At his urging, I put aside my recent interest in Zhang Taiyan and began to read this large volume of nearly 1,000 pages of “political study” material. From the table of contents, the book looks like an outline of the history of the Chinese Communist Party, except for the first chapter, “My Family” and the last two chapters, “The Prisoner” and “Medical Parole to Jinan”, the rest is simply The rest is simply the same kind of content that we have been force-fed for decades. Since I was young, I did not like to read books like “The Red Flag Fluttering”, and I was afraid that I would not even be able to listen to people talking about how the commander of the x column of the Fourth Field was x x, and how the Ye Ting Independent Regiment was. In addition, I am a slow reader, not jumping from one line to the next, there is no such thing as intensive reading, general reading, only reading or not reading. Fortunately, I am stupid, so I did not disappoint Commander Wu’s efforts. This book is a rare reading experience, his amazing memory, vivid personality, bizarre experiences and the military’s straightforward mischief all make me think twice about this Commander Wu and that particular cultural environment, and I can’t let go of it for a long Time.
I. Infamy
In recent years, I have heard about people wanting to rehabilitate Lin Biao, but reading the media did not make my heart hang out and my blood boil. For one thing, my family and my experience are not directly related to the incident; for another, no one can deny that Lin Biao played a rather poor role in the campaign to deify Mao Zedong; as for the feud within the Communist Party, it has been stirred up by the Cultural Revolution, and there are a lot of sympathetic historical figures in the world, so who has the effort and interest to toss this old sesame seeds at the mouth of the word ban? But a friend recommended Wu Fa Xian’s memoirs, and they were sent to me, so I might as well read them.
Wu Fa Xian reached the peak of his political career during the Cultural Revolution, as an important leader of the party and the state, often appearing in newspapers and news documentaries, due to his military uniform, fat head and big ears, smiling image, was reduced to a villainous figure like the bandit Hu Chuan Kui after the September 13 incident. As soon as one sings “When I first opened my team, there were only a dozen men and seven or eight guns”, a fictitious and ridiculous character, bandit, traitor and straw man, appears in one’s mind in the model play “Shajiabang”. It just so happens that Wu Hu has the same sound, so he was later called Commander Wu without any respect. The words that he pampered Lin Biao’s son Lin Liguo in the Air Force Command became a villainous act that he could never erase. His words of gratitude to Lin Biao were used in critical materials to exaggerate and scandalize his character, fixing his public image as a confused, pandering, incoherent, useless straw man. In fact, political figures are mocked and ridiculed by people, not a big deal, like the U.S. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, I do not know how many actors exaggerated imitation of their mannerisms, words and deeds, funny vivid stimulation degree than those amateur Chinese counterparts over the top. Even for a very popular president like Clinton, the entertainment industry has never stopped making jokes about him. The difference is that in the United States, the jokes are made about the politicians in office, and they are made up by outsiders, and they are entirely for fun, unlike the dirty tricks used to fix people in political groups. In China, when they were in power, they blocked all kinds of information in the name of protecting the head, never really trusting the public and letting the people monitor their “public servants”; the subordinate bureaucrats are submissive to the top and are afraid to win over them, but when they are taken down, they come back to mobilize the public and intentionally fabricate crimes, and then criticize and stink, telling him to The stench of a million years, never to be rehabilitated. This is really too vicious.
It is the strict control of ideological tools by the Communist Party that makes it difficult for the public to understand the personal information of political leaders, so that politicians after the founding of the country are obviously different from general public figures, and they have intentionally or unintentionally become a group of impersonal people. It is only when they are criticized that people can talk about them without fear. They were called democratic, but in reality they were fighting internally by any means, fooling the people in order to block the ears of others, which is really different from modern democracy. Although the charges woven seem ridiculous in hindsight, and the criticism materials sent down also added some unexpected fun to the boring Life of the people at that time, but when I think of so many people in China who know and don’t know all followed the old Mao, I feel bad. In that cultural environment, the general public had almost no way to know what political figures did and their merits and strengths, and when they were criticized, they were all negative materials, and the media and the criticism would never give the criticized people a chance to defend themselves, so it’s no wonder that the public’s attitude toward officials was not only fear due to lack of understanding, but also hatred inspired by the criticism materials. Strictly speaking, he Wu Fa Xian was not all wronged, before his accident, mobilizing the masses, exposing and criticizing other people, he actively participated, only for this reason his autobiography has more special value. His notoriety is intertwined with the cruelty and inhumanity of the system. I generally lack sympathy for those who have lost power in the party, and am happy to treat officials who do things as lapdogs, thus neglecting the importance of humanity in the process of system building. But reading Wu Fa Xian’s memoirs did not cause me to gloat, but rather increased my fear of an irrational system. In the end, one cannot clear up the flaws of a system with a particular person. During the Cultural Revolution, even Wu Faxian, a member of the Politburo and a central figure in the Central Committee’s Cultural Revolution meetings, was unaware of Mao’s intentions, let alone those of ordinary people. Since he was so delusional, what is the point of talking against Mao Zedong’s thought and the Party?
