Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen Mao Zedong Dictated the "Twenty-Three Articles"

After careful exploration, the prelude to the "Cultural Revolution" has already begun: criticism of "modern revisionism" is its prelude, and the "Four Cleans" Movement is also its prelude.Mao Zedong "criticized revisions" externally and carried out "four clean-ups" internally. The "Four Cleanups" movement was gradually launched in rural China at the end of 1962.The "four clean-ups" were originally "clearing work points, clearing accounts, clearing property, clearing warehouses", called "small four clean-ups".Later, it was expanded into the "Great Four Cleansings", that is, "clearing politics, clearing economics, clearing organizations, and clearing thoughts".

The "Four Cleanups" movement was carried out in the countryside.In the cities, the "Five Antis" campaign was carried out, that is, "against corruption and theft, against speculation, against extravagance and waste, against decentralization, and against bureaucracy." Later, the "Four Cleans" and "Five Antis" movements were collectively called the "Socialist Education Movement", or "Social Education Movement" for short. Mao Zedong believed that capitalism had been restored in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and in order to prevent China from "changing revisions" and "changing colors", a "socialist education movement" should be launched.He issued a warning on May 9, 1963: If we are not vigilant, "at least a few years, a dozen years, or as many as decades, there will inevitably be a national counter-revolutionary restoration, and the Marxist-Leninist party will definitely It will become a revisionist party, a fascist party, and the whole of China will change color.”

Mao Zedong was thinking about preventing the "restoration" of capitalism in China and preventing the emergence of "Khrushchev-like figures" in China.He had already said at the Lushan Conference: "The philosophy of the Communist Party is the philosophy of struggle." After defeating Peng Dehuai, Mao Zedong was already looking for a new object of struggle.His ultra-left thoughts continued to expand, and his struggle was directed at Liu Shaoqi, a comrade-in-arms who has lived and died and shared weal and woe for many years. It was in January 1965 that Chen Boda first learned of the astonishing news that Mao Zedong wanted to punish Liu Shaoqi.

It was late at night, Chen Boda took sleeping pills, and lay on the bed in a daze.The phone rang hastily.It was a confidential phone, and there must be something urgent to tell him.He hurriedly drove away his drowsiness and answered the phone.Sure enough, the stakes were high: Mao Zedong wanted him to go right away!Chen Boda dare not neglect.For Mao Zedong's summons, he always came immediately.Mao Zedong was used to working late at night, which made Chen Boda suffer. Hurry to Mao Zedong.It turned out that Mao Zedong wanted to draft a document on the social education movement, which he dictated and Chen Boda took notes.

From Mao Zedong's words, Chen Boda had just discovered an important "symptom"——Mao Zedong wanted to punish Liu Shaoqi! It turned out that the differences between Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi in the social education movement had been going on for a long time, until it finally surfaced at this time... Mao Zedong's social education movement, like the "Cultural Revolution", did not have any "great strategic plan" in advance, but just watched and explored while doing it. At the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in September 1962, Mao Zedong proposed to carry out a socialist education movement when he called for "never forget class struggle".Initially, Liu Shaoqi voted for the social education movement.

On May 20, 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a working conference in Hangzhou, and under the chairmanship of Mao Zedong, it passed the "Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Concerning Several Issues in Current Rural Work (Draft)", which proposed for the first time the socialist education movement in rural areas. Ten policies, known as the "Top Ten". Mao Zedong added a long paragraph to the preface of the "First Ten Articles": "Where do people's correct ideas come from? Did they fall from the sky? No, is it inherent in their own minds? No. Human Correct thinking can only come from social practice, from the three practices of social production struggle, class struggle and scientific experiment..." This long passage added by Mao Zedong was later regarded as Mao Zedong's Published a book titled "Where do people's correct thoughts come from?" ".

The "Top Ten Points" revealed Mao Zedong's "latest famous saying": "Class struggle, once you grasp it, you will be effective." The core of the "Top Ten Points" is to "grasp" the "class struggle" in rural China. The "Top Ten Articles" pointed out that the task of the social education movement is to "strike and smash the socialist struggle of the rampant attacks of capitalist forces." Liu Shaoqi supported the "first ten articles". In September of this year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Regulations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Specific Policies in the Rural Socialist Education Movement (Draft)", which is also ten articles, called the "last ten articles." . The "Last Ten Articles" proposed that the movement should "take class struggle as the key link", and Liu Shaoqi also supported it.Some of Liu Shaoqi's speeches on the social education movement were quite "Left".

However, later Liu Shaoqi had different views from Mao Zedong on some important issues.For example, with regard to the nature of the social education movement, Liu Shaoqi advocated that whatever problem should be solved, not necessarily everything should be "based on class struggle", but should be outlined from the perspective of "two lines" and "two classes". .For another example, Mao Zedong proposed that the main targets of the social education movement were those in power within the party who took the capitalist road, but Liu Shaoqi disagreed. The differences between Mao and Liu gradually intensified by the end of 1964.

