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Dec 13, 2004 Presented
by EPOCH TIMES
(Updated: January 1, 2005)
Commentaries
on the Communist Party - Part 3
On
the Tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party
This is the third of Nine Commentaries
on the Communist Party. Copied here in August 2011
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Tyranny caught on camera: Chinese uniformed
and plainsclothes police arrest Falun Gong practitioners, who had come
to Tiananmen Square to appeal peacefully for an end to the persecution,
July 25, 2001. (Clearwisdom) |
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When speaking about tyranny, most Chinese
people are reminded of Qin Shi Huang (259-210 B.C.), the first Emperor
of the Qin Dynasty, whose oppressive court burnt philosophical books and
buried Confucian scholars alive. Qin Shi Huang's harsh treatment of his
people came from his policy of "supporting his rule with all of the resources
under heaven." [1] This policy had four main aspects: excessively heavy
taxation; wasting human labor for projects to glorify himself; brutal torture
under harsh laws and punishing even the offenders' family members and neighbors;
and controlling people's minds by blocking all avenues of free thinking
and expression through burning books and even burying scholars alive. Under
the rule of Qin Shi Huang, China had a population of about 10 million;
Qin's court drafted over 2 million to perform forced labor. Qin Shi Huang
brought his harsh laws into the intellectual realm, prohibiting freedom
of thought on a massive scale. During his rule, thousands of Confucian
scholars and officials who criticized the government were killed.
Today the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s
violence and abuses are even more severe than those of the tyrannical Qin
Dynasty. The CCP's philosophy is one of "struggle," and the CCP's rule
has been built upon a series of "class struggles," "path struggles," and
"ideological struggles," both in China and toward other nations. Mao Zedong,
the first CCP leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC), put it bluntly
by saying, "What can Emperor Qin Shihuang brag about? He only killed 460
Confucian scholars, but we killed 46,000 intellectuals. There are people
who accuse us of practicing dictatorship like Emperor Qin Shihuang and
we admit it all. It fits the reality. It is a pity that they did not give
us enough credit, so we need to add to it." [2]
Let's take a look at China's arduous
55 years under the rule of the CCP. As its founding philosophy is one of
"class struggle," the CCP has spared no efforts since taking power to commit
class genocide, and has achieved its reign of terror by means of violent
revolution. Killing and brainwashing have been used hand in hand to suppress
any beliefs other than communist theory. The CCP has launched one movement
after another to portray itself as infallible and godlike. Following its
theories of class struggle and violent revolution, the CCP has tried to
purge dissidents and opposing social classes, using violence and deception
to force all Chinese people to become the obedient servants of its tyrannical
rule. |
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I. Land Reform
- Eliminating the Landlord Class |
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Barely three months after the founding
of communist China, the CCP called for the elimination of the landlord
class as one of the guidelines for its nationwide land reform program.
The party's slogan "land to the tiller" indulged the selfish side of the
landless peasants, encouraged them to struggle with the landowners by whatever
means and to disregard the moral implications of their actions. The land
reform campaign explicitly stipulated eliminating the landlord class, and
classified the rural population into different social categories. Twenty
million rural inhabitants nationwide were labeled as "landlords, rich peasants,
reactionaries, or bad elements." These new outcasts faced discrimination,
humiliation, and loss of all their civil rights. As the land reform campaign
extended its reach to remote areas and the villages of ethnic minorities,
the CCP's organizations also expanded quickly. Township Party committees
and village Party branches spread all over China. The local branches were
the mouthpiece for passing instructions from the CCP's Central Committee
and were at the frontline of the class struggle, inciting peasants to rise
up against their landlords. Nearly 100,000 landlords died during this movement.
In certain areas the CCP and the peasants killed the landlords' entire
families, disregarding gender or age, as a way to wipe out completely the
landlord class.
In the meantime, the CCP launched its
first wave of propaganda, declaring that "Chairman Mao is the great savior
of the people" and that "only the CCP can save China." During the land
reform, landless farmers got what they wanted through the CCP's policy
of reaping without laboring, robbing without concern for the means. Poor
peasants credited the CCP for the improvement in their lives and so accepted
the CCP's propaganda that the Party worked for the interests of the people.
For the owners of the newly acquired
land, the good days of "land to the tiller" were short-lived. Within two
years, the CCP imposed a number of practices on the farmers such as mutual-aid
groups, primary cooperatives, advanced cooperatives, and people's communes.
Using the slogan of criticizing "women with bound feet" - i.e., those who
are slow paced - the CCP drove and pushed, year after year, urging peasants
to "dash" into socialism. With grain, cotton, and cooking oil placed under
a unified procurement system nationwide, the major agricultural products
were excluded from market exchange. In addition, the CCP established a
residential registration system, barring peasants from going to the cities
to find work or dwell. Those who are registered as rural residents were
not allowed to buy grain at state-run stores and their children were prohibited
from receiving education in cities. Peasants' children could only be peasants,
turning 360 million rural residents of the early 1950s into second-class
citizens.
