6 This analogy, or one very similar to it, was
originally
suggested by Margaret Mead.
Lifton-Robert-Jay-Thought-Reform-and-the-Psychology-of-Totalism
Though I was privileged, I yet refused to shoulder the ac- companying responsibilities.
Thus, while I enjoyed special privileges in Tsinghua, yet I never burdened myself with administrative work.
The three above-mentioned phases constituted the main ingre-
? 476 THOUGHT REFORM
dients of my crust. The scope of the crust was moreover variable: one crust represented my individual self, one crust the Philosophy Department, while another represented Tsinghua. My personal crust being the "core" of this miniature universe, I accordingly remained completely indifferent to things which had little to do with my personal interests. Whenever the matter in question was in con- flict with my personal crust, I always sallied forth to give battle. As for instance, when the son of Professor Liang Ssu-ch'eng wanted to change his registration from the History Department to the Architecture Department, I, as an old friend of the family who knew him when he was born, tried to help him, in the thought that he was more suited to the study of architecture. Though there are certain strict restrictions in connection with the change of registra- tion from one department to another, yet I made use of my special privileges to work on his behalf which resulted in a series of serious mistakes. This is but one example of a situation which conflicted with my personal crust. I opposed the reform of curriculum be- cause I wanted to maintain the crust of the Philosophy Department in Tsinghua. When the regulation of departments and colleges started in 1950, I was dead against it7 for my most outstanding crust was Tsinghua University. Motivated by departmentalism, sectarianism, and the educational ideology of the bourgeoisie, I was of infinite harm to the program for the regulation of depart- ments and colleges. Had the regulation of departments and col- leges been carried out in 1950, then Tsinghua alone would have turned out another 5,000-6,000 cadres, and a far larger number would have been turned out throughout the country. Incalculable harm has thus been caused the democratic construction program of the entire country. For this I now hate myself beyond measure.
MY POLITICAL A TTITUDE
My crust is based on the past prevailing economic social founda- tion, that is, the capitalistic social system. In order to protect this crust, I had to give my political support to the old system of democ- racy. As a confirmed individualistic liberal, I have always based my political attitude upon this point of view. Only now have I realized that fact that the old democracy is but the dictatorship of the bourgeois class, and the so-called individual freedom is but the "freedom" for the bourgeoisie to exploit and oppress the laboring
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 477
people. My numerous criminal deeds of the past should thus be attributed to my acceptance of individual liberalism.
With regard to my attitude toward American imperialism, as a result of long years of studying in America, the evil influences of bourgeois education, my large number of American friends, and my constant contact with Americans, I became instilled with pro- American thoughts which prevented me from realizing American imperialism's plots of aggression against China during the past hundred years, and turned me into an unconscious instrument of American imperialistic cultural aggression. I cried bitterly over the Twenty-one Demands, but took no notice of the Sino-American Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation. While I was highly indignant at the time of the Tsinan Incident during the Northern Expedition, and was all for resisting Japan when the Muk- den incident and the Luguochiao Incident took place, I never- theless remained blind to the misdeeds of American soldiers in China. In 1943 I was one of the Chinese professors who went to America on the invitation of the American State Department. There, totally deprived of my national standpoint as a result of my pro-American thoughts, I even tried to persuade the American State Department to force bandit Chiang to practice democracy.
With regard to my attitude toward the Soviet Union, in always looking at the USSR from the viewpoint of old democracy, I consistently distorted and slandered the Soviet Union, and right up to the liberation I thought that individual "freedom" does not exist in the Soviet Union. I considered both the October Revolu- tion and the purges within the Party to be "going too far," and that the Soviet Union made use of the Communist Party in other countries to interfere in their internal affairs. All these ideas were of course mistaken and reactionary. My principal mistake lay in thinking of the Soviet Union as devoid of individual freedom. At that time, in failing to take the October Revolution as an epoch- making great event of history, I only tried to antagonize the Soviet Union on the basis of my individual liberal pro-America ideology. It was only after the liberation that I succeeded gradually in gain- ing an understanding of true freedom, and thus to change my at- titude toward the Soviet Union.
With regard to student movements, I nearly always maintained a negative and double-faced attitude toward all the student move-
? 478 THOUGHT REFORM
ments I came across in my teaching career. On the one hand I "loathed" the Kuomintang of the Chiang bandits, while on the other hand I opposed the Communist Party of China. I say "loathed" advisedly, because I never tried to oppose them by any positive effort. Before I left for America in 1943, I had to go through five days of Kuomintang training in Chungking before I could get my passport, and had to write a short essay of two hundred words on the advisability for local officials to visit the central govern- ment. This was really a shame. Though I honestly loathed the Kuomintang, this was not what mattered. The important thing was that I opposed the Chinese Communists. This dualism in my make- up was best shown at the time of the December First Incident [a student movement which took place in 1945 in Kunming]. Though I was highly enthusiastic at the start of the movement, when I followed the footsteps of the progressive elements, I later lost my interest and finally I stood for the resumption of class. This was because I opposed the Communists. Soon after the end of the movement I quarreled with Professor Chang Hsi-jo and I told him in the sternest manner and in tears that, "It is you people who made such a mess of China. After depriving China of 'freedom/ it will take I don't know how many years to have it restored/'
As viewed from the three above-mentioned aspects, my political attitude was truly intolerable. How was it possible that though early in life I loved my country and wanted to save her from the fate of partition, yet I turned out to be such a fool later? On this point I have to charge the American imperialists who made use of a mission school, that is, Tsinghua College, and of the education I received while in America, to turn me into an instrument of Amer- ican imperialistic cultural aggression, deprived me of my national standpoint, prevented me from making a distinction between our friends and our enemies, and led me to do things detrimental to the people.
MY IDEOLOGICAL CHANGE
My preliminary understanding of the People's Liberation Army and the Communist Party. The miracles of the People's Liberation Army demanded my whole-hearted respect. I never thought such discipline possible, and they love the people so much. In the early days after the liberation, I was highly moved by an episode involv-
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 479
ing the son of my maid Liu. When her son, who was working in a certain factory, misbehaved himself, certain soldiers of the PLA stationed in that factory tried to reform him by education. When this failed, two comrades of the PLA approached Liu to request her to go and reform her son. In the end, the two soldiers treated the mother to a meal and finally saw her home. I consider such a fighting force as unique in history. In the spring of 1949, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to listen to a series of reports rendered by various senior Party cadres. There attitude was so very honest and sincere and they were always prepared to practice what they preach. Though all occupying senior positions within the Party, they yet were always ready to admit their mistakes publicly before the masses. Such a party I consider unprecedented in China. However, this kind of recognition was only the preliminary stage of cognition through emotion, something within the capability of all Chinese.
My change in philosophical ideology. Generally speaking this change can be divided into three periods. During the first period, I was still unable to link up the actualities of the revolution with Marxism-Leninism. Though I had already acquired a preliminary understanding of the Communist Party and the PLA, yet this did not mean that I was ready to accept materialistic dialectics and historical dialectics. When Comrade Ai Ssu-ch'i lectured in Tsing- hua, I even tried to argue with him. Starting from the months of March and April 1949, I began to attend various meetings for the exchange of philosophical opinions. Even at that time I still held two mistaken points of view: in the first place I still looked upon materialistic dialectics and the old philosophy as equals, and, under the illusion that our Communist comrades were ignorant of the old philosophy, had the wish to initiate them in the mysteries of old philosophy; in the second place, in the mistaken idea that materialistic dialectics and historical dialectics were not well sys- tematized, I thought of putting them to order by means of my trivial system of analysis. My unbelievable arrogance and ignorance was the result of the fact that I was still looking at materialistic dialectics on the basis of the old philosophy. As I took part in the first attempt at curriculum reform in the above mentioned spirit, naturally nothing was accomplished. The Philosophy Department was thus prevented from making any progress.
? 480 THOUGHT REFORM
The second period lasted roughly from the start of the second attempt at curriculum reform in 1950 to the spring of 1951. From the very start of this period I had already accepted the leading posi- tion of materialistic dialectics, and rectified my two above-men- tioned mistakes. I then considered materialistic dialectics as a piece of red string linking up all different branches of knowledge. Yet, though I admitted its importance in an abstract fashion, my real interests were still focused on philosophy, as one of the branches of knowledge linked up by materialistic dialectics. In this manner I was still trying to oppose the new philosophy by the old. Both on the basis of my mistaken views and in compliance to the then prevailing conditions in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department, I proposed to divide the departments into three groups: history of philosophy, logic, and history of art. Since this amounted to change in name only but not change in substance, I again succeeded in preventing Tsinghua's Philosophy Department from making any progress.
