Lao Tian: Those things in 1958 - Chairman Mao also had piggy-backers (Part 1)
(Translator’s preface. This is a very lengthy document and I have done my best to translate it. But my Chinese proficiency level is not high and there are bound to be mistakes. Nevetheless, it argues that it is not Mao who should be held responsible for the shortcomings of the Great Leap Forward, a frequently asserted allegation both in China and the West by people who want to diminish Chairman Mao’s stature. For that reason, I put it forward with the imperfections for which I am alone responsible. Owing to its length, I will post it in three parts. Please also note that the detailed endnotes are those by the author, Lao Tian; the brief footnotes are from me to help people who, despite a familiarity with the politics of the era, may not necessarily know some of the historical references, slogans and idiomatic expressions.)
2018-4-8 18:02
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Originally by: 老田 From: 人民食品主权
老田：一九五八年的那些事儿——毛主席也有猪队友（下） - 毛泽东时代
- 红歌会网 (szhgh.com)
毛主席也有猪队友 —— 一九五八年的那些事儿-红色中国网
(redchinacn.net)
Food Sovereignty Press.
In November 1958,
Chairman Mao chaired a meeting in Zhengzhou to begin correcting the mistakes of
the Great Leap Forward (Source: hometown.com)
Foreword
Everyone knows that "you are not afraid of a god-like opponent, only of a piggy-backing teammate." Two of the biggest slumps and failures in the history of the Communist Party were the result of the opportunistic actions of piggy-backers. The two major setbacks in the history of the Communist Party, first the Wang Ming line in the early 1930s, which led to the loss of 90 per cent of the base areas, and then the "transition from poverty pilot" (a rapid transition to communism while the population was still poor) initiated by Liu Shaoqi and others in 1958, were serious opportunist mistakes that extraordinarily aggravated the difficult period of population losses. This latter opportunism and its consequences are still the main basis for the rightists at home and abroad to discredit the history of the Communist Party, the socialist system and Mao himself.
Apart from the characteristic of not turning back and not admitting one's mistakes, there is another important characteristic: the opportunistic choices of the piggy-backers and their evil consequences are often the favourite of various hostile forces, so various anti-communist and anti-social forces against Mao are all united in covering up the opportunistic characteristics of the piggy-backers, choosing to present the piggy-backer's actions as representing the Maoist Communist Party itself, because only by telling the story of the piggy-backer's opportunistic mistakes in this way can the smear effect be maximised. The hostile forces wanted to maximise the use of the piggy-backers to achieve their smearing goal, and the piggy-backers themselves had a strong disavowal of their mistakes, so that the two sides unwittingly achieved a tacit optimum.
In 1958 there were two separate events: the adoption of the General Line of Socialist Construction through a formal decision-making process, and the "Poverty Transition Pilot" initiated by Liu Shaoqi himself, which was extended to the whole country by the brutal organisation of the Communist Wind team formed by An Ziwen and some provincial party secretaries.
The Transition from Poverty was not part of the general line of socialist construction, nor was it an implementation of this line, but rather an inspired attempt by Liu Shaoqi and others to carry out a rapid transition to communism while the people were still poor. Liu Shaoqi and the others chose three pilot units for the transition from poverty: Chayashan (Mt Chaya) in Henan, Xushui County in Hebei and Fan County in Shandong, and organised field visits for hundreds of thousands of cadres across the country before any successful experience had been gained, while Deng Xiaoping ordered the press to follow up with propaganda, and An Ziwen invented the "Overlord Work Method"[1] through the organisation of field meetings. To ensure its implementation, and within a very short period of time, these brutal measures were quickly extended to all parts of the country.
This article examines the chain of government decisions and implementation to sort out two major events in 1958: the general line of socialist construction, which went through a formal decision-making process; the second was Liu Shaoqi's personal initiation of the 'transition from poverty', which was also sought after by many high-ranking officials, through the three pilot communist transitions in the Chayashan, Xushui and Fan County. For the sake of concise reading, the text is divided into two parts, the main part of which contains approximately 13,000 words on the decision-making, promotion and analysis of the transition from poverty, and an appendix of approximately 37,000 words of excerpts from relevant literature on the transition from poverty.
