--- title: "The Laogai System: the Horror of Mao’s Forced Labour Camps" description: "In 1958, Liu Xinhu was just 13 years old. His only crime was being the eldest son in a family categorised as 'counter-revolutionary' by the Communist Chinese Party in charge. Barely a teenager, Liu was found guilty and sentenced to live at the same farm as his father.\n\nBut this was not just any ordinary farm. It was one of hundreds of forced labour camps where Mao's regime incarcerated millions upon millions of political prisoners, on the basis of the flimsiest of charges, sometimes on a whim.\n\nThere, Liu Xinhu endured eight years of malnourishment, disease, back-breaking labour, innumerable beatings and torments. He was forced to admit to his guilt as an enemy of the communist greater good, to be despised, reviled, annihilated. During those eight years, the boy was able to see his father only once—when his dad was already dead.\n\nAnd his ordeal was not over upon his 'official' release. For a further eight years he was forced to continue working at the farm. In 1974, Liu was once again labelled a 'counter-revolutionary element' and sentenced to another nine years of detention. And he could count himself among the lucky ones, one of the few who survived to tell the tale.\n\nThis was the horror of Mao Zedong's Laogai system: Communist China's hellish forced labour camps.\n\n## Mao's GULags\n\nThe term 'Laogai' is an abbreviation for *Laodong Gaizao*, which could be translated as 'reform through labour', and refers to a criminal justice system first instituted by the ruling Communist Chinese Party, or CCP. The Laogai system comprised an extensive system of detention centres, penal labour camps, farms, mines and factories on mainland China, for a total of up to 1,100 facilities.\n\nThe Laogai system should not be confused with the 'Laojiao', or re-education through labour. The purpose of the Laojiao—also founded on forced labour—was to re-educate minor penal offenders into becoming law-abiding citizens.\n\nToday, we shall focus only on the Laogai camps, which housed instead a population of more serious criminal offenders and political prisoners—much like the corresponding GULag system in the Soviet Union. As we shall see, both systems had much in common: the purpose to eradicate or re-educate enemies of communist ideology; or exploiting what was essentially slave labour to further the regimes in charge.\n\nThe history, structure and overall toll of misery exacted by the GULags has been well documented for decades, thanks to declassification of records following the fall of the Soviet Union, and especially thanks to the publication of survivor's memoirs. Chief amongst them 'The GULag Archipelago', written by Nobel Prize laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn.\n\nOn the other hand, the Laogai system is less documented and less well known. This is mainly due to the fact that the CCP, still in power in Beijing, is not exactly happy to put in writing—let alone disclose—any official documentation about its camps. Apparently, since Mao's rise to power in 1949, only two pieces of legislation about forced labour have been approved and published by the National People's Congress. Unsurprisingly, the CCP has always kept a tight grip on any report about the Laogai in the local press!\n\nSo, much of what we know about the history of these 'circles of hell' on Earth comes from the few survivors who escaped to the west, and were able to publish their accounts. If the GULags had Solzhenitsyn, the Laogai had Wu Hongda, also known as Harry Wu, founder of the Laogai Research Foundation. In an article written for journal *Comparative Civilizations Review*, Wu described the purpose of the Laogai as such: 'The Laogai must produce two kinds of \"products\": the first includes agricultural, industrial, and consumer products needed to fuel the nation's economy. The second is the man himself—the reformed socialist person.'\n\nWu labels this process 'the extermination of thought', by which the Party uses forced labour, harsh treatment, torture, threats, endless interrogations, sleep deprivation and bullying by other inmates. These tactics are combined with intense ideological indoctrination and constant psychological pressure on prisoners, until they\n\n> 'Abandon their political or religious beliefs, reform their incorrect social views, and live life according to the tenets of Communist rule. They must learn to support the Party while in prison, or else they will not gain release. Should they dare to voice any public criticisms of the government, they could find themselves locked in prison again.'\n\nThe ideological moulding of convicts, which may superficially be defined as 'brainwashing', is particularly intense in the case of political prisoners. This category encompassed those who dared oppose the regime, those who voiced discontent against individual government officials, those who practised banned religions, as well as members of ethnic and national minorities perceived as dangerous. Very often, political detentions were altogether arbitrary: prisoners were denied a trial and had to serve indefinite sentences before they were even charged with an alleged crime.\n\nSurvivor memoirs show how the 're-education' or 're-indoctrination' process is so thorough that individuals willingly admit to their non-existent guilt and accept imprisonment. Survivor Zhang Xian Liang in his memoir 'Agony is Wisdom' writes of how he once escaped a Laogai…but decided to return on his own will!\n\n## Evolution of Classicide\n\nAccording to Harry Wu, the evolution of the Laogai system can be structured in three periods.\n\nThe first period, between 1927 and 1937, coincides with the first stage of the Civil War which opposed Communist forces against the Kuomintang Nationalist faction, a bitter fight with atrocities on both sides.\n\nDuring this time, early incarnations of the Communist armed forces and police incarcerated those identified as 'counterrevolutionaries': supporters of the Kuomintang, opposers of the peasants and workers, as well as members of the landlord and capitalist classes. This last point is important: to secure victory against the Nationalists, the Communist leader Mao Zedong maintained that society must be purged from certain elements of society. This 'classicide' as labelled by Wu, would mainly target the middle classes, intellectuals and small land owners.\n\nAt this stage, the Laogai system was not yet fully developed, and Maoist forces utilised pre-existing prisons and jails. Members of the Kuomintang could be executed immediately upon capture, or subjected to torture. While 'class enemies' were grouped into 'hard labour teams' and forced to perform logistics duties supporting the Communist military.\n\nBy June 1932, the CCP considered other ways to use these prisoners, through a so-called 'labour reformatory', intended to reform 'criminals', sure, but mostly aimed at boosting productivity in Communist-controlled areas. According to Harry Wu, this early forced labour system produced\n\n> 'A great deal of consumer and military products [which]…relieved the financial burden of the regime [and] increased the government's income'\n\nThe second period of Laogai evolution can be dated from 1937 to 1945, when the Communists and the Nationalists temporarily joined forces against Imperial Japan. During this phase, the CCP was mostly preoccupied with eliminating internal opposition within its ranks. The number of detention centres increased, and Chinese communists started applying the concept of 'thought reform', which they had learned from their Soviet counterparts.