China A People's Army

ReconstructsVOL. XXIV NO. 9 SEPTEMBER 197B

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VOL. XXIV NO. 9 SEPTEMBER 1975

PUBLISHED MONTHLY IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, SPANISH,ARABIC AND RUSSIAN BY THE CHINA WELFARE

INSTITUTE (SOONG CHING LING, CHAIRMAN)

CONTENTS

Leadership Mode Up of the Old, Middle-aged and Young Han Tan-wen

Across the Land: Along an Ancient Canal

Chin Shih Huang and the Struggle Between the Confucians and the Legalists ChungCheh

A People's Army Ling Fen-hung

A Visit to a PLA Unit

How the BJ-130 Light Truck Was M'ode Ah Fa

Chinese Expedition Again Ascends World's Highest Peak

The Nine Who Scaled the Peak

The Woman Who Made the Final Ascent

Scientific Survey of the 'Roof of the World*

Cultural Notes: Two More Theatrical Festivals

From the Revolutionary Past: Countering Encirclement in Kiangsi and Fukien

Motor Highways for Impossible Mountains and Valleys

Language Corner

Lesson 9: Three Notes

Stamps of New China: Wushu — A Traditional Sport

COVER PICTURES:

Front: Chinese mountaineers approach the world's highest peak — Qomolangma Feng

(Mount Jolmo Lungma) — a second time. (See story on p. 26)

Back: Ice pinnacles in the Qomolangma. region.

Inside front; Divisional commander works as an ordinary soldier.

Inside back: Building roads in tough mountains in Shansi province.

Editorial Office: Wai Wen Building, Peking (37), China. Cable: "CHIRECON" Peking. GeneralDistributor: GUOZI SHUDIAN, P.O. Box 399, Peking, China.

Leadership Made Up of theMiddle-aged and YoungWE'RE much more militant

since our group has consistedof people of all ages — old, middle-aged and young," says Yang Yao-hsien, secretary of the CommunistParty committee of Yungniencounty, Hopei province. "Moreover, it's a fine way to train newleaders."

The Yungnien county Party committee was one of the first in the

country to be organized along suchlines in 1970. The idea came from

the masses during the proletariancultural revolution. The PartyCentral Committee and Chairman

Mao thought it a good one. Nowthe Communist Party Constitutionadopted in 1973 and the NationalConstitution adopted in 1975 bothstipulate that leading organs at alllevels must contain people of allthree age-groups. During the pastfew years leading bodies in everyfield of work from the top levelsdown to the grassroots have beenaugmented or strengthened in linewith this principle.

Of the 13 members of the stand

ing committee of the Yungniencounty Party committee, four areveteran revolutionaries, six are

Chi Ping talks with the members of the Shihpeikou brigade during a work break.

I

mature cadres who have worked

many years in the former countyParty committee or in positions ofleadership in the communes. Threeare young people who were formerly secretaries of Party branchesin commune brigades.

At 53, Yang is the oldest member,and in his position as secretary hasprime responsibility for Partyleadership over the county with apopulation of 500,000. A hiredlaborer before the liberation, hewas very militant in the land reform. Joining the Party at thattime, he has given good leadership

in grassroots Partyposts as well as thedistrict and countyParty committees.

Each member of the

standing committee isin charge of overseeing one aspect of work— industry, agriculture on the county's60,000 hectares offarmland, commerce,culture and education,or military affairs.The standing committee discusses and

decides on all of the

county's major questions at its meetings.The veterans with longexperience in workand struggle are thebest exponents of theParty's policies; thoseof middle age can becounted on for a

down - to - earth approach and careful attention to detail; theyoung people arequick - minded andthink and act boldlyfor the revolution.

Each of the three com

ponents complementsthe other two. With the

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

HAN TAN-WEN

more experienced people helpingthe younger ones and the youngermembers stimulating the others,each age-group is able to give fullplay to its strong points.

Youth's Role

To illustrate the role of the youngpeople Yang Yao-hsien tells thestory of Chi Ping, a young womanof 20 and a new member of the

standing committee. "The mostimportant and biggest of our committee's jobs," he points out, "isto educate and lead the peasantsin constantly criticizing capitalisttendencies, in struggling to overcome the force of old habit, and inkeeping to the socialist road. Theyoung people are a fresh and strongforce for this task."

After graduation from middleschool in her home village Chi Pingworked as a teacher and then became secretary of her brigade'sParty branch. She did her workwell and was elected to the countycommittee.

Soon afterward she learned thatthe Shenchuang brigade had longbeen lagging behind in production.It was known among the leaders asa "big, old, tough" problem. Shevolunteered to go there and to tryand help get to the bottom of it.

The brigade's several hundredfamilies all have the surname Shen,and they were very much heldtogether by the clan idea. "All ofus in the Shenchuang brigade havethe same surname," they said. "Welive in the same village and walkthe same roads. We're one bigfamily." They seemed to thinkthat, since it was many years afterliberation and the landlords andrich peasants had long been overthrown, there was no more classstruggle and they could really enjoy such a family relationship.

Chi Ping went to live in theJorigade and worked in the fields

SEPTEMBER 1975

with the members. In time she discovered that a rich peasant whohad been overthrown had beenmaking use of these deeply-rootedclan ideas to gather the peoplearound him so that he could influence them. For instance, one ofhis sayings was, "If you want tomake quick money, the only way isto go in for trading." Under hisinfluence some people neglectedwork in the fields and put a lot oftime into making and selling sideline products. With the work forcegreatly reduced, collective production suffered.

Chi Ping asked several oldpeasants who had had the hardestlife in the old society to recall andtell how the landlords and richpeasants in this village had exploited the poor people beforeliberation. She also got the brigademembers to review the village's experience after the liberation. Ledby the Communist Party, they hadadvanced from mutual-aid teams tofarm cooperatives and then to thepeople's commune. At each stagethe class enemies had used all kindsof covert methods to make troubleand try to undermine the collectiveeconomy.

The brigade members came tosee that even in their small villagethe struggle between whether totake the socialist road or thecapitalist road had really neverstopped. The rich peasant elementwas actually trying to disrupt thesocialist collective economy byurging quick money through trading. If he succeeded it would leadto impoverishment and sufferingfor most of the brigade members asin the old society. "Whether weare truly of one family is decidedby what class we stand with andwhat line we follow," the brigademembers said. "Not everyonenamed Shen may take the sameroad or be of the same family."

Chi Ping organized a mass meeting to denounce the rich peasantelement and the capitalist tendencyhe was • spreading. This helpededucate the-people and strengthened their resolution to keep tothe socialist road.

Other young members of thecounty Party committee share ChiPing's characteristics. Comingstraight from the grassroots, they

It- Av

Yang Yao-hsien (front) cuts wheatwith the peasants in the brigadewhere he often goes to work.

have the most direct contact with

both the class struggle and production in the localities. They arepolitically sensitive and bold inaction. As soon as they discoverclass enemies making trouble theymobilize the people to struggleagainst them. As soon as theydetect the emergence of capitalisttendencies they organize the peopleto criticize them. With such youngpeople being active at every levelthe county Party committee does amore dynamic job in graspingissues of class struggle, hitting atclass enemies and criticizing capitalist tendencies that crop up.

Veterans Help Newcomers

Being placed in the frontline ofthe class struggle is not enough totrain the young people who willcarry on the revolution, they mustalso gain experience in solvingproblems according to the Party'spolicy. In the Yungnien county

Party committee there is opportunity for both.

Wo Shou-chin became secretaryof her brigade's Party branch whenshe was 21. After she was chosen

for the county Party committee, togive her experience, she was sentto a commune to check over and

help rectify the work of its leadinggroup. The leader of this commimehad picked up some bourgeoisways. He lived in style, demandedspecial privileges and seldom askedfor other people's opinions whenmaking decisions. The massesdidn't like it and it was affectingthe work of the entire commune.

Wo Shou-chin arrived at the

commune eager to bring about aquick change. However, she didnot do much to acquaint herselfwith the situation and made little

progress. Old secretary Yang Yao-hsien reminded her of this and

studied Chairman Mao's teachingson the mass line with her. He

showed her how to go among themasses. Soon they spoke out aboutwhat they really thought of thesituation and she had the whole

story of the errant communeleader.

Wo Shou-chin was angry. Herewas a person from a poor peasantfamily who had later taken on abourgeois way of life and style ofwork. It was a betrayal of hisorigin and she felt he should bepunished severely. Yang Yao-hsien reminded her that Chairmsin

Mao has always taught that thecorrect and best attitude to take

toward a comrade who has made a

mistake is to "cure the sickness tosave the patient" and urge himto "leara from past mistakes toavoid future ones". The mainthing was to educate him: it wasimportant to show him his mistakes, analyze and criticize them,and when he had realized his mis

takes and wished to mend his ways,to unite with him.

According to the Party's policy.Wo Shou-chin was strict incriticism but lenient in the finalhandling of the case. With thishelp, the commune leader sawwhere he had gone wrong andtried earnestly to change. Thestory of his case was also aneducation for other cadres in thecommune.

With aid from the veteran cadres.Wo Shou-chin's own methods ofwork improved and her understanding of the Party's policydeepened.

Yang Yao-hsien constantlystresses that the young people muststudy revolutionary theory. "OurParty's policies are based onMarxist-Leninist principles. Wewon't be able to understand and

carry out the policies correctlyunless we study Marxist-Leninisttheory," he says. Although he didnot have much schooling, hespends two hours every morningor evening in theoretical study.Over the past few years he hasread many works of Marx, Engels,Lenin and Stahn and the writingsof Chairman Mao, taking detailednotes. Under his influence everyone in the county Party committeeis studying earnestly.

Yen Hsin-chao, a young member,was quite conscientious in his studywhen he was a brigade Partybranch secretary, but after he wasappointed a deputy secretary of thecounty Party committee he .felt hisduties were very heavy. They tookmost of his time, leaving little forstudy. Yang Yao-hsien noticed thisand began coming to his room inthe evening to study with him.Yang recalled for Yen that whenhe himself was a deputy secretaryin charge of culture and educationbefore the cultural revolution, hehad not studied Marxism seriouslyand had been unable to distinguishbetween Marxism and revisionism.

He had actually carried out LiuShao-chi's revisionist line in education. The students had become

divorced from proletarian politics,labor and the masses. Even todayit pained him to think that he hadbeen actually bringing up youngpeople who were "aristocrats inspirit".

Yen Hsin-chao began to understand better the importance ofstudy and set himself a strict program. In addition, he and themembers of the propaganda department, which he leads, recentlyspent some time studying with thecommune members in the brigades.The program of study consisted of33 quotations from Marx, Engelsand Lenin on the dictatorship ofthe proletariat. Then Yen and his

co-workers wrote out a set of explanatory notes for the quotationsin simple, easy-to-understand language. These later served as abasis for a series of talks over thecounty broadcasting system. Secretary Yang gave his full supportand Wmself delivered the first talk.

Young Stimulate Old

Debates over production problems frequently crop up in themeetings of the standing committee. One was about the rate ofincrease for grain production. SinceYungnien county achieved a yieldof three tons of grain per hectarein 1970 its production had beengoing up at between four and fivepercent per year. The youngerleaders felt this was not enough,but several older comrades, basingthemselves on past experience, insisted that 4.5 percent was aboutthe right rate for Yimgnien in thelong run. The county's productionhad already tripled that of theearly days after liberation, theysaid, and as the base figure ofactual output got bigger, naturallyit would be harder to maintain a

large rate of increase.

The young members argued thatYungnien had good natural conditions and great potential. If thecorrect line were followed and themasses boldly mobilized it couldmake still bigger increases.

The older comrades listed thedifficulties: the good land in thecentral part of the county was producing about as much as it could;the hilly western part was toorugged to do much with; and improvement of the alkaline andsaline soil in the eastern partneeded time.

The young cadres countered thatobjective conditions were not thedecisive factor and proved it withexamples from the county itself.One was Yen Hsin-chao's home

brigade in the central area. In 1969it got 4.8 tons per hectare; in 1971,6 tons; in 1972, 7.5 tons; in 1973,8.5 tons; and in 1974, 9.8 tons.This proved that high-yield areascan get still more.

Another young member cited theexample of the hilly Peiliangkangbrigade. With poor natural conditions it had been getting low

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

Members of three ages in the standing committee of the Yung-nien county Party committee exchange views on theoretical study:secretary Yang Yao-hsien (left), Tsui Shou-shen (center) and Chi Ping.

yields of grain and cotton. In 1970the brigade had reorganized itsforces, strengthened its leadingbody and criticized capitalist tendencies. That year it got 1.5 tonsper hectare of grain. In 1974 itsyield topped 3.7 tons.

Liu Kuan-chu, a middle-agedcadre, agreed with the youngpeople. He had spent a lot of timeat work in the sandy and alkalineareas and learned much about theplace. The Huhsi brigade there, hesaid, used, to get only 0.3 ton ofgrain per hectare from its alkaline"land. After the cultural revolutionbegan its members started diggingditches and draining the alkali outof the soil. Now they had transformed all 133 hectares of theirland into high-yielding fields. In1973 they got 3.7 tons per hectareand in 1974, 4.5 tons.

After many debates and a lot offirst-hand investigation, finally allmembers of the standing committeeagreed that it was possible to increase production at more than 4.5percent per year. The key to thequestion, they decided, was whatline to follow: as long as theyfollowed Chairman Mao's revolutionary line of trusting and relyingon the masses, respecting their initiative, and working hard andself-reliantly, the revolution wouldgo forward and production wouldgo up, not just in one brigadebut in a whole commune and in theentire county.

They realized that what had keptthem from striving for greater in

SEPTEMBER 1975

creases was the idea that, "Wedon't make very big strides, but wemake them every year; we don'tmake a big contribution but we dosomething every year." In essencethis was conservative thinkingstemming from an attitude of self-satisfaction.

This conclusion shook the older

comrades but once they realizedwhat was wrong they set aboutcorrecting it. The Party committeeinformed the whole county of theproblem existing in the leadingbody and called on the masses forcriticism and suggestions. Thisdeveloped into a movement to criticize conservative thinking and mobilize the people to raise production.

That winter the county wasdivided into four "battle zones"

each with its own task — to trans

form the hills, improve alkalinesoil, convert sandy wastes anddeep-plow good fields. Everymember of the standing committeewent to the "frontlines" and joinedthe 50,000 commune members inthe work. In 1974 Yungnien'sgrain output increased 22 percentover 1973 — a numerical yield of4.5 tons per hectare.

Criticism and Self-criticism

Members of the committee also

give each other much ideologicalhelp. For a while Yang Yao-hsiengot buried in routine work and letsome important matters slide. TsuiShou-shen, a man of middle agewho heads the Party's organiza

tional department, was worried andspent several evenings talking withhim. "If you go on like this," hepointed out, "you'll make the samemistake you made before." Grateful for the reminder, Yang reorganized his work.

As part of one movement torectify the style of work, somepeople put up a big-character postercriticizing a young member of thecounty Party committee. He wasmuch chagrined because he felthe had worked very hard. YangYao-hsien and deputy secretaryHou Yung-sheng, another veterancadre, had several talks with himand helped him see that the masseswere criticizing him because theywanted him to improve, and thathe should look squarely at hisshortcomings as well as at hisstrong points. When he understoodthis he quickly improved his work.

Members of the standing committee frequently go to differentproduction teams in the communesto join in collective work. This isone of the ways they keep closeties with the masses and learn waysto make their work better.

