Twentieth Century Chronicle

Page 195

When the Labor Party was founded in Tokyo in 1900, it had only 47 members, almost all of whom were intellectuals with a high school education or above. In eight years, it expanded to nearly 500,000 members, a truly astonishing growth rate. In contrast, even though Sun Yat-sen's Revive China Society, under the name of the Tongmenghui, absorbed anti-Qing forces in other provinces, it only dared to claim 100,000 members, and in reality, it only controlled a few thousand members in Guangdong.

The rapid expansion of the labor party organization and the continuous military and political victories of the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee under its leadership were inseparable from the fact that the party had carried out three major purges of party members since its founding. The first purge was of the old gentry who had formed personal relationships within the party, the second purge was of party members who opposed the land reform policy, and the third purge was of party members who opposed making the construction of a public ownership economy the party's fundamental task.

These three purges reduced the number of party members by at least 5-10% each time, but they also ushered in a period of faster growth for the party afterward. The increase in the number of members made the previously simpler organizational structure unsuitable for such a large, centralized organization of hundreds of thousands of people. Therefore, the central organs were reorganized, changing from a two-tiered decision-making body consisting of the Presidium and the Enlarged Central Committee to a political conference, an organizational conference, and a secretariat responsible for implementing resolutions. The Enlarged Central Committee was only responsible for voting on major policies and guidelines and no longer interfered in specific matters.

The original two-tiered decision-making process is now more concentrated on political and organizational meetings, with the political meeting taking precedence over the organizational meeting, which acts more like a personnel guarantee for the former's decisions. The number of committee members who can attend the political meeting has increased to fourteen, while only seven Central Committee members can attend both the political and organizational meetings simultaneously.

From the Labour Party's decision-making process, the party's power structure is quite stable. The top seven members bear full responsibility for the party's political and organizational activities, while other Central Committee members and alternate members hold deliberative power. These Central Committee members and alternate members also represent the support and communication between local party organizations and the Central Committee.

Regardless of whether this power structure leads to the emergence of bureaucracy within the party, among the various political forces in China at present, the Workers' Party has the lowest internal friction. The Beiyang government was essentially Yuan Shikai's personal fiefdom, but even his orders were met with insincere resistance from his subordinates. The Southern Tongmenghui was even more chaotic. Leaving aside the lack of binding force between the Tongmenghui Central Committee and the provincial Tongmenghui, even the Tongmenghui Central Committee lacked a decision-making system. Sun Yat-sen couldn't even maintain Yuan Shikai's absolute control; he could only bypass the Tongmenghui Central Committee and directly appoint private individuals to communicate with local Tongmenghui leaders, using personal relationships to demand obedience.

Therefore, the Labour Party's ability to both make decisions at the top and implement them has already put other forces in the country far ahead. It is precisely because the party organization has been effective that members with outdated intellectual habits are increasingly less likely to violate party discipline.

The so-called "old intellectual mentality" stems from the belief that something cannot be accomplished without them. Therefore, if their superiors don't meet their expectations, they'll simply abandon the project and let the others handle it. In the absence of an organization like the Labor Party, this approach was largely correct. This explains why Yuan Shikai employed political maneuvering with his subordinates, and why Sun Yat-sen constantly sought to win over local power brokers. Under feudal patriarchal relations, local gentry controlled local public affairs and the economy; bypassing them meant getting things done locally.

However, the organizational structure of the Labour Party broke down the personal dependence between its members, and politically it advocated abolishing the landlord class's control over the countryside. As a result, under the organization's power, local patriarchal relations were broken down, and intellectuals and gentry were restored to being individuals. At this point, the organization could basically get anyone to do the job, it was just a matter of how well it was completed.

The old intellectuals and gentry, after being attacked and educated by the industrialized organization of the Labour Party, finally recognized the reality. Apart from a small number of conservatives who still tried to defend the rural patriarchal system, most people began to turn to the Labour Party, hoping to join the organization and adapt to the power distribution relationship of the new era.

So when Lin Xinyi attended the political conference, he discovered that he didn't recognize more than half of the nine Central Committee members present. The five Central Committee members who didn't attend were all undertaking independent work in various regions. However, although these Central Committee members didn't know him personally, they were very familiar with the name Lin Feng that he used.

The economic policies and political theories currently implemented by the Labour Party are largely derived from Lin Feng's articles. The few experts within the party who study socialist theory also frequently cite Lin Feng's views. Therefore, although they do not know Lin Xinyi, they are quite familiar with Lin Feng, and naturally no one questions why Lin Xinyi is able to participate in political meetings.

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Lin Xinyi delivered a relatively complete speech at the meeting on the economic ties between the industrial and agricultural sectors and the political ties between the working class and the peasantry. It should be said that his speech was highly valued by the participating committee members, not because of his status as a major provider of party theory, but because everyone had already sensed the growing rift in worker-peasant relations, which was threatening the positive situation of the Wuhan Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committee.

Lin Xinyi's summary and explanation of this issue essentially pointed out the crux of the problem, an aspect that the committee members had not yet deeply considered. Therefore, everyone naturally focused their attention on Lin Xinyi's speech. Of course, everyone agreed with Lin Xinyi's assertion that the relationship between workers and peasants was the primary contradiction facing the Wuhan Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committee and the Party at present, because this was the fact that connected all current issues.

