I first came across the Taiwan Chinese language translation of the banned book by Mao Zedong’s personal physician Li Zhisui on a website when I was working at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in the late 1990s. I found it on the website of a local government in Anhui Province! I later read the first few chapters in English — much of the focus was on Mao’s sex life so the book was very repetitive, just different women in different chapters so I gave up on it fairly quickly. I saw a mention about it recently and looked up some Chinese language blog posts and articles about it.
I copied below DeepL machine translations — I made some tweaks to fix some machine-generated perplexities.
by Prof.Andrew J. Nathan （Li Anyou) (Professor, Columbia University)
There is no other leader in history who has ruled his people as long as Mao Zedong and brought such havoc to his country. The desire to dominate and the fear of betrayal drove Mao to keep his court and his people in turmoil. His ideals and machinations drove China toward the Great Leap Forward and its horrific consequences, the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution, which claimed millions of lives.
Mao was also the first autocratic tyrant to be observed so closely in this memoir by the author, who was Mao’s doctor for twenty-two years. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, by Seutonius, is a horrifying account of the absolute power of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero: lust, greed, sadism, incest, torture and murder. But the author did not know these monarchs personally. Procopius, in his book The Secret History, mercilessly denounced the Roman Emperor Justinian and then Theodora, but lacked any real knowledge of his protagonists. Albert Speer knew Hitler well, but their common interests were limited to public service and war. Stalin’s daughter rarely met her father. The diaries of Napoleon’s and Hitler’s personal physicians were only clinical information.
The private memoirs of great democratic leaders, such as Moran’s Churchill and Herndon’s Lincoln, are less historically oriented than the biographies of tyrants, because democratic leaders have less room to impose their personalities on historical events. In the Chinese tradition, the “Qijuzhu” (起居注) [Notes on Daily Life] of each dynasty only records the role of each emperor in ceremonies, omens, alliances, and fiefdoms, and rarely reveals the individual under the yellow robe. Even in fictionalized novels about Chinese historical figures such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is the type of character rather than the personality that is dealt with.
In contrast, Dr. Li’s memoir is unique in that it provides a first-hand record of observations and insights into people’s lives.
The official memoirs and portraits of Mao that circulate in China today invariably present a wise and caring emperor. The truth is quite different. On the occasion of his first meeting, Mao exuded charm, empathy, and an unassuming manner that made his visitors relaxed and talkative. But he is a master of manipulating his own emotions, using anger and contempt to control his entourage to horrifying effect. He relies on the Confucian humility of his subordinates who do not want to offend their superiors to humiliate his subordinates and opponents. When he made a gesture of self-criticism, others would rise up to flatter him. He created a culture of humility around him.
Following the example of Emperor Tang Taizong, Mao exploited people’s weaknesses and made them swear loyalty. Dr. Li Zhisui came from a wealthy family, received his medical education at the American School in Shanghai, and had some early involvement with the Kuomintang. These potentially dangerous factors put him completely under Mao’s control. Mao knew that his guards were corrupt, but he needed these men to do his work for him. Mao loved to say, “When the water is clear, there are no fish.” He could float in the murky waters or walk through the mud in the dark without fear.
Regardless of their origins, Mao’s followers were always on thin ice. Mao’s old comrades have been exiled to the mainland, and some have died as a result, though Mao may not have directly contributed to these tragedies. In one scene in the book, we see Mao sitting behind the scenes as two of his closest comrades are being attacked in a mass meeting. Mao controlled the health care of his senior leaders, refusing to allow some to undergo cancer treatment because he believed the surgery would drain them of their energy for the rest of their lives. He was indifferent to the suffering of his loved ones, children and old friends. He was also oblivious to the abstract number of human lives lost to his economic and political programs. He understands pain only to control his subjects. In politics and in his private life, he was at his subjects’ beck and call, if they were still alive.
Dr. Lee often saw Mao with a Chinese history book in his hand. Mao loved to read the traditional stories of power struggles and deception, and he was well versed in waiting for the right opportunity to attack and retreat in a roundabout way. He was a master of “luring the snake out of its hole,” encouraging others to take a stand before capturing them. Even his closest allies couldn’t tell if he was on the same side or waiting for an opportunity to turn the tables on them. With such a warm smile, Mao sentenced his servant to exile, and the victim bowed all the way to thank him for his kindness and left.
Imperial power allows the emperor to enjoy the greatest luxury of all – the simplicity of life. Mao spent most of his time either in bed or lounging by his private swimming pool. He ate greasy food, gargled with tea, and had fun with women. When Mao went on a tour of Henan Province in 1958, he brought a truckload of watermelons with him. Mao liked to wear shoes made of cloth; if he was forced by diplomatic protocol to wear leather shoes, he ordered them to be fitted first. He did not bathe, preferring hot towels, which made it difficult for Dr. Li to stop the spread of trichomoniasis among Mao’s girlfriends. He slept in a custom-made wooden bed, which was transported by special train to various guest houses and even by air to Moscow.
He ruled the hours and the years. The Naiku followed Mao’s rhythms, rising at sunrise and setting at sunset. State comrades followed his movements and held meetings everywhere. He hoped to defeat death by using the Taoist art of the room with the woman. Except for Labor Day, National Day, and the occasional meeting with foreign guests, he follows no schedule – only on such important occasions does Mao dress up and use tranquilizers to control his anxiety.
Women contributed in turn as if they were serving food. While asceticism was practiced in Mao’s name, Mao’s sex life became the centerpiece of the inner palace. The Great Hall of the People set aside a special hall for Mao’s pleasures in the midst of high-level leadership meetings. The Party’s Political Department, which defends the nation’s moral integrity, recruits a large number of reliable and beautiful young girls from proletarian backgrounds, ostensibly to dance with the leader in the ballroom, but in fact to serve as his bedfellows. Some of the girls are so honored that they introduce their sisters and relatives to him.
Each provincial party secretary built a guest house for Mao. His erratic behavior was partly due to security concerns and partly driven by persecution paranoia. He once told Dr. Li, “It’s not good to stay in one place too long. Wherever he traveled, traffic was controlled and stations closed. Public security officers dressed up as hawkers to give Mao a sense of business as usual. During the Great Leap Forward, peasants were mobilized to work the crowded rice fields along the train line in a ridiculous drama of a bumper harvest, but in fact the autumn harvest was a disaster. Mao’s favorite place to stay was the Little Island Guest House on the Pearl River, where he could enjoy a place of solitude amidst the hustle and bustle of Guangzhou. Specially grown food from the Peking labor camps was flown in and sampled by tasters. The guards cooled his room with ice buckets.
Absolute power affects Mao’s mental and physical health, as well as his relationships, and through these, his country and the world. He stays in bed for months, depressed and unhappy. As soon as the political struggle turned in his favor, he became so energized that he could not sleep, so much so that Dr. Li had to increase the dosage of sleeping pills. The political pressure either made him impotent or he indulged in sex. During the Great Leap Forward, when tens of millions of people were starving to death, Mao gave up eating meat for a while, but needed the comfort of more women. A young girl once told Dr. Li, “The Chairman is so great, so great at everything, so intoxicating.
Authoritarian politics is closely related to the personality of the authoritarian. Mao built a unique regime – he strove to integrate the political and social system as a whole in order to create an unprecedented form of socialism out of a country that was poor, backward, and in dire straits.
In the face of Western hostility, Mao turned to an alliance with Moscow. But his appreciation of the West was one of the reasons he chose the American-trained Dr. Li, and it was the subject of countless long conversations between the two. Mao told Dr. Li that American intentions toward China had always been positive. Mao, on the other hand, had a deep contempt for his Soviet friends. Mao was determined to surpass the primitive Soviet model with Chinese-style socialism and to raise China to the level of the advanced West. This achievement would place him in the pantheon of Marxist-Leninist pioneers. The Great Leap Forward was Mao’s attempt to create a model of socialism superior to that of his neighbors to the north, and the Cultural Revolution was a stubborn experiment in the face of that failure.
In a vast continental country with a large, poor population, Mao used the power of the masses to pursue economic growth, attempting to replace material life with ideological fervor. By freezing people’s lives to the most basic needs, he built a huge, fiscally bankrupt industrial structure. Mao therefore ignored realities that were at odds with his ideals. Even though he was a farmer’s son, he still believed in the unimaginable rice paddies he saw in the early days of the Great Leap Forward. As Dr. Li said, why should Mao doubt that the communist paradise was really here – when he himself was in it? Mao thought he could learn more about leadership from Chinese history books than from modern engineering textbooks. It was only after the backyard steelmaking campaign had done so much damage that Mao bothered to learn about the process of making steel. At a time of widespread hunger, he fantasized that the people had more rice than they could eat.
Mao’s ideology promoted self-denial, defined human values in terms of political integrity, and humiliated class enemies. A system of working groups, class labels, account management, and mass movements imprisoned every citizen in an organizational cage. No totalitarian system has ever taken the political horror of human cruelty to such an extreme. This bureaucracy permeates the economy, politics, ideology, culture, people’s private lives, and even the minds of many. It leads the people to glorify the regime that takes what it wants from them. When the party apparatus was unable to adequately meet the pace and efforts of Mao’s fantasies, he did not hesitate to shake up its fundamentals by launching a campaign of liquidation and criticism. It was only when the masses fell into factional violence that they were reunited.
At the top of the leadership, there are 30 to 40 people who make major decisions together. Their personal power is extremely unstable and depends entirely on their relationship with Mao. Dr. Li paints a vivid picture of the central office system, the political and confidential secretaries, the guards, the kitchens, the parking rooms and the clinics that serve the comrades of the leadership. Leaders were secretly shuttled between Zhongnanhai and other buildings in the city via Beijing’s underground works. Mao’s close associates, who had installed wiretaps in his residence in order to keep a more complete record of his decisions, were removed from their posts for spying on him after the revelations.
The power structure serves and protects the leaders while isolating them, especially Mao. Mao’s comrades gradually surrendered to Mao the indoor swimming pool at Zhongnanhai, the dance parties, and the Beidaihe waterfront. Mao’s feat of swimming in the Three Rivers, despite the opposition of the guards, symbolized his lonely struggle with the bureaucracy, his fear of the end of the revolution, and his suspicion of betrayal by his comrades of his fervent beliefs.
At the 1956 Eighth Congress, Mao’s associates took advantage of the Soviet Union’s anti-Stalinist campaign to exclude Mao’s ideas from the party’s constitution, prompting the party to oppose the cult of the individual and to criticize Mao’s efforts to promote communism. Mao lied to Dr. Li that these policies had not been approved by him. Foreign forces also threatened Mao’s rule. Khrushchev, the leader of the new Soviet Union, sought a rapprochement with the West. Dr. Li describes an unhappy meeting between Mao and Khrushchev by the swimming pool. This secret meeting revealed the beginning of an open rupture between China and the Soviet Union and the beginning of China’s long isolation.
Mao held three instruments of power: the ideology, the military, and his pivotal position in the party’s network of factions. Chairman Mao’s nationwide campaigns to promote the Great Leap Forward were echoed by leaders of economic programs and grassroots cadres, and at the Lushan Conference in 1959, when other leaders tried to restrain Mao, Mao threatened to go to the mountains to form a new Red Army. Mao threatened to go to the mountains to form another Red Army, and the other leaders had no choice but to bow down and do as they were told.
After the beginning of the Great Famine, Mao retreated to the second line of power. While the other leaders restored the economy, he denounced them as “zombies” and complained privately that they no longer consulted him. But he stayed put until the Peking Opera debate, when he lured them in one by one and used the issue of corruption in the countryside to turn the tables on his opponents. When everything was ready, he launched the Cultural Revolution.
In 1969, after millions of people had been sacrificed, Mao won a sweeping victory at the Ninth Congress. By then, his political opponents had either been tortured to death or banished to the mainland, and the nation sang his praises in front of his ubiquitous portrait, waving the Little Red Book. Beside him stood Lin Biao, the only survivor of the old ruling group, who had other plans. Mao’s vision had failed. But he held absolute power in the country he had destroyed. Two years later, the Lin Biao Coup was so devastating to Mao that Dr. Li believes it hastened Mao’s death. Mao spent the rest of his life pushing the door to the West, paving the way for Deng Xiaoping’s reforms.
Pathology flourished in court politics. The more complete Mao’s control became, the more he feared the stranglehold of others. The competition for favors among his subordinates made Mao even more suspicious. Mao thinks the guest house has been poisoned, and he is horrified by the sound of wild animals roaming around the roof. Mao manipulated other leaders through the party organization and watched over his colleagues. His political enemies were surrounded by his men, so it was no wonder that he could never be sure whether they were also spying on him through his women.
Mrs. Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, suffered from neurasthenia, a fear of sound, light, cold, and heat, and an uncontrollable tendency to argue with others. She was bored, dependent, and forced to do nothing, which made her extremely depressed. That’s why Mao always tried to keep her out of sight when he was having his way with women. But when Mao needed her as a political agent, he led her into the inner circle. Jiang Qing, like the equally sick Lin Biao, was immediately energized and became friendly with Mao’s favorite girlfriend, hoping to get closer to the source of power.
Dr. Li presents the following scenes: Lin Biao, in his wife’s arms, whimpering about kidney stones; Hua Guofeng sitting in the hall for hours without being able to see Mao because Zhang Yufeng, Mao’s caretaker at the time, was taking a nap; Zhou Enlai kneeling at Mao’s feet to instruct the route of the jeeps’ parade; a very sick Mao handing over the reins of power to Zhou Enlai for the sake of an early recovery and to outlive Zhou, as well as Jiang Qing’s anger about this, among other things.
Of all Mao’s followers, only Zhou Enlai kept a certain distance from the intricate and complicated inner palace network. Ironically, Dr. Li and his colleagues came to see Zhou as dangerous and untrustworthy. The fact that Zhou reported up the hierarchy of leadership made other retainers suspicious and viewed him as weak and incompetent.
In the end, one of the most beloved men in China turned against his own people. During Mao’s long period of deterioration, the main preoccupation of his retainers was to avoid the consequences of his death. Only his girlfriend, Zhang Yufeng, continued to treat him like a human being, arguing endlessly and fearlessly when accused of being angry with Mao. As Mao becomes weaker and weaker, she becomes an indispensable part of his life because she is the only one who can decipher Mao’s ambiguous language.
Dr. Lee’s open, smiling round face stands out in the group photo of Mao’s many courtiers. His straightforward expression, soft smile, and neatly groomed clothes belied his Western training. Dr. Li’s foreign temperament and Western mannerisms seem to illustrate both his talents and his weaknesses, thus making him particularly inaccessible. Dr. Li’s insecurity is a guarantee of Mao’s safety, and the two are closely related. So he survives under Mao’s protective wing and devotes himself to medical matters – to the maintenance of the health of the man whose every move could cost the lives of a million people.
Only those who are blind to evil to a certain extent can become the guardian angels of the tyrant’s life. Dr. Li’s limited role as a spectator of history is one of the requirements of his work. But sometimes politics can be overwhelming. Mao often insisted on discussing current events, or sent Dr. Li out of the inner palace to observe and report. Trapped in the inner palace, Dr. Li had to distinguish between his enemies and friends. Besides Chairman Mao, his protector was Wang Dongxing, the head of the Central Security Bureau. The alliance between Li and Wang makes this book somewhat biased, but at the same time it offers many insights into palace politics.
Since Dr. Li left China, he has been almost completely erased from official history. Of the numerous books on Mao’s personal life issued by the Chinese publishing industry, only one or two mention him. Apparently, the central government has decreed that Li never existed. But he is firmly embedded in unalterable documentary films and photographs, and certain reliable sources have confirmed his identity. Comparisons with official and semi-official writings confirm many of the details in his book, but unlike this book, they omit in broad strokes those aspects that would embarrass a regime that still relies on Mao’s bright image to rule. No official biography presents a truer picture of Mao than Dr. Li’s book. This book is one of the most insightful works on Mao – and perhaps on any autocrat in history.
Five years after Mao’s death, in 1981, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCP) sealed Mao’s coffin with an official “Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the PRC“. It concluded that Mao was a great revolutionary whose merits outweighed his faults. This book teaches us another lesson. It describes how over-expanded power can drive its owners into a dark abyss in which great dreams can only lead to heinous crimes.
Lone Evidence Doesn’t Hold Up – An Examination of Mao’s Private Life
The meaning of lone evidence not being valid is clear. If there is only one piece of evidence to support a conclusion, the conclusion is unacceptable and, in logic, is called a weak proposition. Liang Qichao said, “Lone evidence is not definitive, and its no counter-evidence available, continue looking for more evidence if found, see it as more credible; if convincing evidence to the contrary is found, discard the original supposition.”
The author was a history enthusiast in his youth. Around ’94 or ’95, I met a friend who studied history. In casual conversation about how to arrive at a reliable historiographical conclusion, she relayed three principles of historical data from her mentor, a relatively famous Chinese history scholar of the time: solitary evidence is not valid, two is not enough, three is just right, and more is piled on.
It happened that my friend’s Taiwanese counterpart brought her a book, Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician by Dr. Li Zhisui. At my friend’s place, the author read the book with great interest. At that time, I had several impressions: Mao Zedong’s relationship with women was very unserious and extremely promiscuous; the wiretap incident – such an appalling conspiracy against the Great Leader was not announced later; Wang Dongxing looked down on the beloved Premier – what qualifications do you, Wang Dongxing, have? What qualifications do you have?
However, before I read a few sentences of the book, the phrase “the world is in ruins” appeared, which is obviously not the customary terminology of the Red Dynasty people. So I discussed with my friends: Is the content of the book reliable, especially the history of Mao’s affairs with many young women? The only plausible episode is the Chairman’s “love at first sight” with Zhang Yufeng on the special train, because there are similar stories circulating in the folklore.
Dr. Li’s claim was later verified by the CCP’s official media, which revealed the history of Yang Shangkun’s involvement in the wiretapping incident. However, the details of Mao’s private life, such as sleeping together, were too bizarre and absurd for the author at the time, so he took the attitude of “no evidence is conclusive, and those who don’t have any evidence against it should keep it”.
Chibenyu’s refutation
Qi Benyu was a member of the former Central Cultural Revolution Group, Acting Director of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Red Flag magazine, and a popular figure in the early days of the Cultural Revolution. Shortly after the founding of the CCP in 1949, he joined the Political Secretary’s Office of the Central General Office as a trainee secretary, and was later promoted to the positions of secretary, section chief, and branch secretary, working at Mao Zedong’s side for eighteen years. In the pre-Cultural Revolution period, the Central Cultural Revolution Group replaced the Central Secretariat and held great power; the Central General Office was in charge of the CCP’s vitals. At that time, the formidable Qi Benyu was known as “Qi Da Shuai” (戚大帅).
Issue 6 of Ming Pao Monthly in 1996 carried an interview of Qi Benyu with Lu Yuan, editor of the Dallas Times, which involved Li Zhisui’s recollections of Mao Zedong. In this interview, Marshal Qi firmly refuted Li Zhisui: “I have never seen or heard anyone say that Mao Zedong had the fact of womanizing. Mao lived a simple life and there was no such fact as ‘indulging in sound and color’ or ‘being rotten to the core’.” Chi Benyu believed that he had been imprisoned by Mao for eighteen years and that he had no grudge against Mao; if this was true, there was no need for him to hide it from Mao. At the same time, Chi cited very credible evidence to discredit Dr. Li’s claim that he had witnessed some important meetings of the CCP and the state.
In the interview, Qi Benyu also accused Mao of immorality for marrying He Zizhen while Yang Kaihui was raising her three young children alone. Qi mentioned that he had specifically asked Zhou Enlai about this part of Mao’s history in the summer of 1966. [Note: Marshal Chi asked Zhou Enlai about Mao’s history of bigamy, so politically naïve that it reveals his idealistic nerdish nature. Within the meat grinder of the CCP, he was lucky to survive politically until the Cultural Revolution. Later, he was puzzled as to why the President threw him out as a scapegoat in early 1968. These eighteen years in prison seem to have been in vain!
The author saw this interview after 2000, and thought it was reasonable and credible. According to Mr. Liang Qichao’s words, “when the strong counter-evidence is discarded”, the author began to regard Dr. Li’s memoirs as some real information gossip stories, not even a solitary evidence. Since then, has been based on Qi Da Shuai’s statement, and netizens have debated the truth or falsehood of Mao’s affair.
It is just as likely that Mao’s meetings with young women were hidden from these peripheral staff, especially those who were nerds in the world of human affairs like Qi Benyu; or that the Chairman’s licentious behavior became unscrupulous and undisguised after Qi Benyu’s incarceration in 1968, when the situation of the Cultural Revolution was largely settled.
Interview with Wang Guangmei
The author’s attitude of not believing much in Mao Zedong’s affair was loosened a bit when I later read part of the chapter in the Interview with Wang Guangmei. Wang Guangmei, the wife of former Chinese President Liu Shaoqi, claimed that she learned how to swim from Mao Zedong in Beidaihe in 1954, so Mao would sometimes invite her to swim.
On July 20, 1959, when Mao Zedong began to criticize Peng Dehuai at Mount Lushan, Mao invited Wang Guangmei to swim at the Lulin Reservoir again, and Wang Guangmei hurriedly found a swimming suit. “Before leaving the house she felt a little cold and found another pair of stockings to put on.” “Liu Shaoqi took one look at Wang Guangmei and said, ‘ Oh, you’re still wearing stockings’.”
The Chairman invited Wang Guangmei to swim with him with great seriousness and effort, and if he could not be notified by phone, he would send his secretary to pick him up: “One day, Comrade Xu Yefu, the secretary of Chairman Mao, called to notify me to go swimming, and it so happened that I went to Peking and was not at the place where I lived, and Comrade Xu Yefu came to look for me in his automobile.” This made Jiang Qing extremely disgusted. Once, “it was noon after swimming, and the chairman kept us for dinner …… Everyone had just sat down when Jiang Qing came back. She was very unhappy at the sight, and immediately sank down and said angrily, ‘An article is good for you, but a wife is good for others.’ The Chairman laughed!”
Wang Guangmei, then 38 years old, was in the prime of female splendor; Mao’s more intimate and frequent encounters with his deputy’s wife were indeed superb, but really unseemly (Mao and Wang even danced together from time to time). It is true that the group of people who fought in the early years of the CCP generally took a dim view of male-female relationships. For example, Zeng Zhi, a famous beauty in the CPC, was indignant when she recalled that she was disciplined by the organization for dating Ye Fei and Ren Tiefeng, the two leaders of the Min Dong Special Committee at the same time: “I’m a communist and a professional revolutionary, and I have to make sacrifices for the revolution at any time; at the same time, I have long since thrown the ‘Three Obediences and Four Virtues‘ and chastity plaques and the kind of feudalism out of the window.” Tao cast after his release from prison in 1937 and Zeng Zhi reunited, these relationships were not taboo to Zeng Zhi. Therefore, one cannot apply our contemporary common sense to look at the attitude of these revolutionaries towards relationships with men and women.
[Note: When Zeng Zhi was disciplined, the male-female relationship was only an excuse. The other leaders of the Min Dong Special Committee at that time were worried that Zeng Zhi, who had a strong character, would unite with Ye and Ren to overthrow them. Please refer to the blog post ” The Redheads and the Redheads “]
But in 1959, after the founding of the CCP, it is not easy to say what Chairman Liu thought of Mao’s close association with his wife. After all, the tone of ” Oh, still wearing stockings ” was certainly not happy or indifferent. At that time coincided with Mao’s decision to defeat Liu’s political enemy Peng Dehuai, Mao and Wang swim together, whether or not it affects the political game between Mao and Liu, and thus affect the political situation of the CPC, it is even more difficult to judge. Therefore, I feel that the ridiculous plot in Dr. Li’s memoirs may really happen.
“Across the Thick Red Door.
The author of this book, Zhang Hanzhi, was Mao’s personal English teacher. According to Zhang, her divorce was instigated by Mao, who told her one day in 1972, “My teacher Zhang, today I’m going to criticize you, you have no talent!” “I say you have no talent because you have good face and you don’t liberate yourself! Your man is already with someone else, why don’t you get a divorce? Why are you afraid of others knowing?”
Immediately thereafter, at the age of 37, Zhang Hanyi went through the divorce procedure. When Mao Zedong learned of this, he immediately sent a basket of large red apples from Kim Il-sung to Zhang Hanyi, with a message saying, “Congratulations to Comrade Zhang Hanyi on liberating herself.”
Just as Zhang Hanyi has long had a successor, is the then Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Qiao Guanhua. Mao was disappointed to learn that Zhang Hanzhi had, in fact, fallen out of favor. According to Zhang Hanyi’s recollections, “The ‘through-the-air figure’ in the Foreign Ministry said that Chairman Mao encouraged you to liberate yourself in the hope that you would work well for him thereafter, and didn’t ask you to jump on Master Qiao’s boat right away to have a love affair and get married to him.” The Tongtian figure here is obviously Wang Hairong, or perhaps Tang Wensheng is also added. It is also true that Ms. Wang and Ms. Tang were later single for the rest of their lives.
Zhang Hanyi’s divorce is no big surprise, but the Chairman encouraged her divorce is a bit interesting; and the President later dissatisfied with Zhang’s remarriage, is even more interesting. The Mao-Chang relationship, or at least the Mao-Chang relationship that Mao expected, was somewhat unusual.
“The President is encouraging you to liberate yourself in the hope that you will work well for him thereafter” – not being a single woman means you can’t work well for the Chairman?
Lu Hong’s Verification
An article signed by Lu Hong later circulated on the Internet, “In Search of the Sisters Favored by Mao in Li Zhisui’s Writing,” which added a very detailed description of a pair of sisters favored by Mao in Dr. Li’s memoirs. Lu Hong was the pen name of Hong Furnace (1931-2019), from whom Wang Cheng, the prototype in the movie Heroic Sons and Daughters, was written. Hong Furnace is the son-in-law of General Wu Xiuquan, former deputy chief of staff of the PLA, and former editor of PLA Daily, who participated in the founding and editing of Yanhuang Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals).
The third sister in Lu Hong’s article is easily identified online as Li Jing. Li Jing was the former head of the Cultural Department of the General Staff. The CCP media claimed that she was the President’s goddaughter and an authentic heir to the “Mao Style” of calligraphy. The characters and their experiences mentioned in Lu Hong’s article are consistent with the author’s knowledge and understanding of the CCP. The storyline is also highly compatible with Dr. Li’s memoirs.
Judging from the photos, the second sister Li Zheng’s appearance was indeed as Lu Hong had said, much more beautiful than the third sister. Her two sons and one daughter were all well-groomed. Only the text only mentioned one of her sons, did not mention another son and a daughter, and also said how lonely and miserable in his old age, some out of the ordinary (the author is more sympathetic to Ms. Li’s suffering, the history of this material is also skeptical, so do not provide pictures).
This article has been circulating for many years, but Mr. Lu Hong has not come forward to take a position on the authenticity of the article, nor have we heard that he has encountered any political trouble as a result. Mr. Lu Hong had participated in the founding and editing of Yanhuang Chunqiu, a “liberal” magazine, and it is reasonable that he would write a “non-Mao” article. Lu’s colleague Du Guanzheng, who was the president of Yanhuang Chunqiu, also wrote in his book Du Guanzheng’s Diary: What Else Zhao Ziyang Said: “Zhao Ziyang said: I know the author of the book ‘Memoirs of Mao Zedong’s Personal Physician’. His name is Li Zhisui, he worshiped Mao and was later disillusioned; that the facts in the book were basically reliable.” “赵紫阳说:《毛泽东私人医生回忆录》一书作者，我认识。他叫李志绥，他崇拜毛，以后绝望了，书中事实是基本可靠的。”The same tone as in Lu Hong’s article.
Lu Wen looks very real, logic can also be self-consistent. Just can not be ruled out that others pretending to write in the name of Lu Hong, so the verification of Lu Hong this text, the effectiveness of limited.
Chen Yusheng’s daughter Chen Luwen
In his article, Lu Hong also endorsed the story of Ms. Chen Luwen (real name: Chen Huimin). Although he claims that Ms. Chen was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party’s public security department in Hong Kong for revealing “palace secrets” and returned to the mainland for house arrest, her whereabouts are unknown (this is not true). Lu Hong also analyzed why Ms. Chen’s “third sister was with the leader at the time when she was dating the old man, and why the two of them didn’t “bump into each other””, thus answering Qi Benyu’s query that the two “favored concubines” didn’t know about each other, let alone a person like Qi Benyu who didn’t know of each other’s existence. The two “favored concubines” were unaware of each other’s existence, not to mention a peripheral staff member like Qi Benyu.
Chen Luwen, a former dancer in the Air Force Cultural Troupe, had a pretty face in her youth (see below).
Front row, third from right, Chen Luwen; second from right, Zhang Yufeng
Chen Luwen’s father was Chen Yusheng (1899-1994), whose history is known to the author. Chen Yusheng organized his own armed resistance against the Japanese in 1938, and this militia was later incorporated by the miscellaneous Li Ming Yang and Li Chang Jiang divisions of the Kuomintang. Chen Yusheng joined the CPC in 1939 and led his troops to join the Communists in the defense of Guo Village in 1940. In the Battle of Guochun, Ye Fei made a big splash by defeating the strong with the weak. During the battle, Chen Yi, who could not cross the river to the north, was so anxious that he could only beat his chest and look at the river. Chen Yi while cursing Liu Shaoqi, while writing ahead of time “hanging tube, Ye”. After the war, Ye Fei naturally became Chen Yi diehard, and instigated Ye Fei attack Shuang Li, but defaulted on sending reinforcements Liu Shaoqi, lost a good opportunity to plant the flag in the army.
Chen Yusheng was instrumental in establishing a strong foothold for the New Fourth Army that crossed the river to the north and then established a base in northern Jiangsu Province. An old movie from the 1980s, “Overture to the East”, reflects this history. Later, Chen Yusheng became the deputy chief of staff of the navy in the East China Military Region and the vice chairman of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and was well respected in East China, especially in the military system.
In October 2011, Open Magazine in Hong Kong published an article entitled “Confessions of a Mao Zedong Lover” by its editor-in-chief, Mr. Jin Zhong. According to Mr. Jin Zhong, the article is a transcript of his interview with Ms. Chen Luwen.
This interview at least unravels the mystery of Meng Jinyun’s becoming an active counter-revolutionary during the Cultural Revolution. “The first time she met Chairman Mao, in 1962, she was only 14 years old. She worked in the dance team of the Air Force Civilian Workers’ Troupe until 1967, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. They went to Zhongnanhai twice a week to dance with Mao.” At that time, the Cultural Revolution justified the rebellion,” Chen Luwen said, “We didn’t know anything about politics, and we whined about it. Meng Jinyun and I talked about Chairman Mao, saying that Mao was like an emperor, with three palaces and six courtyards, so what were we? We were concubines to be crowned, prostitutes to be paid, dancers to be entertained, and we had nothing –this was overheard by Liu Suyuan, the head of the troupe, who went to report it to Mao in the night, and Mao heard it and said two words: rumor-mongering! He arrested Meng Jinyun and me, labeled us counter-revolutionaries, and we were severely beaten, and I was sent to the Northeast. They said we were against Chairman Mao.” “¡Ó
The close relationship between Liu Suyuan and the President, as mentioned by Chen Luwen, has been mentioned in many Party historical sources, such as the memoirs of Wu Faxian and Qiu Huicuo. Liu Suyuan was used by the Lin Biao clique to crack down on the rebels in the military (readers can refer to the “May 13th” incident in 1967).
I used to wonder: when Meng Jinyun such a dance with Mao Zedong girl, how to dance, dance, dance into the current counter-revolutionary?In the summer of 1975, Mao suddenly and “counter-revolutionary molecules” Meng Jinyun, recalled to work in Zhongnanhai. At that time, Meng was at Mao Zedong’s side, handling letters and reading confidential documents on Mao’s behalf, and was trusted by Mao to the extent that Zhang Yufeng was trusted by Mao; anyone who wanted to see Mao Zedong had to go through Meng and Zhang to make arrangements. Think about how ridiculous! As the old saying goes, the anomaly of things is a demon. Chen Luwen’s statement is to solve the mystery.
In his memoirs, “East of the Yangtze River”, Szeto Wah mentioned that “Operation Yellow Bird” had helped a “mistress of Mao Zedong” to go to the United States. Mr. Jin Zhong said that this mistress of Mao Zedong should be Chen Luwen. What actually happened was that Chen wanted to go to the United States, but her application was rejected; it was the United Kingdom that granted her asylum.
The Independent also reported on this story: “How Britain saved Chairman Mao’s mistress from the communist regime”, by Nick Harris. The reporter at the time was Nick Harris, and the Independent is a centrist press, not representing the anti-communist, anti-Chinese far right. While major British newspapers such as The Times and The Guardian have very strict requirements for information, the Independent, a relatively serious newspaper, would not use unconfirmed information. Therefore, reports from these media are generally trustworthy. Of course, news about China in the foreign language media is often confusing, but the Independent’s report about Chen Luwen and Jin Zhong’s and Szeto Hua’s claims can corroborate each other, so they are more credible.
Chen Luwen (then 49 years old), who underwent plastic surgery, is pictured below.
Admiral Kim, Louvin Chen, Jonathan Mirsky
Chen Luwen comes from a family of senior cadres in the CCP and has good connections within the CCP system (especially the military). For example, Xu Jiatun, the head of the CCP in Hong Kong, served under Chen Luwen’s father, Chen Yusheng. In the 1990s, when Deng Xiaoping was encouraging people to “get rich”, Chen Luwen was in the arms business in Hong Kong, so he did not have to resort to making up lies about his close relationship with Mao to earn a living. If Chen Luwen wanted to be famous, she disappeared for many years after she left for the UK in 1997. Therefore, the author believes that this evidence of Chen Luwen is very credible and strong.
Chen Luwen, first from left, Xu Jiatun, second from left
At this point, there are three different sources of evidence accusing Mao of fooling around with young women: Li Zhisui, who was Mao’s sidekick; Lu Hong, who was a friend of Mao’s “favored concubine”; and Chen Luwen, who was Mao’s former “favored concubine”.” Have to have a continuation of the evidence is gradually believe it”. However, the author of these three pieces of evidence, more or less skeptical, so later still concerned about whether there is new evidence disclosure, especially to “a knife to death” of the actual evidence.
Dear Premier and Comrade Xiaoping
In a conversation with Mr. Jin Zhong, Ms. Chen Luwen revealed that the top echelons of the Communist Party of China (CPC), with the exception of Chen Yun and Lin Biao due to their health, all of them played with women, and Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping were no exception. Chen Huimin did not hesitate to say: Zhou had a lover, the wife of a general, ten years older than her, a dancer in the Haizheng government. Zhou often called her, and everyone in their circle knew it. She said, “Abbey is totally Zhou Enlai’s daughter!”
The author has carefully read Abbey’s “Calling Him Father Would Be Too Much”. 《叫父亲太沉重》Judging from common sense, the credibility is not high. Especially when I carefully compared the photos of Ai Bei and the Premier, I came to the conclusion that I could not find many traces of the Premier’s genes in the woman’s appearance. In contrast, Sun Weishi, who is not related to Zhou, looks more like the Premier.
As for the Haiping dancer, the logic is a bit questionable. Because according to Ms. Chen Luwen, even in 1951, when the Hai Cheng Cultural Troupe was founded, the actor was already 43 years old. Would she still be a dancer in those days? And a general’s wife. [Note: Although Chen Luwen’s account of Zhou is unreliable, it does not mean that her account of Mao is unreliable. Because Chen Luwen was not a party to Zhou’s story, she could only have heard about it through hearsay.]
However, Ms. Chen Luwen’s comment that Mao “resented Zhou Enlai for acting like a saint and having too many lovers to do anything about it” is somewhat in line with the author’s perception of the Premier. I am also curious about whether the beloved Premier Zhou did have a private life. In this regard, I have asked a friend who works for the CPC. This friend, who is also a member of the Red Generation, was also curious about this matter; one of the results of the inquiry was that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a story about a talented man and a beautiful woman, only that the talented man was not Qiao. Although this is an isolated piece of evidence, the author has a new interpretation of Minister Qiao’s defection to Zhou Enlai in the late Cultural Revolution.
In his interview with Mr. Charles Pang, Mr. He Frequency had something to say and also tried desperately to get clear information from Mr. Pang. Mr. Peng’s father was the famous General Peng Galun during the Red Army period, and his brother was Minister Qiao’s son-in-law. After all, there were relatives, and Mr. Peng always avoided this sensitive issue. However, Mr. Peng gave a clear affirmation that Mao, Zhou and Deng had affairs with women outside of marriage.
Background to the publication of Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician
Li Zhisui was the first director of the 355th Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a military-level cadre. After the establishment of the CCP, no matter when or where cadres of this rank are, their economic treatment and social status are quite good, so good that it is not something that people from the bottom of the ladder, such as myself, can imagine. Therefore, Dr. Li would not have written this memoir simply because of financial considerations.
According to Wikipedia, this book was originally written in Chinese, translated by Hongchao Dai, former chair of the political science department at the University of Detroit, with Anne F. ”Thurston” as assistant editor, and published in English by Random House in 1994. Anne considers this book her re-creation. The Chinese edition was translated from the English and published by Taiwan Times Culture in 1994. This statement solved my initial mystery – the language of the Chinese version is clearly not in line with mainlanders’ habits.
According to Mr. Rudy, the political aspects of the book are generally reliable if they are revealed by Mao’s conversations with Li, while there are places that are not factually correct if they are used as witnesses to high-level meetings, which may have been added by the publisher for the sake of sales. And reading the English version of this book is closer to the real Mao than reading the Chinese version. This argument is logically self-explanatory and answers Qi Benyu’s questions.
Mr. Li Zhisui does not seem to be happy with the book. After selling the copyright, Dr. Li disagreed with some of the changes made to the book, but there was nothing he could do about it. It is said that Dr. Li’s original manuscript was not accepted by anyone, and it is no wonder that Blue Lantern Bookstore has done a lot of “processing” for the sake of commercial interests, which has greatly reduced the historical value of this book.
Dr. Li published an article in Open Magazine under the name “Hukaike”, “Bold Assumptions, Careful Proof”, clarifying the widely rumored affair between Mao and Shangguan Yunzhu: Mao and Shangguan Yunzhu had “absolutely no personal dealings”. Dr. Li believes that Mao only preferred young, poorly educated women, and was not interested in actors and actresses, or those who were cultured (which seems to be somewhat similar to Hong Xiuquan’s preferences – see the author’s blog post, ” Hong Xiuquan’s Culture Level Was Not Low “) . Mr. Charles Peng has also expressed the same view on the rumors of Shangguan Yunzhu and Mao’s preference for women. Therefore, I think Dr. Li’s statement is reliable – the rumors about Shangguan Yunzhu and Mao are false.
In the interview, Dr. Li emphasizes Mao’s use of sex as a weapon in political struggle, a practice that has never been seen before. That is, Mao allowed women with whom he had sexual relations, and even the women’s husbands, to intervene in high-level politics and assist Mao in his political struggle.
In addition, based on this video, it is certain that Dr. Lee’s memoirs of Mao’s interactions with numerous women were indeed written by Dr. Lee himself and not processed by the publisher.
Zhang Hanyi sealed the deal
In the 2010s, after watching the Voice of America’s interview with Zhang Hanzhi, the matter finally came to a head in the author’s mind.
Zhang Hanyi said in an interview, “Chairman Mao was very fond of these young girls. I don’t agree with some of the things that are out there nowadays, including his original book that he wrote, like that Li Dafu ah, calling all of this the issue of the sex of men and women. Sometimes it’s not exactly like that. Look at the problem can not be too absolute, I do not deny that he has this aspect of this. Right, but you can’t categorize all relationships into that …… Also, if Mao Zedong didn’t make mistakes on big political issues. Then even if his personal life is a little bit of this problem. I don’t think it’s necessary to pay too much attention to this problem …… I think the first thing to look at Mao Zedong is to look at the political mistakes. And the second thing is, he liked some people, nothing particularly big, but don’t let people around him get involved in politics. That’s a bigger issue. If you’re limited to the confines of your own life, it doesn’t make much sense to me for people to point too much.”
From this passage, the author draws two conclusions relevant to this article: Zhang Hanyi did not deny the authenticity of Dr. Li’s memoirs, but only disagreed with Dr. Li’s interpretation of what happened; and secondly, Zhang Hanyi believed that Mao “liked some people, nothing particularly big, but don’t let the people around him get involved in politics.”
Did Mao involve his favorite young women in politics? Ms. Zhang and Dr. Li seem to see things the same way.
Concluding remarks
Historical research is concerned with rigor, that is, the so-called no evidence, no faith, no isolated evidence. The historians believe that historical commentaries must be based on actual historical materials and oppose empty discussions. This is the fundamental principle of historiography. As a former history enthusiasts, can not help but “see the wise think alike”, I hope that their own history blog posts can also meet the requirements of the study of history. Of course, I good argumentative person, its temporarily unfounded insights and can give people enlightened views, but also very much respected, because the study of history and scientific research, as well as the need for bold imagination.
Over the years, there have been many articles and books that have been publicly published and distributed, as well as countless Internet articles about the rumors about Mao Zedong and many women, but it is difficult to distinguish the truth from the falsehood, which makes people feel confused. After years of tracking and examination, the author can make the conclusion that some of the rumors are true. However, the author agrees with Ms. Zhang Hanzhi’s viewpoint: “It’s not particularly a big deal for him to like some people, but don’t let the people around him get involved in politics.” Of course, it is also really ironic that the CCP leadership’s use of privilege to mess around with women is no substantial improvement over their Taiping Heavenly Kingdom predecessors, given the social climate at the time when ordinary people talked about male-female relationships.
The conclusions of this article are based on the historical data collected and the logical analysis based on the historical data. If any friend has any objection, please use evidence to deny the authenticity of the historical materials used by the author, or refute the logic of the author in analyzing the historical materials!
[Note] The blog post was also published in the City of Literature forum, A Few Times Back, and those who are interested can read the comments from netizens through the following link. https:// bbs.wenxuecity.com/memory/1416980.html
A good book delayed by the "its focus on the vulgar side of life", read Li Zhisui's "Memoirs of Mao Zedong's Personal Physician". 2021-10-07 23:31:09
When I mentioned to a friend who cares about Chinese politics that I had recently read Li Zhisui’s Memoirs of Mao Zedong’s Personal Physician, my friend replied, “It seems to focus on the vulgar side of life.” It is true that this book has been published for thirty years, and although it is on China’s banned books list, the most widely circulated comment is that the book describes Mao’s very lascivious private life, so much so that I once mistakenly thought that it was a piece of fabrication, a bad work of claptrap to discredit celebrities. Li Zhisui also complained in a TV interview that the BBC program claimed that he stressed male-female relationships his book ignored the context, his intention of faithfully recording history. I will comment on whether Mr. Li’s writing is faithful or neutral later, but on a close reading of the book, there are indeed many highlights and it is quite enlightening, and it is really wrong to categorize it as a “inferior” work.
The author has observed a phenomenon in mainland China’s commentary on Mao Zedong, namely that it was more common for intellectuals of the Hu-Wen era to disparage or show less respect for Mao, as seen in many academic lectures of those years, most of which were made 13 years ago and are now either taken off the shelves in mainland China or rarely seen, but are still circulating on YouTube, giving today’s viewers a glimpse of the “rightist publicists’ frantic attack on Chairman Mao” back in those years. “These videos, most of which are from 13 years ago, have been taken down or are rarely seen in mainland China, and are still available on YouTube. In addition, during the Hu-Wen era, there was also the phenomenon of heated online debates between “American centrists” and “Maoist leftists”.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the two sides, the heat of such political discussions and ideological exchanges shows that the era was relatively free and open, comparable to the 1980s to a certain extent. It is a far cry from today’s ‘unified thinking’, with everyone too afraid to voice their personal views. We can also clearly feel that origins of leadership factions, how political beliefs condition the broad outlines of one’s evaluation of history, and this often leads to extreme views. The criticism of Mao during the Hu-Wen period went too far, in the “New Era” of Mao’s reverence for Deng and reopening of the question of how of much of this was out of line. From a tactical perspective, this over correction led the thinking of over a billion people too far to the left. A mistake, the people, after all, are not scholars, high knowledge, can not be expected to analyze the problem rationally and objectively.