As secretary of the county Partycommittee Yang Yao-hsien has toattend many meetings and is busyall the time. But he always findstime for such work. Even when

the place is four kilometers fromthe county Party committee office,as it sometimes is, he walks in allweather and does not ask for trans

port. He spends about six monthsof the year in the communes andbrigades taking part in collectivework and making investigation.Each member of the standing committee has a place, usually one ofthe poorest areas where life is thehardest and production lowest,where he or she works with the

peasants.

After Chi Ping became a memberof the county Party committee she,too, was assigned a place. Early onthe morning of the day after shearrived she was seen with a basketslung over her shoulder collectingmanure on her way to the field.She worked hard with the commune members. "With such youngcadres to carry on the Party'straditions, we'll feel safe," thepeasants said.

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One of the many newbrideres and sluice gatesbuilt in recent years,

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Wheat irrigated from the canal

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Tractor drivers of Hut nationality. Mechanization is increasing. Every one ofthe communes and even some of their brigades now have tractor stations.

The Chin Canal, built in 214 B,C. during the reign of Chin Shih Huang, isnnp nf China's mnst aneient irriaat.inn works The 7fi-kilnmet.er canal-i- one of China's most ancient irrigation works. The 75-kilometer canal

brings water from the Yellow River to irrigate land on its east bank in whatis now the Ningsia Hui Autonomous Region. The beginning of artificial irrigation on the Ningsia Plain, it is a milestone in the Chinese laboring people'sconquest of nature.

Falling in disrepair over the years, by the time of liberation the canal hadsilted up and many swamps had formed along its banks, reducing the amountof land under cultivation.

Today the canal has been repaired and is carefully looked after by theHui and Han people who live along its banks. Its bends straightened and withnew dikes, sluice gates and branches, the canal and its irrigation system havebeen vastly improved, The swamps have become fertile fields. The amountof land irrigated is twice that in 1949 and grain output 4.5 times that of theearly days aftef liberation. Over half of the communes in the area have topped6 tons per hectare and some communes and brigades have reached 7.5 tons.

Wheat, threshed and dried, ready for the granaries.

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Apples grown with irrigation in anexperimental horticultural farm onthe edge of the Maowusu desert.

I- 1.

Criticizing Lin Piao and Confucius

Chin Shih Huang and the Struggle Betweenthe Confucians and the Legalists

This is the fourth in a series of articles on the struggle

between the Confucian and Legalist schools in Chinese history.

The first three appeared in the March, May and July issues.

— Editor

tween the peasantry and the landlord class was therefore the principal contradiction in society. Therewas also another conflict: betweenthe landlord class and the overthrown slaveowning class. In theeconomic, political, ideologicalfields there were still remnants ofthe slave system. The overthrownslaveowning aristocrats would notaccept defeat and in the six overthrown ducal states (Han, Chao,Yen, Chu, Wei and Chi) theywatched for opportunities to stagea comeback. In trying to restorethe slave system, these reactionaries continued to use thedoctrines of Confucius as theirideological weapon. Faced withthe grave possibility of restoration, the landlord class continuedto carry out the Legalist line,making feudal reforms in everyfield of society.

To consolidate the feudalsystem, Chin Shih Huang adoptedreforms and measures to strengthen centralized power, consolidateunification and weed out theremnants of the slave system. Theresult was a large degree of political, economic and cultural development.

Centralized Power

The first thing Chin Shih Huangdid was to abolish the system ofhereditary official posts andemoluments, the granting of landand the creation of hereditarytitles, main props of the slavesociety. He set up a centraladministrative organ to help theemperor handle important militaryand state affairs. All major officials were appointed or removedby the emperor and no post washereditary.

He instituted a unified structure

for local administration — the prefecture and county system. Thecountry was divided into 36 prefectures, later 40. Each consistedof several counties. Both pre-

IN 221 B.C. China was unified forthe first time under Chin Shih

Huang {259-210 B.C.), first emperor of the Chin dynasty. Tenyears of war had hit hard at theforces which wanted the slavesystem restored and ended thecontinual warfare among theducal states. The establishment ofthe Chin dynasty, an autocraticfeudal empire with centralizedpower, marked the decisive victory of the rising landlord classover the declining slaveowningclass in a struggle that had beengoing on all through the Springand Autumn and Warring Statesperiods (770-476 and 475-221 B.C.).It was a step matching the trendof history and the demands of thepeople.

The founding of the Chindynasty (221-207 B.C.) also markedthe victory of the Legalist lineover the Confucian line. The

Legalists represented the landlordclass and stood for progress,reform and unification. The Confucians represented the slaveowner class and stood for restoration, retrogression and separatestates.

The Legalist Line

However, feudal society underthe Chin dynasty was rent bycomplicated and sharp contradictions and struggles. In order toconsolidate its political power anddevelop the feudal system, thelandlord class intensified its exploitation and oppression of thepeasants. The contradiction be-

Siandardization of currency by the Chin dynasty: Currencies of various ducalstates before standardization (upper). Chin currency after standardization (lower).

1) oo

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

features and counties were under

the direct control of the central

government. All major local officials were appointed or removedby the emperor.

Next he legalized the feudalsystem of private land ownership.In 216 B.C., Chin Shih Huangdecreed that all landlords and

peasants had to report the size oftheir holdings and pay taxes accordingly. This was the first timesince the Spring and Autumn andthe Warring States periods thatthe system of private land ownership was legalized by a government decree. The decree abolished

the ching tien land system* ofslave society and opened the wayfor the development of the feudaleconomy.

Measures for Unification

Chin Shih Huang abolished thelaws of the six overthrown ducalstates and promulgated unifiedlaws for the whole country basedon the laws of the old State of

Chin. He unified important policies and measures.

He discarded the currencies of

the six ducal states and adopteda standard currency system basedon the Chin currency. Weightsand measures were also unified on

the basis of those standardized byShang Yang (? — 338 B.C.), thegreat reformer of the old State ofChin. The new weights and measures used the decimal system,which greatly facilitated calculation.

The existence of independentducal regimes over several centuries had led to different forms of

written Chinese. Chin Shih Huangappointed Li Ssu (?-208 B.C.),a Legalist and then ting wei (thehighest judicial magistrate), andothers to standardize and simplifyChinese characters on the basis of

hsiao chuan (lesser seal style, alsocalled chin chuan), the script usedin the State of Chin. Later li shu**,

* In Chinese slave society every piece ofland conferred to the slaveowning aristocrats was divided into nine squares resembling the Chinese character (ching)to facilitate calculation of the size of fiefs,the amount of taxes to be paid and thesupervision of slave labor. This wascalled the ching tien (tien meaning field)system.

•• The Chinese script used today evolvedprimarily from li shu.

SEPTEMBER 1975

Standard weightused in the Chin

dynasty.

the plain square script popularamong the people and evensimpler and easier to write thanhsiao chuan, was brought intodaily use.

The standardization of written

Chinese had a direct impact onconsolidating the unification ofthe feudal state. It benefitted thespread and development of culture, especially the preservationand popularization of ancientbooks. This unification of thewritten language has continued upto the present day.

Chin Shih Huang also standardized the gauge of cart wheels,which had been of different sizesin the six former ducal states, to1.38 meters. He built roads andcanals. These measures made com

munications and transport easierand promoted social and economicgrowth.

Agriculture and the Great Wall

Chin Shih Huang built the 150-kilometer Chengkuo Canal in theKuanchung plain (today's Shensi).Irrigating over 260,000 hectares,it turned this area into a fertilefarm region. He pushed theLegalist policy of stressing farming and, restricting commerce. Between 219-and 211 B.C. he moved

more than a hundred thousandpeople into areas of low population density and encouraged themto reclaim wasteland by exempting them from forced labor andmilitary service, and giving themtitles. Big slaveowning merchants

who had been hoarding and cornering grain were punished andordinary merchants were restrained through increased taxes. Thesemeasures promoted the growth ofthe feudal economy.

The slaveowning aristocrats ofthe Hsiung Nu people, who inhabited the area to the north,constantly threatened the centralplains. Under the Legalist generalMeng Tien (?-210 B.C.), appointed by Chin Shih Huang,300,000 soldiers and civilians connected and rebuilt the old walls

put up by the states of Chin, Chao,Yen. This became the world-

famous Great Wall. It was important in protecting the more progressive feudal economy and cultureof the central plains.

Hitting the Restoration Forces

All the important reforms byChin Shih Huang were madeamid fierce political and ideological struggles.

Though the founding of theChin dynasty smashed the political and economic power of theslaveowning aristocrats, they stillhad considerable influence in the

ideological field because manyConfucian scholars held positionsin political and cultural departments. The majority of the seventycourt academicians were Con

fucian scholars, among them WangWan, the prime minister. Theyhated the new system and attackedit both openly and covertly, working for a return to the old ways.

Right after unification, WangWan provoked a debate on whichway the Chin dynasty should go."The ducal states are only newlyconquered," he said. "Some arequite far from the central government. We won't be able to control

them unless we institute rule byprinces there." He proposed therestoration of the fief system andasked Chin Shih Huang to confer

the former states as fiefs on his

sons who would rule with the title

of prince.

Li Ssu, the highest judicialmagistrate, firmly opposed thisreturn to the old system. The fiefsystem, he pointed out, wouldagain lead to the division andchaotic warfare of the Spring andAutumn and the Warring Statesperiods. Only the new prefectureand county system could eradicatelocal independent regimes. The

feudal empire could be consolidated in the long run only when

the remnants of the slave systemcould no longer find politicalshelter.

Chin Shih Huang adopted LiSsu's proposal and instituted theprefecture and county systemthroughout the country. He alsoappointed Li Ssu prime minister.

The restoration forces, however,

continued to attack the prefectureand county system. In 213 B.C.,at a court banquet, the Confucianscholar Chunyu Yueh, a royalacademician, rose and accused the

emperor of "not following theancient way" and predicted thatthe new system would be shortlived. He argued for the fiefsystem as in the days of the kingsof the Yin and Chou dynasties.

Prime Minister Li Ssu sharplyrefuted him. Times had changed,he pointed out, and so should themethod of rule. The Confucianscholars did nothing to learn newthings but only praised the old.They condemned the new politicsin order to confuse the people'sminds. This had to be stopped.

10

Radical Steps

Chin Shih Huang and Li Ssusaw that all restoration forces and

other reactionaries used Confucian

doctrines as their ideological weapon, praising the past to opposethe present. If this were per- -mitted to continue, the newdynasty would be in danger. LiSsu proposed the radical step ofburning Confucian books. In 213

B.C., Chin Shih Huang endorsedthe proposal and ordered the confiscation and destruction of all

history books (except the Historyof Chin) and all privately-ownedConfucian classics, so that "no onein the country can use the past toattack the present". Books onmedicine and farming and someothers were preserved.

The burning of books consolidated the Chin dynasty in theideological sphere. But thestruggle did not end here. The

next year Confucian scholars, rep

resented by Lu and Hou, cameout again to attack the feudal

system with centralized power and

the dictatorship of the landlordclass over the slaveowner forcesattempting restoration. They accused Chin Shih Huang of being"obstinate and self-willed","greedy for power" and "usingpunishment and killing to demonstrate his power". They fanneddiscontent everywhere in the hopeof creating chaos. This forced theemperor to adopt further suppres-sive measures against the reactionary Confucian scholars. Hearrested 460 who had committed

the most serious crimes in "at

tacking the present with the past"and had them buried alive.

These two measures smashed

the attack of the restoration forces,greatly strengthened the dictatorship of the landlord class in theideological and cultural fields, andmade the new feudal system withcentralized power more stable.

Class-nature Limitations

Thus, Chin Shih Huang upheldthe Legalist school and opposedthe Confucian school, stressed thepresent over the past, and stood

Standardixation off the Character Ma (Horse)

STATES CHIN CHI CHU HAN, CHAO, WEI YEN

Beforestandardization

(In Warring

States period)1 1

15&

After standardization,in hsiao chuan

(lesser seal style)

Evolution off the Character Ming (Brightness)

'ffrom the Chin Chuan to Li Shu (scribe script)

and Kai Shu (model script)

CHIN CHUAN LI SHU KAI SHU

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

firmly for progress and change. Thismade him an outstanding statesman

of the rising landlord class when thefeudal society was on the ascendant. His reforms in every fieldand his suppression of the restoration forces were in keeping withhistory's progress from the slaveto the feudal system. They reflected the vigor and militancy ofthe new landlord class after its

seizure of power. In this senseChin Shih Huang made importantcontributions to the development

of Chinese feudal society.

He was, however, inevitablylimited by the nature of his classand the time in which he lived.

The rising landlord class was, afterall, an exploiting class and ChinShih Huang was, after all, a political representative of this class.

As a feudal emperor he was anexploiter and oppressor of theworking people. He conscriptedenormous labor forces to build not

only public works but lavishpalaces and a huge mausoleum forhimself. This sharpened the contradictions between the peasantsand the new landlord class.

Also, the replacement of theslave system by the feudal systemwas only the replacement of oneexploiting system by another. Asa representative of an exploitingsystem, Chin Shih Huang couldnot and would not sweep away allvestiges of the preceding system.On the contrary, he was more

SEPTEMBER 1975

likely to accept some of them as akind of supplement and supportfor the new system. As a resulthe underestimated the intensity ofthe struggle between restorationand counter-restoration.

After he unified the six ducal

states, he forced 120,000 families

of the former slaveowning aris

tocrats and merchant and hand

icraft slaveowners to move to

Hsienyang (in the central part oftoday's Shensi province), capital ofthe Chin dynasty, and to someremote places to prevent attemptsat restoration. But he did not putthem under strict surveillance and

these people were able to reviveslavery with what money theystill had and once again gathergreat wealth and become powerful.

Because Chin Shih Huang'ssuppression of the restorationforces was not thorough, quite anumber of conspirators of theslaveowning class continued subversive activities.

Fall of the Chin Dynasty

In 210 B.C. Chin Shih Huangdied while on an inspection tourof the Yellow and Yangtze rivervalleys. . Immediately the conspirators at court and formerslaveowning aristocrats in otherplaces raised their heads. Theirarch representative Chao Kao

(?-207 B.C.), a eunuch and descendant of the aristocracy of the Stateof Chao, launched a long-premedi

Bronze tiger tally of the Chin dynasty,cast in two pieces with inscription on back.The right half was kept by the emperor,the left half issued to the local official orarmy commander. No army could be dispatched without the tally being matchedby the emperor's emissary. This showsthe centralized power of the emperor.

tated coup and killed Fu Su, ChinShih Huang's eldest son. Hu Hai,a younger son, was placed on the

throne but it was Chao Kao whoheld real power.

Chao Kao struck at the Legalistline with vengeance. He killedmany high Legalist officials,including Li Ssu and Meng Tien,and installed restorationists in im

portant positions. He proposedrestoring the fief system, leviedheavy taxes and forced labor, andto suppress the people's resistance introduced ruthless corporalpunishment.

Chao Kao's seizure of powerhalted the Legalists. Though hisclique did not have time to changethe feudal economic and politicalsystem on a nationwide scale, his

measures against progress intensified the social contradictions,especially that between the landlord class and the peasantry.Finally, the weary and impoverished people could no longerstand it. In 209 B.C., the firstgreat peasant uprising in China'shistory, led by Chen Sheng (7-208B.C.) and Wu Kuang (7-208 B.C.)broke out and soon crushed the

Chin dynasty.

Though it struck at the landlord

class and the feudal system, theuprising swept away the last ofthe restoration forces and the

remnants of the slave system, thuspropelling the development ofChinese society forward.

