Chapter 9 Trees are like this, how can people

December 18, 1978, Beijing. At the venue of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, among the 169 Central Committee members and 112 Central Committee alternate members, there was a 31-year-old young woman. historic decision.She is Guo Fenglian, secretary of the Shanxi Dazhai Party branch and alternate member of the Central Committee. All the changes made her dizzy.Dazhai, which has always been a model of rural China, was hard to find in this conference.Guo Fenglian was a little surprised. She hadn't realized that all this would be regarded as one of the rare turning points in human history by future generations.This is a new starting point for China, and it is also the end of Dazhai's 16 years of glory. From here, she and Dazhai will begin a difficult transformation.

At this time, she didn't know that, in fact, before that, changes had already begun to brew.When hard work does not make people rich or even full of food, some simple truths return to people's hearts. In 1978, there was a severe drought in Anhui. Most of the rivers in the province were cut off, the land was cracked, and more than 60 million mu of farmland were affected by the disaster, and the grain production was reduced. At the emergency meeting held by the Provincial Party Committee, Wan Li, then secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, said anxiously: "We can't just see large tracts of rural land abandoned, and life will be more difficult next year. Potential, try to grow 'life-saving wheat' to survive the famine."

On September 15, 1978, Huanghua Village, Shannan Town, Feixi County, under the chairmanship of Tang Maolin, Secretary of the District Party Committee, quietly held a meeting. There was only one topic, and that was how to get more food to survive the famine in 1979.They asked the masses to plant "life-saving wheat", and each person borrowed three points, and whoever planted it would reap it.It is said to the outside world that the joint labor is not divided into joint production, but internally it is explained that the production is contracted to the household and the responsibility system.That night, the fields were divided into households.Before dawn the next day, there was no need to blow the whistle, and people went to the ground to sow seeds. The barren land was full of heat that had not been seen for many years.

Xiaojingzhuang, which also belongs to Shannan Town, heard the news, and with the support of the whole village, they simply divided up the land and started to work for a year.The cracked land was so hard that even oxen could not plow it, so the people of Xiaojingzhuang used hoes to dig it open bit by bit.In one week, the whole village planted 70 mu of wheat and 30 mu of rapeseed.In a few days, it really rained heavily, and the crops grew exceptionally well.People call both "divided land" and natural rain "timely rain". However, this "timely rain" caused turbulent waves.On the streets of Shannan Town and the walls of Xiaojingzhuang, big-character posters were plastered all over for a while: "Build a windbreak wall, build a dam, and resolutely resist the dry wind in Feixi Dan." A letter suing Tang Maolin was sent to the Anhui Provincial Party Committee In the hands of Secretary Wanli: "Where will Tang Maolin lead 100,000 people?" "

While people were still arguing, in December 1978, 18 farmers in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang County, Anhui Province signed a "secret agreement" and pressed 18 bright red handprints to start a large contract.From then on, Chinese farmers chose a completely different development path from Dazhai. On February 6, 1979, the Anhui Provincial Party Committee held a special meeting to discuss the issue of contracting production to households. Wan Li proposed to use the Shannan Commune as a pilot project, and to summarize at the end of the year.He also said: Don't be afraid if you slip into the road of capitalism, we have ways to bring them back.

As soon as the news was announced, the entire Feixi County and even other cities and counties were moved. At that time, the masses summed up the "household contract" in this way: "Large contract, go straight without turning corners, guarantee the country, keep enough for the collective, and keep the rest for yourself", and made up a jingle: "Large contract is good, cadres and the masses want to do it. As long as it lasts for three to five years , eat old grain, burn old grass, individual wealth, collective wealth, and the state has to build warehouses." However, as the practice's influence has grown, debate has emerged on a larger scale.

On March 15, 1979, the "People's Daily" published a letter from readers, arguing that household production contracting was retrogressive, would confuse the thinking of cadres and the masses, and cause harm to production.According to the editor's requirements, the division of fields into groups and households has occurred, and the mistakes must be resolutely corrected. At the same time, some places even put up large slogans, "resolutely oppose the division of fields in Anhui."Farmers who had contracted production to households were suddenly uneasy and didn't know what to do.

On May 21, Li Zuzhong, the accountant of Xiaojingzhuang, was working in the field when he suddenly notified that a leader had come home.Li Zuzhong was agitated in his heart, and while walking with a hoe on his shoulder, he thought, dividing the fields and working alone would cause a catastrophe!When he arrived at the door of his house, he saw four police officers standing there. Li Zuzhong was terrified. He didn't dare to say a word when he entered the house, and he just looked at an old man with white hair sitting in the house.Unexpectedly, the old man's first sentence was, "It is a good thing to divide the land and do it alone. You have taken the first step."Later I found out that the old man was Wan Li.

