The academic and historical value of the Party History | the Diary of Yu Xiusong confirms the greatness of the translation of the Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto is one of the most widely circulated and widely influential Marxist classics; its translation and dissemination have profoundly influenced the course of China's history in modern times and are a subject of great academic value. The Diary of Yu Xiusong records the relevant information about Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto, which is the only first-hand account of Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto, and provides important information for studying chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto and the time of publication.

The Diary of Yu Xiusong corroborates the time of the first edition of Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto

The diary dated June 27, 1920, records that Chen Wangdao asked Yu Xiusong to hand over the Communist Manifesto to Chen Duxiu. It reads: "In the night, Wangdao asked me to send his translation of the Communist Manifesto to Duxiu's house tomorrow, and the original text of this manifesto was in German, and now it cannot be found for a while, so I only used the translation of The Three Kingdoms of England, Russia, and Japan to proofread it." According to Chen Wangdao, "I arrived in Shanghai in April and May 1920. Before that, I was driven out by the First Division to translate the Communist Manifesto at home, which I had asked me to translate from the Weekly Review, and was originally intended to be published in the journal. From Yu Xiusong's diary, it can be seen that after Chen Wangdao arrived in Shanghai, he lived with Yu Xiusong and others in the "Weekly Review" office in Sanyili, Shanghai, and often discussed issues together. Therefore, this is also the reason why Chen Wangdao asked Yu Xiusong to carry the translation of the Communist Manifesto to Chen Duxiu, who lived in No. 2 in Laoyuyangli.

There has been some debate about the timing of the first edition of chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto. In the 20th century, there were two views: "April theory" and "August saying". At the end of the 1970s, the "April" theory was mostly used. After the early 1980s, the "August" theory gradually replaced the "April" theory. "August" is said mainly based on the recollections of the parties. For example, Zheng Peigang recalled: "In July and August 1920, the Comintern sent two comrades to Shanghai via Vladivostok (one was the Russian Slromisky, the other was the Chinese Yang Mingzhai as a translator) to promote the Oriental national liberation movement. One evening, a meeting of the Socialist League was held at Chen Duxiu's home (Yuyangli No. 2) to convey the spirit of the Communist International and discuss the question of actively carrying out social revolutionary work. ...... There are many bills, and the resolution is first of all to carry out propaganda work, to establish a printing house for effective battles, to open up propaganda positions, and to entrust me with full responsibility. I rented a house in Chengyuli, SpicyField Road, established a "new printing house" (that is, "day by day and day new"), and printed chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto for the first time. According to the letter Wyjingsky written to the Eastern Nationalities Department of the Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russia (Brazzaville) on August 17, 1920, it is known that "the Communist Manifesto has been printed", it can be seen that the first time chen Wangdao's full translation of the Manifesto was published should be before August 17, 1920, and the last page of the first edition discovered at present is also printed with "August 1920". The Diary of Yu Xiusong records first-hand that the translation of the Communist Manifesto was handed over to Chen Duxiu from Chen Wangdao on June 27, thus clearly negating the long-standing "April" theory, supporting the "August" theory, and resolving an important historical issue in the history of the founding of the Party and the history of the spread of Marxism.

The Diary of Yu Xiusong reflects the arduous process of translating the Communist Manifesto by Chen Wangdao and others

Xi Jinping has repeatedly told the story of Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto, the first time was on November 29, 2012, when Xi Jinping and the members of the Politburo Standing Committee visited the "Road to Rejuvenation" exhibition and saw the Chinese translation of the "Communist Manifesto" on display, they told chen Wangdao's mistaken ink as brown sugar during the translation process, and also said that "it is sweet but sweet", praising Chen Wangdao's dedicated attitude of translating the Communist Manifesto, thus summarizing Chen Wangdao's spirit of pursuit and exploration of truth with "the taste of truth is very sweet".

The translation of the Communist Manifesto was a difficult task. Chinese knew of the Communist Manifesto very early, and there was information in the press about plans to translate and publish the Communist Manifesto. As early as March 1899, the Bulletin of Nations, founded by British missionaries, published an article entitled "The Great Classmate", which contained a passage ending in the Communist Manifesto. On February 22, 1903, the Shanghai Guangzhi Book Company published the book "Socialism in the Modern Era" written by the Japanese Junzo Fukui and translated by Zhao Bizhen, and the second section of the first chapter of its second part introduced Marx's teachings and quoted a passage at the end of the Communist Manifesto, calling it "a great heroic chapter". In the same year, the China Dazhi Translation Agency translated and published the book "The Essence of Socialism" written by the Japanese Xingde Qiushui and translated by Shu Soul, which introduced the views of the Communist Manifesto. In April 1906, under the pseudonym "Zhishen", Zhu Zhixin published an article entitled "Biography of German Social Revolutionaries" in the organ journal of the League, Minbao, in which he translated the Ten Programs of the Second Chapter of the Communist Manifesto. In June of the same year, Song Jiaoren translated the "Brief History of the Congress of the Socialist Party of All Nations", in which he excerpted the closing words of the Communist Manifesto. Ye Xiasheng published an article entitled "Explanation of anarchist and Revolutionary Parties" in The People's Daily No. 7, in which he introduced the Ten Programs of Chapter II of the Communist Manifesto. In January 1908, Tianyi Bao No. 15 published the preface to the 1888 English edition of The Communist Manifesto by Engels, translated by Minming, and published part of the translation of the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto in the 16th-19th issue of the Tianyi Bao in March. In 1912, the New World published Zhu Zhixin's "The Theory of The Socialist Everyone Mark", which introduced the outline of the Communist Manifesto. In November 1919, the first issue of the second volume of the "Kuomintang" published an article by Li Zezhang, a student of Peking University, "The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Angus", and translated the full text of the first chapter of the "Communist Manifesto". However, the full translation of the Communist Manifesto remained unpublished until after the May Fourth Movement.

