The coffin is undecided
In people's minds, Ke Qingshi seems to be an important figure whose coffin is undecided. Some people say that he is highly respected, self-disciplined and incorruptible. Although he has made no very significant contribution, he has devoted his life diligently. Others said, no, he was extremely "Left", devoted to the trick, and colluded with the Gang of Four. If he hadn't died early, he would definitely be a "gang of five". The evaluation of people is often different, and the wise see wisdom; But as a historical figure, he exists objectively, and is not allowed to be smeared or smeared by critics at will.
Ke Qingshi, an old party member in China, joined the Party in 1922. It is said that he was the only leader in China who shook hands with Lenin. That was at an international conference held in the Soviet Union. Ke's official career was not smooth. During the Yan 'an rectification, he was framed by Kang Sheng, and his wife committed suicide by jumping into a well. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as Secretary of Nanjing Municipal Committee, Mayor, Secretary of jiangsu provincial party committee, First Secretary of Shanghai Municipal Committee, Mayor, First Political Commissar of Nanjing Military Region, First Secretary of East China Bureau of Central Committee, and Vice Premier the State Council; In May 1958, he was appointed as members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. At that time, it was a moment of power and a sublime side. Because Ke is tall and has a bigger nose than ordinary people, people called Ke Qingshi "Big Man", "Big Nose" and "Old Ke" in Yan 'an. After going south, Ke's position was promoted quickly. In addition, he was serious, unsmiling, hobbled, and a little hunched. People renamed him "Ke Lao", and even Mao Zedong nicknamed him "Ke Lao" when he was in the central meeting. From then on, "Ke Lao" became his respectful name. In fact, he was only in his fifties at that time.
In 1957, I was removed from the post of President and Editor-in-Chief of Labor because of "serious right deviation", and transferred to prepare for the founding of Liberation magazine, a theoretical publication of Shanghai Municipal Committee, and served as a commentator. In 1963, he served as deputy secretary-general of the municipal party Committee. During the seven or eight years from 1958 to 1965, apart from writing a commentator's manuscript for Liberation magazine every half month, I spent most of my time working for Ke Qingshi and Chen Pixian, leaders of the municipal party committee, drafting more than 6 speeches, work reports and theoretical articles for them, attending the central working conference with them five times, and repeatedly investigating and studying with Ke Qingshi in grass-roots units, and having more contacts with them. I don't know all the history and activities of Ke Qingshi, and I don't want to get involved in the comprehensive evaluation of Ke Qingshi. This article just tells some concrete facts in my contact with Ke Qingshi from 1958 to 1965, so as to provide readers with some information about Ke Qingshi. The facts I remember are not coherent, and the exact date is hard to remember, but these things are all my own experience.
Following Mao Zedong
After Ke Qingshi arrived in Shanghai, he was quickly appreciated by Mao Zedong, mainly in the reports of the Shanghai Party Congress from the end of 1957 to the beginning of 1958. The report, written by the Shanghai drafting team, was sent to Mao Zedong in Hangzhou for review. Mao wanted Hu Qiaomu and Tian Jiaying to make more revisions, and Zhejiang Chen Bing and Shanghai Zhang Chunqiao also participated in it. Finally, Mao Zedong personally finalized it. The title of the report is "Riding the Wind and Waves to Accelerate the Construction of a New Socialist Shanghai", which was drafted according to the spirit of Mao Zedong's speech "On Ten Major Relationships". The report pointed out that although Shanghai should strengthen its combat readiness in the face of the Taiwan Province Strait, it should take advantage of peaceful opportunities to develop production and give full play to the role of the old industrial base. The report summarized it as the eight-character policy of "making full use of and developing rationally", which Mao Zedong fully affirmed. In particular, the report puts forward that we should "go all out and ride the wind and waves", which is more in line with Mao Zedong's idea of brewing the Great Leap Forward at that time. Mao Zedong said to Ke Qingshi: "Your report is well written. You must have this mental state to ride the long wind and break the waves, engage in revolution and construction." Mao Zedong also approved the report of the Party Congress in a region of Shanghai to Xinhua News Agency, which was unprecedented at that time. In fact, Mao Zedong wanted to use this report as a public opinion preparation to mobilize the Great Leap Forward. Ke Qingshi was the speaker of the report of the Shanghai Party Congress, and Ke Qingshi became famous. This "eight-character" policy is of positive significance to the construction of Shanghai, and it also enables Ke Qingshi to keep up with Mao Zedong's thought and line.
