Beast Press: Yu Jie's "Forbidden Book Interpretation" column on Radio Free Asia, I am a must-read for every article, and I also follow his recommendation to follow the article to find books. This habit was in 1998. I read his "Fire and Ice" and "Iron" "The Scream in the House" began, and it has been more than twenty-three years in a flash. Saw his latest book review today.

Interpretation of Banned Books | Yu Jie: In addition to the subjects and the mob, there are also "foreigners" like Lin Zhao - Lian Xi's "Book of Blood: Lin Zhao's Journey of Belief, Resistance and Martyrdom"

2022.01.14

Lin Zhao's anti-communist and anti-Mao ideology was the pinnacle of Chinese heresy in the Mao era

The history of Chinese thought and the history of Christianity in China is a "crippled history" that keeps stifling and burying prophets. Those who occupy the main position of the history books and are featured by the historians are the successful and famous people with infinite glory, but in fact, most of them are mediocre and slaves who are wise and protect themselves, "the ones who know the current affairs are the heroes"; on the contrary, those who are alone in danger The "missing persons in the history of thought", who are chariots and moths flying into flames, are the backbones of this land, and they are the objects that should be recorded, missed, inherited and carried forward. Salvaging "missing persons in the history of thought" is a arduous "archaeology of knowledge", which is thankless work, and the investment is far from proportional to the harvest.

A solitary lamp cannot illuminate the long night, but it can inspire people in the dark to pursue the light. In the history of Chinese thought and the history of Christianity in China, with or without a record of a person like Lin Zhao, his face will be completely different. Lian Xi, Professor of World Christianity Studies at Duke University, who has been studying the history of Christianity in China and modern Chinese history for many years, spent eight years, from Suzhou to Peking University, from Tilanqiao Prison to Lingyan Mountain Cemetery, collecting a large amount of original materials and interviewing Several of Lin Zhao's relatives and friends have written the most complete intellectual and spiritual biography to date for Lin Zhao, one of the "missing persons in intellectual history". Such a work may not bring the author an excellent academic reputation in the academic world, but like the name of a long poem by Lin Zhao, it is a Prometheus-like work of stealing fire: Through the analysis of Lin Zhao's life and thought process The presentation has maintained a precious spark for China's future democratic transformation - this small spark will determine the success or failure of China's future democratic transformation and its pros and cons.

I first knew the name Lin Zhao in the class of teacher Qian Liqun of the Chinese Department of Peking University. Later, I checked the history of Peking University, the history of the Chinese Department, and the vast collection of books in the Peking University Library, but I did not find any information about Lin Zhao. Mr. Qian was not my postgraduate tutor, but the one who had the greatest influence on me. However, Mr. Qian's alienation from Western Christian civilization and belief made him aware of the great significance of Christianity to Lin Zhao, but he was unable to make more in-depth research and interpretation in this dimension. Later, I got acquainted with Liu Xiaobo and "Tiananmen Mother" Ding Zilin, and heard more of Lin Zhao's deeds and opinions from them. The hearts of the rebels and the rebels are connected, and they can transcend the times and transcend life and death.

Lin Zhao's anti-communist and anti-Maoist views, although not systematically discussed, are thorough and profound. She had no professional training in Western political science, nor did she read Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism, but she accurately used the concept of "totalitarian society" to define Communist China. There was no second instance of Lin Zhao's use of the term "totalitarian" in the public sphere in the 1960s. In the 1950s, the official newspapers used the word "totalitarian" when criticizing the draft program of the Yugoslav Communist League, but it did not reappear after the anti-rightist movement. The Chinese first began to understand totalitarianism through the publication of "Christians and the Totalitarian State" by Yu Rixuan in 1939 by the YMCA . Lin Zhao pointed out that China is a police state with totalitarian rule. It first controls the whole party with secret agents, and then "governs the country with the party". This totalitarian system maintains its power with blood and hatred, is based on the lies of personal superstition and idolatry, and cultivates servility with a policy of ignorance. Lin Zhao directly named Mao Zedong as an unprecedented tyrant and hooligan, and that China's tyranny was the result of "the damned self-willed, impetuous and self-willed" of Mao Zedong. She rewrote Mao Zedong's "Seven Laws: The People's Liberation Army Occupies Nanjing", and the last four sentences nailed Mao to the pillar of historical shame: "Only should the Sheji Gong Li Shu, then the Xu Shanhe Private Emperor? "

When scholars printed the book "Footprints of the Missing: Youth Thought During the Cultural Revolution", Lin Zhao's information had not been unearthed, and the deeds and opinions of Lin Zhao and the underground publication "Xinghuo" were not included in the book. In fact, the depth and breadth of Lin Zhao's thoughts far exceed most of the characters in the book. Only a handful of people, such as Gu Zhun, Wang Shenyou, Zhang Zhongxiao, and Lu Zhiwen, can rival Lin Zhao. For example, the educated youth Lu Zhiwen pointed out that the CCP is a fascist regime that “prohibits all democratic rights that are the consensus of the world, as well as people’s freedom of thought and speech; brutally suppresses all people who oppose or merely disagree with violent rule, and even resorts to public terror. Means. . . . Trying to promote all kinds of reactionary fallacies that hate human beings, such as propagating the theory of racial superiority and inferiority, reactionary blood theory, artificially creating class struggle and class differentiation, etc., to confuse and win over some people to achieve the purpose of suppressing the people; policies, implement enslavement education, advocate the blind obedience spirit of slavery, and promote the myth of personal superstition and the supremacy of leaders.” Unfortunately, due to the CCP’s harsh and brutal rule, these lone star-like pioneers of thought have not been able to get to know each other, interact, communicate with each other, and then Produces heavier ideological outcomes.

