Chapter 32 Miss Hu Shi for a hundred years

I often combine the pleasure of reading with the history of people.In the so-called human history, reading biography is a shortcut—biography "condenses the essence of life".You can even look into a person's grave for a few hours, imagine him sitting up in the grave, and moaning.Outside the tomb, we complete the memory and transformation of the society under the shadow of the deceased, and complete the pursuit and inheritance of the good qualities and wisdom of the previous society. Frankly, it was Hwang In Woo who brought me back my interest in history.I mean, I see the joys of history academically.The Kuomintang officer wrote it in the United States.In his words, what he studies is Macro-history. This word is very mysterious, but I would rather think of it as "reading history as you like."Huang Renyu's knowledge is indeed very good and neutral, so it also gives us readers a chance to read history from a different perspective.Huang Renyu and Zhou Enlai are both alumni of Nankai University. It is a pity that Nankai University did not give the courtesy of Zhou Enlai to the dropout student Huang Renyu, but this does not affect Huang Renyu's reputation.

After reading Huang Renyu's history books, I became interested in overseas Chinese historians.As a scholar in the United States, Tang Degang naturally became a guest of honor in my study.Although until today, I have only read two books by Tang Degang, one is "Seventy Years of the Late Qing Dynasty", and the other is "Hu Shi's Miscellaneous Memories" that I want to introduce here-strictly speaking, there is also "Hu Shi Oral Autobiography", included in "Hu Shi's Collected Works".The pursuit of Hu Shi probably started from this book. Tang Degang was a disciple of Hu Shi in his later years. He recorded and translated "Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography" in person, and was recognized as an overseas critic of Hu Yun.Tang Zhi's "nonsense" is not insulting to generosity, creative pens, and pearls on the market, they are indeed some good books.Tang Degang said at the end of the book "Miscellaneous Memories": "As for understanding Hu Shi, especially young intellectuals should understand Hu Shi, in my personal opinion, the two most reliable books are "Forty Autobiography" and "Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography". "In my opinion, "Miscellaneous Memories" can be compared with the above two books.In the book, Tang Degang did not hide too much from Hu Shi, and tried to be as objective as possible (of course, there are some opinions that are quite different from those of readers).

When recalling Hu Shi, Tang Degang was not as respectful as Luo Ergang was when he wrote "Five Years of the Master" and "Hu Shi Suoyi" because he was Hu Shi's disciple, but was more sharp, humorous and detached.For example, when it comes to Hu Shi and politics, Tang Degang said that Hu Shi "doesn't want a son, the son is here"; What Mr. Wang lacks is: he doesn’t have the shoulders of a great statesman, the face of a middle-level bureaucrat, and the skills of a politician and diplomat, and he doesn’t even have the vision to be a political commentator”; After decades of Monkey King, he finally found out that he was just the bodyguard of a skinny monk; the old urchin even recalled to readers the scene when Mr. Hu squeezed into the bus, "a skinny vertebrate".

Of course, these did not affect Tang Degang’s positive evaluation of his teacher: Hu Shi was “the only thinker in modern China who did not have the backing of a gun, but whose ideas and speeches were all the rage, and who could turn all living beings upside down ideologically.” Hu Shi was indeed a saint. There is no "continuation" of the eunuch spirit of countless countrymen, pedants, family emperors and their servants over the past two thousand years, and there is no "kailai" that denies all and defeats all eunuchs in extreme times. Regarding the "May 4th Movement", Tang Degang and Hu Shi had different views.Hu Shi is contradictory. On the one hand, he is against politics, but on the other hand, he has been a political enthusiast all his life. "Mr. Hu is against the May 4th Movement. He believes that the premature death of the New Culture Movement is to make the May 4th Movement politically the result of transformation".Tang Degang later explained: "The train of the New Culture Movement was turned on the wrong steering wheel by these young guys, and it went on a rampage. As a result, the purpose was hot, the direction was blind, and the train derailed and overturned, causing casualties everywhere. Poor The old Hu Shi was also made to be a professor, and the New Culture Movement wasted, and he went to New York to waste. So he opposed the May 4th Movement.”

There has been a long history of praise and criticism for the May Fourth Movement.Hu Shi’s point of view is: “The New Culture Movement is the antidote to the inherent Chinese civilization that has been paralyzed for two thousand years, and it is the only way to save the country and the people.” Hu Shi’s ideal is to devote himself to culture and the Science education, rebuilding civilization, and completing China's Renaissance.Looking back after a hundred years of tossing, Mr. Hu is not without his reasons.Neglecting real culture and education, only relying on a few prophets to lead a group of blindly fighting and killing melons and dividing the land to kill capitalists, and only aiming at a temporary revolution will not really improve society.After all, the revolution is the cause of liberating people, not just liberating the animals in the pigsty from the yard of the Zhang family to the kitchen of the Li family.

