Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

Since the main task of the trade union is production, it must assist the factory in managing the workers. In this way, the trade union plays the role of the factory's management department.

Workers no longer viewed the union as their own organization, but rather as a "subordinate" to the factory administration. The union simply followed the factory administration's orders, as if the union were a subordinate department. This is what has historically been criticized as "tailism."

It is said that the trade union has completely lost its independent status and has become a lackey of the factory administration.

Xiang Ming saw that Wei Hongjun was listening and taking careful notes, so he paused before continuing, "This is a problem that arose when we were working with the workers. But we are a union, after all. Besides working with the workers, we also have to participate in factory supervision and distribution. But as soon as we participate in distribution and raise objections to the factory's allocations, the factory administration and Party committee accuse us of distributivism. They also say that our union's active involvement in factory allocations and considering workers' welfare means we are breaking away from Party leadership and demanding power from the Party."

"We are currently caught in a dilemma. The workers see us as the factory administration, while the factory administration sees us as a workers' organization that shouldn't be involved in factory affairs. As a result, the nature of our union's work has become unclear."

Xiang Ming told Wei Hongjun directly about the difficulties faced by the trade union in its current work.

Neither the left nor the right.

The union has completely lost its sense of place. It doesn't know what it wants to do or what its priorities are.

During the earlier debate on the nature of the Central Trade Union, Xiang Ming also fiercely criticized the then Chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, Li Lisan, for his statement of "balancing public and private interests."

But when Xiang Ming began to take charge of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, he encountered the same problem as Li Lisan: the trade union could not find its precise position.

After the first sentence was made, the cadres of the Federation of Trade Unions reported to Wei Hongjun on the current situation of the union and told him all the problems the union was facing.

Some cadres even expressed the hope that the central government would give Li Lisan a new verdict, believing that his position on the trade union's position was correct a few years ago.

"This is a conflict between the factory administration, the party organization, the trade union, and the workers."

After listening to everyone's reports, Wei Hongjun gave a very direct summary.

Currently, factories, especially state-owned factories, consist of only a few interest groups: the Party committee, the administrative department, the workers, and the trade union in between.

The trade union must accurately find its position among these three parties in order to carry out its work normally.

"Yes."

Nodding to Ming.

Dao said, "The issue of trade unions is very complex. Especially with the victory of the revolution and the working class's seizure of power, trade unions naturally wield a wide range of powers. Furthermore, they inevitably participate in and carry out certain functions of state organs, such as setting wage standards, establishing labor quotas, participating in enterprise allocations, and supervising production safety and health conditions. The trade union's responsibilities in these areas are constantly increasing. Furthermore, trade unions must also cooperate with factories to develop production, leading to their involvement in factory administration and the acquisition of some administrative power. Although trade unions are not generally recognized as factory administrative departments, the administrative nature of trade unions is becoming increasingly evident in many factories."

“I think this situation is normal.”

Chen Yongwen, president of the Workers' Daily, spoke in support of Xiang Ming, saying, "We previously visited Yugoslavia and saw how factories there were run. The factories there are managed by the workers themselves, and I think they're well managed and very vibrant. Our unions should learn from Yugoslavia."

Despite the ongoing tensions between the socialist camp and Yugoslavia, Chairman Mao's conversation with Tito in Moscow was also extremely unpleasant.

However, exchanges between China and Yugoslavia have never ceased, and people-to-people exchanges are also frequent. Many Chinese delegations would visit Yugoslavia to see its industrial development.

Chen Yongwen is very optimistic about Yugoslavia's factory management model and believes that Yugoslavia's workers' self-government model is the future development path for trade unions.

After returning to his country, he wrote many articles in the "Workers' Daily" introducing Yugoslav workers' autonomy.

He expressed his views again at this meeting.

“That’s wrong thinking.”

During the meeting of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, Wei Hongjun remained silent, primarily listening to their opinions. But after Chen Yongwen discussed the situation at the factories in Yugoslavia, Wei Hongjun spoke directly, "Comrade Xiang Ming, Comrade Chen Yongwen, I think you've made a mistake. Trade unions are mass organizations. They can't nationalize themselves, nor should they treat themselves as administrative bodies issuing administrative orders."

"If the union becomes a state institution, a factory administration, and starts issuing administrative orders, then the union will lose its original function. What will we need the union for then? We can just set up an administrative department."

"Trade unions are workers' organizations. They are not state departments, nor are they factory administrative departments. This point must be made clear. If there is confusion on this issue, then the trade unions will be completely divorced from the workers and will completely lose their value."

The nationalization and administrativeization of trade unions is the development trend of trade unions in many socialist countries after the victory of the revolution.

