中國農村改革先鋒萬里Wan Li 1916 - 2015

Wan Li, Who Helped China's Farmers Emerge From Mao Era, Dies at 98
By CHRIS BUCKLEY July 17, 2015


中國農村改革先鋒萬里逝世，享年98歲
儲百亮2015年7月17日


HONG KONG — Wan Li, the Communist Party leader who helped end the failed Mao-era policy of collective farming, which had left rural Chinese in desperate poverty, died on Wednesday in Beijing . He was 98.


香港——週三，中國共產黨領導人萬里在北京逝世，享年98歲。萬里推動了毛澤東時代人民公社政策的終結，這種失敗的政策曾令中國農村處於赤貧狀態。


Mr. Wan was the last survivor of the senior revolutionary veterans who pushed through China's reforms under Deng Xiaoping beginning in the late 1970s, shaking off the socialist collectivism that Mao Zedong had imposed through communes, state control and top-down planning. The party's obituary called Mr. Wan a “pioneer of China's rural reforms.”


在鄧小平領導下推動中國改革的元老中，萬里是最後離世的一位。他們在20世紀70年代末開始的改革，擺脫了毛澤東通過公社、國家控制和自上而下的計劃體制貫徹的社會主義集體主義。中共的訃告稱萬里為“中國農村改革的先鋒”。


“Wan Li deserves every credit he gets for pushing the process forward,” said Frederick C. Teiwes, an emeritus professor of Chinese politics at the University of Sydney and co-author of a forthcoming history of the rural reforms. “He was willing to accept and push and support moves that would increase production and living conditions in the countryside, upon occasion taking risks.”


“萬里在推進改革上功不可沒，” 澳大利亞悉尼大學(University of Sydney)退休的中國政治教授泰偉斯(Frederick C.Teiwes)說。“他接受、推動和支持可以增加農業產出、改善農民生活條件的舉措，有必要時甘冒風險。”泰偉斯與人合著的一部中國農村改革史即將出版。


Neal Ulevich/Associated Press

1985年，萬里和時任美國副總統喬治·布什打完網球後。


Mr. Wan said that the misery in villages in the years after Mao's death had shaken his devotion to the revolution. He was appointed party secretary of Anhui Province, a rural part of eastern China, in 1977 and spent months visiting the countryside, where millions had starved to death in the early 1960s after Mao's calamitous Great Leap Forward.


萬里曾說，在毛澤東去世後的幾年，農村的淒慘景像已經動搖他對革命的忠誠。1977年，他被任命為中國東部農業省安徽的省委書記，在農村考察了數月。20世紀60年代初毛澤東發起災難性的“大躍進”運動，在那裡導致數百萬人被餓死。


In one hut, historians and former aides have recounted, Mr. Wan found an old man and two teenage girls hiding under straw: they had only threads of clothing. In another, he found three naked children crammed inside a stove, seeking the residual heat . An emaciated farmer who had fought for the revolution told Mr. Wan that his innards had seized up from eating tree leaves.


根據歷史學家和前助手的陳述，在一間棚子裡，萬里發現一個老人和兩個少女躲在秸稈後：因為他們衣不蔽體。在另一處，他發現一個爐子裡面擠著3個赤身裸體的孩子，想靠餘熱取暖。一個曾經為革命奮戰的瘦弱農民告訴萬里，因為吃樹葉，他的腸胃已經不行了。


“We've had so many years of development since liberation, but the ordinary people in this old revolutionary area still don't have enough clothes to eat or food to fill their stomachs,” he said, according to an account of his visit to Jinzhai County in Anhui . “How can we show our faces to these simple country folk? This is shameful.”


“想想解放後我們已經發展了這麼多年，革命老區的百姓仍然衣不蔽體，食不果腹，”據稱他在安徽金寨縣考察時說。“我們何顏以待?問心有愧呀！”


Mr. Wan was born in rural Shandong Province in eastern China in December 1916. He plunged into revolutionary politics while studying at a teachers college, and joined the Communist Party in 1936. But as a rising official after the founding of the People's Republic of China , he focused on urban construction.


萬里1916年12月出生於山東省農村。在師範學校讀書期間，他投身於革命政治，並於1936年加入中國共產黨。在人民共和國成立後他一路高升，但主要是負責城市建設。


“He was terribly shocked by what he saw” in the countryside, said Ding Xueliang , a professor of Chinese politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who grew up in rural Anhui and saw the changes under Mr. Wan. “He didn 't have much experience in the countryside after 1949, so he wasn't prepared for how bad it was.”


