IN CHINESE PRISONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200230040-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 40
• Publication Date: November 1, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

NEW.YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS ' vcLto,J~. N&-Ye fllm
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N 6F . . a 1 ~aa:-3' an. :Y.a..1s,}J s
Prisoner of Mao 1h%) T "r'"t p G Yn iN S K i '-~ 4 ~vA/%ivr
r,?~-1--;- inrt virtual views and speaking to follow, though the' Soviets have
oy 1111L, ...u -
I and Rudolph Chelminski. out, but the People's Republic is still offered the most.
at the stage of its evolution where ;
n
h
G
ega
eog
Coward, McCann &
, 318 pp., $8.95 egalitarianism is the dominant creed, : l~+l evertheless, Western word-users of
education is to be only' a matter of all sorts who appreciate their relative
China Behind the Mafk acquiring technical ? skills for public freedom of expression will continue to
by Warren Phillips and Robert Keatley. nitrpc ; eS and in order to avoid the scan the variegated flood of China
Dow-Jones Looks, 151 pp., revival of the old ruing class tradition, books for clues to the future of.
$2.95 (paper) no scholarly elite can be allowed to individualism there. Are all Chinese
A Chinese View of China grow up in the universities. By this dutiful and interchangeable parts of
by John Gittings. reckoning China, like the USSR, is on Mao's great production machine? What
t has a long way still to is the role of dissent in the society?
k
b
u
our trac
. Pantheon, 216 pp.,
What are its limits? How are dissidents
$1.95 (Paper)
John K. Fai.rbank
In the global community of the post-
J~oid war world, freedom of individual
expression is becoming a universal
problem like food and energy. It is at
issue on the Watergate and other fronts
in the United States, and on the
Sal:harOv_SGIg}lemt5y't1 front in Mos-
cow, but will there he any Chinese
Sakharovs? China is achieving techn6-
logical development without Political
expression for the individual tech-
nician. The degree. of individual free-
donl to be expected in the world's
cro\vded future is more uncertain in
China than in most places because the
Chinese aye so well organized and so
!;-anti-individualist in custom and doc
trine. Are they noing to prove individu-
.alism out of d te?
China is usually fitted into the
ternational world either by a theory
of delayed progress or by a theory of
uniqueness. The first theory assumes
that China has merely been slow to t ct
on the path of modernity, but once
launched v;di come along like all the
rest of us with iridusirial;zation and all
its his and trium 11s. The second
theory, which of course is the stock in
trade of most China specialists, is that
China is unique and will never he like
other countries. (Since China is ob-
viously both like and unlike other
places, this whole discussion is a great
semi-issue in which each contestant
go.
if ones takes the other tack stressing handled?
the special character of Chinese soci- China's treatment of deviant' indi-
ety, one may conclude that the Chi- viduals in labor camps owes something
nese are far more sophisticated in their to Soviet inspiration but has developed
social organization and political life in the Chinese style, not the Soviet.
than we distant outsiders commonly The contrast emerges from an unusual
realize. This view is compatible with survivor account, by a Franco-Chinese
the Maoist orthodoxy in C; inn, which who got the full treatment during
claims that the Soviets have lost the seven lean years but learned how to.
true communist vision while China survive in the system, and was dis
retains it and can avoid the evils of charged when France recognized China
capitalism including. t)i e American type in 1964. His account is ten years old,
of individualism. from the time of troubles now attrib-
From either point of view, China is uted to Liu Shao-ch'i, before the
seen to be setting a new style, achiev- Cultural Revolution.
ing her own new solutions in applying Jean Pasqualini was born in China in
technology to modern life. For ex- 1926 of a French army father and a
ample, helped by the press of numbers Chinese mother. He grew up with
which makes automobiles for indi- Chinese playmates, looking Chinese,
viduals inconceivable, the Chinese may speaking like a native. He learned
escape the corrosive effects of auto- t French and English at French Catholic
mobile civilization. In such a crowded mission schools, and held the passport
country, communities cannot be easily of a French citizen resident in China.
