At the 1955 investiture ceremony, Bo Yibo did not receive a military rank, mainly because he had left the army and turned to the economic field before the award, so even if he had achieved high achievements in all aspects during the revolutionary period, there was still no military rank to correspond to it.
might as well make an assumption, if it is based on Bo Yibo's qualifications, ability and contributions, he should be able to be rated as a general.
A great talent that made the Kuomintang authorities admire
From the perspective of qualifications, Bo Yibo joined the Communist Party of China as early as 1925, when he organized the establishment of the party branch of the National Normal School and served as the branch secretary.
After the defeat of the Great Revolution, he came to northern Shanxi to engage in the restoration and reconstruction of the party organization, and the situation was already very critical at that time, but Bo Yibo still organized and led some local struggles, which had an important impact on the local area.
It can be said that at this stage, Bo Yibo has put life and death aside.
Because his work was extremely dangerous and the situation he encountered was extremely complicated, Bo Yibo was arrested and imprisoned four times, and even in prison, he always maintained the high demeanor of a Communist Party member.
In the face of a prison surrounded by walls and heavily guarded by soldiers, it is commendable to still maintain the true character of the revolution, and Chairman Mao once praised his special revolutionary history.
In June 1931, Bo Yibo ushered in a dark period, when a large number of cadres were arrested as a result of traitor whistleblowers, and he was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Kuomintang authorities.
However, in prison, he organized a fighting collective with party branch officials as the core, and he was still fighting against the enemy, and the military justice department of the Kuomintang in Peiping had even sentenced him to death, but the approval of the Nationalist Government never came down, so that the comrades in prison escaped.
It was not until September 1936 that 54 comrades were finally rescued by the organization, that is, although these comrades did not take the Long March, their battlefield was still extremely dangerous.
After being released, the first person to come to greet him turned out to be Yan Xishan's envoy.
The other party had long taken a fancy to Bo Yibo's ability, so he also said respectfully: "Chairman Yan Xishan hopes to ask you to discuss Baojin." ”
But the reply the envoy received was only a cold sentence: "There is something to talk to our organization." ”
Bo Yibo returned to Shanxi, and the cadres of the army do not have to be able to exert their abilities on the special front.
After the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party formed a united front, and Yan Xishan hoped that the CCP could send cadres to work here.
At that time, Yan Xishan also commented: "Politically, we have to rely on Bo Yibo, and militarily we have to rely on Xu Qianqian." ”
In his heart, these two talents are not under his command, which makes him, the "King of Shanxi", full of different regrets.
Bo Yibo is also very aware of the important tasks assigned to him by the organization, the Anti-Japanese War needs talents, Shanxi is a treasure of feng shui, he immediately took over the Sacrifice League, after the reorganization, the Sacrifice League has become an anti-Japanese salvation organization led by the Communist Party.
With the unique propaganda offensive, Shanxi's anti-Japanese war work will soon have an impact all over the country, and young people from all over the country have come to Shanxi to participate in anti-Japanese activities.
Through the Sacrifice League, Bo Yibo also opened various training classes to train cadres, and in a short period of time developed 600,000 members, and these soldiers became the backbone of the new army in the future.
Of course, Yan Xishan also had his own ideas, and one day he went to Bo Yibo and said, "Look, there are no soldiers after the war starts, what do you say?"
Bo Yibo had been waiting for this day, and he replied: "Organize a new army and reform the old army." ”
Therefore, Bo Yibo formed the first regiment of the new army with 300 cadets from each of the military and political training class, the civilian training cadre regiment, and the eighth and ninth regiments of the national militia officer training regiment.
After only 50 days of intense training, the team was taken by Bo Yibo to the Wutai Mountain area of Taiyuan to prepare for the establishment of an anti-Japanese base area; on the way, he also reported to Commander-in-Chief Zhu De on the process of building the team.
As soon as the information between the two sides is exchanged, many things will be easy to do, Zhu De thinks that this team should go to the southeast of Jin, which is a base area pre-selected by Chairman Mao, which has strong strategic value, and now Yan Xishan has appointed a traitor to occupy it and want to drive him away.
Bo Yibo immediately went to Yan Xishan to discuss, and Yan Xishan didn't perceive Bo Yibo's strategic intentions, so he immediately agreed.
Yan Xishan was also waiting to see what Bo Yibo was capable of, as important areas such as Datong and Yanbei fell one after another in the autumn of 1937, Yan Xishan realized that the old army was no longer able to fight against the Japanese invaders, and he pinned his hopes on Bo Yibo.
Bo Yibo took the opportunity to form a new army, and also asked the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army to arrange more than 80 cadres of the 129th Division into it.
In the southeast, southwest, and northwest of Shanxi, this new army organized guerrilla warfare while cooperating with the Eighth Route Army to mobilize the masses to carry out activities, and eliminated a large number of Japanese puppet troops.
However, Yan Xishan was a warlord after all, and he had to cooperate with Chiang Kai-shek.
Seeing that the new army continued to achieve results, Yan Xishan was naturally worried that these teams would get out of his control, so he turned his face on the spot at a meeting: "Civilian officials cannot concurrently hold military positions, this is Chairman Jiang's decision, I can only implement it, and the political commissar must be abolished." ”
Under tremendous pressure, Bo Yibo immediately reported the situation to the Northern Bureau and studied countermeasures, and after returning, Bo Yibo specially reminded the Communist Party cadres to be ideologically prepared, to further control the troops, and to draw the painful lessons of 1927.
