Chapter 247 So that’s it
This is a good question. We are a socialist country, where the people are the masters.
Wang Deming looked at Yin Mei and raised his chin, signaling her to explain. She was the section chief in charge of personnel at the steel mill, responsible for organizational work, which of course also included ideological work for the workers.

Regarding national industry and commerce, there was an introduction in Mao's Selected Works, and as an old party member, you should be very clear about it.

But Yin Mei actually stood on the same front with Jiang Xiaomei, and said confidently: "Xiaomei is right. Even if this steel mill was opened by Lou Bancheng before liberation, the country invested a lot of manpower and material resources to build and expand production after liberation. How can he retain so many benefits?"

"Just after liberation, Lao Yang and I were responsible for organizing and coordinating the capital's industry. At that time, the Red Star Steel Rolling Mill had only one workshop with more than 100 people. Many workers didn't even have a place to live, so they slept directly in the workshop and warehouse. What's worse, some workers wore two sacks when they went to work, without even a complete set of clothes."

Yin Mei's chest heaved violently with anger, tears welled up in her eyes, and she choked up a little. "We organized the workers to form a union and negotiated with Lou Bancheng, insisting on implementing the eight-hour work week and increasing the workers' salaries. We negotiated three times in total, and Lou Bancheng directly threatened to shut down the factory. In the end, I was criticized by my superiors for not understanding the overall situation."

The hot tears finally couldn't be stopped from gushing out from Yin Mei's tear glands. She lay on the table and cried loudly, as if she wanted to cry out all the grievances in her heart over the past few years.

Yin Mei's sudden change made Wang Deming and Jiang Xiaomei at a loss, especially Xiaomei. She didn't understand and just complained about Lou Bancheng making more money. Is this how Yin Mei is?
Xiaomei quickly moved the bench under her buttocks to the side next to Yinmei, put her arm around her shoulders, and whispered in her ear: "Sister, hasn't the country started to reform them now? Our workers' lives will get better and better in the future."

"That's right!" Wang Deming also hurriedly comforted her: "Sister, as the saying goes, you can't eat a fat man in one bite. Don't we have to take things slowly? The country must have considered everything. You have to believe that our country has always put ordinary working people in the most important position, not capitalists."

"I'm sorry, I made you two laugh." Yin Mei raised her head, took out a handkerchief to wipe her tears and calmed down her emotions, "I just couldn't help it for a moment."

"We all understand!" Wang Deming and Jiang Xiaomei said in unison.

Yin Mei smiled bitterly, shook her head slightly, and sighed: "You two are still young, what do you know?"

"I worked in rural land reform in Jin-Cha-Ji. The land reform policy at that time treated all feudal landlords equally. In addition to reserving a certain amount of land for landlords based on population, all other floating wealth and surplus land had to be divided equally, including among the rich peasants."

"Of course, the exceptions are local tyrants, bullies, and evil gentry, who will be tried."

She seemed to be reminiscing, her eyes looking into the unknown distance, and she continued slowly: "But after entering the city, especially the big cities, the obstacles encountered were very complicated. The three rights of capitalists: ownership, management rights, and management rights are recognized. Some capitalists take advantage of this and are very arrogant, clamoring that they can fire workers at will."

"We organized our worker comrades to carry out a resolute struggle. Until, alas, no more words."

Even if Yin Mei didn't continue speaking, Wang Deming guessed it.

No wonder he had always been wondering why Yin Mei's husband's rank was so high, but hers was so low? He had previously speculated that it was because her husband's rank was high, and she was given a higher rank.

Now it seems that she made mistakes before. Either she was kicked out or she had to start all over again.

In addition to verbal comfort, Wang Deming actually felt the same way about Yin Mei's experience. He had experienced some of the phenomena Yin Mei described in his previous life.

Who says that public hospitals are full of civil servants? Most of the civil servants in a hospital are in administrative and logistical work. How many of the frontline workers, especially nurses, have civil servants? Aren’t they all contract workers who can be laid off at will?

Five plus two, day and night is the norm, and then at the end of the year, the hospital is actually losing money, and the bonus has been severely reduced. After working hard for a whole year, you only get two or three dates, and you still dare not resign.
Although working in a hospital is hard and tiring, and you don't make much money, the employment threshold of 35 years old is already good.

It's only been a few decades.
However, as an alternate party member, Wang Deming had a high level of theoretical knowledge and continued to comfort her: "Sister, the three mountains we face are feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism. Small and medium-sized capital owners and national capitalists are objects that can be united, and they are also beneficial to the development of the country's industry and commerce." "Our socialist goal is to quickly build a powerful industrial country, which requires the joint efforts of the whole society and people from all walks of life."

"Stop!" Yin Mei raised a hand to break Wang Deming's foot binding, her eyes full of helplessness, and said: "I am a formal party member, I am more familiar with these theories than you, so don't lecture me. If you are bored, work overtime at night and go to the night school in the factory to give lectures to comrades to eliminate illiteracy."

"Stop!" This time it was Wang Deming's turn to stop. It was fine for him to brag a little, but he was not aware of the need to serve the people wholeheartedly.

To put it in fashionable terms, he is a not-so-good element who is about to infiltrate our party and needs to be educated.

But he refused very gracefully, not even mentioning tutoring Yin Mei's two children. He said righteously, "I want to use my abilities to help the motherland where they are more needed, such as translating Soviet classics, or studying with Soviet comrades how to achieve order from chaotic uncertainty."

"What?" Jiang Xiaomei could understand the first half of the sentence, but the second half, which was about chaos and order, completely confused her. She looked at Yin Mei blankly and asked, "Sister, what does chaos mean to order?"

Yin Mei burst out laughing, holding her stomach, and pointed at Wang Deming, gasping for breath, "Play mahjong!"

"Ah, ugh!"

The clinic finally regained its relaxed atmosphere. Soon it was afternoon working time. Some workers came to get painkillers, and some came to get anti-inflammatory drugs. Although they did not register, Wang Deming still carefully gave the workers a simple examination: looking, smelling, asking and feeling.

Recommend more suitable medicines, such as stomach pain, replace it with Chinese patent medicine and aluminum hydroxide.

In fact, it only costs 5 cents to register at the health center, but many workers are reluctant to spend the money, mainly those who just came from the countryside to work in the steel mill last year.

Some of them still do not have good accommodation, and some continue to sleep in the factory, such as in workshops, warehouses and offices, and it would be great if they could get a back room in the city.

Data from the Beijing Real Estate Bureau's survey showed that at that time the average living area per capita in Beijing was less than 4 square meters, and the situation in other large cities such as Tianjin, Shanghai, Wuhan and other places was similar.

In addition to the gap between the rich and the poor, for example, more than 60% of the houses are in private hands, a large part of the reason for this is to learn from the Soviet model, with numerous government departments, large-scale offices and residences. For example, in Beijing, the number of departments quickly expanded from 7 or 8 before liberation to more than 30.

There are also various central departments.

I was busy and had some free time. I waited until the end of the day to get off work and rode my bike home leisurely. Just as I arrived at the gate of the courtyard, I heard people chatting in the courtyard, "You have to call me uncle too?"

"Deming and I grew up naked!"

　Furthermore, there is no information about the prototype of the Red Star Steel Mill, the Dongzhimenwai Third Steel Mill, so the information used was the Xizhimenwai Jianguo Steel Mill, which was later the First Steel Mill.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)