Chapter 37 Chapter Eleven Closing and Closing

I remember that the last person to speak at the closing meeting was Hua Guofeng. He made a summary of the 34-day meeting that has been held. His speech has four parts. The first part is about the achievements of the meeting, the second part is devoted to the "two whatevers" and "discussion issues of the standard of truth", and the third part is about the unity of the party and the improvement of leadership. The fourth part is about the issue of convening the Third Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee.In his speech, it is not stated that there are such four parts. Judging from the actual content, this speech is composed of such four parts.

In the first part of his speech, like Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying, he spoke highly of this meeting.He said in the name of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and all the comrades present at the meeting that everyone agreed that the meeting fully promoted democracy and was held very successfully.Then he summarized that the meeting had achieved major results in four aspects. These four aspects first agreed that from January 1979, the focus of the party's work should be shifted from the large-scale movement to expose and criticize the "Gang of Four" to modernization construction; It is to thoroughly rehabilitate the "Tiananmen Incident" and solve several other relatively important problems left over from the "Cultural Revolution", as well as the principles and policies for solving such problems; the third is to discuss and revise two agricultural documents. The national economic plan for 1979 and 1980 was determined; fourth, the central personnel issue was discussed.

The second part of his speech is divided into three points. The first point is about the "two whatevers".On this issue, he made the following explanation. He said: In his speech at the Central Work Conference in March 1977, starting from the complicated situation that the "Gang of Four" had just been smashed at that time, and from the history of the international communist movement to defend the banner of revolutionary leaders Starting from both positive and negative experiences, we specifically talked about the need for our entire party, especially senior party cadres, to pay special attention to resolutely defending Chairman Mao's great banner in the struggle against the "Gang of Four".Under the guidance of this idea, he said that "all decisions made by Chairman Mao must be maintained; all words and deeds that damage Chairman Mao's image must be stopped."The intention at that time was to mobilize the masses freely and carry out the great struggle to expose and criticize the "Gang of Four", so that Chairman Mao's great image must not be damaged.This was an important issue that he had been thinking about when he first smashed the "Gang of Four".It was later discovered that the first sentence was absolutely stated, and the second sentence was indeed something that must be paid attention to, but it was not clear how to stop it.At that time, these two sentences were not considered well enough.Now it seems that it would be nice not to mention the two "whatever".

Then he said: Before this, on February 7th, the two central newspapers and one magazine published an editorial entitled "Learn Documents and Grasp the Outline".The theme of this article is to mobilize the entire Party, the entire army, and people of all ethnic groups across the country to expose and criticize the "Gang of Four."However, under the guidance of his above-mentioned thoughts, this editorial talked about two "everythings", that is, "We will firmly uphold all the decisions made by Chairman Mao, and we will unswervingly follow all the instructions of Chairman Mao."Hua Guofeng believes that "these two formulations of 'everything' are more absolute and inappropriate".He said: Although the above two references to the two "everythings" are not the same, they constrain everyone's thinking to varying degrees, which is not conducive to the realistic implementation of the party's policies and the invigoration of thinking within the party.Although his speech and that editorial were discussed, circulated and approved by the Politburo respectively, the main responsibility rests with him.On this issue, he should conduct self-criticism, and comrades are also welcome to criticize.

At that time, most people at the meeting were basically satisfied with what he said. Of course, you don't need a high level of knowledge, it can be seen that in this speech, he did not tell the real situation of the two "everythings" proposed at that time, nor did he fully reveal his true thoughts, including many The words of self-defense, and the narration of facts and thoughts also have many illogical and even contrary to the progress of time, such as what happened in the past is guided by the thoughts behind.And he didn't say a word about preventing Deng Xiaoping and a large number of people from coming out, but everyone thought that it was impossible for him not to say something to defend himself, but to speak out his true thoughts and activities.It is not easy for a chief person in charge of the Party Central Committee to speak at a conference to such an extent that he admits that the formulation of the "two whatevers" is inappropriate and that self-criticism should be done, which is very good.

The second point is about the standard of truth, and he also talked about a process.He said: The article "Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth" was published by Guangming Daily on May 11, 1978, and reprinted by People's Daily and Liberation Army Daily on May 12, because he had just returned from his visit to North Korea. , There are many things to be dealt with urgently, and there is no attention to it.He said that in June and July, the Standing Committee of the Central Committee talked to him about the situation they heard about this aspect, and he knew that he had a different view on this article.During a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee, this issue was discussed and the topic of this article was considered to be good, but it was not specifically studied.Later, more articles were published in newspapers, and there were more reflections at home and abroad. Ye Shuai thought that the State Council’s retreat was very good, and proposed to gather comrades engaged in theoretical work together to hold a retreat. Everyone put forward different opinions. On the basis of full democratic discussion, unify the understanding and solve this problem.The Standing Committee of the Central Committee is in favor of this.