1.
At the end of April 1958, Liu
Shaoqi was on a train to Guangzhou, bragging with Bo Yibo, Lu Dingyi and Deng
Liqun, and decided to run a pilot communist transition. He made a verbal
arrangement at Zhengzhou railway station with Wu Zhipu, the second secretary of
the Henan Provincial Committee. Wu Zhipu contacted Lu Xianwen, secretary of the
Xinyang Prefectural Party Committee, and Lu Xianwen passed the decision on to the
Secretary-General of the Prefectural Party Committee Zhao Guang (at the time at
Chayashan), and selected Chayashan to serve as a pilot for the transition to
communism. [2]
2. In mid-July 1958, during his work inspection in Shandong, Liu Shaoqi laid out in person to Shu Tong, secretary of the provincial party committee, that Shandong should prepare to build socialism in five years. After crystallising the collective wisdom of provincial, local and county officials at all levels, Fan County was finally selected to build communism in two years on a pilot basis. Tan Zhenlin convened a conference on agriculture in nine provinces and cities in North China in Xi'an and made Fan County a model, adding that 100,000 people would be organised to visit the site. Mao Zedong sent Chen Boda and others to Fan County to understand the situation, and Chen suggested to the first secretary of the county committee in person that this pilot project was not in accordance with the general line of socialist construction. [3]
4. Liu Shaoqi, through Xie Xuegong, secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, selected the Sigezhuang Commune in Xushui County to pilot the Taiping Tianguo (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) method of separate housing for men and women in camps. Liang Sicheng, a professor at Tsinghua University, led dozens of students to design separate houses at Sigezhuang. Wu Lengxi's research in rural Xinxiang, Henan province, also found such a pilot scheme of separate housing, with families reunited only on Saturdays, and local cadres said it was based on Liu Shaoqi's speech to the All-China Women's Federation. [5]
5. According to an interview with Ma Bin, the mass method of making steel by clay and blast furnaces was the invention of Deng Xiaoping. He said as a result of his opposition to this "I was criticised and designated as a right-leaning opportunist in 1959, which I certainly did not accept, because, at the Beidaihe Conference, I was in favour of a big mass movement, but I was not in favour of steel plants of small clay furnaces." "At the historic 7000 NPC meeting, the Central Committee examined and summarised the 'Great Leap Forward'. The comrades of the Central Committee talked to me and 'withdrew all punishments and rehabilitated me', then first I came to Beidaihe to recuperate and then went to work at Anshan Steel."
[Ma Bin: In Memory of Mao Zedong - A Compilation of Ma Bin's Main Ideas eBook; Lao Tian, Note: At present, there is only this one solitary piece of evidence that specifically says that the right of having invent the earthen blast furnace and backyard steelmaking lay with Deng Xiaoping, but such a conceivable technical-strategic choice was surprisingly obscured extremely thoroughly during the non-Maoist period, and no one yet knows where it came from. The fact that it was simply credited to the Great Leap Forward simply shows the opposite.]
………………….
End Notes
[1] Extract from
Wang Renzhong's diary: "Following Chairman Mao to Shaoshan", and
Party History Collection and Compilation Committee of the CPC Hubei Provincial
Committee, “Mao Zedong in Hubei”, CPC Party History Press 1993, p. 14
[2] Excerpts from the literature: (At the end of April 1958) On the train, there were me, Enlai, Dingyi (then minister of the Central Propaganda Department), and Deng Liqun. The four of us talked about how to popularize education, and about communes, utopia, and transition to communism. We said that at that time that the building of socialism should prepare the conditions for communism, and the previous stage should prepare the conditions for the next stage. This is how we are engaged in revolution. When we begin to engage in the previous step, we think of the next step and create conditions for the next step. Now that we are building socialism, we have to create some smooth conditions for communism. We also day-dreamed about socialism, nurseries, collectivisation, the collectivisation of life, about factories running schools, and schools running factories, on half-work and half-study. Deng Liqun was asked to compile something on ideal socialism, to arrange a compilation of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on communism. When we got off the train at this place, we had about ten minutes, and said to Comrade Wu Zhipu that we had this idea and you could test it out. He was very enthusiastic and took a quick approach (Wu Zhipu interjected: at that time, there were also nurseries, canteens and large communes, but they were not yet called communes), and there were also industrial, agricultural, commercial and academic institutions, but they were not called communes. The merger of the communes was a long time coming. As soon as Lu Dingyi returned, he immediately compiled that book. At the second meeting of the Eighth Congress, I went to speak about half-work and half-education and the collectivisation of life. Later on, Beijing was asked to experiment, and Tianjin (a general reference to Hebei Province, as Tianjin was then part of Hebei Province, the provincial capital of Hebei - note by the author). That's how the commune came about. In fact they were already there, and they were called big communes.
