周伟，一位老共产党员因为开展反腐败斗争而被判劳教

　　（纽约时报7月2日罗森塔尔从中国沈阳报道）四十年来，周伟（音）一直是国家机
关和国有企业里的出色的干部，是他那种对党的忠诚和勤劳的工作才使得中国的社会主
义工业一直运转。他的同事和家人说，他很优秀，一直爱党，至今也仍爱党。

　　但是，今天，他被关在一个劳改营，被指控非法集会、在这个经济萧条的城市里煽
动动乱。自从九十年代中期，六十九岁的周领导着数千名沈阳的老共产党员，抗议、请
愿，反对腐败，指责当地政府不照顾农民、工人和退休人员、违背为人民服务的宗旨。


　　现在，一些人正在展开争取释放周的活动，从而让将一场历时五年之久的不同寻常
的斗争大白于天下－－斗争发生在当地党组织和一些资格最老的退休干部之间，这是一
场离奇的冲突：那些老干部是一九四九年革命的老英雄，是他们让党赢得了政权，而今
天警察在对他们实行跟踪盯稍。

　　更重要的是：这反映了广大群众对共产党的腐败、丧失理想而产生的幻灭，即使是
党的下层成员中也是如此。也反映了党的威信受到腐蚀，党对权力的垄断也在下降，这
个国家的公民越来越敢于说出他们的想法。

　　在沈阳，这个国企衰败的城市，工人要求补发拖欠工资的抗议简直如此司空见惯，
每天早晨的新闻都播报道路阻塞的情况。但是，老干部们的抗议是更深一层的。

　　“我们老干部对周伟同志的被捕十分气愤！”一位七十多岁叫张京才的老干部说。

　　“我仍然十分热爱中国共产党，但是我痛恨腐败。”张说。“现在党的威望在群众
中不高，这让我们这些老干部非常难过。”

　　周和他的老干部抗议队伍在沈阳非常出名。他们中的数百名经常星期天在青年公园
聚集讨论政治。敢说话的周，他的革命资历是无可挑剔的，他几乎成为一个两肋插刀、
打抱不平的人物，一个朴素的巨人，他为工人、农民和老共产党员说话，这些人在中国
今天经济改革浪潮中靠边站了。

　　周于一九四七年十六岁时就加入了人民解放军，一九四九年四月入党。在八十年代
，他被评为劳动模范。他和家人生活朴素，住在水泥地板的单元楼里。

　　“工人和农民也非常关心周伟同志，”七十二岁的袁重志，另一位退休干部说。“
他们非常崇拜周，管他叫老干部之星，因为他为所有人的正义而斗争。”

　　周从一九九五年起组织抗议活动，一开始是由于很现实的原因：沈阳政府停止发放
全市两万国企多退休老干部按法律规定的退休待遇。长期为党工作的老党员突然面对没
有退休金、没有医疗待遇的窘境，而一些党的领导人却在大盖别墅、开豪华车。

　　他们造反了。三年中，周手里拿着号角，带领着退休干部，去到沈阳市的政府门前
，以及到北京去游行并递交他们的抗议信。

　　过了一段时间，他们的待遇有所好转，从一九九六年的相当25美元增加到现在的相
当115美元，但他们仍感到住房和医疗条件太差。

　　逐渐地，老干部们开始关注其他问题，帮助被沈阳市政府非法夺去土地的农民，为
那些因为一个私人银行倒闭失去储蓄的人们奔走，该银行和高层官员有关系，银行因为
贪污腐败而倒闭。

　　一九九八年当地党的领导下令开除周的党籍，并说，从一九九四年十月到一九九八
年六月，周组织了119次向政府请愿活动，参加者有17,000人。

　　抗议活动在中国的城市越来越常见，有些处在无法可依的状态，但老干部们说，他
们总是坚持适当的形式的。

　　“所有这些老干部都是从前的工厂领导，他们知道怎样做。”周的妻子赵燕说，她
是一位瘦弱的女人。“交通警甚至还夸奖老干部的请愿活动有秩序，不象很多其他的抗
议者那样堵塞道路等等。”

