From August 1952 when I was transferred to Fudan to May 1955, when I was arrested and imprisoned, I was imprisoned for less than three years. On the one hand, the great changes of the times have inspired people's enthusiasm to dedicate themselves to it, but on the other hand, there is a shadow of distrust and even betrayal, which may be the tragedy of intellectual individualism as described in the previous section. However, this tragedy and conflict will eventually erupt in the form of brutal persecution, which is completely unexpected.
When I first joined Fudan, I was a professor in the Department of Chinese and the head of the newly established Department of Modern Chinese Literature, a product of studying the Soviet school system. In order to adapt to the history education of the New Democratic Revolution, the teaching of modern literary history was also emphasized, and it became a professional discipline, and the department was established. However, the teaching of modern literary history must be included in the entire track of revolutionary history education, and it is also a prerequisite for the existence of this discipline, which is a great test for our generation who have participated in the new literary history themselves. The result of this test is to abandon the personal experience of reading and writing, as well as the fact of the development of literary history itself, and make it a footnote to the theory of modern political struggle. When I first started teaching, there was no unified textbook on literary history, so I spoke casually in and out of class, and arbitrarily expressed some personal views on the works of modern writers, which became evidence of the "crimes" that were later exposed as "propagating Hu Feng's thoughts" and "poisoning young people". At that time, there were three professors in the Department of Modern Literature, and in addition to me, there were Fang Lingru and Yu Shangyuan, both poets and dramatists of the Crescent School. The two lecturers, one is Jiang Kongyang, who later engaged in aesthetics, and the other is Bao Zhenghu, who came from the Chinese Department of Fudan. In addition, three young teaching assistants formed the prototype of the Department of Modern Literature at Fudan University.
At that time, there were not many professors in the Department of Chinese, and among the professors left in the university were Zhao Jingshen, Chen Zizhan, Wu Wenqi, Jiang Tianshu, Fang Lingyu, Wu Jianlan, etc. In addition, Guo Shaoyu was transferred from Tongji University, Zhu Dongrun and Yu Shangyuan were transferred from Hujiang University, and Liu Dajie and Zhang Shilu were transferred from Jinan University. At that time, the ideological transformation had just ended, and the professors were all gray and not enthusiastic. Guo Shaoyu is the head of the department. At that time, as a new atmosphere, there was a phenomenon of disorderly dressing, some professors changed their suit jackets into tight and narrow tunics, some professors made the blue cotton Lenin suits worn by cadres at that time, and some changed the long tweed coats to cadres-style short Lenin suits, which I thought was very sad and ridiculous, and I couldn't help but think of Ah Q's behavior of wrapping his braids on his head in order to adapt to the new environment of the "salty and reform" after the Xinhai Revolution. At that time, there was only one party member assistant in the department, Du Yuecun, and everyone called him "political commissar". The student party member was Zhang Peiheng, who became the secretary of the department branch after staying in school, and it was not until 1955 that he was removed and expelled from the party because of my connections. At that time, the department organized a large group of teachers to study politics, and I was the leader of the group, and the two lecturers, Hu Yushu and Wang Yunxi, were the group leaders. It should be said that although I can't figure out the ideological transformation of intellectuals, I wholeheartedly support and have an optimistic attitude toward the changes and progress of the times, and I hope to unite intellectuals from the old society, muster up enthusiasm, and strive to keep pace with the development of the times. This can probably also be attributed to the arrogance and fanaticism of the petty-bourgeois intellectuals analysed above, and I unconsciously put myself on the side of the revolution and demanded and united other colleagues with a progressive and progressive attitude, hoping that they would all advance with the times and contribute to the construction of our new country.
