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August 15, 2008

How the Nazis ended the Cultural Revolution

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was translated into Chinese in 1965 and published for "internal circulation," available to high-ranking government and party officials. In the waning days of the Cultural Revolution, a second edition grew to become quite popular.

"内部书":红花香,白花亦香

摘自《中国新闻周刊》,2008年8月11日,第383期。

"内部书":红花香,白花亦香

在图书匮乏的年代里《第三帝国的兴亡》这部"只供一定级别领导参阅"的"内部书",成为众多传看者的精神盛宴

★本刊记者/罗雪挥

"凡是忘掉过去的人注定要重蹈覆辙。"这是《第三帝国的兴亡》中闻名遐迩的引语。1925年,美国记者威廉·夏伊勒抵达德国,开始对纳粹进行报道。

1945年,第三帝国崩溃,数量惊人的秘密文件公诸于世。此外,私人日记、极度秘密的发言记录,包括战犯就刑前的供词都很丰富。依据自己的亲身经历,威廉·夏伊勒花费了5年半的时间写作该书。

作为全球最畅销的历史作品之一,迄今为止,其精装本和平装本的销量已超过200万册。而该书自1965年起,就在中国"内部"翻译发行,从秘密走向公开。记者查阅了该书的5个版本,发现在1983年6月印刷的那批书上,公布了具体印数,那时的发行量就已经达到40万册。

一本"内部书"的诞生

"我真没想到,这本书的发行量后来会那么大。"柴金如告诉《中国新闻周刊》。这位西南联大的毕业生,时任世界知识出版社西方组组长,编辑校订了该书第一个"内部"版本。《第三帝国的兴亡》1961年荣获美国国家图书奖。当时,柴金如通过内部渠道得知此书的声名后,便有心出版,只是考虑到该书部头太大,约人翻译太难,只得放下了。

无独有偶,上海圣约翰大学毕业生董乐山也发现了该书。这位日后的翻译大家,新中国成立前,曾在美国驻华新闻处任职。解放后,他在新华社担任翻译工作。后来他被划为右派,调离翻译岗位,为干部班教授基础英语,月工资也从167元降到69元,不得不找些稿费收人,贴补家用。董乐山在新华社图书馆的英文书架上发现了《第三帝国的兴亡》,爱不释手,花了两个星期,一口气读完了该书原版,当即给世界知识出版社写信推荐。

柴金如具体负责该书。他先让董乐山试译了一小部分,认为质量不错,就着手让其翻译。考虑到这是一本130多万字的巨著,出版社决定由9个人合译。其中,董乐山翻译了20万字,并负责全书校订。

董乐山已于1999年去世,夫人凌畹君如今定居美国,她接受了《中国新闻周刊》的电话访问。凌畹君回忆,当时家里只有一个从新华社房管处借来的小桌子,白天董乐山在桌上翻译,晚上就得让给儿子用。而就是这样一个小桌子,后来还被房管处收走了,目的是想收回房子,董乐山只得又从别处借了一张。翻译就是在这样简陋的条件下进行的,译稿完成后,柴金如对董乐山的评价是中英文水准俱佳,"我没有理由拒绝这样的稿子"。

该书标明是"内部"读物,只能在"内部"发行,除了其中有对斯大林的不敬之语,柴金如指出了另一个隐秘的原因,"出版社不能公开发表一个资产阶级作者的著作,当时的环境只能这样做。"1974年,该书重印,很快脱销,不到一年即再版,仍然是"内部"发行。而在那个特殊的年代,"内部书"多半是拿来就译,没有人考虑版权问题。《第三帝国的兴亡》也不例外。

饥饿年代的窝窝头

从上世纪60年代初至"文革"结束,应反帝反修的需要,一批"内部书"出版,涉及外国政治、历史、文学艺术等领域。封面只有书名、作者名,都印上"供批判用""供内部参考""内部发行"或"只限国内发行"字样,只供一定级别的领导参阅,甚至严格到编号发行,以便流失时追究责任人。其中包括俗称的"灰皮书"和"黄皮书",前者为政治、法律类书,后者为文学类作品。

