Chapter 96 Last trip abroad - visit to the United States

In his later years, he made his last foreign visit in 1989-visiting the United States. He visited the Soviet Union several times, as well as Romania and Yugoslavia in Eastern Europe. In January 1979, he visited Japan as the president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.At the invitation of the Japan Academy of Sciences, he participated in the activities commemorating the 100th anniversary of the academy.Japan's "Yomiuri Shimbun" published a report on January 31, introducing the symposium it invited Hu Qiaomu to hold.The first sentence of the report said: "Hu Qiaomu is one of the few commentators in China who has been famous since before the war..."

This time, when Hu Qiaomu visited the United States, he put forward a condition in advance: no contact with the press! As for Hu Qiaomu's visit to the United States, the American physicist Professor Tsung-dao Li brokered the invitation, and the California Institute of Technology came forward to invite him. Hu Qiaomu is visiting the United States as a visiting professor.His wife, Gu Yu, is also a visiting professor with him.Accompanying her was her daughter Muying and an interpreter. On March 24, 1989, they boarded a plane and flew to the United States.After getting off the plane, Hu Qiaomu and his party were arranged by the US side to leave the airport along a special passage, avoiding the journalists.According to the conditions negotiated in advance by the US side, during his stay in the US, Hu Qiaomu only had contact with professors and scholars, and did not publish news in the newspapers.

At Caltech, in front of more than one hundred professors and graduate students, Hu Qiaomu gave his first academic speech entitled "Why China Made "Left" Mistakes for Twenty Years". Overseas scholars pointed out that Hu Qiaomu chose the title "Why China Made 20 Years of "Left" Mistakes" instead of "Why the CCP Made 20 Years of "Left" Mistakes", obviously after careful consideration.In addition, why Hu Qiaomu chose to analyze the topic of "Left" errors in the past two decades has also been carefully considered.Because overseas always say that Hu Qiaomu is "left", but this time Hu Qiaomu wants to talk about "Why China Made "Left" Mistakes for 20 Years".

Hu Qiaomu said: After China chose the road of socialism, its economic development was tortuous.There were three periods of relatively good economic development: 1953-1957, the period of the first five-year plan; 1961-1965, the period of national economic adjustment; and 1979 to the present, the period of reform and opening up.The speed of economic development in these three periods is certainly not in the past Chinese history, and it is also rare in the world.If the past 40 years could develop steadily according to the state of these three periods, the current situation of the Chinese economy will undoubtedly be much better.

However, the 20 years from 1958 to 1978 were generally speaking a period of turmoil and stagnation in China's economy, that is to say, 20 years of "Left" errors, as the Chinese leaders said. The adjustment policy started in 1961 was to save the failure of the Great Leap Forward in 1958-1960.The adjustment policy itself was very successful, but not long after it started, China carried out a "socialist education" movement first in the countryside and later in the cities.This movement lasted until the "Cultural Revolution", objectively, it also made ideological and political preparations for the "Cultural Revolution", because it put forward the slogan of "opposing those in power within the party who are taking the capitalist road" in the later period.Now I am not going to describe the history of the past 20 years, and I am not going to condemn all the mistakes and absurdities in the past 20 years (the Chinese Communist Party has and will continue to unequivocally make this kind of condemnation), but only try to answer it objectively. Let me ask you this question: What is the reason for this "Left" error and why it has lasted for so long?

Let me explore the reasons for this fact from five aspects. Hu Qiaomu pointed out the first reason for the formation of "Left" errors: It is an attempt to advance the Chinese economy at a super-high growth rate higher than that during the first five-year plan period, and believes that this speed is possible.The reason is: China has the leadership of the Communist Party, there are hundreds of millions of people who are eager to get rid of poverty and backwardness, and now there is a strong socialist system.The premature success of China's socialist transformation, especially when hundreds of millions of farmers joined cooperatives at an unexpected speed, convinced Mao Zedong, who had successfully led the Chinese revolution for more than 20 years, that the socialist system plus mass movement would be an omnipotent weapon .He believed that this would enable China to outperform Western countries in a not too long period of time, and it would also be able to outperform the Soviet Union, which paid less attention to mobilizing the masses from the bottom up and relied on the political consciousness of the masses to develop the economy.According to him, China's industrial system and planning methods during the first five-year plan were still too much influenced by the Soviet Union.China should make more contributions to human beings, so we must work hard, strive for the upper reaches, and build socialism more quickly, better and more economically.This idea was easily echoed by a large number of party cadres experienced in mass movements.Even the usually pragmatic leaders agree, at least not against, to try new approaches.This resulted in the Great Leap Forward in 1958.To be fair, the Great Leap Forward did promote some pioneering endeavors in a few individual fields, but it caused serious disruption and setbacks to the national economy as a whole.The Great Leap Forward lasted for three years, which caused China to suffer enough, and also made the whole party unanimously agree to change the direction and implement adjustments.Mao Zedong admitted that he had very little knowledge about how to carry out economic construction, and there was still a lot of blindness, so he seldom asked about economic construction in the future.But the idea that China could develop at an extraordinary rate under socialism did not disappear so easily, at least among some leaders.The new aggressiveness that occurred in 1977-1978 after Mao's death and the overheating of the economy after the mid-1980s are obvious evidence.

