Written on the seventieth anniversary of Lu Xun's death

Speech in Shanghai Library on October 14th, 26

Chen Danqing

Hello, everyone:

This is the third time I have talked about Mr. Lu Xun. Every time I am respectful and a little nervous. Yesterday, I shaved my head and put on a new pair of leather shoes. I won't give a speech on the spot. When it comes to Lu Xun's topic, I'm especially serious. I always have to write something in advance to think I can speak clearly. I'll read it according to the manuscript and make some more play. Please forgive me.

(1)

I don't know how many times Mr. Lu Xun's memorial meeting has been held in the past 7 years. In China, Lu Xun is still a big topic.

Roughly speaking, from 1936 to 1949, when Lu Xun died, the topic of Lu Xun was entangled in the issue of national revolution. From 1949 to the early 198s, Lu Xun's topic became a quasi-official ideology, which no one dared to offend in mainland China and was banned for a long time in Taiwan Province. In a word, "Lu Xun's topic" is 1% "political topic".

In the mid-198s, Lu Xun's topic was gradually removed from the political altar and moved into the academic field. Since the 199s, the official has started a dramatic process of silence, avoidance and indifference to Lu Xun's topic. For more than 2 years, it is no longer possible and no longer intended to search for any statement about important national topics and government languages from Lu Xun. The huge use value of Lu Xun's topics seems to have come to an end, from "in the DPRK" to "in the opposition", and then a "Lu Xun controversy" was launched in academic circles and among the people. Wang Shuo was the initiator of this controversy.

in the new century, the "Lu Xun controversy" has derived the desire to "restore Lu Xun". As far as I know, whether it is Lu Xun's "defenders" or "skeptics", Lu Xun's monographs published in recent ten years have greatly abandoned the official ideological scale and tried to describe the real Lu Xun. New interpretations of old historical materials have emerged, and some new historical materials have been revealed. Among them, the most noticeable voice comes from Lu Xun's descendants: first, Zhou Haiying's memoir "Seventy Years with Lu Xun" in 22, and then, in 26, Comrade Zhou Lingfei, the eldest son of Mr. Haiying, gave a speech at Jiaotong University. The grandson of Lu Xun asked bluntly: "Who is Lu Xun?"

This is probably the most intense and ironic question about Lu Xun so far. This question declares that Mr. Lu Xun, whom we have been told for 7 years, is beyond recognition.

(2)

We may all agree that in recent decades, almost all the great people in China's history have been disfigured beyond recognition. Lu Xun's distortion is a super case-solving in modern China. After all, China has made progress from the "political topic" in fifty years to the "Lu Xun controversy" in recent twenty years. Today, Lu Xun's readers may be slightly close to the context of Lu Xun's life.

But this does not mean Lu Xun's "reduction".

Mr. Lu Xun lived for more than 5 years, and he was politicized for more than 5 years after his death. Lu Xun's works are a legacy, and Lu Xun, who is extremely politicized, is another legacy. Lu Xun's ghost and reader have been wandering between two Luxun and two legacies for 7 years.

this is one side of Lu Xun's case. On the other hand, let's look at the west. For example, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Goethe, Hegel, Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Marx are all huge historical and cultural cases, and they are constantly being interpreted, shaped, excavated and extended behind them. They belong to different nationalities and times, but they don't belong to political power; They have a profound influence on culture and politics, but they have never been swallowed up by real politics; Their ideas are out of date in stages, because later generations have continued their context; They last for a long time, because they have been cast as cultural chains and historical coordinates.

Lu Xun's fate is just the opposite: he is the number one in China's modern literature, but he has always been mortgaged in the hands of the regime; In fact, he has no influence on real politics, but he has become a super thug of the regime; He is suspended, but it is difficult to be out of date, because there is neither an equal figure nor an equal figure behind him; Therefore, he lived for a long time, not entirely because of the influence of his works, but because of the isolation of the highest specifications; His complete works are reprinted in one edition, but it is difficult to establish a living relationship with today's culture-compared with being banned and forgotten, the fate and situation behind Lu Xun are more complicated and more sad.

In the past 7 years, there have been countless flowers from revolutionaries or powerful people in front of Lu Xun's tomb. In the past 2 years, whether it is serious or heartfelt, the official and the people no longer take the initiative to worship. Lu Xun was quiet, no longer used or enshrined. This ambiguous indifference, like the hot "Lu Xun politics" in the first 5 years, is abnormal and abnormal, and it is the freezing of history. At present, this cooled Lu Xun legacy is still the official legacy after the official removal.

more than 9 years ago, Lu Xun's great wish was "save the children!" Today, the children's proposition may be: "Save Lu Xun"!

(3)

All the topics behind Lu Xun are Mr. Lu Xun's problems or ours? If it is Lu Xun's problem, his legacy is everywhere. If you want to argue, you will argue. If you don't want to read it, you won't read it. It doesn't matter if you don't restore it. If this is our problem, then why should we restore Lu Xun? How to restore? Is it possible to restore?

