Chapter 6 Section 2 Speech by Hua Guofeng at the opening meeting

There was no preparatory meeting for this meeting. When it opened on November 10, 1978, Hua Guofeng gave a speech.In this speech, Hua Guofeng himself announced the opening of the meeting and talked about the three topics to be discussed at the meeting.The first topic is to discuss how to further implement the policy based on agriculture and increase agricultural production as soon as possible.Two discussion drafts were prepared for this topic meeting: "Decision on Accelerating Agricultural Development" and "Regulations on the Work of Rural People's Commune (Trial Draft)".The second issue is to agree on the arrangements for the two-year national economic plan for 1979 and 1980.For this topic, the meeting also has a document.The third topic is to discuss Vice Chairman Li Xiannian's speech at the State Council retreat.After raising these three topics, Hua Guofeng pointed out that this is a very important meeting, and said that before discussing these three topics, we should first discuss a problem: under the guidance of the general line of the new era, from January next year, the whole country will The focus of work has shifted to socialist modernization.He announced that the first two or three days of this meeting will discuss the issue of shifting the focus, and the whole meeting will be held for more than 20 days, and he told everyone that the meeting will be divided into six groups for discussion, and so on.

This meeting does not seem to have a secretary-general, it is not written on the list, and no one has heard it at the meeting.Some articles say that Wang Dongxing is the secretary-general.At least I haven't seen or heard any materials that indicate that Wang Dongxing is the Secretary-General.In his speech at the opening meeting, Hua Guofeng said everything that could have been said by the Secretary-General. None of the four vice-chairmen spoke at the opening ceremony. Hua Guofeng's speech this time was not long, and the speech was less than 5,000 words.Leaving the script three times during the speech.From my notebook, there are more than 2,000 words inserted into the speech.He spoke slowly, and he only spoke for a little longer than an hour.I listen carefully.At that time my ears were not like now, not deaf at all, and I could hear very clearly.I noticed that he no longer talked about "two whatevers" in this speech.

I did not expect too much from Hua Guofeng's speech.I paid attention to his speech because I wanted to understand the objective situation and how far his understanding had developed. I also noticed that this speech used the reference to the eleventh line struggle. Before Lin Biao’s self-explosion on September 13, 1971, Mao Zedong told some leading cadres he met along the way during his southern tour that there had been ten splits in the Chinese Communist Party, ten times of line struggles, and ten times of conflicts between him and the Communist Party of China. The wrong line has fought against the wrong line, and these ten times are: 1. Chen Duxiu's right-leaning opportunist line; 2. Qu Qiubai's "Left" leaning putschist line; 1. Wang Ming's "Left" dogmatist line; 6. Zhang Guotao's right separatist line; 7. Gao Gang and Rao Shushi's anti-party alliance; 8. Peng Dehuai's right opportunist anti-party group; 9. Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line; The struggle at the Lushan Conference in 1999 (after the "September 13th" incident, it was called the Lin Biao Anti-Party Group).

This eleventh wrong line was proposed by Hua Guofeng in response to the situation of the "Gang of Four".Such a concept was used when the Party's Eleventh National Congress was held in August 1977. The report to the Eleventh National Congress is divided into two parts. The first part uses "Our Party's Eleventh Line Struggle" as its title.He still used this term in his speech at the Central Work Conference.I heard very harsh.Because talking about the eleventh line struggle means affirming all the previous ten line struggles, and it also means affirming the eighth opposition to the "Peng Dehuai Right Opportunist Anti-Party Clique" and the ninth opposition to the "Liu Shaoqi counter-revolutionary revisionist line." struggle.These two line struggles involved many old comrades who were still alive at the time and were criticized and persecuted during the "Cultural Revolution".In the early stage of the "Cultural Revolution", the rebels used the term "Liu Deng's line", and many people still remember it in 1978.What Hua said in his speech about the Ninth Line Struggle represented by Liu Shaoqi also means affirming the wrong "Liu Deng Line".His use of such language in his speech may have a deep meaning. It can elevate himself who "has never made a wrong line in history and is always correct", and belittle or suppress many old comrades who have made "political mistakes" in the line struggle. .However, he did not specify this point after all, and it would take some logical reasoning to reveal it.And he can be forgiven by taking a step back, that is, what he said was an old saying in the report of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and this speech was written by a scholar.I see it in my eyes, remember it in my heart, and don't want to order it.

Some people today may have misunderstood the shift in focus mentioned in Hua Guofeng's speech, thinking that he was talking about a shift from "taking class struggle as the key link" to socialist modernization.If he said that the party's work shifted from the "class struggle as the key link" that Mao Zedong always emphasized to focus on construction, it should be regarded as an event of great historical significance.In his speech, he did not touch upon such issues of principle. After talking about the three topics of the meeting, Hua Guofeng went on to say: "The Political Bureau of the Central Committee decided that before discussing the above topics, we should first discuss one issue, which is: under the guidance of the general line and general tasks of the new era , starting from January next year, shift the focus of the work of the whole party to socialist modernization."

Hua Guofeng told the attendees of the Central Work Conference: "The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the Central Committee agreed that in order to adapt to the development of the domestic and foreign situation, the mass movement to expose and criticize the 'Gang of Four' should be ended in a timely and decisive manner, and the entire party It is absolutely necessary to shift the focus of work to socialist modernization." Then he asked everyone to consider how far the movement to expose and criticize the "Gang of Four" had reached.Hua Guofeng said: "Properly assessing the development of the movement is an important basis for our proposal to shift the focus of the entire party's work."