From December 15, 1964 to the end of December, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a working conference on the social education movement, chaired by Liu Shaoqi.Considering that Mao Zedong was not in good health at the time, he was not invited to attend the meeting. At the end of December, under the chairmanship of Liu Shaoqi, the meeting formulated the "Discussion Minutes of the National Work Conference Convened by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China", a total of 17 articles, which were issued nationwide as a document of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

From New Year's Day in 1965 to January 14, the meeting entered the second stage, which was presided over by Deng Xiaoping.Deng Xiaoping believed that this was a general working meeting, and Mao Zedong did not attend the first-stage meeting, so he advised Mao Zedong not to attend the second-stage meeting.Unexpectedly, Mao Zedong was displeased and went to the venue to attend the meeting. At the meeting, Mao Zedong criticized Liu Shaoqi anonymously for engaging in "human sea tactics", "complex philosophy", "heavy rain", "mystification", "too wide a range of attacks" and so on in the social education movement.

When Mao Zedong talked about the contradictions in the Social Education Movement, Liu Shaoqi interjected: "All kinds of contradictions are intertwined. There are contradictions between the Four Cleans and the Four Unclears, and there are contradictions inside and outside the party. The contradictions are very complicated. If there are any contradictions, they will be resolved. What contradiction is better." When Mao Zedong heard this, his face was sullen.He puffed on his cigarette, remained silent, and the meeting suddenly fell into a stalemate... On that night, Mao Zedong urgently summoned Chen Boda to dictate instructions, Mao Zedong said something, and Chen Boda memorized it.Mao Zedong said one thing, Chen Boda remembered one thing. Remember, remember, the sleeping pills work.Chen Boda tried his best to lift his spirits, but he just memorized Mao Zedong's opinions mechanically, and his thinking became very dull. Finally, when he finished memorizing, Mao Zedong asked him to go back and sort it out, and Chen Boda heaved a sigh of relief. Chen Boda returned home and fell asleep.The effect of the sleeping pills finally wears off.He got up early in the morning, more than two hours earlier than usual, and quickly looked through the records, his heart tightened involuntarily. He, of course, "followed" Mao Zedong long ago.However, in his mind, Liu Shaoqi is number two and must be "closely followed". As early as when he was working in the Northern Bureau of the Communist Party of China, Liu Shaoqi, the representative of the Central Committee who never showed up, made him awe-inspiring.At the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Liu Shaoqi mentioned Mao Zedong's name as many as 105 times in his political report.Afterwards, when Chen Boda wrote articles, he also said that he must call Mao Zedong.After the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Liu Shaoqi's status became even more important.Chen Boda acted according to the wind, and together with Kang Sheng, republished Liu Shaoqi's "On the Cultivation of Communist Party Members", which was not only published in "Red Flag" magazine, but also printed 15 million copies.Between Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi, Chen Boda was originally trying to please both sides, and had both ways.Right now, Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi have a serious split, and Chen Boda has to choose between the two.Of course, he fell to Mao Zedong... ※ ※ ※ He was anxious to organize his notes.Helpless, even he himself couldn't make sense of the notes he took in a daze last night.He called Wang Li urgently, but Wang Li was still asleep.As soon as Wang Li heard that the "big scholar" was looking for him, he hurried over. After all, Wang Li was 17 years younger than Chen Boda. He was only 44 years old at this time, and his mind was more flexible than Chen Boda's.He helped Chen Boda sort out the messy records and divided them into one after another. On this day, a tense atmosphere reappeared in the venue: Mao Zedong came to the venue with two pamphlets in his hands. Before he spoke, Mao Zedong showed the two pamphlets in his hand—one was the Constitution, and the other was the Constitution. It is the party constitution.The meeting held today neither discussed the constitution nor the party constitution. What did Mao Zedong do with those two pamphlets?Everyone was surprised. It was not until Mao Zedong began to speak that everyone realized the seriousness of the situation.Mao Zedong said: "I have two books here. One is the constitution, which stipulates that I have the right to be a citizen; the other is the party constitution, which stipulates that I have the right to be a party member. Now, some people do not allow me to come to the party meeting to violate the party constitution; Let me speak, against the Constitution!" The one person Mao Zedong mentioned refers to Deng Xiaoping who presided over the meeting. Obviously, he misunderstood Deng Xiaoping's good intentions and thought that he would not be allowed to attend the meeting; the other person, of course, refers to Liu Shaoqi. At this meeting, Mao Zedong criticized Liu Shaoqi sharply.Mao Zedong was moved and took Liu Shaoqi's interruption yesterday as a speech to suppress him.It was the first time in decades that Mao Zedong, the chairman of the party, criticized the chairman of the country, Liu Shaoqi, so furiously.The confrontation between the two chairmen was later described in the "Cultural Revolution" as a struggle between two headquarters --- the "proletarian headquarters" headed by Mao Zedong and the "bourgeois headquarters" headed by Liu Shaoqi. After the meeting, persuaded by Peng Zhen, Tao Zhu, etc., Liu Shaoqi made a self-criticism at the life meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.Liu Shaoqi said that he should not have interjected, and interjection was a sign of disrespect for Mao Zedong.Mao Zedong was dissatisfied with Liu Shaoqi's self-criticism, saying that the problem was not whether he was respected or not, but the differences in principle between each other—a major difference between revisionism and anti-revisionism! Chen Boda realized that a new "line struggle" had begun.The only choice is to continue to "follow" Mao Zedong. He followed Mao Zedong's