Reading the Lessons of Chen Lifu's Success and Failure —— Memoirs of Chen Lifu. yahoo.com/shu _ huah 65/blog/p _ 1 1/
I came across an introspective record written by Chen Lifu, a former KMT boss, in his later years. The article mainly summarizes the reasons why the Kuomintang failed from the mainland. Whether its reflection is comprehensive and accurate will not be commented for the time being, but some of them still see the essence of the problem. Now some chapters of the original text are reposted as follows, and I hope everyone can understand the meaning with a critical eye.
Chen Lifu: The Old Country Can't Look Back —— Reflection on the Fall of the Mainland.
Mistakes in Military Financial Diplomacy
After Japan surrendered, the president sent General He to surrender. I went to see General He specially. I suggest that he let the Japanese army help us defend two roads, from Nanjing and Pukou to Tianjin, from Hankou to Peiping, and from Jinpu to Pinghan, so that the Japanese army can help us defend the areas along these two railways, and our army can go north because our troops are all in the southwest and northwest. However, General Ho ignored my suggestion, which caused our army to be transported to Tianjin and Peiping by sea via Shanghai, wasting a lot of time, manpower and material resources, and giving China the opportunity to go out. This is a pity.
Later, we made a big mistake, that is, after Japan surrendered, we did not include all the guerrilla units behind the Japanese army. At that time, these guerrillas in the north and northeast were comrades of our party. Later, the military and political authorities may have been influenced by the rape case of Liu Fei, the deputy minister of national defense, and they did not want these guerrillas, which aroused their disgust. These people thought to themselves: it is not without merit that the central army fought against Japan and we fought guerrilla warfare behind them. It's dawn now, and we should have a home! Now that the Central Committee doesn't want us, let's go to the * * * production party! The mistake of this policy led to the disappointment of the guerrilla fighters in the north and northeast, and turned to the * * * production party. We should temporarily accept them and then slowly add them to the regular army. This is the right way. Just like young people who retired from enemy-occupied areas, if we didn't take them in at that time, they would naturally be taken in by Yan' an * * * Party. This kind of loss is irreparable. Driving the fish out of the pond is tantamount to expanding the * * * production party and increasing tens of thousands for no reason.
These are all military mistakes, which caused us to lose the mainland. The second reason for failure is that our finances are not well done. On that day, I occupied an area, and they exchanged a dollar of Japanese tickets for a dollar of legal tender issued by the central government. In this way, they gradually took away our coins, making the whole occupied area use Japanese military vouchers, and our central bank's coins would not work. At this time, if a person here has 10,000 yuan in legal tender, then this person must be very rich, because at that time, eating a table of shark's fin and bird's nest only costs three or four yuan. In enemy-occupied areas, people think that 10,000 pieces of legal tender can be exchanged for 10,000 Japanese military pay vouchers. Later, after Wang Jingwei organized the puppet regime, he issued counterfeit money. At this time, 10,000 military coupons can be exchanged for 5,000 counterfeit coins, which is equivalent to a depreciation of half. After the Japanese surrender, people in the retrocession areas naturally welcomed the use of legal tender, but Minister Song, the financial authority, actually stipulated that counterfeit money in 200 yuan should be exchanged for 1 yuan legal tender. This illusion is like this. People who have 5,000 yuan of counterfeit money can only change it into 25 yuan's legal tender, and at this time, the legal tender has depreciated, so those who originally had 10000 yuan of legal tender are left with 25 yuan's depreciated legal tender. For example, in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, I used 10,000 yuan to help two universities move. These two universities, Fudan University and Daxia University, are both in Shanghai, so I allocated 10,000 yuan for them to do this arduous relocation work. In this way, after this war, a rich man's property changed from 10 thousand to 25 devalued money. This is not paving the way for the * * * party? What kind of financial expert is he? It can be seen that our fiscal policy has turned the rich into the poor, and the poor have nothing. I didn't quite understand a sentence before, that is, "the people don't make a living, and the rich don't make a living", so I understand. If the policy is wrong, the people will be miserable and the wealth will be exhausted. Rich people will become poor, and people without money will become poor. In other words, we first turned the people into the proletariat for the * * * production party, which was a major financial mistake. At that time, the government should not take advantage. The people have 5,000 counterfeit coins, and the government has to change 5,000 legal tender. You shouldn't take advantage of people's danger to exchange 200 counterfeit coins for one legal tender. He only saw this side of himself, but didn't see that the people were miserable. After the victory, we just returned to Shanghai and found that everything was extremely cheap, because one yuan of legal tender was equal to two hundred yuan, so everyone went to snap up things and made the people hate us. Military failure, give up the guerrillas, and make them become the forces of the * * * production party; Financial failure is to help the * * * production party turn the rich into the "proletariat". These two failures are the biggest reason why we want to come to Taiwan Province Province.
