Zhu Jiamu: Chen Yun's Contributions to the Northeast Liberation War
The Northeast Liberation War held crucial strategic significance within the national Liberation War. On the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Mao Zedong pointed out with great acuity: "Looking at the prospects for the Chinese revolution in the near future, the Northeast is particularly important. If we lose all our existing base areas, as long as we have the Northeast, the Chinese revolution will have a solid foundation." Mao spoke this way because, at that time, the Northeast not only contained the vast majority of China's heavy industry but also possessed fertile soil, abundant grain, an advanced railway network, and convenient transportation, all of which could provide our Party with substantial material support. Consequently, after Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945, the Party Central Committee immediately formulated the policy of "developing toward the north and defending toward the south," instructing troops from North and East China to advance rapidly into the Northeast. The Northeast Bureau was established, with Peng Zhen as Secretary and Chen Yun as one of four committee members, seeking to control the Northeast as quickly as possible. Over the subsequent four years, Chen Yun and other comrades of the Northeast Bureau lived up to their mission, devoting their heart and soul [1] to achieving and consolidating victory in the Northeast. Chen Yun’s contributions were primarily manifested in the following five areas:
I. Proposing far-sighted recommendations regarding the Party's correct work policies in the Northeast
When the leadership of the Northeast Bureau, including Peng Zhen and Chen Yun, arrived in Shenyang—then occupied by the Soviet Army—the first question they encountered was: where should the focus of the Party's work be placed? After conducting investigation and research, particularly after arriving in Harbin via Changchun in mid-November 1945 to serve as Secretary of the North Manchuria Sub-Bureau, Chen Yun gradually clarified three points of understanding. First, although the Soviet Union would help us, they were constrained by agreements signed with the Kuomintang (KMT) government and were required to hand over major cities and trunk railway lines to the KMT; therefore, it was impossible for our Party to establish a foothold in these areas from the start. Second, while the United States appeared to mediate the dispute between the KMT and the Communist Party on the surface, it would certainly use its naval and air forces to help Chiang Kai-shek transport troops to the Northeast; thus, it was impossible for our Party to "dominate the Northeast" alone from the beginning. Third, although some sections of the masses in the Northeast had some understanding of our Party through the fourteen years of arduous struggle by the Anti-Japanese United Army [2], compared to the regions "inside the Pass" [3], our Party generally lacked a mass base in the Northeast. Therefore, the urgent task was to utilize the favorable conditions before the Soviet withdrawal to disperse troops from the large cities to the small and medium-sized cities and the vast countryside surrounding the trunk lines—especially the North Manchuria region near the Soviet Union. There, they would freely mobilize the masses, liquidate traitors, eliminate bandits, and carry out land reform to establish solid base areas.
Chen Yun’s reflections were concentrated in the telegrams of November 29 and 30, 1945, sent by the North Manchuria Sub-Bureau to the Northeast Bureau and the Party Central Committee, which he presided over drafting. One month later, on December 28, Mao Zedong drafted a telegram for the Central Committee to the Northeast Bureau, instructing that the Party’s task in the Northeast was to establish solid military and political base areas. These bases were not to be in large cities or on transport trunks, but in small and medium-sized cities and the vast countryside distant from central cities. The focus of work was to be mass work, liquidating traitors, reducing rents, and increasing wages; the method was to disperse a significant portion of the troops into military sub-districts to mobilize the masses, eliminate bandits, and establish political power. This instruction was later summarized as the eight-character policy of "Leaving the high road, seizing the two sides" [4]. In May 1946, the Northeast Bureau withdrew from Shenyang and moved north until it reached Harbin, where it merged with the North Manchuria Sub-Bureau. In June, the Party Central Committee decided to adjust the leadership of the Northeast Bureau, with Lin Biao becoming Secretary, and Peng Zhen and Chen Yun, among others, serving as members of the Standing Committee. On July 7, the Northeast Bureau passed the "Resolution on the Situation and Tasks" (known as the "July 7th Resolution"), which Chen Yun had presided over drafting, and which was approved for implementation after partial revisions by the Central Committee.