The wheel of history hits the wall.Turning to the second half of the 20th century, "humanistic care" was everywhere in China.In addition to selling pig feed, all kinds of companies have begun to put "people-oriented" signs on the street.Of course, people-oriented is not an imported product, and it can even be said to be the quintessence of China.China has always been people-oriented.It's just that Chinese people are based on restraining people, while Western people are based on respecting and liberating people.Regarding this point, Hu Shi realized something during a trip to the Northeast: the difference between Chinese and Western civilizations is that the former is a rickshaw civilization, while the latter is a motorcycle civilization.Therefore, Hu Shi wanted to liberate China ideologically, rebuild civilization, demand pragmatism, demand Dewey's philosophy, and completely Westernize (the wording later became "full globalization"); because he wanted freedom, he needed tolerance.The tolerance that Hu Shi talked about is not the tolerance that Bodhisattva said.

Hu Shi's lifelong pursuit was to study more problems and talk less about doctrines.The "elementary couplet" written by disciples Tang to Mr. Hu is, "Study more on the economy, so that you can study the problem." "Mr. Hu told me that when he was an undergraduate student at Cornell, he had no interest in economics and did not take economics-related subjects first, so he rarely dabbled in various economics in his life. This is what he said in his later years. Talking about the fatal wound of political issues" "Mr. Hu Shizhi's development of China's democratic politics, he has never come up with a complete set of theories. It is not that he has no talent, but that he has no social sciences This skill! There is no complete set of theories to make a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of China’s political economy in the past hundred years—or even three thousand years—but it’s just a trick to treat the head and feet. If there is reform, it will inevitably be supported and collapsed.”

If Mr. Hu knew that his disciples had concluded his coffin like this, he would be so angry that he would sit up from the coffin.After life and death, after a busy life, his disciples said that he was just a quack doctor who only treated the head for headaches and the feet for feet. Hu Shi made a lot of achievements during his lifetime, and because of this, "my student Mao Zedong" (Hu Shi's words) organized mainland academic circles to criticize millions of words. Hu Shi has two sons, the eldest son Hu Zuwang, named after Hu’s mother Feng Shundi, which means honoring the ancestors; the second son Hu Sidu was gifted by Hu Shi himself, which means “missing Dewey” and expresses his respect for his teacher , It also contains his lifelong vertical belief in liberalism. After 1949, Hu Shi went to the United States, Zuwang remained in the United States, but Sidu stayed in the mainland and was reformed at the North China People's Revolutionary University. On June 27, 1939, Jiang Dongxiu, with a pungent personality, wrote in a letter to Hu Shi: "Little San (Hu Sidu) is dead and worthless. He wants to study politics and become a dog official in the future." In fact, in such a politically overwhelming In those years, even if Hu Sidu didn't ask about politics back then, politics would eventually ask about him.

"I don't want a son, the son is here." Hu Shi once said, "Sidu was created by me."The general idea is that China should choose Dewey, and more importantly, "Sidu" from generation to generation, but he never thought that his son would fly to him and throw guns at him, calling him a "running dog of imperialism." In 1951, Hu Sidu published "Criticism of My Father—Hu Shi" in "China Youth": "His utter loyalty to the opposition finally failed to save the fate of the public enemy of the people. When the national victory came, he left Beijing, leaving China... Today, having received the education of the Party, I am no longer afraid of that historical mountain, dare to recognize it, dare to overthrow it, and dare to use the scale of historical materialism to measure its effect on the people. From In terms of class analysis, I have made it clear that he is a loyal minister of the reactionary class and an enemy of the people. He is not progressive in politics... This series of crimes against the people and his limited (motivation lies in opening up the capitalist road in China Compared with the progressive role of anti-feudalism, the latter is too humble and insignificant... Before he returned to the embrace of the people, he was always the enemy of the people and my own enemy. In today's day when I am determined to betray my own class , I feel the need to distinguish between the enemy and the father. After a long period of struggle, I think that the class is roughly divided into the enemy and the friend, but there are still many places that cannot be clearly separated in the relationship. Except that I am always on guard against this kind of emotion In addition to the harmfulness of the epidemic, I also asked myself to establish the feelings of the workers and peasants.”

