Chapter 10 Section III Second Conference: Ji Dengkui's Explanation of Agricultural Documents

On November 13th, the meeting is already the fourth day.This afternoon, the second meeting was held.There is only one agenda for this conference, that is, Ji Dengkui, a member of the Political Bureau and Vice Premier of the State Council, will make explanations on the two agricultural documents. For China, which has a low level of productivity development and a large population, agricultural issues are obviously closely related to social stability and development.Especially after ten years of the "Cultural Revolution", natural disasters and man-made disasters have been combined, and China is carrying the problem of feeding 700 to 800 million people at a low level. The level of "feeding" is obviously very low, so stabilizing agriculture is critical to the overall situation.

Hua Guofeng attached great importance to agricultural issues.When Mao Zedong inspected his hometown of Hunan, Hua Guofeng, who was then secretary of the provincial party committee, babbled on to Mao Zedong about agriculture, so that Mao Zedong had to remind the township party member to "talk more about politics."At this meeting, Hua Guofeng briefly introduced a few words, but did not say anything more important, so he asked Ji Dengkui to explain the agricultural documents. Ji Dengkui's explanation is divided into five parts, namely: 1. About the current situation of agriculture; 2. About the policy based on agriculture; 3. About mobilizing the enthusiasm of farmers; 4. The main measures to accelerate the development of agriculture; 5. About leadership.

In the introductory part, Ji Dengkui said that the participants enthusiastically supported the shift of the work focus of the whole party, and then said: "If we want to build a modern and powerful socialist country, we must first develop agriculture. This is a matter of general concern to the whole party, and it is also a problem that many comrades worry about, because the four modernizations must not be built on a backward agricultural foundation. It is precisely Because of this, the central government has listed how to improve agriculture as an important topic of our meeting.” The two agricultural documents explained by Ji Dengkui are "Decision on Accelerating Agricultural Development" and "Regulations on the Work of Rural People's Commune (Trial Draft)".

In the section "About the Current Situation of Agriculture", Ji Dengkui focused on the slow development of agriculture, the pressure of population increase, and the shortage of food that needs to be imported.He said that next year (1979) more than 10 million tons of grain will be imported, pointing out that "agriculture is the biggest gap".Due to the shortage of food, the newly increased labor force in the city cannot be widely employed, "many things that should be done cannot be done", and farmers have to provide nearly 100 billion catties of grain every year, "actually exceeding their current affordability. In terms of food In terms of procurement, it reflects that the relationship between our party and farmers is relatively tense."The average ration of farmers is less than 300 catties, "the stomach cannot be full", "they should be given a chance to recuperate". In 1977, the average provident fund of a brigade (equivalent to the current village) was less than 10,000 yuan, which was not enough to buy a medium-sized tractor.Nearly a quarter of the production teams in the country have a per capita allocation of less than 40 yuan. Calculated at comparable prices, the average income of farmers only increases by 50 cents a year. "Even simple reproduction is difficult to maintain."It is believed that the only way out is to increase agricultural productivity and speed up development, with the goal of an annual growth rate of 4 to 5%.It should be said that Ji Dengkui's explanation did not cover up or conceal, and pointed out the current situation of agriculture and its seriousness.

In the second part, he said: both ideologically and practically, he failed to "truly implement the policy based on agriculture", "As Chairman Hua said, even our comrades engaged in agriculture have not completely solved this problem." . What deserves attention in the third part is that it emphasizes the opposition to egalitarianism and adheres to the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work".When talking about "Learning from Dazhai", "There are also some places where, as soon as they talk about learning from Dazhai, they do something to cut the tail of capitalism."

The fourth part talks about the main measures to speed up agricultural development. In addition to strengthening the basic construction of farmland and prioritizing the arrangement of chemical fertilizers and seeds, it also proposes to increase agricultural investment, that is, "from now until 1985, the investment in agricultural Raise the ratio to 16%-18%, double the amount of agricultural loans compared to the current one. Establish the Agricultural Bank, and within two to three years, increase the purchase price of grain by 30%. The fifth part focuses on the issue of "maintaining the stability of the party's policies", pointing out: "The party's policies in the rural areas at the current stage must be implemented unremittingly, and must not be changed overnight to break the trust of the people. Years of practice have proved that , Policies are changeable, random ideas, not adapted to local conditions, one size fits all, blind command, infringe on the ownership and autonomy of collective accounting units, seriously dampen the enthusiasm of farmers, is the enemy of agriculture. We must not make this kind of mistake again.”

Ji Dengkui's speech was "a beginning", and then the discussion on agricultural issues began.