Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

"Comrade Huang Kecheng, is the meeting record in very bad condition?"

Huang Kecheng led the inspection team of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, whose main task was to inspect the most basic aspects: whether party members and cadres hold themselves to the standards of party members in their daily lives.

Half a century later, everyone is still talking about human rights, and they frequently say that Party members are ordinary people. They argue that many of the demands on Party members are unreasonable, and they are not treating Party members as human beings.

This is clearly a confusion of concepts. Party members should be understood as ordinary people. Before joining the Party, everyone was just an ordinary person. But after choosing to join the Party, one should not confuse oneself with ordinary people. Otherwise, why would one join the Party?

There are things that ordinary people might not think of as a big deal, but Party members cannot do. There are things that ordinary people can ignore, but Party members cannot. Since its founding, the Communist Party of China has represented the revolutionary and advanced forces within the working class and peasantry. Since it represents revolutionary and advanced forces, the requirements for its members are naturally higher than those of ordinary people.

Therefore, if you join the Party, you must be more conscious than ordinary people and hold yourself to the standards of a Party member. If you cannot do this, then don't join the Party.

Comrade Xiuyang's "On the Cultivation of Communist Party Members" is a very comprehensive summary of how to be a party member. This is also a great contribution of Comrade Xiuyang to party building work.

Huang Kecheng compiled the inspection report, and it's fair to say there are still many problems. Many people see joining the Party as a stepping stone to a career in government, and so they actively apply. However, after joining, they become disengaged and don't consider themselves Party members at all.

Many people, in their daily lives, increasingly disregard the central government's regulations, including the "ban on alcohol" during work hours, clearly defined travel expense standards, and the standards for receiving superiors.

Many people hold grand banquets when entertaining staff from higher-level departments. Not only do they drink freely, but they also waste a lot of alcohol.

Wei Hongjun commented on Huang Kecheng's report and suggested that local Party organizations hold meetings to discuss the qualifications of Party members who have committed serious offenses and have refused to change despite repeated admonitions. In the case of leaders, their suitability for continued leadership positions should be considered.

At the same time, this instruction was distributed to the entire party in the name of the Secretariat as a warning.

However, Huang Kecheng's report also included specific comments on the conference report, which Wei Hongjun attached great importance to.

"It's quite serious. During our inspection this time, we also checked the meeting records of local party committees and governments. We found that the records of local party committees and governments are a mess. Either the records are very rough, or some meetings have no records at all."

"There are some meeting records at the provincial and municipal levels, but at the grassroots level, there are not many meeting records at all."

Huang Kecheng nodded.

Wei Hongjun couldn't help but nod his head. It was true that the early days of the People's Republic of China were a makeshift team. It was almost twelve years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, but many aspects still needed to be formalized.

Wei Hongjun could understand this, however. Most of the cadres in New China had risen through the ranks in the countryside. They were able to follow the Soviet Union's example of rapid formalization in the military, and central government departments also followed suit. But when it came to the localities, things were much worse.

It's not just rural cadres who need to slowly explore and understand the formalization of the Party and government. Even urban cadres rarely understand formalization. Some served in the Nationalist government, but the Nationalist government itself was an informal government.

So many issues need to be gradually improved. Just like meeting minutes, people don’t care about this kind of thing at all.

Huang Kecheng was very anxious when he saw Wei Hongjun was silent, thinking that Wei Hongjun had not yet realized the importance of the meeting minutes.

So he immediately said, "Secretary Wei, the meeting minutes are very important and must not be ignored."

"Meeting minutes have at least two important functions. One is that they can determine responsibility for certain matters. When our supervisory committee handles cases of dereliction of duty, a very important challenge is to assess the responsibility of these officials."

"Take the Anhui reservoir incident a few months ago, for example. The Anhui authorities constantly claimed it was a collective decision, that it was a joint discussion between the provincial party committee and government. But when asked to produce specific meeting minutes, they couldn't produce them. This significantly impacted our investigation."

"Meeting minutes clearly show many decision-making processes. They will become the most important piece of evidence in determining cadre accountability."

Although Huang Kecheng has been on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection for less than two years, he has already dealt with a large number of cases of cadres dereliction of duty. One of the most difficult issues is determining cadre responsibility.

Therefore, during this inspection, Huang Kecheng specifically reviewed the meeting records of the party and government at all levels.

Wei Hongjun nodded and said, "Comrade Huang Kecheng, what about the second aspect?"

