Deng Xiaoping said: Don't exaggerate my evaluation and don't take it too seriously
-- Commemorating the 120th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's birth
Chen Jin
When it comes to Deng Xiaoping, people will always be interested in his political life, and then ask: How did he face setbacks and adversity? Answering this question, one will naturally think of his ideals and beliefs as a revolutionary, and in addition, his attitude toward life is also very important.
For example, in the face of adversity, he always maintains an optimistic attitude. Deng Xiaoping once said that optimism is his magic weapon, and how to live his life when he worries about it every day? When the children were young, they sometimes made a little trouble with each other, and Deng Xiaoping only said one sentence: "If you want to quarrel, you go out to quarrel!" His wife asked him why he didn't care, and he said, "What's the matter?" Sooner or later, it will pass", and this is the case with the children's awkwardness, as well as with the contradictions, pressures, and setbacks encountered in political life. Deng Xiaoping's optimistic belief in the future is based on a dialectic of contradictions, life and history, that is, not believing that things and circumstances will remain the same.
Of course, pure optimism is not enough, and it is unrealistic to say that there is no worry, which leads to Deng Xiaoping's second attitude towards life in the face of adversity: patience and waiting. When asked how he survived the hardest days, he always had two words – "patience". When he came back from Jiangxi in 1973 to see Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong asked him how he had come all these years, and he also said two words: "Wait." ”
Patience and waiting do not necessarily mean facing difficulties passively and inactively, there is pain, but also wisdom and expectation. This brings us to Deng Xiaoping's third attitude towards life in the face of adversity: observation, thinking, and judgment. Although it is a literary metaphor and extension, his courageous rectification after his second comeback and his promotion of a series of reforms after his third comeback cannot be said to be unrelated to his calm summing up the lessons and lessons of contemporary China and pondering the problems existing in reality in the face of adversity. In other words, he was mentally prepared.
Deng Xiaoping's three attitudes in adversity have inspired people to do things, and if they panic in the face of difficulties, setbacks, and crises, they will fall first. In this case, in order to achieve success, what is needed is to overcome oneself, to have faith, to have wisdom, and to have measures. In the late 80s and early 90s of the 20th century, the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union caused serious setbacks to the cause of international socialism. Deng Xiaoping's attitude was: China's socialism cannot be changed, and no one can crush us. The countermeasures he proposed were: observe calmly, stabilize your position, and deal with it calmly. Don't be in a hurry, and don't be in a hurry. We must be calm, calm, and calm, bury ourselves in hard work, and do one thing well, our own business. These are not only Deng Xiaoping's experiences in dealing with changes without being surprised, but also the wisdom of his efforts to elevate his experience into a major national policy.
In the film and television materials of Deng Xiaoping and his family together, there are often happy scenes, such as the little grandson picking at his feet, he grabbing his granddaughter's pigtails, and so on. After he stepped down, he wrote to his grandchildren, saying: I have handed in the papers to the country. You have to learn some skills, you don't have big skills, and you always have to rely on yourself to exercise small skills and medium skills. Such expectations are mundane and real. After retiring, he said his wish was to walk the streets and see what ordinary people do. So, he bought pencils and erasers for his grandchildren in a shopping mall in Shanghai, and said: I haven't spent money for many years, so I spent the yuan myself. Such a yearning for the normality of the people's life is reflected in the management and decision-making, which is to be able to truly think about problems, express opinions, and formulate policies from the perspective of the people.
When Deng Xiaoping inspected the grassroots units, he was always accustomed to looking at things from the eyes of the common people, asking questions with the thinking of the common people, and speaking in the language of the common people. When he went to Sichuan in 1980 to see the project of transforming and applying biogas, he asked a question at a farmer's house: How much time does it take to boil a pot of water with biogas? He also bent down to look at the flames and asked: Can this flame be fried with kidney flowers? Anyone who knows how to stir-fry vegetables knows that waist flowers can only be delicious if they are fried on a hot fire, and Deng Xiaoping wanted to find out how powerful the fire power of biogas really is and whether it is suitable for the lives of the masses. The question is so simple and straightforward, you can see how familiar he is with the daily life of ordinary people!
Another time, he went to the area of the first three gates of Beijing to see the residential buildings that had just been built, and found that they were all old-fashioned padlocks, so he said seriously: No, it's all in the 80s, and the iron general guarded the door, doesn't this tell the thief that there is no one at home? When he entered the house, he went directly to see the bathroom, and said: The people's life is good or bad, look at the bathroom, and when the workers go home from work, they want to take a bath, at least the bathroom should have bathing equipment. It is no accident that we usually talk and act so close to the people, and put forward some development strategies that people can understand, touch, and see in the decision-making of major national affairs, such as solving the problem of food and clothing and achieving a moderately prosperous life.