In the anti-rightist movement before this, Ke Qingshi also understood Mao Zedong's "leadership intention". Together with Chen Pixian, he held symposiums from all walks of life all day, listened to the opinions of people from all walks of life "crustily skin of head" according to the arrangement of Mao Zedong, and lined up internally to find out the percentage, so as to "draw the snake out of the hole". On March 2th, 1957, I listened to Mao Zedong's speech to party member cadres in Shanghai Friendship Cinema, which is still fresh in my memory. Mao Zedong talked about "Don't be afraid" and "Let people let go, the sky won't fall" at the meeting. He also loudly said to Ke Qingshi on the rostrum, "You didn't put enough" and "Only 3 points, at most 5 points". Ke smiled and nodded. Soon, groups of "Rightists" who "came out of the hole" were pulled into the net, and Mao Zedong praised Shanghai for its "resolute" implementation of the central instructions. At that time, Shanghai not only turned a large number of famous people in the cultural circles into Rightists, but also turned some old comrades who dared to raise different opinions, such as Xue Shangshi, secretary of the Party Committee and president of Tongji University, and Zhou Ke, a group of old comrades in the underground party, into Rightists. When discussing Ba Jin in the Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, Ke Qingshi proposed to turn Ba Jin into a rightist, saying that he was not only an old anarchist, but also that his essay in Jiefang Daily (according to "Eat What You Have") vented his dissatisfaction with the party's socialism. Chen Pixian said that he could fight or not, while Shi Ximin resolutely disagreed with turning Ba Jin into a rightist, saying that Ba Jin had a great influence among the broad masses of young people and had a good performance in resisting US aggression and aiding Korea. What Ke Qingshi showed at this moment was that whatever Mao Zedong said and advocated, he hit it off ideologically and followed it barefoot.
As soon as the horn of the Great Leap Forward sounded, Ke Qingshi's "Left" thought also expanded. There are large, medium and small steel mills in Shanghai, and their output accounts for a large proportion in the country. In response to Mao Zedong's call for nationwide steel smelting, Ke will also engage in small blast furnace steelmaking in urban areas. At that time, I was in Liberation magazine, and I was a branch of the Party Committee of the Municipal Party Committee. Ke Qingshi wants the cadres of the municipal party committee to play an exemplary role, and build a small earth blast furnace on the vacant land in the north of the office building. The cadres work in three shifts every day. How to make steel without iron? Ke said that there are iron gates everywhere in the city, isn't it ready-made iron? There is a lot of scrap metal in every household, so everyone handed in the iron pots one after another, and the iron gates and bars were forcibly removed to make steel, resulting in the strange phenomenon of black smoke next to high-rise buildings and small alleys smelting scrap steel.
During this period, Mao Zedong visited Shanghai steel mills and machinery factories and put forward the slogan of "catching up with the United States and surpassing Britain". Ke Qingshi also followed to the factory for mobilization. As Shanghai is a big industrial city, many raw materials can't be imported after the economic blockade of China by the west, and the development of production has been seriously difficult. Under the call of Mao Zedong's determination, self-reliance, emancipating the mind and getting rid of superstition, the broad masses of workers have exerted great enthusiasm and creativity. Through great cooperation, they have made a 1,-ton hydraulic press by themselves, and manufactured hundreds or hundreds of tons of large-scale mechanical equipment with a small power machine. Workers say that this is the processing method of "ants gnawing at bones" and "monkeys riding elephants", which has really greatly increased the ambition of the people of China. After visiting Mao Zedong, he was greatly appreciated and immediately proposed to launch a nationwide technological innovation and technological revolution movement. Under the guidance of the "Left" ideology, we ignored the conditions and replaced the actual needs with politics, which led the enthusiasm of the broad masses of workers astray, causing great exaggeration, and factories and people engaged in motorization and ultrasound, wasting people's money and making many equipment, large and small, which could not be used in production. As a result, science and technology are simplified, people's subjective initiative is greatly exaggerated, and what is correct becomes fallacy. Ke Qingshi is a native of Shexian County, Anhui Province. He studied in a simple normal school and worked underground in Beijing and some big cities in Northeast China. He has some knowledge, but he is not good at industry and economy. In the era of "Great Leap Forward", he thought that political leadership could replace everything, promote everything, and use sports to direct production, causing many undue losses. This "left" approach is harmful, but under the guidance of the wrong ideas and lines of the central leaders, it cannot be entirely blamed on local leaders.
