In 1966, at the beginning of the “Cultural Revolution” movement, I returned to Chongqing from Chengdu on September 5 to visit my Parents at Southwest Normal College (now Southwest University), taking advantage of the “revolutionary suspension of classes” and riding on the east wind of the “Great Revolutionary Cascade”. I went back to Chongqing from Chengdu to visit my parents at Southwest Normal College (now Southwest University). What I saw and heard that day in those crazy times left a deep impression on me, and decades later, these past events still haunt me “when I come to my Dreams“.
It was an ordinary day in those turbulent times, and it is difficult for today’s younger generation to understand the people and events of those days. But that part of history should not be forgotten, “there is a book in the history of Yin Jian”, the lessons of history is worth remembering forever.
- Professor Wu Mi, who “died quickly for the joy of it
On the morning of September 5, 1966, a criticism meeting was held in the playground of the Western Normal University to criticize Vice President Fang Jing and Wang Qingping, who were both designated as anti-Party and anti-socialist members of the capitalist regime. They were standing at the two ends of the podium, wearing high hats and bending over. Among them was Wu Mi, a professor of Chinese and a master of Chinese studies. Wu Mi was driven to the large playground with a wooden cardboard sign that read “Anti-Communist Veteran Wu Mi” and stood in front of the podium as a companion.
I saw several large-print posters about Wu Mi around the playground.
One of them was “Wu Mi released poison in the classroom”. In the classroom, a student asked a question about his lack of understanding of the use of the archaic structure of “況乎” and asked if the teacher could give him an example of a real-Life situation. At the Time of the three-year natural disaster, the daily Food ration was only seven taels, or an average of just over two taels per meal. So without thinking, Wu Mi casually cited the example, “Three taels is not enough, let alone two taels.” This statement was seized upon and put on the line as a vicious attack on the General Line, the Great Leap Forward, and the “Three Red Flags” of the People’s Commune.
It was also written in big letters that Wu Mi had said that “during the May Fourth period, he did not know that there was a Mao Zedong” and that “Mi hates smokers”. The fact that Chairman Mao smokes shows that Wu Mi has a deep-seated hatred for Chairman Mao, that he has opposed him since the May Fourth period, and that he is an old counter-revolutionary. The large-character poster also revealed that during the criticism of Wu Mi, Wu Mi replied, “It is true that Mao Zedong was unknown during the May Fourth Movement.” He did not admit to opposing Chairman Mao and the Communist Party. Thus, the big-character poster ended by cursing Wu Mi: “You are especially an asshole for stubbornly refusing to write the Material for Confession of Crimes and claiming that you have never openly opposed the Party, so watch your dog brain.”
In his diary, Wu Mi wrote: “Mi is seventy-two years old, another two or three years of life or seven or eight years are not important, Mi has no personal worries, and death is not enough to regret. Mi only worries that no one will be able to read the old Chinese scriptures and histories; he regrets that after the “Manuscript of the History of the Qing Dynasty”, there will be no proper history in China, and no private histories will be preserved; he is only saddened by the destruction of Chinese writing and the demise of Chinese Culture.”
In his diary, Wu Mi wrote down his understanding of the criticism of Wu Han: “I read the compilation of criticism of Wu Han in the Chongqing Daily News. In fact, all of Han’s arguments are what Mi would like to say, but Mi is not involved in politics, so he is neither sarcastic and accusatory in his personal anger, nor does he have the foolish loyalty of admonishing and defending.”
Wu Mi valued character, spirit, scholarship, and culture, and he admired his old friend Chen Yinke’s motto: “An independent spirit, a free mind.” His quest was mercilessly destroyed by the political movement. So much so that Wu Mi wrote in his diary at the beginning of the movement, “Mi speaks once, but I am still afraid of being denigrated for expressing my own opinions. After Wu Mi’s diary was copied by his Family, it was criticized as a “reactionary diary” and became one of his sins.
Later, Wu Mi was put into a labor camp, where he had to work with a cane, even though he was old and frail. The cane was stolen by an urchin and thrown into a cesspool, where it floated on the surface of the cesspool with the handle exposed. At this time, Wu Mi was already as thin as a bone, bald and frosty, with a white mustache. He was wearing an old sweatshirt, and the strap of his pants was broken, so he used two shoelaces as straps to hang on his shoulders. It can be said that he has lost all his elegance as a famous professor.
Faced with the successive political campaigns, Wu Mi was physically and mentally exhausted and fearful. As early as 1957, Wu Mi wrote the words “I am not happy to live, but to die quickly”, expressing his desire to be free from the pain of such thoughts. During the Cultural Revolution, after a series of criticisms, house raids, detentions, and labor camps, Wu Mi finally became disillusioned and went on a hunger strike in order to die. However, he was forced to go on a nasal diet, which added to his torture and suffering. This made Wu Mi realize that in these days, there is no freedom to die. Wu Mi was forced to continue to live in humiliation.
