Chapter 29 28. Fengyang Xiaogang: Voice of Change

One of the most important places in China in 1978 was a village called Xiaogang—because it was the place where household inventions were made.Xiaogang Village is located in the east of Fengyang County, Anhui Province, and belongs to Xiaoxihe Town. It is 5 kilometers away from Beijing-Shanghai Railway, 7 kilometers away from Provincial Highway 307, and 20 kilometers away from Mingguang and Linhuai River Shipping Terminals.But these seemingly convenient transportation networks can't explain any problems.Because until 1978 it was plagued by hunger and poverty.At that time, it was a well-known "three-dependence village" in the county that "food depends on resale, money depends on relief, and production depends on payment". Every year after the autumn harvest, almost every family goes out to beg for food.The spontaneous reform of the production responsibility system in Xiaogang at the end of this year made Xiaogang take the lead.From then on, whenever the changes in rural China in the second half of the Republic were mentioned, Xiaogang would bear the brunt of the mention.

Some stories are destined to be told countless times, but even then, people don't get bored. The story that happened in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang County, Anhui Province in December 1978 is such an example.One of the versions is like this. This winter, during slack farming, lack of food, and panic, 18 households (or 20 households in another version) of the Xiaogang Production Team of Liyuan Commune in Fengyang County gathered in a thatched hut and began to plot a matter related to their immediate interests. , At the same time unintentionally spread throughout China. The owner of the cottage is Yan Junchang.He is the top leader of the production team with 571 mu of land and 10 cattle.Although in previous social movements, the villages were the first to bear the brunt, the folk leaders of grassroots social organizations in Chinese society where the control of the old feudal emperors was difficult to match, but without exception, such folk leaders are always emerging Come.They are the family leaders of the old era, the production captains or village chiefs of the new era, or any name given to them by the era and rulers.They are responsible for organizing production, they mediate neighborhood conflicts, they deal with family disputes, whether it is an unfilial son, or a noisy mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, or collectively come forward to do a major project construction and investment.

Yan Chang and his younger brother are an example.His younger brother, Yan Hongchang, is the only member of the 18 households who has attended middle school.According to the tradition of respecting scholars in the countryside - in the old days, village leaders were basically monopolized by grassroots intellectuals, this young man with big ears, big mouth, high cheekbones and high nose, like his elder brother, became one of the villagers. According to Ling Zhijun, his appearance is "very similar to that of his fellow countryman, Zhu Yuanzhang, who swept the world and founded the Ming Dynasty more than 600 years ago"; later someone commented that, Two things happened in Fengyang and China was finally unified. One was Zhu Yuanzhang, and the other was the household contracting involving Yan Chang and Yan Hongchang.

What they faced was another crisis of the existence of this class. Fengyang flower drums spread all over the world, "Speaking of Fengyang, Tao Fengyang, Fengyang is a good place. Since Emperor Zhu came out, there have been nine years of drought in ten years. The big family sells cattle and sheep, the small family sells children, and the slave family There are no sons to sell, and I walk around with flower drums on my back." It describes the 600-year-long survival predicament in this area. Just to win their own right to survive, farmers in Fengyang have to leave their homes and beg everywhere.

This dilemma has been changed by the Communist Party, which is determined to benefit the people.When the communist army occupied a place, their strategy was first to carry out land reform.Like the rebels who were born in the peasant class in the past dynasties, they are well aware of the peasants' thirst for land and the hardships of survival.They practice the slogan of land to the tiller. After the liberation of Fengyang in January 1949, farmers in Fengyang, including Xiaogang Village, went through exactly such a process.As a result, by 1955, the total grain output of 320,000 people in Fengyang County had risen from more than 99 million catties in 1949 to 260 million catties.Such a number can make them have no worries about food and clothing, praise the wisdom of the new regime, and rejoice that they have gained a new life.

But this abundance did not last long.The experiment in agricultural co-operatives, and the subsequent transformation of socialist agriculture, brought individual peasants back together, only this time under the pretense of good promise.When describing his commune ideal, Mao Zedong said, "At that time, the countryside of our country will be many communist communes. Each commune will have its own agriculture and industry, universities, middle schools, primary schools, hospitals, and scientific research institutions. There are shops and service industries, transportation businesses, nurseries and public canteens, clubs, and policemen who maintain law and order, etc. Several communes surround the city and become larger communist communes. The 'utopia' ideas of the predecessors, will be achieved and surpassed".

But it must be a utopia in reverse.At least Yan Yanchang, Yan Hongchang and their peasant brothers would feel this way: "Afterwards, the Great Leap Forward was transformed from the commune, and the Great Criticism was transformed from the Dazhai. The bleakness of the next three years is unforgettable. The whole village has no food for several months. The fathers and people have eaten up the bran, bark, grass roots, and cottonseeds. Most of the living fled in all directions, leaving only the ruins of the village, the thorny thorns, thirty-nine people and one cow," wrote the writer Ling Zhijun.The situation in Fengyang Flower Drum reappeared after a brief interruption. No one would be glad that they caught up with the good times. People just helped the old and the young and went out to beg.It's just that every winter and spring season, farmers from Fengyang no longer carry flower drums, but carry party members' introduction letters and household registration books, and wander around.And the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, every year after the Spring Festival, receives calls from government agencies in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shanghai, Shandong, Hebei and other provinces, asking them to go and collect blind beggars from Fengyang; The central organization will also ask the Anhui Provincial Party Committee to do a good job in solving the outflow of people, and even punish party members who go to other places to beg, but this is of no avail.After all, the need to survive can overwhelm all psycho-massage and ideological demands.

