42 THE TIBETANS REBEL
42 西藏的灾难
(1950–61 AGE 56–67)
1950～1961 年 56～67 岁
FROM THE TIME he conquered China, Mao was determined to take Tibet by force. When he saw Stalin on 22 January 1950, he asked if the Soviet air force could transport supplies to Chinese troops “currently preparing for an attack on Tibet.” Stalin's reply was: “It's good that you are preparing to attack. The Tibetans need to be subdued …” Stalin also advised flooding Tibet and other border regions with Han Chinese: “Since ethnic Chinese make up no more than 5 percent of Xinjiang's population, the percentage of ethnic Chinese should be brought to 30 … In fact, all the border territories should be populated by Chinese …” This is exactly what the Chinese Communist regime then proceeded to do.
毛泽东对西藏的战略，从来都是武力征服。一九五0年一月二十二日他跟斯大林会晤时，要求苏联派飞机帮他运部队進攻西藏。斯大林答道：“你们准备進攻，很好，是该制服西藏人了。”斯大林还建议毛向西藏和其他边疆地区移民，说：“新疆的汉族人还不到百分之五，应当增加到百分之三十……所有的边疆地区都应当多迁移些汉族人去”。这成了中共的政策。
During 1950–51, 20,000 Chinese Communist troops forced their way into Tibet. But Mao realized he was unable to send in larger numbers to occupy the whole place. There were no proper roads to supply a large army, and Mao's soldiers were not used to the altitude, while the Tibetan army was not a negligible force. So Mao played the negotiation game, pretending that he would allow the area virtual autonomy. Acting the benign moderate, he recognized the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and governmental leader, as the head of Tibet, sent him gifts like a 16mm film projector, and said reassuring things to Tibetan delegations. Meanwhile he pressed ahead with building two roads into Tibet.
一九五0到一九五一年，两万中共部队進逼西藏。但是毛意识到他不可能派進足以占领全西藏的大批军队，因为没有公路运兵运粮草，士兵不习惯高原气候，当地武装也不可小视。毛决定搞谈判，装作他将给西藏自治权。他上演了一出英明君主的戏，承认达赖喇嘛在西藏的领袖地位，送给这个年轻人电影放映机之类的礼物，对西藏代表团也说着宽心话。但同时，两条通向西藏的公路紧锣密鼓地修了起来。
In September 1954, the nineteen-year-old Dalai Lama went to Peking to attend the rubber-stamp National Assembly, of which he had been appointed a member. Mao met him at least a dozen times during his stay, which lasted half a year, and set out to charm—and disarm—him. Mao knew about his interest in science: “I know you are a reform-minded man, like myself,” Mao said. “We have a lot of things in common,” citing education reform. “That was the danger with Mao,” the Dalai Lama told us, “everything he said—half true! Half true!” But along with the lulling, Mao was also patronizing and bullying, berating the Dalai Lama for not accepting that “religion is poison.”
一九五四年九月，十九岁的达赖喇嘛到北京去出席橡皮图章式的人民代表大会。他在北京待了半年，毛跟他至少见了十几次面，每次都和蔼可亲，要让他没有戒心。毛作了调查研究，知道达赖对科学感兴趣，对他说：“我知道你是喜欢新东西的，我也喜欢。我们有很多共同之处。”毛跟他讨论教育改革。达赖喇嘛对我们说：“毛的危险性也就在这里，他说的话总好像是对的！”毛也以君主的身份教训他，跟他大谈“宗教是毒害人民的鸦片”。
In an effort to do the best he could for his people, the Dalai Lama applied to join the CCP. His application was turned down. He tried to keep Mao in a good mood, and after returning to Lhasa, wrote to him in summer 1955 enclosing a Tibetan flower. Mao responded in almost sentimental language:
为了保护西藏人的利益，达赖喇嘛申请加入共产党。中共没有同意。他继续跟毛搞好关系，回西藏后写信给毛，信中夹着一朵西藏的鲜花。毛手书的覆信简直称得上情意绵绵：
Dear Dalai Lama, I was very happy to receive your letter … I often miss you, missing the happy times when you were in Peking. When can I see you again?… I was very happy to see the Tibetan flower which you enclosed … I'm here enclosing one flower to you …
“亲爱的达赖喇嘛：一九五五年七月六日给我的信收到了，很高兴。我时常想念你，想念你在北京的时候我们相处的那种愉快的情形。何时再能和你见面呢？……很高兴地看到你在信里附寄的西藏鲜花，我在这里也附寄一朵给你。”
Early in 1956, once the two major roads had been completed into Tibet, Mao set about requisitioning food, attacking religion and confiscating arms in a region called Kham, adjacent to Tibet and inhabited by some half a million Tibetans. The people rebelled, and by the end of March had mustered an armed force of over 60,000 men with more than 50,000 guns. Rebellions spread like wildfire in other regions where Tibetans formed a majority. Mao found himself with major wars on his hands covering huge areas of the interior; he resorted to using heavy artillery and aerial bombardment.
