Feng Xuefeng (1903-1976), a native of Yiwu, Zhejiang, formerly known as Fuchun, changed his name to Xuefeng, is a famous modern poet, critic, literary commentator and Marxist literary translator. In 1921, he was admitted to the Zhejiang Provincial First Normal School, and soon joined the Morning Light Society and began to write new poems. The following year, together with Pan Mohua, Ying Xiu and Wang Jingzhi, he published a poetry collection "Lakeside". In 1925, he went to Peking University to observe and teach himself Japanese, and in 1926 began to translate literary works, especially Soviet russian literature and Art and Marxist literary treatises, and translated and published more than ten Marxist theoretical works and a large number of papers in his lifetime. He edited the "Scientific Art Theory Series" with the strong support of Lu Xun, and published a total of 9 kinds from 1929 to 1930, including 3 translations by Lu Xun and 4 translations by Feng Xuefeng. From 1931 to 1933, he successively served as secretary of the "Left League" party group, secretary of the Cultural Work Committee of the Shanghai Central Bureau of the CPC, and director of the Propaganda Department of the Jiangsu Provincial CPC Committee. In December 1933, he was transferred to the Central Soviet Region and was elected alternate executive member of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Government at the Second National Congress of the Chinese Soviet. He joined the Long March in 1934 and arrived in northern Shaanxi in 1935. He arrived in Shanghai in April 1936 as a central commissioner, and from August of the same year to September 1937, he was the deputy director of the Shanghai office of the Communist Party of China. In 1937, he returned to his hometown to engage in writing, and in 1941 he was arrested and imprisoned by the Kuomintang government until he was rescued from prison in late November 1942. In 1950, he became the vice chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Federation of Literature and Literature, the president and editor-in-chief of Lu Xun's Writings Compilation And Publications. In 1951, he was transferred to Beijing and successively served as president and editor-in-chief of the People's Literature Publishing House, editor-in-chief of the Literary and Art Daily, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, and secretary of the party leading group. He was misclassified as a rightist in 1957 and died of lung cancer in 1976. He was rehabilitated and rehabilitated in 1979.
Feng Xuefeng is a famous modern poet, critic and literary theorist, and is known as one of the "troikas of Chinese revolutionary realism theory". He is also a self-taught Marxist literary translator and has made important historical contributions to the sinification of Marxist literature.
"The first person to work hard and reap the rewards"
In the 1920s and 1930s, engaging in the translation of Marxist literature was like prometheus stealing fire in ancient Greek mythology, which was an extremely dangerous and significant undertaking. Spurred on by Li Dazhao's sacrifice, Feng Xuefeng resolutely joined the Communist Party of China in June 1927. Around December of the same year, the Warlords of the Feng Clan closed down the Beixin Bookstore, and Feng Xuefeng was in danger because a translation of the editorial department of the bookstore was searched. The manuscript contains several articles written by the Soviets on cultural issues, and the title page reads "This translation is dedicated to those who died for communism." However, the reactionary authorities' ban and even the threat to their lives did not prevent translators from "stealing fire", Marxist literary works were still continuously translated, and a wave of Marxist literary translation was formed around the 1930s. Among them, Feng Xuefeng is considered to be "the first person who works hard and works hard and reaps a lot of rewards" (Chen Zhaochun: "Under the Banner of Lu Xun - A Preliminary Study of Xuefeng Realist Theory").
