【英语中国】中国的“打老虎”运动

On a wintry day in February 1952, two victims, their hands tied behind their backs, were marched off to the execution grounds of Baoding, the provincial capital of Hebei, just south of Beijing. They were shot in the heart rather than in the head.

Hundreds of thousands of enemies of the regime had faced the firing squad since the red flag was hoist above Tiananmen Square in October 1949 but this case was different. Both victims were central actors in the local party hierarchy. It was the defining moment of a campaign against corruption Mao Zedong had unleashed against the party itself. There were mere “flies” who needed to be swatted, the chairman explained, and there were “tigers”. Everywhere tiger-hunting teams tried to outdo each other, encouraged from above by Mao.

In the country’s northwest, 340,000 cases of corruption were uncovered, although Xi Zhongxun, the man in charge of the region, said that in reality there could well be three times as many culprits.

Today, Xi’s son runs the country, and again there is talk of “flies” and “tigers” threatening the party’s legitimacy. Under President Xi Jinping, not a day passes without state media announcing new investigations into party officials.

But 60 years ago, under cover of popular approval and publicity for exceptional cases, something more sinister was happening. One by one, the remaining voices of opposition to Communism were silenced. Millions of “intellectuals” – students, teachers, professors, scientists and writers were forced to prove their allegiance to the new regime. Ideological education became the norm, as sessions of self-criticism, self-condemnation and self-exposure followed one another until all resistance was crushed and the individual broken, ready to serve the collective. Those unable to resist the pressure committed suicide.

Today, too, the anti-corruption drive coincides with an ideological “rectification campaign”. As in 1951-2, there are malicious ideas such as democracy, freedom and constitutionalism that must be stamped out. Only a few weeks ago, it was reported that several people were arrested simply for expressing online their dissatisfaction with the government.

Behind the publicity given to a few cases of government corruption, the business community also came under sustained attack in 1951-2. Recalcitrant entrepreneurs were locked up in their offices for days, occasionally dragged out to confront the workers in “struggle sessions” during which they were demeaned, humiliated and sometimes beaten. Terror drove a few to denounce each other. Captains of industry shook with fear as they stood on the stage, desperately hurling accusations at each other, reported Bo Yibo, minister of finance, to Mao. In Shanghai alone, more than 640 businesspeople killed themselves in two months.

Today the campaign to subordinate the business sector to the state is less bloody, but as a headline from The Washington Post recently put it: “A Lot of CEOs Get Taken Hostage in China.” There is a spate of “anti-corruption” investigations into business, many of them foreign. The biggest foreign company in the spotlight is British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, accused by the police of having used up to Rmb3bn in bribes to doctors to boost sales. All are scrambling to comply with endless regulations, many of which have not been enforced in the past.

After the communists “liberated” China in 1949, one of the biggest challenges in the party ranks came in 1954. Less than a year after Joseph Stalin died, Mao purged Gao Gang, a powerful official suspected of being too close to the Soviet Union. By turning on Gao and his acolytes, the chairman managed to rally the other senior leaders behind him. Bo was one of those who turned on Gao, maybe out of genuine dislike, possibly for political advancement. Bo Xilai, his son, is on trial today. A few months after his secret trial, Gao tried to shoot himself but missed (he later swallowed enough sleeping pills to end his life). A witch hunt followed, with other leaders denounced and sent to the gulag for scheming against the party. Bo Xilai’s trial is public – or almost. But his followers are falling one after another. The echo of the 1950s is not surprising: this is, after all, how one-party states create unity.

Mr Xi has openly declared his admiration for Mao. In July 2012 he visited a village from which the communists attacked Beijing in 1949. Standing on the holy ground, the president vowed that “our red nation will never change colour”.

Some foreign observers have interpreted his defence of the Maoist legacy as a rhetorical move designed to assuage those on the conservative wing of his party. But it is always prudent to take leaders of one-party states at their word rather than try to second-guess them. Since Mr Xi appears to have taken more than a page from his country’s history, maybe all of us who have an interest in the People’s Republic would do well to study the early years of the regime as carefully as he does.

