Hu Yaobang: History cannot be mixed
"History cannot be mixed up—"
Twenty-four years later, Hu Yaobang's words are the answer to those infinite remembrances and endless remembrances on his death day every year.
On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang died of a sudden myocardial infarction. In the memories of his daughter-in-law, he walked too unexpectedly. In the early morning of the same day, Hu Yaobang, who was quietly reclining on the bed, was waiting for his wife to come to see him, when the hand held by the secretary suddenly loosened, and his head suddenly turned to one side.
That night, Zou Youkai, then director of the CCTV Literature and Art Department, was on the train back to Beijing, and after hearing the news of Hu Yaobang's death on the radio, he was saddened and wrote: "Joy you don't laugh, pain you don't cry, how much green shade you sprinkle on the earth, that is the note of love; a good big tree, green blessings, your bosom in the blue sky, deep affection hidden in the fertile soil.
Not many people know that the later widely sung "Good Big Tree" came about, just as no more people know such a set of numbers:
More than 3 million people have been rehabilitated from unjust, false and wrongly decided cases because of Hu Yaobang, 550,000 "rightists" have been justified because of them; 1,703 counties have left their footprints of investigation and investigation, and 3,000 letters from ordinary people have been personally approved during their six-year term of office.
"If I don't get off the pan, who gets out of the pan?"
On December 15, 1977, the long-lost sound of firecrackers sounded in the forecourt of the office building of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
The reason why these cadres and their families, who were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, set off firecrackers was that Hu Yaobang took office as director of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. Since then, "After suffering, find the Central Organization Department; if there is a wrong, find Hu Yaobang" has become the most familiar folk saying.
Hu Yaobang, who had just taken office, made it clear that the first thing to really rectify the chaos now was to comprehensively implement the cadre policy, rectify unjust, false and wrongly decided cases, and correct the cadre line that had been reversed by the "Cultural Revolution."
In the grievances and hopes of the firecrackers, Hu Yaobang was full of resistance and difficult steps. When it constantly emphasizes that "unjust, false, and wrongly decided cases since the founding of the People's Republic of China, no matter what level of organization or which leader has decided and approved them, they must be corrected in a truth-seeking manner." At that time, there was always a strong question: "What should I do with Chairman Mao's approval?" ”
"As flat as ever!" Hu Yaobang replied, cutting through the iron.
In February 1950, after the liberation of Chengdu, Hu Yaobang, only 35 years old, went to Nanchong to serve as the party secretary, director of the administrative office and political commissar of the military region in the northern Sichuan District (then a provincial-level administrative region), becoming the "youngest provincial party secretary in China".
In the summer of 1952, Hu Yaobang was transferred to Beijing. For the next 14 years, he served as the secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese New Democratic Youth League and the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League.
Based on the accumulation and experience of this period of work, Hu Yaobang took the post of delegated and shouldered heavy responsibilities on November 10, 1962, as the secretary of the Secretariat of the Hunan Provincial CPC Committee and the first secretary of the Xiangtan Prefectural Committee; in November 1964, he was transferred to the Third Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee (which governs the five provinces and regions of Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang) and the first secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee.
"Shaanxi is fat, Yaobang is thin!" At that time, Shaanxi, which was poor and backward and poor, was able to change in Hu Yaobang's work day and night, but from going deep into the youth to tying his feet to the land, Hu Yaobang did not escape the devastation of the "Cultural Revolution".
As the first member of the Central Committee to be paraded and criticized, and then laid down on a large scale and directly subjected to the "May Seventh" cadre school, Hu Yaobang was well aware of the humiliation, so in 1975 he re-emerged from the mountains because of Deng Xiaoping's heavyweight, and after being promoted to director of the Central Organization Department, he was even more determined to make the rehabilitation of unjust cases the first priority.
During the Cultural Revolution, Bo Yibo and 61 others were designated as "traitor groups," and their families, their relatives and friends, and old subordinates were almost all affected, and as a result, tens of thousands of people were censored and persecuted.
The first major case that Hu Yaobang embarked on rehabilitating was the case of the "Sixty-One Traitor Group" that caused a sensation throughout the country. When Hu Yaobang informed Deng Xiaoping of his idea of reviewing this major case, Deng Xiaoping could not help but feel his courage and boldness.
