In the lifetime of the great leader Chairman Mao, there were 26 secretaries, and among these 26 secretaries, Hu Qiaomu, along with Chen Boda, Ye Zilong, Tian Jiaying, and others, was called the "Five Secretaries."
It can be said that Hu Qiaomu was one of Chairman Mao's most trusted secretaries, and he had been working with Chairman Mao since 1941 and had been a secretary at Chairman Mao's side for 25 years.
The two of them got along very well, and Chairman Mao also admired Hu Qiaomu very much, and even said in public that "by relying on trees, there is food to eat," and Deng Xiaoping also praised Hu Qiaomu as "the first pen of the CPC Central Committee."
However, what no one expected was that in 1959, Chairman Mao actually seriously criticized Hu Qiaomu, saying: "You are just a secretary!" ”
So, what happened to make Chairman Mao so angry at the secretary who had been with him for 18 years? What kind of story is there between him and Hu Qiaomu?
Hu Qiaomu
The story between Chairman Mao and Hu Qiaomu begins in February 1941.
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On a crisp morning in early February 1941, Hu Qiaomu, who was the provost at the "Zedong Youth Cadre School," was preparing to go out when he met Wang Ruofei, secretary general of the CPC Central Committee.
The first thing Wang Ruofei said after seeing Hu Qiaomu made him frightened: "Chairman Mao needs people there, and he decided to transfer you to his place as a secretary." ”
For this matter, Hu Qiaomu was completely unprepared, and he quickly replied: "Is this not good?" I am afraid that I will not be able to do a good job of being Chairman Mao's secretary, because I have never done secretarial work. ”
Hu Qiaomu's first reaction was to refuse, because he had never spoken to Chairman Mao since he arrived in Yan'an, and he did not know why Chairman Mao had called himself to be a secretary.
Wang Ruofei
Who knew that Wang Ruofei laughed after hearing this, patted him on the shoulder and said: "Don't be modest, the matter of letting you be Chairman Mao's secretary is a general personally ordered by Chairman Mao, he has long noticed you, saying that you are a talented person, and recently Chairman Mao's side is not enough manpower, so I asked you to be his secretary, and you are now also the secretary of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee!" ”
In fact, Hu Qiaomu is indeed a talent, and he can come to Yan'an and be favored by Chairman Mao, which can be said to be full of coincidences.
Hu Qiaomu was born in 1912 and was admitted to Tsinghua University with honors after graduating from high school at the age of 18.
After the September 18 Incident, he actively participated in the anti-Japanese propaganda movement and attacked the Kuomintang's compromise with Japan, so he was included in the "blacklist" of the Kuomintang Beiping Municipal Government Public Security Bureau and was arrested.
Wanted by the Kuomintang, Hu Qiaomu was forced to return to his hometown of Yancheng, where he was soon absorbed into the party.
Unfortunately, within a few days of joining the party, Hu Qiaomu fled to Shanghai alone because of the defection of the head of the local party organization, and then with the help of Mr. Zhu Zhiqing, he went to Zhejiang University in Hangzhou to study English in the Department of Foreign Languages.
At that time, there were only three students in the English major of Hangzhou University, including Hu Qiaomu, because Hu Qiaomu preached communist ideas in Zhejiang University, which was disliked by Guo Renyuan, the president of Zhejiang University at the time.
When Hu Qiaomu was preparing to study in his senior year, Guo Renyuan changed Hu Qiaomu's final exam score from more than 80 points to more than 50 points, and then expelled Hu Qiaomu on the grounds of "failing the grades", so Hu Qiaomu had to go to Shanghai again and join the party organization.
Guo Renyuan
At that time, the Shanghai party organization was not having a good time, and the white terror of the Kuomintang was becoming more and more serious, so in the spring of 1937, Hu Qiaomu moved to Yan'an with the party organization.
After Arriving in Yan'an, Hu Qiaomu began to do youth propaganda work, during which Hu Qiaomu showed his outstanding talent, and was soon appointed as a member of the Youth Work Committee of the CPC Central Committee, responsible for presiding over the editorial work of China Youth magazine.
Hu Qiaomu liked to read The Magazine of China Youth when he was twelve or thirteen years old when he was in junior high school, and Yun Daiying, the editor-in-chief of China Youth at the time, also gave a speech at the junior high school where Hu Qiaomu studied.
Therefore, Hu Qiaomu can be said to have a good relationship with "China Youth", as a loyal reader of the magazine, Hu Qiaomu knows the preferences of young people very well, and "China Youth" has gradually developed a different style under his leadership.