However, not all committee members agreed with Lin Xinyi's proposal to improve agricultural productivity to resolve the contradiction between workers and peasants. For example, He Yuheng, a Central Committee member from Hunan, questioned, "I agree with Comrade Lin Feng's assessment that the relationship between workers and peasants has become the main problem facing the committee. However, I think the solution proposed by Comrade Lin Feng seems inappropriate."

Improving agricultural productivity to address the unmet needs of industry and agriculture seems like a solution, but improving agricultural productivity is not something that can be achieved overnight. So, how should the relationship between industry and agriculture be managed before agricultural productivity increases? Should we continue with high-pressure measures against agriculture and continue transferring large amounts of agricultural capital to the industrial sector? Would farmers accept such a solution?

Chen Zhongfu, a Central Committee member from Anhui, expressed concern about further introducing foreign investment to build agricultural infrastructure. He objected, saying, "We rose up against the Qing Dynasty because it opened the country's doors, allowing foreign warships, churches, and merchants to run rampant in our country. The masses are so enthusiastic in supporting the Party because it is able to resist the foreign powers' invasion of China."

Now that we've finally managed to tie the hands of the foreign powers, are we just going to let them continue plundering our people? The foreign powers have always been driven by self-interest; how could they possibly help us build China? I worry that this introduction of foreign investment will ultimately turn into inviting wolves into the house. If the foreign powers use commercial agreements to demand political privileges from us, wouldn't we be asking for trouble?

As the Central Committee members took turns speaking, Lin Xinyi observed these relatively unfamiliar members. Although the size of the Central Committee had expanded, those from Hubei and Hunan still accounted for more than half. However, it was impossible to accurately distinguish the members from Hubei and Hunan based solely on their geographical origins. Most of the former members from these two regions were elites cultivated by Western education promoted by the Self-Strengthening Movement. Tian Junyi and Qin Lishan, for example, came from traditional scholarly families.

These committee members were almost all intellectuals well-versed in both Chinese and Western learning. They studied Confucian classics from a young age and then began to engage with Western learning at the age of fifteen or sixteen. Their personal qualities were quite high. They were able to abandon their personal background and devote themselves to the revolutionary cause, especially those elites who abandoned bourgeois revolution and embraced proletarian revolution. At the very least, they combined the spirit of the old literati who took the world as their responsibility with the idea of ​​the proletarian revolution in pursuing social justice.

Therefore, these people are almost flawless in terms of personal character. Their only problem is that they have an unconscious fascination with the moral values ​​of the old world. Although they believe it is necessary to break down the old relations of production, they believe that the old moral values ​​can be preserved. Simply put, they sometimes broaden the scope of the proletariat, thereby turning the Party into a people's representative that transcends class.

Those who joined the Party after the revolution from Hubei and Hunan provinces generally had lower personal qualities and stronger regional characteristics. Committee members from Hubei and Hunan were almost immediately distinguishable; Hubei members mostly came from industrial and military sectors, while Hunan members came from the education sector.

If we make a preliminary classification of the members of the Party's Central Committee, we can find that members from Guangdong come from the commercial and financial sectors, members from Hubei come from the industrial and military sectors, and members from other provinces come from either the education or propaganda departments. These professions of the Central Committee members reveal a problem: the Party's foundation is actually mainly in Hubei, and the Party organizations in other provinces are not founded on the proletariat, but on progressive intellectuals.

Even though the Party established the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee and controlled a quarter of China's population, the Chinese proletariat was still a minority within that population, which is why the plight of the peasants received a great deal of sympathy both inside and outside the Party.

Although many people knew that industrialization could not be delayed, even the proponents of the Self-Strengthening Movement knew that without learning from the West to manufacture large warships and cannons, China would be unable to resist the invasion of the great powers. However, in reality, many people still felt that the needs of farmers to improve their lives should be met first, after all, this was a very basic concept of social justice.

Lin Xinyi understood Tian Junyi's predicament. Under such strong pressure from both inside and outside the party, even if Tian Junyi knew that industrialization was the only way to solve China's many problems, he would still hesitate. After all, no one can live in a vacuum. Even with a highly centralized organization like the Labor Party promoting policies, it could not change the reality of the pressure Tian Junyi was under.

This pressure will not be alleviated until the results of industrialization are evident. Even when the initial results of industrialization are shown, critics will not change their stance, because the direct beneficiaries of industrialization are still the working class. Although rural areas will receive feedback from industrial technology as industrialization progresses, this feedback is more indirect and will not directly benefit individuals.

Therefore, the resentment that small landowners harbor towards industrialization will be a long-term anger, lasting until they completely lose their property rights to their small lands. This process will take at least forty or fifty years, meaning it will take two or three generations to change their worldview. Tian Junyi estimated that he wouldn't live to see that day, so naturally he couldn't help but hesitate. After all, Stalin wasn't someone anyone could become.

While pondering and listening to the speeches of the committee members, Lin Xinyi thought for a moment and then made a supplementary statement to the committee members who questioned him: "This year, it is said that the average steelmaking capacity per worker at Wuhan Iron and Steel Plant can exceed 20 tons. Based on the ex-factory price of 51 taels per ton of crude steel, the annual value of a steelmaking worker is 1020 taels, while his annual income is about 120 taels. The worker's remuneration accounts for 11.76% of his output."

