No More Learning

The Europeans were brought into the cell one by one, for the apparent purpose of "helping" each other with their confessions and reform. The early pattern was essentially as follows. One European who had achieved some degree of adaptation to his en- vironment by making a satisfactory confession and taking part in the criticism of others would be joined by a second Westerner who was still in acute conflict over how much to submit. The influence of the adjusted upon the conflicted European would inevitably be in the direction of confession and reform, but his motivations for this "progressive" influence were complex and uncertain. Always present, in combinations only partially understood by himself, were a genuine desire to help a fellow Westerner to accept the inevitable; an attempt to demonstrate his own "progressiveness" to the authori- ties in order to gain "merits" toward release; and the need to justify his own self-surrender through bringing a person similar to himself into the sphere of those who have already surrendered-- a way to share guilt, shame, and weakness. All this "helping" pre- ceded the existence of a true group structure, and served as a pre- liminary softening up for the group re-education process. It also set much of the pattern for the complicated personal relationships which were later maintained within the group.
The particular people involved in this group brought to it ad- ditional sources of friction of a very formidable nature. The group eventually included a German physician with ardent Nazi sym- pathies, a highly-trained French Jesuit philosopher, a Dutch priest
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of lowly origin, a successful North German merchant, an adventur- ous South German businessman, and a French Jesuit science teacher. Among such a group, personal, cultural, intellectual, na- tional, political, and religious conflicts were always potentially dis- ruptive, and were particularly apt to emerge at times when things were not going well. The potential conflicts included the German versus the Frenchman, the Nazi versus the anti-Nazi, the priest versus the layman, the Catholic versus the Protestant, the Jesuit priest versus the non-Jesuit, the crude peasant versus the middle- class gentleman, the North German versus the Bavarian, the uni- versity graduate versus the man of limited education, the profes- sional man versus the merchant.
As though this were not enough, these men also had conflicts with each other which had existed before imprisonment--some personal and social, some ideological--for instance, disagreements among priests about whether to stand firm against all Communist pressure, or to adapt flexibly to it and accept the Communist- sponsored "independent church" movement in China. Members of these separate families within the group (priests, Germans, pro- fessional men, and so on) tended to support each other on manyis- sues, but also found themselves in the most severe personality clashes; these were sometimes so extreme that the mildest statement or action on the part of one automatically became the cause for overwhelming resentment on the part of another, and group mem- bers often quoted the maxim: "No one is the other man's devil like one priest together with another. "
Could any cohesion at all develop among such contending and unwilling guests? One might easily doubt it. Yet somehow leaders did emerge, along with a rather remarkable esprit de corps. In fact, the story of this group is really a study in leadership under stress1 --leadership not absolute or static, but active and changing. It is also a study of group, rather than individual, resistance patterns. These patterns reveal much about the group process specifically produced by thought reform, as well as something about group process in general; they also tell us something about the interplay among the personal qualities of a leader, the special demands of a milieu, and the behavior of a group.
This group experience can be divided into three phases, each identified by a particular atmosphere, and by the domination of
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one man. To be sure, what happened in one phase also occurred to some extent in the others; but the following descriptions record what was most characteristic of each phase.
The Academic Phase
When Dr. Bauer, the German physician, arrived in the cell, he found there three other Westerners, each struggling to recover from severe personal pressures, and all living in an atmosphere of great fear.
The first, Mr. Weber, the businessman from Bavaria, had just a short time before made an attempt to kill himself, and had also experienced delusions and hallucinations; with the help of the other two, he was in the process of recovering his faculties. A man of extremes, he had lived a life of great heroism and of alcoholic excess, always in conflict between his very demanding internal ethics, and his intense need to act out his rebellion. In prison, this pattern continued: he was at times absolutely unyielding in his resistance, at other moments unduly "progressive. " Inclined to be petulant and moody, he was leaning heavily upon the other two men.
