Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (23 page)

In early May, Vice Premier Li Xiannian assembled the party secretaries of twelve leading steel plants and of the local governments supervising these plants for a forum on the steel industry.
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There the leaders of steel plants that did not meet their targets had to explain to a critical audience why they were still underperforming. They explained that the officials who had been criticized during the campaign against Lin Biao and Confucius feared making political errors. They were afraid that there would be a reversion to Mao's policies and that they would be punished for promoting economic expansion and productivity rather than emphasizing politics.

On May 21, three days after he returned from his week-long state visit to France, Deng chaired a forum sponsored by the State Council to discuss the steel problem.
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Deng could not discuss openly the underlying worry of many officials—that Mao might change his mind and again attack those who were paying close attention to the economy, as the Gang of Four was urging him to do. In March and April 1975, articles by Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan publicly attacked “empiricism,” the focus on economic production, and the neglect of ideology. What Deng knew but could not say publicly at the time was that Mao had reassured him on April 18 and had written a note on an article by Yao Wenyuan on April 23 that further confirmed both his current opposition to such attacks on empiricism and his solid support of Deng's efforts to achieve order.

What Deng did say at the May State Council forum was, “Now that transportation has been restored, it exposes our problems in metallurgy, electric power, and other specific sectors. Each ministry must calculate again how to resolve the most difficult long-term problems. The core of our next phase should be how to resolve the steel problem.”
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Gu Mu began to speak to the
group about the seriousness of the steel problem, but Deng interrupted: “He didn't put it strongly enough. If we continue in the way we are going, it will be a disaster.” He went on, “Gu Mu said it shouldn't be a problem to increase 2.5 million tons a year. I say it shouldn't be a problem to increase 3 million tons a year.... It doesn't matter what your rank is, you can't always be afraid of this and that. Among officials, a major problem is ‘fear itself.’ Some are afraid of stroking the tiger's rear end. We will support you.”
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Deng explained that it didn't matter if they were forty-or even fifty-year veterans. “If there is a faction, we don't care if it's at a tiger's rear end or a lion's rear end. We aren't afraid of stroking it.... If people transferred out because of factionalism form factions again, they will be transferred again. If necessary we will transfer them 360 days a year. We will give you until July 1.... If necessary, we will transfer you to Urumqi [in the far West where most officials dreaded being sent]. If the wife threatens divorce, maybe then he will listen.”
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He added, “We have to be very strict … those who deserve it will be attacked in criticism sessions. You can't just stand around and wait. In the railways people took solid steps, but here I don't see many people like that.” And, he continued, “Perhaps some of you will commit errors. We need to find people who aren't afraid of being knocked down, who dare to accept responsibility. We want in the leadership teams those who dare to struggle. I myself am like a young Uighur girl with lots of braids [vulnerable to being yanked, that is, criticized].” Deng said that a large plant like Angang was complicated to run, but that senior managers should not be concerned only with the minutiae of keeping the technology going day to day. Instead, “We need a group with overall responsibility for production.”
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In his remarks at a meeting on the steel industry on May 29, Deng stressed the need for a strong leadership team in every enterprise. He focused on the eight large steel plants that produced half the steel in China, complaining that each of the top four steel mills—Angang, Wugang, Taigang, and Baogang—was behind in meeting its targets. The biggest problem, Deng said, was at the huge steel complex at Angang, where the key issue was leaders who were soft, lazy, and disorganized
(ruan, lan, san)
.
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On June 4, 1975, Document No. 13, which was analogous to Document No. 9 on the railways, was issued and distributed to the local authorities to deal with the steel issue. The document, which had been cleared by the Politburo and approved by Mao, reiterated a target output of 26 million tons for 1975. The State Planning Commission set up a small group from various ministries that would answer directly to the State Council and would guarantee
that the steel quota would be met. Ministries concerned with electricity, coal, transport, electric power, and petroleum represented in this group were expected to assure that necessary supplies were available to the steel plants. Provincial and municipal party committees were told to exercise leadership over the steel plants and to make sure they were meeting their targets.
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To implement the directives of Document No. 13, the major steel factories all organized mass meetings, some with as many as 40,000 people in attendance.
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At the top, the small group under the State Council met weekly to review individual plans and to ensure that targets were being met.
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By August 1, however, when the small group was holding a conference to assess steel production, participants were acknowledging difficulties in meeting their previously high targets. One setback was the sudden illness of Yu Qiuli, who had boldly led the effort to promote steel in the spring, but was unable to provide his usual firm leadership after he became ill during the summer. Officials were still afraid that if they neglected leftist politics in favor of production they might later be in trouble. Indeed, the Gang of Four was then criticizing Deng for making just such an error.

In 1975, China produced 23.9 million tons of steel—a significant increase over the 21.1 million tons produced in 1974, but still short of the goal of 26 million tons. Deng accepted the improvement and declared victory. But from December 15 to December 23, 1975, when criticism of Deng was already beginning in small circles at the top, Gu Mu chaired a meeting of provincial-level officials responsible for steel production to discuss the problems. Despite the bravado at the meeting, top officials already knew that in the new political atmosphere, with Deng Xiaoping under siege, local officials had become more cautious about continuing their single-minded efforts to increase production. Indeed, in 1976—after Deng fell from power for the third time and was removed from all his positions—production fell to 20.5 million tons.