In his memoirs, Wu Faxian does not take the trouble to complain about his grievances, but to tell the whole story in detail. As he said on a private occasion after listening to Lin Liguo’s report, he encouraged, “In the future, you can let go of your work and report directly to Chairman Lin Fu on all matters related to air force construction, scientific research and technology, and the aviation industry, and you can mobilize everything in the air force and command everything.” This famous “two everything” also became the main charge of the Supreme Court later sentenced him. Wu Fa Xian said, “In fact, not only Lin Liguo, but also I, the commander of the Air Force, was not able to command everything and mobilize everything in the Air Force.” The discerning eye, when it comes to this, does not need much explanation. For an air force supreme officer, even in an informal setting so to speak with the son of his own superiors is not appropriate. But there is clearly another reason for this and for the stir to be made so big. More and more facts prove that the person in command of everything, mobilizing everything is the old Mao. Interestingly, as his old man so powerful, but still suffering from the command does not work, transfer and not move, or why he always stressed the line of struggle there? To put it bluntly, is not who is with who head, together with who said it? This line of struggle ah endless, until he won the world is not finished, until all the founding fathers are down to the whole not, haunted, haunted, until his death.
Two, who and who
Commander Wu was unlucky because of Lin Biao’s accident. Writer Shi Dongbing asked him if he regretted following Lin Biao, and he said, “There is no need to regret, I went with Lin Biao out of my own free will, no one forced me. I just didn’t expect him to develop to such a state. In those days, if you didn’t follow this one, you had to follow that one, and you couldn’t help but fall in line with any one of them.” Referring to Lin Biao’s appreciation and recommendation, he said, “I know very well that it is impossible to decide on such a matter as commander of the Air Force without Chairman Mao’s approval. But without Lin Biao’s proposal for me to take up the post, Chairman Mao listened to other veteran marshals, and others would have taken up the post.” The words are very straightforward, unlike the old days when we ordinary people who had no access to the eight poles said that following Chairman Mao to do the revolution seemed particularly funny, abstract and hollow. After reading Wu Fa Xian’s book, I think the words are understandable when they are said in that context. In order to gain power, it is indeed crucial to follow whom or not to follow. But not to mention him, Lin Biao followed Chairman Mao, did not also follow the problem? In his memoirs about Lin Biao, he lamented: “In retrospect, Mao Zedong had actually been preparing public opinion for the removal of Lin Biao. I remember that before Mao’s southern tour, he gave each Politburo member a book called “He Dian” through the Central Office, which was just a thin book. At the time I read it, I only felt that something was fishy, because there were a few lines in it that were particularly intriguing. The book said: ‘Medicine does not cure a deadly disease, a deadly disease without medicine; no good medicine for a talking head, a pair of empty hands to meet the King of Hell.’ I once thought that this might refer to Lin Biao, but at that time I didn’t dare to think more about it because for decades, from the Long March of the Red Army to the Cultural Revolution, Lin Biao had been Mao’s main assistant and one of his most trusted people. I never heard Lin Biao say a word of disrespect to Mao Zedong. Who would have thought that Mao would want to take Lin Biao out so soon? Wu Fa Xian joined the Red Army at the age of fifteen, spent the first twenty years in the rain of bullets, and the next twenty years in the hectic political struggle after the founding of the country, as if he was blessed by the gods along the way, he was unharmed on the battlefield and rose again and again in the official world. In the end, the regime that he had worked so hard to build was still unforgiving and sent him to prison for ten years! He was only fifty-six years old when he was imprisoned. He had been busy all his life, and when he was suddenly quiet, it was worse than death, right?
On the eve of his imprisonment, he also foresaw that a great disaster was coming and said to his wife Chen Suiqi: “I joined the revolution at the age of fifteen and my whole family of six or seven was persecuted by the Kuomintang, but the Party and the people brought me up. You don’t have to worry, I am clear about my responsibility in the ‘September 13 Incident’ and know myself best, I am prepared to write a review to the Central Committee.” Apart from hinting that his family would not live lightly, he probably did not know at that time that some things could not be told, and there was little point in telling them to this organization, which was still busy with other things, just as he had been in the past, too busy na to listen and figure out what was going on with the group of political figures who had disappeared before him.