A PEOPLE'S ARMY

'T'HE 179th Division of theChinese People's Liberation

Army units at Nanking was formed by the Chinese Commimist Party in the war against Japaneseaggression (1937-45). From thatday to the present it has followedChairman Mao's principle: "Thesole purpose of this army is tostand firmly with the Chinese people and to serve them wholeheartedly." Many citation flags in thedivision's exhibition room tell astory of loyal dedication to theliberation of the Chinese nation.

In July 1937 the Japanese imperialists unleashed all-out attack onChina. As the invaders pushedinto north China, the CommunistParty mobilized the people in theenemy's rear and armed them forguerrilla warfare. Guerrilla unitsin Linfen, Hukuan and Yichengcounties in southern Shansi province harassed the enemy withsurprise attacks, captured largequantities of weapons and expanded and strengthened their ranks inthe struggle. They fought hundreds of battles and built severalanti-Japanese bases in the TaihangMountains, regions south of theTaiyo Mountains, and northernHopei province. Their ranks grewand eventually combined to become a regular unit of the people'sarmy. ^

Chairman Mao had set the tasksof a people's army in 1929: "TheChinese Red Army is an armedbody for carrying out the politicaltasks of the revolution. . . .Besides fighting to destroy theenemy's military strength, it shouldshoulder such important tasks asdoing propaganda among themasses, organizing the masses,arming them, helping them toestablish revolutionary politicalpower and setting up Partyorganizations."

The 179th Division has done thisfrom the beginning when it was

12

a smaller unit. During the anti-Japanese war, every time it cameto a place, it sent its men amongthe people to explain that Chinacould be saved only by fighting theJapanese aggressors. It urged thepeople to join the army or take partin battles. It helped establish anti-Japanese democratic regimes andsuch organizations as peasant associations, women's national salvation associations and militias. Itreduced land rent and interestsand exempted the people fromheavy taxes. It helped the localgovernment transport grain, raisefunds and give relief to victims offamine. All this made life easierfor the people. Naturally theycame to regard such a unit as theirown army.

With the end of the anti-Japanesewar, the unit fought in the war toliberate the entire country andthen in the war to aid Korea and

resist U.S. aggression, taking partin some 600 battles. Whole com

panies and many individualsoldiers distinguished themselvesin action. It is best rememberedfor its part in the battle to liberateLinfen, an important city in south-em Shansi, in the spring of 1948.

Linfen was defended by 25,000Kuomintang troops, protected byheavy walls with moats on bothsides, massive fortifications and adense network of fire. The enemyboasted that Linfen was impregnable.

"But nothing was going to stopthe People's Liberation Army,"said Li Yuan-hsi, a veteran of thisbaj;tle and now deputy commanderof the 179th Division. "We didn'thave the artillery to bombard thecity and had to use other ways tomake a breakthrough. Our unit,then a brigade, was given the taskof digging a tunnel under the wallsand blowing a breach open. Theenemy tried to stop us with artil

LING FEN-HUNG

lery and poison gas, but in 27 days,with help from the local people,we dug a 4-kilometer tunnel reaching right under the city walls.Five tons of explosives blasted twogaps 30 meters wide through whichour troops stormed into the cityand liberated it. This is where we

got the title 'Glorious LinfenBrigade'."

The brigade later became a division. In the 26 years since liberation, while officers and men cameand went and it moved from onepost to another, the division hascarried on the revolutionary tradition of being a combat unit, a workteam and a production crew — thethree main tasks Chairman Maolaid down for the army.

Preparedness

As a combat unit the LinfenBrigade followed Chairman Mao'sleadership in the revolutionarywars, fighting counter-revolutionary armed force with revolutionaryarmed force, and did its part increating a new China. In the newperiod of socialist revolution, likeall units of the people's army ittook on the new tasks of servingas the main force of the dictatorship of the proletariat, defendingthe country and building socialism.

Everyone in the division, fromcommander to rank-and-file soldier, is constantly on the alert andprepared against war. To be ideologically prepared, the companieshold regular meetings to analyzecurrent situations, report on theircombat readiness and compare andappraise each other's work.

Officers and men of the SecondCompany of one of the regimentslinked their study of Lenin andChairman Mao's views on imperialism with China's experiencebefore and after liberation — acentury of imperialist dominationafter the Opium War and the sub-

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

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Night fire practice.

Vice-director Yang Yung-yi of the Sixth Regiment political section of the179th Division of the Nanking units joins the soldiers' study of Marxism.

I

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An attack exercise.

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Li Yuan-hsi, deputy commander of the 179th Division, a veteran of thebattle for Linfcn, educates the men in the revolutionary tradition.

version and sabotage that imperialists, revisionists and reactionariescarried out on the border after thenew China came into being. Thishelped them understand morevividly that so long as imperialismand social-imperialism exist, theworld cannot be at peace and theycannot relax in being preparedagainst war. Each squad has aman on duty every day to checkand make sure that arms, equipment and supplies are ready forinstant action. Records are keptand carefully reviewed at regularintervals.

Under systematic political andideological education, every mansets himself strict standards intraining. "We try to make everyman understand the importance ofholding the gun," said DirectorYang Chih-fan of the division'spolitical department. "When theyare clear it is to defend the countryand serve the people, they workhard to master military skills."

The history of the LinfenBrigade is often used to educatethe men in the revolutionary tradi-

Field training.

tion. Inspired by the deeds of menwho gave their lives for the revolution, the soldiers are ready toshoulder their present tasks in theperiod of socialism, follow in themartyrs' footsteps and do stillmore for the country.

Close-quarter and night fightinghave always been the PLA's strongpoints. The Seventh Company ofone of the regiments, using thesestrong points, was awarded the ci-tation "Company Outstanding forDefending Chairman Mao" in the

liberation war. Today, to defendthe political power of the proletariat, its men continue to train hardto master the skills necessary formarching and fighting at night.

Last winter the Seventh Company went through maneuvers to testits over-all ability in night combat.The fully-armed men set out in apouring rain, climbed 11 mountains and covered 118 kilometers

of slippery trails in 17 hours. Onthe way they raced to take control

A.*" {

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of a high point, launched and countered surprise attacks, set up andcountered ambushes, carried outscouting and counter-scouting missions, fought contact battles, pursued the enemy and smashed anairborne assault. Not one mandropped out in the entire march.Performances such as these earnedthe men the title "Night TigerCompany".

'Fish-and-Water' Ties

The Party teaches usTo fear no sacrificeIn our loyalty to the people.We will always remember thatThe credit for our featsLies deep among the masses.Without the people's supportAnd the help of brother units,Linfen Brigade can win no

honors.

Men of the Linfen Brigade oftensang this song in the war years.Men of the 179th Division still singit today. They sang it during the

¥•

MmChen Yi-wci (referee holding flag), a deputy rcgimenialcommander, and deputy political commissar Ning Kuang-jen(first man facing camera) join the men in a tdg of war.

cultural revolution as they supported the people of Nanking intheir struggle against capitalist-roaders, when they were in theTapieh Mountains helping withfarm production, when they wentto the rescue of the people of Li-yang in Kiangsu province after anearthquake. They worked shoulderto shoulder with the people toopen up the Sunan coal field,build the Nanking Yangtze RiverBridge, and reclaim lakeshorewastes in western Anhwei andturn it into six thousand hectares

of farmland.

"In war or peace," said deputycommander Li Yuan-hsi, "we tryto keep the closest ties with thepeople and serve them in every waywe can. We help them sow andharvest, dig wells, build roads andbridges. We do household choreslike collecting firewood and carrying water. Our relation with thepeople is like that of fish andwater. Fish cannot live without

water, we cannot win battles with

out the people. With their trustand support we can conquer thebiggest difficulties and the strongest enemies."'

Every company in the divisionhas linked itself with a communeproduction team nearby. Duringbusy seasons the men help theteams bring in harvests or sow newcrops. During slack seasons they

help collect manure, make compost, build water-control projectsand improve the fields. The division piles up thousands of "help-the-people" days every year. Thedivisional headquarters' repairshop fixes trucks and farm machines for the communes. Duringbusy seasons the army mechanicsgo right into the fields to help.

The army's medics tour the villages to give treatment, work onprevention and help train "barefoot doctors". One group of eightunder division hospital director KuChi-lung went to a commune andtaught its medical workers surgery. The army doctors performed62 operations, explaining each casebefore, during and after surgery,and giving the trainees clinicalpractice.

At every camp during fieldtraining, men of the 179th Divisionhelp train local militias. They notonly teach marksmanship, bayoneting, grenade throwing, attacking tanks and laying mines butbasic knowledge in fighting airborne assaults and atomic and

chemical attacks. These skills

enable the militia to coordinate

effectively in modern warfare.

Men of the 179th Division make

use of every opportunity to learnfrom the people, as Chairman Maourges, to become better and betterworking-class soldiers by absorb-

Army medic in a village.

ing the working people's good qualities and spirit. One regiment, outon field training, visited two production brigades outstanding forthe way they have learned from Ta-chai brigade, the national modelin agriculture. Here the soldierssaw that peasants who had suffered the most in the old societyshowed the highest political consciousness in working to get highyields of grain, taking on the hardest jobs and asking for no rewards.Impressed, the PLA men resolvedto take these peasants as theirexample.

For instance, men of the telephone squad always rest less andmarch faster than the others duringfield training. They must reachcampsites first and string up wiresas quickly as possible. When theothers have broken camp and left,they must stay behind to takedown the wires and then marchdouble quick to catch up with theothers. It's a hard job, but like thepeasants they never complain.

People everywhere reciprocatethe army's concern for them. Onesummer after many days of heavyrain, the battery ground of the artillery regiment was under water.Though their own houses also

stood in water, nearby peasantscame and helped the army movethe heavy guns to a safe place.When the armymen tried to thankthem they said, "Why thank us?We're all one family. It hurts usmore to see those guns in waterthan our own houses."

Using Their Own Hands

There are cultivated fieldsaround the army barracks filledduring summer and autumn withvegetables the men grow themselves — peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, string beans and a dozenothers. Since most of the men

come from the countryside, theyare good vegetable growers andlove doing it. "We're from theworking people," they say. "If wedespise work and only try to havean easy life, we betray our originand become bourgeois soldierslording it over the people."

Each company has its own pigfarm. Some companies also raisechickens, ducks, geese, or breedfish. Most companies in the division supply themselves with allthe vegetables and much of themeat they consume. This adds totheir diet without adding to thepeople's burden.

It has always been a traditionthat the people's army is also aproducing army. During the anti-Japanese war, the Kuomintangreactionaries did practicallynothing to resist Japanese aggression but concentrated their effortson destroying the Communist Party. They surrounded the revolutionary bases with troops and setup a tight economic blockade. ButChairman Mao called on the armyand the people of the base areasto get "ample food and clothing byworking with our own hands".The response was mass productionmovements. Officers and men,office workers and students joinedin reclaiming wasteland, growinggrain, spinning yarn and weavingcloth. Feeding and clothing themselves, they made the blockadeuseless.

On May 7, 1966 Chairman Maosaid that "the People's LiberationArmy should be a great school. Inthis school, our army should studypolitics and military affairs, raiseits educational level, and also engage in agriculture and side-occupations and run small or medium-sized factories to make products forits own needs or for exchange withthe state against equal values."

The 179th Division responded bysetting up five small farms on 300hectares of cultivated land. Thecompanies take turns working onthe farms. Experience has convinced all officers and men that

work practice is essential for thearmy's ideological education as awhole and in revolutionizing thethinking of each individual, that itis the basic way for the people'sarmy to keep to the true qualitiesof the proletariat and preserve itsrevolutionary vigor.

The division has five small medicine plants, a soap and a buttonfactory which are worked entirelyby wives of battalion, regimentaland divisional commanders.- Theirproducts supply the unit's ownneeds and a surplus to sell to thestate. The women are happy to beable to contribute to the buildingof socialism.

With the march of time a newgeneration is carrying forward thehonor and traditions of the LinfenBrigade.

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

A Visit to a PLA Unit

T^OT long ago I visited the First-L * Company under a regiment ofthe Nanking Command's 179thDivision. I wanted to know threethings: (1) what kind of people themen in PLA companies are, (2) howthey got into the army, and (3) whatarmy life is like. I talked withofficers and soldiers of the

company.

Worker-Peasant Soldiers

Chen Teh-hua, a new man in theFirst Squad, is a straightforwardyoung soldier, strongly built, atanned face full of energy, twenty-one years old and not married.Proudly he told me how he hadjoined the PLA.

Chen was born into a poor peasant family in Shehyang county,Kiangsu province. His familyhave been peasants for generations. When he graduated fromsenior middle school in 1974, hewent back to farm work in his

native village, following ChairmanMao's advice that "it is highlynecessary for young people witheducation to go to the countrysideto be re-educated by the poor andlower-middle peasants*."

Early this year, recruitment workbegan in the village and the youngpeople were excited. Many ofthem promptly applied to join thearmy at the office of the production brigade's Party branch.

"Why were the young people soeager to join the army?" I askedChen. "Well, I felt this way aboutit," Chen answered. "The PLA isan army of workers and peasantsset up and led by the CommunistParty and Chairman Mao. It comesfrom the people and serves thepeople wholeheartedly. We all respect it and love it. Besides, in theworld today, there are still imperialists, revisionists and otherreactionaries who never give uptrying to subvert and invade our

* This is a political term denoting classstatus and not present economic status.

SEPTEMBER 1975

country. At home a handful ofoverthrown class enemies are alsotrying to turn the clock back andrestore the old order. In this situation we young people think it's ourduty to take up the gun to defendour socialist motherland and the

dictatorship of the proletariat."

The brigade Party branch calleda meeting to gather the opinions ofthe parents of the young peoplewho were of army age. On thebasis of the recommendations ofthe poor and lower-middle peasantsand lengthy discussions, ten of thefifty volunteers were selected andsent to the commune hospital forphysical examinations. From these,four of the finest were chosen andaccepted into the army. Chen Teh-hua was one of them.

"The day before we left," he said,"both the production team and thebrigade held farewell parties forus. When the day came to leave, itwas like a village festival. Thepeople beat drums and gongs, setoff firecrackers and walked a

long way with us to see us off.They kept telling us to do ourtraining well to defend our motherland, be good fighters for the people and live up to the expectationsof the Party and Chairman Mao."

Although China has an obligatory military service system, notall young people can join the army.Because the country's needs are farfewer than the number who wantto join, only a small proportion ofthe young people are accepted.

A Great School

Chairman Mao said that "thePeople's Liberation Army shouldbe a great ,school. In this school,our army should study politics andmilitary affairs, raise its educational level, and also engage in agriculture and side-occupations....Our army should also do masswork... and always be ready toparticipate in the struggles to

Staff Reporter

criticize and repudiate the bourgeoisie in the cultural revolution."

During my stay in First Company, I was impressed by the variedlife of this "great school" and thewide range of the soldiers' studies.

The men can attend classes to

further their education. There are

Squad leader Chi Ai-shcngstudies Chairman Mao's works.

Cheng Cheng-kang (right), companypolitical instructor, has a heart-to-heart talk with Shao Yung-hsing.

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cultural activities and physicaltraining. Political study occupiesan important place. Two days aweek both officers and men studythe works of Marx, Engels, Leninand Stalin and the writings ofChairman Mao or discuss currentaffairs and policy. There are lessons on the Party's basic line, classstruggle and other subjects. Self-study is combined with group discussion and lectures with individualtutoring. All this helps the menraise their theoretical and politicallevel and enhance their abilities as

revolutionaries.