曾任人民出版社总编辑、当时的"马列外书编辑室"主任张惠卿认为,《第三帝国的兴亡》应属于灰皮书的外延,也可以算广义灰皮书的一种。但当时灰皮书的出版高潮已经过去,无论是内容还是发行范围,它和狭义的"灰皮书"都有一定距离了。

即便如此,董乐山夫人凌畹君回忆,作为译者,董乐山当年也只有一套样书。在"文革"中,董乐山曾被长期关押,因为他拒绝承认莫须有的罪名或诬陷他人。1971年,董乐山从干校回到北京。到家后发现,珍藏的《第三帝国的兴亡》上册还在,下册没了,儿子说借给同学弄丢了,凌畹君说,董乐山当时气得要命,因为没处可买。

《第三帝国的兴亡》不久便成为了外传最广泛的"内部书"。曾经在中央编译局负责"灰皮书"的郑异凡告诉记者,"文革"期间,包括图书馆藏书在内的"内部书"大量流向社会,有的是被红卫兵抄家没收,有的则是高干子弟在内部传播。

《世界文学》副主编李政文告诉记者,上个世纪70年代,身为高级干部的父亲为他开了介绍信,在北京东城区千面胡同一家内部书店内,李政文买到了一套《第三帝国的兴亡》,此后无论是到山西插队,还是返回北京,他都随身携带。而当年"是个人都来借",大家不仅互相传,还交换心得,看完一章一节,都要在小圈子里讨论。

李政文至今珍藏着这套书,他说,在无书可读的年代,它为人们打开了一扇窗,原来世界的可能性很大,生活的选择很多,而以前"不是黑就是白,不是革命就是反革命",李政文第一次意识到,除了红的花,原来白的花也很漂亮。

作家胡发云当年20出头,还在武汉当工人,因为常买书,渐渐和当地内部书店的人相熟,得以破格购买,用去他一月工资的三分之一。朋友们知道胡发云有一套《第三帝国的兴亡》后,都排队来他家借书。有的人其实与胡发云并不太熟,担心他不肯出借,就带一本书来换,权当抵押。这一套书自买来后,就没能在家里停留过,在数年的辗转传阅中终于全部失落。胡发云难忘最初阅读该书的震撼,形容是"石破天惊",他认为"这本书在意识形态上撕开了一个大口子",因为纳粹的口号和做法都和中国的"文革"太相像了。

特殊年代里,正是这批"反动"教材,为人们搭建了当时唯一通向外部世界的精神通道。《灰皮书、黄皮书》的作者沈展云,在《关于"皮书"的集体记忆》中,记述了包括《第三帝国的兴亡》在内的思想盛宴。当时的"内部书",政治类如吉拉斯的《新阶级》、考茨基的《恐怖主义和共产主义》等,文学类如《带星星的火车票》《在路上》,包括三岛由纪夫的作品,都炙手可热。

历史的真相不断被揭露,对人性、人道主义的期盼呼之欲出。胡发云向记者表示,在只能"吃野菜"的年代,内部书好比是"窝窝头",成为真正填饱饥肠的精神食粮。他认为,在当下中国,无论是学术界还是文学界,一批有思想的人几乎都从这类的阅读当中不同程度地获得了思想理论资源。

"内部书"亦保存了学术研究的薪火。上个世纪90年代初,郑异凡到德国去参加一个托洛茨基研讨会。会上有西方学者说,苏联人和中国人根本看不到托洛茨基的著作,根本无权谈论托洛茨基。郑异凡告诉他们,在中国托洛茨基的著作基本都翻译出来了。

