Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

In fact, Wei Hongjun has a large number of rural cadres under his command.

Many rural cadres in Jin-Cha-Ji were old subordinates of Wei Hongjun. But Wei Hongjun chose Wang Qian because he appreciated his work ability and also for the unity of the North China Bureau.

In the North China Bureau, Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei was the dominant party.

Many of the former Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan cadres of the 129th Division followed the division southward. Some entered the Central Plains, while many more moved to the Southwest. Wei Hongjun, who was actually in charge of the North China Bureau, naturally prioritized unity. He could not allow conflicts to arise between the cadres of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei region and those of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan region.

Therefore, some cadres from Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan were transferred to the North China Bureau and entrusted with important tasks.

Just like Wang Qian.

Wei Hongjun appointed Wang Qian as his deputy secretary-general, responsible for handling rural affairs within the North China Bureau. This served as a clear statement, demonstrating his equal treatment of all cadres. Wei Hongjun valued cadres like Lai Ruoyu, Tao Lujia, and Wang Qian not only for their work ability but also for the sake of unity. After the disbanding of the North China Bureau, Wang Qian returned to Shanxi. Since the Central Committee decided to appoint a deputy provincial party secretary specifically responsible for rural affairs, Wang Qian has served as deputy secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee.

"The central government's unified purchase and marketing mandate has remained fixed for the past two years. However, our grain production in Shanxi has increased significantly over the past two years, but we haven't been able to sell it on the market due to a lack of channels. Therefore, the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee finally decided that governments at all levels should purchase some grain from rural cooperatives for storage. In total, we've stored about 40 million kilograms of grain over the past two years."

Wei Hongjun nodded.

Wei Hongjun still has great trust in Tao Lujia, the current Party Secretary of Shanxi Province, a very capable cadre.

Policies can be adjusted according to circumstances. "Hunan also has such a situation."

Zhou Hui, the first deputy secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, who is in charge of rural affairs in Hunan, spoke up.

Zhou Hui also came from a cadre background in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, but was intercepted by Li Xiannian when he was traveling south and stayed in Hubei. Later, when Deng Zhihui was in charge of the Central South Bureau, he carried out a series of cadre transfers to break the factionalism and localism in Hubei, Hunan, and Henan under the Central South Bureau.

While the central government has always criticized factionalism and localism, it still respects the major factions. It won't arbitrarily assign cadres to these factions. For example, after Wu Zhipu was transferred from Henan, there weren't many adjustments to Henan's cadre base.

Deng Zhihui was the only one in the Central South Bureau who, fearless of offending others, initiated this internal cadre exchange. Hubei and Hunan, in particular, saw frequent cadre turnover. Thus, Zhou Hui moved from Hubei to Hunan, where he is currently responsible for rural affairs.

"The lack of market circulation for grain is a major problem for many rural cooperatives. The unified purchase and marketing regulations are too rigid, yet annual grain production fluctuates significantly. The lack of grain circulation affects farmers' income."

Many grain-producing provinces have reported this problem.

Zhao Xinchu, who is in charge of rural affairs in Hubei, said: "At this stage, the national unified purchase and marketing policy will not change. Therefore, supporting policies must be introduced to fill the current loopholes."

"Comrade Zhao Xinchu, do you have any ideas?"

"Comrades Wang Renzhong and Chu He held several special meetings on this issue. We believe that since the unified purchase and marketing mandate remains largely unchanged, the State Supply and Marketing Cooperatives should leave some wiggle room outside the plan. Each year, voluntary measures could be adopted outside the unified purchase and marketing mandate. If rural cooperatives have excess grain they wish to sell, the State Supply and Marketing Cooperatives should allocate funds to purchase it. In Hubei, grain production has increased over the past two years, resulting in surplus grain for rural cooperatives. However, the amount of surplus grain is limited, and purchasing this excess grain will not place undue pressure on the State Supply and Marketing Cooperatives."

Zhao Xinchu answered.

In the past two years, the state's unified purchase and sale of grain has remained at 900 billion catties, and some rural cooperatives have surplus grain.

How to deal with this also posed a difficult problem for the cadres in charge of rural affairs. Under the state's unified purchase and marketing policy, no one dared to open up the grain market. So, the excess grain had to go somewhere.

