Epoch Times Commentaries on the Communist Party - Part 3
On the Tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party
The Epoch Times
Dec 13, 2004
Tyranny caught on camera: Chinese uniformed and plainsclothes police arrest approximately 10 Falun Gong practitioners, who had come to Tiananmen Square to appeal peacefully for an end to the persecution, November 9, 2000. (Global Photos/Liaison)
This is the third of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Foreword
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.
I. Land Reform—Eliminating the Landlord Class
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.
II. Reforms in Industry and Commerce—Eliminating the Capitalist Class
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.
III. Crackdown on Religions and Religious Groups
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.
IV. The Anti-rightist Movement—Nationwide Brainwashing
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.
V. The Great Leap Forward—Creating Falsehoods to Test People’s Loyalty
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.
VI. The Cultural Revolution—The World Turned Upside Down by Evil Possession
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.
VII. The Reform and Opening up—The Violence Progresses with Time
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.
VIII. Brainwash the Whole Country and Turn It into a “Mind Prison”
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.”
Conclusion
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.
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.
(Updated on January 1, 2005)
Epoch Times Commentaries on the Communist Party - Part 4
On How the Communist Party Is an Anti-Universe Force
The Epoch Times
Dec 14, 2004
Poster promoting Red Guards’ beating people, destroying properties, and raiding homes. The slogan in the picture says, “Smash the old world; build a new world.”
This is the fourth of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Foreword
Chinese people value greatly the “Tao,” or the Way. In ancient times a brutal emperor would be called “a decadent ruler who lacks the Tao.” Any behavior not conforming to the standard of morality, which, in Chinese, is denoted by the two characters Dao De, meaning “Tao” and “Virtue” respectively, was said “not to follow the principle of Tao.” Even revolting farmers put out banners proclaiming “achieve the Way on behalf of heaven.” Lao Zi [1] said, “There is something mysterious and whole, which existed before heaven and earth. Silent, formless, complete, and never changing. Living eternally everywhere in perfection, it is the mother of all things. I do not know its name; I call it the Way.” This suggests that the world is formed from “Tao.”
In the last hundred years, the sudden invasion by the communist specter has created a force against nature and humanity, causing limitless agony and tragedy. It has also pushed civilization to the brink of destruction. Having committed all sorts of atrocities that violate the Tao and oppose heaven and the earth, it has become an extremely malevolent force against the universe.
“Man follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows what is natural.” [2] In ancient China people believed in complying with, harmonizing and co-existing with heaven. Mankind integrates with heaven and the earth, and exists in mutual dependence with them. The Tao of the universe does not change. The universe runs according to the Tao in an orderly manner. The earth follows the changes of heaven, therefore it has four distinct seasons. By respecting heaven and the earth, mankind enjoys a harmonious life of gratitude and blessings. This is reflected in the expression “heaven’s favorable timing, earth’s advantageous terrain, and harmony among the people.” [3] According to Chinese thought, astronomy, geography, the calendar system, medicine, literature, and even social structures all follow this understanding.
But the Communist Party promotes “humans over nature” and a “philosophy of struggle” in defiance of heaven, the earth, and nature. Mao Zedong said, “battling with heaven is endless joy, fighting with the earth is endless joy, and struggling with humanity is endless joy.” Perhaps the Communist Party did acquire real joy from these struggles, but the people have paid tremendously painful costs.
I. Struggle with People and Exterminate Human Nature
Confound Good and Evil and Eliminate Humanity
A human being is first a natural being, and then a social being. “Men at their birth are naturally good”[4] and “The heart of compassion is possessed by all people alike”[5] are among the many guidelines that human beings bring with them at birth, guidelines that enable them to distinguish right from wrong, and good from evil. However, for the CCP human beings are animals or even machines. According to the CCP, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are just material forces.
