• Home
  • Laogai System
  • Museum
    • Movies & Videos
    • What is Laogai?
    • Inside Laogai
    • Torture in Laogai
    • Execution & Organ Market
    • Laogai and Political Campaigns
    • Forced Labor
    • Censorship
    • Victim Stories
  • Grants
  • Publications
  • Database
  • About Us
    • News
  • Contact
Language
  • lang English
  • lang 中文
  • English
  • 中文
Laogai Research FoundationLaogai Research Foundation
  • Home
  • Laogai System
  • Museum
    • Movies & Videos
    • What is Laogai?
    • Inside Laogai
    • Torture in Laogai
    • Execution & Organ Market
    • Laogai and Political Campaigns
    • Forced Labor
    • Censorship
    • Victim Stories
  • Grants
  • Publications
  • Database
  • About Us
    • News
  • Contact

Wang Tongzhu

Home Wang Tongzhu
Wang Tongzhu
Return to Victim Stories
Wang Tongzhu


Wang Tongzhu

https://laogairesearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/38Wangtongzhu.mp3 Date(s) of Arrest:
May 1970
Prison Terms:
Death penalty
Charges:
Rightist, counterrevolutionary clique
Crime:
Criticizing the Cultural Revolution

Wang Tongzhu, a native of Xiangyang in Hubei Province, was a poet, author of short stories, and the Russian-language translator for the CCP Central Committee’s Translation Bureau for the Works of Marx and Lenin. In 1957, when the CCP launched its Campaign for the Free Airing of Views, which was part of the larger Hundred Flowers Campaign, Wang sent a letter to Wuhan University in which he objected to how he had been treated during the previous “Purging Counterrevolutionaries” campaign in 1955. When the Translation Bureau was informed of this, Wang was labeled as an “ultra-Rightist” for having criticized the party’s political campaigns and policies. Wang was sent to the Qingde Laogai Camp in the town of Chadian in Hebei Province for “reeducation through labor.”

In August 1962, Wang was transferred to the Tuanhe Labor Camp in Daxing County near Beijing. His Rightist designation was removed in 1964 and he was then subjected to forced job placement at the same camp.

In June 1966, the CCP decided to vacate all of the labor camps near Beijing to make room for the wave of newly purged political enemies from the city proper. All personnel in the Tuanhe Labor Camp were moved to Xinjiang, which was over 3,000 kilometers away. In August, Wang was sent to the farm of the 7th Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in Shihezi to continue his "employment" as a forced laborer.

In 1969, Wang, together with two other forced laborers, took advantage of the chaos of that time and fled the camp in Xinjiang. His compatriots were Sun Benqiao, a former Beijing Institute of Technology student hailing from Laian in Anhui Province, and Yao Zuxuan, a former English-language translator of the Ministry of Foreign Trade who was from Zhejiang Province. The three of them traveled around the Laian area of Anhui Province and Nanjing in Jiangsu Province working odd jobs and selling cigarettes.

In May 1970, Wang, Sun, Yao, and eight other people were arrested and charged with being a counterrevolutionary group. The eight other members of this alleged group received various sentences, but Wang and his compatriots were sentenced to death.

On July 30, 1970, Wang, Sun, Yao, and 21 other so-called counterrevolutionaries were publicly executed by the Nanjing authorities. Some months later, Lu Lushan, a former student at the Beijing Agricultural Machinery College who was in the camps with the three of them, was also executed for mourning their deaths.

In July 1980, the authorities posthumously overturned the verdict against Wang, Sun, and Yao, stating that the “Wang Tongzhu counterrevolutionary group did not actually exist” and that “the poems written by Wang Tongzhu are not counterrevolutionary poems.” Their death sentence was posthumously rescinded. Li Lushan was also rehabilitated.

