Szema Lu died peacefully in her sleep at 7:40 a.m. on Sunday, March 28, at a Home for the elderly in Flushing, New York, at the age of 103. (Courtesy of Family)
Sima Lu, a well-known expert on the history of the Chinese Communist Party and an Anti-Communist literary figure, died at 7:40 a.m. on Sunday, March 28, at a home for the elderly in Flushing, New York City, at the age of 103.
Formerly known as Ma Yi, Sima Lu was born in Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, on July 4, 1919, on the yellow calendar. He joined the Communist Party’s peripheral organizations in 1937 and joined the Party in 1937 before the Lugou Bridge Incident, arriving in Yan’an in the same year, when he was 18 years old.
After the South Anhui Incident in 1941, Sima Lu left Yan’an and was expelled from the Party, starting his Life in pursuit of freedom and democracy.
Sima Lu had many interactions with Zhang Guotao, an important early leader of the CCP, and he always criticized the official party history of the CCP for its scandalous and inaccurate portrayal of Zhang Guotao.
Sima Lu settled in Hong Kong in 1949 and published Prospect magazine. In 1983, he moved to New York, USA, to host Exploration magazine.
The photo shows Sima Lu (seated in the middle) at his 90th birthday celebration. (Shi Jing/The Epoch Times)
Mr. Sima Lu wrote extensively throughout his life. In 1952, he published a book in Hong Kong, Eighteen Years of Struggle, which wrote about his tortuous journey from defecting to the Communist Party to coming to his senses and choosing freedom, and it was a sensation. Fifty years later, Professor Yu Ying-shi still mentioned in a poem he wrote to Sima Lu, “I have read Eighteen Years of Struggle, and ten thousand people in Hong Kong have spread the word against the Communists.”
Sima Lu edited a set of “The Essence of Chinese Communist Party History and Documents”, and when he was 85 years old, he published a 400,000-word memoir, “Witnesses to the History of the Chinese Communist Party”, which was divided into three chapters according to its contents, the first of which was about his personal experience, the second about the first generation of Chinese Communist Party figures, and the third devoted to the struggle between Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. At the age of 80, he established the “Chinese Scholars Association”.
At his 100th birthday celebration on July 7, 2018, when asked what he thought of the current Chinese Communist Party after a lifetime of studying it, he simply said, “They are patting themselves on the back, it’s not true!”
Sima Lu once exposed Jiang Zemin’s adoptive father Jiang Shangqing as a “traitor” and not a “martyr”. In an interview in 1992, Sima Lu pointed out that Jiang Zemin’s “martyr adoptive father” Jiang Shangqing was a “traitor”, not a “martyr”; Sima Lu said that Jiang Shangqing was arrested three times and released three times. He was released three times, but did not explain to the Chinese Communist Party what happened after his arrest. Sima Lu said, “Now the Chinese Communist Party says Jiang Shangqing is a martyr, but I remember being told by the organization that he was a traitor and was working on intelligence for the Kuomintang, and I was told not to contact him.”
Veteran media personality Li Yong, who has been with Sima Lu three times since the 1950s in Hong Kong and New York, said, “No one understands that Communist Party routine better than Sima Lu, that they cover up and falsify history and make up rumors, and only Mr. Sima Lu can expose their rumors and crimes of falsifying history one by one, which is Sima Lu’s greatest achievement. “
Zeng Huiyan, a senior media personality who has been in contact with Sima Lu, said at the birthday celebration of Sima Lu’s 100th birthday that Sima Lu’s life could be summed up in eight words – “100 years old birthday star, merit in history. He is a living dictionary of Chinese political figures and a witness to the history of the Communist Party.”
According to family and friends, Sima Lu died peacefully in his sleep as a 103-year-old human being, without any illness. A farewell service for Sima Lu is scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday, April 7, at All Blessings Funeral Home in Flushing.
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