The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

by Frank Dikötter

This, too, took weeks of persistence and persuasion, as the work team had to convince the ‘poor’ that the ‘rich’ were behind their every misfortune, having exploited their labour since time immemorial.

The statistical evidence is woefully inadequate, but by a rough approximation between 500,000 and a million people were killed or driven to suicide.

Amid the loud shouting, I could hear the river nearby. The clouds had dispersed and the sky was clear blue. I thought: People lived harmoniously under the same sky in the same village for many years. Why did they act like this now? Why did they hate each other and torture each other like that? Was that what the Communist revolution was all about? All the ‘class enemies’ had been beaten; their faces were swollen and their heads scarred. Beatings couldn’t quench the Communists’ thirst. They started killing. After that meeting, all the former officials under the old regime were executed, including my brother; their children were sentenced to ten or twenty years in jail, where some lost their minds, or died.26

‘We all felt fear. We stopped speaking even to those with whom we were normally very close. You did not dare speak with others about what was on your mind, even with those close to you, because it was very likely that they would denounce you.

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