Sport and politics

Let the games begin

Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition

May 18th 2006 | HONGSHENG AND ANREN
From The Economist print edition

Forty years on, the government still avoids discussion of the Cultural Revolution

NB Pictures

IN THE village of Hongsheng, Li Furong feared trouble when he was summoned one day in August 1966 to a meeting. He had been denounced as a “capitalist-roader” and thought fellow peasants had gathered to attack him. Instead he found himself press-ganged into helping with the murder of octogenarian former landlords in one of the bloodiest orgies of violence in or around China's capital, Beijing, during the Cultural Revolution. Even 40 years later, the authorities are trying to suppress news of what happened in Hongsheng and nearby villages of Beijing's Daxing district.

The Communist Party's unwillingness to confront the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, which was launched on May 16th 1966 and officially ended ten years later with the death of Mao Zedong and the fall of the Gang of Four, means that for Chinese historians as well as for millions of victims that entire period is, in effect, off-limits for debate. The passage of time does not appear to be helping. Chinese scholars say the government has been even more intent on stopping public commemoration of this week's anniversary than it was a decade ago. No mention of it has appeared in the state-controlled media. A group of scholars who held a private symposium in Beijing in March to discuss the Cultural Revolution avoided using e-mail to arrange it for fear their communications would be intercepted by officials.

Partly, it is embarrassment about the scale and brutality of the violence carried out in Mao's name. In Hongsheng, Mr Li, now 75, says village officials told the meeting that former landlords and rich peasants, stripped of their holdings after the Communists took power in 1949, planned to stage a revolt. No evidence was offered. The plan was to kill the alleged plotters and their entire families that night. Mr Li, worried that as a “capitalist-roader” he too would be killed, agreed to use his well-known skills with rope to bind the victims. Two former landlords in their 80s were the first to be dealt with. Mr Li had barely finished his work before the old men were dragged away and beaten to death.

It could have been worse. Mr Li says that, had he not asked the village party chief whether he had written authority for this, other members of the landlords' families would have been murdered that night too. In some neighbouring villages there was much greater bloodshed. The youngest victim was one month old. Bodies were thrown down wells or into pits. In the commune to which Hongsheng belonged, 110 people were slaughtered within 24 hours. This was only one of 13 communes in Daxing district involved in what has become known to locals as the “8/31 [August 31st] massacre”. City officials called a halt to the violence after a couple of brave village officials travelled to the party's headquarters in central Beijing, 35 km (22 miles) away, to complain.

Even today, few in Beijing know anything about this, even though the official death toll, 324, exceeds the conservative government estimate of around 200 killed in the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. A brief mention of the massacre appeared in a book on the Cultural Revolution that was published in 1986 and quickly banned. A detailed government account was published only four years ago in an appendix to the “Daxing County Gazette”, a hefty and little-read tome, but was not reported in any newspaper. Of those killed, the book says, 91 were women. Nineteen entire families were eliminated.

The Daxing killings were part of what some perpetrators boasted of as a “red terror” that gripped Beijing between August and October 1966. Wang Youqin of the University of Chicago says officials have never acknowledged the extent of the bloodshed in the capital. She says that Red Guard mobs, obeying Mao's exhortation to “be violent”, killed some 2,000 Beijing residents in the space of two weeks.

One reason for the government's reticence is that, during this stage of the Cultural Revolution, many Red Guard leaders were the offspring of high-ranking officials who were subsequently purged but who became powerful again after Mao's death. Perpetrators of the violence were barred from influential positions after Deng Xiaoping took control in 1978. But Ms Wang says their family connections often protected them from punishment. The “Daxing County Gazette” says 348 people were “directly responsible” for the murders there, nearly two-thirds of them party members. Only 38 were jailed, the longest for 12 years. Pardons were granted to 246.

Officials fear that closer scrutiny of the Cultural Revolution could destabilise the country by inflaming long suppressed antagonisms. Many scholars now believe that well over 1m were killed or driven to suicide in political struggles between 1966 and 1976. The lives of almost all urban residents were profoundly disrupted. Schools and universities were closed. Educated people were forced to leave cities and work on farms. Family members turned on one another. Many of those now in their 50s belong to a “lost generation” whose education and careers were permanently blighted by the Cultural Revolution.

In 1981 the party leadership issued a long denunciation of the Cultural Revolution, as well as various other “mistakes” made by Mao, though these were portrayed as secondary to his contributions. The “Gang of Four” led by Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, who were deemed responsible for the Cultural Revolution's atrocities, were given lengthy prison terms (the last of the four died in December). Most of those persecuted were officially “rehabilitated” by the early 1980s.

There is, however, no official memorial to the victims. Appeals by some intellectuals for a museum dedicated to the events have gone unheeded. In recent months, private funds have started to remedy this. Last year, a privately run Cultural Revolution museum opened near the coastal city of Shantou in southern Guangdong province. In Anren township, near Chengdu, the capital of the south-western province of Sichuan, a wealthy real-estate developer, Fan Jianchuan, says he is preparing to open another later this month.

These ventures are still modest. The one in Shantou shows pictures of officials and other prominent figures being persecuted, but otherwise sticks to the government line. Mr Fan's will concentrate at first on porcelain artefacts from the period. His vast and lavishly designed complex, opened last year, is already home to a remarkable display of historical daring: a whole building of exhibits concerns the (positive) contribution of the Kuomintang, China's then ruling nationalist party, to the war against Japan. In Communist Party histories the Kuomintang is portrayed as having shirked the war.

But Mr Fan has no plans to display objects relating to the Cultural Revolution's factional warfare and other violence. “It's not just that I'm too cowardly and don't want trouble, but I also think it wouldn't be good for the peace of society,” he says. He may perhaps do so in 20 years.

From :The New York Times
TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2006

John Kenneth Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist, teacher and diplomat and an unapologetically liberal member of the political and academic establishment that he needled in prolific writings for more than half a century, died yesterday at a hospital in Cambridge, Mass. He was 97.

 Galbraith lived in Cambridge and at an "unfarmed farm" near Newfane, Vt. His death was confirmed by his son J. Alan Galbraith.

 Galbraith was one of the most widely read authors in the history of economics; among his 33 books was "The Affluent Society" (1958), one of those rare works that forces a nation to re-examine its values. He wrote fluidly, even on complex topics, and many of his compelling phrases - among them "the affluent society," "conventional wisdom" and "countervailing power" - became part of the language. An imposing presence, lanky and angular at 6 feet 8 inches tall, Galbraith was consulted frequently by national leaders, and he gave advice freely, though it may have been ignored as often as it was taken. Galbraith clearly preferred taking issue with the conventional wisdom he distrusted.

 He strived to change the very texture of the national conversation about power and its nature in the modern world by explaining how the planning of giant corporations superseded market mechanisms. His sweeping ideas, which might have gained even greater traction had he developed disciples willing and able to prove them with mathematical models, came to strike some as almost quaint in today's harsh, interconnected world where corporations devour one another.

 "The distinctiveness of his contribution appears to be slipping from view," Stephen P. Dunn wrote in The Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics in 2002. Galbraith, a revered lecturer for generations of Harvard students, nonetheless always commanded attention.

 Robert Lekachman, a liberal economist who shared many of Galbraith's views on an affluent society that they both thought not generous enough to its poor or sufficiently attendant to its public needs, once described the quality of his discourse as "witty, supple, eloquent, and edged with that sheen of malice which the fallen sons of Adam always find attractive when it is directed at targets other than themselves."

 From the 1930's to the 1990's, Galbraith helped define the terms of the national political debate, influencing the direction of the Democratic Party and the thinking of its leaders.

 He tutored Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956, on Keynesian economics. He advised President John F. Kennedy (often over lobster stew at the Locke-Ober restaurant in their beloved Boston) and served as his ambassador to India.

 Though he eventually broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson over the war in Vietnam, he helped conceive Johnson's Great Society program and wrote a major presidential address that outlined its purposes. In 1968, pursuing his opposition to the war, he helped Senator Eugene J. McCarthy seek the Democratic nomination for president.

 In the course of his long career, he undertook a number of government assignments, including the organization of price controls in World War II and speechwriting for Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson.

 He drew on his experiences in government to write three satirical novels. One in 1968, "The Triumph," a best seller, was an assault on the State Department's slapstick attempts to assist a mythical banana republic, Puerto Santos. In 1990, he took on the Harvard economics department with "A Tenured Professor," ridiculing, among others, a certain outspoken character who bore no small resemblance to himself.

At his death Galbraith was the Paul M. Warburg emeritus professor of economics at Harvard, where he had taught for most of his career. A popular lecturer, he treated economics as an aspect of society and culture rather than as an arcane discipline of numbers.

 Keeping It Simple

 Galbraith was admired, envied and sometimes scorned for his eloquence and wit and his ability to make complicated, dry issues understandable to any educated reader. He enjoyed his international reputation as a slayer of sacred cows and a maverick among economists whose pronouncements became known as "classic Galbraithian heresies."

 But other economists, even many of his fellow liberals, did not generally share his views on production and consumption, and he was not regarded by his peers as among the top-ranked theorists and scholars. Such criticism did not sit well with Galbraith, a man no one ever called modest, and he would respond that his critics had rightly recognized that his ideas were "deeply subversive of the established orthodoxy."

"As a matter of vested interest, if not of truth," he added, "they were compelled to resist." He once said, "Economists are economical, among other things, of ideas; most make those of their graduate days last a lifetime."

 Nearly 40 years after writing "The Affluent Society," Galbraith updated it in 1996 as "The Good Society." In it, he said that his earlier concerns had only worsened: that if anything, America had become even more a "democracy of the fortunate," with the poor increasingly excluded from a fair place at the table.

 Galbraith gave broad thought to how America changed from a nation of small farms and workshops to one of big factories and superstores, and judgments of this legacy are as broad as his ambition. Beginning with "American Capitalism" in 1952, he laid out a detailed critique of an increasingly oligopolistic economy. Combined with works in the 1950's by writers like David Reisman, Vance Packard and William H. Whyte, the book changed people's views of the postwar world.

 Galbraith argued that technology mandated long-term contracts to diminish high-stakes uncertainty. He said companies used advertising to induce consumers to buy things they had never dreamed they needed.

 Other economists, like Gary S. Becker and George J. Stigler, both Nobel Prize winners, countered with proofs showing that advertising is essentially informative rather than manipulative.

 Many viewed Galbraith as the leading scion of the American institutionalist school of economics, commonly associated with Thorstein Veblen and his idea of "conspicuous consumption." This school deplored the universal pretensions of economic theory, and stressed the importance of historical and social factors in shaping "economic laws."

 Some, therefore, said Galbraith might best be called an "economic sociologist." This view was reinforced by Galbraith's nontechnical phrasing, called glibness by the envious and antagonistic.

 Galbraith's pride in following in the tradition of Veblen was challenged by the emergence of what came to be called the new institutionalist school. This approach, associated with the University of Chicago, claimed to prove that economics determines historical and political change, not vice versa.

 Some suggested that Galbraith's liberalism crippled his influence. In a review of "John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics" by Richard Parker (Farrar, 2005), J. Bradford DeLong wrote in Foreign Affairs that Galbraith's lifelong sermon of social democracy was destined to fail in a land of "rugged individualism." He compared Galbraith to Sisyphus, endlessly pushing the same rock up a hill that always turns out to be too steep.

 Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, maintains that Galbraith not only reached but also defined the summit of his field. In the 2000 commencement address at Harvard, Parker's book recounts, Sen said the influence of "The Affluent Society" was so pervasive that its many piercing insights were taken for granted.

 "It's like reading 'Hamlet' and deciding it's full of quotations," he said. John Kenneth Galbraith was born Oct. 15, 1908, on a 150-acre farm in Dunwich Township in southern Ontario, Canada, the only son of William Archibald and Catherine Kendall Galbraith. His forebears had left Scotland years before.

 His father was a farmer and schoolteacher, the head of a farm-cooperative insurance company, an organizer of the township telephone company, and a town and county auditor. His mother, whom he described as beautiful but decidedly firm, died when he was 14.

 The Farming Life

 Galbraith said in his memoir "A Life in Our Times" (1981) that no one could understand farming without knowing two things about it: a farmer's sense of inferiority and his appreciation of manual labor. His own sense of inferiority, he said, was coupled with his belief that the Galbraith clan was more intelligent, knowledgeable and affluent than its neighbors.

 "My legacy was the inherent insecurity of the farm-reared boy in combination with the aggressive feeling that I owed to all I encountered to make them better informed," he said.

 Galbraith said he inherited his liberalism, his interest in politics and his wit from his father. When he was about 8, he once recalled, he would join his father at political rallies. At one event, he wrote in his 1964 memoir "The Scotch," his father mounted a large pile of manure to address the crowd.