I think about it, and the answers are: first, the problem lies with us; Second, Lu Xun is difficult to restore. Third, to restore Lu Xun and countless historical figures, it is necessary for "we" to undergo fundamental changes; Fourth, whether it is benign, malignant or neutral, whether it is related to Lu Xun or not, the process of this change will be very long-it may take another 7 years-but now this change has begun to show signs.

So what matters is not Lu Xun, nor reduction, but the change of "we".

Let's briefly talk about why Lu Xun is difficult to restore, and why this "difficult to restore" is our problem. Recently, Phoenix TV in Hong Kong visited on the seventieth anniversary of Lu Xun's death and gave me a group of questions about Lu Xun. Some have already heard of it, and some have never heard of it. As far as I can remember, I only mention the following:

1. Is Lu Xun's thought debatable? 2. Has Lu Xun's spirit been inherited? Is it worth inheriting? 3, Lu Xun likes to call names, does it lead to the bad habit of people attacking each other during the Cultural Revolution? 4. What do you think of Lu Xun's recognition of "dictatorship of the proletariat"? 5, Lu Xun's famous sentence: "I have never been afraid to speculate on China people with the worst malice", has it contributed to the evil of China people?

during the half-hour interview, I was unable to talk about it. Now, thinking along the question, I clearly see that the problem lies with us, in Lu Xun's political legacy.

firstly, is Lu Xun open to question? This is a typical slave train of thought, and it is a question raised by totalitarian culture-all characters and thoughts can be "discussed" and should be "discussed", but I don't use the word "discussed", which is a substitute word for Chinese pseudo-argument, hesitating and evasive. When the word "discussion" became popular, it was the era when criticism was obliterated and doubt was forbidden. We were the witness of several generations whose thoughts were blocked and snuffed out.

second, has Lu Xun's spirit been inherited? Is it worth inheriting? My answer is: if Lu Xun's spirit refers to doubt, criticism and struggle, then this spirit has not been inherited at all, but has been eradicated successfully. I don't advocate inheriting this spirit, because no one can or can afford to inherit it unless you have more than two lives, or unless you are a contemporary of Lu Xun. The safest way is to take the opposite of Lu Xun's spirit: silence, submission, enslavement, and even enslavement.

thirdly, Lu Xun likes to call names. Did it lead to the bad habit of people attacking each other during the Cultural Revolution? Amitabha! Does such a question need to be answered? It's interesting to see how writers and thinkers in other countries and other times swear-I don't think it's swearing, but it's a curse. But since everyone uses this word, let's just follow the crowd-don't talk about examples that are too far away, just look at people who are a little earlier, a little later, or roughly the same period than Lu Xun: someone asked Floubai what he was doing recently, and he said, I am continuing to curse my compatriots and pour feces on their heads; Tolstoy cursed all his life, who cursed the emperor and the leader, Shakespeare and Nietzsche, his predecessor herzen, his old friend Turgenev and, of course, himself. Nietzsche's curse points to the whole Christian world. He said that there is only one Christian in the world, and that is Jesus, and "Jesuitism" has been the biggest politics in Europe for two thousand years ... In China, we should compile a history of world writers' swearing for gentle and honest people, although no country in the world has experienced the Cultural Revolution, which is so confusing.

This bad habit, mode and mode of discourse of the whole person have been attacked within the left wing in the 193s, becoming the alienation of the May 4th Movement. In the 198s, a large volume of historical materials about Lu Xun's comments on the enemy and scolding Lu Xun was published. In the 199s, there was a book called Lu Xun: The Most Slashed Man, which vividly proved the historical fact that Lu Xun was reviled and besieged. Here is just one example, that is, Comrade Guo Moruo, who is second only to Lu Xun in the new China literary archway, has publicly pronounced Lu Xun as a "double feudal remnant". Before Guo was convicted, he claimed that he hardly read Lu Xun's books.

fourthly, what do you think of Lu Xun's recognition of "dictatorship of the proletariat"? Yes, our generation are all people of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". But don't make a mistake: reading the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" from the headline of Red Flag magazine or People's Daily in the 196s and 197s and reading the same sentence in secret books and periodicals and literati writing in the 193s are two different ways of reading, two consequences and two different things. Yes, Lu Xun was once a general of the left-wing camp-in his time, radical intellectuals and artists all over the world chose the left-wing position, such as French humanist Aragon, Spanish painter Picasso, Italian director pasolini, Petruchi and so on, not only left-leaning, but also quasi-* * produced party member-when Mr. Lu Xun, a "double feudal remnant", moved closer to the left in his later years and wrote the sentence "dictatorship of the proletariat". But it is also Lu Xun to expose the hypocrisy, cunning, hegemony and shallowness within the left wing as soon as possible. Why?

because of the fifth, Lu Xun "has never been afraid to speculate about China people with the worst malice"-this sentence actually "encourages the evil of China people", not to mention that this sentence doesn't work. What logic is this? Has the evil people who have been talking all over China ever consulted Lu Xun's works before committing evil? Malicious, there are two kinds, one is self-aware of its evil, and the other is out of so-called "goodwill". If there are still people in China who blame Lu Xun with such "goodwill" today, this goodwill, in my opinion, is sheer malice.