Revolt supported by Christianity is the most thorough revolt

In "Blood Book", Lian Xi, with the eyes of a detective like Formosa and the heart of a detective, has verified many truths that were previously unknown. Lin Zhao's younger sister, Peng Lingfan, wrote an article in memory of her sister, but because she was estranged from her sister at the time, there were some factual errors in the article. For example, Lian Xi verified that Lin Zhao was not executed at Longhua Airport, but was publicly shot and killed in Tilanqiao Prison. More importantly, Lian Xi has solved the "mystery of Lin Zhao"—Lin Zhao is not the Monkey King Monkey King who jumped out of a crack in the stone. The motivation and resources for her struggle come from Christianity. Because she voluntarily chose a road of martyrdom that few people take.

Lin Zhao was educated in Suzhou Jinghai Women's Teacher in his early years, a school established in China by the American Supervisory Association (Southern Methodist Church, after 1939, the North and South Methodist Church was merged into the Methodist Church). Lian Xi went to the United Methodist Church Archives to check many first-hand historical materials. From the founding and development of Ms. Jinghai, it can be seen that the missionary schools have brought civilization and civilization to modern China, and they have contributed greatly. But Lian Xi did not stop at affirming the historical contributions of mission schools and Western missionaries. He reflected on and discussed a big question from Lin Zhao's mental journey of deviating from Christianity and embracing communism: in this competition of ideas and order Why was Christianity defeated by communism?

From the case of Lin Zhao, it is quite representative: Lin Zhao was baptized under the leadership of the missionary teacher not long after Jinghai female teacher entered school. But being baptized doesn't mean her Christian faith is rock solid. Soon, despite the danger, she secretly joined the Communist Party, and immediately chose to study at the journalism college founded by the Communist Party. The father warned his daughter that the Communist Party could not be trusted: "It is the most cruel thing to use the pure enthusiasm of young people to engage in politics." Lin Zhao turned a deaf ear and actively participated in the land reform movement. To the government to host the father overhearing "Voice of America."

Why did communism have more appeal than Christianity to the best young people of the era? First, churches and parochial schools move toward secularization, utilitarianism, and social evangelism—“society” comes ahead of “gospel.” That generation of missionaries and teachers of mission schools had lost the holistic conceptual order of the Puritan era and could not respond to the challenges of Marxism. Taking Ms. Jinghai as an example, the school has attracted many female students from upper-middle-class families. Parents are concerned about their children's career and marriage prospects, not spiritual development. The religious rituals provided by the school gradually became a mere formality. Second, the radical utopian ideals promised by communism are more attractive to young people than the lukewarm reformism offered by the church. The corruption of the Kuomintang, the darkness of society, and the fact that China is being bullied by foreign powers have made China's educated youth increasingly impatient and rational. They hope to find a quick cure for China's plague-ridden China, and communism just provides the cure— Of course, many years later, people discovered that this prescription not only could not cure the disease, but was a tiger-wolf prescription and a life-threatening prescription.

Lin Zhao's "returning from a lost path" is because she experienced the sinister and vicious anti-rightist movement at Peking University. Later, she made friends with rightist friends such as Zhang Chunyuan from Lanzhou University, and from them learned about the terrible famine that was taking place in the countryside. They mimeographed the underground publication "Xinghuo", exposing the disaster of the Great Leap Forward and dissecting Mao Zedong's enslavement. At this time, the Christian spirit of "freedom, equality, and fraternity" that Lin Zhao received in the church school in his early years was awakened, and the Christian conscience was awakened. Although Lin Zhao did not have the opportunity to contact and read theological works from Augustine, Calvin to Bonhoeffer, and did not receive the rich and extensive spiritual genealogy of the Catholic Church and the saints of the past two thousand years, she was under extreme conditions in prison. , receiving the nourishment of the Word directly from God, "Free by the truth." As she proclaimed in her prison letter: "My life belongs to God...if God wants to use me and wants me to live, I can live...; if God wants me to be a conscious martyr , I will only sincerely thank Him for giving me such a glory!" Without the light of truth, and relying solely on her own strength, she would not have been able to overcome torture, let alone die.

"Spiritual Derailment" in Lin Zhao's Prison: "Ghost Marriage" with Ke Qingshi

Although many people use the French title of "Joan of Arc" to call Lin Zhao a "Saint", Lin Zhao does not consider himself extraordinary. She said: "I insist on fighting the totalitarian communist devils for my basic human rights, because I am a human being! As an independent free person, I should have enjoyed my share of the birthright, Complete human rights from God." The preciousness of Lian Xi's biography is that he always studies and writes Lin Zhao as a living individual with seven emotions and six desires, as well as paranoia and obsession. Lin Zhao's brilliance of human nature does not deny that there is a dark part behind the light.

Lin Zhao wrote a letter to his mother in prison. The whole story was not about lofty ambitions, but about the steaming Jiangnan cuisine: "If you can't see you, get something to fast for me, I want to eat it, Mom! I simmer a pot of beef, simmer a pot of mutton, cook a pig's head, boil a bottle or two of lard, burn a pair of hoofs, roast a chicken or a duck. If you don't have money, you can borrow money. Don't miss my fish. You can steam more salted octopus, fresh pomfret, whole mandarin fish, crucian carp soup, steamed herring, always steamed, not boiled. Then get some carp for rice. Moon cakes, rice cakes, wontons , dumplings, spring rolls, pot stickers, fried noodles on both sides, rice dumplings, dumplings, stinky tofu, bread, biscuits, fruit cakes, mung bean cakes, wine-stuffed cakes, curry rice, oil balls, Lunjiao cakes, and smiles. If you don’t have enough food stamps, you can go for alms. "..." Lin Zhao listed all her favorite staple foods and snacks, as if to embarrass her mother - in the midst of the Cultural Revolution frenzy, a mother who could not protect herself could not help her daughter find so many delicacies; even if she did, she would not be able to deliver it in jail. Lin Zhao described the food in his memory with relish, which is normal for people in an environment where food is extremely scarce in prison. Lin Zhao may have deeper intentions. Senior media person Zhu Xuedong pointed out in the article "Behind Lin Zhao's "Zhai Zhai I"" that in the Wu dialect-speaking areas in southern Jiangsu, "Zhai Zhai I" has a special meaning, not just "feeding me". In Wu dialect, "Zhaizhai" is pronounced "zaza", which means offering sacrifices. There is both the solemn awe of the ceremony and the offering of food, behind which is an attitude of facing death calmly.