I can find many records of Hu Shi's criticism in the eighth volume of "Hu Shi's Diary" (1950-1960). 1 It is worth noting here that Wang Yunsheng, who wrote "Begging for Mercy for the Country", is a great media figure in old China, just like Chu Anping.However, in comparison, Chu Anping maintained his character.Chu Anping's "Observation" has become "New Observation", but Chu Anping is an old man and has maintained his own personality, so he can criticize "Party Tianxia".Wang Yunsheng’s transformation is obvious. For example, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Wang Yunsheng said: “We suggest that the government should do one thing—abolish press censorship and open up freedom of speech.” ("The Government Can Do One Thing First", 1946 September 18) When a reporter from Ta Kung Pao was arrested for covering the student movement, he sternly criticized the atrocities committed by the Kuomintang authorities, and pointedly pointed out that censorship not only serves to “cover up crimes and cover up stubborn evils,” but also would "deceive both the government and the people ... discredit the newspaper"; Journalists and Censorship, June 1947).However, after liberation, although Ta Kung Pao was not changed to Progress Daily, from 1949 to 1952, the circulation of "Ta Kung Pao" dropped sharply from 160,000 to more than 60,000, and advertising revenue decreased by 60%.Using the theory of class struggle as a weapon, Wang Yunsheng constantly introspects, reviews, blames himself, and defiles himself, and actively participates in studies organized by the CPPCC and various social activities.And in 1931, Hu Shi once praised Ta Kung Pao in his article "Young People Are Fearful", "not only has it transformed from a local newspaper in Tianjin into a national public opinion organ, but also deserves the honor of 'the best newspaper in China'." The reason It is "Ta Kung Pao" that insists on two bottom lines: one is "publishing accurate news" and the other is "publishing responsible comments".

