Wu Han ( zh, s=吴晗, p=Wú Hán}; August 11, 1909 – October 11, 1969) was a Chinese historian and politician. Wu was one of the most important historians in the development of modern
historical scholarship in China during the 1930s and 1940s.
In the 1940s he was a leading member of the
China Democratic League, a non-aligned political organization during most of the
Chinese civil war
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...
which eventually threw its weight behind the
Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
. After 1949, he served as the Vice Mayor of Beijing.
In November 1965, at the beginning of the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
, he came under attack for a play he wrote about an upright Ming dynasty official called ''
Hai Rui Dismissed from Office
''Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'' (; also called ''Dismissal of Hai Jui'' in English) is a stage play, written by Wu Han (1909–1969), notable for its involvement in Chinese politics during the Cultural Revolution. The play itself focused on ...
'', which was widely understood as an anti-Mao allegory. His political downfall also resulted in the purge of Beijing Mayor
Peng Zhen. Wu died in prison in 1969.
Biography
Early life and education
Wu Han was born in
Yiwu,
Zhejiang
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, image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg
, image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains
, image_map = Zhejiang i ...
in 1909. With support from the Wu clan organization and with the money from selling his mother's jewelry, he attended university preparatory schools in
Hangzhou
Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...
and then in Shanghai, where he was inspired by the lectures of
Hu Shih. He entered
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (THU) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Constructio ...
in 1931 and came under the influence of
Tsiang Tingfu. Since he was responsible for the support of his brother and sister, he was unable to go abroad for study. Wu stayed at Tsinghua as a teaching assistant but began to publish important articles on Ming dynasty history using critical techniques to resolve old controversies and raise new questions.
1937–1953
When the war with Japan broke out in 1937, Wu joined
National Southwestern Associated University in
Kunming
Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...
. While there, he wrote a full scale biography of the founder of the Ming dynasty,
Zhu Yuanzhang, published in 1943, expanded and revised in 1947. He became a leading intellectual in the democratic movement of the 1940s, as well as a widely published essayist. Through his part in the
China Democratic League he was enlisted in the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.
When the new
United Front
A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political and/ ...
was founded, as a member of the Democratic League, Wu was asked to take the position of Vice Mayor of Beijing in charge of education and cultural affairs for the 6 county municipal area that became a model for municipalities across the PRC. In the 1950s, Wu represented China abroad on cultural tours and popularized his research at home, using figures from history as models and allegorical figures. He became a member of the
Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
secretly in the mid-50s; this was not known by his colleagues or by Party members except at the very highest level. It was only revealed in the Cultural Revolution by the Red Guard accusations after they found his files.
As a historian, Wu was a pioneering researcher into the Ming dynasty.
The topic had been taboo under the Qing dynasty.
Later years
In 1956, Wu Han and Yuan Zhen adopted
Wu Xiaoyan. In 1958, the two adopted Wu Zhang.
Several years before the controversy and political dispute raised by ''
Hai Rui Dismissed from Office
''Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'' (; also called ''Dismissal of Hai Jui'' in English) is a stage play, written by Wu Han (1909–1969), notable for its involvement in Chinese politics during the Cultural Revolution. The play itself focused on ...
'', Wu Han,
Deng Tuo, and Liao Mosha wrote a series of articles called ''The Village of the Three Families'' which satirized the political experiments of the
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an indu ...
.
Yang Jisheng wrote in his history of the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
:
As a leading Ming historian within the party, Wu Han used Marxism
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
to interpret history and used history as a politically charged allusion to the present. Prior to the establishment of the PRC, Wu Han's works had castigated the founding Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, as a stand-in for Chiang Kai-shek, but after the PRC was established, Wu's book ''Zhu Yuanzhang'' served as a paean of praise to Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...
. This double standard is typical of intellectuals who rise to fame under a totalitarian government.
