Arlov (left), a foreign expert in Yan'an during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, together with Ma Haide (right) and Zhou Sophie
China's modern revolution has been in the course of several decades of ups and downs, paying the price of youth and blood and lives of generations. Among them, the joys and sorrows of revolutionary marriages are strictly speaking the personal privacy content of revolutionary life. In the depths of this history, there are always some painful bleeding points, and what attitude and angle to explore and treat them with, considering academic conscience and moral character.
The "Temporary Lady" is a legend with a critique
The so-called "temporary wife" is a legend that in the revolutionary ranks, a temporary marriage was formed between men and women through organization, and women acted as temporary wives. This is different from the fact that after the defeat of the Great Revolution, the Communist Party turned into a state of underground struggle, and for the needs of the revolutionary struggle, both men and women formed a "temporary family" through organizational arrangements, but a "temporary marriage", a naked sexual relationship.
If the "temporary family" is to pretend to be a husband and wife, a real colleague, in order to confuse the enemy and cover up revolutionary behavior; then the so-called "temporary wife" legend is that the sexual behavior of both men and women in the "temporary marriage" can have no family life, only sexual relations.
In April 1948, Shen Rong moved with the Xinhua News Agency's temporary headquarters to Dongbaipo, near Xibaipo, Hebei Province, and during this work, she heard something that was difficult for her to understand. "It turned out that when they were in Yan'an, there were two Soviet experts or liaison officers, and they offered to find them two 'temporary wives' in Yan'an, stating that they would not bring them back when they returned to the Soviet Union." Two women were selected, and "the Soviets left them a sum of money when they left."
Shen Rong recalled in his later years, "I have always thought that love and marriage are sacred and free, how can they be distributed by the organization, and they are also temporary? It's incredible..."
There were three categories of Soviet experts who came to Yan'an during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression:
First, Sun Ping (Peter Vladimirov), a liaison officer of the Communist International stationed in Yan'an as a reporter for TASS, Li Wen (Leonid Hua Dolmatov), a telegraph interpreter, Boris Wah Aliyev, Igor W. W. Youren, and others;
The second is alof (Andrei Orlov), a doctor stationed in Yan'an as a field surgeon and also responsible for the intelligence liaison task of the Chinese and Soviet parties;
The third was Roman Kalman, who visited Yan'an as a reporter from the Soviet Union's "Izvestia" and a photographer at the Central Documentary Film Studio of the Soviet Union. At that time, formal diplomatic relations were established between the Soviet Union and the government of the Republic of China, the Soviet Union and Yan'an belonged to partisan exchanges, and the CCP was a member unit of the Comintern and accepted the leadership of the Comintern. In May 1939, Kalman stayed in Yan'an for less than a month, accompanied by an interpreter Zhang Yulian, and Xiao San also participated in the incident before and after, and there was no room for scandals.
In May 1942, Sun Ping and Arov arrived in Yan'an on the same plane to work, and other technicians had previously come to Yan'an in stages and batches. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in September 1945, Sun Pingren's intelligence working group left Yan'an one after another. Arlov accompanied the CENTRAL Committee of the Communist Party of China from Yan'an to Xibaipo, and was ordered to return to China in March 1949 to Beiping.
According to Ma Haide's son Zhou Youma, who listened to his mother Zhou Sophie, Mao Zedong feasted on Dr. Arof at the Shuangqing Villa in Xiangshan, Beiping, which can be regarded as a feast for him. "A few days after the banquet, your father and I went to the western suburbs airport to drop Arof on the plane. Also sending off at the western suburbs airport were Alof's female secretary in Yan'an. From then on, Arlov was never heard from. ”
The "female secretary" mentioned here may be the legendary "temporary lady".
A native of the Soviet Union, Arlov graduated from the First Moscow Medical University with a doctorate in medicine. He participated in the Soviet-Finnish War and the Soviet-German War, had rich experience in field rescue, and was a well-known field surgery expert in the Soviet Union.
