1May, 963 10, Mao Zedong gave instructions on the report of the Northeast Bureau of the Communist Party of China and the Henan and Anhui Bureau on the rural socialist education movement: "It is generally feasible to educate young people with village history, family history, social history and factory history." (Mao Zedong Manuscripts Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China (Volume 10), Central Literature Publishing House, 1996 Edition, P297) 1964 On July 5, Mao Zedong said in a conversation with Mao Yuanxin: "Studying modern history without village history and family history is tantamount to farting." (Long live Mao Zedong Thought, February edition, 1967, P3 16) The advocacy of the "supreme directive" quickly turned into the organization and mobilization of party committees at all levels, and hundreds of millions of people actively or passively participated in it. When the national history writing movement is in full swing, historians are also considered to be duty-bound and must devote themselves to being "people's historians" Some historians write articles to explain this new direction of historical research, and many young students compete to write "four histories" as the fashion. The "Four History" movement swept across the country and was regarded as "one of the basic undertakings of the socialist revolution" and "a revolution in history".
Wu Han, a famous historian who was then the vice mayor of Beijing, actively responded to the call of compiling the "Four Histories" and made considerable efforts to this end. In the name of "Wu Nanxing", he has published three articles on the compilation of "Four Histories" in Frontline, an organ publication sponsored by Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China: talking about writing village history (Frontline No.22,1963); On compiling village history (Frontline 1964 No.2); Memories from a rare historical material (Frontline1March 4th, 964). In the "Four History", social history, village history and family history all focus on rural grassroots. Wu Han's article focuses on the compilation of "village history", but "village history" and "family history" are inseparable, and the compilation of "family history" is naturally within its concern. "Four History" is a "new thing of revolution", which is in the exploration stage, and there are no ready-made examples to follow, let alone exemplary works for reference. Wu Han's article focuses on the theoretical elaboration of the compilation of "Four Histories" and puts forward some ideas on how to operate it in practice. Because of Wu Han's high political and academic status, these articles have a wide influence.
In Talking about the History of Villages, Wu Han first sought the origin of China's traditional scholarship for the Four Histories. He emphasized that village history, social history, factory history and family history "belong to the category of local chronicles in form", so there is a long tradition that can be critically inherited. As for the specific way to proceed, he believes that it can be eclectic. "Taking things as the key link, choosing key events, highlighting narratives, telling things to people, and taking the Lord as the second is a way of writing. Taking people as the key link, choosing key main figures, depicting their struggle process, and expounding the party's leadership role with people's narrative are also a way of writing. " "Things to write positive, also want to write negative, easy to compare, also easy to describe, otherwise, only write positive, not negative, the struggle is impossible. So do people. " He further believed that the compilation of "Four Histories" laid the foundation for the compilation of People's Republic of China (PRC) (China).
1964 65438+ 10/3. Wu Han hosted a forum on village history in the name of Beijing Historical Society, and discussed some problems in compiling village history, family history and social history. Deng Tuo, secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, minister of the United Front Work Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, historians such as Jane Bozan, Shao Xunzheng, Lin, Luo and other writers attended the meeting. In view of the chaos in the compilation of the "Four History" movement, the meeting particularly emphasized that the "Four History" is a true story, which cannot be simplified, rashly engaged in, and even less fictional. (Su Shuangbi: Beijing Historical Society held a forum on village history to discuss the significance, method, content and style of compiling village history, Beijing Daily, 3rd edition, 1964 18).
