Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

The Prime Minister told Attlee that Britain had previously refused to allow China to import complete fertilizer equipment. China now wanted to import some of the equipment for a fertilizer plant from Britain. He wondered whether Britain would agree.

Attlee told the Prime Minister very clearly.

It is difficult to export a complete set of equipment to China, but it is not impossible to export only part of the equipment.

In fact, many businesspeople in the UK have already expressed dissatisfaction with the British government. They believe that since China wants machinery and equipment, then of course they can do business with it. Why push such a good business away?

So the British government is also adjusting some policies.

If the whole equipment is not suitable, it is possible to split it into several parts and export it in the form of spare parts.

After receiving Attlee's response, the Prime Minister understood that Britain was willing to do business with China in the machinery and equipment sector. This proved very satisfying to the Prime Minister. As long as this opening was opened, China could do business in this area with any Western country except the United States.

Attlee then traveled to Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Bao'an County. Observing the bustling Bao'an County, Attlee expressed his hope for further economic cooperation between China and Britain. Members of the British industrial and commercial delegation accompanying Attlee had already begun discussions with China about potential cooperation.

Attlee went to Hong Kong from Bao'an County.

Speaking to reporters in Hong Kong, he expressed his pleasant encounter with the Chinese government during his trip to China. He stated that there are no fundamental conflicts between China and the UK, and that the two countries can coexist peacefully. The Chinese government's primary concern is peace, and it is willing to maintain peace with countries of any political system in the world. He also shared his impressions of New China.

He said no country should underestimate China.

China is undergoing tremendous changes, and the Chinese people are very united. Such a great power should not become an enemy. If such a great power becomes an enemy, it would be a very terrible thing.

Attlee's speech in Hong Kong laid a very good foundation for the subsequent meeting between China and Britain at the Geneva Conference.

However, the United States was very dissatisfied and directly protested to the United Kingdom, saying that Britain should not abandon its allies and improve relations with a communist country like China alone. However, the British government responded that Attlee's visit to China was a private visit, which was Attlee's right and had nothing to do with the government.

The Cold War was not just a conflict between socialist and capitalist countries; it was also a conflict between capitalist countries and socialist countries. Of course, there is another major conflict at this stage: the conflict between the two newly rising powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, and the two former hegemons, Britain and France.

Although the strength of Britain and France was greatly reduced due to World War II, they still controlled the Middle East and remained very powerful.

Both of them are unwilling to withdraw from the stage of dominance in this way.

So at this stage, Britain and France still have enough autonomy. Why should they listen to you, the United States?

China's successive receptions of Khrushchev and Attlee instantly garnered the world's attention. Southeast Asian countries, particularly those in Indochina, were now focused on China, as the upcoming Geneva Conference would primarily discuss security issues in Indochina.

Before the Geneva Conference, China met with Soviet and British politicians in succession, which many people believed was to discuss the Geneva Conference and also to indicate that the Soviet Union and Britain recognized China's right to speak in Indochina.

Actually not.

The Indochina Peninsula is nothing.

The discussions between China and the Soviet Union and China and Britain were all about the general direction.

Let's see if there are any opportunities for cooperation on a grand strategic level. As for the security issue on the Indochina Peninsula, it's a side issue to the overall strategy. However, as the Geneva Conference becomes increasingly complex, the central government has been considering what to do at the Geneva Conference.

Wei Hongjun is very busy at work.

The main problem was that there were too many documents requiring Wei Hongjun's approval and review. For routine matters that didn't require his attention, Wei Hongjun simply gave his approval and then returned them. He would also pass them on to various offices or ministries for processing.

But there are some things that Wei Hongjun needs to consider carefully.

Zeng Shan approved the report from Jia Tuofu, Deputy Director of the Fifth Office and Minister of Light Industry, and handed it to Wei Hongjun. The Ministry of Light Industry was planning a major merger of bicycle factories nationwide, particularly those in Shanghai, to form a single large factory during this socialist transformation.

There are over 200 bicycle factories in Shanghai, but most of them are handmade bicycle factories. Or some of them can't even be called bicycle factories, at most they are bicycle repair shops.

Under socialist reform, Shanghai's bicycle industries were to be merged into cooperative enterprises. The Ministry of Light Industry planned to invest in these cooperative enterprises, aiming to make them leading bicycle companies. Zeng Shan proposed ending the current chaotic state of bicycle manufacturing by establishing several large-scale bicycle factories under unified management by the Ministry of Light Industry to increase production.

This is a major event related to the development of the bicycle industry.

