On September 14, 2024, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in New York held a grand parade in Brooklyn to support the 430 million Chinese people who have withdrawn from the CCP&9;s Party, Youth League, and Young Pioneers (Three Withdrawals). (Photo: Dai Bing/Dajiyuan)
[People News] On the Global Website for Quitting the CCP, tens of thousands of “Three Withdrawals” applications—withdrawal from the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League, and the Young Pioneers—are received every day, explaining the reasons for quitting. Some applications contain only a few words, while others are longer, using vivid language to recount a lifetime of tragic experiences of persecution, accusing the CCP’s tyranny of bringing countless profound disasters to the Chinese people over more than seventy years.
The following application was written by an elderly man in his eighties who signs himself “A Person of the Righteous Path.” He recounts how three generations of his family struggled painfully to survive under CCP tyranny. He says:
“Memories of Jining are like a long and intense nightmare, entwining me—I cannot wake from it, nor can I forget it. That pain has merged into my bloodline, becoming proof of my existence… So today I swear to withdraw from the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League, and the Young Pioneers!”
Below is the full text of the application:
I am now over eighty years old. The mottled mud on the walls crisscrosses like the wrinkles of an old man, and through the gaps in the drafty roof, an occasional piercing chill seeps in. Outside the window lies the eternal canal of Jining. Under the afterglow of the setting sun, the water shimmers with rippling light, like a silver ribbon winding through this ancient land. Yet this gleam can no longer reflect my youthful face from long ago; only a desolate reflection remains—distorted and blurred.
Whenever night falls and all grows silent, I feel as if I am plunging into an abyss. The past surges toward me like a tide. Those days torn apart by time are like a rusted sickle, mercilessly slicing open old wounds in my heart—flesh mangled, pain piercing to the bone. This pain is not a momentary stab; it is like a chronic poison, slowly seeping into the marrow, devouring every last trace of vitality left in me.
Jining, this city that was once as warm as a mother’s embrace, has now become a wound that will never heal. Every inch of its land is engraved with blood, tears, and despair. What I wish to tell is not some heroic legend, nor those whitewashed glories, but how we ordinary people—tiny as dust—were ruthlessly crushed into mud by the giant wheels of that red storm, turned into ashes of history, with not even echoes of our wails left to resound.
Looking back, everything feels as if it began just yesterday. It was the early 1950s, and I was only a ten-year-old boy. Our family lived in a remote little village south of Jining city. The village nestled beside the canal; the water was clear and abundant, nourishing the land. My father was an honest, plainspoken rich peasant, his hands covered with calluses from tilling a few mu of land year after year. My mother wove cloth by the riverbank, working diligently to produce bolts of rough yet warm fabric.
We were not wealthy, but our days flowed steadily and orderly like the canal water. In spring, willow branches sprouted buds and greenery flourished; village children played by the river, their laughter ringing like bells. At harvest time, the rice fields turned golden. My father would come home carrying his sickle, always with a satisfied smile, and my mother would cook a pot of steaming rice porridge. Our family would sit together on the heated kang, savoring that simple happiness.
Who could have imagined that such tranquility was as fragile as glass? A storm called “land reform,” like dark clouds pressing down, swept in silently. They claimed to “liberate” poor peasants and overthrow the “exploiting class,” but where in our village were there any heinous landlords? My father merely earned more through harder labor, a man who lived by the weather and his sweat. At that moment, my heart fell into an icy abyss, sensing faintly that merciless shackles were about to be placed upon our family.
That unforgettable night, village militiamen burst into our home like wolves. They wielded crude clubs, their eyes flashing with fanatical and cruel red light, as if possessed by starving demons, devouring all humanity. The air was filled with the mixed stench of tobacco and sweat, suffocating.
“Old Ma, you are an evil landlord tyrant, exploiting the toiling masses!” they roared, violently dragging my father off the kang. My mother rushed in, her knees giving way as she knelt on the ground, tears pouring down as she begged hoarsely, “Officer, please spare him…” But how could those people listen?
They dragged my father like a chicken to the large old locust tree at the village entrance. The shadows of its branches swayed, moonlight spilling down, yet it could not illuminate this human tragedy. I clutched my younger brother tightly, shrinking into a dark corner. My heart pounded like a drum, my legs went weak, and fear—like icy tentacles—wrapped around my entire body.
My father was tightly bound to the tree trunk. Rags covered with filthy curses were draped over him, and on his head they placed a tall paper “landlord’s hat.” Villagers were forced into a circle; some were compelled to throw stones, others to spit. Low curses and sobbing echoed through the air. A stone smashed my father’s forehead, and blood flowed down his face like a winding red snake. He murmured softly, his voice trembling yet firm: “I am not a landlord; I am just a farmer…”
In that instant, my heart felt as if it were being twisted by a blade. My father’s eyes—the eyes that once gently stroked my head—were now filled with grievance and helplessness, a sight I will never forget. But the soldiers were deaf to it all. They raised shovel handles and smashed them fiercely against my father’s leg bones. The crisp sound of breaking bone exploded in the silent night like firecrackers, drilling into my ears and echoing endlessly.