What did Wu Fa Xian think about during his long nights behind bars, the horror of imprisonment where he couldn’t even meet another prisoner to let off steam? He did not say.
He was a member of Lin Biao’s inner circle, so I believe he must have been able and willing to work hard. In his book, he does not talk much about his achievements, but about the daily and hourly affairs he had to deal with, describing the people he worked directly with up and down the hierarchy. Even in the chapter “Prisoners”, he writes about specific things, describing the structure of Qincheng prison, the temperament and attitude of the guards, the quality of the Food and the working hours, but not about his thoughts. I see that in this lonely moment, Chairman Mao must be far worse than Jesus. His eagerness to build a career, too much devotion to harnessing people’s imperial skills, to the point of ignoring human nature, his teachings can not give much comfort to a lonely person, especially after he passed away, no fool would expect him to reveal the saints, materialists! His overturning of the clouds and the conspiracy and conspiracy hocus-pocus are gone with his departure. The most frightening thing is that as a spiritual leader, his teachings lack forgiveness and resolve the grievances of the mind, not to mention the power to heal and avoid disaster. After the Lushan meeting to criticize Chen Boda, he personally said to Wu Faxian: “You write another review, I am to protect you.” Made originally has been sincere fear of Wu Fa Xian believe it, until was imprisoned for ten years after release he only knew that the old Mao southern tour to the next and said to other military cadres: “Huang, Wu, Li, Qiu down you do?” It is not surprising that political figures are not consistent in their words and deeds, but he is so ungrateful and suspicious that it is impossible to unite enough people to enrich and perfect his ideas, thus completing the cause of institutional innovation. For a soldier like Wu Fa Xian, loyalty to the Party and to Chairman Mao is not an empty phrase. When he joined the Red Army in Jiangxi, his division commander asked him why he joined the Red Army. He said he saw that after the Red Army came, in addition to giving his family a share of land and tea mountains, and then saw some fellow villagers, only two months before he joined the army, became deputy squad leader, think the Red Army is easy to become an officer, want to become an officer. Later he did become a prima donna in the army from a cattle herder, and the people he followed and the group he worked for made the mountains, and at that time he was loyal and determined, and lived a very full life. When he arrived in prison, the outside world he had been busy facing suddenly disappeared, lonely when he learned English, re-read the works of Marx and Lenin Mao Zedong anthology, and “Dream of the Red Chamber”, “Water Margin”, “Three Kingdoms”, “Journey to the West”, what did he learn? He still did not say.
Memoirs written from young children to the old age, the vast majority of factual-based, iron-clad life, although long, but perhaps because of the repetitive, boring, lack of memorable and exciting characters, it only occupies a very small space. I would venture to guess that the ten years of imprisonment have enabled Wu Faxian to complete the psychological process necessary to return from the official world to the private sector.
Three: Speaking Human
In the eighties when people almost forgot about Commander Wu, he quietly came back to the world of people. Many people were curious to know how many secret secrets he had, but they did not think about what kind of person Wu Fa Xian really was. His words do not necessarily have any profound insights in political theory, and may not help to figure out Mao’s brilliant calculations. But he recognized his own fate and put it down from then on to be frank about it. He must have written a lot of reviews in his life, especially in the middle and late stages of the Cultural Revolution, when he probably still had illusions about returning to the system. The party’s heart is actually useless, from the interests of the rulers, the ruler’s interests, in addition to the function of declassification of Commander Wu, there is no meaning, so when the time comes to find a statement, sentenced him, it’s over. And for Wu Fa Xian and his family, how hard it is to survive these difficult years! There must be people who think he deserved it and even think he was lucky to live out his old age in peace. Putting aside his merits, even if he worked for the system is not enough, in the prime of life alone in prison for ten years should be two clear and have more. In an advanced civilized social system a manslaughterer sentence is no more than that, not to mention the appointment of his top boss has not been liquidated, besides, he is the Air Force Commander ah! Perhaps he was the one who was kicked out of the system, so he didn’t have the hollow, arrogant tone of the victors in many revolutionary memoirs, instead he seemed real, didn’t have to put on airs, and spoke in human terms. His memoirs are the last check of his life, and this time he didn’t have to look at anyone’s face, talking calmly all the way through, speaking to people he trusted and leaving to future generations, something many of his fellow party members failed to do. His life, it was worth it.