As a result, evaluations of Mao are often polarized; he is an angel to some and a devil to others, and there are irrational speeches of praise and disparagement of Mao, influenced by personal preferences and stances on the divide. Li Zhisui’s book, at least from one side, brings readers a living, breathing Mao, which does contain factual errors and personal biases, but more than that, it is a valuable historical source worthy of recording and contemplating.
Mao’s “callousness.”
The first thing that needs to be made clear is that this book was first written in English and written for a Western audience (although the base text is in Chinese). This is similar to many books published in the past decades that tell CCP-related stories to Western readers, such as Zhang Rong’s biography of Mao, and Spiegel’s Death Game for China’s Powerful Nobles, which write stories based on Western values, knowledge structures, and modes of communication, making it easy for Western readers to understand and empathize with them.
The author chose to publish this book in English in the hope of spreading his story in the Western world, and at a time when China’s international image had plummeted after June 4, and many intellectuals had become completely disillusioned with the CCP and left the country. The author emphasizes many times in the book that he was forced to serve Mao, and that in the course of his work he came to understand the nature of Mao and the CCP, and thus went from returning to China in anticipation of the new China to becoming disillusioned with the regime and awakening to it. The author portrays himself as conforming to mainstream Western values. Therefore, although he tries to be faithful to the facts, his preconceived ideas are still evident in his occasional emotions and comments.
In order to portray Mao as “cold and heartless” and lacking in basic humanity, the author gives an example. Eight of Mao’s closest family members died in the revolution, but the author “never saw him express any emotion over the loss of these relatives”. He recorded Mao’s words as “For the sake of the revolutionary ideal, someone has to be sacrificed”. In the author’s opinion, the author criticized Mao for this reason is too petty, this idea of sacrifice for the revolutionary ideal is undoubtedly sincere, but also in that special era of “normal and universal” thinking, now read this spirit is still touching.
Mao’s attitude towards Jiang Qing is also very interesting. In the book, the author describes in great detail the negative image of Jiang Qing, especially her various “works” to torment those around her. Having such a wife would probably not have been a pleasant experience for an ordinary person. But when the author complained to Mao about Jiang Qing, Mao’s response was to express understanding for Jiang Qing, that her “cause of illness” was the fear that she would be abandoned by Mao, that she was still good in nature, and that more coaxing would be good, and that people should not be afraid of her, and that they should take shelter from the wind when they were angry with her, and give her a little bit of face, and that it would be fine after that – This is a very true and quite realistic description of the wife, especially her “work” of tossing people around her. -This is a very real and intelligent strategy for dealing with wives.
The author was once annoyed by Jiang Qing and wanted to ask Zhou Enlai to persuade Jiang Qing, but Deng Yingchao used some grandiose words – Chairman Mao lost eight family members to the revolution, and now only one wife remained, Jiang Qing, so you have to take good care of her – to keep the author away. back, so that the author was greatly dissatisfied, commenting that Zhou is Mao’s “slave”, Deng Yingchao is the old worldly “loach” – do not interfere in the family affairs of superiors is normal, here Zhou Deng was the author of the Zhou and Deng were criticized by the author for being wrongly accused. Although Jiang Qing’s daily behavior was questionable, she was able to play an important role in Mao’s life at critical times, and was able to fight for Mao against other people, which was the key to the relationship between the husband and wife.
Mao’s “Compromise.”
Perhaps at that time, a doctor who studied in Australia and worked in Hong Kong was also a rare talent in Zhongnanhai, and the author of this book is intentionally or unintentionally portraying how much Mao and Jiang Qing appreciated him, and desperately striving to keep him by their side and for their use.
If we were to imagine what Chairman Mao would do if he needed a general practitioner to serve him, it would probably be a feeling of an imperial order that no subject would dare to disobey. However, Dr. Li paints a different picture for us. When Li Zhisui first met Mao, Mao made small talk with him, winning him over and allaying his concerns about his background. After he started working, Mao had many exchanges with him outside of health care issues and treated him as a friend. Later, when Dr. Li grew tired of working in a group serving Mao and wished to find another job, Mao’s words of retention read as a rather low gesture:
“(You’re away, I’m) not well ……”” “You stay a little longer.”” “You want to go far away.” And that he was willing to personally pay for Dr. Li to get a laboratory in Zhongnanhai for him to do research to obtain a doctorate degree.
If we believe for the time being that the author is not in the face of their own gold, then this is a surprising and worth thinking about the details, to Mao’s position, asking a doctor to serve him, there is no need to say, and he put himself down to “plead” and “currying favor” behavior, reflecting his art of dealing with people. The behavior of “pleading” and “currying favor” is a reflection of his art of dealing with people, and it also restores to the reader the real daily life of a character at the top of the hierarchy of power – a combination of hard and soft, yin and yang, which can always be used in the most optimal way to achieve one’s own purpose. After all, it is very important to win the heart of a man who is responsible for his own health.
Jiang Qing’s obsession with Dr. Li, on the other hand, is consistent with her usual style of being jealous, arrogant and overbearing, and unreasonable. As described in the book, Jiang Qing always wanted Li to be her personal physician, and it is not known whether this was an overreaction on the part of Dr. Li, who believed that Jiang Qing’s obsession with him even sparked gossip in Zhongnanhai. Jiang Qing behaves like a spoiled child who sees a good toy in the hands of another child and makes a fuss to grab it. And her psychological distortion and good jealousy temperament are also much reflected in the book. In Zhou Enlai in Later Years, Jiang Qing is also depicted as losing her temper over a book written by Song Qingling, which was inscribed by Zhou Enlai, as if it was a manifestation of the “Mother of the Nation’s” jealousy of her peers.
Mao’s treatment of people
Leaving aside moral judgments about good and evil, Mao was undoubtedly a “successful man” who achieved “hegemony” and made history. Many entrepreneurs and officials in China are eager to study Mao’s ideas and methods to find the path to success. The author’s account of Mao’s words and deeds in this book more or less allows people to have a closer look at this “successful man” and realize some of his secrets.
“Any news yet?” This was the customary question Mao and those around him greeted each day as a way to gather information from all directions. Although the leader often spent the whole day in his pajamas, lying/leaning on his bed, and loathed attending meetings and ceremonies that required him to be in full dress, the author was surprised to find that he was exceptionally well-informed, and that he had access to all major and minor events in Zhongnanhai and the country, and was thus able to strategize. Collecting and transmitting news was also one of Jiang Qing’s important roles for Mao.
At least in Mao’s time, the relationship between the chief and the staff in Zhongnanhai was still relaxed and lively. “Mao loved to discuss their girlfriends with the guards, giving them face-to-face advice and writing love letters on their behalf.” And, contrary to our image of Zhongnanhai as a place where rules were strict and no one could step out of line, the chief and staff also quarreled and bickered. Jiang Qing once argued with a guard over whether the tango was a four-step or a five-step dance. Mao’s secretary, Ye Zilong, dared to spread Mao’s peach color news around, so Liu Shaoqi was furious and threatened to shoot him, but in the end it was not settled. It seems that Mao was still a “pro-people emperor”. Those who have sex with Mao’s girls, there are a lot of sincere worship and admiration for Mao and willingly for the great man to sacrifice himself, and feel honored, and Mao selected these women’s taste is also very real, young and beautiful body simple uneducated, which is really both to meet the need to enjoy and more worry about the choice.
There are many other interesting contents in the book, which the author does not have the time to record one by one at present. Some of the contents of the book were quoted in Zhou Enlai in Later Years, and although Gao Wenqian also pointed out that there were factual errors in Li Zhisui’s account, first-hand witnesses to these historical figures are invaluable historical materials. This book is probably not unfamiliar to older people who care about politics, and it was once widely circulated in both officialdom and the private sector back in the day. It is also well worth a look for younger readers.
(October 8, 2021)
Additionally, on the question of the credibility of the content of the book:
After the publication of the English version of the book, Li Zhisui in the United States was asked by a friend about his evaluation of the contents of this version, and Dr. Li said that he was slightly dissatisfied with some of the textual expressions because some of the English translations still could not express his Chinese meaning particularly accurately. –In this way, it seems that Dr. Li did not feel that the publishing editors had distorted his content, but that there were only problems of expression in the details due to cultural differences and the language gap.
The uncensored version translated below (and followed by the Chinese text) includes Lin Zhao’s criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party and the second half of the interview in which Gan Cui describes his 20 years as a ‘prisoner of Mao’ condemned as a rightist because his school — Renmin University — needed to go to a second round of identifying rightist at the university in order to meet their rightist quota assigned to them from on high and because, according to Gan Cui he had made personal enemies with his own arrogant attitude towards less able students at the time.
I have marked the sections in the first half of the interview which were either censored or omitted by the editor out of concern that the interview would be instantly deleted. Chinese censorship is largely post-publication punishment that makes editors and writers cautious about what they publish. Publication itself is also difficult since publishing a book in the PRC requires a book number; a PRC writer told me one time that getting a book number can be both difficult and costly. This interview has been both censored and deleted many times in China since it was first published. Yi Mei gave me permission to quote her what she wrote to me in an email:
“I am Yi Mei, a friend of Teacher Ai. Thank you for translating and posting my latest edited interview article about Gan Cui, commemorating Lin Zhao, on your blog. Teacher Ai saw it and forwarded the link to me, she was very happy.
The WeChat public account ‘Yi Mei Yuan Di’ was founded in 2020 after I participated in editing Teacher Fang Fang’s diary during the Wuhan epidemic, along with some of the subsequent reader diary relay participants. Over the past four years, we have had many account closures and have been permanently banned 25 times 😂 Just two days before releasing Teacher Ai’s long article series, our 26th WeChat public account was also banned for a month and temporarily unusable. So Teacher Ai’s series was published on our 27th account, which is also a brand new account with almost no followers. The readership was only a few thousand (which is already very difficult for a new account starting from scratch) — I’m curious, how did you come across this article we posted on our public account?
Teacher Ai’s original text is over 30,000 words, so I divided it into four parts for publication. The last part was deleted after being live for two days, but currently, the first three parts are still active. 🙂 Because it was published on a public WeChat account in China, I made some deletions and modifications during editing.
Translation of May 8, 2024 Yi Mei – David Cowhig email, quoted here with Yi Mei’s permission.
Just what is censored and what action might be taken against writers and editors. For those who persist this gets rougher. Pressure on political offenders often increases in finely graded escalations sufficient to accomplish the offender to stop, apparently to prevent avoidable public resentment. This varies from place to place (China is vast and more decentralized that is appears) according to the savoir-faire of the local authorities, local equities involved, and how much pressure they themselves are feeling from on high. Punishments are often against their families, friends and coworkers in order to bring additional pressure upon the targets Dr. Gao Yaojie told me once, in tears, about her own experience with this both at home in Zhengzhou, Henan Province and pressure felt by relatives in China even as she lived in exile in the United States.
I’ve marked the part is the first half that were censored — passages in which the Communist Party or Mao Zedong were directly criticized. The second half was missing entirely when I first saw it; it may well have been deleted, re-appeared on a new website only to be deleted again. Over the past twenty years many memoirs of former ‘rightists’ — people caught up in Mao’s Anti-Rightist Campaign either for their political views or just because some local Party people didn’t like them — have been banned or deleted from websites. While online censorship is often just deletions with little fallout, under former Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao and even more under General Secretary Xi Jinping, politically incorrect online activity is being sanctioned ever more severely.
Below I have added in places links, translator’s notes, YouTube videos and photos that did not appear in Ai Xiaoming’s version. I italicized phrases omitted in the current online version; the second half on Gan Cui’s Xinjiang bingtuan corps rightist labor camp experiences was omitted entirely.
Lin Zhao and Her Contemporaries:
Interview with Gan Cui by Ai Xiaoming
“Lin Zhao Lives in my Heart Still” : Interview with Lin Zhao’s close friend/comrade in suffering Gan Cui
Dates: November 28, 30, and December 1, 2013
Location: Gan Cui’s residence in Beijing
Interviewer: Ai Xiaoming
Lin Zhao (January 23, 1932-April 29, 1968) Mr. Gan Cui gave me two photos; this one is a portrait of Lin Zhao. I believe it was originally given to Gan Cui by Lin Zhao herself. On the back of the photo, Mr. Gan Cui wrote a note: “Photographed in 1958, it reads ‘Sharing the fate of being exiled to the margins of society, we feel as if we knew each other well even before we met for the first time.’”
About Gan Cui:
Born in December 1932 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China, Gan Cui was admitted to the Journalism Department of Renmin University of China in 1955. In 1958, he was labeled as a “rightist” and met Lin Zhao the same year. The following year, he was sent to Xinjiang for 20 years of labor reform. In 1979, after the correction of “rightist” labels, he returned to Beijing and worked in the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He later served as the director of the Files and Reference Office and associate researcher at the Literature Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He retired in 1992 and settled in Beijing. He was the chief editor of the publication “Dictionary of Chinese Novels” 中國長篇小説辭典 (published by Dunhuang Literature and Art Publishing House in 1991) and author of “Peking University Soul,” published in 2010.
Preface
In 2012, I began searching for Lin Zhao’s unpublished manuscripts, and thus, I also interviewed some of Lin Zhao’s fellow sufferers of political persecution and classmates from time to time. In December 2013, while attending the NetEase Annual Speech in Beijing, I was able to spend three day conversing with Mr. Gan Cui. The filmmaker Hu Jie interviewed Gan Cui in his documentary film “In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul,” in which he recounts his memories of Lin Zhao and includes footage from the last years of her life. In the film Gan Cui only hints at his own experiences where he mentions his “twenty-two hellish years” in Xinjiang.
“In search of Lin Zhao’s soul” in Chinese with English subtitles
Therefore in our interview below I asked Gan Cui to describe his experiences in Xinjiang; his story of personal suffering is intertwined with an historical tragedy. Gan Cui was an old revolutionary who joined the army in 1949. Gan Cui, like his beloved Lin Zhao, in his youth, he ardently embraced the ideals of communism. However, after the Anti-Rightist Campaign that began in 1957, Gan Cui, largely because of their forbidden love for one another, Gan Cui was sent away to Xinjiang and where he was tormented for years in labor reform camps. To escape the hardships of labor reform, he fled and lived as a drifter, even begging for food to survive. He was captured, bound, and beaten as a suspected Soviet spy… His testimony reflects how a person’s life is manipulated and distorted by allegations of political crimes of the “Anti-Rightist” movement.
I have added subheadings based on the content of the interview. Since I never had the opportunity to see Gan Cui again, there may be minor inaccuracies in the names of individuals and places. At the time of our interview, Gan Cui was already advanced in age, his hearing was deteriorating, and he did not use email; moreover, I did not return to Beijing to verify the manuscript with him in person. I am grateful to Gan Cui for agreeing to be interviewed over several days. Perhaps this was his last detailed account of the hardships he and his generation endured alongside Lin Zhao. In 2014, as I finished compiling this interview, Gan Cui passed away suddenly at 1:37 a.m. on October 23 due to heart failure, at the age of 83.
I dedicate this article to commemorate Lin Zhao and the thinkers of her time and to pay tribute to them.
“How did you get the manuscript of Lin Zhao’s 140,000-word book?”
Q: Mr. Gan, thank you for accepting my interview.
A: Your work is very meaningful and urgent. After some time, us old folks will gradually pass away, and it will become impossible to find us again. It’s best that we talk like this and not just talk without any purpose in mind. If you want to know something, just ask.
Q: Okay. My first question is, how did you obtain the manuscript of the 140,000-word book?
A. Lin Zhao’s younger sister gave it to me… It’s said that the court gave this 140,000-word book to Lin Zhao’s younger sister. Lin Zhao’s younger sister came to Beijing; her uncle Xu Juemin has unfortunately passed away. That is a pity. Xu Juemin 许觉民 was the director of our Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His wife, Zhang Mulan 张沐兰 , was my classmate in the Journalism Department of Renmin University. She didn’t get labeled as a rightist, but she was also implicated, and was herself accused of right-leaning opportunism…Anyway... Whether or not she was labeled as a rightist, she was still a target. [Note: Preceding phrase in italics omitted in weibo online version.]
After I returned to Beijing in 1979, I worked at the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which publishes the journal of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Every Saturday, I used to visit my classmate Zhang Mulan’s house. Zhang Mulan’s husband, Xu Juemin, was also my direct supervisor. One time, I saw Lin Zhao’s younger sister. It was very strange; Lin Zhao’s younger sister came to Beijing that time to address Lin Zhao’s issues and visited her uncle Xu Juemin’s house. That was the first time I saw Lin Zhao’s younger sister, but I knew her. In 1959, I visited Lin Zhao’s house, and Lin Zhao’s younger sister told me about Lin Zhao’s fate: she had been executed by firing squad. That was when I learned that Lin Zhao was no longer living.
How did this 140,000-word book come about? It is said that the court gave the 140,000-word book to Lin Zhao’s younger sister, and Lin Zhao’s younger sister made a copy and gave it to Xu Juemin—her uncle. Xu Juemin gave this copy to me because the handwriting was too small for him to read due to his old age. Xu Juemin asked me to take a look and transcribe it, with the intention of exploring the possibility of publication. Since Xu Juemin was previously the director of the Editorial Department of People’s Literature Publishing House, he knew many people in the publishing industry. So, I read it and transcribed it. Lin Zhao’s handwriting, in essence, only I could read it.
Mr. Gan Cui during an interview, November 28, 2013.
After transcribing it, I told Xu Juemin that some of the content was not suitable since much of it had to do with Shanghai Mayor Ke Qingshi. Xu Juemin asked if it was possible to delete the unfavorable parts and then try to publish it. Later, after I went back and looked at it again, I told Xu Juemin that these things couldn’t be changed or deleted; if we deleted them, it wouldn’t have the original flavor of Lin Zhao. The original text would have to be published without deleting anything.
So, the matter was dropped, and the manuscript remained in my hands. After transcribing it, I gave it to Hu Jie. Hu Jie took the photocopy (which was the copy of what Lin Zhao’s younger sister gave to Xu Juemin) and the manuscript I had transcribed. He traveled back and forth between Nanjing and Beijing many times. It took me about four months to transcribe it. Hu Jie came to interview me, for the sake of remembering Lin Zhao. I strongly supported him in this. I transcribed the entire photocopy manuscript and gave it to him. Hu Jie’s documentary captured some scenes from the manuscript, and he eventually returned it all to me. That’s the story of this manuscript.
Now, there was a twist to this story that I’ll mention briefly. Jiang Wenqin contacted me, and I made another copy of the 140,000-word book that I had transcribed and the photocopy, and sent it to Jiang Wenqin. Jiang Wenqin said he couldn’t see clearly and wanted to see the original manuscript that Lin Zhao’s sister gave to Xu Juemin and then passed on to me. I thought, for the sake of remembering Lin Zhao, I was strongly in favor of this, so I gave this manuscript to Jiang Wenqin. Jiang Wenqin played his part; I transcribed the 140,000 words with a pen, but afterwards he input it into a computer so that it could be printed out. I didn’t know how to input text into a computer, so that was his contribution.
Now, I understand that Lin Zhao’s sister Peng Lingfan donated all these manuscripts to the Hoover Institution in the United States. My copy is not Lin Zhao’s manuscript; it’s a photocopy returned to Lin Zhao’s sister by the court. The original manuscript is not with me; it’s in the United States.
The author Ai Xiaoming with Mr. Gan Cui, December 1, 2013.
Q: In what year did you get this Lin Zhao manuscript?
A: I transcribed that manuscript, and I wrote a diary entry below it, July 11, 2000; it took me about four months altogether.
Q: So, did you meet Peng Lingfan 彭令范 in 1999?
A: No, I met her earlier.
I returned to Beijing to implement policies in 1979. I saw Peng Lingfan in 1979 and 1980. Peng Lingfan came to Beijing University to address Lin Zhao’s rightist issue. That’s when I learned about Lin Zhao’s situation. I spent twenty years in Xinjiang and had no idea about it until then.
Peng Lingfan went abroad in June 2004, leaving a photocopy of this manuscript with her uncle before leaving. Her uncle went to see her off together with Ni Jingxiong, and they left only the manuscript of the 140,000 words with Xu Juemin. In fact, Peking University’s centennial celebration became a focal point of public opinion because of Lin Zhao in 1998, and the value of the 140,000-word book became prominent. In 1998, during Peking University’s centennial celebration, articles commemorating Lin Zhao were published in Southern Weekend and Wuhan, discussing Lin Zhao’s issue. Peng Lingfan, living in the United States, also wrote a memorial article titled “My Sister Lin Zhao” . [Available online 我的姐姐林昭]
The remembrance of Lin Zhao owes a lot to Hu Jie; it wouldn’t have been possible without him. I strongly supported Hu Jie; without him, the 140,000-word manuscript wouldn’t exist, and even the photocopy I transcribed wouldn’t have sufficed. After transcribing it, I gave a copy to Xu Juemin, but he was also old and didn’t have time to read it. Without his documentary film “In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul“《寻找林昭的灵魂》, Lin Zhao’s story wouldn’t have been so well-known later.
Q: Is this the original manuscript of your handwritten copy?
A: Yes, this is the original manuscript of my handwritten copy.
Q: How many pages are there in total?
A: 469 pages.
Q: Were you retired by then?
A: Yes, I had already retired.
Q: It took four months to transcribe?
A: Anyway, at that time, my arrangement was to transcribe over a thousand characters a day. This was 137 pages, so I transcribed about one page a day, which was very straining on the eyes. This is a copy Hu Jie organized based on my handwritten manuscript; he named it A Woman’s Prison Letters 《女牢书简》. I think he did a good job with it, removing what shouldn’t be there, like mentions of Ke Qingshi, and so on. This is Hu Jie’s work, and he gave it to me.
Gan Cui transcribed Lin Zhao’s manuscript based on this photocopy.
Heartbreak in Iron Alley
Q: How did you and Lin Zhao part? I read about it in your memoir [Translator’s note: a reference to Gan Cui’s memoir available online in Chinese The Soul of Peking University– from Lin Zhao to the 1989 People’s Movement 《北大魂——从林昭到八九民运》] , but Hu Jie’s documentary didn’t cover it much.
A: Lin Zhao and I were together for about a year. During that year, the Chinese Literature Department’s Journalism major at Peking University merged with the Journalism Department at Renmin University. The specific location of the merger was at No. 1 Iron Lion Alley, which is now No. 3 Zhang Zizhong Road. It used to be Duan Qirui’s presidential palace, and even earlier, it was the Naval Department built by Empress Dowager Cixi during the Qing Dynasty.
No. 3 Zhang Zizhong Road is a cultural heritage site, divided into three parts: the middle part with the bell and drum tower and the garden in the back, which is still occupied by the Renmin University Press. The eastern part was later allocated to the Institute of Eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa, and the Japan Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The western part is a red wall with a six-story building, built by Renmin University as staff dormitories. There were only two departments in the city campus of Renmin University, the Historical Archives Department and the Journalism Department.
In 1958, when I met Lin Zhao, it was still very cold. Renmin University, like Peking University, was anti-rightist, basically taking two steps: the first time Renmin University was anti-rightist, two hundred rightists among teachers and students were identified. This was not enough; the target given from above was four hundred. By the end of the anti-rightist campaign in 1957, I was not yet a rightist.
Lin Zhao, Gan Cui (center) and a classmate
In 1958, during the second round of supplementary investigations, another two hundred rightists were identified. I was one of the latter two hundred rightists; Renmin University identified a total of four hundred rightists. Lin Zhao, I suppose, because I wasn’t at Peking University at the time, was definitely also identified as a rightist later. She first went to Renmin University, and according to records, was around May or June, which is when Peking University merged with Renmin University. My impression is that it might have been a bit earlier than that. Luo Lie 罗列, the head of Peking University’s Journalism Department, brought her over. She was arranged to work in the Journalism Department’s Archives Department at Renmin University, under reform through labor supervision.
1959 was my fourth year in Renmin University’s Journalism Department. The curriculum for that year was half a year of internship and half a year for writing a thesis. I didn’t get to do the internship; I was expelled from the Party, and so I wasn’t required to write a thesis either. The Journalism Department said to go to the Archives Department for labor reform.
There were a dozen or so or maybe twenty of us rightists there. At first, we swept trash and picked up banana peels on campus. Finally, when school started, I was called to the Journalism Department’s Archives Department. When I got there, Lin Zhao was already there. There weren’t many people in there, just three of us, and the head was Wang Qian 王前. Wang Qian was a former wife of Liu Shaoqi before he married Wang Guangmei. She was the boss for Lin Zhao and me. Wang Qian said, “Now the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party has entrusted Renmin University’s Journalism Department to compile the history of CCP publications; you two look at some newspapers from the Nationalist period, collect information, and make cards for the history of CCP publications.” At that time, we both went to work every day in piles of books and newspapers, and that’s how I got to know Lin Zhao.
I remember very clearly, when I went there, the weather was still quite cold. I pushed open the office door and went in, and Lin Zhao was there alone. She had just boiled water and was preparing to make tea, and she even made a cup for me. She said the tea leaves were from Wang Qian, and I knew Wang Qian was the wife of Renmin University’s vice president Nie Zhen 聂真 . She was certainly a high-ranking official. That’s how we met, and that was our first encounter.
At that time, Lin Zhao was ill and like Lin Daiyu, actually suffering from lung disease, coughing, and spitting up blood in her phlegm. Wang Qian told me: “You’re a man, and Lin Zhao is a woman; take care of Lin Zhao when you can.” Wang Qian was very sympathetic to us two rightists, and she especially liked Lin Zhao; they could talk to each other.
As time went on, sometimes Lin Zhao didn’t come to work, and I knew she was sick. I would go to see her; she lived on the eastern side of Iron Lion Alley, which is now part of the area occupied by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. On the second floor of that building, there was a small room, about ten square meters. I went to see her and felt very sorry for her, so I helped her fetch water and buy food.
Renmin University didn’t have heating at that time, and the dormitories were all large dorms with coal stoves kept burning by workers. Lin Zhao was a rightist, and no one cared about her. I visited and thought her situation was very pitiful. I saw that her room was very cold, so after the Spring Festival, I went to the general affairs office and got an iron stove. I installed the stove and the exhaust pipe for her. I also went to the back of Iron Lion Alley where the honeycomb coal briquettes were piled up, found a basket, filled it with coal, and carried it up to the second floor to Lin Zhao’s room. I also took some firewood and chopped wood, and placed them there. I took some chopped wood and started the stove in Lin Zhao’s room, and the room immediately warmed up.
Usually, just the two of us rightists went to work, and we didn’t talk much. We both went to the back of her house to read books and newspapers. Lin Zhao was better than me at classical literature; she read all the ancient thread-bound books and note novels. Those were all in classical Chinese, which I didn’t like to read, so I just read the modern published ones.
Q: So you two didn’t read newspapers or study the history of Chinese Communist Party publications?
A: We looked at newspapers a little and made a few note cards to get by. At first, we still looked for newspapers to read, but then we each read our own books.
From my interactions and conversations with her, I really admired Lin Zhao. Lin Zhao was indeed a talented woman; her level of classical literature far exceeded mine. I only learned a bit of Chinese classical literature at Renmin University, like the Classic of Poetry 詩經 which was just superficial knowledge. We gradually got to talking more and more and got along well.
Additionally, I tried my best to take care of her, lighting her stove for her, bringing her coal, and buying food for her in the cafeteria. I remember most clearly that later, after we developed feelings for one another and she fell ill, she couldn’t eat the food from the student cafeteria, which was just cornbread in the morning, cornmeal porridge, and a lump of pickled vegetables. For students at Renmin University, a month’s food expenses came to about five or six yuan. If we ate a little better, sometimes we’d have some meat dishes, the cost would come to about seven or eight yuan a month. But Lin Zhao didn’t eat breakfast, which worried me. Later, I figured out a way; every morning, I would take the trolleybus on Zhang Zizhong Road for two or three stops to Dongsi. There was a Cantonese restaurant there that sold Cantonese pork congee in the morning. I would eat a bowl myself and then buy another bowl – they were about fifteen cents each – and bring it back to school for Lin Zhao. The Cantonese pork congee was considered more upscale—she would eat it. That’s how we went from meeting to getting to know each other; we worked together, took care of each other in life, got along well, and sometimes went out together.
Scene from the 1958 Tian Han play “Guan Hanqing”
Every Sunday, I would go out with Lin Zhao to stroll in the park or visit Beihai because Zhang Zizhong Road led straight to Beihai, where we could go boating and watch plays.
Q: What plays did you watch then?
A: We watched plays like “Guan Hanqing” [Note: Drama written by modern playwright Tian Han that premiered at the Beijing People’s Art Theater in 1958 about the Yuan Dynasty playwright Guan Hanqing, the author of “The Injustice to Dou E” End note] and “The Injustice to Dou E.” [akaSnow in Midsummer] I remember very clearly it was “The Injustice to Dou E.” She had a classmate named Ni Jingxiong, who was a playwright for Shanghai opera. Sometimes when she came to Beijing for meetings, she would have some tickets, and she gave them to me and Lin Zhao to watch, and we even sat in the best seats, in the first row.
At that time, Lin Zhao lived on the second floor, and when I was alone with nothing to do, I would play the erhu in the corridor on the first floor. I could play the erhu, but not well. I played Liu Tianhua’s “Moaning in Sickness,” 劉天華 病中吟 and Lin Zhao, in her room, would hear the erhu’s plaintive and melancholic sound and open the window to listen. Later, she found out it was me playing. She said I had also written a song, which led to her writing this song.
Let me hum it for you:
In the stormy night,
I think of you,
Outside my window is night, the wind howling,
Raindrops pour,
Yet my heart,
Flies away to find you,
Oh where are you, where are you?
Are you exiled in the vast wilderness,
Or buried in the cold depths of a prison,
Ah, brother oh brother,
My song searches for you,
My heart bleeds for you,
Brother brother,
Oh where are you, where are you?
This is a song written by Lin Zhao. I sang it at Lin Zhao’s memorial service.
Q: Did she write it down at the time?
A: When we were together, she wrote it down and sang it to me, after I played “Moaning in Sickness.”
Q: Did you discuss the meaning of the lyrics with her?
A: No we didn’t.
In the 1950s, rumors spread that I was dating her. The rumors reached the leadership, and they called me in for a talk, asking if it was true. I said it wasn’t. The leadership said we shouldn’t date, that we two rightists should focus on reforming ourselves. Then, Lin Zhao asked me what we talked about? I said they forbade us from dating. Lin Zhao laughed when she heard this and asked if I was afraid? I said I wasn’t. She said if you’re not afraid, good, we haven’t dated before, but now let’s really date and show them.
So, every day, especially at ten o’clock in the morning during the work break exercises, Lin Zhao would hold my hand, and we would walk hand in hand inside Renmin University’s Iron Lion Alley for everyone to see. Iron Lion Alley used to be Duan Qirui’s presidential palace, and there was a small garden in the back with a pond and a landscaped ‘mountain’; we would walk around there. You say we’re dating, so we’re dating, showing it all out in the open. In this way, we really did date. The Party branch of the Journalism Department didn’t like me, and later they sent me to Xinjiang as punishment. This was also part of the reason for that.
Time passed quickly, and we were together for a year. Finally, on September 1st, the new semester was about to start. I was facing being sent elsewhere on an assignment. Whether I graduated or not, I would be sent away. I thought about it and went to the Party branch secretary to say I wanted to marry Lin Zhao; I hoped that when I was assigned in 1959, they wouldn’t send me too far away and would take care of me a little. But the response I got was, “You pair of Rightists! That’s just your own wishful thinking!” As a result, I was sent to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps bingtuan.
I remember very clearly how Lin Zhao would secretly held small meetings with other rightists, like Jiang Zehu and Wu Shangyu from Peking University. But there was nothing they could do. Later, helplessly, they announced my assignment to the bingtuan. I refused to go, and the school urged me to go, playing both good cop and bad cop. I just refused to go, but in the end, it was no use, the new semester was about to start, and all the graduates had left.
Later, I didn’t know some things, but it was said that Lin Zhao’s mother came to Beijing. She was a democrat, probably knew people like Shi Liang 史良. It may be that she went to see Shi Liang, who then went to see Wu Yuzhang 吴玉章 , the president of Renmin University. These are things I heard, I didn’t learn of them directly, nor did I see her mother; later, Lin Zhao was approved to return to Shanghai for treatment.
So, I sent Lin Zhao on the train to Shanghai first. I remember writing about the scene of sending her on the train in my memoir.
Q: How did you explain the situation to Lin Zhao at the time? What did Lin Zhao tell you about her going back to Shanghai and what to do next?
A: She just said one sentence, she said “Gan Zi, wait for me”. Just that one sentence, then I saw her off to her train. When the train was about to leave, Lin Zhao and I hugged and cried in the carriage. Then the train started moving, and I had no choice but to jump off the train. At that time, everyone in the train car was surprised: what’s with this young couple… such a scene of hugging and crying was rarely seen in those days.
Q: How old were you that year?
A: About twenty-seven years old.
Q: And Lin Zhao?
A: Lin Zhao was the same age as me, but actually, she was one year older than me. After her mother gave birth to her, she hid her age for a year, so she was actually born in the Year of the Sheep.
Photo of Lin Zhao and Gan Cui (Mr. Gan Cui wrote on the back of the photo: Lin Zhao and I photographed at Jingshan Park in Beijing.)
Photo of Lin Zhao and Gan Cui (Mr. Gan Cui wrote on the back of the photo: Lin Zhao and I photographed at Jingshan Park in Beijing.)
Q: How did you tell Lin Zhao about this situation at that time? How did Lin Zhao tell you that she was going back to Shanghai, and what was the next step?
A: She just said one thing to me. She called me Ganzi (a term of endearment), and she said, “You wait for me.” With just these words, later, I saw her off at the train station. As the train was about to depart, we hugged each other in the carriage and wept bitterly. Later, when the train started moving, I couldn’t bear it and jumped off the train. At that time, everyone on the train was surprised: how could these young people… such scenes of hugging and crying were rare back then.
Q: How old were you at that time?
A: Probably about 27.
Q: What about Lin Zhao?
A: Lin Zhao was the same age as me, in fact, she was a year older than me. After her mother gave birth to her, she reduced her age by a year; she was actually born in the Year of the Goat.
III. Twenty Years of Reform through Labor in Xinjiang
1. My First Escape from Xinjiang to Shanghai
After sending Lin Zhao away, Renmin University pushed me to leave, so I reluctantly went to Xinjiang. At that time, there were no trains directly to Xinjiang, so I had to go to a place called Viya, near the border with Lanzhou. I took a train for four days to Viya. When I got off the train at Viya, I took another three days by bus to report to the Personnel Department of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in Urumqi. They told me to go to the Corps, so they sent me there. The Corps then told me to go to the Second Agricultural Division. The Second Agricultural Division is in southern Xinjiang, with its headquarters in Yanji, now in Korla. So, I went to Yanji and waited for an assignment at the guesthouse. There was a lot of coming and going at the guesthouse of the Second Agricultural Division, with many people running away from the labor camps below, saying how harsh and inhumane they were. I was frightened…
Q. What was inhumane and frightening about those things?
A. They woke you up before dawn, with guns pressing you to work, carrying heavy loads of soil, and often we didn’t get enough to eat. Beatings and scoldings were routine; just talking about it scares me.
I joined the army in 1949 and had been serving as a cadre ever since, so I had never experienced anything like that. They assigned me to the Talimu Fourth Farm, which is now the Thirty-Second Regiment. When I heard that, I got scared. I was still thinking about Lin Zhao, so I turned around and ran back to the Urumqi bus station, selling all my luggage and clothes by the roadside. I scraped together some money, then took a bus back to Viya and a train through Lanzhou back to Shanghai.
Back in Shanghai, I went to look for Lin Zhao. But her mother was very cold to me, and Lin Zhao couldn’t help. So I walked out of Lin Zhao’s house on Maoming South Road slowly, from Nanjing Road to the Bund, to the Bund Park… just wandering outside until evening. I was thinking, Shanghai is so big, with so many lights and so many people, but it couldn’t accommodate me. I couldn’t stay at home either because I had a mother, a younger sister, who relied on my eldest brother for a living, and a sister-in-law. I couldn’t stay at home either because I had no money, no household registration, and no food coupons. So, I stayed in Shanghai for a week, and on one Sunday, I even went with Lin Zhao to the Catholic Cathedral on Urumqi Road in the Xuhui District. In the end, I had no choice; my brother and sister-in-law prepared a set of bedding and cotton clothes for me again, and I took a train from Shanghai to Lanzhou and back to Xinjiang. This time, I went to report to the Talimu Fourth Farm and started working.
2. Arriving in Xinjiang to a Life I had Never Even Dreamed of
So, I started my life in Xinjiang like this. Basically, I wrote to Lin Zhao every week, and she wrote back to me. Of course, those letters had to be checked; there were supervisors in the labor camp, and they would read them before sending them out. When the letter arrived, they would read it first and then give it to you.
Q. What did you write about?
A. The letters were very short, and I don’t remember the contents. They were brief, but there were replies. After a while, I only sent letters without receiving any replies. Without replies, I was puzzled. I even wrote to her mother, but there was no reply, and no one ever responded to me.
As time went on, we also had Shanghai border support youth in our area, who were not satisfied there either. But they started work half an hour later than us and finished half an hour earlier, just a little better. One Shanghai youth talked to me more; he wanted to return to Shanghai. He went back to Shanghai on the pretext of visiting relatives and never returned to Xinjiang. I told him, when you go back to Shanghai, do me a favor: you know 179 Lane 11 on Maoming South Road? Go see my friend Lin Zhao for me. He agreed. After he returned to Shanghai, he sent me a letter; he said he went to see Lin Zhao, but she was seriously ill in the hospital, and it was unclear when she would be discharged. I understood this letter because of Lin Zhao’s personality; I knew she must have been imprisoned. So, that is how it happened.
Many years later, something strange happened; one day on May 1st, I suddenly had a dream. This was not superstition: Lin Zhao was dressed in mourning, supporting a coffin, and walking towards me. I was puzzled. The next day, when I woke up, I told this dream to an elderly monk from Mount Emei Emeishan who was working with me. I said, please explain it to me. He said dreams have opposite meanings; it means that your beloved Lin Zhao has already married. Dressed in mourning, supporting a coffin, that’s a bridal sedan; don’t think about her anymore.
The monk explained it to me like that, and I believed it. So, for many years, I stayed in Xinjiang for more than 20 years and never heard from Lin Zhao. Only in 1979, when the policy was implemented and I returned to Beijing, at Xu Juemin’s house, the sister of my classmate Zhang Mulan, did I see her—Lin Zhao’s sister—and learned that Lin Zhao had been executed. Calculating this date, it was the 29th of that month, and my dream was in May. It was strange. I believe people have souls; after she died, her soul had a few days to move around. Chinese people have a saying, they have to come back in seven days. I think that her soul flew to Xinjiang to bid me farewell.
4. Witnessing and Transcribing Lin Zhao’s Works
Q. Later, you saw Lin Zhao’s 140,000-word book, and during the copying process, did you believe this was written by Lin Zhao?
A. I believed it because I recognized Lin Zhao’s handwriting. When I was with Lin Zhao, she was always reading books; she read ancient books, all kinds of annotated novels.
Q. Do you remember the titles of any of these books? Can you recall their names?
A: I can’t remember; they were all note-style novels. And at that time, she was writing poetry. There are two poems that can still be seen today, one is ‘A Day in the Suffering of Prometheus,’ 林昭：普羅米修斯受難的一日 and the other is ‘The Seagull’s Song.’ 林昭：海鸥之歌 She wrote and revised these two long poems every day, showing them to me as she wrote and revised them.
Q. Did you see these two long poems at the time?
A. There was one more; she adapted a script, and I saw it too.
Q. What was it about?
Q: What kind of script?
A: It was based on Lu Xun’s short story ‘The New Year’s Sacrifice.’《伤逝》 She showed it to me as she wrote it and asked me to suggest changes. In the end, the conclusion was to take the dog to the suburbs and abandon it again. She kept writing and revising these two poems until we parted, and she was still revising them.
Lin Zhao’s handwriting was very beautiful. Later, when I transcribed Lin Zhao’s manuscripts, it was my love for Lin Zhao that supported me. It was painful to transcribe because I thought of the times we spent together. I transcribed it with great determination, mainly because Hu Jie also needed it. I transcribed a bit, and he took a bit; it wasn’t like I transcribed everything and then gave it to him. He often came to Beijing, and Hu Jie compiled a concise version of Lin Zhao’s 140,000 words, which he gave to me; he deleted all the parts about Shanghai Mayor Ke Qingshi.
Q. When you transcribed Lin Zhao’s manuscripts, did you have a thought that if Lin Zhao didn’t do this, maybe she could have preserved her life?
I understood Lin Zhao. This XXX [Note: in original. Perhaps it stands for the ruling party. End note] is too evil, totally inhumane. If they had given us two rightists some way out, it wouldn’t have come to this. Although I later returned to Shanghai, her mother was opposed to me being with Lin Zhao; but as long as they didn’t separate us too far, allowing me to still contact Lin Zhao, perhaps she wouldn’t have taken such a desperate path. If I had been there, I would have taken care of her.
I thought differently from her… I always advised her, telling her that it was like an egg hitting a rock; she said she still wanted to hit the rock. But I thought, as long as they gave us a way out, let us live together, Lin Zhao was also a person who wanted to live. Letting us live together would have been better. She wouldn’t have been so radical, but Lin Zhao’s nature wouldn’t have changed.
The two of us had some different views. She vehemently opposed the authorities, the regime, and Mao Zedong. I often advised her, I said to her, you are hitting a rock with an egg; she said, even if it’s hitting a rock with an egg, I will do it. But I thought, as long as we were given a way to live together, Lin Zhao was also a person who wanted to live. If we could live together, it would be better. She wouldn’t be so radical, but Lin Zhao’s nature wouldn’t change.
Q. How do you judge her mental state when writing the 140,000-word book?
A. After I read it, I had a question, but your article solved it for me; I think your analysis is correct. Because in the labor camp, we’ve been there too, the Communist Party wouldn’t allow the labor reformers to be so carefree and leisurely. Labor reformers don’t have the time or freedom to write; that’s just impossible.
I’ve been on a labor reform brigade, and no matter who you are, you’re there to work. Our labor reform brigade at that time had a characteristic because it was a peaceful liberation. The PLA announced a peaceful uprising, and the Nationalist troops became the PLA, still serving as company and platoon leaders; these labor reform brigades were managed by them, how could you expect good treatment? Because they were essentially the Nationalists. One labor reform brigade leader said, “We don’t beat or scold people, but I’ll make you work and work and work, and if you die of exhaustion, I’m not at fault.” That’s how ruthless he was, he would drive people to death through exhaustion.
I had an idea before that couldn’t be realized now. The story between Lin Zhao and me is a very good subject, just one year, from meeting, getting to know each other, falling in love, to finally parting. It could be a very moving story, but I can’t write it. I even thought of a title, “Love on Iron Road”; if it’s written well, it would be very touching. Sometimes I also want to write, but when I pick up the pen, I feel sad and can’t continue.
I think what you are doing is very meaningful. Otherwise, all of us old folks will pass away one by one; once we’re gone, you can’t do what you want. Fortunately, Hu Jie made the first documentary, “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul,” and opened up this matter.
Q. What difficulties did you encounter when transcribing Lin Zhao’s manuscripts?
A. Some parts of the copies were not very clear, but I was the most familiar with Lin Zhao’s handwriting, so others couldn’t transcribe it.
Q. When you transcribed those criticisms of XXX and of Mao Zedong’s statements, did it make a strong impression on you? Or could you accept it?
A. I could accept it because my thoughts were the same as hers. I’ve been in Xinjiang for twenty years, living a subhuman life, just forced labor. Why didn’t I die? Because I’m young, I want to see Mao Zedong [that person in the online version] die before me; I want to see what this society will eventually become, I have that hope.
For me personally, there is no hope at all, rightists are equal to a lifetime. The labor reformers have a sentence of ten or eight years, and they’ll eventually be relieved after serving their time. But rightists have no term, once you’re reformed, they announce the removal of the label they put on you; I’ve seen through the XXX.
Q. How do you view it now? There are still many people who admire Mao Zedong, and they are going to celebrate him big this year?