He said that because he wanted to hold a meeting when all members of the Standing Committee were at home, and because Comrade Xiaoping was visiting abroad, it was too late to hold this meeting before the Central Work Conference. On the afternoon of November 25th, that is, after the speech at the Central Working Conference on November 25th, the Standing Committee of the Central Committee met with the leaders of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and the Youth League Central Committee to listen to the reflections of the masses after the "Tiananmen Incident" was rehabilitated and the situation of the big-character posters on the streets of Beijing. When contacted about the issue, he said:

"For some specific problems, we must seek truth from facts and solve them according to the principle of 'practice is the only criterion for testing truth'. Now the newspaper discusses the standard of truth. The discussion is very good, and the thinking is very lively. It cannot be said that those articles are against Chairman Mao, that would make it difficult for others to speak. But when you talk about issues, you must pay attention to the appropriateness, that is, pay attention to the consequences. Some things should not be mentioned about Chairman Mao, and it is not appropriate to mention it. It becomes a fallacy."

After relaying this passage, he said, "This is the opinion of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee." This paragraph is about his acceptance of everyone's opinions on the evening of November 25, including his own statement in favor of the standard of truth.This passage is not as straightforward as the "two whatevers".What he said here was the collective statement of the Central Standing Committee on the evening of November 25, and he only talked about the issue of the standard of truth, not specifically for this discussion, and he said it through Deng Xiaoping's mouth.Hua Guofeng should at least say a few words of his own, and talk about his own views when the Central Work Conference closed.Therefore, after the speech in Hua, Wang Huide, Yang Xiguang and I discussed what he said, and we agreed that he did not understand his thinking, and the problem could not be regarded as a complete solution.

In the second part, he also talked about the third point about the standard of truth.He said: "At this meeting, the comrades presented many situations, raised many questions, and raised many criticisms on the issue of 'practice is the only criterion for testing truth', which created a great opportunity for holding a theoretical retreat. Favorable conditions. Due to the many topics of this Central Work Conference and the limited time, it is impossible to spend a lot of time to solve this problem. Comrades from the Political Bureau of the Central Committee still follow Ye Shuai’s proposal. After the Plenary Session, a special theoretical retreat was held to further solve this problem. The Central Committee believes that with the guidance of this Central Work Conference and the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party, this problem will be resolved. The Central Committee hopes that, On the basis of distinguishing right from wrong and unifying their thoughts, comrades in the theoretical front and propaganda departments unite further, closely follow the strategic deployment of the Party Central Committee, and strive to do a good job in propaganda and theoretical work in order to shift the focus of the party's work to socialist modernization. , play a greater role."