Soldier Chi Ai-sheng was a goodexample of how army educationworks.

Slightly-built, Chi was born andbrought up in the countryside.When he joined the army in 1969,he had had little education. Troublewith study made him more andmore discouraged.

The company's political instructor had a heart-to-heart talkwith the young soldier. He talkedto him about Chairman Mao'sarticle "The Foolish Old Man WhoRemoved the Mountains" and thespirit of the Foolish Old Man instubbornly surmounting every difficulty. "Difficulties only scarecowards and lazy people," the instructor said. "We're proletarianrevolutionary fighters. How canwe let ourselves give in to them?"

Helped by the Party and hiscomrades, Chi began to use everyspare minute in an effort to raisehis educational and political level.His bed was next to his squadleader's. This comrade became histeacher and helped explain problems to him every night. Hepersistently studied the SelectedWorks of Mao Tsetung, Manifestoof the Communist Party, The Stateand Revolution and Critique of theGotha Programme. He filled hisnotebooks and wrote conclusionson the margins of his books.

Chi's theoretical understandingimproved. His articles were oftenbroadcast in camp and thosecriticizing Lin Piao and Confuciusincluded in the company's wallnewspapers. In group discussionshis comments became incisive andto the point. The company commander began asking him to givetalks on theoretical study to thesoldiers.

At a company meeting one day,Chi criticized the Confucian dogmathat "heaven decides everything"and Lin Piao's "theory of genius"."In the old society," he said, "mygrandparents fled from famine andlived by begging. My father worked as a hired hand for a landlordand my mother had to work as awet nurse for the rich. Two of mysisters starved to death and thethird was given to another family.Was all this decided by heaven?

Officers and soldiers work with commune members.

V I1 'Ik

No, it was caused by the classoppression and exploitation of theold man-eat-man system. Todaywe working people have becomemasters of the country. Obviouslyit s not heaven but the protractedstruggle of the people led by theCommunist Party of China thatgave us this happiness. Revolutionbrought this change.

"Me for example. When I firstcame to the army I could only readand write a little bit and didn'tknow much about revolution. Butnow I can read and write better,and understand a lot more aboutrevolution. My ability has increased. I owe this to the Party'seducation, the help of my comrades-in-arms, and actual practicein the revolutionary struggle. It'strue that knowledge comes frompractice and 'genius' comes fromdiligence."

Chi Ai-sheng was admitted intothe Chinese Communist YouthLeague when he had been in thearmy six months and joined theChinese Communist Party in April1972. He also became squad leaderand twice earned the "merit third-grade" citation.

Between Officers and Men

What makes the deepest impression on the visitor is the relationsbetween officers and men. As inthe entire PLA, officers and menare comrades, united and equal.They have political equality. Thereis a difference in tasks but no difference in status. In all meetings,officers and men criticize eachother s shortcomings and mistakes,and make suggestions to help theirwork. Company officers wearuniforms without insignia markingtheir ranks. They eat the samefood and sleep on the same kind ofhard board beds as the soldiers.They do military training, takepart in physical work, and havepolitical study with the rank andfile. They join in the culturalactivities and physical training. Itis hard to tell officers from menunless you notice the two extrapockets in officers' uniforms. Theprinciple of unity between officersand men formulated by ChairmanMao in the early days has becomefirmly established.

Thesoldiers told memany storiesof the way officers treat the men

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

as equals and close comraHDeputy division commander L f "example, went through many tria7in the long years of revoluH

i„ .h.

spend a period m companies f!ordinary soldiers. When denutvcommander Li did so. he talked anrilaughed with the soldiers ac ifriends. On field training hel^®ried a bag and marched in the frontranks with the men. When thesoldiers climbed mountains heclimbed too. When the soldiersgroped their way through thenight, so did he. When they restedhe told them stories of armymenin the war years who foughtbravely, unafraid of fatigue. Hechecked the soldiers' feet forblisters and filled their flasks forthem. His warm concern encouraged the soldiers and gavethem strength that dispersed thetiredness of a long day's march.

Officers at all levels are con

cerned with the well-being of thesoldiers. For example, on fieldtraining, if a soldier looks tired hissquad leader is likely to come overand help carry his knapsack. Whensoldiers' flasks are empty, officerspass their own to the men. Whena soldier falls sick, officers visithim and see that he gets specialfood. After the soldiers are asleep,the officers make their rounds from

SEPTEMBER 1975

bed to bed, gently pulling thecovers up around those who havebecome uncovered and tucking inmosquito nets. This kind of treatment makes the soldiers feel the

warmth of living in the big revolutionary family of the army.

It's not all one way. The soldiersalso have concern and respect fortheir officers. When Hsu Cheng-niu, leader of the third platoon, wasill in the hospital, his men visitedhim many times, reporting the happenings in the platoon or talkingwith him about their studies orproblems.

During the last harvest season,deputy company commander YangYi-cheng led his men at work onthe regimental farm. When thesoldiers learned that he had beenin poor health recently, they urgedhim not to work in the paddy fieldsbut act as adviser. "We'll do yourwork in the field for you," theytold him. Yang Yi-cheng thankedthem but persisted in harvestingand transplanting rice until theywere finished.

On the drill ground, officers andmen practice together, learningfrom each other and helping eachother. Chang Wan-feng, first platoon leader, lacked basic training insome parts of infantry drill becausehe had just been transferred from

another type of unit. His footworkwas incorrect in bayonet drill, histhrusts too slow and weak, and hismovements not well coordinated.

First squad leader Liu Chiu-chiangtook over the platoon leader'srifle and demonstrated the correct

movements for him, doing themseparately and then together. Heexplained the important technicalpoints of bayonet fighting. WithLiu Chiu-chiang and ordinarysoldiers as his teachers, the platoonleader practiced hard and improvedrapidly.

A Squad Meeting

I was invited to attend a meet

ing of the Ninth Squad in theirquarters. That evening they discussed a report the company commander had given summing up thework of the past month.

Every soldier spoke up at themeeting. Cheh Chien-hao, a stockysoldier, told this story: Manysoldiers, he said, had done selflessthings for the people since the company launched a campaign to"Learn from Comrade Lei Feng"*

• Lei Feng was an ordinary soldier in thePLA. With a deep communist spirit heserved the people wholeheartedly and became an example for everyone. He waskilled in an accident in 1962 while on duty.Chairman Mao called on the people ofChina to "Learn from Comi'ade Lei Feng."

Chiang Ming-ta (front), commander of an artillery company, and his men move a heavy gun.

Cooking in the field. One of the division's farms.

••'I :

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[raining Nanking mililiawomcn in anti-aircraft fire.

Giving a hand to tv peasantwoman of a nearby commune.

A company's chicken farm.

Men of the 179th Division exchange views with the workers' theoretical study group of the Nanking Electrical Ceramics Factory.

the month before. For example,Shao Yung-hsing had carried twoheavy baskets of vegetables for anold man all the way to his home."But," Cheh said, "our companyleaders fail to see such selfless

deeds, make them known amongthe soldiers and encourage everybody to do the same."

Shao Yung-hsing himself stoodup to say that the company's planfor growing its own vegetables hadnot been well considered. Theyhad grown too many turnips in theprevious season, so that somespoiled. Then they had to buyvegetables because there were notenough from their own garden. Heconcluded, "The company shouldmake an over-all, scientific planfor growing vegetables, so that wecan have enough fresh vegetablesin our dining room all the yearround."

Lu Chien-chung, a new soldier,stood up and went right to problemsin training. "Everyone did well ingrenade throwing," he said, "because the leaders emphasized dailytraining. But later they felt we'dhad enough practice and gave lessattention to it. Some soldiers also

felt like relaxing. I think that'swrong."

"Speaking of grenade throwing,"veteran soldier Hsu Fu-chiang said,"our company commander only

stressed distance and neglected accuracy. That is not following theprinciple of making strict demandsin training. On the battlefield," hestressed, "if our grenades don't hitthe targets, how can we wipe outthe enemy?" All the men agreed.

Other men rose to speak. "Somecomrades were careless and steppedon the commune's crops duringtraining," one said. "Our leadersshould pay attention to this. Inthe Three Main Rules of Disciplineand Eight Points for Attention,Chairman Mao told us that we

should take care not to damagecrops when we march or fight.Why is it that some didn't payattention?"

Two soldiers, concerned aboutthe health of the company commander and political instructor,suggested that the two should payattention to getting enough rest."They often study and prepare forclasses until midnight. Their spiritis good but it will harm their healthand bring losses to the revolutionif they go on like that for long."

Such meetings are frequent in allthe company's squads. They are alively expression of political democracy in which the soldiers sumup what they have been thinkingand doing, comment on a cadre,sum up the work of the squad,make suggestions or expose problems in the company's work. Such

Yang Yi-cheng, head of the company economic committee, discusses improving meals with the mess cooks.

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meetings arc a regular part of thelife of the soldiers.

Life in the Army

The quartermaster has a greatdeal to do with the soldiers' dailylife. From him I learned that thearmy has kept the supply system itused in the war years. The livingstandard of the soldiers is main

tained fairly close to that of theworkers and peasants. The soldierstold me that "although the country's material conditions are muchbetter now, we will never throwaway our army's traditional styleof hard work and plain living.We pay attention to the people's interests in whatever we do andpractice economy, even if it's amatter of one cent." One smallevidence of this is the sewing kiteach soldier carries for mending hisown clothes.

The company has an economiccommittee composed of five soldiersand a deputy company commander.Their duty is to assist the companyleaders in providing food and supplies, check the monthly accountsand show them to the masses. The

committee members ask for the

soldiers' opinions about food, meetto discuss ways to improve thecompany's meals and draw up theweekly menu.

First Company has establishedties with the Houku productionteam of the Chilinmen communenear their barracks. In the intervals between military training, theofficers and men organized to dofarm work in the team. The soldiers and commune members visitand learn from each other.

One afternoon on the company'srange, I saw a dozen young commune members, men and women,practicing aiming with great concentration. Several armymen wereteaching them and correcting theirpostures. The young people werecore members of Houku team'smilitia. The company commandertold me, "Helping to train themilitia is one of our regular tasks.Usually we go to their village toteach, sometimes they come here.If an enemy invades China, wewill wage a people's war as wedid in the past, armymen and people fighting shoulder to shoulder."

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

w:7-^K

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The assembly line.

A NEW two-ton light truck, theBJ-130, has appeared more

and more often in the last severalyears in China's cities, countryside and mountain areas.

The BJ-130 was designed andmade by a small Peking shop thatrepaired diesel vehicles, a shopwith only a few hundred workersand 100 ordinary machines in aspace 110X65 meters. Without thebuildings, equipment and technical conditions necessary for modern vehicle production, how couldsuch a shop make trucks? I wentto the Erligou Motor Vehicle Plantin Peking to find out.

High Aims

To meet the needs of short-haultransportation in city and country,including mountainous areas, andso help build socialism more rapidly, the state decided in early1966 that this repair shop shouldmake a light truck.

SEPTEMBER 1975

How the BJ-130

Light Truck

r-.-'

But the main difficulty was thelack of special equipment and thetechnical know-how. "If a smallrepair shop can make trucks,"some one scoffed, "then phoenixescan be hatched in a chicken coop!"Some of the shop's leaders alsolacked confidence. "Where canwe get the thousand-ton press tomake the beams, the forging andcasting equipment to turn out theaxles and the precision millingmachines to make the gears?"

The shop Communist Partycommittee, however, called a general meeting to mobilize the workers, explaining the needs of thecountry and asking them to discuss the problems. "We're workers," some of them said, "and whatthe country thinks and worriesabout we should think and worryabout. We don't have the conditions for making the truck butwe'll create them!"

Other workers countered thedifficulties by pointing out things

AH FA

in their favor. "We've repaired allkinds of automobiles and know

them front to rear. We've even

made many of their parts. We candesign and make the truck if wefollow Chairman Mao's revolution

ary line and work in the spirit ofself-reliance and hard struggle.We can make full use of all our

manpower and resources, makeinnovations and build our own

equipment."

The workers' analysis arousedconfidence and determination to

get at the job. Very quickly adesigning team made up of workers, leaders and technical personswas set up.

'Open-door' Designing

"What kind of truck should we

make and how should it be de

signed?" the shop CommunistParty committee mobilized theworkers to discuss. "We must not

depend on a few designers working behind closed doors," theworkers said. "We must open updesigning to the masses."

The new worker-leader-engineerdesigning team, therefore, patientlycollected the opinions of the shop'sworkers. They went out of itsgates to listen to what drivers,loaders, transport departmentsand mechanics had to say. Theyvisited other vehicle plants forideas. They made a thorough investigation of actual conditions intown and country transportation.

Technical innovator Chang Pao-yi.

They learned that most trucksmade in China so far were designed for heavy loads. It was noteconomical to haul light loads inthem. What's more, they were toobig to maneuver in narrow streetsand lanes, and much local loading,unloading and delivery had still tobe done with pedicabs.

The design team found thatthe most suitable was a light,highly maneuverable, two-tontruck. Workers loading trucks hadtold them that it usually takes twopeople to handle two tons of goods.The team decided on a cab whichwould seat three. The truck floorwould be only one meter from theground and let-down sides andrear would make loading easier.

The shop asked the teachers andstudents of the Industrial ArtInstitute to make drawings of whatthe new truck should look like.Ninety drawings were then postedat the shop workers' dining hallfor the workers to discuss andchoose.

The principle they followed indesigning the BJ-130 was: Easyto use, make and repair. "Weshould think of the users first of

all," said the workers. We shouldkeep all the difficulties for ourselves and give all the convenienceto the users."

Since most drivers found the

nut-and-sector steering systemeasiest to handle, the workers decided to put it in the BJ-130, al

though the system's high-precisionstandards would make it very difficult to build.

Because the designing teammade such a wide collection of

opinions both inside the shop andout, and because they studied thegood points of Chinese and foreignvehicles of the same type, theywere able to design an efficientand practical light truck in a fairlyshort time.

Shop Workers Tackle It

Trial production began with theworkers in high spirits. Eighteenworker-leader-engineer teams wereset up to handle the problemsas they arose. As masters of thecountry, the workers thought onlyof how to build the truck well and

quickly. They came on shift earlyand left late. Enthusiasm filled the

shop.

There were only a dozen engineers, most of them just out ofschool. Making the truck bodywas complicated. Veteran workers, however, made up for the lackof technical knowledge with theirlong experience. Workers andengineers first made plaster models together. The shop's workerscommented on them and suggestedimprovements. Even an old retired worker came back to the

shop to take part. With good ideascoming from so many, the shapeof the body was soon decided.Lacking special dies and presses,the workers hammered the bodyinto shape by hand. Success withthis problem boosted the entireshop's determination to overcomeevery difficulty.

One of the most critical problems was whether they could makethe main transmission gears or not.Chang Pao-yi, an auto mechanicfor 20 years, insisted that theyshould use the more advanced hy-poid gears. Though he had onlyhad a junior middle school education, he brushed aside the suggestion that such gears requiredseveral hundred formulas and

could only be turned out onGleason machines. Foreign dogmashould not awe us, he said.

After his shift, Chang stayed onto work on experiments withthe three-in-one problem-solvingteams. On his days off he wentall over the city getting helpand advice. Finally, with twomachines they had made themselves, they succeeded in turningout hypoid gears up to standard.With this same thorough approachin experimentation and innovation,he was able to introduce the cold

extrusion process for making thegears. His fellow workers began

A worker-leader-engineer group working on technical innovation inspectsthe products of a new machine they designed and made themselves.

