44 AMBUSHED BY THE PRESIDENT
44 国家主席刘少奇的“突然袭击”
(1961–62 AGE 67–68)
1961～1962 年 67～68 岁
WHEN MAO LAUNCHED the Great Leap Forward in 1958, his No. 2, Liu Shao-chi, went along with him, even though he disagreed with Mao's position. And when defense minister Peng De-huai spoke up against Mao's policies at Lushan in 1959, when the famine was well under way, Liu, who was now state president as well as Party No. 2, failed to take Peng's side.
大跃進开始时，刘少奇虽然不满，行动上仍随波逐流。当大饥荒铺天盖地而来，彭德怀在庐山大声疾呼时，刚当上国家主席的刘少奇没有跟彭站在一起。
But Liu was deeply troubled by the famine, which he knew had consumed some 30 million lives by early 1961. He was particularly affected after he went back to his home area in Hunan in April–May that year, and saw at first hand the horrific suffering he had helped create. He made up his mind to find a way to stop Mao.
但刘少奇心里越来越不安。到一九六一年初，他知道全国已饿死了三千万人。这年四、五月间，他回到湖南老家去视察。故乡行使他亲眼目睹人民的极度苦难，给了刘少奇巨大的心理冲击，他下决心要设法制止毛。
During the trip Liu visited his sister. She had married into the family of a “landlord,” who was categorized as a “class enemy.” When she had written to Liu at the beginning of Mao's regime about their hardships during the land reform, he had written back giving her all the “correct” and comfortless advice. Now he came with food: 2.5 kg of rice, 1 kg of biscuits, 1 kg of sweets, 9 salted eggs and a jar of lard. His sister was lying in bed famished and extremely ill. She wept as she talked about her husband, who had died not long before in great agony after eating a bun made of unhusked grain, which their daughter had specially saved for him. His weakened stomach could not cope with the coarse food. There were no doctors to call, no hospitals to turn to.
回乡期间刘少奇去探望他的姐姐。姐姐早年出嫁的家庭在共产党掌权后算作“地主”，是“阶级敌人”。她偶尔给刘写信讲到艰难的生活，刘回信给她讲些冠冕堂皇的大道理。如今他带来的是更人情味的东西：五斤大米、两斤饼干、两斤糖果、九只咸蛋、一瓶猪油。他看到姐姐躺在床上满脸泛黄，昏暗的眼睛充满泪水，死灰色的嘴唇不停地颤抖说不出话来。她挨饿受冻患了病，卧床不起已经有好些日子了。刘少奇问起姐夫，她双手捂着脸，呜呜地痛哭起来。她的丈夫刚死去，原因是吃了半块女儿像宝贝一样留给他的糠粑粑，饿瘪的肠胃无法消化，活活憋死。没有医生可看，没有医院可去，人死在青筋暴起，大汗淋漓的痛苦翻滚中。
This brother-in-law had written a letter to Liu in 1959, after Liu became president, to tell him about the starvation in the village. The letter was intercepted, and he was punished by being tied to a tree and left out to freeze in bitter winds until he was on the verge of passing out.
这位姊夫曾在刘少奇当上国家主席以后，给刘写过一封信，讲了村民们饿肚子的真实情况。信被截下来，他被扣上“破坏大跃進”的帽子受批斗，被绑在水塘边的树上任北风撕打，快要冻昏过去时才放回家。
Everywhere he went Liu encountered heart-rending sights and tragic stories. He could sense how much people hated the Communists—and him. In his home village a twelve-year-old boy had written “Down with Liu Shao-chi” outside Liu's old family house. This boy had seen six members of his family succumb to starvation-induced illness within one year, the last being his youngest brother, who had died in his arms; he had been carrying the baby around looking for someone to breast-feed him, as their mother had just died. Liu told the police not to punish the boy as a “counter-revolutionary,” which would normally have been the charge for such an act.
刘少奇走了一路，一路都听到这样的故事，看到令人心碎的景象。他看得出人民痛恨共产党，痛恨他本人。在他家老屋旁的电线杆上，一个十二岁的孩子用木炭写了五个大字：“打倒刘少奇！”这个孩子的家里一年饿死了六口人，母亲死后他抱着嗷嗷待哺的弟弟到处找人喂奶，弟弟在他怀里断气。那时候“写反动标语”要当作反革命处理。刘少奇叫当地干部不要抓他，说这“可以理解，不要怪他！”。
He also stopped the local authorities punishing peasants for “stealing” food, making a striking admission to the villagers that it was the regime that was robbing them. “Commune members think this way,” Liu said. “Since you take from us, why can't I take from you? Since you take a lot, why can't I take a little?”
刘还下令地方当局不得惩罚“偷”食物的农民，说：“社员这样想，你拿得我就拿不得？你大拿我就小拿。”这等于说共产党政权对老百姓像强盗一样，刘少奇的痛心疾首可见一斑。
Liu did something else unprecedented. He apologized to the peasants for the misrule the Communists had brought. After nearly forty years away, he said, “I am shocked to see my fellow-villagers are leading such a harsh life … I feel responsible for causing so much suffering to you, and I must apologise …” He started to sob, and bowed to the villagers.
