Text│ Clear water
Group photo of "Nanshe"
The Shanghai press has always been a gathering place for progressive scribes, Bao Tianxiao (1876-1973): "The Pacific Daily during the Xinhai Revolution was almost all from the South Society. "The reformists, members of the League, and high-ranking cadres of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party also produced more cultural circles such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong, Zhang Taiyan, Zou Rong, Chen Duxiu, Chen Bray, Dai Jitao, Chen Gongbo, Yu Youren, Wu Zhihui, Ye Chuling, Shao Lizi, Qiao Guanhua, Yang Gang, Hu Yuzhi, and Eunuch Xiang... Revolutionary literature is mostly due to dissatisfaction with the dark reality, so it is always the starting point of revolution.
Akashi is poor
In September 1915, "New Youth" magazine was founded, and the Shanghai Qunyi Book Society Chen Zipei and Chen Zishou brothers accepted Chen Duxiu's planning, and Chen took over the magazine's distribution, paying 200 oceans of editing fees and manuscript fees every month. Later, due to conflicts with the Qunyi Book Society, Chen Duxiu also accumulated a certain economic foundation, and from September 1920, the eight volumes of "New Youth" were operated by Chen Duxiu.
Li Chuli (1900-1994), a member of the Creation Society, joined the Party in 1928, served as the Propaganda Director of the Shanghai Zhabei District Committee in November 1929, and was transferred to the Secretary of the Propaganda Department of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee half a year later.
The party organization did not give subsidies, and when the district party committee went to give five yuan a month, it was not enough at all, so they had to live in pavilions and stoves, and their clothes were also tattered. After working in the provincial party committee, 18 yuan per month was paid, and the office was generally disguised as a business name At that time, the central organs were generally single-door houses. Most of us wear long shirts when we go to provincial party meetings.
In June 1929, during the period of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists, the Russian students sent to the Soviet Union began to return to China, and the Nationalist government published advertisements to recruit them to report to the government with a monthly salary of 200 silver yangs. Brothers Gu Zhenglun (1889-1953) and Gu Zhenggang (1902-1993) entered the center of the Kuomintang at this time; Zhang Ruxin (1908-1976), who returned to China in November 1929, was unwilling to serve the state government, lived in shantytowns, worked as dock porters, and even could not eat after returning to Shanghai, lived a hard life for a year, only connected with the party in 1930, joined the party in June 1931, and joined the Red Army in August.
Zhou Yang (1908-1989) recalled in his later years: "At that time (press: before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Shanghai), my life was not settled. Although I was a professional revolutionary, I lived in Shanghai entirely on my own fees, and the Party did not give me money. Zhou Yang claimed to be a descendant of Zhou Yu, but his family declined, and his wife Wu Shuyuan (1908-1942) was a large local household, and Zhou Yang carried out revolution in Shanghai, all relying on the economic support of his father-in-law's family.
In the summer of 1934, Zhou Yang fell in love with Su Lingyang (1914-1989), a female student at Guanghua University, and sent his wife back to his hometown of Yiyang, Hunan, while also cutting off the Yue family's help.
In 1936, Su Lingyang was in a basin, the pain was unbearable, Zhou Yang was penniless, could not be sent to the hospital, and was in a hurry. His daughter Zhou Mi (1936-) wrote in the article "Remembering Daddy":
Finally, I borrowed 20 oceans from Uncle Zheng Zhenduo, so that I was saved from being born in that pavilion of less than ten square meters and without light all day. With me, your and your mother's lives are even more strained. Having to earn some money to make ends meet, the Chinese translation of Leo Tolstoy's famous book Anna Karenina came out in that situation.
It was not until the translation of Anna Karenina was paid about 800 yuan that Zhou Yang's economic situation improved.
In 1954, Zhou Yang led a delegation of Chinese writers to the Soviet Union to attend the Second All-Soviet Writers' Congress. From right: Zhou Yang, Ding Ling, Lao She.