The CCP’s purpose is to control people and gradually change them into rebellious, revolutionary ruffians. Marx said, “Material forces can only be overthrown by material force”; “Theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.”[6] He believed that the entire human history is nothing but the continuous evolution of human nature, and that human nature is in fact class nature, and posited that there are nothing inherent and inborn but products of the environment. He argued that a human being is a “social man,” disagreeing with the “natural man” concept postulated by Feuerbach. Lenin believed that Marxism cannot be generated naturally among the proletariat, but must be infused from outside. Lenin tried his best but still could not cause workers to shift from the economic struggle to the political battle for power. So, he pinned his hopes on the “Conditioned Reflex Theory” put forth by Nobel Prize winner Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. Lenin said this theory “has significant meaning for the proletariat all around the world.” Trotsky [7] even vainly hoped that conditioned reflex would not only psychologically change a person, but also physically change the person. In the same way that a dog drools once it hears the lunch bell ringing, soldiers would be expected to rush ahead bravely upon hearing gunshots, thus devoting their lives to the Communist Party.
Since ancient times, people have believed that rewards come from effort and labor. Through hard work one gains a prosperous life. People have contempt for indolence and see reaping benefits without laboring as immoral. After the Communist Party spread to China like a plague, however, it encouraged social scum and idlers to divide land, rob private property, and tyrannize men and women—all were done publicly under the color of law.
Everyone knows that it is good to respect one’s elders and care for the young, and bad to disregard elders and teachers. The ancient Confucian education had two parts: Xiao Xue (Small Learning) and Da Xue (Great Learning). Xiao Xue education, received by children below 15 years old, mainly focused on manners regarding cleanliness, social interactions and etiquette (i.e., education on hygiene, social behavior, speech, and so on). Da Xue education emphasized virtue and acquiring the Tao. [8] During the CCP’s campaigns to criticize Lin Biao [9] and Confucius and to denounce respect for teachers, the Party erased all moral standards from the minds of the younger generation.
An ancient saying goes, “One day as my teacher, and I should respect him as my father for my entire life.”
On August 5, 1966, Bian Zhongyun, a teacher of the Affiliated Girls’ High School of Beijing Normal University, was paraded by her female students on the street, wearing a tall dunce hat and clothes stained with black ink, carrying an insulting black board over her neck, in the midst of the students’ drumming on dustbins. She was forced to her knees on the ground, beaten with a wooden stick spiked with nails, and burned with boiling water. She was tortured to death.
The female principal of the Affiliated High School of Peking University was forced by students to knock on a broken washbasin and yell “I am a bad element.” Her hair was cut messily to humiliate her. Her head was beaten until it gushed blood, as she was forced down to crawl on the ground.
Everyone thinks to be clean is good and to be dirty is bad. But the CCP promotes “getting mud all over the body and covering your hands with calluses,” and praises as good that your “hands are dirty and feet smeared with cow-dung.”[10] People like this were considered to be the most revolutionary, and could attend universities, join the Party, be promoted, and eventually become Party leaders.
Humankind has progressed because of the accumulation of knowledge, but, under the CCP, gaining knowledge was considered bad. Intellectuals were classified as the stinky ninth category—worst on a scale of one to nine. Intellectuals were told to learn from illiterates, and to be re-educated by poor peasants in order to be reformed and start new lives. In the re-education of intellectuals, professors from Tsinghua University were banished to Carp Island in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Schistosomiasis [11] was a common disease in this area, and even a labor camp originally located here had to move. Upon touching the river water, these professors were immediately infected and developed cirrhosis, thus losing their ability to work and live.
Under former Chinese Premier Minister Zhou Enlai’s instigation, the Cambodian Communist Party (Khmer Rouge) carried out the most cruel persecution of intellectuals. Those who held independent thinking were subjected to reform and extermination both spiritually and physically. From 1975 to 1978, one-quarter of the Cambodian population was killed, some of whom met their death simply on account of marks left on their faces after wearing glasses.
After the Cambodian communist’s victory in 1975, Pol Pot prematurely started to establish socialism—“a heaven in human society” that has no class differences, no urban and rural divides, no currency or commercial trade. In the end, families were torn apart and replaced with male labor teams and female labor teams. They were all forced to work and eat together, and wear the same black revolutionary or military uniform. Husbands and wives could only meet each other once a week with approval.