Wei Hongjun attaches great importance to the development of the bicycle industry. For a long time to come, bicycles will be the primary means of transportation in China. The demand for bicycles will not be in the tens or hundreds of thousands, but in the tens of millions. However, the current national bicycle production totals only a little over 20,000, far from meeting domestic demand.

Historically, bicycles were also an important export product of China's light industry. In the 18s, China exported approximately bicycles. For China's light industry, they were considered a major commodity, earning China a significant amount of foreign exchange annually.

The fact that bicycle exports could reach such high levels during such a blockade era demonstrates the booming export of bicycles at the time. Wei Hongjun hoped that bicycles would become a key export product, exporting millions of units annually and generating foreign exchange for the country.

Therefore, Wei Hongjun attached great importance to this report from the Ministry of Light Industry.

The bicycle industry in Shanghai currently has no future. It's too fragmented, with poor technical expertise, low production efficiency, and a pitifully low output. Only through scale can we reduce costs, improve technical expertise, and boost production efficiency.

Wei Hongjun thought about it, read the report carefully, and finally wrote: "Agree. Comrade Zeng Shan should be dismissed, and the Fifth Office and the Ministry of Light Industry should implement it."

Then there is a report on the development of bicycles.

The General Office of the State Council has a secretarial team dedicated to serving Wei Hongjun.

They will sort the documents sent to Wei Hongjun by category and give them to him for approval. This is a report from the Metrology Bureau.

Cheng Gan, director of the Metrology Bureau, wrote a report to Wei Hongjun.

He said that China's current industrial system, with most of its heavy industry inherited from the Soviet Union, has some differences in standards, but these are not serious issues. Many industrial standards can be directly adopted from the Soviet Union with minor adjustments.

But China's light industry has the most problems.

Standards vary from region to region. However, inconsistent standards for light industry directly impact suppliers, hindering the supply of raw materials from heavy industry to light industry. Therefore, Cheng Ligan stated that China's light industry should convene a meeting as soon as possible to unify standards across both sectors.

Industry standards should be established for each industry, standardizing component names, specifications, dimensions, and quality indicators. Parts produced in any one location should be compatible across all light industrial sectors. Yu Chengqian cited bicycles as an example. He explained that previously, bicycle component standards differed across Shenyang, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other cities, resulting in a vastly different number of component suppliers. This severely impacted bicycle production efficiency and was detrimental to the healthy development of the bicycle industry. This situation also applies to other light industrial sectors, such as sewing machines.

Division of labor and cooperation in industry.

In order to improve quality and increase production efficiency, it is necessary to unify standards. Only when all standards are unified can production efficiency be improved, whether it is the factory that provides parts or the factory that produces bicycles.

The unification of standards seems simple, but it is also the most troublesome.

Every adjustment required the cooperation of the factories below them. However, many large factories, acting on their own, even dared to challenge the central and British directives. These factory managers, aware of the heavy workload of the First Five-Year Plan, worried about unrest in the large-scale industries. So, these factory managers, leveraging this knowledge, their knowledge of production, and the connections of the large factories behind them, challenged central government policies.

Fortunately, China's light industry is currently small in scale.

Therefore, Wei Hongjun issued a directive: "Industry standards and industrial standards are the inevitable path for industrialization." This report is sent to Comrades Deng Zhihui, Tan Zhenlin, Zeng Shan, Jia Tuofu, and Song Shaowen for their review. Please ask the Fifth Office and the Light Industry Department's Joint Metrology Bureau to quickly organize a meeting of all branches of the Ministry of Light Industry to determine industry standards. It is imperative to quickly standardize component names, specifications, dimensions, and quality indicators to ensure smooth development of light industry.

Then there is the report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Reclamation.

Minister of Agricultural Reclamation Tan Zhenlin reported that the distribution of means of production, especially tractors, would be re-coordinated. Tan Zhenlin said that large-scale development of the Great Northern Wilderness would require a large number of tractors, but the number of tractors owned by the former Northeast Agricultural Reclamation Corps was far from enough.

Currently, many state farms in Northeast and North China have surplus tractors. We demand an inventory of the number of tractors owned by state farms in Northeast and North China, and adjust the number of tractors allocated to state farms in each region based on the amount of cultivated land. We should allocate these surplus tractors to support the Great Northern Wilderness and the people's welfare.

Wei Hongjun's instruction: Agreed. This document should be read by Comrades Deng Zhihui, Li Shaocheng, Lai Ruoyu, Zhao Dezun, and Zhang Linchi. Comrade Deng Zhihui should coordinate the arrangements. Comrade Li Shaocheng should work closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and its subordinate state farms, ensuring they adhere to the overall situation. Currently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Reclamation has a top priority in reclamation work in the Beitianhuang region, and many state farms currently lack the necessary tractors.