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

to call him their own expertinnovator.

There were many majorobstacles confronting the workers in making the prototypeof the BJ-130. But Chairman Mao

has pointed out, "The wealth ofsociety is created by the workers,peasants and working intellectuals. If they take their destinyinto their own hands, follow aMarxist-Leninist line and take an

active attitude in solving problems

instead of evading them, there willbe no difficulty in the world whichthey cannot overcome." Over twomonths of this kind of active struggle to solve problems finallyproduced two trucks that passedall road tests.

Making Their Own Equipment

The success of the prototypebrought large orders from thestate — and further tough problems. Mass production requiredlarge punching, forging and casting equipment and many specialprocessing machines, none ofwhich they had.

The cultural revolution was

sweeping the country and the revisionist line was under severe

attack. In the shop, the workersstudied and discussed Chairman

Mao on self-reliance and hard

struggle, using this to denounceLiu Shao-chi's philosophy of worshipping everything foreign and,as a result, trailing behind at asnail's pace. They criticized theidea of depending on foreign technique and asking for state help asa lazy, cowardly way of thinking,a bourgeois approach.

"Hands can either make thingsor beg," the workers pointed out,"and these are two diametricallyopposed lines. The country needsthis truck. We can't just calmlytake our time to get everything weneed to build it, we have to makewhat we need so we can meet the

country's demands." The entireshop plunged into a movement todesign and build the machines andequipment needed for mass production.

SEPTEMBER 1975

A 300-ton large-table hydraulic press made in the plant.

Again, workers, leaders andtechnical personnel worked together. When welding the largetable of a 300-ton hydraulic pressbeing built, they prevented deformation by proper stitching.When they could not turn overlarge beams weighing several tonsto weld them because there were

no cranes big enough, they turnedthem over with small cranes and

jacks.

They needed a roller press andmade it with two old lathe beds

and several thick steel plateswelded together. Now by pushingbuttons two workers can press asteel plate into a truck beam in afew minutes.

Out of the thousands of ideas

and suggestions for technical innovation, the shop put over 1,000of them into effect. The workers

built 230 pieces of equipment bythemselves and set up a dozenproduction lines. Many of themachines made in the shop areoperating along with machinesmade in big plants or imported.

As the cultural revolution con

tinued to criticize revisionist ideas,the workers' enthusiasm for the

revolution grew and was transformed into a tremendous drive for

production. The movement tocriticize Lin Piao and Confucius

generated an even greater drive.

The shop (now having earned theright to be called a plant) makesmost of the parts of the BJ-130light truck. A few of the partsare made in other factories

through socialist cooperation. Thenumber of trucks turned out has

increased 63 percent annually. In1974 it was nearly 20 timesmore than in 1968. As the cost

has been cut by half, the profitthe plant has earned for the stateis 4.3 times the initial state invest

ment. Users like the BJ-130. Its

quality has continued to improve.

The Erligou Motor Vehicle Plantis being expanded with new buildings, new equipment and moreworkers. In the mass movement

to answer Chairman Mao's call,

"In industry, learn from Taching,"*the whole plant is working hardto increase its production. "By1980," the workers say, "we willtriple our present output."

•Like Tachai, a national model in agricultural development, Taching has becomea national model in the development ofindustry. A large modern socialist oilfield, in 1964 it was cited as a model byChairman Mao, who called on the nation'sindustry to 'iearn from Taching".

! •'«

^••*4I...

Aii"

'F ''.y

Ascends World's Highest Peak

at 14:30 Peking time last May 27, one woman and eight men of a Chinese expedition succeeded in reaching the top of the world's highest

peak—Qomolangma Feng (Mount Jolmo Lungma)—from its north slope.All but one of the nine-mernber team were Tibetans. They were

Phanthog, woman deputy leader of the expedition, Sodnom Norbu, Lotse,Hou Sheng-fu (Han), Samdrub, Darphuntso, Kunga Pasang, TseringTobgyal and Ngapo Khyen. Their ascent continued the work of threeother Chinese mountaineers — Wang Fu-chou (Han), Konbu (Tibetan) andChu Yin-hua (Han) — who in 1960 became the first to conquer the peakfrom the north face.

Qomolangma towers on the China-Nepal border, the north slope inTibet and the south slope in Nepal. Weather and topographical featuresin the area are extremely complicated, particularly on the north slope.The peak is ice and snow-covered the year round. Several large glaciersoccupy the valleys, among them the famous Rongbuk Glacier made up ofthe East, West and Central Rongbuk glaciers. To scale the massif fromthe north slope, climbers must cross North Col and Second Step, twotreacherous zones which "even birds find too difficult to fly over", as theyare described.

The weather above 8,000 meters changes constantly. More oftenthan not, bod weather is accompanied by strong winds, often at 60meters per second (a 12-grade hurricane produces winds of only 32 m.per second). Even when the sky happens to clear, a snow plume usuallyblows across the summit. Winds from the northwest blow from Octoberto March. The monsoons from the southeast from May through September cause heavy snowfalls on the summit. Temperatures on the peakusually hover between 30° and 40° C. below zero. At 5,000 m. above sealevel the oxygen content of the air is only half that at sea level. At 7,000m. it is closer to the minimum necessary to sustain human life. Above8,000 m. only about a third of the amount of oxygen at sea level is present.

Since the 19th century, explorers from a number of countries hovetried to unlock the mysteries of Qomolangma. It was not until the 1950sthat a successful ascent was made from the south slope. Between 1921and 1938, British explorers mode seven attempts from the north slope butfailed, and some of them never returned. Hence their description of thenorth face as unscalable and deadly.

The recent Chinese expedition began work in mid-March this year,setting up a base camp at the Rongbuk Monastery at 5,000 m. on thenorth slope. During four acclimatization marches they set up camps at5,500, 6,000, 6,500, 7,007, 7,600, 8,200 and 8,600 m. During the fifthmarch beginning on May 17, they moved the latter two camps to heightsof 8,300 and 8,680 m.

The thoroughness of preparations for the final assault was due tothe leadership of the expedition's Party committee and the close cooperation of the climbers, weathermen, scientists, supply team members,telecommunications technicians and the local people. Everyone contributed to solving the countless difficulties.

At 8:00 on the morning of May 27 the nine-member team set outfrom the final assault camp, reaching the peak after a grueling six-and-a-half-hour climb. The group stayed on the summit for an hour and tenminutes, where they erected a metal surveyor's beacon inscribed,"Mountaineering Expedition of the People's Republic of China," unfurledthe five-star red flag, took photos and motion pictures, measured thedepth of the snow, collected ice-and-snow samples and rock specimens,and carried out a test of a radio-controlled electrocardiogram apparatusmonitored below. This work on the peak provided better data for determining the exact height of Qomolangma and created highly importantconditions for scientific research (see p. 37).

The nine climbers returned safely to the base camp at 5,000 m. at13:10 Peking time on May 30. Physical examinations showed the ninemembers to be in good condition.

•4 Negotiating the North Col.

HE Chinese expedition to scale^ Qomolangma Feng (Mount

Jolmo Lungma) set up its base campin March this year at the RongbukMonastery on the north slope at5,000 meters above sea level.

The first hurdle between the

monastery and the summit wasNorth Col, a saddle-shaped ice andsnow-filled pass between NorthPeak and the summit. It is a 70-

degree wall of ice halfway up themassif, its top at 7,007 meters. Cutby wide and deep crevasses ofunknown depth, the col is the mostdangerous area of ice and snowavalanches on the massif.

A party of a dozen climbers setout on March 20 for the expedition's first acclimatization march to

reconnoiter a way up North Col.

Reconnaissance

Though the ascent from the basecamp to the foot of North Col(6,600 m.) is only 1,600 m., the partyactually travelled a distance of 20kilometers. Then, instead of resting, they went on in a strong windto scout the col. It had changedgreatly since 1960. A new steep,crystalline blue slope stretchedupwards. A recent avalanche hadpiled massive blocks of ice at6,800 m. From 6,900 m. up to thetop a wall of ice was crisscrossed bycrevasses. The col looked far more

formidable than 15 years ago.

The next day was fine and clear,the temperature at 20° C. belowzero. Strapping on their gear, theclimbers turned to breaking a trailup the col. The thin air at thisaltitude forced them to stop forbreath after every few thrusts ofthe ice ax. Roped together forsafety, teams of four took turnscutting footholds, driving pitonsinto the ice and securing climbingropes to them. It took several hoursto cut a zigzag trail to 6,800 m.,halfway up North Col.

At one point the climbers hadjust sat down to rest when there

(Continued on p. 31)

27

Chinese mountaineers unfurl the five-star red

flag of China on the summit. In the background is the 3-meler red metal surveyor'sbeacon they erected. Photo by Hou Sheng-fu.

Qomolangma Feng (Mount Jolmo Lungma).

4Vi

Surveying in the Qomolangma Feng area.

Camp at 8,300 meters.

f

V-yiFJfc-'' -.ir easBseBBs

Assault on the summit.

After reaching the summit from the north slope. Second from left isPhanthog, woman deputy leader of the expedition. Photo by Sodnam Norbu.

The Nine Who Scaled the Peac

PHANTHOG, 37-year-old Tibetan woman

and member of the Chinese Communist Party,

was born in a serf family in Chiangda county in

Tibet. In 1958 she become a worker at Lhasa's

"July 1" Farm. In 1959 she joined the Chinese

mountaineering expedition and thot same year

scaled Muztagh Ala, 7,546 meters above sea

level, a world record in women's mountaineering.

In 1961 she bettered her own record by ascend

ing Mount Kongur Tiubie Tagh, 7,595 m. high.

From 1963 to 1966 she studied in the Central

Institute for Nationalities in Peking. She is nowan office worker. She was a deputy leader of

the 1975 Qomolongma expedition and instructor

of the women's team (see p. 34).

SODNAM NORBU, 29, Tibetan, a member of

the Communist Party, is an electrician in a Peo

ple's Liberation Army unit. He is a native of

Damshune county. Before liberation his parents

were servants for herdowners. He began moun

taineering in 1965 and once reached the height

of 7,450 m. He was Parly secretary for the as

sault team that reached the summit of Qomo-

langma in 1975.

LOTSE. 37, Tibetan from Lhatse county andmember of the Communist Party, was born to

servants of serfowners. He joined the PLA in1956 and in 1960 took part In China's first ex

pedition to conquer Qomolongma. In 1964 hereached 7,700 m. while climbing Mount ShlshoPangma. He has kept up mountaineering andscientific survey octivities and was an instructor

in this expedition,

HOU SHENG-FU, 36, Han, o member of the

Communist Party, came from a lower-middlepeasant family in Lochuan county in Shensi

province, He took part in the I960 expeditionto scale Qomolongma. In the 1964 Shisha Pangma expedition he did reconnaissance and trail

breaking, reaching 7,800 m. Since 1965 he has

b^n ° member of several scientific surveys inL• h mountains. He was an instructor on thisnign

edition and leader of the second assault

SAMDRUB, 23, Tibetan, Is from Shigatse.

His were poor peasants before liberation- joined the PLA in 1970 and began^^jjntaineering in 1974. A member of the Com-mufiist Party, he was on the Party branch com-rnitte® assault team in this expedition.

DARPHUNTSO, 30, Tibetan, a member of

the Communist Party, was born in a poor herderfami'y county. He began mountaineering once reached the height of7450 m. Two years later he joined the PLA.Demobil'Z®^ in 1971, he went to work as a paintsprayer in the Tibet Motor Vehicle Repair Works.|-|g was a member of the assault team Partybranch committee in this expedition.

KUNGA PASANG, 29, Tibetan, a member of

the Communist Party, comes from Chamdo. Hisparents were poor peasants in the old society.In 1967 he joined the PLA in Lhasa and nowheads a transport platoon in o PLA unit. He hasparticipated many times in mountaineering andscientific survey since 1965.

TSERING TOBGYAL. 29, Tibetan, a member of

the Communist Party, come from a poor peasantfomily in Zhadthongmon county. He is an electrician in the Shigatse Grain and Oil Processing

Mill. He started mountaineering activities in1965.

NGAPO KHVEN, 21, Tibetan, is a soldier In

the PLA. Born in a poor herder family InNagchhu county, he farmed and herded beforeenlisting in the army in 1973. He began moun

taineering in 1974.

.ITi

-1,1 j

(Continued from p. 27)

was a shout. Tibetan climber

Pasang Tsering had fallen througha thin spot into a hidden crevasse.

Automatically he broke his fall bypushing his feet against one side ofthe crevasse and pressing his backagainst the other, holding tightly tothe rope. He was hauled up.

At 6,800 m. they spanned a widecrevasse with a metal ladder, drove

in a marker and continued the

climb. By the time they reached6,900 m. the sun was going downand the temperature had droppedto 30° C. below zero. A strong winddrove stinging granules of snowinto their faces. Bare skin in

stantly froze to metal. The climberslevelled out a clearing on a slopeand pitched tents for the night.

Howling winds woke them atdawn. Nevertheless they attackedthe 50-m. ice wall and in 40

minutes cut more than a hundred

steps, each wide enough for a twinfoothold.

Barely a hundred meters fromthe top, they came to anothercrevasse three meters wide. They

finally located a section heapedwith ice and snow, linked twometal ladders together, laid themacross and secured them with pitons

and nylon rope. At noon they stoodon top of North Col, havingspanned two crevasses with metalbridges and fixed 800 m. of nylonropes.

Supply Team

The next step was to set upcamps at different altitudes andstock them with supplies — tents,food, fuel, oxygen, equipment forscientific survey, cameras and accompanying paraphernalia.

Former serfs from Chhoidzom

township in Dingri county sent yakteams to help take supplies fromthe base camp up to Camps I andII at 5,500 and 6,000 m. Men were

to take over from there. But the

drivers succeeded in taking theyaks to Camp III at 6,500 m.,saving a lot of human effort.

SEPTEMBER 1975

Tibetan transporters and their team of yaks approach 6,500 m.

A supply team made up of PLAarmymen and Tibetan peasants wasto take supplies from 6,500 m. toNorth Col. It was the first time

the armymen had been above6,000 m. Some suffered frommountain sickness but did not let

it stop them. In six days the transporters climbed North Col fivetimes, stocking the camp there withsupplies for the second acclimatization march.

From North Col to 7,600 m. there

was a 2-km. snow ridge with a 40-deg. gradient and steep on bothsides. Force 8 and 9 winds blew

constantly in the section from 7,300to 7,450 m. On the morning ofApril 19 the reconnaissance partybegan building "roads" up thisridge, setting up protective ropesalong the steepest sections andclearing the way to 7,450 m.

The supply team followed, led byTibetan instructor Lozang Dochhen.A bitter childhood in a slave familyhad deepened his love for the new

society and since taking up moun

taineering in 1960, he had quietlystuck to the unsung task of transport, choosing the hardest jobs forhimself and leaving the easier onesto others.

Just before the transportersreached 7,450 m., the wind rose to

gale force, whipping up a snowstorm that took the men's breath

away. "Stick to it and we'll makeit!" shouted Lozang Dochhen, plodding at the head of the team. Themen inched forward on all fours to

the top of the col.

It had been agreed that after7,007 m. each roped-group of thesupply team could use a cylinder ofoxygen. But from 7,007 to 7,600 m.

no one used any, saving it for possible emergencies on the finalassault.

First Try

In three acclimatization marches

from mid-March to mid-April, the

mountaineers became increasinglyaccustomed to the high altitudes,cut trails up to 8,100 m., set upcamps and carried up supplies.

