Lu Xun Complete Works/en/Essays dated

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【The Beggar】

I walked along the crumbling high wall, treading on loose grey dust. A few other people walked along too, each on their own. A light breeze arose, and the branches of tall trees above the wall, their leaves not yet fully withered, swayed above my head.

A light breeze arose; grey dust everywhere.

A child begged from me, also wearing a lined jacket, looking not in the least sorrowful, yet blocking my path, kowtowing, pursuing me with plaintive cries.

I loathed his tone, his manner. I hated that he was not truly sad, that it was nearly a game; I was disgusted by his pursuing, wailing entreaty.

I walked on. A few other people walked along too. A light breeze arose. Grey dust everywhere.

Another child begged from me, also in a lined jacket, not visibly distressed, but mute — holding out open hands, making gestures.

I hated his gestures. Besides, he might not have been mute at all — merely another method of begging.

I gave no alms, I had no heart for charity; I merely placed myself above the almsgiver, dispensing only weariness, suspicion, and loathing.

I walked along a collapsed mud wall, broken bricks piled in gaps, nothing behind the wall. A light breeze arose, sending autumn chill through my jacket; grey dust everywhere.

I wondered how I myself would beg: Should I use my voice — in what tone? Should I feign muteness — with what gestures? ...

A few other people walked along, each on their own.

I would receive no alms, no charitable heart; I would receive the weariness, suspicion, loathing of those who set themselves above the almsgiver.

I would beg with inaction and silence ...

At least I would obtain nothingness.

A light breeze arose; grey dust everywhere.

Grey dust, grey dust, ...

......

Grey dust ...

(September 24, 1924.)

【Revenge】

Human skin is barely half a fen thick; just beneath it, hot crimson blood flows through vessels more densely packed than caterpillars on walls, radiating warmth. And so each person, through this warmth, seduces, inflames, and draws the other, desperately yearning to nestle, to kiss, to embrace — to attain the deep intoxication and great joy of life.

But if one takes a sharp blade and with a single thrust pierces this peach-pink, thin skin, one will see the hot crimson blood shoot out like an arrow, drenching the killer with all its warmth; then come icy breath, pale lips, driving the victim into bewilderment, granting the soaring pinnacle of life's great joy — while the killer sinks forever into the soaring pinnacle of life's great joy.

And thus the two stand naked, gripping blades, facing each other upon the vast wilderness.

They are about to embrace, about to kill ...

Passersby rush in from all sides, packed like caterpillars crawling up a wall, like ants carrying a fish head. Their clothes are fine, hands empty. Yet they rush from all directions, craning necks desperately, eager to savor this embrace or slaughter.

Yet the two stand facing each other, naked, gripping blades — neither embracing nor killing, showing no sign of either intention.

Thus they remain to eternity, their bodies already withering, yet still showing no sign.

The passersby grow bored; boredom seeps through their pores, oozes from their hearts, crawls over the wilderness, burrows into others' pores. Their throats dry, necks grow tired; they stare blankly at one another and slowly drift away — so dessicated that life loses all savor.

Only the vast wilderness remains, and within it the two stand naked, gripping blades, withered; with the eyes of dead men they savor the withering of passersby, the great bloodless slaughter, and sink forever into the soaring pinnacle of life's great joy.

(December 20, 1924.)

【Hope】

My heart is extraordinarily lonely. Yet my heart is at peace: without love or hate, without sorrow or joy, without color or sound.

I must be growing old. My hair has turned white. My hands tremble. Then surely the hand of my soul must tremble too, and its hair must have turned white. But that was many years ago.

Before, my heart was full of bloody songs: blood and iron, flame and poison, restoration and revenge. Then suddenly all was void — though sometimes I deliberately filled it with a helpless, self-deluding hope. Hope, hope — with this shield I fought off the dark night from the void, even though behind the shield there was still the dark night. And so, bit by bit, I consumed my youth.

Had I not known my youth was gone? But I believed the youth outside myself still persisted: stars, moonlight, stiff-fallen butterflies, flowers in darkness, owl's ominous call, cuckoo's bloody song, vague laughter, soaring dance of love ... Even desolate, ephemeral youth is still youth.

But why now this solitude? Has even the youth outside myself departed, have the young all grown old?

I must confront the dark night myself. I laid down the shield and heard Petofi Sandor's (1823-49) song of Hope:

What is hope? A harlot: She entices all, gives herself to all; When you have sacrificed your greatest treasure — your youth — she abandons you.

This great lyric poet, Hungary's patriot, died seventy-five years ago on a Cossack lance for his homeland. Tragic his death, but more tragic that his poem has not yet died.

Even one as defiant as Petofi halted before the dark night and looked toward the vast East. He said:

That despair is as vain as hope is equally true.

If I must go on in this neither-bright-nor-dark vanity, I shall still seek that departed youth — outside myself. For if the youth outside vanishes, the twilight within me withers too. Yet now there are no stars, no moonlight. And yet the young are at ease.

I must fight the dark night alone. But where is the dark night? No stars, no moonlight; the young are at ease — before me there is not even a true dark night.

That despair is as vain as hope is equally true!

(January 1, 1925.)

【Snow】

The rain of warm lands has never transformed into cold, hard, radiant snowflakes. The learned find it monotonous — does it count this a misfortune? But the snow of the south is moist and ravishingly beautiful; it carries faint tidings of spring and resembles the skin of a robust young maiden. In snow-covered fields there are blood-red camellias, white plum blossoms with a tinge of green, deep yellow wintersweet, and beneath the snow cool green grass.

Children breathe on their cold-reddened hands like ginger shoots, and seven or eight together mold a snowman. Since it doesn't succeed, someone's father helps. The snowman grows much taller — very white, very radiant. Children use longan seeds for eyes and steal rouge to paint its lips. It sits in snow with burning eyes and red lips.

Next day a few children visit; they clap and laugh. But finally it sits alone. Sunny days melt its skin; cold nights coat it in ice; it becomes unrecognizable, and the rouge fades.

But the snowflakes of the north remain powder-like, like sand — never clinging. On clear days, when a whirlwind arrives, they surge upward, sparkling in sunlight like mist concealing fire, whirling and ascending, filling the sky with a glittering blaze.

Upon the boundless wilderness, beneath the piercing sky, what flashes and whirls upward is the spirit of rain ...

Yes, that is the lonely snow, the dead rain, the spirit of rain.

(January 18, 1925.)

【A Good Story】

The lamplight shrank, announcing kerosene nearly gone. Firecrackers clattered nearby, tobacco smoke hung in the air: a drowsy night.

I closed my eyes, leaned back, the Chuxueji in hand upon my knee.

In a half-doze I saw a good story. Beautiful, elegant, fascinating. Many beautiful people and things interwove like cloud-brocade, flying like ten thousand shooting stars, unfurling into infinity.

I vaguely recalled a small boat on the Shanyin road. Along both banks: tallow trees, rice paddies, wildflowers, chickens, dogs, groves, thatched cottages, pagodas, temples, farmers, village girls, clothes hung to dry, monks, the sky, clouds, bamboo — all reflected in the clear green river. With each oar stroke, flashing sunlight, duckweed, algae, fish, all swaying together. Every shadow dissolved, swayed, expanded, merged; having merged, contracted again.

The story I saw was the same. On the floor of blue sky in the water, everything crossed and interwove, woven into one piece, forever vivid, forever unfolding.

Just as I was about to fix my gaze, I was startled awake — the brocade had crumpled, as if someone hurled a stone into the river; waves leapt and tore the reflection to shreds. I clutched the nearly-fallen Chuxueji. Before my eyes a few rainbow-colored splinters shimmered.

I truly loved this good story. I threw down the book, reached for the brush — but where was a single splinter? Only dim lamplight; I was no longer in the boat.

But I still remember having seen this good story, in that drowsy night ...

(February 24, 1925.)

【Dead Fire】

I dreamed I was racing among glaciers. Towering glaciers reaching an icy sky. At the mountain's foot stood forests of ice. Everything ice-cold, bluish white.

Suddenly I plunged into an ice valley. On all the bluish-white ice lay countless red shadows, tangled like a coral net. I looked down: fire.

Dead fire. It had the blazing shape of flame but did not stir; entirely frozen, like coral branches.

Ah, friend! With your warmth you have awakened me, it said.

I was originally abandoned in this ice valley. The one who abandoned me perished long ago. I too was frozen nearly to death. If you had not given me warmth and rekindled me, I would soon have perished.

Your awakening gives me joy. I want to take you with me, so you'll never freeze and can burn forever. — Alas! Then I shall burn up! — Then I'll leave you here. — Alas! Then I shall freeze! — What shall we do? — But you — what will you do? — I want out of this ice valley... — Then I'd rather burn up!

It leapt up like a red comet, carrying me out. A great stone cart hurtled toward us; I was crushed beneath its wheels — but I saw the cart plunge into the ice valley.

Ha ha! You will never encounter dead fire again! I laughed with satisfaction.

(April 23, 1925.)

【The Dog's Retort】

I dreamed I walked through a narrow alley, clothes in tatters, like a beggar. A dog barked behind me. I turned haughtily: Silence! You sycophantic cur! — Hee hee! He laughed: I wouldn't dare — ashamed I'm still not the equal of a human. — What?! I was furious. — I'm ashamed: I still can't tell copper from silver; cotton from silk; an official from a commoner; a master from a slave; I still can't... — I fled. — Wait! Let us talk more...! he called after me.

I kept running, running with all my might, until I fled the dream and lay upon my own bed.

(April 23, 1925.)

【The Good Hell Lost】

I dreamed I lay in bed in the cold, barren wilderness beside Hell. The low murmurs of all the ghosts harmonized with the roaring of flames, the bubbling of boiling oil, and the clashing of steel forks, forming an intoxicating symphony that proclaimed to the three realms: Peace in the underworld.

A great man stood before me -- beautiful, compassionate, radiant -- yet I knew he was the Devil.

All is finished, all is finished! The poor ghosts have lost their good Hell! he said bitterly, then told me a story.

When heaven and earth turned the color of honey, the Devil defeated the gods and seized dominion over all. He took the Heavenly Kingdom, the human world, and Hell. He descended to Hell, sat in the center, and illuminated all ghosts with his radiance.

Hell had long been in disrepair: sword-trees had lost their gleam; boiling oil no longer seethed; great fires produced only thin smoke; and in the distance mandala flowers sprouted, tiny and pitiably pale.

The ghosts awoke in cool oil and lukewarm fire, saw the little flowers in the Devil's radiance, were deeply enchanted, remembered the human world, and together raised one cry of revolt against Hell.

Mankind rose, spoke for justice, and fought the Devil. Battle cries filled all three realms. In the end they forced the Devil to flee even from Hell. Mankind's banner was planted above the gates of Hell!

When ghosts cheered, mankind's emissary arrived, seated himself in the center, and with human authority rebuked all ghosts.

When the ghosts raised another cry of revolt, they had become traitors, condemned to eternal perdition in the sword-tree forest.

Mankind held complete dominion over Hell, their might surpassing even the Devil's. They restored everything, stoked fires, sharpened blade-mountains, renovated all of Hell.

The mandala flowers withered at once. Oil boiled as before; blades were sharp as before; fire was hot as before; ghosts moaned as before, until they forgot the good Hell they had lost.

This is mankind's triumph and the ghosts' misfortune...

Friend, you are growing suspicious. Yes -- you are human! I shall go seek wild beasts and evil spirits...

(June 16, 1925.)

【On Argumentation】

I dreamed I was in a schoolroom preparing an essay. I asked the teacher how to construct an argument.

Difficult! said the teacher, peering at me over his spectacles. Let me tell you a story:

A family had a baby boy, and the whole house was beside itself with joy. When the child was a month old, they showed him to guests -- hoping for good omens.

One said: This child will grow up rich. For this he received heartfelt thanks.

Another said: This child will become a great official. For this he received polite compliments.

A third said: This child will one day die. For this he received a thorough beating from all present.

The one who spoke the inevitable truth was beaten; the liar was rewarded. You --

I would like neither to lie nor to be beaten. So, teacher, what should I say?

Then you must say: Oh my! This child! Just look! How... oh! Ha ha! Hehe! He, hehehehe.

(July 8, 1925.)

【Such a Warrior】

There should be such a warrior!

Not one as benighted as an African native yet carrying a gleaming Mauser; nor one as exhausted as a Chinese Green Standard soldier yet wearing a box cannon. He wears no armor of hide and scrap iron; he has only himself, and in his hand the javelin of barbarians -- to be hurled in a single throw.

He marches into the Phalanx of Nothingness. Everyone he meets nods to him. He knows that nodding is the enemy's weapon -- a weapon that kills without blood, under which many warriors have fallen -- rendering the brave man powerless.

Above their heads flutter banners: Philanthropist, Scholar, Man of Letters, Elder, Youth, Aesthete, Gentleman... Below hang cloaks embroidered with: Learning, Morality, National Heritage, Popular Will, Logic, Justice, Eastern Civilization...

But he raised his javelin.

They swore solemnly that their hearts lay in the center of their chests, unlike other biased humans. They wore protective mirrors as proof.

But he raised his javelin.

He smiled, threw slantwise -- and struck them in the heart.

Everything collapsed -- but there was only a cloak, inside it: nothing. Nothingness had escaped and triumphed, for he was now a criminal for harming philanthropists.

But he raised his javelin.

He strode through the Phalanx with great steps, again seeing the same nodding, banners, cloaks...

But he raised his javelin.

He grew old at last within the Phalanx and died. In the end he was no warrior, but Nothingness was the victor.

In such a place, no one hears a battle cry: Peace.

Peace...

But he raised his javelin!

(December 14, 1925.)

【The Withered Leaf】

Reading the Yanmen Ji by lamplight, I turned up a pressed maple leaf.

This reminded me of the previous autumn. Heavy frost fell at night, most leaves had dropped, and the small maple had turned red. I circled the tree, carefully examining leaf colors -- when green, I had never paid such attention. One leaf had a wormhole, rimmed in black, and amid the patchwork of red, yellow, and green, it stared at you like an eye. I thought: a diseased leaf! And plucked it, pressing it in the book. I wished to preserve these soon-to-fall, moth-eaten yet still brilliant colors.

But tonight it lies waxy yellow before me, and that eye no longer gleams. If a few more years pass and the old colors fade from memory, I fear even I will not know why it was pressed in the book.

