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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 30, No. 3. 1967.

Effigies burnt

Effigies burnt

Some effigies were especially burnt to oblige the photographers in our party.

Eventually some other Europeans arrived—an Italian, a couple of Frenchmen, a handful of Albanians and, rather curiously, an American.

The whole show assumed a rather festive aspect.

The American took the microphone. "Russian Dogs!" he screamed. "I know you can speak English because your American Capitalist masters have taught you how!"

Quickly working himself into a frenzy, he ended rather splendidly by exclaiming that the Soviet revisionists would be "swept into the dustbin of history." Well put!

It was amusing to note that the Red Guards, in the course of the cultural revolution, had renamed the street in which the Embassy stood "Anti-revisionist" street. Pointed.

Political discussions with the Red Guards were frequent and protracted. The Red Guards and workers have been undergoing an intensified political science course over recent months and were, and no doubt still are, interested in politics almost to the exclusion of all else.

On many occasions members of the student party attempted to ask other questions—about love, marriage—even illegitimacy and homosexuality but these questions were dealt with quickly and rather impatiently as if such matters were too trivial to warrant discussion. The conversation was quickly Steered back to political channels. It was established, however, that a couple contemplating marriage would first see if their ideologies were identical. Apparently it was all-important to be politically compatible Marx and marriage, do not, it seems, go together like "a horse and carriage" in China.

Street scene in Cant.

Street scene in Cant.