This is John Batchelor.

In conversation with the author, Joseph Turigian, his new book, The Party's Interest Come First,

we touched upon the scenes in which the protagonist of the book,

this is a history of the father of Xi Jinping, the now three-time named General Secretary

and Leader of the People's Republic of China.

His father, born 1913, was persecuted by the party, purged by the party, accused by the party, threatened with death by the party.

And the scenes in which he was awaiting the verdict or the trial or the continuing investigation

for something that was quite fantastic right as deviationism while he was waiting he waited

in patience and talked about how he wasn't going to defy the decision of the party

reminded me immediately of arthur kessler's book, Darkness, at noon,

a work of fiction about the show trials in Moscow in the 1930s

prosecuted by Stalin against his revolutionary colleagues.

And long afterwards, that became a model of how the Soviet Union was incapable of justice and memory.

Joseph talks about how he thought of that book while he was writing the scenes for his new biography of Xi Zhongshun,

the revolutionary hero father of Xi Jinping. It's revelatory in that the party

discipline is all. Quite fantastic. Something discontinuous with how America raises its children to think.

Yet Xi Jinping had a father who lived through it and risked death.

There's much more to the story.

This will come later this month.

Conversation with Joseph Tarigian, writing The Party's Interest Come First.

Here's Joseph.

Absolutely.

...