In the spring of 1951, I went regularly into the city to make a study of On Practice [an essay by Mao Tse-tung]. It was during this period that a radical change began to take place in my ideology. For almost two years before this, I had been going to the city regularly every Sunday to take part in the study activities of the Chinese Philosophy Society. Whatever I gained in the course of these two years, coupled with my study of On Practice, enabled me to realize the fundamental difference in nature between materialistic dialectics and the old philosophy. The old philosophy, being meta- physical, is fundamentally unscientific, while the new philosophy, being scientific, is the supreme truth. It was during the Curriculum Reform Campaign of 1951 that I succeeded in realizing that the mission of the Philosophy Department lies in the training of propa- ganda personnel for the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism. This time the curriculum reform was carried out in a comparatively thorough manner. However, insofar as my understanding of ma- terialistic dialectics was still based on abstract concepts, it inevitably brought serious consequences to Tsinghua's Philosophy Department.
THE DANGERS OF IDEALISM AND BOURGEOIS PEDAGOGICAL IDEOLOGY TO THE PHILOSOPHY DEP ARTMENT
Idealism and bourgeois pedagogical ideology have always oc- cupied a leading position in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department,
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 481
and I have all the time been an outstanding representative of this decadent ideology. This situation has remained more or less un- changed right from the liberation up to the moment. This naturally resulted in huge losses. In the main, our principal defects lay in our low level of political consciousness and the dislocation of theory from practice. The concrete manifestations are as follows:
To deal with materialistic dialectics by means of the analysis of concepts really amounts to the exposition of Marxism-Leninism by means of idealistic metaphysical methods. As for instance, should we try to carry out in class a conceptual analysis of "necessity and contingency" and "relative truth and absolute truth," we would inevitably fall into the trap of running around in abstract circles of concepts, with the students getting more and more confused. To teach Marxism-Leninism in such a manner can only result in the distortion of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism which in itself is concrete, militant, and should serve as the guide for our action, has, in our hands, been turned into a lifeless and abstract heap of concepts.
Under the influence of this kind of idealistic bourgeois pedagogi- cal ideology, certain students naturally fell a victim to idealism. A student by the name of Li Hsiieh-chin is, in this respect, an out- standing example. Li entered Tsinghua in 1951, and within half a year he managed to read up on Wang Yang-ming [the idealist philosopher of the Ming Dynasty], the Buddhist philosophy of Hsiung Shih-li, Moslem philosophy, and various other obscure books. When certain students felt they were unable to study the subjects they needed, they naturally changed their registration to other de- partments. Of the thirteen students of the class of 1949, nine de- cided to enter other departments; of the seven students of the class of 1950, five changed to other departments; and of the eight stu- dents of the class of 1951, two are going to change their registration to other departments.
Another undesirable manifestation in pedagogy lay in the dog- matic attempt to stuff the students with various theories, without taking pains to solve the ideological problems of the students. In- asmuch as materialistic dialectics is one of the subjects taught in the general political course attended by the entire school, I only tried to deal with materialistic dialectics in a supplementary manner, in the mistaken idea that the responsibility for the solution of ideological problems lay with the general political course, while
? 482 THOUGHT REFORM
in teaching materialistic dialectics in the Philosophy Department we only had to deal with the theoretical aspects. I thus erred in idealistically divorcing the problems of ideology and theory to cause the students great confusion.
Though Marxism-Leninism is designed to solve practical prob- lems, yet in our hands, it is fundamentally unable to solve the ideo- logical problem of the students. To cite three graduates of the 1950 class of the Philosophy Department as examples: one by the name of Tang entered the graduate school of the Philosophy Depart- ment, but he was all the time more interested in mathematics; another graduate by the name of Chou gave up all his former train- ing to enter the Physics Department of Peita; while still another graduate by the name of Shui, though he had already qualified for the graduate school of the Philosophy Department, yet chose to enter Peita to study chemistry. Though all three students had ideological trouble, yet neither I nor the other teachers of the Philosophy Department succeeded in giving them timely assist- ance. Of this year's freshman students in the Philosophy Depart- ment, eight have already signified their wish to change their regis- tration. With the situation in our department even as serious as it was, we still failed to notice it, not to say remedy the situation. It is entirely due to the fact that we were so badly poisoned our- selves that we failed to notice the seriousness of the situation and to rectify it.
In the bourgeois pedagogical method there is fundamentally no relationship between the teacher and the student. I myself only went to class to lecture, without caring whether the students un- derstood me or whether they had any problems. I often missed classroom discussions, and I had no concern for the life, ideology, and state of health of the students. In adopting a liberalist attitude towards the students' studies, the teachers of the Philosophy De- partment always left everything to the individual efforts of the stu- dents. As for instance, we remained ignorant of the fact that a certain student studied for as many as seventy hours a week, and we certainly would not have done anything had we known it.
Though the mission of the Philosophy Department lies in the training of cadres for the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism, yet as a result of the predominance of idealistic philosophy and ped- agogical practice within the department, we inevitably failed to
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 483
carry out this task, thus bringing about the above-mentioned harmful effects. Whereas this responsibility should be borne by all the professors of the Philosophy Department, the greater part of the guilt should be attributed to me for I led them to become estranged from politics and isolated from realities.
THE TEACHERS' STUDY MOVEMENT AND THE THREE-ANTI CAMPAIGN
As stated above, it was in the spring of 1951 that I began to realize the scientific and truthful nature of Marxism-Leninism, though this realization was even then abstract and conceptual. Before the start of the study movement for the teachers of Peking and Tientsin and the Three-Anti Campaign, I failed to link up Marxism-Lenin- ism both with the realities in general and with my personal case. Though I took part in numerous activities in and out of Tsinghua, these activities never influenced me to any appreciable degree. It was only at the start of the teachers' study movement that I suc- ceeded in linking myself up, criticizing my old democratic individ- ual liberalistic ideology, and taking the first step in gaining a cor- rect understanding of the Soviet Union and of American imperial- ism. I was still unable to gain a correct understanding of my former ideological self. It was only at the start of the Three-Anti Campaign that I began to understand my former self, my crust of selfishness, and my ideological shortcomings. Late in the spring of 1951, I began to try to become a good teacher of the people. However, I never was able to succeed in this. Not only did I fail, but I even committed the gravest mistakes. With the assistance of others and following my own preliminary analysis, I now consider the funda- mental ideological source for my personal crust of selfishness to be the extremely depraved, epicurean, liberalist, and bourgeois ideology of striving after individual freedom. The philosophical manifestation of this ideology was found in my preoccupation with the completely impractical and extremely abstract game of concepts. In personal philosophy of life, this ideology was mani- fested in my decadent "above-politics," "above-class," "above-the-
world," and "above-humanity" viewpoint. In actual life at school, this ideology was manifested in my attempt to maintain my life of ease and comfort and to build up a crust of special privileges. This kind of ideology was the ideology of the exploitative class, or rather the exploitative ideology of the "share-holders" and "behind-the-
? 484 THOUGHT REFORM
scene-boss" of the exploitative class. It was owing to this ideology that I was led to become estranged from the social realities and prevented from gaining a correct understanding of the people even after the liberation. I shall smash my personal crust and eradicate the bourgeois ideologies which have for years dominated my life.
MY DETERMINATION
He who loves New China well must know that in New China the people are on their feet and have come into their own. There are 470,000,000 Chinese in New China and I am one of them. This New China is working for the interests and welfare of the people of China as well as of the world. I have no wish to be an onlooker both in connection with the revolution and with the people's con- struction enterprises. I want to take part in the glorious and mighty enterprises which should be participated in not only by the young, but by the people of all ages, including the old. I am now close to sixty, and I am a criminal for having sinned against the people. From now on, however, I shall strive to become a new man and a teacher of the people in substance as well as in name. I shall exert myself to study, as well as to work, for one year, two years, three years, or even five or ten years. Provided I am able to keep up my efforts, I shall ultimately succeed.
? NOTES CHAPTER 1 (3-7)
1 Edward Hunter, Brain-washing in Red China, New York, Vanguard Press, 1951.
a Robert J. Lifton, "Home by Ship: Reaction Patterns of American Prisoners of War Repatriated from North Korea/' American Journal of Psychiatry (1954) 110:732-739. This book does not concern itself with the military application of thought reform to Westerners. Much valuable work on the subject can be found in the contents and the references of the following three symposia: "Methods of Forceful Indoctrination: Observations and Interviews," Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Symposium No, 4, July 1957; "Brainwashing," The Journal of Social Issues (1957) XIII, No. 3; and "Communist Methods of Interrogation and Indoctrination," Bulletin of the New Yorfe Academy of Medicine (1957) 33:599-653. Edgar H. Schein has done especially compre- hensive work with American prisoners of war ("The Chinese Indoctrination Program for Prisoners of War: A Study of Attempted 'Brainwashing'," Psy- chiatry (1956) 19:149-172), as have Hinkle and Wolff ("Communist Inter- rogation and Indoctrination of 'Enemies of the State*," Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry (1956) 76:115-174).
CHAPTER 2 (8-16)
1 Mao Tse-tung, "Correcting Unorthodox Tendencies in Learning, the Party, and Literature and Arts," in C. Brandt, B. Schwartz, and J. Fairbank, A Docu- mentary History of Chinese Communism, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1951, 392.
a This "argument" is extracted and quoted from two authoritative statements on the rationale of thought reform made by a leading Party theorist: Ai Ssu- ch'i, "On Problems of Ideological Reform," Hsiieh Hsl, III, January i, 1951; and "Recognize Clearly the Reactionary Nature of the Ideology of the Bour- geois Class," Current Background, No. 179, American Consulate General, Hong Kong, May 6, 1952, translated from Hsiieh Hsi, March 16, 1952, a later "self- criticism" by Ai of his earlier article.
