ESCAPE FROM RED CHINA

Robert Loh's position is unique. Completing political science graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin in 1948, he went home to teach under his old mentor who had become head of Shanghai University. His return to the mainland despite the pleas of his father, who had fled to Hong Kong, was predicated on his desire to believe the fine-sounding pronouncements of the Communists as they began to take over the country. He did teach briefly, but during one early purge he realized that his days as an employed intellectual were numbered. He went to work as nominal manager of the flour mills of the ""national-capitalist"" family of a former fellow-student. The changes that overtook China, the notorious gap between what the Communists said and did, the degradation suffered by everyone, even the Party members who were dehumanized by the very conditions of their membership, proceeded apace to disillusion Loh until he longed for escape. He comments at length on reactions to the Polish and Hungarian uprisings and the Hundred Flowers movement, which he observed firsthand. Skillful in parroting the type of public statements the Communists wanted from someone in his position, he rose through the political maze and reached ""reliability"". He was even sent to Russia as an official ""tourist"". When Party watchfulness was relaxed, he contrived to escape, feeling free to do so