Bleeding Absurdities—B Record of Cultural Revolution Oddities

Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside

The sixth story is about the late 1960s when a large number of intellectual youths responded to Mao Zedong’s call to go to the countryside. They abandoned city life and went to the border areas to join the rural labor force, becoming a unique group known as “zhiqing” (educated youth). However, these young people lost the protection of their families and environments and were left to fend for themselves, especially the young women. In this lawless and chaotic era, they became victims of exploitation and abuse.

In Shenyang, there was a young woman named Feng. She was sent to work in Changtu County, Liaoning Province. In May 1970, she was raped by the brigade secretary, Du Jinfeng, and gave birth to a child. To cover up his crime, Du sold the child privately. In 1971, Feng was sent back to her home in Shenyang for medical treatment. The local police in Changtu County, acting on official orders without investigation, treated Feng as a troublemaker and accused her of corrupting officials, leading to a month of persecution. She was also detained for three days. Feng, outraged, went to the Ministry of Public Security to file a complaint. While the issue was eventually addressed, Feng did not receive an apology. Instead, she became known for her misfortune and had no means of support.

In Jilin Province’s Jiu Tai County, there was a production team leader named Qi Tianfa, who openly declared that he had raped 23 young women who came to his area to work. In the spring of 1997, with the help of his wife, he raped a woman named Lü Zhiqing. She was in such despair that she attempted to commit suicide but was saved. However, Qi continued to rape her multiple times. Unable to endure it any longer, Lü reported him, but the authorities treated the case as a mere affair, leading to her mental breakdown.

In Sichuan Province’s Guanghan County, there was a ruthless soldier named Mai Mingcheng who, starting in 1997, repeatedly raped a woman named Lü Zhiqing. When Lü became pregnant, Mai used extreme and unheard-of methods, such as injecting abortion drugs and using bicycle spokes, to force her to have an abortion. This caused severe bleeding, and Lü was driven to suicide. Mai disregarded her life and used a knife to forcibly perform a cesarean section, cutting her major artery and causing massive bleeding. He then sewed her up while she was unconscious and, in a shocking act, raped her again.

In June 1973, before the National Youth Work Conference on the “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside” campaign, the State Council’s Youth Office conducted an investigation into the conditions of educated youth nationwide. According to statistics from 24 provinces and cities, since 1969, there had been 23,000 cases of persecution against educated youth, with rape cases accounting for 70%. This means that 16,000 cases of rape were officially confirmed, not including those that went unreported. Given the traditional reluctance to report such cases among Chinese women, the actual number is likely far higher, making it an extremely shocking figure.

The Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee with a Junior High School Diploma

The seventh story is about Xie Jingyi, who, at the age of 38 in 1973, with only a junior high school diploma, was appointed as the Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China after being nominated by Mao Zedong. That same year, he was elected as a Central Committee member and attended meetings of the Political Bureau. An individual with only a junior high school education became a prominent figure overnight.

Xie Jingyi was quite ordinary. He joined the military in 1952 and, after training in the Communist Party’s school, entered the Central Office in China. Mao Zedong appointed him as a secretary after seeing him at a dance. In 1968, when the rebellious factions at Peking University and Tsinghua University were becoming uncontrollable, Mao decided to send a propaganda team from the Central Guards Corps to take over the two universities. Xie Jingyi, as a representative from Mao’s team, became a key figure in managing both universities.

Although Xie Jingyi was not a member of the Political Bureau, he was able to participate in Political Bureau meetings. Zhou Enlai, who often bowed to Mao’s wishes, even considered nominating Xie Jingyi as Vice-Chairman of the National People’s Congress. In the later 1976 Hua Guofeng Incident, Xie Jingyi, along with Jiang Qing, was arrested but managed to avoid prosecution by turning into a witness against Jiang Qing, thus ensuring his career continued unscathed.

The Wrongful Cases of Rightists

The eighth story is about wrongful cases during the Anti-Rightist Movement. In 1957, Qi Yaoquan, a prominent official in Jingtai County, Gansu Province, responded to the call for ideological rectification and accused a fellow county secretary of misconduct. The county’s public security chief, Zhao Zhengfang, arrested Qi on charges of being a rightist. A month later, Qi was sent to a labor camp in Jiabian Gou.

Interestingly, Zhao Zhengfang himself had been accused of corruption and sent to labor reform as well. He had been trying to win favor by forwarding complaints about the county secretary’s conduct, but instead, he was also labeled as part of an anti-party group and sent for labor reform. Notably, the famous writer Zhang Xianliang was also labeled as a rightist and sent to labor reform in Gansu, where he once witnessed a man who was supposed to be a guard but ended up sending himself to prison to avoid his duties.

In another case in Anhui Province’s Jia San County, the local leadership faced pressure to meet the rightist quota set by higher authorities. When the local leader reported there were no more rightists to arrest, the visiting Anhui Provincial Committee member, Zeng Xusheng, accused him of rightist sentiments and forced the local leader to label himself as a rightist to meet the quota.

Cannibalism in the Jiabian Gou Labor Camp

The ninth story is about Dong Jianyi, a doctor who met a tragic end. In 1957, the Jiabian Gou labor camp in Gansu Province housed over 3,000 rightist intellectuals. Due to the harsh conditions, only about 300 survived by 1960. Dong Jianyi, a Harvard-educated physician, was sent to labor reform in Jiabian Gou after offering criticism at a hospital.

In 1960, with death rates soaring, Dong, despite his medical expertise, could not escape the grim fate. To prevent his body from being consumed by the hungry inmates, he made arrangements with Liu Wenhan, an official from the Gansu Public Security Bureau, to hide his body for his wife to see before it was too late. Liu did as requested, but when Dong’s wife arrived to retrieve the body, it had already been scavenged by other prisoners, leaving only Dong’s head.

The Tragedy of the Woman with Ten Sons Trying to Save Her Husband

The final story is a tragic tale. In 1965, during the so-called Socialist Education Movement, which was a prelude to the Cultural Revolution, a literature teacher in Shandong was accused of slandering Mao Zedong. A student had written in a textbook that Mao Zedong had once hidden in a ditch to escape enemy pursuit, which was deemed an insult to Mao’s great leader status. The teacher was arrested based on this accusation.

Despite the teacher’s protests that the story was from a book, he was sentenced. His wife, a rural woman who was pregnant, desperately searched for the source of the story to exonerate her husband. Her search was in vain, and she and her newborn child tragically died in a fire that destroyed their papers. The teacher was eventually exonerated after eight years of imprisonment, but the loss of his family was irreparable.

History is seen in fragments. Understanding a period in history often comes through small stories and fragments, piecing together a larger picture. Despite the passage of time, the memories of these tragedies remain vividly alive, reminding us of the grotesque and bloody chapters we must never forget.