3 "Reform Through Labor of Criminals in Communist China," Current Background, No. 293, American Consulate General, Hong Kong, September 15,
485
? 486 THOUGHT REFORM
1954. This passage was translated from an editorial in Jen Min Jih Pao (The People's Daily).
*"Regulations Governing Labor Service for Reform of the People's Republic of China/* adopted by the Government Administration Council of the Peking Central People's Government, Aug. 26, 1954, tr. in Current Background, No. 293. The practices described in these regulations had apparently been in force long before this code was enacted.
CHAPTER 3 (19-37)
1 Vincent, like many of my Western subjects, knew enough spoken Chinese so that most of his reform could be conducted in that language; and his fluency greatly improved during his ordeal. A bilingual fellow prisoner (or, during interrogations, an official translator) was always available for Chinese- English interpretation, however,
3 The judge is actually a high-ranking prison official, and the interrogations which he presides over are official court proceedings; other prison officials of less exalted rank may conduct ordinary interrogations. These distinctions do not always hold.
3 The italics used in quotations from subjects during this and subsequent chapters are, of course, my own.
*Here, and in the next case as well, I could not be sure that the recollection of sleep-deprivation was completely accurate; I believe that in both cases it was reasonably so, although the subjects may have neglected to report brief periods of dozing. The officials always allowed prisoners to get sleep enough to be able to participate in the interrogations, but sometimes during this early period of imprisonment they were permitted little more.
CHAPTER 4 (38-64)
xThis was part of a widespread change in prison policy in 1952 and 1953, Some, but not all, of the extreme practices, especially those within the cells, were curbed. After this change, in many prisons individual prisoners were pro- hibited from discussing the criminal details of their cases with cellmates; these were to be reserved for sessions with prison officials. A prisoner was still ex- pected to confess details of personal evil within the cell, but primarily in con- nection with the re-education process.
CHAPTER 5 (65-85)
1 These have been altered and expanded from an earlier analysis presented in: Lifton, "Thought Reform of Western Civilians in Chinese Communist Prisons/' Psychiatry (1956) 19:173-195.
9 Erik H. Erikson, "On the Sense of Inner Identity," Health and Human Relations, New York, 1953. See also Erikson's, "The Problem of Ego Identity," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (1956) 4:56-121.
*Some prisoners are held in isolation for a few weeks at police headquarters before being assigned to a prison cell group. They experience particularly dis- turbing feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, and abandonment; their interroga- tions become their only form of direct communication with others. Through
? NOTES 487
a slightly different route they too experience a similar regressive stance, assault upon identity, and loss of personal autonomy.
*Much of the intense anxiety stimulated during this early phase thus be- comes associated with guilt. But in addition, a certain amount of anxiety arising in connection with the developing sense of "guilt may be perceived simply as anxiety, while the guilt remains unconscious. Piers has proposed the term "guilt anxiety" as a more accurate description of this phenomenon, I have not used it here because I have found that it also can be a source of confusion. See Gerhart Piers and Milton B. Singer, Shame and Guilt, Thomas, Springfield, 111. , 1953. See also H. Basowitz, H. Persky, S. J. Korchin, and R. R. Grinker, Anxiety and Stress, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1955.
6 This analogy, or one very similar to it, was originally suggested by Margaret Mead. See her discussion in: Lifton, "Chinese Communist Thought Reform/' Group Processes, Transactions of the Third Conference, Josiah Macy, Jr. Foun- dation, New York, 1956, 249.
"See Gert Heilbrunn, "The Basic Fear," Journal of the American Psycho- analytic Association (1955) 3:447. This basic fear is similar to what Erikson has called "an ego-chill . . . the sudden awareness that our nonexistence . . . is entirely possible," Young Man Luther, W. W. Norton & Co. , New York, 1958, 111. William James has also described "the fear of the universe" of "sick souls" prior to the experience of religious conversion: The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans, Green and Co. , London, 1952.
'Erving Goffman reports that, in the parlance of the society of the mental hospital, a psychotic episode is "hitting the bottom"; this phrase contains an element of affirmation--the understanding that the patient to whom this has happened "can come up in some sense a changed person. " See Goffman*s discussion in "Chinese Communist Thought Reform," Group Processes, supra, 265, See also, in the same volume, Goffman's paper, "Characteristics of Total Institutions. "
"The alternation between kind and vindictive interrogators, like the more general alternation between leniency and assault, is a technique of thought reform which is also widely used in penal and interrogative settings every- where. But the possibility always exists that the solicitous concern of a particu- lar officials--such as the doctor mentioned in this passage, or one of the inter- rogators--is genuine, and independent of reform policy. Even if it is, however, it may have the same effects upon the prisoner; he is indeed hard put to dis- tinguish between the technical maneuver and the humane sentiment.
*This concept was originally elaborated by Theodor Reik, The Compulsion to Confess, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York, 1959. It has also been used extensively by Joost A. M. Meerloo (The Rape of the Mind, World Publishing Co. , New York, 1956, and in earlier articles listed therein) in connection with various forms of totalitarian mental coercion. I use the concept somewhat differently from either of these writers, although I have profited from both of their work. See also James Clark Moloney, "Psychic Self-Abandon and Extor- tion of Confessions," International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1955) 36:53-60.
w Erikson, Young Man Luther, 102.
"See Rollo May, "Contributions of Existential Psychotherapy/' in Rollo May, E. Angeo and H. F. Ellenberger, Existence, Basic Books, New York, 1958, p - c $ . May uses the term "ontological guilt" which he considers to be "rooted HI the fact of self-awareness" and which he distinguishes from neurotic guilt.
? 488
He also stresses, as I wish to stress here, that such guilt is universal, occurring in all cultures, and that under ordinary circumstances its recognition can lead to highly constructive effects. See also, Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1952, 52.
13 Some of the communication concepts which I employ here and in later sections have been suggested by the writings of Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson. See J. Ruesch and G. Bateson, Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, New York, Norton, 1951; and Ruesch, "Synopsis of the Theory of Human Communication/' Psychiatry (1953) 16:215-243.
CHAPTER 6 (86-116)
1 Erikson locates the identity crisis "in that period of the life cycle when each youth must forge for himself some central perspective and direction, some work- ing unity, out of the effective remnants of his childhood and the hopes of his anticipated adulthood; he must detect some meaningful resemblance between what he has come to see in himself and what his sharpened awareness tells him others judge and expect him to be" (Young Man Luther, 14).
3 The immense personal value of such a research attitude in "extreme situa- tions" was movingly demonstrated by Bruno Bettelheim in a report of his observations made while he was in a Nazi concentration camp. He describes this as follows: "The study of these behaviors was a mechanism developed by him [Bettelheim--he refers to himself in the third person] ad hoc in order that he might . . . in this way be better equipped to endure life in the camp. His observing and collecting of data should . . . be considered as a particular type of defense developed in such an extreme situation . . . based on this par- ticular prisoner's background, training, and interests. It was developed to protect this individual against a disintegration of his personality. " The two situations differed in many respects, but the investigative attitude was helpful in both. See Bettelheim, "Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations/' Jour- nal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (1953) 38:417--452.
8 Men and women in this category were in fact frequently capable, just after their release, of making the kind of probing (and sometimes exaggerated) criti- cisms of the West characteristic of those who have become acutely alienated from--and hypersensitiveto the shortcomings of--their own cultural institutions. Thus, when Dr. Vincent spoke of the wasted time spent by the Westerners living in Hong Kong ("spending four hours for nothing--between one drink and another smoke and wait for tomorrow"), he was of course expressing his own sense of dislocation; but he was also observing, through magnifying emo- tional lenses, real problems of purposelessness within the non-Communist world.
CHAPTER 7 (117-132)
*A conscience is "negative" when it is based upon an exaggerated sense of
sin, See Young Man Luther, 193.
'Erikson, "Wholeness and Totality--A Psychiatric Contribution," Totali- tarianism, edited by Carl J. Friedrich, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. , 1954, 156-171.
THOUGHT REFORM
? CHAPTER 8 (133-151)
^ a r l Stern, The Pillar of Fire, Harcourt Brace & Co. , New York, 1951.