 "He apologized with ill-concealed sincerity for speaking from the Tory platform," Galbraith related. "The effect on this agrarian audience was electric. Afterward I congratulated him on the brilliance of the sally. He said, 'It was good but it didn't change any votes.' "

 At age 18 he enrolled at Ontario Agricultural College, where he took practical farming courses like poultry husbandry and basic plumbing. But as the Depression dragged down Canadian farmers, the questions of the way farm products were sold and at what prices became more urgent to him than how they were produced. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Toronto and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his master's degree in 1933 and his doctorate in agricultural economics in 1934.

 A major influence on him was the caustic social commentary he found in Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class." Galbraith called Veblen one of American history's most astute social scientists, but also acknowledged that he tended to be overcritical.

 "I've thought to resist this tendency," Galbraith said, "but in other respects Veblen's influence on me has lasted long. One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read."

 While at Berkeley, he began contributing to The Journal of Farm Economics and other publications. His writings came to the attention of Harvard, where he became an instructor and tutor from 1934 to 1939. In those years the theories of John Maynard Keynes were exciting economists everywhere because they promised solutions to the most urgent problems of the time: the Depression and unemployment. The government must intervene in moments of crisis, Lord Keynes maintained, and unbalance the budget if necessary to prime the pump and get the nation's economic machinery running again.

 

Keynesianism gave economic validation to what President Roosevelt was doing, Galbraith thought, and he resolved in 1937 "to go to the temple" - Cambridge University - on a fellowship grant for a year of study with the disciples of Lord Keynes.

 In 1937 Galbraith married Catherine Merriam Atwater, the daughter of a prominent New York lawyer and a linguist, whom he met when she was a graduate student at Radcliffe.

 In addition to his wife and his son J. Alan, of Washington, a lawyer, he is survived by two other sons, Peter, a former United States ambassador to Croatia and a senior fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington, and James, an economist at the University of Texas; a sister, Catherine Denholm of Toronto; and six grandchildren.

 Galbraith became an American citizen, and taught economics at Princeton in 1939. But after the fall of France in 1940, Galbraith joined the Roosevelt administration to help manage an economy being prepared for war. He rose to become the administrator of wage and price controls in the Office of Price Administration. Prices remained stable, but he grew controversial, drawing the constant fire of industry complaints. "I reached the point that all price fixers reach," he said, "My enemies outnumbered my friends."

 He was forced to resign in 1943 and was rejected by the Army as too tall when he sought to enlist. He then held a variety of government and private jobs, including director of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey in 1945, director of the Office of Economic Security Policy in the State Department in 1946, and a member of the board of editors of Fortune magazine from 1943 to 1948. It was at Fortune, he said, that he became addicted to writing.

 In 1949 he returned to Harvard as a professor of economics; his lectures were delivered before standing-room-only audiences. And he began to write with intensity, rising early and writing at least two or three hours a day, before his normally full schedule of other duties began, for most of the rest of his life.

 He completed two books in 1952, "American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power" and "A Theory of Price Control." In "American Capitalism," he set out to debunk myths about the free market economy and explore concentrations of economic power. He described the pressures that corporations and unions exerted on each other for increased profits and increased wages, and said these countervailing forces kept those giant groups in equilibrium and the nation's economy prosperous and stable.

 In his 1981 memoir, he said that though the basic idea was still sound, he had been "a bit carried away" by his notion of countervailing power. "I made it far more inevitable and rather more equalizing than, in practice, it ever is," he wrote, adding that often it does not emerge, with the result that "numerous groups - the ghetto young, the rural poor, textile workers, many consumers - remain weak or helpless."

 He summarized the lessons of his days at the Office of Price Administration in "A Theory of Price Control," later calling it the best book he ever wrote. He said: "The only difficulty is that five people read it. Maybe 10. I made up my mind that I would never again place myself at the mercy of the technical economists who had the enormous power to ignore what I had written. I set out to involve a larger community."

 He wrote two more major books in the 50's dealing with economics, but both were aimed at a large general audience. Both were best sellers.

 In "The Great Crash 1929," he rattled the complacent, recalled the mistakes of an earlier day and suggested that some were being repeated as the book appeared, in 1955. Galbraith testified at a Senate hearing and said that another crash was inevitable. The stock market dropped sharply that day, and he was widely blamed.

 "The Affluent Society" appeared in 1958, making Galbraith known around the world. In it, he depicted a consumer culture gone wild, rich in goods but poor in the social services that make for community. He argued that America had become so obsessed with overproducing consumer goods that it had increased the perils of both inflation and recession by creating an artificial demand for frivolous or useless products, by encouraging overextension of consumer credit and by emphasizing the private sector at the expense of the public sector. He declared that this obsession with products like the biggest and fastest automobile damaged the quality of life in America by creating "private opulence and public squalor."

 Anticipating the environmental movement by nearly a decade, he asked, "Is the added production or the added efficiency in production worth its effect on ambient air, water and space - the countryside?" Galbraith called for a change in values that would shun the seductions of advertising and champion clean air, good housing and aid for the arts.

 Later, in "The New Industrial State" (1967), he tried to trace the shift of power from the landed aristocracy through the great industrialists to the technical and managerial experts of modern corporations. He called for a new class of intellectuals and professionals to determine policy. While critics, as usual, praised his ability to write compellingly, they also continued to complain that he oversimplified economic matters and either ignored or failed to keep up with corporate changes. Galbraith conceded some errors and revised his book in 1971.

 A Move Into Politics

 One of his early readers was Adlai Stevenson, the governor of Illinois, who twice ran unsuccessfully for president against Dwight D. Eisenhower. Galbraith often wrote to Stevenson, introducing him to Keynesian taxation and unemployment policies. In 1953, Galbraith and Thomas K. Finletter, the former secretary of the Air Force and later ambassador to NATO, formed a sort of brain trust for Stevenson that included Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and the foreign policy specialist George W. Ball.

 Although Galbraith did not at first regard Kennedy, a former student of his at Harvard, as a serious member of Congress, he began to change his view after Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1952 and began calling him for advice. The senator's conversations became increasingly wide-ranging and well informed, Galbraith said, and his respect and affection grew.

 After Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, he appointed Galbraith the United States ambassador to India. There were those, Galbraith among them, who believed that the president had done this to get a potential loose cannon out of Washington.

 He said in his memoir: "Kennedy, I always believed, was pleased to have me in his administration, but at a suitable distance such as in India." Galbraith was fascinated with India; he had spent a year there in 1956 advising its government and was eager to return.

 He spent 27 months as ambassador, clashed with the State Department and was more favorably regarded as a diplomat by those outside the government. He fought for increased American military and economic aid for India and acted as a sort of informal adviser to the Indian government on economic policy. Known by his staff as "the Great Mogul," he achieved an excellent rapport with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other senior officials in the Indian government.

 When India became embroiled in a border war with China in the Himalayas in 1962, Ambassador Galbraith effectively took charge of both the American military and the diplomatic response during what was a brief but potentially explosive crisis. He saw to it that India received restrained American help and took it upon himself to announce that the United States recognized India's disputed northern borders.

 The reason he had so much control over the American response, he said, was that the border fighting occurred during the far more consequential Cuban missile crisis, and no one at the highest levels at the White House, the State Department or the Pentagon was readily responding to his cables.

 Galbraith published "Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years," a book based on the diary he kept during his time in India, in 1969. A year earlier he published "Indian Painting: The Scenes, Themes and Legends," which he wrote with Mohinder Singh Randhawa. An avid champion of Indian art, he donated much of his collection to the Harvard University Art Museums.

 In 1963, Galbraith added fiction to his repertory for the first time with "The McLandress Dimension," a novel he wrote under the pseudonym Mark Epernay.

 After Kennedy was assassinated, Galbraith served as an adviser to President Johnson, meeting with him often at the White House or on trips to the president's ranch in Texas to talk about what could be accomplished with the Great Society programs. Galbraith said that Johnson had summoned him to write the final draft of his speech outlining the purposes of the Great Society, and that when the writing was done, said: "I'm not going to change a word. That's great."

 The relationship between the two men soon broke apart over their differences over the war in Vietnam. Nevertheless, when Adlai Stevenson died in 1965, the ambassadorship to the United Nations became vacant, and word reached Galbraith that the president was considering him as Stevenson's successor. A Job Declined

 Not wanting to be placed in the position of having to defend administration positions he strongly opposed, Galbraith suggested Justice Arthur J. Goldberg of the Supreme Court. The president named Goldberg, and Galbraith later blamed himself for a "poisonous" mistake that "cost the court a good and liberal jurist." Others said he took too much credit for what happened.

 In 1973 he published "Economics and the Public Purpose," in which he sought to extend the planning system already used by the industrial core of the economy to the market economy, to small-business owners and to entrepreneurs. Galbraith called for a "new socialism," with more steeply progressive taxes; public support of the arts; public ownership of housing, medical and transportation facilities; and the conversion of some corporations and military contractors into public corporations.

 He continued to rise early and, despite the seeming effortlessness of his prose, revised each day's work at least five times. "It was usually on about the fourth day that I put in that note of spontaneity for which I am known," he said.

 He served as president of the American Economic Association, the profession's highest honor, and was elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He continued to pour out magazine articles, book reviews, op-ed essays, letters to editors; he lectured everywhere, sometimes debating William F. Buckley Jr., his friend and Gstaad skiing partner. He was so prolific that Art Buchwald, the humorist, once introduced him by citing his literary production: "Since 1959 alone, he has written 12 books, 135 articles, 61 book reviews, 16 book introductions, 312 book blurbs and 105,876 letters to The New York Times, of which all but 3 have been printed."

 In 1977 he wrote and narrated "The Age of Uncertainty," a 13-part television series surveying 200 years of economic theory and practice. In 1990 he wrote "A Tenured Professor," about a Harvard professor who devised a legal, foolproof and computer-assisted system for playing the stock market and used his billions of dollars in profits on programs for education and peace - only to be investigated by Congress for un-American activities and forced to shut down his operations.

 In 1996, as Galbraith approached his 90th year, he wrote "The Good Society." Matthew Miller wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "We're not likely to find as elegant a little restatement of the liberal creed, or its call to conscience."

 Galbraith said Republicans out to roll back the welfare state made a fundamental error in thinking that politicians and their actions drive history. In fact, he argued, it is the reverse. Liberals did not create big government; history did.

 Galbraith, who received the Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 2000, continued to make his views known. Some were surprising, like his speech in 1999 praising Johnson's presidency, which he had helped to bring down by working with McCarthy.

 There always seemed to be one more book. One, "The Essential Galbraith" (2001), was a collection of essays and excerpts that a reviewer in Business Week said remained very timely. Another, "Name-Dropping from F.D.R. On" (1999), recounted encounters with the powerful, including President Kennedy's response when Galbraith complained that an article in The New York Times had described him as arrogant.

 Kennedy retorted that he didn't see why it shouldn't: "Everybody else does." In 2004, Galbraith, who was then 95, published "The Economics of Innocent Fraud," a short book that questioned much of the standard economic wisdom by questioning the ability of markets to regulate themselves, the usefulness of monetary policy and the effectiveness of corporate governance.

 He remained optimistic about the ability of government to improve the lot of the less fortunate. "Let there be a coalition of the concerned," he urged. "The affluent would still be affluent, the comfortable still comfortable, but the poor would be part of the political system."