Due to the extremely limited information in prison, Lin Zhao's political judgment is not completely correct and accurate. For example, in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, Kennedy was not a visionary president and a political figure with conviction, but Lin Zhao deduced that Kennedy was a great people. When she was released on medical parole in 1962, she read Kennedy's speech at the Berlin Wall reported by the People's Daily, and immediately quoted the sentence "As long as one person is enslaved, it cannot be said that all human beings are free". , praised Kennedy as "a great statesman, a great American". In November 1963, Lin Zhao read the news of Kennedy's assassination in a newspaper, and wrote an article expressing his "heavy and fiery grief and grief".

A considerable amount of the book truly presents a neglected "mental derailment" of Lin Zhao in prison in the past: Lin Zhao mistakenly regarded Ke Qingshi, secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee, as a potential savior and spiritual lover. Due to limited information and the fact that Ke Qingshi was well received by Shanghai citizens, Lin Zhao did not know that Ke Qingshi was the local prince who most actively supported Mao. Mao called the younger Ke Qingshi "Ke Lao"—probably because When Koliusu met Lenin. Lin Zhao was caught in a mirage in prison. She guessed that Ke Qingshi, who died of illness before the Cultural Revolution, was "murdered" by Mao for helping her injustice against Mao Ming (there were indeed many high-ranking CCP officials died mysteriously at that time), and she used blood on her shirt. It is believed that through this ceremony, Ke Qingshi's party membership can be "removed", and Ke's soul will thus obtain the "redemption grace" of the Lord. In a drama-like work "Spiritual Couple Whispers", Lin Zhao asked himself, the heroine, to marry Ke in the form of a ghost marriage. In this regard, Lian Xi commented: "This writing turns her lonely cell into a magical world, where her two dear deceased - Ke Qingshi and her father - can come and go freely, come and go at any time. Talk to her and offer comfort." The descendants and researchers who respect Lin Zhao need not cover up Lin Zhao's misjudgment and fantasies. From Lin Zhao's "mental derailment", it can be inferred what kind of inhuman torture Lin Zhao encountered in prison. Bonhoeffer's situation in the Nazi prison was a thousand times better than that of Lin Zhao, which proves that the brutality and evil of the CCP surpassed that of the Nazis by a thousand times.

Born "Alien", Die "Alien"

Lin Zhao coined the term "foreign people" to define himself and the victims of Mao's political purges, including historical counter-revolutionaries, landlords, rich peasants, rightists, current counter-revolutionaries, and their families. Lin Zhao pointed out, "These aliens are lower than the untouchables under the Indian caste system."

Lin Zhao's family are all "foreigners": her father, Peng Guoyan, was a top student who graduated from Southeast University during the Beiyang government era. His graduation thesis was entitled "Review of the Constitution of the Irish Free State". Classified as a "historical counter-revolutionary", she refused to plead guilty and was classified as a "die-in". On November 23, 1960, she swallowed medicine and committed suicide; her mother, Xu Xianmin, was a social activist and entrepreneur who worked in Nanjing The government's National Congress representative, who later turned to the left, has not escaped the CCP's previous political campaigns. After Lin Zhao was shot, she rushed to the tram to commit suicide, but struggled to survive until 1975, when she committed suicide by taking poison. The fate of a family of three, as Lin Zhao said: "Many of our victims in China have already given up their precious lives to resolutely protest against the humiliation and trampling of lives by the Communist Party's totalitarian tyranny!"

Since Lin Zhao's files are still classified as top secret by the CCP and not open to the public, so far no prison administrators or Lin Zhao's inmates have been able to tell the details of his life in prison. Lian Xi can only rely on Lin Zhao's records. The manuscript in prison restores his life scene in Shanghai Tilanqiao Prison. More than ten years ago, I got a copy of Lin Zhao's manuscript from overseas, which was indistinctly written, and was detained by customs at the Beijing airport when I returned to China. I asked a lawyer to negotiate with the customs many times before I asked for it back. The CCP's prisons are comparable to hell, and the CCP strictly seals the information about the prisons. It will probably take until the CCP regime collapses before Lin Zhao's files and the situation inside the prison can be deciphered. In the future, if Lian Xi can read these materials, he may be able to write a sequel to this book.

After Lin Zhao was killed, his family buried him at Lingyanshan Cemetery on the outskirts of Suzhou. On the eve of my departure from China, I made a special trip to pay homage to Lin Zhao's cemetery. There are local people at the foot of the mountain who will lead outsiders to Lin Zhao's cemetery as part-time jobs, and charge a lot of "leading fees". It can be seen that there is an endless stream of people who come to visit Lin Zhao's cemetery, and Lin Zhao's cemetery has become a sacred place for democracy. However, it can also be found that the Chinese people have not yet broken away from the hobby of eating human blood steamed buns in Lu Xun's novel "Medicine", and also responded to the lamentation of Lin Zhao before his death, "People who are enslaved by this system...how unlovable!"