2 The importance of anticipation and anticipatory behavior in human inter- change is generally neglected in psychological theory. See David McK. Rioch, "Psychiatry as a Biological Science," Psychiatry (1955) 18:313-321. Rioch stresses the importance of anticipatory influences in thought, reverie processes, and other subjective experience. He goes on to state that "behavior in anticipa- tion of probable environmental responses . . . is the behavior primarily studied in psychiatry. "
'Avoidance of emotional participation was extremely difficult in Chinese prisons because of the environment's constant demand for active involvement. Within the less intensive thought reform programs of Chinese-run prisoner-of- war camps in Korea, however, psychological withdrawal was widespread. It was associated with "playing it cool," which meant being unresponsive and minimally communicative, co-operating to some extent with captors, but only to the degree considered necessary to avoid reprisals. (One repatriate expressed this to me in a vivid, characteristically American, automotive metaphor: "I just put my mind in neutral. ") This useful form of withdrawal must be dis- tinguished from more profound--and frequently self-destructive--forms of apathy. See H. D. Strassmann, Margaret Thaler, and E. H. Schein, "A Prisoner of War Syndrome: Apathy as a Reaction to Severe Stress," American Journal of Psychiatry (1956) 112:998-1003; Schein, "The Chinese Indoctrination Program," supra; and Lifton, Home by Ship, Note 2, Chapter i.
*Prison officials do take great pains to prevent martyrdom, suicide, death, and irreversible psychosis; but the prisoner is nonetheless inevitably made to feel that his physical and emotional survival is at stake. And in such an extreme atmosphere, the danger always exists that the officials themselves will lose con- trol over their self-restraints to the extent of genuinely threatening the prisoner's survival--as did happen to Father Luca.
BT. W. Adorno, Elsa Frenkel-Brunswik, D. J. Levinson, and R. N. Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality, Harper and Bros. , New York, 1950; see also Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, New York, Farrar &Rinehart, Inc. , 1941; Man for Himself, New York, Rinehart & Co. , 1947.
6 This similarity may have some relationship to an observation made on the basis of psychological tests about repatriated prisoners of war: namely, that the two extreme groups--resisters and collaborators, both of which were op- posed to the in-between group of neutrals--shared a common tendency toward action, active involvement, and acting out in the face of stress, a tendency which testers felt was related to their greater self-confidence. See Schein, in "Methods of Forceful Indoctrination," supra; and Margaret Thaler Singer and E. H. Schein, "Projective Test Responses of Prisoners of War Following Repatriation," Psychiatry (1958) 21:375-385. It is impossible to say to what degree these traits among prisoners of war may be aspects of totalism, and the different nature of the activity-inactivity and activity-passivity problems ex- isting within prisoners of war camps must be kept in mind. But it does seem significant that these investigators found, as I did, important psychological similarities within subjects at the two extreme poles of response.
NOTES 489
? 4QO THOUGHT REFORM
7 The various patterns described for the three categories of response also ap- pear in written accounts by those who have undergone prison thought reform. For an example of the obviously confused, see Arthur W. Ford, Wind Be- tween the Worlds, New York, David McKay Co. , 1957. For an example of apparent converts, see Allyn and Adele Rickett, Prisoners of Liberation, New York, Cameron Associates, 1957. And ^or a n e x a m p le of an apparent resister, see Harold Rigney, Four Years in a Red Hell, Chicago, Henry Regnery, 1956.
CHAPTER 9 (152-184)
1 See Lifton, "Leadership under Stress," Symposium on Preventive and Social Psychiatry, W alter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D. C. (U. S. Government Printing Office) 15-17 April, 1957, 365-377. This is a much
briefer version of the material presented in this chapter.
2 Such re-examination is constantly taking place in social and psychological
research. I will not attempt to cite the vast literature on this subject; the fol- lowing two reports do seem to me to evince the same spirit as my own ap- proach: Fritz Redl, "Group Emotion and Leadership," Psychiatry (1942) 5:573-596; and James S. Tyhurst, "Problems of Leadership: in the Disaster Situation and in the Clinical Team," Symposium on Preventive and Social Psychiatry, supra.
CHAPTER 10 (185-206)
1 His urge to "be free" was also involved in this exaggerated activity. I am not certain of its full significance, but there is evidence (for instance, his statement about not having left the cell for a year and a half) that he was experiencing a delayed sense of confinement carried over from his imprison- ment, as if he were perceiving for the first time the full impact of those years of physical and emotional restraint. This, plus the confining elements of his new environment--its real intellectual, geographical, and interpersonal limita- tions as compared with the exhilarating and adventurous life he had led in China before his imprisonment and to some extent during his imprisonment as well--seemed to create within him an oppressive sense of spiritual claustro- phobia. He could find no outlet for his special creative talents, particularly his talent for personal mediation; and his impulses toward flight and escape must have added to his burden of guilt.
CHAPTER 12 (222-239)
1 Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Hogarth Press, London
(Strachey translation), 1950, 21.
2 E. H. Erikson, Childhood and Society, W. W. Norton & Co. , New York, 1950, 189.
8 The process described in these last two paragraphs follows the general prin- ciples of what Freud termed the "work of mourning," the more or less normal response to the loss of a loved one. I am taking the position here that the same process can occur when one is separated from an environment which holds spe- cial emotional significance for him. See Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melan- cholia," Collected Papers, Vol. IV, Hogarth Press, London, 1924.
? NOTES 4 9 1
*Malcolm Cowley, in his description of the post-World War I "lost genera- tion" of American writers, Exile's Return (Viking Press, New York, 1956), speaks of their combined adventure and nostalgia ("in Paris or Pamplona, writing, drinking, watching bull fights or making love, they continued to desire a Kentucky hill cabin, a farm house in Iowa or Wisconsin, the Michigan woods, the blue Juniata . . . a home to which they couldn't go back," [9]), then concludes that "when all the paths are seen from a distance they seem to be interwoven into a larger pattern of exile (if only in spirit) and return from exile, of alienation and reintegration" (292). My phrase, "expatriate's return," was partly inspired by Cowley's title, and this section owes much to his stimulating views of his literary generation.
B Kenneth S. Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China, New York, The Macmillan Co. , 1929, 279-280.
6 Paul A. Varg, Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats, Princeton, N. J. , Princeton University Press, 1958, 194.
'Joseph R. Levenson, "'History' and 'Value': The Tensions of Intellectual Choice in Modern China," Studies in Chinese Thought, edited by Arthur F. Wright, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1953, 151-152. Their policy of entering into Chinese life, however, sometimes led them to engage in ques- tionable practices for which they were severely criticized later on: for instance, supervising the manufacture of cannon for use against enemies of the reigning dynasty, and entrepreneurial activities for support of their missions, including money lending.
8 Columbia Cary-Elwes, China and the Cross, New York, Longmans, Green & Co. , 1957, 83.
8 Loc. cit.
10 Ibid. , 85. "Ibid. , 109.
12 Ibid. , 110-111.
13 Latourette, op. cit. , 131-155, presents a comprehensive discussion of the entire Rites Controversy. He expresses the view that Papal policy "tended . . . to keep the Roman Catholic church [in China] a foreign institution"; but he does not believe that had the opposite decision been made, the Jesuits would have succeeded--as many have thought possible--in creating a Chi- nese Church which would have won the entire country to Christianity. Although this early Jesuit mission effort failed to accomplish its evangelizing task in China, however, it did succeed in making the virtues of Chinese Confucianism known to educated Europeans, and especially to the leading philosophers of the Enlightenment. Men like Leibniz and Voltaire delighted in the democratic and rationalist elements of Confucianism, although they were not fully aware that the Confucianism about which the Jesuits reported in their letters to Europe was the classical ideal rather than the orthodoxy which already had come into being, or that the Jesuits themselves tended to exaggerate these virtues because of their urge to mediate between the two cultures. It is un- doubtedly going too far to call Confucius, as some have, "the patron saint of the Enlightenment," or to claim that "Chinese philosophy was without doubt the basic cause of the French Revolution"; but there is a good deal of evidence that the early Jesuit missionaries did as much to spread Confucian ideals in Europe as Christian ideals in China. See H. G. Creel, Confucius, The Man and The Myth, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. , London, 1951, 276-301,
? 492 THOUGHT REFORM
for an interesting if somewhat overstated discussion of this Confucian influence upon the West.
14 Harold R. Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds, New York, John Day Co. ,
i958' 1S1-
TMCary-Elwes, op. cit. , 236-240.
"Martha Wolfenstein, in her psychological study of disaster, speaks of the
"post-disaster Utopia" (Disaster, Glencoe, 111. , The Free Press, 1957, 189- 221); and G. P. Azima and F. J. Carpenter note the beneficial effects, as yet difficult to evaluate, of the reorganization of psychic structure following its disorganization through sensory deprivation (Diseases of the Nervous System, 17:117, April 1956). The formulations made in these two studies do not ex- actly coincide with the ideas I have expressed here, but I believe that these phenomena are all related.
CHAPTER 13 (243-252)
I See Brandt, Schwartz, and Fairbank, op. cit. , 19-20 and 475-481; and Maria Yen, The Umbrella Garden, New York, Macmillan, 1954.
8 Chung Shih, Higher Education in Communist China, Communist China Problem Research Series, the Union Research Institute, Hong Kong, 1953, 36.
3 For the description of the events of this campaign I have used, in addition to the reference cited above and information given me by research subjects, the following sources: Current Background (translations from the Chinese Com- munist Press, American Consulate General, Hong Kong) Nos. 169, 182, and 213, "The Communists and the Intellectuals," Stages One, Two, and Three respectively; and Richard L. Walker, China Under Communism: The First Five Years, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1955.
"Chung Shih, op. cit. , 36.
