Cultural Revolution Shaped China’s Leader, From Schoolboy to Survivor
CHRIS BUCKLEY and DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW September 24, 2015
从文革浩劫中走出来的习近平
储百亮, 狄雨霏 2015年9月24日
BEIJING — When the pandemonium of the Cultural Revolution erupted, he was a slight, softly spoken 13-year-old who loved classical Chinese poetry. Two years later, adrift in a city torn apart by warring Red Guards, Xi Jinping had hardened into a combative street survivor.
北京——文化大革命那场浩劫爆发时，他还是个身材瘦小的13岁少年，说起话来语气温和，热爱古典诗词。两年后，在武斗成风的红卫兵肆虐的北京城里漂泊沉浮的过程中，习近平变得坚强起来，成了一个在逆境中生存的斗士。
His father, a senior Communist Party official who had been purged a few years earlier, was seized and repeatedly beaten. Student militantsransacked his family’s home, forcing them to flee, and one of hissisters died in the mayhem. Paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the revolution and denounced by his own mother, the future president of China was on the edge of being thrown into a prison for delinquentchildren of the party elite.
他的父亲是中国共产党的一名高官，早几年遭到清洗，被抓了起来，而且遭到反复殴打。学生造反派洗劫了他的家，强迫他们离开。他的一个姐姐在动乱中死去。这位未来的中国国家主席作为反革命分子在众人面前游街并被自己的母亲谴责，还差一点被投进一个关押党内高层失足子女的少管所。
Visiting the United States this week, Mr. Xi, 62, has presented himself as a polished statesman, at ease hobnobbing with American capitalistsin Seattle and attending a state dinner at the White House in his honor, set for Friday. Yet his first immersion in politics came on the streets of the Chinese capital during the most tumultuous era of Communist rule, when Mao Zedong exhorted students “to bombard the headquarters” of order.
现年62岁的习近平本周正在美国访问。他展现出一名成熟政治家的风范，泰然自若地在西雅图和美国资本家亲切交谈，周五还会在白宫出席专门为他举办的国宴。但他首次接受政治洗礼却是在中国首都的街头，在共产党统治之下最为动荡的年代，在毛泽东号召学生们“炮打司令部”的时候。
Xinhua Press, via Corbis
1983年，时任河北正定县委书记的习近平与群众交谈。
“I always had a stubborn streak and wouldn’t put up with being bullied,” Mr. Xi recalled in an interview in 2000, one of the few times he has spoken about his experience as a teenager in Beijing. “I riled the radicals, and they blamed me for everything that went wrong.”
“我有一股倔劲，不甘受欺负，”习近平在2000年接受采访时回忆道。他很少讲到自己年少时在北京的经历，这是为数不多的一次。我“得罪了造反派，有什么不好的事都算在我身上。”
Mr. Xi has often discussed the seven years he spent exiled to a rural village during the latter part of the Cultural Revolution, including in a speech in Seattle on Tuesday, casting that chapter of his life as anuplifting story of a city boy who discovers the suffering of ordinary Chinese in the countryside and resolves to make a difference.
习近平经常谈起他在文革后期下乡生活了七年。周二在西雅图发表讲话时，他也再度提及。那段经历被描述成一段鼓舞人心的故事：城里的男孩发现中国农村普通人生活艰难，决心努力改变这一状况。
But Mr. Xi has rarely spoken in public about his experiences from 1966 to 1968 at the tumultuous start of the Cultural Revolution, and his close contemporaries refuse to talk to foreign journalists aboutthose years.
然而，习近平一直很少公开谈及他在1966年到1968年间文革伊始那段动荡时期的经历，与他关系密切的同辈人也拒绝向外国记者吐露。
An examination of memoirs written by them and by members of Mr. Xi’s family, though, offers an unusually vivid look at how a shy, bookish youth, raised in the bosom of party privilege, was tested and changed by the chaos that unfolded after Mao’s decision to turn the masses against the party establishment.
不过，通过这些人和习近平的家人撰写的回忆文章，可以非常生动地勾勒出，一个在中共特权的襁褓中长大的、充满书生气的羞涩少年，在那场毛泽东决意使大众将矛头指向当权派而发起的动乱中，是如何经受考验并发生改变的。
Mr. Xi started his transformation in the equivalent of the seventh grade in the August 1 School, a cloistered boarding school largely reserved for children with parents in the senior ranks of the party and the military. When Cultural Revolution militants shut it down, heended up at the No. 25 School, which was a hotbed of discontent with the party elite, said Qian Peizhen, chairwoman of the school’s alumni association.