一九五六年初，公路通车，毛开始变脸。他首先在康巴藏区搞“改革”，斗争上层，收缴枪支，实行征税，破坏宗教。那里的五十万藏民立刻反了，到三月底已经拉起一支六万人的队伍，有五万杆枪。其他藏区的“武装叛乱”也如野火一般燃烧蔓延。毛只得动用军队，靠围剿、重炮，甚至空中轰炸，才把反抗镇压下去。
The mass participation and the combativeness of the rebels brought home to Mao what kind of resistance he would face in Tibet itself. In September he suspended his plans to “Maoise” Tibet.
这样的几乎全民性的参与造反，以及藏军的强悍善战，使毛得出结论：在西藏“现在还不是实行改革的时候。”“我们已经等了好几年，现在还必须等待。”
However, two years later, with the Great Leap in 1958, food requisitioning was drastically stepped up nationwide. This encountered tenacious resistance in Tibet and the four large provinces in Western China with sizable Tibetan populations—Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan. Many Tibetans had managed to retain their firearms, which for herdsmen were essential for their livelihood. They also had horses, which gave them mobility. But above all they had their own separate identity, language and religion, which enabled them to organize in secret.
两年过去了。在大跃進中，当饥荒出现时，藏民又揭竿而起，在他们聚居的几个省，都发生了武装反抗。藏民有一些得天独厚的条件，他们靠游牧为生，有马，有枪支。他们还有自己的语言、自己的宗教，能秘密组织起来而不为中共所知。
In Qinghai, which is larger than France, the rebellion spread through the province. Mao gave instant orders to quell it, on 24 June. At the same time, he told his army chiefs to “be ready to deal with an all-out rebellion in Tibet” itself. He made it explicit that he positively wanted a violent, crushing solution. “In Tibet,” he wrote on 22 January the following year, “there has to be a general decisive war before we can solve the problem thoroughly. The Tibetan rulers … now have a 10,000-strong rebelling armed force with high morale, and they are our serious enemies. But this is … a good thing. Because this makes it possible to solve our problems through war.” Mao was saying: They have given me an excuse to start a war. A month later, he wrote: “The bigger the upheaval the better.”
在青海，武装起义遍及全省。毛在一九五八年六月二十四日批示严厉镇压，同时说：“西藏要准备那里的可能的全局叛乱。乱子越大越好。”次年一月二十二日，他再次批示，在西藏，“总要来一次总决战，才能彻底解决问题。”西藏有“一支斗志较强的万人叛乱武装”，“这是我们的严重敌人。但这并没有什么不好，反而是一件好事，因为有可能最后用战争解决问题。”
On 10 March 1959, an uprising broke out in Lhasa, after word spread that the Chinese planned to kidnap the Dalai Lama. Thousands paraded in front of his palace and through Lhasa, shouting “Chinese get out!” Next day, Mao cabled an order to let the Dalai Lama escape. His calculation was that if the Dalai Lama was killed it would inflame world opinion, particularly in the Buddhist countries and India, which Mao was courting. On the night of the 17th the Dalai Lama made his way out of Lhasa and set off for India. Once his escape was confirmed, Mao told his men: “Do all you can to hold the enemies in Lhasa … so when our main force arrives we can surround them and wipe them out.”
