The second to present her grievance before the Jade Emperor was Lin Zhao. She came draped in a garment stained with blood.

The Jade Emperor asked, “You are Lin Zhao?”

The woman replied, “I am. But my original surname was Peng. Because I wished to draw a clear line between myself and my father, who was a Kuomintang county magistrate, I changed my surname to Lin.”

The Jade Emperor asked again, “The blood-stained garment you are wearing now—are these the writings in blood you composed in prison?”

Lin Zhao said: “Yes. In prison I had no pen or paper. They were confiscated so that I could no longer carry out ‘reactionary propaganda.’ The Communist prisons were ten times worse than the Kuomintang fascists; in Kuomintang prisons one could still read and write. I tore bedsheets into pieces, bit my finger, and used blood to write. But I was physically weak and did not have much blood. I could only write a little each day, and then continue the next.”

The Jade Emperor looked closely at her blood-stained garment. On it were written:

“The verdict of the court of history will soon be proclaimed to posterity: totalitarian rulers, thieves who usurp the nation and bring calamity upon the people, are criminals. Justice shall prevail!”

All of it was written against Mao Zedong. The Jade Emperor asked, “In what year and how did you die?”

Lin Zhao answered simply: “I was imprisoned in Shanghai’s Tilanqiao Prison in 1962 and executed by gunshot in 1968.”

The Jade Emperor asked, “What is the full story of your life?”

Lin Zhao said: “It is a long story. I was born in 1932, originally named Peng Lingzhao, a native of Suzhou. My father had studied in Britain in his early years, majoring in political economy. In 1928, he placed first in the county magistrate examination held by the Nationalist government and was appointed magistrate of Wu County, Suzhou. My mother served as general manager of the Dahua Daily in Suzhou. She supported the Chinese Communist Party, secretly donated to it, and established underground radio stations. She was once arrested by the Japanese. In 1946, during the National Assembly elections held by the Nationalists, my mother was elected as a representative. My parents often quarreled over what kind of political values they should teach me. My maternal uncle was Youth Minister of the Jiangsu Provincial Communist Party Committee and was executed by the Nationalists during the April 12, 1927 incident, his body thrown into the Yangtze River.

“During middle school, influenced by my mother, I was filled with enthusiasm for the Communist revolution. After graduating from high school, despite my father’s opposition, in 1949 I was admitted to the ‘cradle of revolution,’ the Southern Jiangsu Journalism School. I resolved to ‘have no contact with my family in life, nor observe mourning in death,’ and devoted myself to the revolution. I even fabricated accusations against my own father. I have always felt uneasy about this. They pressed me—whether I died in a well or in a river, it made no difference—and forced me to write things I myself did not understand.

“After graduating from journalism school, I joined rural land reform work in southern Jiangsu. Beginning in 1952, I worked for the Changzhou People’s Daily and the Changzhou Federation of Literary and Art Circles. In the land reform teams I witnessed that, in order to make peasants feel the authority and power of the Party, landlords were placed in water vats in winter and frozen through the night, howling. This was called ‘cruel exhilaration.’ Only through such struggle, they said, could one demonstrate determination and crush the landlords’ prestige. In order to draw a clear line from my Kuomintang father, I abandoned my paternal surname and changed my name to Lin Zhao.”

The Jade Emperor remarked, “It seems your revolutionary resolve was immense—you even changed your father’s surname on your own. What happened later?”

Lin Zhao continued: “In 1954, I was admitted to the Chinese Department of Peking University with the top score in Jiangsu Province, majoring in journalism, determined to become the finest journalist of Mao Zedong’s era. I read voraciously; classmates often saw me carrying armfuls of thread-bound books from the library. But I gradually observed that reality was not as beautiful as I had imagined. I felt caught in ‘a paste of love and hate.’ In the relatively free academic atmosphere of Peking University, I began to grow and to think. When I reflected upon having once denounced my own parents’ ‘crimes,’ I wept in anguish and wrote to my mother swearing: ‘In the future, I would rather die in a river or a well than ever again speak against my conscience!’

“Because of my diligence and thoughtfulness, I won the praise of professors. I became an editor of the university journal, responsible for the supplement Weiming Lake. In 1955, I also became an editor of Peking University Poetry. In 1956, I joined the editorial board of Honglou and was called ‘Miss Lin of the Red Chamber.’

“On May 19, 1957, Zhang Yuanxun and others responded to the Party Center’s call to ‘let a hundred flowers bloom’ and posted a big-character poster titled It Is Time!. Students debated among themselves. Some said these were rightist remarks and counterrevolutionary incitement. I opposed such exaggerated labeling. On June 8, the People’s Daily published the editorial What Is This For?, branding those who offered criticisms as rightists attacking the Party.”

The Jade Emperor said, “At that time Mao feared rightists opposing Party leadership. He deliberately set a trap—‘luring the snake from its hole’—to catch them all at once. Officially it was said that 550,000 were seized nationwide, but in reality it was far more—at least three million.”

Lin Zhao said: “In the autumn of 1957, Zhang Yuanxun and I were labeled rightists. I swallowed a large quantity of sleeping pills in a suicide attempt but was saved. I was judged to be resisting the organization and to have a ‘bad attitude,’ and my punishment was increased to three years of reeducation through labor. I protested and went to the Communist Youth League Central Committee, asking: ‘When Cai Yuanpei was president of Peking University, he bravely went to the Beiyang government to bail out students arrested in the May Fourth Movement. Now the leaders of Peking University send students to prison. Where is their conscience?’