The only solution is for the state supply and marketing cooperatives to pay for the purchase. "What are the other comrades' opinions?"

"Comrade Zhao Xinchu's words make sense. If this situation continues unresolved, rural cooperatives will have grain but won't be able to exchange it for the daily necessities they need, which will seriously affect their enthusiasm for production."

Some cadres immediately agreed.

If there is less food and production remains low, it will dampen farmers' enthusiasm. However, if production increases but they cannot be sold, this will also dampen farmers' enthusiasm for production.

"Having the state-owned supply and marketing cooperatives purchase surplus grain is a good idea. However, the price they charge is too low. If they were to purchase at that price, many rural cooperatives would likely be unwilling to sell to them. If the state-owned cooperatives purchase grain outside of their planned purchase plan without raising the purchase price, it would easily lead to the emergence of a black market."

Zhou Hui is very direct.

This is a stubborn cadre.

When the national satellite launch campaign began in 58, Zhou Hui, in Hunan, consistently refused to participate. This led to a central government official criticizing Hunan for "playing the turtle," and another central government official from Hunan rebuked Zhou Hui, saying, "You idiot! Bring back a big white flag for my hometown."

But Zhou Hui didn't care.

The plan was still formulated according to the actual situation. As a result, Hunan developed very steadily, and the provincial leaders who later mocked Zhou Hui could only ask Hunan to allocate grain.

Zhou Hui, however, was also unlucky. The Lushan Conference had nothing to do with him. However, the Chairman, impressed by his work in Hunan, granted him special permission to attend. At the Lushan Conference, some people listed him alongside General Peng and Zhang Wentian, but the Chairman, commenting on his "honest, unpretentious" work, crossed his name out. Zhou Xiaozhou, however, was being criticized and wanted to write a letter to the Chairman to defend himself, but was concerned about potential problems, so he asked other officials to review it. Everyone avoided him, and he ultimately turned to Zhou Hui. Zhou Hui, knowing the situation was dire, nonetheless reviewed the letter and made some corrections. As a result, he was directly implicated and demoted several levels.

"Vice Premier Wei, if this contradiction is not resolved, there will be more problems like this in the future."

Other cadres also expressed their views.

Wei Hongjun said, "I've heard your opinions. Supply and marketing cooperatives need some flexible policies outside of the unified purchase and marketing plan. I'll discuss this with Comrades Zhou Bin, Cheng Zhihua, and Ye Jizhuang, and I'll invite them to a meeting in two days to resolve this issue. After you go back, discuss by province how much excess grain each province currently has available for sale. With rough data, the supply and marketing cooperatives will be able to calculate the funding needed. Supply and marketing cooperatives should slightly increase the price of grain purchased outside the plan, but we need more communication to determine the specific amount of increase."

After resolving the issue of where to sell the surplus grain from the production cooperatives, Deng Zhihui said, "This meeting has another important topic. Everyone has already seen the data reports from the Rural Affairs Department's spot checks. Some discrepancies between reported data and actual production are possible, as our statistics are not perfect. However, if there is a significant discrepancy between the reported data and actual production, then this is a very serious issue."

"First, let's talk about the reported data that significantly understates actual production. Where does this problem stem from? Is it with the rural cooperatives or the local governments? Regardless of which one, it's a serious problem because it's evading state tax revenue. A shortage of a few dozen or a few hundred kilograms can be considered a statistical issue. But a shortage of thousands or tens of thousands of kilograms is not a statistical issue."

"Comrades, in this spot check, approximately 2% of the places reported data that was more than 5% lower than the actual production. This is 5%, which means a difference of hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of kilograms in one county. How can such a large discrepancy be expected? If this was intentional, then where did the grain that was not reported go? And where did the grain that should have been paid as public grain go? If this was not intentional, then the local government officials are either incompetent or confused. We do not need such incompetent and confused officials, let alone cadres who dare to conceal information from the organization. The Rural Work Department has handed these investigation reports to the Supervisory Commission, the Ministry of Supervision, and the Organization Department for a thorough investigation of these issues."

Deng Zhihui said it very seriously.

The cadres below became very serious after hearing what he said.

