Archive of old documents｜1963: Chairman Mao is no longer in the newspaper

one

I started looking for newspapers for my dad's birthday.

My father was born on April 28, 1963. In my memory, the time of 428 seems to be a turning point in many history. If we recall, we can see that on April 28, 1906, the news paper was openly divided into revolutionaries and reformers for the first time, discussing whether it should be revolution or reform. This is the media environment in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and the mountains and rains are about to come and the wind is full of wind. On April 28, 1928, the communist branch of the revolutionaries suffered a great setback and retreated to Jinggangshan. The party history calls it "the meeting of Zhu and Mao", which began the first revival and separatism of the CCP. By April 28, 1956, the Qing Dynasty had long since come to an end, the Republic of China also moved to Taiwan, and Communist revolutionaries established power on the mainland. On this day, Mao Zedong ignored the dissatisfaction within the party and called for the "Double Hundred Policy". The result was that a year later, 550,000 intellectuals fell into the abyss.

I am from Chongqing. When my father was born, he was still from Sichuan. And on April 28, 1963, the day my father was born, did any turning point happen? I found the "Sichuan Daily" and "People's Daily" that day.

The answer is, no. Nothing turning point happened. This day is Sunday. Sichuan Daily has only two pages, a front page and a supplement. The People's Daily also has only four pages.

Look at the front page of Sichuan Daily this day. We can see that "if you don't climb a mountain, you won't see the flat land, if you don't compare with the advanced, you won't see the potential - Sanyuan Glucose Factory's customer service is complacent and learns from its friends, and the production level is improved and the cost is greatly reduced", "Find the gap and catch up with the advanced - Deyang Guochang rice cooker sells well in the Mianyang area and is well received by consumers", "The True Colors of the Old Red Army——Records of Li Sanduo, Secretary of the Party Branch of Tongjunge Pharmaceutical Factory", I put these three news into one category, called "economy" news.

There are three economic news on the front page, and they are glucose, rice cooker, and pharmaceutical factories. According to the division of industries, they can be classified into light industry or tertiary industry, rather than heavy industries such as steel, petroleum, and construction. It didn't meet my expectations. My expectation is that this party newspaper will definitely have something in line with the advanced nature of socialism, such as people's communes, such as steel production, such as the glory of model workers... but none of these will be replaced by competitive, motivating, and market-oriented ones. oriented economic news, isn't this obviously politically incorrect?

What makes people suspicious is this one, "Chairman Liu will visit Cambodia and Vietnam." In my presupposition, if there is no news about the superiority of socialism, there must be at least the headlines of Chairman Mao, and Chairman Mao has disappeared from the newspapers. My question goes deeper.

Turning to this edition of the supplement, I couldn’t fully identify the detailed text of the supplement because the microfilm photocopied newspaper of the University of Hong Kong was not clear, but I found an eye-catching sculpture called “Lei Feng”.

"Light and tertiary industry" economic news. Chairman Liu. Lei Feng. Somewhere, will they have a deeper relationship?

I started searching. This time it is the most authoritative "People's Daily", which shows political and policy trends.

In the People's Daily on April 28, I saw Chairman Liu, but not Chairman Mao.

On April 27, I saw Chairman Mao, but when there was Chairman Mao, there was also Chairman Liu. Chairman Liu occupies a larger page.

On 4.26, there is still Chairman Mao. Chairman Liu also exists.

But from 4.25 onwards, I started to worry. On April 25, there were still Chairman Liu and Premier Zhou, but Chairman Mao was missing.

4.24, also without Chairman Mao. Chairman Liu is still on the headlines.

On 4.23, after searching carefully, I did not find Chairman Mao, but Chairman Liu was the headline. 4.22, 4.21...

On 4.20, Chairman Mao was surrounded by three news stories about Chairman Liu, which accounted for only a small part. In terms of weight, it is too much less.

4.19 The front page of Chairman Liu is almost full, and there are several news items.

4.18 Continue, still Chairman Liu. 4.17...

Until April 1st, it was still Chairman Liu's headlines. Chairman Mao appeared three times, and each time the page was smaller than Chairman Liu.