The article "Talking about the Compilation of Village History" synthesizes some opinions of the participants, and puts forward more specific ideas on the compilation of village history and family history: (1) The writing time limit of village history and family history, "the upper limit should not be earlier than 20 years before liberation, and the lower limit should be as recent as possible", that is, "30 to 40 years before and after liberation". (2) As far as content is concerned: First of all, history and geography are not separated. "To write a good village history, we must understand the geographical environment of this village, that is, the material foundation." This part of the content can be summarized as landscapes, products and customs. Secondly, the narrative of key events can be written in a matter-oriented way, "a bit like the chronicle of old historians"; You can also take people as the key link, which is "a bit like the biography or character record of an old historian". Third, some things are more important, but there is no need to focus on them. You can "arrange all the major events in chronological order, make a chronology and attach it to the back of the book." In this way, the general situation can be combined with close-ups and memorabilia. Some people are fine, they are flesh and blood. (3) As far as genre is concerned, Wu Han thinks that it should be eclectic, with chronology, chronology, characters and so on. Can be adopted. "Four History" is a revolutionary new thing, which should be explored in writing practice. "It is expected that there will be a new historical genre of the socialist era in the future, which is suitable for the style of our great era." In his article, Wu Han particularly emphasized that the compilation of village history must adhere to the principle of truth and accuracy, "Describe people and things realistically with a strict scientific attitude, and absolutely forbid exaggeration and concealment. Exaggerated, this person is only seven points good, you say it is very good; Covered up, this person did something wrong, you cover it up for him, so that people are not true, things are not true, not only the masses can't get through, but also they can't learn from it, which is very bad. " Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to write the "four histories" by means of literary and artistic creation.
In the article "Memories from a Rare Historical Material", Wu Han emphasized the significance of compiling the Four Histories from the perspective of historical material collection. He proposed, "There are few or no written historical materials left directly by the working people themselves. However, they destroyed property, sold land and houses, borrowed money, leased the land of landlords and rich peasants, betrayed their wives, children and even themselves, and sent their sons to be employees or apprentices. These transactions, loans, leases and employment may be made into contracts or written documents and handed over to landlords, rich peasants, creditors, employers and owners. Many working people have been tumbling in this kind of contract and written evidence all their lives, and they can't turn over; Most of their "endless sufferings in life" are reflected in such contracts and written evidence. The super-economic exploitation and extremely cruel oppression of the feudal exploiting class are often realized through such tools. Therefore, such documents should be good historical materials in the village history and family history of working people. "
In the "Four History" movement, non-history professionals such as rural literati, writers, journalists and editors played a leading role, while those who had been trained in history played a supporting role to some extent. Non-historiography majors often write "Four Histories" in literary style, which is inevitable, but it is more in line with the "Left" social and political atmosphere at that time, easier to meet the needs of political propaganda, and naturally more favored by publishers. At that time, the criteria for publishing houses to judge the quality of the "Four Histories" were firstly "whether it reflected the main line of class struggle", secondly "whether it had rich feelings of working people" and thirdly "whether the content was true" (China Youth Publishing House: some experiences in editing and publishing the "Four Histories", People's Daily 1965 10. Historians always keep the subject of "history" in their hearts. If they want to reflect the truth of history, they must meet the requirements of ideology. Xin Li's memory reflects the confusion of historians: "In Zhangye, although I came into contact with a lot of information about the history of poor peasants and village communities, how did these materials get into the book?" To serve proletarian politics, history can only be said to be good, not bad, but what we are seeing now is poverty and backwardness. Can all the materials found in the' four clean-ups' be truthfully written? (Xin Li: "Those Years: Memoirs of Li Xin", Shanxi People's Publishing House, 2008, 1 1 edition, P389) In addition, "Four History" is literary, vivid and infectious, and is loved by workers and peasants with generally low knowledge level; The "four histories" of historiography are considered to be too dull to meet the appreciation tastes of workers and peasants. Wei Junyi participated in the compilation of The Red Star in the North-The History of Changxindian Locomotive and Rolling Stock Factory. The first draft is rich in content and information, "some of them are like a detailed history book". As a result, some old workers "said it couldn't catch people" and "comrades of the party Committee read it and said they were afraid that the masses wouldn't like it", so they had to rewrite it and strengthen their literariness. (Wei Junyi: On the History of Factory, People's Literature, No.2, 1960).