Chapter 08 Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group injustice case 1955

Journalist: “Why do you want to rectify Hu Feng?

Mao: “It’s a long story. In July 1954, Hu Feng wrote to me by Xi Zhongxun about the theory of literature and art, he advocated freedom of creation, academic freedom, independent personality, and my approach to literature and art, I want literature and art to absolutely obey the Party’s instructions, absolutely no independent creation.

I seized his 300,000-word book, printed it into a special volume for national publication, and launched a nationwide campaign to round up Hu Feng’s elements. At the same time, I ordered public security officials to disregard Party discipline and national law and raid Hu Feng’s friends, relatives, students, and writers with whom Hu Feng had dealings, and to search their private letters and diaries, distorting and rendering the contents of their writings as evidence of Hu Feng’s counter-revolutionary group.

I assigned Zhou Yang from the Publicity Department to carry out a comprehensive critique of Hu Feng. Zhou Yang had a grudge against Hu Feng from the period of the Anti-Japanese War and was happy to discredit him. He compiled the ‘Three Batches of Materials on the Hu Feng Group’ and published them in the ‘Literature and Art Newspaper’ with an editor’s note. I personally reviewed it and found that it only focused on ‘reactionary artistic views’ and ‘reactionary academic thoughts.’ Hu Feng is a current counter-revolutionary, and I decided not to use his materials. I personally wrote a new editor’s note.

I said, ‘The Hu Feng group is a long-standing counter-revolutionary conspiracy group hidden within the revolutionary camp, the most vicious enemy of the Communist Party. It must be thoroughly investigated and subjected to a dictatorship.’ I proposed to publish it in the ‘People’s Daily.’ As a result, a nationwide campaign to thoroughly investigate the Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group was launched. Anyone who had any connection with Hu Feng, even those who simply attended his speeches or read his works, were labeled as ‘Hu Feng followers,’ subjected to criticism, expelled, and even arrested and imprisoned…”

In fact, the so-called “Hu Feng group materials” were all private letters and diary extracts that I had secretly ordered the public security forces to illegally seize, and they were taken out of context and distorted and compiled.

After my death, in 1984, the central government “partially rehabilitated” Hu Feng. It was said that the issue of academic thought was treated as a counter-revolution. The meaning was “expanded”, and I was defended, as if I had only gone too far, not wrong. Hu Feng died in 1986 and was not completely rehabilitated during his lifetime. In fact, Hu Feng truly inherited Lu Xun’s literary ideology of adherence to people’s nature, free creation, and independent fighting, and I was anti-people’s nature, which was completely wrong.

Journalist: “Hu Feng counter-revolution is how it happened?”

Mao: “In 1955, the case of Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group occurred again. This case was a vicious development of my policy of class struggle against intellectuals, and the rectification of Hu Feng was also instigated by Jiang Qing. At the beginning of liberation, Jiang Qing said: “The guiding ideology of literature and art in the new China is Mao Zedong Thought. Hu Feng said on the spot that the guiding ideology in literature and art should be Lu Xun’s thought on literature and art. After Jiang Qing went home and told me about it, I was very unhappy. This was the cause of my desire to fix Hu Feng.”

Journalist: “Oh, Jiang Qing is the director of literature and art, it is your ideas, Hu Feng said about Lu Xun?”

Mao: “Yes. Hu Feng, real name Zhang Guangren, born in 1902 in Shanchun County, Hubei. His father was a peddler of tofu, his mother was an orphaned daughter of a hired peasant. The company is a member of the Chinese Communist Party. During his stay in Japan, he joined the Japanese Communist Party and the Art Research Society of the Japan Institute of Progressive Science.

In 1933, Hu Feng was arrested by the Japanese police for organizing a left-wing cultural group among foreign students, and was expelled to China in July. In the fall of 1934, when a member of the League was arrested and falsely accused Hu Feng of being a ‘traitor’ sent by Nanjing, Hu resigned from the League. Hu Feng resigned in anger and resigned from the League, and began to live as a professional writer.”

