ABSTRACT
Violence, brutality, tragedy became commonplace at Beida* that August. Every day and night small groups of four or five would be picked up to be criticized in their departments and then paraded through the campus to ‘accept struggle from the masses’. The targets of these ‘mass ground struggle sessions’ would always be forced to balance on one of the high, narrow dining hall benches and told to answer questions. If the answers were considered unsatisfactory, the person’s head would be pushed down or he would be instructed to bend low or he would be held in the agonizing jet plane position, continually begging the people’s pardon for his past offenses. Because I lived in the area of the student dormitories, I would see several groups of some twenty or thirty people conducting these struggle sessions every night when I went out after supper to read the latest wall posters by lamplight. Usually the abuse would last for about an hour, then the victim would be allowed to return home.