After Wei Hongjun wrote his instruction, he thought for a moment and added: "The Ministry of Agricultural Reclamation should actively mobilize and exert its subjective initiative. They can contact the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Soviet collective farms to see if they have any suitable tractors. If possible, we can import a batch at a low price. We must act boldly and find a solution boldly, not just wait for policy." Comrade Deng Zhihui and others reviewed this document and returned it to Comrade Tan Zhenlin.

Tan Zhenlin had just taken over the Ministry of Agriculture and Reclamation, so there were a lot of documents.

They all complained to Wei Hongjun.

"This is missing, that is missing." After Wei Hongjun approved the document, he distributed it to various departments as needed, asking them to cooperate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Reclamation. Also, Tan Zhenlin was not He Weizhong.

After inspecting the Great Northern Wilderness, he wrote a letter of complaint directly to Wei Hongjun. He demanded that all the cultivated land jointly reclaimed by the Shenyang Military Region and the Liaohe Oilfield be surrendered. The Ministry of Agricultural Reclamation should centrally manage these cultivated lands. It couldn't be a one-on-one arrangement, as this would be detrimental to establishing a reclamation base in the Great Northern Wilderness. He also demanded that the independent divisions involved in the reclamation in the Shenyang Military Region be transferred to the Ministry of Agricultural Reclamation and become agricultural reclamation units.

It was only because of Tan Zhenlin's seniority and status that he dared to write such a letter of complaint. Even if the Shenyang Military Region and Liaohe Oilfield knew about it, they would not dare to say anything.

Wei Hongjun approved the order. He had long been dissatisfied with the situation, but at the time, He Weizhong was in charge of Beitianhuang's concurrency, and the timing wasn't right, so he hadn't taken action. Now that Tan Zhenlin wanted to take action, Wei Hongjun naturally supported it.

Then, report to the Ministry of Petroleum Industry for forwarding to the Liaohe Oilfield Command, and to the Military Commission for forwarding to the Shenyang Military Region. It turns out you bullied He Weizhong before, and now that Tan Zhenlin is here, you're going to take a bite out of them.

After dealing with these things, Wei Hongjun stretched out his arms.

This is the daily routine for Vice Premier Wei Hongjun. Either meetings fill the day, or just dealing with these reports takes up a significant portion of his time. But there's no way around it; this is the current Chinese process.

Because Wei Hongjun is in charge of these departments.

Therefore, many tasks required Wei Hongjun's final signature before they could proceed. Of course, if the work was important, Wei Hongjun's approval would then need to be followed by the Premier and Chen Yun's approval. More important matters would require discussion within the Secretariat, the Central Committee, and even the Politburo.

Of course, most of the work does not require going up, and can be completed here at Wei Hongjun's side.

Wei Hongjun had just poured himself some hot water when Mao Zemin called him. He asked if he had time, and if so, he would come over to discuss something. Wei Hongjun said he did.

After hanging up the phone, Wei Hongjun began to read the documents transferred by the central government.

In addition to processing reports from his subordinates, Wei Hongjun also had to find time to review documents issued by the Central Committee and those forwarded by the Central Committee. He read this document first because it was the one the Chairman had forwarded to him. Furthermore, after reading it, the General Office of the Central Committee would take it away.

This was a report compiled by the Research Office of the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union, a document forwarded by Zhang Wentian, the Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union. After the Eighth National Congress, the Central Committee recalled Zhu Jiaxiang from the Soviet Union and asked him to assist Chen Shi, the newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, in handling Ministry affairs and also to participate in the work of the Secretariat.

This report is a summary of some views by Zhang Wentian and others after they summarized the documents in the field of Soviet propaganda in 1953.

In his report, Zhang Wentian stated that the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee's public description of Comrade Stalin began to undergo a significant shift in 1953. This shift was primarily manifested in two aspects. First, regarding the Soviet Union's achievements in various areas, including industrialization, agricultural collectivization, the Cultural Revolution, and the Great Patriotic War, the emphasis was placed on the contributions of the masses, the leadership of the Party, and the collective leadership of the Party Central Committee, which included many of Lenin's students. The individual contributions of Comrade Stalin were rarely mentioned, let alone singled out. For seven months, beginning in May, no major Soviet Party newspaper devoted a single page to the elaboration of Comrade Stalin's achievements.