In the latter part of April the expedition Party committee decidedto make the fourth acclimatization

march in late April and early May

when the weather was likely to be

good and try an assault to thesummit.

Two parties left the base campon April 24 and 26. The firstreached the North Col camp on the27th. The next day it set out forthe camp at 7,600 m. At 7,450 m.the wind rose to gale force, threat-

. --i,

mm

A song (Jurins a climbing break.

ening to blow them off the ridge.The piercing cold prohibited any

prolonged stay for fear of frostbite.The second party was also caughtat 6,500 m- By radio the expeditionParty committee gave the order:Both parties halt the advance andreturn to camp at 6,000 m. Therewould be good weather in a fewdays.

For three days the parties waitedout the blizzard. On May 2 the

weather cleared and the partiesresumed their climb.

On May 4 and 5, 33 men andseven women reached the camp at8,200 m. Seventeen men and three

women continued and reached the

final assault camp at 8,600 m. Anassault to the summit was plannedfor the following day. May 6.

The next day, however, a force-10 gale kept the climbers in theirtents. At 11 a.m. the expeditionParty committee radioed the

decision to change the assault dateto May 7. But the wind continued.The assault members tried to leave

camp several times but were driven

back by the storm. By now theyhad been above 6,000 m. for 13

. . .. JT days. They were exhausted, andoxygen, food and fuel had run low.

j- They were ordered to return tobase camp.

k Crucial Time

pj^g monsoon season was ap-

A proaching. Weather forecasts re-ported good weather for the latter

aff! part of May. Another try for thetop was decided on. Meanwhile thecamps at 8,200 and 8,600 m. were

"Ijbry moved up to 8,300 and 8,680 m.As zero hour neared, the base

camp became a beehive of activity.Climbers sent in letters expressing

BHjjjK determination to fulfil their tasks.fl Those who had applied to join the

1^^ Communist Party requested thatH|||^H| the assault attempt be made a test

of their courage and determination.

The climbers study Marxism-Leninism in a People's Daily editorial in camp.

B" . / . . J

m

m

Shooting films.

Weathermen, cooks, medics, transporters, and logistics and telecommunications technicians worked

carefully and well to ensure theexpedition's success.

A special load of fresh vegetablesand fruit sent by the Party CentralCommittee and flown in by specialplane boosted their confidence anddetermination.

On May 17 and 18 three womenand fifteen men left base camp in

two assault groups. They were ledby Sodnam Norbu, 29-year-oldTibetan member of the People'sLiberation Army and Party secretary for the final assault group,and Phanthog, deputy leader of theexpedition. Supply groups followed.

From May 20 to 23, gale-forcewinds and snow kept the assault

party at 7,600 m. Tents anchoredby heavy nylon ropes tumbled orcollapsed. Meals became irregularas gas stoves often would not lightand the climbers could not go outand get ice and snow for boilingwater. Though hungry, thirsty andcold, their spirits never dropped.

SEPTEMBER 1975

On May 25 the two partiesreached the camps at 8,300 and8,680 m. Two women and sevenmen dropped out because of fatigue.The remaining eight men and onewoman were reorganized into twogroups. The first, with SodnamNorbu, Darphuntso, Kunga Pasangand Tsering Tobgyal, was to re-connoiter the "insurmountable"

Second Step, break trail and make

the first try for the summit on May

26. On the same day the secondgroup, with Phanthog, Lotse, HouSheng-fu, Samdrub and NgapoKhyen, was to climb from 8,300 tothe final assault camp and make anassault on May 27.

The Summit

A force-10 gale on May 26 upsetthis plan. At 3 p.m. the expeditionParty committee at base camp

radioed its instruction: Before dark

the first assault group was to finishbreaking a trail through SecondStep and the other group shouldforce march to the final assault

camp at 8,680 m. All nine shouldmake the final assault together onthe 27th.

Second Step at 8,700 m- was asmooth rock face 20 m. withan average gradient of 60'"^^its top a vertical face.

groups left theircamps at 3'30 P-m.in the teeth of high winds and at9 p.m. joined forces at thesault camp. .

At 11 p.m. Sodnam Norb^ calledan open meeting of the Partybranch. Everyone agreed to moveforward whatever the condUions."We have the concern of ChairmanMao and the Party Central Committee and the support of the peopleof the whole country. No hardship will stop us."

Daybreak of the 27th showed thehaze around the summit lifting. Alight breeze blewunder a clear sky.At 8 a.m. the team began its ascentto the summit.

In air which contained only one-third of the oxygen at sea level, thenine walked for an hour and a halfwithout stopping. At 9:30 the partynegotiated Second Step and rested10 minutes while each breathed

(Continued on p. 39)

The Woman Who Made the Final Ascent

P HANTHOG, daughter of aTibetan serf, has become the

first Chinese woman to scale the

world's highest peak from its northside.

Her family were serfs in Chiang-da county in northeastern Tibet.Her father died while she was very

young. Though her mother spunand wove woolen cloth for the serf-

owner all day and far into thenight, he gave them hardly enough

to eat. At last, taking little Phan-

thog, the mother ran away. Theywandered about begging, finallyarriving in Shigatse where theymanaged to exist on the little that

Phanthog's mother made from

whatever work she could get. Hermother died of fatigue and starva

tion and Phanthog wandered to

Lhasa, where her life was even

more miserable.

Under the leadership of theCommunist Party, Phanthog became a worker at the "July 1"State Farm in 1958. In 1959 she'

was one of the first women selected

to train as a member of the Chinese

mountaineering expedition.

Her hard life in the old societyhad given Phanthog a will to defyany difficulty. She made strict

demands on herself while master

ing the mountaineering skills. InJuly 1959, with this expedition herfirst, she ascended the 7,546-meterMount Muztagh Ata in the Pamirs.Her ascent broke the world

women's altitude record of 7,456 m.set by the French climber ClaudeKogan in 1955. In 1961 Phanthogimproved her own record by climbing to the top of Mount KongurTiubie Tagh, a height of 7,595 m.In 1963 she was sent for generaleducation and political study to theCentral Institute for Nationalities

in Peking. This helped her makefaster progress politically.

A FTER the movement to criticize

Lin Piao and Confucius began

in 1974, Phanthog, along withwomen throughout China, criticizedLin Piao's counter-revolutionary

revisionist line and the Confucian

idea that men are superior to

women. She and other women

climbers recalled how they hadbeen oppressed and discriminated

against in the old society. In pre-llberation Tibet the reactionaryserfowners looked on women as

"creatures who bring misfortune"and said that nine women out of

ten were demons. "No matter how

high the sky, we could not standwith our heads erect; no matter

how broad the earth, there was no

room for us to plant our feet," aTibetan woman climber said.

Such criticism of the old societyand the revisionist line brought outmore revolutionary enthusiasm in

the women climbers. They feltgreater confidence about tacklingthe world's highest peak.

"I have seen from my own ex

perience," Phanthog said, "that

onlysocialism opens the broad roadto complete emancipation for us,the working women of all nationalities."

Fourteen years have passed since

Phanthog scaled Mount KongurTiubie Tagh in 1961. She is nowthe mother of three children.

Though she has put on weight anddoes not have the stamina of her

early days, she continues strictphysical training with the youngermountaineers, running, jumping

and marching with a load on herback.

A T LAST the expedition to as-cend Qomolangma was under

way. During the third acclimatization march each step was a greateffort and she was gasping forbreath, but Phanthog stuck to her

Phanthog (fourth left) is warmly congratulated on arrival back at base camp.

•;'

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

place in the line of march. Thatnight she lay inside the tent, unableto sleep because of the ache in herback and legs. She thought of herbitter past and the expectations ofthe people and the Party. The feeling of fatigue left her.

The biggest difficulty in regionsabove 8,000 m. comes from the extremely rarefied air. Every stepfoiward takes great strength.Carrying her own pack, Phanthogkept up with themen at every step.When they reached the last snowslope below the summit after ninedays of march, she was in the gripof fatigue. In order to preserve theoxygen for an emergency, she didnot take one breath more than theothers.

The summit is only 200 m. abovethe assault camp but the climb wasexceedingly difficult. Here theclimbers not only had to contendwith the rarefied air and a snowstorm, but also to negotiate someperilous stretches. They had toclimb up a rock slope with a 60 to70 degree gradient. Three menroped together with Phanthog hadgone up first and were beginningto haul up the gear. Phanthog wasstanding halfway up the slopepassing on things from a manbelow. As she boosted a pack overa jutting rock she lost her balanceand teetered backward over the

deep chasm. She thrust her rightfoot sharply forward into a rockcrevice and threw her weight ontothe rock face, thus avoiding a fall.

"I was very excited when westepped onto the summit of

Qomolangma," she said, "I stoodbeside Hou Sheng-fu as he reportedour success to the base camp overthe walkie-talkie and when weheard the cheers of our comrades

at the base camp I joined them inshouting, 'Long live Chairman

Mao! Long live the Chinese Com

munist Party!' "

pHANTHOG was accepted intothe Chinese Communist Party

during this expedition. As deputyleader of it and instructor for the

SEPTEMBER 1975

at0*s*i

The six Tibetan women in the expedition pose for a snapshot at North Col(7,007 m.). They are Phanthog (third right) who reached the summit: Kun-zang (third left), Trazang (first right) and Tratso (second right) who reached8,600 m.; Pasang (first left) and Paidron (second left) who reached 7,800 m.

women's team, Phanthog alwaysgave first thought to the others andtried to set a good example through

her own action.

After they had set up the camp

at 8,200 m. everybody was tiredand thirsty. Phanthog decided shewould go out and get snow to meltand boil for drinking water. Astrong wind had risen. There was

no snow on this smooth, windsweptslope except for some in a distantrock crevice. It was dangerous toleave the tent in such weather, butPhanthog fastened one end of a

rope to a rock near the tent and theother around her waist and went

out to get the snow.

Thirty-six members of the ex

pedition were women. Among themwere workers, commune members,PLA soldiers, office workers and

students, and they were of Tibetan,Hui, Owenk and Han nationalities.Phanthog taught them all she knew

about mountain climbing, led themin acclimatization marches and was

a source of inspiration to them.

One day a 19-year-old Tibetan

woman who was descending fromthe 8,200-m. camp with Phanthoggot a little nervous when lookingdown into the precipitous chasms,for she had never been so high be

fore. Phanthog stayed with her atevery step, providing both moraland physical support.

"The success of the expeditionstems from the members' collective

effort," said Phanthog. "On theacclimatization marches the women

ascended shoulder to shoulder with

the men, carrying their share of theequipment and supplies. Eachwoman had a load of about 15 kg. —foodstuffs, tents, cylinders of oxygen and cooking gas, and otherthings necessary for setting upcamp at the various altitudes — andnot a word of complaint was heard.In addition there were scientific

instruments, for the women climb

ers also played an important rolein scientific survey. We have livedup to our pledge: Chinese women

have a strong will, difficulties can'tstop us. We climbed the highest

peak in the world. We really holdup half the sky."

In addition to Phanthog whowent to the summit, three women

in the expedition went to 8,600 m.;

three others reached 8,200 m.;

two reached 7,800 m.; and seven

reached 7,600 m. This makes a total

of 16 Chinese women climbers who

have broken the women's altitude

record of 7,595 m. set in 1961.

Measuring snow depth and collectingice and snow samples on the summit.

With a Chinese radio-controlled electrocardiogram built tooperate' at low temperatures, physiologists at 6,500 meters monitor heart function of mountaineers climbing above 8,000 meters.

Scientists at work.

Observing the summit to get more accurate data of its height.

Scientific Survey of the'Roof of the World'

HAT is the exact height of^ Qomolangma Feng? What are

its stratigraphy and structure?How does the human heart function at 8,000 meters above sealevel?

These and other questions willbe easier to answer with datacollected in the survey in theQomolangma Feng area by Chinesescientists working with the ChineseMountaineering Expedition.

The unique environment at theworld's highest peak is of great importance for scientific study. Sinceliberation Chinese scientists haveconducted several comprehensivesurveys there involving a numberof branches of science. One was

made over 50,000 square kilometersof the area from 1966 to 1968 duringthe cultural revolution by the TibetScientific Survey Team. This year'ssurvey, based on the previous ones,involved survey-cartography, geology, high-altitude physiology, atmospheric physics and other fields.

Participating were over 70 scientific workers from 13 research units

and survey-cartographical departments in Peking, Shanghai andTientsin and the provinces of Kiang-su, Szechuan, Shensi and Chinghai.Some of them were worker-peasant-soldier university students and anumber were women.

Surveying the Peak

The geodetic surveyors reachedthe Qomolangma Feng area inmid-March arid set up headquartersat an altitude of 5,400 m. Thenthey went to the East,.Central andWest Rongbuk glaciers on Qomo-langma's north slope, where theycarried out triangulation, EDMtraverse and gravity surveys andastronomical determinations over

an area of 140 square kilometers.This laid a sound foundation for

the accurate determination of the

position and height of the peak. Aprecise levelling line 80 km. longwas remeasured and aerial photographs of the whole region wereverified.

In order to study the gravityfield in the vicinity of the peak.

SEPTEMBER 1975

seven surveyors, overcoming greathardship, climbed to the top ofNorth Col with the help of themountaineers. There they madegravimetrical measurements andverification of aerial photographs.Two of them climbed on to 7,790 m.to carry these further, setting arecord for height of gravity survey.

The three-meter red metal surveyor's beacon planted on the topof Qomolangma by the assaultteam on May 27 made possibleprecise measurement of the heightof the summit and its position.Surveyors posted at 10 stationslocated between 7 and 21 km. from

the peak, at altitudes from 5,600 m.to 6,300 m., observed the beaconwith their theodolites for threeconsecutive days and obtained datafor different periods of the day.The surveyors completed the precise measurement of the height ofthe summit and garnered a wealthof experience for high-altitudesurveying and valuable data forresearch on the movement of the

earth's crust and related topics.

Geological Strata Observation

Data for a geological section ofa 40 km. distance on the north

slope from Chubu up to the summitwas collected by geologists in cooperation with climbers. Six geological sections with a total lengthof 7 km. were observed and sur

veyed, and additional brief studieswere made along the route bythe geologists after climbing steepslopes and traversing glaciers in anarea covering 300 sq. km.

Over 600 rock specimens fromaltitudes of 4,700 m. up to the summit were collected. Thus theyworked out a fairly systematic,detailed and complete geologicalprofile of the north slope. A goodbasis has thus been laid for deeperstudy of the Qomolangma area'sgeological structural features andthe metamorphism, magmatic activity and migmatization there.

In limestone beds correspondingto the stratum of the peak, fossils

of brachiopods, crinoids and trilo-bites of the Ordovician period(c. 440 million to 500 million yearsago) were found. The locationswere the Chuhala and Chienchin

valleys and a third valley east ofthe Rongbude Monastery — allclose to the Qomolangma area. Thefirst such fossils discovered in thispart of the world, these providenew facts for determining the ageof the rocks at the peak.

In late Paleozoic rocks at Chubu,located along the profile under observation were discovered manyfairly well preserved fossils ofglossopteris and other plants previously found only on the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent (part of theancient Gondwanaland). Thesediscoveries show that in the Paleo

zoic era the northern slope ofQomolangma was not separatedfrom the Indo-Pakistan subcon

tinent by the "great wall" of theHimalayas. This discovery has extremely important significance forthe study of the paleogeographicalenvironment and geological development of the Qomolangma area.

