Portrait of Mr. Lu Zuofu
Text | Fu Guoyong
Standing at the turning point in 1949, Lu Zuofu, the general manager of Minsheng Company in Hong Kong at the time, had at least four ways to choose:
First, when he went to Taiwan, Zhang Qun, Ye Gongchao and other Kuomintang politicians repeatedly persuaded him to take this road, but he refused;
The second is to go to the United States to write a memoir, quietly to sum up the experience of running a people's livelihood company and building Beibei for more than twenty years, and his close friend Yan Yangchu promised to arrange everything for him, but he refused;
The third is to stay in Hong Kong, and with the ships he controls, the "ship king" may not be able to turn the upturned Bao Yugang;
The fourth was to go north, back to the continent that had experienced great upheaval, and on June 10, 1950, he finally chose the road to the north. Even if he chooses to return, he can stay in Beijing and take up the honorary position of scenery as a leading figure in the industrial and commercial circles.
However, without any hesitation, he chose to return to Chongqing Minsheng Company, the land he lived and died with, and he did not think that the road home was the road to death. All he had in mind was the Minsheng Company, which was his career, and he didn't want to leave it alone. In fact, Lu Zuofu is not the boss of the people's livelihood, not a capitalist, of course, he is not a professional manager as people usually understand, but the founder of the enterprise. In the enterprise history of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, several of the most influential industrialists belong to this type, such as Zhang Xiao, Fan Xudong, etc., they originally had no capital, the shares in the enterprise were insignificant, or there were almost no shares, but because they personally created the enterprise, made long-term efforts for the growth of the enterprise, became the soul of the enterprise, and had an inseparable flesh-and-blood relationship with the enterprise, and even to the extent that the enterprise was him, he was the enterprise, which may be a unique phenomenon in the history of Chinese enterprises. Lu Zuofu made the decision to go north, but he did not have much internal struggle, because his roots were in Chongqing, as he and his son said: "I am responsible for the cause." It was the word "responsibility" that doomed him to his final fate.
For the survival of the minsheng company, Lu Zuofu hopes to "public-private partnership" and obtain the funds urgently needed by the people's livelihood by joining the "public shares". In the transitional period before the joint venture, public equity representatives have entered the Minsheng Company, "large and small personnel arrangements, purge, demotion, they are also in charge." "Training," "Arrest," and "Discipline Training" are all loud and clear, and there is nothing he can do about the personnel changes that may occur at any time, and he cannot do anything to see the high-level cadres who have worked with him to create miracles in the people's livelihood one by one. His right-hand man zheng bicheng for many years was first imprisoned and then removed from his list, Deng Huayi, the business department manager of Minsheng Company, was "dispatched", and Tao Jianzhong, director of the Minsheng Machinery Factory, was shot. He knows that "the old people will collapse when they finish the company." This industrialist who regards his career above all else has struggled for the ideal of saving the country through industry for most of his life, he regards the minsheng company as precious, the boats of the people's livelihood as precious, and he regards the employees of the people's livelihood, especially the people's livelihood management team proved by the past years, of course, in his heart there is also the "people's livelihood spirit" that he and the people's livelihood colleagues jointly created. When he witnessed the drastic changes, everything that was precious was lost day by day, and the bruises and pain in his heart could not be understood, and even his wife could not talk about it.
Minsheng Company's first steamship "Minsheng" ship
From 1950 to August 1952, there were 502 average accidents in Minsheng, an average of 232 deaths every two days. Before the Minsheng company did not have a "thorough reform", it was unwilling to borrow money to maintain... All of this made this incredibly optimistic, powerful little man feel irreparably desperate, and he watched the business he founded collapse, but he couldn't do anything about it. On February 8, 1952, he chose to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills, when the "three antis" movement was not yet in full swing, only in the mobilization stage, but the atmosphere at the mobilization meeting further deepened his sense of despair, and the sense of despair continued to accumulate to an unbearable limit, and he thought of the last self-defense, he at least had the right to commit suicide. A man who has spent his life fighting for ideals, who has long been respected and who enjoys great social prestige, when surrounded by bitter despair, the road to dignity and decency is narrow and narrow. Suicide was a liberation for him and almost became his best option.