　　恐怕让当地官员最感威胁的，是老干部还决定去调查当地的腐败，而且追到上层还
继续追。

　　“我们不是胡乱盲动，”张说，“我们是相应党的号召清除腐败。”

　　但是，当他们的活动越来越深入，警察的骚扰也加剧了。

　　周的电话在他被捕之前就被窃听，当老干部星期天在公园里开会时，数十个警察也
在那儿旁听。

　　一九九八年五月，周和他的伙伴去北京告状，揭发沈阳市副市长马向东参与一桩房
地产炒卖，而且非法占有了上千个农民的土地。周一回来，就被沈阳市公安局关押了两
个星期，被开除出党。

　　而副市长马向东现在在监狱里，因贪污罪等待审判。

　　仍旧不屈不挠，一九九九年四月，周和他的退休干部伙伴们再一次去北京，这次找
到公安部，揭发沈阳银行蒙骗了数千个存款者将近十亿元的存款。一九九九年五月，他
们又准备揭发市建筑材料管理部门贪污4000万元，但没有来得及，周就被捕了。

　　五月六日晚八点，二十多个警察乘五辆警车停在周的简陋的住房前，将周逮捕，搜
走他的所有调查文件、图章、文具和法律书籍。

　　第二天，他被送到劳改场进行两年劳教，这是一种可由警察决定、在法院体系外实
行的判决。周从来没有上法庭，也没被判处任何罪名。

　　他的妻子说：“他一辈子都献给了革命，现在他却受迫害。”

　　那份将他开除出党的文件，以及逮捕他的文件，只是说他不够忠实，没有很好合作
。

　　“周伟应该遵守党的政治纪律，专心保护党的形象，保护安定团结的政治局面。”
那份开除文件说到。

　　但是，今天的中国，即使是那些“为革命流血”的忠诚干部，也不认为对党的忠诚
意味着盲目的服从，特别是对一个错误和贪污腐败的党的服从。

　　“我入党已经五十多年了，以前从来没有见到过这种事。”一位头发斑白、八十二
岁的老干部李保才说。“我坚决反对逮捕周伟、反对这样对待他。我就不明白，为什么
这样的问题不能解决？我们老干部想努力解决这些问题，是因为我们相信党、相信政府
。”

　　自从周被捕以来，和他一起工作的老干部们以上书、亲自请愿的方式表达他们的不
满，他们指出：周被开除出党，没有经过讨论，违反了党员的权利。

　　他被判劳教时，根本不允许他的律师辩护，这违反了中国法律。中国报纸也不允许
报道他的案子，尽管有一些记者曾经来采访过他。

　　“周伟第一次被捕时，我去两次要去看他，但都不被允许。”另一个老干部李育申
气愤地说。“这叫什么人权？”

　　现在，周已经开始了劳教的第二年，他的妻子说他丈夫原来身体很健康，现在有病
了，包括高血压。

　　但是，其他老干部们仍在继续斗争。去年十一月，他们写了一个报告揭发沈阳市长
保护腐败的官员。

　　六月上旬，四十三名老干部签署一封给周的公开信，信中说：“沈阳的黑暗总有一
天会过去。我们的朋友周伟，你是一个真正的共产党员。”

（原载：July 2, 2000 New York Times "Old-Line Communists at Odds With Party 
in China" By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL;墨石译）


July 2, 2000  (New York Times)

Old-Line Communists at Odds With Party in China

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Agence France-Presse  
Zhou Wei, a longtime Communist, is now imprisoned in a labor camp for 
organizing anticorruption protests.  

SHENYANG, China -- For more than 40 years, Zhou Wei found success as a 
Communist Party cadre in government bureaus and state-owned enterprises, the 
kind of loyal official whose hard work kept the gears of China's socialist 
industry turning. Colleagues and family say he was a brilliant, if prickly, 
man who loved -- and still loves -- the party. 