B L. S. Yang, "The Concept of Pao as a Basis for Social Relations in China," Chinese Thought and Institutions, edited by John K.
The three above-mentioned phases constituted the main ingre-
? 476 THOUGHT REFORM
dients of my crust. The scope of the crust was moreover variable: one crust represented my individual self, one crust the Philosophy Department, while another represented Tsinghua. My personal crust being the "core" of this miniature universe, I accordingly remained completely indifferent to things which had little to do with my personal interests. Whenever the matter in question was in con- flict with my personal crust, I always sallied forth to give battle. As for instance, when the son of Professor Liang Ssu-ch'eng wanted to change his registration from the History Department to the Architecture Department, I, as an old friend of the family who knew him when he was born, tried to help him, in the thought that he was more suited to the study of architecture. Though there are certain strict restrictions in connection with the change of registra- tion from one department to another, yet I made use of my special privileges to work on his behalf which resulted in a series of serious mistakes. This is but one example of a situation which conflicted with my personal crust. I opposed the reform of curriculum be- cause I wanted to maintain the crust of the Philosophy Department in Tsinghua. When the regulation of departments and colleges started in 1950, I was dead against it7 for my most outstanding crust was Tsinghua University. Motivated by departmentalism, sectarianism, and the educational ideology of the bourgeoisie, I was of infinite harm to the program for the regulation of depart- ments and colleges. Had the regulation of departments and col- leges been carried out in 1950, then Tsinghua alone would have turned out another 5,000-6,000 cadres, and a far larger number would have been turned out throughout the country. Incalculable harm has thus been caused the democratic construction program of the entire country. For this I now hate myself beyond measure.
MY POLITICAL A TTITUDE
My crust is based on the past prevailing economic social founda- tion, that is, the capitalistic social system. In order to protect this crust, I had to give my political support to the old system of democ- racy. As a confirmed individualistic liberal, I have always based my political attitude upon this point of view. Only now have I realized that fact that the old democracy is but the dictatorship of the bourgeois class, and the so-called individual freedom is but the "freedom" for the bourgeoisie to exploit and oppress the laboring
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 477
people. My numerous criminal deeds of the past should thus be attributed to my acceptance of individual liberalism.
With regard to my attitude toward American imperialism, as a result of long years of studying in America, the evil influences of bourgeois education, my large number of American friends, and my constant contact with Americans, I became instilled with pro- American thoughts which prevented me from realizing American imperialism's plots of aggression against China during the past hundred years, and turned me into an unconscious instrument of American imperialistic cultural aggression. I cried bitterly over the Twenty-one Demands, but took no notice of the Sino-American Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation. While I was highly indignant at the time of the Tsinan Incident during the Northern Expedition, and was all for resisting Japan when the Muk- den incident and the Luguochiao Incident took place, I never- theless remained blind to the misdeeds of American soldiers in China. In 1943 I was one of the Chinese professors who went to America on the invitation of the American State Department. There, totally deprived of my national standpoint as a result of my pro-American thoughts, I even tried to persuade the American State Department to force bandit Chiang to practice democracy.
With regard to my attitude toward the Soviet Union, in always looking at the USSR from the viewpoint of old democracy, I consistently distorted and slandered the Soviet Union, and right up to the liberation I thought that individual "freedom" does not exist in the Soviet Union. I considered both the October Revolu- tion and the purges within the Party to be "going too far," and that the Soviet Union made use of the Communist Party in other countries to interfere in their internal affairs. All these ideas were of course mistaken and reactionary. My principal mistake lay in thinking of the Soviet Union as devoid of individual freedom. At that time, in failing to take the October Revolution as an epoch- making great event of history, I only tried to antagonize the Soviet Union on the basis of my individual liberal pro-America ideology. It was only after the liberation that I succeeded gradually in gain- ing an understanding of true freedom, and thus to change my at- titude toward the Soviet Union.
With regard to student movements, I nearly always maintained a negative and double-faced attitude toward all the student move-
? 478 THOUGHT REFORM
ments I came across in my teaching career. On the one hand I "loathed" the Kuomintang of the Chiang bandits, while on the other hand I opposed the Communist Party of China. I say "loathed" advisedly, because I never tried to oppose them by any positive effort. Before I left for America in 1943, I had to go through five days of Kuomintang training in Chungking before I could get my passport, and had to write a short essay of two hundred words on the advisability for local officials to visit the central govern- ment. This was really a shame. Though I honestly loathed the Kuomintang, this was not what mattered. The important thing was that I opposed the Chinese Communists. This dualism in my make- up was best shown at the time of the December First Incident [a student movement which took place in 1945 in Kunming]. Though I was highly enthusiastic at the start of the movement, when I followed the footsteps of the progressive elements, I later lost my interest and finally I stood for the resumption of class. This was because I opposed the Communists. Soon after the end of the movement I quarreled with Professor Chang Hsi-jo and I told him in the sternest manner and in tears that, "It is you people who made such a mess of China. After depriving China of 'freedom/ it will take I don't know how many years to have it restored/'
As viewed from the three above-mentioned aspects, my political attitude was truly intolerable. How was it possible that though early in life I loved my country and wanted to save her from the fate of partition, yet I turned out to be such a fool later? On this point I have to charge the American imperialists who made use of a mission school, that is, Tsinghua College, and of the education I received while in America, to turn me into an instrument of Amer- ican imperialistic cultural aggression, deprived me of my national standpoint, prevented me from making a distinction between our friends and our enemies, and led me to do things detrimental to the people.
MY IDEOLOGICAL CHANGE
My preliminary understanding of the People's Liberation Army and the Communist Party. The miracles of the People's Liberation Army demanded my whole-hearted respect. I never thought such discipline possible, and they love the people so much. In the early days after the liberation, I was highly moved by an episode involv-
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 479
ing the son of my maid Liu. When her son, who was working in a certain factory, misbehaved himself, certain soldiers of the PLA stationed in that factory tried to reform him by education. When this failed, two comrades of the PLA approached Liu to request her to go and reform her son. In the end, the two soldiers treated the mother to a meal and finally saw her home. I consider such a fighting force as unique in history. In the spring of 1949, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to listen to a series of reports rendered by various senior Party cadres. There attitude was so very honest and sincere and they were always prepared to practice what they preach. Though all occupying senior positions within the Party, they yet were always ready to admit their mistakes publicly before the masses. Such a party I consider unprecedented in China. However, this kind of recognition was only the preliminary stage of cognition through emotion, something within the capability of all Chinese.
My change in philosophical ideology. Generally speaking this change can be divided into three periods. During the first period, I was still unable to link up the actualities of the revolution with Marxism-Leninism. Though I had already acquired a preliminary understanding of the Communist Party and the PLA, yet this did not mean that I was ready to accept materialistic dialectics and historical dialectics. When Comrade Ai Ssu-ch'i lectured in Tsing- hua, I even tried to argue with him. Starting from the months of March and April 1949, I began to attend various meetings for the exchange of philosophical opinions. Even at that time I still held two mistaken points of view: in the first place I still looked upon materialistic dialectics and the old philosophy as equals, and, under the illusion that our Communist comrades were ignorant of the old philosophy, had the wish to initiate them in the mysteries of old philosophy; in the second place, in the mistaken idea that materialistic dialectics and historical dialectics were not well sys- tematized, I thought of putting them to order by means of my trivial system of analysis. My unbelievable arrogance and ignorance was the result of the fact that I was still looking at materialistic dialectics on the basis of the old philosophy. As I took part in the first attempt at curriculum reform in the above mentioned spirit, naturally nothing was accomplished. The Philosophy Department was thus prevented from making any progress.
? 480 THOUGHT REFORM
The second period lasted roughly from the start of the second attempt at curriculum reform in 1950 to the spring of 1951. From the very start of this period I had already accepted the leading posi- tion of materialistic dialectics, and rectified my two above-men- tioned mistakes. I then considered materialistic dialectics as a piece of red string linking up all different branches of knowledge. Yet, though I admitted its importance in an abstract fashion, my real interests were still focused on philosophy, as one of the branches of knowledge linked up by materialistic dialectics. In this manner I was still trying to oppose the new philosophy by the old. Both on the basis of my mistaken views and in compliance to the then prevailing conditions in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department, I proposed to divide the departments into three groups: history of philosophy, logic, and history of art. Since this amounted to change in name only but not change in substance, I again succeeded in preventing Tsinghua's Philosophy Department from making any progress.
In the spring of 1951, I went regularly into the city to make a study of On Practice [an essay by Mao Tse-tung]. It was during this period that a radical change began to take place in my ideology. For almost two years before this, I had been going to the city regularly every Sunday to take part in the study activities of the Chinese Philosophy Society. Whatever I gained in the course of these two years, coupled with my study of On Practice, enabled me to realize the fundamental difference in nature between materialistic dialectics and the old philosophy. The old philosophy, being meta- physical, is fundamentally unscientific, while the new philosophy, being scientific, is the supreme truth. It was during the Curriculum Reform Campaign of 1951 that I succeeded in realizing that the mission of the Philosophy Department lies in the training of propa- ganda personnel for the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism. This time the curriculum reform was carried out in a comparatively thorough manner. However, insofar as my understanding of ma- terialistic dialectics was still based on abstract concepts, it inevitably brought serious consequences to Tsinghua's Philosophy Department.
