In October 1975, a considerable storm was stirred up on the campus of Tsinghua University. What happened was that on August 13 and October 13 of the same year, Liu Bing, Hui Xianjun, Liu Yi’an, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Tsinghua University, and Lv Fangzheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and director of the Political Department, wrote a joint letter against Chi Qun and Xie Jingyi, saying that Chi Qun had not become the minister of Education, was full of complaints, depressed, burned the futon, dropped the cup, and was usually bossy and domineering in his work style, and so on. Liu Bing and other people to Chairman Mao’s letter through Deng Xiaoping to Mao’s hands, while copied to the head of the Beijing Municipal Committee, and verbally reported the contents of the letter to the head of the Municipal Committee of Science and Education, requesting the Central Committee and the Beijing Municipal Committee to investigate and deal with the problems of Chi Qun, Xie Jingyi.
The reason why Liu Bing and others wrote a joint letter to sue Chi and Xie was related to the situation at that Time. Some time before that, Mao Zedong in Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan batch of “empiricism” on the issue of instructions, and in the May 3 meeting of the Politburo criticized the practice of anti-empiricism, not anti-dogmatism, and repeatedly admonished “do not engage in the Gang of Four “.
According to a series of instructions from Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping chaired a meeting of the Politburo from May 27 to June 3 and criticized the “Gang of Four”. Deng Xiaoping, Ye Jianying and Li Xiannian spoke one after another, criticizing Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan for Jiang Qing’s statement that “the eleventh line of struggle with Zhou Enlai” and anti-empiricism. Jiang Qing and others said that the meeting was a surprise attack and a siege. Deng, Ye and Li refuted this claim. At this meeting, Wang Hongwen reviewed a few things and Jiang Qing did not admit his mistake. Only later, on June 28, 1975, did he make a written review.
It was in the above context that Liu Bing and others wrote their letters. However, this time, Mao Zedong did not support Liu Bing and others, but, on the contrary, completely sided with Chi and Xie. He made a sternly worded statement on the letter: “Liu Bing and others from Tsinghua University wrote to sue Chi Qun and Xiao Xie. I see that the motive of the letter is impure, trying to defeat Chi Qun and Xiao Xie. The spearhead in their letter is directed at me. I was in Beijing, so why didn’t they write to me directly and had to be forwarded through Xiaoping. Xiaoping was biased in favor of Liu Bing. The problem involved in Tsinghua University is not isolated, but is a reflection of the current struggle between the two lines.” In this way, the struggle in Tsinghua University was defined and outlined very high.
According to this “imperial sword”, Chi and Xie held an extended party committee meeting to criticize Liu Bing and others. At first, Liu Bing and other people are tough, do not think there is anything wrong to reflect the situation. Later, according to Liu Bing’s recollection: on November 15, when he heard the above instructions from Chairman Mao to Tsinghua at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau, “it was like a bolt from the blue! …… was full of the Chairman’s instructions.” The scale of the criticism of Liu Bing and others on the Tsinghua campus grew larger and larger, and eventually a 10,000-person conference was held. The members of the “Liang Effect” were sometimes allowed to go to hear the meeting, and I went to hear it a few times. At that time, not only Liu Bing and four others were criticized, but also Zhou Rongxin, the head of the State Council’s science and education group. It is said that the head of the personnel department of Tsinghua University also wrote a letter to Mao Zedong, accusing Zhou Rongxin of cronyism and sectarianism, trying to make Chi Qun politically stinky and organizationally down, and ousting him from the leadership of the education department. Mao Zedong supported the letter. This was the beginning of the fight against the “Rightist Reversal Wind”.
Chairman Mao launched a counter-attack against the “right-leaning reversal wind”, the spearhead pointed directly at Deng Xiaoping. In the past, I had a good feeling about Deng Xiaoping. Later, I followed the ups and downs of Mao’s attitude toward Deng.
At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong’s “Cannonball Command – My First Large Character Poster” pointed directly at Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Soon after, Mao said at a meeting, “Deng Xiaoping is deaf, and he sits far away from me during meetings.” At that time, I discussed the meaning of this statement with a friend, who believed that it was that Chairman Mao resented Deng Xiaoping for not listening to him. Mao also criticized Deng for turning the Central Secretariat into an independent kingdom. Nie Yuanzi and others at Peking University then posted a large-character poster: “The second largest capitalist in the Party – Deng Xiaoping”, listing his many “sins”. Deng Xiaoping was knocked down together with Liu Shaoqi. However, Mao Zedong had different attitudes and methods in dealing with Liu and Deng, and still adopted a “protection policy” for Deng Xiaoping, not to put Deng to death. At the 12th Plenary Session of the 8th CPC Central Committee held in October 1968, Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and others advocated the expulsion of Deng Xiaoping from the Party, but Mao Zedong did not agree. As Deng Xiaoping later said, “Although he wanted to rectify whoever did not listen to him, he still had considerations about how far to rectify”.