The impression is that many of the texts documenting revolutionary figures and history are full of a kind of false bravado, lacking the feelings that people in real life should have. With a lot of clichés that do not go to the head, such as the Red Army is the team of the poor, are the Kuomintang, bandits are all broads? If the Red Army fought for the poor, wasn’t this lie long ago punctured by decades of hunger and poverty after the civil war? It is now the time to use such violent language as “where there is oppression, there is resistance”, not afraid of being used to spoil the “stability and unity” and “harmonious society”. beautiful dream. The most abominable part of the propaganda people with low IQ is that the interest of people to distinguish the true from the false is lost, see it is annoying.
The general reader should not dump Wu Fa Xian’s book just because he read the table of contents, such as “Qiao Crossing Jinsha River”, “Over the Snowy Mountains – Sandwich Mountain”, “Arrival at the base in northern Shaanxi “In the section on the Long March into Tibetan areas, Wu Fa Xian writes: “Some people say that at that time they ate the things of the Tibetan people, some of them left money, some left IOUs. But as far as I know, this was not the case in the vast majority of cases, because even if we wanted to leave money, we didn’t have much in those days. Some people did leave a note, saying that they would return it later, but everyone understands that this is ‘a tiger borrowing a pig, a loan is not returned’. Later, that is when ah! Later, some simply do not even leave a note. Where to return, it is impossible to return. All the troops are the same, see it, eat, find it, take, the Tibetans Home to eat everything, neither pay, nor leave a note.” The words are honest, the details are vivid, and not only do not damage the image of the soldiers, but also make people feel that he is respectful to both history and the reader. When they were too hungry to do so, they found that the small bodhisattvas in the temple were made of flour, and once they were washed with water and cooked, they were delicious. The recollection of these experiences also smacks of mischievous mischief, and the fact that he watched his comrades who had fallen out of the line wait to die and could not be saved while crossing the grasslands made the life of the Long March even more difficult, and its painful and unbearable degree even exceeded that of fierce battles, leaving a deep impression on people. His book is full of stories that he personally experienced, one after another, and what I see is a witty, interesting and responsible Commander Wu with passion for his work. When I think of the impression he left on the public when he criticized Lin Biao’s anti-Party group in the 1970s, I really feel that things are absurd.
IV. History
Wu Faxian left home at the age of fifteen, and only returned to his hometown once after the liberation in early 1960. What exactly did the revolution bring to this society? Of course, he did not ask such a question, his narrative speed is like his military career, running and stumbling, as if he never felt tired. But I can’t help thinking that without the revolution, even though your Wu family was poor, your grandfather was able to save 50 to 60 dollars by working for the landlord as a long-time worker and got married; in your father’s generation, he was able to build six houses, buy three acres of land, buy a cow and farming tools, and send you to private school for five years. What’s all the fuss about? After all, it’s just like doing business, willing to fight and willing to take, who let the Communist Party mobilize you all? I can’t help but hate the late Qing government’s lethargy and corruption, and then hate the incompetence of the Kuomintang officials, and also hate the Founding Father Sun Yat-sen, who started the party controversy, and Mr. Taiyan criticized it very strongly, denouncing it as “small and easy”, “good outside and guessing inside”, a city scoundrel. The first thing you need to do is to get rid of it.
Without understanding the history and intricate feuds of the early Red Army, it is not easy to understand the series of brutal struggles within the Party after the founding of the country. By the same token, without knowing how Sun Yat-sen, who is revered as the father of the nation, was able to perform his political maneuvers and succeed in the cracks, it is impossible to see the poisonous methods and narrow-mindedness of Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong’s generation of political figures. But if we go on like this, do we have to be a learned history expert to be a modern person with normal judgment and a healthy mind? The answer is simple, and it does not take that much effort. As long as a person is given the conditions for survival and allowed to make his own choices, he will always make the decisions he believes are in his best interest, and because people have different conditions, they think differently, and respect for such differences is the healthy mindset of an ordinary person, which translates into the basic principle of protecting human rights in modern society. Most American citizens are not well versed in their short history and may not even have a clear understanding of current political activities, but their judgment of their lives does not come primarily from forced political learning, but rather from the concrete content of their daily lives. It was in this sense that Wu’s memoirs provided me with enough material to relate his life to my own experience, and although my knowledge of his time and his people was still very limited, I gradually began to feel that it was possible and worthwhile to understand. He is a political cadre, but his book does not contain the rudeness and brutality of a Communist Party cadre giving a presentation and ignoring his audience. In the end, who can reform whom? It is not easy to tell one’s story clearly, and one’s life is so messy, not to mention the contents that cannot be recorded in words, even those that can be recorded have to choose to remember those and omit those. This shows the effort Wu Faxian made in his later years. Life behind bars was not in vain, and civilian life gave him a rare opportunity to organize his past precipitation.