[Bo Yibo: Review
of Some Major Decisions and Events (Pt. 2) Party School Press of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China 1993, P731-732]
In a situation where there was a vision at the top and a need at the grassroots, Wu Zhipu was commissioned to conduct experiments in communism and the rural areas of southern Henan were chosen as the testing ground. About half of the Xinyang area in south-eastern Henan used to be the old revolutionary base area of the Dabie and Tongbai mountains. It was an important grain and cotton producing area in Henan Province. Lu Xianwen, secretary of the local party committee, was trusted by Wu Zhipu for his boldness and courage. At this time, Zhao Guang, the Secretary General of the Xinyang District Committee, was working out in Suiping County as the Deputy Secretary of the County Committee, squatting in the mountainous region. Among the cadres of the county party committee Zhao Guang was considered an intellectual, a cadre from the south, whose Marxist theoretical level was naturally higher than that of the average cadres in the county. With such connections and such historical timing, Chayashan was chosen as a testing ground for communism.
[Jia Yanmin, A Study of the Satellite People's Commune in Henan Province, a typical example of village politics during the Great Leap Forward, Intellectual Property Press, 2006, p. 35].
In June, the county's "rice reform" began, with the conversion of 2,000 mu of dry fields into paddy fields in the Hanlou brigade of the Chayashan Commune, and they established a rice camp, where members lived collectively and production was militarised.
In mid-June, the whole county was transformed into a people's commune.
In July, under the guidance of the "Three Red Flags", cadres and workers, school teachers and students were all involved in the great steel-making campaign, working day and night in shifts, with the slogan "People make iron and steel, iron makes people". 70% of the county's trees were burned, and many iron production tools were smashed to make steel. In August, the county was merged into one county and one community, called the Suiping County Satellite People's Commune, which united the government and the community, with eight departments, one office and three committees, and 10 grass-roots communities under its jurisdiction. The cadres and masses did the same work and ate the same food, and the school teachers and students ate, lived, worked and studied in four groups. In December, the Suiping Satellite People's Commune adopted a supply system plus an allowance.
In the autumn of the same year, the supply system was implemented among cadres and workers throughout the county.
The Hanlou Brigade of the Chayashan Commune released a high yield “satellite” of 3,821 kg of wheat per mu on June 10, 1958. Subsequently, cotton "satellites", sweet potato "satellites", rice "satellites", steel "satellites" ...... came one after another, attracting tens of thousands of people from home and abroad to visit and study, which had a very bad impact on Suiping.
[ibid P259-260]
[A draft version
of the Satellite people's commune at Mt Chaya (7 August 1958), in Red Flag, No.
