Zhu Xueqin: Read Zuo Fang's "How Steel Can't Be Made"

I intersected with the left in 1994. At that time, "Southern Weekend" was preparing to expand from the fourth edition to the eighth edition. He went around looking for successors to join and invited me to Guangzhou to talk earnestly.

In his editor-in-chief's office, a detail caught my attention. The young people who came in and out all called him "Old Zuo" instead of "Zuo Zuo". At that time, the leader was called "X total", which has expanded from enterprises to all walks of life and even party and government organs, which can be described as fashionable. I once heard a reporter on Shanghai TV call the city-level chief appointed by D as "Boss ×", and the latter was delighted by it. Zuo Fang obviously hated this ethos, and did the opposite, so that his subordinates all called him "Old Zuo", which was also very happy. It was a small matter, but it impressed me.

There is another matter, which also shows the character: at that time in Beijing and Shanghai, I saw young people at the Southern Weekend reporter station using Audi cars to go in and out for interviews, while at the Guangzhou headquarters, as the editor-in-chief, he rode a worn-out bicycle. get off work. Zuo Fang explained: "Beijing and Shanghai high-rise complexes are snobbish in access control. If you don't go in and out by car, you will always be blocked from the door. It is my exception to approve, and that is their job needs. As for myself, there is no need for this." It was a small incident that allowed me to see the undertones of the ideals of the Left in his early years and his pursuit of the principle of equality in the Paris Commune in his middle age.

I also asked him: How to "subdue" those rebellious young people and bring out such a team that dares to fight tough battles? Zuo Fang smiled like an old urchin and called himself a big "thief", who could get news that other families couldn't get, but this "thief" took Zhuangzi's "dao", "thieves also have the Tao", and praised Zhuangzi. Nine-character formula:

First in, last out, evenly divided, know if you can.

Twenty years later, in this oral autobiography, I see Zuo Fang explain this "nine-character formula" in detail: "Enter first" , take the lead, and see the risk first; "Exit later", after the evacuation is interrupted, review, demote, and be punished , the leader should take care of the subordinates, and the subordinates will not be entrusted; "Equally divided" , can't take the big head, scattered wealth and gathered people; "Knowing whether" , the leader must judge where the weakness is, where is the landmine, not only to grab news, but also to protect people. Back then, I was attracted by his "nine-character formula", and I fell in love at first sight and became a fellow. After 20 years of separation between the north and the south, there are not many opportunities to meet, but I always miss the left side and pay attention to "Southern Weekend", that is, I am convinced by his charisma.

The "Nine-character Jue" has been known for a long time, but only after reading the whole book did I realize that there are more exciting "six-character proverbs".

It was 1987, and he asked Huang Wenyu, then director of the Guangdong Provincial Press and Publication Bureau. Huang is known locally as the ancestor of the press, a thinker-type newspaperman, and the left side calls him a "spiritual mentor". "Southern Weekend" asked him to write an article to add color to the fifth anniversary album. Huang said that he had sealed the pen for many years, and he could only write on behalf of the text. But in that letter, he wrote that "there can be unspoken truths, but you must never tell lies." This sentence first became a training report for Southern Weekly, and later became a training report for the entire Southern Newspaper Group. The "Six-character Proverbs" comes from the night conversation between Zuo and Huang in the fall of 1987:

Zuo Q: Who is the target of news reform? Why don't you talk about this first question?

Huang A: It's not that I don't know, everyone knows it, but it's because of sensitivity that people don't want to talk about it. The target of the reform is the Pravda model. As soon as liberation, I worked in a news unit. I know that both Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily sent people to the Soviet Union to learn from the Soviet Union. Mao Zedong once instructed to copy them all first. Change it later. Therefore, Pravda's newspaper concept, propaganda methods, rules and regulations, and even organizational structure are all copied. So newspapers all over the country have a model, and this is the Pravda model.

Zuo Q: What is the essence of the Pravda model?

Huang A: You have never run a newspaper before liberation, you can see it clearly only by comparing it. You'd better ask Xiao Qian this question.

Zuo Zai asked: How should we change our newspaper?

Huang A: You can just go back.