They all understood that Deng Zhihui was trying to warn them. If the issue were handed over to the Supervisory Commission, the Ministry of Supervision, and the Organization Department, a large number of cadres would be subject to organizational punishment. Deng Zhihui paused for a long time, waiting for everyone to digest the information, and then said, "After discussing the reported data being lower than actual production, let's talk about the issue of higher than actual production."

"Comrades, this time's spot check revealed serious problems in this area. Four percent of the places reported figures that exceeded actual output by more than 5%. There are over 4 production cooperatives and over 70 million mutual aid groups across the country. Can you do the math? This suggests that tens of thousands of cooperatives and hundreds of thousands of mutual aid groups are falsifying their reports."

"Comrades, think about how dangerous this is. If we don't stop this false reporting, it will spread. Next year it will be 8%, and the year after that it might be 20%. If one county falsely reports hundreds of thousands or even millions of catties, a hundred counties will falsely report hundreds of millions of catties, and several hundred counties will falsely report hundreds of millions or even billions of catties. Of course, this is still an ideal situation."

"If this trend isn't stopped, the rate of over-reporting won't just be 5%, but 10%, 30%, or even 50%. That means one county could over-report tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of kilograms, and hundreds of counties could over-report billions or even tens of billions of kilograms. Ultimately, per-acre yields could be doubled or even tripled. If the central government believes these reports and formulates rural and industrial policies based on them, it will cause major chaos."

Deng Zhihui said it very seriously.

After Deng Zhihui finished speaking, Wei Hongjun said, "Comrades, we are Communists and must tell the truth. If it's true, it's true; if it's false, it's false. If the yield per mu increased by 10 kilograms, just say it's 10 kilograms, not 100 kilograms. Don't falsify data just for the sake of political achievements; that's typical bureaucracy."

"You've all been working in rural areas for many years. You can spot some of the falsified data. If you can't see it, you've failed in your duty. Everyone's here today, so let's talk behind closed doors. I won't resort to formalities. You all know I come from a background in military service, and I believe in iron discipline. During the Battle of Peiping-Tianjin, I convened a meeting with the political commissars of all units and demanded they strictly enforce entry regulations. I told them that anyone who, after entering the city, explained violations of entry regulations and put pressure on the patrol team would be dismissed, regardless of their rank, and dealt with later. There would be no room for negotiation."

"I'm here to say this to everyone today. Anyone who gets so hot-headed as to falsely report grain production will be dismissed first, regardless of their rank, revolutionary credentials, or the reason. Those of you in charge of rural affairs in the province must remain calm, especially.

If any province falsifies grain production figures, you will be the first to be dealt with. If the provincial party committee makes unreasonable grain production demands, you must have the courage to refuse.

Because you are the cadres responsible for rural work."

Wei Hongjun knew that he had to use a heavy hammer.

Just as Deng Zhihui said, this trend cannot continue to spread.

Many officials sat up straight; they had not expected Wei Hongjun to express himself in this way. At this moment, many people understood even more deeply that Wei Hongjun was a general who had been forged on the battlefield. He was known for his ability to follow orders and enforce discipline.

Of course, this is not enough.

Wei Hongjun continued, "Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, great progress has been made in rural work over the years. By 1954, many provinces had already completed the tasks of the First Five-Year Plan, two years ahead of schedule. So I understand that comrades are happy and motivated, and want to build a new socialist China more quickly. But we can't use this enthusiasm to brag about grain production or how much work has been accomplished. Instead, we must use this enthusiasm for practical work. Through practical work, we can change the backwardness of rural areas and build a new socialist countryside."

"Comrades Deng Zhihui, Tan Zhenlin, and I have discussed this. Our rural work has been going at full steam over the years, but we can't keep our spirits up all the time. So we all agree that in 1956, we shouldn't just focus on moving forward; we should also make some adjustments. The main goal is to consolidate our achievements, summarize our successes and failures, and lay a solid foundation. This will prepare us for the Second Five-Year Plan."