In May 1933, Yu Ling (1907-1997) and Wang Jiyu (1908-1981) rented a pavilion in Shanghai, and Yu Ling served as the head of the organization of the Chinese Left-Wing Drama Federation, and he was on the go all day. The couple had no occupation and no fixed income, often ate a meal of sorrow and wang Jiyu translated some Soviet and Russian short literary and artistic works at home, wrote some small novels, and submitted articles to supplementary publications such as "Damei Bao"; Yu Ling also wrote some film reviews to earn writing fees to support his family: Wang Jiyu punctuated the "Twenty-Four Histories" for the Commercial Press, and was only paid four corners per 10,000 words. Xia Yan sometimes went to Yu Ling to talk about work, found that they had not yet eaten, and left a few cents when they left, so that Wang Jiyu could buy a bowl of Yangchun noodles to fill his hunger. It was cold, and Xia Yan brought his wife's clothes from home to give Wang Jiyu a cold. Yang Hansheng also gave a little subsidy from time to time.
During this period, Yu Ling wrote a film review for a change fee, a thousand words of binary, even if it is very high. One afternoon, Yu Lingshang Bai wei (1893-1987) called the window at her residence. Bai Wei, who was writing, pushed the window to see, Yu Ling asked her to throw two dimes down, saying that she borrowed money to go to the movie, the movie was about to start, he did not have time to go upstairs Bai Wei complained: No money to watch what movie? Yu Ling said: It is precisely because there is no money that I have money after watching the movie! Bai Wei took out two cents, threw down a bag of old newspapers, and Yu Ling did not run back after receiving the money. After the movie ended, he went to a small noodle restaurant nearby, ate while writing, solved dinner and wrote a film review, and then ran directly to the newspaper hall, and the manuscript was thrown into the mailbox. During the period of great destruction by the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, Yu Ling and Wang Jiyu successively attended The Chinese Middle School and the Zhengfeng Middle School substituted classes, and their incomes were relatively stable, so that they could move around to avoid arrest.
Xiao Jun, Xiao Hong
In early November 1934, Xiao Jun (1907-1988) and Xiao Hong (1911-1942) took the four yuan given by their friends to Shanghai by boat, and when they moved into the pavilion rented for nine yuan a month, ErXiao had less than ten yuan in his hand, bought a bag of flour, a charcoal stove and some charcoal, as well as several pairs of chopsticks, salt and vinegar, and cooking oil could not afford to buy. Every day, white boiled noodles, plus a few copper plates of spinach greens.
One day, his friend Zhang Meilin came to see them, xiao Hong left him to eat, and Merlin couldn't bear it, because the bag of flour was gradually deflated. Because he had to rewrite Xiao Jun's novel "The Countryside in August", Xiao Hong, who had an empty bag, had to be an old sweater, only seven corners, and he could not buy paper by car, and he could not take a car when he bought paper. Xiao Jun walked to the Neishan Bookstore on North Sichuan Road and bought back Nissan Mino copy paper, the leather shoes did not heel the feet, and the heels were red and swollen. On March 1, 1935, the third volume of the fourth volume of the "Literature" magazine published Xiao Jun's first novel ,"Occupation", with a fee of 38 yuan, which was regarded as saving Erxiao from embarrassment.
Peng Jiahuang (1898-1933), graduated from the First Division of Changsha Province in 1919, entered the Commercial Press in 1925, and assisted in editing magazines such as "Women's Magazine", "Education Magazine", "Minduo" and other magazines, with a monthly salary of 40 yuan. In March 1930, he joined the "Left League" and at the same time participated in the underground work of the CCP, serving as an assistant editor and correspondent of the CCP's "Red Flag Daily". After being arrested and released from prison in 1931, he went to Ningbo Teaching Middle School to teach while engaging in propaganda. With a career and a stable income, even if the economy is idle and poor.
There are occasional exceptions
Xia Yan
From 1928 to 1934, Xia Yan engaged in Japanese translation, "The translation fee is about two yuan per thousand words, and if I translate 2,000 words a day, I can have an income of 120 yuan per month." In this way, among the poor friends in the literary and art circles, I unconsciously became a 'rich family'. During this period, Xia Yan published a total of 5 million words of translations.