Journalist: “Oh, Hu Feng was close to Lu Xun, and what contradictions did he have with the Communist Party leadership?”

Mao: “In 1936, Hu Feng supported Lu Xun’s slogan of ‘popular literature for the democratic revolutionary war’ and argued with Zhou Yang, who advocated ‘national defense literature’ as the slogan of the united front of the literary and artistic circles, about the two slogans. Since then, he had a grudge against Zhou Yang. At the beginning of the war, Hu Feng participated in the preparatory work of the Chinese National Association of Literature and Arts against the Enemy, and after its establishment, he became a director and deputy director of the research department.

From July 1938 to September 1941, Hu Feng hosted the magazine ‘July,’ which published anti-Japanese progressive works; at the same time, he edited the weekly ‘Literary and Art Weekly’ for ‘Xinhua Daily,’ and in May 1942, I issued the ‘Speech at the Yan’an Literary and Art Symposium.’ The left-wing literary and artistic circles in Chongqing were divided over how to implement the spirit of the speech. The majority, which resided in the mainstream, believed that the question of why and for which class literature and art should first be resolved, while Hu Feng and his followers believed that they should mainly oppose dogmatism and formulaism.”

Journalist: “Oh, Hu Feng advocated against dogmatism?”

Mao: “Yes, in January 1945, Hu Feng edited the magazine ‘Hope’ and published Shu Wu’s ‘On Subjectivity’ and ‘On the Middle’ in succession, advocating the ‘subjective fighting spirit.’ The leaders of the Southern Bureau of the Communist Party of China in the field of literature and art held a symposium to criticize Hu Feng’s ideological tendencies, and Hu Feng was not convinced and became increasingly estranged from some Party writers and literary theorists.”

Journalist: “Oh, Hu Feng advocated subjective fighting, which contradicted your guiding ideology?”

Mao: “Yes. In 1949, Hu Feng entered Beijing and participated in the First Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the Founding Ceremony. Published a long poem, ‘Time has begun!’ hailing the birth of the new China and singing my praises. He was a deputy to the First National People’s Congress, a member of the All-China Federation of Literature, a director of the Writers’ Association and a member of the editorial board of People’s Literature. Hu Feng’s reputation in the literary world is so great that he has been called ‘China’s Belinsky,’ ‘the Lukács of the East’ and ‘the overwhelmingly faithful heir of Lu Xun.’”

Journalist: “Oh, Hu Feng is the faithful heir of Lu Xun?”

Mao: “Yes. In 1952, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of my ‘Speech at the Yan’an Literary and Art Symposium,’ the literary and art circles underwent a rectification. Shu Wu, author of the article ‘On Subjectivity,’ wrote an article reviewing and admitting his mistakes, which was published in the Changjiang Daily on May 12, it was reprinted in the People’s Daily on June 8, with an editor’s note criticizing Hu Feng’s literary and artistic thoughts as ‘bourgeois, petty-bourgeois individualism.’ But Hu Feng refused to review and admit his mistakes. So the Central Propaganda Department decided to have Lin Mohan, director of the Literature and Art Department, write ‘Hu Feng’s Anti-Marxist Literary Thought’ and instructed He Qifang, deputy director of the Institute of Literature at Peking University, to write ‘The Way of Realism or the Way of Anti-Realism? published in the second and third issues of the Literary and Art Newspaper. The People’s Daily also reprinted Lin Mohan’s article.’”

Journalist: “Criticizing Hu Feng’s bourgeois individualism?”

Mao: “Yes. Hu Feng was not convinced and wrote ‘Explanatory Materials on Several Theoretical Issues’ from March 21 to April 30, 1954, and ‘Proposals for Reference’ in June of that year, combining the two parts under the general title of ‘Report on Literary and Artistic Practices in the Past Few Years,’ totaling 300,000 words, later called the ‘300,000-word Book.’ He bypassed Zhou Yang, the vice minister of the Propaganda Department, with whom he had a grudge, and handed it to Xi Zhongxun on July 22, 1954, asking him to forward it to me.”

