Chapter 56 "Five ghosts mess with China"

Hu Shi, Xu Zhimo, Liang Shiqiu, Luo Longji, Ye Gongchao, Ding Xilin and others formed another "Pingshe" in March 1929, and planned to publish a "Pinglun" weekly magazine, but it failed; Entitled "China Issues", each person has a clear division of labor, ① but no results have been seen.Just because "New Moon" talked about human rights, troubles arose.Although Hu Shi's Chinese public school principal did not explicitly order him to be dismissed and punished, he also caused trouble for the school.He had no choice but to take the blame and resign from the school board. What about "New Moon"? It's even more troublesome. Another issue only comes out every few months, and it's neither dead nor alive.Hu Shi discussed with his colleagues, changed the course, changed the topic, and discussed "how to solve China's problems".

It is also a sensitive political issue.In order not to cause trouble, everyone believed that it was necessary to write a "summary introduction" first, so as to show the "fundamental attitude" of the "New Moon" colleagues to China's issues to all walks of life, and naturally to the authorities. It was still Hu Shi who went first.Everyone recommended him to write this introduction.Therefore, it was drafted by Hu Shi, and after everyone discussed it, a grand article "Which Way We Go" was published on Volume 2, No. 10 of "New Moon". ②The firing of this cannon was quite peculiar, and it released a strange theory of "five ghosts messing up China"! Hu Shi wrote:

We will defeat five great enemies: The number one enemy is poverty. The second greatest enemy is disease. The third enemy is ignorance. The fourth enemy is corruption. The fifth enemy is disturbance. Among these five enemies, capitalism is not included, because we are not yet qualified to talk about capitalism.The bourgeoisie is not included, because we have at most a few small rich people, how can there be a bourgeoisie? The feudal forces are also not included, because the feudal system collapsed two thousand years ago.Imperialism is also not included, because imperialism cannot invade the country where five ghosts cannot enter.

That is to say, the reason why China has become so bad is because of the "five evils"; and imperialism and warlord forces are not among the "five evils", and they are not considered enemies of the Chinese people.This is one of Dr. Hu Shi's most peculiar creations! As soon as the strange theory came out, the whole country was shocked.Immediately, a Mr. Liang Shuming published an article in "Village Governance" No. 2, saying that Dr. Hu's argument was in eight words: "Reckless and bold, really shocking!" ③Liang was the "proposer" who signed the article One, in favor of Hu Shi's "good government doctrine".Therefore, his questioning and criticism of Hu Shi's strange theory was quite representative at the time. We might as well copy a few more sentences from the original text as follows:

In the revolutionary trend of the past few years, everyone thinks that the first major enemy is the international capitalist imperialism, followed by the domestic feudal warlords; sir, don't take what you want, and don't mention poverty, disease, ignorance, corruption, disturbance, the five major enemies said.Why are the imperialists and warlords not our enemies?... Who knows the five major enemies mentioned by the gentleman, and would rather be told by the ears of the gentleman? Therefore, it is not like the gentleman who listed these five phenomena, but Gaiyu knows that the crux of it all lies in one place.Disease and ignorance are all related to poverty; corruption is related to disturbance; poverty is directly caused by imperialist economic aggression; disturbance is indirectly caused by the manipulation of warlords by imperialism: so imperialism is really the crux.This is a cliche that can be said by today's three-foot boys, and sincerity may not understand the truth; but Mr. does not criticize and refute, and just keeps his eyes closed. How convincing is it? Especially if it is not necessary to blame poverty on imperialism , and the way to save the poor must be developed production; imperialism has strangled our way of industrial development. The warlord thing.Even if the warlord is not a feudal system and feudal force, it certainly does not prove that he is not our enemy; after searching through Mr.'s large articles, there is no text on how the warlord's property is paid, and it is really surprising!

After reading Liang Shuming's letter, Hu Shi also felt that his article was "too brief" with too many loopholes, so he needed to try to remedy it, so he published another open letter "Answer to Mr. Liang Shuming". ④ Still defending from various sources, denying that imperialism is the enemy of the Chinese people; and on the issue of warlords, Hu Shi said: As for the "warlord" issue, I originally included "disturbance".Warlords are the offspring of chaos, the clear lesson of 20 years of history. ...Mr. said, "All disturbances are done by warlords." This statement is quite inconsistent with historical facts.Warlords are the product of disturbance, and disturbance is mostly caused by friends in long shirts. Why was the so-called "revolution" in the past 20 years not caused by literati? Why was the warlord struggle in the past 20 years not instigated by boring politicians? In recent years, why have the Communist Party riots in various places not been instigated and organized by Comrade Changshan? These three This item can already sum up seven or eight out of ten of all disturbances.

Leaving aside their argument that "the disturbances are caused by the warlords" or "the warlords are the product of the disturbances", Hu Shi finally admitted that the warlords are part of one of the "five ghosts"; ", together with the warlords, are classified as "disturbances" and regarded as enemies.Of course, Chiang Kai-shek of the Kuomintang should not "punish" Hu Shi and the "fundamental attitude" of the Crescent Society, but should welcome it. How to overthrow the "five ghosts"? What Hu Shi propagated was still his little bit of reformism.He said:

These five evils are the real targets of our revolution, and none of them can be defeated by a violent revolution.There is only one path to a real revolution to defeat these five enemies, and that is...to carry out conscious reforms step by step, and to receive the full merit of continuous reforms bit by bit under conscious guidance. This is also the "fundamental attitude and method" of Hu Shi and colleagues of the New Moon Society.They opposed revolution, insisted on improvement, and even "would rather not avoid the name of 'counter-revolution'" than advocate revolution.

Seeing this, it is difficult for people to understand what kind of road Hu Shi and the others are going to take. From the object of the revolution to the method of the revolution, it is not only in opposition to the people's revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party, but also to the Chinese Communist Party. The Kuomintang opposed the revolutionary line of overthrowing the great powers and eradicating the warlords.Calling it a liberal road? It doesn’t seem right, because even the bourgeoisie’s anti-imperialist and anti-military autocratic spirit is gone.It's an indescribably strange path.

① For "Pingshe", see "Hu Shi's Diary", Taipei Yuanliu Publishing Co., Ltd. 1990 edition, manuscript, volume 8, March 25, April 21, May 11, 1929 Relevant records on May 19.Among them, before May 19, the "Pingshe Research Date List on China Issues" is attached, and the list of division of labor is as follows: (Third Edition Note) ② "Which Way We Go", was written on April 10, 1930, discussed on the evening of the 12th, and Hu Shi supplemented it with "Origin" on the 13th, and published it in the second volume of the "New Moon" magazine, No. 10; The first episode of "Recent Works on Hu Shi's Studies", Shanghai Commercial Press, first edition in December 1935.For the texts quoted in this section, see this article for those who do not indicate the source.

③Liang Shuming's "Respectful Consultation with Mr. Hu Shizhi" was published in the form of an open letter in "Cun Zhi" No. 2, and reprinted in the "Newsletter" of Volume 3, Issue 1 of "New Moon" magazine (about "Let's go there In the discussion column of the article "The Road"; later, Hu Shi collected the first volume of "Recent Works on Hu Shi's Studies" as "Appendix 1" of the article "That Road We Take".The following quotations from Liang Wen are all based on this.The fourth volume of "Hu Shi Wen Cun", Taipei Far East Edition, was edited by the author, and the appendix of this article was deleted. ④ Contained in the first issue of Volume 3 of "New Moon", and later included in the first episode of "Recent Works on Hu Shi's Studies", as the "Appendix II" of the article "Which Way We Go".