7, 1958, p. 16]
[3] Excerpts from the literature: Cheng Huairen (an official of the Rural Work Department of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee) recalls that Liu Shaoqi came to Shandong in July 1958 for an inspection visit (it is found that on 17 July 1958, Liu Shaoqi went to Taizhang in Zouzhang County) and was accompanied by Shu Tong, the first secretary of the provincial party committee, to visit Liaocheng. Liu Shaoqi saw that groundnuts and corn were growing well in Shouzhang and gave instructions for Shandong to build socialism in five years. P.556 Later, Tan Zhenlin went to Xushui in Hebei and brought back a plan for communist in Shandong, telling us to learn from Xushui. Accordingly, the rural work department of our provincial committee discussed it many times. The general idea was that Liu Shaoqi wanted Shandong to build socialism in five years. Tan Zhenlin told us to follow the example of Xushui, how to implement it? The provincial party committee asked the whole province to build socialism in five years, but Liaocheng had to advance it, and had to build socialism in three years. Shouzhang and Fan County were "advanced" counties, so they had to build socialism in two years. At that time, the rural work department of the provincial party committee also pushed the words, thinking that when socialism was completed, it would be communism, wouldn't it?
Chen Boda and his party arrived in Fan County in late November and listened to the report of Xie Huiyu, the secretary of the county party committee, on the planning of the "transition to communism by 1960", had a discussion with the leaders of the county and visited several places. Chen Boda and others believed that Fan County should still implement the Party's general line of socialist construction without compromise and follow the steps set out in the general line to make the transition to communism. The idea of "transition to communism by 1960" was too fast and did not meet the requirements of the General Line.
[4] literature excerpt: On August 6, 1958, Vice Minister Chen Zhengren of the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China came to Xushui to inspect the work. A symposium was held on August 8. The meeting was attended by Vice Governor Hu Kaiming and Provincial Party Secretary Yin Zhe , Li Yuenong, secretary of the prefectural party committee, and some comrades from the county party committee and township community. At the meeting, Comrade Chen Zhengren proposed to engage in a pilot project for the transition to communism, bringing back the Central Committee's intention to engage in a pilot project for communism in Xushui,...... Comrade Liu Shaoqi had instructed that they engage in a pilot communism in Xushui. The integration of workers, peasants, soldiers, academics and commerce was carried out in rural institutions and schools. P344-345
On August 12, 1958, the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting to study the issue of piloting communism in Xushui County. A planning team was set up. The central government sent people to participate. Each department had to have someone; the work was carried out under the leadership of the county party committee. The general requirements of the plan was that Xushui’s development should speed ahead of other places, and then in two or three years time it would obtain experience to promote to the whole country. Li Ziguang, member of the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee and vice-governor of the province, said bluntly that "communism is still a matter of the future, and I am afraid that Xushui has not yet clarified what communism is".345-346
In order to make a comprehensive plan for the transition to communism, the central, provincial, prefectural and county committees organised a team of more than 100 people, of whom 70 were from the central government (the Central Ministry of Agriculture and Industry, the State Planning Commission, etc.), who, according to Comrade Liu Shaoqi's instructions, carried out a comprehensive plan for the workers, peasants, merchants, academics and soldiers, politics, economy, culture, people's life, architecture, etc. P346
This plan for progress towards communism was a big plan out of touch with reality, a high standard that could not be reached at all, a beautiful wish that could not be realised by confusing vision with reality. The goal was to basically complete socialist construction by 1959 and to begin the transition to communism and enter the great communist society by 1963. Wrong planning led to wrong action. p346
On September 15, a county-wide government-society unification was set up to carry out county-level accounting, and on September 20, a draft of the supply system was drawn up with the help of the provincial and local committees. P346-347
[Liu Yu: On the start and end of the transition to communism in Xushui, in Party History Research Office of the CPC Hebei Provincial Committee, Hebei People's Publishing House, 1994, 15 Series of Hebei Party History Materials - Xushui Communist Pilot Album, by Liu Yu, who was secretary of the CPC Xushui County Committee from April 1957 to September 1958. Secretary of the Xushui County Party Committee].
[5] Excerpts from the literature: According to the instructions of the central leadership conveyed by Secretary Xie Xuegong (Lao Tian: the leader was Liu Shaoqi), a settlement was to be built at the village of the Great Temple (Dasigezhuang). The building of residential buildings in Dasigezhuang was accomplished by demolishing 300 private houses, and nine buildings of 300 rooms were built with poor quality and aesthetic appearance. Comrade Chen Zhengren said that the building should not be too big to prevent it from being too noisy, and that the houses should be owned by all the people, and that individuals should be paid rent. At that time, the Department of Architecture of Tsinghua University sent dozens of teachers and students to help design housing buildings for residents. The county party committee was planning to demolish the earthen and broken brick houses, and some earthen and broken brick houses were demolished, so that tensions over housing among the community members occurred.