A. The worship of Mao Zedong proceeds in stages. Chinese people, to put it bluntly, are all ignorant. They hope to have an emperor in their thoughts, they hope that officials are clean officials and wise monarchs. Thousands of years of feudalism have formed such ignorance. Some people now worship Mao Zedong for their personal political purposes; they want to enhance their own reputation and status. Like Bo Xilai, who promotes Mao Zedong for his own purposes, in fact, Bo Xilai is a fool and a political sacrifice. I also have this experience; originally, I blindly worshiped the so-called Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, nonsense! This generation was blinded by him. Not only was I blinded, but also a generation of people. Many old cadres fought for him, and they ended up dying miserably, such as Liu Shaoqi.
Q. What state do you think would be ideal for Lin Zhao’s manuscripts to be presented?
A. I hope that one day, these posthumous manuscripts will be compiled and printed for people to view; those interested can study them. From what I understand, there are two groups of people in Beijing, one is Tie Liu‘s 铁流 small circle, mainly through “Past Events” 往事 and the gatherings of some old cadres. He hates Mao Zedong to the bone. There is another group, led by Zhu Yi and others; they are collecting and organizing Lin Zhao’s things. I support these two groups of people internally. But I think the main value of the things Lin Zhao left behind lies in the 140,000-word book. These 140,000 words have already expressed the spirit of this person, this girl. She persistently opposed Mao Zedong under the tyranny of XXX, until the last moment of her life. This spirit is worthy of people’s admiration and learning.
I think the research on Lin Zhao should be general rather than going into too much detail.
Q. What do you think should be considered detailed?
A. Like what you… like what Zhu Yi is doing now, I don’t object, it’s also good to do it this way. But I won’t study it. The 140,000 words have already established Lin Zhao’s image. She resolutely opposed dictatorship, opposed Qin Shihuang, and Mao Zedong. This is the image of a female hero.
I once told Xu Juemin that the part about [Shanghai Mayor] Ke Qingshi in the book, we can all understand that part. I am also a rightist; I have been desperate and had delusions. When a person reaches that point, these problems are understandable. Don’t go too deeply into studying those…
[Note: Italicized portions above section was omitted in the online version. The remaining part of the interview below was omitted in its entirety.]
V. Feigning Death and Escape
1. My path towards “Pretending to be a Dead Dog”
During my twenty years in Xinjiang, in that difficult, desperate, and helpless situation, I also had delusions.
Seeing this reality, I was unwilling to be enslaved and become a slave. I’ve said before, I’d rather be a slave, but I won’t be a lackey. In the labor reform brigade in Xinjiang, I wasn’t a labor reformer, I wasn’t sentenced. I was a rightist, undergoing supervised labor reform. I knew a former Nationalist Party regimental commander who was also in the labor reform brigade. I said these days are unbearable; he told me, he said you have two paths: one path is to actively try to get close to the administration, report your thoughts to the company commander and political instructor regularly; make secret reports to gain trust and profit from it. I said this isn’t my personality, I can’t do it. He said if you can’t do it, there’s another path, you can pretend to be a dead dog, but only if you are willing to play the dead dog all the way, persist. That is, to be deceptive in your work, to be tricky. For those twenty years, I went down that road.
Think about it, picking cotton in the fields of Xinjiang. Women would pick more than two hundred catties a day; I would pick three catties a day. I slept in the field; I had a name, called Old Three Catties 甘三斤, which means I only picked three catties of cotton a day. Just three catties, and the squad would make me stand up and criticize me during roll call at night. The next day, I would still pick the same amount, the third day, I would still pick the same amount. If they criticized me, let them criticize. By the third day, even the labor reform brigade leader felt embarrassed. If I don’t reform, just ignore it. I didn’t work in the fields anymore, I drove a donkey cart. Donkey carts don’t have a set amount; it’s just carrying grass and dung, one trip in the morning and one trip in the afternoon and evening. I survived for twenty years by playing dead dog, as the former Nationalist Party regimental commander taught me.
Furthermore, for these twenty years, I survived by relying on my younger sister and older brother. Why did I rely on them? At that time in Xinjiang, there were so-called natural disasters, people couldn’t eat enough and starved to death, and sometimes the entire labor reform brigade of one or two hundred people would starve to death. Starvation is a phenomenon. I’ve known starvation; it starts with swelling in the feet, slowly rising up, swelling up to the waist. By then the person is done. There is nothing you can do, you are all swollen. When I was hungry, I wrote letters to my brother and sister, and they sent me biscuits and candy; my sister even sent me pork. But those were of no use; the biscuits my brother sent me were finished before I even got home from the postal office at the regimental headquarters. That kind of hunger, there’s really nothing I could do about it. Later, I figured out a solution, they sent me food coupons, national food coupons. My brother and sister sent me three or four catties of food coupons every two or three months, and these food coupons were useful in Xinjiang. Because these guards, labor reformers, company commanders, and political instructors all wanted food coupons.
If you go to Urumqi or Korla today and take a walk, it’s quite pleasant there now, everything is peaceful and prosperous.
Q. When you went there back then, was it good?
A. It wasn’t good at the beginning.
2. “You Were Exiled to the Vast Wilderness”
I still remember the song written by Lin Zhao. When I missed her in Xinjiang, I would sing this song. Now, walking by the river with nobody around, I open my throat and sing. These two lines were unintentionally written by her in this song—”You were exiled to the vast wilderness”—I’ve experienced it. I spent over twenty years in the Gobi Desert of Xinjiang, “…still buried in the cold depths of the prison,” Lin Zhao’s words came true. She was in prison and was eventually executed by firing squad. But she later told me about this song, it might have been written for Tan Tianrong. I’m not too sure. Anyway, before Peking University, Lin Zhao had a romantic relationship with Tan Tianrong 谭天荣 . She heard my erhu playing, and she said she wrote a song, so she sang it to me repeatedly, which is why I remembered it.
Q. Yesterday, when we had dinner together, you mentioned how you made a living in Xinjiang, one was photography, and the other was being a vagrant; what was happening at that time? You mentioned you even begged for food?
A. During the “Cultural Revolution,” I escaped from the labor reform brigade; I escaped from the farms in the Tarim Basin. At that time, in the Karashahr Emil Reservoir, I wasn’t as bold, but I was already desperate. I relied on one kilogram of biscuits and one kilogram of Iraqi dates—Iraqi dates were abundant in China at the time—we were two people, me and another who was undergoing labor reform with me.
Firstly, there was a rule in the labor reform brigade that after work, everyone had to go out and gather firewood and carry it back. Each person had to carry thirty to fifty kilograms, so I took the opportunity to go out. I ran to a distant sand dune under a red willow, and stayed there without moving. After they finished gathering firewood and went back to eat dinner, they called the roll and said Gan Cui and someone surnamed Yang hadn’t returned. They searched everywhere for us, but we ignored them. We waited until it was completely dark before we left.
After Korla in Xinjiang was Yuli, and from Yuli, we went south again, to the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin. Along the river called the Tarim River on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, there was a road leading to where we were going, and the road was built along the Tarim River. The two of us walked along the road, keeping a distance of one or two kilometers from the road; we didn’t dare to walk on the road because there were many people coming and going on the road.
Every five kilometers in the Taklamakan Desert, there was a tripod marker, and we followed the tripods without leaving the road. By staying on the road, there was a river, and where there was a river, there was water. After walking fifty kilometers like this, we reached Yuli County, went into the county to buy some food, then went outside the county to rest. When it got dark, we set off again and walked until dawn. After walking fifty kilometers to Korla, I and this person surnamed Yang went to buy some food. When we got to the People’s Market, at the door we saw the guards from our labor reform brigade who had come to arrest us.
Actually, they had already reached Urumqi, and since they hadn’t caught us at the Urumqi Railway Station, they came back. After they came back, they didn’t pay much attention to us, so we quickly avoided them; and bought a train ticket. Fifty kilometers later, we arrived in Yining. Then we bought bus tickets to Turpan and transferred to Urumqi. After arriving in Urumqi, I found out that the person surnamed Yang was a swindler. Before we left, he had painted a rosy picture to me. So I left him, and met two other people, who had come from Guizhou and wanted to go to Beijing. So, I took the train with them to Beijing, and stayed in Beijing for about a month. One May Day evening, I saw Mao Zedong and Lin Biao sitting in an open car.
Q. By that time, the “Cultural Revolution” had already started?
A. It had started.
Q. Was it in 1966 or 1967?
A. Probably 1968. I left on March 17th.
Q. How much time did you spend in Beijing?
A. After passing through Xi’an on April 4th, I remember it very clearly, it even snowed at the time. I stayed in Beijing for a month and happened to be there on May Day. One evening, these two friends from Guizhou wanted to go to Tiananmen Square, but they couldn’t get in at all. I said I had a way, I’ll take you there. Because every holiday, order is maintained at Tiananmen; as you see on TV, the first row is made up of students from Renmin University. I used to work there, so I knew the loopholes.
I took these two friends from Guizhou to Xidan, but we couldn’t get in there either; we stood by the roadside and watched groups of people from various organizations, units, and schools entering in waves. I saw students from Renmin University entering, and when they were almost done, I quickly grabbed these two friends from Guizhou and caught up with them, following the queue of students from Renmin University. There were three rows of guards there, one row was the PLA, one row was the police, and one row was the mass organization. Someone said, “Comrade, you can’t go in,” I said I’m from Renmin University. At that time, university students wore school badges, and I was a student at Renmin University myself; I said I was from Renmin University and had come late. So, no one stopped me, and I entered with the students from Renmin University. When we reached Tiananmen, we delineated many areas, indicating which unit or school each area belonged to, and we sang and danced there.
We happened to be crowded at Tiananmen Square, by the side of the road next to the Great Hall of the People. After a while, there were four rows of PLA soldiers on each side of the road, and I was sure some high-ranking officials were passing by. Sure enough, Mao Zedong and Lin Biao’s open car came out of the Great Hall of the People and headed for Tiananmen. But when they reached XX Road, these PLA soldiers, who were recruited from the countryside and had never seen Mao Zedong, got excited. Then the formation got chaotic, and the crowd surged forward shouting “Long live Chairman Mao,” and Chairman Mao’s open car couldn’t move. At first, Chairman Mao stood in an open car and waved, but later he sat there angrily. In the end, Lin Biao brought the crowd to order, saying, “Let the Chairman pass, let the Chairman pass,” and then the car moved. Originally, they were going to Tiananmen to watch the fireworks show, but the crowd got chaotic
. At that time, I was only fifty meters away from Chairman Mao’s open car…
Q. What do you think Chairman Mao’s mood was like at that time?
A. I said if I had a grenade, I would have really thrown it. At that time, I didn’t even have a grenade…
Q. What about the two friends from Guizhou? What did they think?
A. They were also escapees from labor reform, from Guizhou, living on the streets. As soon as I laid eyes on someone and talked to them for a while, I knew what they were doing and what they were eating. At that time, the “Cultural Revolution” was chaotic, and people didn’t even buy tickets when taking trains or buses. These two guys were quite strange; there was one surnamed Zhou, and I’m still in touch with him now; he’s still in Bijie, Guizhou. He saw in Tie Liu’s 鐵流 《往事徵痕》 “Traces of the Past” that Du Guang 杜光 mentioned me in a speech once, so he wrote me a letter.
3. Vagrant Photographer
Q. You said you made a living by taking photos in Xinjiang for a while, what was that about?
A. I’ll have to go back a bit. After returning to Xinjiang, when I came back from Beijing, I bought a set of clothes at the Dong’an Market in Wangfujing: a suit on top, pants on the bottom, and a pair of leather shoes; and I returned to Xinjiang like this. After returning to Xinjiang, for my daily needs I had to make at least ten yuan a day.
Q. Why was it so expensive?
A. Was just ten yuan expensive? Let me calculate for you, I had to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After eating these three meals, plus accommodation at night, staying in a hotel cost two yuan for a large double bed. For food, there was a type of steamed cake made from sorghum flour, the cheapest was three mao a jin. Additionally, I had to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, and the cheapest brand at that time was called Red Cloud, it cost over one dime. Anyway, I figured that I needed ten yuan a day for living expenses. What could I do? I had no income. I didn’t know how to cheat or steal, I had no skills. I ran across many thieves, and they really had skills. I met one, and I asked him, he taught me how to pickpocket. At that time, I used a fake name, surname Chen, because my mother’s surname was Chen. This thief said, Old Chen, if you want to learn, I won’t teach you. If you want to learn this, first you have to learn to take a beating, you have to endure being beaten. Especially in the beginning of stealing and pickpocketing, there’s no one who hasn’t been caught by someone else. Once caught, the masses hate you, and they’ll beat you to death. Can you endure that? You’re so frail. He didn’t teach me, and later I thought about it and decided to learn photography. Speaking of which, I spent about a hundred yuan on it.
Q. Where did you get the hundred yuan?
A. I brought it back from Beijing when I returned. I also bought a set of clothes in Beijing.
Q. Where did this money come from?
A. It’s all mine.
Q. Where did you get your income from?
A. When I was labeled a rightist, I received 32 yuan a month. I took that money with me when I fled. I bought a camera, ten rolls of film, and a fake certificate. Fake certificates were available in Urumqi at the time. I pretended to be from the Urumqi Shabayi District Mobile Service Team for Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers, and went to the rural areas subordinate to the county township government. It wasn’t possible to take photos in the county seat because people went to the photo studio there. Only by going to the countryside could I make a living by taking photos. I charged one yuan for each photo, and one roll of film could take sixteen photos. I could take eighteen photos by getting extra exposures from the front and the back of the roll. I also took on three apprentices. These three apprentices didn’t know each other and were all people who had fled from the mainland to Xinjiang. In Urumqi, Changji, and Hutubi, they worked as farmers in communes. They followed me to take photos, and I provided food and lodging for them.
I needed to use up ten rolls of film in a week. After taking the photos, I would return to Urumqi. By then, I had money to stay in hotels and eat out. I would also prepare for the next round of photography, including buying ten rolls of film, developing paper, developer powder, and fixer powder. Later, one of these apprentices went back to his hometown. I split the money earned from photography with them. They were very grateful and learned photography skills from me, and I shared my earnings with them.
Why did I have three apprentices? They didn’t know each other either. Xinjiang and northern Xinjiang are covered in snow and ice for half of the year, making it impossible to move around. Farmers and herdsmen also couldn’t work the land during this time. So, I took on one apprentice to go to the communes outside to take photos and shared the earnings with them. Then I would return to Urumqi to buy materials for the next round. Each apprentice stayed with me for two months. I gave them some rice money and some pork money, and the winter passed by. With one apprentice staying for two months, these three apprentices made it through half a year. That’s how we got through the winter, and when spring came, I became active again.
Q. What did you do when spring came?
A. I kept on taking photos. First, I would stay at a commune in the countryside. It had a guest house where I would rent a room. Then I would take free photos for the commune’s secretaries, team leaders, and accountants, using up one roll of film. I could take sixteen photos with one roll of film. At night, I would stay alone in a room in the commune’s guesthouse and develop the photos. The next day, I would give the photos to the secretaries and team leaders and wash one more photo to put in a frame. When I went out to take photos with the frame, people would recognize the subjects and want their photos taken too. This was a way of publicizing my work.
But one time, after I took some photos, the secretary asked if I could enlarge them. Without thinking, I said yes. Oh, you can? Then enlarge them for me! He really wanted them enlarged, and I was scared. Because I didn’t have the equipment to enlarge photos, but I boasted about it. What should I do? That night, I racked my brain to figure out how to enlarge them. How did I do it? First, I took photos with the camera and put the negatives into it. Then I turned the camera upside down and placed the film negatives inside. I opened the bottom of the camera and used a light source to project the image through the lens, just like showing a movie. It required lighting, and the light had to come from inside the camera and pass through the lens, which was very difficult. I spent the whole night adjusting the light. It couldn’t leak any light because once the photo paper was exposed to light, it would be ruined.
Q. How did you transfer the images from the film to the photo paper?
A. There was a clip about this big. I placed a piece of photo paper under it, then put the film negatives on top of the photo paper, and then exposed it to light. During the day, I would do this outside, and at night, I would do it in the room with a light source. I had to experiment to determine the exposure time. One, two, three, four, five, six, one to eighteen. Once I reached eighteen, I would take out the film, put the photo paper in the developer, develop it, and then fix it.
There were actually a lot of people who wanted photos taken because the farmers and herdsmen from the communes, as well as the Kazakhs, wanted photos but didn’t have money. Life was hard in the countryside. Some would bring eggs, and some would bring a mother hen. I said, photography is a public service; you sell me the eggs and chicken, and I’ll pay you. Then I would use that money to take photos for them. That’s how I ate well in the countryside. There were plenty of chickens and eggs. I would give the farmers two yuan for a chicken, and they would give me two yuan when I took two pictures for them. In the labor camps, those years were very difficult due to the famine. Some women would sleep with you if you gave them a steamed bun. There was no other way; it was very pitiful.
Q. What year was this?
A. It was after my failed appeal of my case in Beijing that I became a vagrant in Xinjiang.
Q. The labor reform brigade never came looking for you again?
A. How could they find me? They didn’t even know me.
Q. You just ran away and that was it?
A. If you run away, you run away. Many people fled from the labor reform brigades, and they couldn’t find them.
4. Begging and Selling Pancakes
I said I was begging for food around that time. One day, in Urumqi People’s Park, I was playing around with my camera, dressed in a suit. But at that time, wasn’t there that Red Guard rebel faction going around causing trouble? The rebel faction came and snatched my camera and took my money. After being robbed, I was at a loss. I didn’t have money to stay in a hotel that night, and I didn’t have my camera anymore.
So, I sat outside the Sha’erk area of Urumqi’s bus station, by the roadside. A young man came up to me and greeted me. He was from Shandong and had also fled to Xinjiang, a student. How did I know him? I was having a meal in a restaurant in Urumqi, and he came to beg from me. That’s how beggars in Urumqi were back then; they approached you when you were in a restaurant. Later, seeing that he didn’t seem like a beggar, I asked him. It turned out he was a student who had joined the Rebel Faction during the Cultural Revolution and then fled. They said it was easy to find work in Xinjiang back then, but it wasn’t the case. I gave him the food I was eating and also gave him five yuan, so he recognized me.
That day, he saw me sitting by the roadside and wanted to beg for some food or money again. I told him I had no way; I didn’t even have money for my own dinner. He asked what was going on, and after I told him, he said, “It’s okay, Lao Chen, just follow me. As long as I have food, you’ll have food too.” I said I hadn’t had dinner yet, so he went to the restaurant. He begged for two steamed buns for me; they were leftovers, not fresh ones. Then he got a bowl; there was hot water and soy sauce and vinegar in the restaurant. He poured some soy sauce soup and brought it to me to eat. That’s how I had dinner that day. There was nowhere to sleep at night, so he said, “Let’s go, come with me.” He took me around and found a school where we slept on the desks in the classrooms. The next morning, he went to beg again and brought back food for me to eat. I felt embarrassed, but he said it was okay, so I followed him. He took me to beg in the suburbs of Urumqi for three days.
Q. How old were you at that time?
A. I guess I was in my thirties. After three days of begging, I thought, this wasn’t a solution. After being robbed, I wrote a letter to my elder brother in Shanghai, saying I was in dire straits, without a penny to my name; please send some money quickly. But that would take some time. He would send it to the Urumqi post office for me to collect; no address needed.
Later, I told the young man, “Begging like this isn’t a solution. Is there another way?” He said there was, but it required capital. I asked how much, and he said at least twenty yuan. I agreed, so I took off my suit and said, “Sell this suit for me; get twenty yuan for it.” He took my suit and sold it at the bus station. It was a small suit; I’m short. Many people liked it, but it was too small for them, so it wouldn’t sell. Finally, he met a Uighur guy who was also short, and it fit him perfectly. But he only wanted to pay fifteen yuan, so the young man didn’t sell it. When he wasn’t around, I told them to “just sell it,” so the suit was sold for seventeen or eighteen yuan.
What could I buy with this seventeen or eighteen yuan? There was a river in Urumqi called Heba, where Uighurs cooked and gambled with eggs. How did they gamble? Old ladies would cook the eggs and then salt and tea-stain them. They would line up ten eggs each, and you would pick one row while the other person picked the other. Then you would knock the eggs together, and one would break while the other didn’t. After several rounds, the last two would be knocked together, determining the winner or loser. Whoever broke the egg would pay for the twenty eggs to the old lady, and the winner got the twenty eggs. Since he couldn’t eat that many eggs, he sold them. His prices were cheaper; boiled eggs were sold for eight or nine cents each. So, I went to the river to buy their cheap eggs.
Then, I would go to the city to sell pancakes at the Bingtuan restaurant; they cost about seven or eight cents each. I would buy one or two hundred at a time, carrying two baskets: one for eggs and one for pancakes. I would take a bus to the outskirts of Urumqi, where there was a medical school. There were many people going to the outpatient clinic there, so I sold eggs and pancakes at the entrance. Generally, I sold one egg for a dime, earning one or two cents each, and one pancake also earned one or two cents. Sometimes I could sell them for one yuan and two fen. So, I would sell eggs and pancakes there while he watched. When they were almost sold out, I would quickly take a bus back to town to buy more pancakes and eggs to restock. There were many people seeking medical treatment there, and no one sold food; many people bought eggs and pancakes there. The two of us could earn two or three yuan a day this way. Sometimes we could make five yuan on a good day. That was the level of our earnings. After earning money, if we made five yuan, we would each take two yuan and fifty cents, splitting it evenly. If it was three yuan, then one yuan and fifty cents each. Then, we would each go our separate ways, finding a place to sleep at night. Sleeping was like staying in a school or somewhere similar.
That way, after a week, I went to the post office. My elder brother had sent me money, about a hundred yuan. With that hundred yuan, I bought another camera, bought film, developer paper, developer powder, and fixer powder. I parted ways with the beggar and went back to taking photos.
5. Being Identified as a “Soviet Spy”
As I was taking photos again, I ended up on the Defense Highway and got caught by someone who accused me of being a Soviet spy.
Q. On the Defense Highway? What is the Defense Highway?
A. They built another road from Urumqi. There are official roads, like the one from Urumqi to Yili, which is a proper asphalt road. But then there’s another road built from the mountains, meant for use in wartime if they wouldn’t use the official roads during conflicts because they might be blocked or bombed. So they named it the Defense Highway. This road was secret, winding through the mountains, passing through pastures and villages. I was walking on the Defense Highway to scout the lay of the land, intending to gradually approach the border and flee to the Soviet Union. That was my goal. Because there was the “Yita Incident” in Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of people from Xinjiang fled to the Soviet Union. I missed that opportunity because I was in a labor reform brigade and didn’t know about it. But running away to the Soviet Union was quite common.
Q. Would life be better in the Soviet Union?
A. Well, in the Soviet Union, it depends. Some families fled entirely, herding their cattle and sheep, taking their tents. In some counties, even the county party secretaries fled. After arriving there, I heard it varied. If you were a farmer, they would send you to a collective farm; if you were a worker, they would assign you to their factory, according to your profession. But they liked these small intellectuals very much. They would gather such people, especially someone like me, a rightist and a university student; they liked them a lot. It’s said that they would send us to Moscow to train us as spies and then send us back to China.
Q. Is this what you heard?
A. Yes, because there was a lot of traffic back and forth, Xinjiang bordered on the Soviet Union, separated only by the Tianshan Mountains and the Tarim River. I wanted to approach the defense line, try to gradually get familiar with the area, and then flee to the Soviet Union sometime in the future. I was walking there, and since I didn’t know the way, I would ask locals for directions. They told me about the places ahead, and I even drew maps: where this road goes, where that road goes. But then I was caught. I had a camera and maps. I was taking too many risks; I had to pass through their garrison.
Q. You were caught near their garrison?
A. Yes, near the garrison.
Q. So you were caught by the soldiers repairing the road?
A. Yeah, the soldiers building the road were all from the army.
Q. But how could they just beat people casually?
A. In China, beating people is no big deal, it doesn’t matter. As long as they’re happy, they’ll say they’ve caught a Soviet spy. I said I wasn’t, but they just hung me up and beat me. At that time, you couldn’t reason with them. Later, I thought, there’s no point in not admitting it, so I admitted it. And I even made up a whole story for them: “A spy? What kind of spy? Who’s your superior? How do you contact them? What about the funds?” I answered all of it confidently.
Q. So how did you describe your superior and how to contact them?
A. I said my superior was tall and skinny. Every third Saturday evening of the month, from seven to eight, we’d meet under the third electric pole on the road outside the Shaibak district bus station. I said I didn’t know his name or what he looked like, he gave me 300 yuan in activity funds every month, and there would be bonuses for any intelligence provided. When they heard this, they were like, “Oh! It’s true!” So they reported it up the chain. They immediately sent a jeep and an officer to take me to the regimental headquarters. When I got there, I said it was all fake, which made them angry and disbelieving. So I pulled my clothes apart and said, “Look, they hung me up and beat me, I had no choice but to confess.” After that, they believed what I said. But the Communist Party is smart; they asked where I was really from. I said I was from Fengjie, Sichuan, because after liberation, I worked in Fengjie, Sichuan, as part of the march into the southwest, so I was quite familiar with the place. I gave them a fake name and place. After I said it, they investigated it, and the telegram came back saying there was no one named Chen or Chen Yuanqing. So they called me and said, “You’re lying, your story is false.”
But at the regimental level, they don’t beat or scold you during interrogation, unlike down below. Down there, there’s no rule of law; interrogations in the regiment are more formal. I told them another lie, but in less than a week, they investigated and found out I was lying again. What makes the Communist Party powerful is that they said, “Stop lying. If we can’t figure out whether you’re a spy or not, we’ll just lock you up indefinitely.” I realized that wasn’t good, so I spent 40 days in a small room there. Later, I thought it wasn’t working, so I told the person delivering my food, “I want to talk to your superiors.” Only then did they take me out of jail to question me. I said, “Let me tell you the truth.” I told them I was a deserter from a certain unit in the Second Agricultural Division, this time giving my real name and location. They immediately contacted the Second Agricultural Division, and they confirmed, “Yes, we have this person, he ran away.” So the Second Agricultural Division immediately sent a political officer and a guard with a gun and handcuffs. When they arrived and saw me, they put me in handcuffs and took me back to the Tarim Basin in a car.
VI. Experiences of Young Revolutionaries
1. Enlisting at Seventeen
Q. You and Lin Zhao both joined the revolution at a relatively young age. What were your experiences like?
Gan: In 1949, when I was seventeen, I joined the army. My family wasn’t landlords or capitalists; we were urban workers, employees of a company, part of that class. After enlisting, I studied in Nanjing for three months before heading southwest with the Second Field Army. But we didn’t engage in combat ourselves; the units ahead of us fought, and after the battle, we followed behind. Our route took us from Hunan’s Changsha and Changde, crossing into Sichuan at the border with Guizhou. We passed through Xiushan and Youyang. The People’s Liberation Army was with us the whole way. There’s a high mountain at the border of Sichuan and Hunan called Mount Baima; there was a battle there, but the Nationalist Party resisted briefly before failing. Then the People’s Liberation Army followed the retreating Nationalist troops to liberate Chongqing. They went towards Chongqing, and we followed behind the units fighting with the Nationalists.
We traveled from Shanghai to Nanjing first. I studied in Nanjing and stayed at the Nationalist Party’s Ministry of Finance. We had three months of training there, during which we invited top officials like Deng Xiaoping and Li Fuchun to give us lectures, and then we’d discuss them.
After finishing our studies, we took a train from Nanjing to Xuzhou. Then we went to Zhengzhou via the Longhai Railway and down to Wuhan. The iron bridge over the Miluo River in Changsha had been blown up by the Nationalists. When we got there by train, we had to start marching on foot. We were called the Student Army or Student Troops; most of us were from Shanghai, mainly high school and college students. At the beginning, we could only march 30 kilometers in a day, and we found it very tough and complained a lot. But after we trained more, we could march 70 to 80 kilometers a day.
But it was different when we marched through Mount Baima. Mount Baima is high and experiences all four seasons. It might be sunny at the foot of the mountain, but as you ascend, it becomes foggy, rainy, and snowy. As we went higher, it started snowing, and when we reached the summit, it was icy and snowy. We experienced all four seasons climbing that mountain. That day, we marched 130 kilometers because a battle had just taken place there, and there were dead bodies by the roadside, all killed by the Nationalists… Guns, artillery shells, and bullets were all scattered along our march route.
Q. You were only seventeen or eighteen at the time; were you scared?
Gan: I was seventeen, and there were girls in our unit. I was very frightened. Because the day we walked 130 kilometers, we were very afraid.
Q. Were you afraid of the Nationalists attacking you or of the dead bodies?
Gan: We were scared when we saw dead bodies; it was very tragic.
Q. Were those dead bodies killed by the People’s Liberation Army?
A. They definitely must have been killed by the People’s Liberation Army in that battle. And when the Nationalist troops retreated, the PLA pursued them. The local peasants in the mountainous areas were very poor, so they took off the clothes of the dead Nationalist soldiers and wore them themselves. The battlefield was not cleaned up, and there were many terrifying corpses. So that day, we walked fast; we covered 130 miles, whereas usually we’d only walk 70 or 80 miles and then stop for the night. Also, when we were studying in Nanjing, we were already assigned roles according to the Sichuan organizational structure. Depending on which county you were assigned to, the team leader would become the county head, and someone else would become the political commissar. Each county was divided into districts, and someone would become the district head or the district party secretary… everything had been arranged in advance.
The troops went to liberate Chongqing. Also, when we passed through Pengshan, that city is famous now but it was all burned down then, it was very tragic.
Q. Why was it burned down?
A. The Nationalist troops burned it when they left. War is brutal; our troops didn’t go directly to Chongqing but went to the east of Sichuan instead.
2. Participating in Grain Collection and Suppressing Bandits
Our platoon was already assigned to Wancounty, and the deputy commander was also the secretary of the Wancounty Party Committee in eastern Sichuan. When we arrived in eastern Sichuan, we each took our positions. Eastern Sichuan was essentially the responsibility of Lin Biao’s Fourth Field Army; the Fourth Field Army entered Sichuan from the Yangtze River. Peng Dehuai entered Sichuan from the northwest, and the Second Field Army came in from the south through Guizhou. After we arrived, we took over the Nationalist government. I was responsible for mass movements in the Party Committee. After that, I went to the countryside with the task of “grain collection and suppressing bandits.” 征粮剿匪 We needed food, so we had to collect grain.
For “grain collection and suppressing bandits,” five of us were assigned to one district, then each of us was assigned to a township. The Communist Party had come up with a way to gather the old Nationalist township leaders for a meeting convened by the district head. They said, “We’re handing these comrades over to you. Take them back and let them do whatever they need to do. If there are any problems, you’ll be the first one shot.” There were about two or three of us, and we were assigned to Hekou Township in Wancounty, Sichuan. At night, we stayed in the township government office. Each of us carried a rifle; it was a Japanese model, with a cover on top of the rifle. It was shorter than the Type 38 rifle. We went to the townships to collect grain with the slogan “grain collection and suppressing bandits.”
At that time, there were a lot of bandits, really a lot. The township head came up with a way to bring the old Nationalist village heads to the township for a meeting. He told them that the Communist Party needed to collect grain, and each village had to provide a certain amount. Comrade Gan Cui holds you, the village heads, personally responsible for this. If he gets sick or anything happens to him, you’ll be the first ones to be shot. He gradually made introductions for us, through layer by layer of the administration, because if we had gone down to the grassroots right away, we’d all have been killed right immediately. Because these township and village heads had families, they were afraid, so they didn’t dare to touch us. The bandits were connected to them. At night, we stayed in the township government office, and the township head stayed with us. We five discussed it, and at night, the bandits from Sichuan would beat drums and gongs outside the township government office, but we wouldn’t come out, and they wouldn’t come in. Because the township head had probably already told them that if he let them in and they killed us, he would lose his life too. We stayed like that for two or three months and collected the grain by force.
3. Becoming a Journalist, Admission to Renmin University
Q. After that, were you assigned to the newspaper?
A. After the grain collection and suppressing bandits were finished, we were assigned to take over. The Eleventh Army of the Fourth Field Army was leaving, so they handed over the liberated government—county governments, city governments, newspapers, etc.—to us. We were assigned to the newspaper, but I wasn’t happy about it because when I was in high school, I liked math and didn’t like literature. There were two hours of essay writing every week, and I always had a headache; my essays were always the same: “Time flies like an arrow, and I don’t realize where the time goes…” That’s how I always started my articles.
Now they wanted me to go to the newspaper but I didn’t want to. I liked student work, singing and dancing in the Youth League for I was young at the time. But there was no way; I had to obey the organization. After being assigned, the four of us—two men and two women, two women as proofreaders and two of us men, one as a journalist and one as an editor—were handed over to the newspaper. The comrades from the Fourth Field Army gave us the work, and then they left. At that time, the newspaper was called “Wan County News” but it didn’t have any local news – everything was edited from dispatches from Xinhua News Agency. The newspaper also had seven or eight translators, all from the Nationalist Party newspapers. They received Xinhua News Agency, receiving dispatches by radio [in Morse Code and then translating them back from standard telegraphic code ] numerals into Chinese characters. We would take a look, make some annotations, and come up with a headline to publish. Originally, the newspaper just published this content all day long, but after we arrived, it started to change; we published some local news, and the local news was what we went to report.
I had never been a journalist before; the first article I wrote here was about a Women’s Day meeting. A female colleague from the Eleventh Army at the newspaper took me there, and I sat next to the podium. The meeting was over in a flash. When we came back, she asked me to write a report on the meeting, but I didn’t know how to write but I tried anyway. After I finished writing, she corrected it for me, and that was my first news article. That’s how I became a journalist.
At that time, I quickly read novels to make up for my lost schooling. I read books from the early days of liberation: “Li Youcai’s Plain Speaking“《李有才板话》, books by Zhao Shuli, Soviet novels like “The Story of Zoya and Sura” and How the Steel Was Tempered (by Nikolai Ostrovsky), and another Soviet novel “Brave”, which is about a group of young Soviets going to Siberia to establish a city for the youth. I wasn’t fond of literature to begin with and didn’t have much literary ability. In 1955, Renmin University of China established the Department of Journalism and recruited a hundred people nationwide, all of whom were currently employed. Its purpose was to train mid-level journalism cadres, so the recruitment conditions were for official journalists or editors, preferably at the level of team leader or above, not ordinary journalists or editors.
Sichuan was allocated five spots, with three from the Chengdu exam district and two from the Chongqing exam district. I went to Chongqing to take the exam. In that exam district, there were probably more than two hundred people taking the exam for the Renmin University Department of Journalism, but only two were selected. Besides me, there was someone named Shi Daipeng, who later became a reporter for the People’s Daily. Chengdu selected three, including Tang Daiqing, Wang Yuchang, and another whose name I can’t recall, but they were all from Chengdu. Tang Daiqing was from the Sichuan Workers’ Daily, and all those selected came from newspapers.
After passing the exam, we came to Beijing. The more than one hundred students were all transfer cadres. That was in 1955, and I was already at the administrative level of administrative second-level teacher. However, at the beginning, we were still under the contracted system, earning 29 yuan a month, without being paid according to our rank, which was called the salary system. At the administrative second-level teacher level, I earned probably a little over 50 yuan a month.
Upon arrival in Beijing, the hundred of us were divided into four classes: one class was called the Central Newspaper Class, one was the Broadcasting Class, one was the Publishing Class—all editors from publishing houses; and one was the Local Class, for people from local newspapers. I was assigned to the Central Newspaper Class.
Q. What were the circumstances when you joined the Party at that time?
A. I joined the army in 1949, joined the Communist Youth League in 1950, and joined the Party in 1954. Among the young students who joined the army from Shanghai, I was considered late in joining the Party. Generally, they joined the Party in 1951 or 1952, but I kept delaying until 1954. It wasn’t because of my background; it was more about my individualism, tendency to be a show-off, arrogance, and not listening to leadership. So they delayed my Party membership until 1954. Among the hundred-plus students in the journalism department, there were only seven or eight League members; the rest were all Party members.
Q. In fact, the Renmin University Department of Journalism at that time was for training Party journalists?
A. It was for training mid-level Party cadres.
Q. But in the journalism department, were you mainly studying journalism?
A. Yes, journalism. Before entering, the requirement was that all students were officially journalists or editors, and preferably at the level of team leader or above; that is to say, after training, they would become mid-level journalism cadres for newspapers. At that time, all of the several thousand students at Renmin University were all in-service Party and government cadres. Most were Communist Youth League members but not proportionately as many Party members in the student body overall as there were in our journalism department. After the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, the character of Renmin University began to change. It moved towards becoming a regular university, recruiting high school graduates for undergraduate studies.
Q. So, from your involvement in the revolution until before the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, would you say that was a relatively smooth period in your life? Or did you feel very good about the new life at that time?
A. Yes, it was. I completely idolized Mao Zedong and believed in the Communist Party’s ideals of striving for communism; it was completely like that. After the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, when my position shifted from being a Communist Party cadre to being labeled a Rightist, I began to slowly awaken. At that time, how much had I studied Marxism-Leninism? Starting from the “Communist Manifesto,” I could basically recite it. At that time, Renmin University exams, whether in Marxism-Leninism or other subjects, were conducted orally, and the entire contents of the book could be tested.
Q. Can you give an example, like what does it mean when the entire book is the question? What’s the problem and how do you answer?
A. The exam was that each person drew two questions, and these two questions could be from anywhere in the entire book. For the first question, you had five to ten minutes to prepare on the side. Then you sat there, and the examiners sat in the front row, and you answered. If your answer wasn’t satisfactory, they could ask again, and you answered again; that’s how the exam was conducted. I scored five points every time I took the exam; exams were on a five-point scale. You had to remember the entire contents of the book because the exam questions were drawn from the entire book and you didn’t know what part of the book they were from.
VII. How to Become a Rightist
1. Being Acquainted with Lin Xiling
Q. According to your experience, you’re an old revolutionary. So how did you end up being labeled as a rightist?
A. I studied very hard at Renmin University because although I had been to high school, I only had done the first year and hadn’t graduated. Some of my classmates were older than me, and their studies were far inferior to my own. I was arrogant and looked down on them anyway. I found that many female classmates in our Central Newspaper Class were wives of the leaders of central-level newspapers such as People’s Daily, and some entered through the back door. I couldn’t accept that, so I wrote a sketch. At that time, “China Youth Daily” had a supplement called “Hot Pepper” specifically for publishing critical articles. The trend was Liu Binyan-style sketches, exposing the dark side of reality. Liu Binyan wrote a lot, and I admired him. Later, I wrote a sketch about these phenomena, titled “The New Official’s Wife.” 《新官太太》After it was published in the “Hot Pepperi” supplement of “China Youth Daily,” the newspaper received hundreds of letters from all over the country. At that time, the whole country was taking exams to enter universities, and it caused public outrage to see people entering through the back door! Then someone asked and said that it was written by Gan Cui from Renmin University’s journalism department. Later, when they asked me, I said I wrote about school affairs, what happened to so and so, and so on… because I had facts. After a little investigation from above, it was dropped, nothing more. At that time, the head of the journalism department was An Gang 安岗 , the deputy editor-in-chief of People’s Daily. So, I offended the department leaders, which is why I was labeled as a rightist, and it wasn’t unfair.
I knew Lin Xiling before the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, but she didn’t know me. At that time, our journalism department had an associate professor named Wang Jingding (name to be verified), who had been with people like Yu Dafu in Nanyang. He was an associate professor and needed to become a full professor through evaluation, so he had to have academic work. He wrote a paper, probably about the relationship between literary creation and worldview, I can’t remember the title. Renmin University’s journalism department, history department, etc., were all in the city, while most other departments like finance and economics were in the western suburbs. So, we posted a notice saying that a certain associate professor from the journalism department would be lecturing on his paper on a certain day and at a certain place. Since we were his students, we were his audience. That day, in a very large classroom, two rows of sofas were placed at the front covered with white cloth, tea tables were set up, and many literary figures from Beijing were invited. Behind them were us, his students. Okay, it started, and the professor briefly read the summary of his paper. After he finished reading, the lecturer invited those literary figures to speak, meaning to show support. The people sitting in the first two rows of sofas kept pushing each other, and one of our classmates said, “May I speak, please?”.
I was surprised and turned around to see a girl who was about the same age as us. The host had no choice but to say yes, yes, you can come up. She introduced herself first, saying she was Chen Haiguo from the Law School and had come to the city today. At that time, there was a daily bus from the city to the western suburbs for Renmin University. She said she saw the advertisement on the bus and came here because she liked literature. She started by saying that the article was also well-written, but then, she shifted gears and severely criticized the article written by our associate professor. At that time, we were all shocked because her criticism wasn’t random; it was well-founded, citing examples and evidence; she criticized his academic paper mercilessly.
After the criticism, she stepped down. The host tried to get those literary figures to speak again, but no one spoke because they were invited to support. I thought this girl was really extraordinary, and, wearing a PLA uniform, she had already won people’s hearts. Chen Haiguo had participated in the Korean War, and she was also in the PLA. The meeting ended in a stalemate, and the host tried to salvage the situation by saying something good about Professor Wang’s paper, and the meeting ended. So, I met Chen Haiguo. I admired her very much; this girl was not ordinary, she quoted many classics, such as Lenin’s article about Tolstoy’s worldview. And the literary figures sitting in the front rows of the venue also saw that this girl was extraordinary and invited her to write articles about literature. Later, her articles were published in “People’s Literature” 《人民文学》and “Literary Study” 《文艺学习》 and other publications. Her real name is Chen Haiguo, and her pen name when published was Lin Xiling. Lin Xiling became famous overnight.
Q. What year was this?
A. It was before the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, around 1955 or 1956. Maybe it was 1956 when she came back to pursue her graduate studies.
2. The First Time I was Charged With Being a Rightist
Q. When the Anti-Rightist Campaign began, what did you do?
A. I didn’t do anything.
Q. Let’s start with when the Anti-Rightist Campaign began, how did you understand this event at that time?
A. I knew for sure that there would be an anti-rightist campaign, so when they held a discussion meeting, I remained silent and didn’t speak.
Q. Why did you know? Wasn’t there encouragement for speaking out freely? By remaining silent, weren’t you failing to respond to the Party’s call?
A. I knew there would be an anti-rightist campaign.
Q. How did you know?
A. I went to my classmate Zhao Mulan’s house, and her husband Li Zhuang was the deputy editor-in-chief of People’s Daily. When I went there, she told us that there would be an anti-rightist campaign, and the editorials were already written. She said Mao Zedong wrote the editorials, such as the one published on June 7th: “This is Why”《这是为什么》
Q. But wasn’t there encouragement for speaking out freely in May? “People’s Daily” published articles, and various sectors started speaking out; what was the situation in Renmin University’s journalism department? What was your situation?
A. At that time, on a Sunday, I went to play at my classmate’s house. Because Li Zhuang was the head of the Chinese Journalists Delegation, he traveled with Zhou Enlai on foreign visits to Geneva, etc., and brought back many foreign toys for his son. When we went there, he treated us to lamb skewers at Donglaishun. Because we were poor students, on Saturdays, those who had homes would go home, leaving just the two of us who were single. Apart from me, there was another classmate named Zhang Qiliang; later he became the president and general manager of Friendship Publishing House and is now retired. So, the two of us went.
So, we played with the toys brought back from Geneva by Li Zhuang at his house. It was the first time I had seen such toys; when you wound them up, the cars would drive on their own and turn when they reached the edge. Nowadays, such toys are not uncommon; China also produces them. It was actually just three wheels, two in front and one in the back, placed horizontally inside the body, so if it fell off, it would automatically turn, so I was deeply impressed.
That time, he talked about the need to crack down on rightists. He cursed those democratic party members who spoke out although the “People’s Daily” published so many of them. Knowing this, when I returned to Renmin University, I didn’t write any big character posters, nor did I speak out. Eventually, why was I labeled as a rightist? It was because of Lin Xiling.
When Lin Xiling spoke out during the free speech period at Renmin University, she gave speeches two or three times and went to Peking University to speak two more times. After her speeches, the Party organizations started to criticize her. The Party and Youth League organizations of Renmin University didn’t come forward; it was the Student Union that did. It organized debates; it wasn’t called criticism sessions, but in reality, it was a criticism session.