(December 26, 1925.)

Only now do I learn that the "Library of the Political Science Society" at Nanchizi last year "increased its lending figures three- to sevenfold on account of the political situation," while his "Jia Hansheng" still "summed up the state of today's academic world with the ten characters: 'Those who burn no incense in ordinary times clutch at Buddha's feet in an emergency.'" This has corrected many of my misunderstandings. I have said before that overseas students nowadays are numerous, exceedingly numerous, but I always suspected that most of them rented apartments abroad, shut the door, and stewed beef — and in Tokyo I actually witnessed this. At the time I thought: one can stew beef in China just as well; why travel all that way to a foreign country? Granted, foreign countries are more advanced in animal husbandry and the meat may contain fewer parasites, but once it is stewed soft, even an abundance of parasites ceases to matter. So whenever I saw returning scholars who wore Western suits for the first two years, then switched to fur-lined robes and strode about with heads held high, I always suspected they had spent several years abroad stewing beef with their own hands — and that even in a crisis, they would not deign to "clutch at Buddha's feet." Now I know this is not so, at least not for "those who studied in Europe and America and returned." Unfortunately, China's libraries are too poorly stocked; it is said that Peking's "more than thirty universities, whether national or private, together do not possess as many books as we private individuals." The "we" in question reportedly includes, first and foremost, "Mr. Johnston, tutor to His Majesty Puyi," and second, presumably, "Mr. Gutong" — that is, Zhang Shizhao — for when Professor Chen Yuan was in Berlin, he saw with his own eyes that in Zhang's two rooms, "bed, shelves, desk, and floor were almost entirely covered with German books on socialism." By now there must be even more. This truly fills me with admiration and envy. I recall my own student days, when the government stipend was thirty-six yuan a month; after clothing, food, and tuition, there was simply nothing left. After muddling about for several years, all my books could not cover a single wall, and they were miscellaneous volumes at that — by no means specialized, certainly not exclusively "German books on socialism."

Yet how unfortunate: when the masses allegedly "again destroyed" the "humble abode" of this Mr. Gutong, "the book collections of husband and wife appear to have been scattered and lost." One imagines dozens of carts loaded and trundling off in every direction — a pity I did not go to see, for it must have been quite a spectacle.

Thus the "upright gentlemen" have ample reason to abhor the "mob": the "scattering" of the Gutong couple's library alone inflicts a loss surpassing the destruction of more than thirty national and private university libraries. By comparison, Division Chief Liu Baizhao's loss of eight thousand yuan in publicly entrusted private funds seems a trifle — though what we must lament is precisely that Zhang Shizhao and Liu Baizhao happened to have such hoards, and that these hoards happened to be entirely plundered.

In childhood, a worldly-wise elder once warned me: never tangle with a down-and-out peddler or street vendor — he will drop his own wares, blame you, and you will never be able to clear yourself or finish paying him back. This advice seems to have left a lasting impression on me: when I go to the Huoshenmiao temple fair at New Year, I never dare approach the jade stalls, even when they display only a meager few pieces. For if I were careless enough to knock something over or break a piece or two, they would become treasures, and I would spend a lifetime paying — a crime exceeding the destruction of an entire museum. Extending this principle, I even stopped going to crowded places. During that demonstration, though there were "rumors" of "teeth being knocked out," I was in fact lying at home, fortunately unharmed. But the grand spectacle of those two rooms of "German books on socialism" and all the other treasures streaming forth from Mr. Gutong's residence — that, too, I missed. This is precisely what is called "every advantage has its disadvantage"; one cannot have it both ways.

At present, the greatest private collection of foreign books belongs to Mr. Johnston, and the foremost institutional collection to the "Library of the Political Science Society" — only unfortunately, one is a foreigner, and the other owes its existence to the zealous promotion of the American minister Reinsch. The planned expansion of the "Peking National Library" is certainly most welcome, but the funds, one hears, again come from the American Boxer Indemnity remissions, and the annual budget is only thirty thousand yuan — a little over two thousand a month. Using American indemnity money is no small matter: first, the director must be a scholar of international renown, accomplished in both Chinese and Western learning. Naturally, so it is said, this can only be Mr. Liang Qichao — but unfortunately his Western learning is somewhat deficient, so Professor Li Siguang of Peking University was appointed deputy director, the two together making up one person versed in both East and West. However, their combined salaries alone consume over a thousand yuan a month, leaving little for the acquisition of books. This too belongs to the category of "every advantage has its disadvantage" — and thinking along these lines, one cannot help but feel all the more keenly the tragic loss of the fine library that Mr. Gutong assembled at his own expense.

In short, for some years to come there will scarcely be better "tools for scholarship"; those who wish to study must buy their own books, yet they have no money. It is said that Mr. Gutong had thought of this and once published an article on the subject — but then he was removed from office, a great pity. What other recourse have the scholars? Naturally, "one can hardly blame them for having nothing to do besides a little 'idle chatter,'" even though Peking's thirty-odd universities together cannot match their "private libraries." Why? One must understand that scholarship is no easy matter: "even a small topic may require consulting a hundred books," and not even Mr. Gutong's collection would suffice. Professor Chen Yuan offers an example: "Take just the 'Four Books' — without studying the numerous Confucian commentaries and theories of the Han, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the true meaning of the 'Four Books' can hardly be grasped. For thorough study of those brief 'Four Books,' one needs several hundred or even several thousand reference works."

This truly shows that "the way of scholarship is as vast as the ocean." Those brief "Four Books" I have read, but of Han-dynasty commentaries or theories on the "Four Books," I have not even heard. Mr. Zhang Zhidong — whom Professor Chen Yuan praises as one of those "regional viceroys who so admirably promoted the arts" — wrote in his Shumu Dawen, intended for "young students": "'The Four Books' — this term dates only from the Southern Song dynasty." I have always believed him, and when I later consulted the Bibliographic Treatise of the History of the Han Dynasty, the Bibliographic Treatise of the History of the Sui Dynasty, and similar works, I found only "Five Classics," "Six Classics," "Seven Classics," "Six Arts" — never "Four Books," let alone Han-dynasty commentaries and theories on them. But my sources are naturally only ordinary books available in the Peking University library; my horizons may be narrow, yet I must make do — for even if I wished to "clutch," there are no "Buddha's feet" to clutch at. From this it follows that those who can clutch at Buddha's feet and are willing to do so are truly blessed people and true scholars. That Jia Hansheng sighs over this matter is presumably in the spirit of "the Spring and Autumn Annals holds the worthy to a higher standard."

I have often marveled at how formidable the methods of Indian Hinayana Buddhism are: it invented the doctrine of hell and had it propagated through the mouths of monks, nuns, and prayer-chanting old women, intimidating heretics and frightening the irresolute. The trick is that retribution does not come immediately but a hundred years hence, or at the very least when all fighting spirit has been extinguished. By then you can no longer move, must submit to others' arrangements, shed ghostly tears, and deeply regret the reckless daring of your earlier years — and only at this point do you recognize the dignity and majesty of Yanluo, King of Hell.

Such beliefs may be superstition, yet the divine instruction of the populace may not be entirely without benefit when it comes to "rectifying public morals and setting hearts aright." Moreover, if one cannot "cast the evildoers to the wolves and tigers" during their lifetime, then naturally one can only condemn them with brush and ink after their death. When Confucius, with his single carriage and pair of horses, returned weary from his travels through the states and took up his steel pen to compose the Spring and Autumn Annals — this was presumably his intent.

But the times have changed, and nowadays, I believe, such old tricks can only deceive the most thoroughly naive. Even those who play these games themselves do not necessarily believe in them, let alone the so-called evildoers. That one incurs enmity and suffers retribution is perfectly ordinary, nothing remarkable; when one occasionally uses milder language, it is mere politeness, and no one seriously hopes thereby to escape hell. It cannot be helped: in our world of the impatient, there really is no leisure to strike the stinking pose of a fine gentleman. What one wants to do, one should do; rather than saying "next year we shall drink wine," one might as well drink water at once; rather than waiting for posthumous dissection and mutilation in the twenty-first century, one might as well give him a slap in the face right now. As for the future, there will be people of the next generation to deal with it; it is by no means the world of today's people — those who will then be called "the ancients." If it were still today's world, China would surely have ceased to exist long ago.

A friend suddenly sent me a copy of the Chenbao supplement, which struck me as peculiar at once, since he knows I cannot be bothered with such things. But since he had specifically sent it, I glanced at the title: "To the Readers, Regarding the Following Bundle of Correspondence." Signed: Zhimo. Ha, he sent this to amuse me, I thought; hastily I turned the page and found several letters — this one to that, that one to this. After a few lines I realized it was apparently still about the old "idle chatter" affair. Of this dispute I knew only the little I had learned at the Xinchao Society, namely from a letter by Professor Chen Yuan, alias Xiying, in which he said that my "fabricated facts" and the "'rumors' I spread" were "already too numerous to enumerate." I could not help laughing; human beings suffer precisely from being unable to chop their own souls into mincemeat, and thus possess memory, which produces both sentiment and mirth. I recall that the first person to rely on "rumors" to pass judgment on the Yang Yinyu affair — that is, the disturbance at the Women's Normal College — was none other than this Mr. Xiying; his grand essay appeared in the issue of the Xiandai Pinglun published on May thirtieth of last year. Since I was unfortunately born in "a certain province" and moreover teach in "a certain department," I was classified among those who "secretly instigated the disturbance," though he said he did not yet believe it, merely found it regrettable. Let me clarify here, to prevent misunderstanding: "a certain department" presumably refers to the Department of Chinese Literature, not the Research Society. When I saw the word "rumors" at that time, I was indignant and immediately issued a rebuttal, though I was ashamed to admit that I lacked "ten years of study and ten years of cultivating one's spirit." Unexpectedly, half a year later, these "rumors" had been transformed into ones spread by me — to fabricate one's own "rumors" oneself is truly to dig one's own grave; even a fool, let alone a clever person, would not conceive of such a thing.

This is the conclusion drawn from three examples and an anecdote about Zhao Mengfu. In truth, I laugh when others are called "men of letters," and I laugh equally when I am called an "authority in the world of thought," but my teeth did not fall out from laughing — they were reportedly "knocked out," which no doubt gives them greater satisfaction. As for titles like "authority in the world of thought," I have not dreamed of becoming one even in my sleep; unfortunately I am not acquainted with those who "promote" this notion and cannot dissuade them — unlike friends who perform duets and understand each other tacitly. Nor do I aspire to use such titles to attain wealth and power; they bring no practical benefit. I have also opposed the inclusion of my stories in school textbooks, fearing it would mislead the young — I recall publishing this in a newspaper; but of course this was not addressed to the upper classes, who naturally knew nothing of it. As for "cold arrows" — at first I was unwilling to shoot them, but later I did let fly a few, always aimed at those who first "shot cold arrows" and spread "rumors," such as Professor Chen Yuan and his ilk: "Please enter the cauldron" — so that they too might have a taste of their own medicine. However, even toward them I have more often spoken openly: thus the essay "Music" published in Yusi explicitly named Mr. Xu Zhimo, while "My Native Province and My Department" and "By No Means Idle Chatter" were clearly directed at Xiying, that is, Professor Chen Yuan. Henceforth I shall continue to shoot, without the slightest remorse. As for my name, since last year I have used only one, namely the one Professor Chen identified as "Lu Xun, that is, Zhou Shuren, Junior Secretary in the Ministry of Education." In the second half of the year, however, the words "Junior Secretary in the Ministry of Education" must be deleted, since "Mr. Gutong" dismissed me; this year I have become "Acting Junior Secretary" again — I have not yet reported for duty but intend to do so, with the aim of earning my livelihood.

Professor Li Siguang first advised me to "spend ten years reading and ten years cultivating my spirit." One more gentlemanly remark: your kindness is deeply appreciated. I have read — for more than ten years — and I have cultivated my spirit — for less than ten years — yet neither the reading nor the cultivating went well. I am one of those whom Professor Li had early on deemed fit to be "cast to the wolves and tigers"; at this point there is no need for gentle admonishment or talk of people being "innocently implicated" — does he truly consider himself the embodiment of "justice," who, after imposing so mighty a punishment on me, expects me to kowtow in gratitude for imperial grace? Furthermore, Professor Li considers my "flavor as an Eastern man of letters" to be "exceptionally strong," such that I must "always lay bare to the very bone before my interest is satisfied." My own view differs entirely. Precisely because I was born in the East, and indeed in China, the lingering poisons of the "Golden Mean" and "moderation" have seeped into my very flesh and marrow. Compared with the Frenchman Bloy — who bluntly called the journalists of the major papers "maggots" — I am a "minor sorcerer confronting a great sorcerer," and must confess with shame that I cannot match the venomous boldness of the white man. Take Professor Li's case as an example: first, knowing that Professor Li is a scientist who does not ordinarily engage in "wars of the pen," I refrained from mentioning his affairs as long as possible; only when I needed to return a toast to a member of your esteemed association did I bring up the matter of "moonlighting." Second, regarding the moonlighting and salary question, I have already responded in Yusi (No. 65), yet even there I did not "lay bare to the very bone."

I am well aware that in China, my pen is counted among the sharper ones, and that my words are sometimes merciless. But I also know how people, under the fine banner of justice and humanity, with the honorable title of upright gentleman, behind the false mask of gentleness, wielding the weapons of rumor and public opinion, in tortuous and convoluted language, do violence to one another.

Professor Xiying declared: "China's new literary movement is still in its infancy, yet the few who have made contributions — Hu Shizhi, Xu Zhimo, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, Ding Xilin, the Zhou brothers, and so on — have all studied the literature of other countries. Zhimo in particular has created, not only in thought but also in form — in both his poetry and prose — a style that has never before existed in Chinese literature." (Xiandai, No. 63)

Though the copying is tedious, the "well-grounded" "scholars" and the "especially" outstanding thinker and writer of today's China have at any rate mutually selected one another.

8

Mr. Zhimo declared: "As for the works of Mr. Lu Xun — please forgive the great disrespect — I have read very little of them, only two or three stories from the collection Call to Arms, and since someone recently honored him as China's Nietzsche, a few pages from his collection Hot Wind. His occasional essays, even if I read them, I might as well not have — they did not enter my mind, or I did not understand them." (Chenbao Supplement, No. 1433)

Professor Xiying declared: "The moment Mr. Lu Xun takes up his pen, he fabricates charges against people. ... But his essays, once I had read them, I put in the place where they belong — to speak confidentially, I feel they should never have come out of there in the first place — so I do not have them at hand." (ibid.)

