The writer whose “Wild Lilies” criticised privilege at Yan’an and made him the rectification movement’s first victim
A Party member who in 1942 attacked Yan’an’s privileges in “Wild Lilies”, he was expelled, imprisoned and secretly executed in 1947; Dai Qing called his case the movement’s key measure of repression.
A translator and writer from Henan, he went to Yan’an in 1937 and translated Marxist classics. In March 1942 his essay “Wild Lilies” in Liberation Daily pointed to graded rations and clothing for cadres and to the disillusionment of the young; in the rectification movement he was branded a “Trotskyist” and became the target of mass criticism meetings. Arrested in 1943, he was executed at Xing County, Shanxi, in 1947 during the retreat from Yan’an before the Nationalist offensive. In 1991 the Ministry of Public Security formally withdrew the Trotskyist charge.
Also known as: Wang Shih-wei
Activities and affiliations
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1926–1927
Literature and arts
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1938–1942
Literature and arts
- Translated Marxist and Leninist works in Yan’an1938–1942Scholarship and theory
Career Timeline
- 1925Entered Peking University and took part in student politics
- 1926–1927CCP member
- 1937–1942Translator at the Marx–Lenin Institute, Yan’an
- 1938–1942Translated Marxist and Leninist works in Yan’an
- 1942Criticized cadres’ privileges in Wild Lilies
- 1942Investigated and denounced during the Yan’an Rectification Movement
- 1947.07.01Killed by Communist security personnel