Xia Yan also has the "car and horse fee" of the screenwriter consultant and the screenwriting fee of the film script, with a monthly income of at least 200 yuan. Xia Yan joined the Kuomintang in 1924 and the Communist Party in May 1927 (no waiting period), a professional revolutionary in the cultural circles, but -
My life depends on manuscript fees and royalties, except for the central government after the Anhui Incident wanted me to retreat from Guilin to Hong Kong, organizationally bought me a plane ticket, and in 1946 Comrade Enlai asked me to go to Singapore, organizationally gave me a travel expense, I have always been self-reliant, selling literature for a living.
In the early 1950s, when the personnel cadre asked him how many pounds of millet he received every month when he supplied the system, Xia Yan said that he never ate millet, let alone received it. The East China Bureau and the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee rated Xia Yan as a "corps level" based on his party age and position, but shusheng, who was engaged in politics, "still did not understand what a corps level was like."
Yang Hansheng with Zhou Enlai and Guo Moruo
From 1928 to 1935, Yang Hansheng (1902-1993) earned 200 yuan per month for his writing fees plus screenwriting fees. Arrested in the spring of 1935, he was released on bail by Liu Yazi and Cai Yuanpei in October, still relying on the fees and editing the "Xinyuandi" supplement of the "Xinmin Bao", and received more than 100 yuan a month. In 1929, Lu Xun recommended Roushi to edit the weekly magazine "Yusi". Rou Shi's novels "February" and "Death in the Old Times" were also prefaced and edited by Lu Xun, with a royalty of 20% and a monthly income of 80-100 yuan.
In 1933, Xu Maoyong (1910-1977), who only had a junior high school education, translated Roman Roland's "Biography of Tolstoy", which was accepted by the Shanghai Huatong Bookstore with an advance royalty of 60 yuan, consolidating the literary youth's determination to advance into the Shanghai literary scene. Xu Maoyong wrote:
During the period from 1933 to 1937, although I had no occupation, the income from writing fees and royalties was still quite a lot for a "left-wing writer", with an average of about 150 yuan per month. In addition to sending 30 yuan a month to their parents, the husband and wife, plus the three children born one after another, have a poor life, and they can also give some allowances to the comrades of the individual "Left League".
In 1932, the French founded the Havas News Agency in Shanghai, hired Hu Yuzhi (1896-1986) as the Chinese department to compile, and actually worked two hours a day. In September 1933, Hu Yuzhi secretly joined the Communist Party of China.
In the summer of 1935, Xian Xinghai, who had been in China for six years, returned to China, and could not find a job for a while, and could only eat the meal of his old mother. After recruiting a few violin students, temporarily solved the livelihood quickly because of the composition of the "War Song" sales are very good, Shanghai BAIDAI Records and him, the monthly salary of 100 yuan, although not low, but Xian Xinghai feels uneven, because some people are very poor, the salary is eight times higher than him. Soon, Xian Xinghai resigned in anger. It seems that the livelihood problem is not enough to make Xian Xinghai bend his waist for five buckets of rice.
Money and revolution
"Left Alliance" Memorial Hall
After the Wang Ming Group came to power, it used the cost of living to control the Shanghai party organization. After the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee in January 1931, they adopted this trick against Shanghai's grass-roots organizations that "disagreed" with He Mengxiong and others. Liu Xiao (1908-1988), then secretary general of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, clearly stated:
I was once instructed to go to the Huxi District Committee to negotiate, and asked the comrades of the District Committee not to oppose the Provincial Party Committee, otherwise they would not be paid living expenses. These comrades did not have open occupations at that time, did not have any income, and were forced by life to obey the provincial party committee, so that Wang Ming controlled the party organization in Shanghai.