- The hallucinating godmother
After the criticism meeting, I saw a teacher (I heard that he was an overseas Chinese) wearing a high hat and touring the campus, when he met a peasant who was heard to be an anti-Party and anti-socialist, and without saying a word, the peasant drenched him with a scoop of dung. The Chinese teacher had no choice but to admit his bad luck.
In front of the administration building, I saw dozens of students from abroad staging a sit-in, demanding that the preparatory committee of the Western Normal School (the leadership team leading the Cultural Revolution) meet them and have a dialogue with them. But the committee refused to meet with them, so they staged a sit-in. I thought that I was a returning student from abroad and should support each other, so I joined the sit-in in a confused manner. The sit-in lasted for several hours, and as darkness fell, the struggle was finally won.
I finally got out of the sit-in. But I was not in a hurry to go Home. I wanted to go around and look at the big-character posters first.
There were large-character columns everywhere, in all the teaching buildings, on both sides of the boulevard, in front of the administration building, in front of the library, all covered with large-character columns and plastered with large-character posters. The incandescent and fluorescent lights shone like daylight. Even though it was after 10:00 p.m., there were still a lot of people watching the large-character posters.
I saw a familiar figure in front of the large-character poster board, my godmother. My godmother’s name is Tu You Yun and she works in the school library. Tu You Yun was my mother’s classmate and best friend when she was a student, so I have recognized her as my godmother since I was a child. My godmother’s husband is Pan, an old friend of my father’s. Uncle Pan is the vice provost of the Southwest Teachers College. Uncle Pan was outed as an anti-Party anti-socialist in June and had his house raided by the Red Guards.
In the light of the fluorescent lamp, Godmother’s face was blue. I was about to go up to her and say hello, but she turned around and walked away silently. It seems that Godmother does not want to talk to familiar people on such occasions and prefers to pretend that she does not know them.
As I looked at her short, thin back, I remembered all the good things about my godmother. When I was in high school, I would take my parents’ library card to the library every holiday and ask my godmother to help me borrow books, carrying them home in big bags, and then reading like crazy, like a thirsty land sucking rain, which was a great pleasure in life.
My godmother had a son named Yusheng, who was a year older than me, and I regarded him as my elder brother and often played together. Once for some reason, we had a fight and Yusheng ignored me for more than a month afterwards. My godmother said sadly to my mother, “Your old man is so cruel that he bruised my Yusheng’s body.” Although my godmother was angry, she soon forgave me.
When I graduated from junior high school, my godmother gave me a set of “100,000 Questions” as a token of congratulations. And Uncle Pan took Yusheng and me to Chengjiang Town to eat river dumplings, the fresh fish made my lips and teeth taste good, and I often came back to it later. My godmother has only one son, and her family is well-off, so she lives a very elegant life and can often go to restaurants.
After seeing my godmother on the night of September 5, a year or so later, she became ill and was hospitalized, her face was thin and haggard, she was in a trance and was talking nonsense. My parents went to see her, and as soon as we met she said, “Did you know that Jiang Qing and Premier Zhou are here? I reported to the chief, they knew me well, said I had suffered, my body had suffered, and instructed me to pay more attention to nutrition. The chief told me that Lao Pan was a proletarian in power and had been beaten up and had to be sent to a serious hospital.” Godmother was hallucinating due to mental agitation.
The Chinese people always put their hopes on the puritan, the big man, the chief, while a hundred years ago the common people of Europe sang in the International Anthem: “There has never been any savior, nor does it depend on the gods and emperors; to create human happiness, it all depends on ourselves.” This was the voice of spiritual liberation.
Later, Southwest Normal College became a battlefield of martial fighting between two factions of mass organizations, and one faction of mass organizations was beaten out of the school by the other faction. My parents also became refugees, fleeing their homes and taking refuge in the homes of relatives and friends. During this period, we were not paid for several months, and it was only through the financial help of my godmother that my family survived that difficult period. That’s why I am grateful to my godmother.
In 1968, she passed away with regrets and illusions. I did not understand why a revolutionary movement would hurt ordinary people. A gentle, kind and uncontentious person like Godmother could not escape the impact and persecution of the movement.
- My father who appreciated “Night Talk in Yanshan
My father was the director of the English teaching and research department of the foreign language department. In front of the large-character poster board of the foreign language department, I saw dozens of large-character posters about my father: “Li Junyue is a representative of the bourgeoisie who has infiltrated the Party”, “Li Junyue’s anti-Party and anti-socialist words and deeds must be exposed to the full”. My father has always liked to expose his thoughts, not afraid of the cold, without scruples, and considers himself open-minded, “nothing can be said to others”. The campaign came to be the material for the big words.
