Anti-Communist Master: Hu Shih (Part 2)

Hello everyone, and welcome to Deception of the World. In the last episode, we talked about Mr Hulsher's qualities that made him famous since he was a child. In this episode, let's talk about his ability to see through communist lies with his sharp eyes. If you are new here, please subscribe to our program and click on the notification bell so you won't miss it when we upload a new video. Thank you all. Now let's get back to the story. As mentioned in the last episode, Hulsher was also critical of the national government's failure to formulate a constitution, but soon began to support Chiang Kai-shek. The change seems to be quite sudden, but in fact, it is not. The change comes from two aspects. The liberal ideology rooted in his heart, and his clear understanding of Marxism and the Communist Party. As early as 1919, Hulsher opposed the spread of Marxism in China, arguing that Marxism and socialism are self-deceiving dreams, and that communism is completely arbitrary. Hulsher was very much in favour of Chiang's decisive move to purge the communists from the Nationalist Party, KMT, and his subsequent vigorous efforts to suppress the Communist Party in China. In his articles and speeches, he said, Chiang Kai-shek's move to carry out the purge of the Communist Party has a point. We do not oppose the central government's all-out counter-insurgency, referring to the communist rebellion. The country is not unified, and the fight against communist bandits requires a large military force. The disbanding of the New Fourth Army is a necessary move in terms of military discipline. After the victory of the Second World War, the communists and the Nationalist government held a negotiation in Chongqing. Chiang Kai-shek proposed to downsize the Communist Party. Hulsher also called Mao Zedong, asking him and the Communist Party to make up their minds and give up military force. After the communist army launched an attack against the Nationalist government, he even told reporters that the communists were worse than the Japanese. My hometown was not damaged during the eight years of resistance against Japan, but in three days after the communists occupied it, it was completely pillaged. In 1946, Hulsher wrote an article called Two Fundamentally Different Political Parties, saying that there were two fundamentally different political parties in the world, one in Britain, the United States and Western Europe, and the other is the Communist Party in Russia, the Fascist Party in Italy and the Nazi Party in Germany. Hulsher clearly listed the different natures of the two kinds of political parties, saying that they were divided between freedom and non-freedom, independence and non-independence, tolerance and intolerance. The fact that Hulsher was able to make such a distinction at that time shows that he was indeed a wise man. There is another incident that shows Hulsher's firm stance. After the CCP occupied mainland China, Hulsher chose to stay in the US. In January 1950, the British government became the first country in Europe to formally recognise the New People's Republic of China. After learning this news, Hulsher, who had promised to lecture in England, refused to go. He wrote to Professor Dobbs at Oxford University, I have changed my mind, since I myself am recognised as a leader of anti-communist ideas in free China. It would be a mistake for me to go to England at this time. Entering this country would be anathema to me. Now let's talk about when Hulsher became heavily targeted by the United Front. For those who don't know, the United Front is a political strategy operated by the CCP since its founding. The Communist Party would target influential people outside the party and try to convert them to be in favour of the CCP with various methods. In early times, it was the politicians and military leaders in the Nationalist government that were targeted. Today, China operates its own United Front work department and various subservient organisations in and outside China, working to convert Western politicians and leaders of various organisations, often through money, fame, sexual favours etc. The CCP never gave up trying to win Hulsher back to the new China. Although Hulsher said he had never believed any of the CCP's propaganda, they kept sending people to do his ideological work, persuading him to return to China and making all kinds of promises. At the same time, the CCP made public denunciations against Hul for not returning to China, pressuring him on many levels. This can also be seen from Mao Zedong's attitude towards Hulsher. Mao once worked as a library staff member at Peking University. Mao would often attend Hulsher's classes and regard himself as a student of Hul. In 1936, Mao Zedong told the American journalist Edgar Snow that he greatly admired two people, Chen Zhuxiu and Hulsher, and that he was a great reader and fan of them. However, when Mao came to power, he changed the relationship between him and Hul, and no longer regarded himself as a student of Hulsher. Looking back at this, it seems that Mao and the CCP were not afraid of Hulsher, but more of Hulsher's liberal ideas of independent thinking and independent judgment, which were incompatible with the CCP's policy of fooling and brainwashing the people. The