In 1957, Mao Zedong launched the Anti-Rightist Movement, which became a major calamity for Chinese intellectuals. Huang Wanli, a professor at Tsinghua University, was labeled as a major rightist handpicked by Mao Zedong.
Huang Wanli, born in 1911 into a prestigious family in Shanghai, where his father, Huang Yanpei, was a renowned educator in China. He graduated at the top of his class in primary school, middle school, and university.
In 1927, he entered Tangshan University of Transportation. During his university years, he published three papers including “Second Stress Design Method for Reinforced Concrete Arched Bridges,” which were prefaces written by the famous bridge expert Mao Yisheng, and published by Tangshan University.
On New Year’s Day in 1934, Huang Wanli went to study in the United States, inspired by the disastrous Yellow River flood in 1933. He devoted himself to studying hydraulic engineering. He studied at Cornell University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Illinois. He became the first Chinese engineering Ph.D. graduate at the University of Illinois. His doctoral thesis, “Time-Oriented Theory of Instantaneous Flow Rates,” proposed a semi-empirical and semi-theoretical method for estimating flooding caused by torrential rain, which predated a similar approach by European hydraulics expert Nash by 19 years.
Afterward, he was appointed as an engineer at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Norris Dam in the United States. He traveled over 45,000 miles by car in the United States, exploring major hydraulic engineering projects.
In 1937, at the age of 26, Huang Wanli returned to China. He declined job offers from Zhejiang University, Northeastern University, and Beiyang University to work as an engineer, survey team leader, and director of the Fujiang River Channel Engineering Department at the Sichuan Water Conservancy Bureau. Despite extremely challenging conditions, he walked over 3,000 kilometers, surveying the Minjiang, Tuojiang, Fujiang, and Jialing rivers, among other upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
After the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1945, he returned to Nanjing to work as an engineering inspector at the Ministry of Water Resources. From 1947 to 1949, he served as the director and chief engineer of the Gansu Provincial Water Resources Bureau and a member of the Yellow River Water Conservancy Commission.
In September 1949, he went to Shenyang, serving as a consultant at the Northeast China Water Conservancy General Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He returned to teach at Tangshan University of Transportation in June 1950 and was transferred to Tsinghua University in 1953.
From 1953 to 1957, he completed and published academic works “Estimation of Floods” and “Engineering Hydrology.” These two works were considered representative pieces in Chinese hydrological science in the 1950s.
In the spring of 1957, Mao Zedong decided to “lure the snakes out of their holes,” falsely calling on intellectuals to provide the party with advice to help with a rectification campaign. Huang Wanli was one of the first “snakes” to be lured out. In late May and early June, an article titled “Whispers of Flowers” by Huang Wanli was published in the campus newspaper “New Tsinghua,” which was reported to Mao Zedong by Tsinghua University President Jiang Nanxiang.
On June 19, Mao Zedong annotated Huang Wanli’s article with disdainful remarks and published it in the “People’s Daily” for the whole party and nation to criticize. Subsequently, a series of critical articles were published in the “People’s Daily.” Huang Wanli became a well-known major rightist throughout the country.
The September 1957 issue of the “Chinese Water Conservancy” magazine published a special issue criticizing Huang, featuring six articles. They claimed that Huang Wanli’s advocacy for the management of the Yellow River was “encouraging outsiders to lead insiders” and attempting to “eliminate the party’s leadership in science and technology.”
In 1958, Huang Wanli was branded as a rightist, his salary reduced from a second-level professor to a fourth-level professor, stripped of the right to teach, conduct research, and publish articles, and even forbidden to be addressed as “sir” or “professor.”
In 1959, he was assigned to labor reform at Miyun Reservoir, living with laborers in half underground barracks filled with stagnant dirty water, engaging in strenuous physical labor. With the harsh winter approaching, the great famine caused by Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward movement was looming over Beijing.
