Chapter 28 chapter Ten

It seems that it is time to do a good job of introspection.A true Marxist should have the courage and spirit of self-criticism.Vladimir Ilyich had it, Rosa Luxemburg had it, Le D. Trotsky had it.He—Ji Boshun, a Chinese revolutionist who has persevered in pursuing the truth of communism since his youth, shouldn't he have this kind of courage and spirit?Surrendering to the truth is by no means a shame for a revolutionary, Ji Boshun knew.However, he wants to find out more, the crux of the problem is: have Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists, who created the People's Republic of China and controlled the state power, really grasped the truth?Did they really develop Marxism in the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution, as Gao Ming said, or did they use the beautiful banner of Marxism to replace Marxism with populism plus opportunism?This point is very important and must first be clarified theoretically and practically.

Gao Ming did not break his promise, and a week later, he sent people to deliver dozens of Marxist-Leninist works in Chinese, Russian, and English to Ji Boshun.At the same time, books such as Mao Zedong's "On New Democracy", "On Practice", "On Contradiction" published in the liberated areas and some mimeographed publications were also sent.Ji Boshun started to read with an almost crazy enthusiasm, thinking and recalling while reading. Thinking about this period, Ji Boshun wrote in "People Who Are Faithful to Faith": "...Under the dim light, amidst the footsteps of the patrolling guards, I flipped through the pages of the familiar but unfamiliar book, the book for which I dedicated my youth, freedom and life. Nearly half of China The revolutionary struggles of the century rolled before my eyes. I was surprised to find that the Chinese Trotskyists were not real, or at least not complete Marxists. Their tendency to dogmatism was too serious, including myself. They did not really Practice Comrade Trotsky's great theory about the Chinese revolution, so it is impossible to establish a strong and stable vanguard camp among the Chinese proletariat, and then form the main force leading the Chinese revolution. They are destined to be in China Failure. The most absurd thing is that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, after Comrade Trotsky clearly proposed the wise strategy of overthrowing Japanese imperialism militarily while actively preparing to overthrow the Kuomintang politically, many of them were still Persevere in pursuing its defeatist claims.

"...Although the Chinese Communists do not recognize it in theory, they have truly implemented Comrade Trotsky's wise strategy in practice. Mao Zedong and his comrades in Yan'an cooperated with the Kuomintang to fight against Japan. At the same time, they actively Expand and strengthen our own revolutionary forces, and vigorously develop revolutionary armed forces. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Mao Zedong’s regular army and local armed forces have reached millions. Therefore, after defeating the Japanese invaders, he has the political power to seize national power in one fell swoop. Prospects. The facts are also the same. This war of resistance exhausted the vitality of the Kuomintang to the greatest extent and nourished the Communist Party in Yan’an. As expected, after three years, the Kuomintang reactionaries got out of mainland China, and the Communist Party won the new China. Our Chinese trust Therefore, the historical fate of the faction and the opposition was decided. We were extremely unfairly ridiculed as political waste, accused of being traitors and counter-revolutionaries.

"...we are facing today the harsh reality that the Trotsky-Leninists faced in the USSR at the end of the twenties. Against this reality, Comrade Trotsky said in 1928: Theoretical deduction and political experience show that The reactionary force of history, negation, that is, the era of reaction, may arise not only after the bourgeois revolution, but also after the proletarian revolution. The most obvious and mature manifestation of this reaction in the party is the brutal expulsion of the revolutionary left , persecution, massacres, and the devastating destruction of leftist organizations...”

This is the result of Ji Boshun's introspection during the two and a half years from December 1949 to June 1952.Based on this shocking result, the Qingpu City People's Court sentenced him to life imprisonment for counter-revolutionary crimes.The verdict stated: Boshun Ji, who stubbornly adhered to the reactionary stance of the Trotskyists, shamelessly praised Trotsky, the leader of the counter-revolutionary Trotskyists, viciously attacked the Chinese Communist Party and Comrade Stalin, the great leader of the world proletariat, and baselessly slandered the Chinese Communist Party for passive resistance. Instigate a civil war, complain for the Jiang family dynasty...

Also in December of this year, all remaining members of the Trotskyists in China were arrested overnight.The Trotskyist Opposition as a political organization, whether open or secret, has disappeared forever in mainland China.Ji Boshun didn't know about the situation outside the prison at that time, he only knew that many people were imprisoned in the prison at once.One of his acquaintances turned out to be Zhao Qingsheng, the worker comrade who had served as his bodyguard in Qingpu in 1938. Zhao Qingsheng's crime is also a historical counter-revolutionary, and the fact of the counter-revolutionary is: he has actively engaged in the activities of the Trotskyite organization.Ji Boshun knew that Zhao Qingsheng joined Sun Yue's Trotskyist Communist Party in 1938, but he didn't know that after Sun Yue was imprisoned and died, Zhao Qingsheng continued to lead the Qingpu Trotskyist Party to fight until Qingpu was liberated, and the party branch was automatically disbanded .Since Zhao Qingsheng stopped his activities after liberation, he was not arrested at that time.It was not until this national unified operation that he was arrested almost at the same time as the remnants of the Trotskyites in various places.