[Liu Yu: On the beginning and end of the transition to communism in Xushui, in Party History Research Office of the CPC Hebei Provincial Committee, Hebei Party History Materials, Series 15 - Xushui Communist Pilot Album, P347, Hebei People's Publishing House, 1994, by Liu Yu, who was a member of the CPC in Xushui County from April 1957 to September 1958. From April 1957 to September 1958, Liu Yu was secretary of the Xushui County Committee of the CPC].
On 28 October, construction work was carried out on the new rural village of Dasigezhuang. The whole project included 7 blocks of 4-storey residential buildings with more than 300 rooms and cottages such as kindergartens, public canteens, bathrooms and laundry rooms, and was completed at the end of November. The building project was planned and designed by the famous architect Liang Sicheng and students and teachers from the Department of Architecture of Tsinghua University.
[Xushui County
Magazine, Xinhua Publishing House, 1998, P834].
On 18 October, according to Mao Zedong's instructions, the Hebei Provincial Party Committee organised a working group to go into Xushui to investigate and report on the problems found there to Chairman Mao Zedong. Chairman Mao Zedong pointed out: don't be egalitarian in distribution, don't tell lies, don't overwhelm, remove the remnants of feudalism, and also talk about yin and yang and the five elements in the family[4]. Xushui County Magazine, P833-834
Comrade Liu Zihou went to see Chairman Mao and returned only at noon. As soon as he arrived at the office, he explained that Chairman Mao had given him the task in person: to rush to Xushui County without delay to examine the question of whether the county could make the transition to a communist society. He said, "Pack your bags quickly and be ready to take the train to Xushui in the afternoon." P237
After two days of fieldwork, we have come to realise that not only will Xushui County not be able to make the transition to a communist society any time soon, but it is also difficult to solve the current problems of people's lives. Firstly, the militarisation of the life of the community members is detached from the masses and from reality. Secondly, although male farming and female weaving is the way of life of the peasant family in feudal society, it is also impractical to completely abolish it before the development of commodity production. This is because, firstly, the masses did not have the money to buy clothes; secondly, even if they had the money to buy clothes, where could so many peasants buy so many clothes and footwear? Thirdly, it was already clear by then that the collective canteens were not adapted to the way of life of a single family, only that there was still food to eat, so it was not as prominent as the two problems mentioned above. p237-238
Comrade Liu Zihou led a working group back to the county to exchange views with the county committee on these issues. The main comrade in charge of the county committee still clung to the pipe dream of a relatively rapid transition to a communist society. p239
The working group led by Comrade Liu Zihou reported to Chairman Mao through a field trip to Xushui and in accordance with the spirit of the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the establishment of people's communes in the countryside, especially the several important conditions that must be fulfilled in China's transition from a socialist society to a communist society and the need for great material abundance, etc. The conclusion of the outline of the report was that Xushui County simply did not have the material and spiritual conditions for the transition to a P239-240
After working in Xushui County for three full days, the working group arrived in Beijing overnight and stayed at the Hebei Provincial Office in Beijing. The next morning, Chairman Mao personally listened to the report of Comrade Liu Zihou's visit to Xushui in Zhongnanhai. He was very pleased with what he heard. p240
In Xinxiang, we also investigated a commune, the Xingning People's Commune. It was a commune of 4,000 households and 20,000 people, and was militarised, with the commune organised into 15 battalions and 50 companies. The commune is particularly special in that it has communal housing and collective dormitories, with men, women and children separated and living together in companies and platoons. We investigated the Dongguo brigade, which has 224 households, 150 of which lived separately at the beginning, but 60 households still live in eight places, four for men and four for women, and are on a Saturday system, returning to their original homes for the weekend. According to the brigade cadres, this was a unified arrangement by the commune. Most members of the community have strong opinions, and only a few couples or mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law who do not get along are willing to live separately. The brigade cadres said they were considering a change to do this. When I met the commune cadres, I ignored the code of conduct that had been laid down before I came down to investigate (don't express your opinion casually) and couldn't help but point out that this practice of splitting up families was very wrong and that communism was not about not having a family. The commune cadres still couldn't figure it out, saying that many places in Henan were doing it, and that a comrade in charge of the Central Committee had said at the time that a communist society should also revolutionise the family. p99-100
When we reported that some communes had collective accommodation, Chairman Mao said angrily, "Isn't that kind of practice helping the Guomindang to slander us? I support the mass rebellion in all places where such nonsense is practiced. These cadres were out of their minds. Why does the Communist Party not want families? It is better to prohibit the breaking up of families.