\n\nAnd then we come to the third stage, known as the 'War of Liberation Period', from 1945 to 1949. This is when, after Japan's defeat, Mao's forces resumed the war against Chiang Kai-Shek and his Kuomintang, eventually evicting them to Taiwan.\n\nDuring this period, the CCP ramped up the development of factories manned by counter-revolutionaries and dissidents sentenced to forced labour. The output of these factories contributed greatly to the communist war effort, and the Party invested more and more resources in this viable economic model. And by 'resources' we mean more 'reactionary' prisoners, of course.\n\nQuoting from a speech delivered by Mao in August 1945:\n\n> 'As for the reactionaries in China, it is up to us to organise the people to overthrow them. Everything reactionary is the same; if you don't hit it, it won't fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.'\n\nThe CCP found it more efficient to collect that 'reactionary dust' into a dust-pan to relocate it away from pre-existing detention centres and into new facilities: purposely built camps closer to the production centres, factories, mines and farms.\n\nThese new labour camps became the main model for the Laogai system from then on.\n\n## Consolidation of Classicide\n\nActually, the term 'Laogai' itself was first used when Mao Zedong and the CCP secured power in 1949. The all-powerful Ministry of Public Security, or MPS, overseeing both the 'regular' and 'secret' police forces, also took charge of the Laogai camps, ensuring they were regularly stocked up with prisoners to rid society of anti-communist elements—and to maintain production quotas, of course!\n\nTo further increase the efficiency of this system, Mao turned to 'Big Brother': Josef Stalin's USSR. A gaping rift would later form between the two powers, but at the time the tyrants in Moscow and Beijing agreed on some core principles. To quote again from Mao:\n\n> 'Marxism holds that the state is a machine of violence for one class to rule another. Laogai facilities are one of the violence components of the state machine. They are tools representing the interests of the proletariat and the people's masses and exercising dictatorship over a minority of hostile elements originating from the exploiter class.'\n\nAnd Stalin was more than willing to help maintain Mao's machine of violence.\n\nThanks to Soviet help, by June 1952 the CCP had established at least 857 Laogai camps, of which 640 were dedicated to farming, 217 to mining, plus an unspecified number of units involved in water treatment, railroad construction and production of military and consumer goods.\n\nBy the end of 1952, those hundreds of camps had been filled to the brim by Luo Ruiquing, Director of the Ministry of Public Security, or MPS. Back in 1950, Luo had initiated the Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries. Which pretty much did what it said on its sinister tin. Driven by millions of voluntary anonymous tips, the Campaign led to the arrest of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens, of which up to 700,000 were executed.\n\nThe MPS launched a second purge after an Air India passenger flight was destroyed by a bomb on April 11, 1955. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was supposed to be on board, and an investigation identified the Kuomintang as the culprits. Cue a massive wave of investigations, which led to almost 260,000 citizens being deported to a Laogai camp or executed.\n\nThe third big purge of the 1950s was instigated by Chairman Mao himself in late 1957, the so-called Anti-Rightist Campaign. Back in March, Mao had decided to relax his grip on censorship via the 'Hundred Flowers Campaign', an initiative which encouraged intellectuals to talk freely and even criticise Party policies. At the time, Mao maintained that 'Economic progress would be held back if the regime persisted in imposing a stultifying conformity on its best brains…Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend.'\n\nBy May, teachers and students in particular were pouring torrents of criticism upon Mao and pals, which led them to quickly backtrack. In June, the 'best brains' were branded as 'counter-revolutionary rightists', and the MPS fell in force upon them.\n\nMao would later claim that the 'Hundred Flowers' was a bluff, a ruse to weed out dissidents to be purged in the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Not all historians are convinced, but if it was indeed a complex plan, it worked perfectly. This is when the Laogai system greatly expanded and diversified, as anyone, at any time, could be swept away by the police and sentenced to years or decades of hard labour for the slightest of political offences. People just…disappeared! And their relatives accepted their grim fate, merely whispering that\n\n> 'They have gone for Laogai'\n\nRelatives and friends would soon come to accept the rule of the Party. They would quickly forget, or even reject their imprisoned relations. This is what happened to Harry Wu, who was first imprisoned during this campaign. His crimes? He had failed to participate in Party rallies and had attempted to see his girlfriend without Party approval! Wu later told how this very girlfriend completely forgot about him, and how his own brother had disowned him.\n\nThe Laogai system enjoyed another 'Big Leap Forward' during the infamous Cultural Revolution, which started in 1966 and ended only with Mao's death in 1976. This event would warrant an episode of its own, but to give you the basics this was yet another anti-reactionary campaign unleashed by Mao. It was enacted by a fanatical, teenaged militia, the Red Guards, bent on humiliating, beating and torturing teachers, professors and other intellectuals. Wielding Mao's Little Red Books of political sayings, they challenged citizens to recite excerpts from memory. Those who failed, faced the Laogai, or even death.\n\nThe Cultural Revolution eventually claimed an estimated 1.6 million lives, and further drove the expansion of the Laogai system to at least 1,100 camps.\n\n## Joy and Chagrin\n\nSo, we have now covered the development of the Laogai system under Mao. But a history of this system is not complete without a description of the gruelling conditions under which inmates were forced to operate.\n\nPrisoners were forced to live, sleep and work in tight, unsanitary and cramped spaces, with the bare minimum clothing and supplies. Camp officials used these conditions as a weapon, offering minimal improvements in living arrangements to elicit compliance. Survivor Ruo-Wang Bao in his memoir 'Prisoner of Mao' remembered the sense of joy when he was moved to a new camp, where he was awarded simply more time to rest and slightly increased food rations:\n\n> 'Only a madman would wish to exchange this paradise against any other place of detention'\n\nFood rations were of course another source of misery, and another powerful tool wielded by the jailors. The standard diet consisted of a thin broth with a single piece of spoiled cabbage, which the exhausted internees tried to integrate with rotting roots, snakes or even leather. Naturally, convicts were eager to work harder in exchange for better rations. Or to confess to largely non-existent political crimes, if that involved an extra dish of rice.\n\nFor example, Harry Wu was once left without food for three days in solitary confinement. As he was gradually allowed some gruel, he finally admitted to officials\n\n> 'I am guilty…I committed a crime against the Party, a crime against the people…I beg the government's forgiveness'\n\nQuoting again from Ruo-Wang, food was\n\n> 'the single greatest joy, chagrin, and motivating force in the entire prison system'\n\nThe scarce caloric intake would have floored the most resilient of individuals. Add to that, that these prisoners were forced to perform endless shifts of manual, sometimes very hard labour.