His daughter, Huang Wuman, recalled, “He was not only starving and exhausted at Miyun Reservoir but also incredibly tired. After work, in the pitch-black darkness, he would limp his way to the work shed. I saw the letters he wrote to my mom at that time: ‘I really need one of the boys by my side to help me walk back.’ Every time he came home, he would sit with my mom until late at night, reluctant to leave, almost every time being assisted by family members to the train station at the last minute. These hardships continued until 1960 when many people were swollen and could not bear it anymore, my dad and a group of friends were finally withdrawn from the reservoir.”
In early August 1966, Red Guards from Tsinghua High School ransacked Huang Wanli’s home.
His daughter, Huang Qieyuan, remembered, “The first to arrive were Red Guards from Tsinghua High School. They asked my father for his bank deposit book, which only had about twenty yuan in it. Although my father was a professor, we had many family members to support, and he couldn’t save money. At that time, several of us were in college, and after being labeled as a rightist, he had his salary reduced again… He didn’t have enough money. Upon seeing the bank deposit book, the Red Guards threw it back at him. This was the first raid.”
On August 24th, while Huang Wanli was home, his unmarried son-in-law Yang Le informed him about the rampant house raids and beatings, mentioning that people had reportedly been killed in the suburbs, advising him to be vigilant. As soon as Yang Le finished speaking, a group of Tsinghua students stormed in through the front gate. Sensing the danger, Huang Wanli instructed Yang Le to leave quickly through the back gate.
That day, Huang Wanli was beaten by the Red Guards. According to his wife’s recollection, when she returned home, Huang Wanli was covered in blood, beaten with a belt with metal buckles, leaving bloodied marks on his back. He couldn’t lay down to sleep at night and could only lie on his stomach.
His second daughter, Huang Wuman, recalled, “The Red Guards emptied the cabinets and desks, scattered everything on the floor, and tore up photos and calligraphy. At that time, we had a small handicraft sword at home that my grandfather gave to my brother Huang Guanhong. Since the sword was small and sharp, it wasn’t safe for him to play with it, so my father kept it in the drawer to use as a paper cutter. The Red Guards found this sword during the search, claiming it was a weapon, and broke off the tip. Then they asked my father if he had hidden weapons, guns, or Kuomintang flags and demanded he confess. When my father said no, they beat him, threatening to find evidence. My father said if they found anything, they could execute him. They beat him until he confessed.”
One day, the Red Guards forcibly shaved Huang Wanli’s head into a yin-yang style. Upon returning home, he immediately asked his family to shave his head completely bald. Afterwards, he used the razor to help other “gang members” shave their heads bald as well.
Soon after, Huang Wanli, along with his entire family across three generations, was evicted from the professors’ residence at Tsinghua New Forest House and resettled to a small house in the North Courtyard where dirty water had accumulated on the floor, with a monthly allowance of only 20 yuan. He was also ordered to clean the Water Conservancy Department building inside and out every day.
In 1969, Huang Wanli and most of the faculty and students from Tsinghua were “sent down” to labor reform at Liyushan Farm in Jiangxi. This abandoned labor farm was located in an area infested with schistosomiasis, leading to the deaths of many due to schistosomiasis as well as cirrhosis of the liver.
According to Huang’s wife, upon arrival at Liyushan, they lived in a large warehouse divided into two floors, with a large area where over a hundred people slept in chaotic conditions similar to a military camp, eating collectively in the canteen. In Jiangxi, he performed the heaviest labor. Despite being 58 years old, he carried water every morning with two others for the entire brigade, did tasks like moving bricks, digging pits, and even farming the fields, the most exhausting physical labor tasks were assigned to him.
At the time, there was a saying that those returning from overseas were spies.
Huang Wanli was also suspected by the Revolutionary Propaganda Team as a “Kuomintang spy,” isolated for investigation, worked during the day, and had struggle sessions at night. As he couldn’t confess to any “espionage activities,” the team initiated a prolonged struggle against him, which eventually took a toll on his physical and mental well-being. Eventually, after being coerced and confounded by the relentless struggle, he couldn’t even discern whether he was a spy himself and went so far as to write a letter to his eldest daughter, Huang Qieyuan, asking her to help him recall.
