Chapter 80 Another draft of the Resolution on Certain Historical Questions

The drafting of the "Resolution on Certain Issues Concerning the Party's History Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" officially began in March 1980. From then on, it took a full year and three months to pass the "Resolution".During this year and three months, Hu Qiao spent most of his energy on the "Resolution". He fell into contemplation and reflection on Mao Zedong.He personally experienced this period of history beside Mao Zedong.Fortunately, he has been recuperating since August 1961 due to illness, and he was not involved in Mao Zedong's "Left" frenzy in his later years.However, even so, Hu Qiaomu once fell into confusion.

Zheng Hui, who once served as the executive deputy director of the Party History Research Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, gave such an example: On May 16, 1980, a memorial service was held for Comrade Shaoqi, and an editorial was to be written, solemnly stating that the past criticisms of Liu Shaoqi as a traitor, traitor, and scab were all slanderous and false words.The editorial was difficult to write at the time.At this time, Qiao Mu came up with an idea called "Restoring the True Colors of Mao Zedong Thought".What a painstaking effort.After I wrote it like this, after it was published, many people said that it was obviously wrong, so why should I restore my true colors?Why not just say it was wrong?

This example vividly shows that Hu Qiaomu at that time wanted to correct Mao Zedong's serious mistakes in his later years, but at the same time he wanted to maintain Mao Zedong's prestige.Because of this, even the redress of Liu Shaoqi's injustice should be described as "restoring the true colors of Mao Zedong Thought"? ! This also shows that the biggest difficulty in drafting the "Resolution on Certain Issues Concerning the History of the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" was how to evaluate Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought. The drafting work was carried out under the auspices of Deng Xiaoping and Hu Yaobang.

The writing of "Resolution on Certain Historical Issues Concerning the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" was quite difficult.Although the finally passed "Resolution" was more than 35,000 words, but one draft after another was written, and there were as many as seven drafts just for the discussion of various meetings.If the discussions and revisions of the drafting group itself were included, I do not know how many drafts have been revised. Initially, an outline was written. On March 19, 1980, Deng Xiaoping read the outline and said: "I feel that the spread is too wide. We must avoid narrative writing and write more concentratedly. We must make judgments on important issues and use more judgmental language. Be accurate."

On June 27, 1980, Deng Xiaoping said to the drafting group: "I have read the draft resolution once. No, I have to start over. ... The whole document is written too dull, not like a resolution. It seems that revisions are required, and the project is relatively large. " Therefore, in accordance with Deng Xiaoping's opinion, the first draft was revised and submitted to 4,000 party members and leadership departments in various provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the country for discussion in October 1980. The discussion lasted for 20 days. On October 25, Deng Xiaoping said: "The discussion draft of the resolution is still too long and needs to be shortened. It can be deleted without mentioning it, and what should be said can be more prominent."

In March 1981, more than 50 members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, the Secretariat and some old comrades discussed the "Resolution".At this time, on March 18, Deng Xiaoping said to the drafting group: "The outline of the draft resolution can be finalized." After that, it was repeatedly discussed and revised.Chen Yun proposed to add a special paragraph, "Talk about the history of the party before liberation, and write about the sixty years of the party."It was not until June 22, 1981 that Deng Xiaoping said to the drafting group: "This resolution is a good resolution, and the current draft is a good draft."

Five days later - on June 27, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China passed the "Resolution".Hu Qiaomu finally completed a major writing project. The "Resolution" clarified the confused thinking, put forward a conclusion that was completely different from Hua Guofeng's political report, and pointed out that the "Cultural Revolution" was a "overall and long-term 'Left' serious mistake" and "the most serious mistake since the founding of the People's Republic of China". setbacks and losses".

The "Resolution" completely negates the "Cultural Revolution".pointed out: "Practice proves that the 'Cultural Revolution' is not and cannot be a revolution or social progress in any sense." "History has proven that the 'Cultural Revolution' was a civil strife wrongly launched by leaders and exploited by counter-revolutionary groups, which brought serious disasters to the party, the country and the people of all ethnic groups." The complete negation of the "Cultural Revolution" of course involves the evaluation of Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong Thought.