\n\nAt the onset of the Laogai system, forced labour was mainly devoted to large, sweeping public works. For example, in the 1950s, Laogai inmates were used to bolster Manchuria's agriculture and industry, to extract coal from mines, dig canals or lay railway tracks.\n\nLater, they were increasingly dedicated to producing consumer products of cheap quality, such as tea bags, Christmas lights, clothing items, car parts, cigarettes and millions of copies of Mao's infamous 'Little Red Book'. And while the term 'forced labourers' is commonly used, these workers were essentially slaves, as they did not receive any compensation from the government.\n\nCrucially, the government would own its 'slaves' even after they had completed the terms of their sentence. About 90 percent of former Laogai inmates, upon release were forced to continue working for the rest of their lives in forced work assignments.\n\nThese slaves often had to operate in the harshest of climates. While not as cold as Siberia, winters in Northern China can be unforgiving, too. Ruo-Wang wrote how new inmates made the mistake of not wearing a face mask and\n\n> 'Died from simply inhaling…their lungs and throats frozen'\n\nThe summers were not easier, as swarms of mosquitoes and other parasites pestered the prisoners, spreading infectious diseases like wildfire. Death was an all too common occurrence, as malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery and malnutrition ran rampant.\n\nInternees also had to deal with the constant, and frequently enacted, threat of physical violence. Often, this came from fellow prisoners, more precisely ordinary criminals. Usually they enjoyed a more privileged position compared to political prisoners: they were allowed to default on their work quotas and outright abuse political internees, stealing their food and subjecting them to beatings. Needless to say, they almost always escaped punishment.\n\nPolitical prisoners, on the other hand, were subjected to constant mistreatment and torture directed by camp authorities. Harry Wu once committed the unspeakable crime of concealing a book, *Les Misérables* by Victor Hugo. When found out, he was subjected to a so-called 'struggle session', during which his wrist was broken with a spade.\n\n## Extermination of Thought and Body\n\nNow, about these 'struggle sessions'. They were a key component of the forced re-education process enacted by CCP authorities in the Laogai camps. During these sessions, prisoners were required to criticise and condemn fellow inmates for their lack of belief and adherence to communist ideology. Not only that, each internee was pressured into harsh self-criticism and self-condemnation, admitting even to the smallest, perceived sins against the Party.\n\nEven going too frequently to the latrines was condemned as the capital sin of laziness, and prisoners were willing to admit to said sins, in order to avoid beatings, solitary confinement or starvation.\n\nThis extreme indoctrination was completed by the incessant pounding of political rallies, speeches and propaganda, which eventually led to what Wu and other survivors termed 'extermination of thought': the annihilation of one self for the sake of survival.\n\nRuo-Wang thus advised that\n\n> 'The only way to survive in jail is to write a confession right away and make your sins look as black as possible. Always accuse yourself harshly – exaggerate, even. But don't ever hint that the prison authorities or the government share any of the responsibility.'\n\nIn addition to internal psychological pressure, Laogai inmates had to deal with external pressure. As mentioned earlier, their own relatives would disown them, and would do their best to instil a sense of guilt. Harry Wu recalled a harsh letter he received from his brother, stating that\n\n> 'We have drawn a clear line to separate ourselves from you. You must follow Chairman Mao's teachings and work hard to reform yourself through labour'\n\nWith their thoughts and souls exterminated, prisoners eventually, deeply believed to be at fault, to be guilty of committing crimes against the common good represented by the Maoist regime.\n\nThis phenomenon has been highlighted by Dr Stanley Joseph Stepanovic in his dissertation 'The GULag and Laogai: A Comparative Study of Forced Labour Through Camp Literature'. By reviewing several memoirs of Laogai survivors, he noted how they expressed\n\n> 'The fact that they were at fault, not the government, and that their sentence of forced labour, no matter how ridiculous, no matter how altered or extended over their term, no matter how long, is somehow necessary for personal development'\n\nSuch a thorough rewiring of one's convictions led to cases of inmates being incapable of returning to a normal life outside the Laogai system.\n\nRuo-Wang remembered the heart-wrenching story of one such released prisoner: 'After a week of being coldly tolerated by his family, taunted by children and scorned by the rest of the village, he decided that the only home he had was Liangxiang [his camp]. He took what money he had left, bought a return ticket and literally begged Warder Tien to allow him back inside the gates.'\n\nBut there were many instances in which human thought refused to be exterminated. In those cases, authorities annihilated the human body. Survivor Palden Gyatso in his 'Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk' described the variety of torture methods in use at the camps. He was suspended in the air, and doused with icy water, beaten repeatedly, scalded with boiling water, kept in shackles for months and subjected to shocks with a unique Chinese invention, the electrified police baton.\n\nIf prisoners refused to yield to torture, they would be summarily executed, most often by hanging or with a single bullet to the head. According to Gyatso: 'The bullets that were used to kill someone, as well as the ropes that were used to hang someone, even the expenses involved for that, would be deducted from the convicted person.'\n\nGyatso also recalled one rare occasion in which the execution of a prisoner sparked an uprising against the guards: an ill-fated attempt, which ended with several prisoners killed with bayonets.\n\nAnother survivor, Catherine Ho, testified to the US House of Representatives' Committee On International Relations in April 1995, decades after her ordeal. Catherine had been sent to a Laogai camp on account of her Christian faith. She testified how a fellow inmate on Sundays\n\n> 'Would say prayers instead of singing revolutionary songs in front of Mao's portrait. One day she was dragged out to the field where we were working and beaten to death in front of all of us.'\n\n## A Grim Conclusion\n\nAs mentioned earlier, the Laogai system is poorly documented, and as such it is difficult to estimate the total death toll inflicted by Mao and his acolytes on their own people. According to Harry Wu, the labour camps have imprisoned about 50 million Chinese citizens, as well as Tibetan dissidents and other foreign nationals. Of these, an estimated 15 to 20 million people died as a result of disease, starvation, exhaustion, torture and executions.\n\nAs staggering as that number sounds, it is only a fraction of the mortality caused by 'the Great Helmsman', Chairman Mao Zedong. Professor of Political Science R.J. Rummel estimated that even before defeating the Kuomintang, the CCP had killed between 1.8 and 11.7 million people, with 3.5 million being the most likely figure.