Chapter 60 Disagreements with the Civil Rights Guarantee League

In December 1932, Soong Ching Ling, Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, Yang Quan and others initiated the establishment of the China Civil Rights Protection Alliance in Shanghai.This is a progressive group that opposes the fascist rule of the Kuomintang, actively aids political prisoners, and strives for freedom of assembly, association, and speech.In January of the following year, a branch was also established in Peking, and Hu Shi was promoted as the chairman of the executive committee of the Peking branch. After the news was disclosed in the newspapers, the progressive young students and people from all walks of life in the north, especially those who were imprisoned for political crimes, placed great expectations on the Civil Rights Protection League Peking Branch and Hu Shi himself.They speculated that Hu Shi had always advocated human rights and advocated democratic and constitutional government, and if he presided over the Beiping branch, he would be able to show his talents in protecting civil rights.Therefore, letters of congratulations, suggestions, complaints, and requests for help were sent to the No. 4 Hu House in the Rice Grain Depot.The Kuomintang's Beiping City Party Headquarters regards the Civil Rights Protection League's Beiping branch as an illegal organization and oppresses it from time to time.

Hu Shi was indeed busy for a while.They cooperated with the general meeting in Shanghai and took action in Beiping to protest Gu Zhutong's shooting of Liu Yusheng; The other two prisons learned about the situation of political prisoners in custody.There were frequent exchanges of letters and telegrams between the Peking Branch and the Shanghai General Assembly, and the cooperation was quite tacit. But it didn't take long for Hu Shi to have conflicts with the Alliance.It turned out that Ms. A. Smedley had received a "Political Prisoner Appeal (Complaint)" in the Introspection Institute of the Beiping Military Commission, which disclosed in detail various tortures and inhuman conditions in the Introspection Institute.She submitted it to a meeting of the interim executive committee of the Civil Rights Defense League.At the meeting, it was decided to distribute it to Chinese and Western newspapers for publication, and write the origin in English and Chinese, signed by Soong Ching Ling, which proposed:

Immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners. The English editions of "Mainland News" and "Yanjing News" were published on February 2 and 5 respectively; while the Chinese version was not published due to press censorship. ① Hu Shi received the English version sent by Smedley on February 4, and was very dissatisfied after reading it.Because he, Yang Xingfo, and Cheng Ping went to the Introspection Institute to inspect it for himself, and based on the facts of the inspection, he concluded that this "indictment" was fabricated.Immediately wrote to Cai Yuanpei and Lin Yutang of the General Assembly, saying:

The three of us (Xingfo, Chengping, and I) personally went to investigate the Institute of Reflection a few days ago.There must be [many] many prisoners who talked with us in detail; Xingfo will be able to tell you all in detail.They complained about the pain in the courtyard, the most serious being the locks on their feet, and the lack of nutrition in the meals.But [no] one person mentioned any kind of lynching and hanging, as mentioned in Mrs. Sun's Appeal.During the conversation, there was a person named Liu Zhiwen, who used to be an interpreter for the Soviet News Agency. He talked with me in English for a long time. If there was such torture, he would tell me in English as much as possible.

Hu Shi pays attention to the facts. He thinks that such anonymous documents "can be suddenly released to the world without inspection?" He believes that the source of the documents should be investigated and should not be trusted; It is self-defeating by the head office (society) to publish it privately by one or two people.”Therefore, he hopes to "have a serious discussion with Mrs. Sun", "If there is something that should be corrected or corrected by the head office (society), don't worry about it, correct it by yourself, so as to maintain the trust of the head office (society)."It should be said that Hu Shi's opinions are quite cautious. ②In the early morning of the next day, Hu Shi saw that the indictment had been officially published in Yanjing News.On this day, Zhang Xueliang asked his secretary to call Hu Shi to question the source of the materials.So he wrote to Cai and Lin again, with even more passionate words.The letter directly criticized "Mrs. Sun did not conduct any investigations, believed it to be true, published it in various foreign newspapers, and published it in the name of the 'National Executive Committee'. This is a big mistake."He demanded a "thorough investigation" of the National Executive Committee "whether it ever held a meeting to resolve the translation and publication of this document"; he even said: "If one or two individuals can use the name of the highest organ of this association to publish irresponsible anonymous manuscripts, Well, some of our friends in Beiping have decided not to join this kind of group.” ③ In fact, Ms. Smedley handed over this case to the executive committee for viewing, because everyone believed in her personality and did not investigate her. source, they agreed to publish it, but it was not published by one or two people in the name of the association.

Cai Yuanpei and Lin Yutang accepted and read the two letters from Hu Shi, and Yang Quan also read them. They all felt that the matter was extremely serious.These three are all old friends of Hu Shi, and they all believed that "a thorough investigation must be held at a meeting"; but they also hoped that "internal rectification should be done" so that there would be no collapse.Yang Quan wrote two letters to Hu Shi in succession, repeatedly urging Hu Shi to "not lose heart" and pay attention to internal "unity". He said: Of course, this matter has brought a lot of resistance to the prison investigation, but we can only try to remedy it and be more cautious in the future. Brother Wang, please don't be negative. When the party headquarters in Beijing and Ping City start to oppress this association, the internal should be sincere and united. ④

However, Hu Shi was worried that Zhang Xueliang might be misunderstood, and was eager to clarify the authenticity of the indictment materials. Therefore, he sent a letter without waiting for Cai Yuanpei and Lin Yutang's reply, without waiting for the reply from the General Assembly, and not wanting to listen to the advice of Yang Quanzhu's friends in Shanghai. "Yanjing News" and several other newspapers pointed out that the political prisoner indictment issued by the General Assembly was obviously "forged", and used his visit to the Introspection Court to prove that the appalling torture was groundless; at the same time , he also explained, "Writing this letter, I do not mean to think that the situation in this prison is satisfactory.