In 1972, the Peking University Work Propaganda Team had conveyed a central document to the party members of Peking University, which consisted of two parts: first, a summary of Deng Xiaoping’s lengthy review; second, Mao Zedong’s approval of Deng Xiaoping’s review. First, Mao Zedong’s instruction of August 14, 1972 was conveyed: “Please ask Premier to read it and send it to Director Wang to issue to all comrades of the Central Committee. The mistakes made by Comrade Deng Xiaoping are serious. But they should be distinguished from Liu Shaoqi. (a) he was in the Central Soviet Union is to be rectified. That is, Deng, Mao, Xie, Gu, one of the four sinners, is the head of the so-called Maoist. The material of his rectification can be found in the books “Two Lines” and “Since the Sixth Congress”. The person who came out to fix him was Zhang Wentian. (2) He has no historical problems. That is, he had not surrendered to the enemy. (3) He assisted Comrade Liu Bo-cheng in the war and was a good fighter. In addition, after entering the city, not a single good thing was done, such as leading the delegation to Moscow to negotiate, he did not yield to Soviet. I have spoken of these things many times in the past, and I will repeat them now.”
Deng Xiaoping’s review was very long, said to be about 40,000 words, so only a summary was conveyed to us.
Deng Xiaoping was “liberated” in 1973. Step by step, Mao Zedong quickly arranged for Deng to become a member of the Party Central Committee, a member of the Central Military Commission, and Chief of General Staff. At that time, Mao’s two comments on Deng were conveyed: “Talent is rare and political thinking is strong. Accordingly, Deng became the first vice premier of the State Council, vice chairman of the Party Central Committee, and chief of the General Staff. At this time, his status was already higher than before the Cultural Revolution. After Premier Zhou fell seriously ill, Deng Xiaoping took charge of the overall work in the Central Committee.
After his resumption, Deng Xiaoping proposed to carry out a comprehensive reorganization based on the “three instructions” (i.e. study the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, stabilize and unite, and make sure to improve the national economy). He made a number of speeches in this regard. At that time, Deng’s speeches were not conveyed to the members of the “Liang Effect”. However, we did hear some of them from the trail. Personally, I think Deng Xiaoping actually wanted to revert to the old way of doing things before the Cultural Revolution.
Mao Zedong once said that he had done two major things in his Life: one was to build a new China; the other was to launch the Cultural Revolution. Whoever wants to deny the Cultural Revolution, he will never allow it. This is because Mao regarded the Cultural Revolution as a strategic decision to fight against revision and prevent revision. It is said that he wanted Deng to convene a meeting of the Politburo to make a resolution on the Cultural Revolution, which was politely rejected by Deng Xiaoping. Deng said: It is inappropriate for me to preside over the writing of this resolution, I am from Peach Blossom Garden. After that, Mao’s attitude toward Deng changed greatly and launched a struggle against the “right-leaning revisionist wind”.
In late November 1975, according to Mao Zedong’s instructions, the Central Political Bureau held a “greeting” meeting in Beijing attended by more than 130 old comrades from the party, political and military organs. The document of this meeting was conveyed to the members of the “Liang Effect”. The document said: “The Central Committee believes that Chairman Mao’s instructions are very important, and the problems at Tsinghua University are by no means isolated, but are a reflection of the current struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines. It is a right-leaning wind of reversal. Although the Party’s ‘Ninth Congress’ and ‘Tenth Congress’ have summarized the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, some people are always dissatisfied with the Cultural Revolution, always want to settle the accounts of the Cultural Revolution, always want to reopen the case. …… this struggle is the deepening and development of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.”
At this time, the magazine “Red Banner” and to Peking University, Tsinghua University criticism group asked to write an article to criticize the “right-leaning reversal of the wind” on the education front. The task of writing this article was given to Zhong Zhemin’s group. In order to write this article, we transferred He Fangchuan of our group. They took Zhou Rongxin’s remarks as a target and criticized the “strange and bizarre theories” in the education field one by one. The article was published in the 12th issue of Red Flag in 1975 under the title “The direction of the educational revolution cannot be tampered with”, and was subsequently reprinted in various newspapers and magazines throughout China.
The article sent a signal that a new line struggle was about to begin, and its target was Deng Xiaoping, who was presiding over the overall work in the Central Committee. Later, we heard a series of instructions from Mao Zedong on criticizing Deng Xiaoping and countering the right-leaning revisionist wind. Mao Yuanxin compiled Mao’s many talks from October 1975 to January 1976 under the title of “Important Instructions from Chairman Mao” and conveyed them down from level to level.
On February 25, 1976, at a meeting of the heads of provinces, cities, autonomous regions and major military regions, Hua Guofeng said, “Chairman Mao said that the central government was responsible for any mistakes.” The Politburo considered Comrade Deng Xiaoping as the main responsible. He asked everyone to “deeply expose and criticize Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s revisionist line, and turn a good corner in the process of exposing and criticizing”.
We took the above instructions as the latest thoughts of Mao Zedong and the latest spirit of the Party Central Committee, studied them carefully, repeatedly understood them, and tried to implement them. After writing the article “The direction of the educational revolution cannot be tampered with” as a “flare”, our group then took up the task of writing another article, “Fighting back against the right-leaning revisionist wind in science and technology”.
