One day, the Jade Emperor heard that someone named Wang Rongfen wished to report to him the persecution she suffered after writing a letter to Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution. Normally, people like this had already been smashed to pieces by the iron fist of proletarian dictatorship during the Cultural Revolution. Unexpectedly, there was still a survivor.

The Jade Emperor immediately summoned her.

He asked, “What kind of letter did you write to Mao Zedong?”

Wang Rongfen took out the documents she had brought, drew out a sheet of paper, and read:

“Respected Chairman Mao Zedong: Please, in the name of a Communist Party member, think about what you are doing. Please, in the name of the Party, think about what everything happening before our eyes means. Please, in the name of the Chinese people, think about where you are leading China. The Cultural Revolution is not a mass movement; it is one person using the barrel of a gun to mobilize the masses. I solemnly declare that, from this day forward, I withdraw from the Communist Youth League of China. With respectful salutations! Wang Rongfen, student of Class 1, Fourth Year, German major, Department of East European Languages, Beijing Foreign Languages Institute. September 24, 1966.”

After listening carefully, the Jade Emperor said, “I don’t hear anything here that directly opposes Mao Zedong. The most critical point is merely that you said Mao used the gun barrel to mobilize the masses—that’s simply stating the fact. Mao did indeed put on a military uniform to mobilize the masses; that’s not wrong. And the other point, questioning where he was leading China—very thoughtful indeed.”

He then asked her, “What prompted you to write such a letter with such determination?”

Wang Rongfen said: “I remember August 18, 1966. Mao and Lin Biao reviewed hundreds of thousands of Red Guards in Beijing. The Red Guard representative Song Binbin presented Mao with a Red Guard armband. After putting it on, Mao said they should not be ‘gentle and refined,’ but ‘be militant.’ Amid the thunderous shouts of ‘Long live!’ from a million voices, Mao raised the arm wearing the armband and shouted, ‘Long live the Red Guards!’

Who was Song Binbin? She was one of the rebel leaders at the Girls’ Middle School Attached to Beijing Normal University. On August 5, the rebels beat Vice Principal Bian Zhongyun to death with nail-studded belts. Mao gave Song Binbin the new name ‘Yao Wu’ (meaning ‘want militancy’), and on August 20, the People’s Daily published a signed article by Song Yaowu titled ‘I Put the Red Armband on Chairman Mao.’

After the Red Guards were instructed to ‘be militant,’ a frenzy of killing began. According to statistics from the Beijing Public Security Bureau, in the forty days from August 20 to the end of September, 1,772 well-known figures and teachers in Beijing were beaten to death—an average of forty-four people per day—under the brass-buckled belts of the Red Guards.

At my school, Beijing No. 101 Middle School, in August alone, three teachers who had taught me were beaten to death by Red Guards. Starting from August 18, Mao Zedong linked state violence with Red Guard violence and declared war on 800 million Chinese people. Red terror began across the country.

On that day in the square, some people picked up quite a few gold bars that had been confiscated by the Red Guards during house raids. When they cheered and jumped for Mao Zedong, the gold bars fell out of their pockets onto the ground. It shows that the Red Guards were not only violent actors but also criminal offenders.

Seeing all this aroused my righteous indignation. It was this indignation that compelled me to write that letter to Mao Zedong.”

The Jade Emperor found her reasoning sound and asked, “How did you send the letter, and what happened afterward?”

Wang Rongfen said: “I held the letter in my hand and solemnly walked to the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square, respectfully gazed at the martyrs, then went to the post office, bought stamps, affixed them, and mailed the letters—six identical copies in total.

Then I went to the Wangfujing pharmacy and bought four bottles of dichlorvos pesticide. Carrying another letter with the same content written in German, I set off eastward. Near the Soviet Embassy, after measuring the distance, I began drinking the bottles one by one. I thought: so many teachers have been beaten to death—what is my little life worth? They would be the first to discover my body; the news would spread that I had resisted the Cultural Revolution with my death, and it would reach the whole world.

After finishing the pesticide, I lost consciousness and collapsed. I do not know what happened next. When I awoke, I found myself lying in a Public Security hospital.”

The Jade Emperor said, “So in this way, you failed to become a martyr and instead went to prison. How did you endure thirteen years there?”

Wang Rongfen replied: “Actually, it was twelve and a half years. The first two years in Beijing were relatively bearable. I wasn’t tortured, but the cell was damp and dark, the windows never opened all year, the blankets were covered in green mold, and we were allowed outside only once a month. My joints soon swelled badly—I couldn’t stand, only hobble with a stick.