Beginning in 1978, in the first five
years after moving from a collective system to a household contract system,
some among the 900 million peasants became better off, with their income
increasing slightly and their social status improving somewhat. However,
such a meager benefit was soon lost due to a price structure that favored
industrial commodities over agricultural goods; peasants plunged into poverty
once again. The income gap between the urban and rural population has drastically
increased, and economic disparity continues to widen. New landlords and
rich peasants have re-emerged in the rural areas. Data from Xinhua News
Agency, the CCP's mouthpiece, show that since 1997, the revenue of the
major grain production areas and the income of most rural households have
been at a standstill, or even declined in some cases. In other words, the
peasants' gain from agricultural production did not really increase. The
ratio of urban to rural incomes has increased from 1.8 to 1 in the mid
1980s to 3.1 to 1 today. |
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II. Reforms in
Industry and Commerce - Eliminating the Capitalist Class |
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Another class that the CCP wanted to
eliminate was the national bourgeoisie who owned capital in cities and
rural towns. While reforming China's industry and commerce, the CCP claimed
that the capitalist class and the working class were different in nature:
the former was the exploiting class while the latter was the non-exploiting
and anti-exploiting class. According to this logic, the capitalist class
was born to exploit and wouldn't stop doing so until it perished; it could
only be eliminated, not reformed. Under such premises, the CCP used both
killing and brainwashing to transform capitalists and merchants. The CCP
used its long-tested method of supporting the obedient and destroying those
who disagreed. If you surrendered your assets to the state and supported
the CCP, you were considered just a minor problem among the people. If,
on the other hand, you disagreed with or complained about the CCP's policy,
you would be labeled as a reactionary and become the target of the CCP's
draconian dictatorship.
During the reign of terror that ensued
during these reforms, capitalists and business owners all surrendered their
assets. Many of them couldn't bear the humiliation they faced and committed
suicide. Chen Yi, then mayor of Shanghai, asked every day, "How many paratroopers
are there today?" referring to the number of capitalists that had committed
suicide by jumping from the tops of buildings that day. In only a few years,
the CCP completely eliminated private ownership in China.
While carrying out its land and industrial
reform programs, the CCP launched many massive movements that persecuted
the Chinese people. These movements included: the suppression of "counter-revolutionaries,"
thought reform campaigns, cleansing the anti-CCP clique headed by Gao Gang
and Rao Shushi, and probing Hu Feng's [3] "counter-revolutionary" group,
Three Anti Campaign, Five Anti Campaign, and the further cleansing of counterrevolutionaries.
The CCP used these movements to target and brutally persecute countless
innocent people. In every political movement, the CCP fully utilized its
control of government resources in conjunction with the Party's committees,
branches, and sub-branches. Three party members would form a small combat
team, infiltrating all villages and neighborhoods. These combat teams were
ubiquitous, leaving no stone unturned. This deeply-entrenched Party control
network, inherited from the CCP's network of "Party branches installed
within the army" during the war years, has since played a key role in later
political movements. |
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III. Crackdown
on Religions and Religious Groups |
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The CCP committed another atrocity
in the brutal suppression of religion and the complete ban of all grass-roots
religious groups following the founding of the People's Republic of China.
In 1950, the CCP instructed its local governments to ban all unofficial
religious faiths and secret societies. The CCP stated that those "feudalistic"
underground groups were mere tools in the hands of landlords, rich farmers,
reactionaries, and the special agents of the KMT. In the nationwide crackdown,
the government mobilized the classes they trusted to identify and persecute
members of religious groups. Governments at various levels were directly
involved in disbanding such "superstitious groups" as communities of Christians,
Catholics, Taoists (especially believers of I-Kuan Tao), and Buddhists.
They ordered all members of these churches, temples, and religious societies
to register with government agencies and to repent for their involvement.
Failure to do so would mean severe punishment. In 1951, the government
formally promulgated regulations threatening that those who continued their
activities in unofficial religious groups would face a life sentence or
a death penalty.
This movement persecuted a large number
of kind-hearted and law-abiding believers in God. Incomplete statistics
indicate that the CCP in the 1950s persecuted at least three million religious
believers and underground group members, some of whom were killed. The
CCP searched almost every household across the nation and interrogated
its members, even smashing statues of the Kitchen God that Chinese peasants
traditionally worshipped. The executions reinforced the CCP's message that
communist ideology was the only legitimate ideology and the only legitimate
faith. The concept of "patriotic" believers soon emerged. The state constitution
protected only "patriotic" believers. The reality was whatever religion
one believed in, there was only one criterion: you had to follow the CCP's
instructions and you had to acknowledge that the CCP was above all religions.
If you were a Christian, the CCP was the god of the Christian God. If you
were a Buddhist, the CCP was the Master Buddha of the Master Buddha. Among
Muslims, the CCP was the Allah of the Allah. When it came to the Living
Buddha in Tibetan Buddhism, the CCP would intervene and itself choose who
the Living Buddha would be. The CCP left you no choice but to say and do
what the CCP demanded you to say and do. All believers were forced to carry
out the CCP's objectives while upholding their respective faiths in name
only. Failing to do so would make one the target of the CCP's persecution
and dictatorship.
According to a February 22, 2002 report
by Humanity and Human Rights online magazine, twenty thousand Christians
conducted a survey among 560,000 Christians in house churches in 207 cities
in 22 provinces in China. The survey found that among house church attendees,
130,000 were under government surveillance. In the book How the Chinese
Communist Party Persecuted Christians (1958), it is stated that by
1957, the CCP had killed over 11,000 religious adherents and had arbitrarily
arrested and extorted money from many more.
By eliminating the landlord class and
the capitalist class and by persecuting large numbers of God-worshipping
and law-abiding people, the CCP cleared the way for Communism to become
the all-encompassing religion of China. |
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IV. The Anti-rightist
Movement - Nationwide Brainwashing |
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In 1956, a group of Hungarian intellectuals
formed the Petofi Circle, which held forums and debates critical of the
Hungarian government. The group sparked a nationwide revolution in Hungary,
which was crushed by Soviet soldiers. Mao Zedong took this "Hungarian Event"
as a lesson. In 1957, Mao called upon the Chinese intellectuals and other
people to "help the CCP rectify itself." This movement, known as the "Hundred
Flowers Movement" for short, followed the slogan of "letting a hundred
flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend." Mao's purpose
was to lure out the "anti-Party elements" among the people. In his letter
to provincial Party chiefs in 1957, Mao Zedong spoke his intention of "luring
the snakes out of their holes" by letting them air their views freely in
the name of freedom of thought and rectifying the CCP.