attacks on Mr Hulsher included the use of his friends. In May 1949, Chen Yuan, the principal of Fujian Catholic University and a close friend of Hulsher, who was converted by the CCP, published an open letter to Hulsher. The letter says, Now that I understand Mao's political ideas and the actual situation, I would like to correct the danger of your prejudice and bias. 30 years ago, you were a mentor of young people. Now, when the right and wrong are clearly distinguished, you have separated from the youth and joined the group that is against the people. Why don't you come back to the new youth again? I think you should no longer cling to your previous false stereotypes and have the courage to deny the errors of your past views. Come to your senses. Use the real scientific method again to analyze and criticize all your past knowledge and bring it to serve the people. Some people regard this letter as Chen Yuan's pitch to the CCP, which makes sense. The context was that in late 1948, Beiping was besieged by the Communist Party. The Nationalist government sent three emergency planes to rescue those who wanted to escape. Many famous scholars fled to the south this way. However, Chen Yuan and some others refused to leave and welcomed the Communist Army to liberate them. On May 11, Chen Yuan published the above-mentioned open letter in the People's Daily to show allegiance to the Communist Party. Hulsher was able to read an English translation of Chen Yuan's open letter on June 19, immediately wrote in his diary, the first paragraph quotes the ending of my latest letter to him, which means this letter is not a forgery. The nasty and childish language of the whole letter makes me unhappy to read it. This man became old. Is this letter really written by him? Two days later, on the 21st, Hulsher read the Chinese text of Chen Yuan's open letter reprinted in the Overseas China Daily and wrote in his diary, I read it and further believed that this letter is not a forgery. This man is 70 years old. How scandalous and shameless. Very pitiful. In early 1950, Hulsher published a sharp critique in the Free China Journal titled, There is never freedom under Communist rule. As a response to Chen Yuan's letter, in which he attacked the Communist Party for saying one thing and doing another, and that there was no freedom to be found under Communist control. Hulsher pointed out in a heartbeat that Chen Yuan's letter was, the best proof that there is never any academic freedom under Communist rule. Historical evidence showed that Chen Yuan's open letter was not simply his personal wish. The letter was revised and embellished by Fan Wenlan, a prominent Communist Party historian from Yan'an, before it was published. Chen Yuan's attack was obviously not strong enough. The Communist Party tried hard to bring down the leading liberal intellectual, Hulsher, to make an example for others, so that the intellectuals who remained in the mainland would accept the Communist Party's ideas and be silenced. Soon after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the CCP began to launch an ideological reform campaign against intellectuals. During this political movement, Hu Zedong, the youngest son of Hulsher, who chose to stay in mainland China, not knowing the evils of the Communist Party, had to criticize his own father and wrote anti-American plays, even performing them himself. Why did he do such things? Well, think about it. As the son of an anti-Communist intellectual, if you want to live under the Communist Party, you need to betray your old man. They will let you live, but you'll be living a life of shame. The CCP is a master at turning people against their family. People today may not be able to imagine the level of pressure you are put under during these political movements. In September 1950, Hu Zedong also published an article, a critique of my father, Hulsher, in Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao, indicating that he wanted to draw a clear line between him and his father and sever ties with him. Hu Zedong's rebellious act caused a great shock and negative impact in China and overseas, but Hulsher did not want to talk much about it. Fu Sunyan, another renowned intellectual of the Republic of China, commented, The Communists will do their best to slander those in the education sector who do not serve as their tools or even oppose them. This article published in Ta Kung Pao is just one example. Sunyan and Hu Zedong were both in an extremely miserable fate. Because they could not leave the country, others wrote these articles on their behalf, so we did not need to blame them. By this time, the Communists still had thoughts about Hulsher's return to China. They were trying to persuade him to return to Beijing while these criticisms took place. But Hu ignored all these requests and scoffed at the idea. Soon after the outbreak of the Korean War, the American fleet sailed into the Taiwan Strait and Chiang Kai-shek received the support of the United States, which reinforced Hulsher's support for Chiang. The Communists, on the other hand, began to brew a more violent attack against Hulsher after realising Hu will never be bribed or blackmailed. From 1954 to 1955, Mao used two CCP-controlled commentators to criticise the articles of Yu Pingbo, a researcher at the