\n\nAfter seizing power, Mao caused massive famines due to ill-conceived agricultural and industrial reforms, causing further 27 million citizens to starve to death. By adding the 1950s purges and campaigns, the Cultural Revolution and the Laogai mortality, Rummel concluded that the CCP may have killed up to 102.6 million people, with 35.2 million being 'a prudent estimate'.\n\nOur focus has been on the Laogai system under Mao, but the death of the Chairman did not put an end to this tragedy, far from it.\n\nAfter escaping the system and relocating to the US, Harry Wu continued to document the inhumane conditions of forced labourers under Mao's successors. Wu went undercover, returning to China from 1991 to 1994, posing as an American entrepreneur and filming in secret how the Laogai camps were still pretty much in business—literally! Through his work, he confirmed how Chinese corporations exploited Laogai slave labour to produce cheap export products to flood the lucrative US market.\n\nAnd that's not all.\n\nWu was able to record a phone call involving a hospital administrator in Zhengzhou, during which he admitted to personally driving a surgical van to an execution site to harvest the organs of a just-executed convict. In other words: after bribing the right police officials, hospital staff were able to harvest and sell organs of Laogai inmates. An immensely lucrative business.\n\nWu's revelations prompted the House of Representatives enquiry of 1995, which we alluded to earlier. Following increased international scrutiny, the Chinese government formally shut down the Laogai system. But we should stress 'formally'. De facto, the system is still in place, albeit rebranded as 'community correction centres'. According to the Laogai Research Foundation, more than one thousand 'correction centres' are still in operation, and millions of individuals still suffer within them.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Liu Xinhu was imprisoned at 13 for his family's political status, enduring eight years of forced labor.\n- The Laogai system was a network of forced labor camps used by Mao's regime to incarcerate political prisoners.\n- Prisoners in Laogai camps faced severe conditions, including malnutrition, disease, and brutal labor.\n- The Laogai system aimed to 'reform' prisoners through forced labor and ideological indoctrination.\n- Despite official closure, the Laogai system persists in China under different names, with millions still affected.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What does the term 'Laogai' mean?\n\nThe term 'Laogai' is an abbreviation for Laodong Gaizao, which translates to 'reform through labour'.\n\n### How many Laogai facilities were there in mainland China?\n\nThe Laogai system comprised an extensive system of detention centres, penal labour camps, farms, mines and factories on mainland China, for a total of up to 1,100 facilities.\n\n### What was the purpose of the Laogai system?\n\nThe purpose of the Laogai system was to eradicate or re-educate enemies of communist ideology and to exploit slave labour to further the regimes in charge.\n\n### What was the 'Hundred Flowers Campaign'?\n\nThe 'Hundred Flowers Campaign' was an initiative by Mao Zedong in March 1957 that encouraged intellectuals to talk freely and even criticise Party policies. It was later reversed with the Anti-Rightist Campaign.\n\n### What were 'struggle sessions' in the Laogai camps?\n\nStruggle sessions were a key component of the forced re-education process in the Laogai camps. During these sessions, prisoners were required to criticise and condemn fellow inmates for their lack of belief and adherence to communist ideology, as well as engage in harsh self-criticism and self-condemnation.\n\n### What was the estimated death toll in the Laogai system?\n\nAccording to Harry Wu, the labour camps have imprisoned about 50 million Chinese citizens, as well as Tibetan dissidents and other foreign nationals. Of these, an estimated 15 to 20 million people died as a result of disease, starvation, exhaustion, torture and executions.\n\n### What happened to the Laogai system after Mao's death?\n\nAfter Mao's death, the Laogai system continued to operate, albeit rebranded as 'community correction centres'. According to the Laogai Research Foundation, more than one thousand 'correction centres' are still in operation.\n\n### What was the 'Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries'?\n\nThe 'Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries' was initiated by Luo Ruiquing, Director of the Ministry of Public Security, in 1950. It led to the arrest of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens, of which up to 700,000 were executed.\n\n### What was the 'Anti-Rightist Campaign'?\n\nThe 'Anti-Rightist Campaign' was instigated by Chairman Mao in late 1957. It targeted intellectuals who had criticised Party policies during the 'Hundred Flowers Campaign', branding them as 'counter-revolutionary rightists'.\n\n### What was the 'extermination of thought'?\n\nThe 'extermination of thought' was a process used by the CCP authorities in the Laogai camps to annihilate one's self for the sake of survival through extreme indoctrination, psychological pressure, and constant propaganda.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Into the Shadows video: The Laogai System: the Horror of Mao’s Forced Labour Camps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixoAHzFIEYQ)\n- [https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/downloads/5425kb078?filename=Stepanic_Stanley_Dec2012.pdf](https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/downloads/5425kb078?filename=Stepanic_Stanley_Dec2012.pdf)\n- [https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1877&context=ccr](https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1877&context=ccr)\n- [https://laogairesearch.org/museum/inside-the-laogai/](https://laogairesearch.org/museum/inside-the-laogai/)\n- [https://www.laogai.org/page/what-laogai-system](https://www.laogai.org/page/what-laogai-system)\n- [https://bigthink.com/the-past/reeducation-gulag-china-zedong/](https://bigthink.com/the-past/reeducation-gulag-china-zedong/)\n- [https://irp.fas.org/congress/1997_hr/s970918w.htm](https://irp.fas.org/congress/1997_hr/s970918w.htm)\n- [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine/2199970/the-laogai-archipelago/](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine/2199970/the-laogai-archipelago/)\n- [https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder](https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder)\n- [https://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/1995.04.03_chinese_prison_system_-_laogai.pdf](https://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/1995.04.03_chinese_prison_system_-_laogai.pdf)\n- [https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2070728/chinese-papillon-true-story-man-who-escaped-maos](https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2070728/chinese-papillon-true-story-man-who-escaped-maos)\n- [https://chinatribunal.com/who-we-are/](https://chinatribunal.com/who-we-are/)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646)\n- [https://www.everand.com/book/485885441](https://www.everand.com/book/485885441)\n- [https://www.everand.com/book/597316137](https://www.everand.com/book/597316137)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/HXD3D_1893_and_T1%40BJI_%2820141228153112%29.JPG) by N509FZ / openverse, by-sa.