Ji Boshun was both indignant and excited.Sadly, although he knew that the persecution of Trotskyites would continue after the victory of the proletarian revolution, he did not expect that Zhao Qingsheng would be arrested if they stopped their activities.What is exciting is that the strength of the Trotskyist party has ebbed and flowed. Just as the old Trotskyites kept going to jail, generations of Trotskyist revolutionaries grew up again.According to Zhao Qingsheng, just after he disbanded the Trotskyist Party and stopped organizing activities, two college student party members of Qingpu Teachers College, a male and a female, continued their activities.The two college students were a pair of lovers. The female college student sold her family's real estate to finance the revolution. The two went to Shanghai. With the support of the Shanghai Trotskyist Party, they published three consecutive issues of the weekly "Clarion".Call on the people to continue the revolution and turn this Mao Zedong-style peasant populist revolution into a real proletarian revolution.As a result, when the fourth issue of "The Horn" was being printed, the two were arrested at the same time in the underground printing factory and the head of the Shanghai Trotskyist organization. When they were arrested, the female college student was five months pregnant.

Ji Boshun didn't see these two trustworthy Trotskyist college students during his years of captivity. After he was released by amnesty, he met them at the final gathering place of China's four generations of Trotskyites in Shiquan Village, Shanghai.Shiquan No. 1 Village in Shanghai is a shelter set up by the government for all the homeless Trotskyites after release.If Ji Boshun hadn't been taken in by his younger sister's family, he would have spent the rest of his life there.After meeting and chatting carefully, Ji Boshun found out that the two college students were both sentenced to life imprisonment after being arrested. After the two were released from prison, they were never found again.Ji Boshun asked them: Do you regret it?The male college student said that he has no regrets, but it is a pity that his life was wasted, and now he still receives living expenses from the public security organs every month.The female college student cried and said that it is false not to regret it, especially women, they shouldn't live like this!

Ji Boshun was silent, for the female college student who lost her child and youth, and for himself. In fact, he shouldn't live like this in his life. He can change many ways of living, but for his faith, he chose this kind of suffering. In June 1952, when he heard the sentence of life imprisonment, as a prisoner of the Communist Party, he might have to shut up from now on, maybe forever, otherwise, the next step waiting for him would be the bullet of suppression.The same situation had already occurred in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and Ji Boshun knew it very well.But he can't give up his faith, never!The prison can detain him, but it is absolutely impossible to separate him from his faith.

Shut up, not because he is afraid of death, but because he needs to spend the remaining years of his life understanding Marxism more deeply and seeing for himself how the Chinese Communist Party has transformed this self-proclaimed new democratic revolution into socialism revolution.Ji Boshun even dreamed that one day, when the Communist Party of China announces that it will carry out a socialist revolution, it will really invite him out of prison to explain Marxism and Toro to the leaders of the peasant revolution. Tsky, tell me about the problems Russia encountered after the October Socialist Revolution.

