Editor’s Note: Since the publication of Shu Wu’s “Some Materials Concerning Hu Feng’s Counterrevolutionary Clique,” people have been outraged by Hu Feng’s heinous crimes against the Party, the people, and the revolution. Our newspaper has received a flood of articles and letters from readers across the country, all calling for a thorough exposure of Hu Feng and his gang’s criminal activities. This wave of indignation is unstoppable. Yet some who sympathize with Hu Feng—or who outwardly oppose him but inwardly feel sympathy—are arguing that most of the materials date from before Liberation and therefore cannot serve as grounds for conviction. Very well, then; let us now examine the second batch of documents.

The materials presented here are excerpts from sixty-eight secret letters written by Hu Feng to members of his reactionary clique. All these letters were penned after the nationwide liberation. In them, Hu Feng viciously slanders the CPC, its literary and artistic policies, and its leading cadres; he curses both Party-member writers and non-Party writers in the literary circles. He directs his reactionary associates to engage in anti-Party, anti-people criminal activities, secretly and systematically organizing them to launch frenzied attacks against the CPC and the Party’s literary front. Moreover, he incites his followers to infiltrate the Party and revolutionary organizations, establish footholds, build up their “strength,” gather intelligence, and steal Party documents. These letters clearly reveal that, following Liberation, Hu Feng intensified his duplicitous tactics: publicly he would say things like “Let’s not provoke any conflicts” or “We should go along where possible” with the Party and the people, while behind the scenes he was busily “sharpening my sword and watching for an opening,” employing a “Sun Wukong burrowing into the belly” strategy to carry out counterrevolutionary operations. When his brazen assaults on the Party failed, he promptly ordered his acolytes to prepare for retreat, advising them to “seek rebirth through endurance” and to draft individualized false self-criticisms so they could lie low and wait for another opportunity. This fully demonstrates the extreme gravity of Hu Feng and his clique’s counterrevolutionary plot. We must redouble our vigilance and never fall for their ruse of feigned surrender.

Much of the correspondence between Hu Feng and his associates was conducted in a clandestine, highly secretive manner. They had agreed among themselves to use various code names and cryptic language in their letters. References to CPC leaders, literary officials, and Party-member writers were invariably couched in code. The addressees’ names often differed from those actually listed, and the envelopes frequently bore the names of the recipients’ wives or other individuals; signatures at the end of the letters also varied or were omitted altogether. Many of Hu Feng’s letters were sent using stationery and envelopes from the People’s Daily and the Liberation Daily, with addresses such as “To be forwarded by Shanghai New Literature Publishing House,” “To be forwarded by Shanghai Youth News,” “To be forwarded by Zhang at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing,” or other institutional designations.

What follows are excerpts from these secret letters, grouped into three categories according to content and arranged roughly in chronological order. Any marginal notes appearing in the text are original to the documents.

Note: By “uniformity of public opinion,” Hu Feng means that counterrevolutionaries should be barred from expressing counterrevolutionary views. This is precisely correct: under our system, no counterrevolutionary elements are permitted freedom of speech; only the people enjoy such freedom within our ranks. Among the people, we do allow for diversity of opinion—freedom of criticism, freedom to voice differing views, and freedom to propagate both theism and atheism (that is, materialism). In any society, there will always be advanced and backward forces, with conflicting ideas locked in struggle. It is impossible—and undesirable—to achieve “uniformity of opinion.” Only by vigorously promoting the progressive and overcoming the backward can society advance. However, as long as class antagonisms and class struggle persist both internationally and domestically, the working class and the broad masses, having seized state power, must suppress all counterrevolutionary classes, groups, and individuals who resist the revolution, thwart their attempts to restore the old order, and prohibit any counterrevolutionary use of freedom of speech to further their subversive aims. It is precisely this reality that makes “uniformity of opinion” so inconvenient for counterrevolutionaries like Hu Feng. Their discomfort is exactly what we intend—and what serves our interests. Our public discourse is both uniform and diverse. Within the ranks of the people, we permit the advanced and the backward to compete freely through our newspapers, periodicals, platforms, and other media, so that the former may educate the latter by democratic persuasion and help them overcome outdated ideas and institutions. As one contradiction is resolved, new contradictions arise, and the contest continues. In this way, society moves forward ceaselessly. The very existence of contradictions signifies diversity; once a contradiction is overcome, relative uniformity is restored—but soon new contradictions emerge, and the cycle repeats. In the case of the conflict between the people and counterrevolutionaries, it is the people, led by the working class and the CPC, who exercise dictatorship over the counterrevolutionaries. Here, we do not rely on democratic methods; instead, we employ dictatorial, authoritarian measures, keeping them strictly in check and forbidding any disorderly speech or action. Not only is public opinion uniformly controlled here, but so too are the laws. On this point, counterrevolutionaries like Hu Feng often sound quite eloquent; some uninformed individuals, after hearing their arguments, even begin to feel somewhat uneasy. After all, “uniformity of opinion”—or rather, “no opinion at all,” or “suppression of freedom”—surely sounds rather harsh, doesn’t it? Yet they fail to distinguish between two distinct spheres: the internal and the external. Within the people, suppressing freedom, stifling criticism of errors and shortcomings in the work of the Party and the government, and curtailing free academic debate are all criminal acts. Such practices are lawful, however, in capitalist countries. Conversely, outside the people, permitting counterrevolutionaries to speak and act at will constitutes a crime, whereas exercising dictatorship is entirely legitimate. This is our system. In capitalist societies, by contrast, the bourgeoisie wields dictatorial power, strictly controlling the revolutionary masses and forbidding any disorderly conduct. Exploiters and counterrevolutionaries are always a numerical minority, while the exploited and the revolutionary majority, making the dictatorship of the latter eminently justified and that of the former fundamentally untenable.  Hu Feng also claims: “The vast majority of readers are caught up in some form of organized life, where the atmosphere is coercive.” Within our own ranks, we reject coercive commandism and uphold democratic persuasion; the atmosphere ought to be one of freedom. To speak of “coercion” is simply wrong. The fact that “the vast majority of readers are engaged in organized life” is indeed a great achievement. Such a development has been unprecedented for millennia; only after the people, under the leadership of the CPC, waged a long and arduous struggle did they finally gain the capacity to transform themselves from a scattered mass vulnerable to reactionary exploitation and oppression into a united force. And within just a few years after the revolution’s victory, this grand unity of the people was realized. What Hu Feng refers to as “coercion,” however, applies solely to the counterrevolutionary camp. They are indeed trembling with fear, feeling “like a timid young wife constantly afraid of being beaten,” and convinced that “even a single cough might be recorded.” We regard this as equally significant. Again, it is something that has never occurred before—only after the people, led by the CPC, fought a prolonged and grueling battle did these villains come to experience such discomfort. In short, the day when the people rejoice is the day when counterrevolutionaries suffer. Our National Day celebrations each year are, above all, a celebration of this very fact.  Hu Feng further asserts: “When it comes to literary matters, mechanistic thinking is by far the most convenient approach.” Here, “mechanistic thinking” is a deliberate inversion of dialectical materialism, and his claim about its “convenience” is sheer nonsense. Only idealism and metaphysics require no effort, for they allow one to spout empty theories without reference to objective reality or accountability to empirical evidence. Materialism and dialectics, by contrast, demand hard work: they must be grounded in reality and subjected to rigorous verification; otherwise, one easily lapses into idealism and metaphysics. In this letter, Hu Feng raises three fundamental questions that warrant detailed refutation. He also notes: “At present, feelings of resistance are widespread, and demands for further action are emerging everywhere,” a remark he made in 1950. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek’s main military forces had just been crushed on the mainland, and numerous bandit gangs composed of former counterrevolutionary troops remained to be eliminated. Major land reform and campaigns to suppress counterrevolutionaries had yet to begin, and the cultural and educational sectors had not yet undergone rectification. Hu Feng’s words do reflect the situation then, though they are incomplete. The full picture is this: throughout the country, counterrevolutionary sentiments resisting the revolution are rife, accompanied by a host of disruptive, counterrevolutionary demands aimed at undermining the revolutionary process.