THE DANGERS OF IDEALISM AND BOURGEOIS PEDAGOGICAL IDEOLOGY TO THE PHILOSOPHY DEP ARTMENT
Idealism and bourgeois pedagogical ideology have always oc- cupied a leading position in Tsinghua's Philosophy Department,
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 481
and I have all the time been an outstanding representative of this decadent ideology. This situation has remained more or less un- changed right from the liberation up to the moment. This naturally resulted in huge losses. In the main, our principal defects lay in our low level of political consciousness and the dislocation of theory from practice. The concrete manifestations are as follows:
To deal with materialistic dialectics by means of the analysis of concepts really amounts to the exposition of Marxism-Leninism by means of idealistic metaphysical methods. As for instance, should we try to carry out in class a conceptual analysis of "necessity and contingency" and "relative truth and absolute truth," we would inevitably fall into the trap of running around in abstract circles of concepts, with the students getting more and more confused. To teach Marxism-Leninism in such a manner can only result in the distortion of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism which in itself is concrete, militant, and should serve as the guide for our action, has, in our hands, been turned into a lifeless and abstract heap of concepts.
Under the influence of this kind of idealistic bourgeois pedagogi- cal ideology, certain students naturally fell a victim to idealism. A student by the name of Li Hsiieh-chin is, in this respect, an out- standing example. Li entered Tsinghua in 1951, and within half a year he managed to read up on Wang Yang-ming [the idealist philosopher of the Ming Dynasty], the Buddhist philosophy of Hsiung Shih-li, Moslem philosophy, and various other obscure books. When certain students felt they were unable to study the subjects they needed, they naturally changed their registration to other de- partments. Of the thirteen students of the class of 1949, nine de- cided to enter other departments; of the seven students of the class of 1950, five changed to other departments; and of the eight stu- dents of the class of 1951, two are going to change their registration to other departments.
Another undesirable manifestation in pedagogy lay in the dog- matic attempt to stuff the students with various theories, without taking pains to solve the ideological problems of the students. In- asmuch as materialistic dialectics is one of the subjects taught in the general political course attended by the entire school, I only tried to deal with materialistic dialectics in a supplementary manner, in the mistaken idea that the responsibility for the solution of ideological problems lay with the general political course, while
? 482 THOUGHT REFORM
in teaching materialistic dialectics in the Philosophy Department we only had to deal with the theoretical aspects. I thus erred in idealistically divorcing the problems of ideology and theory to cause the students great confusion.
Though Marxism-Leninism is designed to solve practical prob- lems, yet in our hands, it is fundamentally unable to solve the ideo- logical problem of the students. To cite three graduates of the 1950 class of the Philosophy Department as examples: one by the name of Tang entered the graduate school of the Philosophy Depart- ment, but he was all the time more interested in mathematics; another graduate by the name of Chou gave up all his former train- ing to enter the Physics Department of Peita; while still another graduate by the name of Shui, though he had already qualified for the graduate school of the Philosophy Department, yet chose to enter Peita to study chemistry. Though all three students had ideological trouble, yet neither I nor the other teachers of the Philosophy Department succeeded in giving them timely assist- ance. Of this year's freshman students in the Philosophy Depart- ment, eight have already signified their wish to change their regis- tration. With the situation in our department even as serious as it was, we still failed to notice it, not to say remedy the situation. It is entirely due to the fact that we were so badly poisoned our- selves that we failed to notice the seriousness of the situation and to rectify it.
In the bourgeois pedagogical method there is fundamentally no relationship between the teacher and the student. I myself only went to class to lecture, without caring whether the students un- derstood me or whether they had any problems. I often missed classroom discussions, and I had no concern for the life, ideology, and state of health of the students. In adopting a liberalist attitude towards the students' studies, the teachers of the Philosophy De- partment always left everything to the individual efforts of the stu- dents. As for instance, we remained ignorant of the fact that a certain student studied for as many as seventy hours a week, and we certainly would not have done anything had we known it.
Though the mission of the Philosophy Department lies in the training of cadres for the dissemination of Marxism-Leninism, yet as a result of the predominance of idealistic philosophy and ped- agogical practice within the department, we inevitably failed to
? A CONFESSION DOCUMENT 483
carry out this task, thus bringing about the above-mentioned harmful effects. Whereas this responsibility should be borne by all the professors of the Philosophy Department, the greater part of the guilt should be attributed to me for I led them to become estranged from politics and isolated from realities.
THE TEACHERS' STUDY MOVEMENT AND THE THREE-ANTI CAMPAIGN
As stated above, it was in the spring of 1951 that I began to realize the scientific and truthful nature of Marxism-Leninism, though this realization was even then abstract and conceptual. Before the start of the study movement for the teachers of Peking and Tientsin and the Three-Anti Campaign, I failed to link up Marxism-Lenin- ism both with the realities in general and with my personal case. Though I took part in numerous activities in and out of Tsinghua, these activities never influenced me to any appreciable degree. It was only at the start of the teachers' study movement that I suc- ceeded in linking myself up, criticizing my old democratic individ- ual liberalistic ideology, and taking the first step in gaining a cor- rect understanding of the Soviet Union and of American imperial- ism. I was still unable to gain a correct understanding of my former ideological self. It was only at the start of the Three-Anti Campaign that I began to understand my former self, my crust of selfishness, and my ideological shortcomings. Late in the spring of 1951, I began to try to become a good teacher of the people. However, I never was able to succeed in this. Not only did I fail, but I even committed the gravest mistakes. With the assistance of others and following my own preliminary analysis, I now consider the funda- mental ideological source for my personal crust of selfishness to be the extremely depraved, epicurean, liberalist, and bourgeois ideology of striving after individual freedom. The philosophical manifestation of this ideology was found in my preoccupation with the completely impractical and extremely abstract game of concepts. In personal philosophy of life, this ideology was mani- fested in my decadent "above-politics," "above-class," "above-the-
world," and "above-humanity" viewpoint. In actual life at school, this ideology was manifested in my attempt to maintain my life of ease and comfort and to build up a crust of special privileges. This kind of ideology was the ideology of the exploitative class, or rather the exploitative ideology of the "share-holders" and "behind-the-
? 484 THOUGHT REFORM
scene-boss" of the exploitative class. It was owing to this ideology that I was led to become estranged from the social realities and prevented from gaining a correct understanding of the people even after the liberation. I shall smash my personal crust and eradicate the bourgeois ideologies which have for years dominated my life.
MY DETERMINATION
He who loves New China well must know that in New China the people are on their feet and have come into their own. There are 470,000,000 Chinese in New China and I am one of them. This New China is working for the interests and welfare of the people of China as well as of the world. I have no wish to be an onlooker both in connection with the revolution and with the people's con- struction enterprises. I want to take part in the glorious and mighty enterprises which should be participated in not only by the young, but by the people of all ages, including the old. I am now close to sixty, and I am a criminal for having sinned against the people. From now on, however, I shall strive to become a new man and a teacher of the people in substance as well as in name. I shall exert myself to study, as well as to work, for one year, two years, three years, or even five or ten years. Provided I am able to keep up my efforts, I shall ultimately succeed.
? NOTES CHAPTER 1 (3-7)
1 Edward Hunter, Brain-washing in Red China, New York, Vanguard Press, 1951.
a Robert J. Lifton, "Home by Ship: Reaction Patterns of American Prisoners of War Repatriated from North Korea/' American Journal of Psychiatry (1954) 110:732-739. This book does not concern itself with the military application of thought reform to Westerners. Much valuable work on the subject can be found in the contents and the references of the following three symposia: "Methods of Forceful Indoctrination: Observations and Interviews," Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Symposium No, 4, July 1957; "Brainwashing," The Journal of Social Issues (1957) XIII, No. 3; and "Communist Methods of Interrogation and Indoctrination," Bulletin of the New Yorfe Academy of Medicine (1957) 33:599-653. Edgar H. Schein has done especially compre- hensive work with American prisoners of war ("The Chinese Indoctrination Program for Prisoners of War: A Study of Attempted 'Brainwashing'," Psy- chiatry (1956) 19:149-172), as have Hinkle and Wolff ("Communist Inter- rogation and Indoctrination of 'Enemies of the State*," Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry (1956) 76:115-174).
CHAPTER 2 (8-16)
1 Mao Tse-tung, "Correcting Unorthodox Tendencies in Learning, the Party, and Literature and Arts," in C. Brandt, B. Schwartz, and J. Fairbank, A Docu- mentary History of Chinese Communism, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1951, 392.
a This "argument" is extracted and quoted from two authoritative statements on the rationale of thought reform made by a leading Party theorist: Ai Ssu- ch'i, "On Problems of Ideological Reform," Hsiieh Hsl, III, January i, 1951; and "Recognize Clearly the Reactionary Nature of the Ideology of the Bour- geois Class," Current Background, No. 179, American Consulate General, Hong Kong, May 6, 1952, translated from Hsiieh Hsi, March 16, 1952, a later "self- criticism" by Ai of his earlier article.