Yu Shangyuan
In the past, I have been living in a turbulent social environment, and I have not met some professors and scholars, but now I have entered a new circle of life, and I have gradually made friends with some famous professors, and I have begun to get to know them newly. For example, Professor Yu Shangyuan, a famous dramatist of the Crescent School, served as the principal of the Nanjing National Drama School, and made great contributions to the drama movement of Chinese New Literature, and is also very experienced in teaching. After we worked together, I often heard from the students that Mr. Yu was conscientious and responsible, disciplined and hierarchical, and never ran trolleybuses in class, like some young teachers. That's what earned my respect. He and I both live in the Fudan "Zhuzhuang" teacher's dormitory, which is very close. I was young at that time, and I used to work at night, and whenever I walked downstairs to have supper in the dead of night, I always saw the light on in Mr. Yu's downstairs study opposite, and he was still preparing for class. He strives to keep himself up with the times and keep up with the new rhythm and regularity of life. From this shining light, I saw the sincere heart of a patriotic intellectual for the motherland and the people.
In addition to his busy work, Yu Shangyuan also worked hard to translate Soviet literary and artistic works, and he successively translated the Soviet short stories "Early Morning" and "Team Flag", which were included in "Selected Recent Short Stories of the Soviet Union" and "Selected Novels of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union" published by Zhao Jiabi's Chenguang Publishing Company. In 1954, he also translated the novel collection "Bright Train" by the progressive American writer Howard Fast, which I introduced to Clay Press. Mr. Yu's diligent translation of these progressive works in the past is a testament to his desire for progress.
For some of the other professors, I try to make friends with them as much as I can. When Mr. Liu Dajie was reforming his mind, he didn't know what the problem was, so he suddenly had suicidal thoughts, and ran to the Huangpu River to jump into the river in broad daylight, but he was rescued by someone, and his mood was not very high after returning to school. I've read his novels and literary history and would love to get him back to work. Once I met Han Shizhen, who was still running an international cultural service agency, I said to Han, Liu Dajie is very gray now, can you publish his book, and reprint the translation of Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" that he printed in Zhonghua Book Company in his early years, so that he can feel that life has some meaning. Han Shihuan said embarrassedly: "I have known Liu Dajie for a long time in the past, but now that my mind is transformed, everyone will not dare to come and go." I said, "Just print it, and I'll take care of it." And sure enough, it was printed. Later, Liu Dajie translated Turgenev's novella collection "The Incorrigible Man", which I also introduced to the Clay Society for publication.
Shi Yucun
When I was teaching at Aurora, I also met Mr. Shi Yucun. I remember once in the teacher's lounge, I was smoking after class, a middle-aged teacher walked in, wearing a blue cloth coat, glasses, chalk ash on his hands, as soon as he entered the lounge, he washed his hands and patted his clothes, and then sat down opposite me, introduced himself and said, "I am Shi Yucun." I am not unfamiliar with this name, I was a reader when he edited Modern Times in the thirties, and I saw criticism of Mr. Lu Xun in his essays. At this time, I peeked and saw that he was a simple and simple person, without the slightest aura of "evil in the foreign field". The more you interact in the future, the more casual you will be. In 1954, when Hu Feng's literary and artistic thought was criticized, the Shanghai Writers' Association held a meeting, and I met Mr. Shi at the door, and he frowned and said, "This is your quarrel, what are you looking for me for?" He said it very seriously, and I suddenly felt humorous and said to him, "Mr. Shi, you are still a third kind of person." He used to live in a spacious three-story house on the edge of Yuyuan Road. I remember that in 1953, Sun Yong was transferred from Shanghai to work at the Beijing People's Literature Publishing House, and Mr. Shi was at home to eat for him, and I was also invited to accompany him, that is, to have a banquet in the living room of the Shi family. I got the impression that it was very bold and elegantly furnished. After 1955, we broke off communication and it was not until the mid-80s that we resumed communication. It was 1984, when I went to visit a friend at the East China Hospital, and when I heard that he also lived here, I stopped by to visit him, and since then we have been in contact with him again. Once he wrote to him, last time Sun used to tune Beijing, you came to my house and drank Moutai, but now the living room and Moutai are gone, and only Nestle brand coffee treats each other...... When we met recently, I heard him say that in 1954, his living room was requisitioned and used as a post office, and he had no choice but to give it up; in 1957 he was branded a rightist and was forced to give up his third-floor house; and during the "Cultural Revolution," even the second floor was "swept away," and his family had to be crowded into a pavilion. In the first two years, it took a lot of effort to implement the policy, but only the second-floor housing was returned. When I went to see him this time, I saw that the staircase and the aisle were all full of books, and the old man was living in such a cramped environment, writing and talking. When we met again, he was eighty-six years old and I was seventy-five, both of whom were dying. Mr. Shi talked about the banquet for his grandson, his expression was somewhat gloomy, and he said, "It's a pity that there is no living room anymore." At that time, most of the old friends who drank Moutai are no longer alive. But he suddenly said to me again: "One day I will get another bottle of Moutai, and you can find a few old friends to get together." I had to smile bitterly and say, "There are few old friends on the beach now, and they have all left this world at different times and in different forms...... After speaking, everyone was relatively gloomy...
