All language subtitles for The Revolutionary-2012

Where's the little red book?

This it--yeah.

This is a copy

of the "Book of Quotations"
from Mao Zedong

that was universal during

the Cultural Revolution and, um,

on May 1, 1967,

up on the Tiananmen Gate Tower
with Chairman Mao,

I got him
to autograph my copy.

Now that was one

of the stupidest
moments of my life,

because I really missed
a terrific opportunity,

because with--I gave him
my little ballpoint pen.

And with pen poised in hand,
he looked at me and said,

"What do you want
me to write?"

And I could've said,
"Write a line of poetry,

or write a message
to the American people,"

or whatever.

But I totally froze
and I said,

"Oh, just sign your name."

What a jerk.

So he just
signed his name.

♪

He was a great hero

and a great criminal
all rolled up into one.

He was a genius whose genius
got completely out of control.

♪

What every revolution
needs are true believers.

In America, Sidney Rittenberg
had taken the side of workers,

and of civil rights.

In China he saw himself
on the side of history.

And if only for one
brief historic moment,

he would become known

as the most
important foreigner

in China
since Marco Polo.

I'm thinking that
I'm part of history.

That thought was
my undoing later on.

But that's what
I'm thinking.

I'm really--I'm getting
to be part of history.

I can play a role.

♪

♪

Are my feet gonna
be on camera?

No, they are not.

Okay.

They are not.

And we're rolling.

Okay.

Sidney, tell me

where and when
you were born.

I was born
on Rutledge Avenue

in Charleston,
South Carolina,

August 14, 1921.

This was the start
of a five year conversation.

One man's account
of a journey

through the 20th Century's
biggest revolution.

♪

For many Americans,

it was an event both
remote and frightening.

China and America were
isolated from one another

by the Cold War,

the politics and passions
of the 1950s and '60s.

♪

But one American,
Sidney Rittenberg, was there.

As close
as a foreigner could be

to China's
revolutionary upheaval.

It's an unlikely story,
far removed from its beginnings

in Charleston,
South Carolina.

♪

As a prominent Jewish family
in the Old South,

the Rittenbergs
still were outsiders.

From an early age, Sidney knew
something about injustice,

and about China.

I grew up hearing that
there were three things

that Charlestonians shared
in common with Chinese.

First was that
we ate rice everyday.

The second was that
we worship our ancestors.

And the third was that
we don't speak English.

Raised to be
a southern gentleman,

he was headed
to Princeton.

Instead he chose the University
of North Carolina,

whose progressive environment
of the 1930s

was tolerant
of student activism.

By the time he was 19,

Sidney's participation
in undergraduate politics,

and community action
had attracted the attention

of a union organizer
named Carpenter

in the nearby mill town
of Roanoke Rapids.

Every month they put

one dollar each
into a cigar box,

waiting for the day when they
could hire their own guy

to organize
a real union.

And then it
was Carpenter

who wrote me a letter
to Chapel Hill

saying that they had
this cigar box of money

and that if
I could come out

and help them
set up a union,

they could afford
to pay $6.00 a week,

which would go
to Mrs. Glasgow,

who would give me bed and board
in her boarding house.

And so that's what I did.

♪

At a time when American
workers were struggling

for collective bargaining rights
and a minimum wage,

Rittenberg took up the fight for
textile workers,

for tobacco
and quarry workers,

bus drivers,
and steel workers.

And in Birmingham, Alabama,
the newspaper guild.

His most memorable lessons

were being learned
outside the classroom.

This big Birmingham cop
comes up and he says,

"You can't be
on the sidewalk.

You gotta get
away from here."

And I said, "Look, according
to police regulations,

half of this sidewalk
is for pickets.

The other half
is pedestrians."

And he says, "Yeah,
but, you can't be a picket

because you
don't work there."

And I said, "Okay,
so I'm a pedestrian.

So I have a right
to be here."

The right to be here.

So he looks at me with real
pity in his eyes, real pity,

and he says, "Son,
you ain't got no rights.

Rights are what you
think you got."

Lesson in political science
I never forgot.

Really.

What led you to China
and to the Chinese Revolution?

Uncle Sam.

When America entered
World War II,

Rittenberg was drafted.

The Army put him back
in the classroom

for a crash course
in Chinese.

Next thing I know, I'm
on a train headed for Stanford.

Then I find myself
in Chinese.

And quite to my surprise,
from the very first class,

I just totally fell
in love with this language.

♪

By the time Rittenberg
shipped out to China,

the World War was over.

But a Civil War
was in progress.

China's future would be
decided in the conflict

between the ruling
Nationalist Party,

and the insurgent
Chinese Communists.

All around him, first as a GI,
and then as an observer

for the United Nations
Relief Organization,

Rittenberg was exposed
to the corruption

and inequalities of Chinese life
under the Nationalists.

He had made contacts
among Chinese reformers,

including underground members
of the Communist Party.

He was about
to return to America

when a Party leader came
to him with a question.

"Suppose I
detained you here

and didn't let
you leave tomorrow?"

And I said,
"What would I do?"

He said, "Well,
we need an engineer."

And I said,
"Well, I'm not an engineer."

He said, "No, not that
kind of an engineer.

We need an engineer
to help us build a bridge

from the Chinese people
to the American people."

And I said, "I would
be overjoyed to stay.

My one request would
be that if I stay,

I would like to be admitted
to the Chinese Party."

♪

It was a life changing decision
that began with a 500 mile trek,

mostly on foot, across terrain
made perilous by steep mountains

and the Civil War's
shifting battle lines.

It took him 45 days

to reach the Communist Guerilla
headquarters in Yan'an.

For Rittenberg, there
would be no turning back.

You were leaving
America behind you.

Was there not pause
for thought about that?

Not a bit,
not at the time.

No, I thought I'm doing what
I'm supposed to be doing.

You know, for America's
sake, as well

as for the Chinese Revolution.

I'm doing--these are the people
that bear the banners of hope.

And I'm doing what I
can to support them, so.

I had no hesitation
about that whatsoever.

But you must've realized

it would not be viewed
that way in America.

Well, of course, but look,
when we were organizing

textile workers
in North Carolina

it wasn't viewed
very favorably either.

You know, really.

I mean, it was no better.

The Roanoke Rapids paper
carried an editorial

about this alien element

who's here spreading class
hatred in our little community.

So I was used to that.

♪

It is Yan'an that
holds pride of place

in the story
of the Chinese Revolution.

The romantic idea that a band
of visionaries living in caves,

vastly outgunned
and outnumbered, could one day

take over the biggest
country in the world.