The "July 7th Resolution" summarized nine months of work since the Party entered the Northeast. It determined that the future policy for the Northeast would be to actively mobilize the broad peasant masses and create solid rural base areas, including small and medium-sized cities and secondary railways. It stipulated that the principle for our army's operations was not the temporary gain or loss of territory, but rather luring the enemy in deep to destroy them. It called on Party members to sweep away all thoughts of hesitation or hoping for a "fluke" peace; they were to leave the cities, give up cars, take off their leather shoes, put on peasant clothes, and go to the countryside to mobilize the masses. This played an extremely important role in unifying the thinking of the entire Party and army in the Northeast, earnestly implementing the Central Committee's policy on establishing solid Northeast base areas, and achieving complete victory in the Northeast Liberation War. it signaled that the correct work policy and operational guidance for the Northeast had been established, and that work in the Northeast had entered a new stage.
In a 1985 conversation, Chen Yun recalled: "In the early period of the Northeast Liberation War, there were indeed differences of opinion within the Northeast Bureau regarding work policies... If the Northeast Bureau had not held a meeting in 1946 to produce the 'July 7th Resolution' and change the previous policy, then the result might likely have been that we could not hold the large cities, nor the Northeast as a whole, and the victory of the Liaoshen Campaign [5] would have been delayed." Proved by these words, Chen Yun fully explained the historical role and significance of the "July 7th Resolution."
II. Effectively leading the establishment of the North Manchuria base area
From the moment Chen Yun assumed the post of Secretary of the North Manchuria Sub-Bureau in early November 1945, he began planning and deploying the work for creating the North Manchuria base area. On one hand, he moved quickly to equip the five North Manchurian provinces—Songjiang, Hejiang, Heilongjiang, Nenjiang, and Mudanjiang—with Party, government, and military leadership teams. On the other hand, he actively pushed for the rapid northern deployment of main force units entering the Northeast, providing full guidance for the struggle to suppress bandits, freely mobilizing the peasant movement centered on resolving the land issue, and deeply carrying out the building of the Party and the ranks of cadres. He pointed out: "Whether the masses can be mobilized rapidly and extensively is the key to our success or failure in the Northeast," and proposed that "the county Party committee is the masses' committee, and the masses' committee is the agrarian committee." Addressing the fact that 60% of peasants in North Manchuria were landless, he instructed that the "reclaimed lands" and "Manchurian settlement lands" of the puppet Manchukuo [6] state be distributed to poor peasants. Noting that most large landlords in North Manchuria possessed arms and were often in league with bandits, he required that peasants' consciousness first be raised through economic struggle, then organized to search for and seize arms in the homes of landlords and traitors; only once the peasants were armed would they turn back to further develop the economic struggle—a process summarized as "economy—armament—more economy." Regarding the shortage of cadres in the sparsely populated North Manchuria, he requested that cadres be concentrated for specific periods into "work teams" to mobilize the masses and establish political power in a few selected counties and villages first; after gaining experience, the work would gradually expand. He jokingly referred to this method as the "locust policy." To address the acute shortage of cadres, he constantly reported the situation to his superiors, requesting that large numbers of cadres from "inside the Pass" be assigned to North Manchuria. Simultaneously, he actively and prudently recruited local activists into the Party, allowing cadres to be tempered and tested in the mass struggle. He also paid careful attention to the unity between outside cadres and local ones, and between Northeast-native cadres from "inside the Pass" and original Anti-Japanese United Army cadres. He referred to Northeast-native cadres from "inside the Pass" as "soybeans and sorghum" and the United Army cadres as "forests and coal mines," pointing out that all were precious resources of the Party to be cherished and protected.
It was precisely these measures that allowed the North Manchuria base area to be rapidly established and consolidated. Later, when the KMT launched its massive offensive and the Northeast Bureau organs gradually retreated from Shenyang to North Manchuria, it became the Party's headquarters in the Northeast, the starting point for victory, and the logistical base for the great decisive battles. It provided vital strategic support for the final victory of the Northeast Liberation War.
