Wake up（364）

 

Chapter 63 Tangle

 

364

 

Liu Xiaosheng sighed to Nanyang Sheng and Pan Tianliang:

In the spring of 1989, Hu Yaobang left with injustice; 15 years later, in the harsh winter of 2005, Zhao Ziyang left under house arrest.

Liu Xiaosheng told a story about Zhao Ziyang’s friend Wang Yangsheng who interviewed Zhao Ziyang before his death:

In July 2004, Wang Yangsheng visited Zhao Ziyang at No. 6 Fuqiang Hutong, Wangfujing, Beijing. Three months later, Zhao Ziyang's friend Wang Yangsheng compiled this conversation into a document entitled "Visiting Fuqiang Hutong", and published it in the Hong Kong media in January 2005. This is the record of Zhao Ziyang's last conversation with a visitor that has been made public so far. About half a year after this interview, Zhao Ziyang passed away on January 17, 2005, at his home under house arrest in Beijing.

Wang Yangsheng wrote in "Knocking on Fuqiang Hutong":

 

One morning in July, I came to Fuqiang Hutong in the drizzle.

Adjacent to the bustling Wangfujing, the small alleys are increasingly desolate and quiet. There is a circle of barbed wire on the gray wall of No. 6 courtyard. The "Beijing Key Protected Siheyuan" is inlaid on the wall next to the door. There is a reminder of "non-open unit" beside the stone plaque. Two guards in yellow and green military uniforms stand At the big red door, it is very eye-catching in the old and dark surroundings, all of which imply the unusualness of the residents.

I stepped forward, and the guard asked me what was the matter, and I said I was looking for the fifth son of the Zhao family. He asked me to ring the doorbell. After the doorbell rang, a small window opened on the door, revealing a pair of vigilant eyes. I reported myself to find Lao Wu again, the door opened, and a staff member asked me politely, do you have any ID? I took out my ID card, thinking that he would give it back to me after looking at it, but he said, come back later Back to you. Later, I learned that all visitors' certificates must be registered.

Going around the front yard where the staff probably lived, there was a row of white fences on the small passage. Someone moved the fence and let me in, and I arrived at the residential area of the Zhao family.

The Five Armies were already waiting for me and took me to the old man's house.

This room faces north and a row of windows faces the yard, but according to the habits of old Beijing, this is not the most suitable house for living. On the east wall is a row of yellow bookshelves, resembling organ tools from the 1970s and 1980s. Books and periodicals are scattered on a large black writing desk. There is an electric massage chair next to it. A red tin thermos bottle is placed in front of the chair. He planted an old-fashioned thermos bottle that has long been out of sight in many people's homes, and he poured boiling water by himself. There are oxygen cylinders behind the chairs, a row of TV speakers on the west wall, two single sofas against the south wall, and a plastic tripod at the door for sundries. The old floor has been wiped so that the red paint has peeled off. This is Mr. Zhao's study and living room.

The old man sitting on the massage chair stood up to greet me. He's thinner than he was last seen on TV 15 years ago, but he's in good spirits. I held his hand and said, Uncle Zhao, we miss you very much, my parents miss you very much, but it is not convenient to come. We all miss you very much. He said, I know I know.

I sit down on an armchair. I said, Wu Jun said that you have bad lungs and breathlessness when speaking, so I will tell you something about the outside world. If you are tired, or should not talk about it, Wu Jun reminds me, and I will not talk about it. The old man said, it's okay, I can talk.

I told him that the two books that received the most attention this year were "The Past Is Not Like Smoke" and "A Survey of Chinese Peasants", and he said, "I have read both."

"You know you got banned later?" I asked.

"I know, there are two stages, first is no propaganda, no criticism, and the other is no what?"

"No hype?" In fact, I'm not sure.

"It was not allowed to be sold later." The old man answered.

He also read Jiao Guobiao's "Crackdown on the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee". He also knew that Ren Zhongyi and Wu Nansheng in the "Southern Metropolis Daily" case had written letters to the provincial party committee, and they were still sentenced to 8 years in prison.

I said, "You are well-informed!"

The old man said proudly: "Some people told me all kinds of news."

I said, let me tell you about my study at the party school in the second half of last year.

I talked about how party school professors put various views into the basket of the "Three Represents"; I talked about the different views on the construction of the legal system, the Party Congress or the Law University; I talked about the comparison between one-party autocracy and imperial power politics; A professor worried about the prospect of political system reform, saying, "Political system reform, that is, the real realization of the rule of law, I can't see it, and neither can my son. I dare not say whether my grandson can see it" and so on. . He listened with great interest and said, "The party school dares to speak now!"

