Wang Wen: Huang Yanpei, who is well versed in the laws of history
Study party history
★★★★★
Huang Yanpei, also spelled Renzhi, was born in 1878 in Chuansha, Jiangsu Province (later part of Shanghai) to a private school teacher's home. In mid-1902, he fled to Japan after being arrested for slandering the Qing court. He joined the League in 1905. During the Xinhai Revolution, he participated in the planning of the Jiangsu Uprising, and later served as the director of the Education Department of Jiangsu Province, and participated in the yuan campaign. In 1915, he went to the United States for an expedition. In 1917, he initiated the establishment of the China Vocational Education Society in Shanghai, advocating "making the unemployed have a job and making the unemployed happy". In the "128 Incident", he initiated the organization of Shanghai citizens to support the Nineteenth Route Army in the War of Resistance. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he served as a member of the National Political Suffragette In 1941, he participated in the initiation of the organization of the Chinese Democratic Political League. In July 1945, he visited Yan'an, and after returning to Chongqing, he wrote "The Return of Yan'an" to publicize the achievements of the Liberated Areas. At the end of the same year, joint business people initiated the establishment of the China Democratic Construction Association (CDB). In early 1949, he went from Shanghai to the Liberated Area via Hong Kong. When new China was founded, he served as vice premier of the State Council and minister of light industry, and later vice chairman of the National People's Congress and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He died in December 1965.
■ From the end of the Qing Dynasty to a revolutionary volunteer. Because he listened to Sun Yat-sen's teachings on "knowing difficulties and doing things easily" in person, he strengthened his determination to pursue the truth.
■ The first new school was established in Pudong. As a pioneer of vocational education in China, he changed the old habit of reading only for officials, and the vocational school he opened emphasized the application of what he had learned.
Huang Yanpei lost his mother at the age of 14, lost his father at the age of 17, and his family's poverty inspired him to study in anger, and at the age of 25, he won the township test. In 1907, Huang Yanpei founded pudong middle school in his hometown of Chuansha (later changed to Pudong, Shanghai) and served as the principal, which was known for its emphasis on applying what he had learned and hiring famous teachers. At that time, when the quality of middle schools was evaluated in China, it was called "North and South, South Pudong". Although he himself did not have any industry, he contacted people in the industry to invest in pudong road construction and set up a factory, although due to the constraints of social conditions and limited achievements, but laid the earliest foundation for later development.
Through contact with new schools and the establishment of education, Huang Yanpei felt the decay of the Qing Dynasty and proposed change, so he was wanted by the government and forced to flee to Japan. Former teacher Cai Yuanpei found him late at night and asked if he would like to join the anti-Qing revolution, and Huang Yanpei solemnly swore an oath to join the league. Later, he returned to Shanghai with the password and served as an officer of the League, running a school while contacting comrades.
One day after the Xinhai Revolution, Huang Yanpei visited Sun Yat-sen in Shanghai. At this time, Sun Yat-sen had resigned from his post, and he took out the manuscript of "Sun Wenshu Theory" that he had written, humbly asked Huang Yanpei to give his opinions on the manuscript, and made a comment on the relationship between "knowing" and "acting". For this meeting, Huang Yanpei will never forget, and use it to inspire himself to pursue the truth unremittingly throughout his life.
After the Xinhai Revolution, Huang Yanpei served as the director of education of the Jiangsu Provincial Bureau for three years. During his term of office, he established education in the province and ranked first among all provinces in the country. After 1917, he went to the United States and Japan to investigate, and deeply felt that traditional Chinese education emphasized "learning and excellence", resulting in the separation of what he learned from the economy and production reality. After returning to China, he no longer entered the official field but founded the China Vocational Education Society, and well-known domestic figures Cai Yuanpei, Yan Xiu, Zhang Yuanji, etc. signed the declaration of establishment. In 1918, Huang Yanpei founded the China Vocational School, put forward the slogans of "Labor Sacred" and "Dedicated Music Group", took "Two Hands Almighty" as the school emblem, advocated the spirit of combining hands and brains, and cultivated talents were welcomed by the industry. At that time, vocational education became a new trend in society, and Huang Yanpei also became famous in the national education circles.
■ Chiang Kai-shek once hunted down Huang Yanpei and pulled him to be an official several times. Huang Yanpei refused, saying that he "cannot self-destruct his personality."
