45 THE BOMB
45 有原子弹了！
(1962–64 AGE 68–70)
1962～1964 年 68-70 岁
BY LATE 1962, famine had eased. In the following years, while tolerating food levies on a scale that allowed his subjects to subsist, Mao began to resuscitate the pet projects that had been shelved as the result of the famine, such as satellites and nuclear submarines. And new projects joined them. When Mao was told about lasers, at the time seen only as a deadly weapon, and translated into Chinese as “the Light of Death,” si-guang, he instantly decided on huge investments in laser research, giving a characteristic order: “The Light of Death: get some people to devote entirely to this. Feed them and don't let them do anything else.”
大饥荒过去了，经济复生了。在容忍刘少奇等人经济政策的同时，毛泽东逐步把他念念不舍的一些项目重新扶上马去，如人造卫星和核潜艇。当他听说现代武库中有一种新的很厉害的杀人武器叫“死光”(激光)时，毛当即拍板，说：“死光，搞一批人专搞，叫他们吃饭不做别的。”
For now, the focus of Mao's attention was the atomic bomb. In November 1962, a special committee was formed, chaired by Chou En-lai, to coordinate the several hundred thousand people involved and pool the whole country's resources to produce a Bomb within two years. The concentration of resources was on a scale that astonished even a top echelon accustomed to totalitarian organization. Each of the numerous preparatory tests would take up nearly half of all China's telecommunication lines, and much of the country, including factories, would recurrently find itself without electricity or transport, because power had been diverted for these tests.
更多的人力、物力、财力，还是集中在搞原子弹。一九六二年十一月，“中央专门委员会”成立，周恩来当主任，指挥数十万人的庞大协作体系，保证两年内爆炸第一颗原子弹。无数次的轰爆试验，每一次，全国通讯线路都有将近一半被占用，整个国家，工业也好，民生也好，不断地停电停水，交通停运。
How to protect the Bomb, and indeed his entire nuclear complex, was Mao's constant preoccupation; and not without reason. At the tripartite (US–UK–USSR) Nuclear Test Ban talks in Moscow in July 1963, President Kennedy told his negotiator, Averell Harriman, to sound out Khrushchev about destroying Mao's nuclear facilities: “try to elicit K[hrushchev]'s view of means of limiting or preventing Chinese nuclear development and his willingness either to take Soviet action or to accept U.S. action aimed in this direction.” Khrushchev rebuffed the approach. But Kennedy told a press conference on 1 August that a nuclear China—which, he emphasized, was “Stalinist,” “with a government determined on war as a means of bringing about its ultimate success”—posed “potentially a more dangerous situation than any we faced since the end of the Second [World] War … and we would like to take some steps now which would lessen that prospect …”
毛梦寐以求的第一颗原子弹就要爆炸了，他提心吊胆，怕毁于一旦。这不是杞人忧天。在一九六三年美、英、苏三国签定部分禁止核试验条约时，肯尼迪指示谈判代表哈里曼(Averell Harriman)：“设法探知赫鲁晓夫对限制、阻止中国核发展的意向，了解他是否愿意由苏联采取行动，或者接受美国采取的行动。”赫鲁晓夫拒绝了。肯尼迪在八月一日的记者招待会上说：奉行斯大林主义的中国政府坚决要把战争作为取得最后胜利的手段，一旦拥有核武器，中国就会变成“二战以来我们所面临的最大的潜在危险”。“我们希望采取步骤消除这一危险。”肯尼迪认真考虑了对中国的核设备進行空中袭击，包括摧毁设在兰州的化工厂，使之看去像是事故。对设在包头的钚厂，他的顾问说可能要动用核武器才能炸毁。
Kennedy seriously considered air strikes on China's nuclear facilities. He was advised that the Lanzhou gaseous diffusion plant could be destroyed in such a way as to make it look like an accident, but that nuclear strikes might be needed to destroy the plutonium plant at Baotou.