书皮变了颜色

随着时光流逝,第三帝国渐渐成为了人们可以理性对待的历史陈迹。

"书中对美帝国主义的绥靖政策讳莫如深,未作揭露;对苏联在纳粹德国侵苏前的对外政策及斯大林本人则进行了恶毒的歪曲和污蔑;作者是资产阶级记者,立场和观点是反动的。"这则《出版者说明》摘自"文革"期间出版的《第三帝国的兴亡》。

仅仅在5年后,1979年版本中,该批判转为:"尽管作者对于某些问题和人物的评价,有未尽全面之处,与我们的观点不同,不失为一本有史料价值的读物。"当时中美两国已经建交,该说明饶有兴味地在作者名字后加了一个逗号,注明"美国人"。

而1983年,中国开始对外开放,逗号悄悄地消失了。

1992年,中国加人世界版权公约,世界知识出版社正式购买了该书的中文版权,并对外输出了中文简体字版权,比如台湾麦田出版股份有限公司,就根据该社版本,出版了繁体字版,更名为《第三帝国兴亡史》。世界知识出版社的副总编辑章少红向记者介绍,这本书仍然是社里的品牌书和长销书,正式获得该书版权后,自1996年初以来,共印过八印,总计印数约为5万册。

40多年间,《第三帝国的兴亡》中文版封面设计也发生了重大变化。"内部书"时期,该书均是按照西蒙·舒斯特出版社1960年的版本翻译,其封面设计也有相似元素。记者在清华大学图书馆查找到了该书1960年原版,淡淡的灰色封皮,竖长的黑条典雅地位于左上角,内嵌书名,简约大方。而在中国出版时,使用了白色的封皮,黑底被刻意加宽加长,黑底白字的书名赫然醒目,比起一看就反动的"灰皮书",略有改进,但是仍属"另类"。

1979年,"文革"中被迫关闭的世界知识出版社恢复,《第三帝国的兴亡》成为其公开印行的第一本书。该书的封面被"去了毒",封面从白色变为天蓝色,甚至还加上了希特勒虚化的头像。而最新出版的《第三帝国的兴亡》中文版本,则根据西蒙·舒斯特出版社1990年版本授权,该原版书上著名的纳粹标志也同样出现在了中文版封面上,只是中文版背景更为宏大,清晰的黑白照片中,希特勒正精神抖擞地检阅麾下军团,既未美化,也未丑化,历史风云从正面滚滚而来。这一版中,《出版者说明})彻底消失,替代的是书勒口上对作者的隆重推荐,以及封皮上醒目的广告潜"这是一本关于我们这个时代最重要的历史作品!"

值得一提的是,该书的译者董乐山,在书勒口上占据了与威廉·夏伊勒同样醒目的位置。而此前,为了署上自己的真名字,董乐山花费了将近10年。

1965年版本中,由于当时还没有校订者署名的先例,而董乐山本人觉得自己仍属"另册",能够参与翻译就已经算是"照顾"了,不可能有别的奢求,甚至连翻译也没署真名,因为参与翻译的人太多,而当时的集体翻译大多采取化名,比如"齐干",就是大家一齐干的意思。结果该书后来从每个译者的名字中摘了一个字,在世界知识出版社后来印刷的书目上,该书的译者为"董天爵"等。

1974年,该书由人民出版社以三联书店的名义,重新出版发行,董乐山又重新逐字逐句无偿校订了一遍,该社领导还特意找到柴金如了解情况。交稿时,董乐山向当时负责该书的"马列外书编辑室"主任张惠卿提出了署名要求,董乐山、李天爵的真名第一次出现,张惠卿向记者介绍,这在当时也是很少见的,董乐山形容:"这种感觉就像出土化石重见阳光一样。"而其他译者仍然以两个化名出现。直到上个世纪80年代,《第三帝国的兴亡》才正式还原了9个译者的真实姓名。除已经公开署名的董乐山、李天爵,以及未列人化名的郑开椿外,其他两个化名"李家儒""陈传昌",分别代表了以下译者:李耐西、周家骖、沈苏儒、陈廷祐、赵师传、程祁昌。如今,9人中,包括董乐山在内的若干位译者已经离世。

