Interview with Wei Xiaotao (on April 28, 2014 in Marie Holzman's apartment in Paris)

Here you find the Chinese text of the interview.

Interviewer (Helmut Opletal): You are Wei Jingsheng’s younger brother.

Wei Xiaotao: Yes.

Interviewer: You also followed the Democracy Movement back then. Did you participate in it?

Wei: I helped Jingsheng a bit, and I very much supported his actions. Why was the Democracy Wall in 1978 and 1979 the first one? The central government at that time was redressing many unjust and false cases and rehabilitating people who had been wrongly convicted. Of course, those who had been rehabilitated were very grateful and happy. Those who had not been rehabilitated still had hope. Not all petitioners could be received and dealt with though, so in the end they used so-called big-character posters like during the Cultural Revolution and just put them up on that wall. From then on, that place was used by people to express their voices. It seems that Huang Xiang [a poet and activist from Guizhou] was the first one to post something there, and then it became political and more and more lively. "Democracy Wall" was a name given later. It was originally just called the Xidan Wall or the Big-Character Posters Wall. “Democracy Wall” they called it quite late, I think at the end of December. Originally it was just called the “Xidan Wall”.

Interviewer: When did you find out about it?

Wei: In December.

Interviewer: Did your brother tell you about it in his letters?

Wei: He did not only write letters to me, but he also sent me texts that he had been posting to my school. I was in Shanghai at the time, not in Beijing. But I returned to Beijing on January 7.

Interviewer: Did you also show to other students what he sent?

Wei: Yes, I showed it to classmates.

Interviewer: And how did they respond?

Wei: Their feedback... Let’s put it this way, people who were studying at the time didn’t react very positively to the views of Jingsheng. The time of reform and opening up had not yet begun. But they could take college entrance exams, workers hoped for a salary increase, because wages were expected rise in 1979. But prices also had to be adjusted. The situation of farmers was different. At that time, there was the example of Xiaogang Village in Anhui that had already become known. [At the end of 1978, some farmers in Xiaogang were allowed to individually contract farmland, creating a precedent for the household responsibility system.] The so-called cooperative movement in rural areas [Mao’s collectivization drive] had opened a big economic gap. So the peasants had their hopes, and workers had their own hopes. Although many of those newly admitted to college had similar experiences like ours, they felt happy to be able to go to college, also thanks to the new policies of the Communist Party. At that time, everyone still held on to a kind of hope. But how should we think about the legitimacy of the Party and some experiences from the past? About the Cultural Revolution, the Great Famine, the suppression of counter-revolutionaries [in the early fifties], the anti-rightist movement [1957], etc.? People constantly thought about all these things, and later they would come to conclusions. But at that time, society in general did not take these things very seriously yet. Why? Because most of the “rightists” had already been rehabilitated, and those who had not, were still hoping and trying hard. For cadres, this process of liberation and rehabilitation went even faster.

Interviewer: Weren’t you a bit afraid that your brother was too extreme and too radical?  

Wei: He was too radical. His slogans were different from what most people had in mind. For example, he first raised the issue of political democratization on December 5, 1978. But at that time, not many people had thought about this issue. With the Cultural Revolution, the Anti-Rightist Movement, or the Great Famine, people just saw the specifics, they did not think that these were issues of the political system, and that it was the first time that someone had proposed political democratization.

Interviewer: Whether he was the first, he was not the only one.

Wei: Yes, he was not the only one. But at that time, openly proposing political democratization was actually somewhat similar to the so-called "alternating power" and "political design institute" concepts [of the “rightists” of 1957]. But they had not yet raised the question of how this political system needed to be drawn up. When people had overthrown the "Gang of Four" [1976], they were still full of hope for the so-called Four Modernizations, improvement of life, etc. Then suddenly, political democratization appeared, which was the so-called “Fifth Modernization” [Wei Jingsheng in his famous dazibao in late 1978]. But everyone thought this was a bit too much. In December, when this big-character poster had been put up, many people phoned us at home. Then, to respond to these people, he planned to start a magazine.

Interviewer: What did your parents think about this?

Wei: My mother had already passed away...

Interviewer: But your father was a veteran cadre. What did he think?

Wei: The old man was firmly opposed to it, but didn’t say anything. After all, these were two different views on the political system by people from different generations. Actually my father also understood many things. But he was following the party then. He had been an official for so many years, so what he thought was definitely different from what Wei Jingsheng thought.

Interviewer: Was he afraid that his son could be arrested?

Wei: He didn’t think or imagine that. He just felt that his son was too reactionary. What he said and did went too far.

