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Lin Zhao
Lin Zhao (Chinese: 林昭; 23 January 1932 – 29 April 1968), born Peng Lingzhao (彭令昭), was a prominent Chinese dissident who was imprisoned and later executed by gunshot by the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution for her criticism of Mao Zedong's policies. She is widely considered to be a martyr and exemplar for Chinese and other Christians, like the Chinese church leader and teacher Watchman Nee.
Peng Lingzhao was born to a prominent family in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. By age 16, she had joined an underground Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cell and was writing articles criticizing the corruption of the Nationalist government under the pen name Lin Zhao. Three months before the CCP took power in mainland China, she ran away from home in order to attend a journalism school run by the CCP. During her tenure, she was assigned to work in a group to administer land reform in the countryside, where she witnessed the torture and violent deaths of landlords as justified by the principle of class struggle.
Lin later enrolled in the Chinese literature department at Peking University where she was an editor of the school paper Honglou (The Red Building) which met in her dorm room. During the Hundred Flowers Movement of 1956–1957, intellectuals such as herself were encouraged to criticize the CCP, but were later punished for doing so.
When Lin's friends who were part of the Red Building, Zhang Yuanxun and Shen Zeyi published a poem on a poster "This is the Time" which called for open dialogue towards reform, this opened debate at the university; the two also founded a short lived (23 days) magazine called "The Square" to talk about these ideas. During this time Lin Zhao published two poems, "It is Time" and "Party I Call out to You", which expressed faith in the Communist Party, but her disaffection with communists who had never "borne the heavy burden of discrimination, slight, and suspicion".
When Zhang Yuanxun was forced to endure a debate that was turning into a struggle session, Lin stood on top of a table and dressed down the mob saying "What kind of meeting are we having tonight? Is it a debate or a condemnation? It should not be a condemnation! We don't need to condemn anyone." Though Lin had criticized Zhang before herself, she did not feel condemning fellow communists was right.
In response to her friendship with members of The Square and defense of civil debate, Lin Zhao was branded a rightist in the Anti-Rightist Campaign which started in July 1957. She was the only rightist who refused to criticize and insisted she had done no wrong. As a result of being persecuted for this, Lin started to become a dissident. During 1958, Lin was ordered to perform menial tasks for the university, including killing mosquitoes as part of the Four Pests Campaign and cataloguing old newspapers for the reference library of the university's journalism department. There she met a fellow rightist Gan Cui, who in 1959 asked permission (as was required at the time) to marry Lin Zhao and be assigned to a job near with her after his graduation. He was instead sent to Talimu Fourth Farm, Xinjiang, to a reform through labor camp for the next 20 years, to break the couple up. Gan visited Lin in Shanghai for a week, and then got on the bus to Xinjiang; they never saw each other again.
In late 1959, while on medical parole in Shanghai, Lin met Zhang Chunyuan, a history student and People's Liberation Army veteran. Zhang Chunyan was a leader of the so-called "Lanzhou University Rightist Counter-Revolutionary Clique" (as it was labeled later by authorities), who had traveled from his exile in Tianshui, Gansu to invite Lin to join his group after one of the group's members obtained her work from his sister, another "Rightist" at Peking University. Zhang had previously unsuccessfully tried to contact members of the Square, but they were denounced before he could contact them. After reading "Song of the Seagull" he decided to invite Lin Zhao to his group and was greatly pleased upon receiving from her a few drafts of her works for the "Spark Fire", an underground magazine he was working on.
Zhang, along with a fellow group member Gu Yan, discussed various topics with Lin Zhao before Zhang returned to Gansu. It was during these talks that Lin Zhao discovered, from the firsthand accounts by Zhang, about starvation and cannibalism that were happening as a result of the devastation in Gansu Province, where about 1 in 3 of the villagers around Tianshui had died, and where Zhang had seen human flesh for sale. A fellow Peking University student, Lui Faqing, who had been accused of being Rightist and sent to Gansu, was on the brink of death there due to starvation. Having learned of the situation there, Lin sent him 35 Jin (about 40lb) of grain ration coupons, which saved his life.
