A famous Chinese lawyer of Chinese democratic dissidence, who was a young nationalist, a Beijing court official and a victim of anti-rightist repression, provides in his memoirs a fine and fascinating description of this profession and of the China of the second half of XXe century.
When we reflect on the remarkable progress recently accomplished by the history of People’s China, we cannot avoid the observation that autobiographical or biographical stories, translated or not from Chinese, will have been factors of considerable progress in a period when archives remained closed.
The Confessions of Master Zhang, presented with humor and precisely translated by Judith Bout, are among the most original stories we have on popular China because they tell the life of a great advocate of Chinese democratic dissidence who was previously a young nationalist, a executive of the Beijing court and a victim of anti-rightist repression: a real trajectory inside the communism in power…
We must recognize it: the choice to reproduce the story of an entire life, even that of a great lawyer today, necessarily has the disadvantage of placing unequally interesting episodes almost on the same level. This is the story of our hero’s childhood and adolescence. This clearly shows the spread of nationalism among a provincial elite then the ineffective engagement of a young patriot in the Guomindang army and the progressive deskilling of Chiang Kai-shek’s Guomindang. This part of the story illustrates an evolution that is generally well known and does not overshadow the numerous other sources available to us over the period. nationalist “.
At least, however, it shows a fundamental fact that the amnesia subsequently organized by Beijing has too often hidden: namely that, at least in urban China, certain heroes of the communist movement, many of its cadres and most of its supporters started by thinking like everyone else, that is to say like the Nationalist Party, before thinking like the Communist Party. This is the case of our character who is a banally idealistic nationalist before being sucked into the communist groundswell a few months before his triumph: he gets involved in the student agitation up to the point where his comrades make him knowing in 1948 that he was now a member of the Communist Party…
In his personal history, the moment is important for two reasons. First, of course, because these letters of nobility will open up a career as an executive in the new regime. But also – and the book should have made this point clearer – they condemn him in advance because they classify him in the category of doubtful members of the PCCthose who rallied late and whose urban origin made them immediately dangerous: most of them were purged in the 1950s – the most spectacular case being that of Nanking where the local resistance network very effectively prepared the capture of the city before being quickly taken over by the troops then decapitated in successive attacks.
In fact, the few so-called “ errors » that our lawyer commits will not be forgiven. In 1957, a long stint in prison began for him. On this point too, the book does not deliver everything it promises. First, because Zhang was assigned to a “detention camp” for a long period of time. rehabilitation through work » quite original, that of Nankou, which is specially intended for the repression of executives of the municipality of Beijing: a sort of advertising signal of the commitment in the Great Leap of Peng Zhen, mayor of the capital and number six or seven of the regime which will later side – but cautiously, all the same – in the camp of the enemies of Maoist excesses. Then and above all, it is because he has the luck and the intelligence to survive rather better than many other victims, and he does not hide it: he honestly admits that he got through it, and avoids the satisfied romanticism into which so many witnesses and commentators have sunk. Everything happens as if the long night in which Zhang Sizhi survived had spoiled his inspiration as a narrator. We understand it…
The fact is, on the other hand, that his testimony is much more enlightening with regard to the two highlights of his memories: that of the years 1949-1957, which precede his purge, and that of what we can now call the “ second People’s China » from 1979-1980. Personally, it was the first sequence that seemed the most innovative to me. It indeed offers an unrivaled picture of an urban communist apparatus in the early years of People’s China. And not just any court: a court, that of Beijing. At a first level, the story rather confirms the Dantesque picture that Frank Dikötter gives us in a recent work: the seizure of power opens the way to massacres throughout the country and in Beijing, from the outset, the military control commission orders executions without going through the judicial system, then mobilizations follow one another from 1953 to 1956, as if punctuated by very brief clarifications – appointed lawyer, he will only be able to plead twice, and in a very conventional way…
In addition, the description of Zhang Sizhi’s professional environment reveals a real talent for observation. From the outset, appetites of all kinds disrupt relationships, factional ties are formed and conflicts break out, fueled by the ideological justifications of propaganda and the behavior of the Leader. Personal disputes largely fuel the constantly evolving local translation of political campaigns launched by those in power. The successive purges inside the Beijing court and which respond to calls from the Party and its pseudopods apparently reflect a series of political conflicts on a national scale and in reality settling of scores of a personal and factional nature.
