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In 1964, in order to further liberate productivity, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a national planning meeting and hoped to further reform the operation mode of government agencies after this meeting.
Premier Zhou, as the host of the meeting, realized that we must immediately carry out "revolution of the organs", and this reform must first "operate" on ourselves. However, before Premier Zhou could start reform, Chairman Mao took the initiative to find Premier Zhou and talk.
Prince Zhou
During the conversation, Chairman Mao made Premier Zhou a joke, but it made Premier Zhou very serious. After the conversation, Premier Zhou immediately carried out drastic reforms and abolished the Prime Minister's Office in less than a month.
So why did Premier Zhou sack the Prime Minister’s Office because of a joke from Chairman Mao? What impact did this incident have on Premier Zhou?
Premier Zhou
A joke by Chairman Mao
965, in order to better carry out the " Third Five-Year Plan ", the country introduced a new State Council system. However, some people who care about politics were surprised to find that as an important department to assist Premier Zhou in handling national affairs, the Prime Minister's Office suddenly disappeared!
As a prime minister, there is a huge amount of government affairs that needs to be handled every day, and it is not possible to do without a special service agency to assist. Therefore, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Central Committee established the Prime Minister's Office, and the number of people reached a scale of 20 at the highest.
Despite this, there are countless documents, requests and reports, statistical reports, etc. from various departments and localities across the country every day. Therefore, Premier Zhou and his secretaries always have to work day and night.
At the end of 1957, in order to respond to the country's political and economic reform, the Prime Minister's Office conducted a major streamlining. Premier Zhou transferred half of his personnel to various departments for support, leaving only 9 secretaries to assist in the work.
Under the influence of Premier Zhou's orderly and careful work style, the members of the Prime Minister's Office worked diligently and truly implemented everything without delay. In this case, why did the Prime Minister's Office suddenly disappear during the State Council's institutional reform in 1965?
One of the major reasons why this important agency of the State Council "disappears" is a joke from Chairman Mao.
At the end of 1964, Chairman Mao found Premier Zhou for a conversation, and during this period he mentioned that due to the mistakes of two secretaries of a leader, a major event was directly delayed. Chairman Mao complained unhappily: "Too many secretaries will make things worse!"
This made Premier Zhou feel nervous. The institution with the most secretaries is his own Prime Minister's Office! When they parted, Chairman Mao, who always likes to joke, joked to Premier Zhou: "Why do you leave so many secretary? Let the secretary lead the nose?"
This sentence made Premier Zhou think of revoking the Prime Minister's office again. He understood that Chairman Mao's words were just caring about him and hoped that he would not put too much pressure on himself and make himself more relaxed.
But although it has been streamlined at present, it is an indisputable fact that the Prime Minister's Office is still huge. Therefore, Premier Zhou immediately decided to abolish the Prime Minister's Office.
Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou
Premier Zhou and his secretaries
In fact, the Prime Minister’s office is indeed meaningful. Premier Zhou’s work is very busy, so someone needs help to handle the work.
. Even with so many secretaries, he still has to work more than ten hours a day. If important problems occur, they will deal with them day and night.
From this we can see that the members of this office are completely impossible to be idle, on the contrary, everyone is very busy.
Although the secretaries who can be transferred to the Prime Minister's Office are all elites selected by various departments, since their work is related to the country, Premier Zhou has never slacked off at all.He urged every secretary countless times: "Be familiar with the overall work, don't 'rail police, each one is in charge of one section'."
Therefore, the secretary of the office must not only do his own job, but also be familiar with the overall work to ensure that the government's work can always be carried out in an orderly manner. Therefore, for every secretary in the office, this seemingly glorious job is by no means an easy task.
In order to make contact more conveniently and quickly, Premier Zhou and each secretary installed ringtone , and agreed on a special "contact signal":
Click the ringtone of the Foreign Affairs Group Office, which means looking for Comrade Marxism and Lenin; press two times to Chen Hao, three times to Deng Guang... These special hotlines connect the Prime Minister and the Secretary, so that the Prime Minister's Office can always run quickly and efficiently.