This is mainly related to revolution.

In the early days of their development, proletarian political parties around the world prioritized the labor movement. Even in agricultural countries like China, the revolution began with the labor movement. Consequently, many factory unions were not simply workers' organizations, but rather revolutionary leadership organizations. At this time, unions not only led the labor movement but also used it to develop organizations and build strength, becoming a leading institution for the revolution.

After the victory of the revolution and the founding of the People's Republic of China, these union leaders were given different ranks based on their revolutionary experience and contributions, and all became leaders. As the organization that led the workers' movement during the revolutionary era, the union naturally became the leadership body of the factory.

Furthermore, during the debate over the status of trade unions, it was argued that they should assist factories in developing production. This gave trade unions administrative power, leading to a natural nationalization and administrativeization.

But this is not right.

If the union becomes the executive branch, how can it represent the workers? You yourself become the factory management.

"But Secretary Wei, I believe that the Yugoslav workers' self-government model of factory management has given the factory more vitality and has promoted its development."

Chen Yongwen still sticks to his point of view.

He believes that the Yugoslav factory management model is worth learning.

"Momentary vitality doesn't mean anything. I've also read about factory management in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's approach of expanding factory autonomy does indeed energize factories in the short term. But a lack of oversight and a model for coordinated development will inevitably lead to numerous drawbacks."

"First, Yugoslav factories claim to be worker-governed, but in reality they are led by factory directors. This greatly strengthens the power of frontline factory leaders, especially the factory director. It may appear that Yugoslav factories are worker-governed, but power is not in the hands of the workers, but rather in the hands of management headed by the factory director. Under these circumstances, it is inevitable that workers will lose their power."

"Secondly, factories are given too much autonomy, which is essentially unregulated competition under the guise of socialism. Because the modes of control over the means of production differ between socialism and capitalism, unregulated competition in a socialist economic system is even more terrifying and chaotic than free competition and unregulated competition in capitalism. It will directly undermine a healthy economic order."

"Third, these factories control both production and a certain degree of local administrative power, which will lead to the formation of small local lords."

Factory management in Yugoslavia was called workers' self-government, which sounds nice, but in reality, it was a way to gradually strengthen the power of frontline leaders and eventually transition to a system of factory director responsibility.

In the name of workers' self-government, they broke away from the leadership of the Party Committee and strengthened the power of the factory director. In the beginning, it was indeed very dynamic.

But there are too many disadvantages later.

"Secretary Wei, but..."

Chen Yongwen was not convinced.

"Old Chen, let's not talk about the Yugoslav issue for now. We can discuss the issue of factory management later."

Xiang Ming interrupted Chen Yongwen again. This meeting was rare, and the most important issue to be resolved was the positioning of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.

This is the fundamental problem. Without resolving it, the work of the union will always be hampered.

As for factory management, it's not the Federation of Trade Unions' responsibility. The various industrial and commercial ministries should be more concerned with factory management than the Federation of Trade Unions.

After interrupting Chen Yongwen, Xiang Ming said to Wei Hongjun, "Secretary Wei, if we don't allow the union to become nationalized and administrativeized, then we need to restructure the relationship between the Party Committee, the administrative departments, and the workers. If that happens, the entire positioning of the union will need to be restructured."

Xiang Ming was, after all, a veteran revolutionary with a background in the labor movement. In recent years, he had also been in charge of the Federation of Trade Unions, so he quickly caught up with Wei Hongjun's thinking.

This also applies to other cadres within the Federation of Trade Unions. They are all veterans who have been involved in the labor movement for over ten or twenty years. They possess extensive experience in the labor movement.

"Ah."

Wei Hongjun nodded.

The positioning of the trade union involves the relationship between the trade union and the party committee, between the factory administration and between the workers.

If we can sort out these three relationships, the problem of the union's positioning can be solved.

"The current work of the Federation of Trade Unions has deviated from its guiding principles. We say that the fundamental interests of state-owned factories and workers are aligned: to increase productivity. There's nothing wrong with that. Therefore, the union should organize workers to work hard on production and help factories improve productivity. But this doesn't mean the union should become dependent on factory administration and become its 'little tail.'"

"Under the new circumstances, we must find a new way of working. The working class owns the factory. How can we increase workers' sense of ownership and align their interests with those of the factory to motivate them to produce? This is what the union should do, not help the administration manage the working class. The union's job is to increase workers' enthusiasm for production, not to manage and supervise their production. This is a completely different way of working."

"Based on this idea, trade unions should actively promote transparency in factory affairs and actively participate in the distribution issues between the state, factories, and workers."