I was responsible for organizing debates for the urban area of Renmin University as I served as the secretary-general of the urban Student Union, managing specific affairs, organizing meetings, and exhibitions. I chaired one such meeting where organized leftist students criticized Lin Xiling. Lin Xiling stood beside the podium. At that time, she was in a romantic relationship with Hu Yaobang’s secretary. On that day, she had a confidential document from the Central Committee about Khrushchev’s secret report. I didn’t know about it then. She asked me if she could speak, and I said, “Of course.” She began her speech and eventually mentioned Khrushchev’s report, suggesting that the audience might be interested in hearing it. The leftist students below became restless. Nie Zhen, the vice president of Renmin University at that time and the husband of Wang Qian, was behind the scenes at the podium and immediately passed the message to the leftists that she should not be allowed to speak.
These students shouted at her to step down. However, Lin Xiling, being experienced, continued speaking despite the uproar. Eventually, some students from the audience rushed to the podium, pushed Lin Xiling aside, and seized the microphone to prevent her from speaking. As the chairperson of the meeting, I became angry. I exclaimed, “Do you still believe in democracy? You are allowed to speak, but she is not allowed to express opposing views?” My attitude became clear, which is why I was initially charged with the first crime of supporting Lin Xiling.
Different Rightists, Different Fates
The Anti-Rightist Campaign was actually initiated by Mao Zedong. Reflecting on it now, China encompasses various types of people. Mao had policies and made arrangements, but essentially, it was all about one person tormenting another. If you offended the Party branch secretary in your unit, you would be targeted for criticism and labeled as a rightist. It turned into personal retaliation. Why was I labeled a rightist instead of others? It’s because I usually looked down on them at school; their academic performance couldn’t match mine. Upon reflection, regardless of the unit or place, those who disobeyed the leadership or looked down on them often ended up in trouble.
Furthermore, the fate of those labeled as rightists varied. Some, like us in Renmin University’s journalism department, were sent to Xinjiang because we angered the department leaders. But in my next year, 1959, there were more rightists graduating than in my year. Yet, they were sent to places like Guizhou and Yunnan, within provincial capitals or universities. They worked as librarians in libraries, which involved supervisory labor, unlike me, who was sent to a labor reform brigade in Xinjiang.
Moreover, a few rightists remained in Renmin University’s journalism department until 1979. They didn’t suffer much physically but were looked down upon. They endured it quietly. However, they didn’t engage in physical labor or labor reform. Their situation eventually improved. There was a person named Wu Shangyu at Renmin University, also a rightist, but he didn’t suffer much.
Additionally, there’s my classmate Chen Min, also a rightist. However, her husband was Zhong Peizhang, the former deputy editor-in-chief of China Youth Daily. He was also labeled a rightist. He used to work with Hu Yaobang and the Communist Youth League Central Committee. Of course, he also faced suppression. He was sent to labor in Shandong, but it wasn’t as harsh as what we experienced in the labor reform brigade in Xinjiang. Later, a word from Hu Yaobang permitted him to rejoin the Party and find another post.
As for Ai Qing in Xinjiang, Wang Zhen had decided to send him away and was also in the Production and Construction Corps. However, he reportedly enjoyed treatment equivalent to that of a division-level cadre or county-level Youth League cadre, unlike us who had to do labor-intensive work every day. Neither Ai Qing nor Wang Meng knew how to do that kind of labor. Wang Meng was also sent to Xinjiang but through the regional government and then to the county level, ultimately ending up in the communes. He essentially became a farmer, free from supervision. So, the fate of rightists varied. Looking back now, some people had malicious intentions, tormenting others. It’s essential not to offend the leaders or Party branch secretaries in your unit; if you do, they’ll target you, using movements to make you a negative example. That’s how I spent over twenty years in Xinjiang. Those days in Xinjiang were tough.
Question: Were you still a Party member?
Answer: Expelled.
Question: What happened?
Answer: After I was labeled as a rightist in 1958, they held a party branch meeting in February and said Gan Cui was a rightist and expelled me from the Party. They came to call me to attend, everyone raised their hands to pass the motion, and so I was expelled.
VIII. Hard Times in the labor reform brigade
1. The More You Argue, the Worse It Got For You
Question: Did you not stand up to defend yourself at that time?
Answer: What’s the point of arguing? There was no point in arguing. The more you tried to defend yourself, the more criticism you faced.
Question: Did anyone try to argue?
Answer: No, the more you argued, the worse it got. Besides, even if you argue, later on, I spent over twenty years in Xinjiang, and every year I argued. The situation at that time was like this: in the labor reform farm, only on May Day, National Day, New Year’s Day, and Spring Festival were holidays. Each time there was a holiday of more than three days, I could get a real day of rest. If the labor reform farm gave a two-day holiday, they would still make you work for at least one day. This work wasn’t field work, but digging thirty kilograms of licorice or chopping sixty kilograms of firewood. There was a quota for this task, and it had to be weighed. If you couldn’t complete it, you wouldn’t get food. Usually, during holidays, we counted ten days as one week, called a big week. Even during a big week, you had to arrange to dig thirty kilograms of licorice root, or go into the desert to find and dig it yourself, or chop sixty kilograms of firewood. Even if you were a strong laborer, it would take you at least half a day to complete it, let alone me.
So, I could only get a real day of rest during those few long holidays. And every time on such a holiday, I didn’t rest; I wrote letters to the Party Central Committee and the Organization Department to defend myself: my being labeled as a rightist was unjust. But there was no reply, it was like a stone sinking into the sea. For over twenty years, every holiday was like this, and I had to write a letter. I felt wronged. Later on, I stopped writing because I understood the Communist Party and there was just no point.
2. Hard Times in the Labor Reform Brigade
Our labor reform brigade had many different members. When the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps bingtuan developed Xinjiang, they mainly used troops from the Kuomintang, who would switch sides from declaring a rebellion against the Nationalist government one day to becoming part of the People’s Liberation Army the next. They were used to manage us. Additionally, labor reform prisoners from various labor reform brigades across the country, those sentenced to over fifteen years, were all sent to Xinjiang to the Corps. The Corps directed these labor reform brigades to cultivate barren land. There were even labor reform brigades assigned to work in mines, which was inhumane. What kind of mines? Uranium used for making atomic bombs, they mined uranium ore there. Those sent there couldn’t survive for more than three years, and most died within five years due to radiation exposure.
But I didn’t go there. Our labor reform brigade had all sorts of people: former Nationalist officers, big landlords, and even monks from Mount Emei, as I mentioned before. There was also a person who was about the same age as me and was a high school student. He was sent to the Xinjiang labor reform brigade because he had taken part in a student riot in Sichuan protesting against starvation. He spoke a bit strangely; his surname was Zhao, called Zhao Siheng. We didn’t call him Zhao Siheng; we gave him the name Zhao Science. The labor reform brigade was unreasonable. If you didn’t obey the authorities, they would put leg shackles and handcuffs on you, which was commonplace. Lin Zhao wrote about being handcuffed for many days. If you were shackled, even if you were a strong laborer, you had to endure for half a day to complete the task, not to mention someone like me.
So, once I had an argument with our squad leader, who himself too had been sent to reform through labor. He reported it to the authorities, and as a result, I was punished. I was handcuffed at night, and it was a week before they removed the shackles.
Q. How were you handcuffed?
A. Like this (demonstrates).
Q. How did you sleep? What about turning over?
A. They didn’t care about that; there were no laws. As I mentioned earlier, Zhao Science, who was about the same age as me, and had about the same education level. Once, when the commander of the labor reform brigade came down for an inspection, all the labor reformers lined up, and Zhao Science said, “Administration, I have something to say!” Since he insisted, they let him speak. He argued that reclaiming the saline-alkali land in Xinjiang was unscientific. He spouted such ideas, and the commander just laughed it off and left. From then on, he earned a nickname, and everyone called him Zhao Science when his term in labor reform ended, Xinjiang considered him a former labor reformer – this meant that he may not leave but that he would be paid a salary. Labor reformers didn’t have salaries; the state gave each labor reform brigade 28 yuan per person per month, controlled by the labor reform brigade for food expenses.
Additionally, there were regulations: three sets of summer clothes and a change every two years for winter, with cotton padded clothing. Each person received an additional 50 cents per month as pocket money. However, we rightists received an additional 32 yuan monthly allowance for living expenses. This money came to me each month, and I exchanged it for meal and grocery tickets in the canteen. It was different for labor reformers; the government held onto their money. Zhao Science later escaped. However, life was impossible in the desolate wilderness of Xinjiang. He dug a lair for himself outside the labor reform brigade’s camp, erected a shelter, and would steal food from our team to sustain himself and there make a cook fire for himself.
The labor reform brigade feared escapees. If you had grievances, they’d say “I’ll give you paper, you write and we will forward it for you.” They would tell you, “We didn’t sentence you; it was some county or city outside that did it. We’re just here to receive and reform you.” If a labor reformer escaped, it indicated lax supervision, affecting their performance. In the end, when Zhao Science fled, they searched for him. When they finally found him, some guards and a medic from our team chased him in the wilderness. He resisted coming back because he knew returning would only make things worse for him. As a result, a guard shot and killed him. He died like a dog.
Later, as time passed, despair set in. Around the height of the Cultural Revolution, probably in 1967 or 1968, that’s when it happened. I escaped on March 17th and made preparations beforehand. First of all, I had a bit of money left; the money from the labor reform brigade had been confiscated by the instructor and the team leader, fearing that I might run away, they said they were holding it for safekeeping. At that time, I received 32 yuan every month, and after deducting meal expenses, I could save a few yuan. So, I saved up more than a hundred yuan in the hands of the team leader and the instructor. I don’t remember the excuse I used, but I managed to get the money back. Then I bought a jin each of Iraqi dates and biscuits, no, I mean a kilogram each.
3. How Did You Get Through the Great Famine?
Q. In the 1960s, when you were in the labor reform brigade, how did you manage during the Great Famine?
A. At that time, there was a fixed quota, right? When we did physical labor, like digging drainage ditches, which was strenuous, we had a fixed quota of two kilograms of grain per day. In other words, there was a monthly quota of over fifty to sixty kilograms. The state provided this quota based on population. In the labor reform brigade, there was an administrative officer who was in charge of these matters, as well as a kitchen staff responsible for distributing the rations. Each person was allocated eighteen kilograms per month, but we couldn’t get that much. Why? Because the kitchen staff, comprising over a dozen members, didn’t follow the quota; they ate as much as they wanted. Additionally, the team leader, instructor, accountant, and statisticians also ate freely in the kitchen. The excess food they consumed belonged to us labor reformers, so although the quota for labor reformers was eighteen kilograms, we couldn’t actually get that much.
During that time, “high-yield rice” 高产饭 was invented. They ground sorghum into paste, steamed it in trays until it became thin and soft, about the size of the palm of a person’s hand. It was called “steamed cake” because it was as thick as a hand. But how could anyone feel full eating that? They couldn’t; they were hungry. How hungry? As I mentioned before, I wrote to my brother and sister, asking them to send biscuits, fruits, candies, and lard. I even took off my sweaters and gave them to Uyghurs in exchange for meat. In Xinjiang, there were Uyghurs who grazed animals, such as sheep and cows. We traded clothes for meat with them.
During the worst times, we stopped working. Unlike earlier, when they would wake you up before dawn to go labor in the fields, they just let us be. In the morning, we would take a basin, bring a hoe, and head out. Everyone scattered in different directions to look for wild vegetables. We would put the wild vegetables we found in the basin, cook them with a bit of water, and eat. Sometimes I would steal wheat; in the spring, when wheat needed to be sown, it had been sprayed with pesticides. So, you had to wash it several times before taking it to the desert. You would dig a hole in the desert, burn a big fire with the branches, and when the branches turned into charcoal, you would wrap the stolen wheat in newspapers and bury it in the pit. Cover it with hot sand first and then after some time, dig it up. We survived by eating that wheat. That’s how we got through those times.
I said I didn’t starve to death. That was mainly by relying on my brother and sister sending me food coupons every two or three months. At that time, hunger was severe. In some labor reform brigades, people starved to death. They had no way out. When people starved, their bodies began to swell, starting from the feet and continuing upward until it reached the waist; by then, there was no hope. At that time, doctors and health workers didn’t have any medicine for you if you got sick, they would just give you a few soybeans, called “life-saving beans,” that’s it.
3. After Being Caught Again
Q. After you were caught trying to escape, did you face any punishment?
A. They didn’t punish me; they didn’t increase my sentence like they would for other labor reformers. But they told me, “You have to make a fierce self-criticism at the labor reformers’ assembly.” They wanted me to criticize myself, saying that the Communist Party’s law was as solid as a rock, and even capable people like me, like Gan Cui, were caught. All the labor reformers knew that Gan Cui was very capable; he could do everything except have children. They portrayed me that way.
I wrote a self-criticism, “I hit my head against a wall” and was caught. Their aim was to educate the labor reformers not to escape because there was no way out there. So, I made a self-criticism report according to their intentions, and they let me off without any other punishment.
Q. From when you were caught until the end of the Cultural Revolution and the correction of the mistaken and unjust sentences of rightists, how did you spend those years?
A. Just as during labor reform. Every day, before dawn, we would pick up our hoes, shoulder our carrying poles, and go to work in the fields. Looking back, the days of being on the run were free but not really free. There was too much economic pressure to survive and eat. When I was living as a vagabond, I needed at least ten yuan a day to get by. Two yuan for lodging in a big dormitory at the hotel, plus three meals a day. I also had to spend over a dime on cigarettes; I hadn’t quit smoking back then. With just ten yuan a day, I couldn’t steal or rob; I earned money by taking photos. Later, I got tired and decided to work in the labor reform brigade to seek stability. In the labor reform brigade, there were both downsides and upsides. The downside was that the labor was indeed exhausting every day, but the upside was that we were spared from the struggles of the Cultural Revolution. In the labor reform brigade, there was no need for them to struggle against you so the Cultural Revolution struggles were something I didn’t experience. In a way, the labor reform brigade was like a protective umbrella.
Speaking of the labor reform brigade, it was the same scene every day. It was monotonous and repetitive, without much variation. Before sunrise, we had to start working, and we would return after sunset.
4. Cats and Canned Food
Q. Do you have any other memorable experiences from that time?
A. I remember, we went to work before dawn and didn’t return until after sunset. All us labor reformers lived in a big house, with about twenty to thirty people sleeping in a big dormitory. Sometimes, when labor reformers returned, they found that their food had been stolen. What had been stolen? Cats! There was a black and white cat that stole the labor reformers’ food. One of the labor reformers was furious and caught the cat, beating it mercilessly. He took it outside the house, intending to kill it by throwing it against the wall, and he left after doing so. I felt sorry for the cat and went to pick it up.
The cat had broken one of its hind legs, so I took care of it. I splinted its broken leg with two sticks and wrapped it up; that was all I could do. After wrapping it up, I fed it. For its sake, I even specially bought fish and duck canned food to feed it. After feeding it for over half a month, nearly a month, it healed; the bones of its leg had probably mended, but I didn’t really know. After that, the cat followed me around; it would stay on my bed. When I left in the morning and returned at night to eat, I would also give it some food.
After feeding it for a while, the little cat got pregnant. I couldn’t do anything about it once it was pregnant, so I took it to the wheat field. There were many mice and sparrows there. I put it there, which was about two or three miles away from where we lived; I said sorry, but I couldn’t keep it anymore. The cat remembered me; every night, it would run from the wheat field to where I slept. It would jump in through the window onto my bed and sniff at me. After a while, it came back with its kittens, the ones it had given birth to, to see me. Isn’t that strange? Later, I left, and our labor was assigned elsewhere again; we went to the reservoir to cut reeds, but I never saw it again. This cat was quite human; it knew I had saved its life.
Speaking of which, I bought duck canned food to feed it, right? That one box had 24 cans. I couldn’t afford to buy a whole box at once; I went to the market to buy groceries on Sundays, and we, the labor reform inmates, would ask, “Old Gan, can you get me one?” This person asked for one, that person asked for one, and we gathered enough to buy a box. I bought it and brought it back. But one time, when I brought back a box of 24 cans, one was missing. The next week, I went back to that shop, but they denied it; they said the cans hadn’t been opened, so how could one be missing? But I had seen it. Now, whenever I buy something, I have to open it in front of them.
Q. How much was one can of canned food?
A. It was over one yuan, almost two yuan each; I only had enough money to buy one can at a time, no extra money. So, I suffered a loss. I spent money and exerted effort, but in the end, one can was empty. One of the labor reformers quietly told me, “Old Gan, you’re really naive. From now on, don’t bring things for them anymore. When they ask you to buy something, just accept the money. Then say the cooperative is closed, and when you come back, return the money to them.”
Speaking of the labor reform brigade, many rightists from the army were also recruited. In the army, there were all kinds of rightists, like one from Shanghai Second Medical College, who is still in Shanghai. I met him at the 32nd Regiment Tarim Farm, and we still keep in touch. Last month, when I went to Shanghai, I visited his home. He also ran back to Shanghai from the Tarim Labor Reform Farm, but he wasn’t a labor reformer, so his status was different. After running back to Shanghai for so many years, he initially worked odd jobs and pulled carts to make a living. Now he still lives in Shanghai, about ten years younger than me. There’s also someone from Shanghai Institute of Chemical Technology named Xu Tiandao, he’s from Xiamen. He used to live on Gulangyu Island in Xiamen, but I’ve lost contact with him now, forgotten. There’s also someone from Shanghai Jiaotong University named Hu Qihua, also a rightist. These people were all talented; what does the army make them do? Hard labor! They don’t treat you as a person. As for us rightists, they could have found useful employment for us, but they didn’t. Like me, I could have taught in a high school, but they didn’t use me! (Interjection: You did teach for a while.) I taught for one or two years.
5. Removing the Rightist Label, Then Putting it Back On
Q. You taught school; when was that?
A. I was labeled as a rightist in 1958, and in 1959, I was assigned to Xinjiang. After spending about two or three years in Xinjiang, in 1961 or 1962, the national government revoked the labels of some of the rightists. According to the Central Government’s document, in the first batch of rightists to have their labels revoked, mine was removed. Our labor reform brigade didn’t agree; they said I wasn’t a good worker and was slacking off. But the head of the political and legal department at the farm said it was not allowed. According to national policy, my label should be removed, so they took off my label. But the environment didn’t change; I went to the Youth League headquarters to find them. I said I was no longer a rightist, and since they didn’t need me to dig or carry heavy loads every day, did they need someone to do that? So, they arranged for me to teach Chinese in a high school, where I taught for two or three years until the Cultural Revolution started. During the Cultural Revolution, I was dragged out and struggled against again, and the rightist label was put back on me.
Q. Did you face struggles during the Cultural Revolution? In high school?
A. During the Cultural Revolution, they struggled against me again, and I was declared a rightist again. They sent me back to the labor reform brigade. When they sent me to the labor reform brigade, I couldn’t understand it, so I secretly wrote a letter to the division’s labor reform department, asking how many years I had been sentenced to; I said it wasn’t appropriate to send me to the labor reform brigade if I hadn’t been sentenced. As a result, this letter had an effect; the division’s office reviewed my letter and transferred me back. So, I remained in the labor reform brigade, but I wasn’t with the other labor reformers anymore; I was taken to another place to supervise labor reform. After spending some time there, I escaped.
Q. Was there a difference between being in the labor reform brigade and supervising labor reform at that time?
A. The work was the same, but the pay was different. The labor reformers’ 28 yuan was allocated by the state to the labor reform brigade, which controlled it; I had so-called wages, a living allowance of 32 yuan per month. This 32 yuan was given to you each month, and you used it to buy food coupons and vegetable coupons.
Q. At that time, there were so many labor reformers, and few women. What did these young people do about getting married? If they couldn’t get married, how did they live?
A. Labor reformers, what family could they have? Unless you’ve finished your labor sentence, the so-called “sentenced to labor and then employed” individuals, but they don’t let you go; you’re still there. It means you have citizenship rights; they might let you go home or find a wife and settle down in Xinjiang.
Q. Did your family try to find a partner for you at that time? What did you think about getting married?
A. I didn’t think about it. Later, when my label was removed, I taught at a school for two years. The principal tried to introduce me to someone, but I took a look and wasn’t satisfied, so I declined. Because Lin Zhao was still in my heart, I spent twenty years in Xinjiang without getting married.
Q. During that time, you couldn’t contact Lin Zhao.
A. I couldn’t contact her. Later, I found out that Lin Zhao was seriously ill and hospitalized.
Q. She was probably imprisoned.
A. She was locked up.
Q. From 1970 to 1979, were you in the labor reform brigade the whole time?
A. Until February 1979.
IX. Rectification of the Unjust Rightist Label and Returning to Beijing
1. Finding People’s Congress and Jobs
At that time, a classmate in Beijing named Chen Min wrote me a letter, saying that there was a Central Committee Document #55 “Implementation Plan for Implementing the Central Committee’s Decision on Taking Off All Rightist Labels”, correcting the labels applied to all rightists; come back to Beijing. I received his letter, formally applied for leave, and said I wanted to go to Beijing; I’m a rightist, not a labor reformer. Later, I got approval, so I traveled from Xinjiang to Beijing. When I got off the train in Beijing, I took a three-wheeled vehicle, not a regular taxi, to my classmate’s house.
My classmate’s husband used to be the deputy editor-in-chief of the China Youth Daily and later became the director of the News Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department. When I went to her house, my classmate hardly recognized me. At that time, it was quite embarrassing. She invited me for a meal and offered to let me sleep at her place, sharing a bed with her husband. I refused because I was covered in lice. She told me to take a quick shower, changed me into her husband’s clothes, and threw away all my clothes. I ended up sleeping in her son’s small room.
Then she went to find Renmin University for me, and I also went there myself. At that time, there was a Rightist Policy Implementation Office at Renmin University. Renmin University had a guesthouse, where they arranged for me to stay. But sometimes I didn’t stay there; I still went back to my classmate’s place in Sanlitun at night. At that time, my classmate’s husband was restored to his position. Through him, I was able to meet the vice president of Renmin University, Zhang Tengxiao, and explained my situation. The president contacted the organization department of the Renmin University Party Committee. According to the policy of correcting the mistaken and unjust judgements against rightists at that time, work should have been arranged for me in Xinjiang. The first step would have been to restore Party membership, work, and salary grade.
At that time, the Beijing Public Security Bureau also implemented policies and allocated twenty household registration quotas to the China Renmin University. They didn’t care who they were given to; the Communist Party always does things that way. Through my classmate’s husband’s connections, one of these twenty household registration quotas was allocated to me, so I returned to Beijing in this way. Initially, Renmin University promised to let me work in the journalism department, but after some thought, they were worried that it wouldn’t look good if they recalled a rightist student back to Beijing and arranged a job for him there. So they told me to find a job on my own, and they arranged for my household registration to be transferred back to Beijing.
I found a job on my own, and of course, my classmate, Zhong Peizhang, also tried to help. I went to Hangzhou once and approached Zhejiang University. The secretary of the Zhejiang University Party Committee received me, but after reading the letter, he made excuses. He said, “We are an engineering university, not a liberal arts university. You studied liberal arts, so it’s not easy for us to arrange.” Later, when my classmate found out, she wrote another letter, suggesting that I go to Yiwu, where the director of the Yiwu Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department used to be her colleague. As a result, I didn’t go. What would I do there? They said they could arrange for me to work as a playwright in the Yiwu Drama Troupe, but I had never seen a play in Yiwu, so what kind of playwright could I be? So I didn’t go.
When I returned to Beijing again, I didn’t have a job; my classmate’s husband found the former secretary of Hu Yaobang, who was then the secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, named Li Yan, who later became the Deputy Minister of the Propaganda Department. He arranged for me to work in the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Since I studied journalism, he said I could work on the institute’s newspaper. I worked on the institute’s newspaper for a year and a half, but I was basically just idling. Then he asked me to go to the Central Party School for six months and come back to work at the Party School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; the students were all party cadres at the bureau level and above. That’s how I met Wang Guangmei and so on.
2. Returning to the System
Q. After more than twenty years of suffering, you returned to work within the system. In 1979, when you returned, was there any document correcting your status?
A. Restoration of party membership, I don’t remember if there was a document, I can’t recall.
Q. Was there a document restoring your party membership?
A. There was no document. There must have been a document, but it might not have been given to me.
Q. Once your party membership was restored, what were your connections?
A. My connections were at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Q. Did your connections begin at Renmin University?
A. Renmin University transferred my household registration to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Q. After your Party membership was restored, did you receive any compensation?
A. No compensation. I went to the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to petition.
Q. Weren’t some people compensated with wages?
A. No compensation for rightists. All veteran cadres persecuted during the “Cultural Revolution” received compensation. But rightists don’t get compensation; they are corrected but not rehabilitated. They didn’t get a penny. So now the rightists are not satisfied and demand twenty years of back pay. Now I don’t want it either, even if they paid me, it wouldn’t be much. Twenty years ago, I earned just a few dozen yuan a month; it wouldn’t amount to much money.
Q. Now that you had returned to the system, what was that like? You were very rebellious when you were labeled a rightist. How did you adjust your thinking? How did you adapt?
A. I couldn’t adjust; how could I!
Q. But at that time, you still lectured at the Party School?
A. I had no choice; it was a task. At the Party School, we studied Marxism-Leninism, the history of the Communist Party of China, and political economics. I had studied them thoroughly at Renmin University. Now when I talk about Marxism-Leninism, I can explain everything from the founding of the Communist Party of China to its present corruption.
3. If I Could Live My Life Over Again
Q. As someone who experienced the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, what lessons do you hope future generations will remember?
A. I don’t care what lessons future generations remember. This society is already rotten. Nowadays, young people have no faith; in a word, they work hard just to earn RMB. Money is the only thing they care about; they don’t care about anything else. You talk to them about our experiences, and they’re not interested. Just like what you’re doing with Lin Zhao now, I don’t oppose it, and I support it, but I say it’s useless. Because how many people nowadays can actually listen? Those righteous, passionate young people no longer exist. There’s nothing society can do about it. Young people nowadays are good; they don’t stir up trouble, they don’t persecute others. But now there’s intense competition in careers. If you want to survive, if you want a slightly better life with a house, food, shelter, and a car, you have to work diligently. Or you have to have connections; otherwise, no matter how capable you are, no matter how well you score, it’s all useless.
Q. If you could start your life over, in the same society and system, what would you do differently, and what would you do the same?
A. If I could start over, I’d quickly get into business, work hard, swim on my own, and not believe in this [Communist Party] system. I wouldn’t join the military; I would think twice and realize I was on the wrong path. Because in 1949, when the country was liberated, I should have followed my eldest brother to the United States. My eldest brother worked for a Chinese insurance company, relying on the capital my father left behind. My father used to be the manager of the Hankou Branch of the Bank of China, so we were essentially young masters. My eldest brother was the eldest young master, the second brother was the second young master, I was the third young master, and my sister was the fourth young miss. I wouldn’t have participated in the revolution or pursued communism. I would have tried to go to the United States with my eldest brother in 1949. But my brother hesitated too and in the end didn’t go. He had the means; he was the secretary to the general manager of the Shanghai Insurance Company and could have gone to New York with his boss. If I couldn’t have gone to the United States, I would have continued studying and working, pursuing my own path, not believing in this [Communist Party] system.
X: Records and Memories at the End of the 1980s (Omitted)
Postscript: In the late 1980s, Mr. Gan Cui, with the sensitivity of a journalist, observed the GUANG scene daily and made daily records. Later, he wrote the book The Soul of Peking University– from Lin Zhao to the 1989 People’s Movement 《北大魂——从林昭到八九民运》[甘粹：北大魂——从林昭到八九民运 原载《往事微痕丛书·纪实卷·之六》主编·黄河清 二零零九年十二月 北京] the last sentence of which is: “People have souls, countries have souls, and nations have souls… History will declare you innocent, Lin Zhao along with the university students who bravely sacrificed themselves for democracy and freedom.”
That memoir was published in 2010. A person who, in his labor reform career, had no choice but to adopt the strategy of “playing dead dogs” to survive, endured hardships and preserved his indomitable soul, stood tall in this book.
It has been ten years since Mr. Gan Cui passed away. May his soul rest in peace, and may he reunite with Lin Zhao, whom he dearly loved in his lifetime, in heaven!
March 25, 2014, Transcribed from interview recordings
April 29, 2024, Revised again.
[Author Ai Xiaoming’s] Note: Thank you to Huang Huang for assisting in recording the interview transcripts, and thanks to J.W for organizing and proofreading. I compressed and organized the final proofreading manuscript. For ease of reading, I made chronological adjustments to the content, such as consolidating discussions on the Anti-Rightist Movement and adjusting narratives about the labor reform in Xinjiang together; not entirely following the chronological order of the recordings.
Note: I found Gan Cui’s memoir online and translated the epilogue to the book that Ai Xiaoming quoted in her conclusion.
The people will never forget: In Tiananmen Square, under the Monument to the People’s Heroes, in the spring of 1989, there was once a grand patriotic democratic movement initiated by students, which stirred up a tragic and heroic plea for the people. The duration, scale, and impact of this patriotic democratic movement by students surpassed anything previous. Storming Xinhua Gate twice, occupying Tiananmen Square for an extended period, such a situation had never occurred even during the turmoil of the previous decade. Thousands of people went on a hunger strike continuously for seven days in Tiananmen Square, a phenomenon unprecedented in the history of student movements since the founding of the People’s Republic. The hunger strike led to consecutive days of demonstrations by hundreds of thousands, even millions, chanting slogans such as “Down with corruption!” and “Struggle for democracy, struggle for freedom,” shaking the entire nation and alarming the whole world, demonstrating the awakening of the political consciousness of China’s young generation.
The people will never forget: Although this patriotic democratic movement by students was brutally suppressed, the blood of the university students and the people will not be shed in vain; it will awaken more people with conscience. The government repeatedly claimed that the “bloodshed in Tiananmen Square” was purely a rumor, saying that no one died during the clearance of Tiananmen Square. This is the biggest lie. Yes, before many students and masses withdrew, no one was killed. However, after the evacuation, many students and masses who persisted in the struggle and guarded the steps of the Monument to the People’s Heroes were subjected to inhumane beatings and shootings. The executioners shouted, “Beat them to death!” I ask: where did the bullet marks and bloodstains on the steps of the monument come from? Did they fall from the moon? According to an eyewitness, the bodies of the dead were taken away by helicopter. Those barely alive and disabled were all arrested and taken away through the front and back doors of the Labor People’s Cultural Palace next to Tiananmen Square.
The people will never forget: The soldiers of the people—the People’s Liberation Army—pointed their guns at the people and fired upon the masses. According to official figures, during the suppression of this “riot,” over six thousand soldiers were injured, and dozens died; more than three thousand non-military personnel were injured, and over two hundred died, including thirty-six university students. In fact, only twenty-seven soldiers were killed, while the number of students and masses killed was not over two hundred but over ten times that. According to a survey conducted by three young reporters from a newspaper in Beijing, the number of deaths exceeded twenty-six hundred. Of course, the number of injuries is incalculable. What does this brutal and merciless bloodbath demonstrate? It only shows that certain high-level leaders of the Communist Party have completely degenerated into tyrants of feudal fascism and dictatorship.
The people will never forget: When unarmed, kind-hearted people were subjected to brutal repression and bloody massacre by the military, people were enraged, rising in unarmed resistance. According to official announcements, in the “riots” over several days, over twelve hundred military vehicles, police cars, and buses were destroyed, burnt, or damaged, including over a thousand military vehicles, over sixty armored vehicles, over thirty police cars, over a hundred and twenty buses, over seventy other motor vehicles, and a batch of weapons and ammunition were seized. From these figures, one can see how intense the situation was at the time. Burning, destroying, and overturning so many military vehicles, police cars, and buses, was it done by “a small number of rioters”? No, it was the result of the enraged people’s resistance.
These verses written by Lin Zhao in Shanghai’s prison: “Family Offering” – mourning her Uncle Xu Jinyuan, a martyr (killed by the Kuomintang in Nanjing’s Yuhuatai in the 1930s) 《家祭》—— 哭舅父许金元烈士。
April 12th— a date now buried in dust,
Who remembers the blood sacrifices thirty-seven years past?
The dead are gone,
Their descendants offer sacrifices,
Yet mine is a heart full of blood and tears.
Uncle—I cry out to you from a red prison!
I knew you — it was my mother who educated me to the tune of the Internationale and you who taught her!
If you only knew,
If you only knew,
How those countless compatriots you sacrificed yourself for
Now are deprived of liberty, battered by accusations, and reduced to hungry slaves!
I really can’t believe that Lin Zhao was later killed by the bullets of the Communist Party. The boiling blood of youthful vigor, those bloody earnest stains dyed the sobbing earth red.
Blood! Blood red blood!
Spilled all over Tiananmen Square. The blood of university students, the blood of the people.
They have already, with their actions and sacrifice, proudly demonstrated that the torch of patriotism of the May Fourth Movement is being passed down from generation to generation and will never be extinguished. Countless people’s waves of support, and their joining the students in facing danger, sharing life and death, and sharing hardships, have already made a fair evaluation of the great deeds of the students. The spring of 1989 will be forever recorded in history and cannot be erased.
Today’s flickering flames will emit soaring flames tomorrow. “For the youth is the soul of the nation… If the nation loses its youth, it loses its vitality.”
These words from Li Dazhao seventy years ago enlighten us: the concern and participation of contemporary youth in social and political life, as well as their own growth, symbolize that China is ushering in a “new century dawn.”
People have souls, nations have souls, and the nation has a soul… Lin Zhao and the students who sacrificed themselves for democracy and freedom will be judged innocent by history.
Anxious to protect the Chinese people from those spreading incorrect thinking and people stirring up trouble (often the same people) PRC courts have been cracking down.
An example is the two year sentence handed out to Jiang Tengda in 2020 for insulting national leaders, insulting martyrs, distorting history, and (gasp!) attacks on communism. The Jiangsu Province court verdict is on Wikimedia and is translated below.
Wikimedia currently has 21 PRC court adjudications online.
Picking quarrels and provoking trouble (Chinese: 寻衅滋事罪; pinyin: xúnxìn zīshì zuì), also translated as picking quarrels and stirring up trouble or picking quarrels and making trouble, is a type of criminal offense in the People’s Republic of China.
Law
The crime first appeared under Article 293 of the 1997 revision of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, and has carried a maximum sentence of five years.[1] The former offense of “hooliganism” was removed in the same revision of the criminal law.[2]
Anyone who commits any of the following acts of provocation and disturbing social order shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention, or public surveillance:
Beating others at will and the circumstances are egregious;
Chasing, intercepting, or insulting others in a serious manner;
Taking forcibly or arbitrarily damaging or occupying public or private property, if the circumstances are serious;
Making trouble in public places, causing serious disorder in public places.
Jiangsu Province Nanjing City Gulou District People’s Court
Criminal Judgment
(2020) Su 0102 Criminal First Instance No. 300
江腾达寻衅滋事⼀审刑事判决书 案 由 案 号
发布⽇期2020-12-29
江苏省南京市⽞武区⼈民法院
刑 事 判 决 书 （2020）苏0102刑初300号
Prosecuting authority: People’s Procuratorate of Gulou District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province.
Defendant: Jiang Tengda 江腾达 , male, born on March 17, 1994, in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, Han nationality, with a secondary education, residing in Huangpi District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province.
On March 8, 2019, he was criminally detained by the Public Security Bureau of Gulou Sub-bureau, Nanjing City, on suspicion of illegally using the internet. On April 12 of the same year, he was released on bail pending trial by the sub-bureau. On January 8, 2020, he was arrested on suspicion of provocation and troublemaking and is currently detained in the third detention center of Nanjing City.
Defense counsel: Zhang Ruifang, lawyer of Beijing Jing Shi (Nanjing) Law Firm.
The People’s Procuratorate of Gulou District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, filed a public prosecution [2020] No. 210 accusing the defendant Jiang Tengda of the crime of provocation and troublemaking, and the court accepted the case. After trial in accordance with the law and the formation of a collegial panel, the court held a public hearing on the case. Jiangsu Province Nanjing City Gulou District People’s Procuratorate assigned prosecutor Jiang Huiming to support the public prosecution, and the defendant Jiang Tengda and his defense counsel attended the trial. The trial has now concluded.
The People’s Procuratorate of Gulou District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, accuses that around October 2018, the defendant Jiang Tengda set up two QQ groups, of which he served as the group owner and managed the groups together with group administrators. Members of the groups, including some minors, were invited into the groups, where they posted a large number of illegal comments, including insults to the Chinese nation, insults to national leaders, insults to martyrs, distortion of the history of the Nanjing Massacre, attacks on communism, and support for Taiwan independence, seriously disrupting social order. The prosecuting authority believes that the defendant Jiang Tengda’s actions constitute the crime of provocation and troublemaking and requests that he be punished according to law.
The defendant Jiang Tengda does not contest the facts and characterization of the crime of provocation and troublemaking as charged by the prosecuting authority, and he admits the charges. His defense counsel also does not contest the charge but argues that Jiang Tengda is a first-time offender with relatively shallow subjective malice, and requests that the court give him a lighter punishment at its discretion.
After trial, it is found that around October 2018, the defendant Jiang Tengda set up two QQ groups with group numbers “××” (group name “××”) and “××” (group name “××”), of which he served as the group owner, managing the groups with group administrators. He subsequently invited Zhu and others into the groups, some of whom were minors, and they, together with him, posted a large number of illegal comments, including insults to the Chinese nation, insults to national leaders, insults to martyrs, distortion of the history of the Nanjing Massacre, attacks on communism, and support for Taiwan independence, seriously disrupting social order.
On March 8, 2019, the defendant Jiang Tengda was arrested by the public security organs and brought to justice. After being brought to justice, he truthfully confessed to the above-mentioned criminal facts.
The above facts were not contested by the defendant Jiang Tengda during the trial. In addition to the defendant’s confession, the testimony of witnesses Tan, Yin, Lv1, Lv2, Cheng, Niu, Zhu, Hao, Zhou, Wang, search transcripts, inspection transcripts, electronic data inspection transcripts, electronic mobile phone data, mobile phone screenshots, administrative penalty decisions, the arrest process issued by the public security organs, and the defendant Jiang Tengda’s household registration materials were all verified in court. The above evidence was duly authenticated during the trial, legally valid, and has probative force.
This court believes that the defendant Jiang Tengda insulted others through the internet, which is a serious offense; spreading false information on the internet, causing disturbances, and causing serious public disorder. His actions constitute the crime of provocation and troublemaking.
The People’s Procuratorate of Gulou District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, clearly accused the defendant Jiang Tengda of the crime of provocation and troublemaking, and the evidence is indeed sufficient. The charge is established, and this court supports it. After Jiang Tengda was brought to justice, he truthfully confessed to his crimes, which is considered a confession. According to the law, he can be punished leniently. In order to protect social public order from infringement, in accordance with Article 293, paragraph 1, items (2) and (4), Article 67, paragraph 3 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, as well as the provisions of Article 5 of the Interpretation of Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Defamation and Other Crimes Using Information Networks issued by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the judgment is as follows:
The defendant Jiang Tengda is guilty of provocation and troublemaking and is sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
(The term of imprisonment shall be calculated from the date of judgment enforcement. If the defendant was detained before the judgment was enforced, one day of detention shall be offset against one day of imprisonment; that is, from January 8, 2020, to December 2, 2021.)
(The fine shall be paid within one month from the effective date of the judgment.)
If you do not agree with this judgment, you can appeal to the Jiangsu Provincial Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court through this court or directly within ten days from the second day after receiving the judgment. If appealing in writing, one original copy of the appeal should be submitted along with two copies.
Lin Zhao said, “My father once told me that using the innocence and enthusiasm of young people for political purposes is the cruelest thing. Politics is deception, full of scheming. I never believed it in the past, but when I realized the truth, it was too late. Now I’m older than the age of being deceived, but not yet at the stage of deceiving others. History will declare me innocent.”
From a special section about Su Zonghua in the “Second Hospital Battlefront Report,” 《二医战报》 which included excerpts of Dr. Su’s conversations with Lin Zhao during her psychiatric analysis quoted in the account below.
In 1954, my sister Lin Zhao entered the Chinese Department of Peking University with the highest score in Jiangsu Province to major in journalism. In that cradle of democracy, she felt as if she had been embraced by a loving mother and felt full of confidence in becoming the first generation of female journalists in New China. Her writing plans piled up: she wanted to write a biography of the blind erhu player Abing (Hua Yanjun) who composed “Er Quan Ying Yue,” adapt Lu Xun’s short story “Regret for the Past“《伤逝》 into a movie, and write a history of China’s Land Reform Movement because of her participation in it. She became like a seagull eager to spread its wings. At the same time, like many sensitive intellectuals of that time, she felt oppressed by the turbulent atmosphere of the just-born PRC. When she saw the movie “The Life of Wu Xun” 武训传 being criticized and lived through the political movement criticizing the “Hu Feng Counterrevolutionary Group,” 胡风反革命集团 she felt bewildered and a sense of impending doom. By May 1957, she saw the willows by the Peking University campus Weiming Lake (Nameless Lake) 未名湖swaying, the waves shining blue, and the flowers blooming, and news of the rectification campaign arrived. In her diary entry of May 20th, she wrote: “In such a spring, amidst discussions of thought rectification, we are filled with excitement, and look forward to… Yesterday, the first big-character poster questioning the selection of representatives to the Presidium of the National People’s Congress appeared, followed by suggestions on how to use big-character posters to assist the Party is its efforts to rectify itself… At night, more big-character posters appeared in front of the dining hall. This is truly how ‘suddenly, like a spring breeze, pear blossoms appear on thousands of trees.'”
On May 19th, students such as Zhang Yuanxun posted the big-character poster 是时候了 It’s Time in the form of a poem, which said:
Holding back angry tears,
I call out to my peers:
Brothers who sing the truth,
Quickly raise the torch
To cremate all the dark things that lie beneath the sun!!!
This passionate political poem made Lin Zhao boil with excitement. When she saw someone who criticized this poem, she would respond, “Is it the way you say it is? No, absolutely not.” She couldn’t help but write poems in support of “It’s Time!” From then on, she wholeheartedly immersed herself in this democratic tide.
At the same time, student Tan Tianrong gave a speech and debated on the university triangle outside the dining hall. Crowds gathered everywhere. Lin Zhao was intrigued by Tan Tianrong’s speech, which shocked her. She thought Tan was a creative person who could think independently, break with convention, dared to voice new ideas, and dared to challenge authority. She believed that only such people were what the country needed most. She watched this classmate with joy and admiration… Until May 25th, when Peking University Party Secretary Jiang Longji 江隆基 gave a speech, she believed that the movement was basically healthy, that it required of all party members to humbly and patiently listen to the opinions of the masses, not to lose heart, and would continue to support the “Great Freedom of Speech, and Great Openness to Opinion.”
But by the 26th, slogans such as “Oppose Malicious Instigation and Slander!”“反对恶意煽动诽谤！” and “Long Live the Defenders of Marxism-Leninism!” “马列主义卫道者万岁！” appeared on the triangle, and new debates arose.
On June 8th, the People’s Daily published an editorial titled “Why is this?“《这是为什么？》 stating that as the movement progressed, there were some deviations from socialism in the speeches made, and that rightists had taken this opportunity to attack the Party…
Lin Zhao couldn’t sleep. She watched as some courageous classmates were labeled as mentally ill, “madmen,” and “devils.” In her diary, she wrote: “Is it like this? No! It’s not!” “…The Party, you are our mother, and a mother should know her children’s feelings best! Even if the children are too radical and say the wrong things, how can you say they have hostile intentions?”
But any complaints were in vain. This seagull who had just learned to fly had flown into snare and and now wore the heavy label of rightist.
Lin Zhao became as agitated as a gadfly. She saw everyone who had enlightened her as “Montaigne.” She sent a “reproach” to a teacher at the Suzhou Southern Journalism Vocational School: “Why did you teach me to be honest and frank at the time, but not how to live as a human being?” Her emotions, intertwined with resentment and indignation, erupted into madness, and from madness to despair. In her final letter, she confessed: “My tragedy is the tragedy of the transitional period. People only see me shedding tears, but they don’t see the silent bleeding in my heart…” She deeply abhorred those who had “dyed their faces red with other people’s blood” in earlier mass movements. She said, “I cannot love, nor can I love everyone! Those who tortured and trampled on me, may my shadow always follow them. May they forever remember that they worked hard to drive out of this life, to kill me. May they forever bear my blood on them.”
After Lin Zhao’s suicide attempt was rescued, she said loudly, “I will never bow down and confess!” Lin Zhao’s desperate confession of her views at the time of course only resulted in “adding to her guilt.”