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/laogai-system-mao-forced-labour-camps.md canonical: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/laogai-system-mao-forced-labour-camps datePublished: 2026-06-28 dateModified: 2026-06-28 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://intotheshadows.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Into the Shadows image: "https://media.intotheshadows.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/ixoAHzFIEYQ/hero.jpg" type: Article contentHash: 5eceeb6ce73164d340726aaceb23d982c8de0aecc7fcc3f9348e71cbfaccbb5e tokens: 7584 summaryUrl: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/laogai-system-mao-forced-labour-camps.md.summary.md --- In 1958, Liu Xinhu was just 13 years old. His only crime was being the eldest son in a family categorised as 'counter-revolutionary' by the Communist Chinese Party in charge. Barely a teenager, Liu was found guilty and sentenced to live at the same farm as his father. But this was not just any ordinary farm. It was one of hundreds of forced labour camps where Mao's regime incarcerated millions upon millions of political prisoners, on the basis of the flimsiest of charges, sometimes on a whim. There, Liu Xinhu endured eight years of malnourishment, disease, back-breaking labour, innumerable beatings and torments. He was forced to admit to his guilt as an enemy of the communist greater good, to be despised, reviled, annihilated. During those eight years, the boy was able to see his father only once—when his dad was already dead. And his ordeal was not over upon his 'official' release. For a further eight years he was forced to continue working at the farm. In 1974, Liu was once again labelled a 'counter-revolutionary element' and sentenced to another nine years of detention. And he could count himself among the lucky ones, one of the few who survived to tell the tale. This was the horror of Mao Zedong's Laogai system: Communist China's hellish forced labour camps. ## Mao's GULags The term 'Laogai' is an abbreviation for *Laodong Gaizao*, which could be translated as 'reform through labour', and refers to a criminal justice system first instituted by the ruling Communist Chinese Party, or CCP. The Laogai system comprised an extensive system of detention centres, penal labour camps, farms, mines and factories on mainland China, for a total of up to 1,100 facilities. The Laogai system should not be confused with the 'Laojiao', or re-education through labour. The purpose of the Laojiao—also founded on forced labour—was to re-educate minor penal offenders into becoming law-abiding citizens. Today, we shall focus only on the Laogai camps, which housed instead a population of more serious criminal offenders and political prisoners—much like the corresponding GULag system in the Soviet Union. As we shall see, both systems had much in common: the purpose to eradicate or re-educate enemies of communist ideology; or exploiting what was essentially slave labour to further the regimes in charge. The history, structure and overall toll of misery exacted by the GULags has been well documented for decades, thanks to declassification of records following the fall of the Soviet Union, and especially thanks to the publication of survivor's memoirs. Chief amongst them 'The GULag Archipelago', written by Nobel Prize laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn. On the other hand, the Laogai system is less documented and less well known. This is mainly due to the fact that the CCP, still in power in Beijing, is not exactly happy to put in writing—let alone disclose—any official documentation about its camps. Apparently, since Mao's rise to power in 1949, only two pieces of legislation about forced labour have been approved and published by the National People's Congress. Unsurprisingly, the CCP has always kept a tight grip on any report about the Laogai in the local press! So, much of what we know about the history of these 'circles of hell' on Earth comes from the few survivors who escaped to the west, and were able to publish their accounts. If the GULags had Solzhenitsyn, the Laogai had Wu Hongda, also known as Harry Wu, founder of the Laogai Research Foundation. In an article written for journal *Comparative Civilizations Review*, Wu described the purpose of the Laogai as such: 'The Laogai must produce two kinds of "products": the first includes agricultural, industrial, and consumer products needed to fuel the nation's economy. The second is the man himself—the reformed socialist person.' Wu labels this process 'the extermination of thought', by which the Party uses forced labour, harsh treatment, torture, threats, endless interrogations, sleep deprivation and bullying by other inmates. These tactics are combined with intense ideological indoctrination and constant psychological pressure on prisoners, until they > 'Abandon their political or religious beliefs, reform their incorrect social views, and live life according to the tenets of Communist rule. They must learn to support the Party while in prison, or else they will not gain release. Should they dare to voice any public criticisms of the government, they could find themselves locked in prison again.' The ideological moulding of convicts, which may superficially be defined as 'brainwashing', is particularly intense in the case of political prisoners. This category encompassed those who dared oppose the regime, those who voiced discontent against individual government officials, those who practised banned religions, as well as members of ethnic and national minorities perceived as dangerous. Very often, political detentions were altogether arbitrary: prisoners were denied a trial and had to serve indefinite sentences before they were even charged with an alleged crime. Survivor memoirs show how the 're-education' or 're-indoctrination' process is so thorough that individuals willingly admit to their non-existent guilt and accept imprisonment. Survivor Zhang Xian Liang in his memoir 'Agony is Wisdom' writes of how he once escaped a Laogai…but decided to return on his own will! ## Evolution of Classicide According to Harry Wu, the evolution of the Laogai system can be structured in three periods. The first period, between 1927 and 1937, coincides with the first stage of the Civil War which opposed Communist forces against the Kuomintang Nationalist faction, a bitter fight with atrocities on both sides. During this time, early incarnations of the Communist armed forces and police incarcerated those identified as 'counterrevolutionaries': supporters of the Kuomintang, opposers of the peasants and workers, as well as members of the landlord and capitalist classes. This last point is important: to secure victory against the Nationalists, the Communist leader Mao Zedong maintained that society must be purged from certain elements of society. This 'classicide' as labelled by Wu, would mainly target the middle classes, intellectuals and small land owners. At this stage, the Laogai system was not yet fully developed, and Maoist forces utilised pre-existing prisons and jails. Members of the Kuomintang could be executed immediately upon capture, or subjected to torture. While 'class enemies' were grouped into 'hard labour teams' and forced to perform logistics duties supporting the Communist military. By June 1932, the CCP considered other ways to use these prisoners, through a so-called 'labour reformatory', intended to reform 'criminals', sure, but mostly aimed at boosting productivity in Communist-controlled areas. According to Harry Wu, this early forced labour system produced > 'A great deal of consumer and military products [which]…relieved the financial burden of the regime [and] increased the government's income' The second period of Laogai