"So how do we lay a solid foundation? We need to review the rural work of the past few years, summarizing successful experiences and reviewing our original plans. Don't underestimate this work of consolidating achievements and solidifying the foundation. This includes issues such as production cooperatives, the free market for agricultural and sideline products, and the rural industry and commerce we are preparing to develop. Of course, rural literacy and water conservancy work are also included. We must comprehensively review these rural developments and provide the actual data to the central government to ensure all preparations are in place for the formulation of the Second Five-Year Plan."

"Comrades, this meeting is to formulate a plan for adjusting and consolidating rural development in 1956. Each province will form a group and propose a plan appropriate to its situation."

Chapter 965: Putting an End to the Tendency of Reckless Advancement

The meeting cannot be said to have gone entirely smoothly.

Some cadres believe that rural development is so good now that we should continue to encourage and promote further development. Every minute and every second is precious and should not be wasted elsewhere. This sentiment is shared by not just one or two cadres, but by many.

Wei Hongjun deeply felt the deep-seated tendency of "adventurism" in the hearts of cadres.

Wei Hongjun and Deng Zhihui were able to appear tough at the meeting.

But after the meeting, these people must be persuaded. If the cadres responsible for rural work themselves don't understand, then the subsequent work will be very difficult. Simply suppressing them won't do the job well.

If we all want to work together, we need to have a unified mindset.

We need to convince them, make them understand the logic behind this, and support the policy of adjustment and consolidation from the bottom of their hearts. Only in this way can we truly achieve the effect of the meeting.

Precisely because they took into account the opinions of many cadres, Wei Hongjun and Deng Zhihui, after consultation, decided not to adjust the 1955 rural development plan. All provinces had already formulated their 1955 rural development plans, but some of them were flawed. Many of them contained overly aggressive ideas, and some were out of touch with reality.

But Wei Hongjun knew there was a problem, but he was not prepared to make any adjustments.

Since 1955 was already nearly halfway through, adjusting the 1955 plan at this point would confuse cadres at all levels. The worst thing to do in work is to waver from side to side. Frequent changes in plans would leave lower-level cadres at a loss. They wouldn't know how to work properly.

Moreover, the 1955 plan only showed a small sign of "overadvancing" in some provinces.

There were no large-scale, major "adventurous" plans, so the problems in 1955 would not be serious.

Therefore, Wei Hongjun and Deng Zhihui chose to adjust the 1956 rural development plan. Since the central and provincial plans for 1956 had not yet been formulated, adjusting the 1956 plan at this time was the most appropriate.

Because many cadres expressed dissent, Wei Hongjun discussed these issues privately outside of meetings. He understood their eagerness to address China's backwardness. However, all development should be based on and respect the laws of development, ensuring tangible progress.

It cannot just be data development on paper.

Convincing them wasn't easy, nor was it smooth sailing. While talking with these cadres, Wei Hongjun suddenly recalled the Great Leap Forward. China is a large country, and once this massive vehicle gets going, stopping it is incredibly difficult. Hubei Provincial Party Secretary Wang Renzhong's diary records the events of the two Zhengzhou meetings, held in late 1958 and early 1959.

Chairman Mao arrived in Zhengzhou and met in the evening with seven provincial Party secretaries: Shanghai Party Secretary Ke Qingshi, Guangdong Party Secretary Tao Zhu, Anhui Party Secretary Zeng Xisheng, Jiangsu Party Secretary Jiang Weiqing, Hunan Party Secretary Zhou Xiaozhou, Sichuan Party Secretary Li Jingquan, and Hubei Party Secretary Wang Renzhong. They discussed the "Left" issue at the time. All seven secretaries present opposed the Chairman's arguments. They believed that his proposals for "correcting Leftism," "being more conservative," and "necessitating a Rightist shift" were out of sync with reality and were incomprehensible to everyone.

As a result, the conversation lasted from four in the afternoon to nine in the evening.

The Chairman repeatedly tried to persuade these provincial Party secretaries, but after several hours, there was no success. Wang Renzhong wrote in his diary that he completely did not understand the Chairman's thinking and did not agree with it. Therefore, the several-hour conversation was extremely difficult. It is clear that even these provincial Party secretaries, who had been in charge of local affairs for so many years, were unable to adapt. It was not easy to persuade cadres throughout China to change their then-fanatic state.

Just like Henan.