刘晓波
　 作者题记：唯有保障个人自*由的制度，才有可能为所有人提供起码的社会公正。

　　自*由主义及其政治学，在面对不同价值的争论时，可以宽容的并坚决捍卫异见者的发言权，但在争论中从来不是中立的，特别是在道德价值和政治制度的选择上，自*由主义决不会中立。毋宁说，自*由主义首先是价值认同，其次才是政治认同。
　　从道德的角度讲，在世俗价值的排序中，个人自*由是道德之首善，既是最基本的善，也是最高的善，因为，绝大多数其他道德善的存亡，如公正、平等、多元、发展、独立、诚信、宽容等，端赖自*由之有无。而凡是在世俗价值的排序中拒绝“自*由优先”的理论，无论是什么主义，也无论是西方东方，皆无法为“善政”提供道义基础。服膺于“自*由价值优先”的政治制度安排，应以保障和扩展个人自*由为首要目标，国家、政府、法治、秩序、福利等公共目标，不过是实现个人自*由的手段而已。人类政治制度演进史证明，无自*由，也就无平等、无公正、无善法、无多元，也谈不上社会的长治久安。
　　个人自*由的对立面是强制，即对个人自*由的剥夺和限制；强制既是道德之恶，也是政治之恶。但人类无法完全消除所有的恶，自*由社会也需要强制，即“以恶制恶”，也就是自*由主义政治学所言的“必要的恶”。
　　个人置身于社会，必然与他人发生关系和利益冲突，甲的自*由就有可能侵犯或妨碍乙的自*由，侵犯或妨碍他人自*由的“自*由”，也是一种恶，必须有超然而中立的强制力量来中止这种恶——这就是法治约束下的政府。
　　一 从本体价值的角度论证自*由
　　在政治自*由主义发源地西方，思想家们对自*由的界定可以分为本体和功利两个角度。从本体价值角度对自*由的界定，区别于从功利价值角度对自*由的界定，它不是以自*由能否带来的社会效率为标准来论证自*由的价值，而是以人性的复杂性为出发点，以自*由对人本身的价值为优先关注。这一优先关注有四大支点：
　　1，作为权利的个人自*由之可贵就在于：是否拥有个人自*由乃衡量人之为人的首要标准。有自*由乃人的生存，也是目的性生存；无自*由乃动物性生存，也是工具性生存。从古希腊城邦的民主制与奴隶制并存时期开始，西方思想家大都把“自*由民”当作人看待，而把“奴隶”当作牲畜或工具看待。正如亚里斯多德所言：奴隶不是人，而仅仅是“会说话的工具”。
　　2，作为权利的个人自*由绝非任何群体性利益所能代替，也不能以任何群体利益的名义来剥夺个人自*由，无论这一群体利益是国家、民族、政府，还是政党、多数、阶级。特别是对于握有公权力的国家及其政府而言，个人自*由不是实现国家利益和政府目标的工具，恰恰相反，国家利益由个人利益的集合而成，政府是工具，首要目标是保障和扩展个人自*由。
　　3，作为权利的个人自*由之可贵，只在于自*由本身的自足价值以及所有人的平等分享，而不必乞求于其他理由（如效率）来支持其价值排序上的优先性，相反，自*由本身构成社会效率的必要条件。在现代世界，一个无自*由的社会不可能长治久安，也就不可能是高效率的社会。为了效率而牺牲自*由的社会，可能得到短期的暂时的繁荣，但注定不会有可持续的良性发展。
　　4，作为权利的个人自*由之可贵，从社会进步的角度讲，人的最高世俗价值乃在于自*由的实现，发展的首要目标乃扩展自*由。国民经济增长、社会财富增加、个人收入提高、技术进步和工业化等价值，固然也是人类所欲之善，但这些价值与自*由价值相比，只是工具性的而非本体性的，它们都是为实现人之自*由的本体价值而服务的。
　　换言之，本体论的角度首先强调是：“自*由是每个人不可剥夺的权利”；而功利主义的角度首先强调的是：“自*由有助于社会效率的提高。”功利主义的视角很容易误入“自*由价值工具化”的歧途：个人自*由与群体性或整体性的利益相比，是次要价值或工具性价值，即个人是实现群体价值或提高社会效率的工具，个人自*由只有在能够促进群体利益和社会进步时才有价值。由此，为国家、民族或多数人的利益而牺牲个人自*由，就是最崇高的道德善，否则的话，个人自*由便毫无意义。
　　（一） 正面的论证
　　由于人性的善恶两面性，相应地，对自*由的本体性论证必然包括正反两个方面：正因为人性之善，自*由才有可能；正因为人性之恶，自*由才有必要。
　　首先，“自*由”之必要，乃在于人性天然地追求自*由，在西方传统中表述为：自*由是“神赐权利”或“天赋人权”。在基督教神学中表述为“我们都是上帝的子民” 和“在上帝面前人人平等”；在自然法学派那里表述为“每个人都具有天赋人权”和“在法律面前人人平等”。二者都认为：每个人都应该平等地拥有基本的自*由权利，这自*由是完整的、不可剥夺的和不可转让。
　　就西方自*由主义思想的发展而言，与其说自*由主义政治学的“天赋人权”源于基督教的神赋自*由，不如说源于三大传统的综合，即古希腊的城邦自*由民，古罗马的自然法和市民观，基督教的神赋平等权利，三者是你中有我、我中有你，你我中都有他，共同构成近现代世俗自*由主义的理论源头及经验积累。
　　洛克的自*由主义论证
　　在近代西方，自*由主义理论的奠基人之一、英国哲学家洛克对自*由的本体价值做了最早的、也最完整的论证。
　　1，自*由是自然的人类状态，是自然法所规定的天赋权利；但自然状态有着无政府的致命缺陷，遵循的是弱肉强食的丛林法则，无法避免人与人之间的相互侵犯，所以就需要根据自然法组成政府，将保障自*由和财产的权力授予一个公共部门，那就是政府。
　　2，个人自*由既高于社会功利也高于公共权威，因为，自*由是自然的，而功利和权威是人为约定的，政府不过是社会契约的产物；
　　3，个人自*由不可剥夺和不可转让，它构成了政府公权力的最低限度。其中，保障个人的财产及其权利是政府的首要职能。
　　4，个人自*由是目的，而公共权威是工具，公共机构与法律秩序的存在都是为了维护个人自*由。所以，个人自治应该放在社会生活的首位；
　　5，公共权力是由民众基于保障个人自*由和公共秩序而自愿授予政府的，也就是最早的“人民主权论”。
　　6，正因为政府权力来自民众的自愿授予，政府与民众的关系类似于雇员与雇主的契约关系，所以，当政府堕落为侵犯个人自*由的暴政之时，民众拥有反抗暴政的合法权利或终结契约的权利。
　　可以说，在西方政治思想史上，洛克是第一位立足于人的本体价值来全面论证个人自*由的哲人，更是第一位把个人自*由的价值置于社会效益及公权力之上的思想家。正是洛克政治学，开启了政治自*由主义的大门。
　　康德的自*由主义论证
　　西方历史上最伟大的哲人康德，是从哲学先验主义的角度对自*由的本体价值作出最完整论证的第一人。康德的伦理学及其政治学对人的自*由的先验论述最为完整：个人自*由作为道德善，源于信仰领域的神圣价值或人类的普遍法则，它具有一种超验的绝对优先性——自*由如要成为可能，就必须独立于支配现象或经验或功利的种种法则，生而为人就必须自*由，此乃道德上的绝对律令。康德说：“这种独立性被称为最严格的、即超验意义上的自*由。”（见《实践理性批判》）
　　由此引申出康德的政治哲学，其核心被表述为：“人是目的而非工具。”这意味着社会中的每一个分子：
　　1，作为人都是自*由的；
　　2，作为臣民都是平等的；
　　3，作为公民都是独立的。
　　4，自*由既是个体的，也是共享的，每个人的自*由要以尊重他人的自*由为界限。如果只有个体自*由而无共享的自*由，那么一部分人的自*由就会以另一部分人的不自*由为代价。
　　5，个人自*由是思想独立，即启蒙的意义上的理性精神。每个人都具有天赋的理性，个人应该勇敢地运动自己的理性而不盲从于任何权威，在思想上自我思考，在道德上自我选择，在行动上自我治理，即用每个人的天赋理性之光来指引自己的思考、判断、选择和行动，也就是作为个体之人的自主性的自我发现。
　　在自*由主义的当代发展中，罗尔斯完善了康德的自*由伦理学，把个人自*由优先的理由归结为人的两种道德能力——正义感和形成一种善的观念的能力。诺克奇发展了洛克的权利理论，把个人自*由优先的理由归结为由平等契约规定的“权利正义”。

