Chapter 9 Chapter 8 "Two Debates" on Reform and Adjustment

On April 16, 1979, the "Seminar on the Law of Value in Socialist Economy" was held in Wuxi, Jiangsu.Wu Jinglian did not attend the meeting, but he submitted an important paper together with Zhou Shulian and Wang Haibo. This is the second seminar on the law of value after the founding of the People's Republic of China.The choice of such a time and place obviously has a strong meaning.Exactly 20 years ago, in April 1959, the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences hosted a "Symposium on Commodity Production and the Law of Value" at the Peace Hotel in Shanghai.The years since then are unbearable to look back on, and all the participants paid a heavy price for it.And Wuxi, Jiangsu is the hometown of Sun Yefang, who was in charge at the time. The conference held here is also a tribute to this great thinker.

The important participants 20 years ago, except for the deceased Gu Zhun and others, reunited again.After experiencing endless ups and downs and tribulations, people returned to the topic with a lot of emotion.Sun Yefang was 71 years old at the time and had been diagnosed with liver cancer. He knew that his days were numbered, and his cousin Xue Muqiao was already 75 years old.And Wu Jinglian, a handsome young man who was sitting in the corner as a note-taker, was also nearly half a hundred years old. At the opening ceremony, in order to encourage everyone to speak freely, Xue Muqiao, then a consultant of the Economic Research Institute of the State Planning Commission, talked about the "Three Don'ts" - no catching pigtails, no beating sticks, and no hats. Huatou proposed that there should also be "five fears" - not afraid of criticism, not afraid of being dismissed from office, not afraid of going to jail, not afraid of beheading, and not afraid of wife divorce.Then he said that not only should "five fears", the most important thing is to give the criticized a chance to speak.As soon as the words fell, the audience applauded thunderously.

There were as many as 400 participants in this conference. What made everyone sigh was that, in the blink of an eye in 20 years, the topic of discussion still seemed to start from the same place—commodity production and the law of value under the socialist system. The thesis submitted by Wu Jinglian, Zhou Shulian, and Wang Haibo is "The Law of Value and the Automatic Regulation of Socialist Enterprises." His views basically continued those proposed by Zhang Wentian, Xue Muqiao and others 20 years ago, and were advocated by Sun Yefang and Ma Hong at that time. The idea of ​​"delegating power to enterprises" emphasizes that enterprises are economically independent, and the relationship between enterprises should be established on the basis of commodity exchange, giving full play to the role of the law of value, and setting up a "same starting line" for competition among enterprises.

He later recalled that in the process of writing, he chose his words carefully and carefully avoided using the word "competition" in order not to cross the "thunder pool" that still existed, and replaced it with "competition". While economists were discussing the law of value in Wuxi, a fierce debate was taking place between economic circles and economic circles. This was the first major economic policy debate after the reform and opening up.The debate unfolded on two "battlefields", one between the reformists and the planners, and the other within the reformists.

The bone of contention is the same: how to think about reform and how to prevent the economy from spiraling out of control? After entering 1979, with the beating of reform drums, the central government issued a series of new policies, including employee salary increases, bonuses, job placement, policy refunds, agricultural product price increases, and expansion of corporate and local financial power.This has led to a substantial increase in fiscal expenditures. At the same time, the recovery of the economy has led to the revival of infrastructure construction. The scale of infrastructure construction in various places has continued to expand, gradually reaching the point where the budget cannot be controlled. According to the data disclosed in the "China Economic Yearbook", the central fiscal deficit in 1979 More than 17 billion yuan, more than 12 billion yuan in 1980.Soon, there was a general rise in prices in society. By the beginning of 1980, commodity prices had risen by 6%, of which 8.1% in urban areas and 4.4% in rural areas.

In this regard, some planners began to attack market-oriented reforms, believing that the rise in prices is due to the government raising the purchase price of agricultural and sideline products. Therefore, it is necessary to return to the control line of unified purchase and marketing. Once the plan is abandoned, the world will inevitably be chaotic. On this issue, reformists have a consensus.Sun Yefang was ill and wrote the 30,000-word "Why Adjustment—An Important Issue That Should Be Paid Attention to During the Adjustment", explaining that the government's open policy is correct, and that the reason for rising prices is not the adjustment of agricultural product prices, but the basic construction front too long.In his opinion, to reduce the scale of investment, bank credit must be strictly controlled, and the current financial appropriation should be changed to bank loans.At the same time, he proposed to strictly divide the boundaries between expanded reproduction and simple reproduction. The basic construction that belongs to the additional investment part should be concentrated in the central government and the provinces and cities. In addition, the contract system should be strengthened. The construction unit and the construction unit must sign detailed contracts. , and then strictly enforced, offenders must be sanctioned, compensate for all economic losses, and so on.

