Chapter 41 41. Suffering and Growth: Chiang Ching-kuo’s Twelve Years in the Soviet Union
One night in late October 1925, under the shadow of the turbulent neon lights on the Huangpu River, an inconspicuous small freighter quietly left Shanghai Port.On this small and crowded boat, there were more than 100 Chinese young people. They endured the nasty smell of pig excrement and urine in the cabin and the seasick reaction caused by going to sea for the first time. Some sat silently on the ground, while others excitedly Passing through several pamphlets and talking enthusiastically, with the dim light, I saw the cover of the pamphlets: "Communist Manifesto", Bukharin's "ABC of Communism"...
This is a freighter bound for Vladivostok, but Vladivostok is not the destination of these young people. The place they are going to is the Red Holy Land - Moscow, Soviet Union.Since this freighter had previously carried livestock such as pigs, cattle and sheep, the strong stench in the cabin was disgusting. During the few hours waiting to set sail, one of the teenagers got up several times, wanting to escape here and go home , he was Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, the principal of the Whampoa Military Academy at that time.This year, he was fifteen years old.
Jiang Jingguo was born in Xikou, Fenghua, Zhejiang Province in April 1910. He is not only the eldest son of Chiang Kai-shek, but also the only biological son of Chiang Kai-shek (the adopted son of Jiang Weiguo, whose father is passed on as Dai Jitao).For this son, Chiang Kai-shek was very strict and even severe. Chen Jieru once said in her memoirs that when she first met Jiang Jingguo, the eleven-year-old boy was often frightened by his father's high-pitched roar; At that time, he just shook his head in embarrassment.After his father left, Chen Jieru let the child sit on a chair and found that his whole body was still shaking.
However, Chiang Kai-shek loved his second son Weiguo very much. He often picked up Weiguo, teased him, and asked him to call Chen Jieru "mother".It may be because Jiang Jingguo is six years older than Jiang Weiguo, or because Jiang Weiguo was well-behaved and frail since he was a child, and perhaps he responded to Chiang Kai-shek's evaluation of his two sons... "Jingguo can be taught, and Weiguo is cute" ...Maybe it's just that Chiang Ching-kuo is the eldest son, and Chiang Kai-shek has extremely high expectations of him.
After the death of his grandmother Wang Caiyu, 11-year-old Jiang Jingguo left Xikou and came to Shanghai. Under the care of Chen Jieru, he was admitted to Wanzhu Primary School, and later entered Shanghai Pudong Middle School to study. In 1925, the "May 30th Massacre" occurred in Shanghai, which triggered a massive anti-imperialist movement. Fifteen-year-old Jiang Jingguo also joined in anger and was selected as the leader of the demonstration team in Pudong Middle School. Expelled from school.A few days later, Chiang Kai-shek sent him to Peiping and allowed him to study in the "overseas cram school" founded by Wu Zhihui, a veteran of the party and state. However, during his stay in Peiping, Chiang Ching-kuo was arrested again for participating in the student movement. This time, Chiang Kai-shek simply sent him to the Soviet Union went.
In the autumn of 1925, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided to establish a college in Moscow to help the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cultivate revolutionary talents. This was later Sun Yat-sen University (Moscow Sun Yat-sen University).Under the guidance of the Soviet representative Borodin, the Chinese Examination Committee selected the first batch of 280 students to study in the Soviet Union.Considering China's national conditions, Borodin specially recommended 20 students from among the school-age children of KMT dignitaries, among them, besides Jiang Jingguo, were Shao Zhigang, the son of Shao Lizi, Ye Nan, the son of Ye Chulan, and Yu Youren. His daughter Yu Xiuzhi, Yu Youren's son-in-law Qu Wu and others.
When the Soviet cargo ship was waiting to leave the port in Shanghai, it waited for five or six hours. The young Chiang Ching-kuo almost had the idea of fleeing home, but when he turned around and saw so many companions staying on the cabin bunks, he couldn’t help asking himself: Since they Can bear it, why can't I?As the son of the principal of the Whampoa Military Academy, if I deserted halfway, what would others say in the future?
After some ideological struggle, Chiang Ching-kuo finally convinced himself and stayed on board, thus starting his trip to the Soviet Union.What he didn't expect at the time was that he went there for twelve years, becoming the one who stayed in the Soviet Union for the longest time among all the students who went to the Soviet Union at that time!
