Chapter 11 1. Avoid Wuxi

Ding Ling said many times in her later years that the problems of the Writers Association in 1957 began in 1955, and the problems of 55 years arose from Hu Feng, and from the criticism of the "Literary Daily" in 54 years. We must fight!After criticizing the research, I immediately turned to criticizing Hu Feng. In January 1955, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee submitted the "Report on Criticizing Hu Feng's Thought" to the Central Committee. The report believed that Hu Feng's literary and artistic thoughts were anti-Party and anti-people literary and artistic thoughts, and his activities were activities of sectarian small groups with the purpose of Attempts to transform society and our country according to his own appearance, and opposes socialist construction and socialist transformation.The central government approved the report and asked party committees at all levels to view it as an important struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie. On February 5th and 7th, Ding Ling attended the 13th enlarged meeting of the Presidium of the Chinese Writers Association. The meeting decided to launch a thorough and comprehensive criticism of Hu Feng's literary theory.

But Ding Ling was not interested in criticizing Hu Feng, and she would not have foreseen that the situation would develop to such a serious extent later.After the meeting, she went to Wuxi with Chen Ming and hid there to write "In the Cold Days".On the eve of her departure, she wrote to her daughter Jiang Zuhui, who was in the hospital, saying that she originally wanted to wait for Zuhui to be discharged from the hospital before leaving, but if she didn’t, she would “have to attend the meeting and delay the article, so I had to decide to leave. " When they arrived in Wuxi, they first lived in the communication office, and then moved to Yuantouzhu near Taihu Lake two days later, and lived in Wanfang Building, an independent small building in Jiangsu Provincial Sanatorium. She and Chen Ming lived upstairs, and Xia Gengqi lived downstairs. .The house was a bit cold and damp when we first went there, so they lit a fire to warm up. On March 9, Ding Ling wrote to Zu Hui, saying: "My work started smoothly. I revised the old manuscript and copied it again. Up to now, I have sorted out 20,000 characters, which is still far away, and there are still difficulties. But anyway, I'm going to get over it, and I hope to have 150,000 words by summer."

At this moment in Beijing, the storm was about to come, the sky was low and the clouds were dark, and the air was filled with the excitement and excitement before the big struggle.In April, Liu Baiyu, who is full of fighting spirit, was transferred from the position of deputy director of the Culture Department of the General Political Department of the PLA to the China Writers Association, and was added as the deputy secretary of the party group of the Writers Association. Come May, the struggle intensifies. Hu Feng’s wife, Mei Zhi, recalled: “On the afternoon of May 16th, while we were having dinner, the doorbell rang. Liu Baiyu led several cadres whom he had never seen before, and several of them wandered around the courtyard. Liu Baiyu asked Hu Feng Feng introduced that this was a police officer from the Ministry of Public Security. The man took out an arrest warrant with the red seal of the Ministry of Public Security, and Hu Feng understood everything. The visitor only asked a few questions, and then began to search everything .Liu Baiyu left first after completing the task of leading the people. In the early morning of the next day, Hu Feng and his wife were taken away from their home one after another.” It was already the 17th.

Four days ago, on May 13, the "People's Daily" just published "Some Materials on Hu Feng's Anti-Party Clique".When the third batch of materials was published on June 10, the title was changed to "The Third Batch of Materials About the Hu Feng Counter-Revolutionary Clique". "Anti-Party group" was changed to "counter-revolutionary group", which became more serious in nature. All of this happened during Ding Ling's stay in Wuxi.Although there had been a series of obvious signs before this, she was deeply shocked by how things developed so quickly and how deterministic they were.Ding Ling in Wuxi's study could no longer stay in the peach blossom garden, right and wrong, so she quickly picked up a pen to make a knife and gun. On May 23, the article "Where Are the Enemies" written by her criticizing Hu Feng was published on the third page of "People's Daily".This is not only because she is the vice-chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, she must make a clear statement on such a big political issue, but also because she and Hu Feng are old friends who have had a friendship for more than 20 years, and they must draw a clear line at this critical moment.It is a pity that this article was neither included in the "Collected Works of Ding Ling" published in Hunan in the 1980s, nor in the "Complete Works of Ding Ling" published in Hebei at the beginning of this century. It has become a rare "strange article".

In her later years, Ding Ling often felt sorry for this matter, especially after learning that Hu Feng had terminal cancer in 1985.She wanted to write an article, so she asked her secretary Wang Zengru to search for "Where is the Enemy?" On June 17, Wang Zengru found this article in the Beijing library and immediately called, and Chen Ming asked her to copy the full text back.But since then Ding Ling was hospitalized twice due to her poor health, and the article was never completed.