Although the work pressure on weekdays is very high, these secretaries have never complained because they have witnessed with their own eyes how hard Premier Zhou worked. As a national central nervous system character, Premier Zhou is in an overloaded state all day long.
His office is often brightly lit at one or two o'clock in the night. However, humans are not machines. The overly tired Premier Zhou sometimes naps and gets sleepy and misses the pen in his hand on the file.
Every time this time, Premier Zhou will stand up and wipe his face with a hot towel to relieve fatigue. Then I applied cooling oil to refresh myself, and after my sleepiness subsided, I went to work again. He has worked so hard that he has to squeeze out his already short rest time.
Premier Zhou set two rules for his secretaries:
- If a major national event happens, report immediately to
- When Chairman Mao is looking for him, report immediately to
Even if he is sleeping at this time, or has just taken sleeping pills to prepare for rest, the secretaries must wake him up immediately. Every comrade who has worked with Premier Zhou is impressed by his work spirit.
Liao Chengzhi, who was formerly deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State Council, recalled that once Premier Zhou discussed Hong Kong and Macao issues with them, Premier Zhou suddenly asked Liao Chengzhi: "What is the total area of Hong Kong and Kowloon , do you know?"
Liao Chengzhi worked with Premier Zhou for many years and couldn't understand Premier Zhou's character very well. Knowing means knowing, not knowing, Premier Zhou will not be angry about it. But if you don’t know how to understand with a “fool” attitude, then Premier Zhou will definitely get angry.
So he shook his head honestly. When the staff in charge of Hong Kong and Macao were around him who saw no one answered, he blurted out, "About 100,000 square kilometers."
"Funny!" Premier Zhou immediately changed his face after hearing this and immediately rebuked: "How big is Zhejiang Province? I don't know, but I don't know. I will never allow such deceive!" Working around Premier Zhou, he cannot tolerate a vague word such as "possible", "probably", and "maybe".
Liao Chengzhi
The strictness or reprimand of the secretary is more because of the special importance of work, not because of inhumanity. On the contrary, on weekdays, Premier Zhou is very gentle and caring for his secretary and the people around him.
Because there are great differences between Chinese and foreign languages, and Chinese has a large number of allusions and idioms, it is sometimes very troublesome to translate these sentences. For example, when Chairman Mao talks with foreign guests, he can easily write idioms and historical quotes, but it is difficult to translate them into vivid images.
, but the translators working around Premier Zhou do not have this concern. This is because Premier Zhou is proficient in foreign languages and can naturally understand the difficulties of the translators. When communicating with foreign guests, he will use straightforward and popular sentences as much as possible to avoid difficulties for translators.
Tong Xiaopeng, director of the Prime Minister's Office, recalled that when he was just transferred to the Prime Minister's Office, some of the work was not done very well. Premier Zhou did not scold him, but took the opportunity to take the time to write a letter of instruction for him late at night.
Tong Xiaopeng
This letter was written behind an old envelope, which reads the suggestions and concerns made by Premier Zhou to Tong Xiaopeng. Tong Xiaopeng readjusted his work according to the opinions put forward by Premier Zhou, and immediately felt that the previous problem was solved.
This touched Tong Xiaopeng very much. Premier Zhou can always consider other people's feelings and give warmth in details. He solemnly treasured the letter, and now it has become a precious revolutionary cultural relic.
The Prime Minister's Office is operating efficiently and steadily under the leadership of Premier Zhou. Documents are received from all over the country every day and sent to the country through their hands, driving the rapid development of the country. Whenever he mentions the Prime Minister's Office, even Chairman Mao praises it.
Since Premier Zhou is not the lazy official whom Chairman Mao said "walked by his secretary" and the Prime Minister's Office is so important, why does Premier Zhou still want to abolish this department?