I said that in the classes I listened to, about one-third of the professors spoke old-fashioned words according to the text, and one-third were more leftist or dogmatic, while some professors spoke quite objectively or even avant-garde, very sharp and practical. I feel that many teachers in the party school have had the opportunity to study western politics abroad and have done a lot of research on western countries, especially the United States.

The old man said: "Now there are more and more sensible people in China."

He paused and then said, "Actually, the current leaders also understand, but they can't change the status quo. The current leaders have no ideals, no beliefs, and they don't know where they want to take China...but they are engaged in a market economy. , when private ownership of capital and property is reasonable and legal, the Communist Party will inevitably become corrupt, and powerful people will inevitably use their control over resources to turn social wealth into their own private property. They have formed a large vested interest group .”

"Corruption is bound to occur in a commodity economy under a one-party dictatorship. However, like China, corruption is so widespread, the speed of corruption is so fast, and the degree of corruption is so serious, which is rare in the world. The National Audit Office recently audited In many serious cases, many corrupt officials have been killed in various places, it is useless! The basic fact that the Communist Party controls all resources remains unchanged, and corruption cannot be controlled.”

"Indonesia's Suharto military regime is also very corrupt, and his family is also very powerful, but compared with China, because this military regime does not control all the country's resources, it will not be like China, where corruption penetrates into all aspects of social life and permeates into every corner."

At this time, the old man’s little daughter, Niu Niu, came in. We greeted each other, and the old man continued the topic just now and said angrily: “China is practicing the worst capitalism now! Western capitalism was also bad in the early days, but it can gradually move towards progress. To civilization, and China, the worst capitalism, can't go to progress!"

I said: "Actually, there are some ways to limit corruption! For example, giving the media the power to fully exercise the power of supervision by public opinion, and timely exposing all kinds of corruption and all kinds of unscientific decisions can make officials behave with scruples." , This is beneficial to the party, and the cost is very low, but why does the Central Propaganda Department always prevent public opinion supervision and always restrict the media?"

The old man said: "They are afraid. They are afraid that a crack will be opened, and all kinds of contradictions will rush out and become uncontrollable. They must safeguard the vested interests of themselves and the group of people they represent. Hu and Wen don't know that they have great support for the reform of the political system. No matter how you think about it, even if they have ideas, it is difficult, and it is difficult to offend so many vested interests."

I asked, "Then what do we do next?"

The old man said: "It's not cured." Probably seeing that I didn't expect him to speak this Beijing dialect with a Henan accent, he wrote the word "治" in the air with his finger: "It's what Beijingers say 'no cure'. There is no other way."

He coughed, and then said: "Someone told me the history of the late Qing Dynasty. The Reform Movement of 1898 was nothing more than some improvements. Compared with the late Qing Dynasty, the reform of the New Deal was more thorough, but Cixi could not accept it and suppressed the reform. In the Eight Kingdoms When the coalition forces came to Beijing, she also knew that the regime was too rotten to maintain, and then she started a new policy by herself. But it was too late, and the new policy could not be pushed, and Sun Yat-sen led the Revolution of 1911.”

"How to solve China's problem?" we asked.

"No one wants a situation of violent turmoil, including overseas pro-democracy activists, and they don't want China to change the old system through violent turmoil. However, if the current development continues, it is impossible to predict what will happen when the social sentiment becomes unbearable. "

We continued to listen to the old man intently: "China had a historical opportunity at that time, and there was only one person in China who was able to reform the political system, and that was Deng Xiaoping!" He said emphatically, "Only Deng Xiaoping has this ability and strength!"

"Deng Xiaoping made up his mind to reform the economic system. He saw that China was poor, so he wanted to develop the economy. Deng Xiaoping's philosophy of governing the country is to make the country rich and the military strong. He said many times that when our economy develops, we will have money to strengthen our military power. We will become a powerful country in the world. He wants China to be strong. I have worked with him for so many years. He is very hands-off in economic reform, and you can change whatever you want. But he is very vigilant about political system reform. Later, he often quoted him once about The speech on the reform of the political system, that is, if the system is good, bad people cannot do bad things, and if the system is not good, good people will also become bad. I don’t know where it was made, but I haven’t heard it. It seems that he will never speak like this again. .”

"Deng Xiaoping paid great attention to efficiency. He didn't like discussions, he liked a high degree of centralization, and even the fewer decision-makers, the better. An example he often cited was the Soviet Union sending troops to Afghanistan. He said that the Politburo held a meeting and sent troops the next day ! Can the United States do it? Who is the government in the United States? The president is the government? The Congress is the government?

"Deng Xiaoping likes to say 'make a decision'. He often said, do what you see right, and just 'make a decision'! He didn't like discussions, and later he also objected to arguing about surnames."