At that time, when Wang Huide, Yang Xiguang and I were discussing this passage, we always felt that there was something wrong, and we didn’t have time to make a judgment. Finally, after reading it twice, we could understand the following points: that is, what he said repeatedly in this passage The first is that it is "impossible to spend a lot of time" to "solve" this time; the second is to hold a special theoretical retreat to further solve this problem (that is, this meeting has not yet been resolved); The third is to have the spirit of this working conference and the Third Plenary Session as the guide. This problem can definitely be solved. That is to say, it is a matter of correct spiritual guidance.It should be said that it is too low to evaluate the achievements of this Central Work Conference on this issue.It should have been said that this problem has been resolved by this Central Work Conference. When Hua Guofeng said this, he had already read the manuscript of Deng Xiaoping's speech at the conference and listened to Deng Xiaoping's speech, but he did not think that Deng Xiaoping's speech was an announcement that the problem had been resolved and that it had been resolved, and that there was no need to go through a special theory retreat.If there are any problems to be solved in the theoretical retreat, in fact, only a few comrades who originally opposed and resisted the standard of truth are not so clear in their thinking! After Hua Guofeng said these few sentences, he also said: "The central government hopes that the comrades on the theoretical front and the propaganda department will further unite on the basis of distinguishing right from wrong and unifying their thinking, closely follow the strategic deployment of the central government, and work for the The focus of the party's work has been shifted to socialist modernization, and efforts have been made to do a good job in propaganda and theoretical work, so as to play a greater role." These few sentences are impeccable in principle, because unity is undoubtedly to be emphasized, not to mention the distinction between The premise of right and wrong.The key point is that Hua Guofeng didn't say a word about who was right and who was wrong, unlike what he said at the closing of the Central Work Conference. At the end of Hua Guofeng's speech, he talked about the issue of collective leadership. He hoped that in the future, when various regions and units make requests for reports to the central government, the title of the document should not include Chairman Hua and the Party Central Committee, but just the Party Central Committee.The central party, government and military organs also hope to follow the same way when they write down the document, and don't mention the wise leader and say hello to comrades.I hope to create more literary and artistic works praising the heroic deeds of the older generation of revolutionaries and workers, peasants and soldiers, and not to promote him personally. This last question in Hua Guofeng's speech was also welcomed by the participants. The fourth part of his speech said that after the Central Work Conference, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party will be held.He talked about several tasks of the meeting. The first was to discuss the issue of shifting focus, the second was to review and approve agricultural documents and the two-year plan, and the third was to discuss personnel issues. The candidates proposed were those proposed at the Central Work Conference people.Among these tasks is the establishment of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Hua Guofeng's speech is roughly like this. The meeting attendees were basically satisfied with Hua Guofeng's speech. I first knew Hua Guofeng in Changsha in 1961.I went to Hunan to participate in one of the three investigation teams appointed by Mao Zedong to go to the rural grassroots to understand the authenticity of the rural grassroots after the "Great Leap Forward".After arriving in Changsha, Zhang Pinghua and all members of the Provincial Party Committee gathered to introduce the basic situation of Hunan Province to our investigation team at that time.Hua Guofeng attended the meeting as the secretary in charge of finance and trade.But because the work he manages is far away from our work tasks, he has no working relationship with our team. I haven't spoken to him in the past three months in Hunan, and I don't have any impression of him. My impression of him is from 1975 when Deng Xiaoping came back to preside over the daily work of the Party Central Committee and the State Council until the years after he stepped down.These few years can be divided into the following periods: before the "criticism of Deng" - during the "criticism of Deng" - the crushing of the "Gang of Four" - Deng Xiaoping's second comeback - during the Central Work Conference and the Third Plenary Session - three After the Central Plenum, he continued to serve as chairman—after leaving the position of chairman of the Party Central Committee.He has something to say in each period, and at the same time he has not had much contact, so he can only use the word "impression", and the time is not long. The period from 1975 to 1981 was only six years, but these six years were the six years in which major events occurred in the history of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China. In detail, it can be written into a very long article.In this postscript, I am not going to publish my impressions of him in chronological order. I just want to talk about my outstanding impressions of his abilities and qualities. The first impression is about his work ability and work style. When I was working in the Political Research Office of the State Council in 1975, Deng Xiaoping asked Hu Qiaomu and me to help Hua Guofeng prepare the speech for the first Conference on Learning from Agriculture from Dazhai. Responsible.In the process of my contact with him, I have three impressions of him: 1. He is serious and meticulous in his work; 2. He has a good memory and remembers many things; 3. He is articulate, slow, and able to speak Very clear.These three points are not high evaluation.I don't think he has any high level or high ideological realm, but these three items are all in the "good" range.The source of the first impression is the process of drafting this speech. Hua Guofeng handles other work during the day, and returns to Zhongnanhai at around 10 o'clock every night where we concentrate on writing documents, and works with us until the early morning of the next day, sometimes until It was more than two o'clock in the morning.He is not entirely a finalist, but more of a researcher and discusser with everyone, which left a good impression on me. On September 26, 1975, Hu Yaobang reported to the State Council with the "Outline of the Work Report of the Academy of Sciences". Deng Xiaoping was the main person to listen to the report. All the vice premiers came, and the heads of relevant central units, including me, also attended.At this time Hua Guofeng was in charge of the work of the Academy of Sciences in the State Council.During the reporting by Hu Yaobang and others, many people interrupted, but he did not.After the report, he was the first to give a long speech. I think he gave a good speech. From his speech, it can be heard that he knows a lot about the situation of the Academy of Sciences, and he speaks very clearly and can understand.The impression I got of him at that report meeting was