Chapter 18 Prologue

Uncle has been searching for that ship, the Japanese "Yamato Maru" that sailed out of Qingpu Harbor in 1925.He believed that it was the ship of fate that sent him to a land of truth and made him find his lifelong faith.Until his death, the uncle still missed the ship, and when the last ray of life flashed in his eyes, he murmured: "The whistle is sounding, we are going to... let the ship go..." My uncle came to my house ten years ago.At that time, I was not a teacher at Qingpu Teachers College, but a worker, peasant and soldier college student who had just entered school.I came back from school and saw him at the door of the house.It was an early autumn evening, and the sky was blood red.He was wearing an old suit of unclear material, carrying an old-fashioned broken suitcase, and a yellow satchel on his shoulders. He staggered and looked at my door. His old and tired face was illuminated by the blood-red sky. .I didn't expect him to have anything to do with our family. I thought it was a person asking for directions. When I walked to the door, I asked by the way: "Hey, who are you looking for?"

He raised his white-haired head to look at me, hesitated for a moment, then looked at the courtyard gate of my house, bowed his waist very respectfully and asked me: "Hey! Comrade... this... here is Liberation Road 42?" I nodded. "Why... why is there no house number?" "It's rusted away." "Oh! Oh!" He breathed a sigh of relief, changed the broken suitcase to the other hand, tried his best to straighten his stooped and thin body, and was about to walk into the gate of my house. I stopped him: "Hey, hey, who are you looking for?" He smiled and said my mother's name.

I was surprised. Mother and father heard the movement and came out.The mother cried when she saw him, and the father stood there speechless.But he smiled, showing a mouthful of incomplete teeth, and the wrinkles on his face appeared many and deep. "Home! Home!" he said. Mother also said with tears in her eyes: "I'm home! I'm home!" I found out later that he is my mother's eldest brother and my eldest uncle.My mother's name is Ji Bohua, and his name is Ji Boshun.He was 22 years older than my mother. My mother was not yet born when he ran from Beijing to Qingpu to cause industrial disturbances in 1924; when he went to the Soviet Union on the Japanese "Yamato Maru" in 1925, my mother was less than one year old.He became a Trotskyite and was unlucky all his life. He spent all his life in prison, first in the Kuomintang prison, then in the Japanese prison, and then in the Communist Party after liberation. He was not released together until recently when the government pardoned all the war criminals in custody.He had never been married in his life, and after he came out, he was homeless, so he had to come to our house.According to my father, after my uncle was released, he wrote letters to other uncles and aunts about his settlement, but none of them were willing to accept them. My uncle was stranded in a small town near a labor camp in Anhui for fifty-six years. sky.

The dinner that day was very rich, and there was wine, but the eldest uncle didn't drink. He just talked, sometimes China, sometimes the Soviet Union, sometimes Vladimir Ilyich, sometimes Leonid Trotsky, and he talked a little sentence in Russian. After dinner, my uncle and I went to bed in the attic together.There are two beds in the attic, one for him and one for me.But he didn't sleep, pushed open the window, looked at the distant and hazy water color outside the window and asked me: "Is it the sea?" I said, "No, it's a lake, Dongping Lake." The uncle sighed, nodded his gray head and said, "No wonder it's so peaceful."

I told my uncle that the sea is far away, at least five miles away, and I can't see it from the attic of my house.The elder uncle didn't believe it, and stood in front of the window staring blankly, with one hand on his waist and the other pressing on the window sill. Because of his stooped body, his head and upper body were almost tilted out of the window. The skirt of the suit was curled up stiffly, like a statue. The statue stood up in front of the attic window from that night, and stood there for nine years, until the fire of life in his body was extinguished little by little, and he fell down softly.Even after his death, the urn has been placed in front of this window sill, and my mother won't let anyone move it.Mother said, since he likes it here, let him stay here quietly!He has always been in prison all his life, it is hard enough, and at the end of the day, he must have a destination.

My mother thought it was meant to be. You can't help but believe in this thing.Pay attention to this attic, and then look at this urn, you may be amazed: there are many things in this world that are really unclear.The two sides of the attic are cornered, and the two sides of the urn are also cornered, it is simply a shrunken attic.The urn is custom-made, no one told them to make it like this beforehand, so they made it like this, don't you think it's strange?My mother was almost dumbfounded when she saw the urn. No one sent a funeral for the elder uncle, and no one held a memorial service for him. We only held a simple family-style cremation ceremony. The younger uncle in Shanghai and the third aunt in Sichuan have not yet come.When the funeral home staff in white coats pushed away my uncle's body, I cried and experienced the sadness for the first time.