The Communist Party claims to fear no heaven or earth, but has attempted with arrogance to reform heaven and earth. This is a complete disregard for all the righteous elements and forces in the universe. Mao Zedong wrote while a student in Hunan,
In all centuries, nations have conducted great revolutions. The old is washed away and things are imbued with the new; great changes have occurred, involving life and death, success and ruin. It is the same with the destruction of the universe. The destruction is definitely not the final destruction, and there is no doubt that destruction here will be birth over there. We all anticipate such destruction, because in destroying the old universe we bring about the new universe. Isn’t that better than the old universe?!
Affection is a natural human emotion. Affection among husbands and wives, children, parents, friends and in society generally is normal. Through incessant political campaigns, the CCP has changed humans to wolves, or even an animal that is more fierce and cruel than the wolf. Even the most fierce tigers would not eat their young. But under the rule of the CCP, it has been common for parents and children to report on each other or husbands and wives to expose each other; familial relations were frequently renounced.
In the mid-1960s, a female teacher in an elementary school in Beijing accidentally put “socialism” and “fall down” together when she drilled her students in Chinese characters. Students reported her. After that, she was criticized everyday, and slapped by male students. Her daughter severed her relationship with her. Whenever the struggle became more intense, her daughter would criticize her mother’s “new movement in class struggles” during political sessions. For several years following the mishap, the teacher’s only work was the daily cleaning of the school, including its toilets.
People who went through the Cultural Revolution would never forget Zhang Zhixin, who was sent to jail because she criticized Mao for his failure in the Great Leap Forward. Many times, prison guards stripped off her clothes, handcuffed her hands behind her back and threw her into male prison cells, letting male prisoners gang rape her. She became insane in the end. When she was being executed, prison guards feared she would shout slogans as her protest. They pressed her head on a brick and sliced open her throat without any anesthesia.
In the persecution of Falun Gong in recent years, the CCP continues to use the same old methods of inciting hate and instigating violence.
The Communist Party suppresses human beings’ virtuous nature, and promotes, encourages, and uses the evil side of humanity to strengthen its rule. In one campaign after another, people with conscience are forced into silence for fear of violence. The Communist Party systematically has destroyed universal moral standards in an attempt to completely demolish the concepts of good and evil and of honor and shame that have been maintained by humankind for thousands of years.
The Evil that Transcends the Law of Mutual Generation and Mutual Inhibition
Lao Zi said,
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other;
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.” [12]
Simply put, the law of mutual generation and mutual inhibition exists in the human world. Not only are humans divided into good and bad individuals, but good and evil also co-exist within a single person.
Dao Zhi, an icon of bandits in ancient China, told his followers, “Bandits should follow the Way as well.” He went on and elaborated that being a bandit should also be “honorable, courageous, righteous, wise, and benevolent.” That is to say, even a bandit cannot do whatever pleases him, but has to follow certain rules.
The history of the CCP can be said to be full of trickery and betrayal without constraint. For example, what bandits honor the most is “righteousness.” Even their place to share the booty is called “the Hall of Righteousness for Dividing the Spoils.” But whenever a crisis arises among comrades within the CCP, they expose and accuse one another, and even fabricate false charges to frame one another, adding insult to injury.
Take General Peng Dehuai for example. Mao Zedong, coming from a peasant background, of course knew that it was impossible to produce 130,000 jin of grain per mu [13] and that what Peng said was all true. He also knew that Peng had no intention of taking his power, let alone the fact that Peng has saved his life several times when Peng fought Hu Zongnan’s 200,000 troops with only 20,000 troops of his own during the CCP-KMT war. Nevertheless, as soon as Peng expressed his disagreement with Mao, Mao immediately burst into rage and threw into a garbage can the poem he wrote in praise of Peng—“Who dares to ride ahead on horseback with sword drawn—only our General Peng!” Mao was determined to put Peng to death, despite the nobility of Peng’s life-saving comradeship.