The second, Mr. Kallmann, the North German merchant, had also attempted to take his own life a few months before in the midst of a severe depression with psychotic features. He had been given more time and opportunity to recover, and he had learned a "progressive" stance which he tried to convey to Mr. Weber. Mr. Kallmann possessed what the others described as "typically Ger- man" traits--loyalty, reliability, sentimentality, irascibility. At this point, his great fear was expressed in an attitude of extreme submis- siveness: "I was so submissive that when going to the water closet, they told me I was bending my head too much, and that I might run into something. "
The third, Father Emile, the French Jesuit scientist, had been a great comfort to both of the other two men. He impressed them with his outward calm and with his religious devotion, and had exerted a particularly strong influence upon Mr. Weber in reviv- ing within him the will to live. Father Emile was slow, deliberate, and was regarded by the others as "the most sober of us mentally. " He managed to remain cheerful, even to interject an occasional humorous monologue or bawdy story. But he did not possess either
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great intellectual breadth or quick tactical responses; and he was still under great personal pressure because much in his case was considered to be "unsolved. "
Dr. Bauer's arrival heralded a change in fortune for this oppressed trio. Having been subjected to relatively minor pressures, his at- titude was still one of confidence, and his entry was an injection of strength. As Mr. Weber expressed it: "He arrived like a breath of fresh air . . . He still had guts. "
Very soon after his arrival the four men were instructed to study together in English, since none of them had an extensive knowledge of spoken or written Chinese. They were to follow the usual procedure--reading from Communist documents, criticism, and analytic self-criticism--under the general direction of the Eng- lish-speaking Chinese cell chief. Thus the Westerners' group re- education began.
For the first three months, the pressures from above were relatively mild. The prison officials had apparently not yet fully worked out a system for the foreigners to follow, and the cell chief himself was notably easygoing, almost friendly. Although he met daily with prison officials, he did not seem to be greatly pressed about the behavior of the Europeans. Thus he demanded of them only that they maintain an attitude of study--without exercising any great control over what it was they were studying.
The four Westerners took advantage of this situation, and began to organize their resistance. ("It was then that our group opinion formed. ") They went through the motions of reading and dis- cussing Communist material for just a few minutes at the beginning of each study period. Then, still maintaining a strict outer decorum, they made use of their varied intellectual backgrounds to discuss principles of philosophy, religion, science, and business practice. Further, they pooled their knowledge to evolve a critique of the Communist position. As Dr. Bauer explained: "We developed the concept that modern science completely disproved Marxist materialism, and that modern science was forced to recognize a divine being. "
No one among the four Westerners had any official status as leader, but Dr. Bauer soon assumed unofficial hegemony. His in- tact emotional state was a big factor in his doing so, but his intel- lectual and psychological equipment specifically suited him for
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this role. He was by far the most knowledgeable of the group, pos- sessing a great fund of information in the natural and social sciences which far transcended his medical training. He put his extraordinary memory to good use in bringing facts and principles to the group discussions. His unusual didactic skill enabled him to command the interest of the other group members over prolonged periods of time. Further, he was happiest when dominating and teaching others, since this helped him to reinforce his tight control over his own anxiety, and over his repressed moral conflicts and self-doubts. His general psychological integration, and hard core of personal and national identity (includingthe exaggerated German nationalism of the expatriate) enabled him to articulate his firm convictions with great persuasive force. His tendency toward romantic nostalgia frequently led to enjoyable group discussions of childhood memories and idealized past experience. During most of his life, he had been quick to view anyone who disagreed with him as a personal "enemy"; in prison he was much more flexible in adapting himself to other Westerners against the "common enemy/'
His influence largely shaped most of the group practices--and his influence was overwhelmingly in the direction of resistance. Throughout the group's existence he was considered the most "re- actionary" of the Western prisoners. He repeatedly expressed to the group his opinions that the imprisonment was essentially a "police action" in which the Communists sought to obtain maxi- mum information from everyone, that the officials were not un- realistic enough to expect genuine conversions from Westerners, and that their release would have nothing to do with their "prog- ress" in reform. He illustrated his point of view by drawing a carrot- and-donkey cartoon in which the Communist rider holds out on a stick the promise of release (carrot) before the ever-struggling prisoner (donkey). He agreed with the others that it was neces- sary to tell everything about one's self that could be politically incriminating, and to make only statements acceptable to the Com- munist point of view when on public display. But he insisted that the small group of Westerners counteract the reform process by continually discussing with each other their true beliefs and their tactical maneuvers. "After following the correct platform for a while, taking notes, admitting our faults, and so on, we would say, 'Enough, boys/ and then talk frankly. "
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Dr. Bauer's influence in the group did not go completely un- resisted. The others were fearful that the group might be broken up, and each Westerner individually forced to confess to the decep- tion--a gamble which Dr. Bauer felt was worth taking. Mr. Kall- mann feared that "they might use drugs or special treatments to get out from us what was really in our hearts"; he tended to be more cautious and "progressive/7 even when he was with other Westerners, and he was critical of Dr. Bauer because "he did not understand the fundamental need to submit/' Mr. Weber also had doubts, feeling it was necessary to "put your cards on the table," and was at times unwilling, and other times unable, to maintain the subterfuge. Father Emile, although willing to go along, was at times slow to grasp the method.
