# Jia Zhifang: Preface to the new translation of "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" by Gide (1998)
Note: This article is the preface written by Mr. Jia Zhifang for the Chinese translation of Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union, a travelogue written by French writer Gide in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The following is the text:
After Mr. Zhu Jing wrote her "Biography of Gide" and published it as one of the "Biographies of World Cultural Celebrities" series by Taipei Yeqiang Publishing House last year, I advised her to skillfully re-translate the political and political circles of the 1930s. Gide's "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union" caused an uproar in the literary world, and he volunteered to recommend to Mr. Zhu Jing that as a person who has come from the depths of history, he would write a few words for this new translation. This suggestion of mine was made in recent years after being sealed for fifty years in compliance with the author's will. It was also written in the same period as Gide's "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union" and even has striking similarities in content. It is also a colleague of his in our country's intellectual circles. The well-known "Moscow Diary" by Romain Rolland became a hot topic in the literary world and caused controversy after two translations were published in my country.
Gide was a person who loved to travel, and he was a scholar-type questioner who did not immerse himself in writing about his studies. He likes to walk around, seek life in life, experience life, understand the world and himself. Therefore, Mr. Zhu Jing asked her student Huang Bei to re-translate another book "A Journey to the Congo" published in 1927, which also caused controversy in France, in which he exposed and accused the evils of colonial rule. This will help us understand Gide. The attitude towards life and writing concepts expressed in "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" will be more comprehensive and in-depth.
Andre Gide is an ideological writer, a writer who is far away from utilitarianism and likes to think. Although he started writing very early, he understood himself, the world and life through writing. As he said in his early years: "Only when my first thoughts, my awakening natural thoughts support the book I am writing, can it become a masterpiece." Although he wrote a lot in the past few years, he never received recognition from the world. The books he wrote in his early days were only printed in three to five hundred copies. In that society with a developed cultural market, this was a very special phenomenon. cultural phenomenon.
Gide himself felt depressed by not being understood and accepted by others. In order to escape loneliness and seek new knowledge, he often traveled. From July 1926 to May 1927, he traveled along the Congo River to several French colonies in Equatorial Africa. After returning to China, he published "A Journey to the Congo" and then "Return from Chad". He witnessed and heard with his own eyes. He put aside political issues and introduced the situation of French colonial equatorial Africa in detail and concretely from the perspective of sociology and ethnography, recording the injustice and ugliness under the colonial system. He pointed out that it was the colonial system that destroyed Africa. This is the rational and objective questioning attitude towards reality that Gide always insisted on.
After Gide's "A Journey to the Congo" was published, he was besieged by right-wing newspapers and periodicals, and Gide responded tit-for-tat in his article. He pointed out that if the colonial government continued to rule like that, the colonial system would not last long. Later, the history of Africa really confirmed the correctness of Gide's conclusion, and the colonial system was unworkable.
This debate greatly increased Gide's popularity, and it has gone beyond the circle of literary enthusiasts to the entire society. Gide's original purpose in writing "A Journey to the Congo" and "Return from Chad" was to arouse citizens' awareness of justice and say a few words of justice to the indigenous Africans, but the development of the matter far exceeded his original intention. . Gide's little sympathy for the indigenous Africans gradually led him to the prevailing communist ideology at the time. In the late 1920s, the Soviet Union was an emerging thing. The right attacked it and slandered it, while the left supported it, yearned for it, and placed hope in it. Gide has been thinking hard for forty years. His dissatisfaction with the confinement of Catholicism and the constraints of his family gave him a hope and yearning for the Soviet Union that advertised communism. He said: "I want to shout loudly for the Soviet Union. My cry will definitely be heard and it will definitely work. I must go to the Soviet Union to see it."