Then came ten years in Shanxi. The interrogators there—I can hardly praise them. They seemed barely educated. Their focus was to dig for someone behind me who had instigated my ‘crime.’ I was only nineteen—who could have directed me? They wanted me to name at least a teacher.

They made me list everyone I had known since childhood. At first I refused; later I simply wrote several hundred names. They asked, ‘Among these, who influenced you most?’ I replied, ‘I think I influenced them more.’ They said I was being stubborn and interrogated me day and night.

Once I blurted out, ‘I remember now—it was a foreigner.’ They were overjoyed. ‘Which country? What’s his name? Write it on the blackboard!’ I turned and wrote: ‘Russia, Rakhmetov.’ They asked, ‘Is he still at the Foreign Languages Institute?’ Soon they realized they had been tricked and tortured me.

Because of my ‘troublemaking,’ I was tortured many times. This time they used small shackles forged in a blacksmith’s shop, locking my hands behind my back with a large padlock. I wore them more than once; the longest was half a year.

That time it was because a faction leader in Shanxi had slipped me a note through a hole in the cave dwelling wall, asking me to report his grievance to the central authorities after my release. I had read the note and kept it on me. When a guard found it before I could destroy it, I snatched it back and stuffed it into my mouth. He grabbed my throat and shouted, ‘Spit it out!’ Three or four other male guards rushed over, pinning me down, choking me, trying to force my mouth open. I clenched my teeth, so they brought pliers and clamped both sides of my mouth. The teeth missing on both sides now were torn out that time. I felt as if I had died, yet they forced my mouth open. The moment it opened, I gulped air and swallowed the note. My mouth was full of blood; I spat it all over them. I lost control of my bowels.

They were extremely brutal. When I recovered, I cursed them, and they put the shackles on again and added forty jin of leg irons—two and a half loops locked around my ankles, grinding the flesh raw. I could hardly walk, but I dared not refuse; no matter the pain, I had to stand and walk.

With my hands cuffed behind me, I couldn’t manage my menstrual flow for months; it soaked my body. They would throw me a coarse cornbread bun, and I would roll on the ground to eat it. Like an animal, I rubbed myself against the bricks.

Later, the prison doctor examined me and said I wouldn’t live much longer and that they should decide what to do. They removed the shackles—but they couldn’t unlock them; the lock had rusted. They had to saw it off. The cuffs were stuck to flesh and were thrown onto the stove. I could even hear the sizzling sound of oil burning on hot iron. Look at this hand—it still cannot be raised.”

The Jade Emperor felt deep sympathy and said, “Such cruelty to a woman! How did you finally leave prison?”

Wang Rongfen said: “September 9, 1976—Mao died. After his death, bits of news filtered in. When family visits were permitted, my mother came and quietly told me my case might soon be concluded as a ‘wrongful case.’ She warned me to be cautious and not say anything further.

My mother suffered greatly for me. When Wu De was in power in Beijing, not a whisper leaked out. My mother said, ‘I’ll risk it—I’m an old woman, what do I have to fear?’ She sat at the court gate every day; even when kicked and beaten, she wouldn’t leave. Later she developed cataracts and went blind in both eyes; her hair turned completely white. My brother once supported her on a visit to Yuci.

My brother hoped I would settle matters quickly, feared I would cause more trouble, and urged me to confess and seek leniency. I flared up and said I had committed no crime. A guard said to my mother, ‘See how arrogant your daughter is? Do you know what sentence she has? Life imprisonment! Do you know what that means? Her head is barely hanging on her shoulders! If the sentence is increased, do you know what it could become?’ My mother was so frightened she knelt down.

Not until March 1979 did my mother and two judges from the Beijing Intermediate Court come to Yuci to rectify my case. At my release, they read the verdict: ‘Acting out of proletarian indignation against Lin Biao and the Gang of Four.’ I immediately said, ‘I did not oppose the Gang of Four.’ They had added that themselves.

My mother brought me back to Beijing. I was free. I was already thirty-two. I only wanted to find some books and sort through the thoughts I had accumulated over those twelve years.”

In the end, Wang Rongfen said: “I know that many young people who protested as I did perished. I am one of the very few survivors. I always remember the countless victims and the wronged dead. I will continue to do what I can to speak for their souls, so as not to betray my conscience.”

The Jade Emperor replied, “That is precisely what I intend to do. Thank you for this information. It will serve as valuable material in judging Mao.”

Upon hearing his promise, Wang Rongfen said no more. She rose, took her leave, and departed.

NEXT: 99. Fang Zhongmou (1926–1970)