Journalist: “Oh, Hu Feng’s 300,000-word book, was it presented to you?”

Mao: “Yes, the main antagonist of the 300,000-word letter is Zhou Yang, saying that Zhou Yang has distorted my policy on ideological reform and replaced my wise policy with wrong methods. To revive literature and art, Zhou Yang’s ‘sectarian warlord rule’ must be removed. On January 12, 1955, I instructed that Hu Feng’s submission be printed in a special booklet and distributed with the ‘Literature and Art Newspaper’ so that it could be criticized.”

Journalist: “Oh, Hu Feng opposed Zhou Yang, and you supported Zhou Yang, and you published Hu Feng’s 300,000-word book to launch the criticism?”

Mao: “Yes, on January 15, 1955, Hu Feng, feeling that the situation was getting unfavorable, took the initiative to talk to Zhou Yang, saying that he admitted his mistakes and hoped that his report to the Central Committee would not be issued publicly, and that if it was to be issued, he would attach a preliminary statement admitting his mistakes and welcoming criticism. Zhou Yang reported the above to me in writing.”

Journalist: “Hu Feng wanted to admit his mistakes, how did you handle it?”

Mao: “I instructed that night: ‘1. Such a statement should not be published; 2. Hu Feng’s bourgeois idealism, anti-Party and anti-people ideology of literature and art should be thoroughly criticized, and he should not be allowed to escape into hiding in the ‘petty-bourgeois point of view.’’ ‘So, according to my established plan, Hu Feng’s ‘300,000-word book’ was sent to the readers with the ‘Literature and Art Newspaper’ as the target of criticism.’’”

Journalist: “Oh, you mentioned the height of anti-Party and anti-people, and openly criticized Hu Feng in the whole country?”

Mao: “Yes. In April, under strong pressure, Shu Wu expressed his determination to draw a clear line with Hu Feng and handed over a dozen letters that Hu Feng had sent him in the 1940s. Zhou Yang instructed Shu Wu to sort out the letters into excerpts and prepare them for publication in the People’s Daily in conjunction with Hu Feng’s review. After reading them, I personally wrote the editor’s note for the publication of ‘Some Materials on Hu Feng’s Counter-Revolutionary Group’ in People’s Daily, and the note and materials were published in the newspaper on May 17, henceforth designating Hu Feng and his followers as an anti-Party group.”

Journalist: “You immediately decided Hu Feng as counter-revolutionary and anti-party?”

Mao: “Yes, on May 24, 1955, when the People’s Daily published the second batch of materials, I added a new reference to ‘counter-revolutionary Hu Feng elements’ to the press release, so the Hu Feng issue was further escalated from ‘counterparty’ to ‘counter-revolutionary.’ The problem of Hu Feng further escalated from ‘anti-party’ to ‘counter-revolutionary.’”

Journalist: “Oh, you then elevated, called counter-revolutionary Hu Feng elements?”

Mao: “Yes, on June 10, 1955, I said in the press release of the third batch of materials: ‘Who exactly is Hu Feng’s master? Hu Feng and many of the key elements in Hu Feng’s group have long been loyal lackeys of imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang; they have close ties with the imperialist and Kuomintang secret services, have long disguised themselves as revolutionaries, have lurked within the progressive people, and have done counter-revolutionary deeds.’ I push Hu Feng, who has been arrested at this moment, and his colleagues into the abyss of the ‘counter-revolutionary group.’”

Journalist: “You said Hu Feng was a lackey of imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek, did you present any factual material?”

Mao: “No, what I say is what I say, there is no factual basis. By the end of 1956, this internal ‘purge’ had identified more than 81,000 ‘counter-revolutionaries,’ and more than 1.3 million people had confessed to various ‘political problems.’ (People’s Daily, July 18, 1957)”

Journalist: “Wow, your scale is really big, beating out 80,000 Hu Feng counter-revolutionaries in one year?”