Anhui's rural reform has aroused fierce debate among the top leaders of the CPC Central Committee.Deng Xiaoping paid great attention to it from the very beginning. He advocated no debate or coercion, and let people have a process of "seeing" the rural reform.At the same time, Deng Xiaoping silently expressed encouragement with actions. Deng Xiaoping said to the person in charge of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee at the time: "In terms of rural policies, you need to emancipate your minds. Wan Li made a "Six Articles" in Anhui. You can refer to it." On the basis of a large number of investigations and studies, the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China formulated the "Regulations on Several Major Issues Concerning Current Rural Economic Policies", which was called the "Sichuan Twelve Articles".This regulation emphasizes the implementation of the principle of distribution according to work, and it specifically affirms the method of "quota to the group and evaluation to the individual" that has been implemented in many places in Sichuan. Sichuan Province has become another birthplace of the national agricultural production responsibility system.

On June 15, 1979, during the wheat harvest season, Wan Li came to Fengyang and learned that the grain output of the Xiaogang production team had increased from more than 30,000 catties to 120,000 catties at once.Faced with the apprehensive leaders of the county party committee, Wan Li firmly said: "Let it do what it wants, isn't it just a production team? It won't turn the world around." By the end of 1979, household production contracting and household contracting contracting were implemented on a trial basis in a few places across the country, accounting for only 9%, but all regions followed suit, and the number increased rapidly.

