Wang Shenyou was a graduate of Shanghai Normal University. Because of “reactionary thinking,” he was kept under supervised labor and was never assigned a job. In April 1977, he was executed for reactionary thoughts and speech. He was thirty-two years old.

In the spirit world, Wang Shenyou heard that the Jade Emperor was preparing to publicly try Mao Zedong and was collecting evidence of Mao’s crimes. He hurried to present his case.

The Jade Emperor asked, “Who are you? And why do you accuse Mao Zedong?”

The scholar replied, “My name is Wang Shenyou. I was executed for ‘reactionary thinking.’ Mine was a wrongful case.”

The Jade Emperor asked, “Were you purely a thought criminal? Or did you engage in counterrevolutionary propaganda, underground group activities, or have accomplices?”

Wang Shenyou said, “None of that. I did not spread anything among others, nor did I have a single accomplice. I was convicted solely on the basis of what I wrote in prison.”

The Jade Emperor said, “To execute you for that—China under Mao Zedong was truly lawless. Tell me everything from beginning to end. I want to see how ‘reactionary’ you really were.”

Wang Shenyou said, “My family fled famine in rural Henan and came to Shanghai. From childhood I loved the Party and the country. I loved reading and keeping a diary, writing late into the night in neat handwriting, recording whatever was in my heart. In 1962, at eighteen, I was admitted to the physics department of the teachers’ university. Because I often did not have enough to eat, I began to reflect on the reality of the country. In 1965, when our school participated in the ‘Four Cleanups’ campaign, I applied to join the Youth League. The League cadre demanded that I hand over my diary. I refused, but they secretly read it and labeled me ‘reactionary in thought.’ In 1966, when the Cultural Revolution began, big-character posters were put up exposing my ‘reactionary diary.’ My home was searched, I was placed under isolated investigation, and I was beaten in turns. In 1968, during the ‘Cleansing of Class Ranks,’ because I owned a transistor radio, they added the charge of ‘listening to enemy broadcasts.’ Together with my ‘reactionary diary,’ I was arrested and imprisoned. I was held for more than a year. After my release in 1970, I was finally allowed to graduate, but because my file recorded reactionary problems, I was not assigned work and was instead sent to a farm in northern Jiangsu for supervised labor.”

The Jade Emperor said, “After struggling eight years to graduate, wearing the label of ‘reactionary in thought,’ how could you teach students? When you were sent to the farm for labor, what did you do?”

Wang Shenyou replied, “If I wanted to win the right to study, I first had to leave my supervisors with nothing to criticize in my labor reform. I started work early, finished late, exerted great effort, and chose the heaviest and dirtiest tasks. I read Capital three times from beginning to end and studied the Collected Works of Marx and Engels up to volume thirteen. After reading these books, my vision gradually became clearer and sharper. I established a Marxist worldview to observe the world. I first reached a conclusion about the Cultural Revolution: it was not Marxism-Leninism at all, merely a signboard bearing its name. In 1972, I was transferred back to the university to work as a cleaner and also labored on the campus farm. Soon afterward, I was again labeled a ‘counterrevolutionary element’ and placed under supervised labor at the school.”

The Jade Emperor said, “You could no longer teach, only work as a cleaner, and with the additional label of ‘counterrevolutionary element,’ the burden grew heavier.”

Wang Shenyou said, “But I am human. In 1974, at twenty-nine, I hoped to marry. Someone introduced me to a woman, and our feelings gradually deepened, but the university security group interfered and ruined it. Later I had two more relationships, but each time the security group notified the other party that I was a ‘counterrevolutionary.’ Their families were afraid, and the relationships ended.”

The Jade Emperor said sympathetically, “It seems that for a ‘counterrevolutionary,’ marriage is difficult indeed. Could you not find someone who was also a ‘counterrevolutionary’? A matching status?”

Wang Shenyou said, “By 1976, I was thirty-one. I was introduced to a female factory worker. Our feelings grew deeper. I even asked her, ‘If I were imprisoned, would you bring me clothes?’ She expressed understanding. I begged the security group not to interfere and reported everything to them. Yet they still notified her family and factory, putting great pressure on them. Seeing the relationship about to collapse, I still held a glimmer of hope and wrote her a long letter explaining everything and declaring my feelings.”

The Jade Emperor asked, “Did you finish the letter? What happened?”

Wang Shenyou said, “On September 10, 1976, a Sunday, I got up early and went to the school’s civil defense rest room to finish the letter. I thought no one would come on a Sunday. Unexpectedly, an employee assigned to monitor me suddenly arrived and shouted, ‘What are you writing? Hand it over!’ Startled, I tore the letter to pieces, swallowing some fragments and throwing others into the sink. He rushed forward to seize them. The pieces I had not swallowed or that were not washed away were taken. He shouted, ‘Arrest the counterrevolutionary!’ The security group arrived and immediately detained me. They pieced together the torn fragments as a ‘counterrevolutionary black document.’ That same day I was transferred to the public security bureau and interrogated through the night.”

