Four decades of Chinese history lie folded inside eighty boxes, a trove chronicled by a singular witness, now at the center of a courtroom drama in California. The question before the court is stark: should the diaries belong to an American university or return to Beijing? The diaries belong to Li Rui, Mao Zedong’s long-serving secretary, a man whose liberal instincts and reformist leanings spilled into pages that were as candid as they were risky. He described Mao as despising human life and offered pointed critiques of Xi Jinping’s era, noting a personal education that lagged and a copied cult of personality. Li Rui’s voice persisted as free verse—lucid, fearless, and only checked by his unblemished revolutionary credentials. He died in 2019 at the age of 101, leaving behind a complex legacy captured in ink and paper.
After Li’s passing, his widow, Zhang Yuzhen, petitioned Stanford University to return the writings. The daughter, Li Nanyang, who lives in the United States and has long challenged the Communist Party, had spent years scanning, transcribing, and cataloging her father’s journals. The legal battle is complicated by the absence of a will. The daughter argues that Li would have wished for his diaries to be shielded from China, a claim that carries weight given the regime’s strict stance against critical re-reading and the suppression of historical nihilism under Xi. The widow counters that she owns the diaries, stressing that the volumes interweave political analysis with intimate life details, and that public access could cause personal shame and emotional distress.
Zhang’s case has found some traction in Chinese courts, while the American university maintains it never had a chance to present its side, arguing that the Chinese system’s absence of real checks and balances signals political influence. The daughter is pursuing a declaration of rightful ownership in the United States within a dispute that could span years. Observers note a power imbalance: a prestigious American university versus a nonagenarian grandmother. Legal fees loom large against modest earnings, prompting some to speculate that the Communist Party might have an interest in silencing a less flattering chapter of recent history. Zhang has denied this motive. Her position is simple: she seeks the original manuscripts and would allow photocopies to be produced.
One year beside the Great Leader
Li Rui’s diaries span from 1935, when a young idealist joined the party, to the leader’s death. Born in 1917, Li quickly rose through the ranks after the Communist victory in 1949. Mao appointed him personal secretary in 1958, following Li’s outspoken opposition to a dam project on the Yangtze, an early sign of his fearless temperament. The tenure lasted barely a year. He later criticized the Great Leap Forward, the catastrophic campaign that contributed to famine and countless deaths, and he spent eight years in Qincheng, the high-security prison for disgraced leaders. The confinement was often solitary.
Only after Mao’s death in 1976 and Deng Xiaoping’s rise did Li reappear within the party’s orbit. He led the Hydro-electrical Department and directed the body that selected capable officials for senior roles. Across the many factions within the party, he found an alignment with liberal and reformist impulses. In a Western interview about Tiananmen Square, he recalled writing to party leaders urging restraint and warning against martial law, arguing that humanity should trump political expediency. His stance, though controversial, reflected a willingness to hold the party to higher standards when confronted with upheaval.
In his latter years, Li enjoyed a level of freedom unusual for a party that both admired his foundational role and silenced many of his later cautions. His five books about Mao faced censorship at home, and the progressive publication that carried his hopes for a Europe-style socialist system—an idea that stirred debate—was muted. Yet he never abandoned his party affiliation, a paradox that explains why the memory of his life continues to fuel clashes between the United States and China. His remains a testament to a man who navigated the tension between reform and allegiance, between public power and private conscience, and who died with his ideas still challenging the status quo.