Wake up（165）

 

165

 

The meeting of 7,000 people held in early 1962 did not bring any benefits to the party, the country, or the people. On the contrary, it caused great turmoil across the country. Mao Zedong was in a difficult situation. For this reason, when the meeting was about to end, Mao Zedong suddenly proposed to hold a "venting meeting".

Pan Guangfu said to Chai Jianmin, He Jiafu, and Li Tiandao: The reason why Mao Zedong held a venting meeting was because the experimental campaign on the "Three Red Flags" was implemented by the central ministries and committees and provincial and municipal committees. The huge losses caused by "natural disasters" and "man-made disasters" and the harm caused to party members and cadres at all levels are serious, and the rebellious psychology and emotional resentment caused are also strong. However, as a rule, they do not blame the initiators of the line policy, but the specific executors who forced them to implement it, their immediate superiors.

Mao Zedong wanted to hold a meeting to release his anger, but he could release the anger in this part of the people's hearts, which can be said to kill three birds with one stone: First, it can ease the tense atmosphere caused by the struggle within the party in the past few years. Avoid "making too many enemies"; second, it can get rid of the domineering, arrogance, and bureaucratic habits of high and middle-level cadres, and further strengthen the prestige of the central government and himself in the grassroots, middle, and high-level party organizations of the entire party; Know the true thoughts, emotional attitudes, and political stances of the entire party's grassroots and middle-level leading cadres about Mao Zedong's own thoughts, line, and prestige over the past few years, so as to respond.

However, although the ministries of the central government and the provincial party committees became the targets of the representatives attending the meeting, most of the delegates really believed that the mistakes mainly came from the specific implementation. The general direction of Mao Zedong and the central government was always correct, but the central ministries and After all, the provincial party committees have been taught by generations, and the boards that the representatives hit on their buttocks will eventually hit Mao Zedong's scar through the principle of "transmitting force through objects". As a result, the censorships forced out by representatives of the central ministries and provincial committees were far more explicit, deeper, sharper, and more essentially pointed to the fundamental mistakes in his ideological line over the past few years than Liu Shaoqi's reports and speeches.

What worried Mao even more was that most of the people who vented their anger were leading cadres such as the county party committee secretary and prefectural party secretary. The Supreme Being, but in fact most of them do not agree with his ideological line, and are dissatisfied and worried about his serious mistakes. And once someone like Liu Shaoqi is allowed to sing the main theme of the party's work in the name of "economic adjustment" and "overcoming difficulties", and fight against him, these county party secretaries, prefectural party secretaries, including provincial party secretaries and central ministers, I'm afraid they will all leave Mao Zedong and go to Liu Shaoqi's side.

Mao Zedong was well versed in the explicit and unspoken rules of power struggle within the party. At a historical stage, if the supreme leader of a party wants to firmly control the supreme power in his hands and maintain his sacred and inviolable authority in the whole party, a minimum prerequisite is that he guides the main work of the party in this historical stage. The party's line, principles, policies, and ideological theories must be "correct", proven by practice and recognized by the entire party. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, during the period of armed seizure of power, the main work within the party was military struggle, and it was the strategy and tactics he adopted in the military struggle and the "correctness" of the line and policy he represented established him as the supreme leader of the party. And the supreme authority "recognized" by the whole party.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the consolidation of political power and economic construction became the two major themes of the party's inner work, and their importance can be said to go hand in hand. It can be said that in the first five or six years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong adopted a set of lines, principles, policies and theoretical results on these two major themes, which were basically successful and "effective" in practice. His position as the leader of the entire party is crucial. However, with the consolidation of the political power and the coming of the period of peaceful construction, the work of consolidating the political power has gradually withdrawn from the foreground, and it is inevitable that the work of economic construction will play the leading role.

Mao Zedong quickly made adjustments. After the "victory" of the anti-rightist struggle in 1957, he focused his energy on economic construction, and realized a major turning point in the guiding line, that is, from the transformation of the economic system to the improvement of the economic growth rate. The "three red flags" are the general idea, practical approach and theoretical policy of the new historical period that he grandly launched to realize this major turning point.

However, after four years of hard work and fanaticism, the myth of Mao Zedong's "always correct" has been shattered. He left Maicheng on the main battlefield of the party's economic work and was defeated. Although they have struggled several times, except for causing greater disasters to the people of the whole country, it is almost in vain. What made him feel particularly painful and desperate was that the three red flags he carefully crafted were his overall design for economic construction in the transitional period. The core content of the ideological line. If the three red flags are negated by history, by facts, by the whole party, and by the people, then it means that he, as the supreme leader of the party, is fundamentally wrong in the guiding line and theoretical principles of the main work of the party. This means: first, to vacate the position of commander, and let others take care of the economic construction work that occupies the dominant position in the party; second, the chain effect formed by the previous result is to vacate the position of the highest leader in the party. ; Three, the final result is that the power is left behind and obediently step down.

Of course, due to Mao Zedong's historical feats and lofty prestige, the best ending is to become the "Supreme Emperor" again. At the end of the meeting of 7,000 people, even if Mao Zedong had not clearly realized this point, he was aware of the coming crisis. The West Building Conference half a month later and the Central Work Conference in May of that year made this crisis clear and approachable.

Pan Guangfu said to Chai Jianmin, He Jiafu and Li Tiandao: Mao Zedong's bottom line has been stepped on. Mao Zedong believed that whenever a regime is to be overthrown, public opinion must be created first, and ideological work must be done first. The revolutionary class is like this, and the counter-revolutionary class is also like this. Therefore, Mao Zedong decided to launch an unprecedented "anti-restoration" struggle in the cultural field. This is the Cultural Revolution that caused a sensation in the world.