Glorious Mission 1937

Chapter 180 IX: Can't Let Rights Lose Restrictions

"The Ministry of Supervision? Is this a supervisory department?" Deng Xiaoping then asked.

"The Ministry of Supervision, as the name suggests, is a department responsible for supervision and inspection. The power exercised by this department is only internal, not external. That is to say, this department mainly supervises and inspects the internal affairs of our provincial government. The third is supervision and collusion with the enemy and treachery. This department is targeting all officials in Chahar Province, including everyone sitting here. Once the charges are convicted, they will be punished accordingly if the circumstances are serious."

Then Chen Feng said: "Western statesman Montesquieu once said, "Everyone with power will abuse power. This is an eternal experience.To prevent abuse of power, power must be restricted by power. "The former Prime Minister Sun Wen also said that "political corruption is the result of abuse of power."So to eliminate corruption, you need to restrain power.No one person has absolute power over the will of the people. "So uncontrolled public power is the biggest threat to social stability. This is because without supervision pressure, some officials often will not automatically correct their mistakes, but would rather do nothing and allow mistakes to proliferate and continue; moreover What's more, government officials are often the instigators of social tragedies themselves, and uncontrolled public power is the biggest threat to social stability. Does anyone know about the Rebellion of the Eight Kings in the Western Jin Dynasty?"

Kang Ze stood up and said: "The Rebellion of the Eight Kings was the biggest cause of the decline and even demise of the Western Jin Dynasty. At this time, the turmoil began in 291 AD. After the death of Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin. A huge empire that was unified for only 10 years and a " Why don't you eat minced meat" demented emperor Jin Huidi. Unfortunately, this demented emperor had an ugly, fierce and extremely vicious queen Jananfeng. In the second year after the death of Emperor Wu of Jin, Jananfeng conspired with King Sima Wei of Chu to kill The death of Emperor Wu of Jin's father-in-law and Taifu Yang Jun, who served as assistant to the government, opened the prelude to the most ruthless power struggle in Chinese history, the "Eight Kings Rebellion" that lasted 16 years. After Yang Jun's death , the government was presided over by Sima Liang and Wei Guan, the kings of Runan. Jia Nanfeng first ordered Sima Wei to kill Sima Liang and Wei Guan, and then ordered Sima Wei to be killed. The mantis catches the cicada, and the oriole is behind, just as Jia's party When the ambition was full and the prince was abolished. Zhao Wang Sima Lun and Sun Xiu borrowed the name of avenging the prince. The imperial edict abolished the killing of Jia Nanfeng and eliminated Jia's party. After Sima Lun took charge of the government, he was still not satisfied. Usurped the throne and became self-reliant. Immediately afterwards, King Sima Jiong of Qi joined forces with King Sima Yong of Hejian and King Sima Ying of Chengdu, and wiped out Sima Lun’s party. Welcome Emperor Hui of Jin to return. I never thought that Sima Jiong’s monopoly of the government had not yet been taken. Only half a year later, he was killed by Sima Ai, the king of Changsha. However, Sima Ai repeated the story of Sima Jiong, and was killed by Sima Yong, Sima Ying, and Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea shortly after taking power. This time, Sima Ying was in charge. Next Even more chaotic, first Sima Ying was defeated by Sima Yong, and then Sima Yong was defeated in the confrontation with Sima Yue. The "Eight Kings Rebellion" finally ended with Sima Yue's victory. However, Sima Yue did not The last laugh. The "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" not only exhausted the manpower, material resources, financial resources and military strength of the Western Jin Dynasty, but also almost wiped out the elite groups of the Western Jin Dynasty. Entered the darkest period of "Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms". After five years of dictatorship, Sima Yue died amidst internal and external troubles, and his bones were dissected and burned by Shi Le."

After Kang Ze sat down, Chen Feng continued: "Director Kang is worthy of being the person that Chairman Jiang values. He is knowledgeable and serious. As Director Kang said just now, the Rebellion of the Eight Kings finally led to the decline of the Western Jin Dynasty. But this is not the concentrated portrayal and microcosm of the power struggle in Chinese history. Monarchs and ministers turned against each other, fratricide, government failure, harem disorder, intrigues, clouds and rains, all kinds of characters You sing and I come on stage, all kinds of The means are endless. Today you kill people, tomorrow people will kill you, and the murderers will be killed again, until they are all killed. Moths rushed into the center of the vortex of power like moths. It can be said that power is like a potion of aphrodisiac, which loses people's mind, makes people ignorant of the situation, ignorant of the truth, and goes forward one after another. Everyone is full of ambitions before they appear on the stage, but once they gain power, their performance is all disappointing. This can not help but remind people of what Max Weber said, instead of building power on personal charm, "charisma" Nothing is better than institutional authority. Although this kind of institutionalized politics may lack the exciting dedication and heroism of charismatic politics, it is more stable, reliable, safer, and more Predictability. Human nature always has weaknesses. Human nature with weaknesses plus unrestricted power is hard to change. Rather than relying on the self-control of individual authority for the operation of power, it is better to rely on the constraints of the system. This is because the unpredictability of personal authority stems from the fact that we cannot place our hopes on its moral character. In short, power can benefit as well as cause chaos, the key lies in whether to lock it in a cage and let it wear dancing in the shackles of oversight, rather than placing too much faith in the moral self-control of those who wield power."