Though the copying is tedious, I have now been jointly toppled by the "well-grounded" "scholars" and the "especially" outstanding thinker and writer of today's China.

9

But I wish to return the honorable distinction of having "studied the literature of other countries." "One of the Zhou brothers" — that, of course, is me again. When did I ever study any kind of literature?

Truly brave persons dare to face squarely the bleakness of life, dare to look straight at the dripping blood. What manner of mourners and blessed ones are they? Yet Creation forever designs for the mediocre: with the flowing of time it washes away old traces, leaving only a pale redness of blood and a faint sorrow. In this pale blood-redness and faint sorrow, it yet grants people a stolen reprieve of survival, maintaining this world that is neither human nor inhuman. I do not know when such a world will ever end!

We still live in such a world; I too have long felt the need to write something. Two weeks have already passed since March eighteenth, and the savior of forgetfulness must be about to descend — precisely for this reason, there is a need to write something.

3

Among the more than forty young people who were killed, Liu Hezhen was my student. Student — I have always thought of her this way, always called her so, yet now I feel some hesitation: I ought to offer her my grief and my respect. She was not the student of "my person, who merely survives to this day," but a young Chinese woman who died for China.

Her name first came to my attention in the early summer of last year, when Ms. Yang Yinyu, serving as president of the Women's Normal College, expelled six members of the student self-government committee. One of them was she; but I did not know her personally. Only later — perhaps already after Liu Baizhao had led a contingent of male and female officials to forcibly drag the students out of the school — did someone point to a student and tell me: "That is Liu Hezhen." Only then could I connect the name with a living person, and I was secretly astonished. I had always imagined that a student who refuses to bow before power and defies a well-connected college president must surely possess something of the rebellious and the sharp about her.

Thereupon School A issued a correction, stating that no search had been conducted; School B issued a correction, stating that no such books existed.

4

Thereupon even the moralistic newspaper reporters and the diplomatically astute university presidents moved into the Hotel of the Six Nations, the great papers that preached justice took down their signboards, and even the school gatekeepers stopped selling the Xiandai Pinglun: the whole affair had the aspect of "fire on Mount Kunlun, where jade and common stone burn together."

In reality it will not come to that, I think. However, rumors are indeed always the facts that their creators hope for — they afford us a glimpse into the thoughts and deeds of certain people.

5

In the seventh month of the ninth year of the Republic of China, the Zhili-Anhui War began; in August the Anhui army was annihilated, and Xu Shuzhen and eight others took refuge in the Japanese legation. There was also a small sideshow for decoration: certain "upright gentlemen" — not the present "upright gentlemen" — went to persuade the Zhili military to slaughter the advocates of reform. Nothing came of it; even this incident has long since vanished from people's memory. But if one leafs through the Peking Daily of August that year, one can still find a large advertisement, full of those antique-sounding maxims about how a great hero, after his victory, must sweep away heretical doctrines and execute dissidents.

That advertisement bore a signature, which need not be mentioned here. Yet compared with today's rumor-mongers, who invariably hide in the dark, one cannot help feeling that "the present does not measure up to the past." I suspect: a hundred years ago was better than now, a thousand years ago better than a hundred, ten thousand better than a thousand ... particularly in China, this may well hold true.

6

In the corners of newspapers one often sees earnest admonitions to the young: treat printed paper with respect; attend to national learning; Ibsen was this way, Romain Rolland was that way! The times and the words have changed, but the meaning sounds very familiar to me — just like the exhortations of the venerable elders I heard in my youth.

This would appear to be counter-evidence against the thesis that "the present does not measure up to the past." But there are exceptions to everything, and with regard to the matters discussed in the preceding section, this too may be counted as one.

Bannong went to Germany and France and spent several years studying phonetics. Although I do not understand his book written in French — I only know it is full of Chinese characters and rising and falling curves — the book exists, at any rate, and there must be someone who understands it. His proper profession, I believe, should therefore still be to teach these curves to his students. But Peking University is on the verge of closing its doors, and he has no side positions. Under these circumstances, even the most thoroughgoing gentleman cannot object to his having books printed and sold. If one is to print and sell, one naturally wants to sell many copies; if one wants to sell many, one needs advertising; if one advertises, one must speak well of one's product. Is there anyone who has a book printed and then places an advertisement saying it is tedious and readers need not bother? An advertisement declaring my miscellaneous essays to be utterly without value — that was placed by Xiying (i.e., Chen Yuan). Allow me to take this opportunity to run an advertisement of my own: why did Chen Yuan place such a counter-advertisement against me? One need only read my collection Under an Unlucky Star to understand. Dear customers, look! Hurry and look! Six jiao per copy, published by Beixin Shuju.

It was over twenty years ago: Tao Huanqing, who devoted his life to revolution, was desperately poor and called himself "Mr. Kuaiji" in Shanghai, teaching hypnosis to eke out a living. One day he asked me whether there existed any substance that could make a person fall asleep upon merely inhaling it. I knew perfectly well he feared his hypnotic technique might fail and was seeking recourse in drugs. In truth, mass hypnosis demonstrations are inherently difficult to succeed at. Since I did not know the miraculous substance he sought, I was unable to help. Two or three months later, a letter to the editor appeared in the newspapers — perhaps it was an advertisement — saying that Mr. Kuaiji knew nothing about hypnosis and was deceiving people. The Qing government, however, was far more astute than that rabble; when it issued a warrant for his arrest, one of the paired couplets read: "Author of A History of Power in China, student of the Japanese art of hypnosis."

The Hedian is about to be published, and the short preface is approaching its deadline. Night rain patters down; as I pick up my pen, I suddenly think again of the impoverished Tao Huanqing with his hemp rope for a belt, and thoughts unrelated to the Hedian intrude. But the preface is pressing.

When I reached the pharmacy at my destination, a crowd stood outside watching two people quarrel; a faded light-blue foreign umbrella was blocking the pharmacy door. When I pushed at the umbrella, it was surprisingly heavy; finally a head turned around from underneath it and asked, "What do you want?" I said I wanted to go in and buy medicine. He said nothing, turned back to watch the quarrel, and the umbrella remained where it was. I had no choice but to summon all my resolve and charge through with full force; one charge, and I was inside.

In the pharmacy, only a foreigner sat at the cashier's desk; the rest of the staff were all young compatriots, neatly and smartly dressed. I do not know why, but I suddenly had the feeling that in ten years they would all have become "superior Chinese," while I already felt like a person of the lower class. And so I respectfully presented the prescription and bottle to a side-parted compatriot.

"Eighty-five fen," he said, taking them and walking away.

"Hey!" I truly could not contain myself — my lower-class temper flared up again. The medicine cost eighty fen, and the bottle charge was customarily five fen — I knew this. But since I had brought my own bottle, why should I still pay five fen? This "Hey!" served the same function as the national oath "ta ma de" and contained just as many meanings.

"Eighty!" He too understood instantly and conceded the five fen — truly "following virtue as water follows its course," with all the bearing of an upright gentleman.

I paid eighty fen and waited a while; then the medicine was brought out. I thought: in dealing with this sort of compatriot, it is sometimes inadvisable to be too polite. So I removed the bottle stopper and tasted the medicine right before his eyes.

"No mistake in it," he said — clever enough to know that I did not trust him.

"Mm." I nodded my approval. In truth it was not quite right; my sense of taste is not that numb, and this time it was distinctly too sour — he had not even bothered to use a measuring cup, and the diluted hydrochloric acid was obviously over-dosed. But this did me no harm; I could simply drink less each time, or add water and drink it more often. Hence the "Mm" — an "Mm" hovering between two meanings.

If we look broadly and examine ourselves, we will find that these words are not excessively malicious. The celebrated pair of couplets on the stage is said to be: "The stage is a small world, the world is a great stage." Everyone has always regarded everything as merely a play; whoever takes it seriously is a fool. But this does not spring solely from a positive desire for respectability: one who harbors a sense of injustice in the heart yet is too cowardly to seek revenge also dismisses the matter with the thought that everything is merely theater. If everything is theater, then the injustice too is not real, and the failure to retaliate is not cowardice. Thus even if one encounters injustice on the road and cannot draw a sword to help, one may still pass for a bona fide upright gentleman.

Among the foreigners I have encountered — whether influenced by Smith or having discovered it themselves — quite a few pay close attention to what the Chinese call "respectability" or "face." But I believe they have long since gained practical experience and put it to use. If they refine this art further, they will not only triumph in diplomacy but also win the affection of the "superior Chinese." At that point they must not even say "Chinese" but must say "Huaren," for this too is a matter of "Huaren" face.

I still remember that when I arrived in Peking in the early years of the Republic, the plaques above the post offices read "Post Office"; later, when the cry grew louder that foreigners should not interfere in China's internal politics, they changed — whether by coincidence or design — within a few days to "Postal Administration Bureau" without exception. That foreigners manage a little postal "administration" has truly nothing to do with internal "politics" — and this particular play has been performed right up to the present day.

I have never believed the tears shed by champions of the national heritage and moralists and their kind; even if pearls of tears truly rolled from the corners of their eyes, one had to check whether their handkerchiefs were soaked in pepper water or ginger juice. Preserving the national heritage, reviving morality, upholding justice, rectifying the academic atmosphere ... do they truly think so in their hearts? Once a performance is underway, the pose on the front stage always differs from the face behind the scenes. But the audience, though fully aware it is theater, can still be moved by it as long as it is convincingly performed — and so the play goes on.

In the evening I came home, ate a little, and sat in the courtyard to enjoy the cool air. Auntie Tian told me that this afternoon, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law of some family diagonally across the way had had a fierce quarrel. In her view the mother-in-law was certainly somewhat at fault, but ultimately it was the daughter-in-law who was too unreasonable. She asked my opinion. I had not even heard clearly whose family was quarreling, did not know what sort of pair they were, had not heard their exchanges, and had no understanding of their old grudges and new grievances. To be asked for a judgment now was truly more than I felt equal to, especially since I have never been a critic. So I could only say: this matter I cannot possibly determine.

But this answer had unfortunate consequences. In the dim light one could not see faces, but my ears heard: all sounds fell silent. Stillness, oppressive stillness; then someone stood up and walked away.

I too rose listlessly, walked into my room, lit the lamp, lay down on the bed, and read the evening paper; after a few lines I grew restless again and went to the desk by the east wall to write this diary — this very "Diary on the Spot."

From the courtyard came gradually again the sounds of chatter and laughter.

My luck today seemed rather poor: passersby accused me of drinking "opium cure medicine," and Auntie Tian said about me ... What she said, I do not know. May tomorrow be better.

Diary on the Spot, Part Two

July Seventh

Fine.

Writing about the weather every day has begun to bore even me; henceforth I shall omit it. Fortunately Peking's weather is usually fine; and if it is the plum-rain season, then the morning is fine, the afternoon overcast, and in the late afternoon there is a sudden downpour during which one can hear the mud walls collapsing. Not writing it also has its advantages: my diary will certainly never serve as reference material for a meteorologist.

I understood at once; only the expression "outsider at the gate — the gate of a government office" is perhaps not easy to grasp, and it would be best to add a brief explanation. The "he" in question refers to the Minister or Vice-Minister. Although the reference seems rather vague at this point, further digging will make it more concrete — though if one digs still deeper, it may become vague again. In short: once the salary has been received, one should leave it at "enough is enough, do not be greedy," otherwise there may well be some danger. Indeed, my having said these things here is already not entirely wise.

Thereupon I withdrew from the reception hall and encountered several former colleagues, with whom I chatted for a while. I learned that there was also a "Group Wu," responsible for disbursing the salaries of officials already deceased — this group presumably did not require "personal collection." I also learned that the author of the "personal collection" rule was not merely "He" but also included "They." At first hearing, "They" sounds very much like the leaders of the "Salary Claim Association," but this is not so, for the office had long since ceased to have any such association, and therefore this time it must naturally be a different batch of new personages.

The salary we "personally collected" this time was for February of the thirteenth year of the Republic. Consequently there had been two schools of thought in advance: first, that it should be disbursed as the salary for February of the thirteenth year. But what of the newcomers and the recently promoted? They would inevitably feel left out. Hence a second, new school of thought naturally arose: regardless of the past, it should be disbursed as the salary for June of the current year. But this theory too was not entirely sound; the phrase "regardless of the past" alone already had several flaws.

This method had been devised by someone with great effort before. After Zhang Shizhao dismissed me last year, he considered it a blow to my position, and even certain literati and scholars were overjoyed. Yet they were clever people after all — they had seen rooms full of German books — and immediately realized that merely losing my post would not ruin me utterly, since I could still draw back pay and continue living in Peking. Thereupon their division chief devised a scheme.

Just when I was out in the fields, the hotel boy came to say someone wanted to speak with me outside. Going out, I saw several people and three or four soldiers with rifles on their backs — the exact number I did not count; in any case, quite a crowd. One of them said he wanted to inspect my luggage. I asked which piece he wished to see first. He pointed to a leather suitcase with a canvas cover. I untied the cord, opened the lock, and lifted the lid; only then did he squat down and rummage among the clothes. After a while he seemed to lose heart, stood up, and waved his hand — the whole troop did an about-face and marched out. The one in charge even nodded to me politely before leaving. This was my first personal encounter with the current "armed class" since the founding of the Republic. I found them not at all bad; had they, too, been as adept at spreading "rumors" as those who call themselves the "unarmed class," I would probably not have been able to take another step.

The night train to Shanghai departed at eleven o'clock; there were few passengers, and one could lie down and sleep comfortably — unfortunately the seats were too short, and one had to curl up. The tea in this car was superb, served in glass cups, excellent in color, aroma, and taste; perhaps I was only making a fuss because I had been drinking well-water tea for years, yet I believe it was truly very good. I drank two cups altogether, gazed out the window at the nighttime landscape of Jiangnan, and barely slept.

It was only on this train that I encountered students whose mouths were full of English, that I heard talk of "wireless" and "submarine cable." Also only on this train did I see delicate young gentlemen in silk shirts and pointed shoes, cracking pumpkin seeds, holding a gossip sheet of the Xiaoxian Lu variety — which they never seemed to finish reading. This sort of person appears to be especially numerous in Jiangsu and Zhejiang; I fear their days of idleness are still far from over.