Hu Qiaomu pointed out the second reason for the formation of "Left" errors: It is the belief that economic construction cannot be separated from class struggle.The first half of the fifties was indeed full of class struggle.The poor and lower-middle peasants first overthrew the landlords, and later acted as the vanguard of the cooperative movement.Although the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce was peaceful, it was also the result of intense class struggle. The "Eighth National Congress" of the Communist Party in 1956 declared that class struggle had basically ended.However, the Hungarian incident in Eastern Europe soon followed, and the greatly expanded anti-rightist struggle occurred in China in 1957. These are all considered to be proof that class struggle has not yet passed. The deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations in 1959 gave new meaning to Chinese slogans against revisionism. In 1962, this slogan began to be applied to the country and the party.At the same time, the socialist education movement was launched, which affected every village, enterprise, and economic institution, and finally escalated into a nationwide "cultural revolution."As for the slogans in the economic field, first "politics leads the economy" and then "grasp the revolution and promote production".Under this guideline, the goals, methods, management, selection of leaders and staff, and the determination of specific projects and targets for economic work can all have the meaning of class struggle.This concept seems unbelievable today, but it could be said to be "logical" at the time.It can be formed and accepted by the majority of people to a certain extent, at least superficially, which cannot but be said to be due to the influence of the inertia of thinking and behavior of class struggle.It is true that this inertia is artificially prolonged by some erroneous arguments, but the existence of this inertia is undeniable.

Hu Qiaomu pointed out the third reason for the formation of "Left" errors: It is the pursuit of some kind of utopian socialist goal.Following the Great Leap Forward in 1958, there was a frenzy for communist ideals in China. The Rural People’s Commune, which emerged in 1958, combined workers, peasants, businessmen, soldiers, and political, economic, and social organizations in an attempt to turn the countryside into a utopia.The fact that rural people's communes were considered the best form of transition to communism and that cities were ignored shows how naive the ideals of communism were at the time.Although the "supply system" and other unified distribution methods implemented by the people's communes were corrected, the commune, a rural institution integrating government and society, was not disbanded until the 1980s.

Both the People's Commune and the Great Leap Forward relied on mass movements to advance.Regardless of how genuinely mass this movement may be, its unsuitability for economic work is obvious.It was not until the end of the "Cultural Revolution" that the working methods of mass movements were gradually recognized in China as not necessary for building socialism. Another and most important theme pursued by economic work in China after 1958 was revolutionization or continuous revolution.After 1962, economic work, like other work, centered on anti-revisionism, anti-revisionism, criticism of the bourgeoisie, and prevention of bourgeois restoration. This concept developed into the so-called theory of continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat during the "Cultural Revolution" .According to this kind of thinking, at home, people should only pursue revolutionary consciousness, and should not pursue material enjoyment and social prosperity, because "wealth leads to repair"; The pattern is stipulated that either revolution stops war, or war causes revolution.Obviously, the main goal of socialism has changed from developing productive forces to pure production relations, and then to pure state power and ideology.Unfortunately, what is meant by "purity" here is the substitution of utopian principles for more practical ones.The higher the degree of purity, the more stagnant the economy.In this way, although Mao Zedong never gave up his great ambition of developing the national economy and realizing the four modernizations, in fact, the status of economic construction in the cause of socialism is getting lower and lower, and more and more artificial obstacles are encountered. "Grasp the revolution and promote production" can only become empty talk.