Slogans at the time encouraged people
to speak up and promised no reprisals - the Party would not "grab pigtails,
strike with sticks, issue hats, or settle accounts after the autumn," meaning
the party would not find fault, make attacks, place labels, or seek to
retaliate. Yet soon the CCP initiated an "anti-rightist" movement, declaring
540,000 of the people who dared to speak up as "rightists." Among them,
270,000 lost their jobs and 230,000 were labeled as "medium rightists"
or "anti-CCP anti-socialist elements." Later some summarized the CCP's
political stratagems of persecution into four items: Luring the snakes
out of holes; fabricating crimes, attacking suddenly, and punishing with
a single accusation; attacking relentlessly in the name of saving people;
and forcing self-criticism and using the most severe labels.
What then were the "reactionary speeches"
that had caused so many rightists and anti-communists to be exiled for
nearly 30 years in far-flung corners of the nation? The "three major reactionary
theories," the targets of general and intensive assaults at the time, consisted
of a few speeches by Luo Longji, Zhang Bojun, and Chu Anping. A closer
look at what they proposed and suggested shows that their wishes were quite
benign.
Luo suggested forming a joint commission
of the CCP and various "democratic" parties to investigate the deviations
in the "Three Anti Campaign" and "Five Anti Campaign," and the movements
for purging reactionaries. The State Council itself often presented something
to the Political Consultative Committee and the People's Congress for observations
and comments, and Zhang suggested the Political Consultative Committee
and the People's Congress should be included in the decision-making process.
Chu suggested that since non-CCP members
also had good ideas, self-esteem, and a sense of responsibility as well,
there was no need to assign a CCP member across the nation as the head
of every work unit, big or small, or even for the teams under each work
unit. There was also no need that everything, major or minor, had to be
done the way the CCP members suggested. All three had expressed their willingness
to follow the CCP and none of their suggestions had exceeded the boundaries
demarcated by the famous words of writer and critic Lu Xun [4], "My master,
your gown has become dirty. Please take it off and I will wash it for you."
Like Lu Xun, these "rightists" expressed docility, submissiveness and respect.
None of the condemned "rightists" suggested
that the CCP should be overthrown; all they had offered was constructive
criticism. Yet precisely because of these suggestions, tens of thousands
of people lost their freedom, and millions of families suffered. What followed
were more movements such as "confiding to the CCP," digging out the hardliners,
the new "Three Anti Campaign," sending intellectuals to the countryside
to do hard labor, and catching the rightists who were missed the first
time around. Whoever had a disagreement with the leader of the workplace,
especially the party secretaries, would be labeled as anti-CCP. The CCP
would often subject them to constant criticism, or send them to labor camps
for forced reeducation. Sometimes the Party relocated whole families to
rural areas, and barred their children from going to college or joining
the army. They couldn't apply for jobs in cities or towns either. The families
would lose their job security and public health benefits. They became lowly
members of the peasant rank and outcasts even among second-class citizens.
After the persecution of the intellectuals,
some scholars developed a two-faced personality. They followed closely
the "Red Sun" and became the CCP's "court-appointed intellectuals," doing
or saying whatever the CCP asked. Some others became aloof and distanced
themselves from political matters. Chinese intellectuals, who have traditionally
had a strong sense of responsibility towards the nation, have been silenced
ever since. |
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V. The Great Leap
Forward - Creating Falsehoods to Test People's Loyalty |
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After the Anti-Rightist Movement, China
became afraid of truth. Everyone joined in listening to false words, telling
false tales, making up false stories, and avoiding and covering up the
truth through lies and rumors. The Great Leap Forward was a nationwide
collective exercise in lying. The people of the entire nation, under the
direction of the CCP's evil specter, did many ridiculous things. Both liars
and those being lied to were betrayed. In this campaign of lies and ridiculous
actions, the CCP implanted its violent, evil energy into the spiritual
world of the Chinese people. At the time, many people sang songs promoting
the Great Leap Forward, "I am the Jade Emperor, I am the Dragon King. I
order the three mountains and five gorges to step aside, here I come."
[5] Policies such as "achieving a grain production of 75,000 kg per hectare,"
"doubling steel production," and "surpassing Britain in 10 years and the
US in 15 years" were attempted year after year. These policies resulted
in a grave, nationwide famine that cost millions of lives.
During the eighth plenum of the Eighth
CCP Central Committee meeting held in Lushan in 1959, who among the participants
did not agree with General Peng Dehuai's [6] view that the Great Leap Forward
initiated by Mao Zedong was foolish? However, supporting Mao's policy or
not marked the line between loyalty or betrayal, or the line between life
and death. In a story from Chinese history, when Zhao Gao [7] claimed that
a deer was a horse, he knew the difference between a deer and a horse,
but he purposefully called a deer a horse to control public opinion, silence
debates, and expand his own power. The result of the Lushan Plenum was
that even Peng Dehuai was forced to sign a resolution condemning and purging
himself from the central government. Similarly, in the later years of the
Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping was forced to promise that he would
never appeal against the government's decision to remove him from his posts.