However, the above questions and answers are all stupid. It is a muddled account of right and wrong in modern China, and it is a common sense problem that is not worth talking about. What can be compared in detail is the difference between Lu Xun's era and ours, and this difference is the real difficulty in restoring Lu Xun.

(4)

The following is a rough arrangement of a set of background, social indicators and cultural patterns to remind us why it is difficult to restore Lu Xun.

during Lu Xun's youth, China had the Qing government, the Kangliang Rebel Party, the Sun Yat-sen Revolutionary Group, numerous folk societies and colonies of other countries. In the prime of Lu Xun's life, the northern part was a warlord government, the southern part was a national government, and Jiangxi was a Soviet government. Warlords are powerful in various provinces. The national government was once divided into the Ninghan government, and many provinces also have Soviet underground governments. In the middle and late period of Lu Xun, China was roughly unified, but there were still Nanjing government and Yan 'an government, and there were Nanjing puppet government and Chongqing national government during the Anti-Japanese War. In Shanghai, where Lu Xun lived, there were Japanese concessions and French concessions.

during Lu Xun's stay in Beijing, Xiamen, Guangzhou and Shanghai, there were scholars from the former Qing Dynasty, scholars from various provinces, students studying in Japan, Britain, the United States and Germany, etc. These turtle schools are not the same as today's turtle schools, and each has its own real schools, opinions and forces. As for political schools, there have been constitutionalists, * * * peace factions, royalists, the Three People's Principles, * * * productism, capitalism, liberalism, fascism, nationalism and anarchism. Young people here may not know that the pen name of "Ba Jin" is the Chinese translation of two European anarchists: Bakunin and Kropotkin, who is better than Lu Xun. Lived for more than 1 years-Recently, a program on CCTV News Channel released historical data: Although it was a flash in the pan, there were hundreds of political parties in China around the 192s.

Lu Xun's classmates, comrades-in-arms, and enemies, some of whom are Kuomintang dignitaries, such as Cai Yuanpei and Chen Yi; Have a plenty of * * * party dignitaries, such as Chen Duxiu and Qu Qiubai; Some are both national party member and party member, such as Guo Moruo and Tian Han, and some are both scholars and professors and party officials, such as Hu Shizhi; Of course, there are many literati without party affiliation. Textbooks always highlight the left-wingers and * * * producers among Lu Xun's young friends. Looking at Lu Xun's friends, there are Kuomintang soldiers such as Li Bingzhong, who is particularly fond of him. The county officials of the National Government who were suppressed after liberation, such as Jing Youqian, were employed by Lu Xun. There are also young people who left first and then right, such as Tai Jingnong who chose Taiwan Province. Lu Xun and several left-wing youths went from intimacy to breaking up, but there was no record of falling out with Kuomintang military and political circles or right-wing children. Lu Xun's foreign friends include B·R·Epomehk, a fallen Russian poet, Smollett and Si Nuo, American left-wing boys, and Japanese friends such as Uchiyama's completion and Masuda's involvement, which are neither left nor right, and have no political color.

When it comes to the range of friends made by Lu Xun and his contemporaries, it is impossible for a character with the widest connections and the most special status to maintain a friend relationship or an enemy relationship with people with different social identities and diametrically opposed political positions. From the 195s to the 197s, friends were equal to cronies, and Hu Feng Group and the second-rate hall circle were all convicted, and many people committed suicide, which implicated thousands of people. Similar cases of political groups are even more numerous. From the 198s to the present, the relationship between friends is roughly a relationship of rights, either to be promoted or to get rich. Relatively pure personal friendship has barely returned to normal. However, there may be differences in people's origins, occupations and viewpoints, but we are all people of the country, with the same educational background and overall personality.

In short, the political and cultural map of Lu Xun and his contemporaries, and the words and deeds space between Lu Xun and his enemies and friends are absolutely impossible to imagine, experience and share the concrete and trivial daily experience of Lu Xun's generation, which is, of course, for several generations, * * * enjoys great happiness in heaven, free from the oppression of three mountains and free from the suffering of troubled times. Its price is our relatively complicated social forms, relatively strange survival choices, relatively independent growth experiences, and almost physical ignorance.

as for Lu Xun's remarks and thoughts, no matter how early or late they are, they can't come out. His era is the one with the most intensive national disasters and historical opportunities in China's modern history, and it is also the only short-lived era of "a hundred schools of thought contend" since the Spring and Autumn Period. If he is considered higher than others, because there are others; If others don't agree with him, it means that it is the age when the heroes rise together. He was hung high and isolated behind him, so that we could only look up to him. In the past twenty years, the theories that were opposed to him in that era have come out. However, the initial reading is similar to the brand: we read Lu Xun first, read others later, listened to his swearing first, and learned that the articles that cursed him were later. This difference in order should not be underestimated.

But none of this matters. The real point is that our generations have long been shaped into another species.