A rightist who had an affair with a female subordinate’s wife mocked herself at a criticism meeting for sleeping with a tiger

The death of Lu Kanru, a member of the Jiu San Society Central Committee

In 1931, Lu Kanru and Feng Yuanjun co-authored the 600,000-word History of Chinese Poetry, which was considered “a pioneering monograph on classical Chinese literature”. In 1931, Lu Kanru and Feng Yuanjun co-authored The History of Chinese Poetry, a 600,000-word work that some consider “a pioneering monograph on Chinese classical literature. The following year, they co-authored A Brief History of Chinese Literature, which was translated into many languages. In 1947, they came to Shandong University to teach, and since then, they have written extensively.

In 1953, Lu Kanru joined the Jiu San Society and became one of the founders of the local organization in Shandong, serving as a member of the Standing Committee of the Jiu San Society Central Committee, the chairman of the Qingdao Branch, and the director of the preparatory committee of the Jinan Branch.

On April 30, 1957, Mao Zedong publicly called on the democratic parties to discuss the issue of “professors ruling schools” at the Tiananmen Tower. As a result, they were branded as “rightists”. After being branded as a “rightist”, Lu Kanru’s personal morality of cheating on his wife and having an extramarital affair with a female subordinate when he was a vice president was also publicly exposed. In the criticism meeting attended by Xia Zhengnong, deputy secretary of Shandong Provincial Party Committee, Feng Yuanjun openly stated: “I have spent most of my Life with ‘tigers’ in the same bed, but did not notice, is a nervous paralysis, right?”

The “tiger” here is Feng Yuanjun’s nickname for her husband Lu Kanru. Feng Yuanjun also said, “In last year’s release, Lu Kanru exposed his ugly face as an anti-party, anti-people, anti-socialist person and degenerated into a rightist. If he is politically reactionary, it is impossible that his academic thinking is not reactionary. The love between husband and wife was torn apart in such a way under political oppression.

In 1963, Feng Yuanjun’s fate took a turn for the worse. She was appointed Vice President of Shandong University.

Statue of Feng Yuanjun and Lu Kanru in Shandong University

After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, the couple suffered further bad luck. In 1967, Lu Kanru was put on trial for political reaction and corrupt life. In December 1971, the Military Management Committee of Shandong Province Public Security Bureau decided to “exempt Lu Kanru from criminal punishment” and recommended that her original unit give her administrative punishment. Shandong University gave Lu Kanru “revocation of professorship” and his salary was reduced to the ninth grade of higher Education.

On June 17, 1974, Feng Yuanjun, who had taken the word “professor” as a “sin symbol”, passed away due to rectal cancer. Three years later, Lu Kanru also died. As intellectuals, they not only experienced one movement after another, but also, sadly, their post-1949 works were all branded by the times: for example, they quoted Mao extensively at the end of each chapter to prove that Chinese literature and art had developed according to Mao’s thought. This also makes their studies incomparable to those of the 1930s and 1940s, both in quantity and quality.