Group members had other, more personal criticisms of Bauer: of his overbearing manner and need to be all-knowing ("I couldn't understand why, because if I knew as much as he knew, I wouldn't worry about not knowing something occasionally"); of his attitude of superiority, especially on a racial (Nazi) basis toward the Chinese
("He has a brilliant brain, but in regard to tactfulness there is space for improvement"); of his demand for special privileges--extra blankets and added space in the cell, officially condoned because of the "cardiac condition" which his medical knowledge enabled him to feign. His Western fellow-prisoners, from whom he also kept this subterfuge, could not object to the situation, but they did resent the arrogant fashion in which he demanded these rights. Of even more concern to the other three Westerners was Bauer's "care- lessness" and "rascal spirit"; his tendency to take what were, in their eyes, unnecessary chances out of sheer bravado. They exerted great pressure upon him to change his ways, and they succeeded in con- vincing him to behave more moderately for the sake of the group.
Despite his shortcomings, they found Bauer to be a very "good comrade," unusually patient and skillful in aiding them individually, and "a man whom you can rely on in very difficult circumstances. " They admired his intellect, and they greatly valued the calming and strengthening effect which they all acknowledged he had upon their previously beleaguered group. This first phase was by far the most untroubled and unthreatening. The group was under no great pressure from without; and the potential sources of friction within did not often materialize because all recognized the importance
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of mating small personal concessions in order to maintain the group structure which they had come to treasure.
Bauer's controversial but effective presence had made this co- hesion possible; and he in turn drew much of his personal strength from his alternative mystique of Nazism. He was a strong leader, if not always for the right reasons. In the light of what followed, the Westerners looked back over these three "academic" months as near-idyllic.
Phase of Reform
The dramatic entrance of Father Benet, the Jesuit philosopher, ushered in a new and disturbing series of events. He had been trans- ferred from another cell, in what was for him a demotion, as he had previously been a cell chief. He was under fire partly for dis- ciplinary violations, which were always dealt with firmly, as well as for an offense considered much more serious. A Chinese Catholic prisoner had tricked Benet into hearing a religious confession in the cell, and then had denounced him, since this form of religious practice was strictly prohibited in the prison. The struggle to which he was subjected upon reaching the new cell was aimed at making him do what for a Catholic priest is unthinkable--reveal the details of this religious confession. Chinese prisoners led the attack, but the Westerners had to take part. Bauer describes the scene which followed:
They manhandled him . . . pulled his beard, and kicked him in the chest. He screamed to the man who accused him, "You know I am not allowed to tell. You tell it yourself. " But the other man was silent. . . . It was difficult for us, too. We were in a rage. Kallmann was close to tears. Emile clenched his fists. I was the same.
A way out was finally achieved when Father Ben? t, after much insisting, succeeded in obtaining a release from the Chinese pris- oner to reveal the contents of the confession. But after this incident the Westerners never returned to the relative calm of their academic phase. Life in their cell had changed.
Pressures from above dictated a more intense program of per- sonal reform, and a new cell chief, much more observant and vin- dictive than his predecessor (he had a great deal in the way of "re-
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actionary" past affiliations to live down himself), was brought in to enforce this policy change. Father Benet was put through a series of severe struggles and "thought examinations" during the next few weeks; at the same time he was made "study leader" of the small Western group--a post for which he qualified because of his fluency in written and spoken Chinese, and his previous standing as a leading Western "progressive. " Now the foreigners "studied" sometimes as a separate five-man group, sometimes with their eight Chinese cellmates. In either case/ the new cell chief kept a close eye on their activities. Benet assumed a position of great responsibility, interpreting all of the study materials from Chinese to English for his Western fellow-prisoners, and answering to the authorities for what went on among them.