The highest annual yield of fertile land in the Jianghan Plain is 4-5 shi (a unit of dry measure) of rice. With less than six mu (a unit of land area) of arable land per person, a strong laborer can produce 30 shi of rice per year. After deducting planting costs and taxes, his actual income should be around 20 shi, which is 66.7% of his output. This comparison shows that the surplus value contributed to the country by the working class is actually much higher than that of the farmers.

Why do people say that farmers suffer more than workers? Because their output is vastly different. At 3.75 yuan per shi (a unit of dry measure) of rice, 30 shi would only be worth a little over 110 yuan. Ten farmers would only equal the output of one steelworker. I can understand your questioning of why the working class lives better than farmers, but I cannot understand your idea that the living standards of workers and farmers should be equal, and that workers should have their living standards lowered.

The socialist ideal is that workers should be distributed according to the results of their labor, not according to some abstract moral standard. Absolute fairness is impossible, whether in the past, present, or future, because it only leads to the idea of ​​getting something for nothing, which is clearly inconsistent with the socialist value of labor.

You say that the prices of industrial products in our country are too high, while the prices of agricultural products are too low. This is an exploitative practice of industry selling high and buying low from agriculture. Well, I want to remind you all of this common knowledge: American steelworkers produce more than 60 tons of steel per year, and the amount of coke needed to produce one ton of steel has been reduced to one ton. The cost of American steel is already far lower than that of our steel industry.

But that's not the important point. The important point is that the price of crude steel in the US, according to the Pittsburgh markup, is a uniform $47.6 per ton. However, in the Chinese market, imported US crude steel is priced at $41, or 63 ounces, while the market price of crude steel in my country is 65 ounces. US Steel is clearly dumping its products on my country, attempting to undermine my country's nascent steel industry with prices below market value. If my country couldn't produce its own steel, would the Americans still sell it at such low prices? During the war, the price of US crude steel exports to China even exceeded $80.

The reason we cannot compete with foreign industrial products on price is because our industrial level is too backward; price competition would only lead to the collapse of these modern industries. Therefore, it is necessary to protect our nascent industries. This kind of tariff protection has been practiced by Germany and the United States. The United States currently maintains tariffs between 30% and 50%, and it is precisely this tariff protection that has given American industry time to develop.

The idea that lowering tariffs on industrial goods can reduce spending in the agricultural sector is a short-sighted approach. If China's own industry fails to develop, its agriculture will be subject to foreign industrial systems, and China will become a provider of cheap food and labor in the international market. The technological gap between Chinese and foreign industries will continue to widen, eventually forcing China to abandon investment in industry.

Regarding the issue of excessively low agricultural product prices, this needs to be examined from two perspectives. Firstly, prices are indeed being suppressed because my country's industrial sector needs inexpensive agricultural raw materials to maintain market competitiveness. Secondly, foreign companies intentionally raise the purchase prices of agricultural products to entice farmers to plant large quantities of cash crops. This is a capitalist market tactic. When farmers take out large loans to grow tobacco and cotton, these foreign companies use the large supply in the market to drive down prices. To repay the loans, farmers are forced to sell cash crops at a loss.

Why do we have a unified purchase and sales system and prohibit market pricing power for major agricultural products? Because individual small-scale farmers are simply not beneficiaries of the market. The unified purchase and sales system is to protect our country's backward agriculture. Although these small farmers do not obtain the greatest economic benefits, we also ensure that they will not be maliciously attacked by the market.

Please consider this, fellow committee members: if we adopt market mechanisms to price agricultural products, deliberately inflate the market price of a certain cash crop, and then entice farmers to expand production, only to refuse to purchase that cash crop the following year, these farmers will quickly go bankrupt. Would we still need to persuade them to join collectivized communes? We could simply nationalize the land of heavily indebted farmers and adopt a large-scale farm system. This would be a repeat of the British "sheep eat men" scenario and the American "plundering of Native American lands."

Are you sure that this capitalist-style market economy will be fairer to farmers than the current system of unified purchase and distribution?

The committee members were stunned by Lin Xinyi's words, not by the economic theories in the first part, but by the final description of capitalism's exploitative model of peasants. This wasn't mere imagination; it was a method that could actually be implemented. In fact, foreign capitalists were already doing this in China. For example, British and American tobacco companies were encouraging farmers in Anhui and other places to grow tobacco, offering very attractive prices. This led many farmers in Anhui to abandon growing grain, cotton, and opium, and instead invest in the tobacco industry.

However, as Lin Xinyi described, when these farmers borrowed heavily to grow tobacco, foreign tobacco companies could easily drive down the purchase price, leaving them in a dilemma: selling would result in losses, while not selling meant they couldn't repay their loans. The American tobacco varieties that European and American tobacco companies encouraged Anhui farmers to grow were only suitable for flue-cured tobacco, unlike the traditional Chinese tobacco varieties. These flue-cured tobaccos required the construction of curing barns, a significant investment, so farmers had to take out loans to cultivate them.

Once tobacco companies lower their purchase prices, these farmers will face a very difficult situation. After all, the farmers calculated their profits and losses from growing tobacco based on last year's purchase price from the tobacco companies, and they never expected the market to be so volatile. In a small-scale farming economy, market prices do not fluctuate much; only grain prices experience dramatic changes during years of disaster or abundance.

