Chapter 53 Six, small civil servants

I have always been a small civil servant in resources, and my specific positions are the officer of the Propaganda Department and the teacher of the Party School.As my own job, I do two things the most, one is to write materials, and the other is to give lectures.Undoubtedly, both writing and speaking are done according to orders, and the content is nothing more than political propaganda in line with the situation. At the beginning, with the sincere attitude of a student who just left school, I took the work of writing materials very seriously.I remember that the first time I took over this job was when the county held a Mao Zedong Thought lecture meeting. My superior put a lot of lecture manuscripts in front of me and asked me to review them.These manuscripts were written by scholars from various units in the county. To me, who is obsessed with cleanliness, most of them were incomprehensible, so I carefully revised them one by one and asked the original author to copy them.There is a manuscript that is reasonable, but it is too wordy, and I made a lot of deletions.I called the original author, and found out that he was a middle-aged man with the appearance of a scholar, wearing glasses, with a thin face covered with wrinkles, and smoking cigarettes one after another.He looked at my deletion and modification, and his expression seemed unwilling, but he still acquiesced.After chatting, I learned that he was originally a full-time writer in the Guangzhou Military Region, and was convicted and assigned to resources during the Cultural Revolution.His name is Liu Tianye, I praised his name, he said it was to make fun of Guangzhou people, the pronunciation of this name in Cantonese is God.After that we often chatted together until I walked out of the resource.

After finding out that I was good at writing materials, the County Armed Forces Department transferred me to work with a young officer named Tang Hai there to write materials for an advanced militia unit in the county.We have been working together for several months and often travel to the Guilin Military Division.A deputy political commissar of the military division was in charge of this matter, and seemed to appreciate me quite a bit, and half-jokingly said several times that he wanted to transfer me.Tang Hai also sent me a similar message, saying that the head of the military division is very interested in me, and I will not stay in the resource for long.However, there was no further information on this matter later, but Tang Hai went straight up. Within two or three years, he was quickly promoted by the so-called small steps, and became the political commissar of the Guilin Military Division and Guangxi Military Division in his twenties. The deputy political commissar of the military region, it is said that the intended goal is to be trained as the deputy director of the general political affairs.He is a typical cadre who went up by helicopter. After the Gang of Four fell, he fell back to the ground.According to my contact, he is not an ambitious person, the city is not deep, he is quite easy-going, he was selected in a daze.There is a kind of naive self-confidence in him. I don't think the materials we co-authored are good, but he is always extremely satisfied.Once, he attended a central study class presided over by Wang Hongwen, and chatted with me after he came back, saying that he knew the wife of a deputy army commander, who was a diplomat, and he was going to let her buy watches abroad.Speaking of this, the lucky one innocently asked: "Why is it so cheap to buy a watch abroad?" Then he answered knowledgeably: "Probably because of inflation."

I was still writing various materials in the Propaganda Department of the county party committee. Seeing that I could write, almost all the tasks of writing materials fell on me.I soon discovered that I was doing nonsense.Those who talk about materials or the advanced deeds of a certain unit have a fixed routine. In order to reflect the so-called state, they must induce the relevant subjects to fabricate moving examples and rhetoric. In most cases, they must fabricate them for them, otherwise they will not pass. .There are also those endless study classes. In the end, the chief executive will give a routine summary report, and I will write all the speeches.It is often some party members' study classes. The documents conveyed in the class are not allowed to be listened to by me, a non-party member, but I have to write the summary report, which is really absurd.I'm getting fed up, and it's humiliating to think that I have to spend the best years of my life creating this garbage.I often feel disgusted instinctively while writing, throw away after writing a few sentences, and then force myself to write a few more sentences.I asked myself over and over again: Is my life so cheap?I have established a principle for myself: use as little time as possible to perfunctory, and never spend an extra minute.Even so, the wasted time was still a lot, and it still hurts to think about it now.

Sometimes, my immediate boss thinks that a certain material is important, so he writes it with me personally, and that is the most terrible torture.The so-called writing with me personally means that he sat next to me, watched me write every sentence, and gave instructions at any time to let me erase and rewrite.As soon as I got impatient, he would earnestly teach me that good articles are made in this way.Regarding my immediate boss, I can't help but say a few more words here. He has led me for so many years, and I should be fair to him.His surname is Shi, but his character is the opposite of Shishi, cowardly and flattering, but after all he became the deputy director of the Propaganda Department, in charge of theoretical work.Of course, his character is at its fullest in front of his superiors.A deputy political commissar of the Armed Forces is the head of the political work team and is directly in charge of the Propaganda Department.In a study class, the deputy political commissar took a tutoring class and asked after the get out of class: "How is my class?" "The speech is very good, neither deep nor superficial. It is suitable for government officials and rural cadres." There is a regulation next time, so I don’t ask everyone to give their opinions.” Since this is the case, everyone stopped talking and started to play with each other.Deputy Minister Shi suddenly said in a whisper: "Let me say a few words. This time the chief is leaving, we are reluctant..." His words were interrupted by the sound of playfulness, and then resumed, his voice trembling, with a crying sound: "Reluctant, want to I can't keep it, I have no choice now, so I have to learn the good thinking and style of the chief..." I couldn't continue, took out my handkerchief and wiped my tears.