Chinese Youth
In 1939, in order to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, Hu Qiaomu published an article entitled "Ideological Problems in the Youth Movement" in China Youth, which immediately attracted Chairman Mao's attention, and Hu Qiaomu also entered Chairman Mao's sight.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Anhui Incident in southern Anhui in 1941, Chairman Mao's former secretary Zhou Xiaozhou was transferred to the Jizhong District CPC Committee as propaganda minister, and Chairman Mao was in a desperate shortage of manpower around him.
Hu Qiaomu had admired Chairman Mao for a long time and was very grateful for chairman Mao's personal appointment to make him secretary, but he still had some concerns in his heart, and when he went to Chairman Mao's residence in Yangjialing in Yan'an to report, he was very worried and uneasy in his heart.
When Chairman Mao met Hu Qiaomu, a 29-year-old young man, he kindly sat him down, asked him about his general experience, and then went to work.
Chairman Mao
Hu Qiaomu watched Chairman Mao crouching on the table without saying a word, felt that he was not sitting or standing, thought about it, walked over to Chairman Mao, saw that he was proofreading documents, and took the initiative to say to Chairman Mao: "Chairman, I will do this thing." ”
Chairman Mao looked up at him after hearing this, smiled, and said, "You've found the right task!" Then he taught him hand in hand how to proofread the article and told him to "proofread the errors in the article like you would an enemy!"
In this way, Hu Qiaomu received his first job as Chairman Mao's secretary.
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Being a secretary at Chairman Mao's side is undoubtedly a very rare opportunity for Hu Qiaomu, and it is also an important turning point in his life.
However, Rome was not built in a day, and in the first few years of Chairman Mao's side, Hu Qiaomu played the role of "apprentice" and "assistant".
After Hu Qiaomu began to work as a secretary at Chairman Mao's side, he tirelessly studied Chairman Mao's ideological methods and working methods, and under Chairman Mao's careful teaching, Hu Qiaomu made great progress, and even began to write editorials for the Liberation Daily in June 1941.
The first editorial written by Hu Qiaomu is related to the Soviet-German war, at 3:00 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Germany and its servants invaded the Soviet Union in three ways, before the outbreak of the war, although the Soviet Union received information from various channels about the possible invasion of Germany, the Soviet side did not attach great importance to it, and the Soviet army that was not prepared for war was beaten back and forth by the German army.
The Red Army
When the news of the outbreak of the Soviet-German war reached China, it immediately caused a lot of panic, when the War of Resistance Against Japan entered a stage of strategic stalemate, and neither China nor Japan could take anyone, and the Soviet Union's performance in the Soviet-German War caused a great blow to the anti-Japanese confidence of the Chinese people.
Chairman Mao was deeply worried about this situation; he was not worried about the Soviet-German war; as a genius military man, he had anticipated in advance the final direction of the Soviet-German war and firmly believed that the Soviet Union would win and Germany would lose.
What he feared was that the Soviet-German war would have an impact on the anti-Japanese confidence of our army and Chiang Kai-shek, and if Chiang Kai-shek could not hold out and surrender, then China would be really in danger.
On the evening of June 28, Chairman Mao summoned Hu Qiaomu to the cave where he lived, lit a cigarette, took a sip and said to him: "Qiaomu, you write an editorial for the Liberation Daily, entitled "Su Bi Sheng, De Bi Defeat.". Let me first tell you my thoughts for your reference. ”
Chairman Mao and Hu Qiaomu
Hu Qiaomu quickly took out a pen and paper, ready to listen to the chairman's teachings.
Only to see Chairman Mao take another puff of his cigarette and slowly open his mouth:
"If we want to explain the problem of Su Shengde's defeat, we must grasp 4 main points;
The German side was unknown and could not carry out spiritual mobilization, while the Soviet side was defending the country, so the morale and morale were very strong.
Germany's resources are very short, and its production capacity has been stretched to the limit. At the same time, after more than two years of war, the advantages and disadvantages of Germany's strategy and tactics have been made known to the world, and it is easy for the invaded to carry out targeted defenses accordingly. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was the opposite.
Germany attacked on all sides, the form was an external operation, but in fact it was an internal operation, it was surrounded and attacked, and as the front line became longer and longer, the theater of operations expanded and expanded, and Germany's supply and communication were likely to be cut off, and the Soviet Union had no problem in this regard.
Germany was politically unstable at home and isolated abroad, while the Soviet Union, on the contrary, was strong at home and helpful on the outside. ”
After analyzing the reasons for the inevitable defeat of Germany and the victory of the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao thought about it for a moment and added: "The victory of the Soviet Union is not within reach, and major sacrifices and setbacks in one place at a time are inevitable, but the fighting conviction of all mankind and all of China is that 'victory in the middle, defeat in the day, victory in the Soviet Union, and defeat in Germany'. ”
Capture of Berlin
Speaking of this, Chairman Mao nodded with satisfaction and asked Hu Qiaomu to write an editorial now, and see it tomorrow after his own review.
