Chapter 46 Section 6 Facilitating Meetings

After carefully recalling the entire process of this central working conference, I feel that the leadership of the Central Standing Committee for this conference is worth writing about. The principle of collective leadership was strictly enforced during this meeting.The arrangement of the meeting was decided by the collective discussion of the five standing committee members; during the meeting, the convener of each group reported that the standing committee members listened and studied together, and the five standing committee members of the three conferences participated together; at the closing meeting, Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, and Deng Xiaoping gave speeches , If you don’t understand the situation, you can’t tell the order of the three people’s speeches just by looking at the written materials, because any one of the speeches agrees with the content of the other two’s speeches, which means that the three people’s speeches have all been read by each other.

Hua Guofeng’s speech at the meeting also said that certain decisions were discussed by the Politburo, and all Politburo members were notified to the meeting.It is very convenient to have a meeting of the Politburo, but I have never heard of any meeting of the Politburo. Although there are several members of the Politburo in our Northwest Group, I have never heard of it. All I know is the Standing Committee some of their activities.The leadership role of the Standing Committee is manifested in the speeches of the three Standing Committee members at several conferences, the convener of several briefings, and of course other activities.

I have memorized all three speeches in front of me.I listened directly to those three times, and the speeches were sent out.Once Hua Guofeng left the manuscript to speak, I wrote it down in a notebook.There was a short part of Ye Jianying's speech, but the manuscript that was sent out later was deleted, and I still remember the content.The Standing Committee listened to the speeches of the conveners when they reported. They were not published in the briefings, but the conveners returned to the group to communicate. I have notes, but some are detailed, some are simple, and some are only a few lines of one or two pages. Small pieces of paper, but they are important materials for my memories.

These meetings convened by the Standing Committee are good at guiding the discussions of each group to gradually deepen, so that the discussions in the groups are in line with the intention of the Standing Committee, and the participants in the discussion do not feel any passiveness, but speak completely according to their own will. According to the practice of this type of meeting, this meeting could have a secretary-general (someone—not at the time but later—said that the secretary-general was Wang Dongxing), but the word secretary-general never appeared in the meeting materials.During the entire meeting, no secretary-general came forward to tell the attendees a certain thing.Does this mean that this conference did not have a secretary-general at all.I didn't understand it at the time, and I still don't understand it until now. I only know that Hua Guofeng announced the opening of the meeting. After that, the change of the meeting time limit, the extension and the topic of discussion were all mentioned by Hua Guofeng at the report meeting, and then It is conveyed to each group, but this arrangement does not have a strong binding force on each group. Each group or even an individual can follow their own intentions, but generally it also plays a guiding role.

At the briefing, the Standing Committee members could hear things that were not reflected in the briefing, and then the five Standing Committee members expressed their opinions.Judging from what I have heard and read, there are only complementary opinions among the Standing Committee members, and there have been no disputes of different opinions, and some opinions have their own emphasis.At the meeting, the high-level, original and enlightening opinions spoken by the Standing Committee members will be brought back to each group, and they will inspire and guide everyone.The speeches of the Standing Committee members guided the meeting to go deeper step by step.

How many times the Standing Committee has listened to reports and how many times such meetings have been held, I must not remember all of them, I remember seven times.I learned this from Hu Yaobang’s speech at the Politburo meeting on November 19, 1980. On the eve of the closing of the Central Work Conference, Hu Yaobang asked Hua Guofeng whether to print and distribute your eight speeches to the entire party. .I told Comrade Guofeng twice.Comrade Guofeng said, he has said it, and he has reviewed it, so forget it!What are these "eight speeches" about?It will not be the five speeches by Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, and Deng Xiaoping at the conference.Because these five speeches have already been printed and distributed to the comrades present at the meeting, and there are not enough eight speeches.It doesn't seem to be listening to the speech during the report. Even if there are exactly eight such reports, Hua Guofeng said that he has "said it and reviewed it".What kind of eight times these eight times are, I still don't know.

However, I think that during the 36 days of the Central Work Conference, the Standing Committee members must have held separate meetings, not just the convener's report meeting, and many things can only be discussed among the five Standing Committee members.Some issues are inconvenient to discuss in front of the convener of each group, and it is inconvenient for the Standing Committee members to argue in front of the convener. Some issues, such as central personnel issues, require five people to discuss together.I don't know how many times this kind of meeting has been held.There are always activities among the Standing Committee members that other attendees are not aware of.But all the reports are open to all the participants, and the transparency of the Standing Committee's thinking at this meeting is probably rare, or even unique, in previous central meetings.

In addition to this meeting, the Standing Committee also took some other collective actions, such as the interview with the heads of the Beijing Municipal Committee and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League on the evening of November 25. It seems that every word has been collectively deliberated, and such a statement should have a written manuscript. , I don’t know if there are any manuscripts left in the archives.This statement is an event that happened outside the meeting but had an impact inside the meeting. In addition to the report meeting, the written record of a certain speech by the Standing Committee—I mean Deng Xiaoping’s speeches in two meetings with foreign guests was also distributed to the representatives present at the meeting, which also played a great guiding role.The fact that Deng Xiaoping's conversation with Japanese foreign guests was sent to the representatives present at the meeting was discussed by members of the Standing Committee at the report meeting.

Some members of the Standing Committee also have separate activities. For example, Li Xiannian once convened a meeting of thirteen people (I don’t know if it is the “agricultural forum” mentioned in the book "Tian Dao") to discuss agricultural issues.Li Xiannian's activity should be said to be an activity within the meeting, and it played a role in the formulation of agricultural documents.Comrade Li Xiannian also mentioned this matter at the briefing.