Zhao Chao scolded his teacher Hu Shi

Zhao Chaoju unceremoniously opened a "scolding ring" to Hu Shi, but the most cautious wording. It is not that Hu Shi is "inviolable", but that his old man was Once Zhao Chao's teacher when he was in college, and Chinese pay attention to "respecting teachers and emphasizing the Tao", Zhao Chaoju had to be scrupulous...

Fu Xiaochun/Wen

Among the many well-known people scolded by Zhao Chaoju (Lin Fang), his attitude toward Hu Shi was the most "respectful", although he unceremoniously opened the "scolding ring", but the most cautious wording, there will never be such hurtful words as scolding Zhou Zuoren "for pigs for dogs"; when he is angry, he will at most use the word "Yu" to relieve his anger. The reason here is not that Hu Shi is "inviolable", but that his old man was Once Zhao Chao's teacher when he was in college, and Chinese pay attention to "respecting teachers and emphasizing the Tao", Zhao Chaoju had to have some scruples.

In 1930, when Zhao Chaoju was admitted to the China Public School in Shanghai, the president of the school was the famous scholar Hu Shi. At that time, Hu Shi was also the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and in addition to attending the school for two hours a week on cultural history, he occasionally gave public lectures at the school. Zhao Chao's composition was in the Department of Political Science and Economics, and Luo Longji served as the head of the department. It was rare for him to hear Hu Shi's classes, and Hu Shi left office when he arrived at school, so they did not intersect too much. But this nominal teacher-student relationship is a clear and dangling fact.

Hu Shi became famous for initiating the "New Culture Movement" and soon became the leader of Chinese literature and the core of the New Culture Movement. Perhaps because of the "tree big trick", in the 1930s and 1940s, Hu Shi was a very easy to scold. Zhao Chao composed in nanjing's "Chao Bao", writing essays for a living, inevitably "scolding people", so his teacher Mr. Hu Shizhi repeatedly bumped into the muzzle of his gun.

Unemployment after graduating from university seemed to be the norm in Chinese society at that time. Zhao Chaoju, who had just come out of the university gate, had a hard time finding the messenger in front of him, but at this time, Hu Shi, who was the dean of the College of Literature of Peking University at the time, threw out "I have the ability, why worry about having no food!" College graduates who are unemployed do not have to complain about others, but blame themselves" remarks. The young and vigorous Zhao Chaoju, believing that the teacher "stands and talks without waist pain", published an essay in the newspaper "Hu Shengren Says Cool Words", and ridiculed the teacher: "I can brag, I can shoot horses, I may say 'my friend Hu Shizhi', the rice bowl problem, so I solve it." ”

In the spring of 1936, Hu Shi went to Nanjing for a meeting, and was invited to the pro-Japanese Zhou Fohai Mansion as a "guest of honor." At that time, Zhou Fohai set up a "current political teahouse" in his mansion, ignored the ironclad facts of Japan's occupation of China's three northeastern provinces, and advocated fallacies such as "Sino-Japanese goodwill and peaceful negotiation to resolve disputes," thus forming a so-called "low-key club." At the banquet, Hu Shi threw himself into his favor and put forward a "pessimistic tone" against the current situation of the war. After the news spread, public opinion was in an uproar, and all sectors of society were quite critical of Hu Shi. Zhao Chao was furious and rushed to write a fiercely verbal commentary overnight, "scolding" Hu Shizhi's behavior in the Chao Bao.

This former student of Hu Shi seemed destined to be at odds with the teacher. "Hu Shi Hu is embarrassed! "Hu Shi Said Dreams", "Who deserves to kill Hu Shi? From the titles of these aggressive essays, it can be seen that Zhao Chaojian "scolded" Hu Shi's sharpness in writing and the sharpness of his words, completely disregarding the teacher's face. It is said that after Hu Shi read these articles, he was both relieved and embarrassed. It is gratifying that the students are "first-class in writing and worthy of the name", and the embarrassing thing is that the students "scold" the teacher and make him unable to get off the stage. But Hu Shi is a saint after all, Hai Na Baichuan, he said, "Everyone has the freedom to express their opinions, I will not mind." (Jin Ping: "Famous Journalist Zhao Chaoju in Nanjing")

In 1942, in the "Biography of Hu Shi" written by Hu Bugui, Zhao Chaoju found that the author had "praised the living and degraded the dead" in describing the incident of "Hu Shi letting the forest damage", and had unfair comments on the forest damage, so he became indignant again and made an exception to write a 1400-word "long article" - usually he was mostly three or five hundred words of "dried tofu", this time it was considered a "big stroke", and he refuted it fiercely.

