After the death of Qin Shi Huang, China's first great dictator in history, his son, the Second Emperor of Qin, succeeded to the throne. At the time there was a chancellor named Zhao Gao, a cunning and treacherous man who monopolized power for himself. He had already become the second most powerful man in the empire, a minister of towering authority; those who flattered him, praised him, and fawned upon him spared no effort in doing so. But Zhao Gao was a deeply suspicious man, and he did not believe that all these people were truly loyal to him, so he devised a special test. One day, while touring the palace garden trailed by a large retinue of officials and advisers, he came to the deer park and, pointing at a deer, declared: ‘This is truly a fine horse.’ The sycophants around him, eager to curry favor, praised it without hesitation: ‘The Chancellor is right that this horse is fine — truly it is a splendid horse capable of running a thousand li in a day.’ Zhao Gao chuckled inwardly: ‘This man does whatever I say — a reliable supporter of mine.’ But there were also a few upright officials who stepped forward, looked closely, and saw an antlered deer standing there, not a horse at all. And so, before Zhao Gao, they said: ‘What the Chancellor just called a fine horse is not a horse at all, but an antlered spotted deer.’ Hearing this, Zhao Gao seethed inwardly: ‘This fellow still has a conscience, still has eyes of his own — he is certainly not one of my obedient followers.’
After this test, those who went along with Zhao Gao in calling the deer a horse were treated as reliable elements — in modern Communist parlance, ‘activists’ — and they became Zhao Gao's close comrades-in-arms and supporters. Those who honestly insisted it was a deer, not a horse, were condemned as dissident elements — in modern Communist parlance, ‘class alien elements’ — and they became meat under Zhao Gao's knife, fish in his cauldron.
This story has been handed down for more than two thousand years, and every Chinese person is familiar with it, or at least familiar with the idiom ‘calling a deer a horse.’ The Japanese, cleverer still, combined the horse and the deer from this story into a single word: in Japanese, baka means fool — someone so muddled he cannot even tell a horse from a deer.
Qin Shi Huang, the great dictator who hoped to rule for ten thousand generations, himself ruled for thirty-six years, and his son, the Second Emperor, ruled for fifteen — yet even the foolish-the-people policy of ‘calling a deer a horse’ could not secure their imperial dynasty. The Qin empire was toppled in an instant by the righteous uprising of an enraged people, and Xiang Yu of Chu went so far as to whip the corpse of Qin Shi Huang, this tyrant. The Chinese people cursed this tyrant for more than two thousand years — only today, under Communist rule, have court historians begun rehabilitating Qin Shi Huang, calling him a decisive statesman, a truly remarkable figure. One can well imagine the subtle purpose behind such words.
In its control over thought, the Chinese Communist Party is not only a disciple of Stalin but, in truth, a disciple of Zhao Gao of the Qin dynasty as well. It controls thought, elevates Marxism-Leninism to sole orthodoxy, and carries out endless thought reform and endless brutal ideological struggle. Its purpose is to make everyone blindly submit to Marxism-Leninism — or, failing genuine submission in their hearts, to at least profess submission with their mouths. The Communist Party is single-mindedly determined to make people unable to distinguish black from white in their thinking, right from wrong, true from false, good from evil, righteousness from corruption, horse from deer. The Communist Party's control over thought is nothing but an attempt to achieve the foolish-the-people policy of ‘calling a deer a horse.’ Since the Communist Party harbors this intention and engages in this conduct, I would like to offer it a few words: since you work so hard to enshrine Marxism-Leninism, and force the people to submit to it blindly, why not be honest about it and simply proclaim that Communist China's guiding thought is ‘Horse-Deer-ism’? That way everyone could tacitly understand one another — sparing the Communist Party the thunderous effort of enforcement, and sparing the people the suffering of having their brains washed!
The Communist Party constantly boasts that Marxism-Leninism holds universal truth. But if it is truth, it should fear neither scrutiny, nor debate, nor challenge — so why, during thought reform, does the Communist Party prepare prisons and whips behind the scenes for the people, and especially for intellectuals, arranging for the majority in a crowd to overwhelm the minority, rather than settling the matter through open theoretical debate on who is right and who is wrong? At the same time, any thought that can stand on scientific ground must also, in its actions, be scientific. Since the Communist Party calls its doctrine the most scientific of all, and claims its actions are the concrete embodiment of Marxism-Leninism — actions supposedly based on dialectical materialism, best suited to the needs of the objective environment — then the Communist Party ought to be able to rest easy, with no need to dodge and weave, no need to fear that people will expose its conduct as inconsistent with its own doctrine.
