This document, declassified in January 2015, contains a 1989 diplomatic memorandum from the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. It describes the circumstances surrounding the June 4 massacre as they were known to officials at the Canadian embassy.
The documents, declassified by the National Library and Archives of Canada, show the Canadian government's concern about the invasion of the embassy by Chinese troops. The documents also describe the crackdown in Beijing and how the troops killed citizens.
According to official CCP statistics, some 550,000 people were directly labeled as rightists and persecuted during the Anti-Rightist campaign. These people, as well as others implicated in the campaign, are mostly unknown, except for a very few. The author, Shen Yuan, who was also labeled as a rightist when he was a university student in 1958, devoted himself to collecting and researching historical data on the anti-rightist campaign. He has compiled a book entitled Biographies of the 1957 Rightists, which attempts to present the truth about the Anti-Rightist campaign and its victims. The book is divided into four volumes of about 1.2 million words, containing the stories of about 600 rightists and about 240 historical photographs. 2016 marked the 60th anniversary of the Anti-Rightist campaign, and Shen Yuan used the original book as the basis for his New Biographies of the 1957 Rightists, expanding the number of people included to 1,588. Sha Yexin and Wu Yisan were both involved in the compilation of this book.
The Anti-Rightist Movement in China began in 1957 with the reorganization of intellectuals, followed by the Great Leap Forward, the People's Commune, and a series of calamities such as the Great Famine. The Hong Kong Five Sevens Society was founded in 2007 with the aim of collecting, organizing, and researching historical information about the Anti-Rightist Movement. It is headed by Wu Yisan, a writer who moved to Hong Kong from mainland China. The author of this book, Shen Yuan, who was also a Rightist at the time. He has systematically researched and organized the Anti-Rightist Movement that took place in 1957 and attempted to answer some of the unanswered questions.
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.
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.