In the 1920s and 1930s, as the democratic political system of Western Europe was challenged by fascism and exposed its weakness, intellectuals were originally idealists and romantics who harbored the ultimate concern and pursuit of human destiny. The Soviet Union under Stalin's dictatorship took advantage of this favorable international situation and proposed the anti-fascist international united front strategy. This won the praise and support of conscientious intellectuals around the world. Therefore, the left-wing ideological trend in the 1930s became a worldwide trend. The mainstream trend of thought, the so-called red 1930s, was formed in this way. For European intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s, especially left-wing intellectuals, they were a fanatical class. Out of dissatisfaction or indignation with the reality of the society in which they lived, they were keen to join the reform social movement and to establish a new society. Moral system. The Soviet government took advantage of the situation and took advantage of this trend of thought. It encouraged them through propaganda machines, heated up their enthusiasm, and fueled the flames. These naive and simple intellectuals were full of daydreams and longings for the Soviet Union, and regarded the Soviet Union as their Platonic ideal. The Utopia worshiped Stalin as a god, and Gide was also one of these naive intellectuals. He said: "I wholeheartedly wish it success, and I am willing to contribute to its success." He lectured, made reports, and chaired conferences everywhere. Letters from proletarians around the world to Gide piled up, which made him I saw a representative writer of communism. He often wore the uniform of the Leftist Writers Association and showed up everywhere. His fanatical artistic conception suited the political needs of the Soviet Union, which was surrounded by all forces at that time. In order to get rid of its isolation and win the sympathy of international public opinion, it often invited left-wing intellectuals from various countries in the name of writers associations and artists associations. A representative figure of the Communist Party went to the Soviet Union to visit. For example, during the same period, France's Babisset, Romain Rolland and Gide were invited. In May 1936, Gide was invited to the Soviet Union with great hope to attend Gorky's memorial service held in Moscow's Red Square. He delivered a passionate speech. He said: "In our thoughts, the future of culture and The fate of the Soviet Union is closely linked, and we must defend it!" After the memorial service, Gide and his delegation continued to visit the Soviet Union, and he received a grand reception as a distinguished guest. At first, Gide was full of expectations and feelings for the Soviet Union. He said: "I don't think people anywhere will show such deep and strong human feelings as in the Soviet Union!"
But soon, the reality of the Soviet Union that he saw with his own eyes shattered his idealistic illusion. He paid little attention to the natural scenery in various parts of the Soviet Union. He was concerned about the living environment of the Soviet people and their inner world. He was deeply worried about the future of the Soviet Union. After independent thinking, he wrote the book "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union", which truly recorded what he saw, heard and felt in the Soviet Union. He believes that he has the right to do so, which is a normal manifestation of the conscience and social responsibility that a writer should have as a writer. He said: "If I made a mistake at first, then the best way is to admit my mistake as soon as possible... In my opinion, there is something more important than myself, and that is all mankind, all mankind destiny, the culture of all mankind.”
Although the Soviets tried their best to show Gide the Soviet-style freedom and happiness, Gide used a Westerner who advocated freedom and individuality to tell the truth from the uniformity of people's clothes and the uniformity of the houses and furniture in collective farms. Tianji: "Everyone's happiness comes at the expense of personal happiness. If you want to be happy, just obey the (collective), right?" Gide pointed out keenly that in the Soviet Union, only one kind of policy was allowed for anything and any issue. A point of view, an opinion, is what we know as "uniformity of public opinion." People have become accustomed to this uniform ideological rule and are insensitive. Gide found that no matter which Soviet person he spoke to, they all said exactly the same thing. Gide said that this is because the propaganda machine has unified their thoughts, making them unable to think independently. On the other hand, a little dissent, a little criticism can lead to great disaster. Gide severely criticized: "I don't think in any other country today, even in Hitler's Germany, people's minds would not be so restricted, and people would not be so submissive, so fearful, and so obedient." Therefore, human beings are different from other lower-level animals in that they have brains and thinking instincts. Using totalitarian means to deprive people of their freedom of thought, or to agree with people's thoughts and make people become a vacuum zone, is tantamount to removing people's souls. This is totalitarianism. The result of this rule is also the maintenance of totalitarianism, allowing it to continue to exist. "Faced with this current situation of poverty of thought and stereotyped language, who dares to talk about culture?" Gide asserted: "This will lead to terrorism." It is worth pondering that Gide's hidden worries and worries at the time suddenly disappeared in the blink of an eye. time, it became a living reality of Soviet life. Beginning with Gide's visit to the Soviet Union in 1936, the Great Purge and Counterrevolutionary Movement, initiated and led by Stalin himself, was fully launched in the Soviet Union and lasted until 1938. History seemed to have returned to Niklasso In the long poem "Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia", the husband cursed the life in the autocratic era of Tsarist Russia. It was a terrifying and dark era in which "even stones can cry", just like the French enlightenment scholar Montesquieu in the eighteenth century. The historical experience summarized is: "The authoritarian political system requires terror." What is even more surprising is that Stalin's anti-revolutionary campaign in 1936 actually started one year after the promulgation of the national constitution.
