【自由谈】为专制的彻底终结必须公开审判习近平家族

为什么必须公开审判习近平家族

Why the Dictator’s Family Must Be Put on Trial

在任何经历过长期专制统治的社会中，最危险的时刻，往往不是暴力最激烈的时候，而是暴力暂时停歇、责任却被刻意回避的时候。独裁者下台并不等于专制结束，如果权力责任没有被公开、正式、制度性地确认，专制只会以新的形式潜伏下来，等待下一次复辟的机会。

In societies that have endured prolonged authoritarian rule, the most dangerous moment is often not when violence is at its peak, but when violence subsides while responsibility is deliberately evaded. The removal of a dictator does not mean the end of dictatorship. If responsibility for power is not publicly, formally, and institutionally established, authoritarianism merely retreats into hiding, awaiting its next return.

独裁统治并非抽象存在，它几乎总是围绕一个家族、一个核心圈层运转。重大政治决策、镇压命令、战争选择、资源掠夺，往往并非个人一时冲动，而是长期由家族与亲信网络共同推动和维系。如果这一核心结构不被揭示、不被审理，社会就无法真正弄清究竟是谁在支配国家、又是如何支配的。

Authoritarian rule is not an abstraction. It almost always revolves around a family and a tightly bound inner circle. Major political decisions, repression orders, war choices, and the extraction of national resources are rarely the result of individual impulses; they are sustained over time by family-based power networks and loyalists. Without exposing and examining this core structure, society cannot truly understand who controlled the state and how that control was exercised.

正因如此，对习近平家族进行公开审判，其意义远远超出“追责某几个人”。它首先是一项关于历史真相的工程。

For this reason, putting the dictator’s family on public trial goes far beyond holding a few individuals accountable. It is, first and foremost, a project of establishing historical truth.

在习近平专制体制下，大量暴行被掩盖、篡改或系统性否认。档案被销毁，证人被噤声，责任被转嫁给“时代”“形势”或抽象的“体制”。没有公开审判，这些被遮蔽的事实就只能停留在传闻、回忆和零散指控中，永远无法形成一个被社会共同承认的事实基础。

Under authoritarian systems, atrocities are routinely concealed, distorted, or systematically denied. Archives are destroyed, witnesses silenced, and responsibility shifted onto vague notions such as “the times,” “circumstances,” or an abstract “system.” Without public trials, these suppressed facts remain fragmented—reduced to rumors, memories, and accusations—never coalescing into a shared factual foundation accepted by society.

公开审判的价值，在于通过证据、证词和程序，把零散的个人记忆转化为正式的历史记录。它迫使习近平时期所有曾拥有权力者面对具体事实，而不是继续躲在宏大叙事之后。更重要的是，它厘清责任边界，明确哪些行为构成罪行，哪些决策导致灾难，从而避免将全部历史悲剧模糊化、情绪化，甚至神话化。

The value of public trials lies in transforming scattered personal memories into official historical records through evidence, testimony, and procedure. They compel those in power to confront concrete facts rather than hide behind grand narratives. More importantly, trials clarify lines of responsibility—defining which actions constitute crimes and which decisions led to catastrophe—preventing history from being blurred, emotionalized, or mythologized.

这种事实澄清，对防止专制复辟至关重要。

Such clarification of facts is essential to preventing the return of authoritarianism.

专制之所以能够卷土重来，往往不是因为人们忘记了痛苦，而是因为痛苦没有被解释清楚。当历史没有被正式裁决，各种版本的叙事就会并存甚至竞争：有人将江泽民、胡锦涛的独裁美化为“稳定时期”，有人将暴行合理化为“必要代价”，还有人试图把责任推给抽象的敌人或整个社会。

Authoritarianism often returns not because people forget suffering, but because suffering is never properly explained. When history is not formally adjudicated, competing narratives emerge: some romanticize dictatorship as a “time of stability,” others justify atrocities as “necessary costs,” while still others shift blame onto abstract enemies or society as a whole.

在这种叙事混乱中，新的强人极易重新出现。他们只需声称“过去的问题并非个人造成”，或者“如果再给权力一次集中，悲剧就不会重演”。而没有经过审判的独裁者家族及其网络，往往正是这些叙事背后的隐形资源。习近平最初难道不是这样上台的吗？

In such narrative confusion, new strongmen easily emerge. They need only claim that past disasters were not caused by individuals, or that renewed concentration of power would prevent repetition. Dictators’ families and their networks, if left untried, often become the hidden resources sustaining these narratives.

审判通过法律方式明确指出：某些行为就是犯罪，某些权力行使就是不可接受的。这种明确的司法结论，会成为未来政治的红线，使任何试图恢复个人或家族统治的行为在一开始就失去合法性空间。

Trials establish, through law, that certain acts are crimes and certain exercises of power are unacceptable. Such clear judicial conclusions become red lines for future politics, stripping any attempt to restore personal or family rule of legitimacy from the outset.

同时，公开审判也是社会心理层面的必要步骤。

Public trials are also a necessary step in societal and psychological recovery.

长期专制社会中，受害者不仅承受物质损失，更承受被否认、被忽视的精神创伤。如果没有正式的责任认定，受害者只能在私人记忆中承受痛苦，而施害者却可能继续以“历史人物”或“前领导人”的身份存在于公共空间。

In long-standing authoritarian societies, victims suffer not only material losses but also the trauma of denial and erasure. Without formal acknowledgment of responsibility, victims are left alone with private pain, while perpetrators may continue to exist in public life as “historical figures” or “former leaders.”

审判并不意味着过度报复，而是一种公开承认：某些伤害真实发生过，某些人应为此负责。这种承认本身，就是社会修复的起点。它为愤怒提供合法出口，也为宽恕创造前提——因为没有真相，就谈不上真正的和解。

Trials do not signify revenge. They constitute public acknowledgment that certain harms did occur and that specific individuals bear responsibility. This acknowledgment is the starting point of social repair. It gives anger a lawful outlet and creates the conditions for forgiveness—because without truth, genuine reconciliation is impossible.

从现实政治角度看，审判同样是结束冲突、恢复秩序的重要条件。

From a practical political perspective, trials are also a crucial condition for ending conflict and restoring order.

在权力责任未被确认之前，各种对抗力量都难以真正放下武器。公开审判把“清算”的权力从战场转移到法庭，为各方提供一个退出冲突的制度性出口，表明正义将由程序而非暴力来实现。

As long as responsibility for power remains unresolved, opposing forces find it difficult to truly lay down arms. Public trials transfer the settlement of accountability from the battlefield to the courtroom, offering all sides an institutional exit from conflict and demonstrating that justice will be delivered through procedure rather than violence.

更长远地看，审判还具有不可替代的制度记忆功能。判决书、庭审记录和证人证词，将成为未来制度设计和公民教育的重要基础，不断提醒后来者权力失控会导致怎样的后果，以及为何必须对权力加以约束。

In the long term, trials serve an irreplaceable function of institutional memory. Judgments, transcripts, and testimonies become foundations for future institutional design and civic education, continually reminding later generations of the consequences of unchecked power and the necessity of limiting authority.

因此，审判独裁者家族的真正意义，不在于惩罚过去，而在于约束未来。

Thus, the true significance of trying a dictator’s family lies not in punishing the past, but in restraining the future.