In the process of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in northern Shaanxi, Mao Zedong noticed the backward situation of the local people and summarized it as the three major evils in the border areas: superstition, illiteracy, and lack of hygiene. Proceeding from this consensus-based understanding, corresponding educational practical activities have been carried out on a large scale in the base areas and liberated areas: through literacy education, the problem of illiteracy, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of the population, has been solved; promoting good hygiene habits through health education; Through science education, we should eliminate the backward behavior and concept of the people who frequently ask for gods and worship immortals.
The so-called superstition, it manifests itself in a serious mystical tendency. For the mystic tradition that has long existed in China's vast rural society, including the base areas and liberated areas, Party leaders such as Mao Zedong and Party theorists such as Hu Qiaomu and Aischi have traced its historical origins, analyzed its causes, and explained its harms. Hu Qiaomu's article "Outline of Anti-Superstition" published in Yan'an "Chinese Youth" magazine, Vol. 2, No. 11, 1940, is the most philosophical research article. In his view, "the fundamental basis of superstition is to believe in the existence of supernatural supermaterial things such as gods, ghosts, gods, destinies, souls, etc., and believe that these things dominate the heavens and earth, the sun and the moon, wind, rain, thunder and lightning, water, fire, wood and stone, boats and cars, and stoves, birth, old age, sickness, death, success or failure, and happiness, in short, they dominate everything in the world and life."
So, how to dispel these deep-rooted superstitions that are widely rooted in the minds of the people? Mao Zedong concluded that "with scientific knowledge, superstition can naturally be broken"[1], and Hu Qiaomu also believed that science and superstition are the same concept of trade-off, the former is the ultimate nemesis of the latter: "Science advances day by day, superstition dies day by day". Following this line of thought, scientific and general knowledge books have been continuously compiled and printed in various base areas and liberated areas.
Most of the books on medicine, health, industrial and agricultural production published in the base areas are popular science. These books played a crucial role in promoting the spirit of reason and dismantling superstitions. This is because, as far as the essence of human survival is concerned, medicine and health are related to the process of human birth, old age, illness and death, and clothing and food production is related to people's basic livelihood, which are the two most basic aspects of human life. Under the traditional agricultural social conditions at that time, there were many "inexplicable and powerless" places, which provided a breeding ground for the epidemic of various mysticisms. In particular, the high mortality rate of the population caused by backward medicine and health has given those wizards and gods who pretend to be ghosts the opportunity to take advantage of the situation.
Li Dingming, who served as vice chairman of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and a famous local doctor, used a solid set of statistics to illustrate this causal relationship: "There is a shortage of medicine, and there are only more than 1,000 good and bad Chinese medicine practitioners, more than 50 veterinarians, more than 200 Western doctors in government agencies and troops, and more than 400 Chinese medicine shops and health care pharmacies. "Disease and death threaten the masses, with mortality rates of 60 per cent for infants and 8 per cent for adults in some areas, and livestock mortality is also severe,...... There are more than 2,000 witch gods in the whole border area, using superstition to deceive. [2] Mao Zedong expressed a similar view at the Central Propaganda Work Conference on March 22, 1944, "Medical and health work is not yet popular, and the masses have no other way to overcome the threat of disease and death, but only believe in the gods." ”[3]
Therefore, when knowledge books such as "Man and Disease" generally accept the cognition of diseases in the physiological framework in the book, and provide readers with concise and easy methods and paths named after "how", "need to know" and "new law", this naturally forces the explanations and behaviors of witch doctors and gods in the god system to a dead end. The day science enters the market, it is the time when superstition withdraws.
The bibliography shows that in addition to focusing on the two major categories of health and production, the scientific and common knowledge books published in the Liberated Areas of the base areas also cover a wide range of aspects such as astronomy, geography, weather, animals and plants. Relevant books such as the origin of life, the structure of the universe, the history of the earth, modern inventions, and the conquest of nature have been published. The two books "Wind and Clouds and Thunder" and "Sun, Moon and Stars" published by North China Bookstore in 1943 have a print run of 3,000 copies on the copyright page, which is already considerable. But this number is a saggering comparison with the fact that many popular science books published after 1947 often have more than 5,000 copies. The reason for the later rise to the top can be attributed to the improvement in the material production conditions of publishing in the Liberated Areas, and it also shows that the number of people who like to read popular science books in the Liberated Areas has increased.
