Chapter 24 3. The Characteristics and Significance of the Criticism of Ultra-Left Thoughts

Zhou Enlai led the struggle to criticize the ultra-left ideological trend around 1972. Although it was finally frustrated, it was an integral part of the long-term struggle between the party and the people during the "Cultural Revolution". The economic situation has had a profound impact. First, through the implementation of the party's economic policies, the national economy that had been damaged during the "Cultural Revolution" was initially restored, and the production situation began to improve. In 1972, all major indicators of the national economy increased compared with the previous year except for the slight decline in grain and cotton production due to natural disasters.The total industrial and agricultural output value of the country reached 363.5 billion yuan, an increase of 4.5% over the previous year (of which the total industrial output value was 254.7 billion yuan, an increase of 6.6% over the previous year; the total agricultural output value was 108.8 billion yuan, a decrease of 0.18% over the previous year).Among the output of industrial products, steel reached 23.38 million tons, an increase of 9.7% over the previous year; raw coal was 410 million tons, an increase of 4.6%; crude oil was 45.67 million tons, an increase of 15.9%; power generation was 152.4 billion kWh, an increase of 10.1%.The national railway freight volume was about 1.78 billion tons, an increase of 5.6% over the previous year.In addition, the state's financial balance has been achieved and there is a slight surplus.

In 1973, the total industrial and agricultural output value of the country increased significantly compared with the previous year, with an increase of 9.2% (of which the total industrial output value increased by 9.5%; the total agricultural output value increased by 8.4%).Among the output of industrial products, the output of steel, raw coal, crude oil and power generation all increased compared with the previous year, and the volume of railway freight also increased further.The output of grain, cotton, oil and other agricultural products also showed growth momentum.The state's finances continued to maintain a balance between revenue and expenditure, with a slight surplus.

In terms of people's livelihood, the state began to adjust the wages of some workers and staff since November 1971.This wage adjustment is the first increase in employee wages since the "Cultural Revolution". The national wage adjustment is about 28%, and the wage base is increased by a total of 1.1 billion yuan a year. Due to the interference and sabotage of the Lin Biao Jiang Qing Group since the "Cultural Revolution" and the repeated "Left" rash advance mistakes in economic work, the national economy during this period had breakthrough problems in three aspects: the number of employees, wage expenditure, and grain sales.Zhou Enlai first discovered and took measures to solve the "three breakthroughs".After two years of hard work, the "three breakthroughs" were brought under control in time, basically stabilizing the situation and alleviating this sharp contradiction in economic life.

The fact that the national economy began to recover and people's lives improved in 1972-1973 shows that Zhou Enlai grasped the key points of Lin Biao and his group, deeply criticized ultra-left ideological trends and anarchism, vigorously rectified enterprises, and restored the normal work of various departments. The highest interests of the party and the people; at the same time, it is also a powerful criticism of the "Cultural Revolution" that destroyed the national economy and harmed the interests of the people. Secondly, through the implementation of the party's cadre policy, a group of veteran cadres who were knocked down during the "cultural revolution" stood up again and continued to work for the party and the country.This fact itself is a powerful negation of the theory and practice of the "Cultural Revolution".

For example, the public comeback of Deng Xiaoping, the "second largest capitalist roader in the party" in the early days of the "Cultural Revolution", not only overturned to a large extent the claim that there was a "bourgeois headquarters headed by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping" in the party. , negated the relevant resolutions of the Party Central Committee formulated accordingly, and more importantly, it will inevitably arouse a certain amount of enthusiasm for speeding up the implementation of the Party’s cadre policy from the central government to the localities, and prompting more veteran comrades to be liberated and resume work as soon as possible. A series of chain reactions will produce extremely beneficial effects.Later struggles proved that a group of leading cadres who were liberated and returned during this period were the backbone who opposed and resisted the "Gang of Four" and finally smashed the "Gang of Four" and its gang forces in various places and departments.