He brought to this task a form of leadership completely dif- ferent from Bauer's approach, startling in its demands and its performance. He expressed to the other Westerners his firm con- viction that the only way for them to earn their release was to throw themselves energetically into the reform process. This meant stop- ping at nothing to convince the officials of the extent of personal reform. He set an impressive example with his own behavior--his- trionic gestures and expressions of guilt, repentance, and self-dep- recation. He went to such extremes as describing intimate details of his own sexual life, including self-stimulation and affairs with women. His Western cellmates were themselves unsure of the truth of these sexual "confessions"; some suspected that Benet derived a good deal of satisfaction in their telling, and all were aware of the effect they had of damaging his relationship to the Catholic priest- hood. At times, however, his lurid stories of personal misbehavior were clearly fabricated, intended--as were his expressions of opinions he knew to be "incorrect"--to supply more sins to repent, additional material for his demonstrative confessions. As one of the other Westerners said:
He confessed everything, exaggerated everything. He admitted all blame with an empty heart. He was very submissive, fully and deeply recog- nizing faults, showing himself a repentant sinner. He had a lively face, lots of grimaces. He was a marvelous actor.
He expected similar behavior from the Westerners under his direction, and exerted great pressure upon them in the form of
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criticisms and sharply-worded rebukes. Not only did he insist upon the prerogatives of his official position, but he also felt that as a priest it was his duty to do everything possible to help others in the cell. With religious procedures strictly forbidden, this help had to take other forms--and the ironic situation arose in which a Jesuit saw as his priestly duty the need to "help" others along the path to Communist reform. To be sure, Ben? t initially presented his approach as a technique, a means of obtaining early release and thereby preserving values. But his extreme behavior--and particu- larly his insistence that the Westerners maintain their "progres- sive" enthusiasms and pro-Communist sentiments even among themselves--obscured this original purpose. The distinction be- tween real and make-believe was soon lost--certainly to the other Westerners in the group, and apparently to Benet himself.
Despite this "progressive" approach, Ben? t was severely treated by the cell chief, and constantly accused of "shielding" his fellow Westerners. And indeed, according to the Europeans, he did on many occasions absorb great punishment himself rather than ex- pose them. But their admiration for his courage in protecting them was offset by their gradual realization that he seemed to make little effort to avoid difficulties with the authorities, and even appeared to court them. He derived a certain amount of pleasure from his own humiliation; or, as one of his European cellmates explained, "He asked for trouble, got beatings, and was then satisfied. " Ben? t also had a penchant for bringing up highly controversial subjects when he need not have done so--for instance, the possible recon- ciliation of Catholicism with Communist materialism. He enjoyed these flirtations with danger and the opportunities they afforded for displaying his intellectual brilliance and his extensive knowl- edge of Communist theory--a practice they called "skating on thin ice. "
An even more serious problem was his tendency to be domineer- ing, and he was frequently told by his Western cellmates that he would have made a "good Prussian corporal. " What particularly disturbed them was the vehemence with which he denounced fel- low-prisoners:
He fell too easily into beating on one . . , making a man afraid . . . scolding him for hours . . . if he won't come out with something . . . forcing him to dig deeper . . . he rather enjoyed doing such things.
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After being pressured from above, he invariably increased his demands upon the other Europeans; wary of his approach, they frequently offered resistance, but they could not avoid completely the effects of his powerful influence.
Gradually the group moved in a "progressive" direction. Under Benet's direction, it studied Communist theory and practice, legal codes and policy documents, and particularly case histories--of "big criminals" who had been successfully re-educated, treated leniently, and accepted into Communist society, and of lesser of- fenders whose unwillingness to confess and reform resulted in their being shot. In his zeal, Benet was far from precise in his transla- tions, and frequently slanted them in the direction of his own point of view: "Sometimes he did not translate at all, but just told us what he wanted us to hear/' The net result was a feeling, on the part of both the officials and the prisoners themselves, that the Westerners had "raised" their (Communist-style) "political level. "
But such "progress" had to be at the expense of group solidarity. No longer pulling together in a protective effort, the Westerners' potential sources of friction became open antagonisms. Differences of opinion about how to behave were inextricably merged with the irritations of close confinement, as each of the men experienced his own special set of resentments.