Trying to gamble with the speculative mentality cultivated by small-scale farming in the capital market is as difficult as a retail investor trying to beat a major player in the A-share market. Although these committee members still retained many small-scale farming ideas, they were not stupid, so they could tell whether Lin Xinyi's words were a scare tactic or a concrete, workable plan.

In the aftermath of the uproar, both He Yuheng and Chen Zhongfu launched a counterattack against Lin Xinyi. They did not deny that Lin Xinyi's statement that such a situation would not occur, but they advocated that the Party and the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committees could regulate the market to limit the occurrence of such a situation.

Lin Xinyi spread his hands and asked the two men, "You say you want to use the law to restrict foreign companies from arbitrarily reducing their purchase quantities. What's the difference between this and the system of unified purchase and distribution? I've only ever heard of powerful departments forcing others to sell goods at low prices. There was a charcoal seller in the Tang Dynasty, but I've never heard of a powerful department forcing merchants to buy goods at high prices. Even feudal dynasties never implemented such an autocratic system, yet the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee wants to implement such a system. Is this still the just society that the proletariat pursues?"

He Yuheng and Chen Zhongfu's proposals were unacceptable even to the other committee members, especially those responsible for finance and commerce. They felt that if such a forced market economy were implemented, businessmen would likely flee Wuhan, and it wouldn't just be foreign capitalists who ran away. Committee members responsible for administrative matters also opposed it, arguing that a market controlled by power would inevitably lead to serious corruption, and questioning whether the people would still trust the Party and the Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committee.

After the other committee members had expressed their opinions, Lin Xinyi resumed the discussion, saying, "The essence of a market economy is that individuals seek to maximize their profits through free trade. For individuals, this pursuit of maximizing personal interests is normal. However, for the leaders of the country, we must recognize that since some people maximize their interests, there will inevitably be individuals in the market who suffer losses."

Focusing only on those individuals who gain extra benefits in the market while ignoring those who suffer losses is no different from feudal dynasties treating laborers below the gentry as beasts of burden to maintain society. It is clearly inappropriate to want both the high efficiency of market resource allocation and the fairness of a public ownership economy.

In a market economy, individuals will inevitably infringe upon the interests of the collective and the entire nation in pursuit of maximizing personal gain. State-owned enterprises, as the foundation of the public ownership economy, will also seek to leverage their position and large capital to monopolize certain industries in order to adapt to market competition. Such state-owned enterprises are essentially no longer related to the general public; they have become state-owned enterprises owned by a select few. The workers within these monopolistic enterprises will detach themselves from the proletariat and become subservient to the monopolistic enterprise.

While the unified purchase and distribution system had many drawbacks, it was still not as bad as a free market. Furthermore, I would like to remind all committee members that the proletariat will not support a regime that cannot develop productive forces, even if it claims to be a dictatorship of the proletariat. This is because the proletariat needs to strengthen itself by developing productive forces; a proletariat without power cannot withstand the combined attack of capitalism and the landlord class.

Without the support of the proletariat, neither the Party nor the Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committees could survive, because capitalism would not allow a market that was not under its control, and the landlord class would not allow anything that freed the peasants from its control, because the landlords themselves did not work, and land could not generate wealth without human labor.

This is why the Party and the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committees could not possibly make peace with the capitalist and landlord classes, because they wanted to eliminate us every day. After all, the existence of the proletarian regime was the greatest reform for them…”

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Although Tian Junyi chaired the political meeting, he found it much easier than he had imagined. Lin Xinyi had suppressed the other committee members with just theoretical debate; if he had been in charge of establishing the worker-peasant relationship, it would not have been so smooth.

For Tian Junyi, the party's political meetings had become increasingly complex. In the past, when the party's main enemy was the Qing Dynasty, everyone could reach a consensus in meetings almost without persuasion. However, with the collapse of the Qing Dynasty's authority, even ordinary people outside the party felt that the Qing Dynasty was doomed. At this time, party members began to have more of their own ideas when discussing issues.

This idea wasn't entirely driven by selfishness, but as Lin Xinyi once told him, everyone belongs to a class. He could betray his birth, but he couldn't betray his class. It was not uncommon for intellectuals from gentry families to devote themselves to the revolution in this era. However, getting these intellectuals who had devoted themselves to the revolution to acknowledge that they were on equal footing with the laborers often provoked a lot of opposition.

Tian Junyi himself initially believed that laborers were ignorant and too easily influenced by material things, making it impossible for them to resolutely carry the revolution through to the end. However, after the establishment of the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee, Tian Junyi deeply realized his mistake. In reality, it was the intellectuals, not the uneducated laborers at the bottom of society, who were more likely to give up on the revolution.

The reason these intellectuals joined the revolution was twofold. First, they felt they had not been treated fairly. After the Taiping Rebellion broke out, buying official positions became a major trend in officialdom, while officials who came through the imperial examinations became a minority. Although the Qing Dynasty had been using the sale of official positions as a way to solve financial problems since it entered the Central Plains, such a large-scale sale of official positions during the Taiping Rebellion was extremely rare. Even when the Ming Dynasty was about to fall, there had never been such a large-scale sale of official positions.