But today he is in a labor camp, accused of organizing illegal assemblies and 
inciting unrest in this depressed industrial city. Since the mid-1990's, Mr. 
Zhou, 69, had led thousands of Shenyang's revered old Communist cadres in a 
mounting series of protests and petition campaigns against the local 
government, loudly denouncing its corruption and its failure to look after 
the farmers, workers and retirees it had pledged to serve. 

Now, a campaign to gain Mr. Zhou's release has brought into public view an 
extraordinary five-year struggle between the local party and some of its most 
senior retired officials -- a bizarre conflict in which the police tail old 
men who are heros of the 1949 revolution that brought the party to power. 

But more than that, it reflects widespread popular disillusionment with the 
Communist Party over corruption and lost ideals, even among its own rank and 
file. And it demonstrates the erosion of the party's credibility and its 
monopoly on power in a country where citizens are increasingly inclined to 
speak their minds. 

Here in this city of ailing state enterprises, protests by workers demanding 
unpaid wages are so common that road blockages are announced on the morning 
news. But the complaints of the veteran cadres go deeper to the bone. 

"We old cadres were outraged by the arrest of Comrade Zhou Wei," said Zhang 
Jingcai, a youthful-looking 70-year-old perched on the edge of a folding 
chair. 

"I still fervently love the Chinese Communist Party, but I hate its corrupt 
elements," Mr. Zhang said. "The prestige of the party is not very high among 
ordinary people these days, and that makes us old cadres very sad." 

Mr. Zhou and his band of retired cadres were well known in Shenyang, where 
hundreds of them would meet every Sunday at the Youth Park to discuss 
politics. The outspoken Mr. Zhou, with impeccable revolutionary credentials, 
became a sort of Robin Hood figure, a plain-living party stalwart who stood 
up for the workers, peasants and old Communists who had been cast aside in 
China's rush to remake its socialist economy. 

Mr. Zhou joined the People's Liberation Army in 1947 at 16 and became a 
Communist Party member in 1949, six months before Mao Zedong proclaimed the 
founding of the People's Republic. In the 1980's he was honored as a model 
worker. He and his family lived simply, in a cement-floored walk-up flat. 

"Farmers and factory workers are also concerned about Zhou Wei," said Yuan 
Chongzhi, 72, another retired official. "They worshipped him -- called him 
the star of the old cadres -- because he was struggling for justice for 
everyone." 

Mr. Zhou began organizing protests in 1995, for intensely practical reasons: 
The Shenyang government had stopped providing the city's 20,000 old cadres 
who had retired from state-owned industries with their legally guaranteed 
retirement benefits. Longtime party stalwarts found themselves without full 
pensions or medical coverage at a time when some local party leaders were 
building villas and driving Audis. 

They rebelled. For the next three years, Mr. Zhou, bullhorn in hand, led 
groups of retired cadres to government offices in Shenyang, the capital of 
Liaoning Province, and Beijing, where they marched up to deliver written 
petitions listing their complaints. 

Over time, their monthly benefits improved -- from about $25 a month in 1996 
to about $115 today, for example -- though they still complain about 
substandard housing and medical benefits. 

Over time, too, the old cadres began to tackle other problems, helping 
peasants whose land had been illegally seized by the Shenyang city government 
and championing the cause of Chinese who had lost their savings when a 
private bank with close ties to top local officials collapsed under the 
weight of corruption. 

The 1998 order from the local party leaders that stripped Mr. Zhou of his 
party membership states that, from October 1994 to June 1998, he organized 
119 trips to petition the government, involving 17,000 people. 

Demonstrations in Chinese cities are increasingly common and some are 
lawless, the old cadres say, but they insist they always followed proper 
procedures. 

"All these old cadres are former factory leaders and party leaders so they 
have knowledge and standards," said Mr. Zhou's wife, Zhao Yan, a 
frail-looking woman in a print housedress. "The traffic police even praised 
the old cadres for petitioning in such an orderly way -- not like a lot of 
protesters here who block roads and things like that." 