"Hu Shi released forest damage" is an old case that occurred at Peking University in the 1930s. As an old-school Peking University professor, Lin Wei has a straight and arrogant personality, and disagrees with Hu Shi on the issue of vernacular literature, so they "befriend each other". In 1934, Hu Shi became the dean of literature and the head of the Department of Traditional Chinese Studies at Peking University, so he was eliminated from the game, and old professors such as Ma Yuzao, Huang Jie, and Xu Zhiheng resigned in anger. Hu Bugui said in the biography that before Lin Bao left office, he "wrote several letters of great loss of scholarly demeanor, and Mr. Shizhi was particularly admirable with a smile", and zhao Chaoju believed that it was inconsistent with the facts and was suspected of "respecting Hu Shi and devaluing Lin Zhi". In his article "On the Loss of Hu Shi's Forest", he wrote:

If we focus on ideological scholarship, I have no objection. Mr. Lam's mind is indeed out of date, but how does this detract from Mr. Lam's academic status within his specific scope? If I talk about personality, I can believe that Mr. Lin has no room for being questioned, his diligence in self-study, self-love, rebellion against authority, poisoning the city juniper, and his frank, kind and arrogant personality, and Mr. Hu Shizhi are completely heterogeneous.

Saying that Hu Shi's poisonous scolding letter to Lin Wei was "put aside with a smile, especially admirable" Yunyun, in fact, this is not the case. Mr. Shizhi is a wise man, and when he saw Lin Zhi write such a letter, he knew that the strategy of "releasing Forest Damage" had been successful, and in fact it had already won the victory.

In the era of "New Youth", Mr. Chen Duxiu of communism was the senior, and he was still able to tolerate this class of stubborn professors, so why did these thirty-year-old professors have to be uneasy about their positions and jointly retire? Is this an "admirable" fact?

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, although Hu Shi never had a bad record of being a traitor, because of his "reactionary political tendencies," for many years, the "treatment" of the Chinese mainland was almost the same as that of Zhou Zuoren, who bore the name of a traitor, and was a notorious "negative teaching material." They appeared as "jumping beam clowns" and took turns to appear, which naturally became the "boots" in the theme of Lin Fang's essays. As far as Zhao Chaojian is concerned, Hu Shi's fate seems to be more "miserable", Zhou Zuoren and his "prose beauty" make Zhao a little "unwilling", while Hu Shi seems to be able to have no scruples. In the "Lin Fang-style essays", Hu Shi is "the grandfather of the 'special case' style", the "synonym" of bourgeois liberalization, and the "initiator" of total Westernization...

Due to the particularity of Zhao Chao's role in the ideological field, his opposition to Hu Shi seems to be more prominent and rock-solid. However, through the thick layer of whitewash on the surface, there is still something in common in the depths of their souls full of human brilliance. Zhao Chaoju wrote an article entitled "Talking More about Social Issues and Propagating Socialism Well," and he held that Hu Shi's advocacy of "talking more about problems and talking less about doctrine" was to oppose the spread of Marxism-Leninism in the name of "studying" the issue, which is of course absurd. However, this does not mean that if we propagate Marxism-Leninism and socialism, we can talk about doctrine in an empty and empty way and not study the problems. He said: "Everyone obviously sees that there are piles of problems in front of them, but they cannot analyze these problems that urgently need to be solved in terms of Marxism-Leninism. (Zhu Yafu: "Commenting on the Fifty Springs of the World Elephant - Interviewing the Essay Predecessor Lin Fang")

By the mid-1980s, the political climate in academia was loosening, and certain simplistic, rigid boxes or taboos were melting away. For "villains" such as Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, Chen Duxiu, and so on, they can also be viewed in two and judged. Public opinion has openly affirmed Hu Shi as a "famous scholar", Chen Duxiu's contribution to the New Culture Movement, and Zhou Zuoren's position in the literary and art circles. So for Hu Shi, a figure who can already "build a coffin", how will we treat him? In this regard, Zhao Chaoju said very clearly in the essay "Enmity and Right and Wrong", and at the same time, his attitude towards his teacher Hu Shi also began to slow down, and his tone was much more polite than in the past. He said: "For example, Hu Shi, if he is still alive, we will still unite with him." If he is willing to go back to the mainland to have a look, we must treat him with courtesy. If he is willing to give a lecture, our Fudan University is likely to ask him to give a 'pragmatic lecture'." If he had sponsored the great cause of the reunification of the motherland, it would have been even better, and he would have used the two poems of 'the brothers who have done their best to rob the waves, and have a smile and a grudge when they meet'. ”

(Excerpted from the book "Zhao Chaojian of the Newspaperman", Wenhui Publishing House, August 2017 edition)