（二）反面的论证
　　任何严肃的人文思想都必须正视人性恶的存在，自*由主义理论也不例外。更重要的是，在各类主义对人性恶与政治秩序的论证中，自*由主义对人性恶有着最清醒的意识，并把人性恶作为良性政治制度的前提之一。甚至可以说，自*由主义对人性恶理解得最透彻、最平实、也最善意，因而，自*由主义对人性恶与政治秩序之间的关系的理解也最符合人性。
　　在自*由主义看来，自*由之必要，乃在于人的人性弱点或有限性，即无法根除的道德之恶和无法消灭的知识之限。毋宁说，对人性之有限及其弱点的自觉，如同对人性之善的清醒意识一样，皆是自*由得以确立和保障的关键，特别是对最容易侵犯个人自*由的政治权力的警觉及其限制，乃关键中的关键。
　　1，古希腊政治学与人性恶
　　这种基于人性恶的自*由论，早在古希腊哲学中就有过精辟表述。苏格拉底从知识论的角度表达了人的有限性，他的名言是：“人的最高智慧是能够意识到自己的无知。”
　　苏格拉底的学生柏拉图从先伦理学的角度表述了人性的弱点，继而从政治学的角度表述了约束统治者的重要性。他认为：人性天然地倾向于“人不为己，天诛地灭”，“在任何场合之下，一个人只要能干坏事，他总会去干的。大家一目了然，从不正义那里比从正义那里个人能得到更多的利益。”进而，掌握公权力的人尤其容易作恶，“如果谁有了权而不为非作歹，不夺人钱财，那他就要被人当成天下第一号的傻瓜。”在道德上，不能过分地相信人的善良；在政治上，尤其“不能过分相信统治者的智慧和良心”。所以，最大的不正义乃“没有约束的权力”，而正义来自法律对人对权力的约束：“人都是在法律的强迫之下，才走到正义这条路上来的。”如果没有法律和道德的约束，“即使是一名年轻英明的统治者，权力也能把他变成暴君。”（见《理想国》P47－48）
　　柏拉图的学生亚里士多德认为，人性中的社会性和理性是善，而欲望趋恶，甚至就是兽性。欲望和兽性是与生俱来的且根深蒂固的。他说：“人类的欲望原是无止境的，而许多人正是终生营营，力求填充自己的欲壑。财产的平均分配终于不足以救治这种劣性及其罪恶。”（《政治学》1267B3-5）所以，欲望只有经过理性的引导和调节，才会变成正常的合理的欲求，而如果不加节制，就将泛滥成兽性，对他人和社会造成危害。在政治生活中，个人独裁最容易把兽性带入政治生活，所以，他反对人治而强调法治，主张通过法律来节制人的欲望。他说：“常人既不能完全消除兽欲，虽最好的人们（贤良）也未免有热忱，这就往往在执政的时候引起偏向。法律恰恰正是免除一切情欲影响的神祗和理智的体现。”（《政治学》1287A30-33）
　　中国古代的荀子对人性的看法与亚里斯多德差不多，但在如何节制人性恶的方法上却大异其趣，亚里斯多德主张通过法治来节制人性，而荀子则主张通过道德教诲来改造人性。
　　古希腊晚期的犬儒学派对人性和人类文明的看法相当悲观，他们认为文明造成人的堕落和罪恶，而“善”就是遵从自然，就是压抑人的一切欲望，过一种最简单的生活才是顺应自然，也才是践履“自然权利”，从而获得个人自*由。所以，要改造人类文明，使其返朴归真，回复自然。所以，他们有意过一种落拓不羁、粗陋贫穷的生活方式。
　　比如，最著名的犬儒第欧根尼（公元前404-323年），他把一切文明和技术的进步视为人性邪恶的结果，他认为所有的名利都是浮夸的，是文明罪恶的装饰品。所以，他蔑视高贵的门第和声誉，摈弃一切显赫的东西，视金钱为一切罪恶的渊薮。他批判人们只顾追求快乐和满足欲望，而不注重改善道德和促进正义。在政治上，他重视法律对人性恶的节制作用，他说：“社会没有法律便不可能存在”。
　　他本人身体力行地作出了犬儒生活的示范。他的全部家当，只有一根树枝，一件外衣，一个讨饭袋，一床被子和一只水杯；他居无定所、四处游荡，住在神庙、市场，有时甚至住在木桶里。据说，有一次亚历山大大帝去拜访第欧根尼。第欧根尼正在晒太阳，亚历山大对他说：“你可以向我请求你所要的任何恩赐。”第欧根尼回答说：“请走开，别挡住我的阳光！”
　  2，近代政治学与人性恶
　　西方进入基督教时代之后，人性恶或人的无知得到了神学高度重视，基督教神学的基础之一就人的“原罪”，由此引申出的“忏悔”和“赎罪”。按照圣•奥古斯丁的“双城论神学”，完美的秩序在上帝的“天上之城”，而君王的“地上之城”再完美，也不过是“盗亦有道”的恶秩序。所以，基督徒必须坚守“良知的权利”，以抵抗世俗权力的滥用和专横。
　　“原罪意识”和“忏悔观念”对近现代西方政治哲学有着深远影响，它首先集中体现在马基雅维里政治学和休谟的伦理学及政治学中。
　　马基雅维里的人性恶君主主义
　　西方近代政治学的奠基人马基雅维里是一位备受争议的政治思想家。他对人性看法相当消极，人性是邪恶的，人心是易变的。他在《君主论》中提出的整套君主道德和统治权术，完全建立在人性恶的基础上；他的政治学是绝对君主制和统治权谋论的辩护书。
　　在马基雅维里看来，既然人性是邪恶的、多变的，那么，君主的统治就不应该是道德的而应该是反道德的。一方面，统治者要善变、讲究权谋，要为达目的而不择手段，另一方面，统治者甚至应该与善良、与真理、与诚信相反。他论证说，君主以民众为基础，统治权以被统治者为基础，君主必须注重观察和调控民众对自己的态度。君主驭民的最理想状态，是让民众既爱戴又畏惧。然而，君主要做到二者兼备并不容易，能作到是偶然而做不到是常态。所以，当君主无法做到两者兼备之时，就必须在“爱戴”与“畏惧”之间作出二者必居其一的选择，马基雅维里告诫君主说：宁要被畏惧，也不要被爱戴。因为，民众大都是自私者、伪装者、势利小人，逐利避害、忘恩负义和随波逐流，是民众的不变本性。面对这样的人性，依靠“爱戴”的统治是危险的，依靠“畏惧”的统治才是安全的。
　　他的明言是：“被人畏惧要比受人爱戴是安全得多”。因为，“冒犯一个自己爱戴的人比冒犯一个自己畏惧的人较少顾忌，因为爱戴是靠恩义这条纽带维系的；然而，由于人性是恶劣的，在任何时候，只要对自己有利，人们便把这条纽带一刀两断了。”
　　关于君主是否遵守信义，他教导说：没有一定之规，而只有随机而动：“当遵守信义反而对自己不利的时候，或者原来使自己作出诺言的理由现在不复存在的时候，一位英明的统治者绝不能够、也不应当遵守信义。假如人们全都是善良的话，这条箴言就不合适了。但因为人们是恶劣的，而且对你并不是守信不渝的，因此你也同样地无需对他们守信。”（《君主论》，马基雅维里著，潘汉典译，商务印书馆1985年版）
　　中国古代的韩非与马基雅维里大同小异，韩非也是从“人性恶”推导出政治上的绝对皇权和严刑峻法。
　　休谟的人性恶自*由主义
　　如果说，马基雅维里从人性恶中推导独裁政治学，那么，休谟就从人性恶中推导出自*由政治学。
　　苏格兰哲学家休谟是著名的经验主义者和怀疑论者，也是西方哲学史上第一位高扬“人性恶伦理学”的哲人。他的自*由论建立在一种激进的怀疑主义及反理性主义的伦理学上，却具有一种理性主义者难以达到的诚实，因而具有强大的说服力。
　　在自*由主义政治学的历史上，虽然休谟也认为“自*由乃文明社会的尽善化”，但要保障自*由这一“尽善化”，就不能单纯相信人性的“尽善”，而应该从“人性恶” 出发推导出制度化的权利保障和权力约束。因为，相信“人性尽善”是浪漫的道德乌托邦，而现实中的人性毋宁说是“尽恶”。由此，他第一次提出政治学中的“无赖说”。休谟认为，人性大都是自私、贪婪、嫉妒、野心勃勃，喜欢统治和奴役别人，政治制度和社会秩序就是建立在这样的人性之上的。所以，从人性的角度讲，创建一个政治制度的人性前提，不是假定“人人是君子”，而是假定每个人都是无赖：“必须把每个人都设想为无赖之徒确实是条正确的政治格言。”特别是当人性与权力发生关系时，假定“每个人都是无赖”是绝对必要的。
　　休谟说：“在设计任何政体和确定对该体制的一些制约、监督机构时，必须把每个政府成员设想成为无赖之徒，并假定他的一切作为都是为了谋求私利，别无其他目标。我们则利用这种利害关系来控制他，并使他与公益合作。尽管他本来贪得无厌，野心很大。做不到这一点，则夸耀任何政体的优越都会成为无益空谈，而且最终会发现，自*由或财产除了依靠统治者的善心，别无保障，也就是说根本没有保障。”（《休谟政治论文选》，张若衡译；商务印书馆1993年版P28）
　　既然良性政治制度应该建基于对人性、特别是统治者的道德不信任之上，正因为不信任才必须建立制度性的约束。在休谟看来，制度性约束来自法治、权力制衡和新闻自*由。他说：“权势均衡是政治上的秘诀，只有在现代才充分为人知晓。”（同上P58）“一般被称为自*由的政府即是允许其中若干成员分享权力的政府；” （（P26）其中最关键的制衡是行政权和立法权的分立。休谟继承了古希腊和古罗马的混合政体理论，认为权力均衡的政体不是最好的君主制，也不是最好的贵族制和共和制，而是三者的混合，行政权归君主，立法权归贵族和平民。因为历史经验证明：最好的贵族制必然堕落为个人暴政，最好的贵族制必然演变为寡头独裁，最好的共和制无异于多数暴政。
　　进一步，对执政者必须施以公共舆论的限制，所以就要有新闻自*由。他在《关于新闻自*由》一文的开头就说：“没有什么比我们这个国家中人们所享有的极端新闻自*由更易使外国人感到吃惊了。我们可以任意向公众报导一切，并可公开指责国王及其大臣们所采取的每项措施。……为什么唯独大不列颠人民享有这种特权？” （P1）一言以蔽之，为了监督和约束执政者的权力。“为了约束宫廷野心，必须经常鼓舞人民的精神意气，必须利用宫廷害怕唤起人民的心情遏制其野心。而要达到这个目的没有什么比新闻自*由更有效了。通过新闻自*由，整个民族的学识、智能和天才可以用来维护自*由，激励人人都来保卫自*由。”（P3－4）
　　再进一步，一个国家要想保障权力制衡和新闻自*由，也就必须依靠法治，只有法治社会才有自*由或正义，而无法治便无自*由。他说：“为了保存自己，它不能不对行政官员保持戒备、猜忌，排除一切专断之权，并以通用而又固定的法律，保障人人生命财产的安全。除了法律明白规定者外，任何行为不得认为是罪行。除了依据提交法官的法定证据之外，不得以任何罪名加之于人，”（P3）他还说：“在最佳的政治体制中，每个人都受到严格的的法律约束”。（P18）特别是对于握有政治权力的政府而言，“它必须是法治政府，而不是人治政府。”（同上P59）“立法者不应将一个国家的未来的政体完全寄托于机会，而应提供一种控制公共事务管理机构的法律体系，传之子孙万代。”（P13）
　　由此，休谟奠定了低调的经验的自*由主义传统：“一种体制之所以好仅仅在于它能提供反对弊政的补救办法。”（P17）也就是说，健全政治制度的创建，主要不是为了扬善而是为了抑恶。在道德上相信掌权者的善，必然导致现实中的大恶；而不信任掌权者的道德之善，却能设计出确保自*由的大善。或者说，自*由制度对进入公共政治生活的人性之假定非常低调：不求创造多少道德之善，只求尽量减少道德之恶。
　　后来，在阿克顿勋爵的自*由论中更进一步指出，具有各种弱点的人性是很难抵御权力腐蚀的。权力从来都是最有效的人性腐蚀剂，权力使人腐败，绝对的权力使人绝对腐败。所以，必须建立有效的约束制度来遏制掌权者滥用权力。美国的建国之父杰裴逊也说：自*由政府的建立，必须遵循慎防或忌妒的原则，而不是充分信任的原则。
　　换言之，自*由主义政治认为，人性恶的不可避免或完全根除，决定了必须创建对政府权力及官员的不信任或有限信任的政治制度。正是这种对政治权力和掌权者的不信任，才能演变出旨在限制政治权力的宪政，以防止那些被授予了某种公共权力的人们滥用权力。如若要确保个人自*由，那么在制度安排上就必须排除对掌权者的道德信任，而施之以法律上的不信任或有限信任。
　　哈耶克的认识论政治学
　　哈耶克的政治哲学也是建立在广义的人性恶之上的。他与休谟一样认为，自*由主义作为一种道德善相信：一个健全社会只能建立在尊重自利个人的自我筹划的基础上。但他与休谟政治学的理论进路不同。哈耶克对自*由之必要的论证，主要不是基于伦理学即人性的道德弱点，而是基于知识论即人的理性界限。休谟从道德上的人性恶推导出对政治权力必须加以限制，哈耶克从知识上的“人的无知”推导出必须对每个人的自*由选择权加以制度化保障。
　　哈耶克认为，保障个人自*由的主要依据就在于承认如下事实：每个人的理性都是有限的，任何组织的知识也是有限的，对于实现个体之所欲及福利所依赖的众多因素，所有的人都存有不可避免的无知，世界上不可能有无所不知的人或组织来指导和安排所有人的生活，良性秩序之形成有赖于无数有限个体的有限经验的自发的积累和扩展。所以，必须给每个人以自*由选择的权利，让每个人根据各自的知识、经验和偏好来自我思考、自我筹划和自我决定，并对选择的后果自我负责。
　　反过来，自称无所不知无所不能的人或组织，要么是理性的狂妄，要么是狡猾的欺骗；相信全能者或救世主的民众，要么是理性的愚昧，要么是道德的怯懦。救世主的成功必须有仰望者的配合，狂妄的统治者和愚昧的被统治者的合作一旦变成政治现实，就只能铺就通向奴役之路。
　　往往，自*由人对藏有恶意的统治者所施加的强制，大都具有高度的警醒和敏感，而对怀有救民于水火的善意统治者所施加的强制，则容易放松警惕和麻木不仁。然而，对自*由最大的威胁，正是这种自称为知道如何“行善利民”的全能统治。人类历史的经验证明，相对于暴君性统治而言，对“救主性统治”更要保持高度的警醒。因为，在施加于自*由的最大灾难之中，几乎没有一个统治者公开宣称他要行恶而不要行善。
　　在人类政治发展的历史上，人性善的道德高调在政治领域喊得越响，现实中的人性恶就发挥得越充分，甚至不可挽回地泛滥成灾；而人性恶的道德低调在政治领域喊得越响，现实中的人性善就越能得到发挥，以至于形成一种普遍的“市民风范”——对人的平等尊重，不但成为法律的他律，而且变成道德的自律。

