7/30/2003

(Clearwisdom.net) (Note that Reference Materials such as this do not necessarily represent the thoughts of Falun Gong practitioners).

When I was small, I liked to listen to stories from history. When I grew up, I dared not neglect history even more. However, before long, a professor friend who had studied modern history awakened me as from a dream. He said, "Do you know the three main things that led to the abnormal deaths of humans in the twentieth century? One is that 6 million Jewish were massacred by the Nazi's genocide. The second is related to the 33.6 million that died in fighting the First and the Second World Wars. The third is the 84.5 million that were killed by the Communist Party in communist countries."

What? More than 80 million? That was more than twice than the total who died in the World Wars. Although I heard that Stalin killed many millions, a number twice as high as those who died in the two World Wars still made me dumfounded.

"What you said was mainly done by the former Soviet Union, wasn't it? Our Chinese Communist Party has been always the great, glorious and correct Party. Furthermore, what you said was before the liberation, wasn't it? How could no one die in a war?" Somehow, I unconscientiously became a volunteer guard that protected the prestige of the Party.

My friend glanced at me and sighed. Then he said slowly: "The following are all examples of the number that died from the past injustices, the false and misjudged cases. Due the information blockade, I could not get totally accurate information. Yet even the current published historical data is shocking."

In the year the country was established, the whole country suppressed landlords and rich peasants. The number of people shot by the army as published was 2 million, from the historical material resources, Xinhua Monthly Newspaper Special Edition for the anniversary of new China, 1950 and New China's Economic Achievements by Bo Yibo, 1952. Estimated by specialists, however, indicate that the actual number of people could be 10 million.

During the movement against "the right-wing" in 1957, Mao Zedong pointed out in his original work, On Correctly Managing the Internal Contradiction among the People in 1957 that the Public Security had killed at least 800 thousand in the movement against "the right-wing." The original words of Mao Zedong were later deleted when this article was included in his book. In the book, Recalling Several Significant Decisions and Events by the Publisher of the Communist Party School of the Central Government in June, 1993, it was said that "Among the 550 thousand people who were accused of being in the 'right-wing' group, except a few that really belonged to the 'right-wing' group, most, or 99 percent, were falsely charged."

During the movement against the 'right-wing inclination' within the Chinese Communist Party, the section of "deep feeling of grief in re-considering" in volume 1, Part Two, Chapter 5 of Complete Reflection of The National History of the People's Republic of China pointed out that there were 8.07 million Party members, cadres and concourses (ordinary people) who were criticized and administered punishments. Among them, there were 4.33 million Chinese Communist Party members and cadres and 3.74 million ordinary citizens.

During the period of the so-called three years of natural disaster from 1959 to 1961, the forced requisition of food supplies led to famine and a great number of people starved to death. According to the calculation of all the secretariats of all provinces during the meeting in Beijing, the total number of deaths was around 30 million at the last count. However, the actual situation was that the state's storage facilities could not hold all the food supply, and the government had to export food to foreign countries at a low price.

According to the official statistics in the preface of the book, Collection of Spring Wind Turning to Spring Rain, within the two and a half years from September 1979 to February 1980, more than several hundred million appeals from the people were received and dealt with all over China. Together with the numbers before and after, it was estimated that there were nearly100 million cases that were misjudged. From this estimate, there were several million people who were victims of the political persecution in the Cultural Revolution, nearly one hundred million who were involved, and these are really conservative numbers.

In November last year, a book was published named Exposing the Secret of the Crimes of Communism. This book, which is 846 pages long, has a statistical result that 45.72 million were killed by the Chinese Communist Party's persecution after the establishment of the P.R.C., which was in the first place among Socialist countries.

Cambodia was regarded as a savage place from the view of westerners; however, in the mid and late 1970's, the total number of the people who were killed by Pol Pot, and the Khmer Rouge was "only" 10 to 20 million. However, it paled in comparison to the numbers in China. But, has the western world gotten to know the tribulations of the people of modern China as well as it knows about the genocide conducted by Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge and the Nazi's?"

The professor could hardly continue to speak more. It was also very hard to listen to him. "The above relate to large political movements that directly persecuted people through their physical bodies, without considering those small movements and the family members that were indirectly persecuted, and also without considering spiritual persecution. There are more examples, such as "Four Cleaning", "Social Education", "6.4" of 1989, and "Strike hard against all kinds of lawbreaking after innovation and openness, as well as the suppression of Falun Gong and workers on strike, and peasants who were against tax." The people involved are too many. Take Falun Gong as an example. Previously it was claimed officially that there were 70 million practitioners. Now, no one is allowed to practice it. Wasn't the persecution of one's belief against the Constitution? Furthermore, when suppressing "6.4" (Democracy movement of 1989) and Falun Gong, everyone was forced show their attitudes. This was another kind of persecution, which causes people lose their freedom of expression.

Another example is the current registered permanent residence system in cities and the countryside. From ancient to modern society, peasants wanted to work in cities and no one could stop them. However, just after establishing the P.R.C., the implementation of the registered permanent residence system and the difference in farm and industrial products forced peasants to live at the lowest level of society. Isn't the exploitation and deception of peasants a kind of persecution?"

The professor saw that I did not understand, so he began to summarise that "if we do not count the problem of peasants and do not count the spiritual persecution, please add the number of deaths, in addition to their parents, brothers, sisters and children, which are direct family members, and the people who were persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party are more than half of the Chinese people! Do not forget that there were only 600-700 million Chinese people before the "Cultural Revolution".

"Half of the people have been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party? I repeated this number, still dumfounded.

"Do you remember when we were small, we sang a song named "Sing a Mountain Song for the Party to Hear, I Regard the Party as Mother? Shall we do that?" The Communist Party persecuted us, but inversely, also had our children call it mother. Are there bigger scoundrels in the world? Are there bigger lies than this in the human world? "

"Their wisest accomplishment is that when they hurt you, you think that they are good. This was the achievement of spiritual persecution! Please remember a saying: it is a fool who stumbles on the same stone many times. The Chinese have been harmed again and again; however there are still people who cannot recognize its nature, and are waiting to be deceived again next time."

I sat there senselessly, unable to clear my mind for a while. Before, I was angry with the corruption and depravity, but I always consoled myself in my heart that errors were unavoidable. If only we correct them, our Party still has a bright future. Then, I pinned my hope on the innovations of the internal leaders of the Party. More and more of my waiting met with losing hope again and again. But still I dared not deny the Communist Party fundamentally, and thus be clear about its evil nature.

In the face of such a bloody history, I could not help feeling deeply ashamed: half of the people have been persecuted at some point, yet we don't even know it and still pin our hopes on our persecutors--a chilling thought, indeed.