Chairman Mao
Abolition of the whole story of the Prime Minister's Office
1956, with the great achievements in the country's economic construction, the number of people in the Prime Minister's Office also reached as many as 20. None of so many people is a "idle job" and has a position they are responsible for, but Premier Zhou still streamlined it for the first time.
This is because there was a shortage of staff in various fields at that time. In order to support the work, Premier Zhou transferred half of his secretary to the major fronts. The secretary was reduced by half at once, and the responsibilities that fell on everyone were even more.
Therefore, the Prime Minister's Office stopped the daily affairs of the Deputy Prime Minister and specifically served Premier Zhou alone. By the second half of 1964, in order to fully liberate productivity, the state had gradually streamlined and reformed the various agencies.
However, due to the large and bloated organizational system that was previously established for rapid economic development, the streamlining work of some departments and local agencies has become increasingly difficult to do, and the expected results have not been achieved. This made Premier Zhou very worried. In order to promote the continuous progress of streamlining work, he had the idea of "handing the knife by himself".
htmlOn July 29, Premier Zhou convened a meeting with the secretary of the Prime Minister's Office to convey the spirit of "revolutionary organs" proposed by Chairman Mao. In order to avoid the prevalence of bureaucracy and the reduction of efficiency of agencies' work, it is imperative to revolutionize agencies.
But it is by no means an easy task to cancel this important and efficient department, so Premier Zhou has been preparing for it. Chairman Mao’s joke became the “east wind” that Premier Zhou was determined to abolish the Prime Minister’s Office.
However, in fact, the number of people in the Prime Minister's Office coincides with the heavy responsibility. But in order to implement institutional reform, Premier Zhou could only set an example and start with himself.
In order to allow the secretary to adapt to the work after the office was cancelled in advance, Premier Zhou encouraged them to go deep into the grassroots level in June to hone their party spirit and experience the social situation.
1 On January 4, 1965, Premier Zhou officially announced the decision to cancel the Prime Minister's Office at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Then, in less than a month, the Prime Minister's Office was completely cancelled.
When the cancellation was made, Premier Zhou said to the secretary who had worked with for many years with a little sadness: "Let's have a meal together and take a photo."
After three rounds of wine, the Prime Minister picked up the wine glass, and his reluctance was beyond words. His eyes slowly glanced at every secretary present. These secretaries are undoubtedly extremely excellent and can definitely show off their skills in the new venue.
Premier Zhou took a deep breath and said to Zhou Rongxin, Secretary-General of the State Council, beside him:
"Comrades who left me, you must make good arrangements. If you don't leave without arrangements, you will still be the people here!"
Wang Yazhi is the last secretary of the Prime Minister's Office. He had just arrived at the Prime Minister's Office for half a year and encountered such a thing. Whenever he mentioned this, he felt very regretful: "I was not lucky. I caught up with the office layoffs in just half a year, and I have not had the experience of spending time with the Prime Minister.”
After the disbanded Prime Minister’s Office, the former lively West Flower Hall (office location) became a little deserted, and only a prime minister’s duty room was re-established. Around the 67-year-old Premier Zhou, there were only one or two secretary left, and he was responsible for heavy work all day long.
devoted his wholehearted work, and after his death
The staff around him had the most say in Premier Zhou’s fatigue, and Marxism-Leninism, who was once the secretary of the Prime Minister’s office, was deeply touched by this. He also had many important things Premier Zhou, who is in the position, almost everything is about the country, must be handled.
This was particularly vividly reflected during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. All telegrams from the front must be sent to the Prime Minister for their review. Premier Zhou read and replied article by article, almost all important combat deployments on the front were drafted by the Prime Minister.
After the victory of resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea, the soldiers of the volunteer army returned to their country gloriously, while Premier Zhou I became busier. Not only did I have to deal with domestic affairs, but I also had to consider the post-war negotiations. Such high-intensity work made Premier Zhou’s already bad health collapse immediately.