Left: Where to go back?

Huang A: Go back to the progressive tradition of journalism in the 1930s. We in China originally had very good news traditions, but these traditions were thrown away after liberation. Your task is to align with our original Chinese news traditions. I also took the rail once, but secretly.

Left Q: How did you get the track secretly?

Huang A: It was 1957. Tao Zhu asked me to organize the "Yangcheng Evening News", and he explained that if you started a small "Nanfang Daily", you should not do it. I am also very troubled. The newspapers all over the country are the same. If you ask me to run an evening newspaper that is different from the national newspaper, what should I do? I went to Wu Weizi, who ran a newspaper before liberation, and was transferred to Nanfang Daily after liberation. Everyone called him the "Editor King", but he was later labeled as a big rightist. He took a lot of newspapers from before liberation and Hong Kong in the middle of the night and sneaked to my house. He told me that if you want to open a new evening paper, you must abide by the rules of the main news and supplements . You must dare to touch the news, grab the news, and do some social news. People dare not do it, you do it. Evening newspapers should be dominated by supplements, and two supplements should be published every day, one for literature and art and one for miscellaneous stories. I took his advice and published two supplements, "Flower Land" and "Gala Party," and another column, "Five Floors Downstairs," which was full of social news. Unexpectedly, with this column and two supplements, "Yangcheng Evening News" became popular all over the country. I took the track secretly once, you can do it publicly.

Zuo Q: What is the essence of our tradition of good journalism?

Huang A: worry about the country and the people, and care for the disadvantaged.

Zuo Q: There is a lot of resistance to breaking through the Pravda model. Where is the breakthrough point?

Huang A: The breakthrough point is in the market. If the leader criticizes you, you will say that you are going to the newsstand, and you will ask readers to pay for it, and you have stipulated how much money you will make a year.

So, what is the Pravda model pointed out by Huang Wenyu? Zuo Fang later went to Beijing to inquire about Xiao Qian. Xiao Qian made four points:

First, it only runs the newspaper according to the red-headed document, not according to the social reality;

Second, it is only responsible to the top, and the "Pravda" model has no readers;

The third is to use a false, big, empty language to write reports, and the style is also "formula". We in the press call it "Xinhua Style, People's Language", which is the style of Xinhua News Agency and the language of "People's Daily" ;

Fourth, it denies the commodity attributes of the media, and whoever says that the media is a commodity will be labeled a rightist.

The above questions and answers are really important. Novelists with rich literary imagination may use this as a blueprint to create the first chapter of the Chinese version of "The Story of Monte Cristo", the famous prison dialogue between the elders in the castle cell and the new prisoners.

But from what I read, it is first and foremost a precious historical material, which should be included in the history of modern journalism and even the history of Chinese reform.

Over the past 30 years, Southern Weekly has been called the "Whampoa Military Academy" of news reform, and a large number of reporters and editors have been trained and spread all over the country. , aroused the attention of readers across the country and even the world's counterparts. There have been several Chinese and foreign doctoral dissertations on this topic. One of them is written in English at the University of Hong Kong, where our Zuofang New Book Release Symposium is held.

"You go back to the track", not only illuminates the direction of the news reform in the 1980s, but even reveals the secret of the entire Chinese reform.

China's reform in the 1980s was a golden decade, but the trajectory of reform was a double compound line: it was both outward-looking and introverted; it was both avant-garde and retrograde. Looking at the rural reforms, urban reforms, economic reforms, and even the political reforms in the 1980s that were put on the brakes, is this not the case?

Even Hu Yaobang has said that reform is a step backward, and we must retreat enough. This is exactly what Marx said back then: Only when people have retreated to the point where they can no longer retreat, will history recite its curse -- here is Rados, there are roses, you start here, and Dance here!

Let Huang Wenyu and Zuo speak Chinese Chinese, just six words - "You go back and connect"! But it is clearer, more straightforward and frank than "crossing the river by feeling the stones".

From the memory of Huang Wenyu's teachings from the left, to Xiao Gan's explanation of what the "Pravda" newspaper model is, and then "retreat" until the dead of night in 1957, the right wing Wu Weizi brought the newspaper before liberation to teach Huang Wenyu, three o'clock in a line, history Is it actually "regressing" forward?

