元培

For some slightly unpleasant reasons, the life and time of Cai Yuanpei (蔡元培) becomes a hot topic of us recently.

The traditional record is well known: Cai served as the President of Peking University since 1917. During the ten years of his leadership, Peking University underwent a series of reforms. Cai was famous as a supporter of freedom of thought, and recruited famous thinkers from various campus - including future Chinese Communist Party leaders, Chen Duxiu (陳獨秀) and Li Dazhao (李大釗).

Freedom, eh?

On April 2, 1927, the Central Commission (中央監察委員會) of Chinese Nationalists Party (中國國民黨黨) held a meeting and determined that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (中國共產黨) undermined the national interest of China, and decided to purge the communists from the government administration. This event is subsequently known as the Shanghai massacre (清黨).

But, what may skip your eyes is, the Central Commission was led by Cai, who also supplied much of the evidence that communists were working against Kuomintang (國民黨).

You see? Great people listen to opinion from all side - but they will also take side after listening.

PS. In my personal opinion, Cai was open minded but did not pay sufficient attention to details.

He should be more careful in recruiting librarians!