Institute of Classical Literature of Peking University. This launched a big campaign to criticise Yu Pingbo's study of the Dream of the Red Chamber. Moreover, it was clear that the CCP's intention behind these criticisms was to point the finger at Hulsher, who was Yu's teacher. The Communist Party denounced Hulsher as a western slave, comprador literati and an enemy of Marxism. Intellectuals of all kinds wrote articles to criticise Hulsher and to draw a clear line with him. The movement of criticising Hul in society was as fierce as a storm. Hul's students, friends and family were all affected by the criticism. In line with the Communist Party directives, the Beijing-Sanyuan Joint Publishing Company also published eight large volumes of A Compilation of Critical Essays on Hulsher's Thought, to summarise and present the results of the criticism of Hul movement since 1949, totalling more than three million words. The authors of the collected essays include many famous names in the literary world, such as Guo Moruo, Gu Sheng, Jin Yuelin, Wang Ruoshui, Fan Wenlang, Fan Youlan, Gu Jieguang, Luo Erzhang, Ren Jiyu and Zhou Yiliang. It was also said that there were even more articles criticising Hul. Many were not collected in the compilation. Ironically, the only person who is willing to read and annotate this compilation is probably Hulsher himself. Hulsher's victory, a master is a master, look at what Hulsher said in response to the hysterical criticism launched by the Communist Party. These abusive words at the same time make me feel happy and excited, because the little effort I have been making for 40 years is not entirely in vain, after all, a great deal of toxin has been left behind. This toxin is like a plague to Marxism-Leninism, but it also has an anti-poisoning and antiseptic effect. Here referring his ideas as toxins in the eyes of the CCP. According to the first draft of The Long Chronicle of Mr Hulsher Zhi, Book 7, in September 1956 at the age of 66, Hulsher, on his way to lecture at the University of California, talked to a reporter about the New Youth and the Independent Review, both are influential magazines that Hulsher contributed greatly to, saying, from that time on, liberal thought and communism have been incompatible. With three million words of writing, the Communist Party printed more than 100,000 books to liquidate Hulsher's thought, to search for Hulsher's shadow and to eliminate Hulsher's ghost. The more the Communist Party liquidates my ideas, the more it proves that such ideas have become effective in the hearts of the Chinese people. If the Chinese people did not lose their belief in democracy and freedom and their spirit of scepticism, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai could not rest in peace. Guo Moruo and a bunch of other cultural lackeys will continue to disprove my ideas. Undoubtedly, Hulsher saw the CCP's critiques as a victory for his own ideology and a way of indirectly promoting his ideas. After the Communist Party's anti-rightist campaign in 1957, Hulsher gave a long speech at the United Nations General Assembly, rejoicing at the anti-violence movement that had taken place on the mainland against various CCP brutalities in the anti-rightist movement. At the same time, he expressed his sincere sympathy and admiration for the victims of the new communist brutality and for the thousands of compatriots who have dared to accuse and fight against communist tyranny in public. He also noted with sorrow, in mainland China today, anyone who wants to be an independent person, regardless of gender, is being arbitrarily arrested, detained, executed or exterminated. Millions of peasants are being banished or subjected to the cruelest slavery. Millions of innocent people are being driven into slave labour, which the communists call labour reform. Children are forced to accuse their parents, and families have no warmth or private life. The dignity and value of the individual has been stripped away. There are no basic human rights, not even the freedom to remain silent. Ladies and gentlemen, in today's world, various sins of the Communist Party were exposed to the world. The crackdown against the Hong Kong democracy movement in 2019, the cover-up in the initial stages of the coronavirus, and even the fact that millions of Uyghur people are locked in concentration camps. It is obvious that Hulsher's understanding of the Communist Party can still be applied to CCP today. In communist China, the hatred toward Hulsher was like a derailed train that cannot be stopped. Since Hulsher was not in the mainland, people's hatred towards him was transferred to Hu Feng, another intellectual with the last name Hu, although they were unrelated. Ironically, Hu Feng was on many levels a supporter of the Communist Party. He was a leader of the League of Leftist Writers and promoted communism, even becoming a member of the First National People's Congress of China. However, since he was known to be straightforward and had some disagreements with the other prominent communist intellectuals. Right after the attacks against Hulsher were launched, some well-known party intellectuals such as Guo Moruo manufactured some fake stories to attack Hu Feng. Soon after, the whole country were together to struggle against the two Huls, Hulsher and