Third, work on the fronts of culture, education, science and technology has begun to improve, and the long-term oppression of intellectuals has changed. When the storm of the "Cultural Revolution" hit, intellectuals in the field of culture, education, science and technology were the first to bear the brunt, and the work in these fields was seriously damaged.After the Lin Biao incident, especially since the second half of 1972, Zhou Enlai repeatedly proposed to criticize the ultra-left trend of thought in the field of culture, education, science and technology, and personally led the implementation of the party's policy on intellectuals, so that the majority of intellectuals really saw where the hope lies.As a result, the work on the cultural, educational, scientific and technological front has regained vitality.

In the cultural circle, the types of newspapers and books began to expand during this period, and the number of prints increased significantly. Some publishing houses also began to reorganize and restore, and cultural relics and archaeology also made important achievements. The emergence of plays such as "The Gardener's Song" has broken the situation that a few model plays have monopolized the literary stage for a long time. In the education circle, many teachers have risen to criticize Lin Biao and his gang for their crimes of inciting extreme leftist trends and undermining educational work. Many reasonable educational systems and teaching methods before the "Cultural Revolution" were restored. The quality and quantity of enrollment in colleges and universities gradually improved, and the enthusiasm of the teaching staff was mobilized again. be condemned like that.In addition, the country also sent the first batch of overseas students since the "Cultural Revolution".

In the field of science and technology, the policy of "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend" was put forward again, creating a relatively favorable political environment for the cultivation of scientific research talents and the development of scientific research.Especially under the personal care and guidance of Zhou Enlai, basic scientific theoretical research that was abandoned during the "Cultural Revolution" and the transformation and construction of related laboratories and research institutes received attention and began to be put on the agenda.

In addition to the field of culture, education and science and technology, the work of health, sports and other fields also recovered and developed to varying degrees during this period. Fourth, the situation of external work has been rapidly opened and breakthroughs have been made.Under the intervention of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Group, many major foreign-related incidents occurred in the foreign work during the "Cultural Revolution", which caused great damage to the country's reputation. It was the most severely damaged period since the founding of the People's Republic of China. After the "September 13th" incident, under the leadership of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the diplomatic work eliminated interference, made rapid progress and achieved significant results.

In October 1971, my country's legitimate rights and interests in the United Nations were restored, causing a series of new changes in foreign relations. The number of countries that established diplomatic relations with my country and demanded the restoration of normal relations increased day by day. Since the "Cultural Revolution", my country's isolated and closed situation began to improve. . During Nixon's visit to China in 1972, the Sino-U.S. summit met and issued the historic "Shanghai Communiqué", marking the beginning of normalization of Sino-U.S. relations.In March of the same year, China and the UK reached a formal agreement on the establishment of diplomatic relations, and the diplomatic representatives of the two countries were upgraded from the charge d'affaires level to the ambassadorial level.In September of the same year, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited China and signed the "Joint Statement" on the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, which caused a shock in the world, especially Southeast Asian countries.In October of the same year, my country established diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany.By the end of 1973, 90 countries had established diplomatic relations with China, and my country's international prestige had risen unprecedentedly.