After the Manchus entered the Central Plains, their policy of granting equal status to both Manchus and Han Chinese had already taken a large share of the officialdom. The Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations) who, even in the Ming Dynasty, were not easily humiliated by the emperor, were reduced to being on par with household slaves in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the status of Jinshi in the Qing Dynasty was far lower than in the Ming Dynasty. Coupled with the system of purchasing official positions, the Qing Dynasty's scholar-officials posed no threat to imperial power.

This can actually be seen from the succession situation in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the Ming dynasty, factional struggles among scholar-officials almost always started with who should be crown prince, while in the Qing dynasty, no Han Chinese minister dared to discuss who the emperor should appoint as crown prince. However, although the status of scholar-officials was far lower than in the Ming dynasty, they were still the ruling class. The difference between officials and commoners was much greater in the Qing dynasty than in the Ming dynasty, because the Manchus truly did not treat commoners as human beings. The record of the Qing dynasty's massacre of its own civilians is unprecedented and unparalleled.

Therefore, the desire for officialdom among scholars in the Qing Dynasty was far more intense than in the Ming Dynasty. Whether it was a system of Manchu-Han coexistence or the use of purchased official positions, as long as the path to officialdom through the imperial examinations wasn't blocked, they were still willing to support the Qing Dynasty. However, after the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty abolished the imperial examination system and instead established new schools. This greatly angered scholars who saw the imperial examinations as their only hope in life, and many scholars joined the revolutionaries after the Boxer Rebellion.

However, after these intellectuals found their place in the new system, they lost interest in continuing to promote the proletarian revolution. For them, the revolution was over, and they had already become officials in the new regime by joining the party. Now they should maintain the dignity of being officials, rather than continue to do things for the people.

After all, scholars aspire to be public servants, not servants of the people. What is a parent? It is someone whose children should obey regardless of right or wrong. This is the fundamental purpose of governing the world through filial piety. Under the culture of filial piety, even if children are beaten, they must admit their mistakes. Even if they are not wrong, they should not complain about their parents' punishment, since their parents gave them the opportunity to be born.

After defeating the fleets of the foreign powers and the Russian invasion, the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee's legitimacy surpassed that of the Qing Dynasty. This meant that even if people did nothing, the common people would recognize the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee as the legitimate government. Under these circumstances, some party cadres became less willing to work hard and felt it was time to rest. After all, in China's bureaucratic system, the standard for evaluating officials was not based on their performance, but on their personal character and whether the people under their rule lived in peace and prosperity.

An official's personal character was judged by the people presenting him with "umbrellas of ten thousand people" and erecting shrines in his honor. The people's peaceful and prosperous life was evaluated by the number of lawsuits. Thus, corrupt officials of the Qing Dynasty would generally force the people to present them with "umbrellas of ten thousand people" when they left office and would refuse to accept local lawsuits. Anyone who came to file a complaint was considered a troublemaker and would be taken back by the local village head for safekeeping.

Following this trend, under the administration of the Wuhan Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committee, many calls arose for allowing the people to rest. They argued against organizing the masses to repair reservoirs and waterways in winter, and against requiring courts to accept all civil lawsuits. It seemed these party cadres were acting in the best interests of the people; after all, repairing reservoirs and cleaning waterways in winter did indeed prevent farmers from resting, and preventing courts from accepting civil lawsuits was also for the sake of building a harmonious society. After all, divorce cases were currently the most common lawsuits handled by the courts.

However, these party members and cadres completely forgot several facts: although the repair of reservoirs and waterways is a matter for the state, the beneficiaries are the local people. The existence of the state is to gather the scattered efforts of individuals to carry out public works projects so that individuals can benefit. They considered reservoir construction as hard labor, and when droughts occurred, these officials shifted the blame to bad weather, as if they were exempt from considering natural disasters while in office.

The opposition to the courts handling the large number of divorce cases is even more ridiculous. Since its establishment, the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee has advocated for the protection of women's and children's rights, which is the reason for so many divorces. A small portion of women file for divorce because their marriages were arranged by their parents and not of their own volition, while the majority do so because they cannot tolerate the mistreatment from their in-laws.

Instead of addressing the social factors that lead to divorce cases, party members and cadres maintain a facade of social harmony by refusing to accept divorce cases. This bureaucratic style is no different from that of officials in the late Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, at Party meetings, when discussing issues related to people's livelihoods, Tian Junyi often had to expend a great deal of effort to persuade others, because these people all had their own ideas to varying degrees and did not entirely agree with him. From a certain perspective, this meant that some Party cadres did not fully agree with the proletarian position, but Tian Junyi could not expel them all from the Party, since the moral concepts of the proletariat had not yet been truly established.

Not only did the landlord class retain the old moral values, but even the working class at the bottom of society subscribed to them. Only at such a moment could Tian Junyi understand why Lin Xinyi advocated protecting the rights of women and children from the very beginning, because this was the first step in criticizing the old moral system.

In the old moral system, women and children were considered property, not people. Parents could sell their children, and husbands could use their wives as property to offset debts. This was legal under the old moral system and a right unrestrained by the government or clan. Even in a family where the husband had died and there were no male heirs, the husband's clan could reclaim the husband's property as clan property, while kicking the wife and daughter out. More unscrupulous clans would even hire human traffickers to sell the mother and daughter directly. Of course, this indicated that the man was merely a commoner, and the wife's family had no one left.

