One day in mid-September, 11969, Lin Biao and his group came to Jinggangshan for inspection. This was his return to Jinggangshan again after many years.
After Lin Biao went up the mountain, he said to the guards: "The Jinggangshan base has been established for decades. Without this place, there would be no today. If it weren't for the good time and place here, it would be difficult to keep this small place. With it, it was preserved Red Army and finally conquered the entire country. It should be said that Jinggangshan is the birthplace of the Chinese Revolution and the People's Liberation Army..."
Lin Biao has always been taciturn. He said so many things in one breath this day, which is very rare.
The next day, Lin Biao continued to inspect Jinggangshan. As he walked, he suddenly stopped in front of a big tree. At this time, Lin Biao pointed at the trunk with his finger and said affectionately: "I know it. This tree is at least a hundred years old! I remember that back then, Chairman Mao led the Red Army soldiers to carry food up the mountain and often rested under this tree. This tree is also considered a 'revolutionary hero'."
On this day, Lin Biao was full of poetry and filled in a poem "The Moon of the West River·Return to Jinggangshan" and submitted it to Mao Zedong for reading:
Lush three bays of bamboo trees, five vast clouds and smoke. The struggle in Jinggangshan recalls the past and evokes great changes in the world. The red sunlight fills the universe, and the battle flags rush into the ocean. Workers and peasants are full of ambitions and are swearing to bury the enemy stubbornly.
40 years ago, the old place was filled with thousands of past events. The heroes and martyrs have no health and death, and life and death are beyond the difficulty. If you have strong ambitions and firm belief in Marxism-Leninism, you will not doubt that sparks will spread. The glorious victory will be fully revealed, and the fighting spirit will not be reduced slightly.
After seeing this poem, Mao Zedong smiled slightly, and then used a pencil to draw two thick bars on the front of the sentence "I am strong and believe in Marxism-Leninism, but I don't think that sparks are spreading in the prairie" and put a question mark. He said, "This is a historical case, don't turn it over again."
Mao Zedong and Lin Biao
Why did Mao Zedong say that? This has to start with the Jinggangshan period.
927 After the Nanchang Uprising , on August 10, Zhou Enlai called Chen Yi to serve as instructors of the 73rd Regiment of the 25th Division. He told Chen Yi: "The 73rd Regiment is the earliest armed force established by our party. It is known as the "Iron Army" in Northern Expedition . There are more than 2,000 people now. You must work hard and don't think that the official is small."
Chen Yi quickly replied, "What a little thing? I'll do you want me to be a company instructor. As long as I'm armed, I'll do it."
On the day Chen Yi came to the 73rd Regiment to report, a young man hurried into the regiment headquarters and reported to the regiment commander Huang Haosheng, "Report to the regiment commander, our company's 120 yuan of food money was carried away by the service staff. My company's food money can't be distributed now."
Huang Haosheng was furious after hearing this: "What are you doing? Why don't you carry the money for food? The funding is so difficult now! I want to shoot you!"
The young man explained: "This servant is my cousin. I thought he could believe it, but he broke the money and ran away."
At this time, Chen Yi asked the young man: "Which company are you? What's your name?"
The young man replied loudly: "Company Commander of the 7th Company, Lin Biao."
Lin Biao when he was young
Chen Yi then said to Huang Haosheng: "He has thrown away all the money. Now he is going to prepare for war, so he has to pay it back to him. Otherwise, where will he, the company commander, make money?"
Huang Haosheng nodded in agreement. Then Chen Yi said to Lin Biao: "Comrade Lin Biao, since you are the company commander, you have to carry the food money yourself in the future. If you don't carry it yourself, what should you do if someone abducts you?"
Lin Biao replied gratefully: "Thank you for the decision in the regiment. I promise to carry the food money yourself in the future!"
After the failure of the Nanchang Uprising, Zhu De and Chen Yi led the remaining troops of the uprising troops to Longshi, Ninggang County in April 1928, and successfully met with the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army directly led by Mao Zedong. After the two armies met, they were reorganized into , the Fourth Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, and Lin Biao was appointed as the battalion commander of the 1st Battalion of the 28th Regiment.
Zhu Mao met
Not long after, The Red Fourth Army held a meeting in Ciping, Jinggangshan. Lin Biao made a generous speech at the meeting: "The enemy comes to attack, and the Red Army concentrates on fighting the enemy; if the enemy is defeated and eliminated, the Red Army will disperse the masses to work, defeat the local tyrants and divide the land, and organize the Red Guards , establish the Soviet Union. "
Mao Zedong did not know Lin Biao at that time. He asked Chen Yi: "Which one is this?"
Chen Yi said: "He is Lin Biao, the battalion commander of the 1st Battalion of the 28th Regiment. There are three tigers in the woods."
Lin Biao had led the team to win many victories at this time, and Mao Zedong had also heard of him. After the meeting, Mao Zedong kept Lin Biao and praised him well. Lin Biao said modestly: "Thank you, Committee Member Mao!"
Mao Zedong smiled and said, "What are you thanks? We are the ones who eat at the same stove. Are you 20 years old?"
Lin Biao replied: "21 years old."
"Oh, I am 21 years old. Are you just a doll? What can you do in the future When fighting, there is something to do. I really envy you at this age! "
Mao Zedong and Lin Biao
Chen Yi added on the side: "He is a student of Huangpu 4 and has won many victories!"
