Chapter 7 3. Limit seizure of power and protect cadres

From the winter of 1966, the "Cultural Revolution" began to "legally" enter the fields of production and business such as industry and transportation, finance and trade, agriculture, and scientific research, and "stop production and start a revolution" became popular all over the country.At this time, another major event that shocked East China and affected the whole country broke out in Shanghai, where the "Anting Incident" took place: In early January 1967, the rebels in "Wen Wei Po" and "Liberation Daily" successively "seized power" and announced "Taking over" the newspaper.Immediately afterwards, the Shanghai Municipal Rebel Organizations such as the "General Department of Industry" jointly held a meeting to "thoroughly overthrow" the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, and "seized" all the party and government power in Shanghai and replaced them.

Zhou Enlai has always trusted and affirmed the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, the primary target of the "January Seizure of Power". During the "Red Guard Movement", he made it clear several times that the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee was "revolutionary." After the "Anting Incident", he still tried to maintain the authority of Shanghai's party and government leaders.However, because Shanghai's "seizure of power in January" conformed to the theory and practice of "continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" that "one class overthrows another class", it was affirmed and supported by Mao Zedong.Afterwards, all parts of the country followed suit, and the rebels in Shanxi, Shandong, Guizhou, Heilongjiang and other provinces and cities also successively announced their "seizure of power". Party and government institutions are mostly paralyzed.

Zhou Enlai had his own views on such a situation. First of all, Zhou Enlai was not in favor of overthrowing all party and government leaders in various regions and departments as "those in power taking the capitalist road."His point of view was also clarified many times during the "Red Guard Movement".In order to make this point of view stand, Zhou Enlai deliberately emphasized on many occasions the achievements made by various regions and fronts under the leadership of the party in the past 17 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Secondly, Zhou Enlai always advocated that what each region and department "seizes" is the power to "lead the Cultural Revolution Movement", not the power of the party, government, finance, and literature.In other words, he has reservations about the so-called "comprehensive seizure of power".On this issue, some of Zhou Enlai's speeches were obviously different from those of Jiang Qing and other members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, or even contradicted.

Thirdly, Zhou Enlai clearly opposed taking the leadership of the key departments of the central government, emphasizing that national defense, foreign affairs, public security, and financial affairs belong to the central government, and mass organizations cannot seize them.This is because Zhou Enlai realized that the wave of "total power seizure" would inevitably rush to Beijing and affect the State Council.Later developments proved that such concerns were justified. As the "comprehensive seizure of power" spread rapidly and deepened, its disastrous consequences were soon revealed: a large number of leading party and government cadres were identified by the masses as "representatives of the bourgeoisie" in their regions and departments, and they were suspended and "dismissed from office"; The "rebels" formed old grievances in order to fight for and grab power, so that they used force against each other and caused bloodshed; due to the paralyzed or semi-paralyzed state of party and government organizations at all levels, the business command system failed, and the national economy first suffered losses in the industrial and transportation sectors. Intensified, facing the threat of stagnation.

At this time, the Party Central Committee has actually found it difficult to control the situation that is taking a turn for the worse.To this end, Zhou Enlai tried every means and took measures to ensure the existence and operation of economic command departments at all levels from top to bottom. In late February, he first established the State Council Operations Committee (in the name of "State Council Operations Group" and "State Council Operations Group") chaired by himself, with members including Li Fuchun, Chen Yi, Li Xiannian, Tan Zhenlin, Nie Rongzhen, Xie Fuzhi, and Yu Qiuli , Gu Mu, etc., under extremely unfavorable conditions, worked hard to maintain the operation of the central economic leadership.Afterwards, Zhou Enlai proposed that no matter what, the provincial-level production command department should be resolved in March in order to lead and promote "grasp the revolution and promote production." In mid-March, he drafted a telegram from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission to promote the experience of establishing a "first-line headquarters for grasping the revolution and promoting production" in Huairou County, Beijing, and called for the rapid establishment of a county-level production command organization. .In view of the fact that party committees and administrative departments at all levels were paralyzed and a large number of leading cadres were affected and unable to work during the climax of "seizing power", Zhou Enlai personally presided over the formulation of military management plans for various systems and departments at the central and local levels, and proposed to Under the leadership of the Military Control Commission, two teams were set up, one to lead the movement and the other to be in charge of production.In order to improve and maintain the authority of the Military Control Commission, which hastily entered the battle, Zhou Enlai emphasized: In any case, we must establish the prestige of military control and insist on the effectiveness of military control;

The scope of military control expanded more and more, so that most of the economic functional departments under the State Council successively established military control committees or stationed military representatives.The dispatch of these military cadres was approved and approved by Zhou Enlai.Letting them participate in the leadership of the business unit is a temporary measure taken under specific historical conditions.Because during the "comprehensive seizure of power", the leaders of the important economic departments of the State Council have been knocked down or stopped working, and there is a serious situation where no one is responsible.Once, when talking about the current situation of leading cadres in the State Council system, Zhou Enlai could hardly conceal his deep worry. He said: "After the 'January Storm' in Shanghai, almost all of these people who followed the reactionary line to the level of capitalist roaders were It has been 'stand aside'. Now in 42 units, only 90 ministerial cadres have stepped forward to work, accounting for 32% of the total 280. Among them, there are only 3 top leaders (ministers, directors), and all others are 'stand aside' gone."