继《第三帝国的兴亡》后,董乐山又翻译了《一九八四》《奥威尔文集》《中午的黑暗》《西方人文主义传统》等。董乐山之子董亦波在《董乐山文集》代序中评价:"对于国人从世界、文化和历史的角度,认识什么是社会主义,什么是人文精神,什么是政治极权和政治恐怖,都有重要的帮助。"

《世界文学》副主编李政文告诉记者,如果你写这本书,请加上这样一句话,我向他们深深鞠躬。★

Free cigarette lighters at Shanghai airport

Adam Minter reports from Shanghai

The Shanghai Airport authorities are gathering up all of the lighters seized at security, and giving them away to arriving, smoking travelers. Welcome to Shanghai, have a smoke (only partly) on us!

Now, I'm no smoker, but I have to admit that this is the most commonsense solution to a problem that most people never even realized that airport administrators have. Pure genius, and pure, Shanghai-style hospitality!

One world, whose dream?

JDM080815dream.jpg
Ann Condi participates in a CCTV gala celebrating the Olympics, and finds it a stage-managed affair performed before a bored audience.

Chinese netizens love Iraqi athletes

From ChinaSmack:

Recently, many Chinese are disappointed and embarrassed with the China men's football team because of the team's poor performance and bad behavior...

At the same time, many Chinese are also expressing their admiration of the Iraqi athletes who have struggled against so many problems to come to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Not your typical "party school"

Peijin Chen translates an article about the curriculum at "party schools," centers for training party members in the latest theories and ideology. The contrast between dry lectures given straight from printed notes and free-wheeling discussions about more relevant issues is fascinating.

Censorship foreigners don't see

Rebecca MacKinnon has posted an extended version of her op-ed in the Asian Wall Street Journal which she says is

[A]n effort to get people to get beyond what Internet scholar Lokman Tsui describes as a Western fixation on 'Iron Curtain 2.0' which blinds most Western observers to the realities of the Chinese Internet - and to China more generally, for that matter

Do foreign protesters achieve anything?

Mark Magnier of The Los Angeles Times asks whether splashy protests by foreign activists actually make a difference to anyone.

Govt: State-owned enterprise bosses not raking it in

The China Daily reports on a story that has barely made it through the Olympic noise:

The state assets watchdog denied on Thursday the recent whopping salary rumor for heads of the country's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs), addressing that they earned 531,000 yuan ($77,366 ) on average in 2006.

'The assertion that executives in 155 SOEs were given millions of yuan was groundless and so was the word about the salary gap of millions between heads and employees,' said an official with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

However, the article does not mention how much money the 155 SOE bosses are making in gifts and red envelopes.

August 14, 2008

Stop drugs, bombs and journalists

A translation of a Caijing magazine article detailing some of the guidelines Olympic volunteers received about dealing with threats to the Olympic Games, be they explosive, infectious or journalistic.

Empty seats at Olympic events

By Amy Shipley and Maureen Fan in The Washington Post:

Chinese Olympic organizers acknowledged Tuesday they were struggling to handle an unforeseen and baffling problem inside Summer Games venues and at the showpiece Olympic Park.

Not enough people.

Chinese netizens respond to pretty foreign girl asking for hugs

ChinaSmack has translated some online responses to a photo of a foreign girl holding up a sign, in Chinese, asking for hugs on Wangfujing Street. Apparently there were few takers.

August 13, 2008

Painting Over Mao: Notes on the Olympic opening ceremony

On China Beat, Geremie Barmé looks reviews the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games:

The ancient city of Beijing was literally turned on its head to help achieve the effects of the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday August 8, 2008. Six hundred years ago the city was designed around a north-south axis that runs from the south of the old city through the Forbidden City and on north.