Holding similar views with Sun Yefang, and fighting the planners on the front line was Xue Muqiao, a consultant at the Economic Research Institute of the Planning Commission. In his personal memoirs, Xue recorded some practices of the State Planning Commission at that time: In terms of economic construction, he repeatedly pursued unrealistically high speeds and high targets, surpassed national strength, and blindly expanded investment in capital construction. The annual steel output should reach the high target of 60 million tons (later, it actually reached 46.79 million tons in 1985). With this as the goal, it is proposed to build "Ten Iron and Steel Bases", "Ten Petroleum Bases", and "Eight Coal Bases" In 1978, the investment in infrastructure was increased one by one, and complete sets of equipment were imported from abroad regardless of foreign exchange payment and domestic supporting capacity. The supply of materials was in short supply, there were power outages and coal shortages everywhere, and financial difficulties also occurred.The problem of disproportionality in the national economy has been further exposed.When discussing with some comrades at that time, I once said, isn't this another "Great Leap Forward"?

Xue Muqiao's point of view is that we must make up our minds to make adjustments, step back from where we have gone, resolutely reduce the high target of 60 million tons of steel, greatly reduce the scale of capital construction, strive to develop agriculture and light industry, and adjust the internal proportion of heavy industry relation.He also offered his views on the 1956 socialist transformation.He believes that in the past it was always said that the three major transformations of our country's national economy were completely successful, but there were many problems. slow.The purpose of revolution is to develop productive forces, but in the past there was a tendency to make revolution for revolution's sake, thinking that the more thorough the revolution, the better, the result sometimes destroyed production. In July 1979, Xue Muqiao gave a report entitled "Comprehensive Balance of the National Economy" at the Central Party School, expounding his views in detail.

Inside the Planning Commission, there were loud voices against Xue Muqiao.They believe that the development of heavy industry is an objective law. The proportion of heavy industry is always getting bigger and bigger, and agriculture is getting smaller and smaller. Accumulation is the basis for expanding reproduction. Only by increasing accumulation can the growth rate of production be increased.They especially disagreed with Xue Muqiao's criticism of "too thorough" socialist transformation, thinking how could they criticize the 1956 upsurge of cooperation?As a result, the top management of the Planning Commission began to organize and prepare materials to criticize Xue Muqiao.

Xue Muqiao's point of view has been recognized by Chen Yun and others.As early as in 1962 after the three-year disaster and in 1972 when he came back again, Chen Yun proposed twice to slow down investment in heavy industry and speed up the implementation of the "food and clothing plan" related to people's livelihood. "The opposition of the highest level. In March 1979, the central government established the Financial and Economic Commission of the State Council, with Chen Yun as director and Li Xiannian as deputy director to oversee the national macroeconomics. They expressed support for Xue Muqiao's views. In April 1980, Yao Yilin, secretary-general of the Central Finance Commission, was sent to the State Planning Commission to take over as director, which stopped the criticism of Xue Muqiao and thus quelled the internal debates in the Planning Commission. In September, the Economic Research Center of the State Council was newly established, and Xue Muqiao was appointed as the director-general.

