What Does a History Professor Do?

Wang Yan, male, born in 1916, native of Jiangsu, professor and deputy head of history at Peking University. After the "Cultural Revolution" began, it was criticized and attacked by posters. On June 10, 1966, he killed himself by taking the pesticide "Dichlorvos" at home. He was 50 years old. Wang Yan was the first person to commit suicide after being attacked by Peking University after the start of the Cultural Revolution.

Wang Yan

(Professor, Department of History, Peking University)

Right!

Wang Yan, male, born in 1916, native of Jiangsu, professor and deputy head of history at Peking University. After the "Cultural Revolution" began, it was criticized and attacked by posters. On June 10, 1966, he killed himself by taking the pesticide "Dichlorvos" at home. He was 50 years old. Wang Yan was the first person to commit suicide after being attacked by Peking University after the start of the Cultural Revolution.

Chinese name

Wang Yan

place of birth

Jiangsu

date of birth

Born 1916

Date of death

June 10, 1966

Occupation

professor

Wang Zheng was admitted to Tsinghua University in 1934, and after graduation he followed Chen Yinque to study the history of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Therefore, his name was mentioned in the influential book "The Last Twenty Years of Chen Yinque". Wang Zheng joined the Communist Party of China at Peking University in 1950. He was later promoted to a professor. Before the Cultural Revolution, he was not a "bourgeois professor."

At the beginning of June 1966, the CPC Central Committee sent a "working group" to Peking University to replace the former Peking University authority to lead the Cultural Revolution. Former Peking University authorities have been accused of being "counter-revolutionary gangs." The "working group" mobilized students to "discover" and "struggle" after arriving at the school. Wang Yan was attacked in the history department.

Some students in history posted a poster on Wang Xi 's door. Poster paper fell off and broke. There are two different claims about this matter. It was said that Wang Yan was very angry when he saw the poster, and tore it off. It is said that Wang Yan did not dare to move the poster, it was blown away by the wind. At that time, the students attacked Wang Bao to tear up the posters, which was against and undermining the Cultural Revolution.

Wang Zheng did not admit that he tore the poster. At that time, the "working group" in charge of the school ordered Wang Min to repair and paste the posters. Wang Yan did what the working group asked him to do, but then committed suicide.

Wang Yan's family is on the second floor of ten apartments in Langrunyuan apartment building on the campus of Peking University. A professor living near his house said that that night he faintly heard the sound of screams and impacts in the building, and later calmed down. He didn't know what happened, but later he heard that Wang Yan committed suicide. Wang Yan locked himself in the room and took a large dose of "Dichlorvos."

Dichlorvos was a widely used pesticide at the time, bottled. This pesticide needs to be diluted after adding a large amount of water. The original concentrated "dichlorvos" without water can have fatal damage to the human body. Wang Ye banged his head against the wall and screamed loudly because of the tremendous pain after the intolerable toxicity. When someone pried open the door and went in, he found that he could no longer survive.

Later, in the "Clean Class Movement" that began in 1968, Lu Xikun, a faculty member of the chemistry department at Peking University, also committed "divinity" when he committed suicide. Because of the extreme pain after the onset of toxicity, Lu Xikun chopped his arm with a knife.

A teacher in the history department said that Wang Yan was a clever and quite proud man who had always been a bit arrogant. He committed suicide at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. In fact, the personal insults, beatings, and punishments suffered by others in the history department were far more serious than those he suffered.

It seems a bit too indifferent and uncompassionate to talk about Wang Xi in this way, but this statement is indeed in line with the facts. When Wang Kun committed suicide, the team in charge of Peking University theoretically did not allow open beatings. One and a half months after his death, the violent persecution at Peking University has grown to a serious degree. I don't know how many times. The Red Guards not only waved copper head belts on the podium of the National People's Congress of Peking University to beat people, but also went to the faculty's home to copy and beat them at will. A huge "laboratory reform team" was established on the campus. Some teachers were forced to drink dirty water and died of poisoning in the "laboratory reform team." After the death, the corpse was dissected to prove that the deceased "committed suicide against the Cultural Revolution." According to the author's research results, Peking University first established a campus labor reform team. Since then, every school in the country has established such an organization and it has continued for at least two or three years.

In 1968, more than ten faculty members of the history department of Peking University were put into the school's "gang gang", also known as the "cow shed", and suffered long-term insults, beatings, and torture. Later, the history department also established its own "cow shed." It is quite ironic that the "Sackler Museum" was established in the 1990s on the site of Peking University's "gangster compound", where there are some stone tools used by people from the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. The history of the Cultural Revolution is a restricted area where classes are not allowed on the campus of Peking University.