After arriving in Vladivostok, the trainees took ordinary trains to Moscow. After a long journey on the railway track, the group finally arrived at the red holy land of Moscow at the end of November and enrolled in Sun Yat-sen University.At that time, Sun Yat-sen University was a huge and magnificent four-story building, located at No. 16 Volhonka Street adjacent to the Red Square in Moscow.This building was originally the residence of a certain Russian nobleman. After the October Revolution, it was converted into a middle school, and later into an agricultural university. Now it has been converted into the school building of Sun Yat-sen University.
The schooling system of Sun Yat-sen University is generally two years. Jiang Jingguo formed a class with 21 other students after entering school. Among them, Jiang Jingguo and Feng Yuxiang's eldest daughter Feng Funeng (who stayed to study after Feng Yuxiang visited the Soviet Union in early 1926) was the youngest. Both were only 15 years old at the time.According to several letters in the current Soviet declassified archives, the two had an innocent first love at first, but because Feng Fu Neng didn't like to study and didn't try to make progress, the two ended up fruitless.
After the opening of Sun Yat-sen University, there were more than 600 students who studied here from China and Europe, including some later famous figures, such as Deng Xiaoping, Zuo Quan, Wang Ming, Ulanfu, Zhao Yiman, Zhang Wentian , Bo Gu, Wang Jiaxiang, Yang Shangkun, Wu Xiuquan and others.After the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927, Sun Yat-sen University set up a special class (also dubbed the "Old Man Class" because the students were older and experienced leaders), including Ye Jianying, Dong Biwu, Lin Boqu, Xu Teli, He Shuheng, Yang Zhihua, Yang Zilie, Xia Xi, Shi Jingyi and others.
For the convenience of management, the school gave Chinese students names in Russian. Among them, Jiang Jingguo was called "Comrade Nicholas", and Wang Ming was "Comrade Gulubiv", and so on.In the first year or so, Chiang Ching-kuo was very motivated, and he joined the Communist Youth League within a few weeks of arriving in the Soviet Union.During this period of time, Jiang Jingguo studied Russian hard, and often published articles in journals run by the students themselves, and gave speeches to the public.
After the "April 12 Coup" in 1927, Chiang Ching-kuo encountered the first major challenge in his life: Chiang Kai-shek suddenly betrayed the revolution and hunted down and massacred the Communists. The revolutionary situation reversed instantly, and the situation changed.After the news reached Moscow, the students of Sun Yat-sen University immediately held a meeting to criticize. The young "Comrade Nicholas" might have been really progressive at the time. He publicly denounced his father as a "traitor" and a "murderer" on the podium. ", saying that he "is no longer a revolutionary party, but a counter-revolutionary", and even shouted the slogan "Down with Chiang Kai-shek! Down with the traitors!"
Soon, the Soviet government's official newspaper "Izvestia" published an open letter from "Comrade Nikolai" to his father: "Today, I want to repeat what you once told me in your letter, and remember that 'revolution is the only thing I know is important. , I am willing to go through fire and water for the revolution...'Now I want to say that the revolution is the only important thing I know, and I will no longer recognize you as my father!"
Many years later, when "Comrade Nicholas" returned to his country and became "Jiang Jingguo", he claimed that what he said back then was due to the pressure of the environment. In fact, this kind of self-defense of "reverting the confession after the fact" is unnecessary. .Given that he was only 17 years old at the time and he was in a revolutionary environment like Sun Yat-sen University, it is not surprising that Chiang Ching-kuo drew a line with the father of the "counter-revolutionary leader" after the "April 12" coup and even killed his relatives righteously.As for later, when he has matured his mind and made similar remarks, that is another matter.
In this year, Jiang Jingguo graduated from Sun Yat-sen University. When he asked to return to China with some other students, he was rejected by the Soviet side.People from the Communist International said: "We have decided to let Feng Hongguo (Feng Yuxiang's son) go back. If Chiang Ching-kuo is allowed to return to China, he will become Chiang Kai-shek's right-hand man, so we want to keep him in the Soviet Union."