The pain was not only my father’s; it surged toward me like a flood. I clenched my teeth, tears slipping down silently, wishing I could rush forward and shield him with my frail body. But I could only tremble helplessly, watching my father collapse into a pool of blood, his twisted figure stretched long under the moonlight, like a broken soul.
From that day on, my father was completely crippled. His leg bones were crooked, and he could never again work the fields… Overnight, our family’s land was confiscated, and we became one of the universally reviled “black five categories.” The neighbors’ gazes turned distant and fearful; former laughter became cold, retreating backs.
To keep us alive, my mother dragged her exhausted body along the canal every morning to pick river clams. Their shells were sharp as knives, slicing her palms. Blood mixed with river mud stained the shallows red. She sold the clam meat for a few measures of grain and always returned home forcing a smile: “Children, eat—Mother isn’t hungry.” But her eyes had already sunk like dry wells, filled with endless sorrow and despair.
Famine crept in like a beast. It was the era of the Great Leap Forward in 1958. The CCP shouted slogans about “smelting steel,” forcing villagers to smash their pots and pans—objects passed down for generations—into twisted scrap metal. Smoke and dust billowed skyward, and the air was thick with the scorched smell of rust. Crops in the fields went unharvested, left to rot under wind and sun.
We began swallowing tree bark, chewing Guanyin clay, even catching rats to stave off hunger. The bitterness of the earth and the stench of rats still linger on my tongue today. From 1959 to 1961, the countryside of Jining turned into a living hell. Corpses lay everywhere, and bodies floated along the canal. Some said they were starving people who had jumped in despair; others said the corpses had been washed in from elsewhere. The water reeked, flies buzzed, and children’s cries intertwined with mothers’ sighs into a dirge of despair.
I remember one winter night when my brother was so starved he was skin and bones, his eyes sunken like a ghost’s. Curled in the corner of the kang, he first whimpered weakly, then no longer had the strength even to cry, only faint breaths flickering like a dying candle. I secretly slipped to a neighboring village, braving wind and snow to steal a few sweet potatoes. The frostbitten pain in my hands felt like needles, yet it was nothing compared to the terror in my heart.
I was discovered by militiamen. They hung me from a tree and whipped me with thick leather belts. The pain of torn flesh burned like fire. The scars on my back still ache faintly today, like indelible brands. My brother did not survive to see my return. In the bitter winter of 1960, he passed away. When I rushed home after finishing my work, he was barely breathing. I held his cold body, tears flooding my eyes, my heart gnawed by countless ants: “Brother, I’m sorry…”
When my mother returned and saw this, she went mad with grief, collapsing to her knees and wailing, her voice tearing at the heavens: “My child, why did you leave your mother so cruelly!” She carried my brother’s body to the canal, staggered to the icy stone steps, and cried there for three days and nights. Her tears froze into frost on her aged face. The rippling water swallowed her figure—and with it, the last trace of warmth and hope in our family.
I witnessed my mother’s suicide from afar. My heart turned to ashes. Why was Heaven so cruel? The Great Leap Forward—this man-made catastrophe was forced to be called a “natural disaster”—how many innocent souls did it kill? The streets of Jining echoed with heartbroken cries, yet no one dared to say it was tyranny. People could only whisper in the darkness, praying for a shred of mercy.
My sister and I became orphans. Later, we lost contact entirely. I was forced, along with others, to work at a collective farm in the eastern outskirts of Jining. It was a desolate wilderness, wind and sand filling the sky, wild grass everywhere. From dawn until late night, villagers dug ditches, planted fields, repaired tools. Their hands blistered and bled, yet all they received was porridge as thin as water and bitter wild vegetables.
We lived in drafty mud-brick houses. In winter, the north wind cut like knives. Cracked hands and feet bled and festered, keeping people awake at night in pain. There I met a retired intellectual, Professor Zhang, once a teacher at Jining Normal College. By a twist of fate, he too was sent there to labor, merely because he had raised a few minor questions about farm management to the leaders. He was labeled a “rightist.”
At a struggle session, Red Guards forced him to drink ink he had hidden. The black liquid slid down his throat, his face twisting into painful folds, his coughing sounding like a beast’s growl. Then they beat him to death with clubs. I watched as the light faded from his eyes. In them were despair, defiance, and a final questioning of humanity: “Why? We just wanted to live…”
At that moment, my soul felt torn apart. His blood splattered on the ground, staining the barren soil—and staining my heart forever, a stain I can never wash away.
When the Cultural Revolution erupted, I was already in my twenties and had been assigned to work at a textile factory in Jining. It was 1966. Red Guards rampaged through the streets like unbridled horses, like mad dogs. They smashed temples, burned books, and even shattered the ancient stone steles of the thousand-year-old Confucian Temple into fragments scattered like broken history.