Gide was disgusted by the cult of Stalin's personality that he saw everywhere in the Soviet Union. He believed that the disgusting name for Stalin was too stupid and instead belittled Stalin. He pointedly pointed out: "This approach set up a terrible and insurmountable distance between Stalin and the people."
Gide In the Soviet Union, portraits of Stalin can be seen everywhere. He visited a so-called modern painting exhibition, and the theme of every painting in the exhibition revolved around Stalin. Gide said bluntly: "They are no longer painters...Stalin's cultural autocracy has killed so many artistic 'geniuses.'" "Life lies in movement, and artistic life lies in innovation, which lies in constantly breaking through traditions and norms. Once art When a work is placed under orthodoxy, no matter how high its skill, it dies; uniformity kills the vitality of art.”
Gide is a very popular writer among young people in Europe, especially in France. His early works reflect the distress, confusion and ideals of a generation of young people. He was also very interested in young people in the Soviet Union and was willing to talk to them. He made sharp criticisms of the self-centered education under the Stalin system. He was sensitive to the fact that the Soviet people cared very much about what foreigners thought of them. "For them, The trip to the Soviet Union was dark." The little girls in the kindergarten were not interested in whether there were kindergartens in France. They just wanted to know whether the French knew that the Soviet Union had such good kindergartens as theirs. A Soviet sailor said to Gide: "If we want to report all the beautiful and great new achievements that have happened in the Soviet Union, we would not be able to collect all the papers in the world." This kind of arrogant mentality is enough to explain being shut down in his own country. The ordinary people here are fooled into being stupid, ridiculous, and pitifully numb. This kind of stupidity is not new to us either. During the "Cultural Revolution", didn't we often hear such heroic words in newspapers and periodicals or verbally? -----"There are three billion class brothers in the world who are living in poverty, hunger, cold, and dire straits under the iron heel of the imperialist revisionists, waiting for us to liberate them." "The enemy is in chaos day by day, and we are getting better day by day. "Socialism is heaven, capitalism is hell." etc. are derived from the thinking model created by Stalin. Under the new historical situation of reform and opening up, looking back, it is really full of absurdities and bitter tears. I can’t bear to look back on those days!
Gide believes that what is even more tragic is that the arrogant Soviet youth are actually innocent. This is a product created by the entire propaganda machine and education machine. Such young people cannot be more comfortable for the rulers. The Soviet Union trained its youth to be soul-drained people. Gide sighed sadly: "The brains of the Soviet people have been wiped clean!" This is really like our country's traditional Confucian governance: "The people can make it happen, but they cannot make it known." Or he has been paying attention to this famous saying since the 1950s. A modern expression that is ever popular in our country and a code of life of "being a taming tool of the Party". Before going sightseeing in the Soviet Union, Gide was in capitalist Europe. He idealized the Soviet Union based on an idea and a pursuit, and imagined the Soviet Union as an utopia with no restrictions and no taboos that he had always longed for. , free country. He envisioned a communist Soviet Union without the moral codes he collided with in capitalist society, and he hoped to see in the Soviet Union "what a country without a church, a society without a family can give us." He believed that the church and the family were the two worst enemies of a progressive society, which was actually a misunderstanding or misunderstanding. And our modern Chinese intellectuals who have been influenced by the cultural spirit of the "May 4th" are all motivated by opposing the feudal autocratic system based on agricultural production or the system since the Republic of China that has long hindered social progress, backward production, poor people, and suppressed cultural publishing. Disguised feudal rule, I was pleasantly surprised to find this famous saying from the Marxist classic "The Communist Manifesto": "The liberation of the individual presupposes the liberation of the entire society." The socialist revolution started by the Soviet Union and won, for China It is a great inspiration and support force and a model for the vast number of working people in the world who live under the old system, including intellectuals like me. Therefore, "Today in the Soviet Union is our tomorrow" and has become our generation's Intellectuals fought for it and pursued life through life and death, so much so that they paid a heavy price with their lives.