Therefore, we should be very cautious when appointing talents. Governing a big country requires a large number of people with little knowledge and small measurement, and it is absolutely impossible to govern a big country. And if he seldom reads China's books and writes in English, he naturally cannot govern China. If I write history, the wrong policies of the above two gentlemen, although the latter was decided by the central government, actually drove us out of the mainland. Because the people were very disappointed with us at that time, they wanted to see a new government, and maybe there was hope. This kind of psychology helped the * * * production party succeed. So if a political policy is wrong, the impact will be extremely great, and everyone will suffer!
The plot to subjugate the country succeeded.
During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, we knew that Ji was related to the * * * production party, but he was a fellow countryman, so he was used. Later, Song Ziwen selected Kong Xiangxi's finance minister and used it. Our investigators also told Kong and Song to be careful about this man, but Mr. Kong trusted him because he was a fellow countryman and did not listen to the party's advice. Song Ziwen came back from abroad, and his Chinese level is very poor. He usually uses English. Ji, who is good at English, may be interested Confucius and Song were very capable, and as a result, they worked as designers for the * * * production party in our financial policy. He gave bad ideas to Confucius and Song, all of which damaged the credit of the country and the government.
Among them, for example, the principal of the gold savings certificate is 60% off, which I spoke twice at the meeting of the Supreme National Defense Council. I said, "The issuance of gold savings certificates was proposed by the Executive Yuan and passed by the Legislative Yuan. Now we have to pay back the principal. If it is passed by the Legislative Yuan, how can we distribute it to others at 60%? Chairman Jiang Gong said: "This was put forward by Minister Song He after careful consideration. He said it was the only way. Don't doubt him. " I added, "Some grandmothers and drivers borrowed money to buy gold savings certificates to show their patriotism. It is unreasonable to repay the principal and cash with one or two ounces of gold now and give him a 60% discount. After listening to this, the president said, "It doesn't matter. 200 gold or less to repay the principal in full, no discount! " Jiang Gongtai believed in Song Dynasty. He always thought Song was an expert in finance and economics. In fact, some things belong to common sense and have nothing to do with experts. At that time, the gold savings certificate market was bullish, and the black market was higher than the official price, which showed that there was more demand. The first phase is to issue 2 million yuan, so the second phase can issue 5 million yuan to meet the market demand, and the rest will be exchanged for the second phase according to the number of people due in the first phase, without any discount, so as to maintain the government's financial credit. Why didn't the Song family take this picture? Since then, the government's financial credit has gone up in smoke!
In addition, the government also issued US dollar savings coupons, and most of the buyers were overseas Chinese patriots. This coupon should be converted into dollars when it expires. Unexpectedly, after the expiration, Mr. Song did not cash it for the buyer. This is a breach of contract, which makes the government lose another credit. It is really unreasonable. Since then, overseas Chinese have lost trust in the government. Unfortunately, after the fall of the mainland, it was appointed by Mao as an important position in the Ministry of Finance, which can be proved.
The above two financial deficiencies, coupled with the unreasonable disparity between the exchange rates of legal tender and counterfeit currency, are tantamount to making the rich poorer and the poor poorer. This is Ji's bad doctrine to Song: "bad doctrine", and it really happens. Because Jiang Gongtai believed in Song Ziwen, I made many suggestions for the above shortcomings, but they were not adopted. Judging from these facts, we can say that after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, our every move was wrong. Who can blame for the review? Every major event is finally decided by the President or the Supreme National Defense Council. It's hard to recall these painful experiences now. Who is responsible? Of course, we can't blame the president alone. Mr. Wang Shijie's greatest failure in charge of diplomacy was to let General Marshall mediate in China, which led to our army being controlled by others in diplomacy and missing the good opportunity. It hurts too much. See the section "General Marshall and I" below for details, so I won't go into details.