Jining’s historic sites turned into ruins, and the canal water became murky, as if soaked in endless blood and tears. Willows along the banks drooped their branches, as if mourning the dead.
My uncle, a devout Buddhist, kept only a small Buddha statue at home as spiritual support. He was reported by neighbors. Red Guards burst in like plague demons and smashed the statue into powder, shards flying like shattered dreams. My uncle was tied to a post. They burned the soles of his feet with hot coals. The stench of scorched flesh filled the air, and his screams echoed like ghosts wailing, piercing my heart.
I hid in the shadows, fists clenched, fingernails digging into my palms, tears burning as they fell, powerless to rescue him. Before he died, he murmured “Amitabha,” his voice weak yet filled with compassion. My heart was torn apart—why must even faith be trampled into ashes?
In those years, the tragedies I witnessed came one after another like nightmares. Uncle Wang, a neighbor, merely muttered that “there’s something wrong with the policy,” and was dragged to the square for public humiliation. He wore a paper “ox-demon snake-spirit” hat, with filthy old shoes hanging around his neck. Children were incited to throw stones at him. His wife fainted from crying and awoke completely shattered.
Uncle Wang was sent to a labor camp, where he starved to death in hunger and cold. His remains were buried in the wilderness, with no one to mourn him.
There was also Aunt Liu, a village widow. Her son was implicated in the Lin Biao incident and branded “anti-Party.” Their home was ransacked, and the family was driven out penniless. In the freezing winter, wearing only thin clothing, she froze to death on the street, her body curled like a withered leaf, eyes wide open—filled with longing for her son and an accusation against fate.
On the streets of Jining, cries and bloodstains intertwined. The canal water seemed forever tinged with a faint crimson. Every drop carried countless shattered souls.
In 1976, Mao Zedong died, and the Cultural Revolution ended like a raging storm. Yet its shadow clung like a bone-deep parasite, refusing to leave. The Gang of Four fell, Deng Xiaoping came to power, and so-called reform and opening began. Tall buildings rose, and Jining seemed reborn.
But for survivors like us, scarred all over, the wounds were still festering and suppurating. I married a woman who had also endured great suffering. In her eyes lay the same darkness as in mine. We had two children, trying to rebuild a home on the ruins.
But in 1989, the roar of Tiananmen exploded like thunder. My son was studying at a university in Jining. Young and passionate, he joined the marches, shouting “democracy and freedom,” his voice pure as dawn. Police pounced like hunting dogs, arrested him, and detained him for half a year.
When he was released, he was no longer human in spirit. His eyes were hollow like dead ashes, his body covered in burn marks left by electric batons. He whispered of the torture in prison and the humiliation of being forced to confess. My heart burned as if in flames. Holding his trembling body, tears flowed like blood: “My child, why must even you suffer this?”
From then on, he became withdrawn, like a walking corpse, and finally hanged himself in the abyss of depression. Holding his body, I was once again dragged back to the deaths of my brother and parents. The cyclical pain felt like endless reincarnation. Why must generation after generation be chained by this tyranny, struggling until death?
Today, Jining is unrecognizable. High-rises stand like iron arms. Parks by the canal are lush with grass, tourists come and go, and laughter never ceases. Yet whenever I lean on my cane and slowly walk through those places, it feels as if whispers of buried relatives drift in the wind. Souls in the earth murmur, accusing the truths that have been buried.
The CCP still sits high on its throne, having changed into splendid garments and preaching the “Chinese Dream.” But to us, it is merely a splendid continuation of an old nightmare. I hear of Falun Gong practitioners having their organs harvested alive, of rights defenders disappearing like morning mist, of the cries of Hong Kong’s youth being suppressed… Tyranny has never stopped; it has only grown more hidden fangs, gnawing at the flesh of countless innocents.
I am old now. My legs feel heavy as if filled with lead. I often sit alone by the river, gazing at the rippling water. When the wind blows, it carries the salty, fishy taste of the past, mixed with the lingering echoes of blood and tears, tightening my chest with pain. I think that if there is another life, I would rather become a wandering soul and drift away from this bloodstained land.
Yet I cannot bear to leave, for my loved ones are buried here. Their ashes have merged with this yellow earth, bound together forever. Memories of Jining are like a long and intense nightmare, entwining me—I cannot wake from it, nor can I forget it. That pain has merged into my bloodline, becoming proof of my existence. Perhaps only at the threshold of death will I be able to lay down this heavy shackle and find a trace of peace.
I am also an old man now and ask only not to be disturbed anymore. Today I suddenly remembered that I once joined the CCP Party, Youth League, and Young Pioneers. I had never thought to withdraw before, so today I solemnly declare my withdrawal from the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League, and the Young Pioneers!△
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