他甚至公开向老百姓道歉，临别时对村民说：“四十年没有回过家乡了，没想到父老乡亲们今天的生活这么苦，没想到解放十多年了家乡还是这么贫困……看到这些，我心里很难过，我对不起大家，对不起各位父老乡亲呀……”他哽咽得说不出话来，低低地向大家鞠了一躬。
The trip marked Liu profoundly. After he returned to Peking, he told the top managers: “We cannot go on like this.”
回到北京后，刘少奇在中央工作会议上说：“我看是到时候了，再不能继续这样搞下去了。”
IN AUGUST 1961, as autumn harvest time approached, Mao once again gathered his managers under the clouds of Mount Lushan to fix the food extraction figures. Liu pressed him to set them lower. The two men had many arguments, and the tension in their relationship seeped through to their outward behavior, as the teenage son of a provincial boss observed. He was swimming in the reservoir with other children of high officials when Mao arrived. The children clambered excitedly onto the wooden platform where Mao was sitting with bodyguards and dancing girls. The boy told Mao he had swallowed some water while swimming. Mao said: “It's nothing to be choked by thousands of mouthfuls of water when swimming, you have to be choked by ten thousand mouthfuls before you master it.” Choking when learning to swim was a metaphor for “learning comes at a price,” one that Mao often enlisted to explain away his repeated economic disasters.
秋收在即，毛泽东在一九六一年八月再上庐山，决定征粮数字。毛、刘之间的争论和紧张关系，连江西省一位负责人的十几岁儿子都注意到了。这个男孩在庐山上的人工湖里游泳。他看见毛来了，坐在湖中一个三十多平方公尺的木头平台上，身边簇拥着警卫与歌舞团女演员。男孩兴奋地爬了上去，对毛说他游泳喝了水。毛说：“这算什么，喝一万口水才能学会游泳，你就喝了几千口。”学游泳得喝水是毛常用的比喻，跟“交学费”一样，是他把中国经济搞得一塌糊涂的藉口。
Soon Liu Shao-chi swam over with his bodyguards, and climbed onto the platform. He and Mao did not exchange so much as a nod. They just sat apart, in a space of about 30 square meters, smoking, not speaking a word. The boy remembered wondering: “How come they don't greet each other?”
不一会儿，刘少奇由四个警卫陪着也游过来了，上平台以后，他跟毛一句话也没说，连头也没点一下。小小平台，两人各自坐一头，各抽各的烟。男孩纳闷地想：“他们为什么不说话呢？”
Mao's other colleagues had also been trying to reason with him. After touring an old Red base area in Hebei, Chou En-lai told Mao that people “have only tree leaves, salted vegetables and wild herbs, and absolutely nothing else. There is genuinely no grain left.” Mao was mightily irritated, and once, while Chou was describing what he had seen, snapped: “What's all the fuss about?”
毛的其他同事也劝他改变政策。周恩来到河北老根据地视察回来后对毛说：“除了树叶、咸菜、野菜以外，就没有东西了，硬是没有存粮。”毛听了烦得要死。在庐山上，有一次周恩来发言，毛插话说：“错误就是那么一点，有什么了不得！”
Nevertheless, under intense pressure at Lushan, Mao accepted a cut in food requisitions of over 34 percent from the figure he had set at the beginning of the year. As a result, deaths from starvation in 1961 fell by nearly half from the year before—though they still approached 12 million.
毛最终答应了降低征粮数字，比他在年初时定的降低百分之三十四。这一来，一九六一年饿死的人比上一年减少一半，可还是饿死了近一千二百万。
Mao made this concession partly because a large number of big industrial projects were having to be closed down anyway as a result of the lack of essentials like steel, coal and electricity. Closing them down was a good idea, as they had caused stupendous waste, but the result was huge upheaval, in which over 26 million people lost their jobs. Most of these had been sucked into the cities in the past three years; now they were kicked back to their villages—the largest such yo-yo movement of population in human history. “How wonderful our Chinese people and our cadres are!” Mao exclaimed. “Twenty million people: we call and they come; we dismiss and they go.” He continued: “Which party can manage this except the Communist Party?” Once back in their villages, these people lost whatever borderline livelihood and welfare guaranteed them as factory workers. In addition, families were broken up if one spouse was accorded an urban job and did not wish to go and live as a peasant and face starvation. Such couples faced the prospect of living permanently apart, allowed only twelve days a year together.
毛的让步有部分原因是众多工业项目由于缺乏钢铁、煤炭、电力等而不得不“下马”。下马当然是好事，可是精简下来的两千六百万人却被简单地扔回到饥饿的乡下去。这些人中大多数是在过去三年中从农村招上来的。人类有史以来还没有哪个政府把这么多人任意地赶来赶去。毛赞扬道：“我们的中国人民、我们的广大干部，好呀！叫做两千万人呼之则来，挥之则去，不是共产党当权，哪个党能办到？””一朝回到村子里，这些人便失去了在城里享受的定量供应的粮食，和微薄的福利待遇。
But having conceded lower food levies in 1961, Mao warned his audience at Lushan: “We have retreated to the bottom of the valley,” meaning the only way requisitioning could go from there on was up. Next year, his managers were told, the levies would have to rise again.