It is said that when Gide took a closer look at this utopia, he saw harshness, rigidity, dogma, suspicion, power, and hypocrisy, which created an unbearable and suffocating living environment. He pointed out: "Changes in social conditions will not promote changes in human nature. We cannot look at the problem mechanically. Without the transformation of individual hearts, we see the old bourgeois society formed again, the 'old people' reappearing, and they are thriving again. It has become developed." Here Gide reveals the transformation of people's inner world. He pointed out: "Those in power in Soviet society, instead of trying to transform themselves, formed a new privileged class. Under the banner of revolution, they deceived the people, grabbed the fruits of the revolution, and prospered. This kind of 'new people' 'Their hearts are more greedy and vicious than the 'old people'. They are people who have revolutionized the 'old people'. In order to protect their vested interests, they are more vicious and ruthless towards people who have different opinions." Gide was disappointed. Yes, disillusioned.
Gide, who was greatly disappointed, relied on his own conscience to report the truth about the Soviet Union that he saw as belief. In November 1936, Gide's "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" was officially published. It sold 100,000 copies that year and attracted the attention of various countries, which led to the publication of translations. The Soviet Union was greatly disappointed in him, and mobilized the left-wing influence in various countries around the world to accuse and attack him, calling him a "wolf in sheep's clothing", a "crazy anti-Soviet and anti-communist element", and a "fascist spy". . The coming together of Gide and the Soviet Union was accidental, and their breakup was inevitable. After "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union", he wrote "Supplement to "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union", which more pointedly put forward his views on some sensitive issues in the Soviet Union. Gide said: "People who visit the Soviet Union have preconceived ideas and their own sensitivities. People who are friendly to the Soviet Union often refuse to see the dark side, or at least refuse to acknowledge its dark side. Exposing the Soviet Union Those who tell the truth are often those with hatred, and those who love it are making up lies.” The Soviet Union and its followers in the world were afraid of criticism from others and the exposure of the true situation of the Soviet Union. They tried their best to defend the Soviet Union. Strive to prove that the current situation in the Soviet Union is completely natural, or that this is the only correct way to move toward communism. They tried their best to prove that Gide was wrong, that he looked at the Soviet Union through colored glasses, and even said that this was a manifestation of his bourgeois worldview limited to class prejudice. These comments are no stranger to people of our generation who have gone through history. At most, we feel why this non-utilitarian liberal writer has such strict requirements for an emerging political and social system. Is it a bit too much to blame? In other words, I was amazed by the debate over this cultural-political phenomenon. To be honest, I didn’t understand this book at the time. On the contrary, with the drastic changes in China's political situation, China is still full of fascination and yearning for the Soviet Union. It is true that "practice makes true knowledge". After the political movements after liberation, and I was regarded as a "dictatorship object", after long-term imprisonment and labor reform, I have experienced various hardships and heard and witnessed the reality of my country, especially in the 1990s. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and before that, China overthrew the "Gang of Four" and others who "brought disaster to the country and the people". I gained personal liberation and changed from a "ghost" to a human being. , has successively published academic works on Soviet studies, such as the "Internally Released" Dissidents of the Former Soviet Union, "The Science of Power" by Avtor, and "The Soviet Union" edited by Boros Levitsky. "The Terror of Stalinism in the Thirties", "Let History Be the Judge - The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism" by Roya Medvedev and his "The Terror of Stalinism in the Thirties" The Japanese translation of "Opinions of the Minority" and the English translation