In 1983, Zuo Fang was thawed after being frozen in the data room for six years, and two other senior "old editors" who had been discriminated against for many years were ordered to start a business. As a result, Nanfang Daily spread the saying: It was one rebel and two rightists. Create a "Southern Weekend"! This reminds me of the scene where Qian Zhongshu and Li Shenzhi were speechless at a critical juncture in history. In the silence, Qian Zhongshu spoke with a poem: "The stars never quench the embers of the fire, and an inch is hard to burn the ashes after drowning." A generation has passed The "ember fire" is still there, and the "ash after drowning" is not dead. The latter is indeed "incombustible" - one "drowning" and then "drowning"; but it is just as tenacious as the former, one "burning" and then "burning", "one inch, one inch" to burn, "one inch, one inch" to connect, "One inch, one inch" approaching us.

Looking back on the second half of his life, the left side borrowed the grievances of being trapped in "three kinds of people" after the Cultural Revolution, and expanded this specific concept: this is a group of few people. If they lived in the 1960s, they would participate in the rebellion. If they lived in the 1980s, they would definitely become reformers, for freedom, democracy, and equality. Just like the groundwater rushing out of the ground again and again, the "three kinds of people" are actually one kind of people!

Looking back, 80 years of life is not too short. Why did Zuo use the Soviet novel that he loved when he was young as a conclusion - "How Steel Can't Be Forged", and a question mark was put on it?

When I asked him when he thought of the title, he was amazed. He said that this was a decision made more than ten years ago. In this life, if he wants to publish a book, he can only use the title of the book. Only this title can sum up his determination as a young man, to serve in the army when he is young, to run a newspaper in his prime, and to run a newspaper in his old age. A rough experience of reflection.

I try to solve three of them:

First, from the novel "How Steel Is Tempered", to the newspaper model of Pravda, to the "Xinhua style, people's language" that Xiao Qian said, this is a dead end of "taking E as a teacher". Such "steel" "cannot be smelted" ended in failure in its exporting countries, and it also "cannot be smelted" in many of its importing countries. Even though some countries are still "refining" and "refining" with foreign powers, the result is still full of complaints, and it is doomed that "refining will not succeed." this is history;

Second, like most of his contemporaries, the ambition of the Left's youth was to become a Paul Korchagin-esque steel warrior. Participating in the Cultural Revolution in his middle age was also to pursue the dream of realizing the Paris Commune. Since then, he has witnessed the despicableness of political struggle and the ruin of the people's livelihood and society, and finally found that this dream is purely false. After the Cultural Revolution, he was frozen in the data room for six years. Instead, it gave him a lot of reading and a chance to contemplate. He finally understood what was delayed in the first half of his life, and he had to break out and find a new way. In this sense, "How Steel Can't Be Made" not only summarizes history, but also embodies his reflections in his later years. this is life;

The last layer, of course, is worrying about the fate of "Southern Weekend". Everyone knows about the brilliance and experience of "Southern Weekend", and even when Obama visited China, he designated only one media outlet, "Southern Weekend" in Lingnan, which was unique in the mainland press after 1949. Obama, as the most incompetent president of the United States after World War II, is not insignificant. This move shows that Southern Weekly has broken through the model of Pravda and won worldwide recognition. When it was first published in 1983, it was just a soft supplement—Saturday News. After 30 years, it has become a major current affairs newspaper with a circulation of one million. Even people like Obama are impressed. This is the history of Chinese journalism. It is also a miracle in the history of Chinese reform. "Southern Weekend" witnessed the beginning of news reform and the upheaval of China's reform. The fate of "Southern Weekend" is not only linked to the performance of Zuo Fang, Jiang Yiping, Qian Gang and other editors-in-chief, but more importantly, it is linked to the fate of the entire Chinese reform.

In this sense, why can't we sigh with emotion: steel still cannot be made?

A book condenses three metaphors, "The sky is cold and the current is swift, and the earth is slightly warm."

Here is the left side, here is "Southern Weekend", "How Steel Can't Be Made".