At that time, Ji Boshun believed that as a revolutionary, he had every reason to live for this day. Therefore, Ji Boshun was not very surprised when he heard the sentence of life imprisonment, and he didn't feel anything terrible. Prison life was no stranger to him for a long time. He had already adapted and got used to it.Sometimes he even thinks that he has never been a free person, that he has been in prison since he was born, and that the free life in his memory is a bit like an illusory dream, very unrealistic and unreliable.What is reliable is the prison's iron gates, iron windows, iron fences, and the wall full of mosquito blood that can be touched with hands. Ji Boshun's life has merged with all these. Thought drifts outside all these substances, and his body also belongs to the category of this substance.Therefore, his thoughts are also drifting outside his body and are free.With the freedom of thought, the real material world and the body itself are not so important.At this time—Ji Boshun said in "The Faithful Man": "...you may not feel that you are imprisoned in prison at all, and you will not even feel much pain when someone beats you. You hang your head and look at your body from the neck down, and you will feel very painful Strange: Hey, who is this filthy guy in prison clothes?" This is a state, and in 1956, when Ji Boshun was fifty-three years old, he basically entered this state.At that time, he had effectively shut his mouth for five years, and his free thoughts were no longer used to speaking through his mouth, but came out from his nostrils with gasps.No one hears the thoughts that spew out, and his body is submissive and honest in the eyes of others.Because of his obedience and honesty, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and together with Zhao Qingsheng and a dozen other prisoners, he was sent to a seaside salt farm more than 900 miles away from Qingpu for labor reform. This happened in August 1956, and it was very hot. Ji Boshun remembered that when he was taken to the saltworks, he passed out due to heat stroke on the road. Also in the summer of that year, when Ji Boshun and a few young prisoners hunched over and shoveled salt into the linen pockets, a bald old prisoner with a big head and glasses was escorted to him by two guards and participated in their labor force.Ji Boshun didn't expect this to be an acquaintance.When eating at noon, the old prisoner came up to him and whispered, "Hey, I seem to have seen you somewhere?" Ji Boshun was startled, and recognized him immediately: the man was the pig-headed military judge who was arrested for the first time in 1933 and interrogated him in Shanghai.I couldn't help being taken aback, and couldn't help but look at the pig's head carefully. The pig-headed military judge is also very old, a once fat face is covered with loose flesh, wrinkles are piled on the forehead, a pair of glasses with broken legs are ridiculously placed on the wine-stained nose, yes, Even on this occasion, Ji Boshun still found the glasses ridiculous.Ji Boshun couldn't laugh either.The reality is too cruel.Back then, during the trial presided over by the pig-headed military judge, he had declared that he and his comrades were going to judge them, but now he was in the same position as them to be judged. Ji Boshun withdrew his appreciative gaze, shook his head numbly, and continued to nibble on the dried sweet potato noodles and steamed buns in his hand. The pig-headed military judge quietly moved closer to Ji Boshun again: "Hey, isn't your name Ji...Ji...Is it Uncle Ji?" Ji Boshun squeezed out a sentence between his teeth: "I don't know you!" But the pig-headed military judge grabbed Ji Boshun's hand: "Oh, I remembered! You...your name is Ji Boshun!" The guards intervened at this critical moment and shouted, "Wu Yuke, don't speak!" "Yes! Yes!" The pig-headed military judge nodded repeatedly. Only then did Ji Boshun know that the military judge he knew 23 years ago was named Wu Yuke. After that, Wu Yuke would come to Ji Boshun's side from time to time while working, chatting with him indifferently, seeing no one around, and asked him sarcastically: "...how is it, Ji Boshun, the Communist Party treats you well?" You are not thin, are you? The prisons of your Communist Party are much more comfortable than the prisons of our Kuomintang back then?" Ji Boshun ignored it, pretending he didn't hear it. Wu Yuke thought that Ji Boshun was timid and regretted it, and said even more brazenly: "...Don't you feel that something is wrong with this world? Think about it, what kind of Marxism was created by that bearded fellow in Germany? Is there a moment of peace?" At that time, Ji Boshun was carrying salt with Wu Yuke one behind the other, he was in front and Wu Yuke was behind.Hearing this, Ji Boshun couldn't keep silent, dropped the heavy salt basket, turned around, glared at Wu Yuke and said, "Shut your mouth!" Wu Yuke looked back and forth, saw that no one was paying attention, and said, "What? Are you impatient? Look at your unlucky appearance, do you still live like a human being? Even today, you still cling to the bullshit belief. What are you trying to figure out!" Ji Boshun lost his mind all of a sudden, his head became dizzy for some reason, and he danced with the pole in his hand for some reason, and went to beat Wu Yuke.The beating made Wu Yuke run around with his head in his arms, shouting for help.Ji Boshun didn't care, and staggered all the way to chase after him. He didn't stop until a young guard ran over with a gun, and numbly dropped his pole. Seeing the detainees, Wu Yuke made a "plop" and knelt down in front of the white pile of salt, with snot and tears coming out together: "The government wants to decide for me, you...you saw, he...he beat Me! He...he said that you are not the real Communist Party, only he is the real Communist Party, I don't believe him, he...he beat me!" The young guard had probably seen Wu Yuke's tricks before, and lifted his collar and shouted: "Stand up!" Wu Yuke did not stand, and threw his snot and tears at the detainees' feet: "The government wants to decide for me. I understand the law, and I know that the Trotskyists are counter-revolutionaries! I... I understand the law. Beating people breaks the law, violates...violates human rights... " The detainee was furious, and kicked Wu Yuke down on the salt pile: "Stand up, if you don't stand up, I'll kill you! Beating someone breaks the law, it depends on who you beat. I don't care about old counter-revolutionaries like you who resist reform." To fight!" Wu Yuke was honest, crying "Wooooowahwah", like a child who has fallen and been scolded by his parents. The detainees turned to Ji Boshun: "What's the matter with you? Don't you know that beating someone violated the prison rules? Do you want to give another life sentence?" Ji Boshun stared at the young guard: "I can't tolerate him insulting my personality and slandering my belief!" The young guard asked sarcastically, "Faith? What kind of belief do counter-revolutionary Trotskyists like you have?" Ji Boshun stubbornly insisted: "I am a Trotskyite, not a counter-revolutionary, I have my revolutionary beliefs..." The young guard became angry and slapped Ji Boshun first, then took off the handcuffs around his waist and handcuffed Ji Boshun into a dark and damp confinement room.A week later, Ji Boshun's wrists were bloodied, the backs of his hands were swollen like steamed buns, and he developed a high fever. His life was dying, so the guards released him from the handcuffs. After he came out, Ji Boshun became deaf and dumb, and he didn't care about anything that happened around him. When it was his turn to call names, he nodded or shook his head, and at most he said "yes", his voice was Dry and short.During his hospitalization in Yanchang Hospital, Zhao Qing, the only Trotskyist comrade Ji Boshun knew, fell ill and died.