Chapter 13 Chapter 13 My Little Self-Taught History: Radicals

The first series of my autobiography Chapter 13 My Little Self-Taught History: Radicals 11. Radical Socialism In the first year of the Republic of China, the so-called Socialist Party appeared in China.This was initiated by Jiang Kanghu (Wang Jingwei's vice president of the Nanjing Puppet Government Examination Institute) in Shanghai, and he also claimed to be the leader of the party.At that time, Beijing had its branch established, and the host was Chen Yilong (later killed by Yuan Shikai).Jiang is also one of the advocates of the reform movement in Beijing society after Gengzi Guangxu, and he has had contacts with my family for a long time, and I know the details of his personality.His behavior was entirely speculative.Although some inexplicable people agreed with him, I ignored it.I reject all the remarks they made, and I don't want to enter them.My inclination to socialism is not only irrelevant to them, but because I hate them, it has alienated me from socialism. In terms of the atmosphere at the time, political transformation was something that ordinary people had in their consciousness, while economic transformation was not in the consciousness of ordinary people.Only the term "socialism" can be seen occasionally (the term communism does not seem to be seen yet), and few people study it enthusiastically.In August of the first year (1912), when the Chinese League was reorganized into the Kuomintang, the principle of people's livelihood was deleted, which is a good example.One of the tenets of the Tongmenghui's constitution was originally "the purpose of this association is to consolidate the Republic of China and implement people's livelihood principles"; the Kuomintang party constitution was changed to "consolidate the republic and implement civilian politics."This is obviously a big change, and the former comrades did not like it, and it goes without saying that Mr. Sun, the Prime Minister, was unwilling.However, it has changed after all.Moreover, I also participated in the inaugural meeting on August 25th (held in the theater of the Huguang Guild Hall in Hufangqiao, Beijing).I personally saw that Premier Sun and Mr. Huang Keqiang attended the extremely long and extremely long speeches, so I finally admitted this revision without any doubt.This certainly shows the open-mindedness of the Prime Minister and the tolerance of everyone's opinions; it is also fully seen that economic issues and socialism were ignored at the time. At that time, I didn't know enough about China's issues, and I thought that as long as the constitutional government was on track, it would not be difficult to follow in the footsteps of Europe, the United States and Japan, and become a modern country.As for economic equality, world harmony is a matter of the future, and there is no need to talk about it now.What you see is exactly the same as popular customs.But soon I suddenly felt that "private property" is a big problem for the crowd. About the end of the first year of the Republic of China and the beginning of the second year of the Republic of China, I accidentally found a book "The Essence of Socialism" from the pile of old books at home. ), and translated by Mr. Zhang Puquan (following), published in Shanghai in the 31st year of Guangxu.This book was considered outdated at the time, and there was no profound theory in its content.Much of what it said about "capitalists" and "laborers" did not interest me; however, some of the words against private property rights imprinted on my mind.I kept thinking about this question.The more I think about it, the more I can't stop myself.It finally led me to the road of opposing private ownership of property, and I opposed it fiercely, as if I couldn't bear it. I found that this is the source of the struggle for existence among the crowd.Because of the struggle for existence, people are often threatened by the problems of life and are not immune to robbery.The extreme case of stealing is fraud; the extreme case of robbery is robbery.These two types contain countless examples of various types, and they emerge in endlessly.When we travel, we must beware of being deceived.If you are not careful, you will lose your property, and you will lose your life if you are not careful.Even those who sit at home and are bullied by their closest relatives can no longer hear or see it uncommonly.There is no safe place in the whole society, maybe the fraudsters come from there.If you have no money, you are threatened by life problems; if you have money, you are threatened by all kinds of threats.You may starve to death and no one cares about you, or everyone around you may be planning on you!Oh!What kind of society is this?What kind of life is this? — but this is nothing new.Private property, competition for survival, this is inevitable! This is unfortunate and pitiful for those who are deceived and victimized; even those who cheat and commit violence are too pitiful!It's not like a "person"!Humans shouldn't be like this!All these evils in the world are actually committed by the social system (the system of private property), and that person cannot be blamed entirely.If the root cause is not resolved, it is really unreasonable to deal with individuals with severe laws and severe punishments, and to imprison and kill them.We can't prohibit it from the law, and we can prove that it is unreasonable and useless. There are still many crimes in the world, which seem to be agreed by both parties involved and are prohibited by the law, such as many things that do not take into account personality for the sake of money.The extreme example is prostitution.The big and small things in society belong to this type, and there are countless kinds of them.Because in this society, whether it is suffering or happiness, whether it is life or death, is determined by money.The use of money is vast and boundless, and it is above everything else; a person with a lot of money is like holding great power and can use everything.At this time, to blame the rich should not use his money in this way; to blame the poor, should not sell themselves like this, to promote morality, to encourage everyone, we can only see its absurdity and ridiculousness. It's just the effect! In addition, there are things that are permitted by law, but morality is not corrected, and society encourages them invisible.That is all economic competition.As a result of competition, there are always many people who fall behind and fail, and fall into a miserable situation. The extreme example is beggars.Those who do not come out to beg, but are in dire straits and need help from others, belong to this type.Mostly the old, the weak, the disabled, the widows, the widows and the sick cannot compete and are the easiest to fall into this situation.I think this is also a kind of evil in the world.But this kind of crime, let alone anyone responsible for it, is clearly a crime of the social system.At this time, although some philanthropists are organizing charitable works for relief, how much can be remedied without clarifying this problem from the beginning? At this time, popularization of education is impossible, and public health is out of the question. Even if the state force is forced to organize some, it is helpless and contrary to the general trend of society? ——The general trend prevents many people from being able to receive education in a leisurely manner, and prevents many people from paying attention to hygiene.Social wealth may increase through free competition (and there is a limit), but cultural standards may not increase proportionally, especially customs and habits. It is impossible to improve day by day.Fundamentally, it loses the peace and tranquility of the human heart, and becomes greedy and selfish, and furthermore, it is contradictory to universal education and public health. Then, it will only make the physical and psychological aspects become more and more corrupt and degenerate! It is a frightening thing that human beings are becoming obscene and declining day by day!Educators cannot save it; hygienists cannot save it; religionists, moralists, and philosophers cannot save it.Not to mention any politicians and lawyers.To get rid of the source, the only way is to abolish the private property system and return the means of production to the public. The problems of life are basically solved by the society together, and the competition for survival between people is eliminated. — This is socialism.

I knew very little about socialism at the time, but I was very enthusiastic.The reason for his zeal is that he believes that private property is the source of all pain and evil in society, and opposes it intolerably.The reasons are not profound as mentioned above, but they are all derived from my own thinking.In the winter of that year, I once wrote the book "The Essence of Socialism" (the content is divided into ten sections, but only 12,000 to 3,000 words), which I wrote on wax paper and mimeographed dozens of copies as gifts.There are no manuscripts.Only in the "Shuming Thirty Preface Records" there is an article "Part One of Huaitan Lecture", which was given to Caozhou middle school students in the spring of the 12th year of the Republic of China, and it talked about some of the previous thoughts. At that time, thinking was only a kind of social ideal on the side of life problems, and it had not yet been linked to China's problems.In other words, at that time, it was only seen that socialism was needed in human life, but it did not see that socialism had its special needs on the issue of China.