The Man Who Stayed Behind in China Comes Into Focus
HONG KONG —
The first American to join the Chinese Communist Party turns 91 next month, and a new documentary, "The Revolutionary," describes how a kid from Charleston, South Carolina, ended up in a mountain cave playing gin rummy with Mao Zedong.
He would later end up, twice, in Communist prisons, enduring long stretches in solitary, "sitting there with your own potential madness sitting across from you, watching you, knowing it's either you or him."
Sidney Rittenberg took an interesting career path, to say the least. Arriving in China as a language expert for the U.S. military just as World War II was ending, he stayed behind after the war to join the Communist revolution.
A
Chinese state television account says Mr. Rittenberg had a come-to-Communism moment when he was still in the military. He was outraged when he heard that a rickshaw puller had received just $14 in compensation from the Chinese Nationalist government when his child was killed by a drunk driver, an American surgeon.
In a recent TedX video interview, Mr. Rittenberg said he felt he was "fulfilling an historical need" and was excited by the chance to have "my finger on the pulse of history."
Known in China as Li Dunbai — the phonetic expression of Rittenberg —
he trekked to the Communist guerrillas' mountain sanctuary of Yan'an in 1946. He met Mao the day he arrived, he said, and came to know him and the inner circle of senior Communist leaders who were hunkered down there. At night they played gin rummy, horsed around and watched Laurel and Hardy films.
The leaders used him to polish and edit their messages into perfect English. He later translated some of Mao's writings — the Chairman even autographed his Little Red Book — and he worked for the New China News Agency and Radio Peking.
Mr. Rittenberg has always acknowledged that he was smitten with the Communist party, especially in its relief efforts with the poor.
"It was clean as a whistle," he said in a Guardian interview, noting that the leaders in the early days lived simply and ate frugally.
The Yan'an area, which served as the Communist base until 1948, has now become a tourist attraction, although it has been sanitized both physically and historically.
"They've virtually destroyed this museum to Chinese revolutionary history," Mr. Rittenberg told my colleague Edward Wong in 2010. "I think it's a real travesty."
"The local tour guides will not allow anyone to criticize Mao," he said.
Mr.
Rittenberg has often been asked for his impressions of Mao, whom he has called "a great hero and a great criminal all rolled up into one." He said Mao was personally aloof, spoke very slowly and was "the best listener I have ever met." At times, he said, Mao could be "hilariously funny."
In 1956 Mr. Rittenberg married a Chinese woman, Wang Yulin, after professing his feelings — against the advice of friends — in a love letter. Still married, now living in Fox Island, Washington, they have three daughters and a son.
In all,
Mr. Rittenberg spent 34 years in China, from the Communists' victory in the revolution through the horrors of the Great Leap Forward, the ensuing famine and the Cultural Revolution. In various interviews over the years he has seemed sad, wistful, angry and ashamed of the excesses and damage of those years.
In the preface to his autobiography, he said that he, like others, had
"walked the Communist Road in the hope of creating a new and better world."
"But at the
same time I want to paint a clear picture of the evils that ensued," he wrote. "I saw them. I lived with them. In some cases — to my shame and chagrin today — I participated in them."
The autobiography, written with the journalist Amanda Bennett, is titled "The Man Who Stayed Behind."
In the new film, he says that
a revolution "is not like inviting guests to dinner. It can't be that civilized, that gracious, that courteous, that gentle."
And so it went — not gently — for
Mr. Rittenberg personally. His first prison stint came when Joseph Stalin asked Mao to arrest him as an agent of U.S. imperialism who had been sent to sabotage the Chinese revolution.
His jailers drugged him to keep him edgy, awake, sleep-deprived. "You're supposed to break down and confess," he said. "I broke down, but I had nothing to confess. So it's kind of awkward."
His second prison term came at the behest of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing.
"A fantastic woman," he said of Madame Mao in one interview, whereupon his wife interjected, "A horrible woman."
Mr. Rittenberg spent a total of 16 years in prison in China, and now says with a rueful grin, "I hate to be a whiner, but it was too long."
Released in 1977, he returned to the United States in 1979 for a vacation and wrote an essay for The Times about his initial impressions. A Times story from 1979 that recounts his remarkable tale is here.
Mr. Rittenberg left China with his family for good in 1980.
Lucy Ostrander, the producer of the documentary, said she was inspired to make the film after reading a profile of Mr. Rittenberg written by Gary Rivlin in the business section of The Times in 2004.
The article detailed how Mr. Rittenberg had become a much sought-after consultant for firms looking to do business in China. His client list has since included Intel, Nextel, Microsoft and the like.
"We can see just about anybody we need to see in China because people are curious to meet me," Mr. Rittenberg said of his continuing access to Chinese business and political leaders.
John Zagula, a Washington venture capitalist, was one of those who took counsel from Mr. Rittenberg.
"If he bears scars from his time in prison," Mr. Zagula said, "those are scars that he somehow has turned to be positive for him. He's vital. He's engaged. He has a BlackBerry. He's totally with it. He knows what's going on in the world."
A BBC interviewer asked Mr. Rittenberg last year whether a Communist Party exists today.
"Not by any definition I know of," he replied. "Today you don't find much morality."
The Man Who Stayed Behind in China Comes Into Focus - NYTimes.com
