Li Rui (politician)

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In this Chinese name, the family name is Li.
Li Rui
李锐
李锐口述往事.jpg
Member of the 12th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
In office
1982–1987
Vice Director of the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party
In office
1983–1984
Deputy Minister of Water Resources
In office
1955–1958
Personal details
Born(1917-04-13)April 13, 1917
Pingjiang County, Hunan, China
DiedFebruary 16, 2019(2019-02-16) (aged 101)
Beijing, China
Political partyCommunist Party of China
Spouse(s)Fan Yuanzhen (1940-1962)
Zhang Yuzhen (1979-2019)
Children3
Alma materWuhan University

Li Rui (simplified Chinese: 李锐; traditional Chinese: 李銳; pinyin: Lǐ Ruì; April 13, 1917 – February 16, 2019) was a Chinese politician, historian and internal dissident of the Communist Party. As a young student activist, he joined the communists in 1937, trekking on foot from his home in Hubei to Yan'an. By 1958, he had became the vice minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, the youngest vice-minister in the People's Republic of China at the time. His vocal opposition to the Three Gorges Dam brought him to the attention of Mao Zedong. Mao, impressed by Li, made Li his personal secretary for industrial affairs.

However, Li was known for his independence of thought, and after proving willing to openly defy Mao at the 1959 Lushan Conference, he was stripped of his party membership and sent to a prison camp, beginning nearly twenty years of political exile. Denounced by his family for anti-Mao activities during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Li spent eight years in solitary confinement at the Qincheng Prison.

After Mao's death, Li's party membership was restored and he regained an influential position in the party. But after only a few years, his unwillingness to give preference to the children of influential party members cost him his position. From the mid-1980s, shut out of formal power, Li wrote and commentated extensively, advocating reform in China and calling for freedom of speech, the press, and democracy within a socialist framework. He also was known as a historian, writing five books on Mao and early Communist Party history. Li remained a party member until his death, respected but isolated; his views were formally denounced and several of his books were officially banned in Mainland China. He died in 2019, aged 101. He was described by The Guardian as living a life "that [was] filled with rebellions, often at great personal cost, against those who abused their power."[1]

Early life[]

Li Rui was born Li Housheng in Pingjiang County, Hunan Province in April 1917, to a wealthy family.[2][3][4] His father had been a member of the Tongmenghui, an anti-imperial revolutionary party, but died in 1922, when Li was only five.[3] While a high schooler, living in Hubei, Li protested against warlordism.[1] In 1934, he enrolled in Wuhan University, studying mechanical engineering.[5] As a student, he participated in the movement against Japan, then occupying China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[1]

Political career[]

Black and white head-and-shoulders studio portrait photo of Li looking at the camera
Li in 1945 while secretary to Chen Yun

Young Communist activist[]

Li secretly joined the Communist Party in February 1937.[2][6] A dedicated activist, he was jailed by the Republic of China's Kuomintang government for communist activities.[6] He trekked on foot to the Communist base in Yan'an in the late 1930s - upon his departure, his mother had said to him: "The Communists are good, but you might get killed."[6] Serving as a writer for the Communist newsletter Liberation, he proved so willing to criticize fellow communists that he was imprisoned for a year as a suspected spy.[6][7]

From December 1939, he led the propaganda branch of the party's Central Youth Working Committee Propaganda Department. He became the editor of domestic commentary of the Jiefang Daily in September 1941 and later the newspaper's head of the liberation area's commentary unit.[2] He served as a secretary to Chen Yun, who would later be an architect of China's economic reform under Deng Xiaoping.[8]

In 1945 he was made the secretary to Gao Gang, a post which he held until 1947.[5] In October 1952, after the Communist victory in China's civil war, Li became a part of the Ministry of Water Resources.[2] By 1958, he had risen to become its deputy head, the youngest vice-minister in China.[3][6] He attracted the attention of Mao Zedong through his passionate opposition to the building of the Three Gorges Dam - Mao invited him to Beijing to argue on the issue, and was impressed by Li's passion and intelligence.[3]

