Time for Telling Truth Is Running Out: Conversations with Zhang Shenfu

An unconventional biography of one of the last surviving founders of the Chinese communist party and the man who introduced Zhou Enlai into the movement, this is essentially a record of conversations from 1979 to 1984 between an American history professor at Wesleyan and Zhang Shenfu (1893-1989), self-styled revolutionary philosopher, conducted at his home in Beijing. Zhang's rambling, impish discourse (augmented in the book by quotations from his writings and comments by family and friends) covers much material: his friendship with his guru Bertrand Russell; his temperamental inability to toe the party line (Zhang was expelled for violating party discipline); his relationships with Liu Qingyang, the first woman invited into the Chinese communist party (and thrice-married Zhang's great love), and with Zhou Enlai, who was unable to protect him during the Cultural Revolution. Zhang also has interesting things to say about sex, freedom and socialism. The book is particularly valuable as a record of the periodic anti-intellectual reigns of terror in China and how one politically active academician reacted to them. Photos. (Mar.)