When it comes to Qian Xuesen, many people know his great name and know that he was a famous Chinese scientist, the “father of Chinese missiles” and the “king of rockets” who came back from the United States, and it was thanks to his effectiveness that the launch of the Chinese communist missiles and atomic bombs was advanced by at least 20 years. In contrast, when it comes to Xu Zhangben’s name, many people are ignorant, but in fact, he was a good friend of Qian Xuesen, and he had the same educational background as Qian, and could have achieved a lot, so it can be said that the two have a deep connection, but their fates are very different.
The origin of Xu Zhangben and Qian Xuesen
Xu Zhangben and Qian Xuesen were the same age, both born in 1911. In the 1930s and 1940s, they both studied at the California Institute of Technology, with Qian Xuesen studying in the Department of Aeronautics and Mathematics and receiving his PhD in 1939 and Xu Zhangben receiving his PhD in 1940. They both specialized in missile science, but Qian was engaged in “missile guidance”, while Xu studied “anti-missile”. It can be said that they both entered the hall of science at that time, while among Chinese people at that time, only dozens of people knew about relativity and quantum theory, which was definitely a rare one.
Qian Xuesen returned to China in 1955, one saying is that Xu Zhangben returned to China in 1954, one saying is that he returned to China earlier and taught at Jiaotong University first, and then became a professor in the Physics Department of Tsinghua University from 1952. But no matter which theory it is, Xu Zhangben’s landing place is Tsinghua University. However, in 1957, Xu Jangben, who could have achieved a certain amount of success, was branded as a “rightist” during the anti-rightist movement and spent 20 years in prison, the best years of his life in prison.
Criticism of Marxism and preparation of the Labor Party
After the revolt of intellectuals in Hungary in 1956, Mao Zedong, who had always been worried about the freedom of thought in his heart, adopted a “lure the snake out of the hole” approach in 1957, asking intellectuals to give advice to the Communist Party. Many people naively believed the Chinese Communist Party’s words and put forward sharp opinions, including Xu Zhangben, who was dissatisfied with the environment he was in after returning to China.
According to Wang Xue-tai’s “Jail Trivium,” Xu Zhangben thought China was going to transform into the United States in 1957, so he openly called for an end to the one-party dictatorship of the Communist Party, proposed in Tsinghua Park to prepare for the establishment of the Labor Party, and issued: (a) “Registration Revelation”; (b) “Declaration on the Launching of the Labor Party”; (c) “Talking about the Truth and Guiding Ideas,” and openly solicited party members, and there were even rumors that There were even rumors that he was going to run for the presidency against Mao Zedong. In the eyes of the CCP, this was undoubtedly “treacherous”.
Xu Zhangben said, “Any doctrine, which arises under certain historical conditions, has its limitations.” “Marx’s ideal of a communist society contains serious contradictions. His view of man as a product of the economic system is an inversion of cause and effect. Its emphasis on the class struggle is derived from the same extreme expression of man’s selfish hatred and cruel instincts as Hegel’s evolutionary theory of war. Therefore, Marxism cannot be used as a guiding ideology.”
He also believed that the Communists had set in motion the “class struggle” and the “ideological struggle”, thinking that this was not enough to consolidate “power”, establish “prestige” and carry out economic construction. As a result, the people changed from gratitude and affection to fear and silence; from a scene of enthusiasm and national revitalization to a negative mentality of following the government’s orders and doing as they were told. And because of the indifference to the people’s feelings, the regime has just been established for fear of being opposed, and it is the wrong philosophy and dogmatic formula of Marx to speak to the people with authority. The “disturbance of the people” occurred everywhere, destroying the positive heart of the people and encouraging negative selfishness, while the remedy afterwards was based on the traditional Chinese virtue of being brave enough to admit mistakes and correct them, taking into account the relationship between “man” and “man”. ” is taken into account, that is, unconsciously admitting the error of Marxian materialism and economic production determining life! (Internal Reference, No. 228, 1957, “Xu Zhangben believes that using Marxism as a guiding ideology will produce dogmatism”)
Such a stone-cold statement was naturally intolerable to the Chinese Communist Party, which was guided by Marxism.
On December 25, 1957, Xu Zhangben was arrested in Tsinghua Park, along with two other teachers, Sun Baojian and Cao Chuixun. The president of Tsinghua University, Jiang Nanxiang, who was appointed by the Chinese Communist Party, made a speech on the campus cable radio station that day, repeating Mao’s policy on ideological dissidents as stated in “On the Ten Relations”, which was still “not to kill one person, but not to arrest most of them”, but saying that the people arrested today were not rightists, but “current counter-revolutionaries But he said that the people arrested today were not rightists, but “current counterrevolutionaries”. Xu Zhangben was subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison at Beijing No. 1 Prison near Taoranting Park in the southern part of Beijing.