The "Resolution" grasped the precise measure, not only affirming Mao Zedong's historical contribution, but also criticizing Mao Zedong's serious mistakes in his later years. The Resolution states: "If Comrade Mao Zedong hadn't saved the Chinese revolution from crises many times, and if the Party Central Committee headed by him hadn't pointed out a firm and correct political direction for the whole Party, the people of all nationalities and the People's Army, our Party and the people might still be in the dark. Explore longer." The "Resolution" also pointedly pointed out:

"When the Party faced the new task of shifting the focus of its work to socialist construction and therefore needed to be especially cautious, Comrade Mao Zedong's prestige also reached its peak. He gradually became arrogant, gradually divorced from reality and? Seriously and increasingly overriding the Party Central Committee, the principle of collective leadership and democratic centralism in the political life of the Party and the country has been continuously weakened or even destroyed.” The "Resolution" also pointed out that Mao Zedong "bears the main responsibility" for the "Cultural Revolution".

The "Resolution" criticized Mao Zedong for a series of "Left" mistakes since 1957: "Mao Zedong made the anti-rightist struggle 'seriously enlarged' and 'caused unfortunate consequences'." Mao Zedong "raised pride and complacency in the face of victory, eager for success, and magnified the role of subjective will and subjective effort" and "hastily launched the 'Great Leap Forward' movement and the rural people's communalization movement, making it possible to use high targets and blindly The 'Left' errors of command, superficiality and 'communist style' as the main indicators are seriously flooding"; "In the late period of the Lushan Conference, Comrade Mao Zedong mistakenly launched the criticism of Comrade Peng Dehuai, and then wrongly launched the "anti-rightist" struggle in the whole party. The so-called "Peng Dehuai, Huang Kecheng, Zhang Wentian, Zhou Xiaozhou anti-party group ’ resolution is completely wrong.” "At the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee in September 1962, Comrade Mao Zedong magnified and made absolute the class struggle that existed within a certain range in socialist society... "At the beginning of 1965, it was wrongly stated that the focus of the (socialist education) movement was to rectify the so-called 'incumbents in the party who are taking the capitalist road'." "In the field of ideology, erroneous and excessive political criticisms were also carried out on some literary and artistic works, academic viewpoints, and some representatives of the literary and artistic circles, and more and more serious problems occurred in the treatment of intellectuals, education, science and culture. The 'Left' deviation, and later developed into the fuse of the 'Cultural Revolution'." As the ruling party, it is not easy for the CCP to enumerate Mao Zedong's "Left" mistakes in the "Resolution".What's more, the person in charge of the drafting group was Hu Qiaomu, Mao Zedong's political secretary at the time, and it was not easy.Without the "Nine Years of Facing the Wall", Hu Qiaomu would not have been able to write such a "Resolution". From the anti-rightists, the Great Leap Forward, the Lushan anti-rightist movement, the "Four Cleanups" and the "capitalist roaders", to the ten-year "Cultural Revolution"-Mao Zedong's more and more serious "Left" errors in his later years, the "Resolution" clearly outlines Based on this context, criticize it. However, the "Resolution" also pointed out: "Mao Zedong's merits are the first, mistakes are the second'." The "Resolution"'s evaluation of Hua Guofeng is also objective and fair: it not only pointed out that "he made great contributions in smashing the Jiangqing counter-revolutionary clique, and he also did useful work in the future", and criticized his series of "Left" mistakes In particular, the "Eleventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China" presided over by him "failed to correct the wrong theories, policies and slogans of the 'Cultural Revolution', but instead affirmed it." After the "Resolution" was announced, it aroused strong repercussions at home and abroad.A passage from Hong Kong "Ming Pao" publisher Cha Liangyong (also known as martial arts novelist Jin Yong) is quite representative: "The resolutions on certain issues are mainly the evaluation of Chairman Mao Zedong, which is generally considered to be better than expected. Because of the shortcomings and mistakes in it, it is generally expected that it will not be so thorough. The current resolution is quite Be frank and fair, and seek truth from facts." The announcement of the "Resolution" means that the CCP has truly brought order out of chaos in terms of guiding ideology.

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