[Wu Lengxi, "Remembering Chairman Mao: Fragments of some major historical events I personally experienced", Xinhua Publishing House, 1995].
[6] Excerpts from the literature: (At the Chengdu Conference in March 1958) Chairman Mao saw that Henan's plan was to fight hard for one year to achieve the 4-5-8, irrigation, the elimination of the four pests and eradication of illiteracy[5], while Liaoning wanted to achieve three self-sufficiencies in one year (i.e. self-sufficiency in food, vegetables and meat in the province). He said, "Maybe you are right about Liaoning, I suspect I am wrong. You are Marxist, I am opportunist. In Henan this year they want to do four major events. It is possible that some of these things can be achieved, but even if all of them can be achieved, we should not say so in published reports. The People's Daily is stuck. Otherwise, this province will publish the newspaper, that province will publish the newspaper, and everyone will try to surpass everyone else, and the country may be thrown into confusion. Let Henan try it for a year this year, and if Henan achieves miracles, next every province can launch another drive for a great leap forward – wouldn’t that be better? Chairman Mao said that the matter was of great importance and that he would talk to Wu Zhipu when he arrived in Wuchang. He also said that when Zhou Xiaozhou saw that other provinces had achieved high level societies in one year at the height of co-operative development in 1955, and he was very nervous. It didn't really matter. Li Jingquan was just relaxed, and it was not five or six years, but five or seven years for Sichuan to achieve a high level, which was quite good.
Chairman Mao said, now the newspaper propaganda reports should be adjusted, do not sing all the high praise, be modest, this is not to pour cold water on things, but we should not advocate unrealistically high targets, we should work according to the actual conditions, and leave room when raising slogans and setting targets. Although I heard these words of Chairman Mao, I was overwhelmed by the vast amount of talk about emancipating the mind, improving style, daring to innovate, etc., as mentioned earlier, and thus did not pay enough attention to them. With the onset of the Great Leap Forward, I was also overwhelmed. p64
(During the Wuchang Conference in April 1958) When Wu Zhipu spoke of Henan being in the midst of a full-scale Great Leap Forward, Chairman Mao said that it could be either adventurism or Marxism. Later, Chairman Mao said that Henan was still doing a good job, not to say that they had gone too far, but should just be a bit more modest, be more practical, and pay attention to some of the slogans when they were printed in the newspapers. p67
At the second meeting of the Eighth Congress in May, the call for emancipation of the mind and the courage to think and act overwhelmed everything. I presided over the propaganda of the People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency, but I was cautious at first because of Chairman Mao's repeated exhortations. "The Great Leap Forward reached its height, and boastfulness became widespread. Although it cannot be said that the People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency were mainly responsible for the boastful and communist winds of 1958, I am still deeply guilty of having presided over the propaganda work of these two agencies during this period, which had a bad impact.