I continued to search the People's Daily for other months of the year, and the results were roughly the same. Most still have Chairman Liu, but very few Chairman Mao.

If the People's Daily is an entertainment newspaper that grabs the headlines every day, we would rightly call him a celebrity. As for the person who has never been on the page, we say he is out of breath.

Therefore, from the doubts raised in the newspaper on my father's birthday, it seems that we can draw a conclusion confirmed by the newspaper page that Chairman Mao has passed away.

Thinking back carefully, in the history textbooks in middle school, we know almost nothing about the history of this period of time. If we only study history in middle school, we will almost feel that Chairman Mao has always been the chairman and the protagonist of the political arena. As everyone knows, searching the newspapers revealed that this is not the case. The description in the middle school textbooks obviously has a gap that cannot explain this period of history.

"If something cannot be explained, there must be facts that you don't know about."

two

In Trier's "Biography of Mao Zedong", there is such a chapter "Retreat (1961-1964)". In the first paragraph, Trier wrote in a zero-degree narrative, "forced by political and economic realities, since 1961 From the beginning, Mao Zedong began to retreat with suspicion. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping emphasized that political order and economic benefits were in line with the trend of the times. Liu and Deng did not have a direct conflict with Mao Zedong, but accelerated their pace along their own path of focusing on reality. And naturally expanded their power. Mao Zedong did not do anything decisive to stop them."

Because of "political order" and "economic benefits", Chairman Mao at that time seemed to no longer be at the height of his power.

Time goes back to the Lushan Conference in July 1959. The first season of the Great Leap Forward is temporarily over. Due to the "dismal ratings" of the first season, this conference is likely to lead to the termination of the Great Leap Forward. However, because Peng Dehuai's ten-thousand-character book was only for Chairman Mao to read, it was printed by Mao Zedong and distributed to all the participating cadres for criticism, and the left correction turned into an anti-right deviation. Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentian, Huang Kecheng, and Zhou Xiaozhou's Peng Zhang Huang Zhou Military Club were overthrown. Because of his firm support for Mao, Lin Biao replaced the overthrown Peng and was promoted to Minister of Defense. The second season of Great Leap Forward will be broadcast immediately.

If the first season of the Great Leap Forward was a partial failure, corrected in time, and could be reversed, then the second season of the Great Leap Forward was a tragic failure. Agricultural output has declined sharply, and light industry, which is positively related to agricultural output, has declined sharply. The shortage of food and the scarcity of goods caused serious setbacks to heavy industry, even more than light industry and agriculture.

The Great Leap Forward in late 1959 and restarted in 1960 led to the largest famine of the 20th century in the entire world. resulted in the death of more than 20 million people.

Finally had to change. And because of a huge mistake, Mao Zedong began to "pass". His passing is carried out step by step, with hidden murderous intentions and repeated anxiety. Looking back so far, it still makes people feel sad and sad.

The first step begins. In January 1961, Mao Zedong delivered a speech at the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in Beijing, demanding that the whole Party vigorously promote the style of investigation and research, and that 1961 should be a "year of seeking truth from facts". Slap in the face". As a result of the slap in the face, the meeting officially approved the eight-character policy of "adjusting, consolidating, enriching, and improving" the national economy.

"The people's communes have practically disintegrated into brigades, and the black market in the countryside has begun to be semi-legalized. The factory director responsibility system has been revived in factories. The tendency to deviate from the party's working methods has appeared. New soil has been found in Liu Deng's court of power," Trier wrote.

Step by step, the second step is towards Mao Zedong.

From May 21 to June 12, 1961, the Central Work Conference of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing.

Prior to this, in order to satisfy Mao Zedong's self-slapping, "seek truth from facts"——Liu Shaoqi went to Changsha and Ningxiang County in Hunan, Zhou En came to Handan in Hebei, Zhu De went to Sichuan, Henan, and Shaanxi, Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen went to Shunyi and Huairou in Beijing for field investigations research, design. Other central leaders and local leaders at all levels also organized forces to go to the grassroots to investigate and study the situation in rural areas, factories, commerce, culture, education, and science and technology.

