Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Deng Zihui, Director of the Political Department (18)

In the summer of 1954, Deng Zihui, who was the commander-in-chief of flood control in the country, was always concerned about meteorological changes and flooding.

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In January 1953, Deng Zihui was transferred to Beijing to take on a new responsibility and preside over the Rural Work Department of the CPC Central Committee.

As soon as Deng Zihui arrived at the Rural Work Department, he went all out to grasp the important work of the agricultural co-operative movement in accordance with the principles and instructions formulated by the CPC Central Committee and Chairman Mao Zedong at that time on the development of agricultural co-operation. He analyzed the situation in China, which is vast in size, complex in terrain, large in population, and uneven in the level of peasant consciousness, and held that a "one-size-fits-all" coercive method must not be adopted, and the comrades who demanded that rural workers and comrades understand that in order to realize agricultural co-operation, it is necessary to do hard and patient work for the peasants, educate them, free them from the shackles of small-scale production for thousands of years, and let them personally experience the benefits of organizing collectivization, which is profitable. Therefore, the cooperative movement must advance steadily, avoid rough and forced orders, and make the cooperative movement from scratch, from small to large, from point to surface, from low to high, and do a good job one step at a time, and do a good job in one township and then another. The Party must actively and effectively guide the peasants to a new road, that is, the road of organization as instructed by Chairman Mao.

In the spring of 1953, the agricultural co-operative movement developed further. However, in some areas, there have been impatient and adventurous tendencies such as forcing peasants to join cooperatives, infringing on the interests of middle peasants, and blindly pursuing advanced forms. Deng Zihui discovered and promptly reported to the Party Central Committee and suggested overcoming this tendency. The Central Committee of the Party accepted his correct proposal and, in just one month, issued instructions to the whole Party several times in a row to correct the tendency to be impatient and adventurous. At the same time, under the presidency of Deng Zihui, the Central Rural Work Department drafted the "Instructions on Spring Ploughing Production to Party Committees at All Levels" on behalf of the Party Central Committee, and on behalf of the "People's Daily," drafted an editorial entitled "The Key to Leading Agricultural Production" to guide the normal progress of the agricultural cooperative movement. In April, the Central Committee compiled these two documents, together with the "Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Mutual Assistance and Cooperation in Agricultural Production" adopted in February 1953, entitled "Guide to Rural Work at present", which was printed and distributed throughout the country, which played an important guiding role in the agricultural cooperative movement at that time. In the same month, Deng Zihui presided over the first national rural work conference.

In September 1954, the First National People's Congress was held in Beijing. Deng Zihui was appointed vice premier of the State Council, in charge of agriculture.

In the spring of 1955, the number of agricultural cooperatives nationwide soared to 670,000. At the same time, due to the expropriation of 7 billion kilograms of grain throughout the country, there has been a tense situation of grain and cooperativeization in many areas; in some areas, the phenomenon of slaughtering livestock, cutting down trees, and destroying production has occurred. On the basis of a large number of previous investigation materials, Deng Zihui made a report to Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, who were presiding over the daily work of the central authorities in Beijing around New Year's Day in 1955, suggesting that the entire movement should be shifted to control development and focus on the consolidation stage. To this end, the Party Central Committee issued the Circular on Rectifying and Consolidating Agricultural Cooperatives on January 10.

On March 26, Mao Zedong talked to Deng Zihui and other leaders of the Central Rural Work Department, Chen Boda, Liao Luyan, and Du Runsheng, affirming the measures taken in rural work during this period, pointing out: "Production relations must meet the requirements of the development of productive forces, otherwise there will be a riot, and the current peasants slaughtering pigs and slaughtering cattle is a productive force uprising." He also put forward the three-character policy of "stopping, shrinking, and developing" (according to different regions, stopping development, implementing contraction, and appropriate development). Deng Zihui supported the instructions and opinions of the Central Committee and Mao Zedong, and focused on helping to solve the problems in Zhejiang at that time.

On April 20, Deng Zihui attended a meeting of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee convened by Liu Shaoqi to report to the meeting on the implementation of the central government's policy of "stopping, shrinking, and issuing". The meeting affirmed the contraction work in some provinces, and Liu Shaoqi instructed that the general policy of the future cooperative movement is: "Stop development and make all-out efforts to consolidate." On the evening of the same day, Deng Zihui again reported to Mao Zedong and analyzed three factors of the tension in the rural areas: the prominent factor was the centralized purchase and marketing of grain; there was also the excessively rapid and excessive transformation of private property in urban and rural areas; and the fundamental factor was that there was a problem with the socialist transformation of agriculture (mainly production cooperation).

From April 21 to May 7, Deng Zihui presided over the third rural work conference. He solemnly conveyed to the comrades present the general policy on the development of agricultural co-operation set by Liu Shaoqi at the meeting of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and once again reiterated Mao Zedong's opinion that during the period of the three five-year plans, each five-year plan should be completed by one-third, and the national co-operative movement should be completed in 10 to 15 years.

Link: Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Deng Zihui, Director of the Political Department (17)