Wake up（187）

 

187

 

When Lin Huiting communicated with Chai Jianmin, He Jiafu, Li Tiandao and several other elderly people, he talked about the national "military training" and "military management" implemented during the Cultural Revolution, from "three branches and two armies" to "Workers' Liberation Army Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team."

In the summer of 1968, the "Cultural Revolution" faced a more serious situation. The armed struggles of the "rebels" in various places gradually escalated to the point where they robbed banks, warehouses, vehicles and boats, bombed railways, stormed military institutions, and seized weapons from the army.

Facing the out-of-control situation, on July 3, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council, the Central Military Commission, and the Central Cultural Revolution Group issued a "Notice" (referred to as the "July 3 Announcement") on stopping large-scale armed struggles in Guangxi; 21 days later, the Central Committee targeted The "July 24 Announcement" was issued on the situation in Shaanxi. The contents of these two "announcements" are similar, to the effect that a series of extremely serious counter-revolutionary incidents have recently occurred, disrupting railway traffic, robbing aid supplies, banks, and warehouses, attacking troops, disrupting post and telecommunications, setting up private radio stations, and robbing the PLA of weapons. Kill and injure PLA commanders and fighters.

In fact, these two provinces are not the only ones where the above situation occurs. The "proclamation" demanded an immediate cessation of fighting, dismantling of fortifications, and evacuation of strongholds; first of all, evacuation of all strongholds on the railway line, and unconditional rapid restoration of railway transportation; unconditional return of aid to Vietnam; unconditional return of weapons and equipment of the People's Liberation Army; All out-of-town personnel and young people who have gone back to the cities and went to the countryside should return immediately; counter-revolutionaries who have proven evidence of murder, arson, sabotage of transportation, storming prisons, stealing state secrets, and setting up private radio stations must be punished.

After these two "proclamations" were issued, the troops in Beijing were ordered to act. However, just before and after the announcement of the "Notice", the wind of fighting also blew up in Beijing, and the fighting on the campuses of Peking University and Tsinghua University gradually escalated. On July 28, Mao Zedong urgently received the "five leaders" of the capital's Red Guards, Nie Yuanzi, Kuai Dafu, Tan Houlan, Han Aijing, and Wang Dabin, from 3:30 to 8:30 in the morning, and made a speech on the issue of stopping university violence and sending out "workers' propaganda teams" made a strong speech. Mao Zedong said, now it is your turn to make mistakes.

At the same time, Lao Mao ordered Unit 8341 to lead the workers from six factories in Beijing where they were "supporting the left" to form a "Workers' Liberation Army Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team", and suddenly marched into Peking University and Tsinghua University.

From then on, the "Three Branches and Two Armies" entered a new stage, and a new organizational form emerged—"Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team of the Workers' Liberation Army." This is actually a variant of the "working group" criticized by Mao Zedong in the early days of the "Cultural Revolution", and it can be called "Mao's working group".

After the "Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team" was stationed at Peking University and Tsinghua University, the central government asked the army to immediately station at all other universities in Beijing. At that time, there were 59 colleges and universities in Beijing, and the various services and arms stationed in Beijing were divided into pieces. The Air Force and the Navy are each responsible for 10 colleges, and the Air Force is responsible for 9 colleges in the east of Beijing (namely, the School of Mechanical Engineering, the School of Broadcasting, the School of Construction Industry, the School of Chemical Fiber, the School of Chemical Engineering, the School of Second Foreign Languages, the School of Economics, and the Beijing University of Technology. etc.) and the School of Geology.

At that time, the central government stipulated that the task of the "Workers' Propaganda Team" in the "Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team of the Workers' Liberation Army" was to "cooperate" with the work of the PLA. The Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee stipulated that the top leaders of the "propaganda team" were the "commander" and the "political commissar". The political commissar is in charge.

Xie Fuzhi, director of the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee, once addressed the leaders of the "Military Propaganda Team" of all universities, saying: If there is a problem in the school, we will not ask the "Worker Propaganda Team" but ask you. The "Propaganda Team" is directly under the leadership of the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee. The Municipal Revolutionary Committee has a university group, but the head of the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee often directly convenes meetings with the leaders of the "Propaganda Team" to issue instructions on the progress and methods of the movement. Xie Fuzhi talked the most. The air force system also has a special agency to manage the 10 military propaganda teams of the air force, but it does not guide the "Cultural Revolution" movement in various schools;

Lin Huiting said that a person named Chen Zhao once wrote an article recalling:

Beijing Institute of Architecture and Technology is directly under the Ministry of Building Materials of the State Council, and it was the only school in the country that specialized in training senior talents in construction industry materials at that time. The school is small, with more than 1,000 students. There are many old cadres in the college, and the dean is a level 7 cadre, which is very rare in universities. At that time, I served as the deputy director of the Revolutionary Committee of the "No. 1 High School". The "No. 1 High School" is a military-level unit. I, the deputy director of the Revolutionary Committee, was originally an ordinary teacher and had never taken on leadership work. When the leader of the Air Force asked me to participate in the "Zuo Zuo", he said: The Air Force is in charge of 10 universities, and the "top leaders" we send to 9 universities use veteran comrades (mostly division and regiment level cadres), and another "junior general" (" During the "Cultural Revolution", the leaders of mass organizations were generally referred to as "little generals", so I was called "little general" (in fact, I was 29 years old at the time). I once refused to accept it firmly, but I still couldn't reject it, so I had to bite the bullet.