The CCP kills brutally rather than governs with benevolence; it persecutes its own members in contempt of comradeship and personal loyalty; it barters away China’s territory, acting cowardly; it makes itself an enemy of righteous belief, lacking wisdom; it launches mass movements, violating the sage’s way to govern the nation. All in all, the CCP has gone so far as to abandon the minimal moral standard that “even bandits should follow the Way as well.” Its evilness has reached well beyond the law of mutual generation and mutual inhibition in the universe. The CCP completely opposes nature and humanity for the purpose of confounding the criteria for good and evil and overturning the law of the universe. Its unrestrained arrogance has reached its zenith, and it is doomed to come to a complete collapse.
II. Fight with the Earth in Violation of the Law of Nature, Bringing Endless Disaster
Extend Class Struggle to Nature
Jin Xunhua was a 1968 high school graduate from the Wusong No.2 Middle School of Shanghai and a member of the Standing Committee of the Middle School Red Guards in Shanghai. He was sent down to the countryside of Heilongjiang Province in March, 1969. On August 15, 1969, fierce floods rushed down from a mountain range and soon inundated the areas surrounding the Shuang River. Jin jumped into the swift currents in order to retrieve two drifting electric wire poles for his production team and was drowned.
The following are two diary entries [14] of Jin before he died.
July 4
I am beginning to feel the severity and intensity of the class struggle in the countryside. As a red guard of Chairman Mao, I stand fully prepared to fight head on against the reactionary forces with the invincible Mao Zedong Thought as my weapon. I’m willing to do that even if it means I have to sacrifice my life. I will fight, fight, and fight to the best of my ability to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.
July 19
The class enemies in that production brigade are still arrogant. Educated youth came to the countryside precisely to participate in the three major revolutionary movements in the countryside. First and foremost, the class struggle. We should rely on the class of poor and the lower-middle peasants, mobilize the masses and suppress the arrogance of the enemies. We educated youth should always uphold the great banners of Mao Zedong Thought, never forget the class struggle, and never forget the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Jin went to the countryside with the thought of fighting heaven and earth and reforming humanity. His diaries reveal that his mind was full of “fights.” He extended the idea of “struggling with humans” to fighting with heaven and earth, and eventually lost his life for it. Jin is a typical case of the philosophy of struggle and, at the same time, undoubtedly became its victim.
Engels once said that freedom is the recognition of inevitability. Mao Zedong went on and added “and the reformation of the world.” This final touch fully brought to light the CCP’s view of nature, namely, to change nature. The “inevitability” as understood by the communists is the matter out of their eyesight and the “pattern” whose origin is beyond their exposition. They believe that nature and humanity can be “conquered” by mobilizing subjective human consciousness to understand objective laws. The communists have made a mess of both Russia and China, their two pilot fields, in their efforts to change nature.
The folk songs during the Great Leap Forward show the arrogance and stupidity of the CCP: “Let the mountains bow and let the rivers step aside”; “There’s no Jade Emperor in the heaven and there’s no Dragon King on the earth. I am the Jade Emperor and I am the Dragon King. I order the three mountains and five gorges to step aside, here I come!” [15]
The Communist Party has come! So with it comes the destruction of balance in nature and the originally harmonious world.
Disrupting Nature Causes the CCP to Reap What It Has Sown
Under its agricultural policy of keeping the grain as a key link, the CCP at will converted to farmland large areas of mountain slopes and grasslands that were unsuitable for farming, and filled rivers and lakes in China to make cropland. What was the result? The CCP claimed that the grain production in 1952 exceeded that of the Nationalist period, but what the CCP did not reveal was that not until 1972 did the total grain production in China exceed that of the peaceful Qianlong Reign of the Qing Dynasty. Even up to this day, China’s per capita grain production is still far below that of the Qing Dynasty, and is a mere one third of that of the Song Dynasty, when agriculture was at its peak in Chinese history.
Indiscriminate cutting of trees, leveling of rivers and filling of lakes have resulted in drastic ecological deterioration in China. Today, China’s ecosystem is on the brink of collapse. The drying-up of the Hai River and the Yellow River and the pollution of the Huai River and the Yangtze River sever the life line on which the Chinese nation has depended for its survival. With the disappearance of grasslands in Gansu, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang, sandstorms have made their way into the central plains.
