Wake up（138）

 

138

 

When Nan Shanyun and his friend Li Si, alumni Zhang San and Wang Wu gathered in the Qunying Hall of Jiangshan Restaurant, Nan Shanyun said: Recently, I have been seriously studying Lao Mao's theory of class struggle. But I did not read the original works, but obtained the information I needed from those anti-Mao articles. I searched the website of "Observation" and found some reports that analyzed and explained the anti-rightist cases in Peking University.

The Peking University Anti-Rightists ganged up on 716 rightists, and the Peking University Cultural Revolution caused 63 deaths. The same goes for other universities. Tsinghua University's anti-rightists demarcated 571 "rightists", and the Tsinghua Cultural Revolution caused 58 deaths. Among the 58 victims of the Cultural Revolution in Tsinghua University, at least two were "rightists". Beijing Agricultural University anti-rightist grouped 43 rightists, accounting for 13.4% of the professors and associate professors in the whole school. 7% of college students were classified as "rightists". During the Cultural Revolution, 30 people from the Northern Agricultural University were killed.

The number of persecuted people in each university is obviously uniform, obviously because the anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution were carried out under the unified leadership of the central government. Because of its special status as the "highest institution of learning", Peking University played a dual role in both the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution: on the one hand, it was the target of attack, and a large number of teachers, students and employees were brutally persecuted; on the other hand, it was a model of persecution. Internal documents have been issued many times or through public newspapers and periodicals to introduce Peking University's practice to the whole country to follow. This situation makes Peking University a very representative case, and therefore more worthy of analysis and explanation.

Both the anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution resulted in a huge number of victims. In other words, both are large-scale group persecutions. This is the main and common feature of both.

Neither the Anti-Rightist Movement nor the Cultural Revolution targeted individuals. "Rightists" were later listed together with other "enemies" as "Landrich Against Bad Rightists", also known as "Five Types of Elements". It's a "class", not individual people. This "category" has a large number of people, which can be counted in millions. During the Cultural Revolution, in addition to the existing "five categories of elements", many categories were added. For example, a 1969 Peking University report titled "Report on the Clearing and Remolding of Class Enemies" stated that from early July to September 2 of that year, "traitors" and "secret agents" were cleared out among the faculty and staff of Peking University. There are 102 "historical counter-revolutionaries", "current counter-revolutionaries" and "land rich and bad elements". This report was issued to the whole country for study after Mao Zedong's instructions to "follow it". However, the number of "class enemies" that were "cleaned up" in three months accounted for more than 2% of the teaching staff, which would obviously create a huge absolute number in the whole country.

In addition to establishing "categories", percentages are also established to ensure that each category can fill up enough quota. Peking University's "anti-rightist movement" was first set at a rate of 5%. The "above" thought that 5% was not enough, so Peking University carried out "remedial classes" and increased it to 7%.

Li Si interjected: In the Soviet archives there are some orders about killing and imprisoning people. A copy dated July 30, 1937, listed the number of people to be killed in each republic from 100 to 2,000, and also listed the number of people to be arrested and imprisoned several times this.

Nan Shanyun said: Such an order is very terrifying. Not only because of the large number, but also because of the random selection of the number of "enemies". Similarly, Mao Zedong's use of percentages to classify "rightists" is equally terrifying.

Nan Shanyun analyzed the information he found from the "Observation" website, and he understood that the Cultural Revolution was an escalation and expansion of the anti-rightist persecution.

The victims of the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957 were pushed deeper into the fire pit of the Cultural Revolution. In 1957, they had not yet become "capped" people, and the Cultural Revolution was also imprisoned in the "cowshed". was also put to death and lost his life. On the one hand, both the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution were large-scale mass persecutions; on the other hand, the latter was more serious than the former.

Not only the facts show this, but it is also evident from the theories of Mao Zedong, the initiator and leader of the two "movements".

In 1957, Lao Mao created the so-called "two types of contradictions of different nature" theory. He divided citizens into two types, "the people" and "enemies". As for who is the "enemy", it is determined by him, such as "rightists". According to the constitution at the time, citizens enjoyed "freedom of speech", but Mao Zedong said that they were "contradictions between the enemy and ourselves", and they became "contradictions between the enemy and ourselves". During the Cultural Revolution, intellectuals were accused of being "bourgeois intellectuals", which was stipulated by Lao Mao alone. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong further put forward the theory of "continuing the revolution", that is to say, the original revolution should be further advanced. In the successive revolutions, more and more victims are suffering more and more.

Nanshan Yun began to ponder: Anti-Rightist activists were persecuted and even persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution. This is an obvious fact, but the explanations for this fact are not consistent. Some people used this to prove the "absurdity" and illogicality of the Cultural Revolution, and hit people who shouldn't be hit. This statement is specious, first of all because it more or less equates to affirming the anti-rightist movement. In addition, looking at the perpetrators, their revolution is persecution, they are quite integrated in logic and action, and they are not self-contradictory in fundamental aspects.

From theory to practice, the intention of the leaders of the Cultural Revolution to change is clear. Jiang Longji and Lu Ping, who led the anti-rightist movement in 1957, that is, the university leaders before the Cultural Revolution, were all "downed" during the Cultural Revolution. For example, when writing about the deaths of 20 university leaders in the book "Cultural Revolution Victims", it is pointed out that these people have never served as university faculty members, and their appointment as the highest university leaders has changed the traditional tradition of selecting presidents from professors and scholars. But Jiang Longji and Lu Ping went to college by themselves. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong accused the school system of being "ruled by bourgeois intellectuals", and then he sent Chi Qun, Xie Jingyi and other people who had not completed middle school education in his security forces to serve as the heads of Tsinghua University and Peking University until his death . At the same time as this violent persecution, Mao Zedong changed the education system step by step.