Secretary for Mao, labor camp, and exile[]

Mao hired Li as his personal secretary for industrial affairs,[6] giving him access to the inner circle of China’s ruling elite, but his criticisms of the Great Leap Forward and support for Peng Dehuai led to his denunciation and exile.[9]:364​ At a 1959 meeting in Lushan, China, Li insisted on criticizing Mao's views, and was branded an anti-Maoist conspirator.[3] Li later declared that Mao was dismissive of the suffering and death caused by his policies: "Mao's way of thinking and governing was terrifying. He put no value on human life. The deaths of others meant nothing to him".[7][1]

Li was then denounced as an anti-party element and was sent to a penal camp close to the Soviet Union. He came close to starving, but was saved by a transfer to a more survivable camp arranged by outside friends.[3] Stripped of his party membership, Li was offered release if he was willing to renounce his criticisms of Mao, but declined to do so.[3] Released in 1961, Li returned to Beijing, where his wife divorced and denounced him.[3] His daughter, Li Nanyang, became estranged from him after reporting anti-Mao remarks he had made in private.[3] He was sent to teach at a small school in the mountains, exiling him from political processes.[3]

In 1966, Mao's Cultural Revolution began, and Li was asked to denounce his old colleagues among Mao's private secretaries. Refusing to do so, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement at the Qincheng Prison.[3][8] Li maintained his grip on sanity by writing poetry in the margins of Communist books using iodine absconded from the prison's medical facilities.[3] Li was released in 1975 and sent back to his internal exile, returning to teaching at the same school in the mountains.[3]

Return to prominence[]

However, after Mao's death in 1976 and the emergence of Deng Xiaoping, Li regained his party membership.[3] In 1982, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Party, and in 1983 became vice director of the Organization Department of the Communist Party, an influential role focused on the promotion, demotion, and recruitment of senior officials in the party.[8][10] However, in 1984, he was forced to resign from this role after being unwilling to "give special preference to the offspring of senior officials," according to the New York Times.[3][10] Li continued to oppose construction of the Three Gorges Dam dam throughout the 1980s, working with environmentalist Dai Qing.[3] In 1989, Li personally witnessed the violent crackdown in the Muxidi neighborhood of Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests, strengthening his opposition to the party's authoritarian wing.[1][11] He was an ally of prominent reformists such as Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang.[8]

Party elder, historian, and dissident[]

Whenever there's a clash between the party and humanity, I insist on humanity.

Li Rui, interviewed by the BBC at age 100 in 2017[12]

Officially retiring in June 1995 at age 78,[2] Li became known as a party elder and historian of Mao, writing five works on Mao's life and history in the party.[3][6] His works did not hesitate to criticize Mao or contemporary party leaders. Considered the "veteran liberal member" of the Communist Party, according to The Economist, Li argued for free speech, freedom of the press, and democracy within a socialist framework.[6][13] Described as a thorn in the side of the Communist Party's autocratic leaders (his personal name, Rui 锐, means sharp in Chinese), his views were secretly but officially denounced as subversive in 2013.[6]

At the 16th Communist Party Congress in 2002, Li wrote an open letter to Party Secretary Hu Jintao on political reform of the Communist Party. In the letter, Li argued that constitutionalism would lead the Communist Party away from political mishaps such as the Anti-Rightist Movement, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.[14]

In November 2004, the party's Propaganda Department banned Li from being published in the media.[15] His books on Mao were censored and banned in Mainland China.[6] In 2006, he was a lead signatory to an open letter condemning the state's closure of the investigative newspaper Freezing Point.[16] Ahead of the 17th Communist Party Congress in 2007, Li and retired academic Xie Tao published articles calling for the Communist Party to become a European-style socialist party, remarks that were condemned by the party propaganda apparatus.[17] In October 2010, Li was the lead signatory to an open letter to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, calling for greater press freedom.[18][19] Before every quinquennial party congress, Li wrote to fellow senior party members, advocating political reform. In 2017, Li failed to attend the 19th Party Congress, which was seen as an act of defiance against Xi Jinping's elevation above collective leadership.[8] Having devoted his life to the Communist Party, Li never considered leaving it, but wrote in a poem of its modern "arrogance, ignorance, shamelessness, lawlessness."[3][6]