After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963 (by an “oil king,” Mao told Albania's defense minister) his successor, Lyndon Johnson, was soon toying with the idea of dropping Taiwan saboteurs to blow up the facilities at Lop Nor, China's atomic test site.
Lop Nor and other nuclear sites deep in the Gobi Desert were sealed off by land, and everyone there, from top scientists to laborers, was completely isolated from their families and society for years, even decades. But the sites were exposed to America's spy planes—and attack from the air, which Mao feared most.
肯尼迪十一月被刺后，继任的约翰逊(Lyndon Johnson)总统考虑过空降台湾特务人员，炸毁罗布泊核试验基地。罗布泊坐落在戈壁滩上，与外部社会隔绝。但空中袭击完全可能奏效。毛的担心就在这里。
In April 1964, Mao was told that the Bomb could be exploded that autumn. He moved at once on every front to minimize the danger of a strike on the nuclear facilities. He dealt with the Russian end by going public to remind Khrushchev that China was still a member of the Communist camp. On 12 April, the day after the test details were decided, he stepped in to rewrite a telegram to Khrushchev for the latter's seventieth birthday. The original draft had reflected the acrimonious public relationship between the two states. Mao changed the text to make it ultra-friendly, adding a most unusual “Dear Comrade,” and stressing that their discord was “only temporary.” “In the event of a major world crisis,” he said, they would “undoubtedly stand together against our common enemy.” To conclude, he added a phrase evoking their past relationship: “Let the imperialists and reactionaries tremble before our unity …” The cable was given wide publicity in the Chinese media, and amazed everyone, as this was after months of fire-breathing public polemics targeting Khrushchev. On the eve of National Day that year, on 1 October, Mao stunned the Russians by greeting their delegate warmly, holding his hand, and repeating: “Everything will be fine; our peoples will be together.”
一九六四年四月，毛得到报告，蘑菇云那年秋天可望升起。毛立刻着手杜绝他的核设施遭受袭击的可能性。苏联方面，毛的办法是拉住赫鲁晓夫，提醒他中国仍然是共产主义阵营的一员，让他下不了手。四月十二日，第一颗原子弹爆炸细节决定后的第二天，毛亲自修改了给赫鲁晓夫七十寿辰的贺电。贺电原来准备写上分歧和争论，毛改成“[分歧]只是暂时的，一旦世界发生重大事变，”他就会跟赫鲁晓夫“共同对敌”。对赫鲁晓夫，毛亲笔加上“亲爱的同志”几个字，结尾处还着意使用中苏友谊鼎盛时的套语：“让帝国主义和各国反动派在我们的团结面前颤抖吧，他们总是会失败的。”这封电报发表后，看惯了中、苏之间气势汹汹打笔战的人着实吃了一惊。“十一”国庆节前夕，毛又再次让苏联人诧异。他热情地跟苏联代表打招呼，拉着对方的手反覆说：一切都会好起来的，我们的人民会站在一起的。
Mao's main worry was America. To deter it he tried hard to deal himself some cards. His options for stirring up trouble in the US itself or in its immediate vicinity were limited. Shortly after the Test Ban Treaty, he had fired off a statement on 8 August 1963, to support the blacks in America. However, it only amounted to what he himself later called an “empty cannon.” The black American radical whom Mao credited with urging him to issue the statement, Robert Williams, told us that Mao “didn't understand a lot of things about blacks in America.” Williams compared Mao unfavorably on this score with Ho Chi Minh. Mao issued more statements supporting anti-American movements in countries near the US, like those in Panama and the Dominican Republic. These were just words.