Chen Wangdao studied in Japan, was influenced by the Japanese socialist trend, and studied Marxist books in Japanese translations. After returning to China, he launched a new cultural movement in the Zhejiang Provincial First Normal School, and experienced the "one-division trend" and ideologically advocated institutional reform. Because Chen Wangdao was proficient in English and Japanese, and was also a linguist, Shao Lizi recommended Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto to the Weekly Review.

On September 30, 1920, Shen Xuanlu published an advertisement essay entitled "Answering People's Questions and Issuing at the Bottom" in the supplement of the Republic of China Daily, "Enlightenment", in which he said: "The content of this book, "New Youth", "National", published by Peking University - "Morning Post" have been translated in bits and pieces in a few chapters or sections. Anyone who studies the theoretical system of Capital cannot but read the Communist Manifesto, so Mr. Wangdao spent five times as much effort on translating the book as usual, translated the whole text of him, and proofread it by Duxiu and Mr. Li Hanjun. "Five times the effort of ordinary translations" and "proofread by Duxiu and Li Hanjun" reflect the difficulty of translating the Communist Manifesto and the seriousness of the Party's initiating group in this work.

On June 28, 1920, the "Diary of Yu Xiusong" recorded a discussion between Yu Xiusong and Chen Duxiu on the translation of the book: "At nine o'clock to Du Xiu's house, I handed him the "Communist Manifesto" translated by Wangdao, and we said something about the translation of the book, we should always be loyal and meticulous, but now the translators of the book live with the translation book every day, and there are always eight thousand words a day to live, so I cannot but misunderstand the misunderstanding, the fabrication, this is under the private property system, there is no one thing to do, and I am responsible for the people who translate the book and live a life! This shows that Chen Wangdao and Yu Xiusong have talked about the hardships of the translation process, and it also shows that Shen Xuanlu's statement that "five times the work of ordinary translation" is not a lie. In Yu Xiusong's diary on June 27, it was recorded that "the original text of this declaration was in German, and it cannot be found for a while, so it has only been proofread with the translation of the three kingdoms of Britain, Russia and Japan." It can be corroborated with Shen Xuanlu's text that "it was proofread by Duxiu and Mr. Li Hanjun". We know that the base of Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto was the Japanese version that Dai Jitao brought back from Japan and the English version that Chen Duxiu borrowed from the library of Peking University, and the Russian version should have been brought from Soviet Russia by Wei Jingsky, a representative of the Communist International, who arrived in Shanghai from Beijing at the end of April and the beginning of May, giving another proofreading sample of the Communist Manifesto. From the "Diary of Yu Xiusong", it is shown that the CCP initiation group attaches great importance to the accuracy of the translation of the "Communist Manifesto". However, Li Hanjun understands English, Japanese, German, and French, Chen Duxiu understands English, Japanese, and French, they all do not understand Russian, and the Russian proofreader should have someone else, the most reasonable speculation is Yang Mingzhai. Therefore, usually chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto in party history works is not comprehensively proofread by Chen Duxiu and Li Hanjun, and the proofreader should also be Yang Mingzhai. The translation and publication of the Communist Manifesto is an important task of the CPC initiating group in carrying out ideological construction and propaganda of Marxist theory.

The Diary of Yu Xiusong confirms the influence and significance of Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto

Chen Wangdao's translation of the Chinese full version of the Communist Manifesto has played a tremendous role in the spread of Marxism in China, in the founding of the Communist Party of China, and in establishing Marxist beliefs among a group of advanced intellectuals.