I was drawn to Wu’s world, despite the painful and bloody history of early twentieth-century China, and the fear and betrayal that still pervade life even after the war. I did not feel that he was deliberately manipulating the material in order to gain or build an impression in favor of his readers. He sees what he sees, hears what he hears, and he does what he does, and he just tells it to you straight. He lived through so many major events in modern Chinese history in his lifetime, and there were so many times when he was right in the middle of the action. His narrative has enriched my imagination of history. Unlike the hearsay, contradictory and flawed popular versions of the story, his story is simple, vivid and consistent. There are many events that we are familiar with, either from hearing about them or from personal experience, but reading Wu’s stories is neither bizarre nor repetitive, which shows his years of experience in political work and his confidence and talent in interpersonal communication. His shrewdness and good manners may once again upset those who have worked with him, as in the case of the time when his troops took down Shenyang to share the spoils of war privately, and he kept quiet about it, only to review it in Beijing, not only without being punished, but also as if he was the only one with high awareness. But we all have to admit that what to say, when to say, is originally a politician must master the work.
V. Drama
His portrayal of the arrests of Wang, Guan and Qi makes this group of political stars, who quickly disappeared during the Cultural Revolution, more like real and believable characters in life. I remember the combination of people’s surnames used to call a group of political figures was very popular at that time, and young people nowadays probably won’t understand the insulting, damaging and widely popular destructive power contained in this practice, nor will they be interested in this form which is neither a lantern riddle nor a book-telling. I don’t quite understand why they were called little creepers, Wang Guan Qi little creepers, it sounds like a joke, not serious at all, and I don’t know where Kang Sheng extracted such a term from. The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. Anyway, it always happens for a reason. According to Wu Fa Xian’s recollection, Mao Zedong originally wanted to win Qi Benyu, but Qi Benyu, not knowing which tendency he had, “actually gave a set of Dream of the Red Chamber to Li Na, so that Jiang Qing suspected that Qi Benyu had illicit thoughts about Li Na. So Jiang Qing reflected to Mao Zedong that Qi Benyu, a person who could not be reformed, also had to take him out. Mao Zedong agreed.” “After everything was set up, Zhou Enlai called Qi Benyu and informed him to come to the meeting. When Qi Benyu received the notice, he came in a car with great enthusiasm. As soon as he walked into the hall, Xie Fuji announced to him, ‘You are to be arrested today.’ Qi Benyu was flabbergasted and said, ‘Are you kidding, you want to arrest me?’ Since Qi Benyu was tall, Yang De-zhong took advantage of the fact that he had not yet fully reacted and led the guards to hold him in place and handcuff him. This made Qi Benyu even more baffled, saying, ‘Why are you handcuffing me? The company’s main goal was to make sure that the company’s products were in good condition. Qi Benyu still had illusions about Jiang Qing, and before he was taken to the car, he called out three times: ‘Yao Wenyuan, please say hello to Comrade Jiang Qing for me! He didn’t know that Jiang Qing was the one who wanted to have him arrested.” Wu Fa Xian went on to talk about how he arranged for his two young children after Qi Benyu’s wife was imprisoned as well. I don’t know where those two poor, innocent children are today.
The events of Yang, Yu and Fu are described in detail in the book. If the arrest of Qi Benyu is a bit comical, about the scene of the arrest of Air Force Political Commissar Yu Lijin is eerie and a bit creepy, late at night Wu Fa Xian returned from a meeting at the Great Hall of People, and after everything was set up, let the secretary call to inform Yu Lijin to his home to discuss something. “Then, I went upstairs to the balcony to observe the movement. The courtyard was dark and quiet, and after waiting for a while, I saw Yu Lijin enter the courtyard. At that moment, Yang Dezhong came up to him and said, ‘Yu Lijin, you are under arrest!’ Immediately afterwards several guard soldiers went up and took him away without alerting anyone.” Here there is no hidden behind the tent of the knife and axe fighters, upstairs to see, people come and go, like a silent film like a scene, silence in the hidden killing machine.