一九五九年三月十日，西藏人风闻达赖喇嘛可能被劫持去北京，在拉萨暴动了。数千人上街游行，高呼：“汉人滚回去！”第二天，毛电令中共驻西藏部队，放达赖喇嘛逃走。如果达赖喇嘛在中共军队镇压中被打死，世界舆论将对毛很不利，特别是在毛想搞好关系的中国周边的佛教国家和印度。十七日夜晚，达赖喇嘛逃出拉萨，奔向印度。他的逃离一经证实，毛就下达作战方针：“全力抓住敌人在拉萨市区，勿使逃走，以便主力到达，然后聚歼。”
THE PHYSICAL WAR had its propaganda chorus. On 7 April, Mao made inquiries about Tibetan practices. One thing he was particularly keen to know was whether the Tibetan ruling class used torture, and whether disobedient lamas were skinned alive and had their tendons severed. On the 29th, following Mao's orders, a vigorous media campaign began, painting Tibet as a terrifying place, where gruesome tortures of the kinds Mao had mentioned, plus gouging out eyes, were everyday occurrences. Aided by age-old prejudices, this propaganda drive was effective, and Mao succeeded in planting the idea in people's minds that Tibet was a land of barbarism.
随着战争而来的是宣传战。四月七日，毛给管西藏事务的官员写信了解西藏情况，特别询问：“贵族是否有杀人权？是否私立审判，使用私刑？……有人说对反抗的喇嘛剥皮、抽筋，有无其事？”“有人说[喇嘛庙里]搜出人皮不少，是否属实？” 在毛亲自主持下，二十九日，媒体宣传运动揭幕，把西藏描绘成人间地狱，抽人筋、剥人皮、挖人眼睛。毛的军队是正义之师，是去拯救西藏人民的。本来汉人对西藏就有偏见，毛的宣传更是在人们脑子里种下了西藏野蛮落后的根深柢固的印象。
There had been a very dark side to the rule of the old Tibetan theocracy, but in terms of overall brutality and suffering, Mao's rule was far worse. This is shown in a 70,000-word letter written to Chou En-lai by the second-ranking spiritual leader in Tibet, the Panchen Lama, in 1962, describing what happened in the years 1959–61. What gives the letter particular weight is that the Panchen Lama had initially welcomed Mao's troops into Tibet, and even accepted the suppression of the Lhasa rebellion in 1959. Moreover, Chou himself acknowledged that the letter was accurate.
当然，西藏过去的神权统治有黑暗的一面。但毛管辖下的西藏要黑暗得多。地位仅次于达赖的班禅喇嘛一九六二年写给周恩来的七万言书中，淋漓尽致地说明了这一点。班禅喇嘛曾支持中共“解放西藏”，甚至在一九五九年拉萨暴动后还拥护中共“平叛”。他描写的一九五九年到一九六一年在西藏发生的事，周恩来本人和管理西藏事务的李维汉，都承认是事实。这使七万言书格外有分量。
Mao had imposed a level of requisitioning on the Tibetan economy far higher than it could possibly sustain. In the old days, the Panchen Lama wrote, “food was not that short … there was no death from starvation.”
班禅喇嘛写道：“过去西藏虽是被黑暗、野蛮的封建统治的社会，但是粮食并没有那样缺，特别是由于佛教传播极广，不论贵贱任何人，都有济贫施舍的好习惯，讨饭也完全可以为生，不会发生饿死人的情况，我们也从来没听说过饿死人的情况。”
But in 1959 and 1960 “too much grain was collected, even the food and tsampa [barley flour, Tibetans' staple food] in people's offering bags were confiscated.” Requisitioning was brutal: “nearly all the reserve food, meat and butter were confiscated … There was no oil to light lamps, not even firewood …” “To survive, herdsmen had to eat many of their animals …” The population was herded into canteens, where they were fed “weeds, even inedible tree bark, leaves, grass roots and seeds.” Food traditionally fed to animals had “now become rare nutritious delicious foods.” People's health declined dramatically: “A tiny infectious illness like a cold led to … masses of deaths. Quite a lot … also died directly of starvation … Death rate was really terrible … Such awful pain of hunger had never existed in Tibetan history.”
