Qiliying, Xinxiang County, Henan Province is my hometown. For as long as I can remember, I have often heard the elders of the village tell the story of Chairman ***'s visit to the Qiliying People's Commune, and their faces are full of pride and memories. At the glorious moment of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, China has won a comprehensive victory in the battle against poverty, and my hometown has also undergone tremendous changes.
In order to understand in more detail the details of the inspection of Qiliying People's Commune, I went to the Xinxiang Local Literature Sorting Center of the Library of Henan Normal University. The center includes a wealth of local literature in Xinxiang, including precious local chronicles, books, newspapers and periodicals, etc., which provides detailed materials for clarifying the real scene of inspecting the Qiliying People's Commune.
I visited Professor Wang Ruizhen, Deputy Director of the Library of Henan Normal University, Dr. Ma Hongliang, Director of the Xinxiang Local Literature Collation Center, and Liang Tao, Teacher of Pingyuan Xintou Culture and Art Center.
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, agricultural cooperation began to advance. Peasants across the country have gradually organized themselves in various forms of mutual aid and cooperation, and mutual aid groups (agricultural production mutual aid groups), primary cooperatives (primary agricultural production cooperatives), senior cooperatives (senior agricultural production cooperatives) and other organizational forms have been introduced one after another, which in fact became the precursor of the later people's commune movement.
In September 1955, ** pointed out in the preface to the article "The Superiority of the Great Society" in "The Socialist Upsurge in Rural China": "The small community has few people, little land, and little capital, and cannot carry out large-scale operations and cannot use machines. Such small societies still constrain the development of the productive forces, and should not stay for too long, but should be gradually merged. ”
In January 1956, the draft of the National Agricultural Development Program (40 Articles of Agriculture) was promulgated, and in October 1957, the revised draft was promulgated, requiring the construction of water conservancy, the development of irrigation, and the prevention and control of flood and drought disasters. Due to the different interests of various communities, the construction of water conservancy projects has been greatly restricted.
In the spring of 1956, the Qiliying Senior Society was established by the merger of 11 primary societies, with a population of 5,200 people, and established factories, red schools, nursing homes, kindergartens, businesses, militia organizations, etc. In the spring of 1958, Qiliying Township broke the high-level social boundaries and began large-scale construction of farmland and water conservancy. On July 11, 1958, Xinxiang County held a county-wide congress of activists to fully discuss how to establish the Taisha, and decided to merge into 10 Taisha on the basis of the original 10 central townships and following the example of Qiliying. On July 16, 1958, the Qiliying Township Party Committee drafted a "Opinions of the Qiliying Township Party Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Merger of the Great Society", which was submitted to the Xinxiang County Party Committee for examination and approval, and was quickly approved. On July 20, 1958, more than 10,000 members of 26 senior societies in Qiliying happily gathered in front of the township ** gate to solemnly celebrate the birth of Qiliying Shrine.
After the establishment of the Qiliying Taisha, the cadres and the masses discussed what the name of the Taisha should be. Some people suggested that it should be called "Taisha";It was suggested that the name "Associated Press" should be taken;It was suggested to learn from the Soviet Union and take the name "collective farm";Some people saw the name of the "Paris Commune" in the works of Marx and Engels and proposed to name it "the Communist Commune", the "Communist Construction Commune", and the "Workers' and Peasants' Union Commune".Someone specifically mentioned the "people's commune" in the article "A New Society, A New People" in the Red Flag magazine. In the end, everyone believes that the workers, peasants, merchants, students, and soldiers are all the people, the country is called the People's Republic, the people are called, the banks are called the People's Bank, and the Taisha should be called the "People's Commune".
On August 1, 1958, the Qiliying Taisha used the name of "Qiliying People's Commune" for the first time in the text. In the early morning of August 4, 1958, a sign was hung in front of the shrine that read "Qiliying People's Commune, Xinxiang County".
On August 3, 1958, the Rural Work Department of the Henan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and the county, township, and community cadres of Xinxiang jointly studied and drafted the "Preliminary Opinions on the Policy of Establishing People's Communes (Draft)", which mentioned: "Encouraged by the party's general line and in accordance with the demands of the masses, Qiliying Township, Xinxiang County, established a people's commune on July 20, 1958, on the basis of 26 agricultural cooperatives. ”
* The investigation team of the Ministry of Commerce inspected the commercial work of the newly born Qiliying People's Commune, and on September 16, 1958, issued the "Investigation on the Commercial Work of the Qiliying People's Commune in Xinxiang County", which recorded: "From July 13 to 20, 1958, a total of seven days, 30 natural villages and 26 high-level agricultural cooperatives belonging to Qiliying Township were merged into Qiliying People's Commune of Xinxiang County. ”
In August 1958, the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China was about to be held in Beidaihe. On the eve of the meeting, he spent a week inspecting the rural areas of Hebei, Henan, and Shandong to inspect the rural situation on the spot.
