When the Reds entered Nancheng, the rich fled. Those who remained were slaughtered. Their properties were sold and distributed among the poor but the latter were not per= mitted to live in peace and enjoy the benefits thus received, for their homes were constantly visited by Soviet agents and, if they" were found to possess anything of value, it was seized and confiscated. Their clothes, their bedding, their tablex and their stools, and even, in many eases, their rice-bowls and chopsticks, not to mention any edibles, were taken away from them.
The so-called equality and protec: tion gradually lessened, Terror reigned, Indescribable scenes of horror were witnessed, Those who believed first that, under the Soviet system, they would no longer have to work, found that they had lots to do—in fact, more than they wished. Those who were willing to work discovered that the amount of work they did under the Reds was considerably more than they were wont to do. All discoverced that it was a system of all work and no recreation, There was no room for sluggards. everything. people found Exorbits es were fixed for that they could not afford to buy even the most modest necessaries of Ute, Their income was far less than old regime and taxation Indeed, everything was taxed. They wanted to revolt but they were powerless 'Accordingly, their productivity became tess and less. 'This being so, the Rede turned on' the more enter prising farmers, or kulaks, and taxed them so heavily that within a short period the entire area was exhausted. Those who could ran away. Those Jess fortunate were captured and severe punishment, even death, was meted out to them, Things were not as good as the welcomers had hoped: far from {t. Dissatisfaction was rife. The people became angered at their sufferings and full of rage when members of their families were carried off, never to return. The Red system was feared and abhorred. was not surprising, therefore, that, under such conditions, the people hoped for the early return of a better administration, however rotten it might be. Tt was not surprising that they" welcomed, with open arms, Gen. Chiang Kal-the and his new regime,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.