Chapter 176 attack

After Beijing was besieged, Fu Zuoyi thought that Hu Shi could give him an idea, so he brought Hu Shi to Huairen Hall for a secret talk, and Hu sent eight words, "It is more difficult to fight than to fight, and to persist in waiting for change."But Hu Shi himself did not insist on waiting for changes. A few days later, he flew to Nanjing on the special set sent by the Nanjing Ministry of Education to pick up celebrities from North China.Fu Zuoyi was very disappointed with Hu Shi, and ordered the guards guarding the city gate not to let Hu Shi go out of the city.Hu Shi said that he was able to escape from Beijing by sending Chen Yinke to Nanjing.

On December 14, 1948, Hu Shi left Peking University in a hurry, bidding farewell to the ancient city of Beiping, which was encircled by the army.Three days later (December 17) would be his birthday, and he told Leighton Stuart not without remorse that he regretted that he had not used his energy and talents in thinking in the past few years after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, but instead devoted himself to academic activities selfishly.Stuart saw—at that moment "tears were in his eyes." In 1949, when Hu Shi left, he left three words to colleagues at Peking University: "In Soviet Russia, there was bread, but no freedom; in the United States, there was bread and freedom; they (referring to the Chinese Communist Party) came, and there was no bread, and there was no freedom." .”

After 1949, Hu Shi was almost impoverished, had no secretary, and went out to squeeze the bus, but because he was dissatisfied with Britain's recognition of the CCP regime, he gave up the opportunity to teach in the UK.Hu Shi lived in the United States for eight years and eight months. He only had a fixed income for a period of time when he worked at the Gestalt Oriental Library in Princeton. The rest could only rely on manuscript fees, royalties, and savings. It was even more difficult, but Hu Shi still refused to demean himself and applied for a green card in the United States.Tang Degang described Hu Shi's frustrated days in the United States with the story of "Confucius Shizheng" in the Historical Records.He recalled that during this period of time, he often used a broken car for work to pick up Hu Shi, "I remember one time I drove to pick him up, but we didn't make it clear on the phone that he waited at the wrong street. I finally found him. But when I saw him in the car, but before he saw me, he looked around on the street, he was really 'frightened like a bereaved dog'".

Beginning in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party still did not stop its "united front" campaign against Hu Shi. On May 11, 1949, "People's Daily" published Hu Shi's old friend and historian Chen Yuan "An Open Letter from the President of Fu Jen Catholic University in Peking to Hu Shi".This letter first introduced his feelings about the Chinese society at that time: "The people are living freely, the young people are studying and discussing freely, and the professors are studying freely..." Finally, "persuading Hu Shi to return to the new society".But Hu Shi smiled after reading it, thinking that this letter was a "fake" because "Chen Yuan can't write vernacular".A few days later (June 24), Hu Shi wrote in his diary: "I think about it today, Mr. Chen Yuan probably can't learn so fast, as Xiao Jun's criticism mentioned in the letter, this is the last few What happened last month, the forgers have gone too far!" He thought Chen Yuan's open letter was a "forgery".For this reason, he consulted Jiang Tingfu, who was also a historian, and concluded: "Tingfu and I both suspect that Chen Yuan's open letter was written by him first, and the Communist Party used it as a basis, leaving a part as a 'cover'."

On November 30, 1952, Jiang Zehan, a professor at Peking University and Mrs. Hu’s first cousin, wrote to Hu Shi: “We began to feel that if you were in Beijing, you would definitely not feel uncomfortable... Our life is very happy... ..." Although Hu Shi was in great distress in New York at the time, he still commented in his diary: "This is probably an intentional 'ironical statement'". In the 1950s, there were a large number of Hu Shi in the mainland.At a symposium, several old gentlemen related to Hu Shi had to "criticize". Shen Yinmo's speech was the best. He said that he went to see Hu Shi once. Writing, Shen said: "Where does this look like learning?"

In November 1954, the second movement to criticize Hu Shi began, and almost all of China was mobilized. Eight series of "Hu Shi's Thought Criticism" with millions of words were published, aiming at philosophical thoughts, political thoughts, historical viewpoints, literary thoughts, philosophical thoughts, etc. The denunciation of the nine major crimes, including historical viewpoints, literary historical viewpoints, textual research, the artistry of Hongxue, and the people's nature of Hongxue, pointedly pointed out that Hu Shi is the Confucius of today in the academic world, and finally Hu Shi was beaten and defeated in China.Hu Shi responded humorously, "smiling, very happy", and even said that the nine crimes against him were his nine academic achievements.

In 1956, Zhou Yusheng sent letters to and visited Hu Shi's old friend Chen Yuan, mobilizing him to contact Hu Shi and persuade Hu Shi to return to China. On September 20, Chen Yuan was entrusted by Zhou Yusheng to write a letter to Hu Shi, and relayed Zhou Yusheng's opinion: "...'Hu Shi's Criticism'...has passed. For you, it is for your thoughts, not for you personally. You If you go back, you will definitely be welcomed.... He asked me to tell you, to advise you to do more academic work and not to talk about politics..." After Hu Shi received the letter, he said, "For you, it is your thoughts, not your thoughts. To you personally" is underlined, and there is a comment cloud: "What is 'I' except thoughts?"

One day in 1956, when Hu Shi finished his lecture at Columbia University, a student asked him: "I heard that the Communist Party is liquidating you every day in mainland China. How do you feel about this matter?" Facing such a political problem, he said: Answered with humorous words, coped with the past. In the spring of 1957, Cao Juren, a reporter from Singapore's "Nanyang Business Daily", wrote a letter to Hu Shi, urging him to return to the mainland.Unlike the letters written by other people before, Cao Juren's letter adopted the aggressive method.He said in the letter: "Cultural people overseas today lack the courage to go to Beijing to see the CCP's political measures..." Hu Shi knew that Cao Juren's letter was the CCP's united front against him.He approved the words "no reply" on Cao Xin's envelope.Hu Shi didn't take this very seriously. He wrote in his diary on March 16, 1957: He received a letter from Cao Juren.This person often said that Hu Shizhi was his friend, and often claimed that Zhang Taiyan was his teacher.In fact, I have never seen this person...

In 1955, Sanlian Bookstore published 8 volumes of "Compilation of Hu Shi's Critical Essays", about 2 million words. Hu Shi read these 8 books with great patience. According to Mr. Yan Xiu's guess, no one in mainland China had finished reading these books at that time, including these 8 volumes. the authors of the book.Once Tang Degang pointed to these books and asked Hu Shi, "Is there no knowledge and truth in these huge works of millions of words?!" Hu Shi replied: "Without academic freedom, how can we talk about learning?"