点头答应降低征粮数字的同时，毛警告庐山上的中共要员们：“现在是退到谷底了”。周恩来离开庐山后对他的部下说：“今年为了缓农民的气，在庐山把粮棉油的征购数目搞低了。”“但是，不能说明年还是这样。农村明年就得回升。”
To anyone in his court who might be contemplating drastic measures against him, Mao sent a warning signal through a somewhat unusual channel, the visiting retired British Field Marshal Montgomery. Quite unprompted, Mao told Montgomery: “I am prepared for destruction any time,” before launching into five possible ways he might be assassinated: “shooting to death by enemies, a plane crash, a train crash, drowning, and killing with germs. I have made preparations for all these five ways.” As it was standard procedure for Mao's talks with foreigners to be circulated among top leaders, Mao was serving notice on his colleagues: Don't try anything. I have taken precautions.
由于来年又要饿死更多的人，毛担心会有人对他采取激烈手段，他用一种别出心裁的方式发出警告。当时英国陆军元帅蒙哥马利访华，毛在接见他时说：“我随时准备灭亡。”接着他讲了五种死法：被敌人开枪打死；坐飞机摔死；坐火车翻车翻死；游泳时淹死；生病被细菌杀死。最后说：“这五条，我都已准备了。”毛跟外国人的谈话政治局的人能看到，毛这是在告诫他们：我随时都有准备，你们不要心存妄想！
Mao had reason to worry. Even his Praetorian Guard, the people he relied on for his life, voiced bitter sentiments against him. “Where is all this grain that has been harvested?” one soldier said. “Is it Chairman Mao's order that people should only eat grass?” asked another. “He can't just take no notice of whether people live or die …” Yet another: “Now the folks in the villages don't even have the food that dogs used to eat. In the old days, dogs had chaff and grain … And the commune members are saying: Does Chairman Mao want to starve us all to death?” The Guards were promptly purged.
毛对他性命的担忧不是没有根据。甚至在中央警卫团里，在那些保卫他的人中，对他都是怨声载道。警卫团负责人汪东兴一九六一年初给毛的(关于中央警卫团的思想情况的报告)说：“战士董方会说：‘毛主席住在北京，知道不知道农民生活？粮食打那么多都到哪里去了？’战士许国乱说：‘叫人们吃菜是不是毛主席下的命令？中南海修建工人每月六十斤粮食还没劲呢，农民光吃菜和白薯，吃不到粮食。不能不管老百姓的死活。’战士张立臣说：’现在农村老百姓吃的连狗都不如，过去狗还能吃到糠和粮食，现在人饿得没劲，小猪饿得站不起来。社员反映说：毛主席是不是叫我们饿死。’”中央警卫团因此受到狠狠的清洗。
A MORE URGENT CONCERN for Mao in September 1961 was the chance of losing power at a Party congress. Mao's “biggest worry,” Lin Biao wrote in his diary, “is whether he can get the majority in a vote.” And a congress was due that very month. The previous one had been held in September 1956, and the Party charter stipulated one every five years. Mao had to fend off the threat of being deposed.
近在眼前的威胁是在党代表大会上被选掉，或者落到有职无权的地步。最了解毛的林彪在笔记里写道：“他最大忧虑在表决时能占多数否。”一九六一年九月，照党章规定中共应该开“九大”。毛得尽一切努力避免“九大”。
As far back as 1959, Mao had sensed profound discontent towards him among the top echelon. “If you don't vote for me,” he had told a Party plenum then, “so be it.” Since then, officials had been shattered by the impact of the famine. At Party gatherings in the provinces, cadres would burst into tears when reporting what they had seen in the villages. Moreover, Mao's policies had brought starvation to themselves and their families. Their monthly rations were about 10 kg of rice, a few ounces of cooking oil and a small lump of meat. In Zhongnanhai, officials like Liu's staff grew wheat and vegetables outside their offices to supplement their inadequate rations. Hunger had made Mao's officials almost universally yearn for a change of policy.
早在一九五九年，毛已经感到中共高层对他政策的强烈不满。他在四月的讲话提纲里写道：“如果你们不投我的票了，拉倒。”随后的大饥荒强烈地震撼了中共干部，有代表性的是安徽一九六一年元月开的五级干部扩大会。“会上讲话的有百分之九十以上是家里死了人的，他们在吐(冤)气时，百分之百的悲痛流泪。会场上看到他们哭，特别是大量人口死亡的情景，都十分沉痛。绝大部分同志部被感动得心痛流泪多次。有不少人自上午诉苦开始，到下午七点钟散会终止，眼泪都没有干过，尤其是妇女，哭得更厉害。”
中共干部和他们的家庭都得勒紧裤带，一人一个月二十来斤粮、几两油、一点点肉。在中南海的红墙内，刘少奇的身边工作人员因为吃不饱饭，把花园和草坪改成了菜地。饥饿使毛的干部们几乎人人都渴望改变政策。
Mao tried to deflect dissatisfaction by his usual method of designating scapegoats. The people he picked on were first of all village cadres, whom he blamed for “beating people up and beating them to death,” and for “causing grain harvests to drop and people not to have enough food to eat.” Next he blamed the Russians, and his third scapegoat was “extraordinarily big natural calamities.” As a matter of fact, meteorological records show that not only were there no natural calamities in the famine years, but the weather was better than average. But even if cadres had no general picture, and half believed Mao, hungry officials still felt that something must be terribly wrong with the way their Party was running the country if the entire population, including themselves, was brought to such a state of wretchedness.