evolution can be dated from 1937 to 1945, when the Communists and the Nationalists temporarily joined forces against Imperial Japan. During this phase, the CCP was mostly preoccupied with eliminating internal opposition within its ranks. The number of detention centres increased, and Chinese communists started applying the concept of 'thought reform', which they had learned from their Soviet counterparts. And then we come to the third stage, known as the 'War of Liberation Period', from 1945 to 1949. This is when, after Japan's defeat, Mao's forces resumed the war against Chiang Kai-Shek and his Kuomintang, eventually evicting them to Taiwan. During this period, the CCP ramped up the development of factories manned by counter-revolutionaries and dissidents sentenced to forced labour. The output of these factories contributed greatly to the communist war effort, and the Party invested more and more resources in this viable economic model. And by 'resources' we mean more 'reactionary' prisoners, of course. Quoting from a speech delivered by Mao in August 1945: > 'As for the reactionaries in China, it is up to us to organise the people to overthrow them. Everything reactionary is the same; if you don't hit it, it won't fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.' The CCP found it more efficient to collect that 'reactionary dust' into a dust-pan to relocate it away from pre-existing detention centres and into new facilities: purposely built camps closer to the production centres, factories, mines and farms. These new labour camps became the main model for the Laogai system from then on. ## Consolidation of Classicide Actually, the term 'Laogai' itself was first used when Mao Zedong and the CCP secured power in 1949. The all-powerful Ministry of Public Security, or MPS, overseeing both the 'regular' and 'secret' police forces, also took charge of the Laogai camps, ensuring they were regularly stocked up with prisoners to rid society of anti-communist elements—and to maintain production quotas, of course! To further increase the efficiency of this system, Mao turned to 'Big Brother': Josef Stalin's USSR. A gaping rift would later form between the two powers, but at the time the tyrants in Moscow and Beijing agreed on some core principles. To quote again from Mao: > 'Marxism holds that the state is a machine of violence for one class to rule another. Laogai facilities are one of the violence components of the state machine. They are tools representing the interests of the proletariat and the people's masses and exercising dictatorship over a minority of hostile elements originating from the exploiter class.' And Stalin was more than willing to help maintain Mao's machine of violence. Thanks to Soviet help, by June 1952 the CCP had established at least 857 Laogai camps, of which 640 were dedicated to farming, 217 to mining, plus an unspecified number of units involved in water treatment, railroad construction and production of military and consumer goods. By the end of 1952, those hundreds of camps had been filled to the brim by Luo Ruiquing, Director of the Ministry of Public Security, or MPS. Back in 1950, Luo had initiated the Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries. Which pretty much did what it said on its sinister tin. Driven by millions of voluntary anonymous tips, the Campaign led to the arrest of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens, of which up to 700,000 were executed. The MPS launched a second purge after an Air India passenger flight was destroyed by a bomb on April 11, 1955. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was supposed to be on board, and an investigation identified the Kuomintang as the culprits. Cue a massive wave of investigations, which led to almost 260,000 citizens being deported to a Laogai camp or executed. The third big purge of the 1950s was instigated by Chairman Mao himself in late 1957, the so-called Anti-Rightist Campaign. Back in March, Mao had decided to relax his grip on censorship via the 'Hundred Flowers Campaign', an initiative which encouraged intellectuals to talk freely and even criticise Party policies. At the time, Mao maintained that 'Economic progress would be held back if the regime persisted in imposing a stultifying conformity on its best brains…Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend.' By May, teachers and students in particular were pouring torrents of criticism upon Mao and pals, which led them to quickly backtrack. In June, the 'best brains' were branded as 'counter-revolutionary rightists', and the MPS fell in force upon them. Mao would later claim that the 'Hundred Flowers' was a bluff, a ruse to weed out dissidents to be purged in the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Not all historians are convinced, but if it was indeed a complex plan, it worked perfectly. This is when the Laogai system greatly expanded and diversified, as anyone, at any time, could be swept away by the police and sentenced to years or decades of hard labour for the slightest of political offences. People just…disappeared! And their relatives accepted their grim fate, merely whispering that > 'They have gone for Laogai' Relatives and friends would soon come to accept the rule of the Party. They would quickly forget, or even reject their imprisoned relations. This is what happened to Harry Wu, who was first imprisoned during this campaign. His crimes? He had failed to participate in Party rallies and had attempted to see his girlfriend without Party approval! Wu later told how this very girlfriend completely forgot about him, and how his own brother had disowned him. The Laogai system enjoyed another 'Big Leap Forward' during the infamous Cultural Revolution, which started in 1966 and ended only with Mao's death in 1976. This event would warrant an episode of its own, but to give you the basics this was yet another anti-reactionary campaign unleashed by Mao. It was enacted by a fanatical, teenaged militia, the Red Guards, bent on humiliating, beating and torturing teachers, professors and other intellectuals. Wielding Mao's Little Red Books of political sayings, they challenged citizens to recite excerpts from memory. Those who failed, faced the Laogai, or even death. The Cultural Revolution eventually claimed an estimated 1.6 million lives, and further drove the expansion of the Laogai system to at least 1,100 camps. ## Joy and Chagrin So, we have now covered the development of the Laogai system under Mao. But a history of this system is not complete without a description of the gruelling conditions under which inmates were forced to operate. Prisoners were forced to live, sleep and work in tight, unsanitary and cramped spaces, with the bare minimum clothing and supplies. Camp officials used these conditions as a weapon, offering minimal improvements in living arrangements to elicit compliance. Survivor Ruo-Wang Bao in his memoir 'Prisoner of Mao' remembered the sense of joy when he was moved to a new camp, where he was awarded simply more time to rest and slightly increased food rations: > 'Only a madman would wish to exchange this paradise against any other place of detention' Food rations were of course another source of misery, and another powerful tool wielded by the jailors. The standard diet consisted of a thin broth with a single piece of spoiled cabbage, which the exhausted internees tried to integrate with rotting roots, snakes or even leather. Naturally, convicts were eager to work harder in exchange for better rations. Or to confess to largely non-existent political crimes, if that involved an extra dish of rice. For example, Harry Wu was once left