Feng Xuefeng's translation of Marxist literature does not have a unique advantage, and he has become a translator entirely by self-study. In the spring of 1925, Feng Xuefeng borrowed the admission certificate of his fellow villager Pan Mohua to attend Peking University and study Japanese by himself. In about a year, I began translating essays, novels and theoretical articles. Before and after the October Revolution, Marx and Engels's expositions on literature and art had not yet been well sorted out, and Russian theoreticians such as Plekhanov were regarded as Marxist literary orthodoxy, while Chinese translators who really understood Russian were very rare. Therefore, Japanese translation has become an important channel for intellectuals to understand Marxist literature, and many important translators such as Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, and Chen Wangdao mainly translated Marxist theoretical works from Japanese. In June 1926, Feng Xuefeng published his first translation, the novel "Hanako" by the Japanese writer Mori Ouwai. But he soon realized the importance of the translation of Soviet and Marxist literature and literature, and actually devoted himself to the translation work: "In China, there are very few such works, probably because Chinese literary researchers know the direct researchers of Russian, they are very lonely, and the research materials are relatively difficult to obtain. In view of the fact that "there is no shortage of people in the country who would like to know about New Russian literature and art", he decided to start with the Japanese language "to do a little work of transit, in the hope of indirectly introducing the aspects of the New Russian art movement to the people of the country and for the reference of researchers" (Preface to the Translator of Proletarian Literature of New Russia). In November 1926, Feng Xuefeng published a translation of the paper "Proletarian Poet and Peasant Poet" by the Japanese scholar Sheng Shumeng in the 21st issue of Mangyuan. Almost at the same time, he was also translating Sheng Shumeng's book The Dawn of New Russian Literature. Since then, it has been out of control. It was not until December 1933 that he was transferred to the Central Soviet District and came to an end.
Feng Xuefeng's translators are diligent and diligent, their attitude is humble and rigorous, and their results are remarkable, and he mentions consulting other translators, including Lu Xun and Chen Wangdao, in many places. However, after all, it mainly relies on Japanese translation, and insists on "literal translation", and some parts of the translation are inevitably obscure. Feng Xuefeng found an opportunity to revise and revise, for example, when his translation of Plekhanov's book "Art and Social Life" was reprinted in 1937, "there were many translations and changes in words and phrases.". On the whole, Feng Xuefeng's translation achievements are the main ones. The theorists he chose to translate and the corresponding thesis "are so extensive and numerous that they exceed any translator since May Fourth and from the early 1930s" (Liu Qingfu: "Feng Xuefeng's major contribution to the translation of Marxist literary and artistic treatises should be highly valued"). In 2016, the People's Literature Publishing House published 12 volumes of The Complete Works of Feng Xuefeng, which included 3 volumes of translations, including 13 theoretical works and a large number of essays, except for a small number of literary works, the rest are mainly Marxist literary works, with about 700,000 words. Feng Xuefeng's translated theoretical works include Sheng Shumeng's Dawning Period of New Russian Literature (1927), Proletarian Literature in New Russia (1927), The Drama Movement and Dancing in New Russia (1927), Literary and Art Policy of New Russia (1928), Kurahara Shujin and others, Lunakarsky (also translated as "Lunacharsky"), The Foundation of an Artistic Society (1929), Vlovsky's Treatise on Writers (1929), Lenin's Treatise on Writers. Outline of Socialism in Science (1929), Pulikhanov (Plekhanov's transliteration) Art and Social Life (1929), Mehringer's Literary Review (1929), Macha's Art in Modern Europe (1930), Mauchchi's Tasks and Problems in the Sociology of Art (1930), Liebknecht's Studies in Art (1933), etc. In addition, he translated more than 20 essays by Marx, Lenin, Gorky, Fadeyev and others.