Yang writes that Mao had encouraged Wu Han to write the essay "Hai Rui Scolds the Emperor," published under Wu's pen name in the
People's Daily
The ''People's Daily'' ( zh, s=人民日报, p=Rénmín Rìbào) is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP in multiple lan ...
in June 1959, which was based on events in the life of a Ming dynasty official. Wu subsequently turned the essay, after multiple revisions, into the
Beijing opera ''Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'', which was performed in 1961 to great acclaim. Subsequently, "...the hypervigilant
Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing (March 191414 May 1991), also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and political figure. She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman of the Communis ...
and
Kang Sheng decided
twas ... 'related to the
Lushan Conference
The Lushan Conference was a meeting of the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held between July and August 1959. The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, CCP Politburo met in an "expanded session" (''Kuoda Huiyi'') between July ...
and ... implicitly endorsed 'assigning output quotas to households' and the ongoing verdict-reversal wind. Mao took their views seriously and instructed Jiang Qing to find a hit man to denounce the play."
[Yang, ''The World Turned Upside Down'', p. 34.]
The subsequent attacks on the play and Wu Han were actually aimed at the mayor of Beijing,
Peng Zhen, a pillar of the
Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
("CCP") establishment that Mao wanted to take down. This process took time but eventually resulted in launch of the ten-year struggle between Mao and the CCP bureaucracy known as the Cultural Revolution.
The leftist literary critic
Yao Wenyuan, later appointed to the Politburo of the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is the Central committee, highest organ when the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, national congress is not ...
and who became known as one of the
Gang of Four, fired one of the opening shots in this struggle on November 10, 1965, when he published an article in
Wenhui Bao attacking Wu and his play on the grounds that Hai Rui was metaphorically equated with Marshal
Peng Dehuai
Peng Dehuai (October 24, 1898November 29, 1974; also spelled as Peng Teh-Huai) was a Chinese general and politician who was the Minister of National Defense (China), Minister of National Defense from 1954 to 1959. Peng was born into a poor ...
, who had criticized Mao for launching the
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an indu ...
and who had been purged as a result. Yao Wenyuan argued that therefore Wu Han had equated Mao himself with the un-approachable Ming emperor who dismissed the righteous Hai Rui from office.
Under intense pressure, Wu admitted ideological mistakes but denied that his motives were counter-revolutionary. Over the next months the controversy grew, and Wu was finally jailed. Although there were reports that Wu Han committed suicide while in prison in 1969, fellow prisoners later reported that he was beaten in prison about a year before he died. It is also thought his tuberculosis may have recurred so it cannot be established how he died.
See also
*
Chen Boda
*
Jian Bozan
*
Deng Tuo
*
Wu Xiaoyan, Wu's adopted daughter
References
Sources
* Mary G. Mazur (2009). ''Wu Han, Historian: Son of China's Times''. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009. . Review, Diana Lin, ''H-Asia'' (May 2010
*Mary G. Mazur (1993), "Intellectual Activism in China During the 1940s: Wu Han in the United Front and the Democratic League," ''The China Quarterly'' 133 (1993): 27–55.
*
Jonathan D. Spence (1990), ''
The Search for Modern China'' (New York: Norton 1990).
* William Safire (1978), ''Safire's Political Dictionary'', 1978, Random House. "Cultural Revolution," pp. 153–4.
* Clive Ansley (1971). ''The Heresy of Wu Han: His Play "Hai Rui's Dismissal" and its Role in China's Cultural Revolution.''Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
*“Wu Han” (1970), Howard L. Boorman, Richard C. Howard, eds. ''Biographical Dictionary of Republican China'' Vol 3 (New York,: Columbia University Press, 1970): 425–430.
External links
* .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wu, Han
1909 births
1969 deaths
20th-century Chinese historians
Chinese Communist Party politicians from Zhejiang
Deputy mayors of Beijing
Educators from Jinhua
Historians from Zhejiang
Academic staff of the National Southwestern Associated University
People from Yiwu
People persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution
People's Republic of China politicians from Zhejiang
Politicians from Jinhua
Writers from Jinhua
Academic staff of Tsinghua University
Academic staff of Yunnan University
Zhejiang University alumni
Dramatists of Chinese opera