One day in the summer of 1970, under the scorching heat, Huang Wanli collapsed on his way back from the fields. Overcome by physical and mental exhaustion, he passed out while returning from the fields. Huang Wanli, age 59, succumbed to the dual pressures of his mind and body, and eventually fell unconscious one day on his way back from the fields. On collapsing, his mind was fogged, his body engulfed in unbearable heat. Disregarding the risk of schistosomiasis, he crawled into a ditch by the field, immersing himself in the water. After some time, feeling slightly relieved, he crawled back on the field path. Disoriented, he ended up at another unit’s residence. Later, individuals from the fourth unit found him, called a doctor for treatment, then sent him back to the sixth unit.
Upon regaining consciousness, he believed he was on the brink of death and composed a final poem titled “Dream Chant and Farewell”: “Knowing full well the futility of pure aspirations in death, the vast extent of waters traveled in vain. Let the ancient Broad Lute’s teachings not cease, labor pains in vain that once were mine.”
Fortunately, he managed to survive the ordeal.
In the fall of 1971, due to the rampant spread of schistosomiasis resulting in fatalities at the Tsinghua University farm at Poyang Lake, the entire farm was closed down, and staff were recalled to Beijing. After only half a month, he was reassigned to continue labor reform at Sanmenxia, where he spent six more years.
During his spare time, Huang Wanli, adorned with the right-wearing crown, underwent criticism sessions while laboring at rehabilitating industries. He completed articles such as “On the Strategy of Managing the Yellow River.”
There were four primary reasons:
First, the Sanmenxia project was the first major hydropower hub constructed by the CCP after taking power and was called the “first dam on the Yellow River for a thousand li.” Due to being among the 156 key projects supported by the Soviet Union, Soviet experts dominated the decision-making process from surveying to design, leading to expert viewpoints favored over domestic experts.
Huang Wanli was the sole Chinese expert who opposed the initiation of the Sanmenxia project. In April 1957, during a 70-person expert symposium arranged by Zhou Enlai, he engaged in a seven-day debate with Soviet experts, elaborating on the severe issues that could arise from commencing the Sanmenxia project. However, as his perspective clashed with the Soviet experts and CCP leadership, his insights were disregarded.
In ancient times, there was a saying, “When the Yellow River runs clear, a sage shall emerge.”
On July 18, 1955, Vice Premier of the State Council Deng Zihui announced at the National People’s Congress that “only six years after the completion of the Sanmenxia reservoir, we will see the long-anticipated day of ‘the Yellow River runs clear’ for the people for the first time in thousands of years!”
Indeed, wasn’t this a testament to Mao Zedong being the present-day “sage”? Huang Wanli’s opposition to the Sanmenxia project did not sit well with this vision of Mao as the sage, did it?
In 1957, Huang Wanli criticized the corruption in the construction of roads in Beijing in his “Whispers of Flowers.” He wrote, “Everyone talks about political corruption in the United States. If such events were true, taxpayers would rise to protest, bureau chiefs and chief engineers would be ousted, and the mayor would have a challenging re-election! Our country’s people are always the most obliging. Just think! Mud is everywhere along the route, causing significant losses. Traffic has been halted for a long time, and unlucky are always the people!”
To Mao Zedong, this excerpt was very provocative. Essentially, Huang Wanli believed that the United States had freedom of speech, democratic elections, supervisory constraints, and accountability mechanisms, all of which were lacking in Mao’s China.
After the CCP took office in 1949, Mao initiated a series of political movements, including the reform of intellectual ideologies, reorganization of higher education institutions, criticism of the film “Wu Xun,” anti-Hu Shi’s idealism, the Land Reform Movement, the War to Resist American Aggression and Aid Korea, anti-counterrevolutionary campaigns, the Three-Anti and Five-Anti Campaigns, the campaign against Gao Rong and the “Party Alliance,” anti-Pan Yang and “Party Groups,” anti-Hu Feng and reactionary cliques, anti-corruption campaigns, etc.
These political movements were characterized by two major elements: killing and planting.