Now I am staying at a hotel in Shanghai; I am eager to move on. After traveling for several days, the spirit of travel has seized me — I want to keep going back and forth forever. I once heard of a European people called "Gypsies" who love wandering and refuse to settle down; privately I thought their temperament rather odd, but now I understand that they have their own good reasons — it was I who was obtuse.

The question of "how to write" had never occurred to me. I first learned that such a problem existed in the world only two weeks ago. I happened to go out, happened to walk into the Dingbu bookshop, happened to spot a stack of the journal This Is How It's Done, and bought a copy. It is a periodical with a young mounted soldier on its cover. I have always harbored a prejudice: I generally avoid publications whose covers feature such soldiers or workers gripping iron hoes, since I always suspect they are propaganda. The works of an Ibsen and his like, which in expressing their own views may inadvertently take on a whiff of propaganda, I read without irritation. But toward literary works that first place the word "PROPAGANDA" in large letters as a title and then proceed to announce their opinions, I invariably feel a certain resistance — that inability to swallow them down, much like the sensation of reciting didactic literature. Yet this This Is How It's Done was something different, for I remembered reading in a daily paper that it was connected with me. No doubt another instance of taking special interest in matters that concern oneself: I ceased to fear the horseback hero on the cover and bought it. Back home I searched my file of newspaper clippings and found the relevant one — the date was March seventh. Unfortunately I had not noted the newspaper's name, but it must have been either the Minguo Ribao or the Guomin Xinwen, since those were the only two I read at the time. Here is a brief extract from the newspaper report:

"Since Mr. Lu Xun's arrival in the south, the literary desolation of Guangzhou has been swept away at a stroke; one after another, the two journals What To Do and This Is How It's Done have been founded. This Is How It's Done is said to be one of the regular publications of the Society for Revolutionary Literature, whose content focuses on revolutionary literature and the propagation of the principles of our Party. the propagation of the principles of our Party.

These two sentences are occasionally useful. It was when I had already moved into the apartment on Baiyun Road; one day a policeman caught a thief who had been stealing electric light, and the property manager, a certain Mr. Chen, followed along cursing and hitting him. He cursed at great length, but of all his words I understood only these two sentences. And yet I seemed to have understood everything; I thought: "What he is saying probably means that the lamp outside the house was almost Hanbaran stolen by this fellow, so he must be Tiu-na-ma'd." With that, a great problem seemed to be solved, and I sat back down at ease to continue editing my collection of Tang and Song Tales of the Marvelous.

But whether it is truly so, I ultimately do not know. Private speculation is harmless, but to draw conclusions about Guangzhou from it would be rather rash.

Yet with only these two sentences at my command, I discovered an error made by my teacher, Master Taiyan. I recall that when the Master taught us philology in Japan, he said that the character "zhou" in the passage "her zhou is on the tail" in the Classic of Mountains and Seas referred to the female reproductive organ. This ancient word, he said, survives in Guangdong, pronounced as Tiu. Therefore the two characters Tiu-hei should be written as "zhou-play," with the noun preceding the verb. I do not remember whether he later included this theory in his work New Dialects, but from today's vantage point, "zhou" is a verb, not a noun.

As for my statement that there was nothing noteworthy to attack in Guangzhou — that was certainly an untruth. In reality, at that time I felt neither love nor hatred for Guangzhou, and consequently neither joy nor sorrow, neither praise nor blame. I had come carrying dreams, and at the first encounter with reality was banished from the realm of dreams; what remained was only desolation. Guangzhou, I felt, was after all a part of China. Though the exotic flowers and fruits and the peculiar language could confuse the traveler's senses, the reality proved nonetheless familiar.

Today, the twenty-ninth of May of the sixteenth year of the Republic, the Ancestral Master Lu Chunyang has descended and has ascertained that you, faithful daughter, are from Guangxi. In your present life as a human being, your heart is kind and pure, and today the Jade Emperor has bestowed upon you an unexpected fortune of four thousand five hundred liang of silver, that you, faithful daughter, may enjoy blessings and raise your sons and daughters. However, this fortune will come to you in eight installments; at the end of July this year, you will first win only about seven hundred and fifty yuan in the pigeon lottery. In old age you will have a son, and the third offspring will have an auspicious official star and rise to prominence; you shall be an official's wife. But throughout your life you must endure a third concubine at your side and will never occupy the first place. Your destiny in this life is exceedingly favorable. Yet in your previous life you offended the White Tiger, the Five Ghosts, and the Heavenly Dog star; if you wish for unexpected wealth and flourishing sons, you must give six yuan and six hao to the Master of the Golden Bucket so that he may dispel this for you, and only then will you have peace. If you do not believe in the dispelling, your fate shall be without husband's fortune and without children's fortune; should you have children, they will die, should you have a husband, he will die. Upon reading this letter, seek out the Master so that he may remove this baleful star for you. If you desire wealth and sons, a husband's fortune and marital authority, you must ask the Master to perform the ritual with you and unite yin and yang once or twice, and only then will there be peace. Whoever does not obey the Master, that person's fate will bring no good and no rest. ...

(From the Xunhuan Bao, July twenty-sixth.)

III. Interrogation of Miaochang — The Flying Tiger

Miaochang, hostess at the Ruyi Teahouse on Yongle Street in Hong Kong, only twenty years of age, residing at No. 30 Yongji Street, second floor. On the evening of July twenty-ninth, around eleven o'clock, after finishing work, she walked home with three or four fellow hostesses. As they reached the junction of Yongji Street and the main road, three or four burly men lay in ambush and accosted Miaochang: "Are you not Miaoling?" Miaochang dared not answer and tried to slip away. But the men would not let her go, assaulting her savagely — two punches — and said: "Even if you won't speak, I recognize your face!" Miaochang was beaten and wept bitterly. Back at home, she believed the men would return.

"The patriotic purpose (der vaterlaendische Zweck) of our film also determines the internal structure and the temporal limitations of the events. Therefore Bismarck's youth occupies only an extremely brief opening. (Omission.) And this story is meant to end with the founding of the German Reich in 1871. Why? Because the domestic strife that followed, and his retirement, would evoke somber recollections that would not unite the viewer but rather divide him, contrary to the patriotic purpose of the film as a whole. The main portion of the film treats the period from 1847, when Bismarck entered political life, to 1871, as a completed drama. (Omission.)"

As films belonging to this category, one may list: Prinz Louis Ferdinand, U 9, Katzensteg, Luetzows Wilde Verwegene Jagd, Schills Offiziere, Emden, Unser Emden, and other German films; Napoleon, Jeanne d'Arc — but not the work by Carl Dreyer imported into Japan — and other French films.

It punishes with one hand and swindles with the other. Justice, humanity, reason — these words will once again flutter across the sky. But we remember: during the Great European War they fluttered once before, deceiving our many wretched laborers into going to the front to die in their stead, after which a shameless, unutterably foolish ceremonial arch inscribed "Justice Triumphs" was erected in Zhongshan Park in Peking (though it was later removed). And how do things stand now? Where is "justice"? That was only sixteen years ago — we remember.

Imperialism and we — excepting its lackeys — are we not diametrically opposed in every respect? Our running sores are their treasures; it follows, then, that their enemies are naturally our friends. They themselves are crumbling, unable to sustain themselves, and to avert their own doom they harbor resentment against the rise of the Soviet Union. Slander, curses, hatred — they stop at nothing. When nothing works, they finally have no choice but to prepare to strike; they must destroy it before they can sleep. But what shall we do? Will we be deceived again?

"The Soviet Union is a dictatorship of the proletariat; the intelligentsia must starve there." — Thus a well-known journalist once warned me. Yes, that might rob me of sleep too. But is not the dictatorship of the proletariat for the sake of a future classless society? So long as one does not seek to sabotage it, success naturally comes sooner, and the abolition of classes sooner still — then no one will "starve." Needless to say, standing in long queues is temporarily unavoidable, but things will speed up.

The lackeys of imperialism want to go fight — then let them themselves (!) follow behind their master and fight. We the people have diametrically opposed interests. We oppose it.

Of American artists' works, I have seen William Siegel's woodcut The Paris Commune (The Paris Commune, A Story in Pictures by William Siegel), published by the John Reed Club in New York. There is also a lithographic book by W. Gropper; according to Professor Zhao Jingshen, it is The Story of the Circus — translating it another way would risk being "faithful but awkward," so I shall simply copy the original title below:

"Alay-Oop" (Life and Love among the Acrobats.)

Of English artists I know little, since their works are expensive. But there was once a small book with only fifteen woodcuts and fewer than two hundred words of explanation; the author was the renowned Robert Gibbings, the print run was five hundred copies. An English gentleman would sooner die than reprint; by now it must be nearly out of print, each copy worth dozens of yuan. The book is:

The 7th Man.

My point, in sum: I have cited facts proving that sequential picture stories can not only become art but have already taken their place within the "palace of art." That they require, like any other literature, good content and good technique goes without saying.

I by no means advise young art students to scorn large-format oil paintings or watercolors, but I hope they will regard sequential picture stories with equal seriousness and devote equal effort to them.

Yet strangely enough, a publisher has actually been found willing to print this book. If it is to be printed, let it be printed — that can still be done quite casually — but since the book will thereby meet its readers, I must add two clarifications here to prevent misunderstanding. First: I am now a member of the League of Left-Wing Writers. Judging by recent book advertisements, it seems that the moment any author veers leftward, his old works ascend to the heavens as well, and even his infant wailing is pronounced revolutionary literature. Our book, however, is not of that sort — it contains no revolutionary spirit. Second: one often hears it said that letters are the most unguarded, most genuine form of writing. But I am not that either: whoever I write to, at first I am always perfunctory and insincere. Even in this volume, at the more important passages, I later often deliberately wrote vaguely, for we live in a country where "local authorities," the post office, school principals ... can inspect letters at will. But naturally, there are also plenty of plain words.

One more point: the personal names in these letters I have partly altered; the intentions are sometimes good, sometimes not, and quite various. There is no deeper reason — either I fear that appearing in our letters might cause others inconvenience, or I merely want to spare myself the trouble of yet another "summons to appear for trial."

Looking back on the past six or seven years, there have truly been no few storms swirling around us; in the constant struggle there were those who helped, those who threw stones after us, and those who mocked, cursed, and slandered. But we gritted our teeth and fought our way through six or seven years. During this time, the slanderers and backbiters gradually sank into still deeper darkness of their own, while well-meaning friends also underwent changes.

I often read the Taosheng and often cry 'Bravo!' But this time, when I saw Mr. Zhou Muzhai's article 'Cursing Others and Cursing Oneself,' in which he says that Peking's university students 'even if they cannot go to face the danger, should at the very least not flee from it,' and laments the extinction of the fighting spirit of the May Fourth era, it stuck in my throat like a bone, and I cannot refrain from saying a few words. For I hold exactly the opposite view from Mr. Zhou: I believe 'if one cannot go to face the danger, one should flee from it' -- I belong to the 'Party of Flight.'

At the end of his article, Mr. Zhou 'suspects this is the fulfillment of renaming Peking as Beiping,' and I think he is half right. The Peking of that time still wore the mask of the 'Republic,' and when students made a fuss, it was not yet a serious matter. The ruler at the time was Mr. Duan Qirui, for whom eighteen Shanghai organizations held a welcome assembly yesterday -- a military man, to be sure, but one who had not yet read Mussolini's biography. And yet -- look! -- it came to that at last. On one occasion, shots were fired at demonstrating students; the soldiers most liked to aim at female students -- which can be explained well enough by psychoanalysis -- especially those with bobbed hair, which can also be explained by the doctrine of moral reform. In short, some 'diligent scholars' died. Afterward, memorial meetings could still be held; one could still march past the seat of government and shout 'Down with...!'

He had finally changed, decisively. On one occasion he told me plainly that henceforth he would transform both the content and form of his works. I said: That will be difficult -- if someone has always used a knife, how can you suddenly ask him to wield a stick? He answered simply: One need only start learning!

These were not empty words; he truly did begin learning anew. At that time he once brought a friend along to visit me -- it was Ms. Feng Keng. We talked for several days, but in the end I remained somewhat distant from her. I suspected she had a romantic streak and was too eager for practical results; I also suspected that Rou Shi's recent desire to write large-scale novels originated from her views. But then I suspected myself as well: perhaps Rou Shi's earlier decisive reply had struck precisely the sore spot of my own essentially lazy attitude, and I was unconsciously transferring my irritation to her. In truth, I was hardly superior to those hypersensitive and proud literary youths I feared encountering.

Physically she was frail, and by no means beautiful.

III

Only after the founding of the League of Left-Wing Writers did I learn that the Bai Mang I knew was in fact the poet Yin Fu who published in the journal Tuohuangzhe. At a meeting I gave him a German translation -- a China travelogue by an American journalist -- thinking it might help him practice German, and nothing more.

On the lawn of the back garden, with Shaw at the center, the journalists formed a semicircle, substituting for a world tour an exhibition of their faces. Shaw was bombarded with questions of every description, as though someone were leafing through the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Shaw seemed disinclined to talk much. But the journalists would by no means relent, and so he finally began to speak. The more he said, the sparser the notes on the journalists' side became.

I think Shaw is not truly a satirist, for a true satirist would not have said so much.

The experiment ended around half past four; Shaw seemed already exhausted, and I returned with Mr. Kimura to the Uchiyama Bookshop.

The next day's news, however, was far more brilliant than Shaw's own words. At the same time, in the same place, hearing the same words, the journalists wrote entirely different reports. Evidently the interpretation of English words also varies according to the listener's ear. For example, regarding the Chinese government: the Shaw of the English-language papers said the Chinese should choose rulers they admire; the Shaw of the Japanese-language papers said China's government consisted of several; the Shaw of the Chinese-language papers said a good government never wins the people's favor.

From this point of view, Shaw is not a satirist at all.

But I had no desire to create on my own; my focus was on introduction, on translation, and particularly on the short story, especially works by authors from oppressed nations. For at that time the anti-Manchu theory was in vogue, and some young people felt a kinship with authors who cried out and rebelled. I never read a single 'how to write fiction' guide or the like; but I read a great many short stories -- partly because I enjoyed them, mainly because I was searching for material to introduce. I also read literary histories and criticism, in order to understand the authors' character and thought, so as to decide whether they should be introduced to China. It had absolutely nothing to do with scholarship.