In 1939, when the Second Column of the New Army was preparing to launch an offensive against the Japanese invaders, the old army actually shot from behind, which directly led to the outbreak of the "Jinxi Incident".
As a result of the preparations made in advance, the course of events exceeded Yan Xishan's expectations, and all 33 regiments of the New Army broke away from Yan Xishan, and the Kuomintang Central Army had long been watching the situation in Shanxi, and when it saw that there was a "gap," it immediately intervened.
In the end, with the efforts of many parties, Xiao Jinguang, Wang Ruofei and others proposed a peaceful solution.
Yan Xishan saw that he didn't have much bargaining chips, so he could only openly say: "I am the middle force between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. ”
At this point, the matter in Jinxi has become solved, and it is not difficult to imagine that if it were not for Bo Yibo to arrange and work everywhere in advance, it is unknown whether this matter will cause a greater butterfly effect.
The general deserves his name
In 1941, Bo Yibo served as the commander and political commissar of the Taiyue Military Region, and once he made a special trip to report to Commander Peng Dehuai.
At that time, Bo Yibo was wearing a military uniform, looking radiant and dignified, and Peng Dehuai even said when he introduced it to others: "This person is very famous, he is Yan Xishan's 'hat', he speaks Shanxi dialect, works for the Communist Party, and he is now the commander." ”
After Bo Yibo's report left, Peng Dehuai continued: "He is a capable general, with a flexible brain and many ideas, and he can not only fight wars but also do political work. ”
Compared with many generals around Chairman Mao, Bo Yibo's revolutionary experience was gained in a complex struggle environment, so Chairman Mao had already heard of him.
The first time the two met was in 1943, and Chairman Mao enthusiastically stretched out his hand when they first met, and told Bo Yibo about the origin of his surname, which left a deep impression on Bo Yibo.
The conversation lasted eight hours, which is rare in the history of Chairman Mao's conversations.
After the complete victory of the anti-Japanese war, the central government established the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Central Bureau and the Military Region, and the head figure was the famous Liu Bocheng, and Bo Yibo served as the deputy secretary of the Central Bureau and the deputy political commissar of the military region.
After the autumn harvest in 1946, Liu Bocheng led the field troops to the front, while Bo Yibo and Dai Yuan were responsible for presiding over the daily work of the Central Bureau and the Military Region.
After Liu Deng's army went south, the troops who had just completed the "Seven Battles and Seven Victories" in northern Jiangsu were fatigued and lacked materials, and needed to be replenished.
After learning of the contents of the telegram, Bo Yibo immediately instructed the cadres of the border region and the logistics minister to rush to East China to negotiate and solve the problem, and the two sides also reached an agreement: The government and military region of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Region will first supply the necessary materials, and then return them to East China in the future.
Subsequently, Yang Lisan, who was in charge of logistics, immediately rushed to the Hebei-Shandong-Henan border area, responsible for replenishing grain and grass for Chen Su's army, and assisting in organizing migrant workers, while Bo Yibo was personally responsible for fundraising. ”
With the expansion of the war, the materials needed by the East China Field Army are also getting bigger and bigger, in order to solve the problem, Chen Yi specially went to the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Central Bureau to discuss the problem of increasing supply, but he also saw that the Central Bureau and the military region were too simple.
Bo Yibo said: "When we produce one mortar shell, it is equivalent to using 1,800 catties of rice, which is the annual income of a middle-class peasant family." ”
Chen Yi said with emotion: "I don't come to take a look, I don't know that you are so difficult, the amount of shells we need to fight in Huaye is too large, and one cannon is equivalent to a middle peasant." ”
Hearing this, Bo Yibo hurriedly said: "Mr. Chen, we still need to fight shells, we can't always use millet plus rifles, when we supply supplies to the boss, we have never been stingy." ”
Chen Yi obviously needed a lot of ammunition and shells, but he still repeatedly compressed the supply list.
Bo Yibo and they were also deeply moved, and hurriedly said: "Please rest assured, boss, we promise to honor." ”
In December 1948, Bo Yibo was appointed political commissar of the Pingjin Garrison Command, specifically responsible for the deployment and takeover of the work.
In March of the following year, he attended a meeting of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee as an observer and participated in some major policy decisions and discussions of the CPC Central Committee.
Bo Yibo was appointed as the first Minister of Finance of the Central People's Government, and he still served as the first secretary of the North China Bureau.
Three years later, he came to the Third Office of the State Council as director, in charge of heavy industry work, and began to grasp the 156 key projects of the first five-year plan.
In his new job, he is also vigorously cultivating and using technical personnel from all over the country to promote the gradual and focused transition of the mainland's construction industry to industrialization.
For example, in the first half of 1955, Bo Yibo was responsible for directing the preparation of the atomic energy industry, and Chen Yun and Nie Rongzhen worked with him.
Due to work, Bo Yibo did not receive the rank in 1955.
Based on his past revolutionary experience, if he still stayed in the army to participate in the ranks, then it was reasonable to be elected general.
Generally speaking, the evaluation criteria for generals are mainly based on the performance and meritorious service of the Red Army period, the Anti-Japanese War period, the Liberation War period and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
For the older generation of revolutionaries, the military rank is just an affirmation, and they have long put life and death aside when they come out to participate in the revolution, let alone the stars on their shoulders.
Resources
Bo Yibo and the Jinxi Incident, Shang Yu, and the history of the party
Bo Yibo's affectionate relationship with Zhu De Hua Lingqiang; Wu Honglun: The history of the party is vertical and horizontal