the same as the impression I had when I helped him draft the speech and the impression I had when I helped him draft the government work report of the Fifth National People's Congress. The second impression is about his timidity, which was observed during the "criticism of Deng".Not long after this report, "Criticizing Deng and countering the Rightist overturning trend" came, and Deng Xiaoping presided over the work of the Central Committee and the State Council, and he was replaced by him. At this time, his power was very great.At this time, there was a rebel leader in the Chinese Academy of Sciences named Liu Zhongyang. He was originally a small cadre, but he dared to ask Hua Guofeng a question, saying that Hua had political problems and followed Deng Xiaoping in the work of the Academy of Sciences. Hua Guofeng's speech when reporting on the work of the Academy of Sciences, and this speech is recorded, in black and white.For Liu Zhongyang's attack, Hua Guofeng could take a contemptuous attitude and ignore it, or find an excuse to punish Liu Zhongyang.But Hua Guofeng went to defend himself, saying that when the State Council held a meeting that day, he had just returned to Beijing from Tibet. Poor, I don't remember everything he said.I was a participant in that briefing session, and I should say that I remember the record very well.Although I was not present when Hua said this to Liu Zhongyang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, people from the Chinese Academy of Sciences told me directly, and I think it is correct.After knowing this incident, I had two thoughts: one was that he was the leader in charge of the work of the Central Committee at that time, and he was afraid of even a small rebel leader; the other was that he was not a "powerful" person, He is a person who can't "trick people", and is more honest.Not only did he not have to confess himself, he even said things that did not match the facts.He was not the only vice premier who made a lot of interruptions and speeches during the report that day. Li Xiannian, Ji Dengkui, Chen Xilian, and Gu Mu all interrupted.Unless what I know is different from the facts, if it is completely true, I think he is too timid. Unexpectedly, in less than a year, the "Gang of Four" was smashed in one fell swoop on October 6, 1976. There were many rumors about the smashing of the "Gang of Four", but no detailed official reports have been seen so far.Everyone knows that Comrades Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying played a decisive role.It was indeed not easy for Hua Guofeng to make such a determination and accomplish this.This greatly exceeded my expectations.I don't think people can judge by appearance. Then another incident made me think badly of him. After smashing the "Gang of Four", he is already Mao Zedong's successor.There are some people in our party who like to carry sedan chairs and blow trumpets, treat him the same way they treated Mao Zedong in the past, and call him a "wise leader." "Wise leader" has become synonymous with him.People from the Political Research Office of the State Council went to Daqing to visit, and saw that there was a personality cult for him in the exhibition room there, which was very prominent.For a while, the newspapers, theatrical programs, and even elementary school textbooks were full of content praising Hua Guofeng.I attended the Second Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, and several people expressed their opinions at the group meeting, advocating that Hua Guofeng's name be included in the preamble of our country's constitution. There were many such phenomena at one time, and I still remember some things that stand out.For example, when "Guangxi Daily" celebrated the 30th anniversary of the founding of the autonomous region, Hua Guofeng signed up for this newspaper. As a result, the next day's newspaper had three red headers, that is, in addition to the red header, Hua's inscription was on the first. Red flags are also required when it is published on the page, and because the report on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the autonomous region is going to be on the headlines, the original third page has also been changed to the front page, and an additional red header is added. This kind of thing is very prominent.But I also feel that he cannot be entirely blamed for this, or that he cannot be mainly blamed, because this phenomenon existed during Mao Zedong's time, and to put it further, it was a phenomenon that existed during Stalin's time. Mao Zedong sometimes said some words not to promote the individual too much, but in essence, he was very prominent in cultivating personality. After he criticized Stalin's "cult of personality" at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he also said that there is still a little bit of cult of personality.Therefore, our newspapers and radio stations have changed their criticism of "personality cult" into criticism of "personality superstition".In fact, this is not a matter of words such as "worship" or "superstition", but a kind of thought and behavior that is opposed to democratic thought. The core of opposing the personality cult is to fully promote democracy. If democracy is not fully developed, those incompetent comrades and other superficial measures will not solve the problem.People who have become high-level officials, especially those who have become very large officials, have a group of people below them, and the interests of this group of people are inseparable from their superiors or their superiors' superiors.They have every means of making their superiors, or their superiors, accept the cult of personality.Great people have great people's difficulties, I can understand. The main source of personality worship is the remnants of feudal customs. Carrying sedan chairs and blowing trumpets are also the usual attitudes of court officials and eunuchs towards the emperor, and teachers and slaves towards their elders in society.Once the emperor and the courtiers, the fate of the staff members in the court is also very closely integrated with their masters.And Stalin and Mao Zedong inherited that set of practices—of course, they changed a lot in form.I think it is difficult for Hua Guofeng to firmly oppose this feudal remnant.He succeeded by relying on Mao Zedong's words of "you do things, I am at ease". How can he do this?But the fact that many people practiced a personality cult on him did suffer a lot.Maybe at that time he really hoped that someone would worship him a little bit, and live the addiction of being admired.It would be foolish to think so.Even cultivating the personality of people like Stalin and Mao Zedong, as long as the situation changes, it can be seen that the people who worshiped him did not really worship him, but were just using him.I think Hua Guofeng is better in this regard, because it was not easy for him to say such a speech at the closing meeting of the Third Plenary Session. Before the Central Work Conference was held, People's Daily and other newspapers and periodicals confronted Hua Guofeng a lot in their reports and articles, but Hua Guofeng did not rectify these media.This point is still highly praised by Hua Guofeng. Generally speaking, I have a good impression of Hua Guofeng, but he is too easily influenced by others. After he stepped down, I sometimes met him at conferences and sometimes in Beijing hospitals. I was always very friendly to him, although I had firmly opposed some of his claims.