In January 1930, Zhu Rui (1905-1948), who had returned from the Soviet Union, met two classmates of Moscow Sun Yat-sen University on the streets of Shanghai, and learned that both classmates had been "passive" (pressed: no longer participating in revolutionary activities) and "are now drifting to Shanghai to survive the cost of writing." When we met, we had not eaten for two or three days, and we were hungry and yellow, and we were still waiting for the payment for the manuscript of his "Study on the Mozi Problem" to solve the problem of food and housing. "When I returned to China, I received six or seven hundred yuan for the road," and in order to win him (afraid that they might sell me), I gave them some money and formed feelings. ”
In 1934, Gu Mu (1914-2009), a graduate of the Seventh Township Division of Wendeng Province, who coached the small village of Driving Magou in Haiyang County, once recalled: "At that time, my salary was 18 yuan per month, and it was enough to eat my own pocket money of five or six yuan, and I could also provide some financial support for the party organization." Many of Tokyo's "Left League" young writers also rely on domestic fees to survive. In 1934, one yuan of Chinese legal tender could be exchanged for two yen, and the Japanese living index was low, with a minimum monthly meal fee of 12 yuan in Tokyo and a minimum rent of 3 yuan per room. Poor students can maintain 20 yuan per month. In addition, there is no need to go through any formalities to go to Japan, and there are more than 10,000 people in Dongdu (half of whom are northeasterners), the vast majority of whom are cultural people. Some young writers of the "Left Alliance" live entirely on the "Declaration" fee, and it is good to be able to publish four articles a month. Chen Zigu wrote, "If each article is counted as a thousand words, you can only get twelve yuan per month, which is already very rare."
Pavilion writer
Jia Zhifang
Jia Zhifang (1915-2008), a former pavilion writer, said:
How can you become an artist without living in a Shanghai pavilion? In the 1930s, Huang Yongyu and I both lived in a pavilion, and the day of opening the meat was to eat a bowl of Yangchun noodles with a few drops of lard flowers floating on it. At that moment, alas, where did Huang Yongyu wear the suit pants go hot, or did he fold a line, press it under the pillow, and press it to a critical moment when he slept, before he was willing to take it out and wear it. ...... The pavilions in Shanghai are amazing! How many people have gone out!
In 1933, Cao Ming (1913-2002), a female teacher and student in Guangdong, was on the wanted blacklist because of "red", fled to Shanghai, and joined the "Left League".
We, the young and progressive literary and art workers, could not find a career, life was very hard, the fee for writing was very low, and it was only enough to maintain a minimum life and sometimes there was really no food, and Mr. Lu Xun and some comrades of the Left League enthusiastically allocated a small part of their limited living expenses to receive help. I lived in the cheapest booth in the concession and buried my head in writing.
In 1934, the female poet Guan Lu (1907-1982) served as the leader of the "Left Alliance" Ren Baige and Xu Maoyong in the traffic, living in a pavilion, dressed modernly, but life was very difficult, there was no occupation, writing poetry for much writing fees, sometimes even food money, it is said that it was maintained by her sister's help.
Some "Zuolian" literary youths who live in pavilions, breakfast for three cents, a bowl of soy milk, a rice ball wrapped in fritters (add a little sugar, that is, rice balls); seven points of Chinese food, rice tofu in small restaurants, pork liver spinach soup; dinner four-five points, drink porridge, a plate of side dishes, less than two dimes a day, monthly food costs of five to six yuan (150-180 yuan in 2003), is the minimum standard of living of urban poor.
Maning took a photo in Minxili
The first batch of "Left Lian" young writers Ma Ning (1909-2001), a native of Longyan, Fujian Province, successively enrolled in Shanghai University, Xinhua University of the Arts, and Nanguo Art College. At the beginning of 1930, he returned to Shanghai from the Western Fujian Soviet District, and was poor and sick, and could not find a friend who could borrow living expenses. Finally borrowed a piece of guangyang, mixed into copper dollars, first bought a week's worth of kerosene, the remaining 18 copper dollars a pack, that is, the daily living expenses are only 18 copper dollars - 16 copper dollars to buy a pound of mechanism noodles (eat half a pound in the morning and afternoon), a copper dollar to buy a pot of boiling water in the morning, a copper dollar to buy onions and garlic ingredients, and then write a novel. He cheered himself up:
I thought to myself... On the land of Shanghai where the blood of thousands of revolutionary volunteers has been poured, there must be my own comrades, and as long as I dare to face reality and appear as a warrior, someone will certainly reach out and pull me.
