Word: hsueh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hazard in the life of the Communist dialectician is the party line itself; he never knows when it will be changed without notice. Four months ago Ai Tze-chi was Red China's chief indoctrinator or, as he was generally called, Brainwasher No. 1. In his bimonthly magazine Hsueh Hsi, Ai laid down the party line for all & sundry. Only China's academicians escaped his venom. That was because Ai had a soft spot for them: "China's higher intellectuals, while not yet fully wholesome . . . still can be considered to contain progressive and active elements...
...Hsueh Hsi, Brainwasher Ai hurriedly ate crow: "I Bailed to grasp the problem . . . My mistaken views were the result of my failure to undertake class analysis . . ." Ai's 10,000-word apology was eloquent, but it was too late to save him from severe reprimand in the next issue of his own magazine: "Certain comrades have been imbued with strong dogmatism and party jargon . . . Many articles have been characterized by emptiness and bluffing...
Last week Hsueh Hsi suspended publication. Ai, presumably, was having his brains washed...
...heard on records. These lectures, the only ones given at the university, last as a rule from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. The gist of Ai's "philosophy" is contained in a book of his called Historical Materialism, which has become the virtual Bible of hsueh hsi. (Sample excerpts: "Communism is the exquisite acme of man's social evolution . . . The capitalistic world is being pushed into the grave step by step...
After about five months of hsueh hsi, a group is called to a "thought mobilization" meeting at which all are urged, one after another, to get up and "cast aside, once & for all, their burdensome thoughts." There are warnings that those who still hold reactionary thoughts or have not yet confessed reactionary deeds will sooner or later regret it. What follows is a kind of political revivalist meeting, or a Buchmanite confessional, at which students cry their ideological sins and profess to see the light of reform...