毛把责任推到基层干部头上，说问题的原因是“坏人当权，打人死人，粮食减产，吃不饱饭”。他又怪罪于苏联“现代修正主义”。他还说中国发生了“特大的天灾”。根据气象记录，大饥荒的几年不但没有全国性的天灾，天气还比一般年景好。干部们对全面情况不了解，毛的嫁祸于人还能骗些人。但是，看到全国人人都在饿肚子，大批饿死人，干部们不能不感到自己的党总是有点什么问题。
Mao also tried to win his cadres' sympathy vote by announcing to Party members that he would “share weal and woe with the nation,” and give up eating meat. In fact, all he did, for a while, was to eat fish instead, which he loved anyway. Nor did his meatless regime last long. Indeed, it was right in the middle of the famine that he developed a fancy for meat-rich European cuisine. On 26 April 1961, a comprehensive set of European menus was presented to him, under seven headings: seafood, chicken, duck, pork, lamb, beef and soup—each with scores of dishes.
为了唤起对他本人的好感，毛向全党宣布他要“跟全国人民同甘共苦”，不吃肉了。的确，在一个短时间内他不吃肉了，但他在吃鱼，毛最喜欢吃鱼。在大饥荒期间，他还对以肉食为主的西餐发生了兴趣。一九六一年四月二十六日，毛身边工作人员会同厨师为毛精心制定了一份西餐菜谱，包括七大西菜系列：鱼、虾、鸡、鸭、猪肉、羊肉、牛肉。鱼虾类列有：
“蒸鱼布丁、铁扒桂鱼、煎(炸)桂鱼、软炸桂鱼、烤鱼青、莫斯科红烤鱼、吉士百烤鱼、烤青菜鱼，菠菜煮鱼、铁扒大虾、烤虾圭、虾面盒、炸大虾、咖喱大虾、罐焖大虾、软炸大虾、生菜大虾”等等。鸡类包括：“黄油鸡卷(鸡排)、软煎鸡排、鸡肉饼、鸡肉元，大王鸡肉饼、鸡肉丝、罐焖鸡、红焖鸡、葱头焖鸡、青菜焖鸡、纸包鸡、鸡丁敏士，椰子鸡，奶油鸡”。猪肉类有：“烤猪排、烤猪腿，炸猪里脊、炸猪排、溜猪排、法国猪排、意式奶猪”等等。至于牛羊肉，毛不是很喜欢，但也有不少品种：“羊肉串、烤羊腿、烤马肉、白烩羊肉、煎羊排、煎羊肝、牛扒、煎牛肉、咖喱牛肉、伏太牛肉、酸牛肉、烩牛尾……”
毛身边工作人员看得到毛在吃什么，他们自己和家人吃的又是什么。毛对他们说他的好东西都是“人民给我的待遇”，别人“没有权利”享用。毛的管家偷偷拿了点毛的食品回家，被发现后送到北大荒劳动改造，从此杳无音信。
Mao went to the greatest lengths to keep his daily life completely secret. His daughter Li Na was boarding at the university, so she lived during the week on normal rations and was starving. After one weekend at home, she smuggled a few of her father's usual luxuries out of the house. Mao ordered her never to do it again. Nothing must puncture the illusion that he was tightening his belt along with the rest of the nation. As a result, Li Na contracted edema in 1960 and she stopped menstruating. The following year she abandoned the university altogether and stayed at home.
由于资讯封锁，人们根本不了解毛的真实生活。他的女儿李讷那时在大学住校，在学校里跟大家一样饿肚子。毛很高兴她这样，他要的就是人们看到他的女儿也在挨饿。李讷周末回家可以吃到好东西。一次她从家里带了点回学校，毛知道后说“影响不好”， 火气上来还拍了桌子。毛要人们以为他在跟大家共患难。结果，李讷一九六0年得了浮肿病，月经也停了，第二年干脆休学待在家里。”
To his staff, who could see what Mao was eating, and who themselves were half-starved, like their families, Mao claimed that his food was a reward to him “from the People,” and that others had “no right” to it. When Mao's housekeeper took some scraps home, he found himself exiled to the freezing Great Northern Wilderness and was never heard of again.
Mao's attempt to win the sympathy vote did not work; the deprivation was just too great. One of the things that had completely disappeared was soap, because Mao was exporting the fat required to make it. Mao wanted people to accept doing without soap, so he told the Party that he himself was forgoing the use of soap to wash his hands. “Of course he doesn't use soap,” one official snapped, in private. “He doesn't do any proper work!” Senior officials were saying other unthinkable things to one another such as: “Why doesn't he just kick off!” Mao knew what bitter comments they were making. One remark that reached his ears was: “If what's happening had happened in the past, the ruler would have had to resign long ago.”