Perhaps most threatening to local officials, though, was the fact that the 
old cadres also decided to investigate local corruption, and did not flinch 
when the trail led to the top. 

"We didn't rush in blindly," said Mr. Zhang. "We were heeding the calls of 
party leadership to stamp out corruption." 

But as their efforts intensified, so did the police harassment. 

Mr. Zhou's phones were tapped in the years before he was imprisoned and when 
the old cadres met on Sundays in the park, scores of police officers listened 
in. 

In May 1998, Mr. Zhou and his group traveled to Beijing to charge that a 
deputy mayor of Shenyang, Ma Xiangdong, was involved in a land speculation 
scheme that had illegally seized property that belonged to thousands of 
peasants. On his return, Mr. Zhou was detained for two weeks by the Shenyang 
Public Security Bureau and then expelled from the party. 


As for Mr. Ma, he is now in prison, awaiting trial on charges of corruption. 

Undaunted, in April 1999, Mr. Zhou and his fellow retired cadres made another 
trip to Beijing, this time to the Ministry of Public Security, to expose the 
Shenyang bank that had bilked thousands of depositors of almost $1 billion. 
And in early May 1999, they were preparing to report on a top official in the 
city's construction materials administration, who they said had siphoned off 
$40 million. They never got the chance. 

At 8 p.m. on May 6, five police cars carrying more than 20 officers pulled up 
in front of the drab apartment block where Mr. Zhou lived, his family said. 
They arrested Mr. Zhou, carting off his research files, stamps, stationery 
and law books. 

The next day, he was sent to a labor camp for two years -- a sentence that 
can be imposed here by police outside of the court system. Mr. Zhou has never 
been tried or convicted of a crime. 

"His whole life he served the revolution and now he's being persecuted," his 
wife said. 

The document that expelled Mr. Zhou from the party and the one that later led 
to his incarceration essentially accuse him of disloyalty -- of not being a 
team player. 

"Zhou Wei should have set an example of observing the party's political 
discipline, conscientiously protecting the party's image and protecting a 
stable and unified political situation," his expulsion notice says. 

But in today's China, even devoted cadres who, as they say, "spilled blood 
for the revolution," recoil at the notion that loyalty to the party means 
blind acceptance, especially blind acceptance of party wrongdoing and graft. 

"I've been in the party for more than 50 years and I've never seen anything 
like this," said Li Baocai, a grizzled 82-year-old. "I really object to Zhou 
Wei being arrested and treated like this. I can't accept the idea that we 
shouldn't try to solve these kinds of problems. We old cadres tried to solve 
them because we believe in the party and the government." 

In the months since his arrest, old cadres who worked with Mr. Zhou have 
lodged their unhappiness in written petitions and in person, often using the 
language of civil rights that has entered the Chinese vocabulary in this era 
of opening and reform. 

They complained that when Mr. Zhou was expelled from the party, he was not 
accorded the hearing that is the right of all party members. 

They complained that at the court appeal of his sentencing to the labor camp 
his lawyers were not even permitted to mount a defense, and that Mr. Zhou has 
now waited seven months for a decision, a violation of Chinese law. And they 
complained that Chinese newspapers have not been allowed to report on his 
case, though reporters have come to interview them. 

"When Zhou Wei was in prison the first time, I went twice to see him and they 
wouldn't let me in," said Li Yushen, another old cadre, with a defiant air. 
"What kind of human rights is this?" 

By now, Mr. Zhou has begun his second year of labor camp, where his wife says 
her previously healthy husband has developed medical problems, including high 
blood pressure. 

But the old cadres continue his work. Last November, they issued a report 
accusing Shenyang's mayor of protecting corrupt officials. 

And in early June, 43 signed an open letter to their friend, which says: "The 
darkness in Shenyang will one day pass. Our friend Zhou Wei, you are a true 
Communist."