Chapter 8 〇7. Xu Shui: Running into Communism

Mao Zedong, 65, stood smiling in a wheat field.He wore a farmhouse straw hat on his head, and his white shirt was tucked into his trousers, revealing a black belt and a protruding belly, and the wheat grew thickly under his feet.He is full of smiles, and there is no trace of time on his smooth face in the photo. This is a photo he left in 1958 when he traveled frequently.The evil consequences of lies have not fully revealed their hideous features.People still celebrate the harvest.They don't know that the temporary joy needs to pay the price of famine and death in the future, and the smile will be replaced by the sadness caused by hunger and death.

When his special car drove into Xushui County, Hebei Province on the afternoon of August 4, the leader was clearly in a happy mood.Things are progressing step by step according to his vision.This country has taken a big step forward from the utopian country he planned. It has entered a socialist society from the new democratic society planned by him and his comrades in advance, and is undergoing an even more astonishing great revolution. Leap forward. Local dignitaries who greeted him included Xie Xuegong, Secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee Secretariat, Zhang Minghe, Vice Governor of Hebei Province, and Zhang Guozhong, First Secretary of the Xushui County Party Committee.Obviously, the protagonist is Zhang Guozhong, and it was their performance in the unreasonable test not long ago that attracted the attention of the supreme leader of the republic, and then he came in person.

People are always so contradictory.Even today we believe that most Chinese farmers, including grassroots officials, are kind and sincerely respect Mao Zedong.They even treated the Hunan native as a god.But, they don't mind duping him with a lie they keep repeating, or can we explain that even the liar himself believes his own lie? When Mao Zedong asked the farmers how their harvests were, he still got those astonishingly high figures. "The summer and autumn seasons are planned to produce 1.2 billion catties of grain, with an average yield of 2,000 catties per mu," Zhang Guozhong, secretary of the De County Party Committee of Xushui County, reported.

Mao Zedong's reaction was very strange. He did not question this figure, nor did he simply express his appreciation: "You only received more than 90 million catties of grain in the summer harvest! You have to harvest 1.1 billion in the autumn harvest! How can you eat more than 310,000 people in your county? After getting so much food, what should you do if you have too much food?" The strangest scene in Chinese history happened.Everyone began to seriously think about this problem that would never exist, and everyone began to worry about the abundance that they did not have. "If there is too much food, we need to change machines," Zhang Guozhong replied.

"It's not just that you have a lot of food, every county has a lot of food! If you change the machine, people don't want your food!" Another note: "It can be used to make wine." "Every county makes wine, so how long does it take?" Mao Zedong said again. Everyone looked at each other in blank dismay.When Mao started to laugh, everyone also laughed awkwardly. In the end, Mao Zedong gave the answer. The members of the commune can eat five meals a day, and the farmers can farm for half a day and practice for half a day, engage in culture and learn technology.

The slogans of "Long live Chairman Mao", "Long live the Communist Party", and "March towards communism faster and earlier" have been echoing all the time, whether it is Mao Zedong in the farmland or watching the scene of the big steel smelting. Mao Zedong really believed these figures that defy common sense, even though he himself has been repeatedly admonishing his subordinates to "seek truth from facts" and "no right to speak without investigation." According to Du Runsheng’s recollection, “After Mao Zedong believed in the ‘satellites’ with yields of over 1,000 per mu and over 10,000 catties, he proposed what to do if there was too much food? The central government asked Hu Qiaomu to preside over the research and called Zhang Jinfu and me to Beidaihe , studied together with Tan Zhenlin, Liao Luyan and others from Nongkou. The conclusion is that as long as the yield per mu reaches 10,000 kilograms of grain, no matter whether China eats, uses, or makes wine, no method can effectively handle so much grain. Therefore, Mao proposed the "three-three system" (that is, 1/3 of the cultivated land is used for planting crops, 1/3 for leisure and planting green manure, and 1/3 for planting trees and grasses).

This situation made him unexpected, but he really fell into the joy and fantasy of victory. He said at the Supreme State Council on September 5, 1958: Things in the world are so strange that if you don’t do it, you will not be able to survive. Do it, once you do it, there will be a lot, or there will be none, or there will be a lot.You don't believe this?For example, when we fought for 22 years, we did not win in 21 years, but in 22 years, that is, in 1949, the whole country won, which is called sudden change.The same goes for food. "Look at the monsters," Mao Zedong said repeatedly.But apparently he didn't think there was anything inappropriate about this strangeness.