Mao: “Yes, that’s how I set up authority among the intellectuals and established my absolute authority and absolute dominance in the ideological field.

My struggle against the unruly Hu Feng faction, which had some energy in literature and art, was intermittent for more than ten years.

In this cultural siege, which I personally directed, all of us from the central to the local level were in full swing, carrying out a major critique to stink up Hu Feng and his followers. The pamphlet ‘Materials on Hu Feng’s Counter-revolutionary Group,’ for which I personally wrote the preface and remarks, was printed in more than 7 million copies nationwide; there was a comic book of small people that demonized Hu Feng, with a print run of ten million copies.”

Journalist: “You rounded up Hu Feng for more than 10 years?”

Mao: “Yes, when the third batch of materials was published, I wrote a total of 17 press releases. Zhou Yang did not know how to lift up Jiang Qing, incurring Jiang Qing’s resentment. Zhou Yang’s favored era soon passed. It was not until the Cultural Revolution that Zhou Yang became a representative of the literary black line of the 1930s and was imprisoned, which was an afterthought.

On the night of May 16, 1955, Liu Baiyu, secretary of the party group of the Chinese Writers’ Association, led several strangers to Hu Feng’s house to search it. By 1:30 a.m. on the 17th, Hu Feng was arrested at his home. The public security officers continued the search, and about dawn, Hu Feng’s wife, Mei Zhi, was also arrested. Because Hu Feng was a deputy to the National People’s Congress, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress was convened on May 18 to make up the formalities and cancel Hu Feng’s qualification as a deputy to the National People’s Congress.”

Journalist: “You ordered Hu Feng’s arrest and imprisonment?”

Mao: “Yes. In the following 5-6 black months, a storm of search and arrest of Hu Feng elements swept the country and began.

Among the prominent intellectuals arrested were: Lu Ling, Lu Yuan, Xu Fang, Xie Tao, Liu Xuewei, Niu Han, Lu Coal, Du Gu, Yan Wang, Yu Xingqian, Feng Dahai, Li Jialing, etc. in Beijing; Jia Shifang, Peng Bo, Wang Yuanhua, Ren Min, Geng Yong, Wang Hao, Wang Rong, Zhang Zhongxiao, Luo Luo, He Manzi, Li Zhenglian, Gu Zhengnan, Xu Shihua, Luo Fei, Zhang Yu, Mei Lin, Man Tao, etc. in Shanghai; Ah Lang, Lu Quo, Ludiin, Li Li, etc. in Tianjin, Lin Xi, Li Li, etc., Ouyang Zhuang, Huatie, Huatian, Hongqiao, etc. in Nanjing, Ji Visiting, Fang Ran, Sun Tuan, etc. in Zhejiang, Hu Zheng in Shaanxi, Zeng Zhuo, Zheng Si, Wu Wo in Hubei, Peng Yanjiao in Hunan, Zhu Gu Huai in Guangdong, Jin Camel and Hou Weixun in Liaoning, He Jianxiao and Liu Yi in Chongqing, etc.”

Journalist: “Wow, you are opening up a big net, the whole country all together?”

Mao: “Yes, the Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group case is the first big ‘thought crime (literary inquisition)’ in New China, thousands of people were branded as ‘Hu Feng elements’ and ‘Hu Feng members,’ Thousands of people were branded as “Hu Feng members” and “Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group members”, sentenced, reformed through labor, controlled, had their homes raided, were driven crazy and disabled, had their wives separated and their families broken, many of them were extremely talented writers and scholars, which led to numerous human tragedies that made people weep.”

Journalist: “Many talented writers and scholars have been destroyed by you?”