Choosing Silence and Refusing to Admit Guilt
According to the account of “Prison Trivia,” Xu Zhangben received special treatment in prison, such as living in a separate room, eating in a small stove, being able to read and write, and being able to go home every weekend, which was greatly associated with Qian Xuesen, who was elevated to a high position by the Chinese Communist Party. Qian Xuesen sometimes even visited him in prison.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, all this preferential treatment was denied and criticized as a manifestation of counter-revolutionary revisionism in the labor reform system carried out by the “public prosecution” and Luo Ruiqing (then Minister of Public Security). Xu Zhangben was put into labor.
In 1969, when the whole country was engaged in a strategic transfer, Xu Zhangben and some of the “prisoners” from the former Beijing No. 1 Prison were transferred to the labor camp in Handan, Hebei Province for labor reform.
According to an article written by Yan Chang, who met Xu Zhangben in Handan prison, “Xu Zhangben did not “die in a labor camp”, Handan prison was divided into two blocks, the “North Field” and the “South Field”. Most of the prisoners in the “South Field” prison were political prisoners, and Xu Zhangben was among them. During the four months from the late autumn of 1969 to the middle of March 1970, those who were locked up in the South Field did not have to do any physical work every day, except for eating and sleeping, and they had political studies.
Four months later, nearly 1,000 “prisoners” from Nanchang were escorted to the newly built Quzhou County Labor Reform Farm for labor. The farm was saline, and the local farmers never grew crops on this saline land. At that time, the farm’s food was very poor, the main food was nest and thin porridge. Because of the spring shortage, green and yellow, no vegetables to eat, can only eat a kind of wild vegetables called with the head of vegetables. In the first year of Qu Zhou labor farm, the mortality rate of “prisoners” was very high, and people died almost every day.
The first labor that Xu Zhangben participated in was digging trenches along the outside of the newly built prison walls to prevent prisoners from escaping. Probably never engaged in such physical work, his labor efficiency was the lowest. However, during breaks, Xu Jangben was the center of conversation every time. He was very humorous and often made insinuations and accusations, such as “those who work with their hearts rule over people, those who work with their strength rule over people – it is really very reactionary”.
Soon afterwards, because Xu Zhangben was too old and could not do his work properly, the prison guards stopped arranging for him to participate in labor outside the walls and only did environmental sanitation inside.
On the night of April 25, 1970, when the Chinese Communist Party successfully launched the first artificial earth satellite, the news was also broadcast over the loudspeaker in the labor camp. Captain Huang, the head of the prison, led more than 20 guards into the high wall prison, went straight to the first squadron where Xu Zhangben was, and gathered them together, handed them a stack of posters promoting the satellite’s launch, and asked Xu Zhangben to read them out, while shouting, “Xu Zhangben, without you, China’s satellite would still be in the sky! What do you think now?” The audience was silent, waiting for Xu Zhangben’s reply. A moment later, Xu Zhangben said indifferently, “Shame, shame.”
In Yan Chang’s opinion, no matter what the person is, he has to admit his guilt himself when he enters the prison gate. Such activities were carried out so frequently that the prisoners were forced to speak year after year, month after month, and day after day. This was also the case for most of the senior intellectuals who were beaten to the right, but Xu Zhang was one of the exceptions in this category. In the 17 months that Yan Chang was in prison with him, he was never seen to speak on stage, and in the group meetings, he often talked about everything from the north to the south and from the east to the west, and later everyone understood that his intention was to refuse to admit his “crimes.
In the spring and summer of 1970. The “Fight Three Against” campaign came. Wu Jiren, a teacher at the Quzhou Labor Reform Farm, was sentenced to death after being criticized and shot for refusing to admit his guilt at a panel meeting, and for talking about sensitive issues related to the system and ideology in the course of defending himself.
After Wu Jiren’s death, the prison authorities warned others and named those “anti-reformers”, saying that Wu Jiren’s fate was an example to follow. Among those named were more than 20 people, including Xu Zhangben, who stood in the open space in front of the meeting room after being named. Yan Chang noticed that Xu Jangben’s eyes were dull and the corners of his mouth were drooping, giving him the impression that he was an old man who had been through a lot of changes and was dying, and that he had suffered so much from mental torture and humiliation that he could not bear it any longer.
In 1975, the Chinese Communist Party issued another amnesty decree, releasing all the detainees of the Nationalist Party above the county and regiment level, including Xu Zhangben. The vast majority of these amnesty recipients had already completed their sentences, but were not released, and were forced to stay in the labor camps for employment, commonly known as the second labor camps. After the amnesty, they were concentrated in Cixian County in the west of Handan and later transferred to Shijiazhuang, where their living conditions were improved.
In 1979, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Xu Zhangben was truly “free” and returned to his normal life, but 20 years had passed and Xu Zhangben was already 68 years old. In 1988, Xu Zhangben passed away quietly.
Conclusion
Xu Zhangben, who could have made a difference in the missile field like Qian Xuesen, took a difficult and humiliating path because of his intellectual nature and character. Even in the face of adversity, he refused to confess his guilt. His historical evaluation is also naturally not related to science.
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