HISTORIANS have a professional fondness for “turning-points”: years that act as hinges of history rather than numbers in a sequence. Some of these hinges turn out to be anything but: 1917 proved to be a bloody dead end and 1848 proved to be, in A.J.P. Taylor’s phrase, “a turning-point in history when history failed to turn”. But others, such as 1789 (when France’s ancient régime collapsed) and 1517 (when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door), resound down the ages.
历史学家专门热衷于那些“历史的转折点”：那些年，不是一串排列有序的数字而是历史上至关重要的转折点。有些关键点会 然而有些却会带来翻天覆地的变化：历史证明，1917年是个血腥的死胡同，而1848年，用艾伦•约翰•珀西瓦尔•泰勒的话来说就是“历史上失败的转折点”。但是其他的转折点却被传颂至今，如1789年（法国古代封建制度的瓦解）和1517年（马丁•路德将他写的九十五条论纲贴在门上）。
Later this month Christian Caryl, a veteran foreign correspondent now based in Washington, will publish a timely new book, “Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century”. In it he argues that 1979 belongs to the select club of real turning-points: years in which one era ended and another was born.
这个月的下旬，克里斯蒂安•卡里尔, 现位于华盛顿的资深驻外记者，不日将发表他的新书《奇怪的反叛：1979年和21世纪的诞生》。书中他认为在筛选出的真正转折点中----旧时代的终结，新时代的诞生——1979年也列属其中。
This was a year in which a series of momentous figures appeared on the world stage. Margaret Thatcher won the general election and became Britain’s first woman prime minister, staying in power for 11 years. Deng Xiaoping began to liberalise the Chinese economy. Ayatollah Khomeini established an Islamic republic. Karol Wojtyla travelled to Poland as the first Slavic pope. And in Afghanistan the mujahideen rose up against Soviet rule with the tacit support of the United States.
这一年，一系列重要人物登上世界的舞台。玛格丽特•撒切尔赢得大选，成为英国第一任女总理，一直掌权了11个年头。邓小平开始开放中国的经济。阿亚图拉•霍梅尼建立了伊斯兰共和国。卡罗尔•沃伊蒂瓦作为第一个斯拉夫教皇访问波兰。在阿富汗，圣战者们奋起反抗美国暗中支持的苏联统治。
It was also a year in which the twin forces of the market and religion, suppressed and discounted for decades, returned with a vengeance. Mrs Thatcher came to power determined to dismantle Britain’s nationalized industries, discipline its over-mighty trade unions and restore its quiescent faith in entrepreneurship and self-reliance. Deng embarked on the world’s biggest-ever poverty-reduction programme, ending the country’s disastrous experiment with collective farming and establishing special economic zones where both foreign and domestic companies could flourish away from the direct supervision of the state. In a vivid example of just how backward China was, Mr Caryl describes how one factory in Shenzhen celebrated its new-found freedoms by killing and eating a dog.
这一年，市场和宗教这两股力量，在经受数十年的压制和贬损后，以复仇般的态势卷土重来。撒切尔上台后决心废除英国的国营工业，惩戒权力膨胀的工会，并恢复国民对创业和自力更生静默的信心。邓小平开始了世上有史以来最大的扶贫项目，结束了中国农业集体化的灾难性运动，并建立经济特区，使国内外企业在远离政府直接监督下能蓬勃发展。卡里尔先生描述了一家深圳的工厂，为庆祝其新获得的自由而将一只狗宰了吃。这个鲜活的例子显示了中国是多么落后。
Even more surprising than the revival of the market was the revival of religion. The Islamic revolution brought millions of people onto the street—and rapidly turned one of the Middle East’s most secular countries into one of its most orthodox (one wag joked that before Khomeini Iranians drank in public and prayed in private but after Khomeini they prayed in public and drank in private). Pope John Paul II demonstrated that religion was even more popular in the atheist East —or at least in Poland—than in the capitalist West. Mrs Thatcher spoke for the entire group of “strange rebels” when, in response to the accusation that she was a reactionary, replied, “Well, there’s a lot to react against!”