Feng Xuefeng's theoretical translation has irreplaceable historical value. From the above list, it can be seen that although some theorists such as Macha, Ma Liqi, and Kurahara Weiren were later considered by left-wing critics to have many theoretical errors, they were not all undesirable, and Feng Xuefeng's translations were more of the writings of classic writers of Marxist literature and literature, which withstood the test of the times. For example, his translation of Lenin's "Party Organizations and Party Publications" (Feng Xuefeng's translation of "On Emerging Literature") is a very important classic writer's document. Marx's two articles, "The Preconditions for the Formation of a Society formed by Art" and "Marx on freedom of publication and review", were translated for the first time into Chinese. Because of Feng Xuefeng's diligent and solid translation, "And the fire returns to mankind" (Feng Xuefeng's "Promethean Monk Fragments"), his translation influenced a number of writers and theorists. Ding Ling recalled that Hu Yefeng, one of the "Five Martyrs of the Left League," embarked on the revolutionary road because he was influenced by the theoretical translations of Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng: "At that time, Hu Ye frequently read the progressive literary theory series translated by Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng. He's starting to change, and he's getting faster than I am... He read these theoretical books and went to the left day by day. After we went to Jinan, Hu Yipin became a red teacher. The literary theorist Chen Yong once recalled: "My knowledge of Comrade Xuefeng began when I saw his translation of "Art and Social Life" when I was young. Not only that, the "Left League" is an important literary and artistic organization led by the Party in the left-wing literary and art movement, and Lu Xun believes that the "Left League" can be established because "because at this time the theories of Puli Khanov, Lunakarsky, and so on have been imported, so that everyone can interact with each other and be more solid and powerful" ("A Glimpse of Shanghai Literature and Art"), and Feng Xuefeng, Lu Xun, Qu Qiubai, and others were the first to translate theoretical works such as Plekhanov and Lunakarsky.
Focus on the construction of Chinese proletarian literature
In his article "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship," Mao Zedong vividly described the tremendous role of the October Revolution in promoting the spread of Marxism in China: "The October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism with the sound of a cannon. Correspondingly, Soviet Russian literature and art were gradually introduced to China. For example, Zheng Zhenduo translated Gorky's essay "Literature and Present Russia" to introduce the world famous book publishing plan of Soviet Russia, and Qu Qiubai's "The First Yan of the New Literary and Artistic Era of Red Russia" enthusiastically introduced the Soviet writer Kalinin (now translated as "Kalinin"). However, to say that the first person to systematically introduce Soviet Russian literature and art is none other than Feng Xuefeng. During the May Fourth period, the mainland published a total of four translations of Soviet and Russian literature and art. It was not until after the defeat of the Great Revolution that the translation of Soviet Russian literature and art gradually increased. In the first half of 1927, Feng Xuefeng published three works translated from Sheng Shumeng's "Discourse on New Russian Literature and Art", namely "The Dawn of New Russian Literature", "Proletarian Literature of New Russia", and "The Acting Movement and Dancing in New Russia". Previously, only Ren Guozhen translated "Literary and Art Controversy in Soviet Russia" (1925) (see li Yanzhu's "Marxist Literary and Art Theory in China" Appendix relevant index). Sheng Shumeng visited Soviet Russia in the summer of 1923 and was one of the first scholars to contact and understand the situation in Soviet Russia. In the 1930s, many of his soviet and Russian literary and artistic works introduced or translated were translated into Chinese, and Lu Xun, Chen Wangdao, Xu Yifei, Hong Shen, and Wang Fuquan all translated his works. Sheng Shumeng's translation of Soviet and Russian literature and art is an important window for Chinese writers to understand Soviet And Russian literature and art, and has literary historical significance that cannot be underestimated. Feng Xuefeng's translation of Sheng Shumeng's works should be the first systematic introduction of Soviet Russian writers and their literary and artistic trends and literary views to China.
Feng Xuefeng's translation of Soviet and Russian literature and art had an important impact on the literary world, and the famous writer Shi Jiecun once commented that he was "a hero who systematically introduced Soviet literature and art." It had a considerable influence on us and made us pay attention to Soviet literature" (The Last Old Friend). However, Feng Xuefeng himself should be more concerned about theoretical translation. Around the 1930s, there were many translators of Chinese Marxist literature, and Qu Qiubai, Lu Xun, and Feng Xuefeng were among the best. Compared with the theoretical translation of Qu Qiubai and Lu Xun, the academic community pays much less attention to Feng Xuefeng's theoretical translation. In fact, "in the history of modern Chinese literature, Xuefeng was not the first to engage in the translation and introduction of Marxist literary and art theory, but he was the first person to consciously focus on the construction of proletarian theory" (Chen Zhaochun: Under the Banner of Lu Xun - A Preliminary Study of Xuefeng Realist Theory).