Mao: “Yes, Lu Ling, once considered by some modern literature experts as the most promising and outstanding Nobel Prize for literature

He was 32 years old when he was arrested. In prison, he suffered from severe schizophrenia and was either silent or howled for a long time. After being released in 1975, he was placed under the supervision of the street police station to clean his house and lived on the 10 cents per household cleaning fee. There is no greater sorrow than death. His slum-like home no longer even has a book.”

Journalist: “A Nobel Prize hopeful writer, destroyed by you to mental illness?”

Mao: “Yes, after my death, according to the ‘Report on the Review of the Case of the Hu Feng Counterrevolutionary Group’ dated July 21, 1980: In the nationwide struggle to clear up the ‘Hu Feng Counterrevolutionary Group,’ a total of 2,100 people were touched. Ninety-two people were arrested, 62 were isolated, and 73 were suspended for introspection.

By the end of 1956, most of them were released from the influence of Hu Feng’s ideology, and 78 people (including 32 Party members) were officially designated as members of the ‘Hu Feng Counterrevolutionary Group,’ of whom 23 were classified as key elements. By 1958, 62 people were suspended, reeducated through labor, and sent to labor.

In 1965, the Beijing Municipal Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Hu Feng to 14 years of imprisonment and 6 years of deprivation of political rights, and in 1969, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Hu Feng was not a perfect man. He did not get along well with many of his colleagues in the literary and artistic circles. But Hu Feng was not actually opposed to the Communist Party, let alone a counter-revolutionary. His real problem was his argument with Jiang Qing about whether Mao Zedong’s thought or Lu Xun’s thought should be the guiding ideology of the literary and artistic circles. And this ‘crime’ is not on the stage.”

Journalist: “Oh, actually, it’s a debate over the guiding ideology of literature and art. Is it Lu Xun thought, or you Mao thought?”

Mao: “Yes, when the court announced that he had been sentenced to 14 years in prison, and formally and hypocritically told him that he could appeal and hire a defender, Hu Feng said: ‘This time I was sentenced to 14 years, where is the material? In order to maintain the prestige of the Party, not only do I not appeal, but I don’t even want to defend myself, I just can’t be bothered!’

At the height of the ‘Cultural Revolution,’ escorted by the People’s Liberation Army, Hu Feng and his wife, Mei Zhi, were transferred to Miao Xi labor reform tea farm in Lushan County, Sichuan Province, where they lived in a lonely hut on the mountain. There the couple was still able to be together, and after a year or so were separated. In May 1969, when he had completed his 14-year sentence, he reported to the Military Affairs Commission and asked to be released from prison, but the reply was ‘until death.’”

Journalist: “Oh, not even after 14 years, he was not released, he was imprisoned until he died?”

Mao: “Yes, during the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing invented the theory of ‘dictatorship of the literary and artistic black lines.’ Hu Feng, who was serving his sentence in a Sichuan labor farm, was approached by the correctional cadres for a talk: ‘Zhou Yang has been uncovered! You can expose and complain about his problems.’ The cadres gave him a newspaper, on which Yao Wenyuan had written ‘Review of the counter-revolutionary two-faced faction Zhou Yang,’ and told him to study it and raise his consciousness.

Hu Feng said, “Today, although Zhou Yang has been taken out and shown to the public, I am not even in the mood to clap my hands and applaud. Literary and artistic theory, especially the entire cultural sector, is a serious issue that must be worked out in detail and discussed freely and extensively, rather than relying on a major critical article to reach a conclusion. To criticize Zhou Yang and the others like this is an overstatement.”

Journalist: “Oh, Hu Feng did not criticize Zhou Yang as instructed?”

Mao: “Yes, this is Hu Feng’s literary nature. He is upright, repays grievances with integrity, and does not fall on his sword.”

