Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

This little girl's mental state is really good.

So Wei Hongjun continued, "Then what role do you think intellectuals should play in society?"

"Criticism. Regardless of the country, true intellectuals are always critical of the government and dissatisfied with reality. This dissatisfaction is a normal phenomenon. The mission of intellectuals is to promote social progress and to criticize reality. How can progress be achieved if they sing praises and whitewash the situation all day long? Since ancient times, Chinese intellectuals have taken the world as their responsibility and are a group of proud people. Therefore, the most important thing we intellectuals must not give up is criticism."

Wei Hongjun began to talk to Lin Xiling about some other issues.

Although Lin Xiling was criticized and punished, she told Wei Hongjun very frankly that it was wrong for the Party and the government to block the news of the "secret report" and the "Polish-Hungarian incident" and not tell the people the truth.

After Lin Xiling shared her thoughts, Wei Hongjun asked, "Do you know how many people died in the Hungarian incident? According to the information we have received, the casualties in the Hungarian incident exceeded 15000. More than 20 people left Hungary as refugees, and more than 8000 criminals escaped from prison. This is just a visible problem. The number of Hungarian Communists has dropped from over one million to only . Do you know what this means? It means that Hungary is divided. From this moment on, Hungary will no longer be stable. What happened this time could happen again in Hungary at any time."

"Do you know how many people are in our country? If something like what happened in Hungary happened in our country, what consequences would it lead to? We are different from Hungary. If the death toll is not in the tens of thousands, but in the hundreds of thousands or millions."

"Comrade Xiaolin, if something really happened at Renmin University of China due to your instigation, and it caused chaos throughout society, and rivers of blood flowed, would you be able to bear the responsibility?"

Lin Xiling was very confused and asked, "Why can't the Party and the government listen to the students' voices? Why must they go to such lengths?"

"Have you ever worked on student movements, labor movements, or peasant movements?"

"No."

"You've never had this experience, so how could you possibly understand the chaos that can arise in a mass incident without strong leadership and organization? Comrade Xiaolin, I'm not trying to discredit you. You're talented and have strong propaganda skills, but if you organize an action involving only one or two hundred people, chaos is bound to occur. You simply have no experience in this area. And the most terrifying thing about mass incidents is losing control and letting the group become disorganized. Once chaos sets in, everyone joins in, and it eventually turns into riots. At that point, it's impossible to calmly discuss the issue. If things escalate, do you think we'll really be afraid to mobilize troops?"

"If there's even the slightest domestic unrest, American imperialism and Taiwan's Chiang Kai-shek clique won't miss such a good opportunity. A large number of spies will be relocated, and Chiang Kai-shek's clique may even send troops into the mainland. Do you know what the situation will be like then?"

Wei Hongjun stood up and said sternly, "You students think you've mastered the truth just because you've read a few books, and you keep shouting about it. But you're just naive, you know nothing, and you're just wishful thinking. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there was the Chahar-Suiyuan guerrilla unit in the Chahar-Suiyuan base area, and most of its leading cadres were university students from Beijing and Tianjin at the time. You're just as naive as you are now, thinking that just shouting anti-Japanese slogans can unite the people of the country to fight against Japan."

"As a result, the bandit and landlord forces they reorganized all rebelled and massacred our troops. Do you know how many people died? Your naivety during the war cost you and your comrades their lives. And in peacetime, you are causing such trouble, destroying the stability we have worked so hard to achieve. Do you think you are right? When something big happens, when you see corpses all over the city, when you see the bodies of your classmates, when you see factories shut down, the economy declining, and society in turmoil, will you still think you are right?"

Wei Hongjun is not Hu Guoguang.

Wei Hongjun had led troops in battle, having risen from a small private to the top. He had seen far too many casualties during the war. Although he had tempered down in recent years at the Central Committee, he was still incredibly frightening when angry. Lin Xiling hadn't expected Wei Hongjun, who had just calmly discussed some points with her, to suddenly lose his temper.

Lin Xiling is brave.

But no matter how brave she was, she was just a girl in her early twenties.

Frightened by Wei Hongjun's words, his face turned pale.

"You say the mission of intellectuals is to criticize? That's a cowardly statement, made by a bunch of low-brow intellectuals who don't want to do anything but talk, just to flatter themselves."

"I don't agree with that."