Historically, after the Zhengzhou meeting, Henan Provincial Party Secretary Wu Zhipu promised the Chairman that he would convene a meeting of six levels of cadres, starting from the provincial level and working all the way down to the commune level, to convey the central government's guidance and address the current problem of "adventurism."

The results of it?

Serious problems still arise in Henan.

So what Wei Hongjun needed to do was to cool down the frenzy before it got too intense. Once that frenzy became mainstream, suppressing it wouldn't be easy. Because by then, it wouldn't be something the central leadership could suppress simply because they wanted to. So, Wei Hongjun and Deng Zhihui each spoke separately with lower-level cadres.

It is not just the provincial cadres in charge of rural work, but also the municipal cadres in charge of rural work.

Wei Hongjun patiently spoke with them one by one, province by province, presenting data piece by piece to convince them. He allowed them to fully express their opinions, and then discussed each issue one by one.

Finally, the meeting was successfully concluded. It took a full 17 days.

After the rural work conference ended, Wei Hongjun and Deng Zhihui reported the content of the meeting to the Chairman.

"Are there really so many problems?" The chairman was surprised when he looked at the information.

Although it was only 1955, most industries had already completed the First Five-Year Plan ahead of schedule. It can be said that in recent years, various industries in New China have developed very well, and the First Five-Year Plan has been completed very smoothly. These achievements made the Chairman very happy. So, after entering 1955, the Chairman discussed the issue of how to do things. The Chairman said there are two ways to do things.

One approach is slower and less effective. The other approach is faster and better. One is a matter of speed, the other a matter of quality. Don't just consider one approach; always consider both.

This was actually a prelude to the guiding principles the Chairman later proposed: more, faster, better, and more economical, ultimately summarized as "more, faster, better, and more economical." Once the Chairman's guiding principles were disseminated, "more, faster, better, and more economical" became just "more," "fast," and "economical," with the "good" in the middle becoming more beautiful. Everyone was pursuing "more" and "fast."

In this regard, the Chairman should bear a large part of the responsibility for the "adventurism" problem that occurred later.

"Chairman, I need to reflect on this. In recent years, our Rural Affairs Department has placed greater emphasis on quantitative growth and neglected qualitative growth, which has led to many problems in this area. Local governments have been unilaterally pursuing quantitative growth, even leading to cases of false reporting."

"Besides the one-sided pursuit of quantity, another problem is that our cadres, encouraged by the achievements of recent years, have begun to develop unrealistic ideas. They are eager to change the current backward situation, to the point that some cadres even shout the slogan 'Work hard for a few years' to achieve communism. This aspect of the problem is quite serious. There is not much understanding of communism. Everyone only knows that communism is distribution according to need. However, with the current state of my country's productivity, distribution according to need is impossible to achieve; it requires highly developed productivity. Therefore, some grassroots units have come up with equal distribution as a substitute for distribution according to need, believing that equal distribution is communism. However, this practice seriously undermines the current distribution according to work system in rural my country and greatly dampens farmers' enthusiasm for production."

"Besides the issues of distribution according to need and equal distribution, some grassroots governments, disregarding the current situation, are forcing a shift from collective ownership to universal ownership. They believe that public ownership of the means of production and assets constitutes communism. However, in my country, grassroots units are primarily collectively owned. Not to mention the assets of rural cooperatives, even county factories have completely different ownership structures from those of Anshan Iron and Steel and First Automobile Works. Furthermore, given the current state of productivity, my country will remain in the socialist stage for a long time. Entering communism will not be a matter of a few years or even a dozen years. Our cadres won't just say communism, and that won't happen."

"This situation directly affects rural cooperatives. It's like when mutual aid groups were converted to cooperatives, some cooperatives blindly pushed forward and confiscated their assets. This resulted in many conflicts. Because some grassroots units don't understand the difference between collective ownership and public ownership, many rural cooperatives worry about having their assets confiscated, so privately dividing up cooperative assets is common."

"This is all due to some of our cadres being out of touch with reality and misjudging the current state of productivity. Formulating economic policies under this guiding ideology will disrupt the normal development of rural areas and may even destroy the rural economic order established since the founding of the People's Republic of China."

Wei Hongjun is not just talking nonsense.