Society relies on past experience to
understand the world and expand its horizons. The CCP, however, has taken
away opportunities from the people to learn from historical experience
and lessons. The official censorship of the media has only helped further
lower people's capacity to discern good from bad. After each political
movement, the younger generations have only been given the Party's uplifting
accounts, but have been deprived of the analyses, ideals, and experiences
of the insightful people from older generations. As a result, people have
only scattered information as the basis for understanding history and judging
new events, thinking themselves correct while deviating thousands of miles
from the truth. Thus the CCP's policy of keeping people ignorant has been
carried out thoroughly. |
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VI. The Cultural
Revolution - The World Turned Upside Down by Evil Possession |
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The Cultural Revolution was a grand
performance put up by the communist specter as it possessed the entire
China. In 1966, a new wave of violence rolled onto China's land, and an
uncontrollable red terror shook the mountains and froze the rivers. Writer
Qin Mu described the Cultural Revolution in bleak terms:
It was truly an unprecedented
calamity: [the CCP] imprisoned millions due to their association with a
[targeted] family member, ended the lives of millions more, shattered families,
turned children into hoodlums and villains, burned books, tore down ancient
buildings, and destroyed ancient intellectuals' gravesites, committing
all kinds of crimes in the name of revolution.
Conservative figures place the number of
unnatural deaths in China during the Cultural Revolution at 7.73 million.
People often mistakenly think that the
violence and slaughter during the Cultural Revolution happened mostly during
the rebel movements, and that it was the Red Guards and rebels who committed
the killing. However, thousands of officially published Chinese county
annuals indicate that the peak of unnatural deaths during the Cultural
Revolution was not in 1966, when the Red Guards controlled most of the
government organizations, or in 1967 when the rebels fought among different
groups with weapons, but rather in 1968 when Mao regained control over
the entire country. The murderers in those infamous cases were often army
officers and soldiers, armed militiamen, and CCP members at all levels
of the government.
The following examples illustrate how
the violence during the Cultural Revolution was the policy of the CCP and
the regional government, not the extreme behavior of the Red Guards. The
CCP has covered up the direct instigation of and involvement in the violence
by party leaders and government officials.
In August 1966, the Red Guards expelled
Beijing residents who had been classified in past movements as "landlords,
rich farmers, reactionaries, bad elements, and rightists" and forced them
to the countryside. Incomplete official statistics showed that 33,695 homes
were searched and 85,196 Beijing residents were expelled out of the city
and sent back to where their parents had originally come from. Red Guards
all over the country followed suit, expelling over 400,000 urban residents
to the countryside. Even high-ranking officials, whose parents were landlords,
faced exile to the country.
Actually, the CCP planned the expulsion
campaign even before the Cultural Revolution began. Former Beijing mayor
Peng Zhen declared that the residents of Beijing City should be as ideologically
pure as "glass panels and crystals," meaning that all residents with a
bad class background would be expelled out of the city. In May of 1966,
Mao commanded his subordinates to "protect the capital." A capital working
team was set up, led by Ye Jianying, Yang Chengwu and Xie Fuzhi. One of
the tasks of this team was to use the police to expel Beijing residents
of bad class background.
This history helps make clear why the
government and police departments did not intervene but rather supported
the Red Guards in searching homes and expelling more than two percent of
Beijing residents. The Minister of Public Security, Xie Fuzhi, required
the police not to intervene in the Red Guards' actions but rather to provide
advice and information to them. The Red Guards were simply utilized by
the Party to carry out a planned action, and then, at the end of 1966,
these Red Guards were abandoned by the CCP. Many were labeled counterrevolutionaries
and imprisoned, and others were sent to the countryside, along with other
urban youth, to labor and reform their thoughts. The West Town Red Guard
organization, which led the expulsion of city residents, was established
under the "caring" guidance of the CCP leaders. The order to incriminate
these Red Guards was also issued after being revised by the secretary-general
of the State Council.
Following the removal of the Beijing
residents of bad class background, the rural areas started another round
of persecution of bad class elements. On August 26, 1966, a speech of Xie
Fuzhi was passed down to the Daxing Police Bureau at their work meeting.
Xie ordered the police to assist the Red Guards in searching the homes
of the "five black classes" (landlords, rich peasants, reactionaries, bad
elements, and rightists) by providing advice and information and helping
in their raids. The infamous Daxing Massacre [8] occurred as a result of
direct instructions by the police department; the organizers were the director
and the CCP secretary of the police department, and the killers were mostly
militiamen who did not even spare the children.
Many were admitted into the CCP for
their "good behavior" during similar slaughters. According to incomplete
statistics for Guangxi Province, about 50,000 CCP members engaged in killing.
Among them more than 9,000 were admitted into the Party shortly after killing
someone, more than 20,000 committed murder after being admitted into the
Party, and more than 19,000 other Party members were involved in killing
in one way or another.
During the Cultural Revolution, class
theory would also be applied to beatings. The bad deserved it if they were
beaten by the good. It was honorable for a bad person to beat another bad
person. It was a misunderstanding if a good person beat another good person.
Such a theory invented by Mao was spread widely in the rebel movements.
Violence and slaughter were widespread following the logic that the enemies
of the class struggle deserved any violence against them.
From August 13 to October 7 of 1967,
militiamen in Dao County of Hunan Province slaughtered members of the "Xiangjiang
Wind and Thunder" organization and those of the "five black classes." The
slaughter lasted 66 days; more than 4,519 people in 2,778 households were
killed in 468 brigades (administrative villages) of 36 people's communes
in 10 districts. In the entire prefecture consisting of 10 counties, a
total of 9,093 people were killed, of which 38% were of the "five black
classes" and 44% were their children. The oldest person killed was 78 years
old, and the youngest was only 10 days old.
This is only one case of violence in
one small area during the Cultural Revolution. In Inner Mongolia, after
the establishment of the "revolutionary committee" in early 1968, the cleansing
of class rank and purging of the fabricated "Inner Mongolia People's Revolutionary
Party" killed more than 350,000 people. In 1968, tens of thousands of people
in Guangxi Province participated in the mass slaughter of the rebel faction
"422" organization, killing more than 110,000.
