reached 1,565 catties, and there is no end to it. Why don't you hand it over to the country?

The purchase target of 90 million catties was determined by the purchase meeting held by the Henan Provincial Party Committee. Wu Zhipu, secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, presided over the meeting and said: This year, the province's grain has been distributed to satellites, and the per capita grain has exceeded 1,000 catties. Therefore, we must make great efforts to do a good job in food procurement. In the procurement of food, we must release "satellites", strengthen leadership and secretaries, put politics in command, open up debates, and brutally fight against any hesitation, shrinkage, concealment of production, and slippery behavior. Strike mercilessly. Lu Xianwen, Secretary of the Xinyang Prefectural Party Committee, forced the County Party Committee to declare a high yield, stipulating that the yield should not be lower than 500 catties per mu. Whoever reported lower, Lu Xianwen organized people to debate, and this fight increased the output. Cai Zhongtian, secretary of the county party committee, discussed with the people who came to the meeting: If the price is too low, you will not be able to pass the test. If you report 90 million catties, you may not be able to pass the test. But if all the food is requisitioned, what will the common people eat? Cai Zhongtian said: let's talk about today's test first.

Wu Guoxiang, the captain of the 11th team in Hexing Township, is a tough guy. The accountant asked him what to do. He said: "Leave the seeds and rations first, and everything else is nonsense. Pay as much as you have!" What if you can't complete the task? He said: "I will bear it when the sky falls! Let the common people go hungry, there is no way!" He insisted on leaving tens of thousands of catties of seeds and rations. The team sneaked into the village in the middle of the night, dug out the stored grain, and took Wu Guoxiang away. Before he left, he said to the tearful folks: Young and old! I'm sorry for you guys!

God! Who is sorry for the fathers and the people?

The common people were forced to give food and adulterate it, using all the methods they used to deal with the Japanese devils back then!

Finally, the task of 90 million catties was completed, and every household was empty. When firecrackers were fired in the county auditorium to celebrate the victory, the common people cried out for hunger and cold, and screamed for land!

In August 1959, when everyone drank thinner and thinner noodle soup in the cafeteria of Chaya Mountain, and everyone’s faces were swollen, they did not expect to hold a meeting in Lushan Mountain far away in the sky. Restless!

The commune held meetings first. At first, people asked each other which village Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian, and Zhou Xiaozhou were from, and why they made such a big mistake. Later, they found out that they were ministers in the court, who angered the emperor, so the whole people should punish them.

However, the criticism meeting was always not lively, and the cadres were anxious, so they asked each team to find a "little Peng Dehuai" to stand in the middle and connect with reality. The Suiping County Party Committee spoke highly of this approach. 361 cadres of large and small brigades were inexplicably treated as "little Peng Dehuai", with bruised noses and swollen faces; 458 people were treated as little rightists for stealing livestock feed.

From November 1959 to July 1960, the public security organs in Xinyang area formally arrested 1,774 people during the anti-rightist pursuit of food, 36 people died in prison, 10,720 people were detained, and 667 people died in detention centers. In the Palace of the King of Hades, only living people go, but no living people return.

In the winter of 1960, I participated in the meeting of the first secretary of the county party committee in Zhumadian with the leaders of the Xinyang prefectural party committee. I shared a room with the secretary of the Zhengyang County Party Committee, and he said, "Old Yao, it's terrible. You don't know how many people died of starvation down there. Tens of thousands of people died in Zhengyang County alone..."

I came back and asked Cai Zhongtian: How many people died of starvation in the commune? He replied: 300 people died. I asked Secretary Chen Bingyin, and he also replied: 300 people died, so it turned out that the county arranged a unified caliber.

The Deputy Secretary-General of the Provincial Party Committee called me and asked me: How many people died in the Shan Commune? I replied: I heard from the secretary of the county party committee and the secretary of the commune that there were 300 people. In the evening, Jiao Zuhan, Secretary of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, called and asked me: How many people died in Chaya Mountain? I still do the above answer. He said: Be sure to make sure.

I think the Provincial Party Committee attaches so much importance to it, I can't just listen to the report, I have to investigate it myself.

I went to a village first, and the village cadre said, "Only two people died in my village, and they were old men. They deserved to die." When I left the team office, I met a group of women on the road, but they cried and told that their family starved to death. This count was forty or fifty!

I went to another village, and dozens of people died.

In this way, the entire commune is estimated to have more than three or four thousand people!

I went back to the commune and asked the village party secretary to report the death toll, but the party secretary was gone!

In the Nanyao brigade of this commune, an elderly family died of starvation, leaving only two brothers and a younger sister, who warmed up by the fire at night in winter. The elder brother asked the younger brother: Are you hungry? What to do if you are hungry, we can't wait to die! The two discussed together: Let's eat my sister! So he beat the little girl to death and roasted her in the fire to eat. The uncle of the family smelled the smell of barbecue, and came over to see that the two brothers were tearing and chewing the burned sister's thigh. Then they yelled at them, they didn't seem to hear them, they still tore and ate them, and put the gnawed skull on the window sill, the uncle reported it, and the police came to arrest them, the younger brother ran away, the older brother was arrested and sent back — died on the way. The younger brother who escaped also starved to death.

I went to investigate and found that two villages were extinct, and their bodies were lying on the streets without being buried. I ran back to the province and reported to the provincial leaders. First find Deputy Secretary-General Wang Bingzhang, he asked how many people died? I said: According to my own investigation, there are more than 3,000 dead. He said: A report has been written to the central government, and 300 people have been reported, what should we do?

At the Provincial Standing Committee meeting, I reported the truth about the deceased.

Yang Weiping felt that the problem was serious, so he sent Cui Guanghua, the deputy secretary-general in charge of agriculture, to investigate with me; he asked me to write down the situation first, and it was printed by the confidential office. Report the situation I wrote to the Central South Bureau.

I stayed at the Suiping Guest House that day. The next day, Chen Zhengren, Tao Zhu, Wu Zhipu, and Li Li, deputy secretaries of the Central Committee, came from Xinyang to go straight to Chaya Mountain in a sedan chair car, and I also went there.

Chen Zhengren asked the county cadres: How many people died in this commune?

The answer was: more than a thousand people.

Chen Zhengren said: The working group reported more than 3,000 people, what's going on?

This refers to the report I wrote. Who is telling lies and deceiving the central government? When I said convening a representative meeting of poor and lower-middle peasants from every village in the commune, and newspapers from every village, I lifted the cover of the dead. Not more than 3,000 people, but more than 4,000 people! I asked the meeting to be extended for another day, and pulled out the list of dead people. Looking at the thick and dense pile of names of the dead, what do those who want to hide the truth have to say?

 

This article is selected from the long documentary "Jiao Yulu's Death" by Ren Yanfang. When "Yanhuang Chunqiu" was selected, it was renamed "The Great Famine of China's First People's Commune". Reading it today still makes people feel creepy. He Jiafu will never forget that painful memory. In fact, all readers will also fall into this painful reflection.