Feng Xuefeng is a person who realized the importance of Marxist literary translation earlier and was able to practice it. During the May Fourth period, there were few translations of Marxist literature on the mainland. As the "revolutionary literature" controversy unfolded, some critics gradually realized the lack of theoretical preparation, and theoretical translation has become an urgent need. During the controversy over "revolutionary literature," Lu Xun earnestly hoped that "there would be practical people who would be willing to translate several books on the materialist view of history that have been finally evaluated in the world—at least, a simple and superficial one, two precise ones—and one or two opposing works" ("The Class Nature of Literature"), and he said that he was "squeezed" and "read several scientific literary and artistic treatises" ("Three Idle Collections: Preface"). Feng Xuefeng and Lu Xun resonate on this point. Speaking in 1929 of the urgency of theoretical translation, he pointed out that there were also those who tried to criticize the existing literary writers with fierce criticism—but who really used the Marxist method of criticism? The most important thing is to use the Marxist X-ray to illuminate everything in existing literature. Feng Xuefeng did a lot of translation work for this purpose, and in 1929 alone he published 6 kinds of translations (including the translated Soviet and Russian poetry collection "Drift Ice") and 7 translation papers. He also persuaded his friends to "publish 'meaningful' books." He called it 'meaningful', and Marxist literary and art theory is one of them" (Shi Jingcun, "We Have Operated Three Bookstores"). It can even be argued that it was precisely because of theoretical translation that Feng Xuefeng formed his initial friendship with Lu Xun. In December 1928, Feng Xuefeng was accompanied by Roushi to meet Lu Xun, and this visit was to consult theoretical translation issues and discuss the compilation and printing of the "Scientific Literature and Art Theory Series". Feng Xuefeng recalled that Lu Xun had mentioned that he was "because I had translated a book on Soviet Literature and Art Policy" and that "Mr. Lu Xun also mentioned that I had translated three kinds of pamphlets about Soviet literature, drama, and dancing written by Sheng Shumeng in Japan from 1926 to 27."
Feng Xuefeng also recognized the importance of carrying out the translation of Marxist literature in a planned and systematic manner, and did a lot of organizational work for translating Marxist literature. Feng Xuefeng became acquainted with writers such as Shi Jingcun, Dai Wangshu, and Su Wen, and his ideas influenced these writers who later became known as modernists. Several of them discussed seeking Lu Xun's support, and edited a series of books introducing Marxist literature, followed by a "scientific series of books on art theory." The series was originally planned to be published in 12 titles, and Lu Xun, Xia Yan, Feng Naichao, Dai Wangshu, Su Wen and Liu Naou were invited to act as translators. From May 1929 to August 1930, the series was actually published in nine titles. Among them, Lu Xun translated 3 kinds and Feng Xuefeng translated 4 kinds. After comparing several sets of Marxist literary theory series at that time, the Japanese scholar Ashida Zhao believed that "from the perspective of the unity of structure and content, the Scientific Art Theory Series has an incomparable richness of other series" ("Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng's Acceptance of Marxist Literary and Art Theory"). From 1931 to the end of 1933, Feng Xuefeng successively served as secretary of the "Left League" party group, secretary of the Cultural Work Committee of the Shanghai Central Bureau of the CPC, and director of the Propaganda Department of the Jiangsu Provincial CPC Committee. During this period, cultural organizations under the leadership of the "Left League" and the "Social Federation" consciously promoted the translation and introduction of Marxist theory. The "Left League" established the Marxist Literary and Art Theory Research Society, and "the study of foreign Marxist literary and artistic theory" was one of its tasks; the program of the "Federation of Social Societies" proposed to "study and introduce Marxist theory." Feng Xuefeng also published a large number of theoretical translation articles in the "Sprout Monthly" of the "Left Alliance" organ he edited, "This magazine has done its best to introduce Marxist literary and art theory and foreign literary masterpieces" (Mao Dun, Lu Xun: "Catalogue of Chinese Left-Wing Literary and Art Periodicals").