Reflections on Suffering
In 1958, the Journalism Department of Beijing University was merged into the Journalism Department of Renmin University. Lin Zhao worked in the Archives Room of the Journalism Department. She collected materials for compiling the “History of CCP Newspapers” for the school, spending all day searching through old newspapers. The work was led by Wang Qian (Comrade Liu Shaoqi‘s former wife), with another student from Renmin University who had been labeled as a “rightist,” Gan Cui. Wang Qian sympathized with Lin Zhao and others very much and did not manage them much. Seeing Lin Zhao’s poor health, she often sent her some food. During this year and more, Lin Zhao’s life was relatively calm.
But Lin Zhao’s mood was not calm. She pondered why there were such large-scale collective miscarriages of justice? Why were all the well-intentioned suggestions made to help the Party rectify criticized as crimes of attacking the Party and socialism?
She often lingered in front of the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square, admiring the revolutionary predecessors and seeking answers here. Her fellow sufferers advised her not to confront it head-on, saying that eggs cannot be crushed by stones. She immediately replied sternly, “I must go and confront it. I believe that with thousands of millions of eggs striking, this stone will eventually be shattered!” She also wrote in her diary: “True liberation does not come from begging others to ‘open the door,’ to liberate us, but relies on our own strength to resist and break through, so that they have no choice but to let us liberate ourselves. It does not rely on the grace of authority to unlock the shackles on our heads; it relies on our own efforts to break them, to break through the darkness of the prison, and bring forth a light!“
In her exhausted searching, she continually sought answers, but reality’s response brought only despair. She suffered inexplicable pain, fell ill, and her illness was serious. Alone in Beijing, although friends did take care of her, being bedridden required more, the care of family. When my mother learned of this, she hurried to Beijing to bring her back to Shanghai. After Lin Zhao’s illness improved with rest, she began to recover. She was not one of those who could stand being lonely; she always wanted to go out, to the library, to the park. During her daily walks in the park, she gradually got to know several young friends. Over time, they inevitably discussed current events, both domestic and foreign.
In 1958, there was another major upheaval in China, with exaggerated slogans like “How daring people are, how productive the land is,”人有多大胆，地有多高产” “One day equals twenty years,” “一天等于二十年” and cutting down trees for steel production, spreading across the country. They discussed the “Communist style” of “blind command” “瞎指挥” which went against the laws of social development. Not long after, they witnessed economic decline, rapidly increasing shortages of goods, and long queues on the streets. Malnutrition quickly spread, and swelling and hepatitis spread rapidly, yet the hustle and bustle continued everywhere.
Lin Zhao and her like-minded friends openly expressed dissatisfaction with the highly arbitrary leftist policies at the time. They also discussed the criticism and dismissal of Peng Dehuai after the Lushan Conference for truthfully reflecting the situation according to the Party’s very own principles. They felt that right and wrong had been turned upside down.
With sincere hearts, they expressed their shared views and compiled a publication named “Spark,” which published addressing current issues. Lin Zhao wrote long poems titled “The Song of the Seagull” and “The Day Prometheus Suffered” for the publication. Publishing unauthorized publications was illegal. They were purely driven by political enthusiasm and disregard any regulations for the sake of expressing their heartfelt thoughts. They came across a book called The Program of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia 《南共纲领》. They believed that Yugoslavia’s situation had parallels to China’s and so worth studying as a reference point, so they wrote articles about that book as well. Later, they compiled these issues into a report, planning to send it to the authorities for their own reference. They hoped to correct certain erroneous policies. Needless to say, this was a very dangerous way of exploring a way forward. They did not anticipate that they would be arrested on charges of “counterrevolutionary small group activities.”
This was an impossible situation, but Lin Zhao had no regrets. She believed that paying a price for expressing her thoughts was not unexpected. She later mentioned this incident in her diary, writing: “One evening, Abraham Lincoln saw a boar stuck in the mud on his way home, struggling desperately, sinking halfway and about to drown. Lincoln wanted to get out of the car to save it, but when he looked down, he saw that he was wearing the only neat clothes he had. He hesitated and drove off in a hurry. After walking half a mile, he seemed to still hear the boar calling, so he turned back to find the mud pit. Lincoln exerted all his strength, almost becoming a mud man, and finally rescued the boar. Afterwards, although people praised his actions, they all thought it was not worth it. Lincoln said: ‘I’m not doing it for the boar, I’m doing it for my conscience.'” Abraham Lincoln’s brief words finally became Lin Zhao’s conscience to adhere to. She was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of her conscience. For that, she was upgraded from being a “rightist” re-educated person to a “currently active counter-revolutionary criminal.”
Eight Years in Prison
My sister was arrested and imprisoned in October 1960. She was initially detained in the Shanghai First Detention Center. We got no news of her for a while. My mother tried every means to get some information about her daughter, but it was in vain. More than a year later, she was transferred to the Jing’an Sub-Bureau for detention. Only then did some letters come, saying that the family could send some money and things she needed could be sent in, but meeting was very difficult. Every time my mother brought things back, she was always very discouraged because she learned that my sister’s behavior inside was very bad. Every time she wrote letters, she always asked for white sheets, which we couldn’t understand at all. It wasn’t until later that we learned that she tore the white sheets sent to her into strips to write blood letters.
In 1962, my sister was allowed medical parole. After returning home, she talked about the situation in the detention center and prison. She deeply abhorred some of the guards, especially at one point, there was a female guard who was very cruel. My sister called her “useless guard dog” and often confronted her for her inhumane treatment of the prisoners. Sometimes, my sister would shout all day, “Prisoners need to eat too,” until her voice was hoarse, and then she would start a hunger strike. Two days later, they sent her to the prison hospital for intravenous feeding.
In one prison, most were so-called “political prisoners,” so initially they were all held in solitary confinement. At first, Lin Zhao’s struggles had little impact, but due to her “restlessness,” some individual guards came to hate her to the bone. My sister often sang revolutionary songs during their shifts and loudly demanded humane treatment for revolutionary prisoners. If they ignored her, she would knock on the prison door all night.
The Internationale in Chinese with pinyin and English language subtitles
After being sentenced, she was once held in the Tilanqiao Prison. She was still held in isolation, but the isolation seemed to improve compared to before. Once, when the prison food suddenly decreased, and there was no so-called “improvement in living conditions” every two weeks, she incited others to refuse to eat and led them in calling out slogans. However, not many prisoners joined her, so she immediately started singing “The Internationale” loudly, and suddenly all the prisoners echoed loudly, and the prison seemed to boil. Later, the authorities immediately used her hunger strike as an excuse to send her to the prison hospital.
The first time my sister was sent to the hospital, she cursed the attending doctor loudly: “Hey, you doctor, are you saving people or killing them? Can someone like you be humane? Don’t touch me!” The second time she came in, her view of the attending doctor gradually changed. The doctor gently said to her, “Please be quiet and stay here for a few more days. After all, this is a hospital.” After speaking, he quietly left without any expression on his face. Later, he always tried to take care of her as well as he could, making things as easy for her as he could. Lin Zhao’s name was well-known from one prison to the Jing’an Sub-Bureau prison, and everyone in prison knew her. In the sub-bureau prison, there was also an elderly guard who treated Lin Zhao very well. At first, she would argue with him, but after she exploded, he would shake his head and say, “Why are you so angry? Save your strength, you’ve suffered enough.” After Lin Zhao encountered doctors and this old man, she suffered less pain.
Facing the guards who tortured her, she naturally expressed her cold anger. In addition to cursing loudly, she also cut her veins to write blood letters. For example, in a poem titled “A Rose for the Prosecutor,” she wrote:
To you,
My esteemed prosecutor,
I respectfully present a rose.
This is a most polite protest,
Silent and gentle.
Blood is not like water,
To be shed and made to flow down into rivers
……
She often expressed her anger in blood letters. In another poem written in blood, she wrote:
Let this drop be infused into the blood of the motherland,
Let this drop be offered to beloved freedom.
Wipe! Wipe! Wash!
This is blood!
The bloodstains of martyrs,
Who can wipe them away?
In prison, Lin Zhao once wrote a poem called “Family Offerings,” commemorating her uncle, Xu Jinyuan. Thirty-seven years ago, during the “April 12th” incident involving Chiang Kai-shek, Xu Jinyuan, who served as the Minister of the Communist Youth Department of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee at the time, was arrested by the Kuomintang and thrown into the Yangtze River in a sack. Now, in the depths of prison, Lin Zhao remembered her uncle and couldn’t help but cry out in sorrow:
……
Who remembers those bloodstains of thirty-seven years past?
The dead are gone,
Future generations make offerings to the ancestors,
But these tears and blood.
Uncle!
Your niece cries for you in the red prison!
To the tune of “The Internationale,”
I know it was Mom who taught me,
But it was you who taught Mom…
Historical change is truly inexplicable. Lin Zhao clearly advanced on the bloodstained path of revolutionary martyrs, yet she suffered such tragic torments!
Yi Yile, a Christian who was detained in the same room as my sister, became her close friend. They made a pact that if they were ever separated, they would use knocks and pauses to represent English letters as a code to stay in touch. Soon enough, they were indeed separated, but luckily, they were in adjacent rooms, so they used their code to communicate frequently.
After Yi Yile 俞以勒 was released from prison, she came to the hospital where I worked to see me and told me about my sister’s situation in prison. What pained her particularly was that Lin Zhao often wrote blood letters. After she finished writing her “petition” of two hundred thousand words, her paper and pen were confiscated. So she switched to writing blood letters. At first, she only wrote some poems in blood. She sharpened a toothbrush handle on the hard ground in prison, pierced her veins, and wrote on the white sheets. Yi Yile said she was an exceptionally brave woman, but her health was clearly deteriorating.
At one point when my sister was on medical parole, we asked her why she needed so many white sheets, and she hesitated to answer. When we saw the bloodstains on her wrists, my mother immediately pulled up her sleeves, revealing numerous small scars on her arms. My mother burst into tears and cried out, “Why do you degrade yourself like this? This is also my flesh and blood!” When Yi Yile told me this, I thought that my sister’s arms must have been even more shocking to see.
On August 29, 1962, during the initial trial, Lin Zhao recalled in her diary, “The judge asked: ‘Are you sick?’ I answered,“I’m terribly sorry, respectable gentlemen, no matter what illness there may be, perhaps this young person developed psychological abnormalities after the Anti-Rightist Movement and many other events, but at least not worse than you, gentlemen!“
In prison, Lin Zhao expressed her protest of conscience through chanting slogans, writing blood letters, and contempt for the court. She spared no effort, leading to a struggle of “subjugation and counter-subjugation” in prison. The guards repeatedly warned her, “If we can’t subdue you, this little yellow-haired girl, we’ll have no credibility at all!!” Lin Zhao wrote in her diary, “So, a struggle of ‘subjugation’ and ‘counter-subjugation’ began. And there are only two possibilities for this matter… (the following handwriting is blurry) Apart from physical torture, they played many tricks with shackles. One pair of handcuffs, two pairs of handcuffs, and even crossing them, etc. The pain and injury on my elbows remain to this day. The most inhumane and brutal treatment was during my hunger strike. When I suffered from gastritis and the pain was unbearable, even during my menstrual period, they never removed my shackles or loosened them temporarily, such as removing one pair. My goodness, this is true hell, what kind of world is this?”
When my sister was in Tilanqiao Prison, my mother and I once went to visit her. Passing through heavily guarded gates, the guards looked at us with strange eyes. Finally, we saw her in a small windowless room. She came out slowly, very weak, but her eyes were bright. At that time, the Public Security Bureau hoped my mother could persuade her to confess her mistakes, so they could ease off on her. My mother was so anxious to speak to my sister that her mouth went dry, but my sister couldn’t be persuaded and refused to take anything on board. She said to my mother, “Why are you so naive? They will never let me go. I will definitely die at their hands.” My mother said, “You can’t let yourself die at their hands. Look further ahead.” “That’s impossible!” My sister replied firmly. My mother, angry and anxious, raised her voice and said, “Ping Nan (my sister’s nickname), be clear-headed. No one will recognize you as a martyr after you die. You will die in obscurity… Your actions will only bring endless disasters to our family…” Before my mother could finish, my sister continued without hesitation, “That’s just too bad for you. I will spare no effort for the truth!”
In April 1968, Lin Zhao twenty-prison sentence was changed to a death sentence to be carried out immediately. When she received the verdict, she left behind a final blood-written letter: “History will declare me innocent.”
“History will declare me innocent!”
After my family paid the bullet fee on April 30, 1968, Mrs. Zhu, a friend of my mother’s, soon called us to come to her house. When I arrived, I sensed a heavy and unusual atmosphere there. She first asked me if there was any news of my sister, as they hadn’t heard from her for several months before the execution. I told Mrs. Zhu about the bullet fee, and upon hearing it, her face turned pale, and she said with deep sorrow, “It’s true.” When I pressed for more information, she told me that her eldest son, Xiang Xiang, worked at the Longhua Airport twice a week as part of a work-study program.
On April 29, when he was brought home by a classmate, he looked pale and stunned, unable to speak for a long time. Mrs. Zhu asked what happened, and his classmate said, “Today at Longhua, we saw someone being executed by firing squad, a woman. Xiang Xiang immediately turned pale and said he knew her.” After the classmate left, Xiang Xiang suddenly burst into tears, saying, “Big sister has been killed!” Due to the shock he experienced, he needed some rest. The next day, Mrs. Zhu asked him what happened, and Xiang Xiang said that he and his classmates were doing various chores at the airport as part of their work-study program, usually ending around 3 p.m. That day, they hung around in the airport a bit longer. Around 3:30 p.m., they suddenly saw two military jeeps speeding into the airport and stopping at the third runway. Two armed men then dragged out a woman with her hands tied behind her back with something stuffed in her mouth. They kicked her in the waist, and she fell to her knees. At that moment, two other armed men came out and fired a shot at her. When she fell down and stopped moving, they dragged her into another jeep and sped away. Xiang Xiang said he almost called out to his big sister at that moment. Mrs. Zhu repeatedly asked if he could have been mistaken, but Xiang Xiang insisted he wasn’t. He recognized his sister’s distinct features; she just looked thinner. She was wearing what looked like hospital clothes. After hearing this, I only said it would be best not to tell my mother for now; she might not be able to handle it.
On the way home, all I could think of was that bloody scene, Longhua, April, freedom, the five-cent bullet fee, and my mother’s tears… A few days later, someone told me that another inmate from the same prison saw the process of Lin Zhao’s trial at a public hearing. Lin Zhao was brought onto the stage, and because she was well-known in the prison, the inmates were stunned to see her. When Lin Zhao was brought out, her mouth was stuffed with a rubber gag, which expanded as she tried to open her mouth, filling her cheeks. Additionally, there was a plastic rope around her neck, tightened to silence her. These were the prison’s methods of dealing with particularly “dangerous” prisoners, though using both methods simultaneously was rare. Lin Zhao’s face was red and purple, her eyes burning with anger, making many people feel very sad.
Normally, at the beginning of a public trial in prison, as soon as a prisoner was brought onto the stage, the other inmates would shout slogans loudly. But that day, when Lin Zhao was being tried, there was an eerie silence. The moderator immediately became furious and shouted, “Are you all dead?” Then he led the others in chanting slogans to overthrow counter-revolutionaries, but the response was not very “enthusiastic.” The person who told me this was very detailed, but I couldn’t express my emotions; I just felt a cold and oppressive feeling in my chest.
A few days after Lin Zhao’s execution, we received notice to go to Tilanqiao Prison to collect her belongings. I accompanied my mother, who was in a daze, to the prison. When we handed over the notice at the gatehouse, all the guards inside looked at us with strange eyes. My mother was very sad, sobbing uncontrollably, but I remained expressionless. This time, we only received one package, containing a torn cotton jacket, several bloodstained sheets, some blurred blood-written messages on white cloth strips, and a few items of clothing. We searched repeatedly for any written documents or other remnants of Lin Zhao’s years in prison but found nothing.
Although Lin Zhao was suppressed while suffering injustice, in the years that followed, my contact with the outside world made me feel the support of social justice for her, although that support could not change Lin Zhao’s fate.
I remember that after my sister was imprisoned for the second time, she stayed at the Shanghai Mental Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. The director of the mental hospital was the famous psychiatric authority, Dr. Su Zonghua 粟宗华, who personally conducted a psychological analysis of Lin Zhao. During the “Cultural Revolution,” Dr. Su was nearly condemned as a counter-revolutionary for defending Lin Zhao and Yan Weibing 严慰冰 , the wife of Lu Dingyi 陆定一 , and his career suffered. Dr. Su suffered from depression and died soon after. There was a special section about Su Zonghua in the “Second Hospital Battlefront Report,” 《二医战报》 which included excerpts of his conversations with Lin Zhao during her psychiatric analysis. Lin Zhao said, “My father once told me that using the innocence and enthusiasm of young people for political purposes is the cruelest thing. Politics is deception, full of scheming. I never believed it in the past, but when I realized the truth, it was too late. Now I’m older than the age of being deceived, but not yet at the stage of deceiving others. History will declare me innocent.” That issue of the magazine harshly criticized Dr. Su Zonghua for incompetence and for sheltering counter-revolutionaries. But Dr. Su Zonghua once told someone that Lin Zhao was a rare talent.
In the early 1980s, I raised the issue of reviewing Lin Zhao’s case with a view towards reconsideration and political rehabilitation with Guan Zizhan 关子展 , the President of the Shanghai High Court. After accepting the case, it was handled by Zhao Fengdai 赵凤岱 , the President of the Jing’an District Intermediate Court. When Chen Weisi 陈伟斯, from the magazine “Democracy and the Rule of Law,”《民主与法制》 went to interview him about it, and he saw a room full of files about Lin Zhao. During this period, I got a notice that someone from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau wanted to talk to me about Lin Zhao’s case. I met this comrade in an office on the Bund. He didn’t tell me his name, and I didn’t know why he wanted to see me. It wasn’t until our conversation that I understood that he wanted to tell me some information about Lin Zhao. He knew much more about Lin Zhao than I did. He told me that there were two factions within the Public Security Bureau with differing opinions on Lin Zhao’s case from start to finish. The differences in the handling of the sentencing, execution, and current exoneration review were irreconcilable. Therefore, the exoneration was a very difficult matter. I was grateful for his frankness about the situation, and knew he was opposed to the exoneration of Lin Zhao.
In order to seek details, I decided to go to the prison hospital to interview the doctor who treated my sister. To ensure a successful visit, I had someone inquire in advance whether the doctor was willing to see me and discuss some details about Lin Zhao. The result of the inquiry was a blunt statement: “The hospital will not allow her to visit.” So, I decided to go directly to the prison hospital. Upon arrival, I explained to the gatekeeper that Lin Zhao had been killed by the “Gang of Four,” her case was being reviewed for exoneration, and I wanted to learn some information from the hospital. After the gatekeeper made a phone call, he allowed me in.
I waited in a small room resembling a nurse’s station. About ten minutes later, the doctor came in. Though small in stature, he seemed sharp and capable. He appeared nervous at first, but became somewhat surprised after I explained my purpose. During our conversation, I learned that Lin Zhao had been admitted to the hospital many times, most of which were under his care. He held a sympathetic attitude towards her, always trying to extend her stay in the hospital. He described her as a “willful” girl who was highly agitated. Whenever she showed signs of recovery during treatment, she would start propagating her political ideas again. She was eloquent and influential, constantly busy writing petitions and pamphlets. Her initial admission to the hospital was primarily due to attempts at suicide by starvation. Later she was brought in several times due to excessive bleeding from self-inflicted wounds while writing blood letters or from coughing up blood uncontrollably.
He mentioned that it was his suggestion for Lin Zhao to undergo psychiatric evaluation at the mental hospital because she often claimed that others, including doctors, were plotting against her. He found her thoughts to be sometimes abnormal. He felt she was a tragic figure. He himself was initially sidelined for “shielding” her and later sent away to labor reform for over a year. He considered his action towards Lin Zhao to be perhaps the only thing in his life that he did not do against his will. Unfortunately, he admitted he was unable to save her. The last time she came to the hospital, she was coughing up blood heavily and weighed less than 70 pounds. He could hardly recognize her, except for the light still shining in her eyes.
When there was no one else around, she said to him softly, “It’s better to be shattered than whole.” He had a bad feeling about it. Indeed, one morning, three or four armed personnel burst into the ward, forcibly pulling Lin Zhao from her bed. At the time, she was still on a glucose drip. They shouted, “Unrepentant counter-revolutionary, your end has come!”“死不悔改的反革命，你的末日到了！” Lin Zhao remained fearless and calmly asked, “Let me change my clothes.” They refused and dragged her away like an eagle snatching a chick. At the door, she told the nurse, “Please say goodbye to Dr. X for me.” The doctor said he was actually in the neighboring ward at the time and heard everything clearly. He didn’t dare to come out; he felt his whole body trembling. He said that in his lifelong career as a prison doctor, he had never seen a prisoner pulled out of bed and taken directly to a public trial before execution.
He didn’t know what crime she had committed and didn’t want to know. He didn’t have the capacity to judge. When she passionately spread her beliefs in the ward, he always kept his distance. He never read her “lengthy writings” in order to maintain a purely professional relationship with her as her doctor. He once told his superiors that he never knew about her political beliefs; he only treated her illness. Finally, he told me, “I don’t know what you want to know. All I know is what I’ve told you. But considering your sister’s farewell to me, maybe she still hoped to tell you some facts that I know.” After the conversation, my emotions were sunk into imaginings of those eerie scenes. The image of my sister’s resilience in her most tragic days lingered in my mind. Just as I was thinking, the doctor stood up, shook my hand, bid me farewell, and without a word, shook his head. As I left the room and glanced back, he stood there motionless, like a statue.
As I left the gates of Tilanqiao Prison, I looked back. The shadow of those grim high walls would forever accompany me in my remaining years, impossible to forget…
My sister had said that in the early 1960s, “History will declare me innocent.” Her posthumous rehabilitation happened twenty years later, and now, nearly another twenty years have passed. Lin Zhao’s story has received some public acknowledgment, but true historical evaluation for her might still be far off in the distant future. History is merciless. When the tides of history sweep away millions of lives, it leaves, no traces behind. Lin Zhao may just be the final rising bubble, vanishing in an instant—I firmly believe that Lin Zhao’s character is eternal.
As I was translating Ai Xiaoming’s interview with Gan Cui 2013 Ai Xiaoming: Martyred Poet Lin Zhao and Gan Cui — a love story and the story of martyred poet and democratic socialism true believer Lin Zhao and two-decades-long ‘prisoner of Mao’ Gan Cui written by Ai Xiaoming on the basis of Ai Xiaoming’s 2013 interview with Gan Cui shortly before his death. Lin Zhao’s story became well-known in China in part due to Hu Jie’s now banned independent documentary film on Lin Zhao《寻找林昭的灵魂》”Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul”. Banned in China but available on YouTube with English subtitles.
Twenty years ago many elderly ‘rightists’ were publishing memoir so that their stories would not be lost to history. The Chinese Communist Party, however, got worried and suppressed many of their stories and pressured the elderly rightists many of whom had spend twenty years in prison before being ‘politically rehabilitated’ at the end of the 1970s . The Party’s attitude was something like “Sorry guys. We tried to find you a job somewhere after your wrong and unjust conviction was canceled. Let’s move on now. We all had a rough time. No need to rehash old stories.”
While telling stories of the sufferings of the anti-rightists as well of the stories of victims of the Cultural Revolution are not prohibited, anything too deep that might question the legitimacy of the Party — the Party led people’s democratic dictatorship has been bedrock since the founding of the PRC in 1949. So many books were banned, their authors harassed, and websites closed. Fortunately some of the material posted on these websites can be found on websites set up by Chinese now living in the United States, Canada and other countries as well as on the Internet Archive. Interesting material is still to be found on PRC websites.
You need to react quickly and download it before it disappears. When I worked at US Embassy Beijing during the late 1990s, I noticed that the Beijing Municipality Propaganda Department website had a wonderful collection of Cultural Revolution big character posters online. Too bad I didn’t download them — they disappeared a few months later. On this translation blog I copy the Chinese text that I have translated if it is from a Mainland China website. Too many things disappear!
The stories of my Chengdu writer friend Yin Shuping aka Yin Ren is an example. He was a fourteen year old Xinhua war correspondent in Korea in the early 50s. He became a well-known poet and writer and was on the PRC delegation led by Hu Yaobang to the 1956 Youth Conference in Moscow. Yin spent 20 years in labor camps after he stuck up for his Chengdu poet friend Liu Shahe.
Another rightist I knew was Chongqing’s Kong Lingping who also spent twenty years in the camps. Kong Lingping, although he tried to stay apolitical as an engineering student at Chongqing University, was nonetheless caught out as a rightist because of his bad family background — his parents had taught in the public schools run the the KMT government. Kong told me his father had wanted to take the family to Taiwan but his mother refused, saying “We have many friends who are communists. We’ll be fine!”. That didn’t work out. His father was sent to a labor camp a year or two after ‘liberation’, his family suffered as a result, and Kong himself became a rightist probably to fill somebody’s ‘rightist quota’. Thus far I’ve translated three-quarters of Kong Lingping’s memoir; half of it is posted on this translation blog.
Memorial Garden for the Victims of the Cultural Revolution
Author: Peng Lingfan
来源: 中国文革浩劫遇难者纪念园 作者: 彭令范
Lin Zhao 林昭 and I are sisters by blood. Her original name was Peng Lingzhao 彭令昭. Our father named her Lingzhao with the hope that she would emulate Ban Zhao 班昭. She initially used Lin Zhao as a pen name, and later formally changed her name to Lin Zhao. Our mother was very unhappy about this, seeing it as a sign of her estrangement from our family.
My sister was the eldest daughter. For a time she was an only child. Despite our father’s preference for boys, she received much special treatment and privileges. Moreover, she was exceptionally intelligent and had a special insight into literature. From an early age, she submitted articles and published them in newspapers and magazines and so became widely known as a “child prodigy.” Furthermore, delicate and frequently ill, she became the apple of our grandmother’s eye. Mother once told me that my sister could make our young uncle cry when they argued. In any case, she was the “spoiled” child in the family. My sister and I both loved literature, but we had different preferences. She liked Lu Xun, while I preferred Ba Jin; she liked Maxim Gorky, while I liked Leonid Andreyev; she liked Charles Dickens‘ A Tale of Two Cities, while I liked Romain Rolland‘s Jean-Christophe; she liked Abing (Hua Yankun 華彥鈞) ‘s “Reflections of the Moon on Erquan” 二泉映月 while I liked Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5“; she liked Du Fu, whereas I preferred Li Bai 李白. She liked to cry, and her tears were her way of being coquettish, angry, or blowing off steam, not necessarily sadness. I rarely cried, especially after experiencing hardships. No tears were left; I couldn’t feel the emotions that bring tears. I believed that tears could only express primitive sadness, and so my tears flowed down into the depths of my soul.
My sister had a strong sense of justice. She was a fighter, had intense passions, and perhaps excessive hatreds as well. This must be just what revolutionaries and heroic characters are like.
In 1949, my sister graduated from high school at Suzhou Jinghai Middle School at the age of seventeen. Our parents naturally wanted her to go to university, however she secretly took the entrance exam for the Suzhou Southern Journalism Vocational School 苏南新闻专科学校. Despite her acceptance there, Mother was furious and wouldn’t let her go. Late that night, my sister got up to pack a small package. In those days, we shared a room. I asked her, “What are you doing?” She said, “Don’t make a sound!” Then she made mighty efforts and finally succeeded in escaping through the window grille. There was still a long way to get to the front gate from the middle room where our family lived. The front gate was bolted shut at night. It was hard to get out if you were not familiar with it. While she was fumbling with it, I sneaked into the outer room and woke up our old nanny, Wang Ma, who was sleeping there. I said, “Quickly tell Mother, otherwise, she will be very angry tomorrow.” Wang Ma immediately went to wake her up. Mother rushed out. At this point, my sister had not yet opened the front door. So Mother “caught” her and said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow morning.” My sister went back to the room in a rage and scolded me and Wang Ma harshly.
The matter was not settled, and the next day my sister still insisted on leaving. Mother resolutely refused. Deadlock. Finally, Mother said sorrowfully, “Pingnan (my sister’s nickname), if you really want to go, then don’t come back.” My sister readily replied, “Fine, I won’t come back.” This angered Mother, who said, “Words without proof are meaningless. We’ll make a contract: from now on, no contact. No filial attachment while alive, no offering of condolences to the family at death.” My sister said, “Fine, I’ll write it down.” Then she picked up a pen and quickly wrote something. I didn’t see what she wrote. Then she picked up her package and left. Mother remained silent for several days afterward. After my sister left, there was no news from her for about two or three years. It seemed as if our relationship was truly severed. Later, the dean of the Suzhou Southern News Specialized School, Luo Lie, came to my house and talked to my mother many times. Afterwards, Mother was very angry because when my sister had filled out a form about her family’s class background, she had written “reactionary bureaucrat”.
Later, my sister entered the journalism department of Peking University.
“Teach Me How Not to Think of Her” 【教我如何不想他】殷正洋
After entering Peking University, my sister was a sensation for a time. She became an editorial committee member of the student literary magazine “Red Mansion/Honglou” 《红楼》 and was a favorite student of Professor You Guoen游国恩. Professor You hoped she would transfer to the Chinese department because of her strong literary foundation. During that time, she seemed quite proud of herself. That year, when she returned home for the summer vacation, she left me with good memories. One day, she showed me a poem titled “Untitled.” 《无题》 After reading it, I said, “You seem to have fallen in love with someone.” She smiled and said, “You little rascal, how did you know?” I replied, “Just a guess. Tell me about it.” She said, “I met him at a dance. He is a man who dresses carefully and dances gracefully. That day, I casually wore a wreath made of wildflowers on my head and danced a lot. He asked me to dance once, and he danced very well. A few days later, I was walking on the ice rink at Weiming Lake, and he sang ‘Teach Me How to Stop Thinking of Her‘【教我如何不想他】 from behind me. I could only turn around and greet him. I said to my sister, “If it were me, I wouldn’t turn around. Let’s see how he reacts.” She said, “Anyway, I think he did it on purpose.”
Later, at the editorial committee meeting of “Red Mansion,” she found out that he was also a committee member. She told me that another committee member, from Shandong, was very interested in me and kept pestering me to talk about this and that. One day, he said to me, “Let’s be friends.” I said, “We are already friends.” He insisted on being closer friends with me. I wasn’t very interested. He said again, “Why don’t you cultivate your interest in me a bit more?” … Zhang Yuanxun, an editorial committee member of “Red Mansion,” and others posted the first big-character poster at Peking University titled “It’s Time!” [Translator’s Note: Translated in postscript below.] It was labeled as “rightist” in 1957.
Zhang Yuanxun was arrested for his involvement in the “Gang of Seven” and his attempt to seek political asylum at the UK representative office in Beijing 英国代办处 . During the “Cultural Revolution,” my sister was arrested in Shanghai for some reason. Zhang Yuanxun went Shanghai as my sister’s boyfriend to visit her in the Tilanqiao Prison. Later, after my sister was “suppressed” again, he was re-arrested and tortured, and accused of being a fugitive. I think Zhang was deeply in love with my sister, but my sister may not have appreciated his demeanor.
I don’t know much about how my sister became a “rightist”. She mainly supported Zhang Yuanxun and his big-character poster. Another charge was that she preached “the contradiction between organization and conscience” at the “Freedom Forum” at Peking University, and of course there were many other theoretical perspectives she advocated. It is said that she was not categorized as an “extreme rightist”. The journalism department of Peking University was later merged with Renmin University. Before the merger, my sister worked in the nursery of Peking University, and at one time she had a relationship with Tan Tianrong. They got along well; my sister called Tan her little brother. Later, Tan Tianrong was arrested. After he was rehabilitated, Tan taught at Lanzhou University. One of his books he signed Lin Zhao.
When she arrived at Renmin University, she worked in the Archives Room, where Wang Qian worked. Later, she met another “rightist”, Gan Cui, who joined the army at the age of 17, participated in the land reform in Sichuan, and then went south to grow up in the army, and was later sent to study at the journalism department of Renmin University. Under certain circumstances, he and my sister got along so well that the organization warned them not to have a relationship, but instead of complying, they decided to get married. The organization assigned Gan to a labor farm in Xinjiang, and he later returned to Beijing from Xinjiang, where his sister had already been “suppressed”. Until the downfall of the Gang of Four, sister vindication, held a memorial service in Beijing, Gan Cui sang a song composed by Lin Zhao “Where are You” 《呼唤》, his rough voice pouring out all his feelings. Zhang Yuanxun told me after the service that Lin Zhao wrote this song for Tan Tianrong.
Outside the window, the night rages with howling winds and pouring rain.
But my heart, it flies out in search of you.
I call out into the void:
Where are you? Where are you?
Why can’t I find you?!
Are you exiled to the vast wilderness?
Or buried in the icy depths of the prison?
Brother! Brother!
My soul bleeds for you,
My voice seeks you out!
Where are you? Where are you?
End Interlude]
After more than two years of reeducation through labor in Beijing, my sister suffered from frequent coughing up of blood due to bronchial dilatation, and my mother went to Beijing to bring her back to Shanghai to recuperate. My mother often regretted this, saying that if she had let my sister stay in Beijing, she might not have gotten into trouble, but I thought that my sister’s personality was always the same, every time and in every place. The result would always be the same.
Neither before or after she was labeled a “rightist” did she ever change her thinking. She was a revolutionary extremist. There could be no middle way, no compromise, no reconciliation with her opponents, “liberty or death”. Her ambition was to change society, change the irrational system, and even change the way people thought. Even if her own logic of thinking was not entirely rational, she always firmly believed that she was right even though she thought there was indeed room for argument about what a rational system would be like.
Soon after my sister returned to Shanghai, she met a “rightist” from Lanzhou University and another “rightist” from Peking University in Fuxing Park, and because of their similar views and frequent exchanges, they were later called a “gang” because of their similar views and frequent exchanges. They thought that the Peng Dehuai case had been handled unfairly, and they felt that the Great Leap Forward was a serious political mistake that resulted in harm and death of many people. Accusations of revisionism against Yugoslavia they considered a mere trumped-up charge. They expressed these in letters sent to the relevant authorities in Beijing. They did not seem to consider that could cause complications; they thought that expressing their opinions was normal behavior. Shortly afterward, the Jing’an Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau sent someone to Suzhou to arrest my sister.
At that time, my father and mother had already separated; my father lived in Suzhou, each in his own house, and my sister was at my mother’s house. On the day of the arrest, my sister was in my mother’s room. The public security officers came in and conducted a search, opening all our cans to look at them. Sister sneered at them: “If I had been patient enough to hide information in cans, I would not be in thie situation today.” At that moment, my father broke in, and his face distorted, muttering, “Our family is finished, our family is finished!” and staggered away. Within the month, my father had killed himself.
My sister was arrested and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty, while the other two were sentenced to 7 and 13 years’ imprisonment respectively. She was not even the main culprit, but only a follower. Her sentence was as harsh as it was because she resisted so fiercely.
In 1962, when my sister was on medical parole due to illness, my mother and I went to the Jing’an Branch to pick her up. She came out with a small parcel, and as soon as she saw us, she immediately walked back and said that I was not going home. The people at the branch office were all very surprised; they had probably never seen anyone who didn’t want to go home before. After tossing and turning for half a day in the concierge’s room, my sister said to my mother, “Why are you so naïve? They’re still going to arrest me for coming in even if they let me out, so why bother? Later, the public security officers said, “You can just take her away by any means necessary.” My sister was determined not to leave. She grabbed onto the legs of a table. My mother and I could not move her at all. In the end, my mother asked a florist from a friend’s family to come and force her to get on a three-wheeled cart and drive her home.
After she was released on bail, her mood gradually improved and she liked to talk. She always wanted to tell us stories about her time in prison and Shanghai Detention Center No. 1, but we didn’t want to hear them. We didn’t want to hear them so as not to add to the suffering we felt. But my sister insisted, saying, “Hey, you want to see my “acrobatic show”? I was handcuffed for 180 days in the detention center. I’ll show you how to handle your daily life after being handcuffed, including washing your face, eating, and urinating and defecating. Mother said, “Don’t talk nonsense. Sister said, “It’s a pity you don’t want to see me perform! You are losing out on a chance to understand one particular mode of life in the twentieth century.” As she spoke, the air itself seemed to congeal and we were all speechless.
At this time, my sister and my mother often had disagreements, sometimes over details of life, sometimes over finances and the future. Late one night, my mother scolded my sister, and she said, “If you want me to leave, I’ll just leave. She said, “If you want me to go, I’ll go.” She ran out the door. Mother immediately said to me, quickly go after her! So I immediately chased her downstairs, caught up with her, but she refused to come home. I finally could only say, ‘Sister come back, it’s late, I have to go to work tomorrow.’ After hesitating for some more time, she slowly walked back home with me.
My mother was very confident and always thought that nothing would happen to my sister when she was with her, so she brought her back to Suzhou. In Suzhou, she met two other “rightists”, and because of her deep affection for them, she immediately became close friends with them, and after some drama that I don’t know about, she was imprisoned again at the end of 1962. Later, she was imprisoned in Tilanqiao Prison 篮桥监狱 in Shanghai. But we were not allowed to visit her. One time a person who had been imprisoned in the same cell with my sister was released. She found us and told us about my sister’s condition. That person said that she was physically weak, often from coughing up blood. Despite all that, she continued her hunger strike, cut her veins or used a needle to bleed to get ink to write a bloody letter, and kept fighting the prison administrators. She had a strong personality and her fate looked very dark.
The last time I saw my sister was at the end of 1966, when the Cultural Revolution had already begun, and my mother had already been criticized and put into a “study class”. When I was notified that I was to meet my sister in prison, I had no money and could not buy all the things she wanted. The day of the meeting coincided with a citywide parade, and the city’s public vehicles were stopped. I left at 8:00 a.m. and walked for more than five hours before I saw the gray walls of Tilanqiao Prison.
I handed in my reception notice, and the guard at the gatehouse gave me a cold look before letting me in and lining up. The barbed-wire fence separated families from prisoners. Guards checked what had been sent to them as I stood there waiting in bewilderment. Many of the family members who had come after me had already left. There was only one bench where I sat, alone. I was so tired that I had forgotten to eat lunch. By the time the last rays of the setting sun were shining, a prison officer walked by. I asked if I would have to wait much longer. He didn’t look me in the eye, but quickly replied, “You still have to wait!” Is waiting the theme of my life? I remembered that as a child I read The Count of Monte Cristo. I particularly appreciated its concluding sentence: “Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,-Wait and hope.” Yet the endless waiting is unbearable.
Finally, when all the families had gone and the inmates had returned to the prison, the sister came out. She was dressed in onyx, wearing a white shirt and a long white skirt made of a white sheet; her long hair was tied up from the top of her head and dragged to one side, just like the way a Dan character is dressed when he is being tortured in Peking Opera; moreover, her forehead was surrounded by a strip of white cloth, on which she had written in blood the word “Wronged”. She came out slowly. I understood why I had to wait until the last interview. Through the barbed wire fence, I called out softly to my sister. She said, “Why isn’t mom here?”
She was already getting upset. I said she wasn’t able to come to Suzhou. She said, “What have you brought? Where are the mats I asked for? I said I had no money to buy it. She said, “Hmph, you don’t need to come to see me if mother isn’t here. She turned around and ran back without even looking at me. I handed the traveling bag to the guards and remained sitting there dumbfounded. I don’t know how I walked back later. I didn’t realize that this was the last time we sister would ever see one another. She was still angry with me about my mother not coming, not realizing that the Cultural Revolution raged outside the prison walls.
On May 1, 1968, I returned to Shanghai from the countryside on vacation. At about 2:00 p.m., I heard someone calling my mother’s name downstairs, so I opened the door and went out, and a public security officer came up and asked if I was a member of Lin Zhao’s family. He made me pay me five cents for the bullet that had killed her. Mother asked what is this!? I very calmly took the five cents out of the drawer and gave it to him. Mother fainted immediately when she realized what had happened.
After my sister’s death, we did not see the verdict, nor did we see any public trial notices posted, as was generally the case with condemned prisoners at that time. About half a month later, one of my mother’s students, Huang Xuewen, asked me to come to his house once, as he lived in Hongkou District, not far from Tilanqiao. When I went there, he told me that the verdict on Lin Zhao was posted on a wooden pole on a street near his house. He said, “If you want to go see it, bring a flashlight when it gets dark, but be careful. I was nervous and anxious for many hours, and finally found the “unofficial” verdict on the unnoticed pole, the kind of unclear print, the text is not clear statements, it is very difficult to read. In the dim light of the torch, I memorized the verdict. My heart sank in the dead silence of the night.
After the downfall of the “Gang of Four,” the People’s Daily published a long article titled “The Judgement of History,” which included a passage about Lin Zhao, serving as the prelude to Lin Zhao’s political rehabilitation, thanks to the materials Lu Fu had provided to Mu Qing. Later, Chen Weisi wrote an article entitled “The Death of Lin Zhao” in the Shanghai journal “Democracy and the Rule of Law.”《民主与法制》 Soon after, the Jing’an District Court in Shanghai began to investigate the Lin Zhao case. During this time, I visited the prison doctor at Tilanqiao Prison, who had once been punished because of Lin Zhao. The information I obtained from him was all first-hand, including details about my sister’s last days, from her sickbed to the execution ground, as well as the scenes from the trial held within the prison before her execution, and what the witnesses said during the Longhua execution. I don’t want to talk about or recall any of these.
It has been 30 years since my sister passed away. I often see her in my dreams, seeing her unhappy, and waking up feeling infinite pain. I can neither defend her beliefs nor inherit her writing skills; even if I were to write an article about her, it probably wouldn’t satisfy her. Her sincere pursuit of truth, her genuine and passionate love and hate, her unwavering beliefs, and her uncompromising spirit of sacrifice may be the qualities lacking in this great and tragic era. Lin Zhao’s path may be obscured in the dawn of the next century. I hope the younger generation will no longer bear the pains and hardships of Lin Zhao. Cherished ones of the New Century, when you bask in your radiant sunlight and the abundant joy of the New Era, will you leave a sacred corner to mourn Lin Zhao’s “unfinished” masterpiece?
Nowadays, I struggle to survive in a foreign country. Starting a new life and career in middle age is very difficult. I still have my unspeakable pain, a sense of not belonging, but I have never admitted to being mediocre or a failure, nor am I willing to leave a “farewell letter” like Stefan Zweig did. My ultimate fate is not under my control; it depends upon the supernatural. Meetings are brought about by fate, and being able to become real sisters is even more so. However, I don’t believe in an afterlife. As Goethe once said, if you have a happy and joyful life, then this life is enough; if your life is painful and unsettled, then why would you want to come back to this world? On our journeys down the road towards the netherworld, my sister Lin Zhao and I have already parted ways. Deep regrets are hard to make up for, and the feeble joys we knew together will never return.
To all those who knew Lin Zhao, please take a few minutes out of your busy lives to mourn her. She loved you all, a love that even surpassed the love between sisters. After I lost my sister, thank you for treating me as your own sister. When Chen Xiangsun, my sister’s classmate at the Suzhou Southern News Vocational School, told me for the first time, “Ling, Lin Zhao is no longer here, but now you are our sister,” I was deeply moved.
No matter how unjust life may be, no matter how wicked human nature may be, that ray of the innate goodness of humanity, full of hope and light, will always exist.
Rest in peace, sister.
Postscript: Translation of the first ‘rightist’ Big Character Poster at Peking University
Express the sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and spiciness in our hearts
Let it all out
Let it see the light of day.
Falling like insistent rain upon our heads,
Like newly sprouting plants
My poetry
Is a torch
Burning down
The barriers of this world,
Its brilliance cannot be blocked,
Because its spark
Comes from—”May Fourth”!!!
It’s time.
Towards our world of today
I speak out!
Yesterday, I dared not
Strike the heavy strings of the piano.
I could only sing with gentle melodies
About wind and petals!
Today, I shall sing my heart’s song,
A mighty whip,
It lashes out at all the darkness under the sun!
Why, someone asks is there no warmth in our group?
Why, someone asks do walls separate us
Why, do you and I dare not speak frankly?
Why…?