destroyed, and the apparent high mo- In 1945 he worked for the Fifth US
gale of village life in the countryside Marines as a civilian specialist with the
betokens a people who can absorb a Military Police, and later for the US
great deal more modein technology Army Criminal Investigation Division
without having their local society dis- until November, 1948. In 1953 he gut
rupted. a job in a Western embassy in Peking
In this view China is well rid of the and was finally ? arrested during the
Western type of individual political anti-rightist campaign in December,
expression, opposed to it both because 1957. - .
of tradition and because of present-day Under his Chinese name, Bao Ruo-
circumstances. Life in China will fol- Wang, he then spent seven years of a
low other norms than the Bill of twelve-year sentence for criminal activ-
Rights because the letter of the law ities in the Chinese communist labor
and litigation through due process are camps, one of many millions under-
still less esteemed than the common going Reform Through Labor (Lao.Gai
r + moral sense and opinion of the group, or Lao-tun, kai-tsao), to be d1stin-
The view that China must follow subordinating individual interests to guished from the other multitudes
universal laws of development, which those of the community. The. mass of undergoing Re-education Through
China is dense enough to permit this Labor (hag Jiao or lag tar:g chiao-
appeals to Marxists among others, can,
lead one to conclude that China's ?eV ;,hoist way of life' to be preserved yang). After de Gaulle's recognition of
growth in modern scientific scholarship there during industrialization, in spite the People's Republic in 1964 led to,
still lags behind that of the Soviet of some growth of international con- Bao's release, he came to Paris for the
Union, and so cases like that of tact through guided tourism. Given first time, where he is today a re-
ety. mo
academician Sakharov have not yet their numbers, resources, and tradi- spected teacher of Chinese language.
emerged in China but will do so in the tions, the Chinese are obli ed to create In 1969 Rudolph Chelminski, the
future. Eventually, ma I ssurled, nfi rv }~~} Ls i Lie corresponds t in Paris who had
a specialized s hotar~j~pe 4~~~rr~tbt r el SYTe ~ r T~e i:s r q uff rail ei1~500002C0311SUi 13T 40-5
nUed
r
st make his own mixtue.)
 just spent two years Alppfl)v 4 leap* 240&0.u103;:f0A.RDP8fP01380ROO0IOO21IN40-51 intellectual
bureau, heard Pasqualini's amazing , to `civilian] life. Instead, after their
stories and began a three-year spare- term,, have expired they continue as
time collaboration which produced this ? "free workers" in the camp factory
book. Chelminski soon "realized (to with some extra privileges but under
my surprise, I admit) that neither Jean the sane tight discipline, pretty thor-
nor the book we were developing was oughiy adjusted and continuously pro-
anti-Chinese or even anticommunist. In ductive.
the camps he had been frankly em-. After his arrest Pasqualini, or Bao, to
ployed as slave labor, and yet he use his Chinese name, spent his first
couldn't fail to admire the strength of fifteen months in an interrogation
spirit of the Chinese people and the center. Under the warders' close super-
honesty and dedication of most of the vision, his dozen ceilmr:ates constantly
communist cadres he met." exhorted one another to behave prop-
~+ erly and with gratitude to the govern-,
the book is indeed unique, probably ment for their chance to .expiate theitr
a classic. Like Wiliam 1linton's 1'an- crimes and achieve reform. The govern-
shen: A Documentary of Revolution in ment policy was "leniency to those
a Chinese Village'] the story has been who -Confess, severity to those who
skillfully put together with conversa- resist, expiation of crimes through
bons, personalities, and incidents made gaining merits, .reward to those who
clear-cut and dramatic. It invites com- have gained merits." The key principle
parison with the accounts of Soviet throughout was complete submission
labor camps, and the comparison goes to authority.
in China's favor. Pasqualini recounts a Early on Bao was led into a torture
harrowing ordeal in grim detail but it chamber full of grisly equipment, only
is set in a social context of dedication to be told after his first shock that it
to the revolution in word and deed. was a museum pressrvecl from the
The individual is expected to submit.