without food for three days in solitary confinement. As he was gradually allowed some gruel, he finally admitted to officials > 'I am guilty…I committed a crime against the Party, a crime against the people…I beg the government's forgiveness' Quoting again from Ruo-Wang, food was > 'the single greatest joy, chagrin, and motivating force in the entire prison system' The scarce caloric intake would have floored the most resilient of individuals. Add to that, that these prisoners were forced to perform endless shifts of manual, sometimes very hard labour. At the onset of the Laogai system, forced labour was mainly devoted to large, sweeping public works. For example, in the 1950s, Laogai inmates were used to bolster Manchuria's agriculture and industry, to extract coal from mines, dig canals or lay railway tracks. Later, they were increasingly dedicated to producing consumer products of cheap quality, such as tea bags, Christmas lights, clothing items, car parts, cigarettes and millions of copies of Mao's infamous 'Little Red Book'. And while the term 'forced labourers' is commonly used, these workers were essentially slaves, as they did not receive any compensation from the government. Crucially, the government would own its 'slaves' even after they had completed the terms of their sentence. About 90 percent of former Laogai inmates, upon release were forced to continue working for the rest of their lives in forced work assignments. These slaves often had to operate in the harshest of climates. While not as cold as Siberia, winters in Northern China can be unforgiving, too. Ruo-Wang wrote how new inmates made the mistake of not wearing a face mask and > 'Died from simply inhaling…their lungs and throats frozen' The summers were not easier, as swarms of mosquitoes and other parasites pestered the prisoners, spreading infectious diseases like wildfire. Death was an all too common occurrence, as malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery and malnutrition ran rampant. Internees also had to deal with the constant, and frequently enacted, threat of physical violence. Often, this came from fellow prisoners, more precisely ordinary criminals. Usually they enjoyed a more privileged position compared to political prisoners: they were allowed to default on their work quotas and outright abuse political internees, stealing their food and subjecting them to beatings. Needless to say, they almost always escaped punishment. Political prisoners, on the other hand, were subjected to constant mistreatment and torture directed by camp authorities. Harry Wu once committed the unspeakable crime of concealing a book, *Les Misérables* by Victor Hugo. When found out, he was subjected to a so-called 'struggle session', during which his wrist was broken with a spade. ## Extermination of Thought and Body Now, about these 'struggle sessions'. They were a key component of the forced re-education process enacted by CCP authorities in the Laogai camps. During these sessions, prisoners were required to criticise and condemn fellow inmates for their lack of belief and adherence to communist ideology. Not only that, each internee was pressured into harsh self-criticism and self-condemnation, admitting even to the smallest, perceived sins against the Party. Even going too frequently to the latrines was condemned as the capital sin of laziness, and prisoners were willing to admit to said sins, in order to avoid beatings, solitary confinement or starvation. This extreme indoctrination was completed by the incessant pounding of political rallies, speeches and propaganda, which eventually led to what Wu and other survivors termed 'extermination of thought': the annihilation of one self for the sake of survival. Ruo-Wang thus advised that > 'The only way to survive in jail is to write a confession right away and make your sins look as black as possible. Always accuse yourself harshly – exaggerate, even. But don't ever hint that the prison authorities or the government share any of the responsibility.' In addition to internal psychological pressure, Laogai inmates had to deal with external pressure. As mentioned earlier, their own relatives would disown them, and would do their best to instil a sense of guilt. Harry Wu recalled a harsh letter he received from his brother, stating that > 'We have drawn a clear line to separate ourselves from you. You must follow Chairman Mao's teachings and work hard to reform yourself through labour' With their thoughts and souls exterminated, prisoners eventually, deeply believed to be at fault, to be guilty of committing crimes against the common good represented by the Maoist regime. This phenomenon has been highlighted by Dr Stanley Joseph Stepanovic in his dissertation 'The GULag and Laogai: A Comparative Study of Forced Labour Through Camp Literature'. By reviewing several memoirs of Laogai survivors, he noted how they expressed > 'The fact that they were at fault, not the government, and that their sentence of forced labour, no matter how ridiculous, no matter how altered or extended over their term, no matter how long, is somehow necessary for personal development' Such a thorough rewiring of one's convictions led to cases of inmates being incapable of returning to a normal life outside the Laogai system. Ruo-Wang remembered the heart-wrenching story of one such released prisoner: 'After a week of being coldly tolerated by his family, taunted by children and scorned by the rest of the village, he decided that the only home he had was Liangxiang [his camp]. He took what money he had left, bought a return ticket and literally begged Warder Tien to allow him back inside the gates.' But there were many instances in which human thought refused to be exterminated. In those cases, authorities annihilated the human body. Survivor Palden Gyatso in his 'Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk' described the variety of torture methods in use at the camps. He was suspended in the air, and doused with icy water, beaten repeatedly, scalded with boiling water, kept in shackles for months and subjected to shocks with a unique Chinese invention, the electrified police baton. If prisoners refused to yield to torture, they would be summarily executed, most often by hanging or with a single bullet to the head. According to Gyatso: 'The bullets that were used to kill someone, as well as the ropes that were used to hang someone, even the expenses involved for that, would be deducted from the convicted person.' Gyatso also recalled one rare occasion in which the execution of a prisoner sparked an uprising against the guards: an ill-fated attempt, which ended with several prisoners killed with bayonets. Another survivor, Catherine Ho, testified to the US House of Representatives' Committee On International Relations in April 1995, decades after her ordeal. Catherine had been sent to a Laogai camp on account of her Christian faith. She testified how a fellow inmate on Sundays > 'Would say prayers instead of singing revolutionary songs in front of Mao's portrait. One day she was dragged out to the field where we were working and beaten to death in front of all of us.' ## A Grim Conclusion As mentioned earlier, the Laogai system is poorly documented, and as such it is difficult to estimate the total death toll inflicted by Mao and his acolytes on their own people. According to Harry Wu, the labour camps have imprisoned about 50 million Chinese citizens, as well as Tibetan dissidents and other foreign nationals. Of these, an estimated 15 to 20 million people died as a result of disease, starvation, exhaustion, torture and executions. As staggering as that number sounds, it