■ Initiated the establishment of the Democratic League and the Democratic National Construction Association, and forged friendship with Zhou Enlai and other Communists in the struggle for democracy.
When Huang Yanpei was running education, because he supported the progressive activities of students and employees, he was scolded by some people in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang comprador consortiums as endorsing "redization". In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek wanted him under the name of "scholar valve". Huang Yanpei did not succeed in going to the Soviet Union and went into exile in Dalian, which was then the Japanese concession. After returning to Shanghai, Huang Yanpei closed his door for three years to sell literature for a living. At this time, Chiang Kai-shek sent Huang's classmate Shao Lizi to make a wish for the official, but Huang Yanpei refused to take office, but only sent chiang kai-shek in person the books he had purchased from Japan advocating aggression against China. After Huang Yanpei finished his premonition of the crisis of the current situation, Jiang did not say a word, and Foreign Minister Wang Zhengting was sarcastic at the side. Soon, the "918" incident broke out, Huang Yanpei rushed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to question Wang Zhengting why he did not resist, and during the conversation, demonstrators poured in and beat Wang Zhengting severely, and Huang Yanpei immediately said " Yes! Should! ”
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Huang Yanpei served as a counselor in the National Council of Political Participation, but refused to become an official and opposed the Kuomintang in fighting a civil war. In March 1941, on behalf of the China Vocational Education Society, he initiated the establishment of the "China Democratic Political League" (later renamed the China Democratic League) with other democratic parties, trying to stand between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party to fight for democracy. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Huang Yanpei, Hu Weiwen and other people from the industrial and commercial circles and educational circles initiated the establishment of the Democratic Construction Association. At that time, Zhou Enlai often kept in touch with Huang Yanpei and cooperated with the cppcc meetings. In July 1946, Kuomintang agents assassinated Li Gongpu and Wen Yiduo, and Chiang Kai-shek then threatened and lured Huang Yanpei to break away from the NLD to join the pseudo-"National Congress" and promise him a high-ranking official. Huang Yanpei firmly stated that "you cannot self-destruct your personality." In October 1947, the Kuomintang declared the NLD "illegal" and sent military police to surround the NLD headquarters and force its dissolution. Huang Yanpei went to Nanjing to make urgent representations with the authorities without success, and the tragic facts made him realize that the "middle way" could not be followed, so he decided to go to the liberated areas.
In February 1949, Huang Yanpei and his wife pretended to go shopping at the Shanghai Yong'an Company, threw the trailing agents at the door of the store, got on the car arranged by the underground Communist Party of China from the back door to the wharf, and arrived in Beiping via Hong Kong. After he left, the second son who remained in Shanghai was arrested by the Secrecy Bureau, broke his leg for his indomitable integrity, and was brutally killed on the eve of the People's Liberation Army's entry into Shanghai.
■ Talk to Mao Zedong in Yan'an. The conversation between the two about the "cycle rate" has especially made future generations think deeply.
■ In the old China, yuan shikai insisted on refusing to be an official and not going into the sludge, Yuan Shikai once said that he "did not do with the officials, and when things happened," he gladly became vice premier of the people's government and minister of light industry after 1949.
In early July 1945, Huang Yanpei, Together with Chu Fucheng, Leng Suo, Zuo Shunsheng, Fu Sinian, and Zhang Bojun, five national suffragettes flew from Chongqing to Yan'an for a five-day visit. Before his departure, Chiang Kai-shek had met with them to incite these intermediaries in order to make them feel bad about the Communist Party, but these five days became a major turning point in Huang Yanpei's life. During his stay in Yan'an, Huang Yanpei witnessed the CPC's administrative policies and achievements in the Liberated Areas, and had the opportunity to get to know many CCP leaders, especially the opportunity to have many long talks with Mao Zedong. He also visited Yan'an University, Luyi, hospitals, wood factories, etc., and saw people on the street with rosy looks and cheers. What impressed me most was that there were opinion boxes on the street, and every Yan'an person could submit a book and write a proposal until Mao Zedong. All this makes him feel deeply fresh and beautiful, decades of hard pursuit, and it seems to find the answer here. Huang Yanpei said: "What I saw in the middle of the five days in Yan'an is, of course, quite close to my ideal. After the visit, Huang Yanpei wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Return of Yan'an", and broke the Kuomintang's rules for sending for trial to publish it himself, which was quickly sold out in the rear area. The book publicizes the new features of hard work and other aspects of the hard work of everyone in the Liberated Areas, and also specifically records a dialogue between him and Mao Zedong.