Since the works I sought were full of outcry and resistance, I naturally gravitated toward Eastern Europe, and so I read particularly much by Russian, Polish, and Balkan authors. I also eagerly sought works from India and Egypt, but could not find any. I recall that my favorite authors at that time were the Russian Gogol and the Pole Sienkiewicz. Among the Japanese: Natsume Soseki and Mori Ogai.

After returning to China I ran schools, and for five or six years had no time to read fiction. Why did I start again? That is already written in the preface to Call to Arms and need not be repeated here. But my turn to fiction was also not entirely voluntary.

But beyond his hot blood, Mr. Shouchang has also left behind writings. Unfortunately, I can hardly say much about these writings, for we worked in different fields. During the era of New Youth, I regarded him as a comrade on the same front, yet did not pay attention to his essays -- just as a cavalryman need not concern himself with bridge-building, nor an artilleryman with horsemanship. At the time I did not think this wrong. What I can say now, therefore, amounts to only this: first, his theories, viewed from today's perspective, may not be entirely precise; second, nevertheless, his writings will endure forever, for they are the legacy of a pioneer, a milestone in the history of revolution. The collected volumes of all the dead and living charlatans -- are they not already collapsing, and even the booksellers disposing of them, 'regardless of the capital invested,' at twenty to thirty percent?

To read the future from the iron-cast facts of past and present is as clear as gazing into fire!

On the night of May twenty-ninth, nineteen thirty-three, recorded by Lu Xun.

This essay was written at the request of Mr. T, because the collection was to be published by Press G, with which he was connected. Since I could not in good conscience refuse, I wrote these lines, which soon appeared in the Taosheng. Later, however, I heard that the holder of the rights to the manuscript had entrusted another press, C, with the printing; to this day it has not appeared, and perhaps for the time being it will not appear. Though I very much regret having rashly written a preface.

Idly leafing through the Bencao Gangmu, I could not help thinking of this point. This book is a very ordinary work, yet it contains a rich treasury. Naturally, ill-founded entries are unavoidable, but the efficacy of most medicines could be known to this degree only through long experience. What is especially astonishing are the descriptions of poisons. We are fond of praising the ancient sages and believing that medicines were tasted by a single Emperor Shennong alone, who once encountered seventy-two poisons in a single day but had antidotes for all of them and did not die. Such legends can no longer command people's minds today; it is generally understood that all cultural achievements were gradually created by nameless individuals throughout history. Architecture, cooking, fishing, hunting, farming -- it is the same with all of them; and with medicine likewise. Thinking of it this way, the matter becomes enormous: presumably when the ancients fell ill, they first tried a bit of this, a bit of that; those who ate poison died, those who ate something irrelevant felt no effect, and those who happened to find the right remedy recovered -- and thus it was learned which medicine treats which ailment. These experiences accumulated and first produced rough records, which later gradually grew into vast works like the Bencao Gangmu. And this book records not only Chinese experience but also that of the Arabs and Indians -- which makes the magnitude of the earlier sacrifices all the more staggering.

To emphasize translation and use it as a mirror in fact also stimulates and encourages original creation. Yet several years ago, 'critics' emerged who attacked 'hard translation,' scratching a bit of scab off their old sores, as little as the musk on a plaster, and because it was so little, fancied it a rare treasure. And this wind has indeed spread: many of the newer commentators are already this year disdaining the imported foreign goods. Compared with the military men who buy airplanes in bulk and the citizens who donate desperately, the so-called 'men of letters' are truly infinitely benighted creatures.

I wish for China to have many good translators; if that is not possible, then I support 'hard translation.' The reason is that in China there are many layers of readers, and that not everything is purely deception; perhaps there will always be someone who absorbs a little, which is more useful than an empty plate. Moreover, I myself have always been grateful to translation. For example, concerning the question of the praise and blame of Shaw and the currently discussed topic of the positivity of subject matter -- in the imported goods, clear answers were given long ago. Regarding the former, the German Wittfogel said in 'Shaw Is a Clown': --

'As to the question whether Shaw intends a proletarian revolution, this is not an important question. The great French philosophers of the eighteenth century did not wish for the French Revolution either. Nevertheless...'

On the First Anniversary of the Lunyu -- Once More on Shaw

The Lunyu has reportedly been running for a year, and Mr. Yutang orders me to write an essay. It is exactly as if one had assigned me the topic 'Xue er, Chapter One' and told me to write a baguwen in the vernacular. There is no help for it; I must start writing.

Frankly speaking: what he promotes, I have always opposed. Before it was 'fair play'; now it is 'humor.' I do not like 'humor' and consider it a diversion that only a nation fond of holding round-table conferences could come up with; in China, one cannot even manage a meaningful translation. We have Tang Bohu, we have Xu Wenchang; and then the most famous of all: Jin Shengtan -- 'Decapitation is the greatest pain, and Shengtan attains it by accident, how marvelous!' -- though one does not know whether this is a serious word, a joke, a fact, or a rumor. In any case, two things follow: first, it is declared that Shengtan was no rebellious insurgent; second, the butcher's cruelty is dissolved in general laughter -- and the matter is settled.

Guangzhou, the eighteenth -- All government offices and public organizations held commemorations of the September Eighteenth National Humiliation this morning. A morning ceremony was held at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, where speakers all denounced Japan's aggression against China. Steam whistles sounded throughout the city to alert the populace, and airplanes dropped leaflets during the ceremony. However, a large public procession was prohibited by the authorities and did not take place.

Tokyo Memorial and Dogs, Horses (Japanese News Agency)

Tokyo, the eighteenth -- Tokyo observed the September Eighteenth anniversary today. At one o'clock in the afternoon, a consolation meeting for the bereaved families of fallen soldiers was held at Hibiya Public Hall. At Tsukiji Honganji Temple, a memorial ceremony was held for military horses, military dogs, and military carrier pigeons. Veterans gathered at six in the evening for a large meeting, and at Yasukuni Shrine a memorial service for fallen soldiers was held.

But what was it like in Shanghai? Let us first look at the concessions --

In misty rain and gusting wind, doubly dispiriting

The entire city today, beset by drizzle and wind, shrouded in melancholy clouds and somber mist, appeared even more somber than usual.

Yet were one to claim that China is now enjoying a golden age like those of Yao and Shun, that would be nothing but 'worldly-wise' talk. Leaving aside what one sees with one's own eyes and hears with one's own ears -- a mere glance at the newspapers suffices to know how much injustice there is in society, how much suppressed suffering people endure. Yet to all this, apart from occasional appeals by professional colleagues, compatriots, or clan members, we scarcely ever hear the voice of indignation from uninvolved parties. The reason is obvious: no one opens their mouth -- either because they think it does not concern them, or because they do not even have the thought that it does not concern them. When 'worldly wisdom' runs so deep that one is no longer aware of being 'worldly-wise' -- only then is one truly 'worldly-wise.' This is the quintessence of the quintessence of the Chinese art of living.

Moreover, for those who have read my counsel to young people and disapprove of it in their hearts, I have a counterattack ready here. They consider me cunning. But my words, on one hand, certainly reveal my cunning and also my incapacity, while on the other they also reveal the darkness of society.

But this applies only to introduction for the general educated readership. If one thinks of art students, zinc-plate reproduction is still not sufficient. Lines that are too fine easily vanish on a zinc plate, and even thick lines can vary depending on the duration of the acid bath -- too short an etch produces lines that are too thick, too long an etch lines that are too thin. Master plate-makers who strike the right balance are still very rare in China. If one wants to be serious about it, there is no choice but to use collotype. My edition of the illustrations for 'Cement' in two hundred and fifty copies was the first experiment of this kind in China. Mr. Shi Zhecun wrote in the 'Torch,' the supplement of the Dawanbao: 'Perhaps it is, like Mr. Lu Xun's collotype woodcut prints, a private luxury edition belonging to the category of rare books' -- this was his mockery of the very thing. I even heard a young man standing beside this 'rare book' say that the note 'only two hundred and fifty copies printed' was a fraud; surely many more had been printed, fewer stated than actually produced, merely to drive up the price.

Since they themselves have never committed the ridiculous error of producing a 'private luxury edition,' their mockery is entirely understandable.

China could brew its own wine long before it began to grow its own opium, yet nowadays one only hears of countless people lying on their backs puffing clouds, while hardly anyone is seen rampaging drunkenly through the streets like a foreign sailor. The football of the Tang and Song dynasties has long since been lost; the customary entertainment consists of shutting oneself up at home and playing mahjong all night. From these two points one may safely conclude that we are gradually retreating from the open air into our own rooms. Literary men of old Shanghai had already lamented this with sighs and posted a half-couplet inviting completion: 'Three birds harm mankind: crow, sparrow, pigeon' -- where 'pigeon' stood for the lottery, politely called 'prize certificate,' but at the time known as the 'white pigeon lottery.' Whether anyone ever supplied the matching half I do not know.

However, we are by no means content with the status quo: sitting in a cramped chamber, our spirits roam the vastness of the universe. The opium smoker savors his dreamworld, the mahjong player longs for a good hand. Under the eaves firecrackers are set off to rescue the moon from the jaws of the Heavenly Dog; the swordmaster sits in his study, utters a 'Ha!' and a white beam of light shoots forth, slaying the enemy ten thousand li away -- yet the flying sword always dutifully returns home.

Yet on account of a news report for which I cannot be held responsible, the gentleman has conceived 'antipathy' toward me. Nevertheless, I was accorded extraordinary preferential treatment: in the New Tales of the Scholars, I was even granted a large sword. In terms of etiquette, I ought to express my thanks, but in reality it is like being invited to a grand banquet: I possess no large sword at all, only a writing brush called 'Not-exchanged-for-gold.' This is not an advertisement for refusing rubles -- it is simply a cheap five-fen brush I have used since childhood. I have indeed touched the gentleman with this brush, but just as one employs classical allusions: picked up casually, becoming an amusement in the writing, without any particular vengeful intent. But the gentleman has again hung 'three cold arrows' on me. This cannot be blamed on him, for it is merely the regurgitated spittle of Professor Chen Yuan. Even if one were to regard it as my retaliation -- for the reasons stated above, I would still be far from joining the ranks of those who 'repay kindness with malice.'

As for the so-called 'Five Peking Lectures and Three Shanghai Boos,' in fact they have to this day not been written.

New tricks are devised: the first consists in establishing a grand name for a book series in advance, drawing up a table of contents that encompasses everything from the universe down to the bacteria on a fly, and only then seeking out various people, commissioning them to translate, setting deadlines that must be met, even though the translators are not necessarily specialists. But since many hands are writing on manuscript paper simultaneously, in no time at all a vast, splendid work appears. The second trick: one has a collection of miscellaneous older translations that were never particularly popular or that once were but have since become outdated; one gathers them together, roughly sorts them into categories, draws up a colorful table of contents -- and behold, a vast, splendid work has appeared.

Publishers understand the desires of readers. Some readers do not know which books are necessary, and therefore tend to believe that whatever is included in a series must be a necessary book. Moreover, a single volume from a series is cheaper than a separate edition and thus seems like a good bargain; and the uniform size also appeals to people.

But the mood of the intellectuals who had awakened at that time was generally fervent, yet also desolate. Even if they found a little light -- 'diameter one, circumference three' -- they saw all the more clearly the boundless darkness surrounding them. The spiritual nourishment taken from foreign lands was moreover the juice of the 'fin de siecle': prepared by Oscar Wilde, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Baudelaire, Leonid Andreev and their like. 'Scuttle one's own ship' and still struggle for survival in a hopeless situation -- but with many other works it was often 'your spring is not my spring, your autumn is not my autumn': youths with black hair and rosy faces sang songs of heartbreak as though they had endured a lifetime of sorrow, yet would not say plainly what it was about. Even when Feng Zhi adorned it with poetic sentiment, and Sha Zi hid behind the pretext of small grasses, it could not be concealed. All of this seemed to come predominantly from authors in Sichuan -- from which one may infer how early the suffering in Sichuan began.

Nevertheless, the authors of this group had by no means lost heart. Chen Weimo continued to write in his work.

'A drop from a spring can become the beginning of a river, the stirring of a leaf can herald a coming storm; from the smallest origins great results may spring. For this reason our weekly is called Kuangbiao -- Tempest.'

But later it became increasingly clear that they considered themselves 'transcendent.' However, the aphoristic essays imitating Nietzsche, unintelligible to one another, eventually made the weekly's continued existence difficult. What remained in memory were, in the end, only the fiction writers: Huang Pengji and Shang Yue -- who were in reality one and the same author, namely Xiang Peiliang.

Huang Pengji collected his short stories in a volume called Thorns, and when he met the reader a second time, he had already changed his name to 'Pengqi.' He was the first to advocate clearly and plainly that literature need not be like cream but should be like a thorn; that the writer must not be despondent but vigorous. In his essay 'Literature of the Thorn' (Mangyuan Weekly No. 28) he argued that 'literature is by no means something trivial' and that 'the writer is not necessarily a specially privileged race favored by Heaven.'

There is a very recent example, from March seventh in the Zhonghua Ribao. It records an interview with 'Mr. Li Jigu, Professor at Beiping University and Head of the Department of Literature and History at the Women's College of Arts and Sciences,' who endorses the principles of the 'Manifesto of Ten.' At the end it says: 'In the interest of national revival, the Ministry of Education should issue orders to honor heroes like Yue Fei, Wen Tianxiang, and Fang Xiaoru as exemplars, so that high officials and military commanders may have a model to follow.'

In all these matters, it is best not to inquire too closely. Were one to think about 'complete devotion unto death' and the future confrontation on the battlefield, or to investigate the actual fates of the Yue Feis and their kind -- whether in the end they actually achieved 'national revival' or not -- one would only make oneself dizzy. It is essentially borrowing trouble. Mr. Yutang said in a lecture at Jinan University: '... In life one should be serious and not stray onto crooked paths; ... once on a crooked path, ... one will surely lose one's job. ... But in writing, one should have humor -- unlike in life -- one should joke and have fun, ...'

What I wish to say here is merely this: the doctrine of maintaining the status quo may sound prudent, but in practice it is unworkable. The facts of history prove ceaselessly that it is nothing more than a 'fiction': only this much.

