Chapter 45 2. On average, Zhou Enlai had one or two private interviews with Deng Xiaoping every week

On January 25, the Fourth National People's Congress had just closed for a week.Deng Xiaoping, the newly appointed Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Committee, First Vice Premier of the State Council, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, came to the General Staff Headquarters and delivered the famous speech "The Army Must Be Reorganized" to cadres above regimental rank.As in the past, he spoke without "politeness" and went straight to the point: "Since Lin Biao took charge of the army in 1959, especially in the later period of his leadership, the army has been messed up." "Over the years, a new big problem has emerged in our army, which is factionalism, and some units have factionalism. It is still very serious." "Another problem is that the discipline of the army is very poor." "Now there are piles of problems." According to Chairman Mao's instructions, "The army must be reorganized, stable and united, and policies must be implemented", "In order to achieve these , we must strengthen party spirit, eliminate factionalism, strengthen discipline, and improve work efficiency."

Deng Xiaoping's speech with extraordinary momentum and sharp style became the starting point of all the work he led this year, and it was the "first shot" to launch a comprehensive rectification. Not long after Deng Xiaoping issued the signal for comprehensive rectification, a movement of "learning the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat" was launched across the country that was not in harmony with the rectification.In the propaganda of various public opinion tools controlled by the "Gang of Four", slogans such as "persist in continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat", "oppose revisionism and prevent revisionism", and "abolish bourgeois legal rights" can be found everywhere and heard endlessly.For a time, learning "theory" seemed to be the overwhelming "big event" and the "center" that determined everything.

However, Deng Xiaoping, who actually presided over the daily work of the central government, ignored the propaganda of public opinion. On various occasions, he talked about another "major event" and another "center". On March 5, Deng Xiaoping put forward clearly: Now there is an overall situation, and the whole party should talk about it more. In a not too long period of time, my country will be built into a powerful socialist country with four modernizations. "The whole party and the whole country must strive to realize this great goal", "this is the overall situation".

These are a few "opening remarks" in Deng Xiaoping's speech at the National Industry Secretary Meeting held by the Central Committee to solve the railway problem. The core of it is one sentence: boost the national economy. The reason why Deng Xiaoping first focused on railway transportation in the national economy was after careful consideration.Since the launch of the "Cultural Revolution", the railway system has become a veritable "persistent problem". In the winter of 1966, Wang Hongwen, the leader of the Shanghai workers' rebel faction, became famous in one fell swoop for creating the "Anting Incident" that shocked the whole country.Then, in the years of "all-out civil war", some key railway junctions and sections were paralyzed and semi-paralyzed.Although measures such as military control and army protection were adopted later, they could only treat the "exterior" and not the "root".At that time, factionalism was rampant, and whenever there was trouble, some rebels would make trouble on the railway.

After the "criticism of Lin and Confucianism" in 1974, some rebels resumed their "old business", causing serious traffic jams in Xuzhou, Nanjing, Nanchang and other places, directly affecting the smooth flow of important trunk lines such as Jinpu, Jingguang, Longhai, Zhejiang and Jiangxi.By February 1975, the daily loading of national railways had plummeted to only 43,000 vehicles, a difference of 12,000 vehicles from actual needs; and various accidents on the railways were even more alarming. In 1974, there were 755 traffic accidents, which is More than 8 times that in 1964 before the "Cultural Revolution"!

For this reason, Deng Xiaoping was categorical in his speech: "How can we improve the national economy? According to the analysis results, the current weak link is the railway. If the problem of railway transportation is not solved, the production deployment will be completely disrupted, and the entire plan will be destroyed. In vain. So the central government is determined to solve this problem.” In response to the ideological concerns of some leading comrades at the meeting, he pointed out: “I heard that some comrades only dare to grasp the revolution and dare not grasp production. Catch production danger', this is a big mistake!"

Hearing these hearty, firm and powerful words, many comrades at the meeting couldn't help but think of Zhou Enlai's repeated teachings when he denounced factionalism, stopped fighting, and called on the vast number of railway workers to focus on production and business to ensure smooth railway transportation.Now, although Zhou Enlai is seriously ill and living in the hospital, Deng Xiaoping, who actually presides over the work, continues to be selfless and fearless for the benefit of the country and the people, and speak out for justice. Everyone feels that there is a "bottom" in their hearts.

According to the spirit of Deng Xiaoping's speech, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made the "Decision on Strengthening Railway Work" (Central Document No. 9).After the meeting, the Minister of Railways Wan Li led a working group to various places to focus on rectifying the railway bureaus with serious problems and concentrate on fighting the "war of annihilation".In just over a month, the "persistent" problem of railway transportation since the "Cultural Revolution" was quickly resolved.By the end of April, all 20 railway bureaus across the country, except for a few places, had exceeded the national plan, with the number of trains loaded on a daily basis reaching the highest level in history, and the punctuality rate of trains has generally increased.The effective rectification of the railway work has led to a significant improvement in the entire industrial production.

While Deng Xiaoping was vigorously implementing a comprehensive rectification, Zhou Enlai met and talked with Deng Xiaoping more frequently in the hospital.After the Fourth National People's Congress, Zhou Enlai met with Deng Xiaoping once or twice a week on average.In the ward, the two old comrades-in-arms had a heart-to-heart talk, discussing the affairs of the country, often late into the night.In addition, Zhou Enlai often talked with members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and relevant responsible persons of the State Council to learn about various work situations and asked them to support the rectification led by Deng Xiaoping.

