Talentous Deng Tuo

Author: Zhang Fan
Editor-in-Chief: Jiang Hongyan
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1999-07-01
Features: Comrade Deng Tuo was a modest and sincere person. He was knowledgeable and well-versed in historical allusions. Comrades liked to be close to him and enjoy heartfelt conversations. I had a good working and personal relationship with him. During the turbulent days of war, when we had free time, we often shared our thoughts, discussed the past and the present, which was a great joy. —
In the early 1960s, Deng Tuo was one of the most notable essayists. In my personal opinion, after careful consideration, I believe Deng Tuo should be regarded as the outstanding essayist of the first four decades of the People's Republic of China. —Zeng Yanxiu
Comrades like Deng Tuo belong to the elite of the Party, the elite of the intellectual community, and also the elite of our nation. His untimely death was not just a personal tragedy but also an unfortunate loss for our common cause. —Shao Yanxiang
Since the invention of writing in China, poetry has been abundant, with countless poets leaving their mark. Some are remembered for their poetry, while others are remembered by it. Deng Tuo, however, is immortal both as a person and as a poet. His entire life and the spirit he embodied are a precious legacy left to future generations. —Shao Yanxiang
Reading Yanshan Night Talks and Sanjiaocun Notes, one cannot help but imagine. I often wonder if the absence of Deng Tuo’s voice and presence in China during the early 1960s would have left an irreparable gap in history. However, given Deng Tuo’s talent and political acumen, if the historical environment of China at the time had been slightly more democratic and open, he would have left us with even more. —Du Daozheng
Excerpt: Returning to Fuzhou with a body scarred by hardship, he found his middle school classmate and friend Fu Yiling had just returned from vacation in Xiamen. They decided to go to the Wushishan Library to study. There, he discovered that the philosophical debate in China’s intellectual circles, which had begun before his imprisonment, was still raging. Faced with bourgeois academic authorities like Zhang Dongshun, Deng Tuo showed no fear. In October 1933, under the pen name Deng Yuntè, he published an article titled Formal Logic or Materialist Dialectics in the New China bimonthly, refuting Zhang Dongshun’s idealist view that “dialectics had become outdated relics in human history.” Deng Tuo clearly stated in the article: “Every thing is full of contradictions. Its development lies in the quantitative accumulation of contradictions within it, leading to a qualitative transformation.” “Materialist dialectics grasps all things through their interconnectedness because all things are interrelated. It grasps the development of history through the unity of opposites, the movement and change of contradictions, because all things are inherently united in opposition, in contradiction, in movement and change, and in gradual development. Materialist dialectics can conform to these objective laws, which is the reason why it can be a correct scientific method.” “Dialectics is the general law of the existence, movement, and development of nature, society, and thought. People can use it to understand and grasp all objective things.” At the age of 21, Deng Tuo’s ability to write such a high-level work demonstrated his theoretical depth.
On November 20, 1933, the famous “Min Rebellion” occurred in Fuzhou. Generals Chen Mingshu, Jiang Guangnai, and Cai Tingkai of the 19th Route Army openly broke with Chiang Kai-shek and established a people’s revolutionary government against Japan and Chiang. Deng Tuo immediately joined the government, serving as a specialist in the Cultural Committee and a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for publicity and liaison work. The Fujian People’s Government ignited a wave of anti-Japanese and anti-Chiang sentiment among the people of Fuzhou, elevating revolutionary thought to new heights. This alarmed the right-wing of the Kuomintang, who mobilized large armies to attack Fujian, with Japanese imperialism openly supporting them. Under siege from both inside and outside, the Fujian People’s Government was ultimately overwhelmed and declared defeated the following January.
After the failure of the “Min Rebellion,” Deng Tuo was wanted and forced to return to Shanghai. With the help of old classmates, he taught at Pudong Middle School for several months. During this time, he did not abandon his academic pursuits, joining the activities of the “Chinese Rural Economy Research Society” organized by Xue Mùqiáo and Sun Yànfāng. In autumn, his older brother Deng Boyu, who was working in the Henan Provincial Government, wrote to him, inviting him to Kaifeng to continue his studies. Unable to find a Party organization in Shanghai and wanting to complete his education, Deng Tuo could no longer return to his original school. He wrote to his brother: “Zhongzhou may be my haven.”