Although Lin Xiling was a little afraid of Wei Hongjun, she still mustered up the courage to express her opposition.

This is something he has always believed in.

Many teachers taught her the same thing. But Wei Hongjun simply said that this was a case of inferior intellectuals flattering themselves, which was truly humiliating.

"Why would you disagree? I'd like to ask: Do you know how many illiterate people there are in China? Do you know how far along China's literacy campaign has progressed? As a young intellectual of the new era, as a university student of the new era, have you done anything for these illiterate compatriots? In my eyes, you are no match for any of the people involved in the literacy campaign. They are promoting literacy and spreading cultural knowledge to the people of the country. They are enabling ordinary people to learn and freeing knowledge from the monopoly of so-called intellectuals. While they are promoting literacy, they are also building China's education system. They are not as educated as you, their cultural heritage is not as high as yours, and many have only been able to achieve literacy for a few years. Yet, they resolutely joined the great literacy campaign and, along with New China, are creating a new history and a new era. I'd like to ask: are you qualified to criticize them?"

Wei Hongjun scolded Lin Xiling.

Wei Hongjun didn't finish his speech. He continued, "Do you know that our country has carried out agricultural reclamation in Xinjiang, Suiyuan, Heilongjiang, Hainan, Yunnan, and other places? Millions of soldiers, technicians, students, workers, and farmers have participated in these agricultural reclamation projects. They have opened up land in the most deplorable border areas. Were there any mistakes in this process? Yes, many, and some were very serious. But it is in the midst of difficulties, through constant trial and error, that we have developed our agricultural reclamation projects. Every one of them is a hero of the Republic, and they have shed their sweat, and even their blood, on the frontiers of the motherland. I want to ask, are you qualified to criticize them?"

"I've read your critical articles, and none of them seriously criticize specific policies. They're all theoretical. Do you know why you can only raise theoretical questions and not criticize specific policies? It's because you don't understand the specific policies of the country at all. Even if some policies have problems, you can't see them."

"Chinese intellectuals have always valued self-cultivation, family harmony, governance of the country, and peace in the world. Their mission has always been to work hard. In peacetime, they participated in construction; in times of war, they sought a path to peace. Intellectuals who sit idle and discuss, whose mission is criticism, have never been the mainstream of our country's intellectuals. If the early members of our party only regarded criticism as their mission, there would be no New China today."

"Criticize? Are you qualified to criticize? If you've done something for the construction of New China, and if you discover problems along the way and then criticize them, then that's great. Because are there any problems with our work? Of course there are. New China was founded less than ten years ago, how could it be perfect? ​​But this kind of criticism must be based on your true understanding."

"Does our party not allow criticism? No, our party attaches great importance to criticism. Criticism and self-criticism are our party's fine traditions and style. We welcome everyone to criticize our work."

Lin Xiling couldn't help but look up at Wei Hongjun.

Then he pursed his lips and said nothing.

Lin Xiling had long heard of Wei Hongjun's reputation. Many of Lin Xiling's teachers, including Wu Yuzhang, had praised Wei Hongjun for his good temper. But in Lin Xiling's opinion, Wei Hongjun was far from having a good temper.

aggressive.

Wei Hongjun looked at Lin Xiling and said, "Comrade Xiaolin, when the Secretariat was discussing your issue, I suggested that you work at a grassroots level. Don't you think the mission of intellectuals is to criticize? Then I want you to work at the grassroots level for a period of time, participating in rural literacy campaigns, health campaigns, and the current rural cooperatives building grassroots democracy, developing rural industry and commerce, and so on. Do the work yourself and understand government policies. After understanding them, if you think something is wrong, please write to me directly. I'd like to ask for your opinion: do you have the courage to accept such a job? Or do you just want to talk and find fault without doing any practical work for the new China?"

"Who said that."

Lin Xiling couldn't stand this kind of provocation.

So he immediately said, "I am a soldier of Commander Chen Yi. I am not afraid of difficulties or sacrifices. I will go to the grassroots level to prove that what I said is right."

1013 Establishment of the Central Bureau of Letters and Calls

"Secretary Wei."

"Here you go, sit down."

Wei Hongjun put down the documents in his hand and spoke casually.

Wei Hongjun wanted to give Lin Xiling and other university students a chance, but that didn't mean he would just leave them alone. Lin Xiling was the ringleader in this incident, but some students from Renmin University of China, including some from other universities like Peking University and Tsinghua University, also got involved.