Hu Qiaomu did not live up to Chairman Mao's expectations, he only took an hour to create this article, Chairman Mao read it carefully from beginning to end, only made a few changes, and then said to Hu Qiaomu: "It's okay." ”
Chairman Mao did not praise Hu Qiaomu, because he was very strict with his secretaries and generally rarely praised him, but he was very sympathetic to the performance of Hu Qiaomu, an "apprentice".
In the subsequent relationship, Chairman Mao found that Hu Qiaomu was always able to grasp his own thoughts and intentions for the first time, and Hu Qiaomu gradually understood the true connotation of his secretarial work: "Express Chairman Mao's important ideas in appropriate words."
On September 5, 1944, Comrade Zhang Side died to cover his comrades-in-arms while digging a kiln, and Hu Qiaomu felt that this was a great opportunity to educate the whole party and the whole army, so he asked Chairman Mao to hold a memorial service for Comrade Zhang Side and make a speech.
Chairman Mao agreed to his request, but because he had not prepared in advance, he made an impromptu speech.
Zhang Side
After returning home, Hu Qiaomu sorted out a new article based on the content and intention of Chairman Mao's speech, which was revised and processed by Chairman Mao and officially published, that is, the famous "Serving the People."
This incident gave Chairman Mao a better understanding of Hu Qiaomu's ability, and after that, Qiaomu often wrote a specific article according to the topic provided by Chairman Mao, which was revised by Chairman Mao and published as a "central comrade and important cadre".
During the Liberation War, Hu Qiaomu followed Chairman Mao to northern Shaanxi, when our army was bombed by Kuomintang planes in the sky and hundreds of thousands of hu zongnan's troops on the ground were in hot pursuit.
At that time, although our party had many "pen holders," there were few wizards like Hu Qiaomu who "could write an editorial with a horse by his side."
In the year he went to northern Shaanxi, Hu Qiaomu wrote about thirty or forty editorials and commentaries for the Xinhua News Agency, so Chairman Mao proudly praised him for "relying on trees and having food to eat," meaning that if he relied on others, he might only have half a bowl of rice to eat, or even no rice.
This year's experience made Chairman Mao confirm that Hu Qiaomu had grown into a cadre who could stand on his own, so when the Party Central Committee arrived in Xibaipo in April 1948, Hu Qiaomu was appointed by Chairman Mao as the editor-in-chief of Xinhua News Agency, and he was used more and more.
After the founding of New China, Chairman Mao directly appointed Hu Qiaomu as director of the General Administration of Information, making Hu Qiaomu the "great steward of public opinion" of our party.
Acheson
On January 12, 1950, when Chairman Mao visited the Soviet Union, US Secretary of State Acheson delivered a long speech, spreading rumors that the Soviet Union had ideas about China's north China and even "almost annexed Manchuria."
When Chairman Mao learned of this, he immediately wrote an article refuting Acheson and sent it back to Beijing by secret telegram, asking "to write a transcript of the conversation in the name of Qiaomu, please publish it at your discretion." ”
On January 20, Xinhua News Agency officially published a telegram in the name of Hu Qiaomu, director of the Information Administration, entitled "Refuting Acheson's Shameless Rumors", and Hu Qiaomu was officially known to the outside world.
When Soviet leader Stalin read this telegram, he also specifically asked Chairman Mao who Hu Qiaomu was, which showed how obscure Hu Qiaomu was at that time, and also showed how much Chairman Mao had placed great hopes on him.
Chairman Mao and Stalin
However, Rao is so trusted and valued by Chairman Mao that Rao is so trusted and valued by Chairman Mao that he is still inevitably criticized by Chairman Mao, the most famous of which was the 1959 sentence "You are just a secretary."
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From August 17 to 30, 1958, our Party held an important meeting in Beidaihe, at which Ke Qingshi, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, formally proposed: Strive to double the steel within the year, and strive to achieve the production of 10.7 million tons of steel.
Ke Qingshi
At that time, only 4 million tons of steel were produced in China, and it was undoubtedly very difficult to continue to produce nearly 7 million tons of steel in four months.
However, at that time, the venue was full of optimism, and Chairman Mao did not object, but only read a poem by Li Shangyin: "The sunset is infinitely good, but it is only near dusk." ”
With no objection, the production of 10.7 million tons of steel in the year officially became the production target of 1958.