At this meeting, based on the idea of ​​seeking truth from facts, the CCP passed the "Sixty Articles for Agriculture", "Forty Articles for Commerce", "Thirty-five Articles for Handicraft Industry", etc. For the accounting unit, provide private plots. The "Draft Amendment to the Work Regulations of the People's Commune" has new regulations on ownership, distribution system, and whether public canteens should be opened or not. According to modern economics, private property rights have been restored to a certain extent.

On June 12, the last day of the meeting, Mao Zedong made a concluding speech. In the speech, he made self-criticism, and believed that the anti-rightist struggle should not be brought to the masses in 1959, and proposed to criticize the past few years after the Lushan Conference. Those who have been wrongly punished must be screened out and rehabilitated, and the cadres must be re-educated. Moreover, it is forbidden to carry out anti-rightist or leftist struggles, and it is forbidden to wear political hats on them.

It doesn't stop there. Except for the regulations passed by the meeting, after the CPC Central Committee Work Conference, Bo Yibo organized the formulation of the "Seventy Industrial Articles", emphasizing "the role of experts" and "the role of material stimulation".

The top leaders of the party did not openly oppose Mao Zedong, but all the regulations and policies passed this time were actually opposed to Chairman Mao's "three red flags" - the general line, the Great Leap Forward and the People's Commune.

The climax came in January 1962. The third step is the meeting of seven thousand people.

At the meeting of 7,000 people, Liu Shaoqi made the main report at the meeting. He assigned the main responsibility to the central government and emphasized the importance of preventing brutal purges and anti-purges. He said that 70% of the three-year famine was caused by man-made disasters and 30% by natural disasters. This is exactly the opposite of Mao Zedong's three fingers raised up.

According to Deng Liqun’s recollection, after the conclusion of the meeting of 7,000 people, when Liu Shaoqi was sorting out his oral report, he said excitedly, “I have made such a big mistake and brought such a huge loss to the people, this is the first time I have summed it up! Summary If it’s not enough once, we’ll have to go back and summarize it every year in the future.”

Then there is the famous sentence, "In history, when people cannibalize each other, they have to write a letter, and they have to issue a 'crime edict'." The phenomenon of dead people uttered a sentence that caught the attention of Mao Zedong's listeners, "If the living are not exposed, the next generation after death will."

This is a memoir from Jin Chong and "The Biography of Liu Shaoqi". In his oral report to the conference on January 27, Liu Shaoqi believed that the main reason for the reduction in production in some places was natural disasters, but in some places it was not natural disasters, but shortcomings and mistakes in work.

He said, "In the past we often compared shortcomings, mistakes, and achievements to the relationship between one finger and nine fingers. Now I'm afraid we can't do this everywhere. . . . I'm afraid it's the relationship between three fingers and seven fingers. In some areas , the shortcomings and mistakes are more than three fingers. If it is said that the shortcomings and mistakes of these places are only three fingers, and the achievements have seven fingers, this is not in line with the actual situation, and it is not convincing. I went to a place in Hunan , the peasants say that it is "three parts natural disasters, seven parts man-made disasters". If you don't admit it, people will not accept it. In some areas of the country, it can be said that shortcomings and mistakes are the main ones, and achievements are not the main thing."

He was refuting the metaphor that Mao Zedong himself said. After this meeting of "venting anger during the day, watching the theater at night, doing two things and one thin, everyone is satisfied", the enlarged meeting of the Politburo will be held soon, but Mao Zedong called himself Xu Xiake, and he followed the example of the most famous donkey friend in China and left. .

The enlarged meeting of the Politburo, as a high-level internal meeting, explained the disaster of this country more thoroughly. We later called it the "West Building Meeting", which was the fourth step of Mao's death.

Liu Shaoqi presided over the meeting. He believed that the national economy needs to undergo substantial adjustments, and because it is in an extraordinary period, it is necessary to retreat and "retreat enough".

In Mao Zedong's view, the difficult period has passed, this is "alarmist talk", and Liu Shaoqi "holds on to the situation" when he sees the situation as "a darkness".