但即使毛制造了个“共患难”的形象，又能怎么样？那也填不饱肚子啊。人们饿得太惨了，生活中最基本的东西也没有。比方说，肥皂成了稀罕物件，因为造肥皂用的油类都出口去了。毛发议论说：“可以不造肥皂嘛，我可以一辈子不用肥皂嘛！” 当上面传达说毛如何“艰苦朴素”、不用肥皂时，有的干部背地里反唇相讥：“他当然不用，他什么事也不干！”还有些相当高极的干部甚至彼此议论：“他怎么不死嘛！ 他死了别人好工作嘛！”毛对众人的反感当然有所风闻，女儿娇娇去给杨开慧扫墓时，听见人们咒骂毛，回来告诉了毛。毛也知道有人在说：“要是过去发生这种情况，早就改该“下诏引咎”了。”
When Mao's daughter Chiao-chiao went to sweep the tomb of his late wife Kai-hui, she heard people cursing Mao, and reported it back to him.
When the purged former defense minister Peng De-huai, who had been under house arrest since 1959, was allowed to visit his home area in October 1961, he got a very warm welcome from officials as well as ordinary villagers, as they had heard he had been purged for opposing Mao's policies. Two thousand “pilgrims,” some of whom had walked up to 100 km on half-empty stomachs, poured into Peng's old family home to thank him for speaking up. Peng talked till he lost his voice.
受软禁的彭德怀一九六一年十月被允许回乡一次。从地方干部到普通村民都听说他为老百姓仗义执言受了罪，给了他英雄般的欢迎。一两千人涌到他下榻的老屋来看他，有的拖着半饥半饱的身子走了一百多公里路。人们跟他有说不完的话，彭德怀天天不停地讲，嗓子都讲哑了。
If the scheduled congress met and held a vote, there was a strong possibility that Mao would be voted out. His fears were spelled out later by one of his closest henchmen (Zhang Chun-qiao, one of the notorious “Gang of Four”): “If the old Party charter had been followed, and the 9th Congress had been held then … Liu Shao-chi would have become the Chairman …”
如果这时按党章规定召开“九大”，毛有可能被选掉。文革中“四人帮”之一张春桥道明了毛的担心：“想想多可怕，如果运动[文革]前召开“九大”， 很可能刘少奇当主席，毛主席做名誉主席。”
Many officials called for a congress to be convened to address the catastrophic situation. Mao vetoed the idea, and came up with the device of convening a conference that would not have voting powers, thus averting the threat of being removed. The conference would be attended by the top few people in each ministry, province, city, region, county and major industrial enterprise.
干部们纷纷要求召开党代会，讨论这前所未有的大灾难。毛泽东决定“九大”不开了。他想了个主意，开一个不存在选举问题的大会。全国各部委、省市、地县、大厂矿，都派第一、二把手等几个人来北京开会。
In January 1962, these officials—7,000 in all—came to Peking from all over China for the largest gathering in the Party's history, known as the Conference of the Seven Thousand. It proved to be a landmark, because it was after this conference that famine was brought to a halt. But what is little known is that this victory was only secured by Liu Shao-chi ambushing Mao.
这就是一九六二年一月的“七千人大会”，中共党史上规模最大的会议。这是一次里程碑式的会议，因为大饥荒就是在会后停止的。可是人们至今不知道，这一成就的取得，是由于刘少奇在会上对毛搞“突然袭击”。
When he called the conference, Mao had had no intention of stopping his deadly policies. On the contrary, his aim had been to use the occasion to spur on his officials, so that they would go back home and turn the screws tighter. He had said then to his inner circle: “It's not the case that we don't have things [food]. True, there are not enough pigs, but there are plenty of other foods. We just don't seem to be able to lay our hands on them. We need a spur.”
毛召开七千人大会，完全没有改变政策的意思。他在提议开会的时候指鹿为马地说：“现在不是没有东西[指农产品]，猪是少，但其他有，就是收不上来。”毛还说一九六二年要大抓“大跃進”。毛想让大会像橡皮图章一样认可他的政策，逼代表们回去继续横征暴敛。
The method Mao used to lay down his line was to give the delegates the text of the keynote speech before it was delivered. The text glossed over past disasters, which were only vaguely and briefly referred to as “mistakes,” before announcing that “the most difficult time is over.” Most ominously, it not only claimed that “our domestic situation is on the whole good,” but also declared that there would be another Great Leap in the coming years.
毛照老办法把参加会议的人按行政大区分成小祖，由大区的第一书记掌握，使代表们在顶头上司面前不敢乱说话。一月十一日大会开始那天，没有开全体会议宣布开幕，代表们每人领到一份事先准备好的《书面报告》，要他们在小组内学习讨论。毛这是在给大会定调子。报告说：“我们的国内形势，总的来说，是好的。”“我们最困难的时期已经度过了”，“将進入一个新的大发展的时期”。报告提到“缺点和错误”，但具体是什么？ 责任何在，非常含糊。
The delegates were told to voice their views, and that their amendments would be taken into account before the speech was delivered. But Mao made sure it was extremely hard for anyone to speak up, by organizing the discussions in groups, each chaired by an intimidating henchman. Anyone who ventured sharper questions was instantly gagged with heavy-handed threats. As one brave delegate wrote in an anonymous letter to the leadership, the sessions were simply “for everyone to sit there and kill time.”
