Editing Openai/693af22c-95ec-8008-9486-f714a282fa64 (section)

=== You highlight something important: “The secrecy thrilled him.” ===
This is psychologically astute and historically accurate.

Being entrusted with a secret assignment—even a mundane one—served several functions in Maoist political culture:
# Creates personal indebtedness: receiving “organizational trust” (组织的信任) is emotionally binding.
# Enhances internal differentiation: some cadres get normal posts; a smaller number get “special political tasks.”
# Heightens discipline: secrecy is both privilege and burden; any leak becomes a political crime.
# Flattens moral ambiguity: once framed as “organizational trust,” even ethically troubling tasks (surveillance, coercion, psychological manipulation) become ideologically justified.

In Captain Du’s mind, the Party has elevated him above his peers. He becomes “the one who knows”—a classic mechanism in Leninist organizational psychology for producing loyalty.