A few days ago is International Women’s Day on March 8th. I really want to write an article on this forum to commemorate it, but once I write it, I will be accused of being hypocritical; if I don’t write it, that would be even more hypocritical, and I would be seen as not caring about the women’s liberation movement. Of course, if I honestly write these things, I will also be labeled; I have already thought of a name—viewing comrades through bourgeois human nature theory. Perhaps, as comrades have said, I think too highly of myself, but in fact, I have never had such an idea. To be fair, I also have some understanding of historical materialism, since I have studied history for so many years.
A few days ago, I was indeed very angry and confused, but now I have let it go. I believe that even if I am labeled and make mistakes, it does not affect my contribution to communism. Even if comrades have long regarded me as a reactionary. When I first debated, I already said that you seem to want to label me as a reactionary, and now it’s true—no need to pretend anymore.
I have never denied the Anti-Rightist Movement; I have always spoken of its exaggeration. Although Deng Xiaoping was ultimately responsible, it was expanded to 550,000 rightists, and Chairman Mao also said: “Where are so many rightists in the country? At most, 50,000.” The next sentence after you say I “remind comrades” is nonsense; you label me, saying I use bourgeois human nature theory, and then you talk nonsense—doesn’t that also reflect bourgeois human nature theory? You even used the word “emperor.”
I said Comrade Fenghuo is “outstanding” sincerely. I read the drafts of “The Middle Unrest” and some other articles he wrote, and they touched my heart deeply, with strong arguments. Well, here’s another point: claiming that I invented the term “Number One Servant,” implying a hierarchical concept, is just another way of labeling me. The term “Number One Servant” comes from Comrade Yang Daoyuan, the No. 1 Servant of the Steel Second Division of the Wuhan Revolution Rebel Faction, in his “Dedication—My Experience of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” It seems that Kuai Dafu from Tsinghua Jinggangshan Corps also used the term “Number One Servant.” Can I also label comrades as “incompetent” based on this? My original intention was to say that in the association, and even the entire forum, Comrade Fenghuo is the leader because most of the articles are drafted by him. Here’s another comparison: I really don’t know how “gentleman” refers to “slave owner.” How do you interpret my words based on that? Isn’t that also a way of saying I’m “incompetent”? I study Chinese language and history, and I only know that “gentleman” refers to “a person with morality and talent.” I don’t understand its class connotation, but I have learned now, and I understand.
Many comrades, more than once, questioned me—questioned my rebellious activities at school and my experience working as a waiter, saying “all fabricated” or “I also think it’s not credible anymore, just write it as doubtful.” Good grief, if I write “doubtful,” it not only fails to prove my rigor but also gives you an excuse to label me. If you really want to know about my rebellious activities at school, I can even give you the QQ of classmates I still keep in touch with; go ask them yourself. “No investigation, no right to speak,” you say, but you jump to conclusions without asking, claiming it’s fabricated. I think you are the ones viewing me through bourgeois human nature theory. I previously briefly mentioned my experience working as a farmer and also wrote about an incident that happened when I was a waiter. I thought that was enough. Boasting that I went to the countryside at 14 and worked as a waiter is not a good thing. Now, if I had written it, you might think I was showing off my seniority and label me again. But I still have to write to respond.
The rural area I went to is in the most remote town of our district. It takes about 40 minutes walking from the bus stop to my grandmother’s house, where I did farm work. There was only a cement road around 2018-2019; before that, it was a gravel road, and earlier, a mud road. My grandmother was born into a poor peasant family. When I worked with her, I often asked about her past. She said they were very poor, collectivization was very bad, and they were extremely destitute. She was very grateful for Deng Xiaoping’s household contract responsibility system, which she said was about land division, allowing their family to eat enough. I didn’t argue at the time, but later I thought: 1. Maybe the People’s Commune they were in was indeed poorly managed; 2. She had a serious private ownership concept and liked small-scale production. I watched sheep—either crossing the river and driving the sheep to the other side, which takes about 10 minutes, because the grass there is very good; or walking about 7-8 minutes behind the house mountain to the dried or semi-dried fields, then tying the sheep to a tree. When I harvested grains in summer, the husks would stick to me, causing large red swelling and itching all over, even after wiping myself. Every year I had to buy kudzu, and I was responsible for pushing the cleaned kudzu in a cart to the place where it was shredded—about 50 meters with an uphill and a flat section. Then I helped my grandmother put the cleaned kudzu into a machine that crushed it. There’s also a skill in transplanting rice seedlings—you can’t plant them too far apart or too close, and they are inserted upside down, one handful at a time, into the water paddy. Sometimes, after transplanting, my feet would itch. Other things include planting garlic, shelling corn, fertilizing—too many to list. Also, I should mention that my grandmother said she married into my grandfather’s family, and her mother-in-law would beat her and was afraid she would run away, so she wasn’t allowed to learn characters. I worked as a waiter at a beef noodle restaurant in a certain province and city. Once, there was an aunt, I remember she was about 47 years old, liked reading novels, but for some reason, she often had conflicts with colleagues, which made the restaurant manager unhappy. She was a single mother raising a child and had a mental illness. Every time the manager wanted to fire her, she would beg bitterly and cry. I thought she was very unlucky. At that time, I didn’t talk much about communism with colleagues; I thought if I did, they would mock my youth. There’s another thing I mentioned before, I won’t repeat it. I felt that the worker aristocrat didn’t treat me as an adult, and he didn’t look at us with respect, so he lost his temper. Labeling me as a “good servant,” I just speak facts—indeed, the manager paid me 2,000 yuan a month, and I didn’t know if colleagues’ wages were deducted. If I wanted to strike and demand wages, I would need a reason.
Overall, some of the labels you’ve put on me are hard for me to bear. What is “seeking truth from facts”?