After Chen Zhao accepted the task, the "No. 1 High School" sent more than 100 people to carry out the task (all of them were cadres from the army), and they entered the Institute of Civil Engineering in mid-August. At that time, the mass organization of the "One High School" had just been abolished, and everyone gathered under the banner of the "Revolutionary Committee", but the gap between different factions still existed in the past. Most of our "Military Propaganda Team" originally belonged to my opposing faction. For me, uniting and leading this "Military Propaganda Team" was a severe test in itself.

Chen Zhao recalled: The other half of the "Propaganda Team" was dispatched by the Beijing Railway Bureau according to the decision of the Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee. the academy. However, the central government stipulated at that time that the "worker propaganda team" must "mainly consist of excellent industrial workers, cooperate with soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, form a Mao Zedong Thought propaganda team, and enter each school in batches and periods." The Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee found that the "worker propaganda team" sent by the Beijing Railway Bureau was not an industrial worker, so the Beijing Railway Bureau sent more than 100 real railway industry workers to replace the original government officials. The "Worker Propaganda Team" of the School of Civil Engineering and Engineering withdrew from the school six months later due to railway construction tasks.

As the captain of the "Military Propaganda Team", Chen Zhao naturally became the "top leader" of the "Propaganda Team" as the political commissar of the "Workers' Liberation Army Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team", and naturally became the "top leader" of the School of Construction Engineering. The "commander" of the "propaganda team" was a worker squad leader who only had a primary school education, so Chen Zhao had to take on the main job. At that time, Beijing had such a catchphrase for the cadres of the "Three Branches and Two Armies": "Sit on the sofa at home, and sit in 'Warsaw' when you go out. A bunch of keys clattered, and I was in charge of the house." Chen Zhao became a member of the School of Civil Engineering in this way. Home. At that time, Chen Zhao's only advantage was that he belonged to the head of a mass organization, his age was not much different from that of the students, he could mingle with the students, and it was easier to communicate with the student leaders. At that time, there was also a special discipline for the "propaganda team", that is, they were not allowed to fall in love with school teachers and students.

During Chen Zhao’s stay at the Institute of Construction Engineering, he went through stages such as the “Great Alliance” of the two factions, the establishment of the College Revolutionary Committee, the “cleaning up of the class ranks”, the “relocation of war preparations”, and the investigation of the “May 16th Incident”. From the handling of these matters in a college, we can observe the role of the "Military Propaganda Team" at that time.

When Chen Zhao entered the academy, the academy was empty, and many people were not at the school. The first thing they had to do was to mobilize everyone and use various means to recall the scattered students, faculty and staff back to the school as soon as possible. After teachers, students and staff returned to school, they first "united" the mass organizations of various factions, "liberated" a group of "overthrown" cadres, and established a "revolutionary committee." The "revolutionary committee" is composed of "revolutionary cadres" and "student leaders". According to regulations, the "propaganda team" does not participate in the revolutionary committee. team" hands. At that time, there was also a political task, that is, to "clean up the class ranks". They did not attack the "new" "enemies", but only cleaned up various special projects handled by mass organizations, so that those "objects of dictatorship" could be freed.

After the tasks they were ordered to handle during the "Cultural Revolution" were completed, Chen Zhao and the others faced another big problem: the students didn't attend classes, and the faculty and staff didn't teach or do research. What should they be asked to do every day? It is impossible to study documents and "engage in sports" every day. If this is the case, it will inevitably become more and more scattered. Finally, they came up with a trick, sending people out to contact them to see if there were any large-scale projects or large-scale enterprises that needed labor, so that teachers and students could open their eyes through labor. This is really no way. At that time, the Beijing subway was under construction, and the Dongfanghong oil refinery construction project in Fangshan was also under construction, so they pulled teachers and students to these two places and Shougang to participate in labor.

Chen Zhao said in his memoirs:

In the autumn of 1969, the central government suddenly made a big public opinion of "preparing for war". For a while, people were extremely nervous. People felt that the war would break out tomorrow. The Beijing Municipal Revolutionary Committee held an emergency meeting and ordered all colleges and universities in Beijing, except for a few most famous schools, to move out of Beijing within half a month to 20 days. However, I don't even know where to go, how to move?

A university not only has students and faculty members, but also the family members of faculty members. How easy is it to relocate all families? What about the elderly and children? Will you come back or not? When are you coming back? What's more, housing, classrooms, laboratories, factories, libraries, placement of equipment and books, organization of teaching activities, transportation, living facilities, etc. must be prepared for the relocation site. Every university faces a series of problems. And the faculty members of the college think that your "propaganda team" can return to the army in the future, and the students will graduate one day sooner or later, so you will have to leave after moving to a remote area, only they will have to stay there for a long time, and naturally they will have a lot of worries . Therefore, the teaching staff raised many very practical questions that we could not answer, such as where to move, how to move, how to live there, how to solve the problem of children going to school, and what to do with the work of the teaching staff's spouse who is not in this school? Why did only the school relocate, but not other units in Beijing? I can't answer these questions at all, and no one can explain them to me. The superior just gave us a death order: move! move quickly!