III. Making the brilliant decision to hold South Manchuria and successfully leading the "Four Defenses of Linjiang" Campaign
In October 1946, under the cover of the ploy "fighting inside the Pass, ceasefire outside the Pass," Chiang Kai-shek redeployed troops to the Northeast, concentrating eight divisions of 100,000 men to launch a three-sided siege of our South Manchuria base area. They compressed it into an area of only five small counties with a population of less than 400,000 and severed the transportation links between North and South Manchuria. Their vain hope was to use the method of "attacking the south while defending the north; south first, then north" to devour our base areas in the east, west, south, and north of the region one by one.
At the time, our main forces in South Manchuria consisted of only two columns (corps) and two independent divisions, with fewer than 40,000 troops, and the narrow geography made it difficult to maneuver. Under these circumstances, whether to fight or withdraw was a point of contention within the South Manchuria Party, government, and military organs, as well as among the leadership of the Northeast Bureau. Facing this critical and complex situation, Chen Yun analyzed and pointed out that South Manchuria was "a vital strategic flank position for the Northeast" and "an important force for pinning down the enemy for North Manchuria." He argued that "holding South Manchuria has significance for the whole Northeast and the whole country." Holding South Manchuria would create a pincer position with North Manchuria, allowing them to support each other; conversely, if South Manchuria were lost, the enemy could focus entirely on North Manchuria, bringing even greater pressure. Furthermore, many soldiers would be sacrificed if the South Manchuria forces retreated north through the Changbai Mountains; if North Manchuria then could not withstand the pressure and retreated into the Soviet Union, many more would be sacrificed during a future counter-offensive. Comparing the two, the sacrifice of holding South Manchuria was less than the sacrifice of abandoning it. Therefore, at the Northeast Bureau meeting, he strongly advocated for holding South Manchuria and volunteered to go there. After the Northeast Bureau reported to and received approval from the Central Committee, it was decided to establish the South Manchuria Sub-Bureau, with Chen Yun as Secretary and Xiao Jingguang as Deputy Secretary; simultaneously, a new Liaodong Military Region was formed with Xiao as Commander and Chen as Political Commissar.
In late November of the same year, Chen, Xiao, and their party entered Linjiang County, the center of the South Manchuria base area, and immediately began work. Through presiding over meetings, talking with Party, government, and military cadres, and writing letters and telegrams to the Northeast Bureau leadership, Chen Yun elaborated on the significance, possibility, and methods for holding South Manchuria. He said the enemy before them was like an ox: the body of the ox was facing toward North Manchuria, while what remained in South Manchuria was only the ox's tail. If we grabbed the ox's tail, it would be extraordinary, placing the enemy in a dilemma; if we let go of the tail, it would be disastrous—South Manchuria could not be held, and North Manchuria would also be in danger. Although the current disparity in strength was vast and the situation grim, we also had advantages. First, our commanders and fighters were fighting for their own interests, so morale was high, whereas most KMT soldiers were conscripts who would turn their guns around as soon as they were captured. Second, land reform had already been carried out in the base areas, and now the peasants, seeing the evils of the KMT army and the "home-going legions" [7], had a better understanding of our Party and would surely support us by sending their sons to serve. Third, base areas had already been established in North, East, and West Manchuria, providing mutual support; especially in winter, when the Songhua River froze, it would be easier for the main forces of North Manchuria to cross and attack the enemy from the rear. Additionally, South Manchuria bordered North Korea to the east, providing a superior geographic location for relocating organs, families, and the wounded, as well as for replenishing ammunition. Thus, after a full exchange of views with local senior cadres, Chen Yun resolutely decided that the South Manchuria units would not leave, but would stay to "wreak havoc in the Heavenly Palace and fly the red flag on the Changbai Mountains" [8]. He, Xiao Jingguang, and other leaders also decided to keep one column in the base area for frontal resistance, while the other column would break through the encirclement to conduct operations in the enemy's rear. Observing the changing military situation, he repeatedly telegraphed North Manchuria to send troops to coordinate with South Manchuria, adopting the method of "hitting in the south to pull the enemy from the north, and hitting in the north to pull the enemy from the south," attacking the enemy from both inside and out.