Other people who took part in the rectification of Hu Feng were also made miserable by me: Shu Wu was credited with exposing Hu Feng, but he could not escape during the ‘Anti-Rightist’ period; Feng Xuefeng, Ai Qing, and Ding Ling, all activists against Hu Feng, were branded as ‘Rightists,’ and during the ‘Cultural Revolution,’ the first people to be criticized by Hu Feng were also branded as ‘Rightists.’ ‘During the Cultural Revolution, Lu Dingyi, who commanded the anti-Hu Feng movement, and Luo Ruiqing, who personally issued the arrest warrant, were the first to be beaten; Lin Mohan, Zhang Guangnian, Guo Xiaochuan, and other activists who had followed Zhou Yang to rectify Hu Feng, were all put in the “cattle shed” and brutally criticized.’”

Journalist: “Did you fight one group and then fight the next?”

Mao: “Yes. On September 29, 1980, the Central Committee announced: ‘The case of the Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group was a mistake. The case of the ‘Hu Feng Counter-Revolutionary Group’ was a mistake in which some comrades who had made wrong statements and engaged in sectarian activities were designated as counter-revolutionaries. The Central Committee will vindicate it. All those designated as Hu Feng counter-revolutionaries will be corrected and their reputation restored.’”

Journalist: “What happened to Zhou Yang?”

Mao: “I rectified Zhou Yang, by this time has been rehabilitated, he ran for the rehabilitated Hu Feng, get the central government for Hu Feng rehabilitated documents, Zhou Yang to visit Hu Feng and his wife Mei Zhi in the hospital, personally told them the happy news of the rehabilitated. ‘After all the calamities, brothers are here, and when they meet, they forget their enmity.” The two old cultural warriors who had quarreled for half a century reconciled.”

Journalist: “Hu Feng and Zhou Yang, both of whom you beat down one after another, huh?”

Mao: “Yes, with Zhou Yang’s active promotion, the General Office of the Central Government, in a supplemental notice in 1988, withdrew the reference to ‘erroneous statements’ and ‘sectarian activities’ from the notice of vindication. The supplemental notice said that Hu Feng’s literary thoughts and ideas should be “resolved through normal literary criticism and discussion by the literary community and the general readership, and there is no need to make a decision in a central document.”

On the issue of ‘sectarian activities,’ it is not in the central documents to make political conclusions on such issues. At this point, Hu Feng’s unjust case has been completely vindicated without leaving any loose ends.”

Journalist: “Hu Feng was completely rehabilitated, and it was actually your crime?”

Mao: “Yes, on March 14, 1985, Hu Feng was asked to write the article ‘Why I Write’ for the ‘Paris Book Salon Organization’ and the Swiss newspaper ‘24 Hours,’ which was the last text in his long writing career. He told readers, ‘I write in order to express my true feelings; I write to express the hardships, hopes and struggles of the people; and I write to explore the laws of literary development and to elucidate its inherent spiritual power.’

In 1981, Hu Feng was re-elected as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and an advisor to the Chinese Writers’ Association, and he died on June 8, 1985, at the age of 83 due to illness. Minister of Culture Zhu Mu Zhi delivered a eulogy saying, ‘Comrade Hu Feng’s life was a life of pursuing light and demanding progress, a life of loving the motherland, loving the people and striving to make contributions to the cause of literature and art.’ Hu Feng’s urn is draped with Qu Yuan’s poem: ‘The goodness of my heart, though I die, I have no regrets!’”

Journalist: “Hu Feng was actually someone like Lu Xun, and you destroyed him?”

Mao: “Yes, I held Lu Xun up to the sky, and Hu Feng insisted that the guiding ideology of literature and art should be that of Lu Xun. Because of this insistence, to Hu Feng and his followers, invited the end of the disaster.
Fortunately, Lu Xun died early, but if he had lived until the 1950s and the anti-rightist movement in 1957, he would have been even worse off than Hu Feng. At the meeting, someone asked me what would happen to Lu Xun if he were still alive today. I replied that there were only two possibilities, either he would have gone to the classroom or he would have taken care of the overall situation and kept quiet.”

Journalist: “If you could not tolerate Hu Feng, you would also not tolerate Lu Xun?”

Mao: “Yes, Lu Xun did not listen to me and went to jail as usual.”