The new changes in the diplomatic pattern during this period under the leadership of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai are of great significance.It not only fundamentally changed the unfavorable situation that our country was surrounded and blocked at that time, but also played a role in the continuous development and expansion of our country's foreign exchanges, until today we implement reform, opening up and socialist modernization in a more favorable international environment. historic impact. The struggle to criticize the ultra-left ideological trend led by Zhou Enlai around 1972 was fundamentally a result of the Party’s healthy forces constantly correcting the “Left” guiding ideology that existed within the Party. The "Left" deviation error continued and developed the tenacious struggle against the two counter-revolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing.It can be said that from the expansion of the class struggle before the "Cultural Revolution" to "overthrow everything" in the "Cultural Revolution", from the "Left" guiding ideology of eagerness for success in economic work and "one big and two public" to the various The ultra-left trend of thought is rampant in the field, and its core is the word "left".Over the past twenty years, "leftism" has developed into an intractable disease.It was under such circumstances that Zhou Enlai proposed to criticize the ultra-left trend of thought and put this idea into practice, thus giving this struggle a profound meaning. In the spring of 1970, in the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" outline (draft) drawn up by the National Planning Conference held by the State Council, many high targets that were unrealistic were put forward, which clearly exposed a kind of eagerness for success and one-sided pursuit of high output at that time. , High speed emotions.Although this "left" deviation in economic work is very different from the ultra-left trend of thought in the "Cultural Revolution", the two have similar ways of thinking, that is, subjectivity, one-sidedness and metaphysics in method.It was this "common ground" that allowed the two to combine in the "Cultural Revolution" and cause even greater damage. In the struggle to criticize the ultra-left ideological trend, Zhou Enlai devoted great energy to the problem of eliminating the damage and influence of the ultra-left ideological trend on economic work. At the end of 1971, Zhou Enlai first discovered the "three breakthroughs" in the national economy, which aroused his great attention.It should be said that although the "three breakthroughs" that occurred in the national economy during this period had a lot to do with the bad influence of Lin Biao and his gang during the "Cultural Revolution", they also largely reflected the party's leadership in economic work. Serious deviation, and this deviation is the result of not fundamentally correcting the party's "Left" guiding ideology in economic work before the "Cultural Revolution".For this reason, Zhou Enlai has repeatedly linked them to criticize. In February 1973, when he was listening to the report of the State Planning Commission, he cited the historical lessons of excessive currency injection during the "Great Leap Forward", warning that the distribution of notes had "reached the maximum warning line"; , he noted, is "a problem that existed 10 years ago." In November 1972, Zhou Enlai pointed out more clearly at a meeting convened by the State Council: "Impatience has been committed for 20 years! Repeated offenses and repeated corrections, repeated corrections and repeated offenses!" pointed out this persistent problem in economic work. Zhou Enlai's resolution of the "three breakthroughs" in criticizing the ultra-left ideological trend reflects that under very difficult conditions, the party's healthy forces are making renewed efforts to correct "left" mistakes in economic work. The correction of "left" continues. As early as during the preparation and brewing period of the "Cultural Revolution", the party had different opinions on the increasingly excessive political criticism movement in the ideological field, and there were various forms of resistance and struggle. Before and after the launch of the "Cultural Revolution" in 1966, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Tao Zhu, etc. adopted various methods to try to put this "unprecedented" movement under the leadership of the party, trying to protect more party and state leaders. People and celebrities, and try their best to reduce the losses caused by the "Cultural Revolution" to the party and the people. Not long after these efforts failed, faced with the serious situation of the flood of ultra-left thoughts, the paralysis of the party organization, and the chaos of the entire country, a group of well-tested revolutionaries such as Tan Zhenlin, Chen Yi, and Ye Jianying stepped forward to oppose the wrong approach of the "Cultural Revolution" Expressed strong dissatisfaction, and fought face-to-face against Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, that is, the "February Resistance" in 1967.In this struggle, although it was inconvenient for Zhou Enlai to express his position publicly, it was obvious that he was on the side of these old comrades.Since then, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee has practically ceased its activities, and Zhou Enlai's situation is particularly difficult. Taking the "September 13th" incident in 1971 as an opportunity, Zhou Enlai led the healthy forces of the party and the people to launch a continuous and in-depth criticism and struggle against the ultra-left trend of thought, becoming the party and the people's resistance to "leftism" in the "cultural revolution". The continuation and development of the struggle against the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary cliques is mainly manifested in the following aspects: First of all, before the "Cultural Revolution", the healthy forces within the party that still existed during the "Cultural Revolution" began to develop and grow stronger, and strive to achieve correct