The Fog of War

他已经很久没有用剑了，不知道那双手还是不是一样的灵巧呢？当然他还没忘记杀人的方法，不过那仿佛已经是很久以前，很让他陌生的一件事情---是不是很久呢？如果一个人突经惨变，突然性格发生了很大的变化，他回忆往昔的时候，会不会总觉得以前已经很远？

 

江声浩荡，从屋后升起；寒风西来，穿窗格而入。这秋风挟带着浸肤冷意，扰乱了屋中的点点烛光，也扰乱了灯下读书人的心情。

只见这读书人缓缓站起，信步走到窗前。此时还不是深夜，窗外的两块青色大石仍然隐约可见，一块上面书着李白的两句诗：黄河西来决昆仑，咆哮万里触龙门。另一块上是斗大的三个朱漆红字：“坐忘峰”。

这读书人关了窗户，转过身来。他一身白衣胜雪，腰下却挂一把通体漆黑的长刀，显得极不搭配；看他样貌身材，似乎是二十出头的少年，可是唇下却蓄了卷卷的一撮胡子；下巴坚定，上面的脸留了三四道刀痕，深深浅浅；额头上面也留有坑坑洼洼的伤痕，像是中过爆裂的火药一类。

在这个风摇烛动，寒意渐临的深秋浅夜，又看到许多伤痕，自然叫人想起他生命里的忧患和不幸来。可是你只要和他对望一眼，看到他目光里的温暖，你就会觉得这个人仿佛是身在江南的早春三月里面，无忧无虑的世家公子。

这个目光，这双眼睛，在这个孤独的夜里，要人心中燃起一团火，驱掉所有的寒冷和孤单。

突然窗棂上叮咚一声响，接着“啊”的一声传来，在这黄河的波涛汹涌里面，也可以听得清清楚楚。原来竟然有人躲在窗下，刚刚关窗的时候被这读书人瞧见，他先假作不知，等到回身坐到了桌前，窗下的人防备稍松，便发射暗器，一击得手。

他击中了外面偷窥的人，竟又像刚才什么事也没有发生过一样，重新拾起了书本，一字一字地朗声念道：“蒹葭苍苍，白露为霜，所谓伊人，在水一方。。。”念书声被门外一阵大笑打断：“好一首蒹葭，好一手暗器功夫，千手如来的“回龙壁”暗器，居然也传给了你。可是你可知道你击中是谁么？呵呵，有道是多情剑客无情剑。。。“

这一句还没说完，小屋的门已经“砰”地开了，黑暗里白影一闪，那读书人已经立在门前，冷冷答道：“我道是谁，原来是昆仑派何一舟夫妇。小小农家，怎么惹得两位大驾光临？”

门外青石上已经多了两个黄衫道人，约摸四十上下年龄，身上都悬一把没有剑鞘的青钢长剑。那男的嘿嘿一笑，说道：“我今日携带内子和小徒访问杨公子，打扰了公子读书的雅兴，却是不该，然而杨公子不问来人，一出手便用独门暗器偷袭小徒，似乎不够光明正大。”

他一语还未说完，那杨姓少年便已经眉头一皱，身形一扭，已经转到窗下。那窗下躺了一个身材高大的女子，却全身黑衣，也挂一柄无鞘长剑，想来是因为这女子身材和衣服颜色的缘故，适才没有看清楚，误以为是不怀好意的夜行人，所以施放暗器。那少年脸上一惊，翻转身上佩刀，用刀柄撞了女子身上穴道，然后轻轻一托，那高大女子竟被一托带起，横着身子飞向青石上的女道士。那女道士见自己徒儿飞来，道袍一带，生出一股劲风，把飞来的人挽在自己怀里。而回身看那少年时，已经又稳稳站在门口了，正好一阵风吹来，白衣当风一吹，衣角飘起，竟像是蝙蝠展开了两只大翅膀，瞧他眼光，也已经有了一点凶恶神色，不过里面好像更掩藏着难以言说的孤独和寂寞。

何一舟又是嘿嘿一笑，道：“好俊的轻身功夫，想不到韦老蝙蝠的轻功还有传人，不知他吸人鲜血本领，是不是也一并传了你了呢？”

I have not updated my blog for a long time, but the spring forces me to do so. With the lovely day, I felt that it would be a crime not to capture these beautiful moments. 

Navigation, Mercantilism, and Logarithms:

Reinterpreting the preface of the English

translation of John Napier’s Descriptio Canonis

                                   

                                                                                                                        Zhao Fang

                                                                                                            Professor Hayton

 

John Napier’s Descriptio Canonis, published in Latin in 1614, has long been recognized as the first mathematical work on the logarithm. Its appearance immediately attracted the attention of two eminent English mathematicians that time---Edward Wright and Henry Briggs. The former translated the book into English; the latter was “concerned with Napier in the change of the logarithms from those originally invented to decimal or common logarithms”[1], and part of his logarithm tables was included in the English translation. The English translation of the Descriptio was published in 1616, one year after the death of the translator, Edward Wright. His son, John Napier, and Henry Briggs wrote three prefaces for the English translation of the book. The prefaces revealed the translator, the original author, and the co-author’s attitudes toward the invention of logarithm. However, its importance was conventionally ignored in the studies on the history of logarithm.  In this paper, I will show how the social and economical trends in the early 17^th century England, especially the advancement in navigation and commercial expansion to colonial market, shaped the three persons’ opinions on the invention of logarithm, which were stated explicitly in the preface of the English translation of  the book.

            Before discussing the contents of the three prefaces, it is necessary to first take a closer look at the situations of English navigation and economy in the late 16^th century and early 17^th century. Perhaps the most important change in English navigational practice during the latter half of the 16^th century was the introduction and further development of navigational technologies founded upon mathematics and astronomy. [2] These new technologies included both instruments and techniques---the physical devices themselves together with the set of skills and knowledge required to use them. The astronomical instruments used to make stellar observation were quite useless apart from the calculations in which those observations were subsequently employed. Likewise, the pilot’s plane charts were meaningless to a traditional, nonmathematical pilot who could not perform geometrical calculations. In the early 17^th century, the introduction of mathematically derived methods of navigation had changed the very idea of what it meant to be a pilot: while the pilots in the 1550s found the route mostly on their personal experience, the pilots in the early 17^th century constantly used astronomical instruments, sea-charts, and manuals to calculate the ship’s position and determine which direction to go. Although the preeminence of mathematical navigation became increasingly obvious to the 17^th century pilots, they had to face two serious problems when performing navigational calculation. The first one was the abounded errors existing in the sea chart, compass, cross-staff, and tables of the declinations of the sun and stars which were then in use. The second one was the difficulties of calculating exact values of trigonometry functions. The pilots demanded more reliable and efficient methods of calculation to ease their surging workload.    

Although England’s maritime power expanded dramatically in the late 16^th century, the process of settling in distant lands did not begin until the 17^th century. From 1603 to 1630, there were at least ten plantations founded by English companies in the America whose locations ranged from New England to Jamaica, while there was only one between 1560 and 1600. The East India Company and Hudson’s Bay Company founded several valuable factories for trade in Africa and India after the turn of the 17^th century.[3] Merchants involved in oversea trades and ship owners started to flourish at around the same time: the value of imports to London was much the same in 1600 as it had been in 1560, but by the early 1660s there was 150,000 tons of English shipping, three times as much as in the early 1570s.[4]    

            The first several decades of the 17^th century England also witnessed the transformation of a landed economy to a more capital oriented economy, together with social structure change. One example is the growth of the Cumbrain iron Industry: from 1606 to 1630, eleven new smelting sites appeared in this region.[5] Landowners who owed or worked iron ore were able to benefit from sales not only to the local industry but also to distant smelting sites. The benefit of participation in trade encouraged noble class to invest their capital on commercial activities. Arithmetical calculations, crucial for financial activities, gradually became one of a daily practice for gentries who were involved in commerce. [6]      

Given all the backgrounds, one shall not find difficulties understanding William Kempe’s comments on the value of mathematics at that time

Take away arithmetic; ye take away the merchant’s eye, whereby he seeth his direction in buying and selling; ye take away the goldsmith’s discretion, whereby he mixeth his metals in due quantities; ye take away the captain’s dexteritie, whereby he embattaileth his army in convenient order; finally ye take away from all sorts of men, the faculty of executing their functions aright.[7]

 

In the early 17^th century, the navigator, the surveyor, the gunner, the mechanic, and the engineer and even some landlords were all constantly obliged to calculate. However, the existing computing technologies were insufficient to meet the rising need of calculation before the late 1610s. There was no uniform notation system for decimal numbers and fractions; there was not any relatively easy method to calculate the exact value of trigonometry functions; there was no mechanical tool to help pilots or merchants to perform multiplication and division. Under all these social and economical pressure for simplifying arithmetic calculation and avoiding calculation errors, the invention of logarithm immediately received recognition as an extraordinary method to simplify these laborious calculations. This recognition was so influential that even John Napier viewed his invention as a calculating tool and somehow underestimated its theoretical value.

John Napier’ prefaces consisted of two parts, one was the dedication letter to the Prince Charles, which was in the Latin version of the book, and the other part was the preface he wrote for the English translation. In both parts one can perceive that he did not reckon that the invention of logarithm was a theoretical advancement in mathematics, but rather, a method to help calculation. In the dedication letter he stated the function of the logarithms was “helpe the weakness of memory, that by means thereof it is easie to resolve moe Mathematical questions in one houres space,”[8] He also made a statement on how powerful this method was “this new course of Logarithms doth cleane take away all the difficultie that heretofore hath beene in mathematical calculations (which otherwise might have been distasteful to your worthy towardnesse),”[9] It was clear for him that his new invention would be of great help for complicated calculations. In the preface he wrote for the English version, he stated explicitly that the logarithms could serve as “excellent briefer rules”[10] for multiplication, division and square roots. More importantly, he noticed that the people affected of this invention were not only mathematicians and astronomers, but also non academic people who needed to do calculations. In the preface, he said

I thought good heretofore to set forth in Latine for the publique use of Mathematicians. But now come of our Countrey-men in the Island well affected to these studies, and the more publique good, procured a most learned Mathematician to translate the same into our vulgar English tongue…[11]

 

Latin was the academic language used by university educated mathematicians, however, there were “our Countrey-men in the Island well affected to these studies” who could not read Latin and wanted to read English translation of the book.  These country men were neither professional mathematicians, nor natural philosophy professors in the university. They were the navigators, the surveyors, the gunners, the mechanics, and the engineers who wanted to know how to use logarithms instead of grasping its theoretical value. Jonh Napier did not think that the audience of this book would be limited to the educated elite class. The common people who had to do “troublesome” calculations at that time would also find his invention useful.     

John Napier’s awareness that common people also needed methods to simplify calculations was probably linked with the ongoing social structure transformation mentioned above. As the Baron of Merchiston, his primary interests were politics and theology. However, mathematics played an important role in his mature life. Through his daily experiences of various calculation for the management of his estate, also through the letters his friends sent him, he realized that the heavy burden of doing arithmetic and thus spent lots of time designing various devices to ease the labor.[12] The most famous one was his Rabdologia, also known as Napier’s bone. Without landowners’ gradual involvement in commercial activities and the spread of mercantilism, John Napier might not be able to realize the social demand for quick methods of computing.   

John Napier in fact wrote two books on logarithm: the book The Descriptio contained only an explanation of the use of the logarithms without any account of the manner in which the canon was constructed. There was also a second book The Constructio which stated the mode of construction of the canon for logarithms. The second book was published in 1617 by his son, Robert Napier, under the title Mirifici logarithmorum canonis construction. Although it offered the grounding of the mathematical concept, the earliest English translation of The Constructio appeared in 1889, some 250 years after its publication.[13] The reason why the second book was not immediately translated was that the translator, Edward Wright, did not think logarithm as a new mathematical discovery and thus its nature was relatively insignificant. His view on logarithm as a computing tool was represented in the preface written by his son.

It should be mentioned that in the Renaissance, the preface of a book often had the function of dedicatory prologues and letters. Early modern prefactory apparatus, like the texts that it introduced, typically observed certain formulas of composition, utilized tropes and figures of speech, and most important, directed itself to specific patrons.[14] Unlike most authors at that time who dedicated the book to the church or a political power, the son of Edward Wright, Samuel Wright dedicated this book to “company of merchants of London trading to the East-Indies”, the East Indian Company, in which Edward Wright once served as a mathematician. This occupation, which was not common before the 17th century, and his experience with the navigation, determined that he viewed logarithm as a mathematical calculating tool when translating Napier’s book.

Edward Wright started serving in the East Indian Company in 1589. In that year he was “called forth to the public business of the nation, by the Queen,”[15] and he joined the expedition to the Azores, whose object was to prey upon Spanish commerce. In his three years life on the sea, he got to know the difficulties pilots had with emerging navigational technologies. He also found that the ordinary sea-chart was in many places “like an inextricable labyrinth of error,”[16] After he returned from the sea, he wrote his most important work Certaine Errors in Navigation.  In this book, he discussed his own method of calculating geometrical projection. However, this new method was difficult to carry out because it involved multiple steps of evaluating trigonometry functions and divisions. That was probably why he did not offer a complete table for the results of his method in his book. [17] When John Napier published his work, Edward Wright was at once attracted by how powerful the application of logarithms could be in navigation. His perspective was stated explicitly by his son in the preface “I doubt not but it is apparent enough that he esteemed of it, and intended to have recommended it as a booke of more than ordinary worth, especially to Sea-men.” Once as a mathematician in the sea, he truly understood how crucial it was for pilots to know the logarithms when performing navigational calculation, especially computing the value of trigonometry functions.

  The third preface of the book was written by Henry Briggs, the Professor of geometry in Gresham College, London, under the title the preface to the reader. Henry Briggs was a university professor who did not have direct contact with the seamen and merchants, yet he realized how valuable logarithm would be for common people as well as for scholars.  The contents of this preface revealed his expectations regarding who the readers of the book would be. At the beginning of the preface he said “by the help of them (logarithm) we may attaine to the knowledge and use of the Mathematicks, and especially of Astronomie and Nauigation”[18]. Navigation here appeared again as one field which would benefit from the invention. The rest of the preface was a very comprehensible and brief introduction on how to use the tables in the book. If he thought the book was only going to be used by scholars for academic research, it would not be necessary to include so many details on how to comprehend the table and the notions in the preface; instead, he should probably concentrate more on mathematical principles in the construction of the conans of the logarithms to offer the justification of the new method. In his lectures at Gresham College, he always started with the geometrical origin of the logarithms to show his students that this was a sound method. The reason why he penned so much on the use of the tables was that he assumed that the readers of the English version would not care so much about the theoretical value of the invention; he wrote exactly what the readers were concerned with: how to use the tables to perform calculations. In the later years, he devoted himself to the calculation of the logarithms for natural numbers and finally, in 1624, he published his table containing the logarithms of the numbers from 1 to 20,000 and from 90,000 to 100,000, all calculated to 14 decimal numbers. All subsequent works on logarithms in the 17^th century were concerned with calculating tables, and its value in pure mathematics had been completely ignored. The increasingly usage of new technologies in navigation and surging amount of commercial related calculations in 17^th century England continuously demanded reliable logarithm tables, not its connection with calculus or  analytical geometry. 

            In the history of mathematics, the invention of logarithms was often referred as “the bolt from the blue”[19], a flash in an insightful intellectual’s mind. However, this perspective failed to interpret this invention in the social and economical context of early 17^th century England. In the specific social and economical context, the exigencies of practical problems in navigation and commerce called for a new method to prompt the speed and accuracy of calculation. Once the resolution appeared, the society soon adopted it and developed it in a particular way to meet the social demands.  The Logarithms was introduced into China in the late 17^th century, however, it did not win any public recognition. China did not possess the proper social and economical context for the wide adoption of logarithm: China’s backwardness in navigation technology and government suppression of commercial activities made the preeminence of logarithm inconspicuous. When we reread the prefaces of the English translation of Napier’s work Descriptio Canonis, we should be with careful consideration of the circumstance in which it was written.  By deliberately examining the invention of logarithm and its relations with navigation and mercantilism in 17^th century England, one should recognize how much the scholars’ view on their studies was shaped by the outside world and how people adopted their works.     

---

Time is always fleeting---six months have already passed since last time I pasted my history final paper---now I am writing another history final paper. Last semester was a lot of fun, sorrow, illusion, and disillusionment. It has left some clues on me, however, I think that I will never change dramatically in half a year.

I uploaded some pictures this time, and I'll put my history final paper on next time.

 

History, People, and Dream

1. Conversation

I met Mr. History when I sunk into thinking about the series of extraordinary events in Central and Eastern Europe. The following is the conversation between him and me.

Me: If the socialism revolutions, as predicted by Karl Marx, succeeded in industrialized western countries, are you going to accept this fact?

Mr. H: At least people could have paid lower prices.

Me: How did the Soviets irritate you?

Mr. H: They ignored my existence and hurried to take over the world.

Me: That is probably because they suffered too much in the past and could not wait any longer.

Mr. H: I like punishing impatient people.

Me: But you punished half of the world. Do you think it was too severe?

Mr. H: In order to gain, one has to pay.

Me: I fully respect your authority. However, can people challenge your own pace of evolution?

Mr. H: … (Silence)

 

2. Hungarian Revolution: The Death of Socrates

13 is not a lucky number in Christian culture. The 13 days in Hungarian was not a good memory for every socialist in the world. These 13 days marked the start of “a series of extraordinary events in Central and Eastern Europe”.

Both sides were fighting in the names of socialism: the winners judged in the names of socialism, the losers shouted before the execution: “Long live, an independent and socialist Hungary!”

What happened indeed?

What happened was very simple: students started the demonstration and then workers and soldiers joined them. They demanded a reform-minded leader to replace the hardliner in power. They demanded economic and political reforms. 13 days after the first demonstration, a foreign country intervened and crushed the revolution.

There were many comments on the Hungarian revolution from both sides: communism and capitalism countries. Among all these comments what is common is that the “revolution” was a tragedy.

Yes, it is. But there are really two tragedies.

There is one tragedy written in blood on the streets and squares of Budapest, which can be “read in the lines of suffering long-endured on the faces of Hungarian citizens, in the forlorn gaze of the children who press their noses against the windows of Western cars and beg for chocolate, in the tears of men and women who have been promised much and given little.”(Fryer)

There is another tragedy which “weakened any remaining illusions about the benevolence and liberalism of Stalin’s successors and shook the Communist faithful in Western Europe and elsewhere.” (Palmer, Colton and Kramer, p875)

So why was such a tragedy extraordinary? I want to remind you that when Nagy shouted before the execution “Long live, an independent and socialist Hungary!” he looked like Socrates--- both Nagy and Socrates did not give up their ideals even in the last moment of their lives. They were both losers in political conflicts, but winners in history. Imre Nagy’s idea kindled the tinder wood of rebellion, and his efforts will be remembered not only by Hungarian people, but also people who arise to rebel against the oppression of Soviet Union.

 

3. Gomulka and his Poland: From Revolution to Reaction

We often see people as heroes when they first appear on the political stage, but when they got off we see them as criminals; in the first act they lead people and in the last act people protest them; in the beginning of the play they serve for people by the means of power and at the end they were corrupted by the means of power…Such a drama was played out in Poland between 1958 and 1970, and the main actor was Wladyslaw Gomulka.

After Khrushchev’s secret report in 1956, open riots and outbursts broke up in the street of Warsaw. Communist party needed a new leader without a tight connection to Stalin. Gomulka who was imprisoned in Stalin’s purge became an appropriate candidate. In 1958, Poland welcomed Gomulka's return to power with relief, and even euphoria, despite his background as a lifelong Communist. Many Poles still rejected Communism, but they knew that the realities of Soviet dominance dictated that Poland could not escape from Communist rule. Gomulka, however, promised an end to police terror, greater intellectual and religious freedom, higher wages and the reversal of collectivization, and he fulfilled all of these promises. These policies were not what Soviet Union wanted to see. Khrushchev warned Gomulka with military action, and the leader turned back under the pressure. When talking about the effect of his short-lived reform, Palm and Colton said that “For a few years, Gomulka curbed police terror and created a freer atmosphere”. After the first wave of liberalization, his regime settled into a phase of "consolidation" in which the power of the Party and the Party's control of the media and universities, were gradually restored, and many of the younger and more reformist members of the Party were expelled. The reform-promising Gomulka of 1958 was replaced by the original authoritarian Gomulka.

The blood of forty students and workers was probably nothing in Poland’s history, but it was enough to drive Gomulka from leadership in 1970. His successor, Edward Gierek did a little better than him in reforming the nation’s economy and improving people’s living standard, but without the radical political reform, the prosperity of economy was temporary. The blizzard eventually came to Poland in Gierek’s ninth year of domination.

 

4. “Prague Spring” and “The Brezhnev Doctrine”

Before 1968 World attention had never been on Czechoslovakia. The only thing with historical importance of this nation that I know was Jan Hus. Other than that Czechoslovakia seems a country with a moderate temper like the good soldier Švejk.

But the world’s impression towards this country has changed since the spring in 1968. The small nation in Central Europe suddenly jumped into the sight of the world. It attracted the world’s focus by two connected phases “Prague Spring” and “The Brezhnev Doctrine”.

In that spring in Prague, Dubcek, the new leader of communist party, started his reform. He referred his policy as a “socialist with a Human face”. This reform threatened the one-party state and bureaucracy in Czechoslovakia and was broadly welcomed by its people. Garton Ash described the reactions of the crowd when seeing Dubcek show up in the velvet revolution “as if the ghost of Winston Churchill were to be seen striding down the Burlington Arcade”. (p95) Soviet’s tanks again crushed the revolution. If the intervention in the Hungarian Revolution has already set up the pattern of Soviet responses to East European Revolution for the next thirty years, this intervention conceptualized or theorized the attitude of Soviet Union towards East European reforms. In his famous 1968 speech, Brezhnev said “It is common knowledge that the Soviet Union has really done a good deal to strengthen the sovereignty and autonomy of the socialist states…there are common natural laws of socialist construction, deviation from which could lead to deviation from socialism as such”. By saying socialism he actually meant socialism in a Soviet way, or any kind of ism which listens to the orders from Soviet Union. If one dares not to listen to him, then he will use “military assistance to a fraternal country to end a threat to the socialist system” (Stokes, p132-133). The relationship between Soviet Union and its satellite countries were definitely not “fraternal”, as he said in the speech. It was like the relationship between a strict parent and children: if the children do not listen to the parent, then the parent has right to hit the children. This doctrine and the brutal invasion of Prague further alienated the Communist faithful in many parts of the world and undermined the Soviet leadership of Western Communist parties, which strongly denounced the intervention. 

In winter the political reforms in Eastern Europe came as Brezhnev declared his doctrine. When Prague’s spring seemed to become far away in the winter of 1969, a young student, Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square. The fire on him sent a message of warmth and brightness in the deep darkness to all oppressive East European people.  

 

5. Solidarity Movement: A Great Socialist Practice

If someone asks me what the three most important historical events in the history of socialism are, my answer would be the October Revolution, the break-up between Tito and Stalin, and the foundation of Solidarity.

Thanks to Lenin, the first socialist country was born as a premature infant in the 7^th November, 1917.   

However, if he could predict the hardships the child is going to suffer, would he still devote himself to the career of fostering him?  

All the hardships the child experienced were earthshaking: the forced agricultural collectivization, the public trials, arrests, private inquisitions, executions, and most importantly a distorted economy where people were living in absolute poverty. More than half a century passed and she has already had too many scars.

In order to heal the scars and inject a new life into her body, many generations of people attempted various therapies:

In 1948 Tito declared the independence of Yugoslavia and a free foreign policy;

In 1953 there were outburst and riots in East Germany after the death of Stalin

In 1956 open revolts broke out in Poland and Hungary after Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization speech. 

In 1968 Dubcek and his “Prague Spring” made half of the world’s population see the dim sunlight.

All of these attempts failed and the socialist world seemed to fall into silence at the moment. The hope embodied in the Prague Spring was crushed by ruthless Soviet tanks and despair came: if a well-ordered, oriented by a Communist leader and peaceful revolution could not even achieve any substantial progress, what could bring a new life to the once premature infant in history?

Everyone started to prophesize that there will not be any upheavals in the near future.

However, only after 12 years, history denied the prediction. In the homeland of Chopin, an independent organization called “Solidarity” was born.

Nearly all the upheavals in the socialist history were connected with distinguished names and birthplaces: Lenin and Winter Palace, Nagy and Hungarian Hall of Congress, Dubcek and his office of the president. This time, the name was obscure and the place was common: a worker called Lech Walesa in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk.        

It was not a glorious place. Garton Ash described his way to the strike headquarters: “after being led in by a charming student, over a perimeter wall, under a huge pipe, around the rusting hull of a Soviet ferry…” When he saw Lech Walesa, he was wearing “striped trousers and leather house slippers” (p15).  It was this common person in such a common place who led the largest and most sustained popular “push” in the history of socialist Eastern Europe, that of Solidarity since 1980.

I do not want to trace back historical facts of the Solidarity movement. It is easy for any curious reader to find out by themselves from any documents recorded what happened in that time period. What I want to point out is that this uncommon movement bought something new in the history of socialist revolution. The revolutionary people did not put their hopes on the Communist leaders any more. They established their own organization and struggled to replace the entire political system and bureaucracy from the very bottom level. The experience of past failures taught them that a new leader from the Communist party would either comprise under pressure, or be directly overthrown by foreign military. In order to succeed, a consolidated revolutionary force including different classes in the society was necessary. The decisive force is from people themselves, from students, workers, soldiers, and intelligentsia among them and there has to be an organization with relatively strict structure to lead them.

Another important factor that contributed to the success of Solidarity is about religion. Poles have a strong Catholic religious identification for themselves but the Catholic churches had long been suppressed by Russia, who has an Orthodox Church. In 1979, millions of Poles cheered Pope John Paul II in his first visit to Poland as pontiff. The Pope called for respect of national traditions and stressed the importance of freedom and human rights while also denouncing violent actions, which were also the revolutionary targets of Solidarity Movement.  

The significance of Solidarity Movement was unquestionable. Although the trade-union of workers’ movement character of Solidarity was a major disadvantage when it came to making the transition to a market economy, although the Solidarity itself was “unprepared for such a role” to orient the country to a new direction, it first ended the old regime – communism – in Eastern Europe and hastened the collapses of Communist regimes in other Eastern European countries and Soviet Union. (Garton Ash, p38)

 

6. Revolutionary Tradition

            History always repeats itself. The connotation of the word “revolution” many imply that there are something new, but we can still hear the historical echoes from former days in every revolution. In Gorbachev’s 1991 speech, he stressed that “the nations and peoples (of the country) gained real freedom of self-determination” (Stokes, p273). We should be familiar with his voice here: the call for self-determination and independence of a nation was once the theme of 1848 revolutions in Poland, Austria, and Germany. Gorbachev also ended “The Brezhnev Doctrine” by declaring that “(we) gave up interference into other people’s affairs, the use of troops beyond the borders of the country and trust, solidarity, and respect came in response” (Stokes, p273).  It is easy to find a similar idea in President Wilson’s the fourteen points; he expressed a principle running through the whole program, that is “the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another”(Sources, p196).  

            We perhaps should not forget the legacy of French Revolution when discussing any modern revolutions after the 19^th century. Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen proclaimed by the National Assembly placed on public record the principles of “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression” (Sources, p81). The call for the release of human rights was Vaclav Havel’s weapon against the post-totalitarian system imposed by Russian. He argued that people in such system neglect “whether of not it is possible to live like a human being” (Stokes, p173). He called for the “independent life of society”, which includes “self-education, free creative activity and its communication others, civic attitudes and social self organization” (Stokes, p174). All of those were what demanded by French revolutionists as rights of man and the citizen two hundred years ago.

 

7. Conclusion: History, People and Dream

I like Churchill’s description about history: “History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of the former days”.

            Along the trial of the past, a lot of dreams appeared, most of which vanished as the great scroll of history unrolls, and some of them remained in the memory of people.

            Communism was one of the dreams and generations of people devoted themselves to achieve this dream in reality. History played jokes with them and the God laughed.

           

       

 

 

 

Well, for whatever reason I feel strongly that I am not interested in writing these days, especially just for fun to write on my own blog. Take a retrospective view for my 10 months in the U.S. I cannot help thinking that I have not learned that much as I expected before I went here.What I have got is the ability to tell what illusion is, but what I am seeking is the ability to tell what is the truth.