Kallmann (the "typical German") describes this from his own experience:
Lots of antagonism developed between us. I myself suffered particularly. I developed a hatred at times against more or less all of them . . . hun- dreds of minor ridiculous things.
Kallmann sometimes viewed these differences as petty irritations, such as his impatience with Weber's voice ("loud and like a trum- pet"). At other times he interpreted them through the idiom of the environment, seeing in Bauer's egotism "a typical example of an imperialist. " He could, however, recognize that much of the trouble came from within himself: "I developed a horrible psychosis. . . .
I knew my irritabilities were particularly great. "
Emile (the scientist-priest) and Weber (the businessman-ad- venturer), were still close to each other, and had a common prob- lem. Neither of them as intellectually quick as the others, both of them stubborn, they were frequently made the "scapegoats" (so-
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called by themselves and the others) of the group controversies. Emile (his humor and goodwill notwithstanding) was resented for his unwillingness to compromise when the group thought it necessary. Weber's position was much more painful. Impetuous and outspoken, he had immense difficulty in adjusting to group dis- cipline, both to the general prison discipline and to the particular discipline imposed by the other Westerners. He was frequently guilty of such offenses as breaking dishes (a very serious matter), for which he was severely criticized by both the Chinese and West- erners.
More important, Weber insisted upon maintaining a separate, personal approach, an attitude of "absolute sincerity"; he deeply resented attempts by anyone to "force me to act differently from what I felt. " He neither accepted nor fully understood the tactics used by the other Westerners. They in turn criticized him sharply, feeling this criticism to be necessary from the standpoint of group survival. But he remained convinced that the others were picking on him in order to rid themselves of their own tensions.
Weber also was the center of an especially bizarre and disturb- ing situation. The group of foreigners was required to denounce the wife of one of its members, who was being held in the woman's sec- tion of the same prison. The denunciation became a very important issue, because refusal to participate meant questioning the infal- libility of the government. Each of the other foreigners, including the husband, denounced her as a tactical maneuver--but Weber refused to do so, despite the insistence of the husband himself. In this matter Weber's attitude elicited respect and caused the others shame as well as anger.
Even when the group was functioning smoothly, Weber felt uncomfortable with its policies; but during the turmoil of Ben? t's leadership, the pressures became so unbearable to him that he longed to be transferred to another cell--the only member of the group who at any time preferred to be separated from it prior to release.
My mental suffering was the limit of what I could endure . . . my main suffering came from these foreigners . . . not so much with the inspectors who I felt tried to be human. . . . Whatever I did I was always in the wrong. . . . I felt like a kind of prey in a cage. . . . I often thought it would be a pleasure to be transferred and to get away from this mental pressure. . . . I couldn't trust my friends or myself!
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No one escaped experiencing hostility toward each of the others, nor did anyone fully avoid becoming the target of the others' resentment. Now it was Bauer's aggressive and superior manner, now Kallmann's intransigent "progressivism," now Weber's shift from Kallmann to Bauer for guidance and support--and all these seemed most disrupting during this chaotic time.