Note: Sectarianism—what our ancestors called “factionalism,” and what many today still refer to as “cliques” or “networks”—is a familiar phenomenon. Those engaged in such practices often accuse others of sectarianism, denouncing sectarians as unscrupulous while portraying themselves as upright and principled—indeed, as beyond factionalism altogether. According to reports, the group led by Hu Feng consisted of “young writers” and “revolutionary writers” who were allegedly “hated and persecuted” by a Communist Party faction characterized by “bourgeois ideology” and a penchant for carving out an “independent fiefdom.” Consequently, they sought revenge. As for the Literary Gazette affair, it was “merely a breach that happened to be discovered.” This “affair was by no means isolated”; they hoped to use it as a springboard to expose the “underlying problem of sectarian rule”—a regime of “sectarianism and warlordism.” Recognizing the seriousness of the matter, they deliberately “leaked” a considerable amount of information in order to draw attention to it. As a result, Hu Feng’s group came under scrutiny. A closer examination revealed that they constituted a sizable organization—not the “small clique” previously assumed. Nor were they merely a collection of cultural figures; their members had penetrated political, military, economic, cultural, and educational spheres. And they were certainly not a band of open, armed revolutionaries either. Rather, the core of their ranks was composed of agents of the Nationalist regime, Trotskyists, reactionary officers, or defectors from the Party—individuals who formed the backbone of a clandestine counterrevolutionary faction operating within the revolutionary camp, a kind of underground independent fiefdom. The mission of this counterrevolutionary faction and underground kingdom was to overthrow the People’s Republic of China and restore the rule of the Nationalist regime. They were perpetually on the lookout for weaknesses in our ranks, which they would exploit as pretexts for sabotage. Wherever they managed to plant their influence, strange problems would inevitably arise. This counterrevolutionary group continued to grow after Liberation, and unless checked, it would likely keep expanding. Now that the true nature of Hu Feng’s circle has been uncovered, many of their actions can be understood, and their destructive activities can be brought to a halt.

From the foregoing materials, we can see that: (1) Since Liberation, the counterrevolutionary conspiracy hatched by Hu Feng’s clique has become more organized and more extensive, with increasingly ferocious attacks directed against the CPC and the Party’s literary front; (2) Like all counterrevolutionary groups, their sabotage was consistently carried out through covert or duplicitous means; (3) Following the exposure of their plot, Hu Feng’s clique has been forced to shift from offense to defense. Nevertheless, this reactionary gang—whose hatred of the Party, the people, and the revolution has reached a狂暴 level—is by no means laying down its arms. Instead, it seeks to preserve its “strength” through duplicitous tactics, biding its time until it can regroup and strike again. Hu Feng’s encouragement of his followers with phrases like “Find rebirth through endurance” and “Everything we do is for the cause, for a greater future” bears clear witness to this. Like other overt or hidden counterrevolutionaries, Hu Feng’s associates pin their hopes on the restoration of a counterrevolutionary regime and the collapse of the people’s revolutionary government. They believe that this is precisely the opportunity they have been waiting for.

We must draw profound lessons from the conspiratorial activities of Hu Feng’s clique. It is imperative that we maintain a high degree of vigilance across all sectors of work, skillfully identifying those who masquerade as supporters of the revolution while in fact opposing it, and purging them from every front we occupy, thereby safeguarding the great victories we have already achieved and those yet to come.