Li Rui (politician)

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Li Rui, 1944.

Li Rui ( Chinese  李锐 , Pinyin Lǐ Ruì ; born April 13, 1917 in Pingjiang (Yueyang) , Hunan , Republic of China ; † February 16, 2019 in Beijing ) was a Chinese politician . He was the office manager under Mao Zedong and later his critic.

biography

Li came from a wealthy family in the southern Chinese province of Hunan . His father was a member of the revolutionary Tongmenghui that contributed to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Li Rui later enrolled in mechanical engineering at Wuhan University .

Li Rui joined as a student in 1937, at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to. After the Communists' victory in the Chinese Civil War and the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he rose further in the CCP's hierarchy, becoming the youngest Vice Minister of China in 1958 and Mao Zedong's personal secretary. The following year, however, Li and Mao fell out. Li openly criticized Mao's policy of the Great Leap Forward , which was supposed to bring about the rapid industrialization of China. Li was then imprisoned for a long time in the Qincheng Special Prison , which was set up specifically for party dissidents , along with other critics of Mao, such as General Peng Dehuai . He was imprisoned for a total of eight years. In a later interview with the British Guardian , Li said of Mao, whom he “did not like at all” as a person, that he was “too autocratic”. He couldn't stand dissenting opinions and always wanted to be right. In addition, his thinking and governing were "terrifying". He gave absolutely no value to human life and the death of other people was completely meaningless to him.

After Mao's death and Deng Xiaoping came to power , Li was rehabilitated and rejoined the CCP. In the following decades he developed into an advocate of far-reaching reforms in the sense of a more open and pluralistic form of society. He condemned the bloody crackdown on student protests in Tian'anmen Square in 1989. The students were right with their demands for more democracy and less corruption. Li remained a member of the Communist Party and did not see himself as a dissident. Due to the fact that he was one of the oldest living “Communists of the first hour”, whose ideological convictions were beyond question, he was also largely spared the reprisals that other dissidents had to endure. On the contrary, he enjoyed the privileges of a senior party official (large apartment, good medical care, etc.). However, his critical interviews and his five books on Mao Zedong could only appear outside of China. In interviews he repeatedly demanded that China face its dark past and come to terms with the time of Mao rule. The Mao dictatorship was not just the problem of a single person, but a "system problem caused by the party system". Li Rui's books were valuable secondary sources for Western political historians on the history of the People's Republic of China. Among other things, Li wrote a book about the Lushan Conference in which he contradicted official party historiography, which suggested that Mao was not to blame for the "Great Leap" famine.

He criticized the Chinese party leader and President Xi Jinping several times. In October 2010 he attracted international attention when he signed an open letter for more democracy and less censorship with Hu Jiwei , Zong Peizhang , Jiang Ping and 500 other people.

Publications

  • 李銳 談 毛澤東 , Lǐ Ruì tán Máozédōng  - “Li Rui talks about Mao Zedong”, 2005, ISBN 9889828227
  • 庐山 会议 实录 , Lúshān huìyì shílù  - "Lushan Conference Protocol ", Chunqiu Publishing House, Changsha: Hunan Jiaoyu Publishing House, 1989. 377 pp.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Li Rui, a Mao Confidant Who Turned Party Critic, Dies at 101 New York Times , accessed February 16, 2019
  2. a b Bernhard Bartsch: China's old cadre revolt. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . October 13, 2010, accessed October 14, 2010 .
  3. a b c Ian Johnson: Li Rui, a Mao Confidant Who Turned Party Critic, Dies at 101. The New York Times, February 15, 2019, accessed February 16, 2019 .
  4. a b Ashitha Nagesh: Li Rui: The old guard Communist who was able to criticize Xi Jinping. BBC News, February 16, 2019, accessed February 16, 2019 .
  5. a b c China must confront dark past, says Mao confidant. The Guardian, June 2, 2005, accessed February 16, 2019 .
  6. ^ Entry at the National Library of Australia
  7. Jump up Richard Siao, James Tong: Lushan Huiyi Shilu (The Veritable Records of the Lushan Conference). By Li Rui . In: The China Quarterly . tape 130 , June 1992, pp. 425-426 , doi : 10.1017 / S0305741000040923 (English, review).