At the end of January, Zhou Enlai listened directly to the report of Zhou Rongxin, the new Minister of Education, in the hospital. After learning about the current situation of the education department and Chi Qun and others’ interference and damage to the education work, he clearly expressed his support for Zhou Rongxin’s reform of the education system according to Deng Xiaoping’s opinion. rectify. In the early morning of April 16, Zhou Enlai had a conversation with Ji Dengkui, who was sent by the central government to Zhejiang to help rectify the work, and expressed concern about the serious interference of local factionalism with the economic development of Zhejiang Province.He proposed to Ji that according to Comrade Xiaoping's request, practical and feasible rectification measures should be worked out to solve the Zhejiang problem.

At the same time, the comprehensive rectification led by Deng Xiaoping also aroused great panic and bitter hatred among the "Gang of Four".They used various tricks to target Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai who supported him again and again. Almost at the same time when Deng Xiaoping delivered his first speech on the reorganization of the army, Wang Hongwen, an important member of the "Gang of Four" and then vice chairman of the Party Central Committee, privately confessed to several of the "Gang of Four" confidants in Shanghai: "I am most worried about The only thing is that the army is not in our hands..." In early February, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a notice, deciding to cancel the CMC office meeting and establish a CMC Standing Committee chaired by Ye Jianying. Its members include: Deng Xiaoping, Liu Bocheng, Xu Xiangqian, Nie Rongzhen, etc.Deng Xiaoping, Ye Jianying and other veterans are in control of the military. This is what the "Gang of Four" is worried about. On March 1, Zhang Chunqiao, who holds the post of "Director of the General Political Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army", told the directors of the Political Departments of major units in the army about the issue of learning "the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat" and declared that after the liberation of the whole country, "the Therefore, "I am afraid that we should still be vigilant against the danger of empiricism."In his speech, Zhang Chunqiao also blatantly accused Zhou Enlai of criticizing the achievements of the ultra-left ideological trend in 1972, saying that it was "following Liu Shaoqi's line"; Zhang also expressed his "personal opinion" that the Fourth National People's Congress The "very grand goal" is "nothing more than hundreds of billions of catties of grain and tens of millions of tons of steel", but if the "theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat" is "unclear", it will still lead to "satellites flying into the sky and red flags falling to the ground." On the same day, Yao Wenyuan also distortedly quoted a passage written by Mao Zedong in 1959 in his article "On the Social Foundation of Lin Biao's Anti-Party Clique," emphasizing: "Now, the main danger is empiricism." The leading figure of the "Gang of Four" Jiang Qing even spoke out against "empiricism" on many occasions. On April 4, when she received a speech from a group of workers’ representatives, she said: “Now our main danger is not dogmatism, but empiricism”; “Empiricism is the accomplice of revisionism and the current enemy.” , She also preached to members of "Liang Xiao" (the pseudonym of the writing team of the Great Criticism Group of Peking University and Tsinghua University controlled by the "Gang of Four"): "The biggest danger in the party now is not dogmatism but empiricism." In addition to rebelling against "empiricism" public opinion on the above occasions, Jiang Qing and Wang Hongwen also talked with some people in private, accusing certain leaders of the central government of "not focusing on major issues" and "not focusing on politics to be busy with business" to attack Deng Xiaoping who led the rectification work.At the same time, they also used the mistakes of Wang Ming's line in history to insinuate and slander Zhou Enlai. Deng Xiaoping was the first to stand up to the conspiracy of the "Gang of Four" to attack Zhou Enlai and the vast number of veteran cadres by using anti-"empiricism" to fight tit-for-tat. On April 18, Deng Xiaoping accompanied Mao Zedong, who had just returned to Beijing from other places, to meet with North Korean Chairman Kim Il Sung.Taking advantage of this opportunity, he reported Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao's anti-"empiricism" to Mao Zedong, and made it clear that he disagreed with the statement that "empiricism is the main danger at present."Mao Zedong immediately agreed with Deng Xiaoping's views.Before and after this, Deng Xiaoping also went to the hospital many times to discuss with Zhou Enlai and exchange information. On April 23, Mao Zedong commented on a report that emphasized the criticism of "empiricism" forwarded by Yao Wenyuan: "The formulation seems to be against revisionism, including empiricism and dogmatism, both of which are revisions of Marxism-Leninism. Don’t just mention one and let the other go.” He also pointed out: “Not many people in our party really understand Marxism-Leninism. Some people think they understand it, but they don’t understand it. It is a manifestation of understanding Marxism-Leninism." Accordingly, Mao Zedong requested that this issue be "discussed" in the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. A few days later, according to Mao Zedong's opinion, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held a meeting.At the meeting, Deng Xiaoping, Ye Jianying and others took the lead in making speeches, exposing and criticizing the "Gang of Four" with facts since 1973, and repeatedly seeking opportunities to launch troubles, targeting Zhou Enlai's despicable behavior.In particular, Deng Xiaoping expressed great indignation against the issue of "empiricism". He said: Obviously, this is a planned and organized action against the Prime Minister! After the meeting, Jiang Qing and others who were criticized were not only panicked, but also held grudges.For this reason, Wang Hongwen wrote to Mao Zedong, slandering and saying: The debate at the Politburo meeting was actually Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying saying what the President wanted to say but not easy to say, with the purpose of overturning the case. At the same time, Zhou Enlai, who was in the hospital, also learned about the Politburo meeting through conversations with Deng Xiaoping and some other Politburo members.After repeated consideration, he decided to report these issues and personal opinions to Mao Zedong.