In May 1942, at the age of 37, Arov came to Yan'an on Stalin's behest to provide medical care to the leaders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Yan'an gave him high-standard political and living treatment, "the relevant departments equipped him with full-time cooks and servicemen, female cadres who had been in the Soviet Union for a few years were sent to him as translators and secretaries, and Chairman Mao specially gave him a small yellow horse."
Arlov was in charge of surgery at the Central Hospital and also in the Outpatient Clinic of the Central Health Center, often treating the central leaders. He set up a teaching base in the hospital to train surgeons and field ambulance personnel, and on June 28 and 29, 1944, the Liberation Daily published Arov's advanced deeds for two consecutive days. In July of the same year, he was named a "model worker of the special class" in the medical circles of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, and Li Dingming, vice chairman of the Border Region Government, awarded him the pennant of Mao Zedong's handwritten "Model Doctor".
Outside of work, Arlov lived a high-profile life. He had a wolf dog named "Nirvana Tschabala", which means German devil. On Sundays, they rode horses and dogs and went out hunting. Among yan'an's foreign friends, Arov's way of life was criticized and criticized by righteous people at that time.
On the afternoon of May 10, 1943, Arlov and the female secretary and translator took their pet dog for a walk by the Yan River and met the dog of their fellow countrymen. The dog tore between the dogs, seeing that his dog was going to suffer, Andrough pulled out a pistol to help, and beat the dog of his fellow countryman to death on the spot. The female secretary next to her sneered and said that she would take the dog to the hospital to bandage the wound. This incident was seen by Xiao Jun, a resident writer of the All-China Literary and Art Circles Anti-Enemy Association, who was indignant and sent a special letter to Mao Zedong, holding that "we are grateful that Our Soviet friends have come to serve us, but there are some unconscious 'sense of superiority' that we have the responsibility to remind them that it is necessary."
Okano Jin, also known as Hayashi Teresa and Nosaka Sanzo, the leader of the Japanese Communist Party, returned to Japan from Moscow via Yan'an in March 1940, and was forced to stay in Yan'an due to the war situation, engaged in anti-fascist war research, initiated the establishment of the "Japanese Workers' and Peasants' School", assisted the Eighth Route Army in carrying out the education and transformation of Japanese prisoners, and did not return to China until after the victory of the War of Resistance.
While in Yan'an, he proposed to the Enemy Engineering Department of the Eighth Route Army to ask a secretary to help with the work, and the organization agreed, and Zhuang Tao, who knew Japanese, was arranged to serve as his secretary. Not long after, the two openly cohabited together, which attracted many people's criticism. This kind of nameless marriage is not so much an organizational arrangement as a personal choice.
In July 1944, the U.S. Military Military Observation Group of the China-Burma-India Theater entered Yan'an. As U.S. military observers, they came to this communist-ruled place with a critical eye. At one party, members of the observation group, Wa Grace, interceded with a Chinese girl. Zhou Enlai told the leader of the observation group, Bao Ruide: We oppose this kind of flirting unless two people are truly in love. Borred immediately warned Grace that if this happened again, he would have to leave the observation group.
The revolutionary contingent led by the CPC has principles, discipline, and positions on the issue of love and marriage
Sun Ping, who came to Yan'an at the same time as Alof, is a typical example of moral perfection. According to Yu Lan, a student at the Yan'an Russian Language School at that time, "Sun Pingping was stationed in China and needed to learn Chinese. Since I was studying Russian at that time, the party organization of the Russian school asked me to teach Sun Ping Chinese in addition to schoolwork, and at the same time, I could improve my Russian proficiency in the process of teaching him Chinese. The reason why I was selected was organizationally because I was young, and single foreigners would not have a deviant motive for me. He also told me that if he had any misconduct, he could tell the organization to deal with it. From 1943 to 1945, Sun Ping and I taught and learned from each other for about two years. The Soviet I came into contact with, Sun Ping, was very kind and responsible, and he treated me like my father without the slightest impoliteness. ”
Sun Ping lived in the "Cultural Ditch" (大砭沟), the Russian school was located in Dingquan, at the northern foot of Qingliang Mountain, in the autumn and winter, after they taught each other, it was late, and when the Yan River rose, Sun Ping escorted Yulan across the river with Ma Fu. This scene is unforgettable for Yu Lan.