The Peking Chapter of the Civil Rights League will do everything it can to improve those conditions.However, I am not willing to make improvements based on falsehoods.I hate cruelty, but I also hate vanity. ⑤ The differences are very obvious. However, what Hu Shi was most dissatisfied with was the idea of ​​"unconditionally releasing all political prisoners" in the declaration of the General Assembly. Soon, he published an article "Guarantee of Civil Rights" in "Independent Review", based on " Law” against the general idea of ​​“freeing political prisoners”. He said:

The remarks of those who participated in the civil rights protection movement today... have made a big mistake, that is, they regard the issue of civil rights protection as a political issue rather than a legal issue.This is wrong. ...The statement of the League General Assembly that was published in the daily newspaper the day before yesterday called for the "immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners". This is a good example.This is not the guarantee of civil rights, this is the freedom to demand revolution in a government.If a government wants to exist, it is natural to sanction all actions to overthrow the government or resist the government.Asking the government for the freedom of revolution is not seeking skin from a tiger? Those who seek tiger skin should be prepared to be bitten by tigers. This is the responsibility of political campaigners themselves. ⑥

This sharpened the conflict between him and the General Assembly from a legal point of view.The General Assembly demanded the release of political prisoners to protect civil rights and human rights; while Hu Shih wanted to uphold the laws of the Kuomintang government, and political prisoners should be "bitten by tigers" and cannot be released.This clearly demands the protection of civil or human rights, subject to the maintenance of the government's right to suppress.Therefore, Zhang Xueliang's secretary wrote a letter to Hu Shi, commending him for "remembering the difficult times, expressing great ideas, and seeing far-sightedness", so that he was "benevolent and sincere", and he was extremely admired. ⑦

Then, as the chairman of the Peking Branch, Hu Shi made a speech to the reporter of "Zi Lin Xi Bao", continuing to criticize "the Civil Rights Protection League should not demand that all political prisoners be released indiscriminately and exempted from legal sanctions." ; declaring that the government "has the right to deal with actions that threaten its own existence." ⑧This puts a cloak of "legal sanctions" on the armed suppression that the Chiang Kai-shek government has pursued for many years, which looks much more grandiose. When Hu Shi openly opposed the constitution and attacked the affairs of the conference, the Central Executive Committee held a special meeting to discuss it and called Hu Shi to ask the truth about the conversation with Zilinxi Bao and asked him to call back and explain.His old friend Yang Quan also sent a letter to persuade, "I hope there is an explanation, so that this will not collapse due to internal dissent." ⑨However, since Hu Shi wanted to legally safeguard the government’s right to repress, and had embarked on a path of fundamental opposition to the Civil Rights Protection League, he no longer listened to the advice of his friends and did not reply to the General Assembly’s inquiries. On February 28, Soong Ching Ling and Cai Yuanpei, on behalf of the General Assembly, called Hu Shi again and said: It is difficult to change the constitution of the party to release political prisoners.Members attack the alliance in newspapers, especially violating the organization's rules, please make corrections publicly, otherwise they can only attend the meeting freely and use the chapter of the whole meeting. ⑩ Hu Shi still had no reply, so on March 3, 1933, the Central Executive Committee of the Civil Rights Protection League, Chairman Cai Yuanpei, decided to expel Hu Shi from membership.Since then, Hu Shi broke with the Civil Rights Protection Alliance, and he was embarrassed to sing about "human rights" and "civil rights".Later, Soong Ching Ling made an analysis, saying that Hu Shi joined the alliance only after agreeing with the basic principles of the alliance, "but when the Kuomintang and Zhang Xueliang publicly opposed the alliance, he became afraid and began to find excuses and justifications for his cowardice."Attacking the alliance and opposing the charter are the concrete manifestations of his curry favor with Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Xueliang. The Kuomintang government is naturally very satisfied with the turmoil between Hu Shi and the Civil Rights Protection League.After this, there was the matter that Wang Jingwei, the Premier of the Executive Council, came forward to invite Hu Shi to be the Minister of Education.Although Hu pleaded and did not become an official, the relationship has become unusually intimate since then, and he has truly become a "friend" and "minister" of the Kuomintang government. up. ① See Cai Yuanpei, Lin Yutang’s letter to Hu Shi on February 13, 1933, contained in "Hu Shi’s Correspondence and Letters", Beijing Zhonghua Book Company, May 1, 1979, volume 1, pp. 187-188. ② See above, p. 179. ③Ibid., page 181. (Third Edition Note) ④ See above, p. 188. ⑤ Same note as ①, pp. 182-183. (Third Edition Note) ⑥ "Guarantee of Civil Rights", contained in "Independent Review" No. 38, published on February 19, 1933. ⑦ Same Note ① Page 186-187. ⑧ Hu Shi’s talk to a reporter from Shanghai’s “North China Dairy News” (North China Dairy News), published in the newspaper on February 22, 1933; the Chinese translation is attached in “Selected Letters from Hu Shi”, Volume II, pp. 189-190. ⑨ Same Note ①, p. 192. ⑩ Same Note ①, p. 193. Song Qingling: "The Mission of the China Civil Rights Protection League", see "Struggle for New China", published by People's Publishing House in 1952.