As the saying goes, ‘True gold fears no fire,’ and truth likewise fears no amount of repeated debate. Action grounded in truth must also be reasonable, appropriate, and purposeful, and should naturally withstand criticism and challenge. But the Communist Party's theory permits no dissent — any dissent is labeled ‘counterrevolutionary, reactionary, anti-Party, anti-people,’ and whoever raises it is subjected to struggle and punishment. Even when the Communist Party's own actions, expressed through its policies and administrative measures, commit grave errors that damage the people's vital interests, even costing lives, the people are still forbidden to offer criticism or protest; anyone who dares to criticize or protest becomes, once again, a ‘counterrevolutionary, anti-Party, anti-people’ element — and is killed without mercy.
The Communist Party's Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought are treated as unquestionable cosmic truth, not a single word of which may be criticized; anyone who dares touch even the slightest part of it faces mortal danger. The Communist Party's conduct, too, is treated as unquestionably correct, not to be criticized in the slightest; anyone who dares touch even the smallest part of it becomes a counterrevolutionary, a bourgeois Rightist. Whether on questions of thought or of action, people are forced into submission — forced to call a deer a horse. A deer is, of course, not a horse; but if the Party says the deer is a horse, you must echo its praise, declaring that the deer is not only a horse but a splendid one capable of running a thousand li in a day.
The Communist Party claims Marxism-Leninism to be a universal truth spanning the social sciences to the natural sciences. It claims that Western capitalist physics, chemistry, biology, and so on are idealist, and that only the physics, chemistry, and biology of China and the Soviet Union, as believers in Marxism-Leninism, are materialist and scientific. If you dare hold even the slightest dissenting view, you are deemed to have a problem with your thinking. Even if you make a genuine scientific discovery, should that discovery differ from Marxist-Leninist doctrine, you must compromise the living facts of your scientific discovery to accommodate the Party — scientific discovery must bend to the Party's lies.
Having established Marxism-Leninism as the guiding thought of Chinese society, the Communist Party demands that every Chinese person — young or old, of whatever party, male or female — join in a single chorus proclaiming ‘long live Marxism-Leninism’; otherwise, whoever, whatever group, or whatever party is found to deviate from Marxism-Leninism faces calamity. And Marxism-Leninism is not some fixed text in a dead book — it is interpreted afresh by the ruler at will. The ruler's policies and pronouncements are, at any given moment, the living embodiment of Marxism-Leninism; if you cling rigidly to the book's own dogma while ignoring the ruler's actual policies and pronouncements, this too is an error — indeed, an error and crime graver than violating the text of Marxism-Leninism itself. In short, Marxism-Leninism as China's guiding thought really means that the Communist Party's own policies and pronouncements are the guiding thought. Taking this further, Mao Zedong's every word and deed is the guiding thought — even when his words and deeds contradict Marxism-Leninism, his words and deeds are still the highest expression of Marxist-Leninist principle. And this applies not only to Mao Zedong personally: should he die or fall from power, his successor will likewise possess this same divine radiance, and his words and deeds too will be treated as the embodiment of the guiding thought. This shows that the Communist Party's ‘guiding thought’ is, in reality, nothing but the foolish-the-people policy of ‘calling a deer a horse,’ forcibly imposed on the people — and this policy of foolishness is fully armed, enforced through massacre and violence on a grand scale.
During my eight years living in Beijing, I felt keenly the cruelty of thought control — it is a waster of human life and intelligence, an executioner of culture. Every time I heard one of the Communist Party's mendacious calls to action, requiring everyone to gather and study it and voice praise and approval, a chill would run down my spine, my stomach would turn, and I would feel contempt for such shamelessness. I know that a great many intellectuals shared this same feeling. But trapped inside the prison itself, what could anyone do? Is this not a world of darkness where right and wrong cannot be told apart, where reason has nowhere to be heard? Is this not trampling the hearts and minds of tens of millions of people into the mud? Is this not a system built for manufacturing slaves? Is this not a country of universal lies, where the masses are forced to applaud in agreement? This is an age in which the spirit of Zhao Gao of Qin, the originator of ‘calling a deer a horse,’ has been reborn!