It stands to reason that the "reformists" have won this great debate, but within the "reformists" there are differences on how to deal with the relationship between adjustment and reform.The representatives of the two parties were Yu Guangyuan, then director of the Economic Research Institute of the State Planning Commission, and Xue Muqiao. Yu's point of view is that the reason for the distortion of China's economic structure is the system, so adjustment alone will not be effective, and the system should be reformed first. Around 1979, Yu Guangyuan published several articles to expound his views, proposing that “China is in a historical period that requires reform of the economic system, and this scientific research on production relations to find suitable productive forces is particularly important.”So, what kind of new system should be established?Yu did not give a clear answer, but pointed out the direction, that is "the theory of only productive forces".He wrote in his article "Basic Attitudes to Socialist Ownership": "We agree and support whatever can most promote the development of productive forces; we can't do that to anything that can promote it, but the promotion effect is not great." We agree, but we cannot support it in that way; we disapprove of anything that cannot promote the development of productive forces; we resolutely oppose anything that hinders the development of productive forces. Only with such a basic attitude can it be conducive to the realization of socialist modernization in our country. objective laws at work in any society." At the same time, Yu Guangyuan also wrote another article "On the Theory of Socialist Economic Goals", arguing that "Our economic goal should only be to maximize the production of the final products that the people need, and not It's something else."This article was first published in "Finance and Trade Front", but Yu Guangyuan felt that the impact was not enough, so he submitted it to "Economic Research" for re-publishing.In the appendix explaining why he republished, he used 29 question marks in one breath, some of which were very sharp questions, such as: "The goal of a socialist economy is to maximize the production of final products within the possible range. What is the objective economic law of socialism? Is this law the basic economic law of socialism? Ignoring this law, what kind of punishment will I receive?” Has it caused so much damage to our country's economy? Why has this issue been raised for many years and has not been resolved? How do you view the issue of national economic development speed indicators?"... Xue Muqiao clearly opposed Yu Guangyuan's view.He explained in his memoirs: "At that time, some comrades in the theoretical circles believed that reform should be given priority over adjustment. I think this is not a good idea. Reform should serve economic development, and every major step of it should be achieved to promote economic development. Otherwise, it is easy to encounter setbacks. The stable and coordinated development of the economy is an important condition for the smooth advancement of reform." Combining the views of Xue Muqiao and Yu Guangyuan, it can be seen that they both oppose the rigid planned economy and the consistent strategy of giving priority to the development of heavy industry. The reform of the commodity economy has created better conditions, but Yu Guangyuan's point of view is "reform first, then adjust." At that time, the decision-makers were discussing a "eight-character policy" for macro-governance. Xue Muqiao and others believed that the order of governance should be "adjustment, reform, rectification, and improvement", while Yu Guangyuan believed that it should be "reform, adjustment, rectification, improve".As a result, disputes arose between the two sides as to whether "adjustment" or "reform" should come first.Because of the diametrically opposed views, Yu and Xue had a very unpleasant quarrel for a time. In this debate, Wu Jinglian of the younger generation has his own views.On the issue of planning and market, he agrees with Yu Guangyuan, and on the issue of adjustment, he agrees with Xue Muqiao.He believes that in the current period of overheated investment and rising prices, without a relatively good macroeconomic environment, it is difficult to advance the system reform, and only by adjusting the national economy can such a good environment be created.However, he also believed that adjustment should be carried out in reform. In the article "Economic System Reform and Economic Structural Adjustment", he said: "Even in a period when adjustment is the main focus, we should not only emphasize centralization and control everything. In fact, at this stage, it is also necessary to assess the situation and carry out institutional reforms to expand the autonomy of enterprises and give full play to the role of market mechanisms. Such necessary and possible reforms are not only necessary for the adjustment work, but also for the future It is also necessary to prepare for major reforms when the conditions are right. We carry out reform experiments in the current adjustment-oriented period, and after exploring more experience, we can formulate a relatively good comprehensive reform plan, so as to ensure fundamental reform. Reforms are well under way.” In this discussion, Wu Jinglian actually expressed the following meanings: first, the current key work is adjustment; second, the adjustment must be promoted through reform; third, the Chinese economy must undergo major reforms; Fourth, we have so far not had a comprehensive reform package. In his later years, Wu Jinglian recalled that when the time Gu Zhun mentioned finally came, our ideological and theoretical preparations were so insufficient.People have seen some problems in real life, but they are still struggling to explore how to carry out the reform and what kind of economic system to replace the old economic system.Most people's thinking is still at the level of adopting some methods of delegating power and making small reforms at the micro level.He also made an important observation, that is, for quite a long time, there has been an argument among decision-makers and theoretical circles that a high speed is reform, and a low speed is conservative; decentralization is reform, and centralization is conservative ; Not afraid of inflation is reform, and fear of inflation is conservative. When the "Cultural Revolution" came to an end, China was at a critical moment when the country was poor and the people were poor. Increase production and income and how to improve the production enthusiasm of enterprises.People's overall reflection on the planned economic system is not thorough, and many people are still obsessed with the achievements of the first five-year plan, forming the so-called "First Five-Year Complex".Professor Dwight Perkins of Harvard University believes: "The most destructive consequences of the 'Cultural Revolution' were not caused by the disorder of the Red Guards era, but by following a unique development strategy for a long time and resulting from the strategic The quality of planning and management in China. Therefore, solving this long-standing problem in China will require a fundamental change in strategy, but it took 10 years for Chinese planners to fully appreciate this.” By 2003 Wu Jinglian expressed a similar point of view when he wrote the book "The Choice of China's Growth Model". He wrote: "The 'Great Leap Forward Movement', which attempted to drive high-speed economic growth with massive investment, caused the extreme deterioration of my country's economic situation and the huge wealth and even loss of life. However, even with such a catastrophe, the traditional industrialization strategy has not been corrected. Economic growth mainly relies on investment, especially investment in heavy and chemical industries. A fundamental feature of our economic development over the decade.” Under the reality and macro environment at that time, people were unwilling to break the "iron pot" of the system at once, but hoped to gradually change everything that was unreasonable within the smallest shock range.That is to say, from the very beginning, China has chosen a path of pragmatic and gradual reform. At such a moment, people need a reference body for reform, which cannot be found in capitalist countries with completely different systems, but can only be found in the socialist camp.The Soviet-style road has been proved to be unfeasible, so the reform experience of the socialist countries in Eastern Europe has become the only direction.