But the central focus of group dissension was Ben6t himself. Here everyone had strong feelings, since Benet's character and policies so forcibly affected the minute-to-minute existence of each. The sentiment was mainly negative; most of the other Westerners were highly resentful of his egotism, his instability, and his extreme behavior. They were by no means united, however, in their attitudes toward him. Countering their resentment was their awarenessof his courage in shielding them. Kallmann was the group member who felt this most keenly, and was for some time Benet's closest collaborator and most staunch defender. His affection for him had begun when the two men had been together in a different cell be- fore the formation of the Western group. At that time, when Kail* mann was near-psychotic and overwhelmed by fear after his un- successful attempt at suicide, Ben6t had been compassionate, pa- tient, and very helpful in teaching him how to deal with the officials. Kallmann had become convinced of the validity of Benet's ap- proach, and believed it to be based on a superior understandingof Communism. Moreover, Kallmann's strong fears led him to the conviction that "we must work their mentalities into ourselves and really feel the guilt"--because "only when I get to the stage where I can genuinely feel the guilt can I genuinely convince them. "
For a long time he felt only gratitude toward Benet:
For the first months they could only approach us through him, and he took all of the struggles. If he criticized us, we beat him back. He was like a cushion, pressed from both sides. . . . I cautioned the others that this was a great strain for him. He was the person who best served as a teacher in how to behave with the Communists . . . he shielded us . . . he was kind-hearted, and we took advantage of it. . . . He did as much for us as any comrade could do.
But after a few more months, even Kallmann resisted Benet's "exaggerations," and criticized much of his domineering and ag- gressive behavior. The others in the group were less impressed by
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Bendt's shielding of them, and more consistent in their resentment. Bauer especially was constantly antagonistic to Benet ("When I look at you, I realize why Martin Luther reformed the Catholic Church"), strongly opposed his policies, and attempted to offset his influence in the group whenever possible. Emile was in conflict with him over statements and attitudes about the Catholic Church, and on several occasions flew into a rage because of Ben&'s be- havior. To Weber, Ben6t was a "proper charlatan. "
The result of this conflict was an intragroup struggle for power and influence, something like the Communist intraparty struggle, rather than a harmonious, mutually-nourishinginterplay. To be sure, even during this period the Europeans made strong attempts to preserve some degree of unity. Kallmann, for instance, recognizing his growing hostilities, pleaded with the group for assistance, and got some, at least temporarily.
I confessed it to my comrades and asked them to help me out of it-- not to allow me to isolate myself . . . and they helped me. . . . Our antagonisms were not easy to overcome.
But the trend was one of disruption. As confusion between, as one man expressed it, "playing the game and reality" mounted, the protection of a united group was lost.
What was behind Father Ben&'s rather strange approach, and where did it lead? This was not the first group with which he had come in conflict. The statements of others who knew him well --both in and out of prison--(and I have to rely on these, since he was the only one of this six-man group I did not have the op- portunity to interview) indicate he had always been a man of great learning, erratic behavior, and seething inner rebellion. Col- leagues who worked with him described him as an opinionated, outspoken person, perpetually involved in disputes. He was always very sensitive to criticism from others, and one friend felt that he had a "weak paranoia. " Despite this, he had had a brilliant and vigorous career as a Jesuit missionary in China.
Originally torn between the French and German cultural in- fluences present in the border area in which he grew up, he found a new cultural home in China: he participated energetically in Chinese life, he learned a great deal about the civilization, and translated many religious works into Chinese. His identification
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with his mission-land was so strong that he had, during the course of his work, taken out Chinese citizenship; a tradition had been established for this by earlier missionaries, but it was nonetheless a highly unusual step. Later, under the Communists, he had favored the acceptance of the government-sponsored independent church movement, and refrained from joining it only because of orders from his religioussuperiors.
His colleagues believed that much of his behavior in prison was influenced by his overwhelming desire to remain in China as a missionary. They also cited as another very important influence something that had happened shortly before Ben? t was arrested. Two Chinese brothers whom Benet knew well were imprisoned by the Communists: one of them "confessed" and was released; the other refused to confess and was shot. This was believed to be crucial in his later conviction that "confession is the only way out. " In addition, he had, early in his own imprisonment, experi- enced what a colleague referred to as "a near-complete breakdown"; and one of his Western cellmates attributed his later behavior to "enormous fear," He also developed the concept that it was neces- sary to degrade oneself "to convince the Communists that you are with them--and not in grace in the bourgeois world--so that the Communists would feel that you were so degraded in the bourgeois world that you could not go back. "
Even in prison he had moments which paralleled the brilliance of his missionary career, and evoked admiration from his Western cellmates. "He was so sparkling. . . . he had a strongly French personality--flexible, elastic, extremely 'intellectual' in a formal way . . . like Voltaire. " And there was a certain amount of awe even in their criticisms of him. "He had a satanic, biting humor . . . with his sharp intellect he could criticize everyone, even God. " But his prestige and his power within the group soon declined. His penchant for, even joy in, self-humiliation caused the other West- erners to lose respect for him. Further, his extremism led to dis- trust, both among Westerners and Chinese. It was felt that he was "too convincing"--or, in other words, easily seen through as in- sincere. Other Westerners referred to him as "the foxy philos- opher"; Chinese prisoners called him "the fox. " Although he was technically their study leader for more than a year, his influence on the Europeans gradually waned during the last half of this
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period, and by mutual unspoken consent Benet began to study more and more with the Chinese prisoners. When he was transferred from the cell, after fifteen months with the European group, he was an isolated, bitter, and defeated man:
At the end he didn't want to be with our group, only wanted to study with the Chinese, and went one hundred per cent the Chinese way. . . . When he left he was down and out, fed up with everything, and especially with us--because we wouldn't follow him.
