Chapter 75 San Francisco--London--Peking

1944 was the eve of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War.In the European battlefield, the Red Army of the Soviet Union and the British and American allied forces had achieved decisive victories; in Asia, China arduously persisted in the War of Resistance against Japan, and the United States also had a clear advantage in the Pacific War.In the autumn of this year, China, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union held a meeting in Dumbarton Oaks, Georgetown, a suburb of Washington, to prepare for the establishment of the United Nations. In February 1945, the Yalta Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom decided to hold a United Nations conference in San Francisco on April 25.The four initiators, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China, sent invitations to the San Francisco Conference on March 5 to the anti-fascist countries that had joined the United Nations Declaration.

On March 27, the Executive Yuan of the National Government announced the list of members of the Chinese delegation to the San Francisco Conference, including 11 consultants, including Dong Biwu of the Communist Party of China; Hu Shi was also a member of the delegation. ① On April 25, when the armies of the United States and the Soviet Union met in German territory, Hu Shi attended the meeting to create the United Nations that opened in San Francisco.The meeting lasted for two full months. On June 25, a plenary meeting was held in the San Francisco Opera House, and the Charter of the United Nations was unanimously adopted without reservation. The signing ceremony was held in the Veterans Memorial Hall the next day.However, Hu Shi, on the pretext of opposing totalitarian politics, disagreed with the stipulation in the Charter that the five permanent members have a veto power, so he did not sign the Charter.

During the San Francisco Conference, the situation of the world anti-fascist war took a turn for the worse. On May 8, Germany unconditionally surrendered.The United Kingdom and the United States concentrated their forces on the Pacific Ocean to fight against Japan. On June 22, the U.S. Army conquered Okinawa and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9; On August 8, war was declared against Japan. On August 14, the Japanese government officially announced its unconditional surrender, and on September 2, it signed the instrument of surrender.The Second World Anti-Fascist War ended victoriously, and the Chinese people won a great victory in the Anti-Japanese War.

Before and after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party on the issues of post-war peace and democracy became more intense. Since Hu Shi was sent to the United States, he has always held an anti-communist stance. He once defended the Southern Anhui Incident launched by the Kuomintang, saying that "the disbandment of the New Fourth Army is a necessary action for military discipline." ②In September 1944, Hurley of the United States came to China in the name of President Roosevelt's personal representative to mediate the "relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party."He sang with Chiang Kai-shek and proposed a conspiracy plan to ask the Chinese Communist Party to hand over the army in exchange for "being an official" in the Kuomintang government, resisting and opposing the CCP's idea of ​​establishing a coalition government. In mid-to-late August 1945, Chiang Kai-shek sent three telegrams to invite Chairman Mao Zedong to Chongqing to hold peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.Hurley, who was the ambassador to China at the time, also flew to Yan'an for this purpose.

Hu Shi was naturally also very concerned about the "KMT-Communist relationship." ③During the San Francisco meeting, he discussed post-war political issues with Dong Biwu, and also advised the CCP to give up force and engage in "peaceful struggle", which was refuted by Dong Biwu. On August 24, Hu Shi called Mao Zedong again, and the telegram said: Mr. Runzhi: I saw in the newspaper that brother Fu Mengzhen conveyed my brother's greetings to Hu Shizhi. I am very grateful for the good old days. I had an in-depth conversation with brother Dong Biwu the night before, and my brother sincerely stated his disdain, thinking that the leaders of the CCP should examine the world situation today, cherish the future of China, try to forget the past, look forward to the future, make a firm determination, give up force, and prepare to build a country that does not rely on armed forces for China. second largest political party.If the public can have this determination, the 18-year domestic dispute will be resolved once, and the efforts of the public for more than 20 years will not be completely wiped out by the civil war.Just look at the beginning of the founding of the United States, Jie Fusheng fought peacefully for more than ten years, and the Democratic Party he created took power in the fourth election.Also look at the British Labor Party 50 years ago, which only won 44,000 votes, but as a result of peaceful struggle, it won 12 million votes this year, becoming the overwhelming majority party.

Both of these things are food for thought.The CCP has become the second largest party today. If it can persist with patience and perseverance, the future of peaceful development will be limitless.Don't let yourself be self-destructed.The above is the gist of the conversation with Dong Jun, and now I entrust brother Wang Xueting to pass it on for consideration.Hu Shi, August 24th. ④ At that time, in order to avoid civil war and strive for domestic peace, the Chinese Communist Party decided that Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Wang Ruofei and others went to Chongqing to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek. On August 28, after Mao Zedong flew to Chongqing, he received Hu Shi's telegram from Wang Shijie.One of the core issues of the Chongqing negotiations was exactly what Hu Shi called "force" in his telegram.During the negotiations, Mao Zedong adhered to the principles of peace, democracy, and unity, and resolutely rejected the Kuomintang's unreasonable demands for the Communist Party to hand over the army and political power. He showed firm principles and made some concessions.After 43 days of negotiations, the "Double Ten Agreement" was reached. On October 11, Mao Zedong returned to Yan'an, and on the 17th he made a report "About the Chongqing Negotiations", in which he talked about the issue of the "force" of the army, saying:

The Kuomintang propaganda said that the Communist Party is fighting for guns.Prepare to back down, we say.We first proposed to reduce our army from the current number to 48 divisions.The Kuomintang army has 263 divisions, of which we account for one-sixth.Later we proposed to downsize to 43 divisions, accounting for one-seventh. ... In this way, they have nothing to say, and all rumors go bankrupt.Is it to give them our guns? That's not it either.If you hand it over to them, there will be more of them! The people's armed forces, every gun and bullet, must be preserved and cannot be handed over. ⑤

