Erwin Engst

Who was Erwin Engst?

Erwin Engst was an American advisor to the People's Republic to China. He moved to China in 1946 to assist in developments in agriculture and later to participate in the construction of that country's socialist economy. He married Joan Hinton in 1949 in Yan'an. They worked at a farm near Xi'an and moved to Beijing to work as translators and editors at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

On August 29, 1966, Hinton, Engst and two other Americans living in China signed a poster with the following text:

Which monsters and freaks are pulling the strings so foreigners get this kind of treatment? Foreigners working in China, no matter what class background they have, no matter what their attitude is toward the revolution, they all get the "five nots and two haves": the five nots - first: no physical labour, second: no thought reform, third: no chances of contacs with workers and peasants, fourth: no participation in class struggle, fifth: no participation in production struggle; the two haves - first: they have an exceptionally high living standard, second: they have all kinds of specialisation. What kind of concept is that?