Grain and grass are a country's strategic materials, a necessity for the people's survival, and the lifeblood of a country's development. Abundant grain and grass reserves are like a powerful needle in the arm, so that the people will not lose confidence in the country at any time. At the same time, grain is also one of the important economic sources for the development of a country, and the development of many industrial products is inseparable from the support of grain and grass, so sufficient grain and grass is also of indescribable importance to the development of a country.
As we all know, China has been a big agricultural country since ancient times, and the land with large land and rich resources has given our country sufficient grain and grass reserves. But even a big agricultural country like China had a time of embarrassment, and soon after the founding of New China, China experienced some major changes.
During this period, China has been in a state of waste waiting to be rebuilt, because of the influence of war and other aspects, China's agriculture has been in a state of abandonment. It was at this time that the Soviet Union, as a friendly neighbor of our country, went so far as to offer to lend us a million tons of grain to satisfy our urgent needs. However, this transaction was lost because the translation was translated incorrectly.
As we all know, the relationship between my country and the Soviet Union has always been a very complex existence. Initially under the influence of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, a kind of patriot headed by Li Dazhao also put forward the idea of socialism in our country, and the May Fourth Revolution broke out. The Communist International, led by Lenin at that time, played a decisive role in the establishment of our Party and maintained friendly relations all along.
After the founding of New China, China has always regarded the Soviet Union as our big brother, and the Soviet Union has always supported us in many aspects such as the economy, which has played a great role in promoting the recovery of our economy. The friendly relations between China and china did not last long with the wishes of the two peoples, and with the fall of Stalin and the administration of Khrushchev, the relations between our country and the Soviet Union also took a sharp turn for the worse.
The newly appointed Khrushchev was very hostile to Stalin and regarded everything Stalin did as a thorn in his side. During Stalin's reign, the final thing was the relationship between China and the Soviet Union, and Khrushchev, who did not deal with Stalin, naturally became hostile to China, and eventually caused a rupture in Sino-Soviet relations. The period after the break-up between the two sides was one of the most difficult periods in our country. During this period, China was first hit by a series of natural disasters, domestic grain production continued to decline, and then the economy also fell rapidly. It was during this difficult period that the Soviet Union, once the big brother, extended a "helping hand" to our country.
At that time, the Soviet Union was in the cold war period with the United States, and under such a long period of attrition, the Soviet Union naturally needed a friendly helper to make itself better develop. For the Soviet Union at that time, China was precisely the best ally, whether in terms of geographical location or strength, China had a unique geographical advantage. So in 1961, the Soviet Union revealed that it wanted to carry out some cooperation with china in economic, technological and other aspects. In February of the same year, Khrushchev revealed his willingness to lend china one million tons of grain and half a million tons of sugar to help China tide over the current crisis.
But things are not as simple as they seem, and after a brief reflection, our country offers to accept aid from half a million sugar, but rejects aid from a million grains. He also expressed to the Soviet Union that our country hopes to solve the problem first by relying on its own efforts, and if it is really not possible in the end, it will seek the help of the Soviet Union.
At that time, our country was not willing to refuse Soviet assistance, and all this stemmed from a misunderstanding. In Khrushchev's letter to China there is a "B" character, which means to borrow in Russian, but the translator, in translating the letter, relied on his own understanding to translate the character into a loan. Although the difference between loan and borrowing is only one word, the meaning expressed is a thousand miles.
When the leaders of our country received the letter translated by the translator, they felt that if it was a loan, with China's national conditions and people's strength at that time, they would not be able to repay such a large loan. Therefore, after many discussions, it was decided that only the Soviet Union would accept the sugar that supported us, and give up the grain.
This farce was not discovered until our country went to the Soviet Union to discuss the matter of sugar, and Zhou Huamin, who was in charge of the vice minister of foreign trade at the time, felt that something was wrong during the negotiations, so he immediately called his superiors after the negotiations to report his findings. After receiving the news, the Prime Minister's secretary also called the translation team to verify the information. Once verified, it was found that this was indeed caused by the carelessness of the translation team.
Although the translation team regretted it after this incident, it was all useless. Compared with the Grain Savings of the Soviet Union, borrowing grain from the international market can also alleviate the food crisis for a period of time, but this also makes China's economic burden heavier, and more importantly, the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union have not been further improved.
This shows the importance of translation work. If you can do accurate translation, then it will reduce a lot of unnecessary trouble in the work. However, if the translated words do not meet the expectations, then it is likely to be contrary to the actual meaning, causing a lot of irreversible losses. In fact, translation work is sometimes a boring job, and translators have to face a lot of text every day. A day or two is fine, but over time it will cause exhaustion. With the exhaustion of the body and mind, the work does not have the initial meticulousness and slowly becomes careless. Many translators rely on their first sense and do not think about whether there is any other meaning, so that many translations are prone to error, which eventually leads to disaster.
In fact, translation work should not be regarded as a boring work, but learn to discover the fun in it. While translating an article, you will gain a deeper understanding of the culture of the country and see the wider world. When you think about it and finally figure out the meaning that belongs to it, you will feel a sense of glory that you have never felt before. If the original Soviet letter had been translated correctly, it would have reduced a lot of unnecessary trouble for our country.
brief summary:
Although the deterioration of relations between our country and the Soviet Union at that time was an inevitable step of the development of the times. However, translation errors also play a driving role in this, and these translation errors have caused a lot of unnecessary losses to our country.
At that time, the translation error was on the one hand because the education in our country was still relatively backward at that time, and a lot of knowledge could only be exposed to some one-sided aspects, and could not be deeply investigated. However, with the development of the times, China's education system is tending to be perfect, so our translation of foreign languages can no longer only look at its surface, but must go deep into it to find the meaning of itself to be worn. Translation is a bridge between people and countries.