This is a reply to Chiang Kai-shek, and it can also be said to be a reply to Hu Shi's telegram. At this time, Hu Shi became a well-known figure in the cultural and educational circles.People have not yet returned to China, but public opinion has been very loud. On August 30, Zhu Jiahua, Minister of Education of the Kuomintang government, telegraphed Hu Shi, intending to invite him to attend the World Education Conference (later the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to be held in London. In September, the Kuomintang government appointed Hu Shi as the president of Peking University; before Hu Shi returned to China to take office, Fu Sinian acted as an interim representative. On September 13, Chiang Kai-shek called Hu Shi, hoping that he would "return to China to preside over school affairs as soon as possible, and plan a good meeting." On October 10, the National Government awarded Hu Shi a Victory Medal by decree. From November 1st to 16th, as the chief representative of the Chinese delegation, Hu Shi attended the meeting to create UNESCO in London and participated in the formulation of the organization's charter.During the meeting, he proposed to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of Confucius' birth in 1949; and to receive an honorary doctorate of laws at Oxford University.

It was not until June 5, 1946 that Hu Shi set off from the United States to return to China, sailed at sea for 30 days, and arrived in Shanghai on July 5.He stayed in Nanjing and Shanghai for more than 20 days and met many friends, politicians and celebrities. He has a two-inch-thick business card in his residence in Beijing and Shanghai.I arrived in Peiping at the end of the month and lived in a very luxurious house at No. 1 Dongchang Hutong. In September, he became the president of Peking University. During the period when Hu Shi returned to China, Chiang Kai-shek was tearing up the "October 10th Agreement" and the CPPCC resolution, breaking the armistice agreement, and with the help of the US government, he was deploying and launching a full-scale civil war.After eight years of arduous resistance, the Chinese people were pushed into the abyss of war.The Kuomintang government strengthened the rule of fascist agents across the country and suppressed the patriotic democratic movement.Within ten days of Hu Shi's return to the country, Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo, two well-known democratic fighters in the intellectual circles, were killed by Kuomintang agents in Kunming successively, which aroused the indignation of the people all over the country. "Ordinary people with a conscience feel disappointed, depressed and even angry, and they cover up what they intended." ⑦However, Hu Shi and "people with conscience"

all different. On July 20, at a welcome tea party held by celebrities in the cultural and educational circles in Shanghai, he also advised people not to be pessimistic, saying: We in the cultural and educational circles should grit our teeth and try our best to save and improve the current situation in the past five or ten years. If we ourselves are pessimistic first and feel that things in the world cannot be done, then the real affairs of the country will make people even more pessimistic. People think it's impossible. ⑧ If this is Hu Shi’s “optimism,” then when he talked to reporters in Beiping, he declared that “China’s democracy has made progress”! ⑨ Doesn’t such an upside-down “optimism” come close to Ashi?

On October 10, Peking University held the opening ceremony after demobilization and resumption of school.Hu Shi made his first speech to the whole school as the headmaster, and he brought up two words of Lu Zuqian, a Neo-Confucianist in the Southern Song Dynasty: "Goodness is not easy to understand, and reason is not easy to observe." Everyone-- Don't follow blindly, don't be deceived, don't use other people's ears as your ears, don't use other people's eyes as your eyes, don't use other people's minds as your own minds. ⑩ It can be said that this is the footnote added by Hu Shi to "goodness is not easy to understand, reason is not easy to detect", and it has no deep meaning.However, when the civil war was full of smoke, young students yearned for democracy, freedom and progress, and the patriotic democratic movement against civil war and dictatorship was widely carried out, President Hu repeated these well-known truths, didn't he understand his intention? ① Members of the Chinese delegation, besides Dong Biwu and Hu Shi, also include Song Ziwen (Leader) and Gu Weijun (Deputy Leader) , Wang Chonghui, Wei Daoming, Wu Yifang, Li Huang, Zhang Junmai, Hu Lin, consultant Shi Zhaoji. ② Hu Shi’s speech in New York in February 1941 was published in Chongqing’s Ta Kung Pao on February 8. ③Refer to Hu Shi's diary on December 8, 1944, see "Hu Shi's Diary", Beijing Zhonghua Book Company, January 1985 edition, volume 2, p. 605. ④The telegram from Hu Shi to Mao Zedong was published in Chongqing Ta Kung Pao on September 2, 1945.See also Hu Shi to Wang Shijie (electric draft), "Hu Shi's Correspondence Letters", Beijing Zhonghua Book Company, August 1, 1980, volume 2, pp. 26-27. ⑤ Mao Zedong's "About the Chongqing Negotiations", "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" 4-volume horizontal bound edition, pp. 1106-1107. ⑥ There are five members of the Chinese delegation, the other four are Zhao Yuanren, Luo Jialun, Cheng Tianfang, and Li Shuhua. ⑦ Zhou Binglin sent a letter to Hu Shi on July 9, 1946, see "Selected Letters from Hu Shi", Volume 2, p. 112. ⑧ Hu Shi’s speech at the welcome meeting of the cultural and educational circles in Shanghai, contained in "Shenbao" on July 21; ⑨ See "North China Daily" in Peking on July 30, 1946. ⑩ See Tianjin "Ta Kung Pao" on October 11, 1946.