we drove for an entire afternoon up a dirt road through steep-sided
ravines to find a vast factory at the head of the valley, churning out red smoke and dirty, foaming water. In one particular place, called Tianxing, the factory with its three thousand five hundred
souls was set in a valley so narrow that there was direct sunlight for only a few hours a day. I remember the translator at the factory attaching himself to us with a desperate ardour. He literally
ran to the bus as we stepped down. We were the first foreigners ever to come to the factory and he had almost never heard English spoken by a native speaker. With the valley sides so steep and so
high, there was no chance even of listening to radio broadcasts so he clung limpet-like to me right through the factory tour.
I found seeing so many people marooned in these artificial encampments up in the hills troubling, even a little frightening. There was something grotesque about them being stranded up in these
godforsaken places. It made me feel nervous, jumpy, and almost a little guilty when we left the factory. Why were they there? These heavy industrial plants, with their old buildings, the broken
windows and piles of rusting machinery, the chimneys and the heaps of coal next to the boilers were all set in scenes of the most spectacular natural beauty.
During lunch at the third factory – a gearbox plant, I think – I cautiously asked our host how he had ended up in the mountains. The factory director was away so a Mr Che, the chief
engineer, had shown us around. He was a real rough diamond, quite unfazed by the sight of these two foreigners in suits and ties walking gingerly between the heaps of raw castings and the rows of
ancient machining centres in his battered workshops. After the tour, he took us for lunch and sat at the huge round table in the workers’ canteen, a flat cap on his head and an oily measuring
gauge sticking from the pocket of his factory jacket. As soon as we sat down, about a dozen different dishes arrived. Sichuan food is my favourite: fiery sauces and pungent flavours, ideally washed
down with a couple of crates of the local beer that comes in big green bottles.
After the small talk, during which I asked Mr Che whether he’d been abroad and he said there wasn’t any point because the food was so bad, I asked him about the factory’s
location. I figured I’d probably get a straight answer from him, but at first he wouldn’t be drawn. The beer flowed and the atmosphere relaxed slightly, so I had another go. He sighed,
took off his cap, placed it on the table and, after a few moments staring into the middle distance, said, ‘It won’t make any sense to you, of course. You foreigners, you’re not
clear about our China. I was in Changsha, but our work unit moved to the mountain valleys. Now it all needs to be changed, of course. But back then, it was just Mao’s Third Front.’
‘Third Front?’
‘Don’t you know? The third line. The third line of national defence,’ he said. ‘After Liberation, in the 1950s, Russia was our Big Brother. After so many years of civil
war and the fight against the Japanese, Russia helped us set up our New China. They sent us hundreds and hundreds of advisers, and all the designs and materials to build factories all over the
country.’
Mr Che sighed and, after pausing for a moment, took another long silent draught of beer.
‘But after Stalin died, Mao and those new Soviet leaders, they just couldn’t get on. Mao Zedong said Khrushchev wasn’t a good communist. All that “revisionism”
– no one felt surprised when they rose up in a fight.’
His mood suddenly changed and he grinned, ‘You know, I’ve heard it said that one time, when Khrushchev came to China, Mao forced him into his swimming pool. Mao knew Khrushchev
couldn’t swim, of course. Made him look a fool and lose face in front of all those officials, floating around in a rubber ring!’
Mr Che went on to
ravines to find a vast factory at the head of the valley, churning out red smoke and dirty, foaming water. In one particular place, called Tianxing, the factory with its three thousand five hundred
souls was set in a valley so narrow that there was direct sunlight for only a few hours a day. I remember the translator at the factory attaching himself to us with a desperate ardour. He literally
ran to the bus as we stepped down. We were the first foreigners ever to come to the factory and he had almost never heard English spoken by a native speaker. With the valley sides so steep and so
high, there was no chance even of listening to radio broadcasts so he clung limpet-like to me right through the factory tour.
I found seeing so many people marooned in these artificial encampments up in the hills troubling, even a little frightening. There was something grotesque about them being stranded up in these
godforsaken places. It made me feel nervous, jumpy, and almost a little guilty when we left the factory. Why were they there? These heavy industrial plants, with their old buildings, the broken
windows and piles of rusting machinery, the chimneys and the heaps of coal next to the boilers were all set in scenes of the most spectacular natural beauty.
During lunch at the third factory – a gearbox plant, I think – I cautiously asked our host how he had ended up in the mountains. The factory director was away so a Mr Che, the chief
engineer, had shown us around. He was a real rough diamond, quite unfazed by the sight of these two foreigners in suits and ties walking gingerly between the heaps of raw castings and the rows of
ancient machining centres in his battered workshops. After the tour, he took us for lunch and sat at the huge round table in the workers’ canteen, a flat cap on his head and an oily measuring
gauge sticking from the pocket of his factory jacket. As soon as we sat down, about a dozen different dishes arrived. Sichuan food is my favourite: fiery sauces and pungent flavours, ideally washed
down with a couple of crates of the local beer that comes in big green bottles.
After the small talk, during which I asked Mr Che whether he’d been abroad and he said there wasn’t any point because the food was so bad, I asked him about the factory’s
location. I figured I’d probably get a straight answer from him, but at first he wouldn’t be drawn. The beer flowed and the atmosphere relaxed slightly, so I had another go. He sighed,
took off his cap, placed it on the table and, after a few moments staring into the middle distance, said, ‘It won’t make any sense to you, of course. You foreigners, you’re not
clear about our China. I was in Changsha, but our work unit moved to the mountain valleys. Now it all needs to be changed, of course. But back then, it was just Mao’s Third Front.’
‘Third Front?’
‘Don’t you know? The third line. The third line of national defence,’ he said. ‘After Liberation, in the 1950s, Russia was our Big Brother. After so many years of civil
war and the fight against the Japanese, Russia helped us set up our New China. They sent us hundreds and hundreds of advisers, and all the designs and materials to build factories all over the
country.’
Mr Che sighed and, after pausing for a moment, took another long silent draught of beer.
‘But after Stalin died, Mao and those new Soviet leaders, they just couldn’t get on. Mao Zedong said Khrushchev wasn’t a good communist. All that “revisionism”
– no one felt surprised when they rose up in a fight.’
His mood suddenly changed and he grinned, ‘You know, I’ve heard it said that one time, when Khrushchev came to China, Mao forced him into his swimming pool. Mao knew Khrushchev
couldn’t swim, of course. Made him look a fool and lose face in front of all those officials, floating around in a rubber ring!’
Mr Che went on to
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