Comrades Lin Biao, Premier, Chen Yi, Tao Zhu, and Boda (I): I agree with this big-character
poster (2). Foreign revolutionary experts and their children should be treated exactly like
Chinese people. No difference is allowed. Please discuss this. All those who are willing
should do the same. Please decide on the method.
Mao Zedong
September 8




[1] Lin Biao was re-elected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC
Central Committee at the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th CPC Central Committee and was
soon named Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Committee. The Premier refers to Zhou Enlai.
Chen Yi, at the time, was a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee,
Vice Premier of the State Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Director of the Office of
Foreign Affairs. Tao Zhu, at the time, was a member of the Standing Committee of the
Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Executive Secretary of the Central
Secretariat. Boda refers to Chen Boda.
[2] This refers to a large-character poster written by Yang Zao6 and four other American
experts to the State Council's Foreign Experts Bureau on September 7, 1966, and copied by
the Investigation Team of the Office of the Cultural Revolution Group of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China. The poster stated, "We firmly oppose special
treatment in politics and life, and resolutely demand to become strong revolutionaries and
resolute fighters against revisionism. To carry the struggle against U.S. imperialism to the
end, we are determined to temper and test ourselves. Our descendants must become
reliable revolutionary successors and must not be allowed to become revisionists. To this
end, we demand: 1. Treat us as class brothers, not as bourgeois experts. 2. Allow and
encourage us to participate in manual labour. 3. Help us with ideological transformation. 4.
Allow and encourage us to closely integrate with workers and peasants. 5. Allow and
encourage us to participate in the three major revolutionary movements. 6. Our children

6 Yang Zao was the name taken by US scientist Irwin (Sid) Engst (1918-2003) when he moved
to China in 1946 as an animal husbandry expert of the United Nations General Relief Agency.
In the same year, he went to the Communist base at Yan’an. After working on state farms
with his wife, Joan Hinton, he went to Beijing in 1966 and was assigned to work as a
translator for a Chinese film distribution company. In the summer, he co-wrote a bigcharacter poster with Bertha Sneck (wife of William Hinton), Joan Hinton, and Ann Tomkins
to oppose special treatment for foreigners. Then he joined the combat team of the rebels. In
1972, he went to work in Beijing Red Star Commune. In October 1979, he was appointed as
a consultant to the Ministry of Agricultural Machinery of the People's Republic of China.
After 1982, he was engaged in cattle breeding and improvement for 20 years at the
Agricultural Machinery Experimental Station of Xiaowangzhuang Agricultural Mechanization
Research Institute in Shahe Town, Beijing. In an interview with CNN in 1996, he and his wife
said they "witnessed the collapse of their socialist dream" because Chinese people accepted
Western-style capitalism. In a 2004 interview, Joan Hinton criticized China's economic
transformation as "a betrayal of the socialist cause." The book Silage Choppers & Snake
Spirits: The Lives & Struggles of Two Americans in Modern China tells their story.  Their son,
Fred Engst, remains critical of China’s restoration of capitalism.




receive the same treatment and strict standards as Chinese children. 7. Living conditions are
the same as those of staff members of the same rank. 8. Eliminate special treatment."