Hu Qiaomu pointed out the fourth reason for the formation of "Left" errors: It is the deterioration of the international environment and the overreaction to the international environment in the 1950s and 1970s.Left-leaning errors are usually the product of a closed state.The US blockade, siege and military threats to China have put China in a state of war readiness for a long time.Taiwan's attempt to counterattack the mainland has exacerbated China's sense of crisis. In the late 1950s, Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated, and in the late 1960s, the Soviet Union also adopted a strategy of military encirclement and threats against China.China feels as though the whole world is intent on besieging and strangling the only remaining revolutionary shrine.The threat of war forced China to put economic construction in a position subordinate to war preparations, which resulted in a nationwide "third-line construction", including the "big third line" and "small third line", and the site selection should be based on the so-called "mountain, scattered, cave "the rules.This situation has not only greatly disturbed the pace of China's construction, but also made the distribution of China's construction investment and the new industrial layout very unreasonable to a large extent.But in any case, as the last revolutionary bastion in the world, China must be highly revolutionary at home and undertake all kinds of internationalist revolutionary obligations.This kind of dedication can explain to a certain extent why the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people can endure the difficulties brought about by the long-term leftist policy.

In the 1970s, the policies of the United States and other western countries towards China changed drastically. China resumed its seat in the United Nations, and the exchanges between China and the outside world gradually increased. condition. Hu Qiaomu pointed out the fifth reason for the formation of "Left" errors: It is the backwardness of Chinese culture and the lack of democracy.There are many obvious childishness and extremism in China's economic policies, which are not only a manifestation of economic backwardness, but also a manifestation of cultural backwardness.Poverty produces a certain culture of poverty, and its typical manifestation is that "one poor and one white" are regarded as China's advantages. This poor culture obviously aggravates the difficulty of eliminating poverty. The Great Leap Forward and the People's Commune in 1958, the "Cultural Revolution" in 1966-1976, and the misunderstanding of the theories of Marx and Lenin and the principles of socialism all showed this point.During the long-term development of the Revolutionary War, the direct contribution of Chinese peasants was indeed much greater than that of intellectuals, most of whom were considered to be on the side of the bourgeoisie and landlords.Many intellectuals who joined the Communist Party and had influence in the party lost confidence in the revolution when it failed in 1927.In the process of the revival of the revolution, another group of people became extreme left-leaning dogmatists, which severely damaged the effective efforts of Mao Zedong and other revolutionaries.This situation caused Mao Zedong and a considerable number of party cadres to form a long-term contempt and prejudice against intellectuals, education, science, culture and knowledge itself.This leaves cultures and economies vulnerable to destruction. After Hu Qiaomu pointed out the five reasons for the formation of "Left" errors, he made a summary: Although the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party have been restricted by various conditions, confused, perplexed, and made mistakes when expressing their will, an objective examination of the 40-year history of the People's Republic shows that the socialism they chose It is not connected with "Left" errors, but with economic progress, cultural progress, social progress, and political progress.Representing this fundamental trend is China from 1949 to 1956, especially China from 1979 to 1989. The reason why China's development from 1979 to 1989 is particularly important is that China has woken up from 20 years of turmoil and stagnation. Doctrine has been injected with new blood.The new situation inside and outside China has come together.Although "left" tendencies still require vigilance, in general, reform and opening up are irreversible, just as it is impossible for a mature person to return to the absurdity of his youth. Hu Qiaomu's speech "Why China Made "Left" Mistakes for Twenty Years" was an important article of Hu Qiaomu's reflection on the Chinese revolution. Then, at the University of Michigan, Hu Qiaomu gave an academic speech on another topic, namely "The Process of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China's Decision-making". This topic is also of interest to American scholars.Hu Qiaomu described the decision-making process based on his years of working experience in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China: raising questions, investigating and researching, making preliminary decisions, piloting, then discussing and forming a draft, and then piloting to listen to opinions extensively, until finally making a decision. As a visiting professor, Gu Yu gave a talk on her own academic topic - "China's "Two Bombs and One Satellite"" at the University of Michigan. "Two bombs", that is, atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs; "one satellite", that is, artificial earth satellites.Gu Yu has long served as a leader in China's science and technology, and "two bombs and one satellite" is her business scope.Later, she worked as the leader of the Beijing Positive and Negative Ion Collider. Hu Qiaomu avoided journalists in the United States, but a group of Chinese students at the University of Michigan must meet him.Some students among them asked him rather sharp questions and demanded answers.This made him rather unhappy.After talking for forty minutes, he said he was going to take a break and ended this unpleasant conversation. At this time, it was the eve of the "June 4th" incident, and the situation was turbulent.Hu Qiaomu and his party ended their visit in the United States ahead of schedule and returned to Shanghai by plane on May 1, 1989.