Personal life[]

Li was married to his first wife, Fan Yuanzhen, for twenty-two years, from 1940 to 1962; they had two daughters (including Li Nanyang) and a son.[3][20] Fan died in 2008.[20] His second wife (and later widow) was Zhang Yuzhen; they were married in 1979.[21][22] Li and his daughter became estranged after she denounced him as an enemy of the party during his fall from power in the 1960s. However, partially through her efforts in the late 1970s, he was returned from exile and restored to his former rank and the two were reconciled.[23]

As he aged, Li retained his mental sharpness. He was allowed to maintain his privileges as a senior party member, such as better medical treatment, and his apartment in "Minister's House", a building reserved for venerated party retirees.[1][24] Li kept a diary continuously from 1935 until 2018, which is now held by the Hoover Institution in California. The diary, along with Li's other papers, was the subject of a lawsuit in 2019.[11]

Death and funeral[]

Li died of organ failure in Beijing on February 16, 2019, aged 101.[3][25] As a senior and early member of the Communist Party, Li was given a state funeral and buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, despite his wish to have been buried with his parents in Hunan, his home province.[6] News of his death was limited by official censorship, and his funeral was "conducted with secrecy and security," wrote the South China Morning Post.[22] Despite the restrictions, the funeral attracted hundreds of mourners, ranging from ordinary Chinese citizens to those few still living among his old colleagues and fellow revolutionaries.[21] Notwithstanding his fervent opposition to their policies, both of China's leaders, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, sent wreaths.[21]

Publications[]

  • (1989) Lushan Huiyi Shilu (庐山 会议 实录) English translation: Records of the Lushan Conference, ISBN 7506901994
  • (1998), Li Rui Ri Ji, Chu Fang Juan (李锐日记. 出访卷) English translation: The Diary of Li Rui, Visiting Papers, ISBN 7506314975
  • (1998), Zhi Yan: Li Rui Liu Shi Nian Di You Yu Si (直言: 李锐六十年的忧与思) English translation: To Put It Bluntly: Li Rui's Sixty Years of Worries and Thoughts, ISBN 9787507209440
  • (1998), Li Rui Shi Wen Zi Xuan Ji (李锐诗文自选集) English translation: Collection of Poems, ISBN 7505931369
  • (1999) Li Rui Wen Ji. Juan 1, Lushan Hui Yi Zhen Mian Mu, (李锐文集. 卷一, 庐山会议真面目) English translation: The Collected Works of Li Rui, Volume One: The True Faces of the Lushan Conference, ISBN 7806096736
  • (1999) Li Rui Wen Ji. Juan 2, Mao Zedong Di Wan Nian Bei Ju, (李锐文集. 卷二, 毛泽东的晚年悲剧) English translation: The Collected Works of Li Rui, Volume Two: The Tragedy of Mao Zedong's Later Years, ISBN 7806096736
  • (1999) Li Rui Wen Ji. Juan 3, "Da Yue Jin" Qin Li Ji, (李锐文集. 卷三, 《大跃进》亲历记) English translation: The Collected Works of Li Rui, Volume Three: My Experience of "The Great Leap Forward", ISBN 7806096736
  • (2005) Li Rui Tan Mao Ze Dong, (李锐谈毛泽东) English translation: Li Rui on Mao Zedong, ISBN 988-98282-2-7
  • (2009) San Shi Sui Yi Qian De Mao Ze Dong, (三十岁以前的毛泽东) English translation: Mao Zedong Before The Age of Thirty, ISBN 9787218015767
  • (2014) Mao Zedong: Zheng Rong Sui Yue (1893-1923), (毛泽东 : 峥嵘岁月(1893-1923)) English translation: Mao Zedong: Prosperous Years (1893-1923), ISBN 7550220581
  • (2015) Mao Ze Dong Zao Nian Du Shu Sheng Huo, (毛泽东早年读书生活) English translation: Mao Zedong's Early Reading Life, ISBN 7547033822