"He doesn't like decentralization of power. When drafting the report to the 13th National Congress, he called and emphasized: 'You don't mean to separate the three powers! Don't have a shadow of it!' The Economic Reform Commission has launched a political system reform plan. , he probably just flipped through it to see if he talked about the separation of powers. I think he hoped that the Communist Party would be strong, but he had no idea about reforming the political system. Even if he thought about reforming the political system, when he saw the It’s too big, there’s a problem, and I think it can’t be done.”

I asked: "If the leader is good, then China is good, and if not? Isn't it very risky to entrust the fate of the country to a few people? I mean, isn't the bet too single? It's dangerous?" "

"So he pays attention to the successor." The old man said. I don't want to discuss the succession issue, it's too sensitive.

I then asked: "At that time, someone from Deng's family also went to study in the United States. Didn't you introduce the American political system to him? I remembered a political novel "The Will" I read not long ago, which described Deng's children and parents. Discuss the various institutional scenarios."

The old man still answered my question very seriously: "One, people who went abroad at that time did not know how to learn foreign political systems. In addition, it also has something to do with his personality. Deng Xiaoping didn't like chatting, he didn't like to talk." I Said that this can also be seen from his children's memories of him.

At this time, I asked, "If June 4th hadn't happened, would you have been able to reform the political system?"

He thought for a while and said, "No, I can't either."

"Why?"

He didn't answer for a while. Niuniu urged him: "People ask why you can't, but you haven't answered yet!"

The old man said slowly: "I don't have the strength. Such a big country, such a huge cadre team, affects the interests of so many people, I don't have the strength."

I didn't continue to ask what "strength" is.

The old man pondered and said, "I know how to engage in enlightened politics. I thought about promoting the development of the democratic parties. I said, why are there activities of the democratic parties only in the CPPCC? Deputies to the National People's Congress are organized by region. Why is there no democratic party in the National People's Congress? Anyway The Communist Party is still in the majority. I also thought about letting non-Party people and people from the democratic parties be ministers and deputy prime ministers like they did in the early days of liberation.”

He suddenly remembered and said: "I changed that word. It used to say 'multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the Communist Party', but I deleted the word 'under'. I have noticed that until now it has said 'led by the Communist Party'." multi-party cooperation'."

The Five Armies interjected: "Is there a difference between 'leadership' and 'under leadership'?"

The old man said with a bit of self-deprecation: "Oh, it's also a word game. But I did have this idea at the time, to remove the word 'under', to indicate that all political parties are equal. When changing this word, there is no explanation, no hype, It will be changed. If you explain it, maybe it can’t be changed. I remember that one morning, Deng Xiaoping’s daughter, who was working at the National People’s Congress, called Bao Tong and said that what our old man said about the development of the Democratic Party was casual and should not be taken seriously. Don't put it in the report. Deng and I don't think the same way."

"If I do it, democracy will slowly advance," he said as if to himself, his voice tinged with cool confidence.

I said, "If you reform slowly, radicals will accuse you of not doing enough reforms, and conservatives will attack you for making chaotic reforms."

The old man said: "Yes, so I have no strength!"

I asked: "At that time, did your Economic Reform Commission have a reform blueprint? For example, in those few years, our newspapers discussed the issue of the state system and political system. I really want to know what the central government has in mind for the future of the country. What will the national system look like in 50 years, and what will it look like in 80 years?"

The old man said: "I didn't think so far, it is difficult to formulate a timetable. The reform of the CCP can only be carried out step by step, and we will see it as we make changes."

He is more concerned about China's future, the reform of the political system.

"Khrushchev of the Soviet Union wanted to reform, but the timing was not good, too early. Gorbachev's reform is worth studying. He first implemented the presidential system and carried out reforms as the president, not as the leader of the Communist Party. , it is different from the Communist Party. The Soviet Union carried out political system reform first. Although there are many problems now, there will be great development in the future. Russia has hope. It is obvious that no one wants to return to the In the past, there is no going back.”

The old man said according to his own thinking: "Reforms caused the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This is the biggest criticism of Gorbachev's reforms, and it is the most criticized issue."

I interjected: "The ethnic conflicts in the Soviet Union were already prominent, and the system of the republics was relatively loose. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was hard to avoid."

The old man said: "Yes, the three countries of the Baltic Sea and Lithuania, if they were more enlightened, they should have been allowed to be independent long ago. ... Sakharov of the Soviet Union, or Solzhenitsyn who wrote "Gulag Islands", once I wrote a suggestion that if he follows his ideas, the pace of reform in the Soviet Union may be more stable and the social turmoil will be less.”

He went on to analyze the past and current situation of the former Union Republic and the current Commonwealth of Independent States... These topics far exceeded my knowledge, and I couldn't keep up with his thoughts. Looking at the wall clock on the opposite side, we have been talking for nearly two hours, and it was mainly the old man who spoke. I was afraid that he would be tired, so I offered to leave.