After the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee introduced the new Marriage Law, while it led to a rapid increase in divorce cases under its jurisdiction, it also effectively curbed feudal forces in the countryside, especially clan power. Contrary to the myth of clans protecting those of the same surname, clans were actually tools for a minority to control those of the same surname. Within clans, not only was law absent, but even morality was rare. How could a clan that took the exploitation of those without descendants for granted have any compassion for the weak? Clans only gave preferential treatment to those who could bring benefits to the clan—usually intelligent people who were good at studying and could become officials. As for ordinary people, they shouldn't expect any fair treatment within the clan.

Believing that a clan can treat its ordinary people well is as ridiculous as believing that an emperor will protect the common people. Oppressors will only acknowledge the rights of the oppressed in one thing: the right to be oppressed. After all, without the oppressed below, would the clan elders still have to pay for the clan's public affairs?

Women and children were at the very bottom of the oppressed social hierarchy within clans, so when the Labor Party proposed protecting the legal rights of women and children, it immediately gained a large following in rural areas. Although these women and children could not provide any physical support to the Wuhan Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Committee, they were able to provide tremendous public support in its efforts to promote land reform.

It was precisely because of the natural alliance with rural women that the Labour Party's work teams stationed in villages were not isolated. Women in many villages naturally sided with the Labour Party on issues of land reform and anti-clanism. Some intellectuals with outdated moral values, however, only saw the increase in divorce cases, which they believed had corrupted social morals, and that women were no longer willing to obey their parents-in-law and husbands, and wanted to go out into the world to work and support themselves.

The destruction of the old social production system is causing the old social moral concepts to collapse rapidly. However, the new production relations have not yet been fully established, and the new proletarian moral concepts have not yet been established. Therefore, the antagonism between the Party and the public regarding the issue of social morality is becoming increasingly intense.

Tian Junyi could understand the importance of industrialization that Lin Xinyi repeatedly emphasized, but he really couldn't imagine what the social landscape under the new dictatorship of the proletariat would look like. This was why he had to spend a lot of time persuading others at the meeting, because everyone acknowledged the importance of industrialization, but opposed destroying the old moral concepts before the emergence of new ones.

Tian Junyi himself was somewhat unclear about the direction on this issue, so it was naturally difficult for him to firmly suppress others. But Lin Xinyi was different. He almost had no doubt about the new moral concepts under the dictatorship of the proletariat and believed that the old moral system must be destroyed. This reckless forward-looking attitude made the other committee members hesitate, because they were worried that they would make a mistake on this issue.

Unlike Junichi Kazuoka, who focused on concrete tasks, Hsin-yi Lin, though not frequently attending party meetings, sparked debates on policy each time, and each time he proved correct. Therefore, the committee members didn't feel as burdened when arguing with Kazuoka, because they were only debating specific matters, and even if they were wrong, it was simply due to insufficient consideration.

However, engaging in a debate on the party's line with Lin Hsin-yi is extremely dangerous. If one were to place oneself on the opposite side of the line, it would mean relinquishing one's position as a Central Committee member and resigning to work in a local government position. While a member of the Labour Party's Central Committee may appear to hold a high position to outsiders, within the party it is essentially a representative position. It is not determined by personal prestige or character, but rather by being an executor who maintains consistency with the party in the struggle over its line.

When your line cannot align with the Party's line, it's naturally impossible for you to remain in the Central Committee to advance it. Such a transfer won't be seen as a mistake, but simply as a sign that you're no longer suitable for leadership roles in the Central Committee. Of course, for some Party members who retain aristocratic tendencies, this transfer from the Central Committee is no different from any other punishment.

Therefore, the members of the Central Committee are quite cautious in expressing their views on the issue of the Party's line. Similarly, not just anyone can initiate a discussion on the line. The essence of the line is to establish a theory to guide practical work. Most people within the Party do not have this level of theoretical understanding, so when they raise the issue of the line, they cannot even convince themselves, let alone others.

However, Comrade Lin Feng was clearly an exception. He raised more than half of the issues concerning the Party's line, while only a few were raised by Tian Junyi, Qin Lishan, and others. Among these, the most important issues, such as the principles of Party building and the Party's highest and lowest programs, all originated from Lin Feng. The pressure these committee members faced when dealing with Lin Feng was not much less than when dealing with Tian Junyi, even though the latter held more authority within the Party.

Today's meeting saw Tian Junyi remain silent, which essentially expressed his support for Lin Feng's assessment of the relationship between workers and peasants. Faced with this dual pressure, the committee members naturally became more cautious. Although He Yuheng and Chen Zhongfu were newly elected members of the Central Committee, their influence at the political meeting was not significant. He Yuheng primarily represented the Hunan Party organization in the Central Committee, rather than being a key leader of a central department.

Chen Zhongfu's situation was similar, but compared to He Yuheng, he had even less influence. This was because the Hunan Party organization, which He Yuheng represented, was the second largest among all provinces after Hubei, and the entire Anhui province's Party organizations were smaller than those in Changsha alone. Their active participation in the political meeting actually indicated that they had few political interests to protect within the central government. In contrast, the other committee members spoke with considerable caution, as their decisions were inextricably linked to the interests of their respective departments.