"Strengthen inner-party democracy. Currently, the decision-making process of the Party and government in many places is not transparent, and the main leaders of the Party and government make decisions on their own without democratic discussion. This seriously undermines inner-party democracy and weakens the role of other Party and government leaders."

"Furthermore, decisions made without democratic decision-making are prone to problems. The division of labor in my country's industrial and agricultural construction is becoming increasingly clear, and no one person can know everything about industry and agriculture. Many construction projects must rely on the opinions of professional technicians. This requires democratic decision-making."

"With a comprehensive policy on meeting record keeping, we can see the complete process of democratic decision-making within the Party. This way, we can see the implementation of intra-Party democracy during the decision-making process and also see the thoughts of each cadre."

"With this place, the main leaders of the party and government will also be cautious and will not dare to arbitrarily undermine inner-party democracy."

Wei Hongjun couldn't help but applaud. No wonder everyone said Huang Kecheng had a farsighted vision and strategic foresight.

Huang Kecheng's two most famous things were that he wrote a letter to the Central Committee during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression requesting the Eighth Route Army to restore the political commissar system, and that he wrote a report to the Central Committee after the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression requesting the rapid occupation of the Northeast.

Although the central government's decision was not entirely due to Huang Kecheng's advice, it does show his ability to judge the situation. He is a very strategic cadre.

Looking back at this time, Huang Kecheng saw a lot of significance in a small meeting record that many people didn't take seriously.

"Comrade Huang Kecheng's point is quite sensible. Meeting minutes are the most original archives, and a lot can be learned from them. Having complete meeting minutes is very helpful for the Organization Department's cadre assessment and the Supervisory Commission's division of cadre responsibilities."

Tan Zhenlin expressed his support.

Luo Qirong also echoed: "Meeting minutes cannot be sloppy. Accurate meeting minutes are very important, and strict meeting minutes regulations must be established."

All three leaders of the Central Supervisory Committee support the formalization of meeting records.

This is understandable, as the Supervisory Commission is responsible for supervisory work, and meeting minutes are a very important piece of evidence.

"Comrade Chen Tanqiu, what do you think?"

Wei Hongjun asked Chen Tanqiu.

Chen Tanqiu nodded and said, "It is indeed necessary to formalize meeting records."

Chen Tanqiu hadn't actually considered the issue of meeting minutes. Meeting minutes were crucial; all central government meetings were recorded and filed. But Chen Tanqiu didn't pay much attention to the situation at the local level.

But after listening to Huang Kecheng's words, Chen Tanqiu immediately nodded in support. Huang Kecheng's words were very convincing.

Wei Hongjun nodded and said, "The biggest fear in local democracy development is a lack of democracy for major issues, while all small matters are subject to democratic decision-making. This is putting the cart before the horse."

"But this is precisely the trend currently occurring in our country's local Party and government. Major issues truly impacting national economy and people's livelihoods should be subject to widespread public consultation and technical review. Instead, they make decisions behind closed doors among a few individuals. And even trivial matters, which should be decided by the responsible leaders, are being brought to the Party committee for discussion."

"This is the greatest damage to inner-party democracy. Therefore, as Comrade Huang Kecheng said, meeting minutes are extremely important and must be formalized."

"Meeting minutes must be recorded and archived by a dedicated department. No cadres, including the top leaders of local party, government, and military systems, are allowed to interfere with or alter meeting minutes. Regardless of the reason, if anyone interferes with or alters the contents of meeting minutes, even if it's just a single punctuation mark, the cadres responsible for recording the meeting and those who interfered with the minutes will be held accountable."

"The records of the meeting must be kept confidential. Only the supervisory committee at the next higher level can access them. Other departments must obtain approval from the supervisory committee before accessing the meeting records."

"Only by raising the confidentiality level of meeting records at all levels can we ensure that anyone who leaks or tampers with meeting records, regardless of their purpose or the extent of the alterations, will be handed over to judicial authorities for dereliction of duty and leaking confidential information."

"Of course, this is just a suggestion. Comrade Chen Tanqiu, Comrade Tan Zhenlin, Comrade Luo Qirong, Comrade Huang Kecheng, Comrade Song Renqiong, regarding the specific confidentiality level of meeting records and the management department of meeting records, you should discuss with the Organization Department of the Central Committee and the Supervisory Commission and formulate a specific plan for the formalization of meeting records. We will discuss this matter again when the time comes."