Interviewer: Reactionary, he said?

Wei: Yes, reactionary, counter-revolutionary, this was the notions my father used. They were thinking from different angles. As for Jingsheng, the issue of the system suddenly emerged. From then on, discussions at the Democracy Wall became livelier, and the political character of the debates became stronger. Then Ren Wanding in his "Declaration of Human Rights" raised another new issue, the human rights of the Chinese people. I believe that at that period three elements related to the political and social conditions and the system were brought up: one was the issue of political democratization as Wei Jingsheng had put it; another one was the "human rights issue" of Ren Wanding; and last one was Hu Ping’s “On Freedom of Speech.” Over the years, we have all been gradually working in these directions.

Interviewer: Can you tell me how you assisted your brother?

Wei: My help? That would be too simple. When he was running the magazine, there were a lot of people upstairs in the house, and there were also many petitioners present who tried to have all the unjust, false and wrong cases reversed. There was no place to eat, so he ate upstairs. Sometimes I bought him five pounds of steamed buns to eat. In addition, one of the persons involved in his work was Yang Guang, a college student, and there were Ma Wendu [?], Yu Qun [?], and Lu Lin, all of whom were ordinary workers; and Liu Jingsheng. The biggest problem was writing on the wax stencils. To mimeograph we had to engrave the texts on wax stencils. The result was not so good, it seemed a bit blurry to me, and there was ink that leaked after just a few prints. But thanks to our experience of engraving stencils during the Cultural Revolution, we knew how to do it, so I helped them do the stencils. I also helped him to buy the mimeograph machine that Wei used to print the "Exploration" magazine.

Interviewer: Could you buy one at that time?

Wei: Yes, one could buy it. The paper was more difficult, it could only be purchased in small quantities. A lot of the paper for us was stolen by Liu Jingsheng from a printing plant. The main things we bought were ink and wax stencils. We could buy these, but only in small quantities. And they cost money. The stencils cost several Mao a piece [the price of a meal in a small restaurant]. And in the general stores one could buy a mimeograph machine, they were all available. I recall there were so many independent journals at that time, but the only one that was really well-printed was "Beijing Spring". It's basically done in regular typeset printing, unlike anything else that was generally just mimeographed. Among all, "Exploration" was the worst printed. When we started, the number of copies was not very large. The most we sold at one time was probably two hundred copies. There were only four issues in total, when Wei was still around. After his arrest, Lu Lin published three more issues, I think. So there were only seven issues of "Exploration" in total. The last ones were all done by Lu Lin. But after a short while, Lu was also arrested, and the magazine ceased to exist.

Interviewer: How was it for you when your brother got arrested?

Wei: He was arrested on March 29. When I returned to school after the holidays, I had left the address and contact number of one of my classmates with Jingsheng before I left, and told him that if he felt in trouble, to should run away quickly, just leave it all. My classmate's father was the former director of the Sichuan Provincial Labor Reform Bureau. Nothing would happen if he tried to seek shelter with him. Going back after three months, the news would have passed. Just pull down this matter, I told him. He would definitely have no job afterwards, but he won't have to go to jail. That’s what I had arranged. On March 20, a friend from Beijing came to see me in Shanghai and told me that something would go to happen to Wei. So I knew about an upcoming calamity. This friend returned to Beijing on March 25. He notified Jingsheng and told him to run away, but he wanted to stay. When he stayed, I got sick, and it lasted for fourteen years.

Interviewer: Did the police come to look for you at that time?

Wei: Not yet. I was not in Beijing, only in January and the first half of February.

Interviewer: After he was arrested, how did this affect you in Shanghai?

Wei: Yes, many students in Shanghai wanted to debate with me. In the past, the biggest difference between students of science and students of humanities was that science students generally didn’t like to talk about such sensitive issues. So it was a bit strange among my classmates. When discussing social and political issues, they were talking a lot. The humanities students were very interested, but they always wanted to argue with me along the orthodox lines of thinking. It was quite interesting. The most exciting time was when Wei Jingsheng got sentenced in October 1979. Along the way between our dormitory and the class-rooms of the Economics and Chinese Language and Literature Departments, there were posters of the departments on both sides, and many asked to debate with me. At that time, at Shanghai’s Fudan University, there were no radicals like in Beijing. Including people like Xu Bangtai [a dissident who later moved to the US], who still had hope in the Communist Party. These were the views. There weren’t any who wanted to completely do away with the system and promote political reforms.

Interviewer: So the were no views similar to Wei Jingsheng’s?

Wei: No, almost none. The ones who really supported Wei were classmates of mine, from the Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science Departments. Almost all were science majors.