The improvement in Chinese steel production in 1975 was infinitesimal compared with Japan's steel production at the time, as Deng would see for himself three years later when he was shown a modern Japanese steel plant that by itself produced several times as much steel as all of China's increased steel production in 1975. In fact, Deng's 1975 efforts marked his last attempt to increase steel production by political mobilization. After he visited a large modern Japanese steel plant in October 1978, he took a very different approach to increasing steel production, focusing on science and technology
instead of consolidation. The payoff for that revised strategy would be huge. In the 1980s, with imported modern steel technology from Japan, China's steel production would leap from 37.2 million tons in 1982 to 61.2 million tons in 1989, and then to 101 million tons in 1996, when China became the world's largest steel producer.
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By 2010 as steel plants with modern technology were being duplicated in various localities, China, without political mobilization, would produce 600 million tons per year, almost thirty times what it had produced in 1975.

Zhejiang and the Fall of Wang Hongwen

In 1975 Mao supported Deng's effort to select new leadership teams that could get people who had formerly fought against one another to work together. No province was then more divided and in need of such efforts to bring unity than Zhejiang.
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In 1974 all provinces except Jiangsu and Zhejiang had recorded economic growth as a result of the partial restoration of order. Zhejiang was a populous, relatively advanced coastal province with a large industrial base. Yet its problems continued into the first quarter of 1975 when industrial production fell 20 percent below that of the first quarter of 1974 and provincial revenue was down 28.5 percent. Due to efforts by Deng, Wan Li, and others, compared to the previous year, industrial production in the first eight months of 1975 across the nation rose by an average 17 percent. But in Zhejiang it was down by 6 percent.
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Mao took a special interest in Zhejiang when, on February 8, 1975, he moved from Changsha to the beautiful West Lake area of Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, and remained there until mid-April, when he returned to Beijing to host North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. While in Hangzhou, Mao had ample opportunity to talk with Zhejiang provincial officials, particularly Tan Qilong, a senior party official, and Tie Ying, a senior military official, who had been attacked during the Cultural Revolution. In his current mood to restore order, Mao found them able leaders. Conversely, while in Hangzhou he formed a negative impression of Weng Senhe, the former rebel leader who had been supported by Wang Hongwen in 1973 and 1974. The problems in Zhejiang had grown worse during the campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius in 1974, when Wang Hongwen had supported the rebels and Tan Qilong had been unable to bring them under control. The falling out between Mao and Wang Hongwen had already begun in 1974, for when Wang flew to Changsha on October 18, 1974, Mao was displeased that he was following Jiang Qing too closely.

By the spring of 1975, Mao's doubts about Wang Hongwen had grown. The seriousness of the problems in Zheijiang was receiving attention in Beijing and Wang Hongwen, who was assigned to meet with Zhejiang leaders to resolve the problems in November 1974 and March 1975, failed in his assignment. In a series of Politburo meetings from April 27 to June 3, Wang Hongwen was criticized, along with Jiang Qing, in part for his inability to resolve the Zhejiang problems. Wang undertook a self-criticism.
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After Wang was arrested in October 1976 as a member of the Gang of Four, he was criticized as an incompetent radical, bold and coarse, who had begun to enjoy the high life of fancy banquets and elegant clothes. In fact Wang did make a serious effort to carry out his responsibilities leading the daily work of the party; indeed, some who knew him felt that he should not have been implicated in crimes committed by the others in Gang of Four. But in Beijing, a city of many proven officials with great experience, Wang, a young upstart who suddenly catapulted ahead of more experienced and more skilled officials, failed to win the respect needed to provide high-level leadership.

In late June 1975, it was announced that Wang Hongwen would temporarily give up his responsibilities leading the daily work of the Central Committee in Beijing to take an assignment in Shanghai and then in Zhejiang. Mao supported the recommendation by Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping that Wang Hongwen be sent to Zhejiang as part of a work team led by Vice Premier Ji Dengkui to deal with the problems there. Wang was sent, in effect, for training and reform and was in the awkward position of joining Ji in criticizing the Zhejiang rebels whom he previously had supported. His presence was helpful in resolving the Zhejiang problem because the radicals whom he had supported could see that even Wang Hongwen, with his august titles and radical credentials, was unable to help them.
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The work that Ji Dengkui did in Zhejiang was similar to what Wan Li did in Xuzhou. Ji and his work team met with local officials to understand the problems, held mass meetings, selected a new leadership team led by Tan Qilong and Tie Ying, and used formal documents to support their efforts. Although Deng was centrally involved, Mao, having just been in Zhejiang and having talked with those who would now take charge, played a more active role in resolving the Zhejiang problem than the Xuzhou problem. Zhou Enlai, whose family had originally come from Zhejiang and who took a deep interest in Zhejiang affairs, was also consulted.

In Ji Dengkui's last days in Zhejiang, he worked with the leaders on the drafts of what would become Document No. 16, which would do for Zhejiang
what Document No. 9 had done for the railways and Document No. 13 had done for the steel industry. On June 14, 1975, Ji Dengkui, Wang Hongwen, Tan Qilong, and Tie Ying flew to Beijing with the draft of the document. The next day Deng Xiaoping chaired a meeting to review the draft and make decisions about the leadership in Zhejiang province and Hangzhou City. Tie Ying sat to Deng's left to make sure that Deng, increasingly hard of hearing in his right ear, could follow the discussions.
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On the next day, the document was forwarded to Mao who approved it as well as the personnel decisions, and on the following day Document No. 16 was issued.

The consolidation in Zhejiang, whereby Mao and the central leadership came down firmly on the side of enforcing unity, achieved its goals of restoring order and a semblance of cohesion in the most troubled province. Tan Qilong, who in his talks apologized for his weak leadership in the previous year, was greatly buoyed by the support from the highest levels and with the help of Beijing gained firm control over the rebels. At the end of 1975 Zhejiang officials announced that industrial production in the second half of 1975 was 4 percent higher than it had been in the first half of the year.
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