Hu Shiliu's first two actions on the mainland disappointed Mao
In 1917, Hu Shi was invited by Chen Duxiu to return to Beijing from the United States to serve as a professor at Peking University and participate in the editorial activities of New Youth. In the same year, only 24-year-old *** was still a student of Hunan No. 1 Normal School, and he had a strong interest in "New Youth" and admired the articles of Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi very much.
In August 1918, ** became a librarian of Peking University under the introduction of Yang Changji, a professor at Peking University, and received a salary of eight oceans per month. **When reading "New Youth", he was deeply admired by the articles of Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi, who were his role models for learning.
**When he was young, he was full of admiration for Hu Shi, he once audited Hu Shi's class, and even once called himself a "Hu Shi student". The two have discussed various issues of the new trend of thought together, and invited Hu Shi to make a report.
However, Hu Shi's two things before leaving the mainland made *** turn from admiration to disappointment in him. The first thing was Hu Shih's persuasion to give up the armed struggle, which happened at the end of March 1945, when Hu Shih represented the Kuomintang at the United Nations General Assembly in San Francisco.
Dong Biwu was entrusted by *** to seek Hu Shi's support for our party. However, Hu Shih suggested that our party should follow the "non-actionism" in "Huainanzi", abandon the two major struggles of class and armed forces, and only carry out simple party activities.
These suggestions have been criticized as short-sighted. On July 1 of the same year, Fu Sinian went to Yan'an as a member of the delegation and brought greetings to Hu Shi. However, Hu Shih has not changed his views on the CCP.
Hu Shih sent a telegram to *** on August 24, 1945, emphasizing his insistence on solving problems through peaceful means. Upon receiving the telegram, he was very disappointed with the leader who had once promoted the New Culture Movement, and decided to give up illusions about him.
Despite this, ** still tried to leave a way for him to return to China out of respect for Hu Shi and the teacher-student affection between them. He once asked someone to convey a position to Hu Shi to make him the director of the Beijing Library.
Hu Shi smiled slightly after hearing this, and did not make any response. In desperation, ** could only cross out Hu Shi's name from the "** list", and never mentioned topics related to Hu Shi again.