"Clear boundaries must also be established in the relationship between the Party Committee, administrative departments, and workers. Trade unions must obey the Party's leadership, which means they must obey the overall interests of the country and not be confined to specific areas. With administrative departments, there must be coordination and oversight, requiring them to make factory affairs public, rather than becoming part of them. For the working class, they must deeply understand that their personal interests are linked to the interests of the country and the factory. Only by aligning their own destiny with the fate of the country and the factory can they achieve the unity of collective and personal interests."

"The trade unions must accept the guidance of the local trade union party committees. At the factory level, they must supervise and urge the administrative departments on production and distribution. At the factory level, they must promote and rally workers to actively participate in production."

“The union must make it clear that it only accepts guidance from the higher-level trade union party committee and supervision from the workers’ congress, and not leadership from the factory administration.”

Liu Ningyi, Vice Chairman and Deputy Secretary of the Party Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, said, "Secretary Wei, what happens when conflicts arise between the union and factory administration? Conflicts are most likely to arise over production and distribution issues. In most factories, the Party committees and administrative departments overlap, and the union's opinions can easily be rejected by the Party committees and administration."

"Production issues still depend on state arrangements and respect for the opinions of production department leaders. I will focus on the issue of distribution. First, regarding the distribution of profits in state-owned enterprises, the state must first have clear regulations. What proportion of factory profits should be turned over to the state treasury, what proportion should be used to expand production, what proportion should be used for technological transformation, and finally, what proportion should be used to improve the lives of the working class."

"The union's main involvement lies in the final link: deciding how the funds used to improve workers' lives are used. They must decide how these funds should be used to improve workers' lives, and how they should be used fairly and justly for their benefit. This is the union's responsibility, and the factory Party committee and administration cannot prevent the union from participating."

The question of defining the role of trade unions is complex and involves many issues. Even Wei Hongjun cannot provide a definitive and complete conclusion at this stage.

Therefore, Wei Hongjun planned to gradually clarify the union's powers and clearly define its scope of work, so that they would not work haphazardly like headless flies.

In this process, we can further understand the work of trade unions and further clarify how trade unions in a socialist country should operate.

"Secretary Wei, the reality is that the Party Committee and the administrative department always exclude the trade union when it comes to allocation issues."

"This is the union's right. The Party Committee and the administrative department have no right to exclude the union's participation. Previously, the union obeyed the factory administration's orders too much, resulting in it becoming a 'little tail' of the administration. Therefore, the Party Committee and the administrative department treated the union as a subordinate department and issued orders to it at will. But what we need to do now is to change this situation."

The nationalization and administrativeization of trade unions must be stopped, and trade unions should not have administrative power. However, administrative departments cannot deprive trade unions of their powers.

Of course, this meeting is just the beginning, mainly to discuss the issue of unions in state-owned enterprises. Now that China has enterprises of various ownership structures, the issue of unions is even more complicated.

These need to be addressed one by one.

1039 China-EU Relations

Wei Hongjun spent several days discussing the current state of the union with officials from the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. He also began meeting with officials from local federations of trade unions to comprehensively discuss current union issues. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions' work proved more difficult than he had imagined. The main issues arose from the nature of the unions and their guiding principles.

The Ninth National Congress confirmed that China is currently in the primary stage of socialism, and the primary stage of socialism also belongs to a socialist country. In a socialist country, how is the relationship between national interests, factory interests, and worker interests calculated? How can these three interests be balanced?

The central government has concluded that the fundamental interests of the nation, factories, and workers are aligned, and that everyone is working towards building a new socialist China. But based on this alignment of fundamental interests, are there any conflicts between the national, factory, and worker interests? How should these conflicts be addressed?

There are definitely contradictions. The state currently requires high levels of accumulation, so it takes more taxes and profits from factories. When the state takes more, the profits left by the factories decrease. Consequently, factories' expansion of production, technological upgrades, and improvements in worker welfare are slow. Therefore, factories and workers oppose high levels of state accumulation. This represents a contradiction between state interests and the interests of factory workers.

There will also be various contradictions in the distribution of factory profits, the improvement of workers' welfare benefits, between the factory and the workers, and the internal distribution issues among workers.

When these three interests conflict, where should the unions stand? Should they defend national interests, factory interests, or workers' interests? Balancing these three interests has become the unions' biggest challenge.

This is a huge problem. If unions completely side with the workers, it's very easy for them to use workers' interests to blackmail the state and the factories. This isn't uncommon, having already occurred during the Yan'an period. At the time, some unions in Yan'an factories frequently led workers in strikes under the guise of fighting for their interests, disrupting normal production. These union leaders replicated the working model of unions in Kuomintang-controlled areas in the Yan'an factories. Therefore, debates about the status of unions were already underway within the central government.