High-altitude Physiology

Changes in the climbers' respiratory, cardiovascular and cerebralfunctions were recorded at different altitudes. At 50 m. and at

5,000 m. above sea level, this wasdone by the physiologists who wentalong with the mountaineers.Above that at 7,600 m., 8,300 m.,8,680 m. and at the summit, electrocardiograms made by the mountaineers on themselves were trans

mitted by radio. The equipmentwas designed and made in Chinaand operates at low temperaturesover distances of more than 20 km.

These provide new data forexploring the changes in the physiological indices (blood pressure,respiration, electrocardiogram andelectroencephalogram readings) ofthe human body under conditionsof oxygen deficiency at highaltitudes and their relation toadaptability. The data provide thebasis for further research on the

37

r• ' 1 • .

principles governing adaptation ofthe human body to an oxygen-deficient environment.

Atmospheric Physics

For use in atmospheric physics,comparative meteorological observations were made from different

directions at 5,000 m., 6,000 m.,6,500 m. and 7,007 m. This is thefirst time such comprehensive datahas been obtained in this area.

Samples of ice and snow weregathered from heights of 5,000 m.up to the summit. The above-mentioned data and samples, verydifficult to obtain, are valuable forstudies of the meteorology, glacierformation and background valueof the natural environment in the

Himalayas and Qomolangma area.

Taking part for the first time insuch a project were a number ofwomen worker-peasant-soldier university students, who worked atthe oxygen-deficient altitude of5,400 m. One student made threetrips to the top of 7,007-m. NorthCol to observe precipitation andwind.

In this survey scientists andmountaineers cooperated closely toget the first samples of watercollected from altitudes of 7,600 m.,8,200 m., 8,600 m. and the summitto be tested for the amount of

heavy water they contained. Theseprovide valuable data to add to thepicture of heavy water distributionin the Qomolangma area. Chinese scientists observe ice and snow topography in the Qomolangma Feng area.

Chinese atmospheric physicists made comparative observations from different directions andat 5,000, 6,000, 6,500 and 7,007 m. collecteddata for working out meteorological gradients.

1

j

Collecting a water sample.

(Continued from p. 33)

oxygen for two to three minutes attwo to five liters per minute.

As they resumed their ascent thewind rose to force 8 and 9, lashingup snow particles as hard as bullets. Every step was a tremendouseffort, but a common determinationunited them. Phanthog conservedher oxygen as did the others.Climbing with the team she hadonly one thought: to live up to theexpectations of the Party CentralCommittee, Chairman Mao and thepeople of the country, to win honorfor the socialist motherland andChinese women.

At 12:30 p.m., when the climberswere about 50 m. from the summit,their way was blocked by a virtually perpendicular ice wall. Sod-

nam Norbu cut a flight of steps onit but failed to chmb it. The teammade a 40-m. detour to the north,crossed a rocky cliff, turned westward and again headed for thesummit.

Suddenly a new wind blew hazeover the summit. In the lead, Sod-nam Norbu felt a pull of the ropeand turned around to see KungaPasang falling to the groimd. Heclamped the oxygen mask over hiscomrade's face and when KungaPasang came to, the team continued. One and a half hours later,at 2:40 p.m. Peking time, the nineclimbers stepped onto the peak ofthe world, one meter wide, a dozenmeters long.

With indescribable joy and pride,they looked around at the peaks

jutting up through a sea of cloudsbelow them. They erected a three-meter metal surveyor's beacon, unfurled the five-star red flag of thePeople's Republic of China, shotfilms, took pictures, collected rockspecimens and ice and snow samples, and measured the depth ofsnow on the summit. For seven

minutes Phanthog helped test anew radio-controlled electrocar

diogram apparatus which wasmonitored below.

During the one hour and tenminutes they stayed on the summit,nobody remembered to use theiroxygen supply. When Hou Sheng-fu reported the success to the basecamp over the radio, cheers of"Long live Chairman Mao!" and"Long live the Chinese CommunistParty!" resounded on the peak.

AN OUTLINE OF

CHINESE ACUPUNCTURE

(In English)

Compiled by the Chinese Academy of Traditional Medicine to popularize the science of

acupuncture and moxibustion, this book deals in a comprehensive and systematic way with

their theory and application in clinical treatment. The volume is a summary of clinical

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Five concise, practical and easy-to-read chapters make up the book. All the 397 points

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324 pages 18.7 X 26 cm. de luxe edition

Published by: FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS, Peking, China

Distributed by: GUOZI SHUDIAN (China Publications Center), Peking, China

Order from your local dealer or write direct to

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SEPTEMBER 1975 39

CULTURAL NOTES

Two More Theatrical Festivals

wo MORE theatrical festivals

held in Peking earlier this yeartestify to China's flourishing socialist stage life due to the implementation of Chairman Mao'spolicy of "making the past servethe present and foreign thingsserve China" and "letting ahundred flowers blossom; weedingthrough the old to bring forth thenew". The two festivals, sponsoredby the Ministry of Culture, featured artists from ten areas: theSinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region and the provinces of Shensi,Heilungkiang, Szechuan, Kwang-tung, Hupeh, Honan, Yunnan, Kirinand Kansu. Two similar festivals

were held last year, with participants from ten other areas.

The 1975 festivals presented agreat variety of programs, including Peking opera, stage plays,operas in local style and that ofthe minority nationalities, songs,dances, ballads, storytelling andcomic dialogue. There were worksdealing with the proletarian cultural revolution and socialist rev

olution and construction as well

as those portraying revolutionarystruggles of the past. Performanceswere given in about a hundredplaces — theaters in the city andsuburbs and in factories, mines,farming villages and army camps.

• The story of The Red Lantern takesplace In the Japanese-occupied areasduring the war of resistance. Li Yu-ho,a railway switchman and a Communist, isan underground worker. He, Granny Liand young Tieh-mei are three generationsfrom different broken families who in thecourse of the revolution have come together to live as one family.

Li is assigned by the Party to deliver asecret code to guerrillas in the mountains.Before he can do so he is betrayed andimprisoned by Hatoyama, chief of theJapanese gendarmerie. Using the pretextof inviting Li to a feast, Hatoyama trieswith both enticements and threats to makehim hand over the code. Li remains loyalto the Party till his death. He andGranny Li are executed on Hatoyama'sorders. Tieh-mei, his daughter, with helpfrom the Party and the people, carriesout his mission and delivers the code tothe guerrillas.

A scene from the Uighur operaversion of The Red Lantern.

A number of items from the twofestivals were chosen for specialperformances for worker-peasant-soldier audiences in the capital inMay and June to mark the 33rdanniversary of the publication ofChairman Mao's Talks at the YenanForum on Literature and Art in

May 1942. Many of them weremodel revolutionary theatricalworks adapted to local opera stylesor to art forms of the minority nationalities. They include The RedLantern in the opera form of theUighur people of Sinkiang, RedDetachment of Women performedin Hupeh's hanchu opera style andAzalea Mountain in Kwangtung'syuehchu opera style.

Among the new works was RedPlum on Mount Tsang, an operain the paichu style of the Pai nationality in Yunnan province. Itsmain character is Ah Mei (whosename means plum), a young womanbarefoot doctor in the Tali PaiAutonomous Prefecture (Chou) inYunnan who has done a remarkable job in the prevention andtreatment of disease in this remotearea. There were also plays: New

People in a Mountain Village andNew Graduation Song, showingyoung people with educationmaturing in the revolutionarystruggles in places where theyhave settled down in the countryside, and Battle in the TaihangMountains and Nine-DragonStrand. The latter two depict thestruggle between the two classes,the two lines and the two worldoutlooks as reflected in socialistconstruction. Five Keys, a newPeking opera, and Sturdy Pines onTowering Mountains, a hanchuopera, also deal with the classstruggle and the struggle over line.

ONE of the most outstandingofferings was the adaptation

of the modern revolutionary Peking opera The Red Lantern* bythe Sinkiang Uighur Opera Troupe.The traditional music of theUighur people is used successfullyto portray proletarian heroes andexpress the revolutionary spiritand militancy of the original composition. Its music and nationalcolor brought warm applause from

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

.mm

Members of the Sinkiang Uighur Opera Troupe discuss Chairman Mao's Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art.

the worker-peasant-soldier audiences. The creation of this operasignifies that there is wider interest and deepening appreciationof the model theatrical works in

the border regions. It is also oneof the fruits of the reform anddevelopment of local operas andthe traditional music of China'sdifferent nationalities.

Much of the music in the Uighurproduction was adapted from thebest in the Twelve Mukam — the"Twelve Grand Suites" — the art

treasure of the Uighur people inwhich are collected their ballads,folk songs and dance and instrumental music from ancient times.

Each of the twelve suites is

characterized by a certain kind ofmusic. Much of it expresses theUighur people's protest against theoppression and exploitation of theold society.

Due to historical limitations andsabotage and alteration by the exploiting classes, not all of theMukam music is suitable for ex

pressing the revolutionary life andstruggles of today's proletarians.In adapting it for The Red Lantern,the Sinkiang Uighur Opera Troupefollowed Chairman Mao's policy of"making the past serve the present" and "weeding through theold to bring forth the new". -^Choos-ing those parts which could beutilized and making some reformsand innovations, they worked hard

SEPTEMBER 1975

to achieve a unity between thetraditional music and the spirit ofour times.

The music for Li Yu-ho is basedon robust and sustained musicalmotifs from the Mushewirak

Mukam; for Granny Li, strong,straightforward ones from theChepiyat Mukam; for Li Tieh-mei,bright, fervent passages from theRak Mukam and Chepiyat Mukam.From these they composed ariaswhich accurately reflect the emotions of the characters yet preserve the characteristics of theoriginal music.

The composers have utilized thestrong points of the Uighur operato the full, such as the use of thechorus and accompanied singing.In Scene 5 Li Yu-ho's aria "I'm

Filled with Courage and Strength",after his arrest by the Japanesegendarmerie, is followed by achoral passage without wordswhich reflects the feeling of thethree generations of the Li familywhen they know that he is goingto his death.

Choral and accompanied singingis used several times in the aria"My Spirit Storms the Heavens".When Li Yu-ho sings the words"Once the storm is past flowerswill bloom", his lofty aspirationsand revolutionary heroism areemphasized by a chorus of femalevoices singing a melody based on afolk song from the Hi area. Vigor

ous choral and accompanied singing at the end of the passageunderscores Li's line "They willforever march forward" and helpsbring out vividly his determinationto overcome all enemies.

This version of The Red Lantern

makes good use of the traditionalUighur instruments. The main accompaniment to the principalpassages is provided by the hejek,a fiddle, and the rawap, a pluckedstringed instrument, the two mostrepresentative of the Uighur stringed instruments. Other Chinese na

tional instruments such as the sona(horn), bamboo flutes and the yangchin (dulcimer with metal strings)and western wind and stringed instruments are also used. The dap, akind of tambourine popular amongthe Uighurs, provides a particularly effective accompaniment to boththe spirited and the lyrical songs.It is also used with the nahra (irondrum) and tashi (stone chimes) tocreate an atmosphere of battle forthe acrobatic scenes.

Answers to LANGUAGE

CORNER Exercises

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From the Revolutionary Past

(ounterinii Entirclement in Kinnjisl flnd Fnliien"DEGINNING in the late 1920s

the revolutionary forces,guided by Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, began going into therural areas to continue the armed

struggle through guerrilla warfare.The first revolutionary base wasestablished in the ChingkangMountains. In 1929 Chairman

Mao led the Chinese Workers' and

Peasants' Red Army to set up newbase areas in southern Kiangsiprovince and western Fukien province. The two bases were later

combined as the central revolutionary base with Juichin inKiangsi province as its capital.

Following the example of theChingkang Mountain base, byarduous struggle many other newbase areas were built up throughout the country. The Red Armyand the bases kept growing: byJune 1930 the Red Army hadincreased to 100,000 and therewere more than 10 bases carryingon guerrilla warfare in 300 counties scattered through 10 provinces.

These developments threwChiang Kai-shek and the Kuomin-tang reactionaries into a panic. InNovember 1930 Chiang launchedhis first counter-revolutionary"encirclement and suppression"campaign against the central base,dispatching 100,000 troops in eightcolumns. The Red Army had only

40,000 soldiers. Faced with sucha wide disparity between thestrength of the reactionary forcesand that of the people's forces,Chairman Mao put forward theprinciples of "luring the enemy indeep" and "retreating to the baseareas to fight". This was a furtherdevelopment of the basic rules hehad laid down for guerrilla warfare in the Chingkang Mountains— "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we

harass; the enemy tires, we attack;the enemy retreats, we pursue".Led by Chairman Mao, the armyand the people of the base arealaunched a counter-campaign inwhich they applied these principlesand shattered the enemy's first"encirclement and suppression"campaign.

Not everyone at first fully recognized the correctness of theseprinciples. Some feared that oncethe Red Army withdrew theenemy would take reprisals on thepeople of the base area. They didnot understand the necessity andpositive significance of strategicretreat to lure the enemy into thebase area. They did not see thatunder certain conditions refusingto retreat a step before a superiorenemy force might make it impossible to preserve one's own forces.

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Actually, strategic retreat didnot mean passively avoiding battlewith the enemy; it was to enablethe people's forces to select andcreate conditions favorable to

themselves so as to bring about achange in the balance of forces before launching a counter-offensiveto wipe out the enemy. Duringits strategic retreat to the interiorof the base, where it had strongestsupport among the masses, the RedArmy did a lot of propaganda workto help the people understand theprinciple of "luring the enemy indeep" and to mobilize them forcarrying it out.

Eight conditions for A GreatVictory" (Fig. 1) was issued by

the Front Committee of the FirstFront Red Army on December 22,1930 and published in pamphletform by the Federation of RedTrade Unions in Hsingkuo county,Kiangsi province, on the 28th ofthe same month. It comparedChairman Mao's strategy andtactics with those of the enemy ineight aspects and explained simplyand clearly that "luring the enemyin deep" and "retreating to thebase areas to fight" could createconditions favorable to the people's forces and unfavorable to theenemy.

Some of its paragraphs read:

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CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

The enemy wants us to fighthim in areas he occupies. That isprecisely what we won't do. We'llmake him come to our base areas.Then the boats, trains and defenseworks in his areas will be of nouse, but here we can put ourspears to full use. Lured into our

area, the enemy is left high anddry like a shrimp on the beach.This is the way we will defeathim.

When the enemy comes into thebase areas he can't get firewood,rice, salt, oil or other daily necessities, He has to send his men to

search for them in the villages.But even then they can hardly getenough to eat. In this case whois actually "encircled" by whom?

We receive support from themasses through stretcher-bearerteams, transport corps and first aidteams. The people also report theenemy's actions to us and volunteer to serve as our guides. Theenemy has none of these. ... In

times of battle the masses go upthe mountains to fight alongsideus and confuse the enemy so thathe cannot tell how many troopswe really have. When the enemy

is defeated the people everywherecome out to capture his troops.With such help no enemy canescape from our areas. This iswhy we say that we have themasses and the enemy does not,and we are bound to win and the

enemy to be defeated.

With concrete examples thepamphlet explained ChairmanMao's strategy and tactics, and

SEPTEMBER 1975

helped the army and the peopleof the base areas to gain a deeperunderstanding of the principle of"luring the enemy in deep". Thisstrengthened their confidence invictory over the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" campaign.

