LovingMemories of Mother
Zhu De
I was deeply grieved to learn ofmother’s death. I love my mother. Of her hardworking life, in particular, agreat many things will forever be cherished in my memory.
I come from a tenant farmer’sfamily. My original family home was Shao Guan, Guangdong Province, into whichmy ancestors had moved from another province as settlers. During the massmigration of peasants from Huguang to Sichuan Province, my ancestors moved toMa An Chang, Yi Long County, Sichuan. From generation to generation, theytilled land for landlord only to eke out a bare subsistence. People whoassociated with them as friends were likewise honest impoverished peasants.
Mother gave birth to thirteenchildren in all. But only the first eight of them survived while the next fivewere drowned at birth by my parents against their will because they were toopoor to raise them all. How anguished, sad and helpless mother must have felt!She did manage, however, to have the eight children brought up all by herself.But she was too busily occupied with household chores and farming to look afterthe kids so that they were left alone crawling about in the fields.
Mother was a hardworking woman.As far as I can remember, she would always get up before daybreak. In ourhousehold of more than twenty members, all women would take turns to do cookingfor one year. Apart from cooking, mother did farming, planted vegetables, fedpigs, raised silkworms and spun cotton into yarn. Tall and of strong build, shecould carry two buckets of water or manure on a shoulder pole.
Mother worked hard from dawn tilldusk. When we kids were four or five years old, we found ourselvesautomatically helping her with farm work. At the age of eight or nine, I couldnot only carry heavy loads on a shoulder pole or on my back, but also knew howto farm the land. I remember whenever I came back from school and saw motherbusy cooking in the kitchen with sweat streaming down her face, I wouldimmediately lay down my books and sneak out to carry water on a shoulder poleor graze the cattle. In some seasons, I would study in the morning and work inthe fields in the afternoon. During the busy season, I would spend all dayworking by the side of mother. It was then that she taught me a lot about theknack of farming.
The life of a tenant farmer’sfamily was of course hard, but we somehow managed to scrape along becausemother was a clever and able woman. We used oil squeezed from seeds of tungtrees to light our lamps. We ate rice cooked with peas, vegetables, sweetpotatoes or coarse grain, and all seasoned with rapeseed oil—food whichlandlords and rich people would scorn to eat. Nevertheless, mother’s cookingwas done so well that everybody ate with gusto. Only in good year, could weafford to have some home-made new clothes to wear. Mother would spin cottoninto yarn and then asked somebody to have it woven into fabric and dyed. Wecalled it “home spun fabric”. It was as thick as copper coin and was so durablethat after the eldest brother had grown out of the home-spun garment, it couldstill be used by the second and third brothers in turn without being worn out.
It was characteristic of anindustrious household to be well-regulated and well- organized. My grandfatherwas a typical Chinese farmer. He went on doing farm work even he was an octogenarian.He would feel unwell without doing farm labour. He was found still working onthe farm even shortly before his death. Grandmother was the organizer of thehousehold. She was in charge of all the farm affairs, assigning tasks to eachmember of the household. On each New Year’s Eve, she would work out all jobassignments for the coming year. Mother would be the first to get up beforedaybreak. Soon grandfather would be heard to rise from his bed, followed by therest of the household. Some went about feeding pigs, some cutting firewood, andsome carrying water on a shoulder pole. Mother always worked without complaintdespite hardships. Amiable by nature, she never beat or scolded us, le alonequarreled with anybody. Consequently, large as it was, the whole household, oldand young, uncles and sisters-in-law, lived in perfect harmony. Out of hernaive class consciousness, she showed sympathy for the poor. Despite her ownstraitened circumstances, she often went out of her way to help out those relativeswho were even more needy than herself. She lived a very frugal life. Fatherwould occasionally smoke a long-stemmed Chinese pipe or drink some wine. Toprevent us from falling into the same habit, mother kept us children understrict control. Her diligence and frugality, her generosity andkindheartedness—all have left a lasting impression on my mind.
