Chapter 14 democracy

The military control committee withdrew from Wuhan in less than half a year.This time is much shorter than the transition period for the takeover of several major cities before, because of the smooth transition from the underground municipal party committee to the new municipal party committee, and also because of the smooth completion of the handover work of all walks of life. "Their vigorous and modest work style left a deep impression on the city, and also set an example for the new municipal party committee." Li Bin, who was secretary of the Wuhan Military Control Commission at the time, recalled.

Compared with Xu Maoyong's era at Wuhan University, a group of intellectuals at Wuhan University still believe that Wuhan University's short military control committee period is nostalgic.Liu Xuyi's deeper impression of the new regime still comes from the direct contact after the military control committee took over Wuhan University. "Military representative Zhu Fan came to visit my home on the first day at Wuhan University. After all, I was only in contact with the contacts of the underground party. This is my first direct contact with the new regime. He always has a smile on his face and a humble attitude. , asked me a lot of specific questions about Wuhan University." Liu Xuyi said.More importantly, it made him feel extra respected.

Later, when the Military Control Commission left Wuhan, a small-scale dinner was held, and some influential intellectuals in the student movement and academic fields were invited.Xiong Xingshu, the daughter of Zhu Junyun, a famous professor at the School of Liberal Arts of Wuhan University, recalled: "In the summer of 1949, my mother received an invitation from the commander of the Fourth Field Army. The dinner was held at the Deming Hotel. My mother came back and told us that they ate Western food. There are long tables, and the reception staff are all from the People’s Liberation Army. The atmosphere at the table is extremely relaxed. The soldiers don’t have shirts on, and they all wear white vests. There was a lot of vigor and vitality there, and a Wuhan banker privately said to his mother: 'Where can we find such a good army and government?'”

The enlightened style of the Wuhan Military Control Committee towards intellectuals is concentrated in the appointment of the leaders of the Wuhan University School Affairs Committee after Wuhan University was taken over.On the first day Zhu Fan, a member of the Military Control Commission, visited Wuhan University, one of the purposes of visiting well-known professors at the school was to solicit opinions on personnel arrangements. "After listening to the opinions of many professors, the Military Control Committee came up with a list for us to discuss." Liu Xuyi recalled, "This list is indeed more realistic. It can be seen that the Military Control Committee has taken into account academics, prestige, and political orientation. Factors, the general starting point is that professors govern the school. The original plan was that the director of the school committee should still be the former principal Zhou Yusheng, and the deputy director would be the physicist Zha Qian. The main consideration was that Zha Qian’s political stance was relatively neutral. An old intellectual who has no interest, the economist Zhang Peigang is the head of general affairs, and I am a member of the school council and acting secretary general."

Surprisingly, the candidate for the head of the school committee was opposed by almost all members of the professor branch of the New Democratic Teachers Association, including Liu Xuyi himself. "It's not that there is something wrong with President Zhou himself. Now that I think about it, the School Nursing Movement this year has made us professors a little 'left' in our thinking. Everyone agrees that Mr. Zhou was once a member of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang and is not suitable for the new regime. Continue to retain the administrative position. We have newly nominated Wu Baoliang, a well-known chemist, to take this position. Wu is non-partisan, but he used to be a clear anti-KMT person in the school. The Military Control Committee agreed to this proposal." Liu Xuyi said.

Zhou Yusheng, who was rejected by the teachers, was not rejected by the Communist Party. "In 1950, Zhou Yusheng was invited by Zhou Enlai to serve as a consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was responsible for the legal and political consulting work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs." Zhou Jingsheng's son-in-law Zhou Jing recalled, "New China really lacked an expert with a professional background in international law in terms of diplomacy at that time. Zhou Yusheng later participated in the In the important diplomatic negotiations in the early 1950s, China’s territorial sea issues and the accurate formulation of the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” all listened to Mr. Zhou Yusheng’s opinions.”

Generally speaking, an atmosphere of trust and democracy was the main theme in the air at the time, and intellectuals were in an optimistic environment.On the other hand, "the 'controversy between left and right' carried over from the Yan'an rectification movement is inevitable," Zhou Keshi said. In the summer of 1949, Zhou Keshi, who had just finished his junior year at the Law School of Wuhan University, volunteered to work in Wuhan No.However, he found that in the "Party Consolidation Pilot" in 1950 when the Central South Bureau sent a working group to the factory, intellectuals were often easily suspected by workers. "Yisha was mostly worker and peasant cadres at the time. Only I was a college student. Before the liberation, the student movement was arrested by the Kuomintang military command. Although my history of progress is very long and there is no doubt about it, I was still targeted by the party. This made me very distressed. " Zhou Keshi recalled, "At that time, I told my confusion to a secretary of the general branch of a yarn factory, and she comforted me and said that Comrade Li Erzhong had a similar experience during the rectification movement in Yan'an, so I don't need to mind."

The first personal problem that bothered Liu Xuyi shortly after liberation was that he found himself facing the problem of "unemployment": from 1950 onwards, the entire academic system of universities turned to the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union always regarded the Department of Sociology as a bourgeois academic , was canceled in the subject setting, and Wuhan University quickly followed suit, which made Liu Xuyi, who had always been oriented in sociology research, extremely passive. "I'm either just in an administrative position on the school board, or I'm unemployed."

When he was in a dilemma, Liu Shi, a member of the Municipal Party Committee who was preparing to establish the Wuhan Municipal Working Committee, invited him to serve as the deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Wuhan Municipal Working Committee.Liu Shi later recalled this incident and said, logically speaking, there was no need to use such highly educated and academically advanced intellectuals for the work of the Working Committee at that time. First, I heard that Liu Xuyi’s discipline was canceled; He was originally a worker and peasant cadre, and he really lacked a pen. Liu Shi's invitation moved the sociologist, but Liu Xuyi's life in the working committee was not happy. Not long after he joined the working committee, he felt similar to Zhou Keshi in the factory. "On the one hand, there were a lot of things to do. I almost took over the speeches of all the main cadres of the trade union. On the other hand, those cadres always thought that intellectuals were nerdy. They used clothes to wear, but they didn’t even like this.” Liu Shi said: “To be honest, workers questioned some intellectuals at that time. For example, Liu Xuyi went to the United States, and intellectuals who studied sociology were indeed It’s not very free, and it limits his talent.”