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Among the 80,000 ideographs in the Chinese language, none are charged with more meaning for the people of China today than Hsiao Mieh. In the abstract but exact language of ' China, Hsiao Mieh means "deprived of existence . . . done away with . . . otherwise disposed of." In the broader language of humanity, Hsiao Mieh today symbolizes the greatest planned massacre in the history of mankind.
Even the millions of Chinese who cannot read know the story these picture words tell when they see them written against a neighbor's name. Five years ago in the province of Anhwei, the Chinese Communists deprived the landlords of existence and redistributed the land among the peasants. Some time ago, as part of a plan to speed socialization, the Communists began reorganizing the Anhwei farmlands into cooperatives. In the village of Liuchiatsun a peasant named Liu resented the seizure of his tiny (three-acre) farm and carelessly talked of resisting. The Communists' answer was quick, final. The local peasantry was called together at the new brick Public Security Station to see Liu standing before a Circuit Tribunal. A People's Procurator charged him with being a "reactionary." The Procurator asked the assembled crowd: "Comrades, what do we do with these inhuman counterrevolutionaries, these criminals, bandits, secret agents of capitalism, and organizers of Taoist sects?" Voices cried: "Kill them! Kill them!" The peasants understood from the accents of the words that the response had been made by people from another part of the country, but they took their cue. "Kill him! Kill him!" they echoed.
Next day Liu's name was brushed on the wall newspaper at the Public Security Station. Beside it was brushed the dreaded Hsiao Mieh.
The Monstrous Pyre. Since October 1949, when the Chinese Communists officially set up the Chinese People's Republic, Hsiao Mieh, by the account of Red China's press, has been written officially against the names of millions of Chinese. Foreign specialists, carefully sifting reports from refugees and other sources, estimate that at least 20 million Chinese have been deprived of existence, done away with, or otherwise disposed of. This does not include 23 million believed to be held in forced labor camps.
These are figures that stagger the imagination. In no previous war, revolution* or human holocaust, either in the days of Tamerlane or in the time of Hitler, have so many people been destroyed in so short a period. Because it is hard for the mind to visualize so vast a slaughter in human terms, the Communists have been able to reap an advantage from the very size of their funeral pyre: many Westerners, finding the monstrous incredible, cannot see the blood on the hand of pretended friendship proffered by Chinese Communist Leader Mao Tse-tung.