(March twenty-first.)

Preface to Tian Jun's 'The Village in August'

After Ehrenburg has discussed the literary men of France's upper classes, he says there are also some different kinds of people: 'Professors work silently in their studies, doctors experimenting with X-ray therapy die at their posts, fishermen who throw themselves in to save their comrades sink quietly in the ocean. ... On one side is solemn work, on the other dissipation and shamelessness.'

These last two sentences truly seem to describe present-day China as well. Yet in China there is something even worse. I do not have the book at hand and cannot say where I read it; perhaps a Chinese translation already exists.

If we search the Wenxuan for vocabulary, we will likely come across the four characters 'literary men disparage one another'; picked up and used, they still sound rather fine. But Mr. Cao Juren has already explained in the Ziyou Tan (April ninth through eleventh) that Cao Pi's 'literary men disparage one another' means: 'Literature has more than one genre, and rarely does one master all; therefore each praises his own strengths and disparages the weaknesses of others' -- all criticism is confined to the realm of creative work. All other attacks -- on physical appearance, place of origin, false accusations, rumors, down to Mr. Shi Zhecun's manner of 'He himself does the same thing!' or Mr. Wei Jinzhi's manner of 'His relative is just like me!' -- are not included. Were all of this subsumed under Cao Pi's 'literary men disparage one another,' it would be a confusion of black and white; truth would weep bitterly, and the darkness of the literary world would only increase.

If we search the Zhuangzi for vocabulary, we will again come across two precious maxims: 'That one also has its right and wrong, this one also has its right and wrong' -- to be memorized for use in moments of crisis.

In my helplessness I thought of a remedy: news reports, crude novels -- such material could certainly be fashioned into a literary work, but the report itself, the novel itself, is not literature -- these are specimens of 'how one should not write.' Only, there is nothing with which to compare 'how one should write.'

(April twenty-third.)

Confucius in Modern China

Recent Shanghai newspapers report that the Governor of Hunan, General He Jian, upon learning that a Confucius temple had been completed at Yushima in Japan, sent as a gift a portrait of Confucius that he had long treasured. Frankly speaking: the ordinary Chinese people have almost no idea what Confucius looked like. Since ancient times, every county has had a Confucius temple -- a Wen Temple -- yet inside there is usually no portrait of the Sage. Whenever one paints or sculpts a figure deserving of veneration, the general rule is to depict the figure larger than ordinary people. But when it comes to the most venerable figure of all, one encounters limitations.

(May third.)

What Is 'Satire'? -- In Reply to the Literary Society

I think: when an author, using a refined or even somewhat exaggerated brush -- but naturally it must be an artistically exaggerated one -- writes down the truth of a group of people, or one facet of that truth, the very group described will call the work 'satire.'

The life-blood of 'satire' is truth; not necessarily something that has actually happened, but necessarily something that could happen. Therefore it is not 'fabrication,' nor is it 'slander'; it is neither the 'exposure of private secrets' nor a record of sensational so-called 'curiosities' or 'bizarre conditions.' What it describes happens openly and commonly; in ordinary times no one considers it remarkable, and naturally no one pays it any attention. But at that point it has already become unreasonable, laughable, contemptible, and even detestable. Yet it goes on, people have grown accustomed to it, and even in the full light of public view no one says a word about it.

I have no grand comprehensive theories to present, nor any superior insights – I can only speak of what has occupied my thoughts recently. Again and again I feel that literature and politics exist in perpetual conflict with one another. Literature and revolution are not inherently opposed; between the two there is even a shared dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs. It is only that politics seeks to preserve the status quo and thus naturally stands at odds with literature, which refuses to accept things as they are. To be sure, literature that rebels against the existing order only emerged after the nineteenth century and has but a brief history. Politicians most despise having their views challenged; most of all they despise people wanting to think and to speak out. And indeed, in earlier societies no one ever thought about anything, nor did anyone ever open their mouth. Consider the monkeys among the animals: they have their own leaders, and whatever the leader demands of them, they do. In the tribes, there was a chieftain whom everyone followed; the chieftain's commands were their standard. If the chieftain ordered them to die, they could only go and die. There was no literature then, and even if there was, it amounted to nothing more than praising the Lord above – not nearly as mystical as what later generations called "God." How could there have been free thought? Later, tribes swallowed one another up, and gradually they expanded. What we call a great nation is simply the result of devouring countless small tribes. But once a great nation was formed, internal conditions became far more complex, shot through with many different ideas and many different problems. It was then that literature arose and entered into ceaseless conflict with politics. Politics seeks to maintain the status quo and enforce unity; literature urges society forward and causes it to gradually differentiate. Although literature divides society, it is precisely through this division that society progresses. Since literature is a thorn in the politician's eye, it is inevitably driven out. Many writers abroad could no longer maintain a foothold in their own countries and fled en masse to other lands – this method is called "flight." Those who could not flee were killed, their heads cut off; cutting off the head is the best method, for then one can neither speak nor think. Many Russian writers met this fate, and many more were exiled to the ice and snow of Siberia.

Today I received the April eighteenth issue of the Huabei Ribao. In its literary supplement there is half an essay by Mr. Hexi entitled "On The Red Laugh." "On The Red Laugh" – this caught my particular attention, for I myself had once translated a few pages of it. The preliminary announcement had appeared in the first edition of the "Collection of Foreign Stories." What stayed in my memory was that I encountered considerable difficulties at the time and eventually abandoned the work. Later I learned that Andreyev himself had no war experience whatsoever – the entire work was born of his imagination, written from the war reports he read in the newspapers. This explains why certain passages struck me as overwrought, lacking a certain grounding; yet it was precisely this feverish, manic atmosphere that made the work so shattering. "The Red Laugh" is not simply an antiwar work – it is the cry of a man who feels the madness of war with such intensity that the words themselves seem to bleed. In Russian literature of that era there were many who depicted war from personal experience, yet no one could distill the essence of madness as Andreyev did through pure imagination. The question of whether a writer needs personal experience or whether the power of imagination suffices is by no means trivial. Some of the most powerful literary works arose precisely from distance, from an observing, sympathetic, indeed compassionate imagination.

6. "The Revolt," by P. Furmanov, translated into English by Cheng Wenying. 7. "The Fire Horse," by F. Gladkov, translated by Shi Heng. 8. "The Iron Flood," by A. Serafimovich, translated by Cao Jinghua. This list of Soviet works may at first glance appear to be a dry bibliography, yet every single title carries its own weight in the history of revolutionary literature. Furmanov's "Revolt" is no mere account of a military uprising but an anatomy of that moment when the consciousness of the masses shifts – that uncanny instant when endurance transforms into action. Gladkov's "Fire Horse," for its part, shows how the fire of revolution not only devours old structures but threatens to transform those who ignited it. And Serafimovich's "Iron Flood" – which Cao Jinghua ventured to translate – is perhaps the mightiest epic of the civil war: an entire people in motion, a mass forging its own path like molten metal. That these works are now being rendered into Chinese is of no small significance. The question remains, of course, whether a translation can preserve the raw power of the original, or whether it inevitably tames and domesticates the foreign.

Translations in other countries – within the scope of what the proofreader has been able to examine – exist in two versions, a German one and a Japanese one. The German translation is appended to Neverov's "The City of Abundant Bread," under the title "Tashkent" (A. Neverov: Tashkent, die brotreiche Stadt). Regarding the quality of these translations, something must be said. The German version has the advantage of a certain precision inherent to the German language – that exactitude which sometimes appears stiff but rarely gives the reader cause for misunderstanding. The Japanese version, on the other hand, is distinguished by a suppleness that at times comes closer to the spirit of the original than strict literal fidelity. Every language brings its own possibilities and limitations when it comes to rendering a Russian original. Russian has a gravity and depth that German can emulate more readily than Japanese; yet Japanese can capture nuances and unspoken feelings that are easily lost in German. When I lay these various translations side by side and compare them with the Chinese attempt, one thing becomes clear: no single translation can replace the original, but each adds a tessera to the mosaic.

But let us ask ourselves: did sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish society contain no injustice? I think we can hardly avoid answering: it did. Then Don Quixote's resolve to go forth and fight injustice cannot be called mistaken; nor is overestimating one's own strength in itself an error. The error lies in his failure to recognize the true state of society, charging blindly ahead, taking windmills for giants and flocks of sheep for enemy armies. The tragedy of Don Quixote is not that he fights, but that he does not know what he ought to be fighting against. His ideals are not wrong – what is wrong is his understanding of reality. And herein lies the lesson for all who feel called to be reformers or revolutionaries: the mere will to justice is not enough. Whoever would change conditions must first see through them. Otherwise he ends up like Don Quixote – not as a hero, but as an object of pity and amusement. The tragedy is all the more bitter because the world would be well served if someone fought the real giants. But as long as the Quixotes of this world charge at windmills, the true oppressors remain undisturbed.

That over the course of these three years I was able to gradually acquire so many woodcuts by Soviet artists surprised even myself – I had not anticipated it beforehand. Around 1931, when I was correcting the proofs of "The Iron Flood," I happened upon reproductions in a magazine called "Graphics" (Graphika) that immediately seized my attention. The woodcut is perhaps the most honest of all art forms. It knows no half-tones, no blurred transitions, no ingratiating flattery – there is only black and white, only the knife and the block of wood. This uncompromising quality makes it the ideal art form for an era that tolerates no compromise. Soviet artists have forged the woodcut into a weapon sharper than many a sword. What impressed me most about these works was not their technical virtuosity – though that was considerable – but the passion that spoke from every cut. One could practically feel the artist's hand driving the knife through the wood, every line a confession, every cut an act of resistance. In China at that time we had nothing comparable.

Revolutionaries, being oppressed, went underground – that was to be expected. But now the oppressors and their henchmen have also slipped into hiding. This is because, although they spout nonsense under the protection of bayonets, they in truth possess not the slightest confidence in their own cause; and even in the power of the bayonets they no longer quite believe. This is a remarkable phenomenon: when those in power must themselves hide, when they no longer dare to exercise their rule in the light of day, it reveals that their power has grown rotten, hollow like a worm-eaten tree that may still look mighty from the outside but collapses at the first storm. Open tyranny at least has the honesty of brutality – one knows where one stands and can prepare accordingly. Hidden tyranny, on the other hand, is more insidious: it operates in the dark, strikes from ambush, and spreads that atmosphere of omnipresent distrust which is worse than open violence. In such times, silence itself becomes suspect. He who is silent could be an enemy; he who speaks, all the more so. The entire society falls into a state of paralysis in which no one trusts another and everyone fears his neighbor.

Henri Barbusse, in a small booklet published in 1921, wrote a chapter entitled "Biting the White Blade," annotated in the margin "Addressed to the Intelligentsia." Therein, when he used the term "intelligentsia," he added a special declaration: "Intelligentsia – by this I mean the thinking people, not the connoisseurs of convenience, the braggarts, the sycophants, the spiritual exploiters." These words are admittedly vehement, yet that Barbusse, when he wished to address the intelligentsia, felt the need for such a declaration – this sentiment I can well understand. Though he spoke of the intelligentsia, his real audience was primarily the thinkers and writers. From this one may gauge how numerous the connoisseurs of convenience, the braggarts, the sycophants, and the spiritual exploiters must have been in the French world of thought and letters. Hence he spoke with a certain indignation. Yet this concerns the French literary and intellectual world. What about the Japanese? When I read Barbusse's declaration, I truly could not suppress a bitter smile – for before my mind's eye the connoisseurs of convenience, the braggarts, the sycophants, and the spiritual exploiters appeared one after another, each with their own proper names attached. So what sort of people are these so-called "connoisseurs of convenience"? First, they are of the following kind: the proletarian movement is none of their concern; they stand aside and observe, skillfully adapting to whatever circumstances prevail, always knowing which way the wind blows. They are the chameleons of the intellectual world, changing color before the light has even shifted.

When speaking of what particularly distinguishes Tolstoy as a writer, it can be summed up in roughly five characteristics. These characteristics, as I see it, are the most prominent and unmistakable in the great Tolstoy; they are the foundation of our deepest respect and assign him the highest place in our literary pantheon. The first of his characteristics is that his pen is extraordinarily powerful and at the same time broad in scope. Ordinary writers, even if they possess some talent, choose a protagonist or a family to place at the center of their novel; they depict the joys and sorrows of this protagonist, his actions and deeds, and also describe the surrounding society – but the society in their works serves merely as a backdrop against which the protagonist's individual existence can stand out more clearly. Writers who wish to create not small watercolors but grand paintings are not easy to find; those, namely, who attempt to portray an entire nation in its living movement or the highly multifaceted, complex total condition of an epoch in its historical unfolding – such writers are exceedingly rare. In this regard, Tolstoy is the greatest artist among those giants in all of world literature. Consider his "War and Peace": it is not the story of individual persons, but of an entire age, an entire nation in its upheaval and transformation.

The UFA film company and the English Gaumont film company have concluded a trade agreement and additionally agreed on an exchange of actors. UFA has long expanded its distribution in Holland, Belgium, France, Austria, Yugoslavia, and Russia, but as far as England and America are concerned, it has only traded with the United States. This new agreement has recently been regarded in all countries as a significant matter; some also see in it a kind of offensive-defensive alliance against the extreme oversupply of American films. The Austrian writer Molnar (Frank Molnar) is touring America, delivering lectures and contributing articles to newspapers; his satires on friends' weddings and other light-hearted topics are very popular with the Americans. Gypsy music, which had long since conquered all of Europe before the World War, has lately been displaced by American jazz; even in the Hungarian cities that were its true home, it has been driven out of coffeehouses and entertainment venues. Of four thousand Gypsy musicians, a tenth could no longer find work in their own country; the rest had no choice but to play American jazz. Since traditional Hungarian Gypsy music had entered a period of crisis, the newspapers protested and called for an appeal to the National Music Academy in Budapest to consider protective measures.

