Chapter 35 Chapter 10: Ye Jianying's Contribute

Ye Jianying participated in the collective leadership of this Central Work Conference from beginning to end.Ye Jianying is the Vice Chairman of the Party Central Committee elected at the First Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee and one of the five Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.The five members of the Standing Committee are Party Central Committee Chairman Hua Guofeng, Vice-Chairmen Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and Wang Dongxing.Ye Jianying ranked second in the Standing Committee. Ye Jianying played a very important role in the historic action of smashing the "Gang of Four" in 1976: he was one of the decision makers, and on October 6, 1976, he came to the scene again.Many people know about the fact that Ye Jianying made great contributions to crushing the "Gang of Four", and there is such a plot in the TV documentary about Ye Jianying's biography.However, Ye Jianying's contributions to the Central Work Conference held in 1978 and the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee are rarely known, and few people have mentioned it over the years.When commemorating the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, as a historical witness and scientific worker, I feel that I have an inescapable responsibility to write down the historical facts.On this important page of the history of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China, the words "Ye Jianying's contribution is indispensable" should be written.

At the Central Work Conference, I was a well-informed person.Regarding the preparation of Ye Jianying's speech, I heard some information from Hu Yaobang at that time.I heard that Ye Jianying asked Hu Yaobang to find someone to draft the conference speech draft for him very early on, and this draft is in Ye Jianying's hands.Near the end of the meeting, he was still thinking about how to revise it, and his secretary wrote it.I also heard that he wants to focus on democracy and the rule of law.Ye Jianying is the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. I think it's best for him to talk about this issue.

At the end of November, I wrote a long letter to Comrade Ye Jianying (he was my old leader when I was working in the "Liberation Daily" in Beijing, and I am not afraid to disturb him), regarding the work of promoting democracy and strengthening the legal system and the work of the National People's Congress. He put forward three suggestions, and criticized the National People's Judicial Work Conference held in May of that year from the point of view of law. The focus of the "Cultural Revolution", pointing out that before the "Cultural Revolution", no matter in my country's criminal legislation or criminal trial practice, there was no charge of "malicious attack", and believed that such a provision was harmful.After sending out the letter, I received a call from his secretary, saying that Ye Jianying expressed his appreciation to me.

At the same time, I called Ye Jianying's secretary and asked him to tell: Ye Jianying, please pay attention to the sentence of Lenin quoted in the joint speech of Wang Huide and Yang Xiguang on November 13 published in the Northwest Group briefing: "If victorious socialism does not practice full democracy, it will not be able to maintain the victories it has won and lead mankind to the demise of the state." This sentence was later quoted in Ye Jianying's speech.When I made a joint speech with Wang Huide and Yang Xiguang, Wang Huide proposed to include this sentence in our speech.Because it is inconvenient to look up books at the Jingxi Hotel, I am afraid that this sentence is not quoted accurately.Wang Huide said: "Don't worry, I remember clearly, and I can't make mistakes." Now, in order to write this article, I checked the "Complete Works of Lenin" on the bookshelf, but I couldn't find it. During the theoretical retreat in 1979, I wrote an article "The Problem of the Withering of the State after the Victory of the Proletarian Revolution", which quoted 109 paragraphs of Lenin's words, and one of the sections was "The development of proletarian democracy and the withering of the state are one and the same ".I didn't find out in that article either, so I had to call the Central Compilation Bureau for help. They told me that this sentence was written in Lenin's long article "On Unrecognizable Marxism and "Economics of Imperialism".Wang Huide deserves to be the director of the Compilation Bureau. When we made a joint speech, the sentence Wang Huide remembered was almost identical to the original text.Readers can check the new version of "The Complete Works of Lenin" Chinese Second Edition, Volume 28, page 168, the full text is:

“Without democracy, there can be no socialism, which includes two meanings: 1. If the proletariat does not prepare for the socialist revolution through the struggle for democracy, it cannot carry out this revolution; 2. If victorious socialism Without the exercise of full democracy it is impossible to maintain the victories achieved, and to lead humanity to the demise of the state." Ye Jianying’s speech also quoted Lenin’s words: "Russian Social-Democrats, in addition to promoting scientific socialism, must also promote democracy."