A similar conversation took place in July 1962 as well. Liu Yuan, son of Liu Shaoqi, wrote in "Why Mao Zedong Overthrew Liu Shaoqi" that Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong had a fierce dispute. After Liu Shaoqi's warning that "people cannibalize each other, you have to write a letter", Mao Zedong said to Liu Shaoqi: "The Xilou said it was dark! The three red flags denied it, and the land was divided. Don't you stand up? What will I do after I die? "

Later, when we watched the meeting of 7,000 people, we realized that Mao Zedong was very dissatisfied with it, but what we need to know is that he had already reviewed the report of the meeting of 7,000 people in advance, and approved three words, "I think it is good." He went on to say, "I haven't thought about it carefully, and I can't raise any different opinions. I need to read it a second time." He also suggested that the report be postponed for three days. In the book "Changing Situation. The Beginning and End of the Seven Thousand People's Congress", the author commented on this period of history, "It is a polite word to feel good, and it is the truth to be dissatisfied."

The evidence behind the event is 1967, after the Cultural Revolution began. When Mao Zedong met with the head of the Albanian delegation, Balluku, he said, "At the meeting of 7,000 people, we already saw the problem. Revisionism wants to overthrow us." Jiang Qing said, "When the meeting of 7,000 people held back One breath, and it was not until the Cultural Revolution that this breath was released."

The fifth step was the Beidaihe Conference in August 1962. Mao Zedong obviously treated this meeting with a different mood.

He increasingly felt isolated in the mainstream of decision-making. Mao Zedong and the central bureaucracy had already had deep differences by then. This time he started fighting back instead of backing down. Being slapped in the face all the time obviously made him quite upset.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mao did not speak, and the speakers were these——

Deng Xiaoping: "With regard to "going it alone", it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it can catch mice is a good cat."

Zhu De: "Demand to expand personal responsibility in agriculture."

Chen Yun: "Allocate 'life-saving fields' in the north as an emergency measure to solve the problem of farmers eating."

Deng Zihui and Liu Shaoqi: "It is advocated to engage in household production contracting and household contracting."

The meeting, which continued to reflect and change, was interrupted angrily by Mao Zedong.

Mao Zedong asked, "Is there any class in socialism? Is the domestic situation in the past two years bright or dark? Household production contract, contract work to household is to engage in capitalism!"

Even according to the opinion of the highest level above, Mao Zedong was one against five, not to mention the supporters of these five people inside and outside the party. But the outcome was unexpected. Because of the sudden wrath of the emperor, Liu Shaoqi even made a self-criticism at the meeting, agreeing with Chairman Mao's criticism, thinking that he had estimated the domestic difficulties too seriously. But the anxious situation was not over.

Immediately, Chairman Mao's sixth step, the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee, was held in September.

The episode that occurred during the preparatory meeting once again angered Mao Zedong. Peng Dehuai, who was sent down, wrote another 80,000-word letter through on-the-spot investigation, demanding that the central government conduct a comprehensive re-examination of himself and make a correct handling. A party member wrote a letter to the central government to fulfill his most normal right to appeal, but was reprimanded by Mao Zedong as a "reversal style", which was a challenge to the party. At the meeting, Peng Dehuai was severely criticized again.

Then there was Xi Zhongxun, then Vice Premier of the State Council. A novel "Liu Zhidan", which he was said to be behind, was considered by Mao as "fiction against the party". And because Peng Dehuai was somehow related to the Gao-Rao incident, Peng Dehuai, Xi Zhongxun, and Gao Gang, who had long been expelled from the party, miraculously formed the "Peng Xigao Anti-Party Group". Before that, the two old enemies, Luo Longji and Zhang Bojun, were combined to form the "Zhang Luo Alliance". After that, there was also such a magical combination of "criticizing Lin and criticizing Confucius". Of course, this classic communist joke is a digression.

At the meeting, Mao Zedong delivered a fierce speech on class, situation and contradictions. He demanded that the whole party recognize the existence of classes and class struggle, and that they should "speak every year, every month, every time a central plenary session is held", and then Once, Mao Zedong criticized the "dark wind", the "going alone style" and the "reversal style".