However, it is undoubtedly more difficult to achieve this goal, so at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee held on November 28, 1958, the Party Central Committee decided to reduce the high targets set at the Beidaihe Conference and formulated the "four major production indicators" for 1959.
Chen Yun, who has been in charge of economic work for a long time, felt that the indicators were still a bit high, and at the end of the meeting, he found Hu Qiaomu, who drafted the announcement, and advised him to tell Chairman Mao that it was best not to write the specific figures of the four major indicators into the communiqué of the meeting.
Chen yun
However, Hu Qiaomu did not dare to convey Chen Yun's proposal to Chairman Mao, because the communiqué of the meeting had already been drawn up, and Chairman Mao had already reviewed and approved it, and now that he was going to tell the chairman that he wanted to revise it, he was worried that Chairman Mao would be angry, so he did not convey Chen Yun's proposal.
In April 1959, when the Seventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Shanghai, Chen Yun put forward his opinion on the indicators to Chairman Mao, and Chairman Mao nodded after listening to it, agreeing with Chen Yun's ideas.
In the process of small talk between the two, Chen Yun took the initiative to mention to Chairman Mao that he had told Hu Qiaomu about this matter 5 months ago, and Chairman Mao was very angry after hearing it, Chen Yun was the vice chairman of the Party Central Committee at that time, he did not expect that Hu Qiaomu did not relay the opinions of the vice chairman of the Central Committee to himself, so he immediately called Hu Qiaomu over and angrily criticized: "You are just a secretary, why don't you report the opinions of the vice chairman to me?" ”
Chairman Mao's criticism filled Hu Qiaomu with feelings of self-blame and guilt, and coupled with the fact that he had been overloaded for years, he gradually developed symptoms of neurasthenia, and by 1961, his illness had become more and more serious, and even affected his normal work.
In desperation, Hu Qiaomu had to write a letter to Chairman Mao on August 17, telling him about his illness and asking Chairman Mao to approve his recuperation for three or four months before returning to work.
After receiving the letter, Chairman Mao attached great importance to Hu Qiaomu's situation, and specially designed a way for him to recuperate, so that he should not only rest in one place, but it was best to "move with the climate," travel around in the mountains and rivers, read idle books, and do not care about current affairs, so that he might recover faster, and instead of making plans to rest for a few months, he must make plans for a break of one, two, or three years.
It turns out that Hu Qiaomu's illness is not something that can be cured in "one, two, three years", and he has rested for several years.
Although Hu Qiaomu was still Nominally Chairman Mao's secretary, he was no longer working with Chairman Mao, but his relationship with Chairman Mao was not weakened by the distance.
Two major events occurred in October 1964, one was the downfall of Soviet leader Khrushchev, and the other was the successful detonation of China's first atomic bomb.
Hu Qiaomu, who was extremely excited about these two major events, wrote 13 poems in succession and sent them to Beijing for Chairman Mao to read, and Chairman Mao carefully read the poems sent by Hu Qiaomu, made some revisions, and then sent them to the "Poetry Journal" for publication.
Chairman Mao revised the manuscript of Hu Qiaomu's poems
When Hu Qiaomu read Chairman Mao's revised poems, he was very happy and felt that this was a great encouragement to himself, so he wrote three more poems to Chairman Mao in November, and after the exchange of letters between the two, Hu Qiaomu's "Sixteen Poems of Words" was finally finalized at the end of 1964 and published in People's Daily and Red Flag magazines on New Year's Day 1965.
On April 16, 1966, Chairman Mao held an enlarged meeting of the Politburo in Hangzhou, and when Hu Qiaomu was thinking about whether to visit Chairman Mao, he received a notice asking him to go to Beijing.
At that time, Chairman Mao had some things to deal with, so there was no time to reply to him for the time being, so Hu Qiaomu had to embark on the road to Beijing with a sad mood.
As a result, as soon as he went to Shanghai, he received a phone call from Hangzhou, saying that Chairman Mao wanted to see him, and Hu Qiaomu quickly turned around and returned to Hangzhou to meet Chairman Mao.
The meeting between Chairman Mao and Hu Qiaomu did not leave a detailed record, and the only thing that can be confirmed is that before Hu Qiaomu left, Chairman Mao had told him to go to Beijing to take a closer look and learn more about the situation.
After Hu Qiaomu arrived in Beijing, his 25-year career as Chairman Mao's political secretary also ended.
On September 28, 1992, the elderly Hu Qiaomu died of illness in Beijing at the age of 81.
This is the story between the great leader Chairman Mao and his political secretary Hu Qiaomu.