Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution

by John Israel

In the summer of 1937, Japanese troops occupied the campuses of Beijing’s two leading universities, Beida and Qinghua, and reduced Nankai, in Tianjin, to rubble. These were China's leading institutions of higher learning, run by men educated in the West and committed to modern liberal education. The three universities first moved to Changsha, 900 miles southwest of Beijing, where they joined forces. But with the fall of Nanjing in mid-December, many students left to fight the Japanese, who soon began bombing Changsha. In February 1938, the 800 remaining students and faculty made the thousand-mile trek to Kunming, in China’s remote, mountainous southwest, where they formed the National Southwest Associated University (Lianda). In makeshift quarters, subject to sporadic bombing by the Japanese and shortages of food, books, and clothing, students and professors did their best to conduct a modern university. In the next eight years, many of China’s most prominent intellectuals taught or studied at Lianda. This book is the story of their lives and work under extraordinary conditions. Lianda’s wartime saga crystallized the experience of a generation of Chinese intellectuals, beginning with epic journeys, followed by years of privation and endurance, and concluding with politicization, polarization, and radicalization, as China moved from a war of resistance against a foreign foe to a civil war pitting brother against brother. The Lianda community, which had entered the war fiercely loyal to the government of Chiang Kai-shek, emerged in 1946 as a bastion of criticism of China’s ruling Guomindang party. Within three years, the majority of the Lianda community, now returned to its north China campuses in Beijing and Tianjin, was prepared to accept Communist rule. In addition to struggling for physical survival, Lianda’s faculty and students spent the war years striving to uphold a model of higher education in which modern universities, based in large part on the American model, sought to preserve liberal education, political autonomy, and academic freedom. Successful in the face of wartime privations, enemy air raids, and Guomindang pressure, Lianda’s constituent universities eventually succumbed to Communist control. By 1952, the Lianda ideal had been replaced with a politicized and technocratic model borrowed from the Soviet Union.

Genres: History

504 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[WaldenOgre · Rating 4 out of 5]

作者易社强把闻一多视为联大的绝佳代表，而后者也确实是整本书里给我留下最深刻印象的人物。时隔几十年后，闻一多这个名字，终于从课本中的一个极度抽象而模糊的符号，变成了一个有血有肉、异常丰满的人物。

记述闻一多发生最终转变的那几段文字，更是写得非常动人且有力。这个从不怎么关心政治到痛斥国民党“政专于一党，权操于一人”的理想主义者的陨落，也给联大短暂却不可谓不闪亮的历史写下了一个凝重而充满悲剧色彩的注脚。

同样值得一提的是，作者易社强在“中文版序”和“结语”里写下的文字也相当有分量，让人不禁感动和唏嘘不已。“联大群体在1945年意识到的事情在1949年之后变成了不可逃避的现实：中国知识分子长期盼望的政治统一，将从他们手中夺走对学术生命力最为关键的自由……后来的历史证明，国民党的腐败、无能和暴政，的确被某种更为糟糕的东西所取代。”

这样看的话，闻一多的早逝或许也并不算是十足的悲剧了。我只能这样安慰自己。

[IJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The spirit of the Lianda in academic freedom, professorial rule, scientific democracy and a focus on practical work. The University has been struggling with the power of academia and education, but it has been able to set up a desk in the midst of the storm, a sort of "fortunate poet's house". Many of the themes are illuminating: discipline and freedom, the absence of Marxism at the Lianda, the tension between the right to equal opportunity education (public) and academic freedom (most of the time money = bottom line), the divide between art and politics, between groups... Every sentence is well reasoned, objective scrutiny and sympathetic love and care are not in conflict. "Every member of the intellectual community has the right to pursue the truth that the individual wants to discover" "We see no alternative to the twentieth century. For China, alongside all other systems, generalist education is probably the most deprived system of higher education."

[MTGRT · Rating 4 out of 5]

傳記文學
2010年4月版本 繁体

[DAZK · Rating 5 out of 5]

当文学作品来看比较妥当，联大“神话”的开端。

[多余人-Lishnye Lyudi · Rating 4 out of 5]

如果用一个词来形容西南联大，那就是“自由”。

[聽聽屍體怎麼說 · Rating 5 out of 5]

“聯大奮力守護的理念——不受戰爭和革命摧殘的自由大學之夢——已成明日黃花”。振聾發聵，有兩個感受：第一，我讀的也算是大學嗎？第二，我也配叫大學生嗎？

[Yuxin Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

联大校史，无出其右者。我们对这所昙花一现的学校和其中的通才教育、弦歌不辍心怀向往，并不等于我们可以否认它那些不十分完美的细节。写这书的人，和努力让它的中文版得以发行的人，都很了不起。

如果要用一个词来总结联大，那便是“自由”。