Calm the financial turmoil in Shanghai and set up an economic reform Committee.
Mr Song Ziwen doesn't know the national conditions. All his letters are written in English. If he decides to sell gold, he will be greatly criticized. When Mr Kong Xiangxi left office, he handed him a lot of gold and silver, which led him to sell gold. This decision is a very bad thing. At this time, the national financial and economic situation is chaotic and people are worried. In Shanghai, there was a great outcry against Song Ziwen. The trade unions went on strike, and the Chamber of Commerce went on strike. The president sent me to Shanghai to try to calm things down.
After I arrived in Shanghai, I invited people from industry and commerce to mediate. They said: Mr. Song Ziwen's practice is abnormal and does not conform to our national conditions. It will go on like this! I immediately said: Everybody should be calm, and we will find a way slowly. I also spoke to people from all walks of life in Shanghai and said, "What should be the economic policy of the Three People's Principles?" . Foreigners set up banks in Shanghai, and their system pays special attention to business. They buy our agricultural products at low prices and ship them back to their own countries, and sell them to us as high-priced industrial products after processing. This can be explained in three sentences, that is, "regardless of agriculture, perfunctory industry, especially commerce." However, the fiscal policies we should adopt are different. We should foster agriculture, promote industry and give consideration to commerce, instead of focusing on commerce. The economic policy of the Three People's Principles should be like this. Therefore, I criticize the current economic and financial policies, which do not meet the requirements of the Three People's Principles.
On the second day of my speech, Central Daily News and other major newspapers published my speech. At that time, Mr. Song Ziwen was the Executive Dean and Minister of Finance. After hearing this article, Mr. Jiang Menglin, then Secretary-General of the Executive Yuan, took a newspaper to Lushan and told me that I accused him of improper financial policies. The President immediately sent me a telegram, and he said politely, "Brother Lifu! Do you have any views on finance? Please tell me not to announce it to the public. " So I took the article to find Mr. Song. I said, "Brother Wen Zi! Do you think my article scolded you? Or did I help you? Please take ten minutes to read carefully (he has difficulty in reading chinese). After reading it, he said, "You didn't scold me! It is well written. I said: "In my speech, I only explained that in the past few decades, the financial policy was copied from foreign countries and only focused on business, which did not meet the needs of our country. I suggest a thorough review and reform of fiscal policy in the future. This is a relief for you, but it makes you misunderstand me. I'm leaving Shanghai and going back to Nanjing. " "Don't go," he said. Tomorrow, I will invite the heads of Shanghai's financial and industrial circles to meet at the central bank, and especially invite you to give a speech. "For the arrogant Song family, this is an unprecedented event. I said, "All the tickets to Nanjing have been bought, so we can't delay any longer. "However, after repeated serious efforts, I have to refund my return ticket.
Soong Chu-yu invited more than 20 leaders of Shanghai's financial and business circles overnight to hold a meeting at the Central Bank the next day. In my speech, I still emphasized the economic policy of the Three People's Principles that I talked about a few days ago, and pointed out that the financial system we are currently pursuing is a system that the imperialists have sucked our blood for many years after invading China, which is extremely unsuitable for the needs of our country. Of course, this is not President Song's policy, but in the future, I hope it can reform the accumulated disadvantages and replace it with the economic policy of the Three People's Principles.
My speech lasted forty-five minutes, and James Soong has been sitting in a chair humbly. People magazine said that it is rare for Mr Song Ziwen to listen to people's opinions so patiently. After I finished, he asked everyone if they had any comments. He pointed out extemporaneously, "What Mr. Lifu said is very reasonable. I hope everyone will study it together. I also emphasized in my speech: "I don't want to study political economy and banking. I just stand as a believer in the Three People's Principles and hope to reform the current financial system to meet the needs of the country and society. I believe Mr. Song will have the courage to make great efforts to reform. 」
After quelling the Song strike in Shanghai, I returned to Nanjing. When the president returns from Lushan, I will write a report to the president, detailing the experience of Shanghai and the process of calming the tide, and pointing out that although there is no problem for the time being, China's financial policy is now on the verge of danger and needs to be studied and reformed urgently. After reading my report, the President immediately ordered the establishment of an "Economic Reform Committee", with me as the chairman and Liu Jianqun as the vice chairman. Mr Song Ziwen is also a member of the Committee, and many scholars and experts attended the meeting. It is not easy for Song to attend the meeting on time. This is a financial expert who has always been proud. After drawing up an economic reform plan and passing it according to law, the financial department will submit it to the President for implementation before I go to the United States to inspect the democratic system.