This table inspired me to make a connection with conflicts already perceptible in other sectors of the Chinese communist bureaucracy, and which I had already encountered in my research at the grassroots level of a cooperative and a district of the province. of Henan, that of Lushan (where an ambitious young executive was already working, whom Mao subsequently made a member of the Politburo and a possible successor, Ji Dengkui). Inter-personal rivalries led to spectacular consequences during one of the first agrarian mobilizations organized by the regime in 1952-1953 and then in the following years. Recent Chinese publications reveal a number of comparable and much more catastrophic cases (for example the terrible famine in the Xinyang district in 1958-1961). In the same province of Henan, political power was disputed, from 1955 to 1958, between two figures who gave an ideological aspect to their personal and factional rivalry: two men and two teams therefore succeeded one another in power until the launch of the Great Leap, that is to say Mao’s preference, brought about the victory of “ radical » supposed, Wu Zhipu, in principle more « Communist “, who would subsequently appear among the first victims of the Cultural Revolution while its victim, more “ reactionary », will be one of its first heralds… It is therefore not a question of ideology. Finally, the work I conducted on the Chinese ruling elite from 1949 to 1976 highlighted the overlap, at the highest level, between personal factors and political staging, between ambitions and their legitimization.
What is highlighted in all these examples, and which our lawyer confirms, is a sort of very harsh totalitarian theater, certainly – because the violence is there, which concludes all the episodes – but which depicts very harsh appetites. ordinary: ambition, hatred, jealousy, the desire to enjoy… This totalitarian theater is described by our lawyer with a wealth of juicy details where sexual appetites, ambitions, loyalties, tactical tricks, hatreds, coquetry. Nothing to do, therefore, with the human aridity that the ideologues of totalitarian terror suppose. This does not disappear or become humanized, on the contrary, it adapts, localizes itself and adopts various clothes: including, for example, that of the claim of a wife who defends her skin… She translates, develops and diverts violence at the same time.
The picture that is subsequently drawn of the evolution of our hero after the Cultural Revolution is more current and still interesting, but different, because the situation has changed: the fangs of the totalitarian monsters are obviously chipped. Master Zhang’s revolt is complete and uncompromising against the great injustices and pettiness of all kinds of power, but he does not miss the opportunity for mockery. The tragicomic description of the trial of Jiang Qing’s cronies and Lin Biao’s former subordinates, whose lawyers he directs, provides decisive anecdotes on the ridiculous madness of the former red empress or, better, on Li Zuopeng, the former boss of the Chinese Navy who owed his career to the felon marshal. Likewise, the portraits of the dissidents that our lawyer subsequently defends against all odds earn us fine and often warm ratings which have hardly any equivalent – especially the portrait of Wei Jingsheng which reveals a real political character capable of modulating his expression and to dominate his feelings.
A great quality of this testimony is the modesty that our hero shares with his interpreter. The first avoids exaggerating his role, which is rare among human rights defenders. The second is careful not to do too much by sprinkling Zhang Sizhi with holy water, and rightly avoids falling into a right-of-man gospel. As a result, out of an excess of caution and modesty, the book does not clearly answer the question posed by the reader: why and how the communist agitator of 1948 transformed himself into a follower and practitioner of human rights. man ? The appearance is that he would respond by highlighting the terrible ordeals suffered from 1957 onwards. But how can we explain that he finally recovered physically and intellectually? ? We know his somewhat historical journey, not his inner journey. He allows his other protégés to benefit from the same modesty, and we also regret it. What made Wang Juntao and Bao Tong resist ? We don’t know. On a stage that has no shortage of little masters and pretentious tribunes, our heroes are ultimately too modest. But their testimony still weighs heavily in favor of the idea that history works China well beyond what its masters wish.