习近平的转变始于在八一学校上初一的时候。那是一所主要接收党内和部队高干子弟的寄宿学校，与外界隔绝。文革造反派让八一学校停课后，习近平转到了第二十五中。根据二十五中校友会执行会长钱佩珍的说法，当时那里充满了对党内高层的不满情绪。
But as order broke down, Mr. Xi, like many youths, spent little time in class. Mr. Xi and a friend “would hang out all day,” Ms. Qian said.After fleeing their home, he, his mother and his siblings took refuge at the Central Party School, an academy for officials.“We grew up in a highly abnormal environment,” Li Xiaobing, a classmate at the August 1 School, recalled on a school alumni website.
不过，因为文革中社会体系崩塌，习近平像很多青少年一样，很少上课。从家里逃出来以后，他和母亲以及兄弟姐妹搬到了中央党校。“我们的成长过程是在一个很不正常的环境下，”习近平在八一学校的同学李小兵在校友会网页上发布的一则采访视频中回忆道。
The purges, zealotry and mass strife that Mao unleashed during the Cultural Revolution left a lasting mark on every Chinese leader whohas succeeded him. But Mr. Xi stands out because he is the first party chief from the generation of the Red Guards — the youth who served as Mao’s shock troops — and because he fell so far before beginning his trek to power, from a family in the party elite to an unmoored life as a teenage political pariah.
毛泽东在文革期间发动的清洗运动、狂热和群众冲突，在他之后继任的每一位中国领导人身上都留下了永久的印记。但习近平有些与众不同，他是第一位从红卫兵——毛泽东的奇袭队——那一代成长起来的党的领导人，而且在踏上通往权力的长路之前，他曾经跌得那么重，从一名中共高干子弟，沦为失势政治人物无依无靠的子女。
Some of Mr. Xi’s critics argue that his experiences during the Cultural Revolution inform his authoritarian ways. But the imprint of that time was more complex than that, said Patricia M. Thornton, a professor at Oxford who is researching the Cultural Revolution and its legacy.
习近平的一些批评者认为，他在文革期间的经历为他如今的专制作风提供了注解。但那个时期对习近平产生的影响实际上更为复杂，研究文革及其遗产的牛津大学教授蓝梦林(Patricia M. Thornton)表示。
Mr. Xi’s generation venerated Mao, she said, but his family suffered in the violence that Mao unleashed, and Mr. Xi’s outlook is rooted in an elitist rejection of that turmoil.
她说，习近平那一代人崇敬毛泽东，但他的家庭因毛泽东发动的文革暴力而遭受磨难，而且习近平的观念源于精英主义者对文革动乱的排斥。
“Xi got to see both sides of that time, which is one reason I think he’s such an interesting character,” she said, “but that’s also why he’s so difficult to read.”
“习近平看到了那个时代的两面，他之所以成为这样一个有意思的人物，我想这也是原因之一，”她说，“但也让他难以被外界读懂。”
Unlike some youths from elite backgrounds, Mr. Xi did not turn against the party or Mao, but learned to revere strict order and abhor challenges to hierarchy, said Yongyi Song, a historian andlibrarian in Los Angeles who has long studied the Cultural Revolution.
与一些精英背景出身的年轻人不同，习近平没有转而敌视中共或毛泽东，而是学会了推崇严格的秩序、厌恶对等级体系的挑战，长期研究文革的历史学者宋永毅表示。宋永毅在洛杉矶一所高校担任图书馆员。
“He suffered much under Mao,” Mr. Song said, “but I think that actually increased his belief that those who are ‘born red,’ those children of the party elite, earned the right to inherit Mao’s place at the center.”
“在毛泽东统治下，他受了很多苦，”宋永毅说，“但我认为这一点实际上强化了他的一种信念，即‘红色子弟’，也就是中共精英的后代，赢得了继承毛泽东在党内的核心地位的权利。”
At the August 1 School, Mr. Xi and other students were expected to be exemplary servants of the socialist revolution. “We took the children to clean out latrines, and they did a really fine job,” a former teacher, Tang Yuhua, said in an interview for the school alumni association. “The children of officials did what they were told.”