Du Ruisheng said that once, Mao Zedong asked Qian Xuesen, the most famous scientist in the Republic at that time and even now, how much grain can one mu of land produce? "From a purely scientific point of view, Qian Xuesen said that if all the solar energy received by plants is converted into food, 40,000 jin per mu of land is possible." —— Later Qian Xuesen explained that what he was talking about was just a scientific possibility , not reality. Liao Luyan said that the current situation is that scientists can't keep up with farmers, and farmers are far ahead of them! So some scientists really took the opportunity to publish their own research results in newspapers, proving that rice or wheat has the potential to produce 20,000 jin per mu, as long as they use 30% of the light energy on the rice land irradiated by the sun, they can do it.

Socialist poets and writers created many poems that would seem ridiculous today for this feast of numbers: "A corn tree soared to the sky, and the colorful cloud tied the waist of the corn, making the moon bend down in fright"; Soybeans, soybeans match sweet potatoes; sesame seeds match corn, corn is bigger than a person; peanuts are like sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes exceed winter melons." Various theories and techniques have been invented to support these unbelievable data. Of course, these theories and techniques are also very unimaginable today. "For example, each crop is injected with several milliliters of nutrient liquid. This liquid may be wine, liquor, auxin, or various things that cannot be named. Among all fantasies and inventions, the people of Datian, Xushui County Gao Yusheng, secretary of the commune’s party committee, made the most sensational invention. He boiled bloody dog ​​meat and watered the crops with broth. It is said that the broth can make ten ears of corn per plant and five inches of millet ears.” Writer Ling Zhi Jun wrote in his book.

On September 1, 1958, "People's Daily" solemnly reported Gao Yusheng's sensational invention. The authority of the "People's Daily" and its dissemination effect made all the villages start to imitate this miracle of dog meat fertilizer. Therefore, in the second half of 1958, dogs became the most unfortunate animals in rural China.They fall prey to human fantasy first, and then to man himself. But in any case, just like Suiping County in Henan, Mao Zedong's inspection will bring Xushui supreme glory and the right to be immune from doubt.It becomes the new resort.Visitors from all over the country gather here, just as people happily go to see historical sites or natural scenery today.It is known as the "running into communism" test area, attracting visitors from more than 40 countries, more than 3,000 units in the country, and leaders of almost all parties.

"Among so many visitors, it is hard to imagine that no one has discovered that the output of 60,000 kilograms of wheat per mu, 3,500 kilograms of lint, and 600,000 kilograms of yam is a scam." Ling Zhijun wrote later. He dug out Bo Yibo's memoirs.Bo Yibo described the scene after he arrived in Xushui, "When he stood in a mature cotton field, he could easily see that the cotton bolls were covered with cotton, and his eyes were white, but his companions pulled him clothes, and tell him that the cotton hanging on the bolls is all fake." Moreover, "According to An Ziwen's recollection, Liu Shaoqi followed in the footsteps of Mao Zedong and came to Xushui, and found out that the so-called high yield here was all nonsense. But all these people were unwilling to expose this obvious deception at the time." But no one wants to tell all this. "Liu Shaoqi buried his common sense about agricultural production in his heart for at least three months. It was not until this autumn that Mao Zedong had doubts about grain production that he dared to speak out. It was more than 30 years later that Bo Yibo publicly said that he At that time, I could 'see the fake'." It seems that the only one who really believes in all this is the god-like figure.Power shuts out all voices other than imagination.Power also silences anyone with a basic sense of common sense.The false sense of accomplishment and unrealistic pleasure brought about by lies is quickly extinguished by the fear of hunger and death.It's just that people don't realize the possible consequences of their lies.What they really worried about was not the impending extinction, but the problem of too much food raised by Mao Zedong.They thought hard, how to solve it, should it be used to replace the machine, or to make wine, or to eat five meals a day?If one considers the food shortage in the late period of the Great Leap Forward and the people starved to death, this dramatic scene makes people feel extraordinarily cruel. Or will people continue to lie and run into the "miracle" of communism even though they are aware of the possible consequences of such a nasty lie? Like those counties that threw out unrealistic output during the Great Leap Forward, looking at the cards of history, Xushui will eventually taste the bitter wine he brewed.Its rhetorical run obviously failed to bring its people into the imagined communist society, no matter how good it might be.