Deng Xiaoping's pragmatism is typified by his style of language. There are basically no adjectives in his speech, concise and clear, all in the vernacular, but the truth is not shallow, and it is intriguing. When the children asked him how he came to the Long March, he said three words: "Follow along." When asked what he did in the Anti-Japanese War in Taihang Mountain, he replied with only two words: "Endure hardship." When it comes to the achievements of Liu Deng's army in the War of Liberation, it is also two words: "qualified." "The language is simple, real, crisp, carefully pondered, but it is very in place and very connotative. Looking at the three volumes of "Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping", except for the important reports of individual formal meetings, most of them are real conversations. It is often said that language is the material shell of the mind. The plain language style conveys Deng Xiaoping's character, and also reflects the ideological method of seeking truth from facts and the distinctive stance of historical materialism.
Seeking truth from facts is not difficult to say, and the truth is not difficult to understand, but it is not so simple to follow it consistently from theory to practice. In addition to the level of knowledge, it is also necessary to have the courage to be decisive and responsible. Especially when it is difficult to open up a new path, this kind of character is especially rare and more brilliant.
Deng Xiaoping's drastic rectification in 1975 embodied this character. In the face of all kinds of resistance, he said on many occasions: Carrying out the four modernizations is our sworn ambition, and we must not delay it. Now there are many 60-year-old tiger butts, 40-year-old tiger butts, and 20-year-old tiger butts, all of which should be touched, and 10,000 big-character posters are not afraid. This kind of character was even more evident in the course of Deng Xiaoping's leadership and promotion of reform and opening up. To lead the way for such a large country and to push forward reform as a new great revolution naturally requires a great deal of risk, and there is no guarantee that it will be 100 percent correct. Deng Xiaoping's method was to resolutely do what he saw. He often said: Without a force and a breath, you can't take a new path. So, when deciding to create a special economic zone, he did not hesitate to use a war term: "Fight your way out." "It is very tragic, reflects the true character of a soldier, and contains a lot of historical weight. In his instructions, such words as "no delay," "no delay," "no delay," and "no way to delay," and "procrastination is not the way" appear more frequently, which also reflects the courage to be straightforward and resolute. His understanding is very clear: If we do not take risks in carrying out the new undertaking of reform and opening up, we will not know whether it will be feasible if we do not try it. If it doesn't work, just correct it. In his words, there are four sentences: adhere to what is right, work hard if it is insufficient, change it quickly if it is wrong, and solve new problems as soon as possible.
This kind of character and courage is probably related to the fact that Deng Xiaoping often served as the number one leader of a department, a region, and an army during his revolutionary career of several decades. During the war years, he led all the way away from the central government to open up a new situation, and he needed to face reality, make bold decisions, and have the courage to take responsibility. Therefore, in terms of character, will and style of action, he also refuses to retreat from enterprising, acts decisively and less wandering, and dares to take responsibility and abandon prevarication. Thinking ahead, weighing left and right, and being mature in the chest before making decisions, there will be no hesitation and hesitation. Say it and do it, and once you do it, you can do it with your heart.
In 1988, Nie Weiping turned the tide in the Sino-Japanese Go Tournament and was awarded the title of "Chess Saint" by the National Sports Commission. The next day, he went to see Deng Xiaoping with his certificate. Deng Xiaoping looked at the certificate carefully and said meaningfully: "It's not easy to be a saint!" Nie Weiping's experience is: Comrade Xiaoping took this opportunity to tell me that it is better to be an ordinary person. "It's not easy to be a saint" precipitates Deng Xiaoping's life experience, reveals his sober understanding of the relationship between the individual and history, and also reflects how he views himself from one side. He had a high prestige in his later years, but he always reminded people not to add an artificial halo to him.
On September 4, 1989, the day he formally requested his retirement from the Central Committee, he said the following to the leading comrades of the Central Committee: "Don't exaggerate my evaluation and don't take too much weight. "I'm scared of having such a thing, it's a burden to have too much reputation. ...... Please. In January 1997, in the last part of his life, he saw the documentary "Deng Xiaoping" broadcast on television, and when the staff attached to his ear to narrate the content of the film, the 93-year-old man looked like a child who was praised and embarrassed. It also shows that his view that too high a reputation is a burden comes from the bottom of his heart.
Regarding his personal positioning, Deng Xiaoping was not without expectations. On September 16, 1993, he told his younger brother Deng Ken: "When the country develops, I just need to be a citizen of a rich country." This sentence is plain and bland, but it explains the relationship between the country and the individual, the cause and the individual very thoroughly, conveys the deep expectations for the future of the country, and reveals sincere and simple personal feelings and aspirations.
He made such a contribution to the development of the country that his personal desire was to be a "citizen". This kind of positioning cannot be said without a big mind and a big realm. Its historical and emotional content can be equated with another famous quote of his already familiar people, namely: "I am the son of the Chinese people, and I love my motherland and people with deep affection." The two sentences are connected and complement each other. He regards himself as the "son" of the people, so he has great love for the motherland and the people, and it is right to fight for it and give everything for it, and it is enough to be able to become a citizen of a rich country. This kind of mind belongs to the same realm as Mao Zedong's poem: "When the mountains are full of flowers, she laughs in the bushes." ”
(Redirected from "Leadership Literature")