Their long march,
a 6,000 mile strategic retreat,

found refuge
here in the 1930s.

Their leader, a peasant
rebel named Mao Zedong.

♪

I met Mao
for the first time

on the day I
arrived in Yan'an.

I walked in the door
and there he was.

And I thought, "It's like
a picture right out of history."

Here's a picture
out of history.

Here's the man
that's on the walls."

That's what
I was thinking.

And underneath
that was the feeling,

"And I am now part
of that history."

The first thing he said
to me was, he said,

"If you don't object,

I'm going
to ask my secretary

to arrange a time
for you to come

and spend a whole day
or maybe two days with me,

just talking about America.

Not anything special,
just about America.

Just talk."

His major interest
in foreign countries

was always
the United States.

The Communist leaders
needed a fluent speaker

of both Chinese and English

to help establish
an English language section

of what would
become Radio Beijing,

the transmitter
of Party policy to the world.

Sidney Rittenberg
took the job.

But more than that,
he wanted to belong,

to be one of them.

You had told
the Communist leaders

you wanted to be a member
of the Chinese Communist Party.

Why?

Well, what I said was,

"If I stay here, I'm going to be
cut off from the outside world.

And if I'm not
a Party member,

I'll be cut off
from the inside world too.

I won't know
what's really going on.

So I want to be a member
of the Chinese Party.

♪

Yan'an took on a meaning
of its own.

It was a combat zone
in the ongoing Civil War.

It was an incubator
for many of Mao's ideas,

where Party loyalty
and discipline

often were put
to the test.

Those that survived the war,
and the politics,

possessed a valuable
revolutionary credential.

There was
also an intimacy,

where friendships were
formed, and marriages.

Rittenberg to a young
radio broadcaster.

Mao to an actress
from Shanghai named Jiang Qing,

who later would play a dramatic
role in Party politics.

In Yan'an,
Sidney Rittenberg

rubbed shoulders
with China's future leaders.

On the left, Zhou Enlai,
the future premier.

On the right, Zhu De,
the military commander.

Rittenberg had
become one of them.

At work, socially,
at the movies.

There was an American
diplomatic mission in Yan'an.

And once a week,
there was a U.S. Army plane

that would fly
in to bring supplies.

And they would also bring
a new Hollywood film.

This was new to us.

Mao, and Zhu De, and Zhou Enlai,
you would say are the leaders,

would gather in a little room
at the U.S. Army Liaison Center

and watch this film,
and I would translate.

The favorite, favorite
films by all odds,

were Laurel and Hardy.

"Lolly Hardy."

As soon as they heard
"Lolly Hardy" was gonna perform,

they would--everybody who
could move would go there.

And it's very funny
and they would make

lots of wisecracks
and have great fun.

But they enjoyed
these Hollywood movies.

And Mao would go to them?

Yeah.

To be fair,
you have to say

that he tried to establish
good relations

with the United States
and Europe.

I was twice the interpreter
when the message from him

was given to, once
to an American diplomat,

once to a military
man in China,

that he wanted good
relations with America.

And specifically he said
because he did not want

to be unilaterally dependent
on the Soviet Union,

after the Communists
came to power in China.

So there was an opening
wide open for us at the time

which we ignored

because we were
thinking ideologically.

Strange as it sounds.

And he was not.

And Mao always

longed to show
the world

that China could be
civilized and Democratic,

not like the crude Russians.

And he made several attempts

at opening the arena
of public opinion

and every time he did,

the results didn't turn
out the way he hoped they would.

And then he resorted

to the traditional system
of Chinese rulers,

which was called
in China,

"You kill the chicken to teach
the monkeys a lesson."

So, the monkeys
are the majority.

You can't kill them.

But you have to teach them
to keep them in line.

So you take a chicken

and you hold him
up before the monkeys.

And you excoriate him.

Everything
from political conspiracies,

to he slept
with his sister,

to everything about
his personal life.

He was 100 percent low life.

It's called in Chinese,

"Making him
stink," literally.

So, then after
having exposed him

and turned everybody against
him, you chop his head off.

Then you say
to the monkeys,

"You see, aren't you glad
you're not a chicken.

You're not chickens.

You're monkeys,
you're okay.

Aren't you glad
you aren't a chicken?

And by the way,

I know you will want
to watch yourself carefully

that you don't get

into any of the ways
of chickens.

You don't have
chickenish ways

so that you might one
day fall into the same,

kind of, in this category,
and get same kind of treatment."

♪

The roots of China's Civil War
went back to the 1920s.

The final showdown coming
in the years after World War II.

By 1949, the fighting
had turned in Mao's favor.

With Beijing about to fall
to Communist troops,

Rittenberg was told to report
for a special assignment.

The Nationalist commander
of Beijing

was in process
of surrendering.

They were still
negotiating the terms,

and I knew that.

So very shortly they would
peacefully entering Beijing

and I thought
I'm going early

because I'm going to be

a liaison/interpreter
in talks

between the new
Chinese government

and my American government.

And I was just
on top of the world.

But that's not
what happened.

Not exactly what happened.

♪

What Rittenberg
didn't know

was that the Soviet leader,
Josef Stalin,

had named him as part
of an international spy ring

uncovered in Moscow.

And that Stalin had asked
Mao to have him arrested.

Instead of being
on his way to Beijing,

Rittenberg was detained
and on his way to prison.

And then I heard this
tapping outside, approaching.

Tap, tap, tap, tap,

on the flagstones outside.

And what ran
through my head was,

"Quoth the Raven,
nevermore."

And the door opens

and this horrifying
figure appears.

A, sort of,
short thickset man

with huge eyes the size
of cart wheels,

it looked like,
and very thick glasses,

carrying a cane, which
was what was tapping.

And as he came

and stood
in the doorway,

he pointed at me and he said
in a voice of thunder,

"Li Dunbai",
my Chinese name,

"We have received orders
from the Chinese People's

Revolutionary Military
Commission to arrest you.

You have accepted a mission
from U.S. imperialism

to sabotage
the Chinese Revolution."

And the room spun
round and round.

Just spun round
and round.

And I saw stars shooting
all over the place.

I just--

just shock, you know.

Just terrific shock.

You know, everyday
is miserable

because you're alone,
but you're not really alone

because every day
you're sitting there

with your own potential madness
sitting across from you,

watching you.

And you know, it's
either you or him.

And every day,
as I woke up,

I would--

right after starting
to be conscious,

I would have this feeling that
this huge stone is on top of me,

weighing me down.

My God, I'm still
in this place.