Along this axis the spectacles of imperial times would unfold (including the imperial 'Tours of the South' or nanxun that were a major feature of the reigns of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors in the Qing dynasty). Since the 1910s, however, Chang'an Avenue, now a multi-laned highway that runs east-west through the heart of Beijing, became the focus for military parades...

Circling the square on the CCTV building

The Absurdity, Allegory and China blog digs up early designs for the new CCTV building that show that a helipad was part of the design process:

If there is a rub it is probably not over the helipad, but rather the change that grew it from a square contained within the perimeter of the footprint, into a circle that overhangs the edges. It's all about the mashing (not the meshing) of shapes, and how some things can, unexpectedly, change. It is, after all, CCTV.

"Energy-efficient" buildings? Not always

At China Dialogue, Lin Taige writes of trade-offs in pursuit of energy efficiency that have actually increased energy consumption:

Because the phenomenon of "energy-saving" buildings is not restricted to the residential sector, office complexes suffer the same problem. One office development in Beijing installed a number of solar water heaters. This is all very well, but the system used requires the water to circulate constantly. And the cost of running those pumps was almost as much as the cost of heating the water in the first place. This is hardly power saving.

Gold medal for downplaying negative news

David Bandurski at China Media Project:

The murder in Beijing on Saturday of American Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of U.S. men's volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon, was a major story, particularly coming as it did at the end of the first day of Olympic competition. But while Chinese Web users had a reasonably good chance of running across the story, newspaper readers might have missed it altogether.

300 pieces of silver are not buried here

The phlegmatic Me Old China:

Foreign journalists - obviously keen to make a mark - are naturally drawn to stories that the government doesn't want you to talk about. It makes them feel intrepid. It makes them feel like Woodward and Bernstein.

Amusingly, by establishing a list of stories that journalists aren't allowed to talk about, the censors are effectively doing part of our job for us. They are adding to the frisson of newsworthiness that already surrounds negative stories concerning corruption or forced relocation or religious crackdowns.

August 12, 2008

The voice of the opening ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games had something for everyone: flags, sappy pop singing, impressive displays of synchronized choreography, wire-fu, history, and pyrotechnics. It even had a few things for the cynics: the televised firework footprints were CGI inserts, and now it turns out that the cute girl who sang the ode to the motherland was overdubbed by another girl who wasn't as cute. China Digital Times translates an interview with music director Chen Qigang:

We chose one ten-year-old child, whose voice was really good. All the rehearsals were using her singing... In the end the director thought her image was not the most appropriate, she was a little too old... so regrettably, we had to let her go.

Protest free protest zones

City Weekend's blogger Mirlin168 went to all three official Olympic 'protest zones' looking, in vain, for protesters, and also visited the police to find out how to apply for permission to protest.

When bribery backfires

Last November, Oriental Outlook magazine printed a diary that Hunan entrepreneurs Mao Shijian and Zhou Difan had kept during the eight months they spent trying to get their fireworks business registered. Recently, China Youth Daily did a follow-up investigation which discovered a sordid tale of greed, family politics, thugs, guns, and revenge.

Prince Gong's mansion to re-open August 20

From Xinhua:

Prince Gong's mansion, Beijing's largest and best preserved princely home, will open to the public on Aug. 20 after 2.5 years of renovation.

The mansion is divided into a residential area and a garden. The area to be open next week is the residential portion with an area of 32,000 square meters.

August 11, 2008

Li Ning lights China's Olympic flame

Li Ning, founder and chairman of the sports brand which bears his name, lit the cauldron at the final act of last night's opening ceremony.

Do not use this photo

Black and White Cat, blogging from inside the State media apparatus points to a politically incorrect news photo that Xinhua released and then recalled, but failed to tell their own Web editors.

More attacks in Xinjiang

From The Times of India:

Eight persons were killed after terrorists launched a dozen attacks in west China on Sunday using handmade explosives in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which the base for a separatist movement.

Chinese Internet reacts to Olympic opening ceremony

ESWN translates some Chinese online commentary about the opneing ceremony of the Olympic Games.