This article was also a special article for the Red Flag magazine. Yao Wenyuan greeted Chi Qun and Xie Jingyi and asked us to write another article to counter the right-leaning reversal wind. Chi and Xie handed us some background materials: one, the remarks about Hu Yaobang and Li Chang’s repudiation of the Cultural Revolution compiled by the head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ rebel faction. Second, Hu Yaobang’s own “Outline of Scientific Work Report”. The “Liang Effect” compiled this outline of Hu’s work, together with “Some Issues on Accelerating Industrial Development” and “On the General Outline of the Work of the Whole Party and the Whole Country” into a booklet, which was called the “three big poisonous weeds” for people to criticize. After this small volume was reported to the Central Committee, it was approved by Hua Guofeng and other Politburo members.
The article “Fighting back against the right-leaning reversal wind in science and technology” was another heavy artillery shell issued by the “Liang Effect”. This article was drafted by me, He Fangchuan and Chen Xianda. It features the first time that the term “right-leaning reversal wind” was made public. Before we started writing, we also listened to a recorded speech by Hu Yaobang. It was a speech he gave to the youth league members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in which he encouraged them to study scientific knowledge, to march towards science, to be a soldier of the new long march, and to struggle for the early modernization of the country. Hu Yaobang’s speech was passionate and inspiring.
The article “Fighting back against the right-leaning reversal wind in science and technology” pointed directly at Hu Yaobang and Li Chang, and then forced Deng Xiaoping. Based on a series of instructions from Mao Zedong, the spirit of the editorial in the People’s Daily and some materials obtained from the Great Debate in Tsinghua, I gave a comprehensive summary of the revisionist line of the “right-leaning reversal wind”: “Chairman Mao has repeatedly taught us to be on guard against revisionism. From the various strange arguments in the education sector to the series of revisionist views in the science and technology sector, the similarities and differences are intriguing and thought-provoking, and it shows that there is a revisionist line that is in opposition to Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line. This revisionist line is based on the denial of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the new revolutionary things that emerged from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the restoration and retrogression, and the counter-attack, and its theoretical basis is the theory of the extinction of the class struggle and the theory of productive forces only, and its means is eclecticism. It is a serious battle task before us to strike back politically and ideologically against this right-leaning reversal wind and to consolidate and develop the victorious achievements of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” The article had a great impact on the whole country, and many people quoted it when writing articles.
In order to criticize the so-called “outsiders cannot lead insiders”, I specifically consulted Premier Zhou Enlai’s report to the National People’s Congress in 1957, because it contained a refutation of the rightist’s “outsiders cannot lead insiders”.
Before the publication of this article, we also had a discussion with some key members of the chemistry and physics departments of Peking University to listen to their opinions on the article. In that climate, of course, they would not offer any contradictory opinions.
I remember clearly that the article was broadcast in the Spring Festival of 1976. Early in the morning of the first day of the year, I turned on the radio and heard the article “Replying to the Right-leaning Reversal Wind in Science and Technology” being played. At that time, I was very excited and thought I had grasped and mastered Mao Zedong Thought. In hindsight, this article reversed right and wrong and disturbed people’s minds.
In June 1976, Red Banner came back for an article on “Deng Xiaoping’s Revisionist Line and the Way of Confucius and Mencius”. In order to write this article, I, together with He Fangchuan and Chen Xianda, looked up a lot of Deng Xiaoping’s remarks, but after checking and checking, I felt that Deng Xiaoping was not quite the same as Lin Biao in that he did not have any remarks respecting Confucius. I only found a sentence “to correct the name, the name is not correct, then the words are not right. So, how to write the article? The three of us discussed with the editor of Red Flag magazine and decided to link Deng Xiaoping with Confucius and Mencius in essence. What is the essential connection? It means that Confucius wants to restore the Zhou rites, and Deng Xiaoping wants to restore the pre-Cultural Revolution set, to restore capitalism, and from the point of engaging in restoration, their essence is the same. Thus, we wrote this article “Deng Xiaoping’s Revisionist Line and the Way of Confucius and Mencius” in a far-fetched way, pulling it apart and connecting Deng Xiaoping with the Way of Confucius and Mencius. This article was published in the 9th issue of Red Flag in 1976.
In the process of criticizing Deng, the “Liang Effect” had compiled a copy of Deng Xiaoping’s speeches in the past few years for use in criticism. Among them was the “general outline of the work of the whole party” written by Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun at the behest of Deng Xiaoping. Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun had sent the material to Hua Guofeng, who was presiding over the Central Committee at the time, and Hua forwarded it to “Liang Xu”.
After being severely criticized by Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping admitted in about February and March 1976 that he had made a line mistake. This was conveyed to the members of the “Liang Effect” by Li Jiakuan.
“After the Tiananmen Incident, the central government publicly named Deng Xiaoping and dismissed him from office. Our article wanted to say that Deng Xiaoping was the chief backstage of the “Tiananmen Incident”, but later we heard that on the day of the incident, Deng Xiaoping neither went to Tiananmen, nor was he in charge behind the scenes, but went to the Qianmen Hotel to get a haircut. Therefore, we have to say that he is essentially the backstage.
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