of "Oriental Despotism" by the German Karl Weft, known as a Western Marxist, as well as literary and artistic works translated and published in my country since the 1980s that describe Stalin's rule. , such as Bosternak's "Doctor Zhivago", Rybakov's "Children of Arbat Street", Solzhenitsyn's "Cancer Ward", "Gulet Islands", etc., to After reading Romain Rolland's "Moscow Diary" in the 1990s, I truly understood Gide's "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union" and "Supplement to "Return from a Visit to the Soviet Union", and I was deeply impressed by this man who insisted on his own conscience. I would like to express my sincere respect for a writer with a strong sense
It should be added that among the other category of people invited to the Soviet Union quoted by Gide, those who are "friendly to the Soviet Union" tend to "refuse to see the dark side, or at least refuse to recognize it." "The dark side," "Those who love it are making up lies," according to my memory, a French leftist writer who was invited to visit the Soviet Union in the same historical era as Gide to write about his actual combat experience in participating in the First World War, wrote Barbitia, who is famous for "Under the Line of Fire", also wrote a book about his visit to the Soviet Union at that time, "Seeing a World from a Person - A Biography of Stalin". Shortly after this book was published, it was translated from French into Chinese by Xu Maoyong , and was published by Life Bookstore, but what is incredible is that this work, which eulogized the Soviet Union and Stalin based on his own ideas and enthusiasm, did not have the sensational effect that the translator expected in the fiery 1930s, and it seemed that it did not It has not been reprinted. What is more worthy of study and thinking is that the French writer Romain Rolland, who visited the Soviet Union in the same historical era as Gide, although it was published fifty years after the writer's death, the content is also similar to Gide's "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union". "Moscow Diary" has the same purpose but when Gide's "Returning from a Visit to the Soviet Union" was published in France, it also joined in the criticism and denunciation of Gide. As the new translator of this book, Mr. Zhu Jing, said: " Why did he order it to be hidden for fifty years but then came to accuse those who told the truth? "He is not a citizen under Stalin's rule. Like the Soviet writers in the Stalin era or the Chinese writers in our country during the "Cultural Revolution" from the 1950s to the 1950s, in order to seek personal safety and even glory and wealth, he "had no choice but to make this move" "What about knowingly committing the crime? Therefore, when Romain Rolland's "Moscow Diary" was published in two translations in the new era of our country at the same time, it became a hot topic of discussion in our country's literary circles. I think this is probably one of the reasons. one.
Gide said to readers: "Sooner or later you will open your eyes. You will have to open your eyes. At that time, you will ask yourself, how could you honest people keep your eyes closed for so long and not see the facts?"
I think today’s readers will feel the same way as Gide when they read Mr. Zhu Jing’s new translation.
Gide did not read Romain Rolland's "Moscow Diary" during his lifetime. What made Gide sad at that time was not Romain Rolland's accusation against him. He said: "What makes me sad is that there are too few great men who can remain great until the end of their lives." ”
Now I quote a sentence from Gide as the conclusion of this preface: "Only works that can get rid of utilitarian pursuits are valuable." Let me quote another passage from Gide's early years that I quoted above: " Only when my original thoughts dominate the book I am writing can it become a masterpiece." I think these aphoristic words from Gide can be the most appropriate epigraph for this book. Although the Soviet Union has disintegrated in the face of history, Gide's documentary work, as a historical experience or lesson, will never lose its due historical significance and literary value. Instead, through the test of historical practice, it has confirmed its role in the world historical position in literary history. Speaking of which, I believe that Mr. Zhu Jing spent time re-translating this old book in addition to his heavy teaching work. It is precisely because it is an old book that it will emit eternal historical light. Her hard work will be worthy of our gratitude!