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Watts, Jonathan (June 1, 2005). "China must confront dark past, says Mao confidant". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 17, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Cheng, Lan, ed. (February 28, 2019). "Li Rui tongzhi shishi" 李锐同志逝世 [Comrade Li Rui dies]. Xinhuanet (in Chinese). Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Johnson, Ian (February 15, 2019). "Li Rui, a Mao Confidant Who Turned Party Critic, Dies at 101". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 16, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  4. ^ Xinhua (February 28, 2019). "Former Party official Li Rui passes away". China Daily. Archived from the original on October 9, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Song, Yuwu (2013). Biographical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 180. ISBN 9781476602981.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l "Obituary: Li Rui died on February 16th". The Economist. March 2, 2019. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on March 11, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b "Interviews in 'Morning Sun': Intergenerational and family stories". Morning Sun (film). Long Bow Group. 2003. Archived from the original on September 7, 2015. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Huang, Cary; Mai, Jun (February 16, 2019). "Mao's personal secretary and biggest critic Li Rui dies at 101". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on August 11, 2021. Retrieved August 11, 2021.
  9. ^ Sullivan, Lawrence R. (2016). Historical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China. London: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442264687.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b Sullivan, Lawrence (2011). Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Communist Party. Scarecrow Press. p. 159.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Rui, Guo (April 25, 2019). "Widow of Mao's secretary demands return of diaries from US". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  12. ^ Grace, Carrie (April 13, 2017). "China's extraordinary red rebel turns 100". BBC News. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  13. ^ Buckley, Chris (January 8, 2003). "Retired Aide To Mao Calls For Progress To Democracy". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  14. ^ Zheng, Yongnian (2009). The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor: Culture, Reproduction, and Transformation. Abingdon. ISBN 9781135190910.
  15. ^ Volland, Nicolai (May 16, 2014). "Fifty Influential Public Intellectuals". Heidelberg University. Archived from the original on February 16, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  16. ^ "Party elders attack China censors". BBC News. February 14, 2006. Archived from the original on December 16, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  17. ^ Lam, Willy (October 11, 2007). "Hu Jintao Battles the CCP's Crisis of Confidence". Jamestown Foundation. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.
  18. ^ Chinese Cadres Say ‘Black Hands’ Choke Wen’s Political Reforms Archived August 13, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, Business Week, October 13, 2010
  19. ^ "Open letter from ex party officials calls for end to media censorship in China". South China Morning Post. October 13, 2010. Archived from the original on October 19, 2010. Retrieved February 16, 2019 – via Phayul.com.
  20. ^ Jump up to: a b Li, Rui; 李锐 (2008). Fu mu zuo ri shu (1938-1949) : Li Rui, Fan Yuanzhen tong xin ji. Yuanzhen Fan, Nanyang Li, 范元甄, 李南央 (Di 1 ban ed.). Guangzhou: Guangdong ren min chu ban she. ISBN 978-7-218-06073-6. OCLC 421522811.
  21. ^ Jump up to: a b c Buckley, Chris (February 20, 2019). "In Beijing, a Communist Funeral for an Inconvenient Critic". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  22. ^ Jump up to: a b Mai, Jun (February 20, 2019). "In death as in life, Li Rui makes China's Communists uncomfortable". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  23. ^ Gracie, Carrie (April 13, 2017). "Li Rui: China's red rebel turns 100". BBC News. Archived from the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  24. ^ Kuo, Lily (February 18, 2019). "Daughter of Mao Zedong's personal secretary boycotts funeral". The Guardian. Beijing. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
  25. ^ "Mao Zedong qian mishu Li Rui guoshi shangnian 101 sui" 毛泽东前秘书李锐过世 享年101岁 [Mao Zedong's former secretary Li Rui dies aged 101]. Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese). February 16, 2019. Archived from the original on February 16, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.

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