“On December 25, 1957, Zhang Yuanxun was secretly arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison. Of the eight thousand teachers and students at Peking University, fifteen hundred were labeled rightists. Many were expelled and sent to remote frontier farms. It took over twenty years before they were rehabilitated. Mao said it was ‘luring snakes from their holes.’ Were there that many snakes at Peking University? Fifteen hundred? Terrifying indeed.”

She continued: “In 1958, the Peking University journalism program was merged into the journalism department at Renmin University, and I was transferred there. I was among the first batch of rightists at Peking University. The leadership pitied my frail health and, taking a risk, allowed me to remain in the reference room for ‘supervised reform.’ During this time, I fell in love with Gan Cui, another rightist assigned to the reference room. We applied for marriage, but were criticized for indulging in romance and resisting reform. Permission was denied.

“In 1959, Gan Cui was sent to Xinjiang for labor reform. My illness worsened; I coughed blood. I requested leave to recuperate in Shanghai. In 1960, President Wu Yuzhang approved my leave, and my mother brought me back to Shanghai. My health gradually improved. There I met several students from Lanzhou University and prepared to publish Spark, a magazine criticizing contemporary abuses. My long poems Song of the Seagull and The Day of Prometheus’ Suffering were published in its first issue. Soon afterward, those involved with Spark were arrested. In October 1960, I too was arrested and imprisoned.

“In early 1962, I was released on medical parole. My mother and I converted to Christianity in the early 1960s. In December 1962, I was arrested again. In prison I went on hunger strikes and attempted suicide several times. I wrote twice to Shanghai Mayor Ke Qingshi and to the People’s Daily, explaining my case and expressing my political views. There was no reply.

“In prison I had no pen or paper, so I wrote on white bedsheets with my own blood. Because I refused to submit against my conscience, I was deemed to have a bad attitude and was abused. There were many forms of shackles: one pair reversed, two pairs reversed; sometimes parallel, sometimes crossed. The scars on my arms remain. Most inhumane of all, whether during hunger strikes, when I suffered agonizing gastritis, or even during menstruation, the shackles were never removed or eased.”

The Jade Emperor sighed, “After listening for so long, I still hear no reactionary speech. What a pity for such a talented woman—you were gravely wronged.”

Lin Zhao continued: “In March 1965, I began writing A Letter to Humanity. In May, I was tried and sentenced to twenty years in prison. I then wrote in blood A Statement After the Verdict. I declared: ‘This is a disgraceful verdict, yet I listen to it proudly! It is an evaluation of my struggle, and I feel sincerely proud! I should have done more to live up to your evaluation! The verdict is otherwise meaningless to me. I despise it! The formal verdict of history’s court will soon be proclaimed! You totalitarian rulers, thieves who usurp the nation and bring calamity upon the people, are the real defendants and the true criminals! Justice shall prevail! Long live freedom!’

“On April 29, 1968, I received the death sentence. I wrote a final poem:

The green phosphor light does not fade,
Night after night it illumines the spirit’s altar.
Let my heart and soul remain,
My broken body given to the ashes of calamity.
When red flowers bloom one day,
Recognize the stains of blood.
To rival the crimson blossom,
One must know how hard it is to dye it so.

“I was executed at Shanghai Longhua Airport. On May 1, public security officers came to my mother’s home to demand five cents for the bullet. Soon afterward, my father took his own life by overdose; my mother suffered mental collapse and was refused hospital treatment. In 1975 she committed suicide on the Bund in Shanghai.”

The Jade Emperor said, “Your entire family was destroyed. You were only thirty-five and never married. Many families across the country suffered the same. Were you later rehabilitated?”

Lin Zhao said: “In 1980, the Shanghai High Court declared me innocent on the grounds of mental illness, stating I had been wrongfully executed. In 1981, the same court ruled that the previous reasoning was inappropriate, stating instead that I should not have been charged with counterrevolution at all and that I had committed no crime.

“On April 22, 2004, funds were raised by the Southern Jiangsu Journalism School and Peking University to erect a memorial stone for me at Suzhou Anxi Cemetery. My body’s whereabouts remain unknown; in the grave there is only one of my garments and a lock of hair. The tombstone bears lines from a poem I wrote in 1964: ‘Freedom is priceless; life has its limit. Better to be shattered jade than remain whole tile, to give oneself for China.’”

The Jade Emperor said sorrowfully, “This is heartbreaking.”

Lin Zhao replied: “Rehabilitation does not mean everything is resolved. Who bears the guilt? Mao was the mastermind. Has Mao confessed? Even now, the Anti-Rightist Campaign remains covered up; scholars are not allowed to research freely, and the people are not allowed to fully understand. There are still disputes within the government.

“On May 8, 1980, the rehabilitation of rightists was declared largely complete. Of the 550,000 labeled rightists, nearly all were rehabilitated. Yet a very small number merely had their ‘hats removed’ while their original verdicts remained unchanged, including five major rightists identified by the central authorities—Zhang Bojun, Luo Longji, Peng Wenying, Chu Anping, and Chen Renbing—as well as over ninety others designated by local authorities, totaling nearly a hundred people.

“I have learned from the Jade Emperor’s Information Department that on December 16, 2012, netizens gathered at my grave at Lingyan Mountain in Suzhou to commemorate my eightieth posthumous birthday. Photographs show more than ten plainclothes state security officers monitoring and filming the gathering. On April 29, 2013, the forty-fifth anniversary of my death, people who came to pay respects were obstructed by government personnel.”

The Jade Emperor said, “Mao is indeed the mastermind. I will certainly redress your injustice.”

NEXT: 94. Li Jiulian (1946–1977)