As for Spinoza, he was a philosopher who advocated what is called pantheism (Pan-Theismus) – the doctrine that God is nature, that all things without exception are God, a doctrine that represents both the development and the contradiction of the earlier Christian orthodox faith, monotheism. How could such a person have any connection with the modern proletariat? At most, it is a revolutionary theory in the field of theology, at most an attempt at calm theoretical contemplation of ideas. Why then, in Moscow – the center of the international revolutionary proletariat, which is currently fighting with political and economic concerns as its driving force – was a commemorative lecture held for this Mr. Spinoza? Among a certain portion of proletarian theorists and even artists in Japan, this apparently arouses considerable astonishment. For in the eyes of these people, "philosophy" is utterly non-proletarian empty talk. That this naturally stems from the fact that they themselves – not because they are non-proletarian – lack philosophical education or interest, in a word, from their own philosophical void, goes without saying. Yet anyone who thinks a little more deeply cannot help but marvel that a workers' and peasants' Russia, so burdened with affairs, would nonetheless hold such an event.

— The decadence of propertied culture. First: thought frequently degenerates. This occurs when thought as an activity detaches itself from its relationship with the totality of human life and becomes independent – when the movement of thought follows only its own intrinsic value. The tower built solely according to the value of thought itself is German idealism. This is an error that arises from the failure to consider the practical, life-related significance and function of thought – an error that could be corrected if one returned to the original, generative significance of thought and considered its true nature. Idealist philosophy has always scorned thinking about the genetic significance of thought or its practical function in life. It maintained that thought must be thought according to the rules of thought itself. One must proceed from the standpoint of "thought-necessity" – that in order to think, one must think thus and not otherwise. And in seeking the "logically prior," one eventually stumbled upon the concept of Sollen – the command of "you ought." This is termed universally valid: bearing the claim that regardless of time, place, or person, one must think thus "for the sake of thought." Yet precisely in this self-sufficiency of pure thought lies its weakness, for it has severed itself from living reality and revolves only around itself.

Here we can discern the fundamental tendencies of Soviet literary theory. [Part Three] "Theoretical activity cannot simply trail behind practical activity. It must catch up with it and arm our practice, which fights for the socialist revolution, with theory." These are the words from a speech by Stalin, delivered in December 1929 at the conference of the Association of Marxist Agrarian Scientists. But what is the current state of Soviet literary theory? The unfolding of the socialist offensive on all fronts of the Soviet Union, the unprecedented development of the socialist economy in city and countryside, the tremendous success of the kolkhoz movement – which has already united 62 percent of all poor and middle peasants and 79 percent of all arable land –, the construction of new large factories, the tempestuous spread of shock brigades and socialist competition in factories, kolkhozes, and sovkhozes – this is the shape of Soviet reality. Yet literature lags far behind the demands of this reality. The workers and kolkhoz peasants demand that their struggle be clearly and distinctly portrayed in literary works. In other words: socialist construction in its entirety calls for a literature worthy of it.

Yermilov began with those bourgeois critics (Eichenbaum and others) who claimed that "there is no literature in the Soviet Union, so there can be no literary criticism either," and proceeded to analyze point by point the entire situation of Western European bourgeois literary criticism. He exposed their general ideological decadence, their descent into agnosticism, their rejection of a holistic understanding of literature, and the weakness of their ability to perceive the power of literature. Only Marxist criticism, he said, reflects the success of the socialist revolution and the tremendous growth of proletarian literature and the literature of allies that has emerged from it. Gorky's "Forty Years," Yermilov said, is the best example of this. But if one does not wish to fall behind socialist development and wants to fully meet its demands, the party-mindedness of literary criticism must be absolutely secured. At the same time, the party-mindedness of literature itself must be firmly established. The past bourgeois and aristocratic classical literature was deeply partisan – every truly classical author was a good fighter of the class to which he belonged. From this it follows that the struggle for the party-mindedness of our literature is the greatest task of our criticism. In addition, said Yermilov, there must be an intensification of the struggle against all counterrevolutionary theories and against right-wing and left-wing opportunism.

"The reason our 'debate' has gained world significance lies not only in the fact that the various detachments of our proletarian artists are fighting for a new proletarian art in Germany, America, England, France, and other countries, and under our guidance advancing our Marxist theory – it also lies in the fact that the proletarian art and literature of the Soviet Union has now become a world literature." The examples cited include, needless to say, Gorky's works, but also Libedinsky's "A Week" and "The Young Communist League," Furmanov's "The Revolt" and "Chapayev," Serafimovich's "The Iron Flood," Gladkov's "Cement," Fadeyev's "The Nineteen," Panfyorov's "Bruski," Sholokhov's "And Quiet Flows the Don," as well as the works of Demyan Bedny, Bezimensky, Chumandin, Béla Illés, and Kirshon's plays, among others – all of which have been translated into a dozen or more languages. These works have been disseminated not only in the great nations of Europe and America but have also been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian; and even in Central Asia and the Balkan nations there are translations. On one hand, these works are naturally subjected to malicious criticism from the bourgeois side, yet on the other hand they reach an audience that thirsts for a literature that reflects their own reality.

The representative of the thesis that proletarian culture cannot be established is Trotsky. Trotsky holds the view that the phrase "proletarian culture" is inherently contradictory and fraught with dangers. That every ruling class has produced its own culture and thereby its own distinctive art is clearly proven by history. It should therefore be self-evident that the proletariat, too, will produce its own culture and art. In practice, however, the creation of any culture requires an extremely long period, extending over centuries. Even bourgeois culture, counting its beginning from the Renaissance, has already spanned five centuries. Starting from this fact, one must ask: was the culture of a given ruling class not completed precisely when that class was already on the verge of losing its political dominance? Even setting aside other considerations – does the proletariat truly have the time to create its own "proletarian culture"? In response to the optimistic belief that the socialist world will soon be realized, one must concede that the transitional period of social revolution needed to achieve this goal, viewed as a global problem, will last not days but years or decades – yet decades, not centuries, and certainly not millennia.

According to Sampudnek, it is by no means necessary that someone, merely because he comes from among the laboring class, is a proletarian writer; even one who comes from another class can be one. What makes him a proletarian writer is that he adopts the standpoint of the proletariat (as cited by Lelevich). And this Sampudnek who says this is himself a poet who has toiled as a worker since childhood, truly of proletarian origin. As Lelevich explains, in reality there are poets of working-class origin who still labor in factories, yet whose poetry remains entirely within the framework of the mystic symbolists. There are also those who constantly draw their material from workers' life, yet whose treatment and perspective belong entirely to the old era and have no connection with the proletarian worldview. Conversely, there are those who, though born of the intelligentsia, hold a perspective and way of thinking that is proletarian – Demyan Bedny is cited as an example. And there are also authors who exclusively choose material from the life of the propertied class and have never employed the life of workers, yet who can still be called proletarian writers. For the attitude of these authors toward the propertied class is based on the proletarian standpoint. One could even go back to the sixteenth century, considering, for instance, the German peasant movement of 1525 or the Reformation.

Yet regardless of the era, the mode of thought that carries the greatest social significance should not be the rotten, belated thought of reaction, but the progressive thought of the age in question. Therefore, the mode of thought most suited to art should be that which bears the responsibility of being the vanguard thought of its era. If an artist does not understand the important social currents of his time, the quality of the ideas he expresses in his works will inevitably be very low, and his works will accordingly be weak. If, then, we establish the thought suited to art as that which stands in the vanguard position of the age, we must ask: by what is the character of this vanguard thought determined? The answer ultimately comes down to the question of what determines the distinctive character of the art of an era. And what determines the distinctive character of modern art? It is said that art reflects human life; but to know how art reflects life, one must know the structure and organization of life. In modern civilized countries, one of the most important factors in this structure is the class struggle. The course of social thought naturally reflects the history of the various classes and their mutual struggle. Just as the art of antiquity was a direct product of the techniques of production, modern art is a product of the class struggle.

Third: as a movement, proletarian literature only acquired the conditions necessary for its emergence and development through the result of the October Revolution. However, the Russian proletariat's backwardness in terms of education, the centuries-long oppression by the ideology of the propertied class, and the decadent tendency of Russian literature in the decades immediately preceding the revolution – all of these combined to bring not merely the influence of bourgeois literature upon the creation of proletarian literature. This influence continues to this day and shapes things that may remain operative in the future as well. Not only that – the influence of idealistic, petit-bourgeois revolutionary thought upon the creation of proletarian literature also cannot be denied. This influence stems from the fact that the bourgeois-democratic revolution, which stood before the Russian proletariat as a task, had indeed been successful. For these reasons, proletarian literature to this day, in both ideological and formal terms, has been unable to avoid bearing a character of eclectic assimilation coupled with a lack of inner coherence – and it still frequently exhibits this quality.

When one links the growth of proletarian literature with the question of form and reflects upon it, one inevitably arrives at the question of literary genres. As mentioned above, in the first period of proletarian literature – that is, during the war communism of the civil war years from 1918 to 1920 – the literary genre was exclusively poetry, and especially lyric poetry. The joy of revolution, the aspiration for world revolution, the fervor of struggle, and the praise of labor – in poetry, it was entirely the exaltation of inner sentiment that was celebrated. But when, at a turning point in the growth of proletarian literature, the need was felt to portray living characters and their actions concretely, lyric poetry gradually receded to second place, and the prose form came to occupy the central position. Regarding the prose form, and the novel in particular, the so-called formalist critics Shklovsky and others claimed that the models of literary genres were already disintegrating. In contrast, the critics of the proletarian literary school held that this disintegration of genre models did not signify the decline of literature, but merely, together with the dissolution of the propertied class, indicated the disintegration of bourgeois literature. When the bourgeoisie, three to four hundred years ago, was still a young rising class, it had indeed created new genre models in the field of literature. The novel was precisely such a new genre model.

If we glance at our literary groups, it becomes perfectly clear that not a single one of the existing groups can satisfy the communist standpoint – the "Fellow Travelers" with their peasant inclinations and their extremely confused theory, "October," "The Smithy," and the literary organizations of the Communist Youth that are just now forming – all of these are not the kind of literary current of which the Party could say that this, and this alone, is where we can begin. Therefore the Party has not taken up the standpoint of any particular literary group, but has adopted the position of cooperation with all revolutionary groups. I should, as one who carries out the practical work, report to this assembly what has been accomplished in the field of literature and art in recent years. That our work in the literary field has already yielded great results I have no doubt. Literature has now become an essential social factor that cannot be removed from life. Its weight has grown and continues to grow day by day. For instance, this very assembly, composed of extremely responsible Communists of our direction, can be cited as evidence. It is clear that what has been accomplished in the field of literature has attracted the attention of a great number of our comrades.

Let us advance further! Here stand proletarian youth. I should like to ask these young people: why has this group of forty young people now organized itself around Red Virgin Soil? Why did they leave the people of Na Postu? Perhaps someone will say that Voronsky seduced them and corrupted them. Let us assume so for the moment. But look at what happens: according to the view of the Na Postu people, the Smithy people are corrupted, all the Fellow Travelers are corrupted, the majority of the youth are corrupted, all the writers of our country are corrupted. If nearly everything is corrupted, then who exactly remains? Comrade Lelevich and Rodov, remaining in literature. But is that not rather too few? Unfortunately my time has long since run out, and I cannot now address the many other fundamental questions. Finally, something that should be declared at this council: what I have spoken here before you, I have spoken not as a Voronsky, but as the representative of that literature which works in Red Virgin Soil, in Krug, in The Smithy, and in the youth group Pereval -- in other words, as representative of nearly all active young Soviet writers.

Let us advance further. What does the policy of our publishing houses, our major magazines look like? A great deal -- indeed the greater part -- of literature hostile to us is being disseminated through our Soviet organs. Because this literature is printed by the State Publishing House and by other Party and Soviet publishing houses, and because Red Virgin Soil first appeared on the pages of our Party magazine, the public takes it for genuine revolutionary literature and accepts it. In our institutions of higher education, in our workers' universities, the young people regard this literature as revolutionary literature and accept it. Our young successors begin their literary study of the revolution with Pilnyak, Nikitin, and Ehrenburg. The literature professors at our higher education institutions and workers' universities are mostly old professors. Relying on the critical assessments of Comrade Voronsky and others, they teach their students this literature as truly revolutionary literature. Can we continue to tolerate this state of affairs? Is it not necessary to remove from our literature all labels that are in truth not revolutionary at all? This policy of our publishing houses and editorial offices, this concealment of every kind of Pilnyakism under the banner of Soviet communism, must be brought to a definitive end.

But the policy that Comrade Voronsky currently defends and develops is a manifest distortion of our Bolshevik policy in the field of literature. Comrades, when we oppose the printing of Pilnyak's and Alexei Tolstoy's objectionable works, we are by no means saying: Press Pilnyak against the wall, chase Alexei Tolstoy back abroad. These writers are naturally, in a particular sense, talented writers. Nor do we in any way wish to create an atmosphere of boycott against them, nor do we demand that printing their texts be forbidden on the territory of the Soviet Union. We are merely striving to correct the policy in the field of literature. We merely demand that it cease -- that these indifferent, sometimes even hostile writers be courteously received on the paper of Party and Soviet publications. At present, bourgeois magazines such as Russky Sovremennik are beginning to appear. That a portion of the literati assembled by Comrade Voronsky will migrate there is beyond doubt, for the fees there are presumably higher, and those writers are, as Comrade Vardin has said, for the most part people who look at the money.

If the question is posed in this way, then as a whole it coincides with the broader social problem. Were we to say that in the political sphere there is only one class, the proletariat, and beyond this boundary only a bourgeoisie, that would probably not be correct. Likewise, it is not correct to cast out of our field of vision the difficult questions that complicate the solution of the problem -- for the very difficulty lies in the fact that our country has no established readership and no established body of authors. There is therefore no definitive solution to the problem, nor will there be. Just as the foundation of political rule is the working class under the leadership, so too in this chaos there exist certain fundamental things -- that goes without saying. As far as a given final goal is concerned, there should naturally be a fundamental spirit pointing in a given direction; all things should, to a greater or lesser extent, be connected with this final goal. Many know that I stand on a very radical position. Yet this by no means gives me the solution to the problem of reality with all its complexity. I think -- in all fields of ideological-scientific life, including mathematics -- we among ourselves must strive to genuinely grapple with one another.