在八一学校，习近平和其他学生背负着成为社会主义革命模范公仆的期望。“我们带着学生去掏茅房，大家干得都挺好的，”之前在八一学校任教的唐毓华在接受该校校友会采访时说。“干部子弟听话。”
One of Mr. Xi’s teachers, Chen Qiuying, recalled him as a studious, elaborately polite boy who was fond of Du Fu, an ancient Chinese poet. He had a “very steady, kind personality,” she said in an interviewpublished in Hong Kong.
But Mr. Xi and his brothers and sisters were vulnerable when the Cultural Revolution began because Mao had turned on theirfather, Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary veteran and vice premier, four years earlier. He lost his post and was sent to work in a factory in central China, while his wife, Qi Xin, kept her job as a party cadre in Beijing.
但文革开始后，习近平和他的兄弟姐妹变成了容易遭受打击的目标，因为他们的父亲，当时的副总理、革命元老习仲勋在四年前已经被打倒。他失去了自己的职位，被下放到位于中国中部的一家工厂工作，而他的妻子齐心则保住了自己的党内职位，依然留在北京。
Many of the first Red Guards who embraced Mao’s call in August 1966 to purge society of ideological enemies and traitors were the children of party officials. But Mr. Xi could not join them because he was too young and had been tainted by his father’s fall.
毛泽东在1966年8月发出清洗中国社会中意识形态敌人和叛徒的号召，率先响应这一号召的红卫兵有很多都是干部子弟。但习近平不能加入，因为他太小，而且也因为父亲被打倒而有了政治污点。
Instead, he became a target of abuse, Ms. Chen said.
相反，他成为被虐待的对象，陈秋影说。
“He told me of one incident, in which a primary school sports teacher with a very poor attitude bullied him when the wave of physicalassaults in the Cultural Revolution was spreading,” she said. The sports teacher, she recalled, mocked him as “child of a black gang,” aterm for toppled officials.
“他曾跟我讲起过一件事，有个作风很差的小学体育老师，在文革武斗之风兴起时欺负他，”她说。她还记得，那名体育老师嘲笑他是“黑帮子女”，黑帮是当时对被打倒官员的称呼。
Radicals accused students at the school of betraying Mao by defending their parents and privileges. A journal published by Red Guards described the school as “a cradle for pampering the sons of senior cadres” that had “bred a successor class of the bourgeoisie.”
激进分子指责八一学校的学生背叛毛泽东，因为他们为其父母和自己享受的特权辩解。一份由红卫兵出版的期刊将这个学校描述为“高干子弟养尊处优的摇篮”，说它是“培养资产阶级接班人的温床”。
Violence was encouraged and widespread. In August and September of 1966, nearly 1,800 people died in attacks across Beijing, according to party estimates issued in 1980.
在那个年代，暴力行为受到鼓励，波及甚广。中国共产党1980年发布的估算数字显示，在1966年8月和9月，整个北京有将近1800人死于迫害。
Mr. Xi lost an elder sister, Xi Heping, his father’s first daughter through an earlier marriage. Official accounts say she was “persecuted to death,” leaving out details, but a historian familiar with the party elite who spoke on condition of anonymity said she probably took her own life under duress, as many targeted by the Red Guards did in those years.
习近平失去了姐姐习和平。她是习仲勋在头一次婚姻中的长女。官方说法是她被“迫害致死”，没有给出细节。不过与党内高层熟识的一名历史学者表示，她可能是在胁迫之下自杀的，与当年被红卫兵揪出来的许多人一样。这名学者要求不具名。
Mr. Xi’s father, who had been exiled to a factory in central China, was seized by Red Guards, who took him to Xi’an, a city in northwest China, where they paraded him around on a truck, beat and interrogated him, and made outlandish accusations that he had used a secret radio set in his home for clandestine foreign contacts.
当时，习近平的父亲已被发配去了中部的一家工厂，后来又被红卫兵抓到了西北的西安市。在那里，他被拉上一辆卡车游街，遭到殴打和批斗，荒谬地受到在家中使用秘密电台暗中通敌的指控。
As the Cultural Revolution spiraled into mayhem, Mr. Xi learned to fend for himself.
随着文化大革命陷入混乱，习近平学会了保护自己。
“We were the ‘blackest’ in the class, and the others all despised us,”recalled Nie Weiping, a classmate at the No. 25 School whose father had also been purged. “They wouldn’t come near us, and we also despised them.”