In February 1920, Chen Duxiu arrived in Shanghai from Beijing, and an important mission was to prepare for the creation of a Marxist political party; in April Chen Wangdao completed the translation of the full translation of the Communist Manifesto and came to Shanghai from Yiwu, Zhejiang; at the end of April, the representative of the Communist International, Vyingsky, also came to Shanghai from Beijing to look for Chinese socialists in order to establish socialist groups; about May, Chen Duxiu, Li Hanjun, Shen Xuanlu, Chen Wangdao, Shao Lizi, Yu Xiusong, and others organized the Marxist Research Society; in June, After many discussions, Chen Duxiu, Li Hanjun, Yu Xiusong, Shi Cuntong, and Chen Gongpei set up the CPC Initiation Group at Chen Duxiu's old Yuyangli No. 2 apartment, which was then called the Social Communist Party, and later named it the Communist Party of China according to the opinions of Li Dazhao and Wei Jingsky.

After the founding of the CPC Initiating Group, an important task was to formulate a program. After the June meeting, the five delegates each took more than ten articles of the program for study. The translation of Chen Wangdao's "Communist Manifesto" will inevitably become a model for the CPC initiation group to focus on study. Yu Xiusong was a student of Chen Wangdao during the first division in Zhejiang, and at this time both of them were also living in the original "Weekly Review" club in Sanyili, and the studious Yu Xiusong was exposed to translation earlier and had the opportunity to study directly. Chen Duxiu was also in the period of establishing his Marxist belief, and his proofreading of the Communist Manifesto also enabled him to begin a more systematic study of Marxism.

In 1936, Mao Zedong said in a conversation with Snow, "During my second visit to Beijing, I read many books on the situation in Russia. I searched eagerly for the few communist books I could find at that time written in Chinese. There are three books that are particularly deeply engraved in my heart and have established my faith in Marxism. Once I accepted The correct interpretation of history by Marxism, my faith in Marxism never wavered. The three books are: The Communist Manifesto, translated by Chen Wangdao, the first Marxist book published in Chinese; Class Struggle, by Kautsky; and History of Socialism, by Kokapp. By the summer of 1920, in theory and to some extent in action, I had become a Marxist, and I had since considered myself a Marxist. In 1941, Mao Zedong mentioned in his article "On the Rural Survey", "I remember that in 1920, I first saw Kautsky's Class Struggle, Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto, and an Englishman's History of Socialism." When Mao Zedong proposed three books twice, all three books had Chinese translators, but only one translator was mentioned, which showed that Mao Zedong was particularly impressed by Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto and highlighted the great significance of this translation of the Communist Manifesto for him to establish his Marxist belief. In a conversation with Snow in 1936, Mao Zedong also said: "When I went to Shanghai for the second time, I discussed with Chen Duxiu the Marxist books I had read. Chen Duxiu's words about his own beliefs were a profound impression on me at a time when I was probably pivotal in my life. ”

Chen Duxiu's discussion of faith with Mao Zedong reflects that chen Duxiu himself, in the process of establishing His Marxist belief, inevitably needed to systematically study the Communist Manifesto, and the proofreading of the manuscript provided a good opportunity for study. Did Mao Zedong see Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto in Shanghai? Mao Zedong arrived in Shanghai on May 5 and left Shanghai in early July. The Diary of Yu Xiusong records that on the evening of June 27, a translation of the Communist Manifesto was taken from Chen Wangdao and given to Chen Duxiu on the morning of the 28th. When Mao Zedong and others met Chen Duxiu at the end of June, it was possible to see the manuscript. Yu Xiusong's diary does not indicate whether the manuscript was handed over to Chen Duxiu for proofreading, or whether it had been completely finalized and prepared for publication. From the perspective of time, it is only one month away from the publication in August, so this may also be the manuscript that Chen Duxiu, Li Hanjun and Yang Mingzhai have proofread, and Chen Wangdao will review and transcribe it and hand it to Chen Duxiu. Chronologically, It is possible that Mao Zedong read the manuscript of Chen Wangdao's translation in Shanghai.

In August 1920, Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto was officially published in full Chinese, and soon became the main study material for the early party organizations in various places, making ideological preparations for the founding of the party. Since then, Chen Wangdao's translation has been reprinted in one edition. Before the founding of New China, Chen Wangdao's translation found a total of 17 versions throughout the country, illustrating the great influence of the Communist Manifesto.

On October 31, 2017, just one week after the conclusion of the 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping led the members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to Shanghai to visit the site of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China and to Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, to visit the red boats on the South Lake. At the memorial hall of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai, when General Secretary Xi Jinping learned that the Communist Manifesto, translated by Chen Wangdao and printed and published in September 1920, was preserved by an old father of a communist in a crown tomb, he even called it precious, saying that these cultural relics are historical witnesses and should be preserved and used well. 2020 is the 100th anniversary of Chen Wangdao's translation of the Communist Manifesto, and on June 27, when Xi Jinping replied to all the members of the "Xinghuo" Party Member Volunteer Service Team in the "Communist Manifesto" Exhibition Hall of Fudan University, he encouraged the majority of party members, especially young party members, to strengthen their ideals and beliefs in the study and practice of thinking and practice, and to practice their original mission in the process of striving for achievements.