Publisher's Synopsis
Born in 1901, Chaolin is one of the few survivors of the first generation of leaders of the Left Opposition. His memoirs retell his experiences in France in 1919, where he gradually came under the influence of communism, and went on to become the founder of the Chinese Communist Youth Party. Upon returning to China, Chaolin was an eyewitness to the May Thirtieth movement of 1925 and a participator in three successive insurrections of Chinese workers and students that culimnated in the liberation of Shanghai from the warlords. This work was finished in 1945, a few years before he, his comrades, and his manuscript were swept behind bars by Mao's political police. He refused to budge from his Trotskyist position and was kept in jail for 27 years without ever undergoing any formal indictment. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. The volume concludes with a brief autobiographical sketch in which Zheng in 1990, at the age of 90, birngs the story of his life up-to-date.