There was one spot, though, near China, where there were Americans, and that was Vietnam. By the end of 1963 there were some 15,000 American military advisers in South Vietnam. Mao's plan was to create a situation whereby America would send more troops to South Vietnam, and even invade North Vietnam, which bordered with China. This way, if Washington were to strike his nuclear facilities, the Chinese army would pour into Vietnam and engulf the American troops as they had done in the Korean War. To try to make this happen, in 1964 Mao started pressing the Vietnamese hard to step up the war in Indochina. Their fighting, he told them, had “made no great impact and was just scratching the surface … Best turn it into a bigger war.” “I'm afraid you really ought to send more troops to the South.” “Don't be afraid of US intervention,” he urged; “at most, it's no worse than having another Korean War. The Chinese army is prepared, and if America takes the risk of attacking North Vietnam, the Chinese army will march in at once. Our troops want a war now.”
使毛不安的主要是美国。他的计划是拿美国军队作“人质”，使美国不敢对他的核设施轻举妄动。当时美国在南越有一万五千多军事顾问。毛要激化越南战争，以诱使美国增兵，就像后来周恩来对埃及总统纳赛尔(Gamal Abdel Nasser)所说，让美国军队最大限度卷入越南，作为“我们的保险政策”，“因为他们将有很多人在我们跟前，他们派越多的部队到越南，我们越高兴，这样我们就能给他们以血淋淋的打击。他们将离中国很近，在我们的手掌中。他们就是我们的“人质”。”
北越人要的是战争逐步降级，告诉毛他们的政策是“不主动惹美国”。毛为了自己的目的，不断鼓动他们扩大战争，说：“打得不痛不痒，不好解决问题。索性闹大了，好解决问题。”“恐怕应当多派些部队过到南边去”，“用不着怕美国干涉，无非就是再来一次朝鲜战争。中国军队已经做好了准备，如果美国冒险打到北越，中国军队就开过去。我们的军队想打仗了。”
Mao asked the North Vietnamese to escalate fighting in other countries which were neighbors of China: “Better also send several thousand troops to Laos,” he said. Laos “has been fighting for several years; but nothing has come of it. You should think of a way: get 3,000 or 4,000 men and … train them so they stop believing in Buddhism and become tough combat troops …” He particularly urged the Vietnamese to help build up a guerrilla army in Thailand, where America had military bases.
毛还怂恿越共把战争扩大到周边国家，使他的“人质”越多越好：“最好也要派几千人到老挝去，这个国家二百多万人口，打了几年，打不出什么名堂。应该想个办法，搞三四千人，编成六七个营，训练成不信佛教，能打仗的军队”。他特别强调帮助泰国共产党搞武装力量，因为美国在泰国有军事基地。
Hanoi's policy, in fact, was to get the USA to de-escalate, and the Vietnamese told Mao they did not want to “provoke” America. Mao nonetheless ordered 300,000–500,000 Chinese troops deployed along the border with Vietnam, ready to pour in. Chou En-lai paid a visit to China's South Sea fleet and told its commander to get ready to attack South Vietnam. Funds were allocated to move the fleet much closer to Vietnam, to the port of Zhanjiang.
为了给美国明确的信号，周恩来亲临南海舰队，要它進入全面备战，准备進攻南越。南海舰队领到三千万元搬家费，把舰队搬到离越南更近的湛江。毛在中越边境部署了三十到五十万军队，准备一抬脚就跨進越南。
Mao's agenda, as Chou En-lai later spelled out to Egypt's President Nasser, was to draw the maximum number of American troops into Vietnam as “an insurance policy” for China against a possible US nuclear attack, because we will have a lot of their flesh close to our nails. So the more troops they send to Vietnam, the happier we will be, for we feel that we will have them in our power, we can have their blood …
… They will be close to China … in our grasp. They … will be our hostages.
Chou also told Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere that to protect its nuclear facilities, Peking would act in Vietnam regardless of what the Vietnamese themselves wanted. “Tell the US,” Chou said, that if America attacks China's nuclear facilities, Peking will “respect no borders” and will go into North Vietnam “with or without the consent of the Vietnamese.”