Contemporary Chinese history is a retrogressive history. A few years after I left China, news broke that Lin Zhao's cemetery had become a heavily guarded "national security center". The local police installed a large number of cameras around the cemetery to closely monitor the people who came to pay their respects. The Lin Zhao cemetery enjoys the same treatment as the Zhao Ziyang cemetery. Many people who went to pay homage before Lin Zhaoji's death were violently stopped, beaten and even detained by the police. Lin Zhao was born as a "foreign citizen" and died as a "white ghost". The CCP could not let her live, nor would she be allowed to sleep peacefully after her death. This is probably why the CCP forced Liu Xiaobo's family to throw his ashes into the sea.

What Lian Xi is telling is not a piece of history that has settled down. Various new versions of Lin Zhao's story are still being staged in communist China, and the system that tortured and killed Lin Zhao is still in operation: Zhang Zhanzheng, a civilian reporter who exposed the truth about the Wuhan pneumonia. In the prison, there was a hunger strike like Lin Zhao. Li Tiantian, a rural teacher in western Hunan, said a word in support of freedom of speech and was sent to a mental hospital just like Lin Zhao. Reyila Dawuti, a female professor of Xinjiang University and an anthropologist Li Qiaochu, the girlfriend of dissident legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, was sentenced to a heavy sentence on the charge of “ethnic separatism” just for researching Uyghur folklore and ethnography. Arrested on the charge of "inciting subversion of state power", tortured in prison, having severe auditory hallucinations and other symptoms... They are all Lin Zhao in the new era.

The wildfires will not burn, and the spring breeze will blow again. These "foreigners" will eventually bring freedom and justice to this dark depression in the East Asian continent.

Lin Zhao (January 23, 1932 - April 29, 1968) , formerly known as Peng Lingzhao, was a well-known political dissident and victim of political persecution from Suzhou, Jiangsu.

Before 1949, she had applied to join the Chinese Communist Party. In 1954, she studied at the Department of Journalism at Peking University. In 1957, in the anti-rightist movement, she publicly supported her student Zhang Yuanxun's big-character poster "It's Time", etc., and was classified as a "rightist", and was attacked and suppressed by public opinion. Later, she was detained in Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai in 1962 on the grounds of "attacking the dictatorship of the proletariat" and "counter-revolutionary group crime". In prison, she wrote a diary with a lot of opposition to Mao Zedong and other related content. Meanwhile, she became a Christian in the 1960s.

During the Cultural Revolution, she was publicly announced to be executed in prison on April 29, 1968; on the same day, she was publicly shot and killed in Tilanqiao Prison.

On the day before the execution, she imitated Wang Jingwei's "Captured by the Mouth" and wrote the following lines:

The green phosphorescence is immortal, and it illuminates the spiritual platform every night. Keep the heart and soul, and pay the robbery ashes.

He has red hair and recognizes blood spots. Comparable to learning the red flower, it is difficult to render from the knowledge.

On August 22, 1980, the Shanghai Higher People's Court (referred to as "Shanghai Higher Court") revokes the judgment made by the Military Administration on her and acquitted her on the grounds of mental illness. On January 25, 1981, the Shanghai High Court re-examined and found that it was inappropriate to revoke the judgment on the grounds of mental illness, revoke the 1980 ruling, revoke the previous judgment against her, and acquit her.

family background

Peng Lingzhao was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu in 1932. Her father was Peng Guoyan, who was admitted to the National Central University in 1922, majored in political economy, and obtained a degree in 1926 with his graduation thesis "Review of the Constitution of the Irish Free State"; After the county magistrate exam, he became the top of the list, and was appointed as the magistrate of Wu County in Suzhou, and later as the magistrate of Jiangyin. Her mother is Xu Xianmin, who used to be the general manager of Suzhou Dahua News, a member of the China Democratic League, and who (secretly) funded the Chinese Communist Party. She also has younger brother Peng Enhua and younger sister Peng Lingfan. After the Cultural Revolution, Peng Enhua became a translator of literary works, received a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of California, Irvine, and finally died in Salt Lake City in 2004; he had kept her urn in secret.

In addition, she has uncles Xu Jinyuan and Xu Juemin. Xu Jinyuan was the youth minister of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, and was executed by the Chinese Kuomintang during the April 12 Incident. Xu Juemin was the director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Literature and other positions.

early school

In 1943, she was admitted to Suzhou Cuiying Middle School. At that time, influenced by her mother, she had great enthusiasm for the revolutionary actions of the Chinese Communist Party. After graduating from Jinghai High School, despite her father's objections, she was admitted to the Southern Jiangsu Journalism College (which was once called the "Cradle of the Revolution") in July 1949, and expressed her determination to devote herself to the "revolutionary" cause, and (swearing). ) "no relationship with the family, no filial piety"; she even "exposed" her father's "mistakes" out of nothing. Years later, she said (to this): "Whether they wanted me to die in a well or a river, I was forced to write something I didn't know about, and I had to satisfy them...I I didn't mean to frame you."

To work

After graduation, she participated in rural land reform in southern Jiangsu with the Southern Jiangsu Rural Working Group. In 1952, she began to work in "Changzhou People's Daily" and Changzhou Federation of Literary and Art Circles. In order to "draw a line" with her father, her name was changed to Lin Zhao.