Holding back angry tears,
I call out to my peers:
Brothers who sing the truth,
Quickly raise the torch
To cremate all the dark things that lie beneath the sun!!!
Note:
On April 25, 1956, Mao Zedong proposed the policy of “letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend” at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, calling on the masses to “speak out freely.” Due to the speeches exceeding the acceptable bottom line of the government at the time, the Communist Party launched a political struggle against the rightist elements nationwide, known as the inhumane “anti-rightist movement” in Chinese history. During this movement, more than five hundred thousand people were labeled as rightists, and many of them were tortured to death.
“It’s Time?” is a poem in response to the Communist Party’s call for free expression. On May 19, 1957, Zhang Yuanxun and others posted a big-character poster at Peking University, kicking off a ideological debate across Peking University and even all of China. Zhang Yuanxun and others were labeled as rightists because of this poem. Among them, Lin Zhao was one of the most profoundly steadfast sufferers in this movement of faith.
Now that many African countries have banned exports of donkey hides, a popular ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine drugs, the PRC processors and manufacturers are considering their response. The Shandong Province Department of Industry and Information Technology has just released a request for comments, translated below, on its draft policy which includes boosting donkey breeding within China, cooperating with Belt and Road countries to increase donkey breeding in those countries to help supply the Chinese market, developing new health food and beverage products that use the gelatin produced from donkey hides, and government subsidies for digital smart pastures and more efficient cold storage facilities.
For background see:
2024 VOA: Africa Says No to Chinese Donkey Skin-Medicinal Trade In recent years, China’s pursuit of donkey-hide based gelatin or ass-hide glue (Latin: colla corii asini) 阿胶][ has led to the slaughter of a large number of donkeys in Africa, and their numbers have declined dramatically as their skins have been shipped to China through a variety of legal and illegal channels. The African Union (AU), comprising 55 African countries, has recently adopted a ban on the trade in donkey skins in the hope of restricting the trade and restoring donkey populations.
2024: PRC Traditional Medicine, a Film and Donkeys “Empress, you mustn’t eat any more”: The donkey hide gum craze sparked by 2011 TV Series “Empresses in the Palace” has triggered a crisis of donkey theft and slaughter in Africa.
2024: African Donkey Export Ban and PRC Traditional MedicineIn a decision of legendary proportions, the AU announced a ban of historic proportions – closing the trade route for donkey hides. The move not only touched animal welfare and farmers’ interests on the African continent, but also cast a shadow over the Chinese gum industry far to the east. Once upon a time, donkeys were an indispensable companion in the lives of the people of the African continent, carrying their dreams and hopes, but also suffering the trials of fate. Donkeys played an irreplaceable role in poor rural African communities, carrying water, food and other necessities. But as demand for China’s pursuit of donkey-hide based gelatin or ass-hide glue (Latin: colla corii asini) 阿胶 (Latin: colla corii asini) 阿胶] surges in China, the fate of these donkeys seems to have changed forever.
Faced with Donkey Hide Shortage, No Discussion of Shortfall or its Cause but Calls for Expansion of Donkey Hide Industry
Even my humble self, as an ignoramus who never took a business course in college, I wonder about a policy document that seeks to address a problem but doesn’t discuss the cause of the problem, the looming shortfall of raw materials, current stocks, consumption rate, possible substitute inputs, and the time likely needed to develop new sources — the time need to establish or expand new donkey farms, donkey reproduction rates and how long it takes a donkey to grow a hide that makes a Traditional Chinese Medicine manufacturer envious. Instead, the policy measures proposed are about developing new products that use the now-scarce raw material input and generating publicity that will boost sales.
There must be internal documents discussing these issues. Absent the release of this information (though donkey hide stockpiles might be proprietary information for some companies) it is hard for the public whose advice is being requested to make intelligent suggestions or even (oh no!) criticisms of provincial policy. There are some interesting bits like “Guide insurance companies to develop businesses such as donkey price index insurance to effectively enhance the resilience of the donkey industry against risks.” Insurance companies might not be so enthusiastic about that, especially if they too lack the information mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
Accelerating the High-Quality Development of Gelatin Industry: Shandong Seeks Public Opinion
Published by: Shandong Province Date: April 2, 2024
To accelerate the strengthening, optimization, and expansion of our province’s gelatin industry, to build a new advantage for high-quality gelatin industry clusters, and to create a national demonstration highland for the modernization and industrialization of gelatin traditional Chinese medicine, the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Shandong Province recently drafted the “Several Measures to Accelerate the High-Quality Development of the Gelatin Industry (Draft for Soliciting Opinions)” and solicited opinions from the public.
“Several Measures to Accelerate the High-Quality Development of the Gelatin Industry (Draft for Soliciting Opinions)” from the Shandong Province Department of Industry and Information Technology
Supporting Traditional Donkey Breeding Areas like Jinan Driving the Expansion of Breeding Production in Emerging Development Zones
The draft proposes shaping an optimal ecological industry chain.
Enhancing the supply capacity at the source, supporting traditional donkey breeding areas like Jinan, Liaocheng, Dezhou, and Binzhou to leverage their strengths, and further driving the scale and standardized breeding production in emerging development zones.
Establishing a three-tier system of good breed breeding from the original seed farm to the breeding farm to the commercial farm, guiding the construction of key projects for breeding high-quality public donkeys and preserving germplasm resources.
Encouraging gelatin production enterprises to build stable donkey hide production bases independently or through order forms,
Promoting models such as “leading enterprises + farmers,” “enterprise breeding + farm expansion,” and “pasture breeding + farming area fattening,” expanding the output, and improving the local donkey hide supply level.
Advancing Industrial Supplementary and Strengthening Chains
Thoroughly implement the “Chain Length System” mechanism, designating the rubber industry chain as a key area for breakthroughs in iconic industrial chains, accurately mapping the industrial chain, focusing on promoting short board supplementation and long board forging,
Leverage the leading role of “chain leaders” enterprises, regularizing chain integration activities, promoting upstream and downstream enterprises to join the production chain, and coordinating collaboration.
Support gelatin and “gelatin +” industry clusters to actively apply for the formation provincial-level industry clusters, creating a good ecological environment for the integration and coordinated development of the entire industry chain.
Enhancing Innovation Platform System
Supporting enterprises to jointly build characteristic laboratories for innovative research on low-carbon production, donkey breeding, and gelatin drugs with universities and research institutes,
Cultivating technology innovation centers, engineering research centers, enterprise technology centers, and other innovation platforms.
Supporting the establishment of innovative alliances for the coordinated development of production, education, and research in traditional Chinese medicine,
Actively undertaking major scientific and technological tasks such as standardized breeding key technologies, special technologies for donkey hide pretreatment, and AI vision detection technology in the direction of donkey breeding and gelatin industry.
Promoting the Integration of Culture, Tourism, and Health Care
Promote the innovative development of “gelatin +” and “+ gelatin” study tours, health care tourism, encouraging various eligible cultural and tourism resources units to apply for study bases, health care bases, staff recuperation bases, and industrial tourism demonstration bases.
Thoroughly investigate the intangible cultural heritage resources of gelatin, and of traditional Chinese medicine culture, designing and developing souvenirs, and other cultural and creative products to expand the influence of gelatin.
Promote and popularize concepts such as “food and medicine have the same origin,” diet therapy, vigorously developing gelatin health banquets, and health dishes.
Striving to Become a National Traditional Chinese Medicine Cultural Experience Venue And a National Traditional Chinese Medicine Cultural Inheritance and Innovation Demonstration Base
The draft proposes to promote the high-quality development of the industry:
Enriching product categories, strengthening gelatin drugs, deeply investigating classic formulas containing gelatin in traditional Chinese medicine classics,
Developing a batch of innovative preparations that are convenient to take and efficiently absorbed, and expanding the clinical application of gelatin drugs.
Promoting the inclusion of gelatin drugs in the medical insurance catalog.
Optimizing gelatin health food, encouraging enterprises to innovate formula processes based on gelatin drugs, developing functional gelatin health foods, beverages, and other categories that are consistent with medicine and food.
Expand gelatin food, vigorously developing instant products such as gelatin cakes, gelatin dates, gelatin milk tea, gelatin honey, gelatin ginseng drinks, and gelatin fruit and vegetable juice.
Explore the application of gelatin and its peptides in cosmetics, and creating gelatin-based cosmetics.
Advancing Intelligence, Reforming Digitization
Based on lessons drawn from traditional rubber-making techniques, encouraging eligible enterprises to lead the digital transformation around equipment, production, and management in order to
Accomplish the simultaneous production of multiple varieties and specifications of products and precise intelligent marketing, and creating industry benchmarking examples of intelligent reform and digital transformation.
Implementing provincial-level technological transformation financial incentive policies, for projects that meet the conditions for provincial technological transformation equipment subsidies,
Subsidize the purchase costs of production, testing, research and development equipment, and supporting the purchase costs of supporting hardware and software systems and intellectual property rights and scientific and technological achievements, with a subsidy ratio not exceeding 10%, and a maximum of 5 million yuan for a single enterprise.
Insisting on Inheritance and Innovation
Striving to become a national traditional Chinese medicine cultural experience venue and a national traditional Chinese medicine cultural inheritance and innovation demonstration base.
Protecting and inheriting national intangible cultural heritage resources of gelatin, expanding the team of gelatin intangible heritage inheritors, promoting the establishment of staff gelatin craftsmanship training bases, actively conducting skill competitions, cultivating a group of intangible heritage workshops and skilled talents, and creating “gelatin craftsmen.”
Telling stories about gelatin such as how it “enhances longevity and helps people” and hold cultural propaganda activities such as “gelatin culture festival” and “improving nourishment through gelatin festival.”
Encouraging Enterprises to Cultivate International Gelatin Brands Supporting “Chinese Medicine Going Global”
The draft clearly states to deepen and expand multiple markets.
Strengthening brand cultivation, supporting enterprises to participate in brand cultivation activities such as “Good Products in Shandong,” “Lu’s Ten Flavors,” and “Time-Honored Brands,” shaping the public brand image of “Good Gelatin from Shandong” and “Shandong Gelatin Authentic and High Quality.” Supporting enterprises to carry out brand promotion actions, improving brand management systems, and enhancing trademark registration, application, protection, and management capabilities.
Deepen the Domestic Market
Adhering to differentiated development, encouraging eligible enterprises to follow a diversified development path, strengthening and enlarging categories such as gelatin drugs, health foods, and foods; supporting small and medium-sized enterprises to focus on segmented areas, improving and refining categories such as gelatin food.
Guide enterprises to integrate online and offline, establishing national product sales networks covering the whole country using new retail and other forms, and accelerating the increase of market share.
Encourage enterprises to participate in health industry (international) ecological conferences, intangible heritage expositions, international intangible heritage festivals, and national sugar and wine exhibitions, focusing on cultivating key consumer groups.
Expand International Cooperation
Seizing the opportunity of the “Belt and Road” construction, supporting enterprises to carry out exchanges and cooperation with Central Asian countries in scale breeding technology promotion, live donkeys and donkey hide, donkey meat imports, building overseas ranches, upgrading global raw material procurement supply chains, and stabilizing donkey hide imports.
Encouraging enterprises to explore cultural value-identified markets with stronger cultural identity in Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia through cross-border e-commerce platforms, international exhibitions, and other channels, cultivating international gelatin brands, and supporting “Chinese medicine going global.”
Guiding Dezhou, Pingyin, Yanggu, and Other Places To Jointly Build Traditional Chinese Medicine Inheritance and Innovation Demonstration Areas
The draft also proposes to focus on improving product quality.
Strengthening standardization construction, encouraging gelatin drug companies to actively participate in the formulation of national traditional Chinese medicine standards, accelerating the formulation, issuance, and implementation of standards and norms for gelatin drugs, health foods, and related foods.
Carrying out standardization pilot project construction, guiding enterprises to participate in standard “leading” and “benchmarking” activities, leading industry healthy development with standard norms.
Strengthen product quality supervision.
Including gelatin food and drugs in key supervision, increasing supervision and inspection efforts.
Conducting food safety knowledge training for gelatin food production enterprises, organizing system inspections for gelatin health food production enterprises, implementing miscellaneous skin source monitoring for gelatin health food, urging enterprises to strictly implement main responsibilities, and promoting the improvement of gelatin quality in food.
Intensifying intellectual property protection efforts, improving intellectual property complaint reporting, rights protection assistance, and dispute resolution mechanisms, investigating and dealing with quality violations and trademark infringement behaviors in accordance with the law. Encouraging and supporting enterprises to apply for China Quality Award, National Quality Benchmark Enterprise, Provincial Governor Quality Award, etc.
Improving the Work Guarantee System
Strengthening work mechanisms
Establish a provincial-level coordination mechanism to promote the high-quality development of the gelatin industry, promoting the work of the high-quality development of the gelatin industry at the provincial, municipal, and county levels, increasing policy supply, strengthening project tracking services, and focusing on coordinating solutions to outstanding difficulties.
Guiding Dezhou, Pingyin, Yanggu, and other places to give full play to the advantages of authentic producing areas, and jointly building traditional Chinese medicine inheritance and innovation demonstration areas.
Strengthen Policy Support. Make overall use of existing financial resources, increasing support for enterprises along the entire industry chain in digital transformation, technological transformation, talent training, and exhibition activities.
Establishing a “white list” for key financing docking services, encouraging financial institutions to provide diversified financing support.
Effectively enhancing the role of provincial funds, driving social capital to actively invest in the gelatin industry.
Guide insurance companies to develop businesses such as donkey price index insurance to effectively enhance the resilience of the donkey industry against risks.
Enhance Service Efficiency
Around the entire industry ecology, hold timely conferences integrating product displays, brand promotion, technical cooperation, product transactions, and talent introduction, creating high-energy service platforms, and promoting the coordinated development of the industry chain.
Leverage the roles of Shandong Gelatin Association, Shandong Donkey Industry Technology System, and Dong’e County Gelatin Industry Association and other social organizations, conducting industry quality inspections, third-party evaluations, vocational skills training, and quality evaluations, promoting the self-disciplined development of the industry.
This April 29, 2024 article by PRC Minister of State Security Chen Yixin that appeared in Study Times Xuexi Shibao is being ‘reprinted’ in newspapers and on Party websites throughout the PRC. A useful perspective on PRC national security concerns as seen by one of its chief enforcers. As Chen Yixin writes below political and ideological security are the most important parts of the PRC national security concept.
Sixth is the primary task of national security. Political security is the highest national security and the foundation of national security. We must adhere to giving political security top priority, firmly safeguard national political power, institutional security, and ideological security.
I added a note, URL links, bullet points and changing paragraphing and adding bullet points, italics and bolding in places to make this document more readable. I copied the Chinese text below so that the sino-literate will not be led astray by my failings and just in case this document should disappear from the Internet.
Chen Yixin: Study and Implement the Overall National Security Concept in Depth and Unswervingly Safeguard National Security
Author: Chen Yixin | Published: April 29, 2024 | Source: Study Times, April 29, 2024
On April 15, 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward an original concept of PRC overall national security at the first meeting of the Central National Security Commission. Over the past decade, under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as its topmost leader, has coordinated the overall strategy of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the unprecedented changes in the world such as haven’t been seen for over a century. It has reformed the national security system and mechanism with great vision, constructed a new security pattern on a large scale, won a series of major struggles with great strategies, improved the rule of law in national security with a broad mind, put great efforts into carrying out extensive national security education, promoted international common security with broad vision, and achieved historic achievements and changes in national security work.
Practice has fully confirmed that the overall national security concept is the Marxist theory of state security in contemporary China and is the action guide for safeguarding and shaping national security in the new era. We must conscientiously use the overall national security concept to arm our minds and guide our practice more consciously, vigorously safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and provide strong security guarantees for building a strong country and national rejuvenation.
Firmly grasp the fundamental principles of safeguarding national security. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping, with profound insight and theoretical creativity as a Marxist politician, thinker, and strategist, has put forward a series of new ideas, thoughts, and strategies for safeguarding national security. These constitute the “National Security Chapter” of Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. In particular, the report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China elaborated on national security dedicating to it its own chapter, emphasizing the promotion of the modernization of the national security system and capabilities, safeguarding the new development pattern with a new security pattern, further enriching the overall national security concept, and forming a scientific theoretical system with “overall” as the key and “Ten Adherences” as the core content, embodying profound ideological connotations, including 16 aspects enumerated below:
[Note: Ten Adherences 十個堅持 introduced in 2021; distinct from the Ten Definites 十個明確 introduced in 2017. Google Translate machine translation makes it Ten Persistences; there seems not to be a settled translation into English. Numbered lists of principles go back into China’s ancient past; in the PRC it seems to have been most used by Mao and Xi, although the practice never faded away under other PRC leaders.
Adhere to the on party leadership;
Adherence to the principle that the people are the most important of all;
Adherence to theoretical innovation;
Adherence to independence and self-governance;
Adhere to the Chinese way;
Adherence to having a human concern for all the world;
Adhere to pioneering and innovation;
Adhere to daring to struggle;
Adherence to the United Front;
Adhere to Insisting on self-revolution [1] End Note. Article continues below.]
First is the status and role of national security. National security is the foundation of national rejuvenation, and national security work is a very important aspect of the Party’s governance. Adhering to and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and ensuring national security are top priorities.
Second is the choice of the national security path. We must resolutely follow the path of Chinese-style national security, ensure the organic unity of people’s security, political security, and national interests, and ensure that the process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is not delayed or interrupted.
Third is the strategic requirements of national security. We must coordinate development and security, integrate the maintenance of national security throughout the entire process of Party and state governance, ensure the new development pattern with a new security pattern, and provide high-level security for high-quality development.
Fourth is the value of national security. Taking people’s security as the purpose, we must adhere to the principle that national security is for the people and relies on the people, provide strong security guarantees for the people’s living and working in peace and contentment, and gather strong forces to safeguard national security.
Fifth is the central task of national security. We must adhere to bottom-line thinking and thinking about what can be done and what should be done in extreme contingencies, be prepared for danger in times of peace, take precautions in advance, prevent and resolve national security risks, and be prepared to withstand major tests of stormy seas and even storms and waves.
Sixth is the primary task of national security. Political security is the highest national security and the foundation of national security. We must adhere to giving political security top priority, firmly safeguard national political power, institutional security, and ideological security.
Seventh is the overall coordination of national security. We must promote security in all areas, deal with traditional and non-traditional security comprehensively, achieve the strategic integration of national security work in all areas, integrate strategic resources, and use strategic forces in an integrated manner.
Eighth is the reform impetus of national security. Promote the modernization of the national security system and capabilities, promote the efficient integration of new productive forces with new combat effectiveness, and create a growth pole for new productive forces and new combat effectiveness.
Ninth is the technological empowerment of national security. Vigorously promote independent innovation, enhance adaptability and control over strategic technologies, rely on technological innovation to ensure national security, and improve the ability to use science and technology to safeguard national security.
Tenth is the legal guarantee of national security. Improve and perfect the national security legal system, use legislation, law enforcement, and judicial means comprehensively to conduct struggles, and continuously improve the ability to use legal thinking and legal means to safeguard national security.
Eleventh is the practical orientation of national security. Highlight practical and practical orientation, promote the organic connection and integrated integration of various aspects of construction, create a concealed front line system for major struggles that meets the needs of major struggles.
Twelfth is the new strategy of national security. Coordinate the maintenance and shaping of national security, understand the underlying principles at play in changes underway, seek advantages and avoid disadvantages in chaotic situations, and strive to grasp the strategic initiative to maintain national security firmly.
Thirteenth is the strong support for national security. National defense and military construction provide strong support for national security. Accelerate the construction of solid national defense and a strong people’s army to provide strategic support for realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Fourteenth are the responsibilities of a major country in the national security area. Adhere to the promotion of international common security, promote the establishment of a universal, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable global security concept, and jointly build a community to provide for a secure common future for all humanity.
Fifteenth is the spirit of struggle for national security. Adhere to the courage to struggle and be good at struggle, and make every effort to overcome various difficulties and challenges on the road to progress, rely on tenacious struggle to open up new horizons for development.
Sixteenth is the fundamental guarantee of national security. Adhere to the Party’s absolute leadership over national security work, implement more effective overall leadership and coordination, and integrate the Party’s leadership throughout the entire process of national security work.
General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on the overall national security concept are profound and rich in content. They provide answers to major theoretical and practical questions of national security in the new era, opening up new horizons for the theory of state security with Chinese characteristics. They mark a new high point in the Party’s understanding of the laws of national security work, providing fundamental principles for national security work in the New Era. We must comprehensively learn and understand them and implement them in all aspects of our work.
We should thoroughly understand the international environment for safeguarding national security. Currently, the world is undergoing changes unseen in a century, with changes in the world, the era, and how history is unfolding in unprecedented ways, reflecting the trend characteristics of “Four Patterns, Four Shifts.” 四個格局，四個轉向
I. International power structure:
A shift from unipolarity to multipolarity. The international balance of power has profoundly adjusted from “one pole dominating” to multi-polar development;
Emerging market countries and developing countries, with their own strengths, independent development capabilities and international influence increasing, have become an important force in influencing the world pattern and reshaping the world order;
Multilateralism has increasingly become the general consensus of the international community; and multi-polarity has become an unstoppable trend of the times.
Multi-polarity has become an unstoppable trend of the times.
II. International development pattern:
Shifting from cooperation to competition.
The economic model is becoming increasingly conservative, and countries are promoting the return of industrial chains and the increase of local re-industrialization;
Economic cooperation is becoming increasingly fragmented, and some countries are promoting the “decoupling and breaking of chains” and “de-risking”, and the “global integrated development” has been replaced by the “regional integrated development”.
Economic competition is becoming increasingly disorderly, with some countries generalizing the concept of security, wielding the stick of sanctions and abusing their “long arm” jurisdiction, making competition more complex and disorderly.
III. International security pattern:
The international security landscape has shifted from stability to turbulence.
Global security camps are polarizing, security mechanisms are failing, security risks are accumulating, and the risk of “change from stability to chaos” and “change from chaos to danger” is increasing.
The means by which countries seek traditional security are increasingly upgraded, the hidden dangers they face in non-traditional security are more and more diversified,
Competition for new strategic territories is more and more intense, and the probability of encountering “black swans” and “gray rhinoceros” events is increasing. The instability and uncertainty of the external environment have clearly increased.
IV. International governance pattern:
Shifting from adjustment to reconfiguration. The existing global governance order is imbalanced, and certain countries have disguised themselves as hollowing out the existing governance system, using it if it fits and abandoning it if it doesn’t;
Developing countries have increased their motivation to push for change and have become an important force driving the change of the international order;
Non-State actors have become increasingly active, and
Big corporations with extraordinary amounts of capital and transnational corporations have extensively intervened in international competition and participated in global governance, so that there has been a clear feature of the “new and old” in the system and mechanism of international governance. The international governance system and mechanisms are clearly characterized by a “change from the old to the new”.
The above “Four patterns and Four Shifts” are the trending features of the current international environment. We must analyze them dialectically and respond to them appropriately. We must enhance our awareness of risks, think of danger in times of peace and prepare for a rainy day. We must also enhance our awareness of opportunities, be adept at turning danger into opportunity, seek opportunities in danger, and strive to take the initiative in national security strategy.
In-depth promotion of strategic initiatives to safeguard national security
The word “overall” in the overall concept of national security reveals the systems thinking approach. We should make good use of scientific perspectives and viewpoints inherent in the overall concept of national security so as to understand the strategic initiatives for safeguarding national security.
The whole system is being built to enhance the overall strength of national security.
Confrontation between systems is the basic feature of the current national security struggle. We should focus on:
Promoting the overall construction of the PRC national security system,
Adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China Central Committee over national security work,
Improve the efficient and authoritative national security leadership system,
Improve the rule of law, strategy, policy, risk monitoring and early warning system for national security, and
Build an full domain, three-dimensional and efficient national security protection system.
Adopt a total all-encompassing view of national defense and control, thereby expanding the broad vision of national security work. At present, the field of national security has become broader, and the factors affecting national security have increased. We need to firmly grasp the concept of security, not only to maintain traditional security such as political, economic and military security, but also to prevent and control non-traditional areas of security concern such as biology, data and artificial intelligence, and to be highly vigilant against “black swans” and “gray rhinos“, so as to promote the improvement of the layout of the work of national security, and to incorporate the various fields of national security into the work perspective. We will promote the improvement of the layout of national security work, and incorporate various areas of national security into our work vision.
We will coordinate in an all-round way and build a solid brick wall to prevent risks. The interconnectedness, transnationality and diversity of national security risks are becoming increasingly prominent.
We need to coordinate both within and outside the PRC, ensure political security, social stability and people’s peace internally, and promote international common security externally;
We need to coordinate both online and offline, improve the cyberspace management system, enhance dynamic monitoring and real-time early warning capabilities,
We need to prevent all kinds of risks from being linked and combined with one another, and build a strong all-round risk protection network.
We should utilize all means at our disposal to seize the strategic initiative. Under the new situation, the instantaneous effect of security problems, combined and amplifying effects have become more evident. We should comprehensively apply all means of prevention, control and disposal,
We should pay more attention to synergistic and efficient, rule of law thinking, science and technology empowerment, grassroots foundation,
We need to be innovative in the transformation and application of the fruits of economic and social development research, promote changes in national security means and methods so as to accelerate the realization of the changes to which we have prior warning, achieving a rapid response, proactive in seizing the initiative to create change.
Mobilization of society as a whole to bring together the powerful synergy of people’s war. National security is all for the people and it all depends upon the people. This is a clear manifestation of the advantages of the national security road with Chinese characteristics. We should always take the people as the fundamental force of national security, enhance the national security awareness and literacy of the entire population, continuously consolidate the people’s line of defense for national security, and create a national security community with shared responsibility, common management of risks, and sharing of results.
Effective fulfillment of duties and tasks in safeguarding national security
Maintaining national security is a wide-ranging and arduous task. We must adhere to the overall concept of national security as a guide, based on the duties of the national security organs, and carry out in-depth the Five Anti Fights 五反鬥爭 — anti-subversion, anti-hegemony, anti-secession, anti-terrorism and anti-espionage — and effectively build a solid national security barrier.
Fighting the war against subversion.
Externally, we will build an iron and steel wall to safeguard political security;
We will be highly vigilant against the westernization and polarization attempts of hostile anti-Chinese forces;
We will crack down on infiltration, sabotage, subversion, and secessionist activities outside of China; and
Internally, we will eliminate the soil affecting political security,
Guard ideological strategic positions such as the Internet and the universities,
Oppose and resist all kinds of erroneous thinking, and
Prevent all kinds of risks from being transmitted to the field of political security.
The overall battle against hegemony is being fought.
We will establish a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable concept of global security, oppose “building walls and barriers”, “decoupling and breaking chains”,
We will oppose unilateral sanctions and extreme pressure, and resolutely fight against all forms of hegemony and power politics.
We are determined to do a good job of our own affairs, improve anti-sanctions, anti-interference and anti-long-arm jurisdiction mechanisms,
We will promote high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement, and
We will take China’s nation development as the base of our own strength.
Fighting the active battle against secession.
We will firmly oppose “independence”, resolutely thwart any form of secessionist attempts for “Taiwan independence”, counteract the interference of external forces, and punish according to the law those who act as “pawns” for “Taiwan independence” and “pawns” for “Taiwan independence”.
We will punish, in accordance with the law, Taiwan spies who act as “pawns” for “Taiwan independence” and safeguard national sovereignty and national interests.
We will do our utmost to promote unification, strengthen the forces of patriotic unification, cultivate a foundation of public opinion for peaceful unification, promote spiritual unity among compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, and
We will make a contribution to the advancement of the great cause of unification of the motherland through our work on the covert front. 筑牢守卫国家秘密安全的坚固防线。
Fighting the war against terrorism.
We will strike hard against incitements to riot and terrorist activities within the borders of the PRC, insisting that all cases of “terrorism” must be dealt with, that they must be dealt with as soon as they appear, that they must be severely punished in accordance with the law.
We will strengthen risk detection and joint prevention, major security and joint control, and major special cases and joint fights, in order to maintain the bottom line of no riot-inciting and no terrorist cases or incidents within the country.
We will guard against the risk of terrorist attacks abroad, improve the early warning mechanism for the risk of terrorist attacks against us,
We will deepen international cooperation on counter-terrorism, promote the forward movement of the gate, strengthen the management of the source, and effectively safeguard the safety of PRC citizens, organizations and projects abroad.
Fight well the offensive and defensive war against espionage.
We have organized a strong offensive, continued to carry out special counter-espionage operations, improved the coordination mechanism for counter-espionage work,
Thoroughly implemented the new counter-espionage law,
Comprehensively enhanced our ability to fight in accordance with the law, and resolutely dug up “nails” that harm our national security by eliminating internal traitors.
Strengthened the all-vectors prevention work, strengthened our work on key objectives and key parts of security protection, promoted the 12339 state security tip reporting hotline and other indicators to promote the construction of the National security agency report acceptance platform, pressured all departments to shoulder their responsibility in counter-espionage work and building a solid line of defense to guard the security of state secrets.
Continuously Strengthen Strong Guarantees for Maintaining National Security
Implementing the overall national security concept and maintaining national security in the new era is a long-term systems engineering project. We should take full advantage of the strengths of our system, strengthen organizational leadership, innovate institutional mechanisms, take strong measures, and continuously strengthen the systematic support and basic guarantee for national security work. Strengthen the political guarantee, strengthen the party’s leadership “backbone”.
We must seek to better understand political guidance and to profoundly understand the decisive significance of the “Two Establishes” 兩個確立, and resolutely achieve the “Two Upholds” 兩個維護.
“Resolutely upholds General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core status as the core of the Party Central Committee and the entire Party.”[c]
“Resolutely upholds the authority and centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee.”[d]
End note]
We will give full play to our political advantages, resolutely implement the Chairman’s Responsibility System of the Central State Security Commission 中央国安委主席负责制 , and give full play to the Party’s core role of leadership with an overall view of the situation and coordination of all parties.
We will summon our political strength, give full play to the pioneering role of Party members and cadres, and mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of all people in safeguarding national security.
Optimize institutional safeguards and build a “new system” for practical combat. We will create a practical system, adhere to the principle of everyone involved in the fight and all resources dedicated to the fight, creating an integrated command platform, a specialized security pillar for the country, systematic combat team, taking full advantages of all capabilities in synergy to maximize our fighting strength. Innovative management system, promote flatter management structures, manage jointly all related efforts, optimize management of capabilities for the fight, manage means so that they can be optimally employed in a digital and intelligent systems environment, manage teams to be both red and expert, so as to be better suited for the needs of major struggles ahead.
The rule of law will be fully guaranteed, and we will build up the “arsenal” for the fight against the enemy. We must improve the rule of law at home, improve legislation in key and emerging areas, promote the professionalization and standardization of the rule of law in national security. We must build a rule of law configuration in which legislation, law enforcement, justice and universalization of the rule of law go hand in hand. We must improve the rule of law relating to foreign affairs, improve the strategic configuration of the rule of law relating to foreign affairs, enhance the effectiveness of law enforcement and judicial work relating to foreign affairs, and continuously improve the ability to use the rule of law to safeguard national security.
We must do a good job in science and technology security, thereby creating a new quality of combat power “growth pole”. We will strengthen networking, build cutting-edge network technology, and enhance our ability to rely on network technology to safeguard national security. We will do a good job in integrating data resources, coordinate the building up of capabilities in computing power, algorithms and data applications so as to promote the enhancement of the ability to prevent and resolve major risks by using numeric data as a “medium”. We will accelerate the adoption of intelligent systems, implement intelligent systems development strategy, promote technology exchange and sharing, and accelerate the generation of new combat power.
We will do active propaganda work so that as a big county the PRC will long enjoy peace and tranquility and have the strongest voice in ideology and influence. Grasp the publicity modes, stressing April 15th National National Security Education Day and January 10th People’s Police Day and continue to create a strong atmosphere of national security for all. Optimize the content of publicity, digging deep into the national security archive to “mine” themes, give vivid interpretation of “mysterious” work on the the national security front, the “wonders” of our work, and our sacred mission. Fortify our national security publicity camp, strengthen the Ministry of National Security official microblogging and other new media construction, and all together we will sing the main themes of safeguarding national security.
Work on strengthening our ranks, forging a “main force” that is both red and expert. Build a firm foundation of “red”, in-depth study and education on party discipline, and strive to overcome the unique difficulties of strengthening supervision on the covert front, so as to be firm and pure, reassure the Party that our work is up to standards, be willing to dedicate themselves, and be able to fight and able to win. Enhance our ability to “specialize”, re-enforce the education and guidance of most cadres to strengthen their ideology so that they will persist despite severe challenges, build up political experience, increase practical training and professional training, re-enforce the spirit of struggle and self-discipline, and strive to forge a loyal, clean national security force and an iron army of national security for the New Era..
Below I have translated a love story — the story of martyred poet Lin Zhao and two-decades-long ‘prisoner of Mao’ Gan Cui written by Ai Xiaoming on the basis of her 2013 interview with Gan Cui. Retired Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University Professor Ai Xiaoming is the author of the 2012 open letter Zhonghan University (Guanghzou) Chinese Literature Professor Ai Xiaoming’s open letter to the chief judge who decided the appeal on the Tan Zuoren case — 2012: Ai Xiaoming: The Constitution Insulted, Conscience Humiliated.
In his April 2024 interview with Elizabeth Lynch, Bucking the system: China’s underground historians , Ian Johnson discusses the on-going suppression of modern PRC history. Not only the more brutal aspects of the Cultural Revolution, but also the lesser-known, at least today, of the Anti-Rightist Movement of the late 1950s that send many ‘rightists’ to prison at hard labor for two decades as well as the Land Reform Movement during the late 1940s and early 1950s that killed off one to two million people who were either landlords or political opponents assimilated to that category by the Party and its local action teams. For more on the Land Reform Movement see Reading Ye Fu’s “Requiem for a Landlord”.
Banned video on YouTube
So many lives were disrupted, ended or cruelly distorted the first incarnation of the PRC — the Mao Zedong years. For the second incarnation, the post 1978 PRC birthed under Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping keeping the bodies buried and creating happy myths of the glorious leader who — while he made mistakes one-third of the time — was basically a good guy and an inspiration as the Chinese Renaissance moves ahead under a new glorious leader who, just like Mao Zedong, is just the right guy for his times.
On this translation blog I too have found modern PRC history and its strain re-interpretations and efforts to recover something like an understanding of what really happened is an inexhaustible subject. See the PRC history category on this blog and particularly translations from modern PRC historians such as Shen Zhihua.
See also Han Zhang’s review of Ian Johnson’s Sparks in The Atlantic:
Lin Zhao (January 23, 1932-April 29, 1968) Mr. Gan Cui gave me two photos; this one is a portrait of Lin Zhao. I believe it was originally given to Gan Cui by Lin Zhao herself. On the back of the photo, Mr. Gan Cui wrote a note: “Photographed in 1958, it reads ‘Sharing the fate of being exiled to the margins of society, we feel as if we knew each other well even before we met for the first time.’”
“Because I still have Lin Zhao in my heart”
—Interview with Lin Zhao’s close friend/comrade-in-arms, Gan Cui
Date: November 28, November 30, December 1, 2013
Location: Mr. Gan Cui’s residence in Beijing
Interviewer: Ai Xiaoming
Introducing Gan Cui:
Born in December 1932 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China, Gan Cui was directly admitted to the Journalism Department of Renmin University of China in 1955. In 1958, he was labeled as a “rightist” and met Lin Zhao that same year; the following year, he was sent for 20 years of labor reformation. After the “rightists” were rehabilitated in 1979, he returned to Beijing and worked in the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He later served as the director of the Documentation Section and associate researcher at the Literature Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He retired in 1992 and settled in Beijing. He edited and published the “Dictionary of Chinese Novels” (Dunhuang Art and Literature Publishing House, 1991) and authored “The Soul of Peking University,” published in 2010.
Mr. Gan Cui during an interview, November 28, 2013.
Preface:
大陆禁片《寻找林昭的灵魂》-独立制片人胡杰制作 China’s Banned Movie”Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul” – Produced by Hu Jie
In 2012, I began searching for Lin Zhao’s manuscripts, which led me to visit some of her comrades-in-arms and classmates. In December 2013, while attending the internet technology company NetEase’s annual conference in Beijing, I had the opportunity to spend three days with Mr. Gan Cui. Mr. Hu Jie had interviewed Mr. Gan Cui for his film “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul,” 《寻找林昭的灵魂》which included his memories of Lin Zhao and scenes from his later life. The film also hinted at Mr. Gan Cui’s own experiences, stating that he “spent a hellish twenty-two years in the Production and Construction Corps bingtuan.”
During my interview, I asked Mr. Gan Cui to recount his experiences in the corps; these were memories intertwined with historical tragedy and personal suffering. Gan Cui was an old revolutionary who joined the PLA in 1949. Like Lin Zhao, he embraced communist ideals with passion in his youth. However, after the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, especially because of his love for Lin Zhao, he was sent to the Corps and endured tremendous hardships. To escape the hardships of labor reform, he fled and became a drifter, even begging for a living, and was once captured and tortured as a suspected Soviet spy… His testimony reveals how a person’s entire life could be impacted and distorted by the anti-rightist movement.
For the convenience of readers, I added subheadings based on the content of the interview. Since I never had the chance to meet Mr. Gan Cui again, there may be minor errors in the names and places mentioned in the text. At the time, Mr. Gan Cui was advanced in age, his hearing had declined, and he did not use email; and since I did not return to Beijing, I was unable to verify the text with him in person.
I am grateful to Mr. Gan Cui for accepting my interview over several days, which may have been his last detailed account of the years of suffering he and Lin Zhao’s generation endured. As I compiled this interview in 2014, Mr. Gan Cui passed away suddenly due to heart failure at 1:37 a.m. on October 23 of that year, at the age of 83.
The author Ai Xiaoming with Mr. Gan Cui, December 1, 2013.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Lin Zhao and her contemporaries, the thinkers of her time.
“How did you get Lin Zhao’s manuscript of 140,000 words?”
Q: Mr. Gan, thank you for accepting my interview.
A: It’s very meaningful and urgent work that you’re doing. In a little while, all of us old folks will slowly pass away, and then it will be impossible to find anyone who can bear witness to those days. It’s best to be direct; ask whatever you want to know.
Q: Alright. My first question is, how did you come into possession of the 140,000-word manuscript?
A: It came from Lin Zhao’s sister… It’s said that the court gave the 140,000-word manuscript to Lin Zhao’s sister. Lin Zhao’s sister came to Beijing, and her uncle was Xu Juemiin 许觉民, who has unfortunately passed away. Xu Juemin was the director of our Literature Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and his wife, Zhang Mulan, was my classmate in the Journalism Department at Renmin University. She wasn’t labeled a rightist, but she was implicated, accused of right-leaning opportunism…
After I returned to Beijing in 1979, I worked on the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ party newspaper at the Propaganda Department. Every Saturday, when I had nothing else to do, I would visit my classmate Zhang Mulan’s home. Her husband, Xu Juemin, was also my direct superior. One time, I saw Lin Zhao’s sister there. It was strange; Lin Zhao’s sister had come to Beijing to resolve Lin Zhao’s issues and had gone to her uncle Xu Juemin’s house. That was the first time I met Lin Zhao’s sister, but I knew her—I had been to Lin Zhao’s home in 1959. During this meeting, Lin Zhao’s sister told me about Lin Zhao’s fate, saying she had been executed by firing squad. This is how I learned that Lin Zhao was no longer living.
How did the 140,000-word manuscript get into my hands? It’s said that the court gave it to Lin Zhao’s sister, who then made a copy for Xu Juemin—her uncle. Xu Juemin gave me a copy because her handwriting was too small, and he couldn’t see it due to his age. Xu Juemin asked me to read it and copy it down, with the idea of seeing if it could be published. Xu Juemin used to be the chief editor at the “People’s Literature” publishing house, and he knew many people in the publishing industry. So, I read it and copied it down. Frankly, I was the only one who could read Lin Zhao’s handwriting.
After copying it, I told Xu Juemin that some content was problematic because it discussed a lot matters connected to Shanghai Mayor Ke Qingshi. Xu Juemin asked if we could remove the inappropriate parts and then try to publish it. Later, I looked at it again and told Xu Juemin that it couldn’t be changed or deleted; any deletion would alter Lin Zhao’s original tone. The document had to be published as is, without deletions.
We eventually dropped the matter, so the manuscript remained with me. After I copied it, I gave it to Hu Jie. Hu Jie took the photocopy (the one Lin Zhao’s sister gave to Xu Juemin) and the 140,000-word manuscript I had transcribed, traveling back and forth between Nanjing and Beijing many times. It took me about four months to copy it. Hu Jie’s interview with me was intended to preserve the memory of Lin Zhao, and I fully supported it. I gave all the photocopies I had transcribed to Hu Jie, and some of them appeared in his documentary. He eventually returned them all to me. That’s the story behind the manuscript.
Now, there’s a twist to the manuscript story that I’ll mention briefly. Jiang Wenqin contacted me, and I made another copy of the 140,000-word manuscript and the photocopy, which I sent to Jiang Wenqin. Jiang Wenqin said it wasn’t clear enough; he wanted to see the original manuscript that Lin Zhao’s sister had given to Xu Juemin and then passed on to me. Thinking of honoring Lin Zhao’s memory, I fully supported the idea and passed along the manuscript to Jiang Wenqin. Jiang Wenqin deserves credit; I had transcribed the 140,000 words by pen, but after he entered it into the computer, it could be printed out. I don’t know how to use a computer; that’s his contribution.
I’ve learned that Lin Zhao’s sister has donated all these manuscripts to the Hoover Institution in the United States. The copy I have is not Lin Zhao’s original manuscript; it’s a photocopy returned to Lin Zhao’s sister by the court. The original is not with me; it’s in the United States.
Q: When did you receive Lin Zhao’s manuscript?
A: I transcribed the manuscript and then wrote the date at the end; it was July 11, 2000. It took me about four months in all.
Q: So, did you meet Peng Lingfan in 1999?
A: No, I met her much earlier.
I returned to Beijing in 1979 to implement the policy. I saw Peng Lingfan in 1979 and 1980. She came to Peking University to resolve Lin Zhao’s rightist issue, and that’s when I learned about Lin Zhao’s situation. I had been in Xinjiang for twenty years and had no idea.
Peng Lingfan left for abroad in June 2004. Before leaving, she left a photocopy of the manuscript with her uncle. Her uncle and Ni Jingxiong went with her to see her off abroad, leaving only the manuscript of the 140,000-word book with Xu Juemin. In fact, Peking University’s centennial became a focus of public attention because of Lin Zhao’s case in 1998, highlighting the value of the 140,000-word book. In the centennial year of Peking University in 1998, Southern Weekend and Wuhan published commemorative articles, all discussing Lin Zhao’s issue at that time. Peng Lingfan also wrote a memoir in the United States titled “My Sister and I.”《我和姐姐》
We have to thank Hu Jie for Lin Zhao’s case; it wouldn’t have been possible without him. I fully supported Hu Jie; without that book of 140,000 words, it wouldn’t work, and just my copied photocopy wouldn’t suffice either. After I copied it, I gave a copy to Xu Juemin, but Xu Juemin was too old to read it. Without Hu Jie’s film “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul,” Lin Zhao’s case wouldn’t have been so sensational later on.
Q: Is this the original manuscript you copied by hand?
A: This is the original manuscript I copied by hand.
Q: How many pages are there in total?
A: 469 pages.
Q: Had you retired by then?
A: I had retired, yes.
Q: It took four months to copy?
A: At that time, my plan was to copy over a thousand words a day. It’s 137 pages, so I copied one page a day, which was very hard on the eyes. This is a version organized by Hu Jie based on my handwritten manuscript, which he named Prison Letters of a Woman. 《女牢书简》 I think he did a good job with this version; he removed those parts that shouldn’t be there, like Ke Qing and others. This is Hu Jie’s version, which he gave to me.
Gan Cui transcribed Lin Zhao’s manuscript based on this photocopy.
“Heartbreak in Iron Lion Alley”
Q: How did you and Lin Zhao break up? I read about it in your memoir, but Hu Jie’s documentary didn’t cover it much.