So this time we have to pack them up and send them all to the grassroots for training.

Since they were being sent to the grassroots level for training, they couldn't be left to fend for themselves there. Nor could they be left idle, talking nonsense and disrupting grassroots work. Therefore, Wei Hongjun had to find a steward for them.

One is to always pay attention to the ideological changes of these students, and the other is to guide them on how to work.

But such people are hard to find.

First, they need to be educated enough to communicate with these students and not be underestimated by them. They also need to have extensive work experience to convince these students. Furthermore, this person cannot treat these students like criminals, as the security bureau officers do.

Of course, more importantly, these individuals have sensitive identities. If ordinary cadres were to go there and fail to manage them properly, they would be implicated. They couldn't be too strict, but neither could they be too lenient. And Wei Hongjun had even more to consider.

Those who got into trouble this time were all relatively active people in major universities in Beijing.

If only a few of these people could succeed, it would be a success. Wei Hongjun, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, couldn't possibly consider only the interests of a few individuals. No matter how talented they were, to Wei Hongjun, they were just ordinary students. It would take who knows when they would become successful.

What Wei Hongjun really cares about is how to help these theoretically knowledgeable students become successful.

This is an opportunity.

Consider how to train these students. Many university graduates today have this problem: they're overconfident and ignorant of ordinary matters. But the current situation is that anyone graduating from a technical secondary school, college, or university is automatically a cadre.

Wei Hongjun presided over the work of the Secretariat, Party building, and cadre training, all of which were his responsibilities. He had to consider how to ensure these students could quickly adapt to practical work, rather than becoming cadres who only knew how to talk. This would become an experiment for Wei Hongjun in developing a cadre training program.

Wei Hongjun wants to find a way to allow students to cooperate with reality. This is why Wei Hongjun attaches so much importance to this matter.

Wei Hongjun searched everywhere and finally found Yang Yongfu.

Because of his unique status, he wasn't afraid to meet these sensitive students, and no one would say anything. Having studied in the Soviet Union, he had extensive frontline work experience, including military service, farming, and working as a blacksmith in a machine factory. This kind of training for young cadres not only created a new path for cadre development, but also served as a test for Yang Yongfu.

If successful, it will also be a political achievement for Yang Yongfu.

Wei Hongjun was willing to give him such an opportunity.

“The expansion work at the machine tool plant has been well done.”

After returning from the Korean War, Yang Yongfu became deputy director and party secretary of the Beijing No. 1 Machine Tool Factory, where he participated in its reconstruction. In recent years, the factory has been a major project of the Ministry of Industry, with over 100 million yuan invested in its reconstruction.

There was also aid from the Soviet Union.

It is one of the important projects of the First Five-Year Plan.

The transformation was completed in 1956 and became one of the largest machine tool companies in China. In 1956, the annual output value exceeded 6000 million, making it a large enterprise. Of course, the reconstruction of Beijing No. Machine Tool Factory was not yet completed.

During the Second Five-Year Plan, Beijing No. 1 Machine Tool Factory continued to expand.

"I didn't do anything. It was thanks to Soviet aid, the financial support of the state, and the workers' hard work day and night that the First Machine Tool Factory achieved its current success."

"I want to move you somewhere."

Wei Hongjun was not polite either.

The two spent ten months on the Korean battlefield. As Wei Hongjun's secretary and Russian translator, Yang Yongfu stayed by Wei Hongjun's side throughout the Korean battlefield. In fact, if it weren't for Yang Yongfu's special status, Wei Hongjun would have wanted to transfer him to be his secretary.

"Secretary Wei, where do you want me to go?"

"Henan."

Wei Hongjun said seriously, "Last year, Hebei and Henan suffered severe floods, as you should have heard. Over 4000 million mu of farmland in the two provinces was affected. If it weren't for the large-scale promotion of improved varieties last year, and the success of fertile farmland construction in Hebei and Henan provinces in recent years, grain production in the two provinces would have decreased last year. However, although the total output did not decrease, the areas severely affected by the disaster did suffer a serious drop in grain production. Now the government needs disaster relief. I want to transfer you to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to be responsible for disaster relief work in Henan this time. Not only will you provide disaster relief, but you will also participate in post-disaster reconstruction. What do you think?"