“在農村所看到景象令他非常震驚”，香港科技大學中國政治系教授丁學良說。丁學良在安徽農村長大，親眼目睹了萬里主持工作期間安徽省發生的變化。“他對1949年後的農村不太了解，所以對如此糟糕的形勢沒有心理準備。”


When drought blighted the countryside in 1978, Mr. Wan quietly began to encourage farmers in isolated parts of Anhui to slip from the strictures of Maoist communes. Bucking collective control, the farmers divided up tools, tasks and land among small groups and families, setting aside a share of the crops to feed themselves and sell in markets. Word spread, as did controversy.


1978年，安徽農村遭遇旱災時，萬里開始悄悄鼓勵安徽一些偏僻地區的農民偏離毛澤東的人民公社體制。農民打破集體控制，把工具、任務和土地分配到小團體和家庭，留下一定比例的收成來養活自己，以及在市場上銷售。消息傳開了，爭論也蔓延開來。


“When the bumper harvest came in, it was even harder to keep it a secret,” said Yan Junchang , a farmer in one of the areas that furtively assigned farming to families.


“糧食豐收了，這秘密就更守不住了。” 嚴俊昌說。他是偷偷實行“包產到戶”地區的一個農民。


Household contract farming, as it came to be called, was anathema to the precepts of Mao, and Mr. Wan ducked and wove politically to keep the policies alive. Deng waited until 1980 to give guarded support, though other reform-minded officials were skeptical and newspapers denounced the idea. But over time Mr. Wan and others became convinced that it was time to break with the past. A crucial ally was Zhao Ziyang, the future premier and party general secretary.


後來被稱作家庭聯產承包責任制的這一做法，與毛澤東的準則相違背。為了讓相關政策保留下來，萬里低調行事，在政治上迂迴前行。鄧小平直到1980年才給予謹慎支持，但其他有改革意識的官員還是持懷疑態度，報紙更是譴責這一想法。然而，隨著時間的流逝，萬里等人開始相信，是時候和過去一刀兩斷了。他的一個關鍵的盟友是趙紫陽，即日後的總理和黨的總書記。


“What was condemned before is not necessarily wrong,” Mr. Wan told officials. “What was promoted before is not necessarily right.”


“過去批判過的東西，不一定是錯誤的，”萬里說，“過去提倡的東西，不一定就是正確的。”


Growing numbers of villagers and party leaders became convinced that family farming would increase harvests and reduce the financial burdens on the government. By 1982, it was established national policy. Rural land remained under collective ownership, leased out to farmers, but the communes were dead , and small factories mushroomed in more prosperous parts of the countryside.


越來越多的農民和黨的領導人開始相信，包產到戶能增加產量，減少政府的財政負擔。到1982年，包產到戶被定為國家政策。農村土地依然為集體所有，只是被租給了農民，公社不復存在。在更富裕的農村地區，小工廠如雨後春筍般湧現。


Mr. Wan was promoted to the party's central leadership and made ​​vice premier in 1980, and he remained a prominent proponent of economic liberalization. In 1988, he was appointed chairman of the National People's Congress, the country's party-run legislature. In 1989, liberals hoped that Mr. Wan would return to help defuse Deng's confrontation with student protesters occupying Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Mr. Wan was traveling in North America , and members of the National People's Congress Standing Committee urged him to return and convene the Standing Committee to block the hard-liners.


1980年，萬里被提拔為黨的中央領導，並出任副總理。他依然是經濟自由化的重要支持者。1988年，他被任命為共產黨控制的立法機構全國人大常委會的委員長。1989年，自由派希望正在北美訪問的萬里能回國召開常委會會議，以阻止強硬派，緩和鄧小平與占領北京天安門廣場的學生抗議者之間的對抗。


But Mr. Wan flew back to Shanghai and a statement was issued in his name endorsing martial law , days before the armed suppression of the protests began on June 3, 1989. Mr. Wan was apparently kept in Shanghai to avoid political trouble, saidWarren Sun , a historian of the Chinese Communist Party at Monash University in Australia and with Professor Teiwes's co-author..


但萬里卻乘飛機回到了上海。一份以他的名義發出的聲明支持戒嚴。幾天后的1989年6月3日，武裝鎮壓開始了。澳大利亞莫納什大學(Monash University)研究中共黨史的學者、與泰偉斯合作著書的孫萬國( Warren Sun )表示，萬里似乎是被要求留在上海，以避免政治風波的。


“There seemed little question about where Wan Li's sympathies lay,” Mr. Sun said, “but politics is another thing.”


“在萬里同情哪一方上，幾乎不存在疑問，”孫萬國說，“但政治是另一回事。”


Mr. Wan's wife, Bian Tao, died in 2003. They had four sons and a daughter, but it is not clear if they all survive him.


萬里的妻子邊濤於2003年去世。兩夫婦養育了四兒一女，但不清楚他們是否都還健在。



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儲百亮(Chris Buckley)是《紐約時報》記者。


翻譯：土土、陳亦亭