Can't believe it,
I'm still in this place.

I was confident
when they would say,

"We have investigators
all over the place.

They're checking you out.

They know everything
about you."

I could say with confidence,
"The more you investigate,

the more you'll find
I'm telling the truth."

'Cause I did
tell the truth.

So, I even told
about my cousin Arthur

in Charleston
who was in the FBI.

What did that have to do?

Nothing.

But I didn't want
anything hidden

that they might dig up
that I hadn't told 'em.

Then one day
the door opened

and in came the warden
of the prison, Yao Lun,

who was a high ranking official
in the Security Ministry.

And he came in
and brought a chair

and he shook
hands with me.

Shook hands.

You do not shake hands
with a counter-revolutionary.

And you don't sit down in
a chair opposite him either.

So he said, "Look--"

He says, "We
understand you now.

We understand you.

We know who you are."

He said, "We're
going to give you

the best possible
conditions for studying.

We'll give you paper,
and pencil,

and any books
that you want,

we'll do our best
to find them.

And we'll give you
a table, a chair here.

And we're gonna take
the boards off the windows.

And you can stay here and study
until your case is solved.

Or you can just
forget about China

for the rest of your life
and go back to America.

We'll let you go back."

And I said, "I'll
stay here and study."

And I gradually stabilized
and I studied,

like, I used to think

of those little monks
in medieval cells,

voluntarily under
a vow of silence,

and they're copying
the ancient books and studying.

And I thought, "If they could
do it, why can't I do it?"

And I did.

♪

Sidney Rittenberg
will remain in solitary

for another five years,

during which China began
to repair the damage

caused by years of war,

which included fighting
American troops in Korea.

His wife, having no idea
where he was, divorced him.

It was 1955
when his cell door

again opened
to an official visitor.

So I sat down.

He shook hands
and he turned--

he did not
give his name,

but I found out later
it was Ling Yun,

who was the director

of the counter-intelligence
bureau,

and who later became
the first minister

of the State
Security Ministry,

which is, sort of,
the Chinese CIA.

And, um, he told
me that--

he said, "On behalf of
the Central Government of China,

I'm here
to apologize to you.

We got you wrong.

We made a bad mistake."

And after six years in prison,
in 1955, you were released.

Why?

Why, finally, did
they let you out?

Because Josef Stalin
did the best thing

he ever did
in his life.

He died.

Was the Party
testing you?

Yeah.

That's the way
I saw it.

And it was true
because as soon as it was over,

my Party membership
was not only restored,

but then now I became
a real Party member,

with access to top leaders

and confidential,
classified information.

So it was
totally different.

♪

After I get
out of prison,

I report to Radio Beijing
for my new job.

And I'm
in the director's office.

He's telling me
about my new work.

And this young girl,

23 years old,
22 at that time,

brought his tea.

And when she went--
long pigtails.

And when she went out,
she left the door ajar,

which she still does.

Left the door ajar,
didn't really close it well.

And, uh...
as he's talking

to me about my work,

I'm hearing an argument going
on among the four secretaries

in the central office there.

And I hear this
woman's voice saying--

well, they're talking
about my former wife,

"Well, after all,
he was gone for six years

and she didn't even
know where he was.

So you can't blame her."

And then I hear this
strident female voice say,

"What do you
mean, six years?

If you really
love somebody,

you're supposed to wait
6 years, 10 years, 20 years.

What does it matter?"

So that sort
of got my attention.

And I heard the responses
I couldn't hear very clearly.

And then I hear this
strident voice again say,

"Well it seems to me,
you gotta be pretty stupid

if you don't know

whether your own
husband is an enemy."

I'm the secretary
for the boss.

So everything
he has a problem,

it just come
to me to ask.

So, that's a start.

He was an American.

That's right.

And he just spent
six years in prison.

I mean, what did
you think of that?

You know,
as, at the beginning

I didn't think he was
American or Chinese

because just like it

is my job
to help him.

So, I think of this
person as honest

and for six years

he didn't give up
or complain

or his beliefs.

So I thought this
person is a good guy.

We found, in the course
of all this coming and going,

that we shared certain
things in common.

We both loved eating
from the street stalls.

Loved it.

We both loved going
to the movies.

And we loved to argue.

We argued incessantly
about everything.

Incessantly.

And our viewpoints
were very far apart.

And we enjoyed it.

You know, after
that several months

that he wrote
letter to me.

So ask me proud
I would can,

you know,
to be a good friends.

For someday
we could marry.

Someday we can
set up a family.

Then I should--
I got really angry.

I said, "I never have
the mind--cross my mind."

I said, "What--
what is he thinking?"

So I left this note
on her desk and I went home.

Next morning, early,
I'm in my office

and I hear
these footsteps.

Stomp, stomp,
stomp, stomp.

Very determined coming in.

And I know it's her, and over my
shoulder from behind my back,

she flings this note
down on the table.

Stomp, stomp,
stomp, leaves.

And the note is written
on a sheet of paper

and then twisted up,
guerilla fashion,

the way they used to do
the secret notes.

So I unfold it and it says,
"Dear Comrade So and So--".

So I know this is trouble
'cause it's formal.

She says, "The kind
of relationship

you have suggested
has never entered my head

and is totally
out of the question.

So the only
road open to us

is to break
off all relations.

Stop seeing each
other totally.

I wish you success
in all your endeavors.

Signed, Yulin.

P.S., since I've already
promised to go with you

to Sun Yat Sen Park this
evening,

I will, of course,
honor my promise."

So I knew it was there.

I knew when I saw that P.S.
so it...it was working.

So, that night, we went
to the park and we were engaged.

♪

The Broadcast Administration
was among the most important

agencies of government.

The voice of the Party.

And Radio, reaching into
every corner of the country,

was its nerve center.

Not only was he
back in the favor,

Rittenberg had been taken
into the inner circle.

The only U.S. citizen
who was a Party member.

What was your job at Radio?

I was a foreign expert...
to, uh, polish the material

that went out in English
and to advise

the Radio leadership
on English language

broadcast issues, but actually
I was the only Party member

in the English language section.

So, I was in fact, but not de--
de-facto, but not de jure,

I was in charge of that section.

What was life like for a foreign
expert of your status?

Um...

I had the use of a car
and driver at any time

for business or pleasure.

We had an apartment in the
foreign experts building,

which meant we had hot water.

Nobody in China,
except for a few tip-top leaders

and foreigners,
had hot water, nobody.

We got tickets to all the great
plays and operas and circuses.