While these political movements launched by Mao did achieve some “results,” by the time of the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, a considerable number of people in China, including high-level intellectuals, had become what Huang Wanli criticized as “Goethe-Packers” (those praising the CCP) and “Danteians” (those blindly following the party leaders’ every word).
At the time, Mao favored the “Goethe-Packers” and “Danteians,” while Huang Wanli’s criticisms directly struck at Mao’s fault lines.
After the forcible commencement of the Sanmenxia project, the issues Huang Wanli foresaw were all proven right.
The Sanmenxia Dam was completed in September 1960, and from the following year, severe siltation occurred above Tongguan on the Yellow River and the Wei River, damaging 800,000 more of farmland, forcing the relocation of a city. The reservoir began to accumulate silt. By 1966, the accumulated sediment had reached 3.4 billion cubic meters, covering 44.4% of the reservoir’s capacity. The Sanmenxia Dam had become a “dead reservoir,” necessitating the blasting of several large holes in the dam base to flush out the silt.
Regarding the construction of the Sanmenxia project, facts demonstrated that Huang Wanli was right while Mao Zedong was wrong, but Mao would never admit his mistakes.
One day, during a conversation with Huang Wanli’s father, then Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress, Huang Yanpei, Mao said, “I have read your son Huang Wanli’s poems, which are very well-written, and I enjoy reading them.” Subsequently, Mao’s associates conveyed a message through Huang Yanpei to Huang Wanli, suggesting he write a self-criticism, admit his mistakes, and submit it. This way, his rightist label could be removed.
However, instead of writing a self-criticism, Huang Wanli composed a poem addressing Mao, stating that the problems with the Sanmenxia project were not overly complicated and that at the 70-person symposium in 1957 discussing the project, apart from him, nobody dared to speak the truth. He inquired, “After the country has nurtured its talents for many years, what is the reason behind this?” Huang Wanli not only didn’t repent but questioned Mao, making it difficult for both parties to reconcile.
At the Lushan Conference in the summer of 1959, where problems from Mao’s Great Leap Forward emerged, Marshal Peng Dehuai wrote a letter speaking the truth. Upon reading the letter, Mao was outraged and launched a massive criticism of Peng, labeling him as the leader of an “anti-party group.”
During the Lushan Conference, Mao remembered Huang Wanli once again. He mentioned to Peng Dehuai, “Peng Dehuai, you and Huang Wanli are cut from the same cloth, with an anti-party disposition.”
It wasn’t until three years and four months after Mao Zedong’s death, on February 26, 1980, that Huang Wanli finally received the decision to “correct” his rightist label: “The issue of Huang Wanli being categorized as a rightist was deemed a misclassification. Approval was granted by the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CCP for correction. His political reputation was restored, and his salary as a second-level professor reinstated.”
With the removal of his rightist label, Huang Wanli was able to return to his lectures. Everything seemed to be changing. Nevertheless, his nature of speaking the truth remained unaltered, and the CCP’s reluctance to hear his truth remained unchanged.
He stated, “Before the initiation of the Three Gorges Dam, I wrote three letters to the central leadership. After the dam’s construction began, I wrote three more. I sent six letters with six articles to the higher-ups and didn’t receive a single reply. “Discussing the Three Gorges project, the Ministry of Water Resources told all units not to invite me to participate because I opposed the construction of the Three Gorges project.”
His books couldn’t be openly published. On his 80th birthday, he compiled and printed a collection of poems titled “Yincao of Water Governance,” featuring one hundred poems written from 1955 to 1991. This publication was an “orphan” product without an ISBN, publisher, price, or distribution unit, with only two to three hundred copies printed.
Before his 90th birthday, his colleagues pooled resources and efforts to publish a collection of his works called “Huang Wanli’s Works.” This was another “orphan” publication without an ISBN, publisher, price, or distribution unit, with only five hundred copies printed.
On August 27, 2001, just a week after celebrating his 90th birthday, Huang Wanli passed away. Before his death, he left a testament for his wife, children, and grandchildren:
“River governance