Chairman Mao felt sorry for Premier Zhou and specially criticized him for his two-month vacation, hoping to let him take a good rest. But the stubborn Premier Zhou had only one month off and dragged his sick body to Beijing again and continued to devote himself to the work of the country.
After the revocation of the Prime Minister’s Office, Premier Zhou’s pressure increased sharply, and the political affairs he needed to deal with every day became heavier. Because of the long time Lack of sleep and excessive fatigue during the period, Premier Zhou suffered from severe heart disease and had to take oxygen before going to bed every night.
Despite this, he still insisted on striving on the front line of work, and the burden and cumbersome affairs were unparalleled. In fact, he also wanted to rest, but whenever he thought of the country's livelihood, he was always worried.
Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou
In the face of the staff's advice, he always smiled kindly and said gently: "I can't sit, I will fall asleep as soon as I sit down. " The 18th anniversary of the founding of New China The National Day, Premier Zhou was invited to write the inscription for the National Day.
"Warmly celebrate the great 18th anniversary of the National Day of the People's Republic of China", but he failed to write it as he wished. Because his body was extremely weak at this time, his hands trembled, and he tried to write it twice but failed.
After this, Premier Zhou's health was getting worse and worse, and his condition forced him to gradually let go of some political affairs. But he still insisted on doing everything himself if his body improved slightly or if others could not handle tedious things.
In 1974, the bladder cancer cells on Premier Zhou began to spread, and his condition continued to worsen. Despite this, according to office records, he still had half of his time to maintain his working hours for more than 18 hours.
Premier Zhou also understood that the disease began to gradually erode his body, and his body was extremely thin. But in the report to Chairman Mao, he still firmly stated:
"I weigh 61 pounds, and my body can still afford it now, everything is normal..."
Once, Premier Zhou dragged his sick body to walk weakly, and suddenly asked the medical staff around him: "How long can I last? "Seeing the panic and nervous look of the medical staff, Premier Zhou said seriously: "You must tell me truthfully that I still have a lot of work to explain. "
General Manager Zhu, Premier Zhou, and Chairman Mao all the medical staff around the airport
were crying. They couldn't bear to deceive the Prime Minister, but they couldn't bear to tell the facts. Premier Zhou regained his kind smile, he understood, and said softly: "No need to say anything. "
As a firm materialist fighter, Premier Zhou took life and death very calmly, and he only regretted that he could not continue to work. Faced with the care of foreign guests for his body, Premier Zhou replied humorously and frankly:
"I have received Marx's 'invitation'. ”
After entering 1976, Premier Zhou's condition worsened sharply and he was in a coma most of the time.Late at night on January 7, Premier Zhou woke up from his coma. He opened his eyes with difficulty and saw the Wu Jieping doctor guarding in front of the hospital bed.
Premier Zhou said in an extremely weak voice:
"I have nothing to do here anymore. You should take care of other sick comrades, and you are even more needed there."
This is the last sentence Premier Zhou said during his lifetime. When he was dying, he still thought about being ahead of others and then himself.
On January 8, 1976, Premier Zhou died of illness at the age of 78. This bad news made the whole country very sad. Chairman Mao was speechless for a few days after hearing this, and often sat on the sofa and shed tears silently.
On the day of Premier Zhou’s farewell ceremony, millions of people in Beijing spontaneously took to the streets, Ten miles long street , crying and mourning, people from all over the country commemorate this great public servant in their own different ways.
According to Premier Zhou's legacy during his lifetime, his ashes were scattered on the land of the motherland by his wife Deng Yingchao, silently protecting this land he loved deeply.
This great man who has fought for the new China all his life, will always live in the hearts of every Chinese, pay tribute to Premier Zhou!
What do you think about Premier Zhou’s approach to abolishing the Prime Minister’s Office? Welcome to leave your opinion in the comment section.