When we met for the first time, Mao Zedong had a good impression of Lin Biao, believing that he is not only young, but also keen in thinking and able to fight. As long as he is well trained, he can shoulder the heavy responsibility.
Under Mao Zedong's training, Lin Biao was promoted to commander of the 1st Column of the Red 4th Army in March 1929. However, as the enemy continued to send troops to encircle Jinggangshan, Lin Biao saw that the enemy was weak and we were weak. Jinggangshan was also narrow in area, and gradually felt pessimistic and disappointed. He had complained many times: "The border is very difficult now. Only red rice and pumpkin soup cannot be done. You must fight out of the mountain, otherwise it cannot be maintained." "Can you win the world with pumpkin every day?"
1 On May 18, 2029, the Red Fourth Army held an enlarged meeting of the Front Committee in Ruijin to discuss the current situation and the Red Army's action plan. Lin Biao actually made pessimistic remarks at the meeting, advocating that the Red Army should move guerrillas in the border areas of Guangdong-Jiangxi. His speech was immediately criticized by Mao Zedong.
Not long after, the Red Army captured Shanghang County, Fujian Province, and Lin Biao wrote letters to the Front Committee several times, proposing to go to Shanghai to work or study in the Soviet Union.
Mao Zedong did not care much about Lin Biao's ideological mistakes at first, because in his eyes, Lin Biao was still a "baby", so he once said to He Changgong: "Lin Biao's statement is a child's opinion." This indirectly led to Lin Biao's pessimism becoming more and more serious.
930 New Year's Day, Lin Biao wrote a letter to Mao Zedong and Chen Yi. In addition to congratulating them on the New Year, the content of the letter also suggested that the Front Committee hold an enlarged meeting. In the letter, Lin Biao continued to insist on his pessimistic estimate of the situation, and he even raised a question: "How long can the Jinggangshan Red Flag be fought?"
At this time, Mao Zedong finally realized the seriousness of the problem. After thinking, he believed that this pessimistic thought was not owned by Lin Biao, and it was also representative within the Red Fourth Army. The root of this idea is that it does not clarify the characteristics of China as a colony where many imperialist countries compete for each other. Therefore, Mao Zedong decided to reply to Lin Biao, systematically criticizing both himself and this pessimism within the Red Fourth Army.
1930, Mao Zedong took advantage of the rare short-term battle break and wrote a reply to Lin Biao with candles at night. Mao Zedong criticized Lin Biao's pessimistic thoughts from four aspects:
. Although China's revolutionary force was weak, the counter-revolutionary force at that time was also weak.
. Although the revolutionary force is weak in form after the failure of the Great Revolution, it has the possibility and inevitability of development. This is the essence of the problem.
. The counter-revolutionary force is strong on the surface, but it is weak on the essence.
. Whether the revolutionary climax can come is determined by whether the various contradictions that cause the revolutionary climax develop forward. At that time, the whole country was already covered with dry fire, and it would soon become a fire.
Mao Zedong's reply to Lin Biao
Mao Zedong also said in the letter:
Just look at the development of workers' strikes, peasant riots, soldiers' mutiny, and student strikes in many places, you will know that this "spark fire" is undoubtedly not far from the "steam fire". After summarizing the sentence
, it is what we later known as "a spark can start a prairie fire."
It was a month after Lin Biao read this letter. He was deeply touched and never mentioned those pessimistic ideas again. At the same time, in order to improve the ideological understanding of the majority of cadres, Mao Zedong also asked the Office of the Military Party Representative to send the letter to cadres above the Red Fourth Army camp to read, which played an important role in unifying the thoughts of the troops at that time.
948, when the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to edit and publish the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", it was prepared to include this letter. After hearing this, Lin Biao, who was in the Northeast, immediately sent a telegram to the central government and Mao Zedong, saying: "To avoid causing misunderstandings among the masses, I think only the full text of the letter is published, and no need to publish my name, so as to avoid all kinds of unnecessary speculations about people who do not understand the internal affairs of the central government."
After receiving the telegram, Mao Zedong instructed him not to publish the letter out of love for Lin Biao. Therefore, in the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" published in 1948, this letter was not included in the end.
1 In May 1950, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee decided to establish the Publishing Committee for Selected Works of Mao Zedong, and the Central Committee will uniformly edit the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong". Since this letter plays an important role in the formation and development of Mao Zedong Thought, it was selected again. However, when the letter was published, Mao Zedong deleted the part that criticized Lin Biao by name, and changed the title to "A Spark of a Spark, Can a Raw Burning".
"Sparks can start a prairie fire"
However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lin Biao was always worried about this letter, which was disgraceful to him after all. Therefore, after Lin Biao returned to Jinggangshan, the poem he wrote would have "a strong ambition and firm belief in Marxism-Leninism, but he would not suspect that sparks fires spreading in the prairie". In this way, when future generations read this poem, they naturally would not think that Lin Biao had pessimism when he was in Jinggangshan.
Mao Zedong of course knew Lin Biao’s thoughts, so he put a question mark, which is also a consistent manifestation of his realistic thinking.
On July 1, 1991, the second edition of "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" was officially published and distributed on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Party. The letter was included in it again, and the title is still "Spark of Fire, Can a Prairie Fire".
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