Facing the fury of the head of state, what is the attitude of the top leaders of the party?

Liu Shaoqi, the country's chief executive, still agreed with Mao Zedong at the Tenth Plenary Session. "Now, the most difficult time has passed and the situation has improved. We should be more firm. In May this year, we estimated the difficulty a little more." He said again A self-criticism.

Regarding the results of this meeting, "Cambridge History of the People's Republic of China" wrote:

The Tenth Plenum accepted Mao's comprehensive analysis in theory, but retained in its specific terms the approach formulated in 1961-1962 to recover from the Great Leap Forward. The resulting compromise communiqué repeated Mao's language in some passages and inserted theories advanced by Liu, Deng, and Chen in others.

At the end of the six steps, we can see that Chairman Mao was "out of date" in a very strange way. While he was recognized and praised by the top party members, his policies were actually marginalized. Liu Shaoqi, as observed in the newspapers, since becoming the country's chief executive in 1959, began to actually hold the roulette wheel of the country's political order and economic development. The country's most official newspaper and local party media have begun to praise him as the most popular celebrity. The line advocated by his team has also begun to be widely displayed on the page.

The economy began to recover and politics stabilized. Chairman Mao, on the other hand, has passed away under the overt obedience and incompetence of the bureaucrats. Mao Zedong's utopian anger seemed to be hit in a sponge that is well versed in Tai Chi, and the harder it was hit, the deeper it sank.

But the newspapers on my father’s birthday have vaguely told us that compared with Mao Zedong, these pragmatist high-level officials have really underestimated a kind of spiritual power. They use retreat as an advance and let it grow. And in the not-too-distant future, they will all be backlashed by this force, and they will be pinned down and left without ground.

three

The staleness of Chinese politicians is different from that of entertainment stars. At most, entertainment stars have no money to make when they are stale, and their lives are not as glamorous as before.

But the political figures in China are different, Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, Wang Ming, Gao Gang, Rao Shushi, and of course Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Lin Biao, Jiang Qing later. Are you mad? The better result is to be expelled from the party, and to be labeled as a serious political mistake, such as right opportunism, left adventurism, support for turmoil and splitting the party, or marginalization, or loss of freedom. The worst thing to do is to build an independent kingdom, from a leader to a traitor, conspiring to usurp the party and power, and sentenced to death without a place to die. But Chairman Mao was an exception.

Regardless of Mao Zedong's original intentions, because of his blind command, he has in fact caused the greatest man-made disaster in the 20th century and even the entire human history. None of the above-mentioned political figures can hold a candle to him, and some of them are even admired by future generations.

At that time, Liu Shaoqi, who was popular at that time, had actually become the CEO of this country. It is hard for us to imagine that a CEO often conducts self-examination against his will. This is a very strange thing.

Mao Zedong is no longer popular. But his presence has always been strong. Because he occupies a power called "Orthodoxy".

In Chinese history, the emperor occupied the legal system, but the orthodoxy was interpreted by generation after generation of intellectual Confucian scholars "Shi Confucianism". They stipulated the "Tao". also restrict each other. Ancient Chinese history was almost a process of continuous strengthening of imperial power and continuous decline of prime minister power. Qian Mu believed that the rule of the Qing Dynasty had no system at all, but was all "magic".

Mao Zedong said in 1959 that he "retired to the second line" and no longer served as the chairman of the country. Liu Shaoqi became the supreme leader of the country and occupied the "legal authority". But the legal system is only the "outer king", and the orthodoxy is the "inner sage". The outer king can be overthrown, but the inner sage cannot. The inner sage is not king for the time being, but always the outer king at critical moments.

And what about the people of the outer king? If there is no inner sage, they can fall from the throne, be demoted to common people, and even suffer the death penalty. Liu Shaoqi, Hu Yaobang, and Zhao Ziyang have all been "outside kings". Later Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao all had "inner saints" as amulets and torch orders. They are Deng Theory, Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development.

