In mainland China, Guo Moruo is a name that many people know, with many shining auras on his head: “a famous proletarian literary scholar, poet, playwright, archaeologist, thinker, paleographer, historian, calligrapher, scholar and famous revolutionary and social activist.”
However, although Guo Moruo made some academic achievements, he was not as high as the Chinese Communist Party had made him out to be. In terms of his archaeological achievements alone, the other three gentlemen of the “Four Chambers of Oracle Studies”, Dong Zubin, Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei, could at least be on par with Guo. On the other hand, his low character, especially his ability to see the wind and the rudder, made him much criticized and despised.
In 1927, after Chiang Kai-shek’s “purge” of the party, Guo Moruo wrote a diatribe against Chiang, calling him a “rogue and a gangster”, and he joined the Chinese Communist Party in the same year. After the failure of the Chinese Communist Party’s riots and the downturn, Guo Moruo left the Chinese Communist Party and took refuge in Japan.
After returning to China in 1937, Guo Moruo made a special trip to Nanjing to pay a visit to Chiang Kai-shek, asking for forgiveness, and then published “Notes on the Meeting with Chairman Chiang” and praised Chiang. After the Chinese Communist Party stole power, Guo Moruo again followed the Chinese Communist Party, a large number of Hu Feng, actively “anti-right”, and rejoined the Chinese Communist Party, has created a “reversal” as the main theme of the historical drama.
In order to cater to Mao, Guo Moruo also praised Li Bai, while disparaging Du Fu, whom Mao hated, to the point of being useless. It is reasonable to praise Li Bai, the “poet immortal,” but it is difficult to accept that Du Fu, who also has a place in the field of poetry, should be completely disparaged in order to pander to the ruler.
One poem is “Chairman Mao is better than my own grandfather”, which reads: “The red flag is hoisted on Tiananmen Square, the portrait of Chairman Mao is hung on the wall, hundreds of millions of people sing in unison: Long live Chairman Mao, long live the longest life! Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao, you are really better than my own grandfather!”
Another song is written to Stalin: “I hail you, Marshal Stalin, you are the liberator of all mankind, today is your 70th birthday, I hail you… The power of the atomic bomb is just a child’s play in front of you, the threat of germ warfare is just a dream in front of you. Your light and warmth have turned the two icy oceans north and south into warm currents, and your moistening has turned the Sahara desert into fertile soil. Immortal Marx is with you, you are immortal forever like Marx! Immortal Engels is with you, you are immortalized forever like Engels! The immortal Lenin is with you, you are immortal as Lenin forever!”
In addition, during the Cultural Revolution Guo Moruo also wrote poems praising Jiang Qing, calling him “a good example for us to study”. However, after the collapse of the Gang of Four, he jumped out again to hail the crushing of the Gang of Four.
Guo Moruo, who is good at changing faces and flattering in politics, also had complicated relationships with several women in his life, and even abandoned his wife, which highlights his low morality.
This kind of Guo Moruo character how can be imagined. Borrowing from Chiang Kai-shek’s wife, Song Meiling’s assessment of him: “Today’s Jews with a sense of justice still spit on their own Marx, but your party even worshiped it as a god, and Marxism-Leninism as the spiritual training of our Chinese nation, this is just like Guo Moruo declared that ‘Stalin is my father’, shameless, enough to make people Three days vomit.”
It is interesting to note that even some Communists were ashamed of Guo’s character and often teased him. One such incident is revealed in the book “Red Family Archives” written by Luo Ruiqing’s daughter, Luo Dodu, in which a historical play adapted by Guo Moruo for Cao Cao was staged in Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai around 1960. At the end of the play, a general said aloud, half-jokingly to the person next to him, “If Cao Cao writes as well as Guo did, I will introduce him to the Party.” Many people in the audience laughed at that time, and the joker’s contempt and disdain for Guo Moruo and the crowd’s heartfelt response left a deep impression on Luo.
After 1949, Guo Moruo became Vice Premier of the State Council, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Chairman of the Chinese Federation of Literary and Art Circles, with his tentacles in science, literature, and politics. Guo followed the Chinese Communist Party step by step in one movement after another, and actively participated in the persecution of others. During the Cultural Revolution, he was fawning over anyone who would help him move up the ladder, and in return, he received the tragic deaths of his two sons.