University period

In 1954, she was admitted to the journalism major of Peking University's Chinese Department with the first place in Jiangsu Province, determined to become the most outstanding reporter in the Mao Zedong era. At the school, she read a lot of books she liked. At the same time, she also observed and realized the gap between the real world and her imagination, so she fell into "a pot of love and hate" in her thoughts. In the school's free atmosphere, her thoughts gradually expanded; at the same time, she regretted her previous act of fabricating her father's "crime". Later, Professor You Guoen suggested that she change her major to literature major, but she did not make the change in the end. At the same time, she and Zhang Ling served as editors of the school journal, and were responsible for the supplement "Weiming Lake" of the journal. In the spring of 1955, she joined the school's student association "Peking University Poetry Society" and served as the editor of the publication "Peking University Poetry Journal". In the autumn of 1956, after the "Peking University Poetry" was closed, she became the editorial board member of "Red House", a comprehensive student literature and art publication, and was called "the girl Lin in the Red House"; the editor-in-chief of the publication was Le Daiyun. She and Zhang Yuanxun are the editors in charge of the second issue of the publication.

anti-rightist movement

On May 19, 1957, Zhang Yuanxun and others (on the campus of Peking University and other places) posted a big-character poster "It's Time! ", in response to the CPC Central Committee's "call to air" policy. Subsequently, more and more big-character posters appeared on the campus of Peking University, and students debated among themselves. Some people thought that the "right-leaning" remarks of some of the big-character posters were "counter-revolutionary incitement." On the 22nd of the same month, she opposed the aforementioned criticism in a public debate, and said: "I expected that once I spoke, I would be punished like this tonight! I always feel that organization and conscience are contradicting!" On the 29th of the same month On March 1, the editorial department of "Red Mansion" held a meeting, announcing that Zhang Yuanxun and Li Ren were expelled from the "Red Mansion" editorial board, and stated that the reason for the decision was that they participated in the editorial board of the "Rightist" publication "Square"; at the meeting At the scene, she said to Zhang Yuanxun, "I feel cheated!" On June 8, the People's Daily published an editorial "Why is this? ", accusing the "rightists" of challenging the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in the name of "helping the (Chinese) Communist Party in its rectification efforts."

In the autumn of 1957, she and Zhang Yuanxun were labeled as rightists; she swallowed a lot of sleeping pills and committed suicide, but was rescued in time and survived. As a result, she was identified as a "confrontation organization" with a "bad attitude", and was severely punished by the relevant authorities and sentenced to three years of reeducation through labor. She did not agree with the punishment, and went to the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China to ask questions, saying: "When Mr. Cai Yuanpei was the president of the University of Beijing (Beijing), he arrogantly went to the Beiyang warlord government to bail the 'May 4th' arrestees. The students who were arrested, and now they (referring to the leaders of the school at the time) sent the students in, where is their conscience?”

On December 25, 1957, Zhang Yuanxun was secretly arrested and sentenced to 8 years in prison. At that time, there were about 8,000 students at Peking University, of which about 1,500 teachers and students were classified as "rightists (elements)", many of whom were expelled from public office and school and sent to the desolate frontier areas of China, where it took more than 20 years for them to be rehabilitated. rehabilitated.

People's University

In June 1958, the journalism major of the Chinese Department of Peking University was merged into the Journalism Department of Renmin University of China (the then dean was An Gang, and the former dean of Peking University, Luo Lie, became the deputy dean of the department; Rightists”), she was then admitted to Renmin University of China under the leadership of Luo Lie. Later, because she was frail and sick at the time, Luo Lie took the risk to ask for forgiveness and help on her behalf; she was able to stay in the journalism reference room of Renmin University of China and accept the "supervision and transformation" of the masses. During this period of "supervised labor", she had a romantic relationship with Gan Cui (also classified as a "rightist"), a student of the school who was also on the "labor inspection" in the reference room; then, they applied for marriage, However, the leaders of the organization responsible for managing them, said that the move was "resistance to reform" and thus rejected the application. In September 1959, Gan Cui was sent to Xinjiang for reform through labor. In the winter of the same year, her condition worsened and she coughed up blood; she then asked the authorities to grant her leave and recuperate in Shanghai. In the spring of 1960, Wu Yuzhang, then president of Renmin University of China, approved the application, and her mother took her to Shanghai.

Arrested and jailed

first arrest

During her recuperation in Shanghai, she was influenced by the association culture in Jiangsu and Zhejiang at that time, and got acquainted with Gu Yan and Xu Cheng, graduate students from Lanzhou University. At that time, Zhang Chunyuan (student) of Lanzhou University and others were preparing to launch the "Spark" magazine to criticize the current social and political phenomena in China. Subsequently, her poems "Song of the Seagull" and "The Passion of Prometheus" were published in the first issue of "Spark". Soon, those involved in the editorial affairs of "Xinghuo" were all arrested by the relevant authorities. In October 1960, she was arrested and imprisoned.

In early 1962, she was granted medical parole by the authorities. In September of the same year, she discussed with Huang Zheng and others in Suzhou, and drafted the program and constitution of the "China Free Youth Fighting Alliance". During this period, she asked Arnold, a stateless expatriate in Shanghai, to bring "We Are Not Guilty" and "Letter to Lu Ping, President of Peking University", to be published outside China.

In the 1960s, her mother was baptized as a Christian; some church members would go to their home to discuss the content of the Bible. In 1963, she used the term "Monarchy" when writing; this record may prove that she was a believer at the time.

second arrest

In December 1962, she was again arrested by the authorities and imprisoned. In prison, she went on hunger strike and committed suicide many times, and wrote two letters to Ke Qingshi, the mayor of Shanghai at the time, and the People's Daily (the newspaper), etc., to reflect the case and express her political opinions, but no response was received. . According to her sister's recollection, because she could not get a pen and paper in prison, she often wrote on the sheets with blood. In addition, because of her refusal to obey the authorities in prison (contrary to her thoughts), she was deemed "badly behaved" by the prison guards, and she was often severely abused; There are so many tricks: one pair of handcuffs, two pairs of handcuffs, sometimes parallel, sometimes crossed, etc. There are still scars on the elbows, and the most cruel and unreasonable thing is: no matter what happens to me During the hunger strike, when my gastritis was excruciatingly painful, and even during my menstrual period, not only was the shackles never lifted for me, but it was never relieved!—for example, removing one of the two shackles for the time being.” On March 23, 1965, she began to write "Sue Humanity" in prison.

