Diary of the Deputy Executive of Huabei Oilfield
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Chapter 20 Diary of the Deputy Executive of Huabei Oilfield 1 My Appointment In August 1975, 3269 Drilling Crew of Dagang Oilfield’s Second Drilling Company drilled the Ren-4 well, which produced 1,000 tons of oil per day. The following month, Petroleum Minister Kang Shi’en ordered the formation of the five-member Central Hebei Oil Campaign Leadership Group, which was led by Ren Chengyu, the deputy director of the Ministry of Petroleum’s Political Department. I was one of the members. In October, six days after National Day, the group led approximately 30 people from Dagang Oilfield straight to a wheat field, south of Renqiu Town, putting up shanties and cotton tents that served as headquarters for the oil campaign. A few days later, Director Ren asked me to lead a work group of four people within 3269 Drilling Crew, in addition to my usual task of attending decision-making meetings. I carried my bedding and lived in the drilling crew’s cotton tent. For more than a month, while taking part in all the work related to campaign planning, I also experienced first-hand the oil workers’ hardships and joys. Meanwhile, the campaign developed very fast, as 1,000-ton per day wells kept popping up. To strengthen leadership, the Ministry assigned Deputy Minister Zhang Wenbin in January 1976 to serve as commander and secretary of the Party Committee of Huabei Oil Campaign. Deputy Director Ren Chengyu was named deputy commander and deputy secretary of the Party Committee, in charge of political and ideological work. Deputy Minister Zhang had been dep- uty commander and deputy party secretary of Daqing Oil Campaign in 1960. He was also my old boss. As soon as he assumed this post, he asked me to draft a “Report on Organizing an Oil Campaign in Central Hebei Province (关于组 织冀中地区石油会战的报告)” to the State Council on behalf of the Ministry of Petroleum, Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality. I remember that the re- port was divided into the following parts: a foreword, an account of the current good situation of Huabei oil exploration, the tasks and planning for organiz- ing the campaign, details concerning the transfer of campaign troops, and the main measures for completing the tasks. Deputy Minister Zhang headed the discussions on the outline twice. It took me a week to write. Once the report was written, it was first sent by courier to Tianjin for the municipality’s approval. Then Zhang and I travelled by night on very bumpy country dirt roads for six hours from Renqiu County to the city of Shijiazhuang. On the second © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004402737_021 188 Chapter 20 Figure 20.1 Huabei Oil Campaign report (January 1976) day following our arrival, we went to Hebei Hotel to deliver the report to Ma Li 马力, the first deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Hebei Province. With fear and trepidation, I read the report to him in five or six minutes. We waited for Ma’s comments and instructions. After a moment of silence, Ma said calmly, “I think it is well-written. However, in terms of criticizing Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s right-deviationism, I suggest the word ‘comrade’ be used only once, when first mentioning Deng Xiaoping, but it should be deleted in all other places. That would be more appropriate. I totally agree with the rest of the report.” Later, I sighed that the Communist Party’s upper-level leadership, when faced with all kinds of perverse acts of the Cultural Revolution, had be- come as silent as a cicada in cold weather, keeping quiet out of fear. That same night, I went back to Beijing to report to the Ministry of Petroleum. I remember going to the hospital alone to report to Deputy Minister Sun Jingwen, who was in charge of business in Beijing. After hearing the report, he signed right away, without any comments or requests to edit. The report was submitted to the State Council on January 28, 1976. Two days later, the State Council ratified the report. The Huabei Oil Campaign thus formally started..