Because of the relationship between Wei Qiushen, the owner of the Cultural Work Club, I met the translator Wei Congwu. He's also quite down. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, I saw that his early translations of "Crime and Punishment" and "The Poor" were republished in the Zhengzhong Book Company run by the Kuomintang, and I felt very disgusted. After the liberation, he was looked down upon, and he only lived by translating Soviet Patriotic War novels from the English edition of the magazine "Soviet Literature" to the Cultural Work Society and other private publishing houses, and his emotions were very depressed. One time he came to my house and drank and cried. For his situation, I suddenly felt a feeling of pity, he did not run to Taiwan with the Kuomintang, and now he can translate some books, which is finally good.
The friendship with Mr. Chen Wangdao was also established from Aurora. I don't know Mr. Chen well, but I know that he was an early student in Japan, who translated "The Communist Manifesto" in the 20s, edited "Taibai" in the 30s, ran the Oe Bookstore, translated "The Literary and Artistic Polemic in Soviet Russia" by the Japanese Marxist literary theorist Okazawa Hidetora, and wrote "Rhetoric Fa Fan", etc., and was a well-known leftist scholar, and I was an enthusiastic reader of him. After becoming the head of the Chinese Department in Aurora in 1952, I met Mr. Chen's wife, Cai Kui, who was the head of the English Department, an associate professor from the United States, and worked in the same office as me. Cai Kui often talked to me about Mr. Chen, and when he went home, he also told Mr. Chen about me. Once Cai Kui said to me: "Mr. Chen said that a character like Jia Zhifang can't be a cadre, he is a cadre in the morning, and he has to come down in the afternoon, and he has to be criticized." And it came to pass, and so I remembered it. After I was transferred to Fudan, at that time, New Construction published an introduction to the translation of Marxist-Leninist classic writers' works in China, and at that time, only Mr. Chen and I were on the list, he had translated The Communist Manifesto, and I had translated The Housing Question. At this time, Mr. Chen said: "Although Jia Zhifang believes in Marxism and has translated such books, from the perspective of his personality, it seems that he is more deeply influenced by anarchism, or like a Russian nihilist." From then on, he was often taken care of by Mr. Chen. After August 1952, I moved to the Fudan teachers' dormitory "Zhuzhuang", a two-story Japanese-style building, Ren Min and I had no children, and adopted her nephew and my niece, a family of four, and a nanny. I am also good at smoking and drinking, and I often have friends and students come to my house to chat, and I often stay to eat and drink, which invisibly increases my expenses. Mr. Chen knew about this situation, and he often asked Cai Kui to send me some money to spend, saying that Jia Zhifang had a big hand and didn't have enough money to spend, so he asked me to help them use some. From here, I deeply appreciate Mr. Chen's understanding of our generation of left-leaning youth. Later, after the events of 1955, I was cut off from the world, and in the early 80s, after I "became a new person", the couple had already left this world, and I never had the opportunity to repay the affection of Mr. and Mrs. Chen.
Chen Wangdao
I have been teaching for three years and have developed a lot of friendships with my students. In particular, the students of the May Fourth and Fifth Classes graduated from universities in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China (1) ((1) The students of the May Fourth and Fifth Classes graduated one year ahead of schedule, and the students of the Fifth and Fifth Classes graduated on schedule. ）