Phase of Adaptation
Father Vechten, the Dutch priest who was the last of the six to join the group, entered the cell while Ben6t was still in charge. Since he too could speak, read, and write Chinese, the other Euro- peans began to turn to him as an intermediary between themselves and the officials or their Chinese cellmates. Father Vechten, both in his translations, and in his general approach, was a much more moderate and reliable guide than Benet. Their willingness to be in- fluenced by him undoubtedly was an important factor in the au- thorities' later decision to make him the official "study leader/'
But even before this, other changes from above helped to create an atmosphere in which he could assume informal leadership. Al- though pressures were still very strong, the extreme struggle atmos- phere which had prevailed during Ben6fs first few months in the cell had gone. The acute assaults required to "raise" the group's political level had given way to longer-term demands for the con- solidation of what had been accomplished, and the grinding out of further, day-to-day "progress. " The vindictive cell chief was replaced by a conscientious but somewhat less zealous person. And during this period, also, the group benefited from the generally moderating effects of the policy change in the Chinese penal system already referred to in Chapter 4. The extreme exhortation, the one-sided atmosphere, the hysteria of the mass campaigns, the unrelenting criticism were all still very much there. But the Westerners were permitted to settle in, and to experience their reform as a more evolutionary, and less explosiveprocedure.
What influence did Father Vechten have on the Western group? His personal qualities were in many ways the direct antitheses of those of the man he replaced: a steady intelligence without bril-
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liance, a circumspect and cautious approach, a capacity to instill profound trust in others. Further, he set a high example of personal courage and self-sacrifice, and always backed up his professed prin- ciples with his personal actions.
Before he could begin to make his influence felt, however, he had to be personally broken in, initiated into the group pattern through the "raising" of his own personal level of reform to that of the others. (Although he had been through rather severe con- fession pressures during his previous months of imprisonment, he had not yet experienced a sustained re-education program. ) Dur- ing his first few weeks in the cell, therefore, he was severely strug- gled, largely about issues dealing with the relationship of church activities to "imperialism. "
Nor was his first response to the group completely auspicious. At one point, when he was being treated in a way he considered extremely unjust, he burst into tears in a manner described by a cellmate as "crying with fury/' He had already won the sympathy of the other Westerners, but they were "surprised and shocked" at his lack of control. He weathered this episode, greatly helped by the other Europeans; at the same time they persuaded him that he had to make some concessions in order to get along.
For a while he was quite uncomfortable about making these concessions, and disturbed by the confusion in the group under Benet's leadership. But once he became convinced that the other Westerners genuinely wished to assist him, and that there was a possibility of a co-operative group approach, he became increasingly willing to compromise and fall into step. Interestingly enough, it was Bauer's "good fellowship"--despite definite points of con- flict between the two men--which did most to persuade Vechten. Once he had achieved some harmony with the group, Vechten's authority was quickly established.
For a brief period, there was a certain amount of infighting among the Westerners, a conflict among them over policy, and an inner struggle for control of the group. Bauer and Kallmann were re- sisting Benet's authority, which was declining; Vechten agreed more with them than with Benet, and his own leadership developed aided by their support.
