Throughout history, both tyrants and enlightened rulers have appeared in the chronicles of China and the world. In China, King Zhou of Shang, King Li of Zhou, King You of Zhou, and Qin Shi Huang stand as representative figures who inaugurated cruel and autocratic rule. Even to this day, China’s tradition of despotism remains deeply entrenched.

As for foreign tyrants, I do not presume to possess the learning required to comment fully upon them. Yet having witnessed the entire course of the Soviet Communist Party from its zenith to its collapse, and having personally experienced the catastrophic disasters wrought in China by Mao Zedong’s application of the authoritarian model constructed by Lenin and Stalin, who among us has not awakened?

With the defeat of German fascism and the relatively peaceful dissolution of the Soviet bloc, humanity confirmed the precious value of democratic, free, and equal political civilization. Brutal despotism has come to be widely despised. This has been a century-long holy struggle of humanity against dark tyranny—a struggle paid for at tremendous cost. In that decisive contest, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Chiang Kai-shek stood as champions of civilization, while Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini were reviled as tyrannical scoundrels. Civilization triumphed over violence; such a sacred struggle had never before been seen in human history.

Yet the holy struggle is not finished. What today remains the final purgatory before humanity steps into the full splendor of civilized society? Mao Zedong embodied hypocrisy, cruelty, obscenity, lawlessness, faithlessness, evasion of responsibility, vindictiveness, cunning, persecution of colleagues, reckless falsehood, and betrayal for personal gain. From 1940 to 1976, from seizing power through deception to unleashing the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution, he overturned vast China into a fascist state. The people were plunged into misery; the land was filled with lamentation. Education and culture were utterly destroyed; morality decayed.

Alas, my magnificent homeland was transformed into a grim Bastille! When the Bastille in France was stormed, only a handful of prisoners were held there. Yet across the vast land of China, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience were beyond count—though those in power brazenly denied their very existence. China itself became a Bastille, more of a Bastille than the Bastille of France.

To dismantle the despotic fascist power imposed upon China by Mao must surely mark the complete global victory of democracy, freedom, and civilization. It would signify humanity’s final eradication of fascist purgatory—a triumph worthy of record in history.

Mao Zedong stands as the chief culprit in Chinese history, his crimes too numerous to record. Those who strive to preserve his prestige and conceal his evils are merely beneficiaries of dictatorship, clinging foolishly to power. Those who dare to expose Mao Zedong’s ugly face and sordid soul perform a righteous act—an awakening marked by wisdom, courage, and moral integrity.

At the dawn of national awakening, spiritual redemption, and moral reconstruction, Mao’s personal physician, Li Zhisui, published a book that swept across the world, trampling the bandit chieftain Mao beneath its pages and sounding one of the first clarion calls against him. Though Li died under mysterious circumstances, his name and memoir will endure.

Now, after long years of searching and collecting materials, Zhong Wen has assembled many little-known historical facts about Mao Zedong. With plain and unadorned prose, almost like ink-wash sketches, he has composed a new work. It is a compendium of historical facts, blending documentation, commentary, imaginative prosecution, and even a fictionalized self-repentance of Mao Zedong himself. It is highly readable.

To retrieve truths from the vast sea of history is no small achievement. This book is a powerful hammer striking against the high walls of Mao Zedong’s infernal edifice.

NEXT: Preface IV: Mao Zedong in My Eyes — A Preface to The Trial of Mao Zedong