Under the auspices and breakthroughs of Hu Yaobang, after nearly half a year of investigation and evidence collection, the "Sixty-one Renegade Group" case was finally completely rehabilitated after 12 years of grievances. At the same time, the work of rectifying unjust, false and wrongly decided cases throughout the country has been carried out in an all-round way.
Without tearing down the deepest walls, it is difficult to promote the most fundamental changes. The case of the "Sixty-One Traitor Group" embodies Hu Yaobang's vigorous behavior, and in the process of rehabilitating Peng Dehuai, what is highlighted is his far-sightedness.
Relying on the support of Deng Xiaoping, Ye Jianying, Chen Yun, and others, Hu Yaobang stepped forward and continuously promoted the relevant work of rehabilitating Peng Dehuai during his presidency of the Central Organization Department. Finally, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China unanimously approved: to completely rehabilitate Peng Dehuai and restore his reputation.
After Peng Dehuai was rehabilitated, Huang Kecheng, then a member of the CPC Central Committee and executive secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, handed over a manuscript to Hu Yaobang.
This manuscript, a batch of reminiscences written by Peng Dehua during his house arrest, was secretly kept by his niece Peng Meikui and sent to Peng Dehuai's old comrade-in-arms and former chief of general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Huang Kecheng after several twists and turns.
After Peng Dehuaiping was able to oppose Zhaoxue, Huang Kecheng dared to hand over Peng Dehuai's manuscript to the Central Committee, and he naturally chose to hand it over to Hu Yaobang. After receiving the manuscript, Hu Yaobang did not immediately store it in the Central Archives for preservation, but organized forces to carefully sort out Peng Dehuai's manuscripts, and used "Peng Dehuai's Self-Description" as the title of the book, which was published publicly and distributed nationwide.
How many people know that "Peng Dehuai's Self-Description", which has aroused unprecedented repercussions at home and abroad, is precisely because of this that it is shown to the world?
"If I don't get off the pan, who gets out of the pan?" By the end of 1984, the unjust, false and wrongly decided cases of 3 million cadres had finally been corrected and rehabilitated.
It is worth mentioning that among the unjust, false and wrongly decided cases in which Hu Yaobang presided over the rehabilitation, many people had rectified Hu Yaobang in that year. Man Mei once joked to her father: "As the saying goes, the prime minister can hold a boat in his belly, and I see that you can run an aircraft carrier in your belly." ”
Correspondingly, the 550,000 "rightists" who were wronged in the "anti-rightist" movement were also justified by Hu Yaobang. Among these surprising figures, some people are "surprised" and Hu Yaobang "corrected" too much. Hu's answer was simple — why not too much when he was first arrested?
The most important merits of Hu Yaobang, which are mostly evaluated by later generations, are: First, he liberated people, and second, he emancipated his mind. In the rehabilitation of unjust and wrongly decided cases, 3 million humiliations were liberated, and In the breaking of ideological shackles, Hu Yaobang also made up his mind.
"If the mind is bound, the relationship between man and man may become a master-slave relationship."
In March 1977, Hu Yaobang was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and served as the vice president of the Central Party School.
On May 10, 1978, theoretical dynamics, an internal journal of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, took the lead in publishing the article "Practice is the Only Criterion for Testing Truth".
On May 11, 1978, Guangming Daily published "Practice is the Only Criterion for Testing Truth," which was broadcast by Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, and People's Liberation Army Daily, and thus the great discussion on ideological emancipation was fully rolled out.
Since then, this historical node, which has been repeatedly recalled and praised, could not have been so "gorgeous" without Hu Yaobang's boldness and wisdom. Ma Licheng, former director of the commentary department of the People's Daily, commented in his famous book "Thirty Years of Confrontation":
Such a major move, even from today's point of view, is also bold.
In March 1978, Yang Xiguang, who had finished his studies at the Party School and was transferred by Hu Yaobang to serve as the editor-in-chief of Guangming Daily, received an article written by Hu Fuming, a teacher at Nanjing University, to the newspaper entitled "Practice is the standard for testing all truths." Excited but nervous, Yang Xiguang gave it to the Central Party School, hoping to publish it in Theoretical Dynamics first.
Hu Yaobang, who was busy rectifying unjust, false and wrongly decided cases, keenly felt the importance of this matter after learning about it, and said: Take the manuscript and look at it.