代表们得到通知，要讲责任就只能讲自己的责任，“不要把责任往上推，往下推。” 有人给省委提了意见，被一棒子打回来，叫他们“发言要端正”。正如一位勇敢的代表给毛和中央写信说的：开会就是“大家坐在那里磨时间”。
This went on for two weeks. Mao kept tabs on the delegates, and smugly read discussion bulletins while lounging in bed in his girlfriends' arms. His plan was that Liu Shao-chi would deliver the finalized speech to the one and only plenary session on 27 January, and the conference would then close. His program would thus be set in stone, and Liu and all the participants would be co-responsible.
磨时间毛很中意。会埸设在天安们广场上的人民大会堂，舆中南海遥遥相望。毛在那里有间套房，照他一贯的保密作风叫“一一八”。每天毛躺在大床上，由女伴陪着翻看大会简报，看各组人都说了些什么。他的计划是一月二十七日来个仅此一次的全体会议，由刘少奇念讨论后的《书面报告》，然后宣布大会结束。这个过场一走，他的政策，过去的、未来的，还有他本人，就等于被大会集体认可。
BUT MAO'S COZY PLAN fell apart. On the 27th, Liu did something that took Mao utterly by surprise. With Mao in the chair, Liu gave a different speech from the circulated keynote text he was supposed to deliver.
一月二十七日，一个值得载入史册的日子。在这天的全体会议上，一向谨慎小心的刘少奇，当着毛泽东的面，对着七千名中共政权骨干，讲了一番跟《书面报告》迥然不同的话。
With this huge audience of all the 7,000 top officials in the country listening, Liu laid into Mao's policies. “People do not have enough food, clothes or other essentials,” he said; “agricultural output, far from rising in 1959, 1960 and 1961, dropped, not a little, but tremendously … there is not only no Great Leap Forward, but a great deal of falling backward.” Liu dismissed the official explanation for the calamities, saying there was “no serious bad weather” in the areas he had visited, nor, he strongly hinted, anywhere. He called on delegates to question the new Leap that Mao had advocated, and raised the possibility of scrapping the communes and even the Mao-style industrialization program.
刘说，形势不好，“人民吃的粗食不够，副食品不够，肉、油等东西不够；穿的也不够，布太少了；用的也不那么够。就是说，人民的吃、穿、用都不足。”“我们原来以为，在农业和工业方面，这几年都会有大跃進。……可是，现在不仅没有進，反而退了许多”。刘又说：“产生困难的原因是“三分天灾，七分人祸””， “天灾的碓不是那么严重”。他甚至暗示要重新考虑毛的治国方针：“三面红旗[总路线、大跃進、人民公社]，我们现在都不取消，都继续保持……但是再经过五年、十年以后，我们再来总结经验。”
Liu established beyond a glimmer of a doubt that past policies had been disastrous, and had to be discarded. He openly rejected a standard Mao formula that “Mistakes are only one finger whereas achievements are nine fingers.” This, he said flatly, was untrue. When Mao cut in and insisted it was true in many places, Liu contradicted him.
毛泽东一贯把他制造的灾难说成是“一个指头和九个指头的关系”。刘少奇直接针对毛说：“过去我们经常把缺点、错误和成绩，比之于一个指头和九个指头的关系。现在恐怕不能到处这样套。”毛马上插话说：一个指头和九个指头这种地区不少。刘反驳说：“可是，全国总起来讲，缺点和成绩的关系，就不能说是一个指头和九个指头的关系……你不承认，人家就不服。全国有一部分地区可以说缺点和错误是主要的，成绩不是主要的。”
Liu's speech brought a torrential response from his audience, who could hardly wait to raise their voices. The discussions that day took on a totally different tone and mood. Now they knew that the president was behind them, delegates spoke their minds, condemning the old policies passionately, and insisting they absolutely must not be repeated.
刘的讲话在与会者心里激起强烈共鸣。有国家主席出头，当天的小组讨论就像洪水开了闸，与前些天大不一样。干部们争先恐后地发言，说出自己的真实想法，反对大跃進政策再继续下去。激烈的声音一浪高过一浪。
Mao had not expected the normally ultra-prudent Liu to pull a fast one. Inwardly, he was black with rage, but he decided it was wise to hold his fire, as Liu clearly had the support of the 7,000 participants, and Mao could not afford to have a head-on collision with this vast body of officials, which included just about everybody who ran the country. So he had to pretend there were no differences between himself and them. His first move was to extend the conference, presenting this as a sympathetic response on his part to the delegates' sentiments, telling them it was so they could “get their anger off their chest” (chu-qi). Privately he was fuming, and called it “letting their farts off” (fang-pi).
毛做梦也没想到，自己亲手提拔的刘少奇居然会来这么一下。刘不念《书面报告》，是毛会前同意的，说刘可以“放开讲一讲”。毛的狂怒不难想像。但毛压住怒火。刘显然有七千名中共政权骨干的支持，毛不能跟他们硬碰硬。他也不能把代表们现在就放走，要先把对他的损害减少到最低程度再说。于是毛装作他跟刘之间并无不同政策的样子，宣布延长会议，对代表们说这是让他们“出气”：“白天出气，晚上看戏，两干一稀，大家满意。”背地里，他把最后一句改为“完全放屁”。
Mao plunged into damage control, to kill any idea that he was responsible for the famine. He designated some provincial bosses and agricultural chiefs and planners to make speeches taking responsibility for the disasters, thus implicitly exonerating him. But his most important maneuver was to wheel out his crony, Defense Minister Lin Biao, who was the first person to speak after the conference was extended, on 29 January. The marshal had started his collusion with Mao as far back as 1929, and he was someone Mao could rely on for support, however awful the cause.
