I entered junior high school in 1952. In that year, all secondary school textbooks were replaced with new ones, and a new class of “Physical Geography” was introduced in the first year. The first pages of the textbooks of Physical Geography and Botany were in color. From then on, I became interested in biology. By the second year of junior high school, I studied Zoology, and in the third year of junior high school, I studied the basics of Darwinism. I also joined the after-school biology study group organized by Ms. Chen Wanfu, looking at onion skins with a microscope.
But that was at the height of the study of the Soviet Union. Biology textbooks were full of touting the great achievements of Soviet scientists. When I saw this content, I was furious.
My anger had two levels. One was against the Michelin doctrine. I had finished reading my sister’s pre-liberation high school biology textbook and had taken in that Mendelian doctrine of heredity, the recessive dominant whatever, and learned it. Not only did I learn it, but I adored it, and for the first Time I really appreciated the power of scientific reason. As for the so-called “acquired heredity” of Michelin and Lysenko, which was promoted in textbooks, I thought it was total nonsense and a real idealistic pseudoscience.
The second level of my anger has been divorced from biology. I thought that the Soviet Union was a socialist country with an advanced social system and should be the most advanced in all aspects, including scientific research. So it makes sense that biology would be advanced. However, these textbooks are not only about the Soviet Union, but also about pre-revolutionary Russia. This makes no sense and is simply disgusting.
To vent my anger, the first thing I did was to paint the portraits of Russian scientists in textbooks with ghostly faces, even though I had always loved them. These included Timiryatev, Lepersinskaya (who spent the latter part of her Life in the Russian era), and the one who discovered what the wild horses were called. In fact, they were all real scientists. I feel sorry for them now that I think about it.
The second thing I did was to take the opportunity of answering a question on my final exam paper to express my opinion. I said that before the revolution, Russia was much less developed than Western Europe, and the development of biology was not that advanced. I don’t know what Ms. Chen Wanfu felt after reading my opinion written on the exam paper. But she didn’t give me a mark deduction or much feedback.
The matter later got a little out of the loop. A few of us who often talk about current events together were a bit cynical, but for different reasons. I mainly couldn’t figure out this textbook issue. Another classmate from the northeast, often talking about how the Soviet Red Army was running amok back then. Two other students, I don’t know the details. Anyway, a few of us, after discussion, decided to propose to the Pioneer leaders to collectively quit the Pioneer. Of course, in the strategic considerations, we do not say the real reason for wanting to quit the team, but only to say that the pioneer activities are meaningless, are children play, and we have grown up. It is also true that we did not like the activities of the Pioneers. At that time, the main tone of the pioneer activities is as the song “Let’s swing the paddle” sung, as if everything is arranged, just waiting to enjoy a happy life, except for rowing in the North Sea Park, there is nothing to do. Our families were near the bottom of the city, living in poverty and with no prospect of improvement in the near future. Individuals are yellow and thin, dressed in rags, can not find a little “flower of the motherland” feeling, only feel that the song from the bones of the hypocrisy, seems to belong to another world.
The pioneer counselor and the squadron committee studied the matter, and the counselor came out to work with us separately. He said, we understand your thoughts, but, in a year or so once you reach the age (fifteen years old), you will naturally withdraw from the team, so why bother with this today? I think they must not have thought that our thoughts were that complicated.
We were actually trying to express our dissatisfaction with some current events, not very serious, and since the counselor had given us a step to take, we did not insist on it anymore. That was the end of a mini-academic wave. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I ran into one of our former squadron members and told him what a few of us really thought. This was fifty years later.
I’m talking about about 1954. At that time Stalin had died, the Khrushchev report had not yet come out, and there was a relaxation in people’s thinking. Our behavior may have had something to do with the general social climate at that time.
On the other hand, at that time there was no concept of class struggle. Now I think that if a few more years had passed, a few small counterrevolutions might have been fought.
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