Chapter 17 Putting forward the correct handling of contradictions among the people

The 63-year-old Mao Zedong, after his speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, was in an extremely active state of mind.This leader of the Communist Party of China, the President of the People's Republic of China, and the Central Military Commission—the leader of the party, the government, and the military—is thinking about how to prevent the Polish-Hungarian incident in China. Entering the last month of 1956, new ideas kept popping up in Mao Zedong's mind. The Second Plenary Session of the First Central Committee of the China Democratic National Construction Association attracted Mao Zedong's attention.

The China Democratic Construction Association is usually referred to as "Minjian" for short. It is a democratic party of the Chinese national business circles and intellectuals. It was established on December 16, 1945 in the Baixiang Street Industrial Building in Chongqing. It publicly recommended Huang Yanpei, Hu Juewen, Huang Mohan is the presidium. In November 1956, the "Minjian" held the Second Plenary Session of the First Central Committee, which was presided over by Chairman Huang Yanpei.At the meeting, Zhang Naiqi made sharp comments.He said: "The negative side of the bourgeoisie is gone, and mentioning the two sides will shake the confidence of the business community." He also said that the struggle against the bourgeoisie in the past was "too cruel."Zhang Naiqi's speech caused controversy.People not only criticized Zhang Naiqi's remarks as "principally wrong", but also believed that "his enthusiasm for daring to sing against the stage should be protected".

Chairman Huang Yanpei has had friendship with Mao Zedong for many years.As early as May 1920, the Jiangsu Provincial Education Association welcomed Dr. Dewey. The host of the meeting was Huang Yanpei, and among the audience was a young man named Mao Zedong.This is the beginning of their engagement.Later, in July 1945, Huang Yanpei and Zhang Bojun visited Yan'an as members of the National Political Council and were personally received by Mao Zedong.Huang Yanpei wrote the book "Return from Yan'an" for this purpose, which was a bestseller in the Kuomintang ruled areas.After that, Huang Yanpei entered the Liberated Area from Shanghai via Hong Kong in the spring of 1949.On October 1, he followed Mao Zedong to the Tiananmen Rostrum.He was appointed by Mao Zedong as Vice Premier of the State Council and Minister of Light Industry.Later, he served as vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.In 1956, when the "Eighth National Congress" of the Communist Party of China opened, Huang Yanpei was invited to the rostrum as a representative of democrats.

After presiding over the Second Plenary Session of the First Central Committee of the "Democratic Construction", Huang Yanpei wrote to Mao Zedong to report on the meeting.After Mao Zedong read it, he was very interested and wrote a reply in his own hand on December 4th.This letter expresses Mao Zedong's new thinking - correctly handling contradictions among the people. Huang Yanpei appointed him.Mao Zedong's letter reads: Last year and this year, I filled out a word respectively, which was recorded by Chen Shenzheng, in order to answer the elegant meaning of the previous poems donated by my husband.

Mao Zedong's letters are usually short.Especially after liberation, his letters were like telegrams, only one or two hundred words.This letter to Huang Yanpei was an exception and was written in more than 500 words - because this letter expounded his new and important insights after he got the inspiration from "Democratic Construction". A few days after writing this letter—on December 5th, 7th, and 8th, Mao Zedong met with the heads of various federations of industry and commerce and the Democratic National Construction Association who were meeting in Beijing, and talked about this new point of view in the letter.

In his speech on December 5, Mao Zedong said: "Contradictions among the people occur frequently and emerge endlessly....Conflicts among the imperialists are resolved with machine guns, and contradictions among the people are resolved with criticism and self-criticism, and words are not used." On December 8, Mao Zedong said again: "Comrade Liu Shaoqi said in the report of the 'Eighth National Congress' that the main class contradictions have been resolved, and there is peace in the country. Although class contradictions do not fight, there are struggles. After agricultural cooperation and public-private partnerships, the tension between classes is basically Not anymore. Capitalists are not what they used to be.  …”

Mao Zedong sorted out and developed the thoughts of his conversation with the "Democratic Construction", and finally clearly put forward the proposition "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People". On February 27, 1957, almost exactly one year after Khrushchev's secret report (Khrushchev gave his secret report on the night of February 24, 1956, In the early morning of October 1, Mao Zedong, as the chairman of the People's Republic of China, faced more than 1,800 people inside and outside the party, and he talked about his "new thinking"-this is the recording that Fu Lei heard after he came to Beijing.