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Lin Zhao
Lin Zhao (Chinese: 林昭; 23 January 1932 – 29 April 1968), born Peng Lingzhao (彭令昭), was a prominent Chinese dissident who was imprisoned and later executed by gunshot by the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution for her criticism of Mao Zedong's policies. She is widely considered to be a martyr and exemplar for Chinese and other Christians, like the Chinese church leader and teacher Watchman Nee.
Peng Lingzhao was born to a prominent family in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. By age 16, she had joined an underground Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cell and was writing articles criticizing the corruption of the Nationalist government under the pen name Lin Zhao. Three months before the CCP took power in mainland China, she ran away from home in order to attend a journalism school run by the CCP. During her tenure, she was assigned to work in a group to administer land reform in the countryside, where she witnessed the torture and violent deaths of landlords as justified by the principle of class struggle.
Lin later enrolled in the Chinese literature department at Peking University where she was an editor of the school paper Honglou (The Red Building) which met in her dorm room. During the Hundred Flowers Movement of 1956–1957, intellectuals such as herself were encouraged to criticize the CCP, but were later punished for doing so.
When Lin's friends who were part of the Red Building, Zhang Yuanxun and Shen Zeyi published a poem on a poster "This is the Time" which called for open dialogue towards reform, this opened debate at the university; the two also founded a short lived (23 days) magazine called "The Square" to talk about these ideas. During this time Lin Zhao published two poems, "It is Time" and "Party I Call out to You", which expressed faith in the Communist Party, but her disaffection with communists who had never "borne the heavy burden of discrimination, slight, and suspicion".
When Zhang Yuanxun was forced to endure a debate that was turning into a struggle session, Lin stood on top of a table and dressed down the mob saying "What kind of meeting are we having tonight? Is it a debate or a condemnation? It should not be a condemnation! We don't need to condemn anyone." Though Lin had criticized Zhang before herself, she did not feel condemning fellow communists was right.
In response to her friendship with members of The Square and defense of civil debate, Lin Zhao was branded a rightist in the Anti-Rightist Campaign which started in July 1957. She was the only rightist who refused to criticize and insisted she had done no wrong. As a result of being persecuted for this, Lin started to become a dissident. During 1958, Lin was ordered to perform menial tasks for the university, including killing mosquitoes as part of the Four Pests Campaign and cataloguing old newspapers for the reference library of the university's journalism department. There she met a fellow rightist Gan Cui, who in 1959 asked permission (as was required at the time) to marry Lin Zhao and be assigned to a job near with her after his graduation. He was instead sent to Talimu Fourth Farm, Xinjiang, to a reform through labor camp for the next 20 years, to break the couple up. Gan visited Lin in Shanghai for a week, and then got on the bus to Xinjiang; they never saw each other again.
In late 1959, while on medical parole in Shanghai, Lin met Zhang Chunyuan, a history student and People's Liberation Army veteran. Zhang Chunyan was a leader of the so-called "Lanzhou University Rightist Counter-Revolutionary Clique" (as it was labeled later by authorities), who had traveled from his exile in Tianshui, Gansu to invite Lin to join his group after one of the group's members obtained her work from his sister, another "Rightist" at Peking University. Zhang had previously unsuccessfully tried to contact members of the Square, but they were denounced before he could contact them. After reading "Song of the Seagull" he decided to invite Lin Zhao to his group and was greatly pleased upon receiving from her a few drafts of her works for the "Spark Fire", an underground magazine he was working on.
Zhang, along with a fellow group member Gu Yan, discussed various topics with Lin Zhao before Zhang returned to Gansu. It was during these talks that Lin Zhao discovered, from the firsthand accounts by Zhang, about starvation and cannibalism that were happening as a result of the devastation in Gansu Province, where about 1 in 3 of the villagers around Tianshui had died, and where Zhang had seen human flesh for sale. A fellow Peking University student, Lui Faqing, who had been accused of being Rightist and sent to Gansu, was on the brink of death there due to starvation. Having learned of the situation there, Lin sent him 35 Jin (about 40lb) of grain ration coupons, which saved his life.
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