Thus, the arguments on the relationship between workers and peasants were passed relatively smoothly. However, the issue of whether to attract foreign investment to develop Northeast China sparked considerable controversy. While everyone acknowledged that the core of the current worker-peasant problem lay in insufficient agricultural productivity, and agreed that priority should be given to developing agricultural productivity, particularly by establishing state-owned farms and military reclamation farms in Northeast China, to counter the economic resistance and confrontational measures taken by small landowners and the Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committees, the debate was largely unsuccessful.

Faced with the policy of unified purchase and sale, a common passive resistance strategy adopted by small farmers was to reduce productivity and use the produce for consumption rather than for savings and reinvestment in production. As the farmers put it, "Since I can't make money, why should I work so hard? I only need to grow enough for my own consumption."

Many Party members and cadres have doubts about the unified purchase and sales policy because they believe that this policy has stifled the enthusiasm of farmers. They worry that if this continues, they will not only be unable to purchase the necessary industrial raw materials from the countryside, but may even have to subsidize the countryside in order to prevent famine.

Lin Xinyi advocated establishing large-scale state-run farms in the north, outside of the collective commune movement, to lay the foundation for agricultural production under public ownership. This proposal was endorsed by many committee members, as it did seem like a viable solution. State-run farms could directly ignore the issue of farmers' land ownership, requiring only the employment of agricultural workers, thus eliminating the need to consider the production incentives of small landowners.

You can discipline agricultural workers, but you have no right to force small landowners to engage in production. For the Central Committee members of the Labour Party, the working class's superiority lay in its ability to be disciplined, making them far easier to manage than peasants. Therefore, many party members already held a positive attitude towards collectivization, and the proposed state-run farms naturally aligned even more closely with their thinking.

However, there was growing opposition to the use of foreign capital. There were two main reasons for the opposition. One was that they were inclined to believe Chen Zhongfu’s idea that we had finally driven foreigners out of Northeast China, and now we were encouraging foreign capital to invest in Northeast China. Wasn’t that like inviting wolves into the house?

Although Wuhan attracted a large amount of German capital, not all party members approved of Wuhan's development model. However, the introduction of German capital into Wuhan began during the Zhang Zhidong era, which was a legacy of history. In the early days of the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee, they needed the Germans to stand on their side, which is why Wuhan's introduction of foreign investment to develop industry did not receive criticism from the mainstream party.

However, the idea of ​​replicating Wuhan's foreign investment development model in Northeast China naturally sparked opposition from committee members with strong nationalist sentiments. In addition, some committee members argued that while foreign investment could save time, the profits would all be pocketed by foreign capital. They believed that Northeast China was merely engaged in agricultural pioneering and there was no need for foreign intervention; it would be better for Wuhan to invest and develop on its own, thus preventing the profits from flowing out of the region.

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On this specific issue, Tian Junyi did not let Lin Feng continue to lead the charge. He emphasized to the committee members: "We oppose the privileges enjoyed by foreign powers in China, but we do not oppose fair commercial exchanges with the people of other countries. If we, like the Qing Dynasty, obstruct even normal trade and investment, then we are essentially building a wall between China and foreign countries. In a situation where the people of both sides cannot communicate, the people of foreign countries will support the foreign powers' war of aggression against China."

China is still a backward agricultural country. Wuhan has achieved tremendous industrial development in recent years, but this development is based on German technology and the assistance of German engineers. If we had started our research from the manufacturing of steam engines, not only would the Yangtze River Bridge currently under construction be a problem, but we wouldn't even be able to build the bridges over the Han River ourselves. Even if we had one or two engineers capable of designing bridges, we wouldn't be able to manufacture qualified steel and cement suitable for modern bridges.

Tian Jun's blunt words immediately silenced the committee members. Although his words were hurtful, China's industrial capabilities were indeed what they were. The Self-Strengthening Movement could send some students abroad to learn Western science and technology, but Western technology was based on its own industrial foundation, which was still too advanced for China.

For Europe today, electric power is clearly more efficient than steam engines that directly boil water, and it also greatly reduces the investment required for factories. There are only two ways to generate electricity: hydropower and thermal power. The former requires strong design capabilities, while the latter requires strong industrial manufacturing capabilities. However, for China, both of these paths are too advanced, because China has only just solved the problem of how to manufacture steam engines, and these are still very early low-pressure steam engines, because high-pressure steam engines require high-quality steel.

Those nationalists can sit in their brightly lit studies and criticize the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee for its massive use of foreign capital to develop industry, but if the lights go out, they won't go back to the era of oil lamps. Instead, they will denounce the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee for its inaction, for allowing a large city like Wuhan to lose power, which greatly affects the lives of the people.

This is not a joke, but something that actually happened. After all, the three towns of Wuhan did not truly establish integrated road and transportation infrastructure, so their power systems were actually independent. This led to power shortages in Hankou and Hanyang, while Wuchang had a relatively abundant power supply because it had fewer factories.

Initially, when the Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committee faced power shortages, it would prioritize production power, often at the expense of residential electricity. Although residential electricity was primarily used for lighting at the time, the mere fact that lights couldn't be turned on at night already caused widespread public discontent. Wuhan's "electricity-first" approach significantly reduced electricity prices, primarily to rapidly increase the number of electricity users and ensure sufficient power generation.