毛采取紧急步骤，把老搭档、国防部长林彪即刻推出来保驾。一月二十九日，再开全体会议时，第一个讲话的就是林彪。林彪大谈这些年只是有“一些缺点”，是必要的“付学费”， 说什么“事实证明，这些困难恰恰是由于我们有许多事情没有按照毛主席的指示去做而造成的，如果按照毛主席的指示去做，如都听毛主席的话，那么，困难会小得多，弯路会弯得小一些。”“毛主席的思想总是正确的”。林讲完后，毛第一个鼓掌，跟着自己向大会宣布：“林彪同志讲了一篇很好的讲话。”林彪救了毛。
To the 7,000, Lin Biao trotted out the kind of heartless clichés Mao loved to hear: disasters were inevitable “tuition fees”; Chairman Mao's ideas were “always correct”; “in times of difficulty … we must all the more follow Chairman Mao.” When he finished, Mao was the first to clap, and praised Lin fulsomely to the audience. Only now did Mao feel safe enough to hint at his loathing for what Liu Shao-chi had done, using an ominous expression that amounted to “I'll get you later.” Lin Biao had saved Mao's bacon.
只是在这时，毛才胆敢威胁刘少奇。夸奖林彪后，他不阴不阳地说：“少奇同志的口头报告，口说无凭，也请他整理一下。”“口说无凭”四个字，埋下了杀机。
林彪讲话之后，毛叫各省领导和中央管农业的、管经济的，一一上台检讨自己，承担责任，为他开脱。
Once he saw Lin Biao appear, Liu Shao-chi's heart sank. His widow told us that Liu murmured: “Lin Biao comes, and talks like this. Trouble.” This total solidarity with Mao from the army chief, expressed in the kind of peremptory language which signaled that there could be no rational debate, immediately cast a frightening shadow over the participants. In the following days, they toned down their language and the ways they expressed their anger, though continuing to criticize the disastrous economic policies. The result was that Mao's policies did not get the scrutiny and forceful condemnation Liu had hoped for. And no one dared to criticize Mao directly, least of all by name.
刘少奇明白事情糟了。据他夫人讲，他喃喃地说：“林彪来，又那么说，有问题。” 掌握军队的元帅这样百分之百地站在毛一边，用的又是强词夺理的专横讲法，立刻使代表们小心翼翼，不敢放开揭问题，更不敢抨击毛。结果，大会没有像刘希望的那样彻底改变毛的政策。
Nonetheless, Mao could feel the force of the sentiment of the 7,000, and felt compelled to produce a “self-criticism” in front of them, on 30 January—his first ever since coming to power in 1949. Although he characteristically made it sound as if the disasters had been other people's fault and that he was rather altruistically accepting the blame, using carefully slanted formulae like “I am responsible … because I am the Chairman,” he had to admit that there was much to be blamed for. Having made this admission, Mao had to swallow a policy change. He was forced to abandon the lethal scale of food levies planned for 1962 and onwards. As a result, tens of millions of people were spared death by starvation.
毛总得对七千人有个交代，在三十日那天做了个“自我批评”，这是掌权以来的头一遭。他仔细地遗词造句，给人的印象是他在以高姿态承担责任：“凡是中央犯的错误，直接的归我负责，间接的我也有份，因为我是中央主席。”但既然承认犯了错误，毛只好改变政策。他被迫容忍从一九六二年起，把征粮指标大幅度降低。数千万人因此免于一死。
AS SOON AS the conference was over, on 7 February, Mao stormed off to Shanghai to be among his cronies, under local boss Ke Qing-shi. He had to take a back seat while Liu and his other colleagues, mainly Chou En-lai, Chen Yun and a rising star, Deng Xiao-ping, made major changes to his policies. Requisitioning was greatly lowered. Costly and unrealistic projects like nuclear submarines were suspended, although the basic nuclear program was unaffected. Spending on arms factories was enormously scaled down, while consumer goods industries received unprecedented funding. In a blow to the promotion of Maoism, overseas aid was slashed drastically—to virtually zero for the year. Mao's extravagance had been extremely unpopular with officials who knew about it. The man who ran military aid later wrote: “Every time I saw foreigners' smiling faces after signing yet another aid agreement, my heart would be filled with guilt towards my own people.”
二月七日，七千人大会一结束，毛就甩袖子去了上海，跟亲信柯庆施待在一起。在随后的日子里，毛眼看着刘少奇和周恩来、陈云、邓小平等人，对他的政策作了大量修改。虽然基础性的核项目未受影响，但核潜艇一类昂贵而又不切实际的项目下马了。军工投资减少了，而对民生工业的投资大增。向世界推销毛主义的努力也受了点挫折，一九六二年的外援几乎等于零。毛的大把对外撒钱但凡知道点内幕的人没有不心痛的，曾具体承办对外军援的总参外事局常务副局长朱开印说：“每看到一次援助协议的签署后外国人的笑脸时，我内心就会产生一种对人民犯了罪的沉痛之感！”
Investment in agriculture rose sharply. In many places, peasants were allowed to lease land from the commune, and effectively were able to return to being individual farmers. This alleviated starvation and motivated productivity. It was in defense of this practice that Deng Xiao-ping quoted an old saying, which became his most famous remark: “It doesn't matter whether it's a yellow cat or a black cat, as long as it catches mice.” In the cities, working hours were reduced so that the malnourished population could recover some energy, and this also allowed more private time and family life. In less than a year people's lives improved perceptibly. By and large, deaths from hunger stopped.