By the spring of 1980, 97% of the production teams in Feixi County had contracted production to households, and the grain output had increased significantly, 13.6% more than the previous year, and the grain contributed to the country was three times that of the previous year. The "big contract" smashed the "big pot of rice" of "doing good and doing bad", and also sounded the clarion call to destroy the people's communes.It is here that China's reforms took the lead in making breakthroughs. A single spark can start a prairie fire. The "big contract" has changed the relationship between farmers and the collective from the past administrative command relationship to an economic relationship based on contracting contracts. Farmers have become economic entities with independent management, independent accounting, and self-responsibility for their own profits and losses. main body.Changes in the micro-level or micro-foundation of agriculture and rural economy have turned the people's commune into an empty shell. In 1979, the signboard of the Management Committee of Xiangyang People's Commune in Guanghan, Sichuan was carefully removed and replaced by the Xiangyang Township People's Government.What is intriguing is that, unlike the uproar when the People's Commune was established in the 1950s, its disappearance was silent.Without radio or newspapers, Xiangyang Commune in Guanghan County, Sichuan Province became the first township government to be rebuilt in the country. The strong wind of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee made most Chinese people rejoice, but Guo Fenglian was a little confused.After returning to Dazhai, she was still the same as in the past, organizing the members to study documents, and at the same time using the winter slack to repair the base dam with everyone.Gradually she knew what happened in Xiaogang Village, but she still didn't want to change the direction of Dazhai. Guo Fenglian's heart is not peaceful, because the voices questioning Dazhai are getting louder and louder.Wan Li, the first secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee who strongly supported Xiaogang Village’s household production contract, clearly announced that Anhui would never organize visits to Dazhai again.Many years later, he recalled: "If you don't go back to Dazhai's class struggle as the key link, it is impossible to put forward and insist on production as the center. This is actually the first and most important way to set things right." This made Guo Fenglian, who had just passed her thirties, feel caught off guard. She seemed to have felt that the banner of China's rural construction that Dazhai had been in charge of for 16 years would slip from her hands. In November 1980, the No. 83 document of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China forwarded the "Inspection Report on the Experience and Lessons from the Learning from Dazhai Movement in Agriculture" by the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee.The document points out: History has proven that it is wrong and harmful to formulate, absolutize, and eternalize advanced and typical experiences. At that time, Guo Fenglian couldn't accept it ideologically, especially when she was attending meetings at all levels, when people looked at her with complicated eyes, Guo Fenglian felt like a thorn in her back, which was really uncomfortable. In September 1980, Guo Fenglian received an unexpected notice.The notice from the Organization Department of Xiyang County said: From now on, you will be transferred from Dazhai Village.Guo Fenglian silently left Dazhai, which she had fought for for nearly 17 years. That day, when Guo Fenglian bid farewell to Song Liying, she couldn't help crying. After crying, she said, "Let's go, obey the party's transfer." In the same month, in Beijing, Chen Yonggui submitted a "resignation request from the position of Vice Premier of the State Council" to the Third Session of the Fifth National People's Congress, which was approved. In the spring of 1983, he wrote a report to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, requesting to work at the grassroots level, and was assigned to a farm in the eastern suburbs of Beijing as a consultant. The adventures of farmers in Xiaogang Village in the winter of 1978 became the choice of nearly 1/3 of Chinese farmers after more than a year; after another 7 months, this number became more than 4/5. On the first day of 1982, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the first "No. 1 Document" on the issue of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", clearly stating that household contracting, household contracting or large contracting "are all socialist production responsibility systems." In 1984, 99% of farmers chose the household contract responsibility system, and China's rural areas glowed with vitality like rebirth. The road to Dazhai has become a thing of the past. However, it was extremely difficult for Guo Fenglian and Dazhai to turn around. For a long time, the people of Dazhai really couldn't figure it out and couldn't accept it.Song Liying and some people said that after 30 years of hard work, they returned to before liberation overnight. In the second year after Guo Fenglian was transferred, Dazhai began to try out the production responsibility system, but due to the opposition of Song Liying and other party members, it went back in 1982.Dazhai has become a "big problem". In 1983, the Xiyang County Party Committee specially set up a land contracting working group to station in Dazhai, where they stayed for 40 days.Jia Changsuo, who was the secretary of the party branch at the time, finally said to all the villagers, "Don't embarrass the leaders anymore. The land will be allocated according to the good and bad, and the land will be distributed in the form of lottery. Each male laborer is 5 mu, and the female laborer is 8 points per mu. Orchards, livestock, water conservancy facilities, etc. have been changed to collective contracting.”Dazhai contracted production to households, two years later than other places. Jia Changsuo resigned after completing the contracting organization work. At this time, there are no long lines of people in Dazhai to visit and study, only the lonely wind blows over the once hot Hutou Mountain and terraced fields. The name "Guo Fenglian" also disappeared from people's vision for a long time. Clipping newspapers was a habit Guo Fenglian developed during those quiet years. She clipped and clipped reports related to Dazhai, thinking about it carefully.At that time, Guo Fenglian was suffering but also happy.Happiness is because she has reaped the warmth of her family, and her husband and children, who used to gather less and leave more, gave her the greatest spiritual comfort. Twenty-six years later, Guo Fenglian said with emotion: "It is only in difficulties that I show my true feelings. I feel the warmth of my family. The love, consideration, and understanding my husband and children have for me are stronger than those in the 1960s and 1970s." It’s just that it’s not easy to get over it, and now they have suffered so much political setbacks, they are very sympathetic to me. I feel that our real relationship arose in the 1980s.” Guo Fenglian enjoyed the family happiness that she had no time to enjoy before, but this did not offset the pain in her mind that she couldn't understand. She didn't understand what was wrong with Dazhai. At that time, she particularly liked a novel—by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.Tolstoy uses the spiritual and moral sinking and resurrection of the heroes and heroines to whip the traditional views of the aristocracy, and re-examines social phenomena from the perspective of peasants.Accompanying Guo Fenglian spent nearly two years waiting for distribution, but also two years of thinking.It is difficult for us to guess what kind of influence this book has brought to Guo Fenglian. Maybe we start to try to use a new perspective and logic to examine the road we have traveled, which itself is a kind of rebirth.Guo Fenglian has realized that both she and Dazhai need to be revived and reborn. She once said: "The road of life is difficult, there are too many ups and downs, and I also know how to persevere and how to muster up the courage to persevere. The right thing should be persisted, and don't deny it at any time." At that time, there was a news that brought tears to her eyes. In 1985, Chen Yonggui was hospitalized with lung cancer.Half a year later, his condition worsened, and he made a will: the funeral should be simplified, no memorial service, no farewell ceremony for the body, the body would be cremated, the ashes would be transported back to Dazhai, and scattered on the land in Dazhai. During his illness, he often took only half a tablet.Before he died, he asked his family to hand over the pills to the country. At 20:35 on March 25, Chen Yonggui died of illness, and his ashes were transported back to Dazhai. In 1988, Dazhai people buried his ashes on Hutou Mountain and erected a monument to commemorate him.His stone statue is smiling, with dwarf pines and green willows in front of him and behind him, among the willow leaves, it seems to say to the years, the tree is like this, how can people be embarrassed? In the past 10 years, Guo Fenglian has transferred jobs twice. First, she served as the deputy director of the Jinzhong Regional Fruit Tree Research Institute for 4 years and 11 months, and then was transferred to the Xiyang County Highway Section for 4 years and 11 months. Deputy secretary of the party branch.But no matter where she went, she couldn't get rid of the heaviness and loneliness in her heart.Her heart is always looking at Dazhai, because there are her youth and dreams, the glory when she started her business and the unwillingness when she left. At the same time, Dazhai Village changed its party secretary four times.Although life is more prosperous than in the 1960s and 1970s, no matter how hard people try, they can no longer make themselves stand out.People in Dazhai miss Guo Fenglian in the glory days, and hope that she can lead the people in Dazhai to a new and exciting time. Song Liying once said to the superiors: "So Dazhai, a vigorous new socialist countryside, now you see it like this. It is not leaking, and no one cares about it. If you want to revitalize Dazhai, you still have to Let Guo Fenglian go back to Dazhai."