Many of my friends are scholars and university professors known throughout the country, and they too have endured the suffering of thought control. Some have told me: ‘My brain has rusted, no longer nimble at all. Since there are others thinking on our behalf anyway, we just recite what we're told and do as we're told. An intellectual's brain has become no better than dung.’ Another well-known scholar told me: ‘I am simply waiting to die. What use is knowledge!’ I mention these two anguished men because, during the mainland's Anti-Rightist campaign, both of them became targets of struggle.
In an environment dominated by Communist thought control, under this practice of calling a deer a horse, in science, literature, art, music, theater, and film alike, people simply copy the Party's mendacious formulas — who would dare to innovate or create? Every word and phrase they produce must copy the Party's stock formulas, and even then they are still liable to be attacked for making mistakes. Who, then, would have the courage or the state of mind to develop their own talents and insight through creative work? Struggling merely to cope with the environment and protect themselves, they have no energy or inclination left over for creation or invention. China's intellectuals have already been tormented by the Communist Party into a state of numb indifference. In the ten years since, has a single book of real insight been published on the mainland? Has a single novel of real value been published? Has there been a single film or play that truly moved people's hearts? Everything is Party formula, writing produced merely to get by. Chinese culture on the mainland has already declined to the point of utter silence — not even a groan of anguish can be heard.
I recall a Western story about a tyrannical king whose ears were as long as a donkey's, but who executed anyone who said so. A great many people were killed over this. Yet the more he killed, the more people wanted to say his ears were like a donkey's. So many had been killed that no one dared say it anymore. But the words pent up inside people's chests caused unbearable suffering if never spoken. One of his cooks was so tormented by this that he could not even sleep. One day, unable to bear it any longer, this cook ran out into an open field, looked around to make sure no one was near, lay down on the ground, pressed his mouth to the earth, and said: ‘The king's ears are like a donkey's.’ Having said this, he felt a great sense of relief, having released what had built up inside him. Afterward, throughout the fields of that kingdom, the very grain stalks seemed to whisper, everywhere, ‘the king's ears are like a donkey's,’ and from then on the king had no way to stop the people from speaking.
The Communist Party's control over thought, and the suffering that thought reform inflicts on the people — especially on intellectuals — is exactly like the suffering that tyrannical king inflicted on his subjects by forbidding them to say ‘the king's ears are like a donkey's.’ But in that tyrannical kingdom, at least, if you chose not to speak, you still had the freedom to remain silent. In Communist-ruled China, the people have no freedom even to remain silent. Whenever the Communist Party issues one of its mendacious calls to action, you must join in echoing it, shouting ‘long live’ three times over; you must applaud, or publish articles in support; otherwise, you are branded backward, harboring dissenting views. Over time, this becomes the very reason you are attacked or imprisoned. The Communist Party's lies always require people to applaud and praise them. What age is this? What kind of system is this? It is truly unbearable.
The Communist Party member Hu Sheng wrote an essay in 1941 for the special human-rights-movement issue of Critique of the Times, which I edited, titled ‘Without Freedom, There Is No Culture.’ I will quote a few passages from it here. He wrote: ‘Even today, there are those who believe the masses should simply be trained in pure obedience and belief — that “obedience should be obeyed to the point of blindness, and belief should be believed to the point of superstition.” Even today, there are those who believe that the masses should not be allowed their own opinions on any matter, and that if they do have opinions, they should be sent to concentration camps to “reflect” and be “corrected.” In short, even today there are those who insist that the Chinese people should not be allowed to become “human beings” — should not become active, self-aware human beings — but should remain merely slaves, passive, unthinking slaves.’
He went on to say: ‘In order to develop a new culture for a new China, this new despotism must be stamped out; the Chinese people must be completely liberated, in body and spirit alike, from the oppression of this new despotism.’
‘When a person is respected as a “human being,” and becomes conscious of being a “human being,” he throws himself all the more boldly into the work of creation and struggle.’
‘To respect a person is to respect his freedom; and to become conscious of oneself as a human being is to become conscious of one's own freedom.’
‘A person without freedom is merely a slave, and no culture can ever arise from among slaves. When slaves struggle for freedom, struggle for the rights of being human, they are, at the same time, struggling for culture.’
‘When slaves become free people, become truly human beings, a new culture is thereby established as well.’