On May 31, 1965, she was tried in court and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She then wrote the Post-Judgment Statement; some excerpts follow:

...a shameful verdict, but I listened to it with pride! This is the enemy's evaluation of my personal combat behavior, and I sincerely feel the pride of the combatant! ...I should have done more to match your estimate! Other than that, this so-called judgment means nothing to me! I despise it! Watch it! The official verdict of the Court of History will soon be announced to posterity! You totalitarian rulers and deceitful traitors - gangsters, scoundrels, kleptocrats and thieves[e] will be not only true defendants but also prosecuted sinners! Righteousness shall prevail! for freedom! Lin Zhao's calendar June 1, 1965

On May 6, 1966, Zhang Yuanxun, her classmate at Peking University, came to Shanghai to visit her at Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai with her mother.

The Cultural Revolution was shot

After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, under the direct instruction and intervention of the central government, [source request] Lin Zhao was listed as a counter-revolutionary who should be executed. On April 29, 1968, after Lin Zhao received the verdict that the death sentence was commuted by the Shanghai Higher People's Court, he was immediately taken to Shanghai Longhua Airport for execution at the age of 36. On May 1, public security personnel came to Lin Zhao's mother's house and asked for 5 cents for bullets (the incident was mentioned in the article "The Trial of History", which reported the trial of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique cases in 1981).

One month after Lin Zhao was arrested, his father committed suicide by taking medicine; his mother became mentally ill, and later committed suicide on the Bund in Shanghai in 1975 because the hospital refused to receive treatment. Lin Zhao's younger brother, Peng Enhua, died on August 3, 2004 in Sandy, Utah, USA, at the age of 59. Lin Zhao's sister, Peng Lingfan, moved to the United States after 1980.

behind

acquittal

After the chaos and the reform and opening up, on August 22, 1980, the Shanghai Higher People's Court issued the "Hu Gao Xing Fu Zi No. 435" criminal judgment, revoking the 1962 Jing Xing Zi No. 171 issued by the Shanghai Jing'an District People's Court and the People's Liberation Army The Shanghai Municipal Public Procuratorate and Military Control Commission issued two judgments in 1967, Hu Zhong Xing Zi No. 16, declaring that Lin Zhao was acquitted on the grounds of mental illness, and concluded that "this was an unjust killing of innocent people";[6] and in January 1981 On the 25th, the Shanghai High Court's "Hu Gao Xing Shen Zi No. 2346" criminal judgment held that the reason for the 80-year verdict's acquittal was inappropriate mental illness, "the behavior during the onset of the disease should not be punished as a counter-revolutionary crime... Lin Zhao's behavior does not constitute a crime... The Hu Gao Xing Fu Zi No. 435 judgment is also inappropriate in the application of the law, and should be corrected together with the previous two judgments." The 1980 "Hu Gao Xing Fu Zi No. No. 435" Judgment, but still acquitted Lin Zhao, including the 1981 Hu Gao Xing Shen Zi No. 2346 Judgment.

post-century

On April 22, 2004, Lin Zhao's ashes were raised by the Sunan Journalism College and most of the teachers and students in the North to build a monument, and he was buried in the Anxi Cemetery in Lingyan Mountain, Mudu Town, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. The whereabouts of Lin Zhao's body are still unknown, and only a piece of Lin Zhao's clothes and a strand of hair remain in the tomb. The back of Lin Zhao's tombstone is engraved with the verse she wrote in 1964, "Freedom is priceless, life is boundless, I would rather be broken by jade than sacrificed to China."

In 2003, Chinese independent producer and former Xinhua News Agency reporter Hu Jie recorded video recordings of his personal visits to 80 people who knew Lin Zhao himself in the past five years. Looking for Lin Zhao's Soul"; its related interview "Looking for Lin Zhao" was published in "Freezing Point" on August 11, 2004. At the end of the year, due to the subject matter, and "rich in style, running through the beginning and the end", Zhang Yihe rated her as one of her favorites. After reading the best article describing Lin Zhao, he won the 2004 "Best Feature Award" from "Freezing Point" Weekly.

In 2005, the Independent Chinese PEN Association established the "Lin Zhao Memorial Award".

Lin Zhao's archives, including a large number of blood letters written in prison, were once opened in the 1980s, but were soon sealed again. In April 2009, the original archives of Lin Zhao were donated by his sister Peng Lingfan to the Library and Archives of the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and the electronic version of the archives was first published on October 26, 2009. The original files include blood letters in prison, open letters, private letters, and family photos. There is a catalogue of archives online, and an electronic version of the archives is available for research.

On December 16, 2012, netizens from all over the world held an event in front of Lin Zhao's tomb in Lingyan Mountain, Suzhou on December 16 to commemorate Lin Zhao's 80th birthday. According to the photos of the scene, more than a dozen national security guards in plainclothes monitored and videotaped the commemoration process of netizens.

On April 29, 2013, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of Lin Zhao's death, some people's worship of Lin Zhao was obstructed by local government personnel.

On April 28, 2016, the day before Lin Zhao's funeral, netizens and rights activists from all over China chose to come to the cemetery one day earlier to pay their respects to Lin Zhao in order to avoid government interference, but they were blocked by the police and arrested.

On April 28, 2019, Hunan citizen Tan Binglin and others went to Suzhou to commemorate Lin Zhao, but were stopped and repatriated at the exit of the railway station. Shanghai citizen Zhu Jinan and others who came to pay their respects at Lin Zhao's cemetery a few days earlier were also expelled by the police who were monitoring the vicinity of the cemetery. And Zhu Chengzhi, a Hunan citizen who worshipped Lin Zhao the previous year, was arrested by the Suzhou police on the charge of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" and has not been released.