Deng Tuo arrived in Kaifeng and enrolled in the history department of Henan University as a transfer student. At the time, the department head was Luo Zhangyan, also known as Luo Zhanglong, who had studied Marxism in Germany. Luo Zhanglong personally taught the course Socialism and Social Movements, while other famous scholars of the 1930s, such as Li Da, Fan Wenlan, and Deng Chumin, also later came to Henan University to teach philosophy and history. Here, Deng Tuo absorbed a wide range of knowledge while beginning his research and writing in history. Between 1935 and 1936, under the pen name Deng Yuntè, he published two articles in the Zhongshan Cultural Education Quarterly: “On the Problem of ‘Long-term Stagnation’ in China’s Feudal Society” and “Revisiting the Problem of ‘Stagnation’ in China’s Feudal System.” At the time, Trotskyist Yan Lingfeng, Ren Shu, and nationalist writers like Tao Xisheng and Hu Qiuyuan claimed that China had already entered a “commercial capitalism” before the Opium War, attempting to deny the semi-feudal and semi-colonial nature of Chinese society and thereby undermining the democratic revolutionary program of the CCP against imperialism and feudalism. Deng Tuo’s two articles refuted their claims using Marxist viewpoints and methods. He stated: “Commercial capital itself cannot establish any mode of production or create any surplus value; it can only operate within existing production methods.” There had never been a historical period of “commercial capitalism,” and it could not be deduced that the feudal system had already collapsed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
Postscript: Du Daozheng
Writing Deng Tuo as a “talented scholar” is entirely fitting. Both the author and I were long-time subordinates under Deng Tuo, working as editors and reporters for the Jin-Cha-Ji Daily under his leadership. We both knew that he was not, as he was accused of being, a “scholar running a newspaper” or a “dead man running a newspaper,” nor was he an intellectual uninterested in politics. On the contrary, since the day he joined the revolution, his life had been closely tied to politics. Among his contemporaries, he was undeniably a revolutionary with high theoretical, cultural, and political sensitivity. During his youth, though known for his poetry and prose, his greatest interest lay in history and philosophy, where he achieved remarkable proficiency. In the 1930s, a decade of outstanding talent, his History of Famine Relief in China caused quite a stir. His research, grounded in historical depth, gave him a rigorous logical mind after embracing Marxist theory. All this allowed him to thrive in the Jin-Cha-Ji Anti-Japanese Democratic Base Area after the Lugouqiao Incident, showcasing his talent and becoming a prominent figure in theory, thought, and culture under Nie Rongzhen and Peng Zhen.
During his tenure as editor-in-chief of the Jin-Cha-Ji Daily, in 1942, he wrote Commemorating the 7th Anniversary, Learning and Mastering Mao Zedong Thought, one of the earliest systematic discussions of Mao Zedong Thought in CCP history. The Selected Works of Mao Zedong, which he edited, was the first official collection of Mao Zedong’s works. All this demonstrated his talent and the visionary qualities of a statesman.
After the founding of the People’s Republic, during his ten years as editor-in-chief of the People’s Daily (1949–1958), his qualities as a statesman in journalism did not change. He continued to maintain a habit of independent thinking on domestic and international affairs, with a relatively clear and pragmatic political mind. He did not blindly follow the directives of leaders, which made him unpopular in the highly abnormal political climate of the time. Everywhere he went, he felt like an obstacle, and his ambitions and talents were suppressed and drowned out. In the end, he had to leave the People’s Daily under accusations that he was not only not running a newspaper in the style of a statesman but even not in the style of a scholar, but rather a “dead man running a newspaper.”
Before leaving the People’s Daily, he once sighed in front of a temple: “If allowed, I truly wish I could stay here and read more books and write more articles.” His desire for seclusion was evident. In the year he left the People’s Daily, he also served as the head of the Leading Group for the Establishment of the Chinese History Museum. He had planned to write a History of Chinese Painting, perhaps a desperate attempt to find peace in retirement. However, Deng Tuo was not Shen Congwen. Similarly talented in the 1930s, Shen Congwen, after leaving the literary world, devoted all his energy to writing A History of Ancient Chinese Clothing. Deng Tuo’s History of Chinese Painting was never completed, but he left behind Yanshan Night Talks and Sanjiaocun Notes, works brimming with concern for reality and criticism, as well as a heavy sense of historical responsibility.
Reading Yanshan Night Talks and Sanjiaocun Notes, one cannot help but imagine. I often wonder if the absence of Deng Tuo’s voice and presence in China during the early 1960s would have left an irreparable gap in history. However, given Deng Tuo’s talent and political acumen, if the historical environment of China at the time had been slightly more democratic and open, he would have left us with even more. Thinking of Deng Tuo also reminds me of the fates of other Chinese elites and geniuses like Lao She, Tian Jiaoying, Wu Han, Liao Moshan, and Tian Han. It becomes impossible to avoid the conclusion that “totalitarianism will stifle creativity and talent.” The history of China, including contemporary history, is filled with too many successes and failures, or rather, too many bloody lessons on this issue. All upright people have a responsibility to engage in deeper reflection and more practical efforts to protect the creativity of the Chinese people and their geniuses.