Although the central government had reached a conclusion on this issue regarding trade unions during the Yan'an period and had criticized these practices, such practices recurred frequently in major factories in major cities in the early years after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Leveraging their close ties with factory workers during the revolutionary era, the trade unions, mobilizing the workers' power, demanded benefits from the government and the factories, treating the factories as their own private domains. They formed their own factory Party committees and excluded the Party cadres assigned by the government.

The reason the central government has consistently emphasized that trade unions must accept Party leadership is because of similar issues that occurred after the founding of the People's Republic of China. At the time, the central government's State Council exhibited separatist "separation of Party and government," while local governments exhibited serious localism in issues like land reform and bandit suppression. Factory unions also exhibited "syndicalism," where they broke away from Party organizations. These were all attempts to break away from Party leadership.

Consequently, the Central Committee launched a severe crackdown on "separatism," "localism," and "syndicalism." Many cadres were punished, including many central leaders. Therefore, in the debate over the nature of trade unions, both sides emphasized that trade unions must accept the leadership of the Party.

However, it would also be wrong for unions to solely defend the interests of the state and factories. This is because unions are workers' organizations, not state institutions or factory departments. If they completely side with the state and factories, they will lose the trust of workers and struggle to carry out their work. Since the founding of New China, the status of the working class has risen rapidly, and in many state-owned factories, workers hold significant influence. If unions lose the trust of the working class, they will be unable to carry out their work.

Wei Hongjun, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and local trade union federations have held several meetings, primarily emphasizing two key issues. One is to correct the recent trend of unions becoming increasingly bureaucratic. Factory unions have increasingly become like factory administration departments, exercising administrative power. However, these administrative powers are granted by the factory administration, effectively making them completely dependent on it. Therefore, in recent meetings, Wei Hongjun has made it clear that unions cannot be nationalized or bureaucratized, and that they possess no administrative power. Factories should also not grant unions administrative powers; unions must remain separate from administrative departments.

The second is to emphasize the union's working methods, specifically criticizing the recent practice of unions deferring to factory administration, becoming its "tail" rather than a worker organization. While the union's primary mission is to assist the factory in meeting production targets, it is not to manage the workforce at the behest of factory administration. Instead, it is to align factory and worker interests, bringing them into closer alignment. Only when factory and worker interests increasingly converge can workers spontaneously embrace the factory as their home and maximize their enthusiasm for production. This is the work of the union.

The emphasis on both aspects is intended to emphasize the independence of unions while stripping them of the administrative power they currently possess.

Beyond emphasizing these two aspects, the task is to clarify certain union powers. Previously, union work often focused on providing general guidance but lacked specific content, leading many factory unions to lose their focus. Therefore, Wei Hongjun is establishing the scope of union responsibilities at the Party committee level, clarifying what the union should and should not do. Furthermore, the union's authority over factory allocations is further clarified, ensuring that the Party committee and administrative departments cannot deprive the union of this power.

The purpose of clearly defining the powers and responsibilities of the union is to clarify the responsibilities and powers between the Party Committee, administrative departments, and the union. Without clear definitions of union powers, the union will consciously or unconsciously become an administrative department. Unions themselves will have no idea what they are and are not responsible for. Wei Hongjun is now gradually clarifying this.

Of course, the work of the Federation of Trade Unions is important, but Wei Hongjun cannot focus solely on this matter. He also has a lot of work to do on the restructuring of the Central Party School.

The Party School's leadership structure and curriculum were reorganized. Furthermore, to strengthen the Central Party School's ability to train cadres, Wei Hongjun planned to establish two branches of the Central Party School: the Jinggangshan Branch and the Yan'an Branch.

However, how to establish these two branches and what functions they will assume still requires more discussion between Wei Hongjun and the Organization Department and the Propaganda Department.

In addition to strengthening the functions of the Central Party School, provincial Party schools will also be reorganized. Currently, the curriculum at provincial Party schools is relatively outdated, primarily focusing on Marxist-Leninist theory. While it's correct to prioritize Marxist-Leninist theory, other areas of the curriculum must also be improved. As a cadre in the era of socialist construction, there's much to learn.

Of course, another task Wei Hongjun attached great importance to was the first training program for young and middle-aged cadres since the reorganization of the Central Party School. This training program would recruit participants from across the country, with a wide age range, ranging from 25 to 40 years old, primarily district and county-level cadres.

This is also the first time that the Central Committee has trained a group of young reserve cadres on such a large scale. After the first batch of young and middle-aged cadres training courses successfully complete their studies, this training course will become a regular course at the Central Party School.