These cases point out that those major
acts of violent killing during the Cultural Revolution were all under the
direct instigation and instruction of CCP leaders who encouraged and utilized
violence to persecute and kill citizens. Those killers directly involved
in instructing and executing the killing were mostly from the military,
police, armed militia, and key members of the Party and the Youth League.
If during the Land Reform the CCP used
peasants to overthrow landlords to obtain land, during the Industrial and
Commercial Reform the CCP used the working class to overthrow capitalists
to gain assets, and during the Anti-Rightist Movement the CCP eliminated
all intellectuals who held opposing opinions, then what was the purpose
of all the killing during the Cultural Revolution? The CCP used one group
to kill another, and no one class was relied upon. Even if you were from
the workers and peasants, two classes upon which the Party relied in the
past, if your viewpoint differed from that of the Party, your life would
be in danger. So in the end, what was it all for?
The purpose was to establish communism
as the one and only religion dominating the entire country, controlling
not just the state but every individual's mind.
The Cultural Revolution pushed the CCP
and Mao Zedong's cult of personality to a climax. Mao's theory had to be
used to dictate everything and one person's vision had to be embedded in
tens of millions of people's minds. The Cultural Revolution, in a way unprecedented
and never again to be matched, intentionally did not specify what could
not be done. Instead, the Party emphasized "what can be done and how to
do it. Anything outside this boundary could not be done or even considered."
During the Cultural Revolution, everyone
in the country carried out a religious-like ritual: "ask the Party for
instructions in the morning and report to the Party in the evening," salute
Chairman Mao several times a day, wishing him boundless longevity, and
conduct morning and evening political prayers everyday. Nearly every literate
person had the experience of writing self-criticism and thought reports.
Mao's quotations such as the following were frequently recited. "Fight
ferociously against every passing thought of selfishness." "Execute instructions
whether or not you understood them; deepen your understanding in the process
of execution."
Only one "god" (Mao) was allowed to
be worshiped; only one kind of scripture (Mao's teaching) was allowed to
be studied. Soon the "god-making" process progressed to such a degree that
people could not buy food in canteens if they did not recite a quotation
or make a greeting to Mao. When shopping, riding the bus, or even making
a phone call, one had to recite one of Mao's quotations, even if it was
totally irrelevant. In these rituals of worship, people were either fanatical
or cynical, and in either case were already under the control of the communist
evil specter. Producing lies, tolerating lies and relying on lies became
Chinese people's lifestyle. |
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VII. The Reform
and Opening up - The Violence Progresses with Time |
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The Cultural Revolution was a period
full of bloodshed, killings, grievances, loss of conscience, and confusion
of right and wrong. After the Cultural Revolution, the CCP leadership changed
its banners frequently, as the government changed hands six times within
20 years. Private ownership has returned to China, disparities in the standard
of living between cities and rural areas have widened, the desert area
has quickly expanded, river water has been drying up, and drug-use and
prostitution have increased. All the "crimes" the CCP fought against are
now permitted again.
The CCP's ruthless heart, devious nature,
evil actions, and ability to bring ruin to the country increased. During
the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, the Party mobilized armies and tanks to
kill students protesting on Tiananmen Square. The vicious persecution against
Falun Gong practitioners is even worse. In October of 2004, to take land
from the peasants, Yulin City of Shaanxi Province mobilized over 1,600
riot police to arrest and shoot more than 50 peasants. The political control
of the Chinese government continues to rely on the CCP's philosophy of
struggle and violence. The only difference from the past is that the Party
has become even more deceptive.
Law Making:
The CCP has never stopped creating conflicts
among the people. They have persecuted large numbers of citizens for being
reactionaries, anti-socialists, bad elements, and evil cult members. The
totalitarian nature of the CCP continues to conflict with all other civil
groups and organizations. In the name of "maintaining order and stabilizing
society," the Party has kept changing constitutions, laws and regulations,
and has persecuted as reactionaries anyone who disagrees with the government.
In July of 1999, Jiang Zemin made a
personal decision, against most other Politburo members' wills, to eliminate
Falun Gong in three months; slander and lies quickly enveloped the country.
After Jiang Zemin denounced Falun Gong as an "evil cult" in an interview
with the French newspaper La Figaro, Chinese official propaganda
followed up by quickly publishing articles pressuring everyone in the country
to turn against Falun Gong. The National People's Congress was coerced
into passing a non-descript "decision" dealing with evil cults; soon after
that the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly
issued an "explanation" of the "decision."
On July 22, 1999, the Xinhua News Agency
published speeches by the CCP's Organization Department and Propaganda
Department leaders publicly supporting Jiang's persecution against Falun
Gong. The Chinese people became enmeshed in the persecution simply because
it was a decision made by the Party. They can only obey orders and dare
not raise any objections.
Over the past five years, the government
has utilized one-fourth of the nation's financial resources to persecute
Falun Gong. Everyone in the country has had to pass a test; most who admitted
to practicing Falun Gong but refused to give up the practice have lost
their jobs; some are sentenced to forced labor. The Falun Gong practitioners
have not violated any laws, nor have they betrayed the country or opposed
the government; they have only believed in "Truthfulness, Compassion and
Tolerance." Yet hundreds of thousands were imprisoned. While the CCP has
enforced a tight blockade of information, more than 1,100 people have been
confirmed by their families to have been tortured to death; the true number
of deaths is much higher.