Under the heroic struggle of the South Manchurian military and civilians and the strong support of the Northeast Bureau, our army spent only four months, through the "Three Dovetails to the South of the River and Four Defenses of Linjiang" Campaign [9], to crush the KMT’s concentrated offensive against South Manchuria. This campaign not only eliminated the danger to the South Manchuria base area but also fundamentally reversed the passive situation of our army in the Northeast theater. it changed the offensive/defensive posture between us and the enemy, realizing a historical turning point from strategic defense to strategic offense in the Northeast. This created the preconditions for the Liaoshen Campaign—the first of the Three Great Campaigns of the Liberation War—to be launched and to achieve complete victory. At a 1948 meeting of senior cadres of the Northeast Bureau, Zhang Wentian, speaking on the issue of holding South Manchuria, said: at that time, facing the enemy's offensive, some advocated relocation and others advocated staying; Chen Yun's arrival played a massive role in changing the situation both inside and outside the Party in South Manchuria. "Only by understanding these things can one understand Chen Yun's role."
IV. Carefully and steadily leading the takeover of Shenyang and creating successful experience for our Party's takeover of large cities
At the outset of the establishment of the Northern Manchuria Sub-Bureau, the organs were moved from Harbin to Bin County [10] in the east; it was not until April 1946, following the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the entry of our army, that they returned to Harbin. However, at that time, the focus of Chen Yun’s work was on the countryside, and later his focus in Southern Manchuria was on the war and land reform, making it impossible to devote too much energy to the cities. Furthermore, Harbin had a relatively small population and a relatively weak industrial base, so it could not be considered a mega-city. However, Shenyang, liberated after the Liaoshen Campaign [11], was different. With a population of over one million, it was the largest industrial and commercial city in the Northeast and the first major city taken over by our Party. How to receive it and whether it could be managed well were of vital significance for the Party's subsequent liberation and management of large cities. To ensure prudence, as the Liaoshen Campaign neared its end, the Northeast Bureau appointed Chen Yun as Chairman of the Shenyang Military Control Commission, deciding that he should lead more than 4,000 cadres to preside over the takeover of Shenyang and neighboring cities.
Based on the preliminary experience of taking over Harbin, Chen Yun proposed a policy for the takeover of Shenyang from the very beginning: "Follow original systems, proceed from the top down, keep things intact, and take over first before redistributing." After entering Shenyang, the Military Control Commission issued six regulations to the original public employees and all personnel of enterprises operated by the Nationalist (KMT) government based on this policy. These included: report to work as usual; take responsibility for safeguarding the assets, equipment, archives, and ledgers of their respective departments; register personnel and assets according to their original systems; and provide rewards, punishments, and living allowances as appropriate. Chen Yun emphasized that Shenyang was now a city led by our Party and must be managed better than it was under the Nationalist period. He focused on addressing problems such as power supply, currency exchange, price stabilization, maintenance of public order, newspaper publication, wage payments, the evacuation of munitions, and foreign affairs discipline, ensuring that the takeover work proceeded in an orderly manner. In just three days, the takeover of major factories was completed; within five days, 150,000 public employees received temporary wages equivalent to 40 catties [12] of grain (subsequently, monthly payments ranging from 80 to 400 catties were issued according to rank); within ten days, water, electricity, and public transport returned to normal, shops reopened, and grain prices fell; and in less than a month, the vast majority of factories resumed production.
On November 28, 1948, Chen Yun wrote a report to the Northeast Bureau and the CPC Central Committee regarding the takeover of Shenyang. After Mao Zedong and other leaders reviewed it, the CPC Central Committee forwarded it to all central bureaus and frontline committees, praising the report as "excellent" and requiring them to "refer to it when taking over cities." The experience of taking over Shenyang summarized by Chen Yun provided an important reference for the takeover of newly liberated cities across the country thereafter.