After repeated revisions by Guangming Daily and the Theory Research Office of the Central Party School, the manuscript was sent to Hu Yaobang for review for the first time at the end of April, who "drew a circle, changed a word, and changed some punctuation."
On May 6, Hu Yaobang convened a meeting of the editorial team of Theoretical Dynamics at his home, said that the manuscript was of great importance, required that it must be carefully considered and made impeccable, and proposed two amendments. On the 8th, "Theoretical Dynamics" informed Sun Changjiang of Hu Yaobang's opinion, and Sun Changjiang revised it according to Hu Yaobang's opinion, thus forming the final draft of "Practice is the Only Criterion for Testing Truth."
If the article, which was particularly important at that time, wanted to be published in the form of an editorial, it must be examined and approved by the leader of the Politburo of the Central Committee in charge of propaganda work, and it was Wang Dongxing, who was in charge of this post, who scrupulously abided by the "two whatevers," so Wang Dongxing certainly would not let this article come out and "stir up trouble."
To this end, Hu Yaobang decided to publish "Practice is the Only Criterion for Testing Truth" by Theoretical Dynamics first, "Guangming Ribao" as a "special commentator" the next day, and then publish it by "People's Daily" and "Jiefangjun Bao" on the third day and telegram to the whole country by Xinhua News Agency on the third day.
In this way, it was possible to avoid Wang Dongxing's censorship, and only Hu Yaobang's Bao Tian dared to bypass Hua Guofeng or Wang Dongxing in this way and highlight the siege.
"This article is published, which is equivalent to a showdown. Everyone with insight into China's politics senses that a storm is coming. ”
As soon as "Practice is the Only Criterion for Testing Truth" came out, the shackled criticism was like a mighty rainstorm.
At 11:00 p.m. on May 12, Wu Lengxi, deputy director of the Office of the Editorial and Publishing Committee of Chairman Mao Zedong of the CPC Central Committee and deputy secretary of the Party Committee, angrily called Hu Jiwei, president of the People's Daily, who carried the article on the same day, saying: "This article makes a mistake in direction" and is "cutting down the flag."
Everyone understood what the definition of "cutting the flag" meant, and Hu Yaobang was not afraid of this, and then Hu Yaobang revised the final draft of the article "The Tide of History Rolls Forward" to refute it.
Panic.
On June 15, Wang Dongxing spoke at a meeting of responsible persons of news units directly under the central government, directly criticizing "special commentators" and Hu Yaobang by name, and severely criticizing People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency, demanding that "we accept the lesson and not set an example." ”
However, the day after Wang Dongxing demanded that "the next step not be an example," the People's Daily published an article entitled "On the Question of The Standard of Truth" under pressure, which was immediately published by Xinhua News Agency, Guangming Daily, and Jiefangjun Bao.
Anger and confrontation continued to escalate, and the ideological liberators led by Hu Yaobang waited for the long-awaited national debate, and before the historical trend of "rolling forward," Deng Xiaoping finally made it clear that "practice is the only criterion for testing truth" is "irrefutable."
In December 1978, at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Hu Yaobang was added to the Politburo of the Central Committee, and three days after the end of the Third Plenum, he was appointed Secretary General of the CPC Central Committee and Head of the Central Propaganda Department.
Zheng Zhongbing, an intellectual who was imprisoned twice during the Cultural Revolution and later rehabilitated by Hu Yaobang, recalled: "When the news came that Hu Yaobang was appointed secretary general of the Central Committee and director of the Central Propaganda Department, cadres of the Central Propaganda Department and the propaganda system, as well as friends of the broad masses of intellectual circles, rushed to tell each other and were thrilled. ”
The eldest son, Hu Deping, understood his father Hu Yaobang's measures to emancipate the mind more profoundly: Behind the ideological emancipation movement is still the emancipation of people, and if the mind is bound, the relationship between people and people may become a master-servant relationship, a master-slave relationship, and a subordinate relationship:
Mao Zedong loved to watch "Famen Temple" (Peking Opera, editor's note), Liu Jin let Jia Gui sit, and Jia Gui said that slaves were used to standing. Hu Yaobang often said that comrades who realize their status as slaves and fight for it are revolutionaries; those who live a life of obscurity and muddled slavery are slaves; and those who are slaves and return their slave life are slaves and shameless people. ”
"Today's Hu Yaobang, or yesterday's Hu Yaobang"
Emancipating the mind and rehabilitating unjust cases made Hu Yaobang thrown to the peak of power in the fortunate historical environment.