In the cave dwellings in Yan'an, Mao Zedong asked Huang Yanpei how he felt, and Huang Yanpei replied bluntly:
I have been born for more than sixty years, and what I have heard and heard is not to say, but what I have seen with my own eyes is really called "its rise and fall, and its death is also sudden." One person, one family, one group, one place, and even one country, many units have not been able to jump out of the dominance of this cycle rate. At the beginning of the day, there was no one who did not care about anything, there was no one who did not work hard, perhaps at that time it was difficult and difficult, and only a life was sought from death. Since the environment gradually improved, the spirit gradually let go. Some of them, because they last for a long time, naturally have inert attacks, from the minority to the majority, to the cultivation of the atmosphere, although powerful, can not be reversed, and can not be remedied. There are also areas that have expanded step by step, and its expansion, some out of natural development, some driven by the desire for merit, are stronger than development, and when the cadres and talents are gradually exhausted and difficult to cope with, the environment has become more and more complicated, and the control has inevitably become weaker. In a history, there are also those who "slack off in politics", there are also those who "die in government", and there are also those who "seek glory and humiliation", in short, they have not been able to jump out of this cyclical rate.
Huang Yanpei hopes that the Chinese Communist Party can break the "cycle rate", he said:
From the past to the present, I know a little bit about the CCP monarchs. It is to find a new way to jump out of the domination of this cycle rate.
Mao Zedong replied:
We've found a new path, and we can jump out of this cycle rate. This new path is democracy. Only by allowing the people to rise up to supervise the government can the government dare not relax. Only when everyone rises up and takes responsibility will no one die in politics.
Mao's answer greatly impressed Huang Yanpei, believing that "using democracy to break this cyclical rate" was effective. This famous cave dialogue is well known to people today. Huang Yanpei proposed the historical cycle rate, not only describing a historical phenomenon, but deeply revealing the problem of historical development with regularity, which is consistent with the basic view of the materialist view of history. It is precisely because the question of the historical cycle rate raised by Huang Yanpei is profound and common, that it has aroused the great attention of generations of Communists.
After the founding of New China, Huang Yanpei enthusiastically participated in various work. In old China, he repeatedly refused the high-ranking official Houlu, and the Beiyang government twice issued a notice appointing him as the chief of education, but Huang Yanpei did not take office. Mao Zedong once asked him why he did not go, and Huang Yanpei replied: "My belief is that I cannot see the truth clearly and will never blindly obey." On the eve of the founding of New China, Zhou Enlai came to the door to ask him to take up a government office, Huang Yanpei resigned at the age of 72, and Zhou Enlai said: "Now the people's government is not an official, it is to do things, it is to serve the people." Huang Yanpei was finally willing to become vice premier of the State Council and minister of light industry. Later, when answering his son's question, he said solemnly: "In the past, when he refused to be an official, he did not want to go into the mud. Today is the people's government under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and I am an official of the people! ”
■ Claiming that "I am a witness to history", he experienced several ups and downs to realize the truth of a strong country, and finally found the road to light.
Huang Yanpei's life experienced the corruption of the Qing Dynasty, the warlord-divided Republic of China, the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek, and the socialist New China. In his later years, he often said: "I am a witness to history". Personally feeling the internal and external troubles of old China, witnessing the people's deep waters, Huang Yanpei spent his life painstakingly exploring the road to the light. He followed Sun Yat-sen's democratic revolution, participated in the Yuan movement, practiced education to save the country, explored the "middle way", and repeated setbacks did not extinguish his will to pursue the truth, and again and again the lessons he polished his eyes, and finally found the correct path and plunged himself into the torrent of people's revolution and construction under the leadership of the Communist Party. "The road is long and the road is long, and I will seek up and down." Huang Yanpei's life represents the tortuous process of the advanced Chinese in modern times and unremitting exploration for national rejuvenation, and also truly practices the motto he believes in: reason must seek truth, and everything must seek truth. Words must be kept, and deeds must be steadfast.
[Wang Wen: Member of the Chang'an Avenue Reading Club, First-class Inspector of the Research Office of the Central Party School (National School of Administration)]
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Editor-in-charge: Guo Xin; Preliminary Review: Cheng Ziqian; Review: Li Yufan