Then he made an estimate of the development of this movement, and believed that by the end of 1978, the mass movement to expose and criticize the "Gang of Four" could complete its historic task and end victoriously.It can be seen from this that Hua Guofeng raised the issue of the stage of work in this speech. He himself said that he has such a historical experience: "When the main problems of one stage are solved, we must develop into a new stage." The problem to be solved is the problem of the work policy after 1979 and the problem of specific work under specific conditions.After Hua Guofeng continued to talk about the domestic economic situation and the international situation, he finally returned to the issue of shifting the focus.He said: "In the first three days of our meeting, we discussed the issue of shifting the focus of the work of the whole party. Starting from January next year, the work of the whole party will be shifted. Is it appropriate or not? How to implement this shift in the work of party committees at all levels Transfer? With this transfer, what major issues should we pay attention to next year? Our party’s ideological construction and organizational construction, our agriculture, industry, finance and trade, science and technology, culture and education, military affairs, political law, etc. How can the work of mass organizations adapt to this shift? Please come up with ideas, think of ways, speak freely, and brainstorm. After that, the meeting will discuss the three issues mentioned above. These discussions must also focus on the work of the whole party Transfer to the central issue of socialist modernization."

This passage also shows that the focus of his talk has shifted, and he is talking about the specific issue of how to work at a specific time and under specific conditions. At this point, he intervened to talk about his thoughts on whether to shift the focus or not.He said: "As for the 'doubles', we have also thought about doing a top-down and bottom-up movement." He said: "I have thought about this issue many times, and I think it is not good to do so, because once the movement is mentioned, the leadership's energy will be concentrated on the movement, which will affect the modernization of all provinces and cities."

He also considered that "all provinces and cities can carry out a campaign according to the situation and attack a group of identified elements", but "the whole country does not adopt this method and does not launch a national campaign", because as long as there is a campaign, no matter whether the central government or the local government, it is not Half a year is a year, and the whole party should still concentrate on modernization.He said: "We must promote the rule of law. Mass criticism and struggle will be necessary and must go through the courts. Don't parade on cars to demonstrate to the public. This method is not used." Here Hua Guofeng is talking about the struggle against the minions of the "Gang of Four". As for our team, Hua Guofeng also said that he "had thought about starting a national rectification movement, from top to bottom, from bottom to top, to develop a national movement. It would take half a year to do this, and it would take up the resources of leaders at all levels. There is also a lot of energy. Of course, it does not mean that it cannot be done, such as holding a rectification meeting when rectifying the leadership team."

He also said that system debunking is a long-term process.The Wang Ming route will continue after a long time.Today I copied this passage from my notebook to show that he has indeed thought over and over on this issue. Then he talked for a long time about the issue of construction, the domestic economic situation, and the favorable international conditions. The words "on the basis of independence and self-reliance" were added before the sentence).At this point he interjected another long paragraph.He said at the beginning: "Due to the interference and sabotage of Lin Biao and the 'Gang of Four', he dare not import. Once imported, he was falsely accused of 'traitor' and 'worshiping foreigners'." Hearing this, I would think of the famous "snail incident" ".

During the "Cultural Revolution", in the process of negotiating the import of color picture tubes between my country and the United States, the other party presented a beautiful handicraft in the shape of a snail in order to show friendship.Jiang Qing thought it was a satire on China's low development speed, saying that the U.S. imperialists used this method to laugh at China's economy crawling like a snail, internally scolded our negotiators for accepting such gifts, and externally returned the gifts and proposed to the U.S. protest.As a result, the development of my country's television industry has been delayed for many years. Hua Guofeng talked about a lot of specific situations here. During the "Cultural Revolution", foreign countries saw that China was in chaos and did not dare to support us financially and technically. After smashing the "Gang of Four", they first established a long-term trade agreement between China and Japan. , $20 billion.After the signing of the treaty, Japan thought that 20 billion was too little, and proposed to increase it to 100 billion from 1980 to 1990.During the negotiations, Comrade Xiaoping agreed to add 10 billion to 20 billion on the basis of 20 billion.Comrade Deng Xiaoping said that Japan is now not only hot politically and popularly, but also economically hot.After the signing of the long-term trade agreement between China and Japan, Western Europe was in a hurry. France also wanted to sign this agreement with us, saying that the quality of Japan was not as good as that of France, and it actively demanded the development of trade with us.The same is true for West Germany, which also wants to open up the market in China.Now we agree to long term trade agreements with France, UK, US, West Germany, Italy.Foreign countries are also actively investing in us.They set up mechanized chicken factories, watch factories, and power plants in Guangdong.The international situation is very good now.Because of this...a question is raised for us, and we are good at taking advantage of this situation to absorb foreign technology and capital to greatly speed up our construction. After listening to it, my original impression was deepened. Hua Guofeng is indeed a person who is enthusiastic about construction, has a good grasp of the situation, and is open-minded.After smashing the "Gang of Four", he really wanted to make a name for himself by doing a good job. At the end of the talk, returning to the agenda, Hua said: "This meeting was supposed to last for 20 days, but I was afraid that there would not be enough time. The two Politburo discussions were very lively." Finally, he talked about the cadres' unclear understanding of what the "four modernizations" thought is.He cited Xinjiang cadres as an example. Shihezi and Nanshan counties have poor understanding of the four modernizations.He also specifically talked about bureaucracy at work and the incompatibility of government agencies with modernization. He cited 18 stamps to apply for importing a piece of equipment in Shanghai. He also gave many examples to illustrate that our superstructure is really not good enough. He also very much agrees with Ye Jianying's opinion, and the enterprise management should be greatly improved.He said that "there are many jokes" in my country's economic work, especially criticizing us for not paying attention to market competition, and so on.I think what he said was very good. Although Hua Guofeng's speech contained some bad content like the "Eleventh Line Struggle" I mentioned above, generally speaking, everyone—including me—was quite satisfied.