leadership in various tasks.After the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party, since the Party Central Committee has basically lost the ability to resist the mistakes of the "Cultural Revolution", the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing cliques have become more arbitrary, extending their hands everywhere to expand their power, and the healthy power of the Party has been severely weakened.After the collapse of the Lin Biao Group, Zhou Enlai presided over the daily work of the Central Committee, Ye Jianying presided over the work of the Military Commission, and Li Xiannian (later Deng Xiaoping) participated.This shows that healthy forces within the party not only exist at this time, but are gradually taking the leadership of the party, government and army into their own hands, providing organizational leadership guarantees for further correcting the mistakes of the "Cultural Revolution".In the struggle to criticize the ultra-left trend of thought, a group of old comrades stood up to work, which made Lin Biao and Jiang Qing's evil goal of "changing the regime" and "killing the old cadres one by one" go bankrupt. Secondly, after vigorous rectification, many reasonable rules and regulations before the "Cultural Revolution" were restored, and the country began to establish a relatively normal order of production and work.This issue is also a focus of repeated struggles between healthy forces within the party and "Left" errors, as well as the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing cliques.From the very beginning of the "Cultural Revolution", the "revolution" had a sharp conflict with production, and the "revolution" disrupted production more and more seriously.Although the central government has repeatedly issued a call to "grasp revolution and promote production", it is impossible to truly restore and establish normal production and work order under the circumstances of severe factionalism and anarchism.Only by thoroughly exposing and criticizing the factionalism and anarchism instigated by the ultra-left trend of thought can we grasp the crux of the problem, and then completely change the situation of chaotic management and declining production.It should be said that the implementation of the party's economic policies and the rectification of the enterprise management system that have been gradually realized since 1972 are also the first large-scale "grasp production" in the "cultural revolution", which is an effective way for the party to implement economic work. A beginning of leadership. Thirdly, the Party and the people have come to understand the empty politics and personality cults that prevailed during the "Cultural Revolution" and have begun to initially resist ideologically.The so-called "prominent politics" and personality cult are the two "magic weapons" for the Lin Biao Group to make a fortune and to carry out conspiracy.In this regard, the party's healthy forces have resisted and struggled from the very beginning, although this resistance and struggle have been carried out within a very limited range.In the process of criticizing the ultra-left trend of thought, Zhou Enlai paid great attention to using facts to expose the harm caused by the empty politics of only grasping "revolution" and ignoring production during the "Cultural Revolution". Revolutionary study of business and technology.Under the historical conditions at that time, although it was impossible to involve the fundamental mistake of "taking class struggle as the key link", people's unprecedented enthusiasm and enthusiasm for the restoration of production, restoration of normal work on the fronts of culture, education, technology, etc. It shows that people have begun to break away from the inherent concept of grasping the spirit of class struggle from the depths of their minds, and focus on the economic construction and production development of the country that is closely related to their own lives.In an era when the focus of the party's work has not been and cannot be shifted, it cannot but be said to be an improvement. For the fanatical cult of personality that was set off during the "Cultural Revolution", people's ideological and emotional cooling was unprecedented.In people's minds, flatterers and conspirators have been habitually equated, and the aversion to extreme practices such as affirming everything or denying everything and imposing it on others seems to have become people's objection to A reflection of the "Cultural Revolution" of the past few years.Of course, this kind of "cooling" and "reflection" cannot completely get rid of emotional factors and truly rise to the height of rational understanding, but compared with the previous blind period, after all, it is much more "conscious" It can be described as an enlightenment in the journey of ideological liberation. History has shown that the comprehensive rectification led by Deng Xiaoping in 1975 was an unprecedented feat undertaken by healthy forces within the party to correct the overall "Left" error of the "Cultural Revolution".This move had an immeasurable and important impact on further enlightening the party and the people's erroneous understanding of the "Cultural Revolution" and accelerating the downfall of the Jiang Qing clique.However, the development of history has always been a process in which various stages of development are interconnected.If the comprehensive rectification led by Deng Xiaoping in 1975 was a climax of the struggle between the Party and the people during the ten-year "Cultural Revolution", then Zhou Enlai's struggle to criticize the ultra-left ideological trend around 1972 was the forerunner of this climax , It laid a certain foundation for the struggle in 1975, provided valuable reference, and played a role in connecting the past and ushering in the future. First, this rectification of "Left" provided a theoretical basis for the subsequent systematic correction of the mistakes of the "Cultural Revolution".In the process of contacting the actual situation of various fronts and exposing and criticizing the perverse actions of Lin Biao and his