Out of the confusion came a definite group policy which replaced chaos with a fair measure of stability. The approach was not com-
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pletely new, nor the exclusive idea of any one man; but it was Vechten, strongly influenced by Bauer, who did more than any- one else to develop it. The policy consisted of a form of acting --or "window dressing"--in which the Westerners made "big self- accusations backed up by small facts": one would accuse himself, for instance, of being "reactionary" and "backward," because of taking too much time in going to the bathroom.
Even more important, this tactic involved continual emphasis upon "playing the game" rather than losing oneself completely in the reform process. Vechten, for example, might criticize another Westerner harshly, but at the same time he would attempt to get across to him some indication that he was merely going through the necessary motions. This could not usually be done overtly, but semantic tricks were exploited by the Westerners to create a communication system which their Chinese cellmates could not penetrate. They sometimes spoke in French or German; when this was prohibited, they interjected single words or concepts from European languages. They also developed special pronuncia- tions to which they ascribed their own connotations. For instance, they distinguished between people in the ordinary meaning and the Communist mystique of "the people," by using an ordinary English pronunciation for the first meaning, and a mock French pronunciation--pee-pul--for the second. Similarly,"horse language" became a euphemism for German, and when Vechten would ad- vise some of the others not to use the "horse language," they would know that he meant it "as a friend and not really from the side of the government. " Vechten maintained at all times the convic- tion that "you must conserve your higher values in confession. . . ? not let them bring you down. "
This new approach was essentially a compromise between the two earlier ones. In its stress upon preservation of individual dignity, it resembled Bauer's method during phase one; but it entailed much more concession to and individual participation in the reform pro- gram. In its insistence upon a strongly "progressive" display, it resembled Benet's approach of phase two; but its crucial difference was the distinction it made between public gestures made to placate the government and the private world of resistance maintained among the Europeans.
The policy was logical enough. The difficulty lay in carrying it
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out. The group not only had to satisfy Chinese officials and cell- mates, it also had to sustain courage and cohesion among the group members. And it was here that Vechten's special genius emerged. He demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to deflate hostilities, dissolve conflicts, and preserve group unity. He invariably accom- plished this through a human appeal to the contending or dis- ruptive parties, and always sought to mediate and find something which he could personally share with each of them. Even his re- placement of Benet as the actual leader of the group was accom- plished with surprisingly little hostility/He approached Benet sym- pathetically, and made an effort to avoid animosity despite their differences of policy; and at the same time he adopted, as a per- sonal principle, Benet's concept that it was the duty of a Catholic priest to assist others in so stressful a situation. To the other West- erners, he emphasized Benet's personal sacrifices, and defended him in the face of their sharp criticisms. When Benet finally left the group, Vechten was on closer terms with him than was any other Westerner.
In a similar fashion, when Bauer's Nazi and racist views led to friction--Vechten himself had strong inner resentments on this matter since he had lived through the Nazi occupation of Holland, and also identified closely with the Chinese people--he appealed to Bauer's "corps spirit"; he would mention their personal bond-- Bauer's mother came from an area close to Vechten's birthplace. In the continuous conflict between Weber and the others in the group, he wasa continuous mediator. He sympathized with Weber because of common features in their background, and because both had "rough and good-hearted" characters. He viewed Weber as a man who, because of personal limitations, particularly needed help to get through the experience; and he emphasized this need to the others while at the same time using his influence with Weber to get him to submit to group discipline. With Kallmann, he found common ground in their religious feelings, despite the fact that Kallmann was a Protestant; he also discussed with him what was closest to Kallmann's heart--his wife and family. This sympathy helped Kallmann overcome many of his antagonisms, and also served to dispel occasional differences which arose between Kall- mann and Vechten himself over policy and leadership. When Emile came into conflict with the group because of his intransigence,
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Vechten appealed to him as a fellow priest, emphasizing the good he could do for others by co-operating.
Vechten's path was not always smooth, however, and he ex- perienced his own personal difficulties. When he was caught be- tween strong pressures from above, and resistance to his policies from below, he would sometimes have outbursts of anger, severe headaches, or tremors. He had moments when he felt that the game he was leading, with its concessions to the Communists, was "dirty," and from the standpoint of a priest, wrong. Therefore, when another European would resist his demands with the accus- ing statement, "And you a priest--" he became extremely upset.