Chapter 81 Interrogation and forced confession letter 1942-1943

The Journalist: “What are your tricks for interrogation?”

Mao: “Yes. In 1942, after taking Wang Shimi to task, I made an example of him by asking the youth to attend a meeting to criticize Wang Shimi. The ‘Trotskyist’ label was not intimidating to young people, many of whom did not know who Trotsky was. In the winter of 1942, we accused the underground party in the Kuomintang area of being the ‘Red Flag Party,’ a group of secret agents working for Chiang Kai-shek, fighting the Red Flag against the Red Flag. Now almost all the young people who came to Yan’an became suspected secret agents. They had all been members of the underground party and had been introduced to Yan’an by these organizations.”

Journalist: “Oh, first an underground branded as party organization, suspected secret agents?”

Mao: “Yes, I locked up almost all the youths as suspected secret agents, and in April 1943, thousands of people were arrested and put in newly dug kilns. One prison was in the back ravine of Zao Yuan, which could hold more than 3,000 people. Those arrested were still a minority; most were imprisoned in various institutions or schools. All units became quasi-prisons, closed up, guarded by guards and put on sentry duty. After the internment, the revolutionary youth were forced to admit that they were agents and had to bite others for being agents. This was not a real arrest of agents, but a fear mongering exercise. The real suspected secret agents were already secretly executed at the slightest discovery of suspicion.”

Journalist: “You locked up thousands of people as suspected secret agents whole?”

Mao: “Yes, it was my invention to turn work units into quasi-prisons. In the future rule, the whole of China adopted this model. In this way, it greatly increased the number of people directly involved in the repression. Hitler and Stalin were unaware of its adoption.”

Journalist: “You turned the unit into a quasi-prison, a great invention that was still commonly used up to the Cultural Revolution.”

Mao: “The torture used on detainees to extract confessions was commonly sleep deprivation, sometimes for up to two weeks. There was also hanging, tiger stool, etc., and psychological intimidation, fake shooting. In the silence of the night, far and near the ravines, rows and rows of kilns, the screams of the tortured were heard all over Yan’an.

I instructed that: the campaign will definitely make the mistake of forced confessions, correct too early or too late, are not good, too early, hinder the campaign, too late, damage to the vitality.

Combined with the torture of forced confessions was the hysterical confession conference. With the fierce slogans from the stage, those who refused to confess were tied up on the spot and dragged away to prison. The confession conference panicked people to the extreme, and was an extremely serious war of nerves, in a sense, more powerful than any criminal law.”

Journalist: “You used two hands, one hand confession conference, the other hand torture to extract confessions?”

Mao: “Yes, month after month, the center of life in Yan’an was interrogation and interrogation, one confession conference after another, and various meetings to reform the mind, to destroy the human spirit and make everyone a tame tool under my rule. All recreation and entertainment, singing and dancing, ceased. When individuals were alone, they were to write an examination of their thoughts. I instructed: each person to write an autobiography of his thoughts, which could be written three or five times, to the extent that it was good. Tell everyone to dig out everything that is wrong with the party.”

Journalist: “Your heart-digging tactics are awesome!”

Mao: “Yes, I also need to know everyone, from which channels heard, or to whom spread, all unofficial news, “small broadcast”, each person must fill out the “small broadcast” form, write whether they have heard words against the party? Zhang San spoke, Li Si spoke, and with whom did he speak any bad words? All have to explain clearly. Not only fill out the form once, but also keep digging, keep writing, keep filling out the small broadcast form, so that people will write as much as possible under the domination of fear, one person was so scared that he filled out 800 entries.

If you have nothing to see, why can’t you report to the party? At the Yan’an Administrative College, where resistance was high, at the conference ordering the filling of the ‘small broadcast’ form, someone asked, “Do I have to fill in what I say to my wife at night?” This caused the whole room to snicker. As a result, the person who asked the question, as well as most of the people at the college, became secret agents. I announced on August 8, 1943 that all but one of the faculty and staff of the School of Administration were secret agents, and more than half of the students were secret agents.”

Journalist: “Wow, you’re really something, a little discontent, all secret agents?”

Mao: “Yes, so that the terror can be suppressed. By filling out the ‘small broadcast’ form, I succeeded in getting people to inform each other, tearing the bonds of trust between people, and no one dared to speak out against others. People did not dare to spread gossip, and I blocked the only unofficial channel of information, and all the official channels were in my hands. In Yan’an, newspapers, radio, and letters from the outside world were not allowed, and it was dangerous to correspond with my family. I could not discuss with others, and I did not dare to leave black and white letters, and I was afraid to write in private. In order to show my innocence, I handed over my diary in droves.”

Journalist: “Through this series, so that everyone becomes your robot?”

Mao: “Yes, after two years of intimidation, the revolutionary youth have been transformed, once full of passion to die for the ideals of justice and equality, now turned into robots. in June 1944, a group of journalists from Chongqing was allowed to visit Yan’an, the Journalist observed that the same question was asked to 20 or 30 people, from intellectuals to workers, and the answers were almost the same. It did not matter what you asked, whether it was a question of life, a question of politics. However, they unanimously and firmly denied that the Party and the government had any control over ideas.

Journalists felt the air in Yan’an, almost suffocating. We sent people to accompany the Chongqing Journalists, and they could not interview freely. When they saw Yan’an people, most of them had serious faces and solemn expressions, and rarely could they tell a joke or two.”

Journalist: “Everyone became your submissive taming tool, and you were completely successful?”

Mao: “Yes. Helen, Mrs. Snow, said that when she was in Yan’an in 1937, people still loved to tell jokes, and when they saw me walking by, someone even squeezed their eyes and said, ‘God is gone.’ Seven years later, no one dares to say tha anymore. Humor, wisecracks, and whining can all be branded as secret service. I don’t want revolutionary idealists, I want taming tools, robots that, at the push of an electric button, turn on as I instruct them.”