一九五九年和一九六0年两年中，农牧业产品“收购过头，甚至连香袋内的粮食和糌粑也收了，对翻出隐藏几升粮食和糌粑的人家，也進行斗争……对大多数家户，進行了搜查，把居民自己库存的粮食、肉类、酥油等，差不多都挖光了。”“不少居民的口粮很紧，有的断粮，肉类、酥油、清油等极缺，连灯油也没有。甚至买不到烧柴。人们恐慌着急，叫苦连天。” “我们藏区以前作为马驴、牛、黄牛饲料的油渣、麦糠等，也成为人的难得的有养分的香的食物了。”“别说稍微能吃的一切草类，就连不能吃的树皮、树叶、草根、草籽也采集了许多，加工后和那点粮食掺合起来作为猪食一样的稀糊糊给人们吃，就是这也很有限，不能果腹。由于这种藏族历史上从来没有过的、人们做梦也想不到会有如此严重的饥饿之痛苦，人民群众抵抗不住这种残酷地折磨，群众的体质日益衰弱。所以一些地方感冒等一些小小的传染病就会使达到百分之数的人轻易地成批死亡，有些地方也有不少人因为断了粮而被直接饿死，因此有些地方，也有些全家人死光的现象。”
While he was writing the letter, the Panchen Lama toured Tibetan regions. He found that in Qinghai, people did not even have food bowls. “In the old society, even beggars had bowls,” the Panchen Lama observed. Under Chiang Kai-shek and the Muslim warlord Ma Pu-fang, the Tibetans in Qinghai “were never so poor as not to be able to afford bowls!” Later, people even took to trying to break into labor camps and prisons to search for food.
班禅喇嘛写七万言书的时候，到藏区各地视察。在青海，他看到“许多百姓连吃饭的碗都没有”。他掏钱买碗送给老百姓，并对中共官员愤怒地说：“过去只有俗人向僧人布施，群众向活佛奉献，没有听说过活佛买碗给群众。旧社会要饭的手里还有个破碗。蒋介石、马步芳统治青海十几年，藏族老百姓也没有穷到连个碗都买不起的地步。”
Large numbers of Tibetans were put through violent denunciation meetings, including the father and family of the Panchen Lama, who wrote: “People were beaten till they bled from eyes, ears, mouths, noses, they passed out, their arms or legs broken … others died on the spot.” For the first time in Tibet, suicide became a common practice.
西藏人民还受到毛式的残酷批斗，班禅喇嘛的家里“从我父亲开始一个个都挨斗了”。“被斗者虽然没有特别严重的罪行和过错，也要捏造许多严重的罪行，并予夸大，随心所欲，颠倒是非等，不仅毫无根据，一个比一个更尖锐激烈、更粗暴、更狂妄、更矜夸过火地肆意進行诬陷”。“斗争一开始，大喊、怒吼几下，同时拔发揪须，拳打脚踢，拧肉掐肩，推来掀去，有些人还用大钥匙和棍棒加以毒打，致使被斗者七窍流血，失去知觉而昏倒，四肢断折等，严重受伤，有的甚至在斗争时，当场丧命。”不少人被迫“投河或以武器自杀”。
With so many Tibetans joining rebellions against Mao's regime, Chinese troops treated most Tibetans as enemies, rounding up the majority of adult males in many places, leaving only “women, the old, the children and extremely few young and middle-aged men.” After Mao's death, the Panchen Lama revealed what he had not dared put in his original letter: that a staggering 15 to 20 percent of all Tibetans—perhaps half of all adult males—were thrown into prison, where they were basically worked to death. They were treated like subhumans. Lama Palden Gyatso, a brave long-term prisoner, told us he and other prisoners were flogged with wire whips as they pulled heavy plows.
由于西藏武装起义的全民性，青壮年男子被大批逮捕关押，“可以断言，藏族中我们的亲人除了妇女、老头、小孩和极少数的青壮年外，就所剩无几了。”
在监狱里，看守不把藏民当人看：“残酷无情地恶言恫吓，恣意毒打；并故意把地势高低和寒暖差别很大的南北上下的关押犯，迁来迁去，以致水土不服，衣被不能暖体，褥垫不能防潮，帐篷、房屋不遮风雨，食不饱腹等等，生活十分困苦凄惨，还让起早摸黑的劳动，并由于把最重最苦的劳动活交那些人去干，因而使那些人不可抵御地出现体力日衰，疾病很多，加以休息不充足，医疗不完善，使大量关押犯遭到非正常的死亡。”班旦加措喇嘛曾在监狱里度过多年，他告诉我们，他和别的囚犯被用鞭子抽打着拉犁。
The crushing of the rebellions produced atrocious behavior on the part of Chinese troops. In one place, the Panchen Lama described (speaking after Mao died) how “corpses were dragged down from the mountains” and buried in a big pit, and the relatives were then summoned and told: “ ‘We have wiped out the rebel bandits, and today is a day of festivity. You will all dance on the pit of the corpses.' ”
对战场上被打死的藏民的处理也令人发指。班禅喇嘛在毛死后的一次会议上讲到：“果洛地区打死了许多人，把尸体从山上拖下来，挖个大坑埋在里面，把死者的亲属都叫来宣布：“我们把叛匪消灭了，今天是喜庆的日子，你们在尸体坑上跳舞。””
Atrocities went in parallel with cultural annihilation. This period witnessed a campaign officially called “Big Destruction,” in which the entire Tibetan way of life came under violent physical assault for being “backward, dirty and useless.” Mao was bent on destroying religion, the essence of most Tibetans' lives. When he met the Dalai Lama in 1954–55 he told him there were too many monks in Tibet, which, he said, was bad for reproducing the labor force. Now lamas and nuns were forced to break their vows of celibacy and get married. “Holy Scriptures were used for manure, and pictures of the Buddha and sutras were deliberately used to make shoes,” the Panchen Lama wrote. The destruction was of a kind that “even lunatics would hardly carry out.” Most monasteries were destroyed, “the sites looking as if they had just been through a war and bombardments.” According to the Panchen Lama, the number of monasteries in Tibet fell from over 2,500 before 1959 to “only just over 70” in 1961, and the number of monks and nuns from over 110,000 to 7,000 (some 10,000 fled abroad).
