In this context, Mr. Zou Taofen's story has been continuously transformed into a grand narrative epic, showing us the life course of an China intellectual. If people's praise of "Tao Fen Spirit" is summarized, it can cover almost all the traditional virtues and progressive thoughts of the Chinese nation. Such as: sincerity, freedom, creativity, hard bones, independence, seriousness, dedication, revolution, patriotism, selflessness, firmness, modesty, fairness, responsibility, hard work, endurance, love of comrades, mass views and the spirit of serving the people wholeheartedly, up to the spirit of * * *.
Faced with such a great honor, I often feel dizzy, and a statue of a great man naturally emerges in my mind. It bathed in sunshine, grew up gradually, swelled up and went straight into the clouds. At this moment, I lower my head and am more eager to get close to the kind, peaceful and true Mr. Taofen from the bottom of my heart.
I saw that in the month of 1926 and 10, Mr. Tao Fen, aged 3/kloc-0, began to take over Life Weekly and began his life-long press and publication career. It took him a year to increase the print run of the magazine from 2,800 to 20,000. After more than a year, the print run of the magazine rose to 40 thousand; Two years later, it rose to 6.5438+0.55 million copies, making it the largest-selling periodical at that time. This is a miracle in the history of China's press and publication. Before that, the famous New Youth had only 65,438+0,000 copies printed.
I saw that when Mr. Taofen first took over Life Weekly, he had no money and no screenwriter. In order to enrich the column, Mr. Tao Fen used various pen names, such as Heart Water, Duty, Autumn Moon, Sunset, Laughter and so on. To cover all articles in each column. Life Bookstore was founded in 1932, and their business is growing rapidly. At its peak, Life Bookstore had nearly 50 branches in China, and * * * published more than 0/000 books and more than 30 kinds of periodicals. He wrote in a Kuomintang document: "Although books in life bookstores can be seen everywhere in the hinterland, it can be said that it is pervasive and its power is really terrible."
I saw that during Mr. Tao Fen's less than 20 years of press and publication career, he was trapped in the "Seven Gentlemen Prison" that shocked China and foreign countries; Because of various reasons, he has been exiled abroad many times, so he is called "journalist in exile".
I saw that Mr. Taofen left more than 8 million words in his life. Marked by "small remarks" and other columns, we always adhere to the writing principle of "speaking for the public and letting the public understand". As Mr. Hu Yuzhi said: "If Lu Xun is the mentor of the immortal people, then Tao Fen is the true partner and friend of the people."
I see that Mr. Tao Fen's ideal periodical is "an economically independent and spiritually free periodical". His ideal publisher is "my head can be beaten to death, but my conscience, my freedom of speech and my editorial sovereignty are absolutely not bound by any aspect or individual." His ideal publication is "serving readers, which is the happiest thing for an editor". Although he was an editor, he was once a fugitive; I was in prison to be an editor; In order to be an editor, he will always be poor; ……"
Looking at these stories, have we found some humanistic support of "Tao Fen Spirit"? No, I have no intention of re-creating for those "great" and looking for more footnotes. I'm even thinking, according to the old saying "in a word", which kind of "virtue" of Mr. Tao Fen can best cover all his spirit? I chose "sincerity". That is a noble sincerity. Mr. Hu Sheng said it was an extreme "match words with deeds"; Mr. Mao Dun said it was a kind of "eternal innocence"; Mr. Tao Fen himself said that we need a kind of "fool-like courage", just as Gorky sang in Song of the Eagle: "We sing and praise the courage of fools"! Oh, I finally found another solution to the "Taofen spirit": the courage of a fool!
You see, Chiang Kai-shek once asked Du to invite Mr. Tao Fen to Nanjing to see him, asking him to be the imperial pen of "Chen Bulei II", but he refused. As a result, he can only live in exile in Hong Kong. The Kuomintang Central Committee once proposed to merge Life Bookstore, Zhong Zheng Bookstore and Independent Publishing House, and appointed Mr. Tao Fen as the general manager at the expense of the government. He said that doing so would make Life Bookstore lose its storefront space. "I think losing store space is extinction. Instead of losing storage space, it is better to save storage space and perish. " The Kuomintang once forced Mr. Tao Fen to join the party. He retorted: "I think the position of the national is better than that of the national party member." . At a party in Life Bookstore, their slogan was: "Writers and publishers unite to repel slave culture!" Do you think, in such a "bloody age", Mr. Tao Fen confronted power so directly, isn't it "the courage of fools"?
Many times, Mr. Taofen is a bit "naive". He said, "We must try our best to make money" to maintain the fairness and independence of publishing. He also said that we can oppose the dictatorship of the Kuomintang through democratic constitutionalism; However, he also held a political meeting of the Kuomintang in Chongqing. At the meeting, the Kuomintang suddenly seized almost all 50 branches of Life Bookstore and arrested many people in Life Bookstore. Can Mr. Tao Fen still "participate in politics" at this time? He had to leave the meeting with tears in his eyes.