Interviewer: Could you go to observe the trial?

Wei: No. No one from our family could get in. My sisters were in Beijing at the time, but no one could get in, no family members were given passes to assist the trial in the court-room. Wei’s “defense speech" was recorded by Qu Leilei at the risk of his life.

Interviewer: Could you go to see him in prison?

Wei: Yes, but not at the beginning. Only around 1981, two years after he had been convicted, it became possible. 1981? No it was the summer of 1982, when I could see him for the first time.

Interviewer: Did he write to you?

Wei: The letters were not received. Basically, there was no contact during those two years, and we couldn't reach him, we only knew that he was in the No. 1 Prison [of Beijing]. There was a key political debate at that time, the discussion about truth. [Mao’s successor Hua Guofeng had said: "We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave". This was eventually used to discredit and sack Hua in 1980.] Politics tried defeat the "Whateverist Faction" at that time, and also made use of that big-character poster, actually following Mao’s teaching to take advantage of the masses. Within the central government, the inertia of cadres was still relatively strong. They were still deeply afraid of Old Mao, but no one dared to go against him, and in fact, they did not turn away from him in the end. Only when the so-called standard for testing truth was raised, it caused a great shock in the world of theory and ideology. It was important for Deng Xiaoping then to use this public opinion. That’s why he was a little more lenient at that time. Later when he got angry, we got the "Four Upholdings" [or “Four Basis Principles” – upholding the “socialist path”, the “people’s democratic dictatorship”, the leadership of the Communist Party and Mao Zedong Thought and Marxism-Leninism, formulated by Deng Xiaoping in April 1979 after Wei Jingsheng’s arrest].

Interviewer: Do you know if there was any support for Wei Jingsheng from within the Party at that time?

Wei: Yes. Deng gave public speeches, including to an American reporter; Chen Yun and Hu Yaobang, needless to say, were go-getters themselves.

Interviewer: Chen Yun...

Wei: What Chen Yun meant is that we could no longer follow the old path. He also supported the standards for testing truth [i.e. that reality and facts, and not Mao’s sayings, should serve as standards].

Interviewer: Were such words from him reported?

Wei: No.

Interviewer: So how did you know?

Wei: I was in Beijing at that time...

Interviewer: I know you come from a family of high-ranking cadres. Did this background play a role?

Wei: It was quite relevant. All the inside information at that time came from such officials, similar to what had happened during the Cultural Revolution. Actually all of the so-called gossip was somehow true. Deng's words were reported by journalist at the Xidan Wall [referring to Deng’s positive remarks on dazibao in November 1978], so everyone knew about it. It couldn’t be fake.

Interviewer: Chen Yun’s...

Wei: Some of Chen Yun’s remarks at the “Form on Theory Work” [in early 1979] were quite different from what Hua Guofeng and Wang Dongxing said there. Many of the government leaders who had come up during the Cultural Revolution, like Chen Yonggui and Wu Guixian, were still there, but basically without influence, also because a large number of officials and intellectuals in the party had been rehabilitated at that time.

Interviewer: When you look back today on all that has happened, including the later consequences and the arrest of your brother, would you think it was a failure or was there still something...

Wei: From a historical perspective, I think this was a positive contribution. And it promoted something new, at least in the minds of the Chinese. But this new things had disappeared five or six years later under the rule of the Communist Party. Everyone again could only think about them secretly at home. So to talk about them in public was a breakthrough in itself. It helped people in the future do some thinking or personally test the law. Aren't people who try to test the law in fact a backing and an encouragement?

Interviewer: Your brother still paid a high price, didn’t he?

Wei: It was a price that he paid, and I don’t think it was worth it.

Interviewer: So, do you think that was worth then for your brother?

Wei: Worth or not, is not the question here. If a person wants to do something like this, he must always take responsibility for his actions, no matter whether he is right or wrong, whether it is a crime or a merit. It’s like this. This experience of my brother Wei Jingsheng was the price he paid for his own thoughts and actions. Whether this price was worth it, from his personal point of view, he thinks it was worth it. Otherwise he wouldn't have done it. If a person is only concerned about gains and losses and always puts his own interests first, then he may not be able to do such a thing.

Interviewer: Do you still often talk about politics with him?

Wei: Yes, we do often talk, and about what else should we talk. Nowadays, we don’t talk much about politics, and even less about specific actions. We still talk about ideas, but sometimes we have different opinions on how we should act. To be honest, in 1978 and 1979, we were exploited by the Communist Party, but common people also benefited from it. What we have got is like Huang Xiang's society of "Enlightenment"….