二 功利价值的角度
　　“自*由”之必要，乃在于自*由具有重要的社会功能。与其他社会制度相比，自*由制度主要功利价值在于：首先，自*由有助于实现社会生产效率和个人利益的最大化；其次，自*由能够确保社会秩序的长治久安。自*由的功效又可以具体分解为如下方面；
　　1，自*由是实现个人幸福的最有力工具，特别是自*由可以保障实现个人幸福的经济基础——私有财产及其权利。
　　2，自*由有利于发挥人的首创精神，是发现真理和促进人类知识进步的有力工具；
　　3，自*由赋予了人们以独立的自愿的选择权利，而基于独立而自愿所形成的社会共识，是“提升公共道德、维护社会和谐与推动人类进步”的最佳工具；
　　4，自*由尊重每个人的独特性，进而尊重人类及文化的多样性，唯有自*由秩序的存在，才能保证多元价值之间的和平共处，即便是完全对立的价值偏好，也能够共处于一个社会之中。
　　（一）自*由市场中的自利行为有助于社会公益
　　边沁和密尔的功利主义主要是把自*由视为实现个人幸福和社会福利的最佳工具。他们认为，人类的一切行为都应该有助于为最大多数人创造幸福，有助于增进和保障这种幸福。最大多数人的幸福之达成，端赖每个社会成员都能为此作出最大贡献。而达成每个成员作出最大贡献的最有效方法，就是让每个成员能够自*由思想和自*由行动。反过来，压制个人自*由就是压制个人的创造力，没有个人创作力的发挥，个人对最大多数幸福的贡献也就无从谈起。
　　如果说，密尔的功利自*由主义主要借助他对言论自*由的论证，他的《论自*由》一文，堪称功利主义自*由观的经典；那么，自*由主义经济学的鼻祖亚当•斯密则从经济自*由的角度来阐发其功利主义自*由观。他对市场经济中那只“看不见的手”的论述，使自*由的功利主义论证成为经典自*由主义的一部分。
　　亚当•斯密的论证
　　斯密对自*由主义的最大贡献，就在于他有力地论证了：
　　1，经济过程的自发性对自*由的重要意义。在经济及社会关系中，可观察到的和谐并不是理性设计的产物，而是一种自发的无意识冲动的产物。迄今为止的社会秩序从属于自然法，自然法的运行不以人的意志为转移。具体到人的市场行为，市场体系的自我调节并不是一种理性设计的产物，而是在一种自发的交易过程中的价格机制自动作用的结果。
　　2，在这个资源短缺的世界，居住的不是利他的人类而是自私的人类，对于自私的分散的个人来说，他们谋取个人利益的活动，只有通过自*由竞争的市场才能产生最大化的经济效用，也才能破解了一道争执不休的伦理难题：由于隐藏在人们的牟利行为的背后的那只“看不见的手”的作用，看似对立的利他主义与自利主义之间，实质上具有互为因果的互利关系。斯密最经典的表述是：“我们所需之正餐并非来自屠夫、酿造师或面包师的仁慈，而是来自他们对自己利益的考虑”。也就是说，自利主义在道德上的合法性就在于：只有允许自利的个人自*由地追求自己的利益，他的聪明才智才能得到最大化的发挥；只有通过自利个人之间的自*由而平等的交易，一个社会的效率和公益才能得到最好的增进。
　　由于自利是他利的前提，所以私有财产及其产权是神圣的，平等竞争是符合道德的，一套保障个人财产和自*由竞争的市场规则是正义的。从社会效用的角度讲，只有那种保障个人财产和自*由交易的社会，才有利于自利主义的合法化和社会公益（福利）的最大化；换言之，只有自利主义的合法化，才能达成“主观为己而客观为人”的社会效益，即一个人增进了自己的利益，非但不会有损于公益，反而会增加公益。
　　即便是富豪们的慈善事业，也是主观为己而客观为人的行为。当一个人的物质财富积累达到某种程度之后，他就很可能不再满足于单纯的财富增值，而是开始追求另一种个人利益，即个人的社会声誉。对于富人来说，提升个人社会声誉的最好办法是从事慈善事业。结果，富豪捐出财富给社会和他人，既交换来富豪个人的社会声誉，也让那些需要帮助的他人受益，从而提升了社会公益及其公共道德的水平。
　　所以，在崇尚个人自*由的西方各国，对于慈善行为都制定了免税的优惠政策，来作为对富豪们“用财富换声誉”的行为的特别鼓励。所以，即便在西方各国中，美国也被视为最个人主义的国家。但在最个人主义的美国，不仅富豪最多且最好施，无论是富豪还是普通人都热衷于慈善捐助，以至于，美国的富豪和平民的慈善捐款，双双名列世界第一；美国人贡献的“义工时间”也为世界之最。
　　我讨厌那些左倾知识分子对资本主义的道德批判，也讨厌他们对社会主义式平等的道德崇拜。因为，在现实世界中，在纸上论证和呼吁关怀穷人很容易，但拿出真金白银来实际地救济穷人，则不仅需要慈悲情怀，更需要能力。首先需要创造个人财富的杰出能力，其次需要热心于慈善事业的悲天悯人。而呼吁对财富进行平等分配的左派们，当他们的个人财富仅够过一种中产生活时，或者他们本身就是穷人时，他们的道德高调再动听，但他们根本没有能力来帮助穷人。或者说，你可以指望品德高尚的乞丐高声指责富豪们的为富不仁，但你不能指望他去切实地帮助穷人，因为他本身就是需要救助的对象。
　　比如，在我有限的视野中，我看不到著名的左派知识分子乔姆斯基拿出多少个人财富来资助穷人，但我看到了美国首富比尔•盖茨创建的基金会不断把几亿、几十亿、上百亿的财富捐给穷人和爱滋病防治事业。
　　同时，西方福利国家对弱势群体的制度优惠的财富支撑，第一来自健全的私产权保护制度，第二来自那些创造着巨额财富的资本家们、以及收入殷实的中产阶级；第三才是向弱势群体倾斜的税收制度和再分配制度。没有私产权的有效保护，就不可能产生热衷于创造财富的群体，没有创造财富的富人群体，再好的税收及再分配制度也将变成无米之炊。而共产制度的均贫富理想的破产，已经从反面证明了公有制的致命弊端——不尊重私产权和私人财富的积累，也无法达成有效的社会福利制度，至多是一种普遍贫困的强制性平均主义。所以，即便不谈共产制度下的阶级歧视的极端政治不平等，也不谈城乡隔离的身份歧视的准奴隶制不平等，而仅就斯大林苏联和毛泽东中国的经济平均主义而言，造成的也是普遍的贫困和票证经济，以及饿死几千万人的人为大饥荒。
　　3，自利的人性也有利他的本能
　　斯密在论证了人类的自利本能的同时，也论述了人性中的利他天性，也就是人“同情心”。在斯密看来，“同情心”是我们置身于他人处境并设身处地想像我们自己的一种本能。同情心可以克服自利的偏见，带来对他人困境的体谅，产生不带偏见的公正的旁观者，使人能从一种超然的立场来评价道德争论和利益冲突，也能形成人与人之间的“彼此包容”，从而达成关于社会公德的基本共识。
　　但是，作为利他本能的“同情心”，并不能自认为在道德上高于人的自利自爱。自利心和同情心是互补的平衡的，自利心有利于激发个人首创性的发挥和社会财富的增加，同情心可以有效地矫正自利冲动的极端化、促进社会和谐。正是通过同情心的矫正作用，社会共同体才能对公共道德达成了一种基本共识，而道德共识正是某种社会制度得以确立的伦理依托。
　　在某种意义上，斯宾塞的社会进化论也可归入功利主义自*由观。他认为，自*由是促进个体进步与社会进化的普遍进化规律所要求的。当代哲人哈贝马斯也认为，自*由权利不是天赋的或原始的，而是从相互论辩、相互妥协的博弈中转化出来的。
　　（二）自*由社会有助于多元的利益和价值的共存
      二十世纪，伊塞亚.柏林的自*由主义政治学可谓独树一帜，他对西方的两种自*由传统“消极自*由”和“积极自*由”做了清晰的梳理，从价值多元化的角度对自*由之必要做了有力的论证：一方面，人类的利益诉求和价值偏好的多元化，构成必须自*由社会的前提；另一方面，唯有自*由的存在，多元化的利益诉求和价值偏好才可能和平共处并得到保存和发展。
　　在柏林看来，“自*由”之必要，乃在于人类在价值偏好上不可通约的差异，既有个人之间、群体之间、种族之间、国家之间的差异，也有文化之间、宗教之间、信仰之间、思想之间的差异。也就是人类生存的难以抹平的多元化是客观事实，是人之为人的基本特质之一。多元化作为无法被根除或消灭的人类生存的事实，它本身谈不上善恶好坏，能够谈论善恶好坏的，仅仅是人们如何对待这一人类生存的事实。
　　柏林论证说，每种价值各有其特点及其界限，没有放之于四海皆准的唯一正确的终极价值观，各种价值观之间必然发生冲突，即便在同一价值内部，其构成的要素也是多元的，有些要素也是不可通约、不可比较甚至是互相冲突的。对于不同价值之间的冲突，人类还无法找到一个合理的标准来加以仲裁和解决。
　　也就是说，多元化产生分歧，分歧导致冲突，于是，从古至今都有把“冲突”视为“社会之恶”的思想家和政治家，他们的社会理想之一就是企图消灭所有冲突，也就必然企图通过根除多元化来创建一元化标准，进而建立起无冲突的和谐社会。然而，由于这样的社会理想与人类的特性和生存事实相背离，所以，它要么沦为强制性奴役，要么仅仅是空想的乌托邦。人类社会的进化史证明，一元化的社会理想及其社会试验，最终带给人类的不是福祗而是灾难。一元化理想的失败使人类逐渐意识到，人类社会只能尊重和适应多元化——多元的利益诉求和多元的价值认同——创建一种充分容纳多元化的社会制度，而不是企图改造或消灭多元化。
　　迄今为止，在人类试验过的各类社会制度中，唯有自*由制度才能保证多元价值之间的和平共处和相互尊重，才能促进多元价值之间的相互交流，进而保证人类的多样化创造力的发挥和实现。而其他制度大都要求价值一律，企图用一元的国家利益来收编多元的利益诉求，企图用统治者的价值偏好来统辖多元的价值偏好，必然导致强制和窒息的同时出现。强制之下无自*由，无自*由就是对人类多样性及其创造力的扼杀。所以，在伦理上尊重每种价值偏好，在制度上保障每个人、每一群体对不同价值的自*由选择权利，也就成为自*由主义价值及其制度安排的目标。
　　美国著名的政治学家达尔所提出的“多元民主理论”，显然与柏林的多元自*由论高度相关。

三 本体价值和功利价值的综合论述
　　尽管，在现代西方的自*由主义政治学中，每个人的理论皆有各自的重点所在，但凡是自成一家的理论也都有对自*由的综合界定：既着眼于自*由的本体价值，也着眼于自*由的工具价值；既对人性之恶和人的无知保持充分的警惕，也对多元价值保有必要的尊重。
　　在我看来，对自*由优先的最杰出的综合论证，非哈耶克莫属。
　　哈耶克在上世纪七十年代出版的《法律、立法与自*由》三卷巨著，对罗尔斯的分配正义（社会正义）进行了系统的批评，提出了对自*由优先的综合性论证。他认为，如果要为分配正义正名，那么也只有一种真实而有益的分配正义，那就是“对自*由权利的公平分配”。而强调经济结果上的分配正义，必将有损于个人的自*由。同时，在现实社会中，对经济结果的平等分配的张扬，在理沦上从来都是“假问题”，在现实的经济政策上也从来都是“乌托邦”。迄今为止的经济平等的社会试验证明，即便在斯大林苏联和毛泽东中国，仍然存在着一个享有绝对优惠的特权阶层，这一特权阶层不但拥有政治特权，也拥有经济特权，他们的经济收入和物质享受与无权无势的大众之间，有着天壤之别。
　　换言之，以自*由主义政治学看自*由与平等的关系，从初始道德善的角度讲，世界上只有一种平等，不是物质财富的平均分配，而是自*由权利的平等分配。也就是对每个人的平等对待，赋予每个人以平等的自*由权利。而赋予每个人以平等的自*由权利，必然使权利最大限度地分散。只有这样，才可以避免任何形式的垄断或独裁的强制。所以，创立政府的首要原则是要求政府对每个人的平等对待，这一首要原则就是对政治权力的铁的制约。
　　所以，与经济分配平等相比，个人自*由应该是第一位的。自*由优先性的理由在于：1，自*由具有确立人的尊严的本体价值，人性之善使自*由成为可能，人性之恶使自*由成为必要；2，自*由具有最大限度增进个人及其社会福利的工具价值；3，自*由既是多元价值的结果，也是多元价值的前提，没有自*由制度的保障，多元价值不可能获得平等共存的社会条件。
　　著名自*由主义经济学家阿马蒂亚•森（Amartya Sen，1998年获诺贝尔经济学奖）从经济学的角度丰富了哈耶克的综合性论证。他在1999年发表了《为了自*由的发展》一书，把自*由的本体论论证与自*由的工具论论证完美地融为一体。
　　森认为，在诸种善的价值排序中，自*由权利应该具有更大的权重，而不能用单纯的效用来作为衡量人的福利的标准。自*由首先是个人拥有的按其价值标准去生活的机会或能力，其次才是实现其他功利目标的手段。所以，不能以单纯的物质福利来衡量个人生存的价值。比如，一个相对富足而无尊严的奴隶并不能体现出人的价值，而一个相对清贫却拥有尊严的自*由人却能体现出人的价值。同样，也不能以单纯的经济增长率来衡量一个社会的发展，那种经济高速而自*由匮乏的社会发展，既是畸形的也是无法持久的；而只有那种“为了促进自*由的社会发展”，才是健康的，因而也能持久。