宗教的复兴，比起市场的复苏更令人惊讶不已。伊斯兰革命让数百万人涌向街道——很快便将中东最世俗的国家转变成为一个最正统的国家（有人打趣的开玩笑说，在霍梅尼上台前，伊朗人在公开场合饮酒在私下里祈祷，而他上台后，伊朗人做的截然相反）。教皇若望保禄二世表示，相比在西方资本主义国家，宗教在无神论的东方更受欢迎——至少在波兰是很受欢迎的。撒切尔夫人在回应她是反动派的指控时说：“嗯，还有很多要反抗呢！”她，代表了所有的“奇怪的反叛”。
These twin revolutions sometimes cancelled each other out. Khomeini fused religious fundamentalism with third-world leftism: the Iranian state extended its grip over the private sector and strangled the country’s economy. Deng fused pro-market reforms with the rule of the atheistic Communist Party. But they often proved to be mutually reinforcing. The revival of religion in both Poland and Afghanistan hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. The reassertion of market liberalism in both Britain and China contributed to a general sense that the old order was folding up.
这些双重革命有时候会相互抵消。霍梅尼会在宗教原教旨主义里融入了第三世界的左派主义：伊朗政权加大掌控私营企业，扼制国家经济。邓小平将无神论的共产党的统治融进了亲市场的改革中。但事实证明，二者相得益彰。波兰和阿富汗地区的宗教复兴加速了苏联的分崩离析。英国和中国均重申市场自由主义，一般来说，有利于旧秩序会垮台。
Mr Caryl tells this story with great skill. He moves effortlessly from one scene to another in this tumultuous year—from Mrs Thatcher’s election victory to Khomeini’s relentless extension of his power, from John Paul’s visit to his homeland to Deng’s emergence as the most powerful politician in China after the Communist Party’s third plenum. He fills in both the back story and the fore story: how China came to be in the mess that it was in after the Cultural Revolution, for example, and how Deng’s reforms relentlessly turned China into the economic powerhouse of today.
卡里尔先生的讲述极富技巧，将动乱年代的场景毫不费劲的从这一幕移到另一幕去——从撒切尔夫人大选的胜利到霍梅尼权力的残酷扩张，从若望保禄访问祖国到中共三中全会后，中国最强大的政治家邓小平的出现。是他，填补了历史前前后后的空白：比如，在“文化大革命”后，中国是如何变成一个烂摊子。又如邓小平的改革，是如何坚持不懈的成就中国今日的经济强国地位。
Mr Caryl also sprinkles his fast-paced narrative with plenty of striking details. For example, at a state dinner to mark Deng’s first visit to the United States the grizzled Chinese statesman was placed at the same table as Shirley Maclaine. The actress gushed that she had visited China during the Cultural Revolution and that everything had been wonderful. She was particularly struck by a professor who told her how grateful he was that the party had decided to send him and his fellow academics to the countryside. Deng looked at her scornfully and said that “he was lying”. Professors should be teaching university classes not planting vegetables.
卡里尔先生也以快节奏的叙事方式撒出大量惊人的细节。比如说，在一场标志着邓小平初次访美的国宴上，这位几年银发苍苍的中国政客与莎莉麦克琳（美国女演员）同席。女演员滔滔不绝地说她在“文化大革命”期间曾去过中国，而这一切都是那么的美好。一名教授曾告诉她，他十分感谢党的决定——送他和他的同胞学者下乡。这让她印象特别深刻。邓小平轻蔑的看着她说：“他在撒谎”。教授应该在大学里教书，而不是在田里种菜。
The forces unleashed by this remarkable year continue to shape the world. China is well on its way to becoming the world’s biggest economy. For all the damage wrought by the financial crisis the Thatcher-inspired privatisations, which spread from Britain to the rest of the world, are unlikely to be reversed. On the negative side, Iran remains an Islamic republic and the mujahideen continue to wreak havoc in Afghanistan—this time harassing not a decaying Soviet empire but an overextended American one. Anyone who wants to understand how this new world came into being needs to read Mr Caryl’s excellent book.
这一年，不平凡的一年，其释放的力量继续改变着这个世界。中国正在努力成为世界上最大的经济体。经济危机引起的损害从英国传遍了整个世界，而撒切尔启发的私有化使之有可能不再发生。在消极的一面，伊朗仍然是一个伊斯兰共和国，圣战者继续在阿富汗肆行暴虐——这个时候引起骚扰的并不是一个衰败的苏联帝国，而是过度扩张的美国。要想弄明白这个新世界是如何应运而生，那就应该读读卡里尔先生的这本优秀的著作。