3 "Reform Through Labor of Criminals in Communist China," Current Background, No. 293, American Consulate General, Hong Kong, September 15,
485
? 486 THOUGHT REFORM
1954. This passage was translated from an editorial in Jen Min Jih Pao (The People's Daily).
*"Regulations Governing Labor Service for Reform of the People's Republic of China/* adopted by the Government Administration Council of the Peking Central People's Government, Aug. 26, 1954, tr. in Current Background, No. 293. The practices described in these regulations had apparently been in force long before this code was enacted.
CHAPTER 3 (19-37)
1 Vincent, like many of my Western subjects, knew enough spoken Chinese so that most of his reform could be conducted in that language; and his fluency greatly improved during his ordeal. A bilingual fellow prisoner (or, during interrogations, an official translator) was always available for Chinese- English interpretation, however,
3 The judge is actually a high-ranking prison official, and the interrogations which he presides over are official court proceedings; other prison officials of less exalted rank may conduct ordinary interrogations. These distinctions do not always hold.
3 The italics used in quotations from subjects during this and subsequent chapters are, of course, my own.
*Here, and in the next case as well, I could not be sure that the recollection of sleep-deprivation was completely accurate; I believe that in both cases it was reasonably so, although the subjects may have neglected to report brief periods of dozing. The officials always allowed prisoners to get sleep enough to be able to participate in the interrogations, but sometimes during this early period of imprisonment they were permitted little more.
CHAPTER 4 (38-64)
xThis was part of a widespread change in prison policy in 1952 and 1953, Some, but not all, of the extreme practices, especially those within the cells, were curbed. After this change, in many prisons individual prisoners were pro- hibited from discussing the criminal details of their cases with cellmates; these were to be reserved for sessions with prison officials. A prisoner was still ex- pected to confess details of personal evil within the cell, but primarily in con- nection with the re-education process.
CHAPTER 5 (65-85)
1 These have been altered and expanded from an earlier analysis presented in: Lifton, "Thought Reform of Western Civilians in Chinese Communist Prisons/' Psychiatry (1956) 19:173-195.
9 Erik H. Erikson, "On the Sense of Inner Identity," Health and Human Relations, New York, 1953. See also Erikson's, "The Problem of Ego Identity," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (1956) 4:56-121.
*Some prisoners are held in isolation for a few weeks at police headquarters before being assigned to a prison cell group. They experience particularly dis- turbing feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, and abandonment; their interroga- tions become their only form of direct communication with others. Through
? NOTES 487
a slightly different route they too experience a similar regressive stance, assault upon identity, and loss of personal autonomy.
*Much of the intense anxiety stimulated during this early phase thus be- comes associated with guilt. But in addition, a certain amount of anxiety arising in connection with the developing sense of "guilt may be perceived simply as anxiety, while the guilt remains unconscious. Piers has proposed the term "guilt anxiety" as a more accurate description of this phenomenon, I have not used it here because I have found that it also can be a source of confusion. See Gerhart Piers and Milton B. Singer, Shame and Guilt, Thomas, Springfield, 111. , 1953. See also H. Basowitz, H. Persky, S. J. Korchin, and R. R. Grinker, Anxiety and Stress, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1955.
6 This analogy, or one very similar to it, was originally suggested by Margaret Mead. See her discussion in: Lifton, "Chinese Communist Thought Reform/' Group Processes, Transactions of the Third Conference, Josiah Macy, Jr. Foun- dation, New York, 1956, 249.
"See Gert Heilbrunn, "The Basic Fear," Journal of the American Psycho- analytic Association (1955) 3:447. This basic fear is similar to what Erikson has called "an ego-chill . . . the sudden awareness that our nonexistence . . . is entirely possible," Young Man Luther, W. W. Norton & Co. , New York, 1958, 111. William James has also described "the fear of the universe" of "sick souls" prior to the experience of religious conversion: The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans, Green and Co. , London, 1952.
'Erving Goffman reports that, in the parlance of the society of the mental hospital, a psychotic episode is "hitting the bottom"; this phrase contains an element of affirmation--the understanding that the patient to whom this has happened "can come up in some sense a changed person. " See Goffman*s discussion in "Chinese Communist Thought Reform," Group Processes, supra, 265, See also, in the same volume, Goffman's paper, "Characteristics of Total Institutions. "
"The alternation between kind and vindictive interrogators, like the more general alternation between leniency and assault, is a technique of thought reform which is also widely used in penal and interrogative settings every- where. But the possibility always exists that the solicitous concern of a particu- lar officials--such as the doctor mentioned in this passage, or one of the inter- rogators--is genuine, and independent of reform policy. Even if it is, however, it may have the same effects upon the prisoner; he is indeed hard put to dis- tinguish between the technical maneuver and the humane sentiment.
*This concept was originally elaborated by Theodor Reik, The Compulsion to Confess, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York, 1959. It has also been used extensively by Joost A. M. Meerloo (The Rape of the Mind, World Publishing Co. , New York, 1956, and in earlier articles listed therein) in connection with various forms of totalitarian mental coercion. I use the concept somewhat differently from either of these writers, although I have profited from both of their work. See also James Clark Moloney, "Psychic Self-Abandon and Extor- tion of Confessions," International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1955) 36:53-60.
w Erikson, Young Man Luther, 102.
"See Rollo May, "Contributions of Existential Psychotherapy/' in Rollo May, E. Angeo and H. F. Ellenberger, Existence, Basic Books, New York, 1958, p - c $ . May uses the term "ontological guilt" which he considers to be "rooted HI the fact of self-awareness" and which he distinguishes from neurotic guilt.
? 488
He also stresses, as I wish to stress here, that such guilt is universal, occurring in all cultures, and that under ordinary circumstances its recognition can lead to highly constructive effects. See also, Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1952, 52.
13 Some of the communication concepts which I employ here and in later sections have been suggested by the writings of Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson. See J. Ruesch and G. Bateson, Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, New York, Norton, 1951; and Ruesch, "Synopsis of the Theory of Human Communication/' Psychiatry (1953) 16:215-243.
CHAPTER 6 (86-116)
1 Erikson locates the identity crisis "in that period of the life cycle when each youth must forge for himself some central perspective and direction, some work- ing unity, out of the effective remnants of his childhood and the hopes of his anticipated adulthood; he must detect some meaningful resemblance between what he has come to see in himself and what his sharpened awareness tells him others judge and expect him to be" (Young Man Luther, 14).
3 The immense personal value of such a research attitude in "extreme situa- tions" was movingly demonstrated by Bruno Bettelheim in a report of his observations made while he was in a Nazi concentration camp. He describes this as follows: "The study of these behaviors was a mechanism developed by him [Bettelheim--he refers to himself in the third person] ad hoc in order that he might . . . in this way be better equipped to endure life in the camp. His observing and collecting of data should . . . be considered as a particular type of defense developed in such an extreme situation . . . based on this par- ticular prisoner's background, training, and interests. It was developed to protect this individual against a disintegration of his personality. " The two situations differed in many respects, but the investigative attitude was helpful in both. See Bettelheim, "Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations/' Jour- nal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (1953) 38:417--452.
8 Men and women in this category were in fact frequently capable, just after their release, of making the kind of probing (and sometimes exaggerated) criti- cisms of the West characteristic of those who have become acutely alienated from--and hypersensitiveto the shortcomings of--their own cultural institutions. Thus, when Dr. Vincent spoke of the wasted time spent by the Westerners living in Hong Kong ("spending four hours for nothing--between one drink and another smoke and wait for tomorrow"), he was of course expressing his own sense of dislocation; but he was also observing, through magnifying emo- tional lenses, real problems of purposelessness within the non-Communist world.
CHAPTER 7 (117-132)
*A conscience is "negative" when it is based upon an exaggerated sense of
sin, See Young Man Luther, 193.
'Erikson, "Wholeness and Totality--A Psychiatric Contribution," Totali- tarianism, edited by Carl J. Friedrich, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. , 1954, 156-171.
THOUGHT REFORM
? CHAPTER 8 (133-151)
^ a r l Stern, The Pillar of Fire, Harcourt Brace & Co. , New York, 1951.
2 The importance of anticipation and anticipatory behavior in human inter- change is generally neglected in psychological theory. See David McK. Rioch, "Psychiatry as a Biological Science," Psychiatry (1955) 18:313-321. Rioch stresses the importance of anticipatory influences in thought, reverie processes, and other subjective experience. He goes on to state that "behavior in anticipa- tion of probable environmental responses . . . is the behavior primarily studied in psychiatry. "
'Avoidance of emotional participation was extremely difficult in Chinese prisons because of the environment's constant demand for active involvement. Within the less intensive thought reform programs of Chinese-run prisoner-of- war camps in Korea, however, psychological withdrawal was widespread. It was associated with "playing it cool," which meant being unresponsive and minimally communicative, co-operating to some extent with captors, but only to the degree considered necessary to avoid reprisals. (One repatriate expressed this to me in a vivid, characteristically American, automotive metaphor: "I just put my mind in neutral. ") This useful form of withdrawal must be dis- tinguished from more profound--and frequently self-destructive--forms of apathy. See H. D. Strassmann, Margaret Thaler, and E. H. Schein, "A Prisoner of War Syndrome: Apathy as a Reaction to Severe Stress," American Journal of Psychiatry (1956) 112:998-1003; Schein, "The Chinese Indoctrination Program," supra; and Lifton, Home by Ship, Note 2, Chapter i.