the Hu Feng counter-revolutionary clique, and criticised them from different angles, using different styles of articles to attack them. The Communist Party criticised Hulsher and Hu Feng, which made many intellectuals and ordinary people scared when Hu was mentioned and even developed to the point that the last name Hu was disliked and feared. Like what we mentioned at the beginning, many villains in read books, read plays, read films were named Hu. It had become a reflection of the hatred towards the two Huls. According to the book South to North, more extreme things also appeared. In some ultra-left areas, young people with the surname Hu even lost the qualification to join the army or work in factories, and some even had a hard time finding a partner. When people dated, as soon as they learned that the other person was surnamed Hu, the date was immediately over, fearing they would be associated with Hu. Some families with the last name Hu were so angry at this phenomenon that they did not dare to say anything against the CCP. Instead, they would scold Hulsher and Hu Feng as Hu's unworthy descendants, at the same time wishing they were never named Hu. Even after such a social movement against the two Huls, the Communist Party was still uneasy about the intellectuals. The liberal ideology led by Hulsher was rooted too deeply among the people. In 1957, Mao Zedong resorted to the cunning tactic of the Hundred Flowers Campaign. Mao publicly encouraged intellectuals to freely express their opinions and give advice to the CCP. All and any opinions are welcome, like how hundreds of flowers would bloom together, while at the same time secretly collecting the names of those who were After achieving their goal of luring the snake out of the hole, Mao immediately launched an anti-rightist movement. It was estimated that 1.5 million intellectuals were affected and purged during this movement, and more than half a million were criticized, imprisoned, deported or persecuted to death. Sadly, Hulsher's youngest son, Hu Zedong, did not escape the either. Not only was he branded as a rightist, but he was also forced to publicly criticize his father again. Finally, unable to bear the blow anymore, he chose to hang himself. Even more tragically, Hulsher never received the news about the death of his youngest son. His family did not dare to tell Mr and Mrs Hu about the tragic end of Hu Zedong. In November 1952, Hulsher was invited back to Taiwan to give lectures and was greeted at the airport by Chiang Ching-kuo and other high-ranking officials. Afterwards, Hulsher gave speeches on various occasions, explaining that one of the most important things in a democratic society is freedom of speech. The conscientious Hulsher even pointed out at a banquet hosted by Chiang Kai-shek that Taiwan did not yet have freedom of speech, etc. Although this was a bit of a slap in the face of Chiang, Chiang still respected him and did not express any displeasure to Hu, but instead still allowed Hu to serve as the director of Academia Sinica and still supported him to continue his research and writing. In the 1950s, Chiang had the intention to engage in a third cooperation between the Nationalist and Communist parties. Hulsher immediately wrote a letter advising him to remember the lesson of Sun Yat-sen's policy of uniting with Russia and tolerating the Communist Party, of how inviting wolves into your house will never end well. Chiang immediately hired Hulsher as the deputy director of the Design Committee for the Restoration of the Mainland, to design the plan for the restoration of mainland China. Before his death, Hulsher was still speaking out, saying, we in the Academia and the Academia Sinica have to take up the task of fighting against the Communists and restoring the country. In 1961, Hulsher suffered a heart attack and was admitted to the National Taiwan University Hospital. After recovering, he continued to work. Unfortunately, on February 24th, 1962, while presiding over the reception of the Academia Sinica meeting, Hulsher suddenly suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 72. The story has ended. Hulsher, who had a clear understanding of the Communist Party and was a lifelong anti-Communist, who achieved 36 doctoral degrees throughout his life and contributed greatly to the development of Chinese liberalism and language reform, was only briefly mentioned in the mainland versions of history, and his anti-Communist remarks were certainly not known to many people in China. In 2005, Taiwanese celebrity Li Ao offered to donate 350,000 yuan to Peking University to erect a bronze statue of old President Hulsher but was rejected. In 2007, Chen Pingping, a professor of Chinese at Peking University, proposed to hold the Hulsher Humanities Lecture but still did not receive the support. The reasons behind this are self-explanatory. As things have changed, as new generations of people reside in China, folks with the surname Hu are no longer discriminated because of their last name. But the road back home for Hulsher is still bumpy. The day the Communist Party disappears from China, we believe, is the moment that Hulsher will be back on the textbooks of China. Thank you for watching Deception of the World, and thank you for subscribing and liking it. See you in the next episode.