News Reporting:
On October 15, 2004, Hong Kong-based
Wenweipao
reported that China's 20th satellite returned to earth, falling on and
destroying the house of Huo Jiyu in Penglai Township, located in Dayin
County, Sichuan Province. The report quoted Dayin County government office
director Ai Yuqing saying that the "black lump" was confirmed to be the
satellite. Ai was himself the on-site deputy director of the satellite
recovery project. However, Xinhua News only reported the time of the satellite's
recovery, emphasizing that this was the 20th scientific and technical experimental
satellite recovered by China. Xinhua News did not mention a word about
the satellite destroying a house. This is a typical example of the Chinese
news media's consistent practice of reporting only the good news and covering
up the bad news, as instructed by the Party.
Lies and slander published by newspapers
and broadcast on television have greatly assisted the execution of the
CCP's policies in all past political movements. The Party's command would
be instantly executed by the media in the country. When the Party wanted
to start an Anti-Rightist Movement, media all over China reported with
one voice the crimes of rightists. When the Party wanted to set up the
people's communes, every newspaper in the nation started to praise the
superiority of people's communes. Within the first month of the persecution
of Falun Gong, all television and radio stations slandered Falun Gong repeatedly
in their prime time broadcasting in order to brainwash people. Since then,
Jiang has utilized all media repeatedly to fabricate and spread lies and
slanders about Falun Gong. This includes the effort to incite nationwide
hatred against Falun Gong by reporting false news about Falun Gong practitioners
committing murder and suicide. An example of such false reporting is the
staged "Tiananmen Self-Immolation" incident, which was criticized by the
NGO International Educational Development as a government-staged action
to deceive people. In the past five years, no mainland Chinese newspaper
or TV station has reported the truth about Falun Gong.
Chinese people are used to the false
news reports. A senior reporter of Xinhua News Agency once said, "How could
you trust a Xinhua report?" People have even described Chinese news agencies
as the Party's dog. A folk song has it: "It is a dog raised by the Party,
guarding the Party's gate. It would bite anyone the Party wants it to bite,
and bite however many times the Party wants it to."
Education:
In China, education became another tool
used to control people. The original purpose of education was to develop
intellectuals to have both knowledge and correct judgment.
Knowledge refers to the understanding of information, data and historical
events; judgment refers to the process of analyzing, investigating, critiquing,
and reproducing such knowledge - a process of spiritual development. Those
who have knowledge without proper judgment are referred to as bookworms,
not true intellectuals with a social conscience. This is why in Chinese
history it is the intellectuals with righteous judgment, not those having
merely knowledge, who have been highly respected. Under the CCP's control,
however, China is filled with intellectuals who have knowledge but not
judgment, or who dare not exercise judgment. Education in schools focused
on teaching students not to do things that the Party did not want them
to do. In recent years, all schools started to teach politics and CCP history
with unified textbooks. The teachers did not believe the content of the
text, yet they were forced by the Party "discipline" to teach it against
their wills. The students did not believe the text or their teachers, yet
they had to remember everything in the text in order to pass the exams.
Recently, questions about Falun Gong were included in term and entrance
exams for colleges and high schools. Students who do not know the standard
answers do not get high scores to enter good colleges or high schools.
If a student dares to speak the truth, he will be expelled from school
immediately and lose any chance of formal education.
In the public education system, due
to the influence of the newspapers and government documents, many well
known sayings or phrases have been spread as truth, such as Mao's quotation
"We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy
supports." The negative effect is widespread: it has poisoned people's
hearts, supplanting benevolence and destroying the moral principle of living
in peace and harmony.
In 2004, the China Information Center
analyzed a survey done by the China Sina Net, and the results show that
82.6 percent of Chinese youth agreed that one can abuse women, children
and prisoners during a war. This result is shocking. But it reflects the
Chinese people's mindset, and especially that of the younger generation,
who lack a basic understanding of either the traditional cultural concept
of benevolent rule or the notion of universal humanity.
On September 11, 2004, a man fanatically
slashed 28 children with a knife in Suzhou City. On the 20th of the same
month, a man in Shandong Province injured 25 elementary school students
with a knife. Some elementary school teachers forced students to make firecrackers
by hand to raise funds for the school, resulting in an explosion in which
students died.
Implementing Policies:
The CCP leadership has often used threats
and coercion to ensure the implementation of their policies. One of the
means they used was the political slogan. For a long time, the CCP used
the number of slogans posted as a criterion to assess one's political achievements.
During the Cultural Revolution, Beijing became a "red sea" of posters overnight,
with the slogan "Down with the ruling capitalists in the Party" everywhere.
In the countryside, ironically, the signs were shortened to "Down with
the ruling party."
Recently, to promote the Forest Law,
the State Bureau of Forestry and all its stations and forest protection
offices strictly ordered a standard amount of slogans to be put out. Not
reaching the quota would be treated as not accomplishing the task. As a
result, local government offices posted a large number of slogans, including
"Whoever burns the mountains goes to prison." In the administration of
birth control in recent years, there have been even scarier slogans such
as, "If one person violates the law, the whole village will be sterilized,"
"Rather another tomb than another baby," or, "If he did not have a vasectomy
as he should, his house will be torn down; if she did not have an abortion
as she should, her cows and rice fields will be confiscated." There were
more slogans that violate human rights and the Constitution, such as "You
will sleep in prison tomorrow if you don't pay taxes today."
A slogan is basically a way of advertising,
but in a more straightforward and repetitive manner. Hence, the Chinese
government often uses slogans to promote political ideas, beliefs and positions.
Political slogans can also be viewed as words the government speaks to
its people. However, in the CCP's policy-promoting slogans, it is not hard
for one to sense the tendency of violence and cruelty. |
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VIII. Brainwash
the Whole Country and Turn It into a "Mind Prison" |
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The most effective weapon the CCP uses
to maintain its tyrannical rule is its system of control. In a well-organized
fashion, the CCP imposes a mentality of obedience on every one of its citizens.