V. Devoting every effort to solving the problems of financial and economic work in the Northeast, laying the foundation for the orderly commencement of economic construction in the Northeast Liberated Area.
Although Chen Yun had concurrently served as the Director of the Financial and Economic Office of the Northeast Bureau since the merger of the Northern Manchuria Sub-Bureau and the Northeast Bureau, the focus of his work at that time was on bandit suppression, land reform, and mobilizing the peasantry. Therefore, he was unable to devote his primary energy to financial and economic work. In May 1947, Li Fuchun was transferred to the Northeast Bureau to preside over economic work. Subsequently, the Northeast Bureau further adjusted its leadership structure and established the Northeast Financial and Economic Committee with Chen Yun as Director and Li Fuchun as Deputy Director. However, at that time, Chen Yun was still presiding over the anti-encirclement struggle in Southern Manchuria and could not take up the post. In 1948, he returned to Harbin from Southern Manchuria, and as the war situation had shifted in our favor, he finally began to truly preside over the financial and economic work of the Northeast with the assistance of Li Fuchun. From that time until May 1949, when he went to the Central Committee to serve as Director of the Central Financial and Economic Commission, Chen Yun primarily accomplished four things during the year he led the financial and economic work of the Northeast.
First, based on the development of the situation, he worked with other leaders of the Northeast Bureau to timely determine the shift of the entire Party’s focus in the Northeast from the countryside to the cities. He said: In the past, the enemy was on the strategic offensive, and the cities in our hands did not play a major role; now that the war situation has changed and our occupied territory is growing larger, the role of the city is much greater. Doing urban work mainly means grasping production, including power plants, tram companies, water companies, and coal companies, lowering prices, producing more things useful to the frontline and the people, and arranging more labor. He also said that the content of urban work is mainly economic, including trade, railways, the relationship between public and private enterprises, the correct treatment of private industry and commerce, and the separation of public and private property, etc. He emphasized that "if the economy does not develop, nothing else will develop," and one must "put the greatest energy into this point." In August 1948, in a report to the Party Central Committee, he more explicitly proposed that "it is necessary to place financial and economic work in a position no less important than military affairs, or second only to military affairs."
Second, after transforming the former enemy and puppet [13] enterprises into public enterprises, he focused on solving the problems of correctly treating staff and improving management. After the liberation of Northern Manchuria, incidents occurred in some of the enemy and puppet enterprises taken over by our Party where staff members were struck out against. Chen Yun believed that enterprise staff, including management and technical personnel, were key; handling the issue of these personnel was crucial to solving enterprise management problems and ensuring the normal operation of the urban economy. As the number of liberated and taken-over cities increased, the correct handling of the staff issue became increasingly urgent, becoming a major issue related to whether the initiative of management and technical personnel could be harnessed to restore the urban economy and enterprise production as quickly as possible. Therefore, he devoted great energy to investigation and research and drafted the "Decision on the Issue of Staff in Public Enterprises" for the Northeast Bureau. The decision pointed out that 70% to 90% of staff were lower-level employees; they were primarily technicians, mechanics, and engineers, and were essential personnel for managing large and complex modern enterprises. As long as they were loyal to their duties and did not engage in sabotage, they should all be given work and provided with necessary and possible preferential treatment to allow them to leverage their strengths to serve the people. The vast majority of senior staff were those in charge of production and operations management, such as railway station masters, section chiefs, factory directors, department heads, and mine managers. They possessed specialized knowledge, operational skills, and experience in organizing production and business, playing an important role in production. The root of their contradictions with workers and ordinary staff lay with the Japanese invaders and bureaucratic capital [14]; once an enterprise became a people's enterprise, this root no longer existed. To resolve this contradiction, an attitude of criticism and unity should be adopted, rather than a "bloody struggle." Communist Party members must diligently learn management knowledge and operational skills from them; workers and staff, including Communist Party members, must obey the management they carry out in accordance with enterprise principles. After this decision was publicly published in the Northeast Daily, it was reprinted in full by the People's Daily, exerting a wide influence and serving as a "notice to reassure the public" (anmin gaoshi) [15], easing the contradictions between workers and staff, accelerating the takeover of enterprises in newly liberated cities, and promoting the production and operation of public enterprises.