On the evening of August 5, 1958, after the special train arrived in Xinxiang, he listened to the report of Wu Zhipu, then the first secretary of the Henan Provincial Party Committee, and Geng Qichang, secretary of the Xinxiang Prefectural Party Committee.
At 4:22 p.m. on August 6, 1958, ** arrived at the square in front of the Qiliying People's Commune by car, Hu Shaohua, secretary of the Xinxiang County Party Committee, Xu Zhanqi, secretary of the general branch of the Qiliying People's Commune, and others hurriedly greeted them.
**Come to the gate of the People's Commune and look carefully at the sign of "Xinxiang County Qiliying People's Commune" hanging up. Hu Shaohua, secretary of the Xinxiang County Party Committee, said: "This is the first people's commune in the county. * Read "People's Commune" aloud. Geng Qichang, secretary of the Xinxiang Prefectural Party Committee, asked ***Is this name okay?* nodded and said in an affirmative tone: "The name of the People's Commune is good!".”
After entering the commune compound, ** saw two small signs of "Department of Political Science" and "Department of Meteorology" hanging at the door, and asked with great interest: "What is this for?"Xu Zhanqi replied: "This is the commune's Red School. ”
In the office of the Qiliying People's Commune, President Wang Wensheng briefly reported the basic situation of the commune to ***. When it was learned that the whole commune had 3When 10,000 people, ** asked with concern if there was any difficulty.
After coming out of the commune office, ** inspected the happiness home (nursing home) run by the commune, and asked the director Yang Changjing whether the old people were satisfied with their food and accommodation. Subsequently, ** inspected the kindergarten and praised the children in the kindergarten. **Inspected the canteen and asked the canteen cook about the diet. **Inspected the flour mill and the ball mill and praised the work of the mill.
Finally, ** came to the cotton field, and the masses working in the field came over and applauded warmly. ** Asked in detail about the number of acres, planned yield, fertilization, and cultivation of cotton fields. ** Personally walked into the cotton field, gestured with his hand to the shoulder-high cotton top, and praised the cotton for growing well. In the experimental field, ** saw six female members who were spraying pesticides in the cotton field, and asked "show me the work". After reading it, ** praised their work.
On August 7, 1958, ** listened to a report on the situation of the Satellite People's Commune in Zhengzhou. On August 9, 1958, ** inspected Licheng, Shandong, and the Shandong Provincial Party Committee mentioned in its report that it was going to call its organization name by the farm, **, saying: "It's better to be a people's commune." ”
On August 12, 1958, "People's **" published an interview report entitled "** Inspection of Henan Rural Areas", which successively introduced the inspection of Qiliying People's Commune in Xinxiang County, Liangzhuang Agricultural Commune in Xiangcheng County, Xue Yuan Agricultural Commune in Shilipu Township, and Zhonghua Agricultural Cooperative in Daokou Township.
On August 29, 1958, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China made a resolution on the establishment of people's communes in the countryside at the Beidaihe Conference, demanding that all parts of the country should merge small communes into large communes as soon as possible.
The Party School of the Communist Party of China has done a comprehensive study on the historical origin of the establishment of the People's Commune, and the researchers published the "Several Points on the First People's Commune" in the 6th issue of "Party History Research and Teaching" in 2008, in which the question of "who first used the name of 'commune' and 'people's commune'" was raised, and believed: "The first to use the name of 'commune' was the 'Red Flag Communist Commune' in Zhuji, Zhejiang, and the first to use the name of 'people's commune' in Qiliying Commune, Xinxiang County, Henan. ”
After the call for "the people's commune is good" was issued, an upsurge of people's communes was set off throughout the country. From August 17 to August 30, 1958, the Politburo held an enlarged meeting in Beidaihe to discuss and adopt the "Resolution of the Communist Party of China on the Establishment of People's Communes in the Countryside". By the end of 1958, the people's communes had been generally realized in the rural areas of the country. The people's communization movement is an important practice of the Communist Party of China in the process of socialist construction.
*: Archives Management, Issue 04, 2021, author Zhang Xiaotong, Library of Zhengzhou Vocational College of Finance, Taxation and Finance.