In the 1950s, under the guidance of the Soviet experts, the CCP built the Sanmenxia hydraulic power station on the Yellow River. To this day, this power station only gives a generating capacity at the level of a medium-sized river, despite the fact that the Yellow River is the second largest river in China. To make matters worse, this project has caused an accumulation of mud and sand at the river’s upper reaches and raised the height of the riverbed. Because of this, even a moderate flood brings enormous losses in life and property to people on both sides of the riverbank. In the 2003 flood of the Wei River, the peak water flux was 3700 cubic meters per second, a level that may occur every three to five years. Yet that flood caused a disaster unprecedented in the past 50 years.
There have been a multitude of large-scale reservoirs built in the locality of Zhumadian, Henan Province. In 1975, the dams of these reservoirs collapsed one after another. Within a short duration of two hours, 60,000 people were drowned. The total death toll reached as high as 200,000.
The CCP continues wanton acts of destruction on the land of China. The Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River and the South-to-North Water Transfer Project are all attempts by the CCP to change the natural ecosystems with investments amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. This is not to mention those small and medium-sized projects to “fight with the earth.” Furthermore, it was once suggested within the CCP that an atomic bomb be used to blast open a passage on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to change the natural environment in western China. Although the CCP’s arrogance and contempt for the land have shocked the world, they are not unexpected.
In the hexagrams (Ba Gua) of The Book of Changes, China’s ancestors regarded heaven as Qian or the creative, and revered it as the heavenly Tao. They considered the earth as Kun or the receptive, and respected receptive virtues.
Kun, the hexagram following Qian, is explained in The Book of Changes as such: “Being in the hexagram of Kun, Earth’s nature is to extend and respond. In correspondence with this, superior persons handle and sustain all things with bountiful virtues.”
The Confucian commentary on The Book of Changes [16] says, “Perfect is Kun’s greatness; it brings birth to all beings.”
Confucius further commented on the nature of Kun, “Kun is the most soft, yet in motion it is firm. It is most still, yet in nature, square. Through following she obtains her lord, yet still maintains her nature and thus endures. She contains all things, and is brilliant in transforming. This is the way of Kun—how docile it is, bearing heaven and moving with time.”
Clearly, only in the earth mother’s receptive virtues of softness, stillness, and endurance in following heaven can all things sustain and flourish on earth. The Book of Changes teaches us the proper attitude toward the heavenly Tao and earthly virtues: to follow heaven, abide by the earth, and respect nature.
The CCP, however, in violation of Qian and Kun, promotes “battling with heaven and fighting with the earth.” It has plundered the earth’s resources at will. In the end, it will inevitably be punished by heaven, the earth and the law of nature.
III. Battle with Heaven, Suppressing Faith and Rejecting Belief in God
How Can a Limited Life Understand Limitless Space-time?
Einstein’s son, Edward, once asked him why he was so famous. Einstein, pointing at a blind beetle on a leather ball, replied that it did not know the path it crawled is curved, but “Einstein knows.” Einstein’s answer truly has deep implications. A Chinese saying conveys a similar meaning, “You do not know the true face of Mountain Lu precisely because you are in the mountain.” To understand a system, one must step out of that system to observe it. However, using limited notions to observe the limitless space-time of the universe, mankind will never be able to understand the complete make-up of the universe, and thus the universe will remain forever a mystery for humankind.
The realm non-traversable by science belongs to spirituality or metaphysics, which falls naturally in the realm of “faith.”
Faith, a mental activity that involves experience and the understanding of life, space-time and the universe, lies beyond that which can be managed by a political party. “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”[17] However, based on its pitiful and absurd understanding of the universe and life, the Communist Party calls everything outside of it own theories “superstitions,” and subjects believers of God to brainwashing and conversion. Those unwilling to change their faith have been insulted or even killed.