Tragic Death of Two Sons
The two sons who died tragically during the Cultural Revolution were the second and fourth sons of Guo Moruo and Yu Liqun: Guo Shiying and Guo Minying.
Guo Shiying inherited some of his father’s traits, being extremely intelligent, knowledgeable, and very fond of poetry. However, his was also unimpressed with his father’s writing and behavior after 1949. He once said that Mao Zedong’s thought should also be viewed in two ways. Someone once recalled that he and Guo Shiying once encountered Guo Moruo in front of Guo’s house, and Guo Shiying pointed to his father’s back and said to him, “This is the big idol you worship, the biggest cultural screen that adorns this society.”
In 1963, while studying in the philosophy department of Peking University, Guo Shiying was designated a “reactionary student” and sent to reeducation through labor for forming a discussion group to question communist ideology and the single standard of literary criticism, and for expressing his emotions through writing poems. After repenting, he was released from reeducation through labor early for good behavior and went to study at China Agricultural University.
In April 1968, Guo Shiying was falsely accused of collaborating with the enemy and betraying the country by the rebel faction at the University of Agriculture because he used English when talking to his girlfriend on the phone, and was forcibly detained and beaten all over his body.
It is said that when Guo Shiying was kidnapped by the rebels and was in danger, Guo Moruo’s wife Yu Liqun begged Guo Moruo to ask for help when he attended Zhou Enlai’s banquet, but the whole night, sitting next to Zhou Enlai, Guo Moruo never said anything. After the death of his son, facing his wife’s bitter accusations, he was persistently silent and finally said, “I am also doing it for the good of the motherland!” After the incident, Zhou Enlai had sent someone to investigate, but there was no result either.
And just a year earlier, Guo Shiying’s younger brother, Guo Minying, had also committed suicide. Guo Minying, who loved music and was very talented, got into the Central Conservatory of Music with his self-education. He brought a reel-to-reel tape recorder from home to enjoy his favorite Western classical music with his classmates. Since it was unusual to have a tape recorder at that time, one of the students of the Conservatory wrote a letter to Mao, reflecting that some cadres’ sons of the Conservatory were making specialization, taking their home tape recorders to the school to listen to Western music, worshiping “big (people), foreign (people), ancient (people)” (Mao’s words), and promoting the bourgeois way of life. The way of life. Mao quickly approved the letter, saying, “Things like this should be caught.”
Guo Minying had no choice but to leave the Conservatory and chose to go to the Navy as a soldier. With the help of Luo Ruiqing, he successfully became a naval officer. At first, he did well, and his literary and artistic skills allowed him to find a place in the army. However, after the start of the Cultural Revolution, Guo Minying’s lack of understanding of the movement plunged his mental world into trouble again, and one day in April 1967, he suddenly committed suicide, and no one knows how he came to this decision.
Guo Moruo’s reaction after losing two sons in a row
In a short span of one year, Guo Moruo lost two sons in a row. In front of everyone, he still chose to sing the praises of the Communist Party of China, and in 1976 he even wrote “Water Tune Song to Celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution”, strongly touting the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. However, it is said that after his death, he had transcribed Guo Shiying’s diary line by line and page by page on rice paper, and copied the whole eight books, the pain of losing his son is beyond words. This kind of Guo Moruo, can only say that slavery has been deeply into the marrow of its bones.
After Guo Moruo’s death in 1978, the Chinese Communist Party gave him high praise, and his former residence and ink in the Forbidden City, the Yellow Emperor’s Tomb in Shaanxi Province and the Huaqing Pond have been preserved to this day. By valuing Guo Moruo so highly, the CCP undoubtedly tried to call on the public to learn from Guo Moruo to be a submissive, especially since the pen of a literary figure can only be used to paint the CCP’s face. The number of imperial writers who have given up their souls is increasing in today’s society, but can these imperial writers learn a lesson from the life of Guo Moruo and others like him: the fate of those who follow the CCP is pathetic.
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