"As a pure Bolsheviki"
As a foreign idea, Marxist literary theory is translated as an important part of its dissemination and acceptance in China. The translation of Marxist literature is determined by the situation of the Chinese revolution. In his book "On the Literary and Art Movement of the Democratic Revolution," Feng Xuefeng recalled, "During this period, the ideological questions and demands that had previously stirred among the youth and the advanced masses of workers and peasants, regarding revolutionary theory, understanding of life and real society and history, were formally mentioned as the main topics on the agenda of culture and literary and artistic movements." This passage also reveals the important social reasons for the boom in Marxist literary translation after the defeat of the Great Revolution. When it comes to specific translations, the choice of which works to translate, how they are translated, and the level of translation are all directly related to the translator. Feng Xuefeng's understanding of translation has roughly changed. In the preface to his 1927 translation of The Dawning Period of New Russian Literature, he still said that the dawning period of Soviet Russian literature was "a particularly interesting object of study." In the 1929 Treatise on Writers, he made it clear that "the disgusting attitude of that scholar can certainly be discarded." On the whole, Feng Xuefeng's theoretical translation basically synchronized with the development of revolutionary literature and art, and historically responded to some challenges encountered in the process of sinicizing Marxist literature.
First, Feng Xuefeng places special emphasis on the characteristics of Marxist critics who translate. The "revolutionary literature" controversy expanded the influence of Marxist literary theory, united the Creation Society, the Sun Society, and Lu Xun and the people around him, and on this basis established the "Left League", while also exposing the lack of theoretical preparation of left-wing critics. Although theoretical translation was carried out almost at the same time, making great contributions to the sinification of Marxist literary theory, it is inevitable that some theoretical works on "Left" mechanical theory are also mixed in. It is true that Feng Xuefeng translated the writings of Trotsky, Marich, and Macha, but he was generally cautious in the choice of translators, which is related to his emphasis on the Marxist critic traits of the theoretician himself. Feng Xuefeng translated and published Vlovsky's literary criticism collection "Writer's Theory", Merlin's literary criticism collection "Literary Criticism", Plekhanov's literary view of Chernyshevsky's literary view, and Zangyuan's "Collapse" and other writers' discourses. It is not enough to introduce the "gun method" of Marxist criticism, but in the "Writer's Theory and Introduction", Feng Xuefeng further proposed that it is the characteristics of Marxist critics to clarify the author's thoughts and the composition of his works according to the social trend, and to judge whether this social trend and the tendency of the work are true. He borrowed the words of Molichi as "as a pure Bolsheviki". When introducing Lunakarski, he also emphasized his identity as the "practical guide" of Marxist art theory, believing that it was "a feature of almost all of his treatises" (The Foundations of the Society of Art: A Translator's Note). Standing on the position of "actual guide" and analyzing and grasping "social trends and works tendencies" have also become a significant feature of Feng Xuefeng's translation and criticism.