对农业的投资史无前例。许多地方还实行“包产到户”、“责任田”， 缓解了饥荒，调动了农民生产积极性。就是在为这一政策辩护的背景下，邓小平说了那句着名的话：“黄猫、黑猫，只要捉住老鼠就是好猫。”城里人的工作时间缩短了。人民得以休养生息，多了一些家庭生活和个人支配的时间。不到一年，人民的生活明显改善，也很少再饿死人。
The regime even allowed a number of people to leave the country. Normally, people trying to escape abroad were sent to labor camps, but now the authorities opened the fence to Hong Kong for a few days to let some 50,000 people flee. Border guards even lent a hand to lift children over the barbed wire.
中共政权甚至允许一批人出境。通常试图越境的人抓住后不是劳改就是枪毙。这次当局在通往香港的边界铁丝网上开了个大口子，让五万人逃出去。那些天香港新界遍野都是人在跑，抓住这个千载难逢的机会往外跑。边防军还帮助把小孩举起来送过铁丝网。
The year 1962 was to be one of the most liberal periods since Mao's reign had begun. That spring, Liu and his colleagues rehabilitated wholesale those condemned following the purge of Peng De-huai in 1959, who totaled a staggering 10 million. Some “Rightists” (victimized in 1957–58) were also rehabilitated. In the arts and literature a host of creations burst forth. It had taken tens of millions of deaths to bring this degree of relief to the survivors. It was also in this year that the Panchen Lama felt able to write to Chou En-lai, chronicling the brutality the Tibetans had suffered. There was some relaxation in Tibet; some monasteries were restored and religious practices tolerated.
一九六二年，中国享受着毛上台后罕有的放松的时光。刘少奇等人为一九五九年庐山会议后被打成右倾机会主义分子的一千万人平反，同时试图给五七到五八年打的右派分子“摘帽”。文学艺术有了点欣欣向荣的景象。正是在这一年，班禅喇嘛敢于把他的七万言书交给周恩来。西藏的状况有了好转，抓的人在放，有的寺庙在修复，藏民的生活方式、风俗习惯得到些尊重。
BEING FORCED TO change policy by his own Party—without the backing of Moscow—was the biggest setback Mao had suffered since taking power. First he had been outsmarted by the seemingly ultra-cautious Liu. Then he had effectively been given the thumbs-down by virtually all of the stratum that ran the country. From this moment on, Mao nurtured a volcanic hatred for Liu and the officials who had attended the conference—as well as for his Party, which these people obviously represented. He was out for revenge. The president of China and the backbone of his Party were his target. That is why, a few years later, he launched his Great Purge, the Cultural Revolution, in which Liu and most of the officials in that hall, and numerous others, were to be put through hell. As Mme Mao spelled out, Mao had “choked back this grievance at the Conference of the Seven Thousand, and was only able to avenge it in the Cultural Revolution.” Of course Mao was not just in quest of revenge, savage and devastating though that was. It was obvious to him that this set of officials was not prepared to run the country the way he wanted. He would purge them and install new enforcers.
刘少奇在七千人大会上的“突然袭击”对毛的惊吓，在毛掌权后还是第一次。毛最害怕突然袭击，只有这才可能使他转瞬间失去权力。毛恨刘少奇，恨之入骨。他也恨参加会议的人，因为他们跟刘站在一起，迫使他改变政策。复仇成了毛刻骨铭心的愿望。这就是为什么在数年之后，毛发起文化大革命，让刘少奇、与会的绝大部分人、以及他们代表的其他干部，都饱受折磨，甚至付出生命的代价。就像江青所说：毛“七千人大会憋了一口气，直到文化大革命才出了这口气。”文革不光是复仇，也是大换班。毛看得很明白，现有干部不愿意按他的意图来管理国家。他要清洗他们，换上另一套人马。
Quite a few left the conference with a sense of foreboding for Liu. Liu himself knew that this was the biggest turning-point in his life, but he had decided that his priority was to fend off more tens of millions of deaths. During this period the normally reserved Liu was unusually passionate and vocal about the plight of the Chinese people, who had suffered so terribly at the hands of the regime of which he was a leading member.
参加七千人大会的不少人既佩服刘少奇，又为刘担心。刘本人也知道，这是他一生中最大的转折点，毛决不会饶了他。但是面对数千万人继续饿死的前景，刘少奇于心不忍，不得不挺而走险。在这一段“非常时期”里，通常沉默寡言、喜怒哀乐不形于色的刘，是不寻常的冲动，不寻常的慷慨激昂，有着“豁出去”了的气概。
Over the next few years, Liu and his like-minded colleagues worked at getting the economy back into shape—while Mao planned revenge.
几年过去了。刘少奇等人在着力于恢复中国的元气，而毛泽东，他在策划复仇。