周恩来对坦桑尼亚(Tsnzania)总统尼雷尔(Juliys Nyerere)说，为了保卫中国的核设施，中国将進入越南行动，“无论有没有越南的同意”。周请尼雷尔把这一点转告美国政府，说：“美国如果轰炸中国，我们将用我们认为必要的方式進行还击。那时候，战争就没有界限了。”
MAO DID NOT worry only about air strikes on his nuclear facilities, he feared that all his arms-centered industries could be targets. As a lot of these were situated in coastal plains, he decided to move them to China's mountainous hinterland.
毛也害怕美国轰炸他的整个军事工业系统。因为这些工厂大多摆在一览无遗的平原上，毛要把它们搬進内地的大山里。这些内地的崇山峻岭被称为“三线”，沿海地区叫“一线”， 中国其他地区为“二线”。
In June 1964 he ordered this massive relocation, which he described to his inner circle as a nationwide “house-moving” of industries to cope with “the Era of the Bomb.” The undertaking went by the general name of the “Third Front” (coastal and border areas were “the First Front”; “the Second Front” was the rest of China). No fewer than some 1,100 large enterprises were dismantled and moved to remote areas, where major installations like steel and electricity plants had to be constructed. Some nuclear facilities were even duplicated. Mountains were hollowed out to make giant caves to accommodate them. The upheaval and cost were colossal. Over the decade the Third Front was being built, it cost an astronomical 200 billion-plus yuan, and at its peak it sucked in at least two-thirds of the entire nation's investment. The waste it created was more than the total material losses caused by the Great Leap Forward.
一九六四年六月，毛下令，为了应付“原子弹时期”， 全国来个工业大“搬家”， 把一线的重要工厂、科研机构，全部或部分搬迁到三线。一千一百多个主要企业于是被大动干戈地拆掉，千里迢迢地搬進山沟里。有的企业钻進掏空的巨大山脉，有的隐蔽在一劈两半的山间。一切从零开始，基本设施如钢铁、电力工厂全都重新建立。有的核设施甚至一式两份，以备万一。这一场大折腾历时十年，最高峰时至少吞噬了全国投资的三分之二，造成的浪费比大跃進还大。
From a strategic point of view, the whole project was nonsensical. The vast majority of plants in the Third Front were utterly dependent on road transport—sometimes even for water supplies—while the oil refineries were left exposed. China's main oil field, which had just come on stream, lay on the Manchurian plain. The relocation did not give China any greater security from attack.
从战略上讲，搞“三线”是荒谬的。三线的绝大部分企业都完全依赖陆地交通，路一断许多连水也没有。用油这时主要依靠远在千里之外的东北平原上的大庆。大搬家根本不能有效地保护中国军工。
Characteristically, Mao insisted that everything be built at breakneck speed, usually without any proper surveying. Irrational siting alone at least doubled normal construction costs, and left the new factories, which were frequently jerry-built, at the mercy of floods, avalanches and rock- and mud-falls. Many expensive plants, including tank factories and shipyards, were never finished, or overran by years. “Perhaps the most colossal failure,” one study concluded, was the Jiuquan steel mill in Gansu, which took twenty-seven years to produce any steel at all.
由于毛泽东一如既往地坚持要快，三线工厂的建设往往来不及做必要的地质勘探。仅选址不当就使建筑费加倍。匆促建成的厂房禁不住洪水、地震、危岩、泥石流的危害，不得不经常停工，有时甚至整个车间被埋。许多昂贵的如坦克、船舶制造厂，大兴土木却永远建不成。有一份研究报告说：或许最大的失败是甘肃的酒泉钢厂，整整花了二十七年才出钢。
The human costs were immeasurable. Over 4 million people were thrown into the mountains to build factories, lay railways and open mines, working and living in appalling conditions, in airless caves; water, often polluted, was in constant short supply. Many died. Countless families were torn apart for up to two decades. Only in 1984, long after Mao's death, were separated couples allowed to be reunited—and then only if the one in the Third Front was over forty, and had worked for twenty years.