For generations to come, it is difficult to imagine how brutal a place in the history department of Peking University, such an academic place, should represent civilization and reason. Not only can the Red Guards students insult and beat the teachers unscrupulously, there are even teachers who also shot and beat their colleagues at the "critic meeting." Others fabricated the facts and "exposed" their peers, resulting in more severe persecution of others. When human dignity and life are destroyed, morals are also destroyed

After Wang Yan's death, three other people in the history department of Peking University committed suicide after being subjected to a series of "criticisms" and "struggles." They are: Li Yuan, a teacher of ancient history, Wu Weineng, an administrative cadre, and Lu Bozan, a professor and head of the department. Bo Bozan committed suicide with his wife, Dai Shuwan. In other words, the persecutors who committed suicide in the history department of Peking University were four staff members plus one family member.

Others in the history department were severely persecuted. Professor Xiang Da was classified as a "rightist" in 1957. On September 17, 1966, the "problematic" faculty members of the history department were sent to work in the far suburbs of Beijing. They were organized into groups A and B according to the severity of the "problems". Xiang Da is in Group A with "problems" more "serious". Xiang Da had "uremia". Two weeks later, the ancestors of the ancestors were once returned home, and those in group A were not allowed to return home. Xiang Da couldn't excrete urine and couldn't walk because of leg pain, but he was not allowed to see a doctor. By the end of October, it could not be moved. It was sent to the city and could not be saved. Xiangda died on November 10.

Mao Zedong's daughter Li Ne graduated from the history department of Peking University one year before the Cultural Revolution. During her time at school, she participated in the "Working Group" to lead the "Socialist Education Movement" to rural Beijing suburbs. The school specially assigned her security personnel to do her best to take care of her. When reviewing the "class composition" of the villagers, Hao Bin, a teacher of the history department, did not agree with Li Na's claim that the "composition" of several peasants should be upgraded to a higher level. He once argued with Li Na. That argument was not serious at all. (You know, at that time, the "class composition" of a person would be brought to a higher level, which would bring a great disaster to this person and his family's children.) After the Cultural Revolution began, Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing came to Beijing on the evening of July 26, 1966 University, Jiang Qing spoke at the ten thousand people meeting in the open air plaza, accusing Hao Bin of "persecution" of her daughter. Hao Bin therefore became "the current counter-revolutionary." After Mao Zedong's death, he was vindicated only in 1977. Not only Hao Bin himself was persecuted for a long time, but also his relatives far away in Shenyang and Inner Mongolia. Scholars in the history department should do a study to see if there has been any case in Chinese history where the Emperor Empire King treated their children so violently.

In addition, at the same time as Wang Yue's death in 1966, around June 20, Yu Weichao, a young teacher in the history department of Peking University, committed suicide after the "criticism." Yu Weichao stayed on to teach at Peking University in 1954. He committed suicide twice. One time he was exposed to high voltage. He was hit back by a strong current and did not die, but the index fingers of his hands were burned. The second time was the lying rail. Near Tsinghua Park Railway Station. Fortunately, the driver found him earlier and braked. He was shoveled out by the locomotive so far that his hip was seriously injured. He survived. But in the future writing and smoking, you can only use the middle finger and ring finger. In the early 1980s, he started a lecture on "Archaeology of the Qin and Han Dynasties" at Peking University, and many students listened. The student naturally noticed his disability with missing fingers.

In the early 1990s, Yu Wei became the director of the Chinese History Museum. The writer once wrote to him to inquire about things during the Cultural Revolution. The letter was sent to Beijing Chinese History Museum. However, in the past few years, the author has never received his reply, nor has he received the returned letter.

Perhaps Mr. Yu Weichao did not receive the letter. This possibility should not be too great. The History Museum is a large institution, but since he is the curator, the letter will be sent to him. Perhaps Mr. Yu Weichao did not want to reply although he received my letter. There are two possible reasons for not being willing to reply: they do not want to help document the facts of the Cultural Revolution against the will of the Beijing authorities, or because his personal history is too painful to repeat. A person committed suicide twice, and the pain, whether physical or mental, was too great. In the future, he will still survive the ten years of the Cultural Revolution with the traces of missing fingers left by suicide, which is another kind of long torture.

However, no matter what the reason, Mr. Yu Weichao did not reply, the author deeply regrets. He is a historian and even once the chief executive of China's highest historical institution. Why not help with documenting the history of the Cultural Revolution? His pain, and the pain of Mr. Wang Yan who committed suicide and died in the same period, and the suffering of thousands of Chinese during the Cultural Revolution are the most important part of history. Because the central focus of history should be people, not anything else. Hopefully one day, he will find the courage and strength to work for this period of history.

It is also very regrettable that the Department of History of Peking University, as a department specializing in historical research and teaching, has not recorded and reported the history of the Department itself during the Cultural Revolution. What I remember here is what I learned after asking many people for investigation.

In the history of the history department of Peking University, there is also a disappearance of the name of this department. In November 1969, the Peking University authorities sent faculty and staff to the Liyuzhou wasteland near Poyang Lake in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, and asked them to build their own houses and plant land, which is also a schistosomiasis infection area. Many people contracted schistosomiasis there. In Liyuzhou, the personnel are still organized according to the original system, but they have been changed to military names. At that time, the name of the history department was "Balian". The family wrote a letter to the faculty of the History Department at the address: Balian, Beida, Liyuzhou, Nanchang, Jiangxi.