I think the founding of the country needs military, and governing the country needs economy. The Prime Minister is an economic talent, not a military expert, so China can't be unified, while Jiang Gong is a military genius, not an economic talent, so he can't keep the world. Assuming that it was Kong Xiangxi, not Song Ziwen, who continued to master finance and economics after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, we would not have come to Taiwan Province Province. Looking back, I feel infinite!
As far as national affairs are concerned.
Fighting against the world depends on the military and ruling the world depends on the economy. The founding fathers were economic talents, but they lacked military talents in Yumen, so they could not win the world; Jiang Gong is a military genius, but he lacks real economic talents (especially after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War), so he won the world and lost it!
Second, since the Northern Expedition, even if Jiang Gong occupied Beijing, he was the first, outnumbered, wise and brave, and used it wisely. Therefore, he was able to defeat the warlords one by one, and the whole combat time was less than one year, which was a precedent in the history of our country. It can be called a military genius, admired by all and made great contributions to history.
Chiang Kai-shek was born in the army, and his power is better than his faith. What came back from the warlords was fear of power rather than submission, and the real revolutionary army set out for the Northern Expedition before it was ready to mature. Therefore, in contrast, the number of basic troops is not as large as those who come back, which has caused the ambition of those who come back and they have defected. Fortunately, the revolutionary forces were able to win the enemy's plot with a situation of one victory and ten victories, and our confidential departments were able to show Chiang Kai-shek and know ourselves and ourselves.
4. Those old comrades in our party who have power in the party can't help Jiang Gong impartially, or even? Warlords, * * * parties, Japan, such as Wang Jingwei, have been fighting on three sides, so it is really the so-called hardship. Fortunately, Jiang Gong's confidence in carrying out the will of the founding father was firm and indomitable, and he was able to hold a national meeting, promulgate laws and regulations during the period of political training, abolish unequal treaties, and then formulate a constitution, which enabled him to enter a constitutional period. This is not easy, and its contribution is indispensable.
At the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, although the * * * Party declared * * anti-Japanese, it broke its word. As long as Jiang Gong foresees, only our military strength can control it, so it doesn't matter. If we win, we will not be arrogant, underestimate the enemy militarily and deal with the guerrillas well; In terms of economy and finance, no measures are taken, causing public grievances; Diplomatically, keep the United States out of it and give the * * * party a good opportunity to buy time; In party affairs, the loss of the mainland can be avoided if AIA is not allowed to occupy the seats in the National Assembly as soon as possible and Li Zongren is not allowed to stand for election.
6. How can all imperialists be happy when they lose their vested rights in our country? Therefore, whoever * * * party spreads rumors that are not conducive to the party and Jiang Gong is just broadcasting for it, which is difficult to explain, and the * * * party benefits.
7. The maintenance of political power cannot depend on the army. If the government goes against the will of the people, it will eventually fail. Army building is also made up of the people, and the measure against public opinion is suicide. Those who are "defeated like a mountain" have no fighting spirit to support the regime they don't want to support. Therefore, "win the hearts of the people, win the hearts of the people." 」
As a leader, you must be close to saints, stay away from villains, and have no selfishness in order to lead others to achieve great things. Jiang Gong didn't like killing, but set his subordinate forces against each other (such as party groups, political factions, cadre schools and so on). Although both sides support Jiang Gong, in the end, the strength will be offset, which is inefficient and not a good policy.
The above points are what I can see. Whether they are appropriate or not, I still ask readers for guidance.
In my opinion, the following is the essence of the problem:
"Military failure, give up the guerrillas, make them become * * * party forces; Financial failure is to help the * * * production party turn the rich into the "proletariat". These two major failures are the biggest reason why we want to come to Taiwan Province Province. "
"The maintenance of political power cannot rely on the army. If the government goes against the will of the people, it will eventually fail. Army building is also made up of the people, and the measure against public opinion is suicide. Those who are "defeated like a mountain" have no fighting spirit to support the regime they don't want to support. So: win the hearts of the people, win the hearts of the people. "