A: Lin Zhao and I were together for about a year. During that year, the Chinese Literature Department’s Journalism major at Peking University merged with the Journalism Department at Renmin University. The specific location of the merger was at No. 1 Iron Lion Alley, which is now No. 3 Zhang Zizhong Road. It used to be Duan Qirui’s presidential palace, and even earlier, it was the Naval Department built by Empress Dowager Cixi during the Qing Dynasty.
No. 3 Zhang Zizhong Road is a cultural heritage site, divided into three parts: the middle part with the bell and drum tower and the garden in the back, which is still occupied by the Renmin University Press. The eastern part was later allocated to the Institute of Eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa, and the Japan Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The western part is a red wall with a six-story building, was built by Renmin University as staff dormitories. There were only two departments in the city campus of Renmin University, the Historical Archives Department and the Journalism Department.
In 1958, when I met Lin Zhao, it was still very cold. Renmin University, like Peking University, was anti-rightist, basically taking two steps: the first time Renmin University was anti-rightist, two hundred rightists among teachers and students were identified. This was not enough; the target given from above was four hundred. By the end of the anti-rightist campaign in 1957, I was not yet a rightist. In 1958, during the second round of supplementary make-up investigation, another two hundred rightists were identified. I was one of the latter two hundred rightists; Renmin University identified a total of four hundred rightists. Lin Zhao, I guess, because I wasn’t at Peking University, was definitely also identified as a rightist later. She has done to Renmin University, and according to records, it was around May or June, which is when Peking University merged with Renmin University. My impression might be a bit earlier. Luo Lie, the head of Peking University’s Journalism Department, brought her over. She was arranged to work in the Journalism Department’s Archives Department at Renmin University, under reform through labor supervision.
1959 was my fourth year in Renmin University’s Journalism Department. The specific content of that year was half a year of internship and half a year of thesis writing. I didn’t get to do the internship; I was expelled from the Party, and so I wasn’t required to write a thesis either. The Journalism Department said to go to the Archives Department for labor reform.
There were about a dozen or twenty of us rightists there. At first, we swept trash and picked up banana peels on campus. Finally, when school started, I was called to the Journalism Department’s Archives Department. When I got there, Lin Zhao was already there. There weren’t many people in there, just three of us, and the head was Wang Qian 王前. Wang Qian was a former wife of Liu Shaoqi before he married Wang Guangmei. She was the boss for Lin Zhao and me. Wang Qian said, “Now the Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China has entrusted Renmin University’s Journalism Department to compile the history of CCP publications; you two look at some newspapers from the Nationalist period, collect information, and make cards for the history of CCP publications.” At that time, we both went to work every day in piles of books and newspapers, and that’s how I got to know Lin Zhao.
I remember very clearly, when I went there, the weather was still quite cold. I pushed open the office door and went in, and Lin Zhao was there alone. She had just boiled water and was preparing to make tea, and she even made a cup for me. She said the tea leaves were from Wang Qian, and I knew Wang Qian was the wife of Renmin University’s vice president Nie Zhen 聂真 . She was certainly a high-ranking official. That’s how we met, and that was our first encounter.
At that time, Lin Zhao was ill, like Lin Daiyu, actually suffering from lung disease, coughing, and spitting up blood in her phlegm. Wang Qian told me: “You’re a man, and Lin Zhao is a woman; take care of Lin Zhao when you can.” Wang Qian was very sympathetic to us two rightists, and she especially liked Lin Zhao; they could talk to each other.
As time went on, sometimes Lin Zhao didn’t come to work, and I knew she was sick. I would go to see her; she lived on the eastern side of Iron Lion Alley, which is now part of the area occupied by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. On the second floor of that building, there was a small room, about ten square meters. I went to see her and felt very sorry for her, so I helped her fetch water and buy food.
Renmin University didn’t have heating at that time, and the dormitories were all large dorms with coal stoves kept burning by workers. Lin Zhao was a rightist, and no one cared about her. I saw that her room was very cold, so after the Spring Festival, I went to the general affairs office and got an iron stove. I installed the stove and the ventilation pipe for her. I also went to the back of Iron Lion Alley where the honeycomb coal was piled up, found a basket, filled it with coal, and carried it up to the second floor to Lin Zhao’s room. I also took some firewood and chopped wood, and placed them there. I took some chopped wood and started the stove in Lin Zhao’s room, and the room immediately warmed up.
Usually, just the two of us rightists went to work, and we didn’t talk much. We both went to the back of her house to read books and newspapers. Lin Zhao was better than me at classical literature; she read all the ancient thread-bound books and note novels. Those were all in classical Chinese, which I didn’t like to read, so I just read the modern published ones.
Q: So you two didn’t read newspapers or study the history of Chinese Communist Party publications?
A: We looked at newspapers a little and made a few cards to get by. At first, we still looked for newspapers to read, but then we each read our own books.
From my interactions and conversations with her, I really admired Lin Zhao. Lin Zhao was indeed a talented woman; her level of classical literature far exceeded mine. I only learned a bit of Chinese classical literature at Renmin University, like the Classic of Poetry 詩經 which was just superficial knowledge. We talked slowly and got along well.
Additionally, I tried my best to take care of her in life, lighting the stove for her, carrying coal, and buying food for her in the cafeteria. I remember most clearly that later, when we developed feelings and she fell ill, she couldn’t eat the food from the student cafeteria, which was just cornbread in the morning, cornmeal porridge, and a lump of pickled vegetables. For students at Renmin University, a month’s food expenses were about five or six yuan. If we ate a little better, sometimes having some meat dishes, it would be about seven or eight yuan a month. But Lin Zhao didn’t eat breakfast, which worried me. Later, I figured out a way; every morning, I would take the trolleybus on Zhang Zizhong Road for two or three stops to Dongsi. There was a Cantonese restaurant there that sold Cantonese pork congee in the morning. I would eat a bowl myself and then buy another bowl – they were about fifteen cents each – and bring it back to school for Lin Zhao. The Cantonese pork congee was considered more upscale—she would eat it. That’s how we went from meeting to getting to know each other; we worked together, took care of each other in life, got along well, and sometimes went out together.
Scene from the 1958 Tian Han play “Guan Hanqing”
Every Sunday, I would go out with Lin Zhao to stroll in the park or visit Beihai because Zhang Zizhong Road led straight to Beihai, where we could go boating and watch plays.
Q: What plays did you watch then?
A: We watched plays like “Guan Hanqing” [Note: Drama written by modern playwright Tian Han that premiered at the Beijing People’s Art Theater in 1958 about the Yuan Dynasty playwright Guan Hanqing, the author of “The Injustice to Dou E” End note] and “The Injustice to Dou E.” [akaSnow in Midsummer] I remember very clearly it was “The Injustice to Dou E.” She had a classmate named Ni Jingxiong, who was a playwright for Shanghai opera. Sometimes when she came to Beijing for meetings, she would have some tickets, and she gave them to me and Lin Zhao to watch, and we even sat in the best seats, in the first row.
At that time, Lin Zhao lived on the second floor, and when I was alone with nothing to do, I would play the erhu in the corridor on the first floor. I could play the erhu, but not well. I played Liu Tianhua’s “Moaning in Sickness,” 劉天華 病中吟 and Lin Zhao, in her room, would hear the erhu’s plaintive and melancholic sound and open the window to listen. Later, she found out it was me playing. She said I had also written a song, which led to her writing this song.
Let me hum it for you:
In the stormy night,
I think of you,
Outside my window is night, the wind howling,
Raindrops pour,
Yet my heart,
Flies away to find you,
Where are you, where are you?
Are you exiled in the vast wilderness,
Or buried in the cold depths of a prison,
Ah, brother oh brother,
My song searches for you,
My heart bleeds for you,
Brother brother,
Where are you, where are you?
This is a song written by Lin Zhao. I sang it at Lin Zhao’s memorial service.
Q: Did she write it down at the time?
A: When we were together, she wrote it down and sang it to me, after I played “Moaning in Sickness.”
Q: Did you discuss the meaning of the lyrics with her?
A: No we didn’t.
In the 1950s, rumors spread that I was dating her. The rumors reached the leadership, and they called me in for a talk, asking if it was true. I said it wasn’t. The leadership said we shouldn’t date, that we two rightists should focus on reforming ourselves. Then, Lin Zhao asked me what we talked about? I said they forbade us from dating. Lin Zhao laughed when she heard this and asked if I was afraid? I said I wasn’t. She said if you’re not afraid, good, we haven’t dated before, but now let’s really date and show them.
So, every day, especially at ten o’clock in the morning during the work break exercises, Lin Zhao would hold my hand, and we would walk hand in hand inside Renmin University’s Iron Lion Alley for everyone to see. Iron Lion Alley used to be Duan Qirui’s presidential palace, and there was a small garden in the back with a pond and a rockery; we would walk around there. You say we’re dating, so we’re dating, showing it all out in the open. In this way, we really did date. The Party branch of the Journalism Department didn’t like me, and later they sent me to Xinjiang as punishment. That was also because of this.
Time passed quickly, and we were together for a year. Finally, on September 1st, the new semester was about to start. I was facing being sent elsewhere on an assignment. Whether I graduated or not, I would be sent away. I thought about it and went to the party branch secretary to say I wanted to marry Lin Zhao; I hoped that when I was assigned in 1959, they wouldn’t send me too far away and would take care of me a little. But the response I got was, “You pair of Rightists! That’s just your own wishful thinking!” As a result, I was sent to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps bingtuan.
Lin Zhao was also helpless under the household registration system; if you didn’t comply with the assignment, you had no household registration, no work, and no food or cloth coupons. There was no way. I remember very clearly, Lin Zhao still secretly held small meetings with other rightists, like Jiang Zehu and Wu Shangyu from Peking University, but there was nothing they could do. Later, helplessly, they announced my assignment to the bingtuan. I refused to go, and the school urged me to go, playing both good cop and bad cop. I just refused to go, but in the end, it was no use, the new semester was about to start, and all the graduates had left.
Later, I didn’t know some things, but it was said that Lin Zhao’s mother came to Beijing. She was a democrat, probably knew people like Shi Liang 史良. It may be that she went to see Shi Liang, who then went to see Wu Yuzhang 吴玉章 , the president of Renmin University. These are things I heard, I didn’t learn of them directly, nor did I see her mother; later, Lin Zhao was approved to return to Shanghai for treatment.
So, I sent Lin Zhao on the train to Shanghai first. I remember writing about the scene of sending her on the train in my memoir.
Q: How did you explain the situation to Lin Zhao at the time? What did Lin Zhao tell you about her going back to Shanghai and what to do next?
A: She just said one sentence, she said “Gan Zi, wait for me”. Just that one sentence, then I saw her off to her train. When the train was about to leave, Lin Zhao and I hugged and cried in the carriage. Then the train started moving, and I had no choice but to jump off the train. At that time, everyone in the train car was surprised: what’s with this young couple… such a scene of hugging and crying was rarely seen in those days.
Q: How old were you that year?
A: About twenty-seven years old.
Q: And Lin Zhao?
A: Lin Zhao was the same age as me, but actually, she was one year older than me. After her mother gave birth to her, she hid her age for a year, so she was actually born in the year of the sheep.
Photo of Lin Zhao and Gan Cui (Mr. Gan Cui wrote on the back of the photo: Lin Zhao and I photographed at Jingshan Park in Beijing.)
Photo of Lin Zhao and Gan Cui (Mr. Gan Cui wrote on the back of the photo: Lin Zhao and I photographed at Jingshan Park in Beijing.)
III. Twenty Years of Reformation Through Labor
My First Escape Back to Shanghai
After seeing off Lin Zhao, Renmin University urged me to leave, so I packed up and set out. At that time, there were no trains to Xinjiang, so I took a train to a place called Weiya, which borders Lanzhou. It took four days by train to get to Weiya. After getting off the train in Weiya, I took a three-day bus ride to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Personnel Office to report. The Personnel Office told me to go to the bingtuan Corps, and they sent me there. The Corps then said, “Go to the Second Agricultural Division.” The Second Agricultural Division is in southern Xinjiang, with its headquarters in Yanji, now Korla. I arrived in Yanji and waited at the guesthouse for my assignment. Many people came and went from the guesthouse of the Second Agricultural Division, and many ran away from the labor reform farms below, saying how hard and inhumane the labor reform farms were, which scared me…
Q: What things were inhumane and frightening?
A: Those people got up before dawn, were forced to work under the threat of guns, carried heavy loads, and were never fed enough. Beatings and scoldings happened all the time. Just hearing about it scared me.
I joined the PLA in 1949 and had always been an officer. I never experienced such things. They assigned me to a labor reform farm called Tarim Four, which is now the Thirty-Second Regiment. After hearing this, I was scared, still thinking of Lin Zhao, so I turned around and ran back to the Urumqi bus station, sold all my luggage and clothes on the roadside, gathered some money, took a bus back to Weiya, and then took a train through Lanzhou back to Shanghai.
Back in Shanghai, I went to find Lin Zhao. But Lin Zhao’s mother was cold to me, and Lin Zhao couldn’t do anything for me either. I slowly walked out of her home on Maoming South Road, walked from Nanjing Road to the Bund, and wandered in the Bund Park until night…
I thought to myself, look at how big Shanghai is, with its brilliant lights and so many people, yet there’s no place for me to live here. It’s really hopeless. I have a mother and a sister at home, both dependent on my older brother and his wife. I couldn’t stay at home because I had no money, no household registration, and no food or cloth ration coupons. I stayed in Shanghai for a week, and on a Sunday, I even attended a service with Lin Zhao at the cathedral on Urumqi Road in Xuhui District. In the end, I had no means to live, no money…
Q: Where did you stay at night?
A: I stayed at my brother’s house at night. My mother was still there, but it wasn’t feasible to stay long-term. In the end, I had no choice. My brother and sister-in-law prepared a set of bedding and cotton clothes for me, and I took the train from Shanghai to Lanzhou and returned to Xinjiang. That’s how I reported to Tarim Four and went to work.
2. Vague Dreams
That’s how I started my life at Tarim Four. Basically, I wrote to Lin Zhao every week, and she wrote back to me. Of course, the letters had to be checked. The guards in the labor reform team would read them before sending them out. When letters arrived, they would open them first, read them, and then give them to me.
Q: What did you write about?
A: The letters were very short, and I can’t remember the content anymore. They were brief, but there were always replies. After a while, I only sent letters without getting any replies. I was puzzled. I even wrote to her mother, but there was no reply, no one paid attention to me.
As time went on, we had young people from Shanghai who were sent to the border, and they were also dissatisfied there. But they started work half an hour later than us and finished half an hour earlier, just a little bit better. There was a young man from Shanghai who I got along with well, and he wanted to return to Shanghai. He took leave to visit relatives in Shanghai and never came back. I told him, “When you go back to Shanghai, do me a favor: you know 179 Alley, 11 Maoming South Road, right? Help me check on a friend named Lin Zhao.” He agreed.
After he returned to Shanghai, he sent me a letter; he said he went to see Lin Zhao, and Lin Zhao was seriously ill in the hospital, with no known discharge date. I understood the letter because I knew Lin Zhao’s personality; I was sure she must have been imprisoned. That’s how the matter passed.
Many years later, strangely, on May 1st, I suddenly had a dream. This wasn’t superstition: Lin Zhao, dressed in mourning clothes, holding a coffin, walked towards me. I was puzzled. After waking up the next day, I told an old monk from Emei Mountain, who was also undergoing labor reform, about the dream. I asked him to interpret it for me, and he said dreams are the opposite; it means your beloved Lin Zhao has gotten married. Wearing mourning clothes and holding a coffin is like a bridal sedan; you should stop thinking about her.
The monk interpreted it this way, and that’s what I believed. So, for many years, over twenty years, there was no news of Lin Zhao. Only in 1979, when the reform and rectification of improper sentences policies were implemented and I returned to Beijing, at Xu Juemin’s house, my classmate Zhang Mu Lan’s house, did I see her—Lin Zhao’s sister—and learned that Lin Zhao had been executed by firing squad.
When I calculated the date, it was the 29th of the month I had the dream, and I had the dream in May. It’s strange. I believe people have souls, and after she died, her soul had a few days to move around. Isn’t there a saying among the Chinese people that the soul returns after seven days? I guess her soul flew to Tarim Four to say goodbye to me.
IV. Witnessing and Transcribing Lin Zhao’s Works
Q: Later, when you saw Lin Zhao’s 140,000-word book, did you believe it was written by Lin Zhao during the transcription process?
A: I believed it because I recognized Lin Zhao’s handwriting. When Lin Zhao and I were together, she would read books when she had nothing else to do. She read those thread-bound ancient books, which were all note-style novels.
Q: Do you remember any of the books, their titles?
A: I can’t remember; they were all note-style novels. And at that time, she was writing poetry. There are two poems that can still be seen today, one is ‘A Day in the Suffering of Prometheus,’ 林昭：普羅米修斯受難的一日 and the other is ‘The Seagull’s Song.’ 林昭：海鸥之歌 She wrote and revised these two long poems every day, showing them to me as she wrote and revised them.
Q: Did you see these two long poems at the time?
A: There was another; she adapted a script, which I also saw.
Q: What kind of script?
A: It was Lu Xun’s short story ‘The New Year’s Sacrifice.’《伤逝》 She showed it to me as she wrote it and asked me to suggest changes. In the end, the conclusion was to take the dog to the suburbs and abandon it again. She kept writing and revising these two poems until we parted, and she was still revising them.
Lin Zhao’s handwriting was very beautiful. Later, when I transcribed Lin Zhao’s manuscripts, it was my love for Lin Zhao that supported me. It was painful to transcribe because I thought of the times we spent together. I transcribed it with great determination, mainly because Hu Jie also needed it. I transcribed a bit, and he took a bit; it wasn’t like I transcribed everything and then gave it to him. He often came to Beijing, and Hu Jie compiled a concise version of Lin Zhao’s 140,000 words, which he gave to me; he deleted all the parts about Shanghai Mayor Ke Qingshi.
Q: When you transcribed Lin Zhao’s manuscript and saw those sharp criticisms, did you ever think that if Lin Zhao hadn’t done this, she might have preserved her life?
A: I understood Lin Zhao. This XXX [Note: in original. Perhaps it stands for the ruling party. End note] is too evil, without humanity. If they had given us two rightists a little way out, it wouldn’t have come to this. Although I later returned to Shanghai, her mother was opposed to me being with Lin Zhao; but as long as they didn’t separate us too far, allowing me to still contact Lin Zhao, perhaps she wouldn’t have taken such a desperate path. If I had been there, I would have taken care of her.
I thought differently from her… I always advised her, telling her that it was like an egg hitting a rock; she said she still wanted to hit the rock. But I thought, as long as they gave us a way out, let us live together, Lin Zhao was also a person who wanted to live. Letting us live together would have been better. She wouldn’t have been so radical, but Lin Zhao’s nature wouldn’t have changed.
Q: How did you assess her mental state when she wrote the 140,000-word book?
A: After reading it, I had a question, but your article resolved it for me; I think your analysis is correct. We’ve also been on the same labor reform team, and it’s impossible for people undergoing reform through labor to be so free and at ease. It’s impossible for a labor reformer to have the time and freedom to write.
I’ve been on a labor reform team, and no matter who you are, you’re there to work. Our labor reform team at that time had a characteristic because it was a peaceful liberation. The PLA announced a peaceful uprising, and the Nationalist troops became the PLA, still serving as company and platoon leaders; these labor reform teams were managed by them, how could you expect good treatment? Because they were essentially the Nationalists. One labor reform team leader said, “We don’t beat or scold people, but I’ll make you work and work and work, and if you die of exhaustion, I’m not at fault.” That’s how ruthless he was, he would drive people to death through exhaustion.
Lin Zhao was able to write the 140,000-word book and other things we found later in prison, and I originally had a question about how she could have the freedom to write. How could the prison allow her to do that? This is what you analyzed, and I agree with it. Because in the end, Lin Zhao kept causing trouble, becoming the so-called madwoman in the prison that couldn’t be controlled. You want a pen, you want paper, they give it to you. They wanted her to be quiet, not to make trouble, so they let her write. The guards at Tilanqiao Prison couldn’t handle her. They were very cruel to her, using handcuffs both ways, but they couldn’t subdue her. Lin Zhao continued to make trouble, causing headaches for the guards. So they let her write, just to have some peace. I think this explanation makes sense.
I had an idea before that I hadn’t realized, and now I can’t. The story of Lin Zhao and me is a good subject, just one year, from meeting to getting to know each other, to falling in love, and finally parting. It could make a very touching story, but I can’t write it. I even thought of the title, “Heartbreak at Iron Lion Number One”; if written well, it would be very moving. Sometimes I want to write, but when I pick up the pen, I’m too heartbroken to continue.
I think what you are doing is very meaningful. If we don’t do it now, all of us old folks will be gone one by one, and then it will be impossible to do anything. Fortunately, Hu Jie made the first documentary “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul,” which brought it up.
Q: What difficulties did you encounter when transcribing Lin Zhao’s manuscript?
A: Some parts of the photocopy were not very clear, but I am the most familiar with Lin Zhao’s handwriting; others couldn’t transcribe it.
Q: Did you find those critical comments impactful? Or could you accept them?
A: I could accept them because my thoughts were in line with hers. I spent twenty years there, living a subhuman life, just forced labor. Why didn’t I die? I said I was young, I wanted to see that person die before me; I wanted to see what this society would become, I had that kind of hope.
For me personally, there was no hope left, being a rightist was a lifelong label. Labor reformers have a sentence of ten or eight years, and after ten or eight years, they are eventually released. But rightists have no sentence; once you’re reformed, they announce the removal of your label, but I saw through it.
Q: In what state do you think it would be ideal for Lin Zhao’s manuscripts to be presented?
A: I hope that one day, these manuscripts will be organized and printed for the world to see; those interested can study them… I think the main value of what Lin Zhao left behind lies in the 140,000-word book. These 140,000 words have already shown the spirit of Lin Zhao, the person, the girl. She persisted until the last moment of her life in such circumstances. This spirit is worthy of people’s admiration and learning.
I think research on Lin Zhao should be broad rather than detailed.
Q: What do you consider to be detailed?
A: Like what you… like what Zhu Yi is doing now, I don’t oppose it, it’s good to do it this way. But I won’t study it. The 140,000 words have already established Lin Zhao’s image. She resolutely opposed the Z system, opposed XXX, she is the image of a female hero.
I told Xu Juemin early on that we could understand the parts about Ke Qing. I am also a rightist, I have also despaired, I have also had delusions. When a person reaches that point, these problems are there, and they are understandable. Don’t study those too finely…
Author’s Bio: Ai Xiaoming: Scholar. Formerly a professor in the Chinese Department at Sun Yat-sen University, now retired. This article was published with the author’s permission.
Related Reading:
Ai Xiaoming: Ten Thousand Letters, Plus Four (Part 1)
Ai Xiaoming: Ten Thousand Letters, Plus Four (Part 2)
Ai Xiaoming: Whether or Not Love Favors Us, May You and I Still Have the Ability to Be Happy
Ai Xiaoming: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Listen to conscience, speak from the heart. I write what I feel. Submission email: yimeiyuandi@163.com
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The Real Reason Why the Martyr Lin Zhao Fell in Love with Ke Qingshi in Prison
In Lin Zhao’s “140,000-Word Letter,” a significant portion is dedicated to her posthumous ghost marriage [Chinese: 冥婚; pinyin: mínghūn; lit. ‘spirit marriage’] to Ke Qingshi, the former Mayor of Shanghai who had already himself passed away on April 9, 1965.
This topic is also a major theme in her nearly 200,000-word work “Ling Ou Xu Yu.” From the “140,000-Word Letter,” it is evident that Lin Zhao’s passionate and frenzied imagination of a posthumous marriage initially stemmed from her conjecture. Since the Anti-Rightist Movement, victims have suffered by association, and the ruling party has been intolerant of dissent.
Lin Zhao was deeply aware of this and knew that the wrongful accusations were hard to overturn. She speculated that the sudden news of Ke Qingshi’s death was inevitably linked to her because she had written two appeal letters to Ke Qingshi after being sentenced to twenty years in prison, and Ke Qingshi had a good reputation among some intellectuals in Shanghai. This article is excerpted from Ai Xiaoming’s studio blog, authored by Ai Xiaoming, and originally titled “The Youth of the Deceased Remains Forever – In Remembrance of Lin Zhao in the Year of Gui Si.”
On a December night in 2012, I lay awake in a small hotel room in a city in Zhejiang, surrounded by stacks of photocopies of Lin Zhao’s manuscripts. Throughout the night, I read through these prison letters and diaries, feeling as if I had encountered a miracle. I heard Lin Zhao’s voice echoing repeatedly in the room:
“I vehemently denounce such atrocious acts of persecution with my blood! Remember this, you and everyone else: if I die, it will be because they have tormented, abused, and tortured me to death!” “This letter is unlikely to be mailed out, but at least it can serve as one piece of evidence for the future!”
With a belief in writing for the future, Lin Zhao left behind hundreds of thousands of words in her prison writings. The family letters I refer to are found in her “Memorandum Twenty-Seven: Blood Letters to My Mother (Including Blood Protest),” which includes letters from October 4, 1966, to January 14, 1968. The last letter is widely circulated online, where Lin Zhao added a postscript listing items she needed and requested various foods from her mother that she imagined. This was two weeks before the Chinese New Year in 1968, just three and a half months before the end of Lin Zhao’s life.
Lin Zhao’s Sentencing and Additional Punishment
Lin Zhao is generally recorded as being born in 1932, but she was actually born in 1931. Friends of Lin Zhao mentioned in the edited collection that in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, it was believed that girls born in the Year of the Sheep would have a difficult fate, so her year of her birth was changed to 1932. Lin Zhao’s parents were modern educators who embraced the ideal of reforming China and actively participated in social politics. Lin Zhao pursued progress during her high school years and joined the Communist Party of China at the age of 17. In 1954, she entered Peking University’s Department of Chinese Language and Literature with the highest score from Jiangsu Province. In 1957, she supported the views of rightist students and was labeled a rightist in 1958. Because of her poor health, she was not sent away for labor re-education but remained under observation at the university. In 1959, she returned to Shanghai with her mother for medical treatment, at the age of 28.
Lin Zhao experienced two imprisonments and two sentences. The first sentence was issued on May 31, 1965, and the reason for her first imprisonment in 1960 was, astonishingly, for writing poetry! Lin Zhao “wrote the reactionary long poem ‘Seagull,’ slandering and attacking the Anti-Rightist Movement.” Lin Zhao’s poetry was passed on to friends and relatives, leading her to meet a group of friends from Lanzhou University who also sought democracy and freedom. They too had been labeled rightists and sent to rural areas like Tianshui and Wushan for reformation. After experiencing the destruction and suffering of peasants following the Great Leap Forward, these victims began to gather. Core members and pioneers like Zhang Chunyuan came to Shanghai to communicate with Lin Zhao, determined to stand up and turn the tide.
That year, “Spark” was launched in the countryside, and Gu Yan sharply pointed out in the foreword: “If such a dictatorship insists on being called socialism, it should be a kind of state socialism monopolized by political oligarchs, belonging to the same type as Nazi national socialism, and having nothing in common with true socialism.” In October of that year, Gansu began a large-scale arrest of “Starfire” members. Lin Zhao’s long poem “Prometheus’ Day of Suffering” was published in the first issue of “Starfire,” and “Song of the Seagull” was prepared for the second issue, which was not yet printed. On October 24, 1960, Lin Zhao was arrested in Shanghai. A month later, her father committed suicide due to the shock and despair.
On March 5, 1962, after her mother’s efforts, the prison authorities agreed to release Lin Zhao for medical treatment on the basis of her lung disease. According to historical materials provided by Tan Chanyue, a survivor of the “Spark” case, in her book “Seeking,” Lin Zhao wrote a “Review and Examination of My Personal Thought Process” before her release. In today’s terms, it could be called a “thought review”/self-criticism. In it, Lin Zhao detailed her ideological experiences before and after the Anti-Rightist Movement and clearly expressed her renewed trust in the Party:
Today, although the political reforms carried out by the Party over the past year are still just beginning in many places, they have already achieved considerable results, showing that the Party still harbors the vitality to continue moving forward, endlessly growing and strengthening. This is not as dark, corrupt, and confused as we had seen and determined. Conversely, this also proves that our confrontational attitude and decisive approach to the Party in politics at that time were an excessive mistake.
The Party’s political line has been fundamentally reformed! — Such a Party, I can and feel is worth supporting again!
This new historical material, obtained by Tan Chanyue through persistent searching, comes from Zhang Chunyuan’s case file and was written by Lin Zhao on October 14, 1961. It should be said that Lin Zhao’s “release for medical treatment” was related to her change in attitude.
Lin Zhao was released from prison during the Great Famine of 1962, which ravaged the country and left corpses everywhere. The real news she heard completely shattered her beautiful illusions about the Communist Party’s reform. She wrote to Lu Ping, the president of Peking University, exposing the tyranny, criticizing the Anti-Rightist Movement, and met with friends from Suzhou who had also been labeled rightists. Together, they formed the “Chinese Free Youth Combat Alliance.” On December 23, 1962, Lin Zhao was imprisoned again, and this imprisonment lasted until her martyrdom on April 29, 1968.
In 1965, the People’s Court of Jing’an District in Shanghai sentenced Lin Zhao to twenty years of imprisonment. Lin Zhao was transferred from the First Detention Center in Shanghai to the Shanghai Prison, specifically the Tilanjiao Prison, to serve her sentence. Despite being incarcerated, Lin Zhao continued to resist and refused to confess.
According to materials related to the “Lin Zhao case” found by Mr. Hu Jie, the Shanghai Labor Reform Bureau had already proposed an additional sentence of execution for Lin Zhao on December 5, 1966. At that time, the Deputy Director of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, Wang Jian, approved the decision to prosecute and impose additional punishment on Lin Zhao. This approval was dated December 8, 1966. However, due to subsequent political upheavals during the “January Storm” in Shanghai, the situation changed. Wang Jian himself was later removed from Shanghai and subjected to political persecution until the end of the Cultural Revolution.
The official death sentence for Lin Zhao was finally issued in 1968, specifically on April 19 of that year. The sentencing authority was the “Military Control Committee of the People’s Liberation Army Shanghai Public Security, Inspection, and Judicial Department”. The judgment began with two paragraphs of “highest instructions” attributed to Mao Zedong:
Wherever counter-revolutionaries cause trouble, they must be resolutely eliminated.”
Those who are willing to meet God with a granite-like mind will definitely exist, but this is irrelevant to the overall situation.”
The judgment document further described Lin Zhao’s activities during her imprisonment.
She persistently held an anti-revolutionary stance, continued to write anti-revolutionary diaries, poems, and articles, and maliciously slandered the Communist Party and our great leader, Chairman Mao Zedong. Even after the start of the Cultural Revolution, Lin Zhao’s anti-revolutionary activities intensified.
She wrote numerous anti-revolutionary articles, vehemently opposed and defamed the Cultural Revolution, and shockingly defaced the glorious image of Chairman Mao that appeared in newspapers using blood. Additionally, she wrote anti-revolutionary slogans on prison walls and newspapers, openly promoting counter-revolutionary ideas.
During interrogations, Lin Zhao adamantly refused to confess and displayed an extremely hostile attitude.
In summary, Lin Zhao was a deeply guilty counter-revolutionary who persisted in her anti-revolutionary stance during her period of reform through labor. She continued her anti-revolutionary activities while imprisoned, demonstrating an unrepentant and unyielding attitude. In order to defend our great leader Chairman Mao Zedong, uphold the invincible Mao Zedong Thought, and protect the Party Central Committee led by Chairman Mao, she was sentenced to death and executed immediately.
Ten days later, on April 29, 1968, Lin Zhao was executed. She was not yet 37 years old.
Lin Zhao’s famous declaration, “The prison is my battlefield!”, reflects her unwavering spirit and determination.
In 2004, I came across Mr. Hu Jie’s documentary film titled “In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul”. I had previously written an article about it. Two years ago, when I was preparing to write again, I discovered that many important historical materials had surfaced, yet they hadn’t received sufficient attention.
One significant finding was the work of Lin Zhao’s friend, Mr. Jiang Wenqin. Over the course of three years, he meticulously revised Lin Zhao’s “Letter to the People’s Daily Editorial Department (Part Three)”, also known as the “140,000-word letter”. Additionally, Mr. Jiang completed annotations for Lin Zhao’s “Nine Chapters of Blood Remonstrance Against Mao Zedong”. These annotations were introduced by Mr. Zhu Yi, a survivor of the unjust case during the Cultural Revolution in Jiangxi. Furthermore, Mr. Feng Shiyan provided annotations for Lin Zhao’s poem “Autumn Sounds”. All these manuscripts, thanks to readers who deeply admire Lin Zhao, are now accessible online.
Inspired by Mr. Hu Jie’s documentary, poetry enthusiasts from Gansu, including Ms. Li Yunzhu, made efforts to uncover more of Lin Zhao’s work. They finally obtained Lin Zhao’s long poem titled “A Day in the Suffering of Prometheus”, which was published in the first issue of the magazine “Xinghuo” Spark. Additionally, based on historical materials she personally discovered, Ms. Tan Chanxue brought to light another of Lin Zhao’s long poems, “Seagull”, for the first time. This poem reached the hands of Zhang Chunyuan, a key figure associated with “Xinghuo”, who even had it engraved. The original title was “Seagull: Better to Die than Live Without Freedom”. Although it was initially intended for publication in the second issue of “Xinghuo”, the rapidly changing situation prevented its inclusion. The version of “A Day in the Suffering of Prometheus” that had been circulating online, attributed to Li Yunzhu, was incomplete in its final lines. However, Ms. Tan Chanxue revealed the complete poem for the first time in her book “Quest”.
What about US Secretary of State Blinken’s call for an increase in responsible exchanges between the US and China? As opposed to irresponsible exchanges? Exchanges that are not well thought out or just a numbers game?
In the ancient past — the Obama Era — there was talk of getting 100,000 US students studying in China as a complement to the 300,000 PRC students ‘Studying in America‘. That didn’t work out.
These days the number of US students in China is numbered in just the hundreds for a variety of reasons:
Unhappiness in bilateral relations,
The sudden shift in perceptions in the US, now seeing a PRC bust rather than boom ahead and so adjustments of just how career-enhancing learning Chinese would be,
A decade of political tightening and increased repression under Secretary Xi making China appear a less inviting place
And COVID the biggest factor over the short term, just how important it has been compared to the other three is still unclear. If mostly COVID, then a big rebound might come although still dwarfed by the large numbers of PRC students flying in the opposite direction towards the USA.
Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has called for 50,000 US students to study in China. There have been articles in the press about it:
“Responsible Exchanges” definition? I am not sure exactly how it might be defined, phrases get inserted by worker bees on country desks and specialized bureaus, cleared (ah, sounds good) and passed up the bureaucratic chain. It might be a caution and a stress as in let’s think this through and do things that will be meaningful for both sides…
Will this effort to rebuild US – China contacts produce a flurry of quick, brief trips — a numbers game — or will it bring something more substantial? Longer stays that would build understanding and more genuine people-to-people encounters all over China?
What the PRC regularly has rectification campaigns about — formalism 形式主義 rather than something meaningful and productive. All difficult of definition in specific cases, but more obvious with a flurry of such things. The great majority of exchanges will be arranged by genuinely private actors albeit with the encouragement and facilitation of their governments. That makes the atmosphere — the virtual infrastructure — especially important. For foreigners, things like the Great Red Firewall, whether they will able to travel freely and talk with Chinese people who themselves do not feel intimidated or pressured by their own Party and government, academic freedom — that part will be especially noticeable for people with better Chinese (although people who don’t speak Chinese will be able to read it in the reactions of their Chinese friends on some topics and what they are told in private where they are not likely to be overheard — the old-fashioned way say a hike in the countryside rather than social media!).
Building that virtual infrastructure that will make China more relaxed and attractive even as it was just 20 years ago in the last years of Secretary Jiang Zemin, after which Secretary Hu Jintao tightened the screws and Secretary Xi even more.
Of course the question ‘where’s the beef?’ can be applied to the bureaucracies of many countries, although fear of angry voters does create pressures that tend to limit it sometimes
Fortunately the Party is working on stamping out formalism. Over and over again. A book about it came out a few years ago. The Rectifying Formalism and Bureaucratism Reader . Perhaps even reactionaries might profit from reading it.
Link from Communist Party News — caution about this link — http://fanfu.people.com.cn/GB/143349/432391/index.html [Note about this link: my anti-virus software reported macros on this page designed to identify computers visiting the page. I downloaded the page stripped of macros. So as translated below safe unless there are some intellectual viruses that will turn you all into Party fans. The United Front Work Department is probably working on that in some high-security ideological virus lab. The Party cares about your ideological health!]
Excerpts from “Education Reader for Combating Formalism and Bureaucracy”
What are formalism and bureaucracy? Do you really understand them?
May 07, 2020 14:56 Source: People’s Daily Online-China Communist Party News Network
Editor’s note: Recently, the People’s Daily Online and the Communist Party of China News Network serialized the book Educational Reader on Combating Formalism and Bureaucracy organized and published by China Founder Publishing House. This book focuses on the study and implementation of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions, instructions and instructions on refraining from formalism and bureaucracy, closely links the thoughts and work practices of cadres and the masses, and strives to provide an in-depth and simple interpretation of issues related to formalism and bureaucracy.
The essence of formalism What is formalism? The “Ci Hai” dictionary explains formalism: a metaphysical perspective, method and style that pursues form one-sidedly and ignores content. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out in this regard: ” The essence of formalism is subjectivism and utilitarianism. The root cause is misplaced views on political performance and lack of responsibility. Vigorous forms are used to replace solid implementation, and contradictions and contradictions are covered up with a bright appearance.” Problem. “Formalism pays too much attention to the superficial form of things and does not pay attention to the actual content and actual effects. It is a concentrated reflection of the idealist worldview and methodology and is a deviation from the party’s ideological line of seeking truth from facts.
From a philosophical point of view, everything consists of two aspects: content and form. Content determines form, and form depends on content and develops, changes and changes with the development of content. Generally speaking, what kind of content there is must have what kind of form to adapt to it. When the content changes, the form must also change accordingly. At the same time, form actively reacts on content, influencing and restricting the development of content. When form adapts to content, it can accelerate and promote development, but otherwise it will hinder and destroy its development. Marx said: “If the form is not suited to the form of the content, then it has no value.” Form itself is not a bad thing. However, we need to be vigilant that there is only one step away from form and formalism. If the scale is not grasped well, the form is overemphasized or exaggerated, deviated from or divorced from the actual content, and only making a fuss about the form will separate the form from the content. Even when opposed, the form becomes formalism. In reality, those who are keen on deception, knowing full well that it is fake situations, fake figures, fake materials, and fake models, will also pretend to deal with it and deceive their superiors; they are accustomed to “telling big words” and “bragging”, and like grand scenes, and cannot mention it. We should set realistic and high targets, engage in “image projects” and “face projects” that waste people and money, and seek ineffective political achievements; sit back and talk, behind closed doors, talk empty words without content, and be busy attending ceremonies and ribbon-cuttings without solving specific problems . Its essence is that it violates the materialist dialectics in which content determines form, form serves content, and content and form are unified. It is a metaphysical attitude that separates the dialectical relationship between content and form. The result will only be that the work cannot be advanced. , tasks cannot be implemented and problems cannot be solved.
The nature of bureaucracy
Bureaucracy is a common political phenomenon in human society and is usually used to summarize and describe various problems associated with bureaucracy. “Modern Chinese Dictionary” explains that bureaucracy is “a work style and leadership style that is divorced from reality, divorced from the masses, does not care about the interests of the masses, and only knows how to issue orders without conducting investigation and research.” “Cihai” defines it as “a leadership style that is divorced from reality, separated from the masses, and an official becomes a master… It is a reflection of the ideology of the exploiting class and the yamen style of the old society.” Judging from these explanations, bureaucracy refers to a style of work and atmosphere, which is manifested in the concept and consciousness of being “arbitrary and domineering”, and also manifests in inappropriate behaviors, styles and behaviors that are “alienated from reality, separated from the masses, and only know how to issue orders” group. The famous scholar Wang Yanan summed it up in the book “Research on Chinese Bureaucratic Politics”: “Talk about formality, use official accent, only seek formal explanations when encountering problems, blindly respond passively and rigidly, blindly pass the responsibility upward or downward… and so on are all the so-called bureaucratic style, and this style can indeed be seen in almost any society where officials govern.”
The essence of bureaucracy is the misplacement or even reversal of the relationship between the ruling party, the government and its staff and the people as the main body of the country. Lenin believed that “bureaucracy means that the interests of the cause are subordinated to the idea of promotion, that is, paying special attention to status and neglecting work.” He also likened the two by-products of bureaucracy – procrastination and corruption to “any military victory and political victory.” A sore that cannot be cured by any modification.” General Secretary Xi Jinping made a profound analysis and explanation of the essence of bureaucracy: “ The essence of bureaucracy is caused by the residual feudal ideology. The root cause is the serious official-centered mentality and distorted view of power. Officials act like bosses, are aloof, divorced from the masses, and divorced from reality. “
According to the general principles of Marxist historical materialism, leading cadres have rich experience, scientific foresight, and the ability to organize the masses, so they can stand at the forefront of social change and play a role in promoting and promoting historical development. While affirming the historical role of leading cadres, we cannot infinitely exaggerate the role of leading cadres. Instead, we must clearly realize that only the people are the real creators of history, the fundamental driving force to promote history, and can determine the destiny of history. At present, some leading cadres have serious bureaucratic habits. They look down on the masses, think that the masses are backward, are self-righteous, turn a blind eye to the sufferings of the masses, and are indifferent; Having the final say, having to agree with opinions, and not allowing for criticism and supervision… All of these have reversed the relationship between leading cadres and the people, and run counter to the mass viewpoint and mass line of historical materialism.
An analysis of bureaucracy and bureaucracy
When people think of bureaucracy, they often think of “bureaucracy.” So, what is a bureaucracy? What is the relationship between bureaucracy and bureaucracy? The so-called “bureaucrat” generally refers to officials in ancient times. It originally came from “Guoyu·Luyu” 國語魯語 and there is no distinction between praise and blame. Some Western scholars have proposed that bureaucrats are just people who use their cultural skills to sell their labor to the country in exchange for salary and hold specific positions to realize their own interests. In political science, as a system, bureaucracy often refers to the sum of a series of systems, systems, organizational structures and principles of a government composed mainly of relatively professional administrative personnel under modern country conditions. It has the characteristics of hierarchy, Characteristics of impersonality, continuity, and specialization.
Bureaucratic ethos is closely related to bureaucracy. Bureaucracy itself produces bureaucracy, which is a common problem among bureaucracies around the world. Although bureaucracy is a set of institutional systems designed to improve the efficiency of modern state governance, due to the nature of bureaucracy, bureaucracy is inevitable in any country. The British political scientist Laski once summarized bureaucracy in the “Dictionary of Social Sciences” edited by Seligman: “The nature of that political system is accustomed to treating administration as a routine story. In extreme cases, bureaucrats will become a hereditary class and regard all political measures as their own interests. “For example, in the hierarchical structure of the bureaucracy. Individuals in bureaucracies tend to be more likely to please their superiors than the people based on their own interests; the principle of division of labor in bureaucracy means that ordinary people who are not familiar with the rules may be pushed from one office to another before they can find a person with authority. The units that answer or deal with their problems have become multi-departmental, multi-layered, and inefficient. Governments around the world have been trying to curb or reduce the bureaucracy created by the bureaucracy through various methods.
Excerpted from Education Reader for Combating Formalism and Bureaucracy (published by China Founder Publishing House in April 2020).
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Curious about the ‘origins of formalism in China’ I looked up the reference in the Annals of the States/Annals of the State of Lu 國語魯語
When Luqiu of the State of Qi came to [the State of Lu] to make an alliance, Zifuj Jingbo warned the officials, saying, “In our meeting be respectful if mistakes are made.” Min Mafa laughed, and Jingbo asked him why. He replied, “I’m laughing at my son for being too full of himself. In the past, the Zhengkaofu in the twelve chapters of the “Praises of Zhou” on behalf of the Duke of Zhou. The title of the first chapter of this compilation [in the Book of Poetry] begins with the title “Na” 《商頌》提到《商頌》的書籍 電子圖書館 《那》 and ends with ‘Since ancient times, the ancestors have been working diligently. They were warm and respectful day and night, and they carried out their duties with reverence.‘
Even the sage kings of the past, who transmitted the virtue of respect, did not dare to be original, always characterizing things as having been done ‘since ancient times,’ and in ancient times they also said as ‘in the past,’ and in the more recent past as ‘ancestors.’ Now, when my son warns the officials, saying ‘When there are mistakes be respectful’ it shows how how complacent he is. For King Gong of Zhou, did not publicly point out the faults of Zhao and Mu and was called ‘respectful.’ King Gong of Chu could acknowledge his mistakes and be ‘revered.’ Now, when my son teaches bureaucrats, saying ‘if mistakes are made, show respect,’ what will become of Dao?”