Third, stabilizing the financial order and curbing the skyrocketing of prices. To properly issue the circulation notes of the Northeast Liberated Area ("Northeast Currency"), Chen Yun advocated that, on the one hand, issuance should be appropriately controlled under the premise of meeting the needs of the War of Liberation; on the other hand, the relationship with the Nationalist currency (Northeast Nine-Province Circulation Notes, fabi [16], and Gold Yuan certificates) and the currencies of other liberated areas must be handled properly. The circulation of enemy currency in the Northeast Liberated Area was strictly prohibited, with the focus on crowding out enemy currency to trade back for materials. To ensure that prices rose steadily rather than skyrocketing, Chen Yun advocated acting in accordance with economic laws, such as correcting the practice of using administrative methods to restrict grain circulation, ensuring that the purchase price of agricultural products was not suppressed too low, and ensuring that the public authorities held a certain quantity of materials such as grain, cloth, and salt. It was precisely these measures that both guaranteed the supply of materials for our army and basically stabilized prices in the liberated areas, playing an important role in the victory of the Northeast Liberation War and the consolidation of the Northeast Liberated Area.
Fourth, setting about formulating plans for the recovery and development of industrial production in the Northeast. Northeast industry, especially heavy industry, occupied an important position in China at that time. Stepping up the restoration and development of industrial production in the Northeast after the war was not only of great significance for the Northeast Liberated Area but also concerned the recovery and development of the economy of the soon-to-be-born New China.
In May 1948, the Party Central Committee decided to hold the Sixth National Labor Congress in the Northeast and proposed that Chen Yun concurrently serve as the chairman of the new All-China Federation of Trade Unions. In August, in a report to the congress titled "General Tasks of the Current Chinese Workers' Movement," Chen Yun emphasized: "In the liberated areas, the restoration and development of industrial production has already been raised to an important position, which necessitates the resolution of a series of problems." These problems included: first, strengthening the planned nature of industry—all state-run and public enterprises must carry out production under unified leadership and a unified plan; second, improving the operation and management of state-run and public enterprises—mainly implementing the principle of enterprise democratization, economic accounting, cost assessment, and the system of individual responsibility; third, attaching importance to and training technical and management cadres—first focusing on cadres in current positions, while simultaneously promoting from among workers and staff, transferring from other posts, and opening vocational schools, worker training classes, or specialized industrial schools. This speech is an important document marking the timely shift of the entire Party’s work focus in the Northeast to urban work and had an important influence on guiding urban work centered on industrial construction.
The aforementioned measures not only played an important guiding role in the economic recovery of the Northeast region but also served as an important reference for the economic recovery of other regions across the country.
Regarding Chen Yun's contributions during the Northeast Liberation War, the Party Central Committee has made highly positive evaluations on many occasions. In 2015, in a speech at the symposium commemorating the 110th anniversary of Comrade Chen Yun's birth, Xi Jinping pointed out: "During the War of Liberation, Comrade Chen Yun participated in leading the liberation of the Northeast. After the victory of the Liaoshen Campaign, he led the takeover of Shenyang, created experience in taking over large cities, and led the Northeast base area to take the lead in beginning economic recovery, supporting the nationwide War of Liberation and providing our Party with precious experience in transitioning from war to peaceful construction." Commemorating Chen Yun's immortal achievements in the Northeast Liberation War is of great practical significance for continuing the "red lineage," inheriting the "red gene," using the Party's journey of struggle and great achievements to inspire fighting spirit, using the Party's glorious traditions and fine style to strengthen conviction, and using the Party's historical experience and practical creations to enlighten wisdom.
(The author is the former Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, former Director and Researcher of the Institute of Contemporary China.)
Web Editor: Tongxin Source: Party Documents (Dang de wenxian), 2021, Issue 5