I looked at them, there is my father in the organizational life of the live thoughts exposed, there are daily trivialities, there are teaching ideological problems, there are red relations problems, some are even moving right and wrong inexplicable things, these are not things on the line. But I saw a damning revelation: a professor once told his father that “Chairman Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, was originally a movie actress, Lan Ping,” and that this professor had known Lan Ping in Shanghai before the liberation, and that he had gone to Yan’an from Shanghai to join the farewell party.
The professor said, “Who knew that she would later marry Chairman Mao.” My father said, “Everything is fine with the Chairman, but on this issue ……” (My father later recalled that he did not say this, but that he once reported rumors about Jiang Qing to the branch secretary, who made this remark, which was held over my father’s head in large print.)
This was a material that could be convicted of a major crime, and my father immediately wrote a complaint. Fortunately, in this environment of the Western Division, there were many “big tigers” and “big counterrevolutionaries” in front of us, and my father had no historical problems, so he was not taken out of the fight, paraded through the streets, nor was he classified as a “cow devil or snake god”. The “cow ghosts and snake gods” are not included.
I found the content about me in my father’s big-character posters. The newspaper revealed that my father admired Deng Tuo’s “Yanshan Night Talk” and that even his son read it and brought it to the middle school to poison his classmates, and later to Sichuan University to poison them.
In 1961, Deng Tuo opened a column called “Yanshan Night Talk” in the Beijing Evening News, with short, concise, topical, interesting and moral articles. My father loved palimpsests and allusions, and because he loved them and collected them, he was very interested in Yanshan Nocturne. After the publication of “Yanshan Night Talk” in the newspaper, every 30 articles were published in separate collections. Whenever a collection was published, my sister, who was studying in Beijing, bought it and sent it back to my father to read first, and then I brought it to the middle school to read, without lending it to others.
In the Cultural Revolution, Deng Tuo was beaten as the boss of the “three villages”, and “Yanshan Night Talk” was beaten as a “big poisonous grass”, on the night of May 17, Deng Tuo wrote “a letter to the Beijing Municipal Committee” and “a letter of farewell to his wife”. On the night of May 17, Deng Tuo wrote “A Letter to the Beijing Municipal Party Committee” and “A Letter of Farewell to His Wife” and hanged himself on May 18, becoming the first martyr to fight with death in those extraordinary years. After that, my father surrendered the “Yanshan Night Talk” to the party branch, and the political counselor even took it to the students to circulate, so that everyone could see the “big poisonous grass” and why it was brought to Sichuan University.
In those days, the big-character posters, hearsay, catching wind of things can be written up, the exposer will not be held legally responsible, only considered by the leadership as a manifestation of active participation in the “Cultural Revolution” movement.
It was late at night, after 12 o’clock, when I set out on my way home. When I stood in front of the familiar door of my house, I saw that the light was still on in my father’s room. I knocked gently on the door, and it took a while before I heard the sound of the door opening. When the door opened, my father’s face was pale with panic, and my mother and brother were right behind my father, the family had not slept, thinking that the rebel students had come to raid the house overnight. I was relieved to see that I had returned. But my father’s expression of discomfort was burned into my memory, and I still remember it.
Although my father was on tenterhooks, he was not raided, which was one of the best things that could have happened to him. But my father, who was frightened by the revolutionary storm, still picked up a load of books and handed them in himself. Among them were the Stone Records, the Mustard Seed Garden, the Bible, and other ancient Chinese and foreign books, as well as the family tree, My Experience, left by my grandfather. These books and materials have gone without return, especially my grandfather’s “My Experience” describes the extraordinary life experiences of my grandfather during the decades from the Qing Dynasty to the war, it is too bad that they were lost, and I have deeply regretted.
The 109 cadres and teachers who were struggled on September 5, 1966, in the large playground of the Southwest Teacher’s College must have had difficulty sleeping that day, including their families. As Wu Mi wrote in his diary, from then on Mi and others became “sinners”, that is, “enemies” of the people’s dictatorship, that is, cattle, ghosts and snakes, and “anti-Party, anti-socialist, anti-Mao Zedong Thought bourgeois rightists “They were subject to the control of the Red Guards and supervised labor reform, and could not be free.
“After the end of the Cultural Revolution, a Writer summarized the Cultural Revolution as follows: “One person was excited, 800 million people lost sleep.” This is a great image.
“After the Cultural Revolution, my father bought a new edition of Yanshan Night Talk (a collection). After my father died, I took this book out of my father’s bookshelf as a memento of that period of history.
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