is only a fraction of the mortality caused by 'the Great Helmsman', Chairman Mao Zedong. Professor of Political Science R.J. Rummel estimated that even before defeating the Kuomintang, the CCP had killed between 1.8 and 11.7 million people, with 3.5 million being the most likely figure. After seizing power, Mao caused massive famines due to ill-conceived agricultural and industrial reforms, causing further 27 million citizens to starve to death. By adding the 1950s purges and campaigns, the Cultural Revolution and the Laogai mortality, Rummel concluded that the CCP may have killed up to 102.6 million people, with 35.2 million being 'a prudent estimate'. Our focus has been on the Laogai system under Mao, but the death of the Chairman did not put an end to this tragedy, far from it. After escaping the system and relocating to the US, Harry Wu continued to document the inhumane conditions of forced labourers under Mao's successors. Wu went undercover, returning to China from 1991 to 1994, posing as an American entrepreneur and filming in secret how the Laogai camps were still pretty much in business—literally! Through his work, he confirmed how Chinese corporations exploited Laogai slave labour to produce cheap export products to flood the lucrative US market. And that's not all. Wu was able to record a phone call involving a hospital administrator in Zhengzhou, during which he admitted to personally driving a surgical van to an execution site to harvest the organs of a just-executed convict. In other words: after bribing the right police officials, hospital staff were able to harvest and sell organs of Laogai inmates. An immensely lucrative business. Wu's revelations prompted the House of Representatives enquiry of 1995, which we alluded to earlier. Following increased international scrutiny, the Chinese government formally shut down the Laogai system. But we should stress 'formally'. De facto, the system is still in place, albeit rebranded as 'community correction centres'. According to the Laogai Research Foundation, more than one thousand 'correction centres' are still in operation, and millions of individuals still suffer within them. ## Key Takeaways - Liu Xinhu was imprisoned at 13 for his family's political status, enduring eight years of forced labor. - The Laogai system was a network of forced labor camps used by Mao's regime to incarcerate political prisoners. - Prisoners in Laogai camps faced severe conditions, including malnutrition, disease, and brutal labor. - The Laogai system aimed to 'reform' prisoners through forced labor and ideological indoctrination. - Despite official closure, the Laogai system persists in China under different names, with millions still affected. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What does the term 'Laogai' mean? The term 'Laogai' is an abbreviation for Laodong Gaizao, which translates to 'reform through labour'. ### How many Laogai facilities were there in mainland China? The Laogai system comprised an extensive system of detention centres, penal labour camps, farms, mines and factories on mainland China, for a total of up to 1,100 facilities. ### What was the purpose of the Laogai system? The purpose of the Laogai system was to eradicate or re-educate enemies of communist ideology and to exploit slave labour to further the regimes in charge. ### What was the 'Hundred Flowers Campaign'? The 'Hundred Flowers Campaign' was an initiative by Mao Zedong in March 1957 that encouraged intellectuals to talk freely and even criticise Party policies. It was later reversed with the Anti-Rightist Campaign. ### What were 'struggle sessions' in the Laogai camps? Struggle sessions were a key component of the forced re-education process in the Laogai camps. During these sessions, prisoners were required to criticise and condemn fellow inmates for their lack of belief and adherence to communist ideology, as well as engage in harsh self-criticism and self-condemnation. ### What was the estimated death toll in the Laogai system? According to Harry Wu, the labour camps have imprisoned about 50 million Chinese citizens, as well as Tibetan dissidents and other foreign nationals. Of these, an estimated 15 to 20 million people died as a result of disease, starvation, exhaustion, torture and executions. ### What happened to the Laogai system after Mao's death? After Mao's death, the Laogai system continued to operate, albeit rebranded as 'community correction centres'. According to the Laogai Research Foundation, more than one thousand 'correction centres' are still in operation. ### What was the 'Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries'? The 'Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries' was initiated by Luo Ruiquing, Director of the Ministry of Public Security, in 1950. It led to the arrest of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens, of which up to 700,000 were executed. ### What was the 'Anti-Rightist Campaign'? The 'Anti-Rightist Campaign' was instigated by Chairman Mao in late 1957. It targeted intellectuals who had criticised Party policies during the 'Hundred Flowers Campaign', branding them as 'counter-revolutionary rightists'. ### What was the 'extermination of thought'? The 'extermination of thought' was a process used by the CCP authorities in the Laogai camps to annihilate one's self for the sake of survival through extreme indoctrination, psychological pressure, and constant propaganda. ## Sources - [Original Into the Shadows video: The Laogai System: the Horror of Mao’s Forced Labour Camps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixoAHzFIEYQ) - [https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/downloads/5425kb078?filename=Stepanic_Stanley_Dec2012.pdf](https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/downloads/5425kb078?filename=Stepanic_Stanley_Dec2012.pdf) - [https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1877&context=ccr](https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1877&context=ccr) - [https://laogairesearch.org/museum/inside-the-laogai/](https://laogairesearch.org/museum/inside-the-laogai/) - [https://www.laogai.org/page/what-laogai-system](https://www.laogai.org/page/what-laogai-system) - [https://bigthink.com/the-past/reeducation-gulag-china-zedong/](https://bigthink.com/the-past/reeducation-gulag-china-zedong/) - [https://irp.fas.org/congress/1997_hr/s970918w.htm](https://irp.fas.org/congress/1997_hr/s970918w.htm) - [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine/2199970/the-laogai-archipelago/](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine/2199970/the-laogai-archipelago/) - [https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder](https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder) - [https://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/1995.04.03_chinese_prison_system_-_laogai.pdf](https://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/1995.04.03_chinese_prison_system_-_laogai.pdf) - [https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2070728/chinese-papillon-true-story-man-who-escaped-maos](https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2070728/chinese-papillon-true-story-man-who-escaped-maos) - [https://chinatribunal.com/who-we-are/](https://chinatribunal.com/who-we-are/) - [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646) - [https://www.everand.com/book/485885441](https://www.everand.com/book/485885441) - [https://www.everand.com/book/597316137](https://www.everand.com/book/597316137) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/HXD3D_1893_and_T1%40BJI_%2820141228153112%29.JPG) by N509FZ / openverse, by-sa. ## Related Coverage