Another significant shift has been the shift in the evaluation of Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin. Soviet propaganda previously consistently equated Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin, with Comrade Stalin often receiving more attention. However, recent propaganda has increasingly portrayed Comrade Stalin as Lenin's assistant and successor. In the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution, it was previously stated that both Lenin and Comrade Stalin were the founders of the Party, but now it is stated that Comrade Stalin assisted Comrade Lenin in establishing the Party. Regarding Soviet history after Comrade Lenin's death, the emphasis used to be on Comrade Stalin's personal leadership, but now it is pointed out that Lenin had already formulated a program for socialist construction before his death, and that the establishment of a socialist society was the embodiment of Comrade Lenin's will.

Zhang Wentian said that the current Central Committee of the CPSU is gradually downplaying the existence of Comrade Stalin.

Furthermore, Zhang Wentian stated in the report that the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee was reexamining cases from the anti-counterrevolutionary period. In some regions, those arrested during the anti-counterrevolutionary period were released without any formalities.

There are quite a few people in this category.

Now, in many areas, those who have been released are asking the Soviet government to review their cases and redress their innocence. As the number of these people grows, there are rumors in the Soviet Union that the anti-counterrevolutionary campaign led by Comrade Stalin was wrong.

Zhang Wentian said that this was an incredible thing in the Soviet Union.

Because since Zhang Wentian was studying in the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago, there has been no criticism of Comrade Stalin among the Soviet people. But now some people have begun to criticize Stalin's policies.

Zhang Wentian was not sure whether this was the intention of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee, or the Soviet people, or whether some other forces were fanning the flames.

In addition to these changes, the Soviet Union underwent some other changes. First, the Soviet press began to criticize the erroneous attitude within the cultural and ideological sphere that completely rejected historical heritage and the development of modern foreign science and technology. This was due to the previous blanket denial of pre-Marxist world philosophy and the previous rejection by Soviet scientists of foreign science and technology, their refusal to accept their achievements. The Soviet press considered this a erroneous cultural and ideological line.

The central government attaches great importance to the changes in the Soviet Union.

Therefore, the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union meticulously analyzed Soviet party newspapers. Zhang Wentian, known as a "Red Theorist," was deeply knowledgeable about propaganda. From the tone of these Soviet party newspapers, one could discern many of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee's previous thoughts and their intended meanings.

After about ten months of analysis, he wrote this report and submitted it to the Central Committee. In addition to reporting the current changes in the Soviet Union to the Central Committee in detail, Zhang Wentian also sent the Central Committee some recent Soviet newspapers. Zhang Wentian circled the newspapers.

At the end of his report, Zhang Wentian clearly expressed concern. He believed that there was considerable fluctuation in Soviet ideology. This was especially true with the reexamination of the anti-counterrevolutionary movement, where the CPSU Central Committee had previously released many individuals arrested without discrimination.

There are still few people now.

Yet, even then, some people were already criticizing Stalin's policies. When those arrested in the purges were released, how would the CPSU Central Committee appease them and hold them accountable? It would be a very chaotic situation.

After all, the powerful leaders of the current Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union all participated in the anti-counterrevolutionary movement.

After Stalin's death, Beria sought to review the purges, which offended the leaders of the CPSU Central Committee. How would Khrushchev now handle this situation? After all, hundreds of people were arrested during the purges, and many more received various other punishments. Including their families, one-seventh to one-eighth of the entire Soviet population was affected. With so many people demanding a review of the purges, who would shoulder the responsibility?

After reading Zhang Wentian's report, the Chairman also thought about it for a long time.

Although Chairman Mao had anticipated changes in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death, he had not anticipated them happening so quickly. Furthermore, the most problematic issue was the ideological chaos in the Soviet Union.

The Chairman finally issued his comments on this report and sent it to Comrade Xiuyang. He again wrote on this report opposing the cult of personality and dogmatic doctrine. He believed that the chaos that had emerged in the former Soviet Union stemmed from the cult of personality of Comrade Stalin. Therefore, the Communist Party of China must clearly oppose the cult of personality to avoid such a situation.

Then, I told Comrade Xiuyang that this report should be kept as an internal Party document, distributed only to Central Committee members and alternate members, and not be disseminated. So, Comrade Xiuyang asked the General Office to print the document and distribute it to all Central Committee members and alternate members.

After reading, all documents must be sent to the archives and locked.

It cannot be spread out.

When Wei Hongjun was reading the report, Mao Zemin had already arrived.

However, the two were familiar with each other, so when he saw the information Wei Hongjun was reading, he signaled Wei Hongjun to continue reading while he waited on the side. After Wei Hongjun put down the report, he did not speak to Mao Zemin immediately.

But thought for a while.