A Moving Revolutionary Soldier Reflction On Nie Gannu

This thesis discusses NIE Gan-Nu(1903-1986)in the flood of revolution and his activity of literature.Chapter 1 discusses the conflicts between NIE Gan-Nu and revolutional Organizations.NIE Gan-Nu attended revolution,passively in some degree.He joined Kuomintang in the period of the national revolution.Biograhpies of NIE Gan-Nu always emphasized that he disliked Kuomintang very much,but this was partly far from the truth.In 1927,when NIE Gan-Nu returned homeland from USSR,he very actively took part in the activity of supporting Guomintang,which was lauched by KANG Zhe et al.NIE Gan-Nu later broke away from Kuomintang and devoted himself into the proletarian revolution,but his change happened by chance in some degree.After NIE Gan-Nu joined the Communist Party(referred as the Party,or the Organization hereafter),he often violated the Organizational disciplines so that he was criticized by the Organization.Section 1 of this chapter discusses the subtle relationship between NIE Gan-Nu and Kuomintang;the remaining three sections describe his words and actions that violated disciplines of the Party.He violated the Organizational disciplines in the following three ways.First,he kept good friendship with KANG Zhe,a head of political work of Kuomintang,placing his private relationship above the Organizational disciplines.Second,He wrote anti-war poems,which mentioned the Party and the Kuomintang on equal terms,required the Party to yield to people's desire for peace after the World War II,and criticized the Party's policies at the standpoint of the middle elements.Third,in 1949,shortly after the foundation of the People's Republic of China(referred as the Nation or New China hereafter),he wrote poems and sent them to the New China,which were deemed as slandering Chairperson Mao(i.e.,MAO Zhe-Dong-the same hereafter).He wrote academic papers,which were deemed by SONG Zhi-Di as violating the methodology of Marxism.Taken together,the relationship between NIE Gan-Nu and the Organization was quite subtle.NIE Gan-Nu was really loose and ignored the Organizational disciplines in one side.ZHOU En-Lai,knowing NIE Gan-Nu well,called NIE Gan-Nu as a big liberal.This big liberal,however,was loyal to the revolutionary cause in the other side.Using pens and essays,he waved flags and shouted battle cries for the Organization's cause.Chapter 2 discusses NIE Gan-Nu's essays.It is because of his influential essays that NIE Gan-Nu is remmembed in the modern history of literature in China.NIE Gan-Nu's images in the literature history were changing.Before 1990's,NIE Gan-Nu was described as a fighter,who carried on the tradition of fight of LU Xun,using essays as spears and daggers.After 1990's,historians of literature accorded great importance to his essays written in the period of the War against Japan,which had characters of enlightments,and his image in history of literature was closer to enlighteners of the Fourth of May.This change suggests that NIE Gan-Nu's essays that were characterized with social and civilizational criticism have higher value of thought and art.Therefore,in Section 2 of this chapter,the author analyzes these essays.In consideration that weakening the characters of political confrontation is the cultural strategy of the leaders of the Southern Bureau of the Party,these essays can be deemed as the implement of the cultural stategy of the Party in the Guomintang occupied areas.During the War of Liberation,NIE Gan-Nu turned to adopt more radical strategy of writing,radically attacking the government of the Kuomintang,the middle elements and the liberals.This turn can be deemed as departing from social and civilizational criticisms.Chapter 3 discusses that the Organization imposed disciplines on its members after the foundation of the Nation,and the members obeyed or reisted these diciplines.NIE Gan-Nu's experience was quite typical.After 1949,in the Purge of Counter-Revolutionary Elements,the Anti-Rightist and the Cultural Revolution,NIE Gan-Nu was involved everytime and suffered very much.In these political movements after the foundation of the Nation,the punishments on the targets of the movements became more and more severe,the targets became tamer and tamer,and their attitudes of admitting "guilts" became more and more active.Nevertheless,an individual having becomed tamer,did not necessarily imply he having been really well transformed.Oppositely,during the period between the last political movement and the next one,NIE Gan-Nu behaved rebellious,radically criticized the movements,and redressed grievances for himself.This phenomenon suggested that the movements of ideological remoulding or self-criticism had only suspicious effects of diciplines on individuals.This kind of dual character was quite common in intellectual individuals in the Party.Nevertheless,the reflection of most of them could not reach the origin of the revolution,leaving the phenomenon of the Two X for later generation to guess.Chapter 4 discusses NIE Gan-Nu's old-style poems written in 1960's,analyzing an intellectual who had experienced severe trauma in body and mind,in the extremely ultra-Left eras,attempted to rebuild privacy of his mind,failed and depressed.After coming back from the Great Northern Wilderness to Beijing,NIE Gan-Nu had an active friendship with many right-wing cultural people who also experienced nine deaths and still alive.They went to communal meals and field trips,and wrote poems for each others as gifts,looking for friendship and warmth on the edge of the shadow of Leviathan,so as to satisfy the individuals' eagers for group living.Nevertheless,this kind of gathering could not remove the pressure and loneliness that individuals experienced.Therefore,NIE Gan-Nu turned his eyes to the tradition of privacy and freedom in the traditional poems.His mind escaped from the world and was in freedom,and had no desires and was at will.This kind of writing could brough him temporary balance.Nevertheless,wandering between nothingness and actuality,despiration and hope,and history and reality was still a revolutioner,and thus privacy of himself could not be really built,which rendered to the mind's brokenness and barrenness.Before a bigger destory's coming,NIE Gan-Nu replicated some essays in Wild Grass written by LU Xun,expressing his griefs that could not be directly spoken.The darkness,weirdness and suffering that individuals experienced in the ultra-left era,were vaguely and partly exposed in these replicated essays.These sufferings were the inevitable costs paid by those lackeys of the revolution.The consequences of these dark experiences were not completely negative-From a post hoc view,it were these dark experiences that brought up the literature achievements of NIE Gan-Nu's late years.The darkness,weirdness and suffering that individuals experienced in the ultra-Left eras,vaguely and partly exposed in these replicated essays.These sufferings were the inevitable costs paid by those lackeys of the revolution.