Chapter 19 6.1 Mao Zedong's Criticism

On January 10, 1957, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Notice on the Establishment of the Five-member Central Economic Work Group", announcing the establishment of a five-member Central Economic Work Group with Chen Yun as the leader and Li Fuchun, Bo Yibo, Li Xiannian, and Huang Kecheng as members. Under the leadership of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, it will lead the country's economic work in a unified manner.After successfully formulating and organizing the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan, Chen Yun set his sights on the formulation of the Second Five-Year Plan.

Chen Yun considers that the focus of investment in the First Five-Year Plan is on industry and transportation, which are necessary for the rapid realization of industrialization.But it can also be seen in the implementation that if the agriculture is not done well, it will definitely hinder the progress.During the Second Five-Year Plan, investment in national construction will still increase, and people’s purchasing power will increase accordingly. However, the supply of consumer goods such as grain and cloth will increase slowly, and it will be difficult to increase the per capita supply. This is a sharp contradiction. Agriculture has already become a weak point in the construction.

Therefore, Chen Yun imagined that the formulation of the second five-year plan should start with food and clothing, especially pay attention to the development of agriculture, and solve the problem of food and clothing for the people.He believes that 8.4 billion yuan in agricultural investment and operating expenses during the first five-year period is not too much, and the development of agriculture is mainly placed on cooperatives, which is the only way to see it in terms of financial and material resources.But co-operatives only created conditions for the development of agriculture, and could not solve the fundamental problem.Many measures to increase agricultural production will take a certain amount of time to take effect, generally seven to eight years to ten years.If we do not pay attention to the development of agriculture during the period of the second five-year plan and pay attention to it in the third five-year plan, it will be too late, and we will be in a state of tension for the next fifteen years.In other words, if you don't pay attention now, if you miss five years, you will lose fifteen years.If the people's food and clothing problems cannot be solved, the cause of socialist construction will not stand firm, and we will inevitably have to go back and make up lessons.

However, the development of the situation was beyond his expectation. In the second half of 1957, when Chen Yun was summing up the experience and lessons of the First Five-Year Plan, and nervously thinking about the Second Five-Year Construction Plan of the national economy, a sudden political storm hit him, which made him encounter an extremely difficult period in his financial career. Mao Zedong criticized the anti-adventurous people as "only fifty meters away" from the right, and bluntly said that the criticism was mainly aimed at Chen Yun.Chen Yun had to review again and again.

From October 12 to 19, 1957, within 8 days, Chen Yun successively inspected nearly 20 factories, mines, power stations, and ports in Dalian, Jilin, Changchun, Qiqihar, Fushun and other cities in the northeast to learn about the progress of the country's industrialization construction and new strengths , in order to proceed from reality, grasp the overall situation of the country's economic construction, and formulate the Second Five-Year Plan.Due to the intense schedule, Chen Yun fell ill after returning to Beijing. On November 10, he had to accept the doctor's advice and wrote to Zhou Enlai to ask for leave from the central government to go to East China to recuperate for a period of time.

During his recuperation, he noticed uncomfortably that a wave of criticism against the 1956 anti-advancement movement and the so-called right-leaning conservatism was blowing more and more fiercely, and the criticism began to point at the leaders of the anti-advancement movement. From January 11 to 22, 1958, Mao Zedong held a meeting in Nanning, attended by some central leaders and party secretaries of 9 provinces and 2 cities. On the evening of January 11, Mao Zedong said in a speech that the term "anti-aggression" should not be mentioned, as this is a political issue.Once it is reversed, it will be discouraged, and once the 600 million people are discouraged, they will be very discouraged.If there had been no mention of anti-rash advancement at the time, but only a sore on one finger, there would not have been a gust of wind that would have blown away the three things, the 40-point Program and the Promotion Committee.These are political issues, not business issues.

At the Nanning Conference, Mao Zedong admired Ke Qingshi, the first secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee who actively opposed the "rightist conservative". On January 15, Mao Zedong praised Ke Qingshi's report "Riding the Wind and Waves and Accelerating the Construction of a New Socialist Shanghai" delivered at the Shanghai Party Congress on December 25, 1957, saying that this report compared many comrades in the Central Committee. Comrades at work don't use their brains, they don't go down and run around, they just list the facts there. On the 16th, he took out Ke Wen at the meeting and asked Premier Zhou in public: "Comrade Enlai, you are the Premier. Look, can you write this article or not?" Premier Zhou replied, "I can't." Mao Zedong said: Shanghai is where the Chinese working class is concentrated. Without the strong passion of the working class to build socialism, it is impossible to write such a good article. "Aren't you against aggressiveness? I am against aggressiveness!"

Liu Shaoqi explained that the chairman's criticism was aimed at a few people in charge of economic work.At that time, the five-member central economic work group composed of Chen Yun, Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, Bo Yibo, and Huang Kecheng was in charge of leading the national economic work, of which Huang Kecheng was from the army. On the evening of January 17, Mao Zedong asked Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, and Bo Yibo to have a conversation, and personally revealed the answer to this mystery, clearly stating that the criticism was mainly aimed at Chen Yun. On the evening of the 19th, Zhou Enlai made a self-criticism in order to take into account the overall situation. He said that the anti-adventurous advance was wavering and mistaken with a policy, it was a right-leaning conservatism, and it was a policy of promoting retreat that was opposite to the chairman's promotion policy. He was mainly responsible for this.

