Proface

Every year on March 8, the world observes International Women's Day, a celebration of women's rights and achievements in various fields. It's a great day to recognize the important women in our lives, and to say "thank you" for their sacrifices and hard work that we sometimes tend to take for granted. Here are a few simple yet significant ways you can participate in the festivities.
Bùi Anh Tuấn

My wife had always been a kind person since she was young. She was kind-hearted and gentle," he says.

The photos come from a different era in China. One shows Wang and his wife, Bian Zhongyun, shoulder to shoulder and smiling at the camera. They made a handsome couple.

Both joined the Communist Party in the heady post-revolution years of the early 1950s. Wang was a historian at the Chinese Academy of Science. Bian became a respected educator at an elite Beijing middle school. They dreamed of helping the Party build a new China.But just a few years later, Party loyalty proved no protection for Bian. As the madness of the Cultural Revolution engulfed Beijing, she became the first victim.

"We trusted the Party, but no one ever thought it would become a party that murders people," says Wang.

Red Guards, Mao's enforcers

In one sense, the events that led up to Bian's death began with the bruised ego of Mao Zedong.

In the early 1960s, China's great revolutionary hero was still smarting from the catastrophic failure of the Great Leap Forward, a policy of collective farming and industry that directly and indirectly caused the deaths of millions of Chinese.

Mao called on a new revolution to stamp out what he called bourgeois and counter-revolutionary influences. Conveniently, for Mao, the ensuing chaos helped shore up his personality cult and get rid of his political opponents.