gang, Zhou Enlai pointed out many times that the work of each front in the 17 years before the "Cultural Revolution" must be divided into two, and cannot be completely negated.This provided the necessary prerequisites for readjusting the various policies of the party and restoring the normal work and reasonable rules and regulations of the first 17 years that were completely negated during the "Cultural Revolution".It should be said that from the preliminary rectification in 1972 to the comprehensive rectification in 1975, this was the basic basis. Second, in the struggle to criticize the ultra-left trend of thought, the liberation and reappearance of a large number of veteran cadres who were defeated in the "Cultural Revolution" declared the "Cultural Revolution" of "those in power taking the capitalist road" as a matter of fact. The failure of the program and purpose has thus restored and established the lofty prestige of the proven older generation of revolutionaries in the hearts of the people.Especially in 1973, before and after the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the old comrades Deng Xiaoping were once again trusted and reused by Mao Zedong, and the forces of the Jiang Qing group that formed the "Gang of Four" at this time were often restrained.In this way, after Zhou Enlai was seriously ill and hospitalized in 1974, it was possible to gradually form a healthy force within the party with Deng Xiaoping at the core, and to continue the struggle to correct the mistakes of the "Left" and oppose the Jiang Qing clique. Third, in the struggle to criticize the ultra-left ideological trend, Zhou Enlai looked at the overall situation and adopted methods and methods allowed by the objective conditions at the time, which became an important reference for the 1975 struggle led by Deng Xiaoping.For example, on many major issues, winning the support of Mao Zedong is still a basic condition for realizing the whole struggle.At this time, although Mao Zedong insisted on the "Cultural Revolution" and "Left" errors in the overall situation, he made many correct decisions on many specific issues, such as accelerating the development of the national economy, liberating more veteran cadres, and developing flexible and diverse diplomacy. It had an important impact on overcoming the ultra-left trend of thought.On many occasions, Mao Zedong's support has often become a decisive factor in eliminating interference and sabotage by the Jiang Qing clique.For another example, in the struggle to criticize the ultra-left ideological trend, Zhou Enlai first started from the economic field, connected with reality, and solved the problem of interference and sabotage by Lin Biao and his gang.This is also an important experience.Economic work was an area that Jiang Qing and his group had less involvement in and were not very familiar with. Although Zhou Enlai encountered obstacles from Jiang Qing's group in the process of rectifying the "Left", they could not find more reasons to oppose it.Compared with the "hardest-hit areas" of the "Cultural Revolution" controlled by the Jiangqing Group such as Culture, Education, Technology, etc., the rectification of the economic field is easier after all. The comprehensive rectification in 1975 also adopted a similar method. It first started with the most important sectors of the national economy related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and then expanded to other sectors and other fields, gradually forming a complete set of rectification policies, and achieved great results. Finally, the role of public opinion propaganda is very important and must be firmly in the hands of the party's healthy forces.This is the common experience of the two struggles of 1972 and 1975. During the "Cultural Revolution", the ultra-left trend of thought expanded and exerted its bad influence through newspapers, magazines, broadcasting and other propaganda methods.It is indeed Lin Biao's, Jiang Qing's clique, especially Jiang Qing's group's housekeeping skills to rebel against revolutionary public opinion.For this reason, a strong public opinion must be formed in order to effectively realize the rectification of various tasks. After the second half of 1972, the Jiangqing Group once again stole the initiative in propaganda, and immediately set off a large number of vicious waves of "resurgence" and "restoration" of revisionism.In view of this lesson, Deng Xiaoping paid great attention to public opinion work from the very beginning.Under the unfavorable conditions that the power of propaganda is not completely in his hands, he used various occasions to criticize the mistakes of the "Left" with his unique concise and sharp language, and refuted the fallacies of Jiang Qing and his gang, expressing what people want to say. And can't say it.According to the spirit of his many speeches, the "On the General Outline" and other documents produced during this period are theoretically in-depth analysis of the wrong practices that have been proved by the facts during the "Cultural Revolution", and they hit the key point of the Jiang Qing group, so they won a lot of attention. The support and support of the vast majority of people inside and outside the party.It should be said that it was the successful efforts of the healthy forces within the party represented by Deng Xiaoping in creating revolutionary public opinion that enabled the broad masses of the people to further distinguish between right and wrong, and provided the ideological conditions for the powerful "April-Five" protest movement in 1976. . Although the struggle to criticize the ultra-left ideological trend led by Zhou Enlai around 1972 was forced to be interrupted due to various reasons, the struggle of the party and the people to correct the mistakes in the "Cultural Revolution" and oppose Jiang Qing and his gang did not stop. In 1975, the healthy forces within the party represented by Deng Xiaoping further summed up experience on the basis of the struggle in 1972, seized the opportunity, regrouped, and launched a larger-scale battle against the "Left" errors and the "Gang of Four" .