Those who strongly advocate aggressive advancement are praised, and those who advocate anti-aggressive advancement are severely criticized.For a while, the impetuous and aggressive thinking of the "Left" in the party quickly spread.Under this kind of public opinion within the party, a leading comrade in the industrial sector even publicly stated that Chen Yun is the representative of anti-adventurous conservatism. After the Nanning Conference, Mao Zedong personally took charge of economic work. Chen Yun did not attend either the Hangzhou meeting or the Nanning meeting because he was recovering from illness.According to the original plan, he went to Chengdu and Chongqing in the southwest to inspect factories while recuperating.After the Nanning meeting, he heard the communication of the meeting. In early February, although he has not yet fully recovered, he decided to end his recuperation and gradually return to work.

From February 13th to 23rd, Chen Yun attended the Politburo meeting of the CPC Central Committee held in Beijing.The topic of this meeting is still to criticize reckless progress. Mao Zedong said at the meeting that the anti-adventurous anti-advancement was so strong that the anger of the masses was discouraged. Coupled with the rampant attacks of the rightists, the anger of the masses was not high, and we were also unlucky.We members of the Central Committee, are you so comfortable?I am uncomfortable.I don't agree that anti-aggressive advancement is called Marxism, but that anti-adventurous advancement is Marxism.Mao Zedong criticized the anti-adventurous people and the rightists are not far away, "about 50 meters away."

From March 8th to 26th, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a working conference in Chengdu, attended by heads of relevant departments of the Central Committee and party secretaries of various provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. At this meeting, Mao Zedong explained the purpose of his criticism of anti-rash advancement. On March 9, he said in a speech that anti-rash advancement was a policy error. The Nanning meeting raised this issue, and many comrades were nervous, but now it is better.The purpose of talking clearly is to enable everyone to have a common language and do a good job, not to be difficult to mix with. I absolutely do not want any comrade to be difficult to mix with.One is Marxist aggressiveness, and the other is non-Marxist anti-aggressiveness. Which one should we adopt?I think it should be aggressive.In the future, don't raise slogans against rash advances, but raise slogans against right-wing conservatives.The slogan of anti-rash advance is not good, it suffers losses and hits the masses.Why doesn't the slogan of anti-rightist deviation hit the masses?What the anti-Rightist movement attacks is some people's official spirit, stagnation, and arrogance, and some people's subjectivism, bureaucracy, and sectarianism. These things should be attacked. On March 25, he also said that there is no need to talk about anti-rash advancement in the future.If it is used as an example from experience and method, then it is possible.This issue is not a question of responsibility. The key point is to use materialism and dialectics to analyze the issue of anti-rash advancement in depth.Anti-adventurous is "searching and searching, desolate, desolate, desolate and miserable", while aggressive is "vigorous and cheerful", "endless Yangtze River rolling", it is to be opposed to anti-adventure, against the slow line. Obviously, criticizing anti-rash advance is to unify thinking and implement rash advance. Chen Yun also participated in this meeting, and at the meeting he reviewed the "mistakes" of anti-rash advancement. From May 5th to 23rd, 1958, the Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held, which once again severely criticized anti-rash advancement.Liu Shaoqi made a work report on behalf of the Party Central Committee, and made a conclusion on criticizing and anti-rash advancement.The report said: Anti-rash advances damaged the enthusiasm of the masses and affected the production and construction in 1957, especially the development of agriculture, forming a "saddle shape". At the meeting, the atmosphere of excessive intra-party struggles that had occurred in the history of the party was very strong. Many people severely criticized the anti-rash advancers in their speeches. It is not enough to say that the "mistakes" of anti-rash advancement should be thoroughly liquidated.Representatives of various localities also reported at the meeting how they fought against local "rightist cliques", "right-leaning cliques" and "anti-Party cliques". In this atmosphere, Chen Yun, Zhou Enlai, Li Xiannian, Bo Yibo and others once again recklessly made "mistakes" at the meeting and made self-criticism against their will. It should be said that Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun and others had a complicated mentality when they reviewed the issue of anti-rash advance.Anti-aggression was a measure that had to be taken under the current economic situation, and the actual effect was very good.However, after the anti-Rightist struggle in 1957, "Left" impetuous and aggressive ideas gradually rose in the party, which put them in a very disadvantageous position.At that time Mao Zedong's prestige was very high, and from the good wishes of maintaining Mao Zedong's prestige and the unity of the party, they could not express any objection to Mao Zedong's anti-rash advance. At the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee on June 9, Zhou Enlai even euphemistically stated that he was not suitable to be prime minister again.Although the meeting kept him, it can also be seen that the pressure was great at that time. Chen Yun was also under tremendous pressure. Zhou Enlai, who had always been calm, felt aggrieved by him when he returned home from a meeting. Like being criticized, it is wrong to treat Comrade Chen Yun like this!The staff around him noticed that Zhou Enlai said the first few words almost word for word. Even Chen Yun, who is peaceful by nature, couldn't help feeling a lot about this situation. When drafting the historical resolution in 1980, Chen Yun mentioned this incident many years later, arguing that democratic centralism had been destroyed at that time, and life within the party was abnormal.He told Hu Qiaomu that all the leaders of the central government participated in the "anti-rash advance" campaign in the 1950s, but Mao came to oppose the "anti-rash advance" campaign, which resulted in silence. Criticizing anti-rash advancement and "unifying" the thinking of the whole party, the meeting formally adopted the general line proposed by Mao Zedong to "go all out, strive for the top, and build socialism more quickly, better and more economically", and put forward a series of high targets for economic construction. So far, the issue of criticizing anti-rash advance has come to an end.