In 1980, Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying proposed that Hu Yaobang be the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. After more than a dozen rejections, Hu Yaobang finally agreed to take office, but stated his conditions:
"This chairman can only be held until the Twelfth Congress, as a kind of transition. If we want to continue to work, we must change the chairman system to a general secretary system to ensure the party's collective leadership and unity. ”
At the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in June 1981, Hu Yaobang was elected chairman of the Central Committee, with Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, and Chen Yun as vice chairmen. In the speech of the central committee members after the meeting, Hu Yaobang expressed his position: "I have the responsibility to explain to the plenary session that two points have not changed: First, the role of the old revolutionaries has not changed; second, my level has not changed. Today's Hu Yaobang is still the same Hu Yaobang yesterday. ”
In addition to the complex power center and the obstructed reform road, Hu Yaobang in his life is also a clean wind and two sleeves, educating people to restrain themselves. Whether it is a career ups and downs or a change of circumstances, it is the same as "yesterday".
The Yangcheng Evening News once revealed an anecdote that on April 15, 24 years ago, on a train from Hunan to Beijing, an old farmer who had not bought a ticket squatted in the carriage and cried. In the face of the train's inquiry, the old farmer cried: "My brother Yaobang is dead!" Surprised, the conductor arranged a sleeper for him.
Two years later, the old farmer, Hu Yaobang's brother Hu Yaofu, died, and the townspeople joined forces:
There is a typical in the country, two sleeves of the breeze to do the naked;
There is no precedent in the world, and a generation of imperial brothers are farmers.
"The Communist Party does things for the people, not for a family and a family," Hu Yaobang, a high-ranking and powerful person, has very strict requirements for his family and relatives, and will never allow a little specialization.
In 1982, shortly after hu Yaobang became general secretary, he held a family meeting and solemnly said to his family: If anyone uses my signboard and position to do something wrong outside, he will be responsible for himself, and I will not come forward to intercede.
At the same time, he also wrote a special letter to his family to remind: "This means that we have to clamp our tails more tightly." ”
In that year, Hu Yaofu's son Hu De'an went to visit a relative who was a leader in a certain county, and revealed in his speech that he wanted the other party to help find a job. When Hu Yaobang learned of this, he was so angry that he insisted that the leader return his nephew to the countryside, and he said to the leader, "Aren't you demolishing my platform?" ”
For himself, Hu Yaobang was even more disgusted with specialization and privilegedization - "Communists must be honest", which is a phrase he often hangs on his lips and uses to introspect himself.
According to reports, on April 20, 1989, the fifth day of Hu Yaobang's death, a reporter came to his home and was "stunned" by the scene inside the room as soon as he entered his bedroom: the bedroom was about 15 square meters, and on the writing desk near the window, there were 3 telephones, an ordinary iron desk calendar, a pair of reading glasses and more than a dozen pencils, and the teacup he used before his death was an empty glass bottle for coffee.
At that time, Hu Yaobang's life secretary pointed to a blue hidden striped suit on the hanger and told reporters: "This is the best set of clothes before the first life, and he only wears it when he meets foreign guests, holds meetings, and goes out." The body of the chief will wear this suit, and when we were preparing the clothes to be worn by the chief's body, we found that this set of clothes was already dirty, and it was only washed and retrieved from the Great Hall of the People the day before yesterday. ”
What is contained in simplicity and harshness is Hu Yaobang's temperament in life and the anxiety of serving the government, Hu Deping recalled, when he learned that the amount of public banquets throughout the country was huge and seemed to be normal, "not only was he saddened by the waste of public funds, but he was even more worried about how much thought some comrades put into developing the economy and innovating the system." ”
In response to this, Hu Yaobang also wrote a poem "rude words": "Fuck the egg, for the government is clean." ”
Hu Yaobang, who was so outspoken, resigned on January 16, 1987, but could only remain silent. Such as Hu Deping's mourning poem:
Evening of April 15
There were a few lines of sparse rain
In silence
For one was silent for more than two years
Finally walked to the last silent person to send off
His life
It ends when it shouldn't
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