When it came to the ninth Congress, Huang Yongsheng, Wu Faxian, they were not used to Zhang Chunqiao a group of civilians so arrogant, so they arranged for some people in the army not to vote for Jiang Qing and others in the election. It sounds less like an ulterior motive and more like a funny prank. After the results came out, Jiang Qing was really furious. The incident went a bit too far, perhaps directly planting the seeds of a break between Mao and the Lin Biao group, and afterwards he wrote: “We all overlooked an important aspect, Jiang Qing was always in communication with Chairman Mao on these issues, and Chairman Mao was the one who really stood behind Jiang Qing.”
For Wu Faxian, he may not have reached the level of theoretical understanding to liquidate and criticize Mao, but his disappointment and even resentment toward Mao is obvious.
VI. Appeal
Old Mao always stressed the need for unification of thought. I think he probably resented to his death that people did not follow him, especially those close ministers, who were submissive and had evil intentions. In fact, the bureaucrats were too afraid to protect themselves, and they had to ensure that their daily work was carried out, and they had to follow his madness. The people of the country were being turned into wooden people by him, a brand new system was not built, the economy was still underdeveloped, the people were still poor, and the military still relied on the old ways.
It is simply not possible for everyone to think the same way, each with their own ideas is the most normal state of affairs. In order to implement an idea, forced organizational means should not be allowed, how to promote communication and communication is the right way. The reason why people’s ideas were easily unified in the past war years was because the basic idea of fighting to win and reduce casualties was the idea of every commander and soldier. As for how to fight specifically, or depends on experience, rely on an idea of what to win, that is bullshit, with the ignorant Boxer Rebellion, what is the difference between the Dagger Society? Old Mao defeated Chiang in three years, he may have felt in his heart that he was not afraid to start from scratch, or why mention the big deal to go back to the mountains to fight guerrilla! He probably never bothered to consider how much of the accumulated resources in history he used up, his victory was not only the correct judgment and persistent efforts of him and his core group of people, but also the accumulation of the humiliation suffered from the late Qing Dynasty, and the huge energy mobilized by the war against Japan.
Mao’s military genius was clearly overstated. His strategy of governance was even more untested, and the mere fact that he led the Party and the army through layers of crisis and defeated Chiang Kai-shek to establish a new regime does not guarantee that he would not make mistakes afterwards. The fact that he was put on a pedestal, that he was allowed to undermine the establishment of democracy, that he encouraged unrealistic advances, and that he brutally purged both collectively and individually those who disagreed within and outside the Party, although everyone is responsible, the top bureaucrats within the ruling group are all primarily responsible. This is why Deng Xiaoping chose not to criticize Mao, once the liquidation of the consequences are unimaginable.
Many readers may be dissatisfied that in such a large personal memoir, Wu did not reflect on, let alone criticize, the ideology of the Communist Party at all. I do not think there is anything particularly commendable about scolding the Communist Party. Why would a man like Wu Faxian, who has spent his life working for the Communist Party, deny his own efforts? He could not reflect his personal value without the collective. The fact that he did not end up as well as some of his colleagues does not mean that he should hold a grudge against the regime. His awe-inspiring Lin Biao, with short, concise dialogue and character, is vivid and full of nostalgia, although he does not show any stark tendencies like the rehashed articles. If he has any remorse, it is that he was forced by the situation to hurt his respected colleagues and superiors for self-preservation, such as exposing Huang Kecheng’s petty cash, slapping Chen Zaidao, and even shooting a young soldier of the cavalry platoon on the impulse of another commander on the march, all these things had shocked him in his heart and still haunted him in his old age.
Wu Fa Xian did not pretend to understand, as some old people do. He says in his preface, “No fiction, no whitewash, no exaggeration, no analysis, no conclusion.” It is clear that he does not accept ready-made conclusions. Judgment of a character is like that of history itself, which varies from class to class and from period to period, depending on how one treats the information available and, more crucially, how one preserves and collects the most comprehensive first-hand records possible, and on this point Wu’s account is undoubtedly valuable. I am averse to the idea of a definitive conclusion, as there are so many public cases in history that are still subject to differing opinions, and there is nothing that is universally true. Although there are different standards for admitting original material, at least people should be allowed to tell it. It is the story of the last generation, but now it is not open for distribution in the market, only published in Hong Kong, how awkward it is! That in itself speaks volumes. I am a reader who has turned down my appetite for all revolutionary texts, and I never thought that Commander Wu’s life profile would give me something new to think about, so I give him a lot of credit here!
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