Chiang Ching-kuo was rejected, in addition to Chiang Kai-shek's rebellion against the revolution, there was another reason that he was considered a "Trotskyist".At that time, the struggle within the Soviet Union had become increasingly fierce, and Stalin and Trotsky were at odds with each other. At that time, the president of Sun Yat-sen University, Ladik, was one of the important figures of the "Trotskyite".Radek was Chiang Ching-kuo's teacher, so he was inevitably influenced by Trotskyite thought.Chiang Ching-kuo also admitted at the time: "It happened that my views coincided with Trotsky's political thoughts, so many people thought I was a Trotsky sympathizer. In fact, their speculation was correct." In Stalin When the "Trotskyites" were being purged on a large scale, 36 "Trotskyist" Chinese students were arrested at Sun Yat-sen University, and some of them were buried in foreign countries.Fortunately, Jiang Jingguo's special status protected him to some extent.
After his application to return to China was rejected, Jiang Jingguo was allowed to join the First Division of the Red Army stationed in Moscow as a student. Although he was an ordinary soldier, he also started his precious military career.During the one year of training, Chiang Ching-kuo started to learn from drills, equipment, weapons, tactics, military discipline, field battles, camping, etc., and was finally sent to the Red Army Tomachev Central Military and Political School in Leningrad for further studies. Later, the Republic General Xiao Jinguang At that time, he was also studying here (Zuo Quan, who studied with Jiang Jingguo at Sun Yat-sen University, entered the Frunze Military Academy after graduation to continue his studies).At that time, there were hundreds of people who came to study in the Soviet Union at the same time as Chiang Ching-kuo, but only a handful of people could enter such a military academy. This was obviously arranged deliberately by the Soviet side.
The academic system of the Tomachev Central Military and Political School lasted three years. Here, Chiang Ching-kuo received systematic military studies and training. He even served as company commander, regimental commander and division chief of staff in military exercises. His graduation thesis was "Guerrilla Tactics".The students of this school are all members of the Communist Party, but Chiang Ching-kuo is the only exception.He did not become a candidate member of the CPSU until 1929, after he had publicly declared his separation from the Trotskyites.
In May 1930, Jiang Jingguo made two applications after graduation, one was to return to China, and the other was to join the Red Army, but both requests were rejected.After being left out for more than a month, Jiang Jingguo was appointed as the deputy instructor of the Chinese student delegation of Lenin University (formerly known as Sun Yat-sen University), and accompanied these students who were about to return to China to the Transcaucasus and Ukraine to visit the "Soviet Socialist Construction "The results.
After the task of escorting the tour was completed and returned to Moscow, unfortunately, Chiang Ching-kuo fell seriously ill and was almost unconscious.During his serious illness, Jiang Jingguo was in a very depressed mood, because only three Russian friends visited him during his hospitalization, and none of the so-called "Chinese friends" visited him.Chiang Ching-kuo was very sad. He thought to himself at the time: "Several Chinese people have spoken very affectionately with me, but today they are seriously ill, and none of them came to see me. Probably they thought I was going to die. Alas! If I were here I died here, I wonder if anyone will come to see me out of the funeral?"
It can be imagined that the 20-year-old Jiang Jingguo was in a foreign country and was dying of illness. He had no relatives or friends. No one could tell about his loneliness and sadness at this time, and the direct connection between him and his father Chiang Kai-shek had long been due to political It has been discontinued for several years.
In October 1930, Chiang Ching-kuo finally recovered and was discharged from the hospital, and was then assigned to be an apprentice at the Dinamar Electric Factory.It was not an easy task to suddenly switch from school to work in a factory. After two days of doing it, Jiang Jingguo suffered from backache and back pain, and his hands were swollen.To make matters worse, material supplies in the Soviet Union were very tight at that time, and bread rations, fish, etc. were expensive and rare.Jiang Jingguo described his life at that time in the article "My Life in the Soviet Union": "I got up at six o'clock today, an hour earlier than usual, because I was so hungry that I couldn't sleep, and at the same time I wanted to get up a little earlier to the bakery. Up to today’s bread. At six o’clock, it was still dark, and when I arrived at the bakery, there were already more than ten people waiting outside the store. After 20 minutes, the staff in the store came out and told everyone , There is no bread today. Everyone dispersed calmly after hearing this. One of the women, probably new to Moscow, said to the staff, I didn’t receive any bread yesterday. May I ask you the bread tickets for yesterday and today? Can it still be used tomorrow? The staff said that the bread ticket can only be used on the same day!"
Jiang Jingguo's monthly salary was only 45 rubles at that time, and it was impossible to have more money to buy food outside the ration, so he often worked on an empty stomach.In order to make a living, he went to night school to study engineering, and on the other hand, he found an opportunity to teach military courses in a factory, so as to improve his status and increase his income.Because he learned a lot of knowledge at night school and improved his skills at work, after five months, Chiang Ching-kuo's monthly salary was increased to 105 rubles.