1085 Liuzhou Iron and Steel Plant

Regarding the issue of formalizing meeting minutes, the Organization Department and the Supervisory Commission quickly came up with a plan.

The plan of the Organization Department and the Supervisory Commission is to further improve the national archives management and introduce a stricter archives management system. At the same time, local archives management bureaus will be under the dual management of local and central governments.

After Wei Hongjun discussed this with the Organization Department and the Supervisory Commission, the discussion continued in the Secretariat, focusing on how to improve archive management.

After discussion, everyone agreed that archive management could be centralized and that decentralized management was unnecessary. Currently, the central government has the Central Archives, which is directly under the General Office of the Central Committee, and the National Archives Administration, which is directly under the State Council. These two archive management departments are separate, managing the archives of the Party and the government, respectively.

This was when the People's Republic of China was just established, and different departments were formed under the public opinion of "separation of party and government". At that time, it was believed that the archives of the party and government were different and should not be mixed.

But after more than a decade of adjustment, the relationship between the Party and the government has become increasingly clear. The Party leads the government, and the rules for how to lead the government have gradually become established.

The Secretariat discussed the possibility of merging the Central Archives and the National Archives Administration into one institution, with two names, to centrally manage the archives of Party and government agencies.

This centralized management can effectively conserve resources. Because party and government archives sometimes overlap, it can be difficult to distinguish between party committee archives and government archives. Centralized management can avoid this problem.

Wei Hongjun summarized the Secretariat's opinions and submitted a draft "Archives Management Draft" to the Politburo. It clearly defined the confidentiality levels of different archives and detailed regulations on how to access them.

At the same time, for the first time, meeting records of various levels were classified as confidential files. As long as only these meeting records were classified according to confidentiality level, any interference with meeting records or tampering with meeting records would be directly suspected of criminal law.

However, Wei Hongjun left Beijing before the Politburo could discuss the matter. The second phase of the Liuzhou Iron and Steel Plant project involved the construction of two blast furnaces, one with a capacity of 1232 cubic meters and the other with a capacity of 1356 cubic meters, with Soviet aid.

The Soviet Union provided money, technical equipment, and technicians, so China could not completely ignore it. Therefore, China also transferred a group of technicians from Anshan Iron and Steel, Wuhan Iron and Steel, Baotou Iron and Steel, and Xuancheng Iron and Steel, as well as a group of engineering teams to participate in the construction of Liuzhou Iron and Steel.

As a result, Liuzhou Iron and Steel took only 10 months to erect the No. 5 and No. 500 blast furnaces, along with five -ton open-hearth furnaces, a primary rolling mill, a large section mill, and a medium and heavy plate mill.

The construction of Liuzhou Iron and Steel was completed at a breakneck speed, even faster than the construction of Baotou Iron and Steel and Wuhan Iron and Steel. This was mainly due to the fact that the technological foundation of China's steel industry has been increasing with the development of the industry.

Compared to ten years ago, when many steel mills were built in China, everyone was participating in the construction of steel mills for the first time, and they completed the steel mills completely relying on their own efforts. But now it is different.

Many engineering teams already have experience in steel plant construction, so the construction speed is much faster than the construction of Baotou Steel and Wuhan Iron and Steel ten years ago.

Just ten months after China and the Soviet Union began preparing for the expansion of Liuzhou Iron and Steel, the second phase of construction, with a designed annual production capacity of 150 million tons, was completed. This was a significant event for the southwestern province. Combined with the first phase of construction completed between 1958 and 1959, which included two 500-cubic-meter blast furnaces and two 2-ton open-hearth furnaces, Liuzhou Iron and Steel's designed production capacity reached 250 million tons.

A steel plant with an annual output of 200 million tons is also considered a large steel plant in China's current steel industry.

It was because the Soviet Union was in a hurry and China seized the opportunity that it was able to build a large steel plant with an annual output of 200 million tons so quickly.

In fact, many Soviet experts who came to guide the construction of Liuzhou Iron and Steel were astonished. After all, the speed at which the Chinese built steel mills was truly astonishing. Even industrial powers like the Soviet Union could not build steel mills at such a speed.

Especially for large-scale steel mills, a lot of supporting facilities are needed. As a result, Guangxi mobilized millions of people to participate in the construction of various supporting facilities for the steel mills.

If you need a power plant, Guangxi will build it for you as long as the machinery and equipment are in place. If a steel plant needs water, Guangxi will get it for you. If you need transportation, Guangxi will pave the way for you.