Make a big speech
Because Ke Qingshi was the first secretary of the municipal party committee, under the party and government system at that time, the first secretary had the final say, and often one person had the final say, which caused the life in the party to be very abnormal. There are two Central Committee members in the Municipal Party Committee, one is Ke, and the other is Chen Pixian, alternate member of the Central Committee. In order to show the importance of the "first secretary", Ke often highlights his correctness by criticizing others. Chen Pixian pays special attention to agriculture and capital construction. In the planning of building satellite towns in Shanghai, Minhang District is a large industrial area, with large factories manufacturing complete sets of power plants and heavy freight. It is necessary to build a first-class highway between Shanghai and Minhang, which occupies some farmland. This was originally necessary and beyond reproach. Unexpectedly, Ke flew into a rage after the inspection, and made a big fuss about it, criticizing that if you want to eat, will food fall from the sky if you occupy farmland? It is typical of a gentleman to build such a wide road. He repeatedly criticized at the municipal party committee meeting, and also held a city-wide cadre meeting, asking a deputy secretary-general of the municipal party committee to make a public review, which was actually the whole of Chen Pixian. Now it seems that with the development of economy, this highway has been built very well, not widened, but narrowed.
At the enlarged Central Working Conference in 1962 (according to the 7,-member conference), in order to sum up the experience and lessons of the Great Leap Forward, all the provincial and municipal delegations attending the conference held meetings one after another when discussing the Liu Shaoqi report, and the main leaders took the lead in reviewing it. However, Ke Qingshi knew that Mao Zedong was not satisfied with Liu Shaoqi's report, and he was slow to express his position and refused to review it. Chen Pixian had to write a review draft and send it to Ke. Chen asked me to draft this review during the meeting. During the discussion, Ke saw a sentence in the speech that "I don't promote democracy enough", and he was very annoyed. He deliberately criticized me in front of Chen Pixian: "What do you mean by writing like this? Do you want to promote proletarian democracy or what democracy?" Perhaps in Chen Pixian's mind, there is a meaning of revealing Ke's scar by this sentence, but it is practical to say so. Ke Wei scolded us for more than half an hour for this sentence, which was really domineering. In fact, nothing has been reviewed in this so-called review, and even the phrase "promoting democracy is not enough" has become a taboo.
once, I drafted a speech for Ke Qingshi at a national on-site meeting held by the Ministry of Machinery Industry in Shanghai. The meeting was personally instructed by Mao Zedong, and Ke was appointed to speak on behalf of the Central Committee at the meeting. I revised the speech several times, and Ke thought it was satisfactory. However, during the last discussion of the speech, he suddenly lost his temper and was very angry. He said, "Motor, have you read the telegram instructed by the chairman? Do you know who is speaking at this meeting? You say, you say ... "I suddenly felt puzzled and at a loss. He criticized me for 2 minutes in one breath. I was fidgeting and sweating. When I calmed down, I took the speech and took another look. Oh, I see. At the beginning of the original speech, I only wrote that he was the first secretary of the municipal party Committee and did not write a member of the Politburo, because Ke spoke on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. At this time, I can't help but feel funny. People who are good at moving people value themselves too much. This is also involuntary and tired of fame.
Judging from many facts, Ke Qingshi thought and acted completely according to Mao Zedong's "Left" ideology, and some aspects played a leading role in the whole country. Ke Qingshi's "Left" wrong line, which is centralized, loves moving people, is discussed among Shanghai cadres. However, under the circumstances of excessive centralization and lack of supervision of the central internal system and imperfect inner-party democracy, this phenomenon is bound to occur and it is difficult to correct itself. Although this kind of "Left" mistake has brought serious harm to national construction and people's lives, it has a certain universality and exists in other leading cadres to varying degrees, but it does not happen to one person or only in a few things. Therefore, the liquidation of this kind of mistake can not only be investigated for personal quality and responsibility, but also be corrected from the guiding ideology, line, principles and policies, and solved from the reform of the system and system.
It is really not easy to evaluate a person comprehensively. A person's thoughts, work, life and quality are like a prism, which is not so simple to see clearly. You can learn more about contact, but it's only a little bit. Some people say that "there is a struggle between two routes in Shanghai, and Ke Qingshi is the representative of the wrong route", and that "Ke Qingshi colluded with the Gang of Four in 1965". I think these statements are neither based on facts nor can they stand the test of history.