Real scientists hold a very broad outlook of the universe, and will not deny the unlimited “unknown” with an individual’s limited notions. The renowned scientist Newton, in his seminal book Principles of Mathematics published in 1678, explained in detail the principles of mechanics, tidal formation, and planetary movement, and calculated the movements of the solar system. Newton, who was so eminently accomplished, said repeatedly that his book offered a mere description of surface phenomena, and that he absolutely did not dare to speak about the real meaning of the ultimate God in creating the universe. In the second edition of Principles of Mathematics, in expressing his faith Newton wrote, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being… As a blind man has no idea of colors, so we have no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.”
Let us put aside the questions of whether there are heavenly kingdoms that transcend this space-time and whether those seeking the Way can return to their divine origins and true selves. One thing we can all agree on: Followers of a righteous faith all believe in the causal relationship that goodness begets goodness and that evil will be punished. Righteous faiths play a very important role in maintaining human morality at a certain level. From Aristotle to Einstein, many believe in the existence of a prevailing law in the universe. Humanity has never stopped probing for the truth of the universe through various means. In addition to scientific exploration, why cannot religion, faith, and cultivation be accepted as other approaches through which to uncover universal truth?
The CCP Destroys Humanity’s Righteous Faith
All nations have historically believed in God. Precisely because of belief in God and the karmic causality of good and evil, humans would restrain themselves and maintain the moral standard of the society. At all times and across the world, the orthodox religions in the west and Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism in the east have all taught people that true happiness comes from having faith in God, worshipping heaven, being compassionate, cherishing what one has, being grateful for one’s blessings, and paying back other’s kindness.
A guiding premise of communism has been atheism—the belief that there is no Buddha, no Tao, no past lives, no after life, and no causal retribution. Therefore, communists in different countries have all told the poor and the lumpen proletariat [18] that they do not need to believe in God; they do not need to pay for what they do; and they do not need to abide by the laws and behave themselves. On the contrary, they should use trickery and violence to acquire wealth.
In ancient China, emperors, considered to be of supreme nobility, still placed themselves below heaven, calling themselves sons of heaven. Controlled and restrained by “heaven’s will,” they would, from time to time, issue imperial edicts to blame themselves and repent to heaven. The communists, however, take it upon themselves to represent the will of heaven. Unrestricted by laws or heaven, they are free to do anything they want. As a result, they have created one hell after another on earth.
Marx, the patriarch of communism, believed that religion is the spiritual opium for the people. He was afraid that people would believe in divinity and God and refuse to accept his communism. The very first chapter of the book Dialectics of Nature by Engels contains a criticism of Mendeleyev and his group’s study of mysticism.
Engels stated that everything during or before the Middle Ages had to justify its existence before the trial of human rationality. As he made this remark, he regarded himself and Marx to be judges in such a trial. Mikhail Bakunin, an anarchist and friend of Marx, commented on Marx this way, “He appeared to be God to people. He cannot tolerate anyone else as God except himself. He wanted people to worship him as they would God, and pay homage to him as their idol. Otherwise, he would subject them to verbal attack or persecution.”
Traditional orthodox faith constitutes natural obstacles to communist arrogance.
The CCP has lost all composure in the frantic persecution of religion. During the Cultural Revolution, numerous temples and mosques were torn down, and monks were paraded in humiliation through the streets. In Tibet, 90 percent of the temples were damaged. Even today, the CCP continues religious persecution, jailing tens of thousands of house church Christians. Gong Pinmei, a Catholic priest in Shanghai, was imprisoned for more than 30 years by the CCP. He came to the US in the 1980s. Before he died at an age over 90, he made a will that said, “Move my grave back to Shanghai when the CCP no longer rules China.” In more than 30 years of solitary confinement because of his belief, the CCP had pressured him many times to renounce his faith and to accept the leadership of the CCP’s “Three-Self Patriotic Committee” [19] in exchange for his release.
In recent years, the CCP’s crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners, who stand for the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, has been an extension of its doctrine of “battling with heaven,” as well as an inevitable outcome of its forcing people against their will.
The atheist communists attempt to channel and control people’s belief in God; they derive joy from battling with heaven. Their absurdity cannot be described in words; descriptions such as arrogance or hubris cannot even begin to depict a fraction of it.