四 保障自*由的宪政和法治
　　自*由的反面是强制，如何使人免于强制，便成为自*由制度安排的核心。
　　绝对自*由，即绝对无强制是不可能的，所以需要给予政府以垄断性的强制权；但这只是防止强制的次要方面，更重要的是要防止最有能力进行普遍强制的政府和统治者，所以就必须给予强制者以制度的和法律的强制，使具有强制权力的机构和官员无法随心所欲地进行强制。人类在长期的强制与反强制的斗争中，逐渐形成了一种自*由社会秩序，它把防止私人之间强制的强制权力让渡给政府，使政府垄断了公共强制权。同时，为了防止政府滥用这种垄断性公权力，必须设计一套规则来限制政府权力，即把政府为了达到维护个人自*由的目的而必须动用的强制限制在最小的范围之内，以至于除了为制止人与人之间的强制的发生之外，个人永远不会遭受强制。
　　这套规则就是以“自*由宪政”命名的法治秩序。按照亚当•斯密或哈耶克的观点，甚至在政府或国家形成之前，这套规则已经作为习惯法形成了自发的秩序。英国的保守自*由主义传统就源于英国习惯法的自发累计，所以，英国是一个留有充分改良空间的弹性社会；而法国的激进自*由主义则源于法国专制制度的僵硬，是缺少渐进改良的空间的刚性社会。故而才有英国式的不流血的光荣革命和法国式的血腥的大革命。
　　如果说，个人自*由的行使有界限，即不能侵犯他人的自*由；那么，政治强制就更应该有界限，只有当甲的行动侵犯或妨碍乙的自*由时，强制才是必要的。为了保护个人自*由，必须强行终止任何力量对个人自*由的侵犯，为了防止人与人之间的相互侵犯而实施的强制，要由垄断着强制权力的政府来完成。强制是恶，政府的强制权力被自*由主义视为“必要的恶”。
　　同时，拥有垄断强制权力的机构即政府，最有可能利用强制权力来侵犯个人自*由，为了防止政府滥用强制权力就必须对政府进行限制，在权力来源上需要多数授权，在权力配置上需要相互制衡，在权力行使上要严格遵守公认的社会规则即法治。法治以道德善的最大公约数为基础来划定界限，通过划界来规范个人、群体和政府的行为。个人自*由与社会公益之间的界限，个人自*由与政府强制之间的界限，政府的合法强制权力与滥用权力之间的界限，必须由法律来加以清晰的界定。个人行使自*由权利，民间组织行使自治权力，政府行使强制权力，都必须在法律的范围之内。
　　个人自*由权利和民间组织自治权力的行使如果违法，就是滥用自*由，必须动用政府强制力来加以制止；政府强制如果违法，就是滥用权力，也必须依靠法律来预防、中止和纠正；在必要的时候，法治将对这两种滥用作出严厉的追究和处罚。
　　虽然，个人或民间组织滥用自*由和政府滥用强制都是对自*由的侵犯，但就危害的程度和性质而言，政府权力的滥用最为可怕——因为政府权力是公共性的，被赋予了管理社会的巨大职权，而任何权力、特别是公权力的本性，天然地趋向无限制地滥用，垄断着公权力的政府最有能力、也最有意愿来限制和剥夺个人自*由。所以，法治秩序下的政治制度安排的首要目标，不是防止个人滥用自*由，而是防止政府滥用强制，公权力一旦被滥用，将对自*由、生命和财产构成致命的伤害。正如古希腊先哲柏拉图说：没有法律的正义，不过是徒有其名。近代自*由主义大师洛克也说：没有法治保障的自*由，也不过是徒有其名。
　　旨在保障个人自*由和防止政府滥用权力的宪政，必须在一种法治秩序下才有可能。因为，法治为社会提供一种既非个人的、也非小集团的超然至上的形式规则，个人要依法行使其自*由权利，政府要依法行使其强制权力，任何人也没有超越法律行使任意权力的特权，总统与平民、富翁与乞丐在法律面前是平等的。
　　但是，必须指出，现代法治在道义决不是中立的，而是为了保障自*由的。在法治秩序中。政府是为保障和促进个人自*由而建立的，政府只有服务于民众的责任，而没有要求个人服务于政府的权力。具体的讲，法治的主要功能是保障个人免遭非法强制，是限制最容易伤害个人自*由的公权力，防止公权力的滥用对个人自*由造成的任意侵犯。法治要让任何非法的强制行为付出代价，强奸犯、纵火犯、杀人犯的滥用个人自*由也好，政府、总统及其公务员滥用权力也罢，只要发生了非法强制，都要受到法律的强制性追究和惩罚。
　　更重要的是，法治首先意味着权利而不是惩罚。惩罚不过是对权利伤害的事前防范和事后追究。西方的法治与中国的法律的最大区别就在于：前者以权利的保障为核心，后者以惩罚的实施为核心。在中国漫长的法律史上，占主导地位的所谓“法制”是只有惩罚犯罪而没有权利保障。在这样的法制传统中，政府及其执法者就变成了可以肆意践踏自*由权利却不受法律追究的最大罪犯。
　　法治中的自*由只是意味着：法治为个人自*由的行使划出了一个私域范围，在此范围内，个人的所作所为并不依赖任何人或任何权威机构的批准。在此范围外则是一个公域，在公域内政府具有强制性权力，而政府的强制仅仅是为了避免发生于私域之内的强制或侵犯。在此问题上，洛克的论述对于自*由与法治的关系来说，至今仍然是至理名言：“法律的目的不是取消或限制自*由，而是维护和扩大自*由。这是因为在所有能够接受法律支配的人类状态中，哪里没有法律，哪里就没有自*由。这是因为自*由意味着不受他人的束缚和强暴；而这种自*由在不存在法律的地方是不可能存在的：一如我们所被告知的那样，这种自*由并不是每个人为所欲为的自*由。……在这样的法律下，他不受其他人的专断意志的支配，而是能够自*由地遵循他自己的意志。”
　　人类的统治就是从意志统治到法律统治的过程。
　　美国人开创的宪政传统的伟大意义就在于：宪法使自*由原则成为“元法律”，并使“元法律”成为公民文化和公共道德，从而构成一切法律必须遵循的一般而抽象的规则。
　　
　　2006年4月4日于北京家中

1932年12月 16日，林昭出生在苏州。名为彭令昭，乳名苹男，中学时期发表文章曾经署名令昭。1954年报考北大时名为彭令昭，入学时即改名为林昭。父亲彭国彦早年留学英国学习宪政，1922年考入东南大学主修政治经济，1926年毕业论文是《爱尔兰自由邦宪法述评》。1928年在国民政府举办的第一届县长考试中获第一名，被任命为苏州吴县县长。母亲许宪民。冯英子说：“苏州出过许多巾帼英雄，然而我认为在现代的苏州女性中，够得上称为巾帼英雄的，许宪民同志应当是其中之一。在苏州的历史上，不可以没有许宪民的传记，不可以忘掉这样一个人。“大舅舅许金元曾任中共江苏省委青年部长、苏州特别支部书记，“四·一二“事变中牺牲。另一位舅舅许觉民现为中国社科院文学所研究员。
1949年，林昭苏州景海中学高中毕业。
1949年7月，林昭考入苏南新闻专科学校读书。
1950年5月，林昭从苏南新闻专科学校毕业。
1950年5月--1951年，随苏南农村工作团参加苏南农村土改。

1952年--1954年，在《常州民报》、常州文联工作。
1954年，林昭以江苏省第一名成绩考入北京大学中文系新闻专业。林昭才华出众，受到游国恩教授的赏识，游教授曾经主张将林昭改为文学专业的学生，未果。林昭任校刊编辑。
1955年春，参加北大诗社，任《北大诗刊》编辑。
1956年秋，北大创办综合性学生文艺刊物《红楼》，青年女教师乐黛云当主编，林昭系编委之一。林昭因此从校刊编辑部调到红楼，被称为“红楼里的林姑娘“。
19570529日，上午，《红楼》编辑部举行会议，宣布开除张元勋与李任《红楼》编委会，原因是张元勋与李任等人创办了右派刊物《广场》。编委们多有发言，纷纷批判张元勋李任的罪行。林昭在发言批判时对张元勋说：“我有受骗的感觉！“张元勋在《北大往事与林昭之死》中说：“41年后，在纪念林昭惨死30年的时候，说起这一段往事，我想把一个真实的林昭介绍给我们的友人与陌生者，要向世人讲清，死于悲壮的林昭，其思想与决心确实有一个成长、成熟、自我矛盾与自我斗争的痛苦过程…?quot;
19570522日，极闷热的晚上，在北大十六斋东门外的马路上开展了一场激烈的“口战“，一些发言认为“大字报中的右倾言论是反革命煽动“。林昭在浓密的夜色中登上餐桌，反对那些上纲上线的批评。并说：“我料到一旦说话也就会遭到像今晚这样的讨伐！我一直觉得组织性与良心在矛盾着！“有人怒问“你是谁？“林昭说“我是林昭！双木三十六之林、刀在口上之日的昭！“
是夜林昭喝酒大醉，此后卧床两天。从此她什么话也不说，每日在善本书库里静读。
1957年秋，林昭与谭天荣张元勋等北大优秀学生一起被打成右派分子。林昭吞服大量安眠药自杀抗议，被同学发现，及时抢救过来。被判劳教三年。新闻专业负责人罗列怜其体弱多病，经常咳血，冒险为之说情，没有发配到西北劳改，而是留在新闻专业资料室接受群众“监督改造“。
19580621日，北大新闻专业合并到人民大学新闻系，林昭到人大新闻系资料室监督劳动。人大新闻系右派学生甘粹也在资料室“劳动考察“，经常主动照顾体弱多病的林昭。二人渐渐相亲相爱，并提出结婚申请。上级批评他们谈情说爱是抗拒改造，不准他们结婚。
1959年9月，甘粹被发配到新疆劳动改造。林昭心情恶劣，病情加重。冬天咳血加剧，要求回到上海母亲身边养病。
1960年初，人民大学校长吴玉章批准林昭请假要求，林昭母亲许宪民特来北京迎接林昭回上海养病。是年，中国大地饥荒蔓延，饿殍遍野。在甘肃农村劳改的一批右派学生和个别有良知的地方官员希望唤醒社会良知。兰州大学历史系右派学生张春元提出创办刊物，传播思想。物理系研究生顾雁、徐诚表示赞成。他们与在上海的林昭取得联系，决定合作编辑一种杂志，取名《星火》。张春元等人凑钱买了一部油印机，油印了首期《星火》，其中发表了林昭的一首长诗《普罗米修斯受难的一日》。
是时，他们四处搜集各地党政负责人和民主党派负责人名字，企图将《当前的形势和我们的任务》一文寄给他们，呼吁他们正视恶劣的社会现实和人民的苦难，努力遏止中共的极左政策。
1960年7月，《星火》主要领导人张春元被捕。
19600930日，与张春元一起劳改的学生、教师39人全部被捕。支持他们的数十名当地农民一起被捕。同时被捕的还有对他们表示过同情的武山县委书记杜映华。
1960年10月，林昭因反革命罪名在苏州被捕，囚于上海第一看守所。警察逮捕她并抄家时，林昭父亲喃喃说道：“我们家完了，我们家完了！“不到一个月，父亲彭国彦自杀身亡。
林昭和张春元、顾雁等人被捕后，顾雁的哥哥顾鸿将当时家喻户晓的卡斯特罗著作《历史将宣告我无罪》寄给法院，并将“无罪“二字用红笔划出。顾雁的弟弟顾麋则在日记中表达抗议。顾鸿顾麋因此都被打成“反革命分子“。
1961年，林昭写作思想日记。
1961年5月，囚于上海第二看守所。曾经一度与基督徒俞以勒囚拘一室，二人相处甚好，相互影响甚多。
1961年12月初，中共中央西北局开会改组甘肃省委，并号召全省“紧急行动起来抢救人命“。此前中共中央监委副书记钱瑛带了一个工作组到甘肃调查，批评他们的极左错误。据说钱瑛曾过问“《星火》反革命集团“案，建议从宽处理。但该案还是有十几人被判了重刑。其中张春元被判无期徒刑，苗新久二十年，向承鉴十八年，谭蝉雪、胡晓愚、何之明各十五年，顾雁、徐诚均十年以上，杨贤勇十年，陈德根七年，杜映华五年。当地四十多岁的农民刘武雄十二年。
1962年初，林昭以保外就医出狱，回到苏州乔司空巷15号家中修养。出狱那天，林昭抱着桌子脚不肯回家，对前来迎接的母亲和妹妹说：“他们还要把我抓进来的，放我是多此一举。
1962年3月底，对片警说随时准备重返监狱。
1962年7月，致信北大校长陆平，呼吁效仿蔡元培校长，主持公义，营救被迫害的学生。
1962年9月，在苏州与右派分子黄政、朱泓等人商量并起草了“中国自由青年战斗同盟“的纲领和章程。是月，在上海市淮海中路与无国籍侨民阿诺联系，要求阿诺将《我们是无罪的》、《给北大校长陆平的信》等带到海外发表。
19621223日，再一次被捕。
狱方曾安排林昭去上海精神病院作精神鉴定，院长粟宗华亲自判定她精神不正常。文革中粟宗华因此被指称“包庇反革命分子“，抑郁成疾，含恨而终。
19630618日，写《绝食书》云：“一息尚存，此生宁愿坐穿牢底，决不稍负初愿，稍改初志。
19630808日，从上海市监狱（已经关押8个半月）移拘上海第一看守所。
19640205日，吞食药皂自杀，未遂。
1964年3月，致信审讯者。
19640926日，纸笔被狱方收缴，无法书写，此后一直用血书写。。
19641104日，谢绝营养荤菜。
19641109日，与狱方谈话不投机。第四次加戴手铐，延续到19650526日才取消。
19641110日，以玻璃片割破左腕血管自杀未遂，是日起绝食10日。
19641206日，第一封致上海地方长官柯庆施的血书托检察院转送。
1964年12月-1965年2月，囚于上海第一看守所，
1964年12月，第一次给《人民日报》写信反映案情并表达政治见解，血书。无回音。
19650105日，索要进食筷子。柯庆施任国务院副总理，林昭一直认为柯庆施能够保护她。
1965年1月底，遭到狱卒施暴。
19650220日，狱方与林昭谈话。
19650221日，早晨开始拒食。
1965年2月，第二次给《人民日报》写信反映案情并表达政治见解，血书。无回音。此信附有一封呼吁书，要求转给正在给非洲人效力的日本律师长野同治和智利记者罗哈斯，希望引起国际正义力量对自己的事业和案情的关注。

19650303日，第二封致上海地方最高长官柯庆施的信交出。
19650305日，接待家属探监。
19650321日，从狱方米汤中闻出米沙尔气味，喝后腹泻，疑心有毒。以后经常因喝米汤腹泻或腹痛。
19650405日，上海地方最高长官、国务院副总理柯庆施发病，9日下午逝世。林昭觉得柯庆施之死含有政治阴谋。
19641202日，接到起诉书。
19641205日，出庭受审。
19650306日，交上血写的绝食书，狱方鼻饲流质，直到0531日绝食80天，此间天天写血书。到上海第一监狱22个月，仅于19641105日家人送了一回副食品。
1965年3月中旬某日，血书“有事要求立即提审“。
1965年3月-5月，一个半月没有张口说话。

