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Book
Earthquake Insane Asylum
On May 12, 2008, when the Great Sichuan Earthquake struck, writer Liao Yiwu began to write "Chronicle of the Great Earthquake", which was serialized in <i>Democratic China</i> and reprinted on several Chinese websites. It had a wide impact. Liao went to Dujiangyan, Juyuan Township, Yingxiu and other earthquake-hit areas to conduct on-the-spot interviews. His travels and writings during the earthquake were reported and translated by many mainstream media.
In April 2009, Taiwan's Asian Culture Publishing published and distributed the traditional Chinese edition of <i>Earthquake Insane Asylum</i>, a pictorial and textual factual record that preserves the living conditions of the people during of the Sichuan earthquake.
Article
Facts of the 1958-1962 Disaster in Fengyang County, Anhui Province
The author of this book, Luo Pinghan, is a native of Anhua County, Hunan Province. He graduated from the Party History Department of Renmin University of China and served as director and professor of the Party History Teaching and Research Department of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. This book was published by Fujian People's Publishing House in 2003.
With Mao Zedong's affirmation, the system of people's communes was rapidly promoted across the country in 1958. At that time, the people's commune was both a production organization and a grassroots political power. Its rise and fanatical development are closely related to the subsequent Great Famine.
As a scholar within the system, the author’s view of history also belongs to orthodox ideology. Although this book is narrated from the official ideology of the CCP, it uses rich and detailed historical materials to comprehensively and systematically introduce the history of the People's Communes, giving it a reference value for a comprehensive understanding of this movement.
Article
Memorandum on "Three Years of Natural Disasters"
The years 1959-1961 were very unusual in the history of disasters in China and the world in the 20th century. Anyone who has experienced it will recall the starvation years and the days when people starved to death everywhere. However, due to official concealment and denial, the number of people who died in this disaster has never been officially announced.
The purpose of Jin Hui's article is to estimate the number of unnatural deaths during the three years of the 1959-1961 disaster in China. Based on public data released by the authoritative National Bureau of Statistics in China Jin concludes that about 40 million people died, which roughly matches studies by foreign scholars, who have estimated up to 45 million.
Book
The Herald of History: The Solemn Promise of Half a Century Ago
Compiled by the Sichuan writer Xiao Shu (b. 1962), this book offers a variety of pro-democracy statements released by the Chinese Communist Party media, including short commentaries, speeches, editorials, and documents from <i>Xinhua Daily, Jiefang Daily, Party History Bulletin</i>, and <i>People's Daily</i> from 1941 to 1946. The essays criticize the Kuomintang government for running a "one-party dictatorship" and promised freedom, democracy and human rights.
The book was published by Shantou University Press in 1999. <a href="https://archive.ph/20220329191611/https://www.rfi.fr/tw/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B/20130817-%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%B8%E5%86%8D%E7%89%88%E3%80%8A%E6%AD%B7%E5%8F%B2%E7%9A%84%E5%85%88%E8%81%B2%E3%80%8B">According to Xiao Shu</a>, the book was heavily criticized by the then-head of the Propaganda Department, Ding Guangen. The publishing house was temporarily suspended, and copies of the book were destroyed. It was republished in Hong Kong by the Bosi Publishing Group in 2002, and reprinted by the Journalism and Media Studies Center of the University of Hong Kong in 2013.
Book
The Last Landowner (Record of Chinese Grievances Volume 3 - Book 1)
Land reform is one of the important events that affected the course of Chinese history in the twentieth century. Liao Yiwu spent two years on and off from the end of 2005 to complete <i>The Last Landlord</i>. The book comprises interviews with land reform survivors. As the author says, "Based on the degree of physical and mental weakening of the interviewees, I estimate that in another five or six years, the history of the land reform as orally told by those who witnessed it will be completely untraceable."
图书
The Truth about Liu Wencai
In the mid-20th century, Liu Wencai, a large landowner in Sichuan Province, spent almost all of his family's wealth in his later years on promoting education, bridge construction and road building, and was known as a great benefactor in the region. However, during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, he was portrayed as an archetype of evil landlords in the 3,000-year history of feudalism in China.
As the controller of great wealth in southern Sichuan during the Republic of China period, Liu Wencai did accumulate a huge fortune from plunder in his early years, but in his later years he invested most of it in public welfare. He financed and presided over the construction of a highway, as well as the Wanchengyan irrigation system, benefiting hundreds of thousands of farmers. He also spent almost all of his family's wealth to found the Wencai Middle School (today's Anren Middle School), which at the time was known as Sichuan's best privately-run school. In the memories of the local people, Liu Wencai collected less land rent than what was collected by the government after 1949. He was praised for providing financial assistance to poor families during special days and festivals, and for mediating civil disputes in a fair manner.
These facts were erased under the ultra-leftist propaganda. The authorities even fabricated the story of Liu Wencai keeping farmers in a dungeon filled with water, as well as making sculptures depicting how Liu Wencai was exploiting farmers, in order to incite hatred against him. This made Liu Wencai one of the most famous evil landlords in China.