At the end of December 1930

the enemy penetrated the basearea as far as Lungkang, Hsingkuocounty, Kiangsi province. TheRed Army seized this chance toattack and won a great victory.They wiped out 9,000 enemytroops and captured their fieldcommander Chang Hui-tsan alive.The rest fled. Pursuing them, theRed Army annihilated anotherhalf division. It won two victories

in five days, wiping out a total of10,000 enemy troops. This smashedChiang Kai-shek's first "encirclement and suppression" campaignagainst the base area.

pHAIRMAN MAO'S basic mili-^ tary principle for the RedArmy is to wage people's war byrelying on the masses. In the baseareas the people set up their ownarmed units, the Red Guards, tohelp the Red Army fight. Fig. 2is the flag of the Ningtu countyRed Guard detachment. Fig. 3 isa home-made cannon used by thepeople in the county during theRed Army's first counter-campaign.

Fig. 4 is an order, "Assist Captives to Pass Through Base Areas".It points out that 15,000 enemysoldiers and officers were captured

in the counter-campaign, and inthe future there would be more

battles, more Red Army victoriesand it would be necessary to takemore prisoners. Those who wishto remain in the base areas, itstates, have been allowed to jointhe Red Army and augment thepeople's forces. Those soldiers andlower-ranking officers who wantto return have been set free.

The order explains in effect:This is a necessary measure forextending the political influenceof the Red Army and speeding theawakening of the enemy troopsand their disintegration. Weshould realize that these people,who are poor peasants or workers,can play a big role in influencingothers when they return to theirarmy. If they return to theirhomes it is natural for them to

speak in favor of our revolutionarybases and the Red Army, thusspeeding the progress of people inthe enemy-controlled areas on tothe revolutionary road.

The victory in the first counter-campaign not only smashed theenemy's attack, but, more important, made the army and the people in the base areas see moreclearly the correctness of Chairman Mao's military thinking.Later, under Chairman Mao'sdirect leadership, the Red Armyshattered the Kuomintang's secondand third counter-revolutionary"encirclement and suppression"campaigns against the central base.These struggles helped consolidateand develop the central base.

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Highways link the mountains inhabited by the people of the Lisunationality in Yunnan province with the rest of the country.

Tj^OR CENTURIES the tremen--*- dous mountain ranges and deepvalleys of the Nukiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture {Chou) in thefar northwest tip of Yunnan province on China's southwest border

kept communications primitive andalmost impossible. Today, greatchanges have been brought byhighways threading the mountainsand bridges spanning the great

A five-county area of 25,000square kilometers, the prefecture'sinhabitants include the Lisu, Nu,Tulung, Pai, Yi and Tibetan peo

ples, The 4,000-meter KaolikungMountains and the 5,000-meterPilo Snow Mountains run from

north to south. In the deep valleysbetween the ranges, the TulungRiver in the west, Nukiang in themiddle and Lantsang in the eastflow out of Tibet, Before libera

tion the sharp differences in altitude between the mountaintop andvalley Villages were tremendousobstacles to travel. The only linkswith other parts of China were afew dangerous footpaths throughthe mountains where snow madetravel practically impossible fromfour to six months in the year.

There was one iron-chain bridgeacross the Lantsang River, nobridge at all across the Tulung andNukiang, To cross these riverspeople sat in a sling chair hung ona bamboo rope and slid their wayacross. Every year many travelerseither froze to death in the moun

tains or drowned in the rivers.

Local products such as lacquer,animal skins and valuable me

dicinal herbs such as rhizoma

coptis and fritillaria verticillatacould not be shipped out. Dailynecessities such as salt, tea, cloth,thread, needles and farm toolswere extremely scarce. Peoplehad to travel dangerous routes fordays to buy them from traderswho charged exorbitant prices. Itwas common to say, "A knife is asprecious as gold, salt is as preciousas silver," Hemmed in and cut off

by the mountains and rivers, thenational minority inhabitants suffered for centuries.

After liberation, the CommunistParty and people's governmentpaid great attention to the welfareof the national minorities in thefrontier regions. Chairman Maocalled on the people to "Defy difficulties and work hard to buildhighways in order to help our fraternal nationalities".

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

Large sums of money were allocated for the Nukiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture and manytechnicians and workers came to

build roads and bridges. Workingwith the minority peoples, theyclimbed the forbidding mountainsand crossed roaring streams andrapids. They often worked inmidair, suspended by ropes underthe scorching sun. They toiled onsnow-covered mountains in deepwinter. They built bridges in fastcurrents, in constant danger ofbeing swept away. Every kilometerof highway required the removalof 30 to 70 thousand cubic meters

of earth and stone.

By 1962 the first two highwaysacross mountains and rivers hadbeen built. Trucks began to runbetween the three counties of Pi-kiang, Lushui and Lanping, thefirst step in a new highwaysystem.

Here, too, construction was hampered by Liu Shao-chi's revisionistline which opposed ChairmanMao's policy of self-reliance, hardwork and the mobilization of the

masses in everything. Criticismby the area's nationalities duringthe cultural revolution exposed therevisionist line and made Chair

man Mao's revolutionary line moreeffective. This greatly acceleratedhighway building.

Before the cultural revolution

there was still no highway betweenFukung and Kungshan counties ina long stretch of the Nukiangvalley because of the difficult terrain. But during the cultural revolution, the different nationalitiesin the two counties tackled the

problem with the revolutionaryspirit of fearing neither hardshipnor death. Leading departmentsand other areas helped. Togetherthey blasted away a dozen sheercliffs that even the local monkeyswouldn't climb. They built 20large steel suspension bridges andmany smaller ones across riversand streams. Finally their motorhighway stretched from Pikiang,the center of the prefecture, toFukung and Kungshan countieswith an additional 1,200 km. ofside roads for carts. This greatlychanged the communications picture in the Nukiang river valley.

Today all five counties in theautonomous area are connected byhighways and 63 percent of thecommunes can be reached bytruck. Each county has transportstations and a fleet of trucks. Now

machines, chemical fertilizers,daily articles and special itemsflow to the nationalities of thearea and their local products goout to other parts of China.

Opening ceremony of the Red Flag Bridge across the Nukiang River in the Paoshan area.

lU,., . -^1

•J . . ' E* '

SEPTEMBER 1975

Better communications has helped expand agriculture and industryand improve the life of the people.

Grain output in 1973 was doublethat of 1953, the year before theprefecture was set up, and therewas another bumper harvest in1974. Industrial production rosefivefold, 80 percent of this since1965, the year before the culturalrevolution began.

County town of Pikiang in the Nukiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture.

Meanwhile, the people's incomehas risen steadily as a result of thesharp reduction in the prices of industrial products they buy and thetimely purchase and good pricesthe state pays for local products.Primary and middle school education has spread and a network ofmedical and health organizationshas grown.

Recalling conditions before liberation, when they had to live onwild plants, wear clothes of sacksand tree bark, make marks onwood or tie knots in string to record events, and pray to the godswhen sick, the people of theNukiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture are convinced that only socialism could have brought suchtremendous changes.

LANGUAGE CORNER ZHONG WEN YUE KE

Lesson 9

^ ^ ;l

San Zhang Biantiaor

Three Notes

^ -f:Yfe Pfng:

Ye Ping:

Tu6

(I) asked

Li

Li

l5l i

Tdngzhi

Comrade

« ?S.daiqu Mng zbang

(to) bring two sheets (of)

if.jin w&D ylnyu^hui de plao, xlw^g ni n6ng gen ni airentonight concert's tickets. Hope you can with your wife

—

yiqi lAI. Kaiy&nqldn yi k6zh5ng, w6together come. Open performance before one quarter hour, I

A no fz^i jiichdng m£nkdu d&gat theater doorway wait for

nimen.

you.

Hu W6i

Hu Wei

-iEIJiuyui wurl chdn

September 5 morning

J-

Ji&ngud:

Jianguo:

nitGangcdi

^ —-ii #. :iij fit •:!cy6u yi wfei xlng Liu de nU tdngzhi

Just now there was a surnamed Liu woman comrade

n.t-

^ ^ {{;,l&i dianhud zhdo ni,come telephone (call) look for you.

4" i'lyuehSo jin win dao

made an appointment this evening to

linshi tdngzhl,

suddenly announced (at) 7 o'clock (and) half

r s.ddnshi chdngli

But the factory

46

itta shud

She said

binldi

originally

ni jia

your home

-t. ^qldldn

(she)

qu,

go.

bdn

-S- ^yao kai

will open

^T,qu le,

go.

—/v

yi ge

an

ifqing

Please

fitzhdngyao de bui,

important meeting.

#-0bu ydo ddng ta.

don't wait for her.

^ 9 Hjib #,yinci ta bu n^ng

Therefore she cannot

Li Hu&

Li Hua

ElJiri

Today

xiawu

P.M.

A t:Cbdngzbdng:

Chengzhong:

Zudtian w6 c6ng Xian kiid^o Bdijing,Yesterday I from Sian arrived (in) Peking,

its. it- —Ail Azhfeli bin yidiinr shi. W6 yijing miilehere (to) do a little business. I already bought tomorrow

"irchin qu Shingbii de hudchepiio, zhunbdmorning go (to) Shanghai's train ticket, (and am) preparing

i'\ -f^-#-fitdao Sbinghil qu xuexi jiioyb giming de jingyin.to go (to) Shanghai (to) study education revolution's experience.

if-9 ifJintian lii kan nl, qiaqiio ni bu

Today (I) came (to) see you, it happened you (were) not

4K 205bingongshl. W6 zhiizil Dihui Luguin irlingwuoffice. I stay at Dahua Hotel (room) 205 number,

t-t# 774792,, ^diinhui qlqislqljiuir. Qingzii jintian wOfinhdu gdi wd liitelephone 77-4792. Please at today lunch after give me come

sisbi

4:00

zai

at

mming

zai

at

-fybio,

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS

if} HtfaT £dianhu^, yug ge sbijian jian mian,telephone (call), arrange a time (to) see face.

Ti^n An

Tian An

ivn -faJiuyu^ shlri

September 10

Translation

Ye Ping:

I asked Comrade Li to bring you two tickets for tonight's concert.Hope you can come with your wife. A quarter of an hour before

the performance I'll be waiting for you at the door of the theater.

Hu Wei

September 5, morning

Jianguo:

Just now a woman comrade named Liu called. She said she

had made an appointment to visit your home this evening but thefactory suddenly announced that there will be an important meetingat 7:30, so she will not be able to come. Please don't wait for her.

Li Hua

4 P.M.

Chengzhong,

Yesterday I arrived in Peking from Sian on business. I havealready bought a ticket for tomorrow morning's train to Shanghai.I'm preparing to go there to study the experience of the revolutionin education. When I came to see you today, it happened that youwere not at the office. I am staying in Room 205 at the DahuaHotel. The telephone number is 77-4792. Please call me todayafter lunch to arrange a time to meet.

Tian An

September 10

Notes

1. The particle le T - Le T added after a verb

shows the completion of an action. Wo yijingmailehu5chepi^o (I have already boughtthe train ticket). Jinni^n de xiaomM ydu huodele

fengshou (We again got abumper wheat harvest this year),

T is not used after the verb in its negative formwith m^iyou . Ta meiyou canjia zhaoddlhui

(He did not go to the reception).

Tcan also be used to stress the completion ofan action in the future. Mingtian wanshang wo xi^e

SEPTEMBER 1975

ban qu zhao ni m(Til cometo see you when I finish work tomorrow evening).

T is not used in the past other than to stressthe completion of an action. In the sentence Sh^ng-xingqi women meitian d5u qii gongshe Idoddng XM.

(We went to work in thecommune every day last week), the emphasis is onevery day and not on completion of the action. Therefore T is not used.

The use of J in Chinese is thus not identicalto that of the past tense in some foreign languages.

2. Adverbial modifiers. The adverbial modifier is an element used to modify the verb or adjective.Besides adverbs, there are many words or otherparts of speech and constructions that can functionas an adverbial modifier. Here are some examples.

(1) Adverb. Wo yijing maile hudchepi^o

T (I have already bought the train ticket).

(2) Adjective used as adverbial modifier. Women

gongzud (We work enthusiasti

cally).

(3) Time and place words used as adverbialmodifiers. Ni Jintian wuf^nhdu gei wo dianhu^

(Give me a call after

lunch today). Zhuozishang fangzhe yi jia shouphji

—(There is a radio on the table).

In Chinese, wuf^hou is a noun of time, while

zhudzishang is a noun of locality.

(4) Prepositional construction used as adverbial

modifier. The preposition and its object make upa prepositional construction. Such a constructioncan be used as an adverbial modifier. W6 zM juchang

menkou deng nimen (I'h wait

for you at the door of the theater). Zudtian wocong Xian Idldao Beijing (I

arrived in Peking from Sian yesterday). Ni gen ni

^iren yiqi Id! ^4^ (Come with your wife).

The noun or pronoun used as the object of zdi^or c6ng>^ is usually a place. If it is a person, zheriiJLor ndr ^ ;L is added to turn it into a place. Womingtian dao Lao Zhang ndr qu

(I'll go to Old Chang's tomorrow). Tamen chdng-chdng zdi w5 zhfer tdn tian

(They often come to chat at my place).

3. Use of er — and liang Both meantwo, but they are used differently. Here are some

rules.

47

(1) As a single digit before a measure word,

is usually used. Liang zhang piao (two

tickets); Liang jian yifu (two garments).

There are a few measure words with which either

or may be used. For example, liang jin ^ /p or

^ jin (two Jin).

(2) In a number with two or more digits, ^ isused. Shier ben shu (twelve books); wshi

zhi xiangyan (twenty cigarettes); yibai

«shl er hao f^ngjian — (Room No.

122). If the number begins with bai W (hundred),qian -f (thousand), wan (ten thousand) or yi jc(hundred million), may also be used as the leading digit. Liangqian sanbaikuaiqian ^ -f X V ^

(2,300 yuan).

(3) — is used as an ordinal number, but never. Dict ye ^ ^ (the second page); dier ge xingqi

(the second week); er jie (secondsister); and ^r yue (February).

4. Contractions. Forbrevity some expressions areoften condensed. One can say jin 4-0^ (thisevening) for jinfian wanshang and mingchenmJ. (tomorrow morning) for mingtian zaochen 0^ ^

These forms are used in writing but not

speaking.

Exercises

1. Fill in the following blanks with the properverbs and the particle T :

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

2. Change the "2" in the following sentences

into .r. or

1. T 2

2. it 2 o

4. 2 H 2 04^0

5. 2

(Answers on p. 41)

STAMPS OFNEW CHINA Wiisliii — A Traditional import

is an ancient form of physical culture, vigorous and rich and varied in content. It is very

popular among the masses. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the People's Republicof China released a set of six stamps entitled Wushu on June 10, 1975. Face value is 8 fen, withthe exception of stamp 6 which is 43 fen.

Stamp 1. Broadsword —position for an encounter. Yellow, blue, orange-red and white.

Stamp 2. Sword Exercise —lunge. Orange-red, rose, yellow-green and white.

Stamp 3. Boxing —graceful foot and hand work. Orange-red, rose, blue and white.

Stamp 4. Spear Exercise —a leap. Orange-red, yellow, sage-green and white.

Stamp 5. Cudgel Exercise —holding a cudgel in position. Orange-red, lavender, blue and white.

Stamp 6. Three-segment cudgel vs. two spears. Orange-red, white, light blue, purple and drab.

Stamps 1 to 5 measure 30 X 40 mm. Stamp 6 is 30 X 60 mm. Color photogravured. Perf. 11.

Serial numbers T7 (6-1 to 6-6).

45-

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