Especially if you are a journalist, you cannot listen to hearsay and just echo the views of others but should go deep into the reality, carry out research, and be factual and clear-headed, and be a calm facilitator. Newspaper propaganda has a great influence, and people are hot-headed, and those who engage in newspaper propaganda are also hot-headed. That would be a bad thing. P96
From 8 to 10 November, Chairman Mao led the comrades to read Stalin's pamphlet chapter by chapter and paragraph by paragraph, discussing it in the morning and in the afternoon. He pointed out that hundreds of thousands and even millions of cadres were now hot-headed, and that it was necessary to organise the study of this book and another book, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on Communist Society, in order to clarify many confused ideas and keep a clear head; otherwise, in the rush to make the transition and make product transfers, the peasants would rise up in revolt. In the course of reading Stalin's pamphlet, Chairman Mao made many very important comments. The Zhengzhou Conference decided, on the basis of Chairman Mao's advice, that cadres from the county level upwards should study these two books generally. p104
The Wuchang Conference began on 21 November as an enlarged meeting of the Politburo. In addition to the members of the Politburo, a number of ministers from the Central Committee and the first secretaries of the Party committees of the provinces, cities and autonomous regions attended. Chairman Mao delivered a long speech on the first day of the meeting, discussing many important issues: such as the relationship between socialist society and communist society. It is still necessary to draw a line to distinguish between them. Don’t rush to the transition to communism. The new 40 Articles (note: refers to the draft of the 15-20 year planning outline drafted in Zhengzhou) are inadequate. The resolution of the Beidaihe Conference said that the people's communes would be transformed into communist societies in five or six years or more. The resolution of the Beidaihe Conference said that the transition to universal ownership in five or six years or more was too fast, that it had been exaggerated too much in 1958, that it was time to wind things back, that commodity production and commodity exchange should be developed in the long term, that tasks should be lightened next year, etc. P106
Chairman Mao talked about the fact that, according to some provincial committees, the People's Daily had, in the Great Leap Forward, engaged in such methods of reporting as the schedule of progress of each province (e.g. the schedule of progress in completing earth and stone works for water conservancy projects) and the release of "satellites" (high production "satellites" of grain and steel), which put great pressure on the localities, with the result that "you are catching up with me", and there is a great deal of false boasting. This should be taken as a warning. p109
Chairman Mao said, As I had said at the Chengdu Conference, that one should not get a false reputation and get a real disaster, and now there is this danger. ...... China is a big country, but a big poor country. This year the Great Leap Forward was made, but even according to the figures now reported, the average annual income of peasants nationwide is only around 70 yuan, and the average monthly wage of workers nationwide is only about 60 yuan. Now some county committees do not know what they are talking about, saying that a three-year struggle will lead to a transition to communism. Is this not feverish nonsense? Where did Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin say that a communist society would still be poor? They all said that the necessary condition for the transition to a communist society was an enormous abundance of products, otherwise how could the distribution of goods according to needs be implemented? Some comrades want a "poverty transition", what is the superiority and attraction of such "poor communism"?
Chairman Mao said that the system of provisioning now practised by the people's communes was not distribution according to need, but egalitarianism. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Lu set up the "Way of Peace", also called the "Way of Five Buckets of Rice", in which peasants paid five dippers of rice to enter the Way, so that they could have enough to eat every day. I am afraid this was the earliest form of peasant idealism in China. Some of our comrades are now eager to make the transition to communism, which is very dangerous. The Beidaihe Conference laid down five conditions for the transition to communism, none of which should be missing, and no transition to communism can be made without any one of them. p111
But it seems that Khrushchev is still cautious, as he is only talking about the conditions for preparing for the transition to communism in 12 years, and not that it will be over then. Some of our comrades are so hot-headed that they want to make the transition before the Soviet Union, which is not good. The Soviet comrades have been building socialism for 41 years, but we have only been doing it for nine years, and they want to be the pioneers? There are young, middle-aged and old people, and there are streams, rivers, lakes and seas. There is a certain measure of things, a relative prescription, and there is a process from quantitative to qualitative change, not just a transition at will. p112
(Chairman Mao chaired a meeting of the Politburo on 20 June 1959 to discuss propaganda issues.) Speaking on the issue of propaganda, Chairman Mao said, "The propaganda now has to be transformed. In general, since the anti-rightist struggle, the People's Daily has been better than in the past, the old spirit is gone, but last year it blew too hard, too much, too big. The problem now is to correct the shortcomings and mistakes. If it is not corrected, the People's Daily is in danger of becoming a central daily and the Xinhua News Agency is in danger of becoming a central agency. When I read the People's Daily, I only read some news and some academic articles, I am not very interested in other things, they do not attract me. p140-141
(Wu Lengxi,
"Remembering Chairman Mao: Fragments of some major historical events I
personally experienced", Xinhua Publishing House, 1995)
(Before the Seven Thousand Cadre's Conference in 1962) Wu Lengxi did a comprehensive and systematic review of the Cultural and Educational Group of the Zhizhi system, outlining the mistakes of the People's Daily as nine problems.