This rapid decline in electricity prices quickly made foreign capital realize that electricity prices in Wuhan were less than a quarter of those in Shanghai and two-thirds cheaper than in Germany itself. This distortion in energy prices greatly stimulated German capital's desire to invest in Wuhan, and quickly led to industrial electricity consumption surpassing residential electricity consumption in the city.

With coal prices in China and Europe not differing significantly, the low price of electricity in Wuhan was clearly artificially suppressed. The reason why Wuhan's electricity price could be suppressed to this extent was that the Wuhan Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Committee separated the construction of the power grid from the assets of the power company and provided low-interest loans for power construction.

Simply put, a large portion of Wuhan's electricity costs has been shifted to the government. However, considering that the government does not create wealth, this investment comes from personal and corporate taxes, so it is equivalent to the entire population bearing the cost of building the power grid.

For mature industries, government-led initiatives are far more efficient than private construction. Therefore, although China's industrial manufacturing capacity was insufficient to support the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee's policy of prioritizing electricity, the industrial technology and capital introduced from Germany ensured the implementation of the policy and attracted a large amount of foreign capital to Wuhan.

Initially, the citizens of Wuhan didn't really care about the electricity-first policy. The main reason was that they felt that electric lights were too expensive and that electricity was unsafe. As a result, many intellectuals criticized the Labor Party for being ambitious and treating foreign products as treasures. They believed that, according to the Chinese people's frugal and simple habits, everyone should use tung oil lamps that they could produce themselves.

However, in 1907, Siemens began mass production of tungsten filament lamps in Wuhan, which greatly impacted the market for the old carbonized bamboo filament light bulbs. The power company even launched a campaign to supply electric lights with electricity, and the number of residential electricity users tripled within a week, thus increasing the number of electricity users in Wuhan to 80% of Wuhan's households. Electricity thus became a daily consumable for the citizens of Wuhan, and lighting fixtures such as oil lamps were only used for emergency purposes during power outages.

Wuhan's previous situation of power surplus turned into power shortage, and citizens became increasingly concerned about the security of their electricity supply. Especially after electric fans began to be sold in 1908, residents found power outages in the summer even more unbearable. After all, Wuhan is one of China's four "furnace cities," and the comfort brought by electric fans was irreplaceable in the summer.

Therefore, the committee members were well aware that while opposing the invasion of China by foreign powers would certainly garner public support, using this opposition to hinder foreign investment in Wuhan's industries would inevitably provoke public discontent. The public wasn't actually concerned about whether foreign capital would exploit China; what they were concerned about was whether their lives would be disrupted by policy changes.

If the party were founded on nationalism, such public discontent could certainly be ignored, since nationalism only focuses on protecting interests, without specifying whose interests are being protected. However, the Workers' Party is founded on scientific socialism, which prioritizes the protection of the interests of the proletariat, how to protect those interests, develop social productive forces, and realize a world where social wealth is distributed according to need.

Although the introduction of foreign capital resulted in the exploitation of the domestic proletariat, industrial development also improved the living standards of the people. From this perspective, the introduction of foreign capital also strengthened the power of the Chinese proletariat, and therefore it could be accepted under certain conditions.

Tian Junyi was able to firmly grasp the highest power of the Party because, starting from the Zhang Zhidong era, he was the leading figure in proposing the introduction of foreign capital to develop Wuhan. Furthermore, after successfully strengthening the proletarian forces in Wuhan, Tian Junyi overthrew the Huguang Governor's Office headed by Tie Liang and Duanfang, thus liberating Wuhan.

Once Tian Junyi stepped down and stated his position, the other committee members could no longer use nationalism as an excuse to criticize the issue of introducing foreign capital. This was because everyone was able to sit here and discuss how the party should move forward based on Tian Junyi's achievements; otherwise, they would be like the Tongmenghui, hiding and running away under the Qing Dynasty.

The Tongmenghui (Revolutionary Alliance) claimed to be a great unity of anti-Manchu forces in China, but despite having the support of progressive gentry in various provinces, it could only organize secret society uprisings in coastal areas, and almost all of these failed. The root cause of its failures was that although the Tongmenghui had the support of progressive gentry in various provinces, the number of these progressive gentry was less than one percent of the reactionary gentry in those provinces.

The disparity in strength was so vast that the Qing dynasty didn't even need to deploy troops; local gentry organizing militias to cooperate with the local army was enough to suppress the uprising. The Wuhan uprising, however, succeeded overnight. Not only did most of the local New Army defect to the Workers' Party, but even the reactionary gentry of the province dared not act rashly. This was because the Workers' Party had initially made the Wuhan working class its base, thereby suppressing the reactionary forces in Wuhan and the surrounding areas.

Tian Junyi's contributions to the founding of the Party and the establishment of the Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committees were unparalleled, so naturally no one questioned his motives for introducing foreign capital. Others might have had weaknesses or opportunistic tendencies, but Tian Junyi had already demonstrated his unwavering belief in the revolution during the founding of the Party and the establishment of the Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committees. It was impossible for the Party to believe that Tian Junyi harbored other intentions; otherwise, the Party would have collapsed long ago.

After suppressing the nationalist sentiments of the committee members, Tian Junyi softened his tone and said, "When the Party's Central Committee was convened before, the issue of industrial development and construction was already discussed."