The life of Dynama Electric Appliance Factory was probably the first time Jiang Jingguo lived a hard life. He later said with emotion: "If a person has not done hard work, he will not be able to see the essence of society, let alone understand the sufferings and hardships of ordinary people. The intrinsic value of the work itself. It seemed to me an irrefutable truth. I was also convinced at the time that the kind of life experience I had would do me good in the future."
However, Jiang Jingguo's hard days are yet to come.A year later, he was sent to Shikov Village in Moscow District, which is the most backward area in the area, because he publicly criticized Wang Ming.Since the Soviet Union had just implemented the agricultural collectivization policy at that time, the supplies were extremely scarce, and the local farmers were very disgusted with the cadres sent by the above.On the first day Jiang Jingguo came to the village, the villagers ignored him, and an old farmer publicly mocked him: "You are people who only know how to eat bread, but can't plow the fields!" That night, Jiang Jingguo even fell asleep. There is no place, so I have to sleep in the garage of the church.
Early the next morning, Jiang Jingguo went to the field, and an old farmer said to him: "You should plow the field with us!" So Jiang Jingguo began to follow them to dig the soil. A small clearing, and the old farmer always makes him turn over again.On this day, Chiang Ching-kuo didn't eat lunch and worked until night before returning to the church's garage exhausted. After eating something, he fell asleep.In the middle of the night, an old peasant woman named Shafuya woke him up and said, "My friend, this is not a place to spend the night! Go to sleep in my thatched hut! You will get sick here!"
In the first few days, in the late night after exhaustion, Jiang Jingguo couldn't help crying when he thought of his hometown, grandmother and parents, but he still went to work as usual the next day.On the sixth day, the peasants finally accepted this "foreign cadre". They began to invite him to attend village meetings. the respect of the villagers.A year later, Jiang Jingguo was transferred back to Moscow. The villagers all brought their only fruits, chickens and ducks to see him off. The old peasant woman named Shafuya cried and said goodbye to him.
When Jiang Jingguo returned to Moscow this time, what greeted him was not a good thing.It turned out that Wang Ming thought it was very dangerous for Chiang Ching-kuo to stay in Moscow, and he insisted on transferring him to the Alta Gold Mine, a place of ice and snow.There, there are some exiled professors, students, nobles, engineers, rich peasants and even robbers. Chiang Ching-kuo must work with them for the next nine months, living in hunger and cold.Every night before going to bed, the friend who slept on the right side of Chiang Ching-kuo, who was originally a second-year student at Moscow University, always said, "One day has passed, and I am one step closer to the end of my life journey"; A fellow sufferer, an engineer from the former mine, said: "One more day has passed, and I am one step closer to regaining my freedom and going home."
It is not sure whether this passage is an abstraction in Jiang Jingguo's memoirs, but when he learned that he could leave here three months in advance, he was so emotional that he almost couldn't say goodbye to his fellow sufferers, because he could finally leave this hellish place. The mine is gone.Obviously, Jiang Jingguo suffered much more serious suffering here than before, so that when he left, he even comforted himself and said: "Could the situation be worse?"
In the following years, Chiang Ching-kuo stayed in the city of Svdovsky under the Ural Mountains, far away from Moscow and the Communist International. He spent a quiet period at the Ural Heavy Machinery Plant, and in October 1934 Later, he served as the assistant to the factory director and concurrently served as the editor-in-chief of the local "Heavy Industry Daily".At this time, Chiang Kai-shek had asked Chiang Ching-kuo to return to China through diplomatic channels, but the Soviet side asked Chiang Ching-kuo to write a reply letter, expressing his unwillingness to go back.Later, this letter was published publicly, which also reprimanded Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang government, but Chiang Ching-kuo insisted after returning to China that it was a fabrication of the Soviet side rather than his own.From the perspective of age, Jiang Jingguo at this time should be different from the 17-year-old boy back then. He had not corresponded with his father for almost ten years.This open letter is quite suspiciously ironic.