There is another explanation that is farther away from the facts, that is, those who were persecuted before the Cultural Revolution "rebelled" during the Cultural Revolution against those who had persecuted them. In fact, the leaders of the Cultural Revolution promulgated a series of clear regulations on the suppression of rightists. It is clear from the case of Peking University that "rightists" were one of the groups that suffered the most during the Cultural Revolution. As for the "struggle" of the anti-rightist activists, it definitely did not come from the revenge of the "rightists", but from the command of the supreme leader.

What kind of crime is this? Nanshan Yun continued to search for answers.

Killing a person is a crime. Killing such a huge number of people, violating the freedom and human rights of so many people, and cruelly punishing so many people without legal basis are of course even more crimes.

However, for the same historical fact, the description and judgment are quite different. On the side of the initiators and leaders of the Anti-Rightist and Cultural Revolution, they called it the "Great Revolution". To this day, in the eyes of anti-rightist and Cultural Revolution sympathizers, what they pay attention to is the "idealism" and high-spirited emotions that were the driving force at that time. They avoid mentioning the suffering of the victims, let alone admitting that it is a crime. .

Two years after the death of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Hu Yaobang "rehabilitated" the victims of the anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution. The scale of the persecution that has taken place is unprecedented. They have made some real improvements to the dire living conditions of this large group of victims. However, in terms of statement, they only called this action "rehabilitation of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases", and it seems that these are individual cases. This statement is obviously not in line with the facts, and they themselves do not really think so, otherwise they would not have rehabilitated more than 99% of the victims of the Anti-Rightist and Cultural Revolution, instead of only giving some of them screening.

For opponents of the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution, one question is, what kind of crime should they be called? Obviously this is a great crime, but the existing names of crimes, murder, theft, poisoning, slander, etc., can hardly be used to refer to such crimes. Anti-Rightist and Cultural Revolution crimes include these crimes in the traditional sense, but these names are only suitable to a small extent, because the number of people killed and persecuted by these crimes cannot be compared with Anti-Rightist and Cultural Revolution. No ordinary criminal, even a habitual or serial killer, could have endangered such a large number of victims. Only wars can endanger so many populations, but wars are mainly fought by armies with arms, and wars are conflicts of two armies against each other, quite differently.

In reality, a crime without a name might not be considered a crime. The crimes of the Anti-Rightist and Cultural Revolution not only need to be recorded, but also need to be named.

When Nanshan Yun was looking for an answer, he found a piece of information on the Internet for reference:

In the long process of resisting and liquidating Hitler's Nazis, a scholar named Raphael Lemkin devoted his life to coining and popularizing a new word about evil, genocide. After long efforts by Lemkin and others, "genocide" became an internationally accepted crime.

"Genocide" refers to the deliberate destruction of a group in whole or in part, including killing members of the group, causing serious physical and mental harm to members of the group, intentionally placing the group in certain living conditions, destroying its all or part of their lives, forcing children of this group to leave them, etc. This group is divided based on political, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and other reasons.

Hitler's killing of the Jews was a typical example of genocide. There, the most important so-called "reason" for being persecuted, imprisoned, sentenced to hard labor or even killed was that the person belonged to the "Jews", a group divided according to nationality.

Is this model suitable for anti-rightists and the Cultural Revolution? In terms of numbers, obviously yes, in terms of groupness, obviously yes. What differs is the "reason" and names used to divide these groups.

"Historical judgment", this is a new term. 50 years after the Anti-Rightist Movement and 40 years after the Cultural Revolution, in the era of computer networks where writing and dissemination technology is so convenient, it is already possible to judge history, that is, to judge crimes through historical writing.

But is this historical trial meaningful?

Nan Shanyun said:

In the late period of the Cultural Revolution, according to Mao Zedong's will, a "Liang Xiao" writing group was established on the campus of Peking University, and a large number of articles were published, mainly criticizing Confucius and advocating Qin Shihuang. For example, one of the articles published in the "People's Daily" on January 21, 1974 was titled "A Brief Discussion on the Violence of Qin Shihuang", which praised Qin Shihuang, who had been condemned throughout Chinese history, and described Qin Shihuang as "burning books and burying scholars". "It is directly equivalent to the "suppression of counter-revolutionaries" of the Cultural Revolution, that is to say, the mass persecution and killings of the Cultural Revolution must be affirmed and rationalized from a historical perspective.

Now looking back at this "Liang Xiao" who had a great influence in the past, it also makes people think about another question: In Chinese history, a ruler who can "burn books and bury scholars" on a large scale like Qin Shihuang, after all, the two emperors after Qin Shihuang Only one has appeared in thousands of years. What force played a blocking role? It should be said that in the two thousand years since the first emperor of Qin Dynasty, people have recorded and condemned "burning books and burying Confucianism" as a crime. Although these historical judgments are not profound enough by modern standards, they have more or less played a role.

This longitudinal observation of history tells Nanshan Yun that judging crimes through historical writing, and describing and analyzing historical facts in words and academics, is not as powerful as judging crimes in the judicial system, but it is not completely useless. Therefore, it is still important and meaningful to make a historical judgment on the anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution.