PURGING INTELLECTUALS
SIR,—An article by Mr. J. E. M. Arden in your August 22 number commiserates with me for being proved wrong about purges of Chinese intellectuals by Irving Kristol, then of Encounter. I feel I ought to try to explain what the controversy was about.
Some time ago, he printed an article about Fei Hsaio-tung, an internationally known sociologist who is head of the University for Minority Peoples in Peking, by a rival American sociologist, Wittvogel. This knew nothing about what he was doing, and said various untruths, but insinuated that he must feel ashamed at working for his Government. I am willing to believe that the intentions were not bad in this case. I and various others wrote in to give the facts and say that this was a bad line of talk. A year or so later, in a general purge campaign. Fei was very grossly blamed, and even on some occasion accused of being an American spy. An anonymous article in Encounter then jeered at me over this, assuming that the magazine had been proved right. Knowing Fei, a very patriotic man, who is enthusiastic about his work, I felt sure they were both wrong; and I suspected that this kind of smear talk by American colleagues was one of the things that had set off the eager suspicions of Chinese colleagues. I therefore still said that it was a very nasty article to have printed, and that it ought not to have been printed in 'England.
These attacks arc done by learned colleagues, encouraged by the Government, of course, but not directed; and I am afraid many intellectuals have
enough jealousy and spite to make this an easy thing for Governments to do. Exactly the same process is used in America and China; Fei in Peking was not sacked from his job as a result, at least, not when I last heard, quite recently, but he might not have been if in America, either. It is surely a credit to this country that university people do not have the same trouble here, and we had much better not encourage it to go on in magazines.—Yours faithfully,
WILLIAM EMPSON Studio House, Hampstead Hill Gardens, NW3
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