The editorial of the People's Daily of September 4, however, said that "it can also be promoted while piloting". The Beidaihe Resolution said that the transition from collective ownership to universal ownership would take three or four years, five or six years, or even longer; but the editorial of the People's Daily on September 3 deleted the words "or longer" without permission. It can be seen that the People's Daily at that time was adding fuel to the fire, thus adding to the mistake. On high speed and proportionality, Wu Lengxi said: "The soul of the General Line was propagated as high speed, and high speed itself was proportionality. The one-sided emphasis on more speed ignores good savings. Yes, when I opened the People's Daily back then, the words "Long live high speed" stood out in big black letters. The People's Daily was full of boastful statements! Wu Lengxi also said: "Local industries are blossoming all over the place, one horse is in front of the other, ten thousand horses are running. In response, Zhou Enlai said at the Seven Thousand Cadre's Congress that the actual situation was that "one horse was in the lead and ten thousand horses were lagging behind". Mao Zedong interjected and said, "If one horse takes the lead, all horses will die". Mao and Zhou's words reflected their profound reflection on this slogan, and the lesson was painful to the bone. Regarding the breaking down of superstition, Wu Lengxi said, "The Chairman spoke of daring to speak, to think and to act, and to base oneself on Marxism-Leninism, and the People's Daily published an editorial entitled "How bold a man is, how productive the earth is". Since then, it has become a famous household slogan and is known to all those who know the history of the Great Leap Forward in China. Liang Lingguang, then secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, recalled decades later, "The People's Daily published a picture of a child sitting on an ear of wheat and published an article entitled 'How bold a man can be, how productive the land can be', saying 'I am not afraid of not being able to do it, only of not being able to think of it'." After this day, "Ke Qingshi kept calling us, saying that the country had sent several 'satellites' in a row all in the north, and that the air in the south was too dreary, and that you had to take a stand! Ye Fei was so nervous that he hurriedly brought in the news reporters and asked them to 'do it quickly'. In this way, Fujian also began to put out 'satellites'". Obviously, the People's Daily played a very negative role in this. Regarding pomposity, Wu Lengxi said: In March 1958, Chairman Mao stressed modesty at a meeting in Chengdu, saying that even if Henan's water conservation could be achieved in one-year, it would not be published in the newspaper and would be stuck. But the People's Daily reported on 7 June 1958 that Henan had achieved water conservation in six months, and published an editorial, "The people of Henan have set a good example", which put the whole country on a military foundation. The newspaper also published a large number of articles on high targets and satellites, criticising those who did not believe in high targets as "rightists and conservative" and "white flags".
[Zhang Suhua, The
Changing of the Game: The Beginning and End of the Seven Thousand Cadre's
Conference, China Youth Press, 2006, P187-188].
[1] A work style for
cadres that took away the rights of the masses of people and was enforced
through bullying behaviour. It has
re-emerged since the restoration of capitalism as the “Overlord Clause in
Labour Contracts”. See: Common overlord clauses in labor
contracts - know (zhihu.com) for an online translation which provides the
gist of the contemporary situation.
[2] Kang Youwei (19 March
1858 – 31 March 1927) was a reformer of the late Qing Dynasty. His “Book of
Great Unity” proposed a model society run according to a mixture of
Confucianism and his own variant of utopian socialism.
[3] Stirring things up
boastfully and randomly
[4] This refers to the 5000-year-old Chinese philosophy which combines
the opposites of yin and yang with the five lines of wood, fire, earth, gold
and water.
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