He began to write on January 18, and on the 24th, he did not complete the novel "Iron Love", at this time there were only two packs of copper dollars left, and if he could not get the manuscript fee on the morning of the 26th, he would have to cut off the cooking. Therefore, he sent a distress letter to Nanqiang Bookstore, introduced the synopsis of the story of "Iron Love", promised to send the manuscript on the afternoon of the 25th, and requested that the manuscript be paid on the morning of the 26th. On the morning of the 25th, I received a reply from the editorial department of Nanqiang Bookstore: "We are willing to accept your new work and agree to the conditions you put forward." Manin wrote the last page in one go, leaving only the last copper dollar to buy boiling water tomorrow morning, and walking out the manuscript in the afternoon.
It was night, 21-year-old Ma Ning could not sleep because of his stomach grumbling, drank a few cups of "white tea" in the morning, and went straight to No. 38, North Sichuan Road Public Welfare Square. Just hurriedly walked into the back door of the editorial office, the bookstore manager Wang Xinmin was washing his face by the faucet, saw Maning's embarrassed face, already knew the comer, and pulled him into the living room to sit down. The first sentence: "I haven't read the masterpiece yet." When Manin heard this, he almost fainted! Wang Xinmin then said: "But the editorial department fans decided to ask you for this manuscript" and then opened the safe and pointed out nine ten yuan denominations: "You sign a receipt for the sale of copyright." It's ninety dollars here. You know, the works of famous writers now are at most a thousand words and three dollars. Seeing that Manin was really too thin, he listened to his embarrassing words: "I am hungry for this work." Wang Xinmin took out thirty pieces from the safe: "This is a very preferential treatment." ”
Ma Ning wanted to meet the editor who decided to adopt his manuscript, but Wang Xinmin stopped him: "Not busy, they studied your manuscript last night and slept late." I advise you to go to a full meal first. Didn't your letter the day before yesterday say that there is only one copper dollar left to drink 'white tea' today? Pinching the 120 yuan manuscript fee, the editor who touched the gratitude, especially to the great kindness: "One day when we meet, I must hug you fiercely!" My savior, I wouldn't be alive today without you! His savior was Feng Hao (one of the five martyrs of the "Left Alliance"). In the same year, Ma Ning joined the Party.
In 1932, Chen Baichen (1908-1994) returned to his hometown in Huaiyin to make a scene, was arrested in the autumn, and was sent to Zhenjiang the following year and sentenced to five years in prison. From 1933 to 1934, he wrote more than 500,000 words of works in prison, mostly based on accusations of black prison life, bought off guards with two oceans, secretly sent outside the prison, and successively published in left-wing publications. The one-act drama "Yu Ji" was published in Literature (Vol. 1, No. 3, 1933), with a manuscript fee of 50 yuan, and the prisoners were very red-eyed, and Chen Baichen was worried and uneasy, so he had to use this money to buy "foreign service" (freer compulsory labor in prison), spend the money in prison, and others were not very red-eyed.
In mid-March 1935, chen Baichen, who had been imprisoned for two and a half years, fled to the Suzhou Provincial Academy, and Fu Donghua, the editor-in-chief of Shanghai Literature Magazine, promised to use two of his manuscripts per issue to support his life. "This was a big surprise to me: I could have lived for two months at the cost of a manuscript, so I had the confidence to be a so-called 'pavilion writer.'"
The translator Liang Shiqiu translated Shakespeare opera, not according to the number of words, a script 1000 yuan. Bian Zhilin, a hairy young man who had just graduated from college, could only get the lowest level of translation remuneration - five yuan / thousand words, which was already the most advanced translation remuneration in Shanghai at that time. Bian Zhilin still remembers this clearly in her later years.
In any case, the economy is the foundation of everything. Whether it is horizontal or vertical comparison, the manuscript fee in the 1930s is not low, which is the material basis for the survival of the "wenqing". Understanding the literature of an era and paying attention to the economic situation of writers is both necessary and interesting, and it can also "taste life" and increase gains.
The official public number of "Shanghai Bank Museum".
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