This book is a collection of nineteen feature articles by well-known contemporary scholars, researchers, and writers. They recapitulate their own experiences during the Cultural Revolution in a literary style.
When the Cultural Revolution broke out, they were all young people in their twenties. These reminiscence articles are the result of a rare collective reflection after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The authors described their own experiences during the Cultural Revolution in the articles, providing a personal perspective on history.
The chief editor of this book is the philosopher and activist Xu Youyu, a former researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Xu signed and made suggestions on Charter 08, and also is a co-founder of the New Citizens Movement. Since 2015 he has resided in New York City, where he has been a visiting scholar at the New School for Social Research.
This book was published by China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing Corporation in 1998.
On August 8, 1966, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted the "Sixteen Articles" of the Cultural Revolution. Soon after, Liu Wenhui, a young mechanic in Shanghai who had been labeled as a "rightist" in 1957, wrote pamphlets and leaflets clearly opposing the Cultural Revolution, the "Sixteen Articles", and authoritarianism and tyranny. He was arrested on November 26 of that year. Four months later, he was executed for "counter-revolutionary crimes." Liu Wenhui became the first person known to have been publicly shot for opposing the Cultural Revolution. The author of this book, Liu Wenzhong, was Liu Wenhui's co-defendant and survived thirteen years in prison. In this book, Liu Wenzhong describes in detail his brother Liu Wenhui's ideology as well as how he was killed by the tyrannical government.