Due to the needs of work in the revolutionary ranks, there are indeed arrangements for the cooperation of men and women in the organization, especially the situation where female comrades assist male leaders in their work and life, but when it comes to love and marriage relations, the principle of freedom and voluntariness of both parties is always followed.
At the beginning of 1937, in the Lanzhou office of the Eighth Route Army, Wang Dingguo was found organizationally, saying that Comrade Xie Jueya was shouldering a heavy burden, busy with work, and no one around to take care of him, "I hope you can go over and live with Elder Xie, and the main task is to take care of Elder Xie's body." The 22-year-old Wang Dingguo gladly accepted the organizational arrangement and came to the side of the 54-year-old Xie Lao, from comrades to husband and wife. In January 1938, Chen Yun, who was the head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, had a nosebleed and an old disease. Deng Jie, secretary general of the Central Organization Department, was ordered to go to the Shaanxi North Public School Girls' Team to select nursing staff, and finally selected Yu Ruomu (Yu Luhua), a member of the COMMUNIST Party with a clear history and reliable politics. Three months later, they announced their marriage. In this regard, Yu Ruomu wrote to his eldest brother who was far away from home, saying: "The relationship between the patient and the caregiver has shifted to the relationship between the husband and wife. Although he was fourteen years older than me, I was happy with my marriage. He is a very reliable and loyal person, doing things responsibly, never casually, has a good temper, and deals with problems with reason rather than emotional things. ”
Organizational arrangements and work needs are to match the love and marriage of men and women in the revolutionary ranks, and whether they are in love and marry or not, they must also respect their own wishes. After marriage, whether the marriage is happy and lasting, and whether the white head grows old with white heads depends on the morality and integrity of both parties and the degree of loyalty maintenance.
In October 1937, after Huang Kegong, the captain of the Sixth Anti-Japanese Brigade, fell in love with liu qian, a trainee, forced the marriage to fail, and shot the woman. The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region High Court publicly pronounced Huang Kegong's death sentence, shocking the upper and lower levels of Yan'an.
Huang Kegong participated in the Jinggangshan Struggle and the Red Army's Long March, and during his work at the Yan'an Anti-Japanese War, he was sentenced to death for forced marriage shooting
At the Huang Kegong public trial meeting, Zhang Wentian, then general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a speech, emphasizing that "love is based on the free behavior of both parties agreeing." Forcing, threatening, and even using cruel means to kill the lives of the other side is the work of the reactionary consciousness of capitalist society. This is by no means the proper behavior of a Communist Party member." At the critical juncture of life and death in the national war, he hoped that it was best for young people not to fall in love, and if love could not be avoided, it was necessary to follow the correct concept of love to develop. Subsequently, Mao Zedong specifically talked about the love problem in the revolutionary ranks at the Kang Da, further emphasizing that love must follow three principles: one is political consistency, the other is that both sides are voluntary, and the third is not to hinder work. We must advocate work first, never love first, and we must not "if you are in love, everything can be thrown away."
The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region High Court sentenced Huang Kegong to death
Therefore, the term "temporary lady" is actually a kind of ridicule of the immoral behavior of individual foreign experts by people with a sense of justice in the revolutionary ranks, and it is also a kind of regret for the improper behavior of individual female comrades in foreign-related work, and it expresses a feeling of regret and resentment that mourns their misfortune and anger.
——From the first issue of Century magazine in 2020
Author: Zhu Hongzhao
Editor: Xue Weiping