The Jade Emperor said, “The security group was truly relentless. Even writing a letter to your lover was difficult. After arresting you, what did they do?”

Wang Shenyou said, “They interrogated me for more than a month, even after the fall of the Gang of Four. On November 18, 1976, during an interrogation, they gave me a pen and a stack of paper and ordered me to rewrite in full the so-called ‘ten-thousand-character black document.’ That long letter was the crystallization of my long study of Marxism-Leninism and my reflections on social issues. From memory, over five days, I rewrote and expanded the original twenty-thousand-character letter into sixty thousand characters, expressing the same meaning more fully. I quoted extensively from Marx and Lenin. My writing flowed like a river; I wrote more than ten thousand characters a day and finished in five days.”

The Jade Emperor asked, “Those sixty thousand characters were the evidence used to convict you?”

Wang Shenyou replied, “Yes. That was the basis of my conviction.”

The Jade Emperor said, “And for that you were executed? What reactionary ideas did you express?”

Wang Shenyou said, “In those sixty thousand characters, I set forth my Marxist worldview, my views on Soviet history, Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution, and Mao Zedong. I took a negative stance toward the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Anti-Right-Deviation Campaign, and the Cultural Revolution. I evaluated Mao Zedong in a balanced way, arguing that the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Communes contained elements of utopian socialism. I raised the issue of Mao’s populism. I also argued that Chinese society must change, that commodity economy must be fully developed, that the country must no longer remain closed, and that foreign trade should be expanded.”

The Jade Emperor said, “You were so young, yet in prison you wrote theoretical and practical insights on many aspects. That is rare.”

Wang Shenyou said, “My criticisms of Mao were written clearly in those sixty thousand characters. They were later published, but not domestically—only in Hong Kong. I wrote: ‘Among six hundred million people, an unprecedented personality cult similar to that of feudal times has been cultivated. Never in history, ancient or modern, at home or abroad, has there been such a frenzied dictator. The more dictatorial he becomes, the more he promotes personal superstition and personality worship, the less he hears others’ voices, and the more isolated he becomes—now truly a time when all have turned away from him. To rule everything solely by Mao Zedong Thought, placing one man’s thought into the minds of hundreds of millions—this may be unprecedented and unparalleled.’”

The Jade Emperor said, “Your words strike at the heart.”

Wang Shenyou continued, “Another two sentences: ‘Once the Three Red Banners were raised, three years of hardship descended upon six hundred million people. The People’s Commune, a utopian form of society, is incompatible with Marx’s scientific socialism. Ten years earlier, Mao labeled more than 550,000 people as Rightists; the vast majority were upright and powerless individuals.’”

The Jade Emperor asked, “What did you write about the Cultural Revolution?”

Wang Shenyou said, “I wrote: ‘In toppling Liu and Deng, the Cultural Revolution set China back.’”

The Jade Emperor said, “To express such independent views during the Cultural Revolution and write them into sixty thousand characters—I have heard of no second person like you. It was a pity to execute you.”

Wang Shenyou said, “On April 27, 1977, I was taken to the Luwan District Stadium in Shanghai. At a mass sentencing rally of thirty thousand people, I heard my death sentence read for the first time. I was given no chance to defend myself and was immediately taken to the execution ground and shot.”

The Jade Emperor asked, “Were you later rehabilitated?”

Wang Shenyou said, “In 1979, the new Party secretary of the university, Shi Ping, began efforts to clear my name. After repeated reviews and approvals by the Shanghai municipal and district committees and the central authorities, nearly two years later, in April 1981, I was fully rehabilitated. The municipal Party secretary, Zhong Min, presided over a citywide meeting to announce it, calling me ‘studious and progressive, with ideals and aspirations—a good young man.’”

The Jade Emperor said, “Even rehabilitation was difficult.”

Wang Shenyou said, “I do not regret the destruction of my body; I am glad that my ideas remain. The problem is that my writings still cannot be published in China. If it is acknowledged that what I wrote was reasonable, why can it not be made available for public discussion? More than forty years have passed, yet my sixty thousand characters can only be published in Hong Kong; people in Shanghai cannot read them. I am perplexed and cannot rest in heaven. Even now, China still lacks freedom of thought and speech. The voices of intellectuals seeking justice continue to be suppressed. Mao’s successors follow his path. Mao did not repent of his crimes, and they commit crimes in the same way.”

The Jade Emperor said, “Mao’s case will be resolved in the great judgment. Wait patiently.”

Having received this promise, Wang Shenyou rose, took his leave, and gradually faded into the distance.

NEXT: 98. Wang Rongfen (1947 – ?)