The 18 farmers who gathered at the home of Yan Yanchang and Yan Hongchang for a meeting wanted to solve this problem: their own survival predicament. Zhang Guangyou, the former editor-in-chief of the Peasant Daily, said in his memoirs that they kept arguing that night.Previously, the Xiaogang production team adopted the innovative "big contract". First, the production team was divided into 4 contract groups, and later divided into 8 groups. They quarrel endlessly over such small interests, because they know that these small interests may determine the life and death of their family members.

The meeting lasted until dawn, but Yan Chang and Yan Hongchang still failed to resolve these conflicts.At this time, some people began to suggest that we should simply contract the work to the household, so that there would be no more arguing.Deputy Captain Yan Hongchang replied: "If everyone agrees to two conditions, I will agree to do the household contract. First, the first crop of grain harvested in summer and autumn must first be handed over to the state's public grain and the collective. You can’t pretend to be cowards; second, we are members of the public group and covert members, and we are not allowed to tell the truth to the superiors or anyone outside the team. Whoever tells it is the enemy of the whole village.”

But the worries of the two leaders must be addressed.Some older villagers suggested, “If the team leader commits a crime of breaking the law by letting us do housework, his family’s farm work will be contracted out by the whole team, and the whole team will take care of the children until they are 18 years old.” Everyone agreed, swore to follow these three rules, ignored rest, and redistributed fields, livestock, and agricultural tools as they did during the land reform in 1949. According to historians' speculation, they later made up an agreement, which reads: There are 20 names listed below, of which 17 have bright red fingerprints on them, and 3 have stamps on them.

These daring villagers should be thankful that the Chinese Communist Party leaders in Anhui and Fengyang are privately, if not publicly, supporting their approach. In December 1977, one year before the Xiaogang farmers secretly signed the contract, Chen Tingyuan took up the post of Party Secretary of Fengyang County.The fourteenth secretary of the county party committee in Fengyang County was born as a farmer, and he was once labeled as a rightist.When he became the top leader of a grass-roots county in China, Chen Tingyuan uttered a bold statement: "This time as the secretary of the Fengyang County Party Committee, I am already an 'official to the top, no fame and fortune'. I just want to do something for the farmers in my lifetime. Good thing. As long as the farmers in Fengyang lose their begging bowls as soon as possible and live a good life, even if I lose the black hat again, or even break my body, I will not hesitate." Wan Li, who served as the first secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, director of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee, and political commissar of the provincial military region in 1977, was a well-known pragmatist among the top members of the CCP.He became the deputy mayor of Beijing when he was less than 40 years old, but since then, he has followed Deng Xiaoping's fate and has experienced ups and downs in the political arena.When Deng Qi rises, he rises; when Deng falls, he falls.This time Deng Xiaoping came out again, and Wan Li was reused again.Ling Zhijun said that he "didn't know the countryside, so he just didn't have the burden of the people's commune; he didn't learn from Dazhai, so naturally he wouldn't be burdened by Dazhai."He once said bluntly, "You say you are experienced in Dazhai, but I say you are a model of the extreme left. I can't learn from them, and I don't want to learn from them." After taking office, he toured various places, made speeches, expressed support for his bold subordinates, and even encouraged and incited them to take further actions.When Wan Li inspected Fengyang under the rule of Chen Tingyuan, facing his uneasy subordinates, Wan Li said: "Let him do it. I'm afraid that if you don't increase production, as long as you increase production, everything will be easy to handle... Now don't be afraid of anything else, just do it." I am afraid that the enthusiasm of the masses will not be aroused. We should not be biased, and we can do whatever method can mobilize the enthusiasm of the masses. You say that the masses are willing to "contract" and get rich in three years, so let him do it for three years. Even if he does Ten thousand years is fine. I only oppose one tendency, egalitarianism and going it alone. In fact, going it alone is not a big deal. Yugoslavia going it alone, isn’t it recognized as socialism? Now food is the biggest politics.”Wan Li also expressed that he would take responsibility for decision-making for his subordinates: "You can do it, and then talk about it. I don't advocate it, but I will be responsible for mistakes, and I will review if there are problems." In fact, at this time Xiaogang had already started to work alone.Moreover, according to Wan Li's statement that "food is the greatest politics", Xiaogang obviously did not disappoint him. At the end of 1979, the total annual grain output of the Xiaogang team reached 133,000 jin, four times that of 1978; in addition, the team’s total income from agricultural and sideline activities was more than 47,000 yuan, with an average of more than 400 yuan per person. The best household income can reach More than 5000 yuan. Later, a township cadre asked Wanli if it was okay to learn from Xiaogang in other places and do a household contract. Wanli replied straightforwardly: "Yes, as long as it is beneficial to the country and the people, you can learn from any one!" In the next few years, the catchphrase "If you want food, look for thousands of miles" began to spread.What is more widely spread than this slogan is Xiaogang's household contract.