与对西藏人民的暴虐同时发生的，是对西藏文化的摧残。当时有个“三大”运动，第一“大”就是“大破坏”。西藏的一切生活方式都被认为是“落后的、肮脏的和无用的”，要“破坏”。毛最致力于消灭的是宗教，早在与达赖喇嘛见面时，他就讲西藏喇嘛太多，不利于增加劳动力发展生产。如今在西藏的寺院里，班禅喇嘛说：“竟有让喇嘛站一边，尼姑和俗女站一边，强迫他(她)们互相挑选[配偶]。”“掀起了消灭佛像、佛经、佛塔等的滔天浪潮，把无数佛像、佛经、佛塔烧毁，抛入水中，扔在地上，拆毁和熔化，对寺庙、佛堂、玛尼墙，佛塔恣意進行了疯象闯入般的破坏。”“把《大藏经》用于沤肥的原料，专门把许多画的佛像和经书用于制鞋原料等，毫无任何道理；由于做了许多疯子也难做出的行为，因而使各阶层人民诧异透顶，心绪混乱至极，极度灰心丧气，眼中流泪，口称：我们的地方搞成了黑地方[西藏俗语中把没有宗教的地方称为黑地方]等而哀号。”
One particularly painful order for Tibetans was that Buddhist ceremonies for the dead were banned. “When a person dies,” the Panchen Lama wrote:
破坏后的西藏，班禅喇嘛说，就像“炮弹摧毁，战争刚结束的样子，目不忍睹。”“西藏有大、中、小寺庙两千五百余座，而民改[中共的“民主改革”]后由政府留下来的仅只有七十多座，减少了百分之九十七多”。僧尼人数“减少了百分之九十三”，从十一万多人下降到七千人。
if there is no ceremony to expiate his sins for his soul to be released from purgatory, this is to treat the dead with the utmost … cruelty … People were saying: “We die too late … Now when we die, we are going to be like a dog being tossed outside the door!”
使西藏人民最为痛苦的还有死人不准超度：“按我们藏人的习惯，人死后若不進行超度，就被看成是对亡人不孝敬、残酷无情而极为恶劣的。因而一段时间人们说：“我们死的太迟了，如果早死一点，还能得到超度，现在死就像死了狗一样，气一断就会被扔到门外去。””
On his tours in the early 1960s, Tibetans came at great risk to see the Panchen Lama, crying out and weeping: “Don't let us starve! Don't let Buddhism be exterminated! Don't let the people of the Land of Snows become extinct!” Mao was “greatly displeased” with the Panchen Lama's letter, and visited much suffering on him, including ten years in prison.
在藏区视察时，班禅喇嘛见到以下场景：“不少越过基层干部的各种阻挠之难而来朝拜的藏族群众，不论男女老幼，一见我就想起了一个时期来的痛苦，情不自禁流出眼泪，他们中的一些大胆的人，流泪哀呼：“勿使众生饥饿！勿使佛教灭亡！勿使我雪域之人灭绝！为祝为祷！””
在这些伤心事的激励下，班禅喇嘛勇敢地写了“七万言书”。到了毛泽束手里，毛大怒。不久，班禅喇嘛就被批判斗争，身陷囹圄近十年，直到毛死后才重见天日。
To Tibet, as to the whole of China, Mao's rule brought unprecedented misery.