Who Stole the Locomotive?

Only rarely does the world have an opportunity to catch glimpses of the confused reality behind Communist China's facade, and last week China-watchers were poring over the transcript of a summer meeting in Peking that offered choice insight into the passions aroused by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The document, a Red Guard pamphlet obtained in Hong Kong, purports to be the minutes of a meeting of the Peking leadership with rival Red Guard factions from the still troubled Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region that borders on North Viet Nam. There, factional strife had drastically curtailed rail shipment of aid to Hanoi. Exasperated officials summoned Red Guard leaders to an acrimonious conference in Peking, where the rebels were interrogated by the leadership, including Premier Chou En-lai and Kang Sheng, the Chinese Communist Party's expert in ideological matters. Excerpts from the transcript:

Kang Sheng: I have to tell you that you are not here to argue a case. You cannot insist on conditions, and what is more, you cannot insist on bargaining with the proletarian headquarters. The problem of Kwangsi, particularly that of suspension of railway traffic, has been dragging on for two months. I now want to ask you: are you opposed to the U.S., or not?

Red Guards: We are.

Kang: Do you support the Vietnamese people in their anti-U.S. struggle?

Red Guards: We do.

Kang: Now supplies in aid of the Vietnamese in their anti-U.S. struggle are looted, and railway traffic is disrupted. Who is happy? The U.S. imperialists,

Soviet revisionists, renegades and enemy agents are happy. You speak of revolution, but in practice you are counterrevolutionary.

Chou: Is it true that your men took away the locomotive of Train No. 45?

Red Guard: Only once.

Chou: Oh, only once. But once is serious enough. You threatened the driver with a machine gun and took away the locomotive. It was only after I called directly over long-distance telephone and gave up a good night's sleep that you returned it. (Turning to another leader): You took part in the looting of ammunition destined for Viet Nam. Can't you hand over what you have looted? You have seized 11,800 cases of ammunition. That is no small matter. How can you try to deceive us and get away free? How can you tell lies to us and try to get away with it?

One of the Red Guards complains that his faction at Kwangsi University has been under siege for several months with nothing to eat. Chou sneers: How is it that you have nothing to eat? Haven't you seized other people's food stores?

Kang then asks bitterly: Why was the department-store building burned down? Because it was completely ransacked and looted, and the looters burned it to destroy evidence against themselves.

Late in the meeting, a Red Guard asks for the floor, but the leadership evidently has had enough. Kang snaps: Don't speak any more. We have had enough of words. I declare the meeting closed.

It was a farewell performance for the young Red Guards. Within two weeks, thousands of them were on their way to corrective labor, their part in Mao Tse-tung's campaign to revive revolutionary ardor at an end.

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