"Wind and Clouds and Thunder" was published by North China Bookstore in July 1943
The most popular foreign popular science writer in the Liberated Areas of the base areas is probably none other than the Soviet writer Ilyin. Ilyin's famous book "100,000 Whys" was a bestseller in the National Unification Area in the thirties, and it was also favored in the base area Liberated Area. The value of science transcends the division of time and space and system, and is universal. The book has been reprinted successively in Xinhua Bookstore in North China, Xinhua Bookstore in Shandong, Anti-Japanese War Bookstore, Dalian Popular Bookstore, Northeast China Bookstore, and other bookstores in the Liberated Areas of the base areas. Four of these bookstores have a print run on their copyright pages, totaling 32,000 copies. The translator of the book, Dong Chuncai, like Peng Qingzhao, is also the compiler of general knowledge textbooks and active popular science writers in the Liberated Areas of the People's Republic.
"100,000 Whys" was published by Northeast Bookstore in October 1948
In addition to Peng and Dong, local writers Xia Chuan, author of "Common Sense of Science", "Weather Speech" and "Twenty Lectures on Natural Phenomena", Jian Bai, author of "The Secret of the Sky", and Chen Danian, who compiled "Earth and Universe" and "Water", are also eligible to be classified as popular science masters at that time because of their large print run, many editions and wide spread. When they wrote these books, their main target was perhaps the young people who were in their formative years, and the knowledge and teachings they told were, from a modern point of view, nothing more than common-sense explanations of everyday things and the surrounding environment. However, if we start from the time and space situation at that time, these principles, which are called scientific common sense, are nothing less than enlightening new knowledge for the general public who have been living in a closed rural society for generations. It's just that unlike the enlightenment of teenagers and children, which starts from a blank piece of paper, the enlightenment of the adult world is the subversion and replacement of the belief system of gods and spirits that were entrenched in their minds in the past. This intellectual belief system dominated by mysticism has been universally referred to as "superstition" since modern times. In order to completely dispel the mysterious fog of superstition, we must rely on the rational power of science, which Wang Xijian vividly expressed in the book "Everything Does Not Ask God" as "gouging the root of God" and "poking paper tiger". "Everything Without Seeking God" is also a super bestseller, with Shandong Xinhua Bookstore Edition, Jinan Bookstore Edition, Northeast Bookstore Edition, and Subei Xinhua Bookstore Edition. Among them, the Northeast Bookstore had the largest print volume, with the first edition of 10,000 copies, which was reprinted in the same year, and was printed to 5 editions in December 1948, with a cumulative print run of 45,000 copies.
"All Things Do Not Ask God" was published by Xinhua Bookstore in May 1948
Other books directly on the theme of anti-superstition in the Liberated Areas of the Base Areas include: "Notes on Ping Demons" by Chen Ming, "Little Two Mouths and Two Fox Spirits" by Tian Ye and others, "The Red Shoe Fairy" written by Su Yiping and Zhou Ge, "Breaking Superstitions" edited by Han Dan and Zhao Jiaxiang, "Romance of Bu Zhang Village" written by Li Ji, "Untrustworthy" written by Liu Xiangru, "Confession of the Witch God" edited by Xinhua Bookstore, and "Launching the Struggle Against the Witch God" edited by the General Office of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border District Government. Through these popular literary and art books, we can see what specific superstitious activities cannot be tolerated, cracked down on, and spurned in the liberated areas of the base areas. If science books are anti-superstition through straightforward reasoning, let people understand that everything in nature and its changes originally have laws that can be followed, so that people are liberated from the shackles of fatalism and ghosts and gods; Then, the anti-superstition of literary and art books uses the language and vivid story forms that the masses like to hear and see, to expose the various deceptive tricks of the gods and witches active in the people and the adverse life consequences they cause. One positive and one negative, two prongs.
However, superstition, as a belief system with a long tradition and complex situation, has a fairly strong foundation and a force to be reckoned with in rural society, and the Party fully takes this into account, although it opposes any superstition in a general sense, but in the practice of long-term struggle against it, it does not use radical violent means to force the clergy to submit, but more resorts to indirect persuasion and education of the masses, which is the core area of books as a knowledge carrier to play its educational function. The large number of popular science books is published out of this practical need.
Responsible Editor | Zhang Yingchun
Image source | Confucius Old Books Network
About the author
Wu Yonggui, male, born in October 1968, from Fengyang, Anhui, is currently a Luojia Distinguished Professor and doctoral supervisor of Wuhan University. His research interests include modern publishing history, reading history and reading theory. He has published more than 100 papers, and a small number of articles have been reprinted by Xinhua Digest and Renmin Congress Copy Materials. His main works include "History of Chinese Publishing", "History of Publishing in the Republic of China", "Chronicle of the History of Book Publishing in the Republic of China", "History of Chinese Periodicals (Volume II)" and so on.
Zhu Xiaowan is a doctoral candidate in publishing and distribution at the School of Information Management, Wuhan University.
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