19650323日，林昭开始血书《告人类》。
19650321日，晚喝狱方米汤后腹痛半夜，疑心有毒。
19650325日，身体极为虚弱，以来月经为由要求输液，未允。
19650405日，上午11时喝狱方米汤，5分钟后腹泻，疑心有毒。
19650531日，再一次开庭审判，被判有期徒刑20年。
19650601日，林昭刺破手指，用鲜血写作《判决后的申明》，“……这是一个可耻的判决，但我骄傲地听取了它！这是敌人对于我个人战斗行为的一种估价，我为之由衷地感到战斗者的自豪！……我应该作得更多，以符合你们的估价！除此以外，这所谓的判决与我可谓毫无意义！我蔑视它！看着吧！历史法庭的正式判决很快即将昭告于后世！你们这些极权统治者和诈伪的奸佞--歹徒、恶赖、窃国盗和殃民贼将不仅是真正的被告更是公诉的罪人！公义必胜！自由万岁！林昭主历 一九六五年六月一日“她以“主历“二子可能是为了强调心中拥有上帝的爱与正义。
1965年7月-12月，第三次给《人民日报》写信申诉案情并陈述政治思想，重点批评“阶级斗争“学说（戏称为楼梯上打架的理论）和集权统治，呼吁人权、民主、和平、正义，长达10万字。
19660506日，刚刚刑满释放仍在监督劳动的林昭挚友和同学张元勋偷偷来到上海，以男朋友身份偕同林昭母亲许宪民到上海提篮桥监狱看望林昭。可能是唯一一次得到同仁的看望。林昭说：“我随时都会被杀，相信历史总会有一天人们会说到今天的苦难！希望你把今天的苦难告诉未来的人们！并希望你把我的文稿、信件搜集整理成三个专集：诗歌集题名《自由颂》、散文集题名《过去的生活》、书信集题名《情书一束》。“又说：“妈妈年迈无能，妹妹弟弟不能独立，还望多多关怀、体恤与扶掖。“

篮桥井台共笑之，天涯幽阻最忧思；

旧游飘零音情断，感君凛然忘生死；

犹记海淀冬别夜，吞声九载逝如斯；

朝日不终风和雨，轮回再觅剪烛时；

慨叹几十万人受骗，一只纸帆船寄心意。
19670501日，正在监督劳动的张元勋再一次偷偷来到上海，偕同许宪民来到提篮桥监狱要求探望林昭。传达室告曰：“监狱已经军管，一切接见停止。“
19680429日，林昭接到由20年有期徒刑改判为死刑的判决书，当即血书“历史将宣告我无罪！“当天被秘密处决。时不满36岁，尚是一位未婚青年。
关于林昭遇难的经过，彭令范在《我的姐姐林昭·下》一文中有如下介绍：母亲的朋友朱太太来电话叫我们到她家里去一次。我去后发觉她家里气氛沉重而又异常。她先问我有无姐姐的消息，姐姐在执刑前有几个月他们没有她的音讯。我就把付子弹费的情况告诉了朱太太，她听后立即脸色灰白，沉痛地说?quot;这是真的了。“在我追问下，她告诉我，她的大儿子祥祥每周二次在龙华飞机场勤工俭学，4月29日由同学送回家时已面无人色，神情呆滞，半晌讲不出话来。朱太太追问发生了什么事，那同学说：“我们今天在龙华看到枪毙人，是个女的，祥祥看了立即变色，说是认识她的。“等那同学走后，祥祥突然哭了起来，说：“大姐姐被杀害了!“因为他的精神受到了打击，先要他休息。到第二天朱太太向他问个究竟，祥祥说他们一帮勤工俭学的在机场内做些杂务工，每天下午三时左右结束。那天结束后，在机场内多玩了一会儿。到三时半左右，突然望见有两辆军用小吉普飞快开来，停在机场的第三跑道，接着由两个武装人员架出一反手绑架的女子，女子的口中似乎塞着东西。他们向她腰后踢了一脚，她就跪倒了。那时走出另外两个武装人员对准她开了一枪，当她倒下后又慢慢地强行爬起来，于是他们又向她开了两枪，看她躺下不再动弹时，将她拖入另一辆吉普车飞快疾驰而去。祥祥说，他当时几乎叫出大姐姐来。朱太太再三追问他是否会看错，祥祥说绝对不会错，大姐姐有她的特点，只是更瘦了。身上穿的像是医院里的衣服。

19680501日下午2时，公安人员来到林昭母亲家，索取5分钱子弹费。林昭的妹妹彭令范送上5分钱，林昭的母亲当场昏厥。
林昭被处决前后，张春元被诬指 “密谋暴动越狱“，杜映华被指控为张春元传递消息，两人均被判处死刑，立即枪决。张元勋也重新入狱。
林昭母亲经受不住精神打击，精神失常，多次离家出走，后死于上海街头。有人说是自杀，有人说是被红卫兵打伤致死。
林昭的妹妹彭令范1980年迁居美国，多次回国参加悼念林昭的活动，写有长文《我的姐姐林昭》。林昭尚有一弟，下落不明。

一九八０年八月二十二日，上海高级法院“沪高刑复字四百三十五号判决书”宣告林昭无罪，结论为“这是一次冤杀无辜”。

2002年，你的骨灰在由一位上海女性秘密保存几十年后，安葬在苏州灵岩山。
林昭在一九五七年北京大学的论战中用“双木三十六之林，刀在口上之日的昭”自报家门，她遇难之时正是三十六岁，罹“口舌之灾”，二者竟在她的名字的破解中不幸言中！

 

 

您在北大，“一整天心里都感到好笑，笑这疯了的党。”
您在监狱中这样写到：
   “那些自称为镇压机关或镇压工具的东西，正在怎样地作恶，而人们特别是我们同时代的人——中国的青春一代在这条专政的大毒蛇的锁链之下，怎样的受难，想到这荒谬的情况的延续，是如何断送民族的正气和增长着人类的不安，更如何玷污着祖国名字而加剧时代的动荡，这个年青人还能不急躁吗？”
   “诚然我们不惜牺牲，甚至不避流血，可是象这样一种自由的生活，到底能不能以血洗的办法使它在血泊之中建立起来呢？中国人的血历来不是流得太少而是太多，即使在中国这么一片深厚的中世纪遗址之上，政治斗争是不是也有可能以较为文明的形式去进行，而不必诉诸流血呢！”
你在给《人民日报》的公开信中这样写到——
   “我已日益地看穿了那伪善画皮底下狰狞的罗剎鬼脸，则我断然不能容许自己堕落为甘为暴政奴才的地步。”

“长期以来，当然是为了更有利于维护你们的极权统治与愚民政策，也是出于严重的封建唯心思想和盲目的偶像崇拜双重影响下的深刻奴性，你们把毛泽东当作披着洋袍的‘真命天子’竭尽一切努力在党内外将他加以神化，运用了一切美好辞藻的汇总和正确概念的集合，把他装扮成独一无二的偶像，扶植人们对他的个人迷信。”
    “除了被奴役者不得自由，即使奴役他人者也同样不得自由。当我们深受暴政的奴役，我们不愿作奴隶的同时，但我们自身作为反抗者不能建立新的形式的奴隶制度。”
   “身受着暴政奴役切肤之痛再也不愿意作奴隶了的我们，是不是还要无视如此悲惨的教训，而把自己斗争的目的贬低到只是企望去作另一种形式的奴隶主呢？”
    “自由的性质决定了它不能够以暴力去建立，甚至不能以权力去建立。”
   “光是镣铐一事，人们就不知玩出了多少花样来。一副反铐，两副反铐，时而平行，时而交叉，最最惨无人道酷无人理的是，无论在我绝食中，在我胃炎发病痛得死去活来时，乃至在妇女生理特殊的情况下，不仅从来未为我解除过镣铐，甚至从来没有减轻，比如两副镣铐中暂除掉一副……”
可就是在这惨无人道的处境下，这个柔弱的女子依然给迫害者写下了这样的文字：“向你们，我的检察官阁下，恭敬地献上一朵玫瑰花。这是最有礼貌的抗议，无声无息，温和而又文雅。人血不是水，滔滔流成河……”
   “先生们，人性———这就是人心啊！为什么我要怀抱着，乃至对你们怀抱着一份人性，这么一份人心呢？……我仍然察见到，还不完全忽略你们身上，偶然有机会显露出的人性闪光，从而察见到你们的心灵深处，还多少保有未尽泯灭的人性。在那个时候，我更加悲痛地哭了……”

您的的精神是什么？概言之：“如无自由之思想，独立之意志，毋宁死。”

您在狱中曾写了一首《家祭》，怀念她的舅父与母亲：“三十七年的血迹谁复记忆？死者已矣，后人作家祭，但此一腔血泪。舅舅啊！甥女在红色牢狱里哭您！在《国际歌》的旋律里，我知道教我的是妈，而教妈的是您”——这是林昭立志革命的思想根源，否则她完全可以审时度势，何至死于非命？

您又在日记中这样写道：“真正的解放，不是央求人家网开一面，要靠自己的力量进行抗拒，使他们不得不任我们自己解放自己。不能仰赖权威的恩典给我们把头上的铁锁打开，要靠自己的努力，把它打破，从那黑暗的牢狱中，打出一道光明来……”

立志成仁取义的《秋声辞》，其中：“狐鼠纵横山岳老，脂膏滴沥稻粱贫。”“夜夜肠迥寒蛩泣，丹心未忍逐春磷。”“劫里芳华不成春，秋风秋雨愁煞人！”。

“忧乐苍生夙愿真，壮怀激烈照天陈。吞颤谁复思汉侯，蹈海我终不帝秦。”“浩歌慷慨夺江津，最是知音吊五伦”（地富反坏右）“莫笑狷狂乔作态，秋风秋雨愁煞人。

《自诔》一诗中有：“恶不能辍，愤不忍说，节不允改，志不可夺，书愤沥血，明志绝粒；此身似絮，此心似铁；自由无价，年命有涯；宁为玉碎，以殉中华！”

 上联：？下联：！

相信历史总有一天，人们会说到今天的苦难！
希望把今天的苦难告诉给未来的人们！
                           ——林昭遗言

給胡錦濤先生的公開信

龍應台

「胡锦涛」代表什么？
锦涛先生：
     国民党主席马英九先生在二零零六年一月中勉励他的国青团青年学员时，说了这么一句玩笑的话：「希望将来国青团也能培养出一个胡锦涛。」
     我相信这是他从政以来所说过的最不及格的笑话。
     马英九先生很可能只单纯想到，「胡锦涛」是从共青团体制里脱颖而出的国家领导人，但是会说出这样的话，也透露了他显然不曾更深刻地细思过，共青团是个什么样的体制？这个领导人所领导的「国家」，是个以什么为本的国家？他的权力来源是什么？正当性何在？在二十一世纪初掌握中国政权的「胡锦涛」这三个字，代表了什么意义？
     它当然代表了超高的经济成长指数，让世界惊诧，让国人自豪，可是同时，在政治自由的指标评比上，中国在世界上排名第一百七十七名。您可以说，这是以「西方右派」的标准来衡量的，不符合「中国国情」。好，让我们用一个社会主义的指标吧。追求资源分配的平等，不管均富或均贫，都是左派的核心理想吧？在贫富差异上，中国的基尼系数超过0.4，迫近0.45，这已是社会大动乱的门坎指标。指针数字下，多少人物欲横流，多少人辗转沟壑。
     也就是说，「胡锦涛」三个字在二十一世纪的当下历史里，仍代表一种逆流：在追求民主的大浪潮中，它专制集权；在追求平等的大趋势里，它严重的贫富不均。
     在您刚刚上任时，人们曾经对年华正茂的您寄以期望，以为，作为一个新世纪的人物，您的心灵和视野会比您的前辈们更深沈，更开阔。共产党权力革命的杀伐蛮横之气，终究要被人文的体贴细致和文化的润物无声所取代。但是，两年了，我们所看见的，是什么呢？
    