complet ely and strive for reform, on Kuomintang era. Throughout his exile
rience physical coercion of prisoners
the same ancient assumption that un- was strictly forbidden. Prison life was
derlay Confucianism, that man is per- thoroughly organized to occupy nearly
fectible and can be led to proper every waking moment. Prisoners moved
conduct. at a trot with their heads bowed,
Pasqualini confirms the impression looking neither riclit nor left. They
researchers gain from talking to followed punctilious daily routines,
see Kong, including periods for meditation when
that the ng Chinese escapees in camps Hong
that the they sat cross-legged on their beds
growth of an "inmate subculture." "exactly like 'a flock of Buddhist
Martin. Whyte reminds us that in
monks. Five days a week were Deco
American prisons today, as also in pied with confessions and interroga-
Soviet labor camps under Stalin, the tions, which each man worked out
very coercive nature of the prison gives laboriously for himself with his irnter-
rise to an informal but powerful rogators. Bao wound up with a 700-
subculture which dominates the lives page statement. Sunday was free for'
of prisoners and obstructs reha:bilita- political study and Tuesday for clean-
tion."2 In the Stalinist case little stress up, including passing around "a little
was put on political re-education. In- box for toenail parin s" collected
stead, the genuine criminals were put monthly and sold for use in traditional
in charge of _ the political offenders, Chine;.e medicine. The proceeds paid
which possibly fostered production l-.ut for a movie every four months. During
not reform. fifteen months in this detention center
'T'hese evils the Chinese avoided.
Bao "ate rice only once and meat
Pasqualini says that Chinese camps are never. Six months after my arrest my
so effectively run ti-at they make a stomach was entirely caved-in and I
profit, because the Chinese,, unlike the
began to have the characteristic bruised
Soviets, realize that mere coercion
cannot get the most productive leer- joints that came from simple body
formance from prisoners. Tire Chinese contact with the communal bVitamin deficiency led to his hair
system in Pas qualini's time used hunger falling out and skin rubbing off.
as a major incentive plus m toil "Facing the government we must
surveillance, mutual denunciation, and - study together and watch each other"
self-evaluation as autolimtie disciplinary
was the slogan. posted on the walls.
gang-beating of one man by many,
sometimes even thousands, in which
the victim has no defense, not even
truth." A struggle can go on indefi-
nitely until contrition has been
achieved. The only way out is to
develop a revolutionary ardor and the
only means for that is by full confes-
sion. When it was decreed that all
prisoners should take a two-hour nap
in the summer afternoon, "anyone
with his eyes open would receive a
written reprimand. Enough reprimands
and he would be ripe for struggling.
We were very well-behaved. Model
children."
When his interrogation was finally
complete,, Bao was shown the dossier
of accusations against him. He found
that all kinds of friends and colleagues
had submitted their hand-written de-
nunciation forms about him. It was
now his turn to denounce others. "We
want you to reform, but how can me
consider you to be truly on the good
road unless you tell us about your
associates? Denunciation of others is a
very good method of penance."
Another of the devices for inhibiting
prisoner solidarity was the system by
which cellniates were obliged to settle
the ration due to each cell-member,
based on his own proposal and, every-
one else's assessment and vote. No one
could help a friend eat well, any more
than lie could avoid struggling against
him with hateful denunciations.
Finally, Bao came to trial: "You are
not obliged to say anything. You will
answer only when you are told to. We
have, chosen someone for your de-
fense." The defense lawyer made a
simple point, "The accused has ad-
mitted committing these crimes of his
own free will. Therefore no defense is
necessary."
While awaiting sentence Bao was
transferred to a transit center known
as the Peking Experimental Scientific
Instruments Factory situated next to
the pretty Tao Ran Ting Park. Ilene he
found that productive labor consisted
of folding three-foot by two-foot
printed sheets three times onto them-
selves to make book pages. The corn-
niiinal plank beds that nightly held
twelve men side by side were dis-
mantled and used as-work space by.
day. The beginner's norm of 3,000 a
day was difficult to achicyc at first but
labor, was on study nd sel it ove c
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