I took a group photo with the old man, wishing him good health and wishing him to take care. When parting, he said, "We're just chatting casually today." I said, "Don't worry, I know." I visited his wife, Aunt Liang Boqi, in the backyard. Aunt Liang is already blind due to glaucoma and suffered a stroke last year. Her mind is sometimes clear and sometimes confused, but she can still say my mother's name clearly, which makes Niuniu and I very happy.

Walking out of the small courtyard, my heart could not be calm for a long time. I didn't expect the old man to talk to me about such a macro political issue. Thankfully, life under house arrest did not imprison a politician's mind. During the nearly two-hour conversation, the 85-year-old man had a clear mind and a quick response. I firmly believe that there must be many thoughts about China's future in his wise mind, and they should be left to the Chinese people. Do I still have a chance to hear them?

3 months have passed. For various reasons, I never saw the old man again. But keep in touch with his children. The old man's condition developed rapidly, and now he needs to inhale oxygen 24 hours a day. His son told me that one day in mid-August, after the old man was hospitalized and returned home again, the children of the Zhao family raised many opinions on the life management of the old man, such as frequent power outages that cannot guarantee the operation of the oxygen generator, etc. A deputy director of the General Office of the Central Committee visited the old man in Fuqiang Hutong. This is the first time in over a decade.

After the old man heard the words of greetings, he suddenly said: "There is a sentence, please pass it up truthfully, truthfully! Because many things I said before have changed after passing them up. I want to say, I have been passed on. It has been under house arrest for more than ten years, and if this situation continues, it will be lifelong house arrest. This will be recorded in history! This will have a very bad impact on the Communist Party!"

 

Liu Xiaosheng was a little angry, he said to Nan Yangsheng and Pan Tianliang:

Although, the shamelessness of the official blockade of Ziyang Undead is infuriating. But the grassroots groups still mourn and respect Ziyang's soul. The official memory that refuses to distort history and cover up crimes is undeniable. When talking about the history of China's reforms, we must talk about Deng Xiaoping, but we must not only talk about Deng Xiaoping.

In fact, during the golden age of reform in the 1980s, from the perspective of high-level reformers, "Deng, Hu, and Zhao" were once recognized as the troika driving the wheels of reform. The host of the ideological liberation movement, Zhao Ziyang is the main promoter of economic reform (household contracted production in the countryside and enterprise reform in the city) and political reform. It can even be said that the "Wenzhou model" established by Zhao Ziyang in the 1980s is The marketization and privatization of the Chinese economy pointed the way. More importantly, Hu and Zhao are still the mainstays in resisting the conservatives in the party, and they have prevented the spread of "cleaning up pollution" and "anti-liberalization" campaigns.

Whether it is reviewing great historical events or commemorating great men, any review and commemoration that dedicates all achievements to one person, even if it is not malicious with ulterior motives, at least disrespects historical truth and is extremely unfair. However, in the commemoration of the centenary of Deng Xiaoping's birthday, which is led by the government, the god-making campaign of distorting history and covering up the truth is still repeated, and there is no mention of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang's great contributions to reform and opening up.

Liu Xiaosheng was still very angry, he said to Nan Yangsheng and Pan Tianliang:

The objective historical facts are: Deng Xiaoping was an enlightened faction economically and even ideologically, while Deng was undoubtedly the most conservative faction in the top leadership of the CCP politically. In this sense, a reform that only belonged to Deng Xiaoping is obviously the reform that Jiang Zemin insisted on—a lame reform dominated by dictatorship and giving priority to the elite class, a reform that ignores justice, is full of disadvantages, and is full of crises. It is also a reform that continues to accumulate hatred and unrest at the bottom.

This kind of reform was founded in 1979 after Deng Xiaoping returned to power. It reaffirmed the authoritarian dogma of the "Four Cardinal Principles", adopted the ideological purge campaign of "cleaning pollution" and "anti-liberalization", and successively abolished the two terms The general secretary of the Communist Party of China’s rule of man, and the bloody massacre of the “89 Movement” have been suppressed, so that the people of the country still live under the terror of one-party dictatorship, and the “robber capital” led by privileges led by the lame reform. "ism" astray, polarization under the promise of a well-off society, rampant corruption and ecological destruction under high economic growth, moral degeneration and a vacuum of faith under popular culture... Today's China is not only a paradise for rich and powerful families, but also a place for the vast majority of Hell for the powerless; it is the road of Shu for honest businessmen, and the Yangguan for fraudulent speculators; it is a jungle society without social justice and business reputation, and its bloody and barbaric, shameless and thick black far exceeds The evils of the primitive accumulation period of western capitalism.