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Guo Guifa, the secretary of local branch and a few old party members still insisted for me to be the secretary of the party branch.I said I had already made up my mind and quit from the promising position of a government official.They said, “You are still a member of the Communist Party of China.If you don’t want to be a secretary, you can always be a member of the party committee.” I couldn’t refuse any more.I said, “OK, I’ll be a member of the party committee.I’ll be a member of the communication committee.”
During the day, I went out to work with the commune members, carrying more than 120 jin of dung, walking along the mountain like a man on flat ground.I broke several carrying poles.I couldn’t push a wheelbarrow at first, but later I learned how, and soon learned to carry more in my wheelbarrow than others.At that time, I was always ahead of the pack to do the heavy, dirty, and hard work of the production team.I also organized the Hengdian Brigade Cultural Group to rehearse in the evening and perform for various brigades, which was very popular with the commune members.I also organized a basketball team, which also represented the Hengdian Commune in the basketball league in Dongyang County.At that time, the cultural and sports activities of the Hengdian Brigade were very vigorous and well-known far and near.That was the job of communication committee.
Before long, the “Four Clear-ups Movement” started.The “Four Clear-ups Movement” referred to the “Socialist Education Movement”, which in cities was known as the “Five Antis Movement” （anti-corruption and theft, anti-speculation, anti-extravagance, anti-decentralism, and anti-bureaucracy）.In the countryside, it is called “Four Clear-ups Movement” （to clear the division of labor, to clear accounts, to clear warehouses, to clear property）.Later, the socialist education movement in urban and rural areas of China were both referred to as the “Four Clean-ups Movement”, the content of which was changed to clean ideology, clean politics, clean organization and clean economy.In order to distinguish, the former one was called “Four Clear-ups”, the latter “Four Clean-ups”.
When the “Four Clean-ups Group” came to Hengdian, all the cadres were subject to review.I was fine, and I wasn’t afraid of being vetted.At that time, their main target was the old secretary, Guo Guifa, who was not schooled but very honest and knowledgeable in agricultural production technology.His family was struggling, so he raised calves and sold them.On this point, he was caught by the working group and was said to be a profiteer, a capitalist, and needed to be expelled from the party.
I couldn’t stand to see the tragedy.I raised the question, “What’s the sin of owning a cow? How can that cost one their position as a party member? Is owning a cow considered capitalism? Right now, people don’t even have enough to eat, and no ways to earn money.Guo Guifa labored to raise cattle.How can that be called capitalism? You can’t take him down for something like that.I’m not convinced.”
I had no idea it would get me into trouble.Guo Guifa had worked as a cadre in the countryside for many years, but he also angered some people who wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to take him down.They didn’t expect me to stand up for him.So the working group and the opponents of Guo Guifa turned on me all of a sudden.
The heat was on me, but I wasn’t scared.I had nothing to lose.I didn’t expect that some people would say that I had been in the communication committee for so long that I must have been embezzling.I was so mad, and asked them to look into it! After all the accounting books were checked, they found that I hadn’t embezzled anything, but had used some of my own money to buy musical instruments, props, and costumes.The unit owed me money.The accusation of corruption was off the table, so they turned to accusing me of anti-socialist speeches.I was not afraid.They couldn’t take me down.A lot of people supported me, and the old secretary was protected.
Later, when it came time to clear up the ranks of the class, meetings were held within the party branch to find out which members of the “Four Categories” were in-line and subjected to inspection; which ones had historical problems; which ones needed to be separated from the crowd with a clear line.Because I had experience during the “Eliminating Counter-revolutionaries” trial, I gave a lot of suggestions.Yet the internal discussion was leaked out, which further deepened the hatred of certain groups towards me.They said I was starting to chop at them.They brought a lot of fabricated issues to the working group, and then the working group began to criticize me.But there was no substantive evidence.They failed at taking me down.