Chinese peasants were honest andpeaceable, but disaster befell them just the same. Around 1900, when SichuanProvince was hit by successive years of drought, numerous poverty-strickenpeasants went hungry and had to go out in crowds to seize food from the homesof landlords. Thereupon I saw with my own eyes how a group of shabbily-dressedpeasants and their families were savagely beaten up or slain by governmenttroops, the road stained with their blood for some 40 li and their criesrending the air. In those days, my family also met with increasingdifficulties. All the year round, we went without rice to eat, and simply livedon edible wild hers and kaoliang. In 1904, especially, when land- lords, ridingroughshod over tenants, pressed for higher rents on the let-out pieces of land,we, unable to meet their demands, had our tenancy cancelled by them and wereforced to move house on New Year’s Eve. On that miserable night, my familytearfully separated and thenceforth had to live in two different places.Shorthandedness and crop failure due to the natural calamity brought misfortuneon my family. Mother, however, did not lose heart. Adversity had deepened hersympathy for the poor and needy as well as her aversion to the heartless rich.The painful complaint she had uttered in one or two words and the innumerableinjustice I had witnessed aroused in me a spirit of revolt and a desire for abright future. I made up my mind to seek a new life.
Not long afterwards, I had totear myself away from mother when I began my schooling. As the son of a tenant,I of course could not afford to go to school. My parents, however, faced withthe bullying and oppression of the local evil gentry, landlords and yamenbailiffs, decided to scrape up enough money by living a very frugal life to payfor my education so that they could make a scholar of me for the family to keepup appearances. At first I was sent to an old-style private school and in 1905I took the imperial examination. Later, I went farther away from home to studyin Shunqing and Chengdu, both in Sichuan Province. All the tuition fees werepaid with borrowed money, totaling more than 200 silver dollars. The debt wasnot repaid until later I became a brigade commander of the Hu Guo Army.
In 1908, I came back from Chengduto set up a higher primary school in Yi Long County. While teaching school, Iwent home to see mother two or three times a year, in those days, there was asharp conflict between old and new ideologies. Due to our leaning towardsscience and democracy, we met with opposition from the local conservativeinfluential gentry in whatever we attempted for the benefit of our home town.So I decided to leave, without my mother’s knowledge, for the faraway provinceof Yunnan, where I joined the New Army and Tongmenhui. On my arrival in Yunnan,I learned from my home letters that mother, instead of frowning upon my newmove, gave me a lot of encouragement and comfort.
From 1909 up to now, I have neverpaid a visit to my home town. In 1921, however, I had my parents come out tolive with me. But, as confirmed farm labourers, they felt unwell without landto till and subsequently had to return home. Father died on the way back, andmother continued to do farm work at home to the very last.
As the Chinese revolutioncontinued to develop, I became more and more politically aware. I joined theChinese Communist party as soon as I discovered the correct orientation of theChinese revolution. When the Great Revolution of 1924-1927 failed in China, Icompletely lost contact with my family. Mother alone supported the whole familyby working on the 30 mu of land. I did not hear from her until the outbreak ofthe War of Resistance to Japan. When she was informed of great cause in which Iwas engaged, she eagerly looked forward to the success of China’s nationalliberation. While living the hard life of a peasant woman at home, she wasaware of the difficulties and hardships that our Party was then undergoing.During the seven years after the outbreak of the War, I managed to send herseveral hundred yuan and some photos of myself. Mother was getting old. She wasalways thinking of me as I was of her. Last year, a letter from my nephew says,“Grandma is 85. She’s eager to see you and chat about things that have happenedsince you left home…” But I never lived up to her expectation because of mydedication to the cause of the War of Resistance against Japan.
The most prominent characteristicof mother was her lifelong participation in physical labour. She did cooking inthe kitchen just one minute before giving birth to me. Her ardent love foragricultural production remained undiminished even in her old age. My nephewsays in another letter to me last year, “because of old age, grandma is nolonger in good health, but she still does manual labour, and is particularlyfond of spinning cotton into yarn…”
I owe mother a debt of gratitudebecause she taught me how to cope with the numerous difficulties that I raninto at home so that later during my over 30 years of military andrevolutionary life I have never bowed down to any difficulty. She alsobequeathed me a strong constitution as well as a strong inclination for labourso that I have been able to work untiringly.
I owe mother s debt of gratitudebecause she imparted to me knowledge of productive labour and a revolutionarywill, thus enabling me to take to the revolutionary path. By keeping to thispath, I have come to realize more and more clearly that this knowledge ofproductive labour and this revolutionary will are the most valuable assets inthe world.
Mother is gone and I shall neversee her again. This is an ever-lasting sorrow. Mother is an “ordinary” personand one of the millions of labouring people who have made and are still makingChinese history. What can I do to repay her my debt of deep gratitude? I swearto remain ever loyal to our nation and the people, ever loyal to the ChineseCommunist Party—the hope of our nation and the people, so that all those whoshare the same lot with my mother may live a happier life. That is what I cando and what I am certainly able to do.
May mother rest in peace!