"On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" was compiled by Mao Zedong's political secretary Chen Boda.According to what Chen Boda told the author, when Mao Zedong spoke at the Eleventh Supreme State Council (enlarged) meeting, there was no speech script, only a very brief outline.When he was sorting out, he also added the minutes of Mao Zedong's speeches at other meetings.In addition, after finishing the document, Mao Zedong made many revisions and added many new contents in his own hand.Thus, when this article was officially published in the "People's Daily" on June 19, 1957, there were quite a few differences from what Mao Zedong said casually at the Eleventh Supreme State Council (enlarged) meeting.

Since considerable revisions have been made since then, the article appears somewhat contradictory.For example, has class struggle ended in China?This article first stated that "the large-scale and stormy mass class struggle during the revolutionary period has basically ended", but later it said that "the class struggle has not ended. The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the political forces of various factions The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in terms of ideology is still long-term, tortuous, and sometimes very intense.”This postscript was obviously added after the Anti-Rightists—later, at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong issued a call for "never forget class struggle"; and during the "Cultural Revolution", it developed into "taking class struggle as the key link". ".

In fact, the core of "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People" is the letter from Mao Zedong to Huang Yanpei.On the eve of his death on December 9, 1988, the historian Li Shu briefly stated the original intention of "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People" in an article: "The title of Mao's speech at the Supreme State Council is "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People". After being widely disseminated, it really played an encouraging role among democrats and cultural and scientific workers in several big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.”①

Xu Zhucheng, editor-in-chief of Shanghai Wen Wei Po who listened to the recording with Fu Lei at that time, now recalls this way: "I went to the CPPCC Auditorium to listen to the recording of Chairman Mao's recent speech at the Supreme State Council. It was very clear. The most exciting thing is the following passage: The era of class struggle like a storm has passed, and commandism, bureaucracy, and closed-doorism are still serious within the party. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to start rectification as soon as possible. It hopes that friends outside the party can help, but it will never force other democratic parties to participate. The chairman's speeches are always very funny. For example, when talking about the rectification wind, he said that it is no longer a squall, nor a moderate rain, but a light rain. It caused a roar of laughter, and heard Comrade Liu Shaoqi and others interjected. It was really relaxed and happy, talking and laughing. We listened to the recording and felt excited and comfortable. After listening, Mr. Fu Lei and I met to go to Zhongshan Park for a chat. Correct, the party is really wise. They all believe that in the future, we should better respond to the party's call and do our best for social construction..." The state of mind of many democrats and senior intellectuals, like Xu Zhucheng and Fu Lei, was inspired by Mao Zedong's speech-Mao Zedong's speech became a warm current in "early spring and February".It is precisely because of this that Fei Xiaotong finally made up his mind to "send out" the article that he had been carrying in his chest for many days on the morning of "Chairman Mao's speech at the enlarged meeting of the Supreme Council of the State Council"! Immediately afterwards, Mao Zedong made a speech at the National Propaganda Work Conference of the Communist Party of China on March 12, 1957.The keynote of this speech is to encourage people to "let go" and to dispel all kinds of concerns to help the CCP rectify the movement. Among them, these two passages in particular inspire people: "Don't be afraid to offer criticism and suggestions to us Communists. 'If you are willing to cut yourself to pieces, dare to bring down the emperor', when we are fighting for socialism and communism, , must have such a fearless spirit. On the Communist side, we must create favorable conditions for these collaborators..." "Let it go, that is, to let everyone express their opinions, to make people dare to speak out, dare to criticize, and dare to argue... Our policy of letting go is still not letting go enough, not letting it go too much." This speech was also compiled by Chen Boda, and it was not published until April 1965, eight years later.When it was published, Mao Zedong also made many additions and deletions, which is no longer the original appearance. In just four months, Mao Zedong made three important speeches in a row, namely "Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China", "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People" and "At the National Propaganda Work Conference of the Communist Party of China". These three speeches echoed each other, showing how he set out to solve the Chinese problem in the face of Khrushchev's secret report, the Polish incident, and the Hungarian incident: The first speech proposed a method - the CCP carried out a rectification movement; The second speech put forward the theory-correctly handle the contradictions among the people; The third speech put forward measures-to encourage democrats to boldly "let go" and help the CCP to rectify the movement. As a member of the democrats, Professor Fei Xiaotong, who has a very high political sensitivity, wrote vividly about the "early spring weather" of the unusual spring in 1957...