At the Ula Heavy Machinery Factory, Jiang Jingguo reaped his love and marriage. He and the Soviet woman Fenna fell in love from acquaintance to love. The two married in March 1935. In December of the same year, Jiang Jingguo's eldest son Jiang Xiaowen was born.Fenna is an orphan. She entered the Wula Heavy Machinery Factory after graduating from a worker's technical school.During the time he was with Fenner, Jiang Jingguo fully adapted to life in the Soviet Union. He seemed not much different from ordinary Soviet people, and he had almost forgotten his Chinese.
When Jiang Xiaowen turned one year old, the domestic situation changed suddenly. On December 12, 1936, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng launched the "Xi'an Incident", and Chiang Kai-shek was detained.After the news reached the Soviet Union, Chiang Ching-kuo personally went to Moscow, hoping to send a letter back; at the same time, Chiang Ching-kuo wrote a letter to Stalin, asking to return to China for the third time.Three weeks later, Jiang Jingguo was called to Moscow and told that he could return to China soon, but he had to write a statement first, promising that he would not oppose the Communist Party after returning to China, nor would he stand on the side of the "Trotskyites".During this time, Chiang Ching-kuo was deprived of his membership of the CPSU and his profession.During the six months of unemployment, Jiang Jingguo's family of three relied entirely on his wife Fenna's income to maintain their lives.
After the "Xi'an Incident" was peacefully resolved, Chiang Kai-shek turned to an anti-Japanese stance, and the domestic situation and Sino-Soviet relations also underwent tremendous changes. When it came to him, he became very polite.Chiang Ching-kuo was told that he could take his family and friends and leave the Soviet Union where he had been for twelve years.Some senior leaders of the Soviet Union even received "Nikolai" in person, and deliberately praised his father Chiang Kai-shek in front of him. They hoped that China would stand with the Soviet Union to deal with Japanese imperialism.
Before Chiang Ching-kuo returned to China, Jiang Tingfu, the ambassador to the Soviet Union, recorded: "(1936) before I went to Moscow, the wife of the chairman (Chiang Kai-shek) told me that the chairman hoped that his eldest son Jingguo, who was stranded in Russia, would return to China. His eldest son went to the Soviet Union in 1925, and he has remained in the Soviet Union since then....One night in 1937, when I was chatting with my subordinates, someone reported that I had a visitor, but I did not see myself He did not want to be named. When I met him, he immediately told me that he was Chiang Ching-kuo. I was very happy. Before I could ask him about his plans and intentions, he said: 'Do you think my father wants me to go back to China? 'I told him that the chairman was eager for him to return home.... Then he said that he was married to a Russian lady and had a child. I assured him that the chairman would not mind it." Later , Chiang Kai-shek gave his daughter-in-law Fenna a Chinese name called "Jiang Fangliang".
After living in the Soviet Union for twelve years, he was finally about to leave. Chiang Ching-kuo felt quite complicated and emotional.On the day of departure, he wrote the last entry in his diary before leaving the Soviet Union: "Today I am leaving Moscow. I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning. From my room, I can see the Kremlin, which is the same as what I had 12 years ago." The Kremlin I saw was almost exactly the same, but the double-headed eagles on the top of the churches were no longer visible, and what I could see now was a five-pointed star made of precious stones.... The auditorium in front of Sun Yat-sen University, in It was demolished 3 years ago, and now the great Palace of Labor is being built there. ... The underground railway in Moscow has been used, and the station is beautifully decorated, which can be compared with the palace. The vehicles are very comfortable, and the cars on the street are better than 10 years ago Increased by 20 times.... The business in Moscow is very prosperous, and there are many new large stores, but no matter what time of day, the people in the stores are very crowded. Today I get passports, buy tickets, and I have been busy until driving. At two o'clock in the afternoon, in the North Take the No. 2 Trans-Siberian Express at the railway station and leave Moscow. The Soviet Union... Farewell!"
On March 25, 1937, Chiang Ching-kuo bid farewell to Moscow, took a train through the icy and snowy Siberia to Vladivostok, and then boarded a ship bound for Shanghai, thus ending his long career in the Soviet Union and finally returning to China.That year, Jiang Jingguo was twenty-seven years old.Twelve years ago, at the age of fifteen, he came here alone, and there were already three of them when he came back.
I don’t know whether it was accidental or intentional. During the twelve years in the Soviet Union, Chiang Ching-kuo actually got systematic study and full training in the five aspects of politics, military affairs, agriculture, industry and culture. This almost cultivated an all-rounder for Chiang Kai-shek.Perhaps, this is the reason why Chiang Ching-kuo was able to take over and make Taiwan, China so impressive!