We got, uh, vacation travel
every year and so on,

so we were
quite privileged and for me...

I got to go and listen
to top leaders give talks,

give briefings,
and things of that sort.

And you were well paid?

Well, in the local terms,
I was paid better than Mao.

♪

According to Mao,
the revolution required

constant renewal and vigilance,

often inspiring campaigns
to target opposition

and to mobilize support
for the Party.

In 1957, Mao sought
the support of intellectuals,

encouraging them to speak their
minds in a movement called,

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom,
Let a Hundred Schools

of Thought Contend."

He said
"Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom,"

in the field of arts,
literature and art.

"Let A Hundred Schools
of Thought Contend,"

in academia.

But the intellectuals
turned it into in politics.

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom",
in politics

and "Let a Hundred
Schools Contend."

So, they began saying
and writing things like,

"Why should the Communist Party
always rule?

Why shouldn't there be
a multi

And why should we lean
towards the Soviet Union?

Why shouldn't we have good
relations with"

It was done with great artistry,
I mean, when Mao

was conspiratorial,
he was a master.

A master of conspiracy.

He let everybody talk,
unchallenged, unhindered,

and everybody felt,
"This is great," you know,

"This is great. What frabjous
day, callooh, callay!" you know?

And then...an editorial
appears on the front page

of The People's Daily,
with no warning, saying:

"Why is this..."

Bang, from that day on, it was
hammers down on the critics

and they were classified
as rightists,

they were hauled up
before big public meetings,

which were called debates,
debates with the rightists,

but the other side of the debate
was not allowed to speak.

And, so this was the campaign,

to clean out
anti-socialist elements,

not from the Party,
so much as among intellectuals

and Mao said, he used a very
ancient quota--quotation.

He said, "Intellectuals
have to learn

where their rice bowl is,"

like which side
their bread is buttered.

But his real view of democracy,
I think I got pretty clear on.

His real concept was...

he liked for people to meet

for a lively
democratic discussion

of why his policies were correct
and to point the finger

at people and places that were
not correctly carrying them out.

Criticism, or to point
to places where his policy

could be improved
and made more effective.

That was fine, but to go
flatly against his policy,

that's not democracy,
it's counter-revolution.

There was a woman working there
at Radio with me who was

the daughter of Mr. Sachs
of Goldman-Sachs,

one of the founders, okay?

And she had been an American
Communist since her school days.

Redder than a rose and...

you know, but she grew up
on Park Avenue taking a walk

in the park with a limousine
puttering along her side

and so on, she was
to the manor born,

but when she came to China
and started working there

and they started the campaign
against the bourgeois rightists,

including some Chinese
who were her friends,

she would not have it,
she fought like mad

against what
the Party was doing.

She told him, she said,
"This is...this is a pure

and simple civil rights case,
that's what we do in America,

we Communists, we stick
our necks out, we fight

for hum--for civil rights."

And, uh, she said,
"You can't do this!"

And I thought,
"God, how backward

can you be," you know?

She doesn't get it.

And I used to try to calm
her down, counsel her and so on.

No good, but how
right she was...

in a sense.

You...believed in civil rights?

-Sure.
-As a young man, you fought

-Sure

Absolutely...

and we really
stuck our necks out for it.

In America?

Yes.

But, in China?

In China, until
the revolution, yes!

Before coming to power.

That's what happens.

Once you get into power
and you have to protect

your new power against the enemy
who is still stronger than you,

civil rights becomes your enemy.

Intellectuals talk too much,
they raise too many questions.

You have to keep 'em quiet.

And, uh, you know, I took part
in hassling these people

and they were all innocent
and good people.

That's, I think, that's the most
serious mistake

that I have ever made.

I think the reason I couldn't
see it was wrong was largely

because I was living
a privileged life.

Everything about the regime
was good for me.

Nothing bad in it for me.

So, I couldn't
countenance the idea

of anything bad for anybody.

I wasn't paying attention,
I wasn't feeling

what happened to other people.

Otherwise, I think
I would have seen it.

So, it's--it's
a kind of corruption

and that's exactly, I think,
the kind of corruption

that ruins the whole thing
once you get into power.

♪

The bugler was Mao's call
to jumpstart the economy.

A mass movement called
The Great Leap Forward

that organized China's peasants
into vast rural communes

and everyone into do-it-yourself
producers of steel.

Mao set out
to challenge the Russians

and the West at any cost.

This was the frenzy that swept
the entire country.

I thought it was working,
I thought it was great.

Production was doubling
and tripling, the villages

were serving free food,
you know, people were told,

"Open up your stomach
and eat your fill!"

First time in history,
this was great.

Everything was free,
everything was public issue

by the commune.

It was great, it wasn't true.

But, while I thought
it was true, it was great.

♪

Officially, while communes were
transforming the countryside,

small backyard steel furnaces
were turning China

into an industrial giant.

In the end, neither claim would
hold up to closer inspection.

Yulin worked on a backyard steel
furnace that was called

The Eighth of March
Women's Day Furnace.

I worked on another
little furnace.

And...I, you know, I-I,
I raked out the steel

and it was black like black mud
and I asked the guy in charge

of the furnace, I said,
"This stuff really steel?"

He said, "Oh, yeah, when we send
to the big steel mills,

they-they know
what to do with it."

Totally wasted.

People took their pots,
the...the iron chains

that ran along
some of the fences,

anything metal and just
threw it into the furnace

and melted it down.

So...overnight it went up to
eighteen million tons of steel,

but most of it was worthless.

♪

With great fanfare,
local officials reported

the upward climb of wheat
and steel production

and with it, a relentless rise
for the economy.

To do otherwise was to suffer
the political consequences,

but none of it was true
and the result was disastrous.

The production figures
were grossly exaggerated.

Everybody lied.

The lower leaders lied
to the higher leaders,

knowing that they
wanted big figures

and the higher leaders usually,
whether they realized it or not,

reported them on up
and the farther up you got

the more of a fool
you were, really,

the more grossly deceived.

So, that was one of the great
tragedies, that he had hundreds

of millions of villagers leaving
the fields, going out looking

for iron ore, for copper,
for aluminum, for whatever

minerals there were in order
to set up village industries.

So, who was tending the crops?

Old people and children,
that's all you saw.

We went around the country,
that's all we saw in the fields,

old people and children.

So, there was
this terrible famine.

In the famine that accompanied
the latter days

of The Great Leap Forward,
probably something between

25 and 35 million people died...

of hunger.

♪

During these years,
Sidney not only worked at Radio,

but was a trusted translator
of important Party documents

and of Mao's collected works.