The writer is a historian and author of ‘Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution’

1952年2月，一个寒冷的冬天，两名死刑犯双手被反绑在背后，被带到了河北省省会保定市的刑场上。子弹射进了他们的心脏，而不是头部。

自1949年10月五星红旗在天安门广场升起后，这个新政权的行刑队已经处死了数十万“敌人”，但上述两人有所不同。这两名死刑犯都是地方上的中共核心人物。当时正值毛泽东发起党内反腐运动的关键时刻。毛泽东解释道，不仅要拍“苍蝇”，还要打“老虎”。在最高领导人毛泽东的鼓励下，各地的“打虎队”你追我赶，都想超过对方。

仅中国西北地区就披露出34万起腐败案例，不过该地区负责人习仲勋表示，实际的罪犯人数很可能是这个数字的三倍。

今天，习仲勋的儿子正掌管中国，他再次谈到了对中共合法性构成威胁的“苍蝇”和“老虎”。在习近平治下，官方媒体几乎每天都传出中共官员接受调查的新消息。

但60年前，在民众的支持声中，在对极端案件大肆宣传的掩盖下，发生了更加邪恶的事情。还在反对共产主义的声音一个接一个地被压制下去了。数百万“知识分子”——学生、教师、教授、科学家和作家被迫向新政权表忠心。意识形态教育成了常态，自我批评、自我谴责以及自我揭露会此起彼伏，直到抵抗被粉碎，个体被臣服，心甘情愿为集体服务。有些人受不了这样压力，自杀了。

如今，反腐行动也与一场“整风运动”同时展开。正如1951、1952年一样，民主、自由和宪政这类不怀好意的思想必须剪除。就在几周前，据报道，有几个人仅因在网上表达了对政府的不满而被捕。

在1951、1952年时，除了少数得以宣传的政府腐败案，企业界也持续遭到打压。不听话的企业家连续多日被关在自己的办公室里，偶尔被拖出去，到“批斗会”上接受工人批判。批斗会上，他们会遭到呵斥、羞辱，有时还会挨打。恐惧让一些人相互检举揭发。当时的财政部长薄一波向毛泽东汇报说，一些行业领袖站在台上吓得瑟瑟发抖，拼命相互指责揭发。仅上海一地，两个月内逾640位商人自杀。

如今，国家压制商业的运动不那么血腥了，但正如《华盛顿邮报》(The Washington Post)一篇文章的标题所言：“大量首席执行官在华成了人质”。针对企业的“反腐败”调查骤然增多，其中有很多是针对外企。曝光的最大的外企是英国药企葛兰素史克(GSK)，它被指控为提振药品销量向医生行贿高达30亿元人民币。所有企业都开始对照数不清的法规进行自查，尽管其中很多法规以前从未执行过。

1949年，中共“解放”了中国，到1954年，中共遭遇了党内最严峻的挑战之一。约瑟夫?斯大林(Joseph Stalin)逝世后不到一年，毛泽东就清洗了高岗。这位曾颇有权势的官员被疑与苏联关系过于密切。毛泽东把矛头转向高岗及其追随者，成功地把其他高级领导人拉到自己一边。薄一波就是打压高岗的人士之一，或许他是打心底讨厌高岗，也可能是为了仕途晋升。他的儿子薄熙来如今站到了审判席上。高岗受到秘密审判后几个月，试图开枪自杀，但子弹打偏了（后来他服下大量安眠药，结束了自己的生命）。随后开始了一场政治迫害，其他领导人受到指控，以反党罪被送到政治犯集中营。对薄熙来的审判是公开的——或者说近乎公开。但他的追随者一个接一个落马了。这与20世纪50年代的情况如出一辙，并不出人意料：毕竟，这就是一党制国家防止分裂的方式。

习近平曾公开表示对毛泽东的敬仰。2012年7月他参观了西柏坡村，1949年中共就是从那里向北京城发起进攻的。习近平站在这片“圣地”上，誓言要让“红色江山永不变色”。

一些外国观察人士认为，习近平对毛泽东遗产的捍卫仅仅停留在言辞上，旨在安抚党内的保守派。但观察一党制国家的领导人时，明智的做法是，按照字面意思，而非推测演绎，去理解他说的话。习近平看上去从历史上吸取了不少经验，或许我们这些对中华人民共和国感兴趣的人都应该像习近平一样，认真研究中共政权的早期历史。

本文作者是历史学家，著有《解放的悲剧：中国革命史》(Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution)

译者/何黎