Before the Cultural Revolution and its end, Mao Zedong had been deified. Mao Zedong Thought was the core of orthodoxy. He could not make mistakes, and more importantly, he could not make mistakes, let alone be denied. Denying him is tantamount to denying the Communist Party. The statue of the leader of Karisma was torn down by himself, and the Communist Party directly faced a crisis of legitimacy.

It wasn't until the end of the Cultural Revolution that the overthrown bureaucrats had to admit that Mao Zedong also made mistakes, but "Mao Zedong Thought" was completely correct. This was discussed several times within the party, and it was the result of careful design. Adhering to the "two whatevers" turned into a "comprehensive and accurate understanding of Mao Zedong Thought", because as mentioned earlier, negating Mao Thought means negating the Communist Party.

Therefore, we see such farces. First, no matter what Mao Zedong did wrong, it is Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and others who will bear the responsibility;

Mao Zedong became the most popular red sun, of course, since the Yan'an rectification movement. It should be said that Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai and other bureaucrats in the party bear great responsibility for making Mao Zedong the god. Liu Shaoqi firmly supported Mao Zedong during the Yan'an Rectification Movement. While eliminating political enemies, he also eliminated a group of conscientious party supervisors and critics. They were intellectuals who truly loved the country and the party. During the Anti-Rightist Movement, Deng Xiaoping acted as Mao's deputy commander-in-chief in the vanguard, directly participating in the whole process of "leading the snake out of the hole", and a huge number of ruling supervisors and talents fell into doom. And Zhou Enlai was extremely supportive of Mao Zedong in almost everything, at least verbally. Their tragedies are also the inevitable end of their continuous aid to evildoers.

Liu Deng's line, because there is no discourse and theoretical support enough to counter the "three red flags" of Mao's thought, they are actually politically wrong, and they are walking on thin ice. The legitimacy of the creation of economic benefits has been absorbed into the myth that these are all the achievements of Chairman Mao's thoughts, and the method of attracting stars. Liu Deng's line obviously cannot compete with Wei Guangzheng's communist orthodoxy.

In 1963, Mao Zedong was "passed". But he only retreated temporarily. Whether it's the fear of a lifelong communist dream shattered, the loss of its own power, or both, a more powerful utopian rage is brewing. With the amulet of Mao Zedong Thought and morality, he can retreat at any time.

In this sense, his apotheosis symbolizes the greatness of the Communist Party and endows the Communist Party with legitimacy, and he also kidnaps the Communist Party.

Four

When he becomes popular again, it will be a hundred times more popular than before.

By 1966, he would "bombard the command". But when my father was born, he was temporarily "marginalized" by the party bureaucracy. Although he couldn't intervene in practical issues such as economy, education, and agriculture, he began to prepare to release his "orthodox" energy to the maximum at this time.

This year, he has found four allies who understand him best. Three of them were Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and Lin Biao. There is also a dead soldier who appeared in the newspaper on my father's birthday, Lei Feng. He later became a household name, but now, he has become a loyal disciple of Mao Zedong and became popular instead of Mao Zedong. His stories began to appear in the People's Daily, as well as various publications, voices and pictures accessible to Chinese people. He is "Chairman Mao's good student", and what readers need to do is to "learn from Lei Feng's good example".

And Lei Feng is only a part of the whole operation, this operation is called creating gods, Mao Zedong's "maximization of orthodoxy", Mao Zedong's allies tried their best to help him gain fans, and the party bureaucrats Liu Shaoqi he wanted to defeat actually did it The same thing.

In the "People's Daily" on April 28, 1963, Hu Yaobang wrote a long article, "Raise Youth's Proletarian Consciousness to a New Height--Talking about the Far-reaching Significance of Extensively Carrying out the Study of Lei Feng Movement", so my father was born In today's newspaper, three unexpected "news" are linked together in a special way.

Chairman Liu is popular——Liu Deng's line of economic policy restores the national economy——Chairman Mao is out of breath——Lei Feng appears. What happens after that is another story.

My father was born in 1963. He didn't know that this was a prosperous year after the cold winter. But the absurd is already on the way.