He and Yulin raised a family
and lived comfortably.

His position as a foreign expert
protecting them from the worst

excesses of the mass movements.

But on the horizon
was a political storm

in which no one
would be protected.

♪

♪

The tragic failure
of The Great Leap Forward

had fractured
the Party's leadership.

Mao and his policies
were being challenged.

Both his vision
of the revolution

and his historical
legacy were at stake.

In the crucible
of the Cultural Revolution,

Mao's struggle
for survival would become

the country's struggle
for survival.

It was all about
whether you were

really following
Chairman Mao or not.

Not the Communist Party,
the interesting thing was

that the Cultural Revolution
began, really, as a revolution

against the Communist Party,

although nobody
said it like that.

The key slogan with which
the Cultural Revolution started

was "zàofan youli,"
"It's right to rebel."

And he put that into the hands
of the young people

with the little red book.

"It's right to rebel,"
and that's all they needed.

These young people had grown up,
as the saying goes,

"under the red banner,"
that's all they'd known

and they had been taught
since infancy that the interests

of the Party and the government,
the country, come first.

So, now all of a sudden,
rebelling to reclaim

your personal interests
became not only legitimate,

it was revolutionary.

And so the force with which
this exploded was tremendous.

I saw it as a kind of, a redux
of the Protestant Revolution,

the Protestant
Reformation in Europe.

Previously, in the Medieval
Catholic Church,

you didn't read the Bible,
and interpret it,

the priesthood,
from the Pope down,

told you what the Bible said
that you needed to know.

Then came Martin Luther
and company

and you had an individual,
personal relationship with God.

You read the Bible, you decide
what it meant, you followed it.

Exactly this.

Everyone got a copy
of the little red book,

"Quotations form Chairman Mao."

What did it mean?

Up to you.

You read it, you decide
what it means, you act on it.

There's no authority
that can tell you what it means,

except for Chairman Mao,
of course.

And one of the most enthusiastic
people that I talked with

in the early days,
and this was in January '67,

was Zhou Enlai, I had a long
talk with him one-on-one,

in which he was saying,
"Look at the freedom,

look at the atmosphere
of freedom.

Anybody can say
anything they want."

He says, "Can the American
President do this?

Can he allow them
to put up wall posters

on the walls of-of
the White House?

Would they dare?"

But, now we have it in China.

He was carried away.

♪

It was the feeling of democratic
rebellion that was in the air.

That was very powerful.

Young people making speeches
that sounded like Patrick Henry

on the streets and at Radio.

And I remember saying to Yulin,

when I first started
getting involved, I said,

"You know, I may end up covered
with mud from head to foot,

but if anything was ever
worth it, this is it."

♪

In the Spring of 1966,
Mao issued, what he called,

"My Big Character Poster,"
with the slogan:

"Bombard the Headquarters"

♪

The right to rebel was to be
a purge of the Party leadership,

the Big Character Poster
became a weapon in the hands

of China's youth,
the Red Guards.

At first, foreigners in China
were told to stay out of it,

but Sidney Rittenberg,
with the approval

of Premier Zhou Enlai
insisted on taking part.

The-the place where I
really got involved was,

one night I was walking home...

and I saw that,
in the Radio theater,

there was some kind
of meeting going on,

so I just poked
my head in to see.

It was remarkable.

♪

Rival factions,
each of them claiming to be

the true supporters
of Chairman Mao, were organizing

throughout the country
and Radio was no exception.

At this meeting,
the security department as one,

resigned and joined
a rebel group,

saying they had told
their last lies for the Party.

Rittenberg was about
to take sides.

That was really something to me,
I mean, that was really

something like revolution.

The security department saying

that they had told
their last lies for the Party.

Something big was happening here
and so I also joined

the rebel organization.

There were two different groups,
our group was called

the Rebel Regiment...
to Defend Mao Zedong Thought.

The other one was called

the Brigade to Defend
Mao Zedong Thought to the Death.

So, they were called
the "To the Death Brigade,"

and they were set up by the
Party secretary at the Radio.

They were his boys, his...
his followers and therefore

they were condemned
and denounced as "royalists,"

they were the royalists who were
protecting the leadership

and we were the rebels.

And one amazing episode
after the other.

♪

As happened elsewhere
during the Cultural Revolution,

it wasn't long before
the rebel groups at Radio

confronted one another,
face to face.

♪

In the auditorium at Radio,
Rittenberg looked on

and then took the stage.

A hubbub started
among the audience

and pushing and shouting match
between the so-called royalists

and the rebels,
these two organizations.

So, something
is brewing a fight.

So, I'm sitting there
and I'm thinking,

"My goodness,
in this auditorium,

not that easy
to get in and out of,

if it really,
if a big fight starts here,

it's gonna really be bad."

So, I went up
on the stage and the girl,

the Red Guard leader,
from the Radio Institute

was standing up there
at the microphone,

really not knowing what to do
and I went up to her

and I said, "Will you
allow me to speak?"

And I said, "Who are
these young people?

They're our successors,
they're the successors

to the revolution,
that's who they are.

And what are we
supposed to be doing?

We're supposed to be using
the democratic rights

that Chairman Mao has given us
to air our opinions

and our grievances
and to try to straighten out

the wrong things or stupid
things that the leaders do."

So on and so forth.

That's all that's going on.

"So, what's the...
what's the controversy about?

What is there to disagree with
or to fight about about this?"

Everybody was just calm,
coulda heard a pin drop.

But, what I didn't know was that
they were recording my speech

about democracy and the right
to speak and the right

to oppose and it went
all over the country,

so the next day, I'm somebody.

I start getting phone calls from
all ov--all over the country

and, so that, that started it.

So, I became very much
in demand as a speaker

at Red Guard rallies
and at universities

and to write for the paper
and so on and so forth,

so everything changed.

And in the process,
you became a celebrity?

Yeah, in the process,
I became a celebrity.

It was the beginning of it.

It's hard to believe,
but I spoke to everything,

from a meeting
of over 100,000 in Tianjin

at the university there, uh...

to in the Great Hall
of the People,

the Congress hall,
to 10,000 leaders

from all over the country,
to the uh, uh...

to the State Science Commission,
to scientists,

and technologists,
several hundred.

Uh, to huge audiences
at all the,

all the major universities,
um...

and over the phone to a meeting
of thousands of Red Guards,

way off in Chian, to a huge
workers conference in Shanghai,

everywhere, I was the speaker.

What did they want
to hear from you?