The department in charge of the College of Construction Engineering is the Building Materials Department. According to the instructions of the Minister Lai Jifa, the Director of the Political Department Zhong Bingchang, and the Director of the Military Control Commission Li Datong, the heads of the college's "Propaganda Team" and "Revolutionary Committee" immediately went to Henan, Hubei, and Hunan to select sites. . Minister Lai Jifa once reminded that there is a diamond mine (601 mine) near Changde, Hunan that is about to be scrapped, and there are some empty houses there. The mine is about 30 to 40 kilometers away from Changde, and there are no large settlements nearby. After our on-the-spot investigation, we found that if all the houses in the mine were utilized, it could barely accommodate the teachers, students and staff of the school, but teaching activities could not be considered at all. After consulting the building materials department, it was finally decided to relocate here, because time was tight and there was no choice. At that time, the relocation of the School of Civil Engineering and Engineering did not consider the future conditions of running the school and the living environment of the teaching staff. It only cared about one thing, that is, to find a place for the whole school to barely live.

Once the relocation site was selected, various meetings were held in the college to "mobilize". At that time, the teachers, students and staff had long been tame tools, and could only obey the demands of the "propaganda team". As a result, all the teachers and students of the school, together with their families, set off quickly, and handed over the teaching factory and library to the left-behind staff.

Chen Zhao recalled:

I was very "revolutionary" then. I arranged for the relocation of the whole school to be divided into two groups. The staff and their families took the train to Yueyang and then transferred to Changde; the other route led by me first went to Shaoshan for a "pilgrimage" and then marched to the destination on foot. 3 and a half days. When I arrived at the diamond mine, people lived there, but there were no beds, no tables, chairs and benches, and they all made floors. Because there are very few houses, it is impossible for the teachers to live in one family. Many teaching staff have to squeeze each other into a room with a curtain in between. Even in such a difficult environment, the superiors also issued the task of digging air-raid shelters. Although we are already in a remote mountain valley, we still have to dig air-raid shelters like we do in cities.

As far as I know, many colleges and universities in Beijing were in a similar situation to us at that time. For example, Beijing Institute of Mechanical Engineering moved to Shaanxi, Beijing Institute of Mining moved to Sanhuiba, Hechuan County, Sichuan, and Beijing Electric Power Institute moved to the construction site of Yuecheng Reservoir and the three power plants of Handan, Matou, and Fengfeng in Handan, Hebei Province. resemblance. After receiving the order to move out of Beijing, the University of Science and Technology of China sent people to Sichuan, Henan, Shandong and other provinces to contact the relocation, but no one welcomed the University of Science and Technology. Finally, Hefei City, Anhui Province agreed to accept it and placed it in the former Anhui Normal University. . Such an environment and conditions are considered good, since they have entered a big city and have ready-made school buildings available.

At that time, not only universities in Beijing were ordered to relocate to other places, but universities in other provinces and cities also received notices of relocation. For example, Harbin Institute of Technology moved south to Chongqing; there were originally 20 colleges and universities in Guangdong Province, but only 10 were allowed to stay during the "Cultural Revolution", so Jinan University was abolished, and Guangdong Institute of Technology was moved to northern Guangdong and renamed Guangdong Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. The College of Engineering was once divided into Guangdong Institute of Technology and Guangdong Institute of Chemical Technology.

Some people say that the relocation of the school was caused by Lin Biao's "No. 1 Order" on combat readiness. In fact, Lin Biao's instructions on combat readiness in 1969 only required the army to prepare for possible surprise attacks, and did not involve local affairs at all. The hasty relocation of colleges and universities from big cities involves a wide range of areas and has far-reaching impacts. It should be a topic worth studying during the "Cultural Revolution" period in the history of Chinese education. In my opinion, this decision was completely wrong. At that time, moving in a panic and looking for a place blindly, how could there be a good result? This kind of relocation decision has thrown the future of the country's education into the sky. There is no doubt that remote areas are by no means suitable places for running universities. Sure enough, not long after, the universities that moved out of Beijing moved back to big cities one by one, some returned to Beijing, and some moved to other cities. The Institute of Civil Engineering, where I worked, moved to Wuchang in October 1971 after staying in Changde for two years, and changed its name to Wuhan University of Technology in 1985.

Chai Jianmin, He Jiafu, Li Tiandao and other elderly people looked at each other speechlessly after hearing Lin Huiting's narration.

Li Tiandao suddenly turned his face to Chai Jianmin and said: Mr. Chai, if you go to Hong Kong this time, you won't have to go back to the mainland in the future. In my opinion, the Cultural Revolution may repeat itself in China, why bother to suffer again?