*This article is an original content published by “Sanlian Life Weekly” 三聯生活周刊 .
According to statistics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, among the newly reported cases of HIV/AIDS in China each year, the proportion of individuals aged 50 and above increased from 22% in 2011 to 44% in 2020. (In the field of HIV/AIDS research, individuals aged 50 and above are defined as “elderly”). A recent paper [see excerpt translated below] published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology showed that among elderly HIV-infected individuals, males outnumber females by approximately three times. The infected individuals generally have lower levels of education and are primarily engaged in agricultural activities, with heterosexual transmission accounting for 90.9%. A transient lifestyle, suppressed sexual needs, and lonely old age could all be reasons for elderly people to contract HIV/AIDS. The scars of the times linger within them until they erupt in their most vulnerable old age.
Reporter | Xia Jieyi
A Husband’s Secret
Rongjie, 65 this year, is a slender woman with dense long hair, curled delicately and pinned up neatly. She wears a brightly colored shawl, giving her an elegant appearance. When talking about the scene of being diagnosed with AIDS six years ago, she tries to maintain a calm tone, but she gets excited as she speaks. At times like these, she stops and laughs twice, giving herself some time to recover.
It was in the spring of 2018 when Rongjie went to the hospital for a check-up due to dizziness. At that time, the doctor drew her blood three times, and when the test results came out, the doctor solemnly called her son into the office. Rongjie thought she had cancer, and after pressing her son for answers, he hesitantly told the truth, “It’s AIDS.”
Rongjie’s first reaction was “impossible” because she had never had sexual contact with anyone other than her husband. Her second reaction was “it must have been transmitted by my husband.” She spat out a curse in the southwestern dialect, “This bastard!” and dragged her husband to the hospital for examination. However, her husband “played a trick” — he had the doctor test him for syphilis, and the result showed no infection, so they managed to get through it by bluffing.
From the film “I Love You”
In this way, Rongjie, diagnosed with AIDS without knowing the cause, sank into depression for two to three months. “Every day, I was thinking, racking my brains. I’ve always been a decent person my whole life, how could I end up with this disease?” She fell into a “dead end,” “not eating, not sleeping, not taking medication, just waiting to die.”
The truth was only revealed two years later. By then, with the help of her children, Rongjie had accepted reality and cooperated with treatment, and her physical condition had gradually stabilized. However, her husband suddenly broke out in sores all over his body and consistently resisted seeking medical help. Rongjie forced her husband to the hospital for examination, “CD4 count down to only 9.” CD4 refers to the CD4+ T-cell count, which reflects the body’s immune level. In normal individuals, there are usually 500 to 800 CD4+ T-cells per microliter of blood, while AIDS patients often have counts below this range. When the CD4 count is less than 200, symptoms of opportunistic infections are likely to occur. Rongjie’s husband was also diagnosed with AIDS. Judging from the numbers, his condition was in the late stage, indicating that he had likely been infected earlier than Rongjie.
Upon learning of the diagnosis, Rongjie cried and pounded her husband, “You’ve ruined me.” Her husband kept his head down, silent.
Rongjie’s experience is extremely common among elderly female HIV-infected individuals. They are often infected within marriage, discovering their husbands’ secrets, which means they suffer from both mental and physical blows. Wang Lin’s parents also went through a similar process. At that time, her father contracted PCP pneumonia, and blood tests revealed it was caused by the HIV virus. The doctor asked her mother to get tested too, and she received the same result. Wang Lin recalled that her critically ill father lay in the intensive care unit, with many tubes inserted into his body, struggling to breathe. Worried about his deteriorating condition, Wang Lin’s mother had intended to keep it secret temporarily, but after holding it in for more than 20 days, she couldn’t help but burst out, “Do you know what disease you have? AIDS!”
Wang Lin’s father was stunned but couldn’t speak. His mother glared at him and questioned, “You went to those places, right? How much per time?” After a long silence, her father held up one finger, representing “100 yuan.” Wang Lin described her and her mother’s feelings at the time, “It was mostly terror, as if we didn’t know my dad anymore.“
Questioning and Scars
When I first answered the phone, Liu Yiwei’s voice sounded hesitant. His words were unclear, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, slowly uttering a few tones of southwestern dialect. He had told me earlier that I could call him anytime because he was “always alone, just lying in bed when there’s nothing to do.”
Liu Yiwei was born in rural Sichuan, the only child in his family. He spent the first half of his life working on the family farm to take care of his elderly parents. In his forties, after his parents passed away due to illness, he decided to venture out. However, with only a sixth-grade education, and lacking technical skills, he could only find work as a dishwasher in the city. He said the bosses always complained that he was too old and slow, and he was quickly replaced by younger workers. As a result, he changed jobs two or three dozen times, with the longest lasting only three months and the shortest two or three days, and he “didn’t earn much money.”
Stills from “Seven on the Yangtze
Due to poor economic conditions, Liu Yiwei remained single all his life. Seven years ago, at the age of 55, he wanted to find work in the city. However, he failed the medical examination during job interviews and only then found out he was HIV positive. When asked about the route of infection, Liu Yiwei initially said, “I don’t know,” but later admitted that it might have been due to engaging in risky behavior with other coworkers in Chengdu and Chongqing during those years when they would “find prostitutes” on the streets. It was cheap, only 30 yuan each time, without any safety measures, and “looking back now, it really wasn’t worth it.”
According to research from various disease control centers in Guizhou, Sichuan, and Guangxi, elderly male HIV-infected individuals often exhibit the following characteristics: they tend to have lower levels of education, been long-term employed away from home, experienced periods of living alone, be widowed, or live separately from their spouses, and lack family care. An employee of a local center for disease control in southwestern China told this magazine, “Loneliness is the biggest commonality among elderly infected individuals. Without work and social relationships, they often feel emotionally empty.”
Rongjie and her husband also experienced a long period of separation. They originally met and married while working at the same factory in a county town in Sichuan. Her husband, five years older, was very caring after marriage, doing laundry and cooking every day, taking care of household chores. In Rongjie’s eyes, her husband was a gentleman who liked to read books and newspapers, never using foul language. While other men in the factory liked to tell dirty jokes, her husband never participated, “seeming very serious.” Before being diagnosed with AIDS, Rongjie always believed her marriage was happy and “never had a fight in her life.”
Around 2000, the factory underwent restructuring, and both husband and wife were laid off, but their son was still in school. Rongjie’s husband had previously worked in a clerical position and lacked technical expertise, so he stayed at home to take care of the child and elderly relatives while Rongjie worked at a company in another city. They lived apart for five years. Rongjie speculated that it was during that time of separation that her husband engaged in extramarital affairs and contracted HIV.
Stills from film “Down to the Sea“
Layoffs, working odd jobs, living separately – these are the key words that may more or less appear among the seven families of elderly AIDS patients interviewed by this publication. The Baihualin National Alliance白桦林全国联盟 is the largest AIDS-infected mutual aid platform in the country. Its head, Baihua, told this publication that many people will find a temporary partner to live with while working outside, “carelessly, without understanding where they come from, or even knowing they have been infected, only to realize many years later.” To some extent, the scars of the times accumulate and transmit invisibly. While husbands choose to seek solutions externally, wives passively bear the consequences.
A study on the sexual networks of AIDS infection conducted by Renmin University of China describes the hidden brothels commonly visited by middle-aged and elderly groups: “Unlike some roadside shops with pink lights and women dressed provocatively, they are not conspicuous. The ground floor facing the street is a mahjong parlor, with several middle-aged women knitting sweaters or chatting at the entrance; they are the prostitutes there… appearing like ordinary people’s lives.” Here, sexual transactions can be made for as low as 20 yuan. Among the 109 middle-aged and elderly clients interviewed, their occupations mainly included workers, farmers, and businessmen. Of these, 97 clients maintained sexual relationships with the prostitutes for an average of 42 months, with the longest being 30 years. Most of them do not use condoms every time. Apart from the lack of sexual knowledge, another reason is the familiarity and emotional connection between clients and prostitutes leads them not to use condoms every time. Sometimes, prostitutes will call clients “husband” and even cook for them, forming a quasi-family relationship.
It’s a world that a wife is unwilling to touch. In interviews conducted by this publication, most families do not delve deep into the issue. In another family where both husband and wife were diagnosed simultaneously, the wife, Liu Yan, told me that she and her husband never asked each other, “We trust each other and know that the other is not that kind of person.” She described her husband as “blushing when talking to women,” and herself as “never willing to have much contact with men.” Both of them come from an extremely closed rural area, “where getting intimate once means getting married, otherwise, it will tarnish one’s reputation.”
Stills from film “The Weaving Girl
As for how the infection was transmitted, the wife would rather suspect others than believe that the disease was brought into the family by the one she was closest to. Liu Yan suspects that she and her husband contracted AIDS because of her husband’s coworkers. These coworkers often discussed “how to find prostitutes,” and some of them had sexually transmitted infections, covered in sores. Since everyone on the construction site shared the same pot for meals and the same washing machine for clothes, perhaps this was how the infection spread. She stated this with conviction. When I asked her if she knew that HIV can only be transmitted through blood, mother-to-child transmission, and sexual contact, she paused and said, “Of course I know, so I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Shame and fear
In fact, purely from the perspective of the disease, with the progress of national AIDS prevention and control policies, AIDS has become increasingly “docile” in patients.
Among the seven families interviewed by this publication, there were a total of eleven elderly HIV-infected individuals. Except for three individuals in the advanced stage who developed AIDS-related complications, including herpes, tuberculosis, and PCP pneumonia caused by fungal infections, the other infected individuals could basically take care of themselves, and their bodies did not show obvious symptoms. Nurse Shao Ying from the Infectious Disease Center outpatient department of Beijing You’an Hospital told this publication that over the past decade, various antiretroviral drugs have been included in medical insurance, and the prices of original drugs have been continuously reduced. The hospital’s treatment methods have also become more mature. “As long as you detect it early and intervene in time, AIDS can have almost no impact on daily life, similar to common chronic diseases. We have many patients here who have lived for more than ten years, witnessing their transition from middle age to old age.”
Staff of the CDC conduct free HIV screening for the public on Dalong Street in Yuping Dong Autonomous County, Tongren City, Guizhou Province, Dec. 1, 2023
At the same time, both patients and their families cannot escape a strong sense of shame. Rongjie said that every time she goes to the disease control center to collect free medication, she would be “fully armed,” wearing scarves, hats, masks, and sunglasses, standing in line for one or two hours among hundreds of people, always feeling anxious. Wang Lin mentioned that although she knew some medications could be purchased with medical insurance cards right at their doorstep, she would still go to the provincial capital and pay out of pocket. She explained, “The county disease control center and various enterprises are all on the same street, and everyone knows each other. If we were recognized, they would think we are from a family with improper conduct.”
After being diagnosed, some patients chose to live in self-isolation. After Liu Yiwei’s diagnosis, he returned to his rural hometown and lived alone in his ancestral house of over 50 square meters, rarely interacting with fellow villagers. He always felt that getting close to others would be “disrespectful to them.” He planted some fruits and vegetables in his yard, lived on a monthly allowance of a few hundred yuan, regularly took the free AIDS medication provided by the government, and currently, his health is good. He said, “I take frequent showers, wash my clothes often, and eat plenty of vegetables. Every time there’s a monthly market, I go out to drink tea. I sit in the tea house all day, listening to others chat, and I just smile to myself.”
His concerns are not unfounded; the level of acceptance for AIDS patients in society has not significantly improved. Liu Yan and her husband are rural residents, and their combined monthly retirement pension is just under a thousand yuan. They had intended to continue working to save up for their old age, but the employment discrimination faced by AIDS patients turned out to be far worse than they had imagined. Recently, with great difficulty, they got recommended to work as caregivers in a nursing home through an acquaintance, but they were found to have HIV during the physical examination and were dismissed once again.
“AIDS patients can’t find caregivers, can’t enter nursing homes, and can’t even buy insurance. They can only seek medical treatment at designated infectious disease hospitals, but these hospitals have limited medical resources, and many surgeries cannot be performed. When we look around, the prospect of old age is very bleak.” Baihua has been diagnosed with AIDS for ten years now, and he is also beginning to worry about the issue of “living out one’s old age.” In interviews with this publication, several families have experienced being turned away by regular hospitals.
Zhang Youchun, an anthropology professor at Renmin University of China, has long been dedicated to researching the stigmatization of AIDS. In his papers, he points out that from the beginning of AIDS entering China, the media adopted a “scare tactic” approach. In 1985, China had its first HIV infection case, and subsequently, People’s Daily published more than 20 articles about AIDS, with texts such as: “People often turn pale when talking about cancer, but now there’s a so-called super cancer – AIDS, which is even more terrifying… This disease is called the new plague god, a frightening disease or incurable disease…” The articles listed various transmission routes for AIDS, including sharing toothbrushes, basins, and towels, suggesting that the virus could be found in patients’ saliva, sweat, and tears. In the 1980s and 1990s, the news media often associated AIDS with “negative lifestyles,” such as drug abuse, promiscuity, and prostitution. Medical personnel would be fully equipped when treating infected individuals. The AIDS prevention and control pamphlets often contained shocking photos of herpes ulcers. Under such circumstances, there were rumors circulating in society that AIDS patients were seeking “revenge” on society through needle pricks, leading to strong hostility and fear towards this group.
Most infectious diseases have undergone such a process. For example, leprosy, which once struck terror into people’s hearts, has gradually transformed from a malignant infectious disease into a common ailment that is preventable and treatable, while the invention of drugs like penicillin has made syphilis no longer appear so sinister. Cancer was once considered synonymous with evil, but after the appearance of AIDS, it became mundane.
As Susan Sontag wrote in “Illness as Metaphor,” “When disease is demonized, it inevitably leads to a shift in blame onto the victim, regardless of whether the patient is seen as a victim of the disease itself.” To this day, although we can effectively control the harmful effects of AIDS from a medical perspective, it still holds a strong “moralizing tendency” in the social cognitive system, being seen as a sign of a person’s “immoral behavior” and evolving into a judgment against the patients themselves. For elderly patients with conservative beliefs, this is a heavy burden.
Hu Minhua, director of the AIDS treatment center at the Ninth Hospital of Nanchang City, told this publication a story—a senior citizen, after being infected, begged his wife not to tell their children, but one day, the child suddenly came to the hospital to see him. The old man thought his infection had been exposed and was filled with shame and indignation. After the child left, he jumped from a building and committed suicide. “After he died, his wife expressed her pain, saying she only told the child that her husband was hospitalized with pulmonary tuberculosis. So sometimes I feel that the power and fear that AIDS brings to patients at a psychological level today has surpassed the physical aspect.”
After the Pain
Wang Lin still remembers that when her father was dying, she could never reconcile with the “mistakes” he had made and felt a strong sense of betrayal. But she still fulfilled her duty as a daughter—visiting her father every day, bringing him a bowl of fish soup he loved, and giving money to the ICU nurses, asking them to take good care of him. “But I always felt that my kindness to him wasn’t sincere.” At the same time, her mother was also facing emotional turmoil. “One day, she passed by a half-dried-up lake and just went in like crazy, saying she might as well die.”
In the late stages of her father’s illness, the ICU costs were high, and she and her mother needed to make a decision quickly. They argued many times. “My mother felt that if it were any other disease, she would spare no effort to treat it, but for this disease, she couldn’t make up her mind.” As her father’s condition deteriorated further, based on the doctor’s advice, the mother and daughter decided to stop treatment. After stopping the medication, her father persisted for a few more days. On the night of his death, Wang Lin was about to turn 30. Wang Lin remembers that her father curled up on the hospital bed that night, becoming very thin and small, with only a few delicate bones left. She wanted to call him “dad,” but her throat choked up. Her father made it past midnight, her 30th birthday, and said, “Happy birthday,” then passed away.
After her father’s death, Wang Lin turned her attention back to her mother. She took 45 days off to accompany her. Her mother initially felt “inferior and embarrassed,” saying, “I would rather have cancer than this disease,” and was unwilling to take medication. To convince her mother, Wang Lin repeatedly instilled in her the knowledge of AIDS she had learned online: “Your current CD4 count is around five or six hundred, which means your immune system is the same as that of a normal person. As long as you take your medication regularly to control the virus, you can live a long life.” “You will live with us, don’t worry about infecting your grandson, saliva doesn’t transmit it, the virus concentration in saliva is extremely low, unless you fill a big bottle of saliva and pour it into my son’s mouth.” “This disease is better than hepatitis B and diabetes. Look at Auntie next door, she has to take insulin every day. You can eat whatever you want, it won’t affect your life.” Wang Lin remembers that by the tenth day, her mother had begun to “desensitize,” feeling that AIDS “didn’t seem so scary after all.”
Stills from “The Favourite”
Fear stems from ignorance. Wang Lin feels that as a family member to help patients understand clearly three issues – “what situation will be contagious” “what situation will be combined with complications” ” What circumstances will die”, continuous popularization, naturally eliminating the patient’s fear; on the other hand, the elderly group of conservative thinking, easy to repeatedly fall into the mood, there is anxiety, depression, so caregivers try not to produce emotional confrontation with the patient, “they say annoyed to death, you say ‘Yes! ‘ rather than saying ‘it’s fine’. It’s important to understand this mental state that comes with the disease and to accept them.”
After her mother started to take the state-issued free AIDS medication, she was plagued by side effects, feeling dizzy and vomiting, limb weakness, and found it difficult to keep going. Wang Lin went to the provincial capital city infectious disease hospital to consult a specialist, the other recommended a “cocktail therapy”, need to be combined with three kinds of drugs at the same time to eat, but the monthly cost of nearly 2,000 yuan of medication, and some of the drugs are in short supply in the country, it is difficult to buy. Wang Lin asked around on the Internet for channels to buy drugs, and bounced around Shanghai and Changsha to ensure that her mother took her medication on time.
Six months later, Wang Lin’s mother’s HIV load was already below the detectable level. (Note: that is, the viral load is below 200copies/mL. Clinical data show that adherence to antiretroviral treatment and undetectable viral load for at least six consecutive months is equivalent to being non-infectious, and will not be transmitted to a partner through condomless sex. (According to the report presented by Wang Lin, blood tests in ordinary hospitals can no longer detect that her mother has HIV, and she must go to a special micro-precision medical testing organization in order to detect it.) When she learned of the test results, Wang Lin shed tears of relief, “It’s like everything has finally come to an end, gritting my teeth through a very difficult time. I lost my father, but kept my mother.”
Such stories are fortunate. Wang Lin’s mother met several favorable conditions: early detection, good financial situation, and sufficient family support. Birch told the publication that it’s actually quite difficult to fulfill these conditions. “Self-check awareness is high among the younger same-sex group, but the older generation, especially men, are very resistant to going to the hospital for checkups, and will keep symptoms to themselves. Rural elderly people are in poor economic conditions and have poor information, so they can only choose free medicines with more side effects, which some can’t stand, and that affects medication adherence.”
Experimenters use immunoblotting to conduct HIV antibody confirmation experiments in the AIDS confirmation laboratory of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Handan, Hebei Province, Nov. 30, 2018
Hu Minhua stated that as the level of social civilization increases and people have a better understanding of AIDS knowledge, most families will eventually choose to accept patients, but it requires a “desensitization process.” “At the beginning, there may be anxiety. For example, if one comes into contact with the patient’s secretions or saliva sprays onto the face, there may be fear of infection, and they may even want to ask the doctor for preventive medication. Usually, after a period of time, family members will gradually overcome their psychological barriers.”
However, having worked in AIDS care for over 20 years, Hu Minhua has also seen cases where patients were mistreated by their families—such as one patient who was hospitalized for many years, and the hospital contacted relatives several times to take him home, but they all refused. In the end, it was the town government that brought him back to a local nursing home. Some family members still have psychological shadows; they use disposable lunch boxes when delivering meals and even let the elderly person live alone in a rented room.
Wang Lin said that many AIDS patients envy the status of her family. Her mother is now much more confident and cheerful, and she can completely take care of herself in daily life. Only when taking medication or going for check-ups does her mother occasionally think of her deceased father and curse him a bit, “but she forgets all about it when playing cards.” She still enjoys going to the square dance with her friends, and once mischievously told Wang Lin, “Humph, they definitely don’t know that their dance team captain is an AIDS patient.”
(References: “Current Situation and Behavioral Characteristics of HIV Infection Among Elderly People in China,” “Epidemiological Characteristics of HIV/AIDS Cases and Research Progress on Risk Factors and Prevention Strategies in Western China,” “Research Progress on the Epidemiological Characteristics of AIDS in the Elderly Population in China,” “HIV/AIDS Risk and Sexual Network Status Among Middle-aged and Elderly Clients in the Sex Industry,” “The Menace of Fear Tactics in AIDS Propaganda and Education,” “Illness as Metaphor”)
2023 article in Chinese Journal of Epidemiology
Chinese Journal of Epidemiology, 2023, 44(11): 1673-1678.
Epidemiological characteristics and trend of HIV-infected patients aged 60 years and older reported in China, 2015-2022
Jin Yichen1 , Tang Houlin1 , Qin Qianqian1 , Cai Chang1 , Chen Fangfang1 , Lyu Fan2
Objective To understand the epidemiological characteristics and changing trends of HIV-infected patients aged ≥60 years reported in recent years in China and provide reference for the development of HIV prevention and control strategies for the elderly.
Methods The data of newly reported HIV-infected patients aged ≥60 years between 2015 and 2022 were obtained from China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention. The differences in epidemiological characteristics of HIV infections among groups were compared by using t test and Kruskal-Wallis H nonparametric test in software SPSS 24.0. Software Joinpoint 4.9.0 was used to calculate annual percent change (APC) and trend analysis was conducted by using Joinpoint regression model. Software Excel 2019 was used for graph drawing.
Results The number of reported HIV-infected patients aged ≥60 years in China increased from 17 451 in 2015 to 27 004 in 2022, with newly diagnosed rate rising from 9.0/100 000 to 10.2/100 000. The newly diagnosed rate in men was higher than that in women. Trend analysis demonstrated that the newly diagnosed rate in both elderly men and women peaked in 2019 (APC for men=13.5%, P=0.003; APC for women=15.0%, P=0.002), and showed a downward trend after 2019 (APC for men=-12.4%, P=0.006; APC for women=-13.0%, P=0.007). Among the elderly infected men, those infected by heterosexual and homosexual transmission accounted for 93.5% (160 747/171 924) and 5.1% (8 781/171 924), respectively. Among the elderly infected women, those infected by heterosexual transmission accounted for 98.4% (48 899/49 697). The infected elder people diagnosed by medical institutions accounted for 71.5% (158 394/221 621), whose baseline CD4+T lymphocytes level was lower than that in those diagnosed by other ways (H=1 079.82, P < 0.001).
Conclusions The poor risk awareness and high-risk sexual behavior made the elderly at higher risk for HIV infection. More efforts should be made to improve active surveillance, timely detection and origin-tracing for infected elderly for the accurate and effective prevention and control of HIV infection.
1. Basic situation: from 2015 to 2022, China cumulatively reported 221,621 cases of HIV infection in people ≥60 years of age, of which 171,924 (77.6%) and 49,697 (22.4%) were male and female respectively, with the age of 60-69 years old predominantly at the time of diagnosis, of which the age of 60-64 and 65-69 years old were accounted for 33.8% and 29.8% respectively, and the number of married and divorced/ Married and divorced/widowed accounted for 55.8% and 38.8% respectively, 71.9% had elementary school education or less, and 70.4% were farmers. The age at diagnosis was higher in males (69.1 ± 6.6) than in females (66.3 ± 5.1) (t = 87.67, P < 0.001).
2. Time trend: the number of reported cases and the rate of new diagnosis of HIV infected persons aged ≥60 years increased year by year from 2015 to 2019, with the highest in 2019 (37,275 cases), of which 28,763 cases were men and 8,512 cases were women, and the rate of new diagnosis was 15.1 per 100,000. the number of reported cases and the rate of new diagnosis decreased to some extent after 2019, but still remained high, and the total number of reported cases of HIV infected persons aged ≥60 years in 2022 was 27,004 cases, of which 10.2 per 100,000 were new diagnosis cases. 60 years of age with HIV infection totaling 27,004 cases, with a new diagnosis rate of 10.2 per 100,000 persons. The new diagnosis rate of males is higher than that of females, and the differences in new diagnosis rates among different age groups are statistically significant, with higher new diagnosis rates for males in the 65-69 and 70-74 age groups in 2018 and before, and higher new diagnosis rates for those in the 70-74 and 75-79 age groups in 2019 and after; the lower the age group of females for all years, the higher the new diagnosis rate is, i.e., new diagnosis rate for those aged 60-64 years highest and those ≥80 years of age had the lowest new diagnosis rates.
The results of the Joinpoint regression analysis showed that the new diagnosis rates in the 60-64 and 65-69 age groups for both males and females had 2018 as the turning point, i.e., an increasing trend in 2018 and before, and a decreasing trend in 2019 and after; and the new diagnosis rates in the three age groups for males and females ≥70 years old had 2019 as the turning point. See Figure 1, Tables 2, 3.
3. Regional distribution: the total number of provinces that reported more than 5% of the national proportion of HIV-infected persons aged ≥60 years in 2015-2022 was seven, namely, Sichuan Province with 63,109 cases (28.5%), Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region with 26,305 cases (11.9%), Chongqing Municipality with 20,915 cases (9.4%), Guizhou Province with 19,223 cases (8.7%), Hunan Province with 14,450 cases ( 6.5%), Guangdong Province 12,868 (5.8%), and Yunnan Province 12,056 (5.4%).Provinces with new diagnosis rates exceeding the national average in 2022 include Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (45.0/100,000), Guizhou Province (42.6/100,000), Chongqing Municipality (41.1/100,000), Sichuan Province (34.3/100,000), Hunan Province (15.4/100,000), and Yunnan Province (12.4/100,000). 100,000), Yunnan Province (12.9/100,000) and Jiangxi Province (12.3/100,000).
4. Route of infection: Heterosexual transmission among male HIV-infected patients accounted for 93.5%, of which commercial heterosexual sex, other heterosexual sex and homosexual sex accounted for 58.2%, 32.7% and 5.1% respectively. Heterosexual transmission among female HIV-infected patients accounted for 98.4%, with other heterosexual sex (60.2%) and regular sex with a partner (30.7%) predominating. See Table 4.
5. Diagnosis and detection: The sources of HIV testing are medical institution diagnosis, voluntary counseling testing and testing of positive spouses or sexual partners, accounting for 71.5 per cent (158,394/221,621), 16.1 per cent (35,626/221,621) and 4.1 per cent (9,126/221,621) respectively, while the others account for 8.3 per cent (18,475/221,621). .. The first CD4 counts after diagnosis were in the range of 0~ and 200-350 cells/µl in 34.3% (76,009/221 621) and 28.2% (62,558/221 621) respectively. See Table 1.The difference in first CD4 counts among those with different sources of HIV testing was statistically significant (H = 1,079.82, p < 0.001), with M(Q1, Q3) values in the order of 224 (122, 346)/µl in healthcare facilities, 243 (143, 363)/µl in voluntary counseling tests, 250 (162, 364)/µl in other sources, and 250 (162, 364)/µl in positive spouse/sexual partner testing 261 (172, 373) per μl.
Discussion
The number of HIV-infected persons ≥60 years of age reported in China in recent years is about 30,000, and the rate of new diagnosis in 2022 is 10.2/100,000, which is higher than that of the United States and the European region. In the United States, the new diagnosis rates for 60-64 and ≥65 years old in 2019 are 5.4/100,000 and 1.6/100,000, respectively [6], and the new diagnosis rate for people ≥50 years old in the European region in 2020 is about 3.5/100,000 [7].
There may be two reasons for the higher number of infected people ≥60 years old in China, one is that some older people are more sexually active and have weaker awareness of HIV risk and more high-risk sexual behaviors, especially when some older men seek commercial sexual
services or extramarital casual sex to satisfy their sexual needs, the risk of HIV infection is greatly increased [8]. Secondly, the long latency period of HIV does not exclude that some older people are infected in young adulthood but delayed until old age to be diagnosed and discovered. In addition, the diagnosis and discovery situation is affected by the intensity of HIV testing, and in recent years, some regions have carried out expanded testing for the elderly in conjunction with basic public health checkups and other measures, which has promoted the diagnosis and discovery of elderly infected persons [9].After 2019, the number of new reports and the rate of new diagnosis of HIV-infected persons ≥60 years of age have shown a downward trend, which may be affected by the decline in the intensity of proactive HIV testing, and the elderly AIDS epidemic trend remains to be further monitored.
Sexual transmission is the main mode of HIV transmission in China, and more than 98% of older HIV-infected people are sexually transmitted infections (STIs). A survey in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region found that 30.9% of older adults who had sex in the last six months had casual sexual partners [10], and a survey in Sichuan Province found that 5.3% of older men ≥60 years of age had commercial sex in the last six months [11], and most of the locations of commercial sex among older adults were lower-priced roadside stores or mobile venues [12-13], which have a higher risk of HIV transmission. There is also a need to pay attention to elderly MSM, the proportion of middle-aged and elderly MSM who had same-sex sexual behavior in the last 6 months in sentinel surveillance in Jiangsu Province was 56.3% [14], and a survey in Sichuan Province found that the proportion of elderly MSM who had non-regular sexual partners was 63.1%, and the proportion of those who had casual sex who adhered to the use of condoms was only 38.0% [15].
In this study, we found that among HIV-infected persons ≥60 years old, 71.9% and 70.4% had elementary school education or less and were farmers by occupation, respectively. Older people have limited access to AIDS knowledge and lack correct knowledge about HIV infectiousness and transmission. A Meta-analysis found that the core knowledge of HIV prevention and treatment among the elderly in China was only 51.0%, and the knowledge level of the older and less educated elderly was even lower [16]. Most of the older people’s knowledge of condoms is limited to contraception, and they do not understand its role in preventing HIV transmission [13], and the low rate of condom use among older people also increases the risk of HIV infection.
The present study showed that diagnostic findings were predominantly in healthcare facilities and the first CD4 count was low. On the one hand, the elderly may HIV risk awareness and active willingness to seek testing is lower and other characteristics, and diagnosis is delayed [17-18]; on the other hand, the elderly have a lower level of basic immunity and faster disease progression. Overseas studies have found that the older the person, the lower the CD4 count in HIV infection [19]; the rate of disease progression in those without ART accelerates with age, and the probability of progression to AIDS in older HIV-infected patients is about 30% after 3 years of infection, while that of young adults with HIV infection is less than 10% [20], and it is necessary to combine with the tracking of the source of infection to further clarify the problem of HIV in older people. Late detection problem.
There are shortcomings in this study. First, the China Disease Control and Prevention Information System is based on statistics of statutory infectious disease case reports, and case detection is affected by factors such as the utilization of testing services, which may have an impact on trend analysis due to differences in testing efforts between periods. The second is that the study population was elderly HIV-infected patients found by diagnosis, and only their disease characteristics were analyzed without considering their behavioral risk factors, so further in-depth analysis is needed in the future.
In view of the prevalence of HIV infection in people ≥60 years old, the prevention and treatment of AIDS in the elderly should focus on the following: firstly, the higher-risk elderly population has limited comprehension and access to information channels, and publicity and health education should be carried out in a form that is easy to understand by the elderly, and the community should be fully mobilized in order to achieve a good effect of intervention. Second, for the elderly HIV testing, combined with the basic public health service program, improve the active detection efforts, HIV testing “gate forward”, and do a good job of HIV testing of the young and middle-aged migrant population and women in prostitution. Third, it is necessary to combine on-site epidemiological investigations and molecular transmission network methods to clarify the sources of infection of elderly HIV-infected persons, so as to provide a scientific basis for accurate prevention and control.
Gan Cui transcribed Lin Zhao’s manuscript based on this photocopy.
就在发布艾老师的长文系列的前两天，我们的第26个微信公众号也被关禁闭一个月，暂时不能使用，于是艾老师这个系列是发在我们第27个，也是全新的几乎没有关注者的新号上，阅读量也只有数千（对于一个从零开始的新号已经是非常不易）——我有点好奇，您是怎么看到的我们发在公众号上的这篇文章？
2023年12月1日，贵州省铜仁市玉屏侗族自治县大龙街道，疾控中心工作人员为市民免费进行艾滋病筛查
高大伟 David Cowhig's Translation Blog 
2024: Shandong Requests Comments on Draft Donkey Hide Gelatin Industry Development Measures
Now that many African countries have banned exports of donkey hides, a popular ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine drugs, the PRC processors and manufacturers are considering their response. The Shandong Province Department of Industry and Information Technology has just released a request for comments, translated below, on its draft policy which includes boosting donkey breeding within China, cooperating with Belt and Road countries to increase donkey breeding in those countries to help supply the Chinese market, developing new health food and beverage products that use the gelatin produced from donkey hides, and government subsidies for digital smart pastures and more efficient cold storage facilities.
For background see:
Faced with Donkey Hide Shortage, No Discussion of Shortfall or its Cause but Calls for Expansion of Donkey Hide Industry
Even my humble self, as an ignoramus who never took a business course in college, I wonder about a policy document that seeks to address a problem but doesn’t discuss the cause of the problem, the looming shortfall of raw materials, current stocks, consumption rate, possible substitute inputs, and the time likely needed to develop new sources — the time need to establish or expand new donkey farms, donkey reproduction rates and how long it takes a donkey to grow a hide that makes a Traditional Chinese Medicine manufacturer envious. Instead, the policy measures proposed are about developing new products that use the now-scarce raw material input and generating publicity that will boost sales.
There must be internal documents discussing these issues. Absent the release of this information (though donkey hide stockpiles might be proprietary information for some companies) it is hard for the public whose advice is being requested to make intelligent suggestions or even (oh no!) criticisms of provincial policy. There are some interesting bits like “Guide insurance companies to develop businesses such as donkey price index insurance to effectively enhance the resilience of the donkey industry against risks.” Insurance companies might not be so enthusiastic about that, especially if they too lack the information mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
Accelerating the High-Quality Development of Gelatin Industry: Shandong Seeks Public Opinion
加快阿胶产业高质量发展 山东向社会公开征求意见
Published by: Shandong Province Date: April 2, 2024
To accelerate the strengthening, optimization, and expansion of our province’s gelatin industry, to build a new advantage for high-quality gelatin industry clusters, and to create a national demonstration highland for the modernization and industrialization of gelatin traditional Chinese medicine, the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Shandong Province recently drafted the “Several Measures to Accelerate the High-Quality Development of the Gelatin Industry (Draft for Soliciting Opinions)” and solicited opinions from the public.
Supporting Traditional Donkey Breeding Areas like Jinan Driving the Expansion of Breeding Production in Emerging Development Zones
The draft proposes shaping an optimal ecological industry chain.
Advancing Industrial Supplementary and Strengthening Chains
Enhancing Innovation Platform System
Promoting the Integration of Culture, Tourism, and Health Care
Striving to Become a National Traditional Chinese Medicine Cultural Experience Venue And a National Traditional Chinese Medicine Cultural Inheritance and Innovation Demonstration Base
The draft proposes to promote the high-quality development of the industry:
Advancing Intelligence, Reforming Digitization
Insisting on Inheritance and Innovation
Encouraging Enterprises to Cultivate International Gelatin Brands Supporting “Chinese Medicine Going Global”
The draft clearly states to deepen and expand multiple markets.
Strengthening brand cultivation, supporting enterprises to participate in brand cultivation activities such as “Good Products in Shandong,” “Lu’s Ten Flavors,” and “Time-Honored Brands,” shaping the public brand image of “Good Gelatin from Shandong” and “Shandong Gelatin Authentic and High Quality.” Supporting enterprises to carry out brand promotion actions, improving brand management systems, and enhancing trademark registration, application, protection, and management capabilities.
Deepen the Domestic Market
Expand International Cooperation
Guiding Dezhou, Pingyin, Yanggu, and Other Places To Jointly Build Traditional Chinese Medicine Inheritance and Innovation Demonstration Areas
The draft also proposes to focus on improving product quality.
Improving the Work Guarantee System
Strengthening work mechanisms
Enhance Service Efficiency
加快阿胶产业高质量发展 山东向社会公开征求意见
2024-04-02 15:53
发布于：山东省
为加快做强做优做大我省阿胶产业，构筑优质阿胶产业集群新优势，打造全国阿胶中医药现代化、产业化示范高地，近日山东省工业和信息化厅起草了《关于加快阿胶产业高质量发展的若干措施（征求意见稿）》，并向社会公开征求意见。
支持济南等毛驴传统饲养区
带动新兴发展区扩大养殖生产
《征求意见稿》提出，塑优全产业链生态。提升源头供给能力，支持济南、聊城、德州、滨州等毛驴传统饲养区发挥优势，带动新兴发展区进一步扩大规模化、标准化养殖生产。建立“原种场-扩繁场－商品场”三级良种繁育体系，引导建设种质资源保存、优质公驴培育等畜禽良种优育重点项目。鼓励阿胶生产企业自建或以订单形式联建稳定的驴皮生产基地，建设1-2个国家级、3-5个省级道地药材良种繁育基地，3-5个驴皮GAP基地，推广“龙头企业+农户”“企业育种+场户扩繁”“牧区引繁+农区育肥”等模式，扩大出栏量，提高本地驴皮供应水平。
推进产业补链强链。深入落实“链长制”机制，将胶类产业链列为标志性产业链重点领域加力突破，精准绘制产业链图谱，着力推动补短板、锻长板，沿链谋划数智牧场、绿色智能立体冷冻仓库及高附加值产品研发等补链强链重点项目。发挥“链主”企业引领带动作用，常态化开展融链固链活动，推动上下游企业卡位入链、协作配套。支持阿胶及“阿胶+”产业集群积极申报省级“雁阵型”产业集群，打造全产业链融合共生、协同发展的良好生态。
完善创新平台体系。支持企业与高校、科研院所联合建设特色畜禽种质资源创新与低碳生产、毛驴养殖繁育、胶类药物等重点实验室，培育技术创新中心、工程研究中心、企业技术中心等创新平台。支持组建胶类中医药产学研用协同的创新联合体，积极承担标准化养殖关键技术、驴皮前处理专用技术、AI视觉检测技术等毛驴繁育和阿胶产业方向的重大科技攻关任务。
推动文旅康养融合。推进“阿胶+”“+阿胶”研学、康养旅游创新发展，鼓励符合条件的各类文旅资源单位申报研学基地、康养基地、职工疗休养基地、工业旅游示范基地等。深入挖掘阿胶非遗资源、中医药文化内涵，设计开发纪念品、伴手礼等文创产品，扩大阿胶影响力。宣传推广“药食同源”、食疗药膳等康养理念，大力开发阿胶养生宴、养生菜。
争创全国中医药文化体验场馆
和国家级中医药文化传承创新示范基地
《征求意见稿》提出，推动产业提质升级。丰富产品品类，做强阿胶类药品，深入挖掘中医药典籍中含阿胶经典名方，开发一批服用便利、高效吸收的创新制剂，扩大药品阿胶临床应用。推动阿胶类药品纳入医保目录。做优阿胶类保健食品，鼓励企业在药品阿胶的基础上，创新配方工艺，开发药食同源的功能性阿胶保健食品、饮品等品类。做大阿胶类食品，大力发展阿胶糕、阿胶枣、阿胶奶茶、阿胶蜜、阿胶人参饮、阿胶果蔬汁等“阿胶+”“+阿胶”即食产品。探索阿胶及其多肽在美妆应用，创制阿胶类美妆产品。
推动智改数转。在传承传统制胶工艺的基础上，鼓励有条件的企业围绕设备、生产以及管理等关键环节率先实施数字化转型，实现多品种、多规格产品的共线生产和精准化智慧营销，打造行业智改数转示范标杆。落实省级技术改造财政激励政策，对符合省技术改造设备奖补条件的项目，建设改造过程中生产、检测、研发设备和配套软硬件系统的购置费用及知识产权、科技成果的购置费用，按照不超过10%的比例给予补贴，单户企业最高500万元。
坚持传承创新。争创全国中医药文化体验场馆和国家级中医药文化传承创新示范基地。保护传承阿胶国家级非遗资源，扩大阿胶非遗传承人队伍，推动建立职工阿胶技艺培训基地，积极开展技能竞赛活动，培育一批非遗工坊和非遗技能人才，打造“阿胶工匠”。讲好阿胶“寿人济世”等系列中医药故事，办好“阿胶文化节”“阿胶滋补节”等文化宣传活动。
鼓励企业培育阿胶国际品牌
助力“中药出海”
《征求意见稿》明确，深化拓展多元市场。加强品牌培育，支持企业参加“好品山东”“鲁十味”“老字号”等品牌培育活动，塑造“好胶出山东”“山东阿胶道地质优”的公共品牌形象。支持企业开展品牌提升行动，完善品牌管理体系，提高商标注册、运用、保护和管理能力。
深耕国内市场。坚持错位发展，鼓励有条件的企业走多元化发展路线，做强做大阿胶类药品、保健食品及食品等品类；支持中小企业聚焦细分领域，做优做精阿胶类食品等品类。引导企业线上线下结合，利用新零售等形式建立覆盖全国的产品销售网络，加快提高市场占有率。鼓励企业参加健康产业（国际）生态大会、非遗博览会、国际非遗节、全国糖酒会等展会活动，发力培育重点消费群体。
拓展国际合作。抢抓“一带一路”建设机遇，支持企业与中亚国家开展规模化养殖技术推广、活驴及驴皮、驴肉进口等交流合作，建设海外牧场，升级全球原材料采购供应链，稳定驴皮进口。鼓励企业借助跨境电商平台、国际展会等渠道，开拓文化价值认同感较强的港澳、日韩及东南亚市场，培育阿胶国际品牌，助力“中药出海”。
引导东阿、平阴、阳谷等地
合力打造中医药传承创新示范区
《征求意见稿》还提出，着力提升产品质量。强化标准规范建设，鼓励阿胶类药品企业积极参与国家中医药标准研究制定，加快推进阿胶类药品、保健食品、食品相关标准规范的制定、发布与实施。开展标准化试点项目建设，引导企业参加标准“领跑者”和“对标达标”活动，以标准规范引领行业健康发展。
加强产品质量监管。将阿胶类食品、药品纳入监管重点，加大监督检查和抽检力度。开展阿胶类食品生产企业食品安全知识培训，组织对阿胶类保健食品生产企业开展体系检查，实施阿胶类保健食品杂皮源监测，督促企业严格落实主体责任，推动食品类阿胶质量提升。加大知识产权保护力度，健全知识产权投诉举报、维权援助和纠纷调解机制，依法查处质量违法和商标侵权行为。鼓励和支持企业申报中国质量奖、国家质量标杆企业、省长质量奖等。
完善工作保障体系。建强工作机制。建立省级推动阿胶产业高质量发展工作协调机制，省市县三级联动推进全省阿胶产业高质量发展工作，加大政策供给，强化项目跟踪服务，着力协调解决突出困难问题。引导东阿、平阴、阳谷等地发挥道地产区优势，合力打造中医药传承创新示范区。
强化政策支持。统筹用好现有财政资金，在数字化转型、技术改造、人才培训、展会等方面加大对全产业链企业支持力度。建立重点融资对接服务“白名单”，鼓励金融机构提供多元化融资支持。有效发挥省级基金作用，带动社会资本积极投入阿胶产业。引导保险公司发展毛驴价格指数保险等业务，切实增强驴产业抵御风险能力。
提升服务效能。围绕全产业生态，适时举办集产品展示、品牌推广、技术合作、产品交易、人才引育为一体的大会，打造高能级服务平台，促进产业链上下游融通发展。发挥山东省阿胶协会、山东省驴产业技术体系、东阿县阿胶行业协会等社会团体作用，开展行业质量检评、第三方评价、职业技能培训和质量品评等工作，促进行业自律发展。
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