In addition, there is a newspaper clipping in Hu Shi's diary on January 8, 1952. The author is George E. Sokolsky, an American columnist, reviewing Hu Shi's recent criticism.He writes, "Hu Shih's contribution to modern China is comparable to that of Dante, Bocheccio, and Petrarch to Renaissance Italy. He bridged the past and the present. He used the spoken language of the people (not His "History of Chinese Philosophy" (Volume 1) is popular in China. He edited and published a large number of novels, which are widely circulated in China and known to everyone. He is known as the father of the "Literary Revolution". Cornell and Columbia, influenced by William James and John Dewey, and bringing American pragmatism back to China. Regardless of what people think of pragmatism, Dr. Hu did not devote all his energy to academics , but became a man of action who had a profound impact on his time."Referring to Husdu's criticism of Hu Shi, the columnist wrote: "Reading this sad article (referring to Hustus's open letter), I cannot help but think of Captain John Swift who ended up in a Hungarian prison. What he said to reporters after his career. He said 'it can't happen to me' and 'it can't happen here' should be removed from the English language." In fact, starting from 1949, colleges and universities in the Beijing-Tianjin area and literary and art circles successively set off rectification and criticism movements.Tang Yongtong, Vice President of Peking University, Qian Duansheng, Dean of Peking University Law School, Jin Yuelin, Dean of the Department of Philosophy of Tsinghua University, and famous professors such as Liang Sicheng, Zhu Guangqian, Fei Xiaotong, and Gu Jiegang all wrote articles criticizing the Chinese liberalism represented by Hu Shi. On December 9, 1954, Guo Moruo published "Three Points of Suggestion" in the "People's Daily", saying: "In the past 30 years in China, the representative of bourgeois idealism has been Hu Shi." When he received a reporter from Guangming Daily on November 8, 1954, he said: "We have declared Hu Shi a war criminal politically." Afterwards until the Cultural Revolution, Hu Shi, who was a "representative of the comprador bourgeoisie and idealism," was finally arrested. The rounds of criticism were riddled with holes. In November 1949, Hu Shi published "Free China" in Taiwan as a publisher. "Free China" advertises freedom and democracy, discusses issues ranging from theory to practice, and its fundamental proposition is freedom of speech and the establishment of an opposition party.It should be said that these propositions of Hu Shi are also fatal to the Taiwan establishment.Chiang Kai-shek regarded Hu Shi's thought as his potential enemy and wanted to get rid of it quickly.They first distributed some pamphlets criticizing Hu Shi and opposing Hu, such as "Hu Shi and the National Games" and "General Attack on Poisonous Thought".The first article of the latter is: "There is a publication called "Free China", which recently has bad intentions and ulterior motives. It uses the signboard of democracy and freedom to send out anti-ism, anti-government, and anti-party platitudes in order to reverse right and wrong and confuse people. Hearing, carrying out the improper purpose of some kind of political ambition.” In April 1930, Hu Shi wrote to Yang Xingfo, saying, "I have been scolded for ten years, and I have never resented those who scolded me. Sometimes they scolded me inappropriately, but I was anxious for them. Sometimes they scolded too much. , against the personalities of those who insult and scold me, I am restless to replace them."In the 1950s, he said again, "I have been scolded for forty years, and I have never been angry, and I have always welcomed it."When he said this, he probably would not have expected that in 1957, his son Hu Sidu was classified as a rightist, and then committed suicide.Hu Shi lost his flesh and blood, and the hope of "Sidu" turned into a wisp of smoke.With its unique cruelty, history has thrown Hu Shi's liberal banner into a pessimistic situation where there are no successors.Jiang Dongxiu often complained, "There are many places in Hu Shi's room for the dead (Hu Shi likes to collect books), but there are few places for the living."In fact, at that time, Hu Shi was in a desolate state, and no one wanted to support him with flesh and blood, and he would not cut flesh and feed like the eighty-first difficulty he rewritten "Avalokitesvara Dianbo Adds One Difficulty Tang Monk Cuts the Flesh to Save the Eagles" After leaving the little ghost, all the sufferings have to be borne by himself. The scholar let out a long sigh! In 2001, I spent half a year reading through "Hu Shi's Collected Works".Because of the following Hu Shi's many theories, decades later, the government that was hostile to him, both the Taiwan authorities and mainland China, are quietly practicing: Hu Shi said, "The meaning of life is to see the development of the next stage of life from this stage of life." Unfortunately, for most of his life, Hu Shi only saw the absurdity and disturbance of our nation.In "Seventy Years of the Late Qing Dynasty", Tang Degang once said that it would take about two hundred years (1840-2040) for China to complete the second social and cultural transformation through the Three Gorges.But as long as you look at the theory tossing in China in the past century, you can see why it is not enough for Mr. Hu to sit up once in the coffin.The author still believes that if you miss Hu Shi, you will miss a hundred years of good times.Hu Shi is not only John-Christophe described by Romain Rolland, but also Olivier.He is an army of ideas, not violence.He was ignored, but no one ever broke him down. Contrary to large-scale criticism, Yin Haiguang, Li Ao and others have highly appraised Hu Shi's thought.In Yin Haiguang's view, Hu Shi's thinking is the thinking of an open self in an open society.The entire Western society is immersed in this kind of thinking.Therefore, in essence, the entire Western society roughly lives in Hu Shi's thought.In other words, Hu Shi's thoughts were roughly extracted from the actual life of the entire Western society.And this kind of thinking is the source of the freedom, equality, happiness and happiness of Westerners.The question now is not whether Hu Shi's thought will be popularized in China in the future, but that Hu Shi's thought must be popularized in China, so that the Chinese can find a way, and the Chinese can live frankly and easily, and only then can China have the possibility of rebirth.Other ways of thinking are either a vent of emotion or a waste of history. Similarly, Li Ao wrote in his article "Hu Shi the Sower": "Obviously, judging from Hu Shi's status today, he is not an outdated person. The outdated society has long since abandoned him, at least no longer paying attention to him... We know that he is still a news figure who is criticized and criticized, The ridiculous thing is that the people who scolded Hu Shizhi were the same as those who praised him, and they couldn't catch it! A person with a little modern mind can know that Hu Shi's thought is just an "open society" (open society). The most basic necessary conditions. It is fine to say that he is deviant, but it is not necessary to say that he is a scourge. Basically, in some points, we still think he is too conservative and too old-fashioned, so we can’t think of these ordinary basic remarks It is really a great tragedy for Chinese society that it is not tolerated by others!" Li Ao also said: "I really hope that Hu Shizhi is out of date. Hu Shizhi's not being out of date proves that we have not made any progress in the past forty years. The progress of academics and the times should come quickly for individuals; academics and the times have surpassed Hu Shizhi It’s better than letting Hu Shizhi sell his old life. Hu Shizhi is a proud person. If he can see that academics and the times are ahead of him, why should he be ashamed of being a laggard?” Regarding Hu Shi and his thoughts, Tang Degang has a wonderful comment in "Hu Shi Miscellaneous Memories", which is excerpted as follows: Going back a hundred years in time, I laughed out loud after reading it, and I burst into tears from laughing.