Related works

books

Xu Juemin (ed.). In Search of Lin Zhao. Wuhan: Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House. Published in 2000, reprinted in 2004. ISBN 7-5354-1976-3.

Xu Juemin (ed.). "Lin Zhao, No Longer Forgotten". Wuhan: Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House. First edition in November 2000

Jiemin; Xu Juemin. Approaching Lin Zhao. Hong Kong: Ming Pao Publishing House. 2006

Fu Guoyong. "The Death of Lin Zhao: The Forty Years Memorial from 1932-1968". Hong Kong: Open Press. 2008

Huang Heqing. "Talking about Lin Zhao". Madrid. 2008

Zhao Rui. "The Holy Maiden on the Altar: The Biography of Lin Zhao". Taipei: Xiuwei Publishing. March 1, 2009

Gan Cui. "Remembering Lin Zhao". Washington DC: Laogai Foundation. 2009

Gan Cui. The Soul of Peking University: Lin Zhao and "June 4th". Taipei: Xiuwei Publishing. January 1, 2010

Blood letters : the untold story of Lin Zhao, a martyr in Mao's China Firstition. ISBN 978-1541644236.

The Book of Blood: Lin Zhao's Journey of Belief, Resistance and Martyrdom, Lian Xi, Taiwan Commercial Press, 2021-07-30, ISBN 9789570533347.

documentary

Director Hu Jie. "Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul" (DVD). Chinese Studies Service Center, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 2003

biopic

"Five-Cent Life" (Five-Cent Life), director: Liu Feibi, 2020.

musical work

Zhou Yunpeng. "Lin Zhao's Letter in Prison". 2015

Zhou Yunpeng. "April Elegy". 2015

Notes

Zhang Yuanxun said in an interview that Lin Zhao was born on December 16 of the lunar calendar in 1932, that is, January 23 of the Gregorian calendar.

Lin Zhao's date of birth remains in doubt. In 1964, in the indictment of the People's Procuratorate of Jing'an District, Shanghai, it was stated that Lin Zhao was 32 years old at the time, but Lin Zhao himself commented on this that "it should be 30 years old".

According to Hu Jie's research, Lin Zhao did not agree with Zhang Yuanxun's remarks and defended him. What she felt pained and couldn't understand was that some thoughtful and daring classmates were called "madmen" and "devils". During this period, she said in her diary: "Dang, you are our mother! The mother should know the child's mood best! Although the child is too extreme and says the wrong thing, how can you say that the child is hostile?"

Zhang Chunyuan, male, was labeled a "rightist" while studying at Lanzhou University, and in 1958 was sent to a remote village in Gansu to participate in cool labor. During the decentralization period, he and his right-wing classmates started the "Xinghuo" magazine by themselves. He was arrested on September 30, 1960, and was detained in the third prison of Gansu Province, which was specially designed to hold felons. In 1968, he was falsely accused of "conspiring to riot and escape from prison" and was sentenced to death.

references

Interview with Zhang Yuanxun, the "fiancé" of Saint Lin Zhao. Duowei News. 2013-11-16

Criminal Judgment of the Shanghai Municipal Public Procuratorate and Military Control Commission of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. 1968-04-19.

"Arrested":

The title of the stone is absolutely crazy, and the waves are sorrowful.

Lonely flying is tireless, and the seagulls are ashamed to float.

Colorful and red, it is difficult to render.

When he was good-looking, he recognized bloodstains.

Generously sing the city of Yan, and be a prisoner of Chu calmly.

Lead the knife into a quick, live up to the young man's head.

Keep the heart and soul, and pay the robbery ashes.

The cyan phosphorescence is not extinguished, and it shines on Yantai every night.

Qiu Yinfan. Prison Diary: The Last Days of Lin Zhao. 2013-03-07

The prison asked a Shanghai psychiatrist to diagnose Lin Zhao, who believed that he was not mentally ill

Peng Lingfan. The ins and outs of Lin Zhao's case file. Southern Weekend. 2013-11-14

Jiang Fei. The 41st Anniversary of Lin Zhao's Death: Some people will never be forgotten by history. Xinhuanet. August 11, 2004.

Biographical/Historical Note. The Online Archive of California. [2015-05-05].

Chen Weiss. The Death of Lin Zhao. Democracy and Legal System. 1981,

Moro. Lin Zhao chronology.

Zhang Yuanxun. The Past of Peking University and the Death of Lin Zhao. Celebrities Today (Hubei). 2000, (2)

why is that? . People's Daily. June 8, 1957

Xiaowen (ed.). Who is Lin Zhao? where are you from? Personal data Lin Zhao's case details are always. Future Network. 2013-04-29

Lin Zhao's Lover's Oral: Two Rightists Meet. 2010-01-25

Jiang Fei. Some people will never be forgotten, commemorating the 44th anniversary of Lin Zhao's death. China Youth Daily.

Fu Guoyong. [The Past] Reading Lin Zhao's 140,000-character book. Hangzhou: Southern Weekend. 2008-04-30

Zhang Min. An interview with Lin Zhao's sister Peng Lingfan. Radio Free Asia. 2008-04-29.

Zhang: When did you believe in the Lord Jesus after you went abroad, about what year? Peng: 1985. Soon after I came to America.

Peng Lingfan, sister of Lin Zhao. My sister Lin Zhao.

Every time my sister sends a letter, she always asks for a blank sheet. We are really puzzled. Only later did she find out that the white sheets she sent were all torn into strips to write the blood book. "..." When my sister was released on bail for treatment, we asked her why she wanted so many white sheets, and she hesitated. When we saw the blood-stained scars on her wrists, my mother immediately pulled up her sleeves, and her arms were full of small incision scars. My mother burst into tears: 'Why are you so mean to yourself? This is my blood too! '"

Lin Da. Lin Zhao is looking for us - After watching "Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul". [February 2009].