浪费的人力和无谓的牺牲更是无法计算。参加三线建设的有四百万人，修工厂、铺铁路、开矿藏，工作和生活条件都极其艰苦。山洞里的厂房通风透气设备极差，人在里面待一会儿就恶心窒息。许多工厂建在当地人早已搬走的放射性污染带，使职工中癌症和异常病发病率特别高。水和其他生活用品都严重缺乏。死人的事经常发生。由于搬迁，无数家庭被拆散达二十年之久。只是在毛死了以后，一九八四年，当局才开始解决“职工夫妻两地分居问题”，照顾“年满四十岁、工龄满二十年，在三线艰苦地区工作满八年以上的干部和工人”。
Liu Shao-chi and Mao's other colleagues put up no resistance to this lunacy. Mao told them his mind was made up. To make it easier for them to swallow the idea, he gave the nearest thing in his lexicon to a commitment that people would not have to die from starvation, by telling his planners: “Be careful: Don't do a 1958, 1959 and 1960.” In addition, although the Third Front was economic folly, it did not involve persecutions. For Mao to forgo deaths and political victimization seems to have been the best his colleagues thought they could expect—and enough to make them feel they might as well go along with him. It was, it seems, a good day if the boss waived a few million deaths.
在毛把中国投入这样的疯狂中去时，不管是刘少奇还是其他中共领导人，都未置一词。毛一开头就对他们说他的主意已定：“没有钱，拿我的稿费去搞。”毛示意这次谁也不会饿死累死，说“不要闹一九五八年、一九五九年、一九六0年”。三线虽然在经济上是荒唐的，但不涉及政治迫害。这就已经是谢天谢地了。
CHINA'S FIRST BOMB was detonated on 16 October 1964 at Lop Nor in the Gobi Desert. The Silk Road had passed through here, linking central China with the shores of the Mediterranean Sea across the vast continents of Europe and Asia. Via this most barren and uninhabitable desert had flowed silk, spices, precious stones, art and culture with all their richness and splendor, exchanges that had excited ancient civilizations, and infused them with new life. Lop Nor had thus witnessed numerous life-enhancing impacts. Now, nearly two millennia later, it was the cradle of another “big bang,” that of destruction and death.
中国的第一颗原子弹于一九六四年十月十六日在罗布泊上空爆炸成功。这一带曾见识过造福人类的“丝绸之路”，丝绸、香料、宝石的贸易，文化艺术的交流，使受益的古国遍布欧亚大陆，从中国一直到地中海岸。两千年后，罗布泊却目睹了毁灭的烈焰。
The nuclear test site had originally been chosen by the Russians. There, army engineers, scientists and workers had been living for years in mud huts and tents, and in total isolation, working through sandstorms, searing heat and freezing winds.
选址在罗布泊是苏联人帮的忙。工程兵官兵，科技人员在这里安营扎寨，在“早穿皮袄午穿纱”的严酷气候和无休止的大漠风沙里，年复一年地住干打垒的土屋和帐篷，过着与家庭和外界隔绝的难以忍受的日子。
On the day itself, Mao was waiting for the big moment in his suite in the Great Hall—baptized “of the People,” although off limits to anyone uninvited. Situated on Tiananmen Square, a stone's throw from Zhongnanhai, it was designed to withstand any kind of military assault, and had its own nuclear bunker. The suite tailor-made for Mao was code-named Suite 118, in line with his usual clandestine style. Mao could drive straight into it in his car. Inside, there was a lift down into an escape tunnel wide enough for two trucks abreast, which led to the underground military centers on the edge of Peking. The suite was adjacent to the stage of a giant auditorium, so that Mao could emerge, and leave, without any close contact with the audience.