Disaster relief and post-disaster reconstruction will be a very complicated process.

Wei Hongjun wanted to let these students handle these complex tasks, to show them the vast gap between theory and reality. Of course, during this process, some of them were able to apply theory to real-world situations, improving the quality and efficiency of disaster relief. That was something Wei Hongjun wanted to see, because it showed they were gradually integrating into the real work and putting theory into practice.

Yang Yongfu shrugged.

He smiled bitterly and said, "Secretary Wei, you are not unaware of my situation. I am just a brick of the revolution, and I will be moved wherever I am needed. Since I returned to China, I have never said what I want to do. I just do whatever others tell me to do."

Very helpless.

When Yang Yongfu first returned to China, he wanted to join the army.

After all, he graduated from the Lenin Political and Military School and later served as an apprentice in the Soviet Army. Upon returning to China, Chairman Mao sent him to learn farming and participate in land reform. When the People's Republic of China was founded, he went to work at the Beijing Machine Factory, the predecessor of the current Beijing No. 1 Machine Tool Factory. When the Korean War broke out, he donned his military uniform and went to Korea. After the Korean War ended, he returned to work at the Beijing Machine Factory.

Every step is not something you can choose, it is all arranged by others.

The level is not properly upgraded.

When he went to North Korea, he was a regimental-level cadre. His pay was relatively low among the translation cadres in the Central Committee and the Military Commission. Many of the Central Committee secretaries and translation teams had only been working for a few years, but because they were educated, they were already receiving the same treatment as regimental-level cadres.

But Yang Yongfu was 28 years old at the time, a graduate of the Soviet Military Academy. After returning to China, he took on several other positions. Finally, when he arrived in North Korea, like many young men in their early twenties, he was only a regimental-level cadre.

After returning from North Korea, he happened to catch up with the expansion work of the Beijing Machinery Factory. He has been here for the past few years.

He is already 35 years old now.

I no longer hope to fulfill my dream of leading troops to fight in wars like I did when I was young.

After finally completing the expansion of Beijing No. 1 Machine Tool Plant, they asked him to go to disaster relief. So Yang Yongfu did not ask Wei Hongjun what position or rank he would give him.

"Recently, some students at several universities in Beijing have been organizing disturbances. We plan to send these students to the grassroots level for training. However, this training shouldn't be blind; it requires a systematic approach. I want you to be in charge of this matter."

"Throw all those students into the disaster relief team?"

"Correct."

Yang Yongfu frowned.

I am not a teacher, so how can I be responsible for taking care of these students?

Wei Hongjun said, "The era of peaceful construction and the era of war have similarities and differences. The commonality is that scholars must integrate textbook knowledge with actual conditions. In the history of our Party, many scholars failed to understand the actual situation and mechanically applied textbook knowledge, ultimately causing huge losses to the revolution. This is why Chairman Mao wrote the article "Oppose Book Worship" in the Soviet areas. This applies not only to the war years, but also to the era of peaceful construction. Whether in war or peaceful construction, the mechanical and dogmatic application of textbook knowledge ultimately leads to huge losses."

"The difference is that during wartime, the revolutionary losses were casualties. You were young and didn't witness the Central Soviet Area's Fifth Anti-Encirclement and Suppression Campaign and the Long March. There were fields and fields of dead bodies. Many comrades were talking to you one minute, and the next, they were dead. That's the cruelty of war. In the era of peaceful construction, even if some mistakes are made, they won't be as brutal as they were during wartime. This gives us many opportunities to make amends."

Wei Hongjun had nothing to hide.

He expressed his thoughts and said, "In peacetime, we have enough time to slowly explore how these students can be transformed into qualified cadres. It's no longer like in wartime when they can just read a book and then come out to give orders blindly. But how to make those students who have just graduated from campus become front-line cadres from a student is a systematic project that our party needs to slowly explore and improve. In the past, due to the lack of cultural cadres, our party adopted the method of training them in political and military cadre schools, and then slowly training them in the base areas. If they survived, they were considered well trained. But after the founding of New China, more and more secondary school students, junior college students, and university students directly entered various institutions as cadres after graduation. This will cause them to be separated from the masses and from reality. At the beginning, their separation from the masses and from reality has limited impact. Twenty or thirty years later, when they reach high positions, it will be a disaster."

Party building work and cadre training work are both top priorities in party work.