Whether the Party contradicts itself or constantly changes policies doesn't
matter, so long as it can systematically organize a way to deprive people
of their naturally endowed human rights. The government's tentacles are
omnipresent. Whether it is in rural or urban areas, citizens are governed
by the so-called street or township committees. Until recently, getting
married or divorced, and having a child all needed the approval of these
committees. The Party's ideology, way of thinking, organizations, social
structure, propaganda mechanisms and administrative systems serve only
its dictatorial purposes. The Party, through the systems of government,
strives to control every individual's thoughts and actions.
How brutally the CCP controls its people
is not limited to the physical torture it inflicts. The Party also forces
people to lose their ability to think independently, and makes them into
fearful, self-protective cowards daring not to speak up. The goal of the
CCP's rule is to brainwash each of its citizens so that they think and
talk like the CCP, and do what it promotes.
There is a saying that, "Party policy
is like the moon, it changes every 15 days." No matter how often the Party
changes its policies, everyone in the nation needs to follow them closely.
When you are used as a means of attacking others, you need to thank the
Party for appreciating your strength; when you are hurt, you have to thank
the CCP for "teaching you a lesson"; when you are wrongfully discriminated
against and the CCP later gives you redress, you have to thank the CCP
for being generous, open-minded and able to correct its mistakes. The CCP
runs its tyranny through continuous cycles of suppression followed by redress.
After 55 years of tyranny, the CCP has
imprisoned the nation's mind and enclosed it within the range allowed by
the CCP. For someone to think outside this boundary is considered a crime.
After repeated struggles, stupidity is praised as wisdom; being a coward
is the way to survive. In a modern society with the Internet as the mainstream
of information exchange, the CCP even asks its people to exercise self-discipline
and not read news from outside or log onto websites with keywords like
"human rights" and "democracy."
The CCP's movement to brainwash its
people is absurd, brutal, and despicable, yet ubiquitous. It has distorted
the moral values and principles of Chinese society and completely rewritten
the nation's behavioral standards and lifestyle. The CCP continuously uses
mental and physical torture to strengthen its absolute authority to rule
China with the all-encompassing "CCP religion." |
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Why does the CCP have to fight incessantly
to keep its power? Why does the CCP believe that as long as life exists,
strife is endless? To achieve its goal, the CCP does not hesitate to murder
people or to destroy the ecological environment, nor does the CCP care
that the majority of farmers and many urban citizens are living in poverty.
Is it for the ideology of Communism
that the CCP goes through an endless strife? The answer is "No." One of
the principles of the Communist Party is to get rid of private ownership,
which the CCP tried to do when it came to power. The CCP believed that
private ownership was the root cause of all evil. However, after the economic
reform in the 1980s, private ownership was allowed again in China and protected
by the Constitution. Piercing through the CCP's lies, people will see clearly
that in its 55 years of rule, the CCP merely stage-managed a drama of property
redistribution. After several rounds of such distribution, the CCP simply
converted the capital of others into its own private property.
The CCP claims itself to be the "pioneer
of the working class." Its task is to eliminate the capitalist class. However,
the CCP bylaws now unequivocally allow capitalists to join the Party. Members
of the CCP no longer believe in the Party and Communism, and the CCP's
existence is unjustifiable. What is left of the Communist Party is only
a shell void of its alleged content.
Was the long-term struggle to keep the
CCP members free from corruption? No. 55 years after the CCP has been in
power, corruption, embezzlement, unlawful conduct, and acts that damage
the nation and the people are still widespread among the CCP officials
throughout the country. In recent years, among the total number of approximately
20 million party officials in China, eight million have been tried and
punished for crimes related to corruption. Each year, about one million
people complain to higher authorities about the corrupt officials who have
not been investigated. From January to September of 2004, the China Foreign
Exchange Bureau investigated cases of illegal foreign exchange clearance
in 35 banks and 41 companies, and found US$120 million in illegal transactions.
According to statistics in recent years, no less than 4,000 CCP officials
have escaped China with embezzled money, and their stolen funds from the
state add up to tens of billions of U.S dollars.
Were the struggles aiming to improve
people's education and consciousness and keep them interested in national
affairs? The answer is another resounding "No." In today's China, materialistic
pursuits are rampant, and people are losing the traditional virtue of honesty.
It has become common for people to deceive relatives and swindle friends.
About many important issues such as human rights or the persecution of
Falun Gong, many Chinese either are unconcerned or refuse to speak. Keeping
one's thoughts to oneself and choosing not to speak the truth have become
a basic survival skill in China. In the meantime, the CCP has repeatedly
excited the public sentiment of nationalism on opportune occasions. The
CCP may, for example, organize Chinese people to throw rocks at the US
embassy and burn US flags. The Chinese people have been treated as either
an obedient mass or a violent mob, but never citizens with guaranteed human
rights. Cultural improvement is the basis for raising the consciousness
of the people. The moral principles of Confucius and Mencius have, for
thousands of years, established moral standards and principles. "If all
these [moral] principles are abandoned, then people would have no laws
to follow and discern no good and evil. They would lose their directions…the
Tao would be destroyed." [9]
The purpose of the CCP's class struggle
is continuously to generate chaos, through which it can firmly establish
itself as the one and only ruling party and religion in China, using the
party's ideology to control the Chinese people. Government institutions,
the military, and news media are all tools used by the CCP to exercise
its violent dictatorship. The CCP, having brought incurable diseases to
China, is itself on the edge of demise, and its collapse is inevitable.