On January 22, 1967, due to Jiang Qing and Qi Benyu's deliberate framing and incitement, Minister of Coal Industry Zhang Linzhi was seriously injured and died after being illegally detained and interrogated by the rebels for more than 40 days.This fact written in blood gave Zhou Enlai great vigilance and shock. He asked the rebels very excitedly: "Such an old comrade who was born and died died in such an unknown way. How can I explain it! If even one The lives of the ministers are not guaranteed, so what hope is there for the country? Isn’t that really lawless?” Gu Mu and others present clearly saw that Premier Zhou was talking about this with “tears in his eyes and holding a photo of Zhang Linzhi covered in bruises.” "Looking at his sad face and listening to his angry voice, we are all moved by him."

Zhou Enlai, who is nearly seventy years old and is struggling with the crisis every day, is very clear about his responsibilities.While struggling to keep the economy running, he must use his limited power to fully protect the vast number of veteran cadres who are the precious wealth of the party and the country.He believes that as long as he is in power for one day, the security of these old comrades who have been knocked down or "stand aside" will be guaranteed for one more day. In late January, Zhou Enlai began to criticize the rebels' "overthrow everything" behavior on many occasions, pointing out: It cannot be considered that everything with the word "long" should be rejected.Are so many ministers and deputy ministers all gone?No, neither can the Secretary.If you go on like this, you will go to the opposite side.He also said: After the announcement of Shanghai's seizure of power in January, we estimated that there would be a chain reaction in about 10 days.The seizure of power cannot be seen as full of "those in power taking the capitalist road" and "diehards carrying out the bourgeois reactionary line" everywhere.If you want to be all of them, how can there be "a handful"?What else is "discriminating"?The starting point of Mao Zedong Thought is to proceed from reality. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the leadership of the Party Central Committee, the "Chang" brand is a monolithic "gangster"?It won't be like this!

In February of the same year, out of righteous indignation against Lin Biao and Jiang Qing's perverse actions, Vice Premiers Tan Zhenlin, Chen Yi, Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, Nie Rongzhen, Yu Qiuli, Gu Mu and others met in Huairentang (that is, a meeting chaired by Zhou Enlai to discuss and decide on central party and government affairs) At the meeting), he strongly criticized the extreme practices of "doubting everything" and "overthrowing everything" since the "Cultural Revolution", but was criticized by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and others as "February countercurrent".Tan Zhenlin and Chen Yi were soon deprived of the right to participate in the central meeting.

On February 20, shortly after Tan Zhenlin and others were sharply criticized, Zhou Enlai continued to clarify his consistent views on the issue of "seizing power" at a meeting convened by the central government to introduce the experience of "seizing power" at the provincial level (members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group were also present). Opinion, pointed out: Since the call for seizing power in January, no matter whether there are people in power taking the capitalist road or not, they have all risen to "seize power".How to explain the dominance of Chairman Mao's great red flag?Doesn't this mean that the great revolution and construction achievements of our party in the past seventeen years have been obliterated?It can't be like this, it doesn't stand up logically!When talking about the seizure of power by the central state organs, Zhou Enlai reiterated: Not all ministers and deputy ministers are those in power who follow the capitalist road, and there are still good ones; some (rebels) have too much power and should be restricted.Now someone wants to seize the power of the central government, the power of diplomacy, the power of finance, and the power of the military.The power of these departments belongs to the central government, and no one can take it away!Not only do the leaders of the party committees and party groups of ministries and commissions have to take care of daily work, even cadres at the bureau level cannot all "stand aside". The entire business system still needs to be taken care of by these two levels of leaders.At the meeting, Zhou Enlai also expressed his disapproval of the term "diehards adhering to the bourgeois reactionary line", believing that this is not conducive to the correct treatment of cadres who have made mistakes.

Since then, Zhou Enlai has repeatedly emphasized: "We cannot say that all top leaders are capitalist roaders, this has not yet been determined." "Not all people who implement the bourgeois reactionary line are Those who have already been named should also be reserved, and they should be allowed to correct their mistakes." "We must liberate some capable and experienced veteran cadres who have made mistakes but can correct them." In October 1968, Lin Biao, Kang Sheng and others once again set off a climax of criticizing the so-called "February countercurrent" at the 12th Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.After the meeting, various units in various places continued to carry out the criticism of the "February countercurrent" in order to implement the "spirit of the plenary session".In December of this year, the working group of the Central Military Commission chaired by Huang Yongsheng reported a material reflecting Xu Xiangqian's recent ideological status (thinking that Xu's ideological problems had not been resolved, and advocating further criticism of Xu and his family) to Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, and Zhou Enlai. On the 29th, Zhou Enlai criticized: It is suggested that the working group of the Military Commission send someone to talk to the comrades concerned, "don't make it too tense, and prevent accidents."At the beginning of January of the following year, Mao Zedong criticized this: "All the old comrades and their families related to the February countercurrent should not criticize, but should improve the relationship." There were requests to criticize the "February Adverse Current", and Zhou Enlai approved the rapid release of Mao Zedong's instructions to Xu Xiangqian, thereby preventing the expansion and escalation of criticism of the "February Adverse Current" in the State Council. In the extremely dangerous environment, Zhou Enlai fought tit-for-tat in various forms with Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, and preserved a large number of veteran cadres for the party and the country. During the "Cultural Revolution", these veteran cadres with rich experience played an important role in production and business work. In January 1975, when the new State Council was formed by the Fourth National People's Congress, many of them resumed their administrative positions and became the backbone of the country's economic construction.