Well, you know, it was a
romantically built up figure,

this American who spoke
fluent Chinese,

who was from
the generation of Yan'an,

but unlike most
of that generation,

actively supported the Cultural
Revolution and stood

with the young people and was,
had been named by Mao as a,

quote unquote, "international
communist fighter."

This didn't surprise you?

That you were playing this role?

No, that was my role,
that was my role to play.

That's why I always
wore Western clothes,

rather than Chinese clothes
because I wanted

to be recognized
as an American

who was working
for the Chinese Revolution.

The four principal
Red Guard leaders in Beijing

were from the four biggest
universities and I became

sort of their father,
confessor, and counselor.

One talk I had in the park with
these four fearsome chieftains,

really fearsome, I mean,
they were it in those days,

and I asked them, I said,
"What do you--what do you

want to do after the Cultural
Revolution is over?"

And they all said,
"We want to go to America."

And I said, "Why?"

I mean U.S. imperialism
was the enemy of choice

in those days,
so why do you want to go?

And Kuai Dafu said, "Well,"
he said, "I just wanna see

what it is about the Capitalist
system that makes it so secure,

makes it so stable,"
he says that,

"There's the United States,
the chief of world imperialism,

an exploiting society
and yet there's no worry

about being overthrown,
you don't worry about people

talking or whatever that the
system's gonna collapse."

Why, he says,
"Cause I wanna go and see."

That's what they were like.

You'd become
an important person.

Sort of, yeah.

Sidney...your words
were circulated

throughout the country!

People wanted you to speak,

people wanted you
at mass rallies,

Uh-huh.

You had the ear of Zhou Enlai,

you had the ear
of Jiang Qing, Mao's wife!

Yes, and when it all collapsed
around my ears, I had the voice

of my father saying,
"Fools names like fools faces

often found in public places."

Well, I was thinking that we
were building a new world.

that the Cultural Revolution
was building

a new democratic
socialist world.

And yet, you knew of
the violence that was going on

and people's careers
being ruined and good people,

people you knew,
people who were your friends

and colleagues,
being struggled against

at mass meetings
which you attended.

How was this affecting you?

You know, I made
some feeble attempts to...

protest or to do
something about the...

brutal way that people
were treated

at these mass-struggle meetings.

I felt this was wrong,
I was against it,

I bleated a few times at people
and then I dropped it

because it is written,
"A revolution is not like

inviting guests to dinner,"
it can't be that civilized,

that courteous,
that gracious, that gentle.

And it wasn't.

It wasn't.

♪

During its most violent years,
1966 to 1969, the devastation

and brutality of the Cultural
Revolution were not always

visible to the outside world,
much less understandable.

At the time, eyewitnesses rarely
documented the convulsions

of a country that had
turned against itself.

It was an era of chaos
and confusion.

♪

That's the Cultural Revolution,
it's like a national holiday

mixed with unbelievable
cruelty.

You see, and...

I mean, there were
high school Red Guards,

I know one high school Red Guard
unit that captured and tortured

the kids from a rival
high school Red Guard unit,

recorded their screams,
and played them

for all of their troops
to harden them

to struggle with
the class enemy.

So, I mean real fascist storm
trooper tactics were going on.

Some...elderly people
who had once been shopkeepers,

not a crime, according
to Mao Zedong doctrine,

they had been shopkeepers,
therefore viewed as capitalists,

and had been working
for state owned stores forever,

but they were killed
by these young kids

in their anger
at the exploiters.

There was a schoolteacher
who got a knock on his door

in the middle of the night,
opened the door,

and was stabbed to death
by several students.

It's unbelievable
brutality and cruelty

as the background of this whole
revolutionary firm hand.

And for the army and the police,
it was basically hands-off.

If they're not setting fire
to public property

and major destruction,
stay out of it.

It was a catastrophe
of historic proportions.

You could only compare it
to a catastrophe

like the Holocaust in Europe.

In fact, Li Xiannian,
when he became president,

called it a Holocaust,
he said,

"This is our Chinese Holocaust."

And how many millions
of people died?

I've never seen
an accounting,

and I'm not sure
anyone knows,

but you go to China, today,

and I don't think
you can find any family

that doesn--that didn't have
at least one member

that was seriously damaged
in the Cultural Revolution.

Because today,
this faction would be on top,

and tomorrow,
another faction.

So up and down,
round and round.

Lin Biao announced publicly

in the second year
of the Cultural Revolution--

Lin Baio was Mao's second
in command at that point--

he said that more army men,

more soldiers had been killed

in the first period
of the Cultural Revolution

than in the largest military
campaign in Chinese history.

So you can imagine,

millions and millions
of people perished.

At the Radio
where we were working,

four people that we knew

committed suicide
in the first week

of the Cultural Revolution.

People like one woman
who had been on the Long March,

and the old Red Army
was suddenly accused

of being a counter-revolutionary
and a traitor

to the revolution

and she just jumped off the roof

and ended it.

Four people
that we knew.

So the damage was enormous.

♪

Power at the top
was wielded

by the central
Cultural Revolution group,

whose leaders became known
as the Gang of Four.

Most prominent among them
was Mao's wife, Jiang Qing.

When the Rebel Regiment
at Radio met resistance

from those still in authority,

Rittenberg went
to Jiang Qing for help.

She wasn't the same woman
he remembered

from the Saturday night dances
in Yan'an.

What happened was amazing to me
because I had--

I had known Jiang Qing
since 1946 in Yan'an.

She started
as an ambitious young person,

very little talent
as a movie actress,

but great talent
as a political actress.

Now, I could not recognize her
as the same person I had known.

The thing
that popped into my head

was the image
from the old Hollywood movie,

A Tale of Two Cities,

in which Madame Defarge,

the French radical woman,

was played by Blanche Yurka,
terrific,

and, oh, she was
just storm and stress incarnate.

You know, just fury,

revolutionary fury.

And that's what Jiang Qing
was like,

not rational at all.

She also had the chief of staff
of the army there,

and the--

and a deputy chief of staff
in charge of military training.

And she said--

well, the gist of what she said

in her rantings was
that we are determined.

We're going to tear down

every single bureaucratic
institution in China

and build them all up again.

The way that chairman Mao's
revolutionary line demands,

to be
revolutionary institutions.

And she said,

"When I went
to the Radio institute,

they wouldn't let me
in the gate, at first."

And I told them,

"If you don't let me in,

I have a column of cadre

in Zhongnanhai in the central
committee quarters,

I'll bring them here
and we'll knock down your gate."

And she repeated that statement.

She said,
"Well, I'll knock down any gate

that doesn't let
in the revolution,

any gate
that protects revisionism."

