(Right picture: August 1972, Chen Yun’s manuscript written to Wujiang County Source: People’s Network -People’s Daily. Left picture: Source: Chinese Communist News Network .)
One day in November 1952, Wujiang, Jiangsu Province County Magistrate Yang Ming received a letter from Beijing, which wrote: "Comrade County Magistrate, Chen Xing, the sister of Director Chen of the China Finance Commission, it is said that the county government takes good care of her. Thank you! Please check and provide monthly support." How much money or rice has Chen Xing received? Director Chen said that now that the subsidy has been increased, the cadres’ families no longer need public assistance. Please stop paying Chen Xing’s financial aid from December onwards. Help solve it yourself. I hope you will reply as soon as possible!" The letter was signed "Office of the Central Finance Commission". The Director Chen mentioned in the letter was Chen Yun, then Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister of the Government Affairs Council, and Director of the Central Financial and Economic Commission.
The county magistrate was very surprised when he received the letter. He knew that Chen Yun had many children and many relatives who needed help. He was a well-known poor household in Zhongnanhai at that time. It was really difficult for him to "help solve the problem by himself". Therefore, it was not processed in a timely manner as stated in the letter.
Unexpectedly, a month later, the second letter from Beijing came again. The letter once again reiterated, "Please stop paying the family benefits that Director Chen's sister received in your county from December... Because Director Chen's current supply is higher than before, he proposed that he should subsidize his sister himself."
These two letters , although it was not written by Chen Yun himself, it is obvious that it expresses Chen Yun’s own thoughts.
It turns out that Chen Yun grew up in a poor family. He lost his father when he was two years old and his mother when he was four years old. When he was young, he was always taken care of by his sister Chen Xing. Therefore, Chen Yun has always taken good care of his sister at heart. Not long after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chen Yun asked the comrade in charge of the Southern Jiangsu Administrative Office at the time to send Chen Xing some money to support her, considering that his sister was already over fifty, living alone, and had no source of income. The responsible comrade later wrote to the Wujiang County Government, suggesting that Wujiang provide necessary assistance to the family members of Chen Xing, a revolutionary hero. Wujiang Civil Affairs Department began to provide Chen Xing with a certain amount of rice every month starting from December 1949.
For this reason, Chen Yun sent two letters in a row, asking his secretary to fully refund the financial aid that his sister had received. Later, Chen Yun also wrote a letter in his own handwriting, asking Songling Town, Wujiang County to hand over all the property Chen Xing left there.
In Chen Yun's heart, family ties are important, but public interests must not be harmed for this. On the one hand, he demanded that his sister’s financial aid be stopped, and on the other hand, he “subsidized her sister himself.” Emotion and reason, public and private, not careless or ambiguous at all.
