Jiang Yiwei's long march

Jiang Yiwei, born in 1920, was a formidable survivor, having lived through wars and revolutions, both social and industrial. That fighting spirit never left him.

Jiang was also a fast learner and good at weaving facts into theories. In spite of losing out on academic training, he wrote a book in 1958 titled Scientific Progress and China's Socialism Construction. Some of the points of this book are instructive even now.

"I love and respect my husband deeply not only because he was a survivor but also an important contributor to our country," says his wife Chen Xi, 83, now living in Beijing's Shijingshan District with her grandson.

Jiang came from a poor family in Fuzhou of Fujian Province. After only three years in primary school in his hometown, his family migrated to Wuhan in Central China, where he was enrolled in a junior high school, and later an aviation school. After a year of training, he was transferred to Guangxi to work as an air force technician for the Kuomintang (KMT) in 1937, when the fight against Japanese invasion began in earnest.

During these years, he came to embrace communism because of the KMT's indifference to anti-Japanese troops. In 1942, he escaped from the KMT air force to Liuzhou, another city in Guangxi, where his wife's parents lived.

"He hid in my parents' small house for several months, preparing for college entrance examination," says Chen. Jiang was finally accepted by the science department of Guangxi University.

Because of the Japanese invasion, Jiang had no choice but to abandon his college education. Joining the long lines of refugees, 24-year-old Jiang, along with his wife, mother, sister and their young son moved to Chongqing, the wartime capital of China.

Before becoming a communist in January 1948, he secretly published revolutionary periodicals advocating science and communism in KMT-ruled Chongqing. During these years, he joined the revolutionary Chen Ran to publish the Tingjin newspaper, which was supported by the communist underground organization.

In April 1948, the KMT arrested Chen Ran - whose real name was Peng Yongwu - who was killed soon after along with his wife Jiang Zhujun. Jiang Yiwei and his family escaped arrest and fled to Hong Kong. In March 1949, Jiang and his family sailed to Tianjin en route to Beijing, where he began publication of Science and Technology Express, the first scientific journal after the new China was founded in 1949. At the end of 1952, he was transferred to work as head of the Policy Research Office of the First Mechanism and Industry Department.

He was sent to factories in Henan and Hebei for "remodeling" amid political movements prior to 1977, when the "cultural revolution" ended. He quickly adjusted to the new conditions. Spending long hours with workers and team leaders, he took note of workers' wishes and the weaknesses of organizational structures in enterprises of the planned economy. He even secretly made experiments to restructure parts of the factories he worked in.

His theories, based on 20 years of field studies, helped him write an important guiding article for China's leadership within three months in 1978.

"He was an optimist who could always turn hardships into opportunities," says his wife Chen. "Even during his two exiles before 1949, he was planning to launch small-scale guerrilla wars to fight Japanese and KMT troops."

(China Daily 01/05/2008 page3)