Many times, Teacher Taofen is still "silly strong". He did not take the way of "small scolding and big help" in Ta Kung Pao, but advocated the style of "biting hard bones to run a newspaper". He did not take the road of "avoiding politics" by the Commercial Press. At that time, even Sun Yat-sen's books and the complete works of Lu Xun were not published. Taking the literature, translation, Taibai and world literature of Life Bookstore as examples, they have published 78 translations of Mr. Lu Xun. Only 1935 published 47 articles. Life Bookstore also published a large number of so-called "forbidden books". For example, during the Anti-Japanese War, more than 200 books were banned. Authors: Ma, En, Lenin, Stalin, Wu Dakun, Zhang, Chen Boda, Zhang Naiqi, Qian, Duanmu Hongliang, Liu and Xian Xinghai. Interestingly, they published a book, General Chiang Kai-shek's Anti-Japanese War Speech Collection, which was even banned. Because this book was written with the support of * * * producers, with the aim of "restraining Chiang Kai-shek from resisting Japan". Moreover, the periodicals of Life Bookstore are constantly being seized. They were not afraid, so they closed their lives and published a new life. Seal up "new life" and then seal up "public life"; Seal the "public life" and then seal the "eternal life". This is not "stupid", or what?
Mr Zhou Enlai once said, "Taofen is to be the model of publishing". I think, in addition to the above-mentioned "Taofen spirit", what else is worth learning from the technical level of publishing? Take a look, there are indeed many good experiences in this area. For example, Mr. Zou Taofen called books, periodicals and newspapers long media, medium media and short media respectively. He started with periodicals and then published books and newspapers. In his view, a good news publishing organization should combine these three aspects properly, so as to learn from each other's strengths, be cost-effective economically and produce results more easily in operation. For another example, Mr. Tao Fen runs a publishing house, and besides the content, he values the construction of distribution network most. He likes to open stores everywhere, all over the country. The function of the branch is not only to sell books, but also to radiate the region, organize the delivery of books and organize the draft. Their Xi 'an Branch published Mao Zedong's On Protracted War; Chongqing Branch published Wu Zuguang's Phoenix and Chen's Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Hong Kong Branch publishes periodicals such as World Knowledge, Theory and Reality, and Literary Standpoint.
In addition, Life Bookstore has some excellent business activities. First, their advertising business can almost be compared with Shenbao, the largest newspaper at that time. But they don't make money, and they stipulate that advertisements are "five no advertisements", including: doctors who hinder morality, coquette, willow leaf disease, glib mouth and foreign goods replaced by domestic ones; Life magazine once wrote a special article "Sorry, Shen Bao", criticizing Shen Bao for publishing traitorous advertisements. Secondly, it also signed contracts with China, Communications, Shanghai, Xinhua, Jiangsu Rural Commercial, Zhejiang Xingye, Juxingcheng, Mainland China, Fudianxin, Overseas Chinese and other major banks 10, and all branches at home and abroad are exempt from remittance fees for book purchases; In return, Life Bookstore opened a special account and settled books with the bank once a month. Third, Mr. Tao Fen advocates that editors should have innovative spirit and oppose "tailism". For example, people publish Hu Cun, and many followers are also "literate", which looks disgusting. Fourthly, Mr. Tao Fen personally formulated four criteria for hiring editors, namely, selflessness, in-depth thinking, fluent writing and proficiency in a foreign language. Fifth, they stipulated the working rules of bookstore staff, such as setting up chairs in the store to provide convenience for readers who don't buy books; The clerk is not allowed to say "no" when the reader asks questions. He should register those books that are out of stock and find them at once. People who steal books are not allowed to be reprimanded in public, and so on.
Mr. Taofen's story is really wonderful. Regrettably, he left this world prematurely, just like a large-scale drama just reached the peak of the story, and the curtain on the stage suddenly fell, arousing the audience's sigh! Mr. Taofen's later illness was extremely painful and he often stayed up all night; Ear cancer surgery has greatly changed his appearance! But he still joked that it was okay. You don't have to dress up if you get into trouble again. In his last words, he also wrote: "If you can regain your health, ... if things get better, you should first restore the bookstore and continue to run the library and daily newspaper. You are willing to work hard for the cause of progressive culture forever, and then continue to struggle with comrades for twenty or thirty years!"
Later, the situation really improved, and Mr. Tao Fen's ideal bookstore also developed in the form of a triple bookstore of life, reading and new knowledge. It is based on this cultural background that I have always regarded Sanlian Bookstore as an expression of "Tao Fen Spirit". I like Sanlian's book style, I like Sanlian's traditional editing thought, I like reading magazines and life weekly in the new era, I like Taofen Book Shopping Center, I like publishing houses such as, Shen, Dong Xiuyu, and I like Sanlian's logo and dark blue background. In the 1990s, I also opened a "Sanlian Bookstore Shenyang Branch" in Shenyang. I remember that on the opening day of the bookstore, some old employees and readers of the bookstore got together and praised our work and pursuit with emotion.
However, all this seems to be drifting away from Mr. Taofen's ideal realm. That day, my thoughts sneaked into my dream. I saw that the old and the new China were split in two by a river of time. The sun shines here and the fog is boundless on the other side. I stood on this shore, pushed away the clouds through time and space, and looked at the other shore. People are in a hurry, everything looks like a bad old movie, flickering. I called Mr. Taofen's name and saw a great patriot lying on the land he loved at dawn on the eve of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's victory. He lay there on his back, his clear eyes staring at the brilliant starry sky. A little girl snuggled up to him and shook his arm and cried, what should I do? What shall we do? At this point, he has lost the strength to speak, but he still stubbornly raised his hand and wrote three words with difficulty: "Don't be afraid." At this point, I slowly woke up with tears in my eyes.