I couldn't bear to cut another great shot.Once I went to a district meeting with him and listened to the report in the auditorium.After looking for a place to sit down, he suddenly found that the wife of a district chief he knew was sitting in the front row. "Smoke, smoke." He pulled the corner of my clothes with his hand.I felt strange and asked him: "Aren't you a non-smoker?" But I still gave him the cigarette case.He took out two and respectfully handed one to the chief's wife. "Matches." He pulled the corner of my clothes again.I took out a match, and he respectfully lit another one for his wife.I put away the cigarette case and matches.After a while, the wife lit a cigarette herself and handed him one.The wife is smoking, facing the podium ahead.He held an unlit cigarette, as if waiting for something.Never seeing my wife turn around, he pulled the corner of my clothes for the third time. "What are you doing?" I was really disgusted, so I asked knowingly.At this time, he held an unlit cigarette in one hand, and groped into my pocket with the other hand, took out a match, lit the cigarette, and then groped to put the match back into my pocket.All the while he was doing this, he kept a serious expression on his face, his eyes fixed on the back of his wife's head.

It is entirely conceivable, according to the logic of character, how such a person would treat his subordinates.In his eyes, besides being a machine for writing materials, I was also a servant.He could knock on the door of my dormitory at any time and order me to do a trivial matter immediately, such as find a certain leader to attend a dinner in the cafeteria, find an electrician to fix the light in the office, and so on.I have a good temper and try not to confront him openly, but my mood is often spoiled by his wretched attitude.Therefore, when I was demoted to a party school in a remote place, I felt the joy of relief.

I was transferred to the Party School in August 1974.This is the original site of the May 7th Cadre School in the county, on a field in Zhongfeng Commune, surrounded by few people.There are four people in the party school, a principal, two teachers, and an accountant.I hired an idiot as a cook, but he was dismissed soon after because he was too stupid, and I joined the accountant's house.At night, the surrounding blackness and emptiness, the fireflies flickering, and the frogs and insects clamoring monotonously, I sat alone in the room, really isolated from the world, and my heart was extremely indifferent.The house is very simple and unoccupied for a long time. Rats are rampant, mosquitoes, flies and all kinds of insects are flying around. The flies shit on the table, on the books, on the body and on the face.There is a dirty ditch in front of the house. Farmers drink cattle and wash manure buckets upstream. When there is a drought, it is muddy. It is our daily drinking water.From the perspective of material conditions, of course, it is much worse than in the county.But nothing beats being freed from the errand of writing material and being able to spend a lot of time on my own.What makes me even more fortunate is that my new boss, Tang Kaizhen, is a rare and reasonable person.He was born in a farmer, and he still has all the shortcomings of a farmer, such as love to take advantage of small things.What I can't bear the most is that he doesn't talk about hygiene, enters my room, smokes and spits all over the floor.However, what is valuable is that he still maintains the simplicity of a farmer and respects common sense. Our views on many phenomena in the county are relatively consistent.He has a naive interest in theory, and he is more or less knowledgeable. He let me give lectures with an attitude of appreciation, and he does not allow me to do all kinds of trivial things outside of lectures.Working under him made me feel much more comfortable than before.

In contrast, I also prefer to give lectures, because I can be more or less autonomous.The topics of the lectures are of course stipulated. The so-called keeping up with the situation, for example, when Mao Zedong called for learning from Marxism-Leninism, he talked about "Anti-Dühring" and "State and Revolution", and when he criticized Lin and Confucius, he talked about the struggle between Confucianism and Legalism. It's up to me.I prepare lectures very seriously. For example, if I want to talk about the struggle between Confucianism and Legalism, I read books such as "Han Feizi" and "Historical Records", and write lectures on this basis, rather than copying newspapers.In fact, I did this out of strong selfishness. I just didn’t want to be a mere propaganda machine. Every time I talk about a topic, I must gain something.Because of this, my lectures have more content and have been widely welcomed.Before going to the party school, I was famous for giving lectures in the county, and various units invited me to give tutoring classes.After arriving at the party school, this reputation spread throughout the rural areas of the county, because the main task of the county party school is to train rural brigade cadres, and we often go down to the commune to hold classes for rural party members.I was worried that I would have a student voice, and the peasants would not be used to my lectures, but it was not the case. They often listened with great interest, and in their words, they did not feel sleepy at all.Walking on the street, I often meet rural cadres who have listened to my lectures. They come to tell me that my lectures are the most vivid and practical, and they like to listen to my lectures the most.This is not surprising, because what they have always heard is basically political slogans and red tape, which is a contrast.Of course I knew in my heart that my lectures were at best political propaganda with more content, which was completely different from the theoretical research and spiritual creation I wanted.