Secondly, Feng Xuefeng's theoretical translation highlights "investigating the social significance of art and literature" (Preface to Art in Modern Europe). If Feng Xuefeng's early introduction to the emerging literature and art of Soviet Russia was motivated by research interests, then the subsequent theoretical translation has a stronger realistic pertinence. Literature has a class nature, which is one of the basic views of Marxist literary theory. However, in the 1920s and 1930s, there was no shortage of negative opinions in the Chinese literary and art circles. In 1929, Liang Shiqiu publicly declared that capitalists and laborers "are not the same in their human nature", that "literature is the art of expressing this most basic human nature", and that "literature has no class distinction" ("Is Literature Class-like?"). 》）。 Others do not deny the class nature of literature, but disagree with left-wing critics' claims that literature is propaganda. For example, Hu Qiuyuan once proposed that "perhaps the problem is not to ignore the class nature of literature and art, but to misunderstand the class nature of literature and art", in his view, "the reflection of class nature should not be regarded as a simple formula" ("On the Class Nature of Literature and Art"). Left-wing writers have refuted and criticized the views of Liang Shiqiu and Hu Qiuyuan and others on the basis of Marxist literary theory, while the theories mastered by left-wing writers have been greatly influenced by translations. Feng Xuefeng often sought "authoritative" answers from representative theoreticians of the time, "the author has a profound and clear understanding of art, and purely stands on the marxist standpoint." In just a few years, he has translated works such as "The Fundamental Tasks and Problems of the Sociology of Art", "The Study of Art", "The Foundation of Art Society", "Art and Social Life", translated the works of classic writers such as Marx and Lenin and related articles on literature, and answered questions related to the relationship between literature and art and social life in a timely manner. Feng Xuefeng hopes that his translation will "arouse the interest of studying Marxist art theory and social sciences" and enable readers to "achieve the conviction of the author's statement at the end of the article that 'only by placing art science on the basis of the sociology of society and art can it become a sophisticated science'" ("Tasks and Problems of the Sociology of Art: Preface to the Translator").
Finally, Feng Xuefeng attached great importance to the translation of Soviet literary and artistic policies. Soviet Russia was the first socialist country, and the actual situation of the Soviet And Russian literary circles and its literary and artistic policies attracted the attention of Chinese intellectuals. In 1924, Ren Guozhen selected and translated representative articles of the three schools of polemic from Russian magazines, and published them the following year. In June 1925, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party issued "On the Party's Literary Policy" in the form of a resolution, and Feng Xuefeng and Lu Xun invariably translated the opinions of various factions and the resolutions of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party from Japan. Feng Xuefeng not only paid attention to this resolution, but in fact translated many articles introducing the communist party's literary and artistic policy, including "The Art Policy at the Bottom of the Paris Commune", "The Five-Year Plan for the Bottom of Soviet Cultural Construction", and "The Research Topics of the Literary and Art Criticism Class of the Communist Academy". Any country and society has a literary and artistic system, and there is a policy arrangement for communicating literature and art and social system, that is, literary and artistic policy. But only Marxists dare to openly declare that literature serves the class and socio-political struggles. In this regard, Feng Xuefeng attaches great importance to the policy of translating literature and art, which can be understood as concerned about how the Communist Party arranges literature and literary scholars at the theoretical and social practice level, and his translation is to find theory and policy basis for the literary and artistic policy of Soviet Russia, and objectively reveals the identity political discourse in the process of sinicization of Marxist literary theory. During the "revolutionary literature" controversy, the Creation Society and the Sun Society criticized petty-bourgeois writers, demanding that they "change direction" and acquire "proletarian consciousness", etc., implicitly demanding identity from writers. Feng Xuefengtan suffered the influence of Soviet and Russian literary and artistic policies, so he dared to criticize the sectarianism of the Creation Society, but he was also influenced by some of these mechanistic views, such as defining Lu Xun as a "fellow traveler". The attempt to define Lu Xun's identity itself shows that he is not fundamentally different from the critics of the Creation Society in terms of identity, so it is not difficult to understand that Lu Xun suspects that he is a "faction of the Creation Society" ("Remembering Lu Xun"). The discourse of identity politics embodies the important characteristics of the sinification of Marxist literature. After the establishment of the "Left League", Feng Xuefeng served as the secretary of the "Left League" party group and the secretary of the Cultural Committee, and his translation of the Soviet Russian literary and artistic policy was of great historical significance to the development of his personal literary and artistic thought, and even to the exploration and practice of the left-wing literary and artistic policy in the 1930s.
(This article is the phased result of the 2021 National Social Science Foundation key project "Theory of the History of Chinese Communist Party Literature and Thought (1921-1949)" (21AZD135))
(Author Affilications:Jiangnan Cultural Research Center, College of Humanities, Zhejiang Normal University)
Edit: Zong Yue