China expert Frank Dikötter, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, discusses the unique value of the diary of Li Rui and its contribution to understanding the history of the Communist Party in China, and in particular the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989. Li Rui was a longtime Chinese Communist Party (CCP) insider and historian who witnessed the violent crackdown in 1989 and became a reform advocate interested in stemming authoritarianism in the CCP.
The Lui Rui papers are housed at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University. Explore the finding aid for the collection here.
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>> Frank Dikötter: Li Rui's diary, in my opinion, is one of the very most invaluable sources that one can read on the history of modern China. It's a gem.
On the 4th of June 1989, some hundred thousand soldiers and 200 tanks converged towards the center of Beijing on Tiananmen Square to grind protesters, people who were in favor of democracy, into the dust, causing some 2.7 to 3.4 thousand deaths.
It's a key event in the history of modern China. If you were to ask me what is the best primary source on this entire period, Li Rui's diary is, I would say, one of the most important documents we've got. Li Rui, born in 1917, joins the Communist Party of China 20 years later, goes up the ranks.
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he becomes a senior official, works as the secretary of Mao Zedong. He's purged for 20 years, 8 years of solitary confinement, comes back to government in the 1980s, serving as a key party official in a department that is responsible for selecting all the senior officials for all the key, if you wish, positions within the party.
So he knows everyone. And he keeps a diary and he writes down every day what he sees, what he says, who he meets and what they say. Li Rui's diary is a true gift. Journalists, dissidents can report what they see on the street. He's reporting what he saw inside the corridors of power.
What you get to see is really the view from the inside out, from inside the party. And that's just unique. When Li Rui stands on his balcony on the 4th of June 1989 roundabout midnight, and sees the troops not only move in, but pretty much kill everything around them, that's a key passage.
What is so fascinating is that he tells you exactly what is happening. Shooting by soldiers against ordinary people. The crushing of barricades had been organized by the demonstrators. They put together bicycles and abandoned buses to create some sort of barrier. Of course, armored vehicles drive straight through it, but the soldiers also shoot at the buildings, including the one where he is.
So just that, basically a page, right? Just that page. This is so full of facts. Well, he calls it "Black Weekend" and he writes it in English. So "Black Weekend" is pretty powerful, I think, way of describing it. Li Rui, after Tiananmen Square, the massacre, continued to stubbornly press for democracy.
He would write one letter after the other throughout the 1990s, all the way up to 2012. Letters to key leaders, key party organs, asking for the separation of powers, greater accountability, and ultimately, of course, democracy. In that he was truly a visionary, but also very brave. He very much wanted those diaries to end up in the Hoover Institution for future historians to read.