The old official system in Chahar had been destroyed during the war, more than half of the province had no local government, 60% of the rich and powerful families had fled to other provinces, and more than half of those who stayed there had defected to the Japanese. After these sites were snatched back from the Japanese, those rich and powerful families who had taken refuge in the Japanese were quickly suppressed, so the old system in Chahar Province has basically collapsed, so Chen Feng hopes that the new officials will not take those pedantic and The old stuff is brought here again.

A clean and efficient local government is needed here, not a group of rice bugs transferred from other places, so the local government in Chahar must be a government that is constantly supervised.

After listening to Chen Feng's words, Deng Xiaoping thought for a while and said: "Commander Chen is right. Power checks and balances are necessary. Only by supervising and restricting power in the process of exercising power can we ensure normal, clean and orderly , Efficiency, Montesquieu and other thinkers also believe that unfettered power will inevitably destroy, absolute power will lead to absolute destruction; morality cannot restrain power, power can only be restrained by power.”

Kang Ze also interjected: "Power supervision has existed in China since ancient times. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was so-called public opinion supervision of poetry writing and reciting poems. At that time, the 'Three Supervisors' system was also created, and it became the supervisory censor in the Qin and Han Dynasties. and the origin of the governor system. Since then, all dynasties in China have established power supervision systems, and multiple supervision systems have been established in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty. Said, "The Ministry of Zhongshu is my left hand, the Privy Council is my right hand, and the Yushitai is used to heal my left and right hands." It is still necessary to establish the Ministry of Supervision, but I don't know that Commander Chen intends to hand over the Ministry of Supervision to Who is in charge?"

"Hehehe, the Ministry of Supervision is not in charge, but all parties are in charge. Not only the Ministry of Supervision, but the other five ministries, except the Armed Forces, which is under the full control of the Forty Group Army, the other four departments all adopt a three-three system The principle is that each of the three parties contributes one-third of the staff to form the team." Chen Feng said with a smile.

"What about the ministers? Are they here in rotation?" Kang Ze asked, frowning.

If this is the case, then any party will be supervised by the other two parties in its work, which has caused a lot of trouble for the national government's plan to infiltrate Chahar.

"Ministers are of course also rotated, but in order to ensure the consistency of policy implementation, the term of each minister is tentatively set for three years, and the term will be changed after three years. In addition, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Commerce are managed by Vice Chairman Kang, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Vice-Chairman Deng is in charge of the Supervision Department, and my father is also in charge of the Propaganda Department and the Armed Forces Department. The ministers of each department are recommended by the vice-chairmen in charge and reported to the presidium of the provincial government for discussion. Do you have any different opinions?" Chen Feng said.

"Commander Chen, I have been in power in Jiangxi for three years, and I have presided over the anti-corruption work there, and I have made quite a lot of achievements. In just over a year, I have investigated and dealt with 1200 "major corruption cases" "And countless small cases, almost eradicating Jiangxi's rioters, I am very experienced in this area, so I hope that Commander Chen can hand over the Supervision Department to me, I wonder if it is possible?" Kang Ze said.

"Director Kang, what you did in Jiangxi can't be used here. This is Chahar. You can kill all our Communist Party members and revolutionary masses in Jiangxi. Is it possible here? Our Communist Party People stick to personal principles the most, so our soldiers are more disciplined and effective than yours. So I think that if you want to manage the Supervision Department well, you must have good principles. It’s a pity that none of your soldiers under Director Kang have principles. , so we are still in charge of the Ministry of Supervision!" Deng Xiaoping said.

"Don't think that the Ministry of Supervision has so much power. In democratic politics, the most important form of power restriction is power checks and balances. Power supervision is only a subordinate power restriction. Logically speaking, power in power supervision, It is an external power, functionally speaking, it can only play an after-the-fact role at most. At the same time, since the supervision power itself is also a kind of power, it must also be supervised. Then there will be a supervision power by whom The issue of supervision is also the focus of contention between the two of you. Although the supervision of power in Chahar is under the control of the Ministry of Supervision, the Ministry of Supervision is divided into three, and no one can try to play favoritism."

Then Chen Feng said: "In addition, the Ministry of Supervision only has the power to supervise and supervise, but it has no right to judge and deal with it. The trial will be judged by the military court of the No. 40 Army. Another point is that all officials in Chahar Incorporated into the army, military ranks are awarded at the provincial division level, city brigade level, county regiment level, and township (town) battalion level. All official crimes are dealt with in accordance with military law. After taking office, administrative officials at all levels will give military subsidies according to the level of the army. Wear a military uniform and a military cap, and participate in military training more than 2 times a month."

.....(to be continued..)