♪

The door seemed open

for an unprecedented
course of action.

No rebel group had yet taken

over a central
government department,

let alone one
as politically sensitive

as the broadcast administration.

Rittenberg
and the Rebel Regiment

were emboldened to act.

Well, the next big thing
was on New Year's Eve

when we all--

the Rebel Regiment leaders

gathered...

in the--in their office,

and they decided
that the time had come

for them to take power,

to take over the leadership
of the Radio, formally.

Run the whole thing.

And nobody had ever done this

in a government organ before,

let alone in such
an important one as this.

So we marched in,
eight or ten of us,

we marched into the central
editorial office,

where the two deputy directors

were there in charge,

and we just read,
we read them a notice saying

that the Rebel Regiment
was taking over command

of the State
Broadcasting Institute,

and from this day on,
you're working for us.

A few days later,

a statement came

from Mao Zedong himself
saying,

"If rebels at Radio
have taken over, good for them.

Now there's some dissention
among the rebels.

They should be counseled
to unite."

That's all.

In those days,
a word from Mao,

it was called
the newest supreme directive.

Supreme directive,

so that was law.

And so this great elation
about we got approval.

But why did he imagine--
you know, that was one

of the greatest lessons
of my life,

what happened
in the next few weeks.

Here's what happened
at Radio,

and similarly, everywhere.

These guys come into power

over an organization
of 7,000 people,

very complicated.

They have no idea even how
to manage the motor pool,

let alone the whole thing.

Revolutionary zeal
was the order of the day,

but political fury
was no substitute

for practical experience,
or management skills.

When the leadership of the Rebel
Regiment was challenged,

power became an end in itself.

And these guys,
they would go

to the living quarters

of the dissatisfied people,

they'd break open the locks
on their desk drawers,

they'd confiscate their diaries,

they'd read their mail,

they'd put them in confinement.

So very quickly,

it turned
from this great democracy

into a great dictatorship.

So that's when I came

into face to face argument
with Jiang Qing.

I said, "You shouldn't support
these people

because they're suppressing
their opposition.

They're not practicing
democracy."

But she was supporting them.

There's a meeting
of the full Radio staff

in which she speaks,
I speak,

the Rebel leader speaks,

and I really thought

I may never get
out of this place alive,

'cause there was
only one entrance.

It's a music hall,
there's no back entrance.

I have to go through all these--

this crowd to get
to the front door.

But I was so...

angry,

and I said, I said,

"You know what you're doing?

You're using the methods
that the oppressors use

to get rid of opposition.

You're doing
exactly the same thing,

you're denying them
the right to speak,

you're holding people by force

in confinement,

even the representative

of the Cultural Revolution
leading group.

Look what you turned into.

And you think you have the right

to call yourself

Regiment to Defend
Mao Zedong Thought?"

And they're very angry,

they don't like this at all.

Then someone,
who turned out later

to have been inspired
from on top,

suggests that we set
up a three,

a committee of three,

to conduct
a rectification campaign

to restore unity
at Radio through education,

and that I be the chairman
of this group,

and be in charge.

♪

Sidney Rittenberg had risen
to a political position

unheard of for foreigners
in China.

He was in charge
of a critical government agency.

Broadcasting was
a key battleground

in the Cultural Revolution.

But as he would soon discover,

his role was being manipulated
from the very top.

Jiang Qing was using
Rittenberg's committee

to put her own faction
in control.

Now, here's where I made
my really big mistake,

really big mistake.

I should have quit right then.

I should have quit,

but I was too much

into the power and the glory
to quit, really.

I was too much
into that feeling

that I'm part of history,

and if I quit now,
I'm nothing.

I just couldn't let it go,

so I decided, well,
I'll keep working on it,

you know, from the inside.

But I should have known,

I should have known.

You know, one day,
I had my picture taken

in a group photo with Mao

and two weeks later,

the picture's reprinted
in another paper,

and I'm blacked out.

What happened,
what went wrong?

Well, it was happening
to so many people,

it wasn't just me.

That's one thing
that impressed me

in solitary the second time,

that these people,

the President of the People's
Republic of China, Liu Shaoqi,

Mao's anointed successor

in writing,

and the leading exponent
of Mao's thought...

almost overnight,
he became a prisoner

and was finally hassled
to death.

So, I thought to myself,

these people still
haven't gotten

that if it's not safe
for everybody,

it's not safe
for anybody.

Whoever you are,

if you don't have
certain protections,

that you could be
the number two man in the land,

and you could still drop,
just like that.

It was happening
to so many people.

It wasn't just me.

♪

♪

Here I am,
I'm back in solitary.

Who would have thought it?

Who could believe it?

And one night,

about two, three years

into this term in solitary...

the prison is now

in the hands of young fanatics,

Red Guard types,
in the army,

and the original people
who ran the prison,

including the warden,
who came and talked to me,

are now locked up in cells
in the prison.

And, um,
I heard them one night,

after sleep time,

torturing a female prisoner.

You could hear the blows,

you could hear her scream
and groan and plead,

and you have to lie there

and there's nothing
you can do about it.

And that was a terrible feeling.

And I felt like
the pit and the pendulum.

You know,
I felt the walls closing in,

and I'm having palpitations,
I'm sweating,

and I'm terrified
this time it's gonna get me.

And how many people
were ruined in those prisons

in the Cultural Revolution.

I--I have no idea the numbers,

but the wrecks all
over the place,

the ones still alive.

They got out,
but were just wrecks.

But I kept saying to myself,

they control the stimulus.

They try to break you down

and make you jump,

but you control the response.

They don't control the response.

So you can modulate
the response.

They can't...

make you jump
whenever they want you to jump.

And, those--
those were empowering,

those bits of knowledge
were empowering.

And another thing
that was--

you know,
another experience like that.

The second time in prison,

after a couple of years,

I start thinking one day,

you know, even if I ever get
out of this place,

which I didn't think
would happen.

Why?

Because the same Mao Zedong

had made the same mistake twice

about the same American,

and he was now a god-head.

Were they ever gonna be ready
to admit

that they'd done it again?

I thought very unlikely.

Yulin was sent to labor camp,

just a little over three years.

And because...

she wouldn't play ball,

she was given very hard labor
no other woman had.

Wouldn't play ball.

The smart thing to do
in the Cultural Revolution was

if your spouse, or child,

or parent, or close friend

was accused

of being a bad person,

you made a show of cooperating
with the authorities.

You revealed some things

that you figured wouldn't really
hurt the person,

but it'd make it look

like you were trying.