order and started to draft a new document on the social education movement. In Zhongnanhai Yingchun Hall, Chen Yu, several "scholars" gathered there, and Chen Boda was writing. In front of the door, a car is ready to go. The "scholars" discussed for a while, and Chen Boda wrote a few pages and sent them to the correspondent immediately.The car set off, drove out of the west gate of Zhongnanhai, and arrived at the printing factory of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China about one kilometer away, and paid for the arrangement immediately. When the car returned to the Yingchun Hall, the correspondent had brought back the proofs according to the manuscripts of the previous pages. In this way, Chen Boda was nervously carrying out the "flow operation". The printing factory of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China uses high-quality typesetting, and even a single punctuation mark is not allowed to be wrong. Finally, all the documents were written out and arranged. All the "scholars" were tired and went home, but Chen Boda did not rest, and walked to District A of Zhongnanhai——delivered to Mao Zedong himself. After Mao Zedong's revision, the document was submitted to the meeting for discussion and approval on January 14, 1965, and it was issued to the entire party in the name of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The title of the document is "Some Issues Presently Raised in the Rural Socialist Education Movement——Discussion Minutes of the National Work Conference Convened by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China". Before the main text, there is a notice emphasizing that this document is a "standard document" and denying the "contradictions" with this document in previous documents. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee convened a national work conference to discuss some issues currently raised in the rural socialist education movement, and wrote a summary of the discussion.I now send this document to you. If there is any conflict with this document on the socialist education movement issued by the central government in the past, this document shall prevail. This document was sent to the party committees at the county level and above, and the party committees of the working groups and teams. central January 14, 1965 This document, chaired by Mao Zedong and written by Chen Boda, criticized Liu Shaoqi without naming names in the second article, "The Nature of the Movement," and for the first time put forward the "focus of the movement," which was "those in the party who took capitalism The establishment of the road"— ——In fact, the prototype of the "May 16 Notice" that launched the "Cultural Revolution" was already in place. The original text of the second article is as follows: 2. The nature of the movement: Several formulations: (1) The contradiction between the Four Cleans and the Four Unclears; (2) The intersection of contradictions inside and outside the party, or the intersection of contradictions between the enemy and ourselves and contradictions among the people; (3) The contradiction between socialism and capitalism. The first two formulations did not explain the fundamental nature of the socialist education movement.These two formulations do not mention the contradictions of the four cleans and the four unclear in the society, nor the intersecting internal and external contradictions of the party, nor the historical period, the contradictions between the enemy and ourselves in class content, and the contradictions among the people. cross.From a literal point of view, the so-called four cleans and four unclear can be used in any society in the past history; the so-called intertwined internal and external contradictions of the party can be used by any party; the so-called intertwined contradictions between the enemy and ourselves and the internal contradictions of the people can be used in any historical period ; none of this explains the nature of today's contradictions and is therefore not Marxist-Leninist. The last formulation, which summarizes the nature of the problem, is Marxist-Leninist. It is consistent with Comrade Mao Zedong and the Party Central Committee since the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee in 1949. It is consistent with the scientific assertion that there is a struggle between the two roads of socialism and capitalism.If we forget this basic theory and basic practice of our party for more than ten years, we will go down the wrong road. The focus of this campaign is to rectify those in power within the party who are taking the capitalist road, and to further consolidate and develop the positions of urban and rural socialism. Those in power who take the capitalist road, some are in front of the scenes, and some are behind the scenes. Those who support these establishments, some are below, and some are above. Below, there are landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries and other bad elements who have already been assigned, and there are also landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries and other bad elements who have not been assigned. Above, there are some people who are opposed to socialism working in communes, districts, counties, and even provincial and central departments. Some of them are class dissidents; Violation of law and discipline. Some people do not distinguish between the enemy and the enemy, lose their proletarian stance, and shield those who engage in capitalist activities among their relatives, friends, and old colleagues. The vast majority of our cadres want to take the socialist road, but some of them do not have a clear understanding of the socialist revolution, employ improper personnel, do not check their work effectively, and make bureaucratic mistakes. With the promulgation and implementation of the "Twenty-Three Points", various places have begun to "rectify those in power within the party who are taking the capitalist road."People refer to the "party in power who take the capitalist road" as "capitalist roaders" for short.Later, the social education movement developed into the "Cultural Revolution", developed into a nationwide and comprehensive "rectification of capitalist roaders", and uncovered Liu Shaoqi, who had been criticized without naming names in the "Twenty-Three Articles" --- "China's number one capitalist roader". capital faction".Because of this, the "Twenty-Three Articles" have laid the seeds of disaster for the "Cultural Revolution"