“我们在班上是最‘黑’的了，当时班上的人都看不起我们，”习近平在二十五中的同学聂卫平回忆道。“不敢沾我们，我们也看不起他们。”聂卫平的父亲当时也被打倒了。
One day, he, Mr. Xi and another teenage friend with a purged father, Liu Weiping, were among a large group ambushed by radical Red Guards outside a school hall. “Hundreds of them came rushing out, waving clubs and yelling, and they beat whomever they saw,” Mr. Nie said in a memoir.
一天，聂卫平、习近平和父亲同样被打倒的十几岁的刘卫平三人与一大群人一起在学校礼堂外遭到激进红卫兵的突然袭击。“好几百人拿着棍子从里面喊着冲出来，见人就打，”聂卫平在一篇回忆文章中表示。
“Xi Jinping and I moved fast and escaped,” he said, “but Liu Weiping ran a step slower, and almost suffered a concussion from a beating.”
“我和习近平动作快，逃了出来，”他说，“而刘卫平跑得慢了一步，被打成脑震荡。”
In the interview published in 2000, when he was still a provincial official, Mr. Xi recalled being singled out and detained by the radicals because of his refusal to yield. “They all believed I was a leader,” he said.
在2000年发表的那篇访谈中，还是省级官员的习近平回忆自己当年因为不甘受欺负而被造反派揪出来，“都以为我是头，”他说。
“They asked me how bad I thought my crimes were,” he said. “I said that they should make a guess, was it enough to deserve being shot? They said it would be enough to be shot 100 times over. I thought,what was the difference between being shot once and 100 times?”
“他们说，你觉得自己的罪行有多重。我说，你给我估计估计，够不够枪毙？他们说，枪毙够100次了。我想100次跟一次没什么区别，都100次了还怕什么?”习近平称。
“Afterwards,” he added, “I recited the thoughts of Chairman Mao every day late into the night.”
“之后，念毛主席语录，天天晚上熬夜，”他还说。
At one point, militants paraded Mr. Xi and five adults on a stage before a rally, according to an associate of Mr. Xi’s father, Yang Ping, citing conversations with the father and family. Mr. Xi had to use both hands to hold up the cone-shaped metal hat he was made to wear.
与习近平父亲熟识的杨屏曾援引与他们一家的谈话。有一次，习近平和五个成人一起被造反派拉去批斗会。他被迫戴着一顶铁制高帽子，只好用两只手吃力地托着。
“The mother had no choice but to go to the struggle session and sat below the stage,” Mr. Yang wrote. “When they yelled, ‘Down with Xi Jinping!’ on the stage, his mother was forced to raise her arm and shout the slogan along with everyone.”
“不得不参加批斗会的妈妈就坐在台下，”杨屏写道。“台上喊‘打倒习近平’时，妈妈被迫举手，跟着大家喊口号。”
By late 1968, Mr. Xi’s record of defiance was enough that he was ordered to a juvenile detention center for the children of purged officials. But he was spared imprisonment after Mao issued a call for urban youths to go to the countryside.
到了1968年底，习近平的反抗之举已足以让上面下令把他送去被打倒的官员子女待的少管所。不过，毛主席不久之后发出指示，让城市青年上山下乡，使他免去了遭到关押的命运。
He did not see his father again until 1972, when Premier Zhou Enlai arranged a family reunion.
直到1972年，在周恩来总理的安排下，一家人团聚，他才再次见到父亲。
The father, battered and disoriented after years of isolation and interrogation, “looked at his two grown boys, and totally failed to recognize them,” according to his father’s biography, citing an interview with Mr. Xi. The older man wept and Mr. Xi offered him a cigarette.
在多年的隔绝和拷打之下，习仲勋受到重创，有些糊涂。“看着两个长大了的儿子，竟然完全不认识了，”其父传记出版时，发表的一篇采访了习近平的文章如是说。父亲流下了泪，习近平递了一支烟。
“He asked me, ‘How come you also smoke?’” Mr. Xi said. “I said, ‘I’m depressed. We’ve also made it through tough times over these years.’
“他就问我，你怎么也抽烟了？”习近平谈到。“我说，‘思想上苦闷，这些年，我们也是从艰难困苦中走过来的。’”
“He went quiet for a moment and said, ‘I grant you approval to smoke.’”
“他沉默了一会儿说，‘你抽烟我批准了。’”