Tang Shizeng. In Memory of Lin Zhao. Looking at China.

Lei Lei; Li Chun; Liao Mei. "The No. 1 Prison in the Far East" and its 100-year-old visitor. Southern Weekend.

Luo Siling. Letters in Blood in Prison: Why the CCP Fears the Dead Lin Zhao. The New York Times Chinese Network. 2019-02-13

Mu Qing; Guo Chaoren; Lu Fuwei. The trial of history: Lin Zhao was killed during the Cultural Revolution and his mother was forced to pay 5 cents for bullets. Xinhuanet. Xinhua News Agency. April 29, 2013 [1981]

Among our acquaintances is such a comrade. This is a brave and innocent southern woman named Lin Zhao. She was imprisoned in Shanghai because of her unwillingness to succumb to the rage of modern superstitions. However, she insisted on keeping a diary, writing a blood letter and other forms to express her strong belief in the truth, willingly wearing the shackles of "stubbornness", and ending her young life prematurely. The details of her martyrdom have yet to be investigated. We only know this news: in the early morning of May 1, 1968, representatives of several "relevant parties" found her elderly mother and announced that Lin Zhao had died on April 2. Executed on the 19th. Since the "counter-revolutionary" spent one bullet, her family had to pay five cents for the bullet. This is really a creepy world anecdote! In the Middle Ages, prisoners sentenced to "burn at the stake" did not have to pay for firewood, and in modern bourgeois countries, prisoners executed by "electric chairs" never paid electricity bills. Only under the fascist rule of Lin and Jiang did people pay for Paying for your own death penalty is another "unprecedented" invention!

Mu Qing, Guo Chaoren, Lu Fu. The Trial of History. Beijing: Qunzhong Publishing House. 2000. ISBN 9787501422210.

According to page 1222 of the third volume of "Suzhou City Chronicle"

Edward Enhua Peng Obituary. Salt Lake Tribune. 2004-08-05 [2013-12-11].

Salt Lake Tribune, August 5-6, 2004.

Lin Zhao: Memories, Memorials and Research. Radio Free Asia. 2005-02-28

Chu Han. The spark ignited in the dark -- Commemorating the 45th anniversary of Lin Zhao's death. World Chinese Weekly. 2013-05-13

Zhang Yunruo. Looking for Lin Zhao under Lingyan Mountain. 2004-12 (Chinese).

Ding Zilin. Interpretation of Lin Zhao's Death. Ming Pao Monthly. July 2004.

Moruo. The Resurrection of the Holy Maiden Lin Zhao: The Difficult Process of Lin Zhao's Gradual Understanding and Interpretation After the Distress of Lin Zhao. "Social Science Forum". 2005, (10): 119-130

Jiang Fei. Looking for Lin Zhao. China Youth Daily. 2004-08-11

"Because writers speak freely" The first case in China in fifty years: Lin Zhao (1960). Independent Chinese PEN. [2014-09-02].

RFA Exclusive: The original manuscript of Lin Zhao's legacy was donated to Stanford University by his sister Peng Lingfan (Photos). Radio Free Asia.

Letters and diaries of Chinese political activist Lin Zhao opened at the Hoover Institution Archives. Hoover Institution. November 11, 2009

Inventory of the Lin Zhao papers. Online Archive of California. [2013-11-29].

Hai Yan. Netizens gather in Suzhou to commemorate the 80th birthday of citizen pioneer Lin Zhao. Voice of America. 2012-12-16

Guangdong lawyer Liu Shihui was beaten for worshipping Lin Zhao. BBC Chinese. [2013-04-29].

"The spirit of Lin Zhao expresses the pursuit of the abused Chinese". BBC Chinese. 2013-04-29

Lin Zhao's anniversary memorial day, netizens' funeral at Lingyan Mountain was blocked. Radio Free Asia. [2017-02-23].

Half a century after Lin Zhao was executed, authorities still fear her belief in freedom. Radio Free Asia. 2019-04-29

Interview with the director of Lin Zhao's biopic: Can't find Chinese-speaking actors. RFA. 2020-09-02

5-CENT LIFE. DWF:LA. [2020-09-03].

Blood Letters in Prison: Why the CCP Fears the Dead Lin Zhao

Luo Siling

February 13, 2019

Whether in that crazy era or in the history of contemporary Chinese thought, Lin Zhao was an outlier. In 1966, the Shanghai Labor Reform Bureau reported on Lin Zhao's sentence: "During his detention (Lin Zhao) used hairpins, bamboo papers, etc., to pierce the flesh hundreds of times, and wrote with blood. Hundreds of thousands of words of extremely reactionary, extremely vicious letters, notes and diaries... Openly slandering the socialist system is: 'a horrific system that robs everyone of everything as a human being.' 'It's a bloody totalitarian system.' She Describes himself as: 'Freedom fighters' and 'young rebels' against 'tyranny'.' Has systematically and viciously slandered the dictatorship of the proletariat and various political movements."

Last year, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Lin Zhao's death, Dr. Lian Xi, a professor at Duke University Divinity School, published a new English book, "Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Mao Zedong's China Martyr Lin Zhao." Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao's China) was published in the United States. In an article in the New York Review of Books , Ian Johnson called The Book of Blood "one of the most important books published in recent years on the struggle for human rights in the era of the Communist Revolution." . He pointed out that "Blood Book" is not only the first English biography about Lin Zhao, but also the most rigorously written book about Lin Zhao.

Lian Xi also discusses the role of religious belief in Lin Zhao's political struggle, writing:

"Her Christian faith made her strong in the struggle. At the same time, her faith restrained her resistance. ... She could not accept violence in this struggle." It seems: killing the Communist Party is not the best way to oppose or even eliminate the Communist Party.'"