Some people worry that the country will
be in chaos if the CCP falls apart. Who will replace the CCP's role in
governing China? In China's 5,000-year history, a mere 55 years ruled by
the CCP is as short as a fleeting cloud. Unfortunately, however, during
this short period of 55 years, the CCP has shattered traditional beliefs
and standards; destroyed the traditional moral principles and social structures;
turned caring and love among human beings into struggle and hatred; and
replaced the reverence for heaven, the earth and nature with the arrogance
of "humans conquering nature." With one act of destruction after another
the Party has ravaged the social, moral and ecological systems, leaving
the Chinese nation in deep crisis.
In Chinese history, every benevolent
leader viewed loving, nourishing, and educating the people as the duties
of government. Human nature aspires to kindness, and the government's role
is to bring about this innate human capacity. Mencius said, "This is the
way of the people: those with constant means of support will have constant
hearts, while those without constant means will not have constant hearts."
[10] Education without prosperity has been ineffective; the tyrannical
leaders who have had no love for the people but who have killed the innocent
have been despised by the Chinese people.
In the 5,000 years of Chinese history,
there have been many benevolent leaders, such as Emperor Yao and Emperor
Shun in ancient times, Emperor Wen and Emperor Wu of the Zhou Dynasty,
Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing in the Han Dynasty, Emperor Tang Taizong in
the Tang Dynasty, and Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty.
The prosperity enjoyed in these dynasties was all a result of the leaders
practicing the heavenly Tao, following the doctrine of the mean, and striving
for peace and stability. The characteristics of a kind leader are to make
use of virtuous and capable people, be open to different opinions, promote
justice and peace, and give the people what they need. This way, citizens
will obey the laws, maintain a sense of decorum, live happily and work
efficiently.
Looking at world affairs, we often ask
who determines whether a state will prosper or disappear, even though we
know that the rise and fall of a nation has its reasons. When the CCP is
gone, we can expect that peace and harmony will return to China. People
will return to being truthful, benevolent, humble, and tolerant, and the
nation will again care for the people's basic needs, and all professions
will prosper. |
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Notes:
[1] From the "Annals of Foods and Commodities"
in History of the Former Han Dynasty (Han Shu). "All under
heaven" refers to China under the emperors.
[2] Qian Bocheng, Oriental Culture,
fourth edition, 2000.
[3] Gao Gang and Rao Shushi were both
members of the Central Committee. After an unsuccessful bid in a power
struggle in 1954, they were accused of plotting to split the Party and
were subsequently expelled from the Party. Hu Feng, scholar and literary
critic, opposed the doctrinarian literature policy of the CCP. He was expelled
from the Party in 1955 and sentenced to 14 years in prison. From 1951 to
1952, the CCP initiated the "Three Anti Campaign" and the "Five Anti Campaign,"
movements with the stated goal of eliminating corruption, waste and bureaucracy
within the Party, government, army and mass organizations.
[4] Lu Xun or Lu Hsün (September
25, 1881 – October 19, 1936) is often considered the founder of modern
vernacular (Baihua) Chinese literature. He was also a noted translator.
As a left-wing writer, Lu played an important role in the history of Chinese
literature. His books greatly influenced many Chinese youth. Having returned
to China from medical studies in Sendai, Japan in 1909, he became a lecturer
in the Peking University and began writing.
[5] Both Jade Emperor and Dragon King
are Chinese mythological figures. The Jade Emperor, known formally as the
August Personage of Jade and called informally by children and commoners
as Grandpa Heaven, is the ruler of Heaven and among the most important
gods of the Chinese Daoist pantheon. Dragon King is the divine ruler of
the four seas. Each sea, corresponding to one of the cardinal directions,
is ruled by one Dragon King. The Dragon Kings live in crystal palaces,
guarded by shrimp soldiers and crab generals. Besides ruling over the aquatic
life, the Dragon Kings also manipulate clouds and rain. The Dragon King
of the Eastern Sea is said to have the largest territory.
[6] Peng Dehuai (1898-1974): Communist
Chinese general and political leader. Peng was the chief commander in the
Korean War, vice-premier of the State Council, Politburo member, and Minister
of Defense from 1954-1959. He was removed from his official posts after
disagreeing with Mao's Leftist approaches at the CCP's Lushan Plenum in
1959.
[7] Zhao Gao (birth date unknown, died
210 BC): Chief eunuch during the Qin Dynasty. In 210 B.C., after Emperor
Qin Shi Huang's death, Zhao Gao, Prime Minister Li Si and the emperor's
second son Hu Hai forged two wills of the Emperor, making Hu Hai the new
emperor and ordering Crown Prince Fu Su to commit suicide. Later, conflicts
grew between Zhao Gao and Hu Hai. Zhao brought in a deer to the royal court
and said it was a horse. Only a handful of the officials dared to disagree
and say it was a deer. Zhao Gao believed those officials who called the
animal a deer were against him and removed them from their court positions.
[8] Daxing Massacre occurred in August
1966 during the change of the Party leadership in Beijing. At that time,
Xie Fuzhi, the Minister of Public Security, made a speech at a meeting
with the Public Security Bureau of Beijing, encouraging no intervention
with the Red Guards' actions against the "five black classes." This speech
was soon relayed to a Standing Committee meeting of the Daxin Public Security
Bureau. After the meeting, the Daxin Public Security Bureau immediately
took action and formed a plan to incite the masses in Daxin County to kill
the "five black classes."
[9] From Kang Youwei, Collections
of Political Writings (1981). Zhonghua Zhuju. Kang Youwei (1858-1927)
was an important reform thinker of the Late Qing period.
[10] From Mencius. |
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