Conclusion
In practice communism has completely failed across the globe. Jiang Zemin, a former leader of the last major communist regime in the world, said to a correspondent of The Washington Post in March 2001, “When I was young I thought communism would come very quickly, but now I don't feel like this.” [20] At present the number of those who truly believe in communism is few and far in between.
The communist movement is destined to fail since it violates the law of the universe and runs counter to heaven. Such an anti-universe force will surely be punished by the heaven’s will and divine spirits.
Though the CCP has survived crises by frequently changing its appearance and clinging to its last desperate contrivances, its inevitable doom is clear to all in the world. Shedding its beguiling masks one by one, the CCP is revealing its true nature of greed, brutality, shamelessness, wickedness and opposition to the universe. But it continues to control people’s minds, twist human ethics and thus bring ravages to human morality, peace and progress.
The vast universe carries with it the irrefutable will of heaven, which can also be called the will of the divine, or the law and force of nature. Humanity will have a future only if it respects heaven’s will, follows the course of nature, observes the law of the universe, and loves all beings under heaven.
Notes:
[1] Lao Zi (also known as Lao Tzu, Li Er or Li Dan), Chinese philosopher, lived in the 6th century BC. He is credited as the author of Dao De Jing (Tao-Te Ching), the seminal book for Taoism.
[2] Dao De Jing, Chapter 25.
[3] These expressions come from Mencius, Book 2.
[4] Rhymes of Three (San Zi Jing), a traditional Chinese text for elementary education.
[5] Mencius, Book 6.
[6] Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.”
[7] Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Russian communist theorist, historian, and military leader, founder of the Russian Red Army. He was murdered in Mexico City by agents of Stalin on August 22, 1940.
[8] According to Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200), also known as Zhu-zi or Chu-tzu, a neo-Confucian scholar from the Song Dynasty, Small Learning deals with proper behavior, while Great Learning expounds on the underlying principles behind those behaviors. Source: Classified Conversations of Master Zhu (Zhu Zi Yu Lei), Volume 7 (Learning 1).
[9] Lin Biao (1907-1971), one of the senior CCP leaders, served under Mao Zedong as a member of China's Politburo, as Vice-Chairman (1958) and Defense Minister (1959). Lin is regarded as the architect of China's Great Cultural Revolution. Lin was designated as Mao's successor in 1966 but fell out of favor in 1970. Sensing his downfall, Lin reportedly became involved in a coup attempt and tried to flee to the USSR once the alleged plot became exposed. During his flight from prosecution, his plane crashed in Mongolia, resulting in his death.
[10] From Mao’s “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” (1942).
[11] Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by parasitic worms. Infection occurs upon contact with contaminated fresh water. Common symptoms include fever, chills, cough, and muscle aches. In more serious cases, the disease can cause liver, intestine, lung, and bladder damage, and, in rare cases, seizures, paralysis, or spinal cord inflammation.
[12] Dao De Jing, Chapter 2.
[13] “jin” is a Chinese unit for measuring weight. 1 jin = 0.5 kg; “mu” is a Chinese unit for measuring land area. 1 mu = 0.165 acres.
[14] Translated by the translator.
[15] 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.
[16] The Complete I Ching, translated by Alfred Huang. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions (1998).
[17] Bible, Matthew, 22:21.
[18] Lumpen proletariat, roughly translated as slum workers. This term identifies the class of outcast, degenerate or underground elements that make up a segment of the population of industrial centers. It includes beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of degraded or degenerated elements and the underclass. The term was coined by Marx in The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850.
[19] Three-Self Patriotic Committee (or Three-Self Patriotic Church, TSPC) is a creation of the CCP. “Three-self” refers to “self governing, self supporting, and self propagating.” The Committee requires Chinese Christians to sever ties with Christians outside of China. The TSPC controls all official churches in China. Churches that did not join the TSPC were forced to close. Leaders and followers of independent house churches are persecuted and often sentenced to prison terms.
[20] John Pomfret. “Jiang has caution for U.S. – China’s leader says Taiwan arms deal would spur buildup.” Washington Post, March 24, 2001.
(Updated on January 2, 2005)