*Prison officials do take great pains to prevent martyrdom, suicide, death, and irreversible psychosis; but the prisoner is nonetheless inevitably made to feel that his physical and emotional survival is at stake. And in such an extreme atmosphere, the danger always exists that the officials themselves will lose con- trol over their self-restraints to the extent of genuinely threatening the prisoner's survival--as did happen to Father Luca.
BT. W. Adorno, Elsa Frenkel-Brunswik, D. J. Levinson, and R. N. Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality, Harper and Bros. , New York, 1950; see also Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, New York, Farrar &Rinehart, Inc. , 1941; Man for Himself, New York, Rinehart & Co. , 1947.
6 This similarity may have some relationship to an observation made on the basis of psychological tests about repatriated prisoners of war: namely, that the two extreme groups--resisters and collaborators, both of which were op- posed to the in-between group of neutrals--shared a common tendency toward action, active involvement, and acting out in the face of stress, a tendency which testers felt was related to their greater self-confidence. See Schein, in "Methods of Forceful Indoctrination," supra; and Margaret Thaler Singer and E. H. Schein, "Projective Test Responses of Prisoners of War Following Repatriation," Psychiatry (1958) 21:375-385. It is impossible to say to what degree these traits among prisoners of war may be aspects of totalism, and the different nature of the activity-inactivity and activity-passivity problems ex- isting within prisoners of war camps must be kept in mind. But it does seem significant that these investigators found, as I did, important psychological similarities within subjects at the two extreme poles of response.
NOTES 489
? 4QO THOUGHT REFORM
7 The various patterns described for the three categories of response also ap- pear in written accounts by those who have undergone prison thought reform. For an example of the obviously confused, see Arthur W. Ford, Wind Be- tween the Worlds, New York, David McKay Co. , 1957. For an example of apparent converts, see Allyn and Adele Rickett, Prisoners of Liberation, New York, Cameron Associates, 1957. And ^or a n e x a m p le of an apparent resister, see Harold Rigney, Four Years in a Red Hell, Chicago, Henry Regnery, 1956.
CHAPTER 9 (152-184)
1 See Lifton, "Leadership under Stress," Symposium on Preventive and Social Psychiatry, W alter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D. C. (U. S. Government Printing Office) 15-17 April, 1957, 365-377. This is a much
briefer version of the material presented in this chapter.
2 Such re-examination is constantly taking place in social and psychological
research. I will not attempt to cite the vast literature on this subject; the fol- lowing two reports do seem to me to evince the same spirit as my own ap- proach: Fritz Redl, "Group Emotion and Leadership," Psychiatry (1942) 5:573-596; and James S. Tyhurst, "Problems of Leadership: in the Disaster Situation and in the Clinical Team," Symposium on Preventive and Social Psychiatry, supra.
CHAPTER 10 (185-206)
1 His urge to "be free" was also involved in this exaggerated activity. I am not certain of its full significance, but there is evidence (for instance, his statement about not having left the cell for a year and a half) that he was experiencing a delayed sense of confinement carried over from his imprison- ment, as if he were perceiving for the first time the full impact of those years of physical and emotional restraint. This, plus the confining elements of his new environment--its real intellectual, geographical, and interpersonal limita- tions as compared with the exhilarating and adventurous life he had led in China before his imprisonment and to some extent during his imprisonment as well--seemed to create within him an oppressive sense of spiritual claustro- phobia. He could find no outlet for his special creative talents, particularly his talent for personal mediation; and his impulses toward flight and escape must have added to his burden of guilt.
CHAPTER 12 (222-239)
1 Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Hogarth Press, London
(Strachey translation), 1950, 21.
2 E. H. Erikson, Childhood and Society, W. W. Norton & Co. , New York, 1950, 189.
8 The process described in these last two paragraphs follows the general prin- ciples of what Freud termed the "work of mourning," the more or less normal response to the loss of a loved one. I am taking the position here that the same process can occur when one is separated from an environment which holds spe- cial emotional significance for him. See Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melan- cholia," Collected Papers, Vol. IV, Hogarth Press, London, 1924.
? NOTES 4 9 1
*Malcolm Cowley, in his description of the post-World War I "lost genera- tion" of American writers, Exile's Return (Viking Press, New York, 1956), speaks of their combined adventure and nostalgia ("in Paris or Pamplona, writing, drinking, watching bull fights or making love, they continued to desire a Kentucky hill cabin, a farm house in Iowa or Wisconsin, the Michigan woods, the blue Juniata . . . a home to which they couldn't go back," [9]), then concludes that "when all the paths are seen from a distance they seem to be interwoven into a larger pattern of exile (if only in spirit) and return from exile, of alienation and reintegration" (292). My phrase, "expatriate's return," was partly inspired by Cowley's title, and this section owes much to his stimulating views of his literary generation.
B Kenneth S. Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China, New York, The Macmillan Co. , 1929, 279-280.
6 Paul A. Varg, Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats, Princeton, N. J. , Princeton University Press, 1958, 194.
'Joseph R. Levenson, "'History' and 'Value': The Tensions of Intellectual Choice in Modern China," Studies in Chinese Thought, edited by Arthur F. Wright, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1953, 151-152. Their policy of entering into Chinese life, however, sometimes led them to engage in ques- tionable practices for which they were severely criticized later on: for instance, supervising the manufacture of cannon for use against enemies of the reigning dynasty, and entrepreneurial activities for support of their missions, including money lending.
8 Columbia Cary-Elwes, China and the Cross, New York, Longmans, Green & Co. , 1957, 83.
8 Loc. cit.
10 Ibid. , 85. "Ibid. , 109.
12 Ibid. , 110-111.
13 Latourette, op. cit. , 131-155, presents a comprehensive discussion of the entire Rites Controversy. He expresses the view that Papal policy "tended . . . to keep the Roman Catholic church [in China] a foreign institution"; but he does not believe that had the opposite decision been made, the Jesuits would have succeeded--as many have thought possible--in creating a Chi- nese Church which would have won the entire country to Christianity. Although this early Jesuit mission effort failed to accomplish its evangelizing task in China, however, it did succeed in making the virtues of Chinese Confucianism known to educated Europeans, and especially to the leading philosophers of the Enlightenment. Men like Leibniz and Voltaire delighted in the democratic and rationalist elements of Confucianism, although they were not fully aware that the Confucianism about which the Jesuits reported in their letters to Europe was the classical ideal rather than the orthodoxy which already had come into being, or that the Jesuits themselves tended to exaggerate these virtues because of their urge to mediate between the two cultures. It is un- doubtedly going too far to call Confucius, as some have, "the patron saint of the Enlightenment," or to claim that "Chinese philosophy was without doubt the basic cause of the French Revolution"; but there is a good deal of evidence that the early Jesuit missionaries did as much to spread Confucian ideals in Europe as Christian ideals in China. See H. G. Creel, Confucius, The Man and The Myth, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. , London, 1951, 276-301,
? 492 THOUGHT REFORM
for an interesting if somewhat overstated discussion of this Confucian influence upon the West.
14 Harold R. Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds, New York, John Day Co. ,
i958' 1S1-
TMCary-Elwes, op. cit. , 236-240.
"Martha Wolfenstein, in her psychological study of disaster, speaks of the
"post-disaster Utopia" (Disaster, Glencoe, 111. , The Free Press, 1957, 189- 221); and G. P. Azima and F. J. Carpenter note the beneficial effects, as yet difficult to evaluate, of the reorganization of psychic structure following its disorganization through sensory deprivation (Diseases of the Nervous System, 17:117, April 1956). The formulations made in these two studies do not ex- actly coincide with the ideas I have expressed here, but I believe that these phenomena are all related.
CHAPTER 13 (243-252)
I See Brandt, Schwartz, and Fairbank, op. cit. , 19-20 and 475-481; and Maria Yen, The Umbrella Garden, New York, Macmillan, 1954.
8 Chung Shih, Higher Education in Communist China, Communist China Problem Research Series, the Union Research Institute, Hong Kong, 1953, 36.
3 For the description of the events of this campaign I have used, in addition to the reference cited above and information given me by research subjects, the following sources: Current Background (translations from the Chinese Com- munist Press, American Consulate General, Hong Kong) Nos. 169, 182, and 213, "The Communists and the Intellectuals," Stages One, Two, and Three respectively; and Richard L. Walker, China Under Communism: The First Five Years, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1955.
"Chung Shih, op. cit. , 36.
B L. S. Yang, "The Concept of Pao as a Basis for Social Relations in China," Chinese Thought and Institutions, edited by John K.