被割断的喉咙
     促使我动笔写这封信的，是今天发生的一件具体事件：共青团所属的北京「中国青年报」「冰点」周刊今天黄昏时被勒令停刊。
     在此之前，原来最敢于直言、最表达民间疾苦的「南方周末」被换下了主编而变成一份吞吞吐吐的报纸，原来勇于揭弊的「南方都市报」的总编辑被撤走论罪，清新而意图焕发的「新京报」突然被整肃，一个又一个有胆识、有作为的媒体被消音处理。这些，全在您任内发生。出身共青团的您，一定清楚「冰点」现在的位置：它是万马齐瘖里唯一一匹还有微弱「嘶声」的活马。
     而在一月二十四日的今天，这仅有的喉咙，都被割断。在「冰点」编辑们正式得知这个「割喉」处分之前，所有跟「冰点」有关的字和词，已经从网络上彻底消灭。
     在您的领导之下，网络警察的绝对效率，令人骇异。
     选在今天执「刑」，谁都知道原因：春节前夕，人们都已离开工作岗位，准备回乡围炉。报纸开始扑天盖地报导娱乐，制造温馨；电视开始排山倒海地表演联欢，生产快乐。选在这一天割断中国仅有的喉咙，然后让普天同庆的欢声把它淌血的声音遮住。行刑者蹑手蹑脚走开，过完年，一切都已了无痕迹。网络警察的效率和现代传媒的操弄，是您所呈现的二十一世纪统治技巧。
     网络警察动作快，是怕自己的人民知道；精算时间动手，是怕国际媒体知道。偷偷摸摸地执行，费尽心机地隐藏，泄漏的是政府的虚心和害怕。但是，请您告诉我这个困惑的台湾人民：这「和平崛起」大有为的政府，究竟为什么如此的虚心和害怕？
     「冰点」的停刊，其实没有人真正的惊讶，人们早在暗暗等待，好像一个宿命论者永远在等着鬼的半夜敲门索命；我发现，太多的灾难和压迫，使得大陆很少人相信好事会长久、梦想能成真、正义能落实。刊出龙应台的「你可能不知道的台湾」时，网络上已经四处流传「冰点」被封杀的臆测；今天，只是「鬼」终于被等到了。而「冰点」「勇敢」到什么程度使得共产党用这样阴暗的手段来对付它？
    
仇外的建国美学
     今天封杀「冰点」的理由，是广州中山大学袁伟时先生谈历史和教科书 的文章。因为它「和主流意识形态相对?/span>攻击社会主义，攻击党的领导」。而「毁」掉了一份报纸的袁伟时先生的文章，究竟说了什么的话，招来这样的惩罚？
     我认真读了这篇文章。袁伟时以具体的史实证据来说明目前的中学历史教科书谬误百出不说，还有严重的非理性意识型态的宣扬。譬如义和团，教科书把义和团描写成民族英雄，美化他对洋人的攻击，对于义和团的残酷、愚昧、反理性、反现代文明以及他给国家带来的伤害和耻辱，却只字不提。综合起来，教科书所教导下一代的，是「1．现有的中华文化至高无上。2．外来文化的邪恶，侵蚀了现有文化的纯洁。3．应该或可以用政权或暴民专制的暴力去清除思想文化领域的邪恶。」。对于这种历史观的教育，袁伟时非常忧虑：「用这样的理路潜移默化我们的孩子，不管主观意图如何，都是不可宽宥的戕害。」
     锦涛先生，我不是不知道，共产党是以美化秦始皇、盗跖、太平天国、义和团这样一个历史脉络来奠定自己的权力美学的。我也不是不知道，每一个政权都会设法去建构一个所谓建国神话和图腾──您因此一定也很理解民进党的企图。但是，建构的国族神话里如果藏有仇外情绪，就是一个必须正视的危险。在二十一世纪，国界几乎快要不存在，地球愈来愈是一个紧密的村子，因为唇齿相依，不得不忧戚与共。中国为什么极力争取主办奥运和世博？目的不就是企图以最大的动作向世界推销一个新的中国形象：你看，中国是一个充满发展能量、爱好世界和平、承担国际责任的泱泱大国！
     如果对外面的世界推销的是这样一个形象，关起们来教下一代的，却是「中华文化至高论」、「外来文化邪恶论」以及义和团哲学，请告诉我，哪一个中国是真实的？总书记能够光明磊落大声地告诉国际社会吗？
     袁伟时说，教科书不能罔顾史实，不能赞美暴力，不能教下一代中国人对自己狂热，对外人仇视。这样的认知，锦涛先生，在我们这里，叫做「常识」。在北京，竟然是违反「主流意识型态」的入罪之论。那么能不能请您告诉我这个台湾人民，您的主流意识型态是什么？
    
哪一个是你真实的面孔？
     我们暂且不管大陆的知识分子和一般人民读者怎么看这「冰点」事件，但是我很愿意和您分享像我这样一个台湾的知识分子的感受。至于龙应台这样思维的人在台湾有没有代表性，有没有影响力，您自己判断。
     我对中国大陆有着深切厚重的情感，来自命运血缘，历史传统，更来自语言文化。在台湾生长，我同时发展出与这一条「家国认同」情感线平行并重的执着，那就是对生命的尊重，对人道的坚持，而从这种尊重和坚持衍生出其它的基本价值：譬如主张独立的人格、自由的精神，譬如对贫富不均的不能接受，对国家暴力的绝不容忍，对统治者的绝不信任，譬如对知识的敬重，对庶民的体恤，对异议的宽容，对谎言的鄙视。。。
     这一条我称之为「价值认同」的理性线。当「家国认同」的情感线和「价值认同」的理性线相互冲突时，我如何取舍？毫无犹豫，我选择后者。二十年前，我曾经写「野火」和国民党那个「家国」对抗；李登辉当政时，我曾经为文批判他的虚伪与狭隘；陈水扁不公不义，又迫使我执笔彻底抵抗。所以您如果闹不清我究竟是「统派」或是「独派」，不妨这样试试：台湾和大陆，哪边符合我的「价值认同」，就是我的「家国」。哪边违背我的「价值认同」，就是我离之弃之抵抗之的对象。如果两边都符合我的「价值认同」，那就开始讨论统一吧。所以，我是统派还是独派呢？
     以这样的价值结构来看今天「冰点」事件，您说我这个台湾人看见什么？
     我看见这个我怀有深切厚重情感的血缘「家国」，是一个践踏我所有「价值认同」的国度：
     它，把真理当谎言，把谎言当真理，而且把这样的颠倒制度化。
     它，把独立的知识分子当奴才使用，把奴性的知识分子当家仆使用，把奴才当──啊，它把鞭子、戒尺和钥匙，交到奴才的手里。
     它面对西方是一个脸孔，面对日本是另一个脸孔，面对台湾是一个脸孔，面对自己，又是一个脸孔。
     它面对别人的历史持一个标准，它面对自己的历史时──错了，它根本不面对。它选择背对自己的历史。
     它拥抱神话，创造假象，恐惧真相。他最怕的，显然是它自己。
     。。。
     您，还要我继续说下去吗？

请说服我
     我真正想说的是，锦涛先生，作为一个台湾人，我实在不在乎团团和圆圆来不来台北，虽然猫熊可爱得令人融化。但是我这样的台湾人可真在乎「冰点」的安危，就像很多、很多香港人真在乎程翔那个被逮捕的记者的安危。如果中国的「价值认同」是由一群手持鞭子、戒尺和钥匙的奴才在垄断它的解释和执行，而独立的人格、自由的精神是被打击、戒律、监控的对象，请问，我们谈统一的起点理由究竟是什么呢？而我对中国的情感还是有条件的，台湾还有很多热爱、深爱、无条件地执着地爱中国那片深厚土地的人──您又用什么东西去跟他谈统一，而他不致被人嘲笑、咒骂呢？
     重点不在团团和圆圆，您知道吗？重点也从来就不在民进党，您明白吗？
     重点就在「冰点」这样具体而微的事情上。说穿了，锦涛先生，您容不容许媒体独立，您尊不尊重知识分子，您用什么态度面对自己的历史，以什么手段去对待人民，每一个最细小的决定，都系在「文明」这两个字上头。经历过野蛮，我们不得不在乎文明。
     请用文明来说服我。我愿意诚恳倾听。

                                                  龍應台  01-24-2006

 

 

Homo sanguinarius

May 26th 2005
From The Economist print edition

A major new biography-more than a decade in the making-portrays Mao as having been even more ruthless and bloody than was previously believed

IN HIS recent book on Mao Zedong, Philip Short suggested that for all the suffering Mao inflicted on China (“the deaths of more of his own people than any other leader in history”), he was never as personally culpable as Stalin and Hitler. A new study, by Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday, reaches a different conclusion: Mao, they insist, was a megalomaniac of unremitting evil. Mr Short says that, apart from one period in the 1930s, Mao was not directly involved in executing opponents. The new book insists that not only did Mao arrange their deaths himself, he delighted in having them die in singularly unpleasant ways.

Mr Short and his fellow Mao biographers are no apologists, but Ms Chang and Mr Halliday are uniquely relentless iconoclasts. The “Unknown Story” of their title goes well beyond the kind of anecdotal impressions given in 1994 by Mao's doctor Li Zhisui in his vivid (though unsurprising) book, “The Private Life of Chairman Mao”. Ms Chang's and Mr Halliday's informants include several Mao intimates, but some of the most revealing details come from non-Chinese sources, including the archives of the former Soviet Union, which played such an important role in the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The book challenges much of the received wisdom on Mao and the party, and is particularly detailed on its early days. Mao, it seems, was utterly contemptuous of the downtrodden masses whose saviour the party proclaimed itself to be. He had no interest in co-operating with the ruling Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), in the war against the Japanese, leaving virtually all the actual fighting to the KMT while he focused on building his party. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT leader, made no more than a token pretence at trying to stop the communists from moving closer to Soviet-controlled territory, believing that this would please Russian leaders. In return, Chiang wanted the Russians to return his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, whom they were effectively holding hostage. As for who best embodied the spirit of the Long March, it certainly wasn't Mao, who hardly marched at all; he was carried most of the way in a litter.

Another incident that Ms Chang and Mr Halliday cast in a whole new light is the attempted kidnapping of Chiang in 1936. Usually portrayed as a move to force him to co-operate with the communists, it was, the authors say, really no more than an abortive coup by the power-hungry Chang Hsueh-Liang (the “Young Marshal”) who wanted to supplant the Generalissimo. Mao encouraged the Young Marshal to kill Chiang. But Moscow put its foot down, fearing that this might weaken the KMT, help Japan's conquest of China and enable Japan to turn on the Soviet Union. It was Chiang, not Mao, who wanted a united front against Japan. And even when Japan perpetrated an infamous atrocity in China, the Nanjing massacre of 1937-38, Mao showed no interest either then or later. Having assumed control, he is said to have told some Japanese visitors that the communists “would still be in the mountains today” had it not been for the Japanese invasion.

Mao calculated that if the Japanese defeated Chiang, the Russians would have no choice but to intervene. “His plan was to ride on the coat-tails of the Japanese to expand Red territory”, the authors argue. After the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, Mao feared the Soviets might strike a similar deal with Japan. To protect his forces, he mounted a “long, close and little-known collaboration” with Japanese intelligence to help them undermine Chiang.

That Mao gained power at all in 1949 was not thanks to an uprising—there was no spontaneous pro-communist uprising anywhere in China, say the authors—but to foreign powers: the Russians, who handed the communists the key industrial base of Manchuria, liberated by the Russians from the Japanese, and the Americans, who gave the communists crucial breathing space by ordering Chiang to stop fighting them there for four months. The Russians secretly handed the communists tens of thousands of Japanese POWs, to train Mao's army and create an air force for him. Some Japanese troops even fought for him, the authors say.

Once in power, Mao schemed to take over the world. He backed North Korea's invasion of the south, hoping to face down America in a protracted war that would leave hundreds of thousands of American dead. “We will set up the Earth Control Committee, and make a uniform plan for the Earth”, he is quoted as telling provincial leaders in 1958. He feigned assaults on Taiwan in order to encourage the Russians, who did not want to be sucked into a nuclear war on China's behalf, to hand over nuclear weapons technology to China and thus enable China to take care of itself. He encouraged the Vietnamese to escalate war with America in order to draw in American troops, so that if the United States attacked China's nuclear facilities, China could easily retaliate.

All of this is written with the same deft hand that enlivened Ms Chang's 1991 memoir, “Wild Swans”. But how much of it is true? Until China abandons its (now very low-key) cult of Mao, and allows unfettered access to archives and to individuals who knew him, our understanding of his highly secretive world will inevitably be distorted. The authors may be right that Mao built his political machine “not through inspiration or magnetism, but fundamentally through terror”. And they may be right that Chiang Kai-shek was not as ruthless. But by filtering 20th-century China through the life of a single despot without due attention being paid to the iniquities of his opponents, the book feels too much like the story of a lone ogre, and not enough like a complex and dispassionate history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    用法律更新人们的思想，在各地建立新的政权机构。消除封建残余，保证人的尊严，促进经济繁荣，以稳定联邦形式统一欧洲……

    共和是来源罗马共和制，主要是讲上层的权力制衡，而自由主义与共和主义较接近，关心的是如何以权力制蘅来保护少数，限制政府的权力，使人的自然权力不受侵犯。从某种角度而言自由主义和共和主义就是对民主不信任，害怕其导致多数压迫少数。美国民主党与共和党之争确切地反映了民主与共和之间的紧张。

    走向共和，是我们的必由之路！路漫漫其修远兮，吾辈当上下而求索！

       积极推动政治体制改革并主张三权分立的原广东省委书记任仲夷因病于２００５年１１月１５日１３时４６分在广州逝世，享年９２岁。