In 1952, he was appointed Minister of Rural Affairs, and two years later, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in charge of agriculture and forestry.
It stands to reason that he is the person in charge of rural work selected by *** and **, and his work achievements are still very recognized, but in 1955, he was severely criticized by ***, what is the reason for this?
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, comprehensive land reform began in the countryside, and the peasants had their own land, and their enthusiasm for production became higher and higher, but some problems also arose.
For example, after the economic status of the peasants rose, the trend of middle peasants began to expand, and among these middle peasants, there were still many small producers, who were allocated a lot of land, and on this basis, they became richer and richer, and in this way, the gap between the rich and the poor gradually widened.
During the period of building socialism, especially when China has just begun to build socialism, the problem of this gap between the rich and the poor must be solved.
In *** words, it is:"It is also feasible to rely on unified operation to form new productive forces and shake the foundation of private ownership. ”
In 1953, the "Resolution on Mutual Aid and Cooperation in Agricultural Production" was promulgated, and he also talked to ***, hoping that the pace of rural cooperatives would be accelerated.
To this end, the first meeting was held again to study, and the "Resolution on the Development of Agricultural Production Cooperatives" was issued, and rural cooperatives began to enter a period of rapid development.
Later, after verifying the information of various localities, another idea was put forward: in one year, the number of rural cooperatives should reach 100,000. This idea proved to be scientific, and by the end of 1954, the number of rural cooperatives in the country had reached 970,000.
Seeing that the development momentum of cooperatives is good, ** put forward the idea of speeding up the pace.
However, this time, ** did not fully agree.
As the specific person in charge of this work, of course, he hopes that this decision can really benefit farmers, but he also has some worries, thinking that if the pace is too fast, it will cause instability in the implementation of the policy.
Therefore, ** frankly expressed his opinions to ***, hoping that the cooperative could be steadily promoted according to the original plan.
Subsequently, a meeting of the secretaries of the provincial and municipal party committees was held to discuss the indicators of rural cooperatives again, and finally concluded that it was feasible to reach 1 million cooperatives by the beginning of 1957.
Although there are also different opinions on this number, ** still accepts it.
In June 1955, after returning from an inspection in the south, in view of the broad prospects of rural cooperatives in the south, he talked to *** again and proposed that by 1957, the number of rural cooperatives would reach 1.3 million.
However, ** did not agree, saying that it is better to stick to 1 million, and if it grows to 1.3 million all at once, there will be many problems.
The two argued for hours, but in the end they could not reach an agreement, and neither could convince anyone.
After returning home, his wife Chen Lan persuaded him to talk less and not to collide with ***.
**Insistence:"Put me in this position, that is, to listen to my opinion on this matter, I told the real situation, whether to listen or not is the decision of **, whether to talk or not is my responsibility, I must truthfully report what I see to **.
On July 31, 1955, ** presided over the meeting and made a report on "On the Question of Agricultural Cooperativeization", and severely criticized some people, saying:"In the countryside of the country, the climax of the new socialist mass movement is coming. Some of our comrades, like women with small feet, staggered there, always complaining to others: Go fast, go fast. Excessive criticism, inappropriate complaints, endless worries, and countless rules and precepts were thought to be the correct policy for guiding the socialist mass movement in the countryside. No, that's not the right approach, it's the wrong approach. It is from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie, the kulaks, or the rich middle peasants with spontaneous capitalist tendencies to make decisions for the lesser, but not from the standpoint of the working class for the whole country and the whole people. ”
**These words, although they were not named, but everyone also knew that what they said was ***, which also put *** under a lot of pressure and had to be reviewed at the meeting.
There is no need to say much about what happened later, because the steps were too big and too fast, and many problems arose in the work in the countryside, which eventually led to that tragedy.
(References: "* Biography", "Party History Collection", "Fujian Party History Monthly").