From Comrade Vardin's report, one cannot help but point out the essence of the Na Postu people -- their ideology is extremely primitive. The problem is that the artist is, so to speak, the hen that lays golden eggs in the fairy tale. The Na Postu people maintain that one should cut the hen open, and then one can get the golden eggs. We Smithy people oppose this. Why? Because we will not obtain a gold mine by such methods. Generally speaking, Comrade Vardin's views remind one of that untimely wise man who cried out: The feast day is near, we need incense! Just when the Workers' Journal, which is to become a mass publication, was engaged in construction amid great difficulties, Comrade Vardin cried: The feast day is near, we need incense! He proposed to burn this magazine. This is the insight of the clever man from the fairy tale. At the same time, we see such an example: the Smithy is raided by the Church, the Workers' Journal is being burned; but if comrades pick up the latest issue of Lef, they will see that it is full of clever ideas. Do we really wish to carry this rubbish, this bourgeois corruption, into the consciousness of the workers?

It seems to me that Comrade Raskolnikov has here laid out the views of the Na Postu people most clearly and openly -- the Na Postu comrades will surely not wish to evade this! After a long absence, Raskolnikov has appeared here with all the freshness of Afghanistan. But the rest of the Na Postu people have tasted a bit of the fruit of knowledge and are now busily trying to conceal their nakedness -- Comrade Vardin, who is naturally still as naked as the day he was born, being an exception. (Vardin: But did you not hear what I said here!) Correct, I arrived late. However, first, I have read your essay published in the latest issue of Na Postu. Second, I have just now hurriedly looked through the stenographic records of your speech. And third -- I can say: if it is your argumentation, one knows it even without having heard it. (Laughter.) But let us return to Comrade Raskolnikov. He said that they ceaselessly recommend the Fellow Travelers to us, yet on the former Pravda and the Zvezda before the war there appeared works by Artsybashev, Andreyev, and others who would today certainly be called Fellow Travelers.

But for Raskolnikov, such things are not a problem. Concerning works of art, he overlooks precisely that which makes them works of art in the first place. This is most clearly manifest in his notable discussion of Dante. The Divine Comedy, in his view, is only of value to us because it allows us to understand the psychology of a given era or a given class. To pose the question thus is to casually strike the Divine Comedy from the domain of art. Whether such a time will come is hard to say; for now, however, there is an urgent need to clearly understand the nature of the problem and not to shrink from the conclusions. If the significance of the Divine Comedy consisted merely in making me understand the mood of a given era or a given class, then I would regard it as nothing more than a historical document. Why? Because the Divine Comedy as a work of art must speak to my own feelings and moods. Dante's Divine Comedy can exert an oppressive influence on me, nurturing pessimism within me, melancholy; or it can, quite to the contrary, uplift me, make me soar, and give me encouragement. This is the fundamental interaction that exists between a work of art and its reader.

The comrades who have come here under the name of Proletarian Culture Society determine their attitude toward other ideas according to what attitude the authors of those ideas take toward the Proletcult group. This I have already seen quite clearly from my own fate. My book on literature was initially -- some may still remember -- published in essay form in Pravda. This book took me two years of work; I wrote it during two periods of convalescence. It immediately became clear that it was of significance for the questions at the center of our interest. When the first part of this book appeared in feuilleton form -- that part which criticized the literature of the Fellow Travelers and peasant writers outside the October Revolution and exposed the narrowness and contradictions of the artistic and ideological positions of the Fellow Travelers -- the Na Postu people seized me as a shield and brandished me about; everywhere my essays on the Fellow Travelers were cited. For a while I was quite troubled by this. (Laughter.) My assessment of the Fellow Travelers, I say once more, was generally thought to be not incorrect -- even Vardin himself did not object to it.

Regarding the so-called predictions, I actually wanted to say more, but my time has long since expired (voices: Oh dear!). They press me: At least give us the predictions! What does this mean? The Na Postu people and the groups allied with them also take the position of wanting to reach proletarian literature through groups and experimentation. But I reject this prediction entirely. I say it again: to arrange feudal literature, bourgeois literature, and proletarian literature in a historical series is impossible. Such historical classification is fundamentally impermissible. I have already written about this in my own works, and all counterarguments appear to me merely obscure and unserious. Those who speak seriously and at length about proletarian culture and who fabricate a political program from proletarian culture examine this problem on the basis of its formal similarity to bourgeois culture. They think: the bourgeoisie gained power and created its own culture; the proletariat has seized power, so it will presumably create a proletarian culture. But the bourgeoisie was a wealthy class and therefore also an educated class. Bourgeois culture already existed before the bourgeoisie formally seized power.

Comrade Voronsky walks a path opposed to this movement -- that is, to proletarian literature. He is working to disintegrate this literature. He strives mightily to prove counterarguments. I do not have the time here to go into the concrete facts. Comrade Libedinsky can vouch for that. The other side of the problem is the question of where Comrade Voronsky's Fellow Travelers now find themselves. Voronsky's Fellow Travelers are in the process of leaving him. (Voices: Who?) Let us leave aside the details about everyone involved for now. But Comrade Voronsky did indeed have relations with them, and now they are in the process of crossing over into the camp of bourgeois literature. He had, for example, proclaimed a writer named Leonov a genius, but we know that Leonov is now writing for Russky Sovremennik. Behind Russky Sovremennik stand Efros and foreign capital, and this magazine is hostile to the working class. Those Fellow Travelers are now heading toward this magazine, bearing the credentials that Voronsky gave them. In our country, the question of literature is not about having merely ten or fifteen writers who can serve the working class.

First of all, dear comrades, I must say a few words about the appearance of my esteemed literary opponent -- Comrade Trotsky. He has said that nothing will grow from proletarian beans (Lysanov: Those are dyed beans!). However that may be, comrades, on this point we shall presumably have to continue our dispute with him. Before this meeting, I polemicized with Comrade Trotsky in personal letters, and I very much wished that he would come to this assembly and speak to us. We by no means boast of our workshop. We have said that the laboring masses come first, more important than anything else. Even if Bezimensky is worthless, even if the folk artists are worthless -- the mass literary movement is important, and the Party should take it into its own hands. Secretly I think that we did not knock on the glass in vain to convene today's assembly; and that this assembly is the first step on the path toward which we have always steered -- namely, that the Party should give literature its own direction. All our efforts are concentrated on this single point. They may accuse us of party spirit; they may accuse us of sectarianism. I would like to respond to Comrade Vardin.

This by no means suggests that we should despise form. From the truly great and famous Demyan, who did not come from the broad proletarian stratum, all the way to the young Comrade Bezimensky, who likewise did not come from the broad proletarian stratum -- all who wish to write for the proletariat must welcome every development of literary form. Without form, one cannot express the thoughts, feelings, and moods of humanity or of other groups as one can with a shape. Yet literary form, language, has been perfected along a long historical path. We often thank the good revolutionary representatives of the Russian nobility and the good representatives of the revolutionary Russian bourgeoisie for having perfected the Russian language. In order that the working class may take this great heritage as its own, it is necessary to publish our classical texts. The State Publishing House has reached the point of bringing Pushkin, the poet of the noble class, close to all peasants and workers by publishing his works. In Pushkin, besides his beautiful expressions, one can also find rich material. Comrades, we are approaching the era of the Decembrists. Let us not forget that Pushkin was drawn into the Decembrist movement.

On the attitude of the White emigres toward our debate. At this assembly, an attempt was made to present the attitude of the White emigres toward the position of Comrades Voronsky and Trotsky as the central argument of all my statements. This is of course a mistake. We, the Na Postu people, studied over the course of several months Comrade Voronsky's curriculum, tactics, and organizational plans, recognized all his fundamental errors and tendencies, and only then, only then did we reach the conclusion that Comrade Voronsky's position is welcomed by our enemies, and not without reason. That the judgments of White emigre writers are not evidence goes without saying; yet their attitude toward this or that current within our Party has no small suggestive force. To disregard the views of our enemies concerning this or that current within our Party -- only those who treat matters superficially or who do not wish to see the truth can manage that. When during the most recent Party discussion the emigre groups supported the opposition position, we could not help but communicate this fact to the Party and the working class. And now, when emigres both domestic and foreign support the position of Comrade Voronsky, we can equally not help but make this fact known to the Party and the working class.

The essence of what Lenin advocated at that time was concentrated on the struggle against the idea that proletarian culture could emerge from some kind of hothouse facility. The notion that a hothouse could cultivate proletarian culture -- in this Lenin saw great danger. The Proletcult was precisely such a hothouse. Proletarian culture can emerge under the conditions of Soviet power, on the soil of general literacy. As long as proletarian power exists, as long as we are now going to produce these still-few millions of cultured people -- then new types of culture and different types of literature will indeed emerge. The core of the problem lies in making the good fruits of bourgeois culture the common property of the masses under the conditions of proletarian power. To appropriate the good fruits of bourgeois culture through millions of people under the conditions of proletarian power -- that lays the foundation for the emergence of genuine culture that is not of the bourgeois type. Therefore Lenin told the workers: Strive, make bourgeois culture your own! In whatever building, under whatever name -- do not be deceived by the fairy tale that proletarian culture has already been born.

10. According to the opinion of Trotsky and Voronsky, the central force in literature should reside with the so-called Fellow Travelers, that is, writers from the intelligentsia, the urban class, or the peasantry who ideologically do not stand on the communist standpoint. Yet the Fellow Travelers are by no means a uniform whole. Among them there are indeed elements who, in proportion to their strength, serve the revolution honestly. But the dominant type of Fellow Traveler is the writer who distorts the revolution in literature, repeatedly slanders it, and cultivates the spirit of nationalism, great-power chauvinism, and mysticism. If this dominant type of Fellow Traveler continues to set the tone in the literature of the late NEP period, then the literature of these Fellow Travelers is in its essence a literature that runs counter to the proletarian revolution. This can be said with full justification. Against the counterrevolutionary elements among these Fellow Travelers, the most determined struggle is necessary. As for the truly revolutionary Fellow Travelers, their comprehensive utilization on the literary front is entirely necessary. But this utilization is only possible when proletarian literature exerts influence upon the best representatives of the Fellow Travelers and gathers them around the proletarian core of literature.

14. For this reason, the Party must declare free competition among all the various groups and currents in this field. Any other solution would become a bureaucratic, official, and fraudulent solution. Likewise, neither by decree nor by Party resolution can a legal monopoly on literary publishing be granted to any particular association or literary group. Although the Party supports proletarian writers and proletarian-peasant writers materially and spiritually, and also assists the Fellow Travelers, it cannot permit any single group to hold a monopoly even when the ideological content is at its most proletarian. This in particular would destroy the very roots of proletarian literature. 15. The Party should employ every means to eliminate crude, incompetent administrative interference with literature. To ensure truly correct, useful, and tactically sound guidance of our literature, the Party should exercise the greatest care in selecting personnel for the various offices entrusted with publishing affairs. 16. The Party should point out to all those working in literature the necessity of correctly distinguishing between the functions of the critic and those of the writer-artist. For the latter, the task consists in placing the center of gravity of one's work on its significance for the future.

Levinson is the commander of this detachment and at the same time their talent. He clearly understands the task that the revolution has assigned him and strides toward it. He follows the Party's orders and constantly gives his detachment the correct direction. The perfunctory excuses of his subordinates he never tolerates. For this reason, his men regard him as the only person who knows neither fatigue nor exhaustion nor wavering nor disillusionment, and they respect him for it. Yet even he, in truth, is a man who battles against wavering and fatigue. The author writes thus: In the detachment, scarcely anyone knew that Levinson too could waver. He shared his thoughts and feelings with no one, always answering only with ready-made yes and no. Thus he appeared to everyone as a particularly correct sort of person. Since Levinson was elected commander, no one could imagine him in any other position. Everyone felt that it was precisely his commanding the detachment that was his greatest characteristic. Had Levinson spoken of his childhood, of how he helped his father sell secondhand goods, and how his father dreamed of getting rich until the day he died, yet was afraid of mice and played a mediocre violin -- then everyone would probably have thought it was merely a fitting joke.

Although proletarian literature has undergone many transformations and there were struggles between the various groups, it has consistently developed under the banner of one fundamental idea. This idea consists in understanding literature as an expression of class, as the artistic formulation of the proletarian world-feeling, as the organization of consciousness, as a factor directing the will toward definite action, and finally as an ideological weapon in struggle. Although there were certainly disagreements among the various groups, we have never seen anyone attempt to revive a literature that is above class, self-sufficient, intrinsically valuable, and utterly detached from life. Proletarian literature proceeds from life, not from literariness. Although through the broadening of writers' horizons and the transition from themes of immediate struggle to psychological and ethical questions, to feelings, passions, and the fine experiences of the human heart -- to all those themes called the eternal, universally human ones -- literariness has conquered an ever more honorable place; although the so-called artistic methods, modes of expression, and techniques have again gained important significance; although the study and investigation of art and its techniques have become an urgent task and a recognized watchword -- it sometimes seems as though literature has described a great circle and returned to its starting point.

In literary groups, he first belonged to the Smithy, but then left and joined October. In 1927, he published a novel depicting the process of the moral destruction of a revolutionary girl. The book was titled The Moon Rises from the Right, also called An Extraordinary Love. It unleashed a great storm and provoked manifold criticism. Some said that what was depicted was the truth and demonstrated the corruption of modern youth. Others said that no such phenomena existed among revolutionary youth, and therefore the author was slandering the young. Then there were those who took the middle ground, arguing that these phenomena were indeed real but represented only a portion of the youth. Institutions of higher education thereupon conducted psychological tests; the results clearly showed that the absolute majority of male and female students desired a continued shared life, namely an enduring love relationship. Professor Kogan, in his work The Literature of the Great Decade, expressed much dissatisfaction with this type of literature. Yet this book was translated into Japanese early on by Ota Nobuo, under the title The Moon on the Right Side, with four or five short stories appended. The story The Worker presented here was translated from the Japanese translation. It does not deal with sexual themes and is not a masterpiece, but the passages depicting Lenin are like masterful sketches full of vivacity.

In the second issue of the Literary Monthly, there is an essay translated by Mr. Zhou Qiying; it is the same text but about one-third longer than the version presented here, dealing mostly with the story of Jilin. I surmise that two different versions of the original probably existed and that the original translator neither added nor omitted anything; his translation is based on the English text. I originally intended to make use of his translation, but upon reflection I translated a different piece from the volume Shock Brigade instead. For the more detailed version, though it offers more matter of interest, simultaneously obscures the essential passages; the more concise version is clearer in structure but inevitably reads somewhat dryly. Each, of course, has its own suitable readership. If attentive readers or authors compare and study the two versions, they will surely arrive at insights. I believe that for China, having two different translations is by no means a superfluous effort. However, both translations also seem to contain errors in places.