The uncle came naked and left naked again. There is no flesh and blood of him in this noisy world.The only treasure he left behind is the manuscript he wrote on the table in front of the attic window for nine years: "The Faithful Man". Now when I mention my uncle, I still feel very uncomfortable, and I can't express my feelings.I lived with him in an attic for nine years and experienced an incredible life.If I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I don't believe there would be such a person in the world. He gets up before five o'clock every day. After getting up, no matter whether it is winter or summer, he washes his face and body with cold water, and then runs.I don't run outside, I just walk around the house where we live, as if I'm afraid of meeting anyone.He devoured the meal, and he finished two bowls before others finished one bowl.I don't go out for a walk, as if I don't need freedom at all. After eating, I climb to the attic to write. When I am tired, I stand there with my hand on the window sill.Sometimes, standing, standing, tears would roll from his dim eyes.I quietly told my mother, and my mother told me to leave him alone.Mother said: He may have remembered something sad again.I also write at night and smoke, making the whole attic look like it's on fire.When I went to open the door and open the window, he looked at me uneasily and smiled awkwardly.

The manuscript was torn up and written, and then it became thicker and thicker.I asked him to come and see, but he refused.He said that the time has not come. Due to the limitations of history, my generation and I still cannot understand his books, nor can we read his books.His book is written for the next century, the future generation of communists.The merits and crimes of thousands of years must be judged by the future. Uncle is stubborn and confident, and believes that he has been engaged in a great and sacred Marxist cause all his life.He admitted that he was a Trotskyist, but he never admitted that he was a historical counter-revolutionary, whether when he lost his freedom or after he gained it.He proclaimed that he was a revolutionary Marxist, and that he never intended to give up his firm beliefs.Therefore, the book he wrote was named "The Faithful Man".

He knows a lot. The distant Moscow, the characters and stories in the history of the International Communist Movement, which are full of historical events, often appear on his lips.His memory is amazing, and he can accurately describe the specific scenes when he saw Trotsky in the parade decades ago, and he can describe the time when he participated in the "Left Opposition Congress of the Chinese Communist Party" in Shanghai in the 1930s. The biographies and faces of many of the Trotskyite representatives in the The last time my uncle saw Trotsky was in Moscow in the autumn of 1927, at the funeral of A. A. Joffe, a famous Soviet politician and then Foreign Minister.Joffe was a supporter and close friend of Trotsky, and his funeral became the last demonstration of Trotsky's opposition.At that time, the coffin containing Joffe's body was parked in the building of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the road Byanka Street.The street outside the building was full of people. Accompanied by Radek, the president of Sun Yat-sen University, Trotsky appeared among his supporters. People sang enthusiastic songs, "Long live Comrade Trotsky, the leader of the Red Army!" "The voice suppressed all the noise.The members of the Communist Youth League shouted to the Red Army soldiers lined up on the street: "Soldier comrades, let's shout long live for the leader and founder of the Red Army, Comrade Trotsky!" Raised above the head.

The uncle repeated again and again the scene when he saw Trotsky for the last time, so I can almost recite his description. I brought my uncle’s urn back from the funeral home and put it in front of the attic window. I read his manuscript. Many things he told me are contained in the manuscript. The Japanese ship "Yamato Maru" in 1925, The funeral of A. A. Yuefei in the New Virgin Cemetery in Moscow in 1927 is fully recorded in detail. For the "Yamato Maru", he wrote a chapter dedicated to it, titled: The whistle is sounding, and the ship is about to sail. In this chapter, the great uncle wrote——

...The strike of the general alliance in Qingpu was cruel and severe due to the intervention of the warlord supervisor Zhao Yulin.The executive committee of the Federation of Trade Unions decided to withdraw and made a decision at the last executive committee meeting on October 17, 1925.And I knew the intention to retreat two days ago at the party meeting with An Zhongliang and Gao Ming, and I knew that An Zhongliang had ordered the ship "Yamato Maru" for me, Gao Ming and a worker executive committee member named Zheng Shaobai ticket. At that time, I didn't know the significance of the "Yamato Maru" to my life. At that critical moment, what I cared about was not the "Yamato Maru" or the road to truth in the future, but a girl surnamed Qian. Yes, I kept thinking about that girl, that bourgeois lady, that gray morning.I'm not going to hide that.I would also like to say that I was not a mature revolutionary at that time, let alone a mature Marxist. I was once confused by a bourgeois lady who was the daughter of the president of the General Chamber of Commerce. Rosa Luxemburg said: "Self-criticism, ruthless, sharp, and deep-rooted self-criticism, is the sunshine and air that make the proletarian movement vibrant." I will insist on reviewing my life from the perspective of self-criticism History.A truthful and critical account of the past...