Filter Categories
All
Anti-Rightist
China Today
Cultural Revolution
Early Years of PRC
Executed
Great Leap Forwad
Minorities
Religious
Reform to Tiananmen Massacre
Still in Prison
  • ALong(Chen Shoumei)
  • Guo Quan
  • Jia Zhifang
  • Wang Yi
  • Wang Dan
  • Yang Maodong(GuoFeixiong)
  • Chu Lipeng
  • Deng Yulin
  • Wang Juntao
  • Wu Tinglin
  • Zhang Hezhi
  • Xia Zhishi
  • Gulmira Imin
  • Feng Guojiang
  • Ni Tuosheng(Watchman Nee)
  • Ni Bi
  • Ilham Tohti
  • Huang Qi
  • Han Rui
  • Zhao Changqing
  • Tan Chanxue
  • Hu Shigen
  • Hu Jia
  • Wang Yijun
  • Zhu Weifang
  • Xiang Chengjian
  • Shan Songlin
  • Huang Xiang
  • Lu Keng
  • Tang Yee-Ming
  • Ge Peiqi
  • Wang Shiwei
  • Lin Xiling
  • Du Yinghua
  • Li Dehua
  • Bu Qinfu
  • Ren Yi
  • Wang Tongzhu
  • Li Xiangzhi
  • Guan Minghua
  • Hu Zhongxi & Hou Jun
  • Lu Hongen
  • Li Manyin
  • Zheng Jienong
  • Shen Yuan
  • Xu Zhangben
  • Zhang Peiying
  • Zhang Dongsun
  • Lu Ying
  • Liu Wenhui&Liu Wenzhong
  • Li Wuling
  • Lu Lanxiu
  • Shu Sai
  • Wang Peiying
  • Peng Dehuai
  • Zhang Jing
  • Sun Liyong
  • Ding Zuxiao
  • Gao Hongwei
  • Chen Ziming
  • Dong Shengkun
  • Wu Wenjian
  • Li Wangyang
  • Zhang Yansheng
  • Sun Baoqiang
  • Sun Hong
  • Jiang Chunyuan
  • Lei Zhenxia
  • Chen Bingqi
  • Hao Nai
  • Cai Tiegen
  • Mao Yingxing
  • Xin Yuanhua
  • Zhang Langlang
  • Zhang Jiuneng
  • Wu Qiyao
  • Feng Yuanchun
  • Zeng Shirong
  • Zha Jianguo
  • Ye Shaohua
  • Wenche Heen
  • Peter Tang
  • Shang Jianguo
  • Wang Shuyao
  • Qin Geng
  • Min Heshun
  • Li Guiren
  • Gan Cui
  • Ghang Lhamo
  • Jiang Qisheng
  • Hu Xianzhong
  • Huang Zhan
  • Alimujiang Yimiti
  • Ama Adhe Tapontsong
  • Bao Tong
  • Cai Shifang
  • Chen Fengxiao
  • Chen Pokong
  • Chen Wei
  • Chen Wenli
  • Chen Xi
  • Cheng Zhonghe
  • Dhondup Wangchen
  • Dolka Kyap
  • Fan Xueyan
  • Gao Peiqi
  • Gao Yu
  • Guo Jimin
  • Gou Zhongshan
  • Ha Da
  • Harry Wu
  • He Depu
  • Hu Feng
  • Hu Weiwei
  • Ismail Semed
  • Jean Pasqualini
  • Karma Samdrup
  • Kung Pin-Mei (Gong Pinmei)
  • Li Jiulian
  • Lin Zhao
  • Liu Xianbin
  • Liu Xiaobo
  • Liu Xinghu & Liu Zhuanghuan
  • Ngawang Sangdrol
  • Nien Cheng
  • Palden Gyatso
  • Pastors Yang Rongli and Wang Xiaoguang
  • Qi Jiazhen
  • Qin Yongmin
  • Rebiya Kadeer
  • Shi Tao
  • Shi Weihan
  • Sun Zhigang
  • Tohti Tunyaz
  • Tong Yi
  • Wang Bingzhang
  • Wang Guangmei
  • Wang Shenyou
  • Wei Jingsheng
  • Wu Daizhi
  • Xu Pinghua
  • Xu Wenli
  • Yang Zili("New Youth Study Group" )
  • Yu Zhijian(Three Gallants of Tiananmen)
  • Yu Luoke
  • Zhang Chunyuan
  • Zhang Guoting
  • Zhong Haiyuan
  • Zhang Yidong
  • Zhang Zhixin