And she couldn't do that.

She kept saying and writing,

"My husband is a good man,

you're wrong."

She wrote letters to Zhou Enlai.

She never told me,
but after I came home,

I opened this old book

and out floated
a copy of a letter

that she wrote to Zhou Enlai,

and turned out,
there were lots of them.

"My husband is an American."

"He is a good man."

"He's a real friend of China."

"He's a revolutionary

and you're making a mistake."

So for that,
she got beaten,

she got spit on,

she got parked on a stool

outside of the women's bathroom,

so that everybody passing

would--would spit on her
or curse her.

There was a big poster
behind her on the wall saying,

"This is the unrepentant wife

of the dog
of an imperialist spy."

One of the interrogation team

visited us in Beijing

shortly after I was released.

And he told us

that about three months
into the interrogation,

they had sent up a report
saying,

"We think this man
is telling the truth."

And that Jiang Qing
had sent word back saying,

"We know he's guilty,
your job is to make him talk."

♪

On September 9, 1976,

Mao Zedong died.

Just days later,
The Gang of Four was arrested.

The Cultural Revolution
was officially over,

but it would be another year
before Rittenberg was set free.

In all, he had spent

15 years, 11 months and 14 days
in Chinese prisons,

all of it
in solitary confinement.

Sometime in mid-October,
early October,

after the National Day,

I hear familiar tones
coming from the prison cell

right across the little
courtyard from me.

It was Jiang Qing,

and I immediately knew

if she's in, I'm going out.

November 18, 1977,

the door to the cell opened.

They had double padlocks
on the cell.

The door opened
on Saturday morning,

which is very unusual,

and the keeper came
in with a safety razor

and handed it to me
and said,

"Have a good shave,
they're gonna come

in a couple hours
to take you home."

A shave with no shaving cream,
or brush, or anything,

just a razor.

So, then began
a remarkable procession.

First, they brought

a brand new pair
of shiny leather shoes.

Then they brought a silk tie.

Then they brought
a brand new suit.

Then they brought a silk shirt.

So I'm transforming myself,

and the guards at the window,

his eyes are
as big as saucers,

and he opened the little door
and he said,

"What's going on?"

And I said, "I'm going home."

Okay.

So I went out
and Yulin was waiting

in a little reception room,

and...

I went in, some
of our old friends were there,

and I put my arms around her,
and she was crying,

and I patted her on the back
and said,

"It's okay now, it's all over,
it's okay, it's okay."

♪

♪

I was part of a movement

for human progress, I felt.

And I wasn't just a me
in a prison cell,

I was part of this world

of people

who were struggling
and studying and working

for freedom and happiness,
for progress.

And as long as I was part
of that,

wherever I was,

I was part of something
that was moving forward

and that would win.

So I think that's what kept me.

I never thought of giving up.

What don't we know
about the Cultural Revolution?

Oh, I think 95 percent
we don't know.

And when I say we don't know,

this generation of Chinese
don't have a clue

about what happened,
not a clue.

They don't know anything,

maybe someone in their family
told them a story or two,

but most people don't talk
about it.

Though these young kids--
and if you talk to them

about the Cultural Revolution
they say,

"How, how could that happen,

how could people
be like that?"

I think it's
an enormously important period

in human history to study
and to draw lessons from.

How do people behave
when there are no holds barred,

when everything is up for grabs,

when you can do it
any way you want,

together
with anyone you choose,

how do they behave
under those circumstances?

It's--it's important information
for the human race, I think.

♪

What should we understand
about Mao Zedong?

I think he was
a great historic leader

and a great historic criminal,

both parts.

And I think the reason
I say criminal is

that he arrogated to himself
the right to conduct

these enormous
social experiments

that involved upturning
the lives

of hundreds of millions
of people,

when he himself did not know

what the outcome was gonna be.

He thought it was okay for him

to experiment like that.

And that, I think,
was criminal

because

it created famines,
in which tens of millions died,

and it created
the Cultural Revolution,

in which nobody knows
how many died,

and it--usually
when he took off,

it ended in disaster,

but he kept trying.

Are there things that you look
back on with personal regret

that you're sorry for,
or sorry about?

Mhm, sure.

Yeah, being involved
in struggles against people

in China.

With one group
against another group,

or with a party against people
who were singled out

for struggle for criticism,

that was terribly wrong.

Wrong--more wrong for me,
I think,

because being an American,

so an outsider, really.

What went wrong?

Two of my closest,
longest friends in China

both described what went wrong
in exactly the same words.

After it was all over,

they said to me,

"You forgot
you were a foreigner."

I think in a word that's part
of what went wrong anyway.

More seriously,
more basically what went wrong

was that I was in total delusion
as to what was possible

and what was really happening
in China.

After I got out of prison,
and I was able to see

that the problems in the system
were systemic problems,

not problems of good man
and bad man,

and that some
of the basic tenets

of what was called
Marxism-Leninism were wrong,

then I restored my ability
to criticize

my own basic premises,

and I felt like a free man.

If you put one drop

into the long river
of human history,

that's immortal,

that goes on wave after wave,

drop after drop,

long after you know it
or don't know it.

It has nothing to do
with whether you're aware of it.

Your contribution
is your immortality,

that's something that lasts.

So you either make a difference,

or you don't make a difference,

in which case,
you're just a piece of mud,

just swept away
and doesn't matter,

but you can matter.

Sidney Rittenberg
making history.

Yeah.

History rolled
right over my body.

I really think
that if I had gone to China

and just worked in English,

polishing and teaching
and writing and whatever,

and not had any part
of politics,

and not joined the Party,

I would have been able
to make more of a contribution,

and do less damage.

I think that's
undoubtedly true.

But that's not what I wanted.

I wanted to be in the Party.

I wanted to be a revolutionary.

♪

Shortly after he was released
from prison,

Rittenberg went to the American
Embassy in Beijing

and explained
that he had lost his passport.

He was given a new one.

With Yulin and the children,

he moved back
to the United States in 1980.

♪

They had left almost everything
behind in China,

and had to start over again
in America.

Yulin as a cooking instructor,

Sidney teaching
adult education classes.

Then their lives
took one more dramatic turn,

and put Sidney back on the road
that had taken him to Yan'an,

and into the heart
of the Chinese Revolution.

In a new era
of US-China relations,

he found a new role,

now as a valued resource
in the US-China dialogue.

And with Yulin as a consultant
to American companies

now engaged
in the new global economy.

Sidney Rittenberg
was back at work,

building his bridge
between America and China.

♪

♪

♪