Including iron ore and coal, as long as it is what the steel mills need, Guangxi can satisfy you.

It can be said that Guangxi spared no effort to meet any needs for the steel plant's development. The entire Guangxi region was committed to Liuzhou Iron and Steel's construction, and even troops from the Guangxi Military Region participated in some projects. It was precisely because of the high regard from all levels of Guangxi for Liuzhou Iron and Steel that the second phase of the Liuzhou Iron and Steel project was successfully completed so quickly.

Guangxi has a large steel plant, which is a very important thing. Moreover, Guangxi is the most important logistics province determined by the Sino-Soviet-Vietnamese negotiations.

So Wei Hongjun, on behalf of the Party Central Committee, went to see the situation of Liuzhou Iron and Steel Group together with Li Fuchun, who had been in charge of heavy industry, Wang Heshou, Minister of Metallurgical Industry, and Lu Dong, Deputy Minister.

"Liuzhou Iron and Steel's designed output is very high, but what is its actual output?"

After getting off the plane, Wei Hongjun and his party went directly to Liugang. Guangxi leaders such as Su Zhenhua, Gu Mu and Zhang Linchi were waiting for Wei Hongjun at Liugang.

Wei Hongjun did not go directly to Liugang for internal inspection, but talked with cadres from Guangxi.

Steel mills with the same designed output can produce different outputs in different countries. For example, a steel mill with a designed output of 200 million tons would reach its designed output very quickly if it were in the hands of the Soviet Union.

However, if it is in the hands of a country like China with relatively poor industrial technology level, it is not so easy to achieve the designed output.

"Secretary Wei, Liuzhou Iron and Steel's current daily output is around 1300 tons, which is still quite a distance from the designed daily output of 5600 tons."

Guangxi Governor Gu Mu replied.

Wei Hongjun made a simple calculation and found that Liuzhou Iron and Steel's annual output is less than 50 tons, far below its planned output of 200 million tons.

Seeing that Wei Hongjun was silent, Gu Mu continued, "But we are trying to familiarize ourselves with the operation of the steel mill as quickly as possible, and we will soon be able to increase production."

"What is Liuzhou Iron and Steel's cadre structure like? What is its technical personnel reserve like?"

Speaking of this, Su Zhenhua opened his mouth and said, "Secretary Wei, our Liuzhou Iron and Steel Group's original goal was to produce 1960 tons of crude steel by 30. But starting from June last year, the central government suddenly changed all of Liuzhou Iron and Steel Group's plans."

"The annual production plan suddenly increased to 200 million tons. Although Anshan Iron and Steel, Baotou Iron and Steel, Wuhan Iron and Steel, and Xuancheng Iron and Steel sent a number of technical personnel, most of them returned after completing their tasks. Relying solely on our cadre and technical reserves, we are indeed facing many difficulties."

Guangxi was a province with virtually no industrial base. It wasn't until Su Zhenhua, after becoming the Party Secretary of Guangxi, begged and pleaded with local authorities to bring in a number of small factories from Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangdong that Guangxi finally began to develop its industry.

In particular, the cannery introduced from Shanghai developed canned fruit, which unexpectedly received rave reviews at the Harbin and Canton Fairs. It quickly became a key support unit for the Ministry of Light Industry, bringing incredible economic benefits to Guangxi.

But that was the case with Guangxi's industry, which was stuck in the light industries that were easiest to start. There was no sufficient heavy industry to support the large-scale development of light industry, so development was slow.

It is precisely because of this that Su Zhenhua attaches so much importance to the construction of Liuzhou Iron and Steel. As long as Liuzhou Iron and Steel is established in Guangxi, it will greatly promote the development of Guangxi's industry.

Because a steel conglomerate is a comprehensive enterprise that requires a large number of supporting industries, it can greatly increase Guangxi's industrial output.

Just look at Liuzhou. Because the Guangxi Steel Plant was built in Liuzhou, Liuzhou's power industry and construction industry developed rapidly in a short period of time to meet the development of Liuzhou Iron and Steel.

However, Liuzhou Iron and Steel's plans were drastically altered, completely beyond Guangxi's capabilities. The Guangxi officials supporting Liuzhou Iron and Steel had never seen the operation of a large steel plant with an annual output of 200 million tons. Even the technical staff, who had initially been familiar with the operation of a steel plant with an annual output of 30 tons, needed to learn the ropes while in production.

So a steel plant with an annual output of 200 million tons was built, but the output could not be increased at all.