爆炸这一天，毛泽东守候在人民大会堂内他的套房“一一八”里。旁边等着三千名大型歌舞剧《东方红》的演职人员。这场为毛个人崇拜推波助澜的歌舞剧，由周恩来任“总导演”。
On that day, waiting next to Mao's suite were 3,000 performers involved in a musical extravaganza promoting his cult, The East Is Red, which Chou En-lai had staged. The title had been taken from the Mao “anthem”:
The East is red,
The sun rises,
China has produced a Mao Tse-tung.
He seeks happiness for the people,
He is the people's great saviour.
Once the success of the test was confirmed, the music of the anthem started, bright lights came on, and a beaming Mao stepped out, flanked by his whole top Party team. Waving to the 3,000 performers, he signaled for Chou En-lai to speak. Chou stepped in front of the microphones: “Chairman Mao has asked me to give you some good news …” Then he announced that a Bomb had been detonated. The crowd was silent at first, not knowing how to react, having been given no prior instructions. Chou then provided a cue: “You can rejoice to your hearts' content, just don't jump through the floor!” Whereupon they started yelling and leaping up and down in an apparent frenzy. Mao was the only leader of any country to greet the birth of this monster of mass destruction with festivity. In private, he composed two lines of doggerel:
原子弹爆炸的消息传来，大厅里毛颂歌《东方红》乐声骤起，顶灯、壁灯一排排大放光明。毛泽东随着乐声满面含笑地走進灯光里，身后是他的同事们。毛一面向三千人挥手致意，一面让周恩来讲话。周走到麦克风前说：“毛主席让我告诉你们一个好消息，我们的第一颗原子弹爆炸成功啦！”一开始，人群鸦雀无声，不知所措，人们事先没接到指示，不知道该怎样反应。周提示道：“你们可以忘情的高兴，但有一条，别把大会堂的地板给震塌了呀。”人们欢呼蹦跳起来，一个比一个显得激动。
Atom bomb goes off when it is told.
Ah, what boundless joy!
毛泽东是唯一公开欢庆原子弹这个大规模杀人武器爆炸成功的国家领袖。私下里，他以“诗”抒情：“原子弹说爆就爆，其乐无穷！”
Celebrations were organized throughout the country. Among the population, who learned for the first time that evening that China had been making a Bomb, there was genuine exultation. To possess nuclear weapons was regarded as a sign of the nation's achievement, and many felt tremendous pride—especially since they were told that China had produced the Bomb single-handed, with no foreign assistance. The decisive role that Russia played was strictly suppressed, and is little known today.
到处都组织了庆祝活动。中国人这是第一次听说他们的政府在制造原子弹。不少人感到骄傲，认为有了原子弹中国就强大了。人们以为造原子弹靠的是“自力更生”，苏联起的决定性作用被隐瞒下来。
With hunger only a couple of years behind, and painful memories raw, some among the elite wondered how much the Bomb had cost. The regime registered the import of the questions, and Chou made a point of telling a small audience that China had made the Bomb very cheaply, and had spent only a few billion yuan on it. In fact, the cost of China's Bomb has been estimated at US$4.1 billion (in 1957 prices). This amount in hard currency could have bought enough wheat to provide an extra 300 calories per day for two years for the entire population—enough to save the lives of every single one of the nearly 38 million people who died in the famine. Mao's Bomb caused 100 times as many deaths as both of the Bombs the Americans dropped on Japan.
大饥荒不过是两三年前的事，有人心里在嘀咕制造原子弹花了多少钱。为了平息不满，周恩来特地在内部说这颗原子弹只花了几十亿人民币。据专家估算，事实上花的钱是四十一亿美元(按一九五七年的价)。这些钱要是用在国际市场上买小麦，可以给全国人民在两年中每人每天增加三百热卡，可以使大饥荒中饿死的三千八百万人一个都不会死。也就是说，为了毛的第一颗原子弹而死的中国人，是美国在日本扔下的两颗原子弹合起来炸死的人的一百倍。