Mao Tse-tung’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has produced the greatest proletarian traffic jam in history. From Tibet to Tsingtao, the roads, rails and airlines of Red China are jammed with Chinese on the move. Most are Red Guards heading to and from Peking to spread the word of the leader’s glory. Their road map—passed out on trains, sung on airliners—is a cheap (about 25¢), red, plastic-bound copy of Mao’s Thought. So massive is the movement that the government has begun to drop a hint to the faithful: get out and walk.
Last week the New China News Agency was trumpeting the achievements of 15 young students from the Dairen Mercantile Academy in Manchuria who decided to do just that. They had to see Mao, but the distance from Dairen to Peking is 600 miles. “They recalled scenes of the Red army on the Long March and hit upon an idea: Let’s travel to Peking by foot.” On Aug. 25, they set out, “holding high the Red-covered quotations of Chairman Mao, and with revolutionary vigor vowed: ‘To make revolution, we must take the most arduous road!’ ” During the first ten days, the rain poured down and their ankles grew swollen. In order to forget the pain, they chanted: “A thousand mountains, 10,000 rivers are nothing,” an old Long Marching song. Despite fatigue they found time in four major cities and 17 counties “to help people with their household work and production, in line with Chairman Mao’s teachings and the fine working style of the People’s Liberation Army.”
Removing the Mire. Acclaimed by the populace, they encouraged one another at river crossings by recalling Mao’s recent speedy swim in the Yangtze and reciting his heroic verse: “I care not that the wind blows and the waves beat; it is better than idly strolling in a courtyard.”
Upon reaching Peking, the 15 young travelers went directly to the aid of Shih Chuan-hsiang, “a famous model sanitation worker” who carries night soil (human excrement), in order “to put into practice the spirit expounded in Chairman Mao’s writings.” They helped him haul his wares and “did minor repairs in the public toilets.” Old Shih, as the Dairen youths affectionately called him, philosophized pungently: “With our night soil ladle, we shall remove all the mire remaining in society and root out revisionism to build a bright new world.” As NCNA commented: “Although their hands were smeared with filth, these sanitation workers had the loftiest and purest souls.”
Last week the 15 hardy souls along with 1,500,000 other Red Guards were trundled by truck through Peking’s Tienanmen Square. There stood Chairman Mao himself, who recently so reticent, managed to mutter: “Long live the Chinese people!” Lin Piao, Chairman Mao’s closest comrade-in-arms, paid special attention to the new Long Marchers. With swarms of Red Guard visitors still in the capital, he said he was in favor of such treks—”as long as they are conducted in a planned, organized and well-prepared way.”
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