Zhang Zhixin (张志新, 1930-1975) spoke out against the Cultural Revolution and in particular against the idolization of Mao Zedong. The tragic repression she suffered made her a heroine and a martyr.
[Warning:rape, violence]
The People's University of China
Zhang Zhixin was born in 1930 in Tianjin, on the east coast of China, into a family of musicians and a family of seven children. After studying at Hebei University, she joined the Chinese People's Volunteer Army during the Korean War (1950-1953), before completing her studies at the People's University of China.
Hired in the university library, Zhang Zhixin met there Zeng Zhen, a colleague. They married in 1955 and had two children, a daughter named Lin Lin and a son named Tong Tong. Zhang Zhixin would later work in the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
A convinced member of the Communist Party, Zhang Zhixin does not hesitate to be virulent towards Mao Zedong, his idolization as well as his policy; she considers that he betrays the cause and the ideals of the party. She thus says of him that after the Great Leap Forward, “his scientific attitude has weakened, his sense of modesty has diminished and his style of democratic work has also weakened”. Zhang Zhixin also criticizes Jiang Qing, Mao's wife, and his right-hand man Lin Bao. Following these criticisms, she was arrested in September 1969, during the Cultural Revolution, as a counter-revolutionary.
“It is better to live honestly”
In prison, Zhang Zhixin refuses to deny his words. "You shouldn't make me deny what I believe to be true, she says. I can't give in. It is better to live in honesty than in flattery. Whatever happens, I will remember that I am a member of the Communist Party and I keep in mind the values of justice, truth and honesty”. In 1970, she was sentenced to death but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Zhang Zhixin is being held in atrocious conditions. She suffered torture, rape by prison guards and other inmates, straitjacketing and long periods of solitary confinement in tiny spaces. Held in a men's prison, other inmates may be granted benefits if they torture her. To communicate with her children, she writes on toilet paper until the guards confiscate her pen.
A posthumous rehabilitation
Zhang Zhixin does not back down. In 1973, required to participate in the campaign to criticize Lin Bao and Confucius, she exclaimed that Mao was responsible for everything Lin Bao had done. In 1975, as her mental health wavered from torture and mistreatment, she was finally sentenced to death. In April 1975, she was paraded in front of the prison inmates and then executed by beheading.
Four years later, in the spring of 1979, Zhang Zhixin was rehabilitated and officially declared a martyr by Hu Yaobang. On her tomb, her mother had engraved:“A seeker of truth and, more importantly, a faithful one, whose body is no longer on this earth but whose spirit survives”.