"...Since 1928, the primary objective of enterprises under the Soviet command management model has been to fulfill the production plans issued by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet government. The Soviet Union has also established a management system to ensure the completion of these production plans. With the rapid development of the Soviet economy, this planning system is constantly expanding, gradually covering a larger social space.

At this stage, within the Soviet planned management system, enterprise efficiency is very high, and distribution is quite reasonable. The income of the Soviet people has risen rapidly, satisfaction with the government is high, and enthusiasm for production is soaring. However, high efficiency itself requires the exclusion of accidents, and accidents often equate to change. This world, however, is in a state of eternal change.

The current economic model of the Soviet Union will exert powerful force to drive the rapid development of the Soviet Union. After completing this stage, how the Soviet Union responds to more complex demands and continuously increases enterprise expenditure is one of the important contents we need to observe."

Li Runshi finished reading the last paragraph of the report, feeling that the content regarding the comparative cases of Chinese and Soviet enterprises in the report could not yet satisfy his needs at this moment. Li Runshi then asked his secretary to inquire if they could borrow relevant materials from the Ministry of Commerce. After listening, the secretary tentatively asked, "Minister Li, we can consult the Ministry of Commerce, and we can also consult the Party School."

Li Runshi replied, "Find a think tank."

The secretary was stunned. The Civilization Party was the ruling party, but it also positioned itself as an academic organization, so members of the Civilization Party had to participate in studies regularly, and the Party School was an academic research institution. Think tanks, on the other hand, were consulting bodies composed of scholars outside the Civilization Party system. At this stage, these think tanks could only register as commercial institutions, which meant that current think tanks were organizations selling knowledge and forecasts.

"Minister, think tanks are fee-charging institutions," the secretary reminded him.

The Publicity Department was not lacking in the most basic departmental funds. Li Runshi knew the Publicity Department was not short of this money, and he was quite certain that what the secretary cared about was not the funds, but how to report these funds. Li Runshi calculated slightly in his mind and made a decision, "Find a think tank that researches this field. We will pay."

After the secretary left, Li Runshi felt quite apprehensive in his heart. A centralized political party faced a systemic question: "If an organization is not outside the leadership of the Party, what is the value of this organization's existence?"

If it were the Soviet system, organizations outside the Party were all harmful, or at least their harmfulness outweighed their benefits.

Under China's traditional system, "Learn the literary and martial arts, and sell them to the Emperor's family." An organization capable of providing the public with a complete explanation of society, if not subordinate to the imperial court, was a threat to the court and needed to be exterminated. If such an organization refused to submit to the court's jurisdiction, Han Fei had long made it very clear in *The Five Vermin*: "The Confucians with their learning bring confusion to the law; the knights with their sword violate the prohibitions. Yet the ruler treats them both with respect. This is the cause of disorder. Those who turn their backs on the law should be treated as criminals, but the masters of learning are given office. Those who violate the prohibitions should be punished, but the gangs of knights are maintained by the great families. Thus, what the law condemns, the ruler accepts; what the magistrate punishes, the high officials maintain. Law, interest, high, and low—these four are mutually contradictory and have no fixed standard. Even if there were ten Yellow Emperors, they could not bring order."

Translated into modern Chinese, it means Confucians use literature to disrupt law and discipline, and knights-errant use force to violate prohibitions, yet the monarch treats them all with courtesy; this is the root of national chaos. Those who break the law should be sentenced, but those scholars obtain employment through articles and theories; those who violate prohibitions should be punished, but those knights-errant are kept by acting as assassins. Therefore, what the laws oppose has become what the monarch reuses; what the officials punish has become what the powerful keep. What the laws oppose and what the monarch reuses, what the officials punish and what the powerful keep—these four are contradictory to each other, and without establishing a definite standard, even ten Yellow Emperors could not govern the world well.

To be even more blunt, when Jiang Taigong was enfeoffed in the State of Qi, there were two sages in Qi at that time who were very proficient in state governance. The monarch of Qi, Jiang Taigong, invited the two to serve as officials in the Qi government, but both refused. The monarch of Qi, Jiang Taigong, immediately sent people to execute these two men. The reason was very simple: people in the opposition should not have such capabilities.

If it were the European and American ballot system, the opposition party and the ruling party would take turns in power. The opposition party is the future ruling party, so having the ability to understand national operations is also a matter of course. But at this stage, it is impossible for an opposition party to become the ruling party of China. Therefore, if opposition figures possess the ability to understand the country but refuse to join the ruling party, their definition can hardly be positive.

These concepts churned in Li Runshi's mind, making Li Runshi involuntarily think about issues at the level of national systems. But for thousands of years, the relationship between the opposition and the ruling power has never been completely clarified.

In history, Emperor Taizong of Tang attached great importance to the imperial examination system, saying, "The heroes of the world have entered my trap." That was because under the imperial examination system, the circulation channel between the upper and lower layers was finally opened up. Under the imperial examination system, educated people stopped thinking about overthrowing the imperial court and instead focused on taking exams to seek office, which was conducive to consolidating imperial power.

But these words were just talk. Three generations—Li Shimin, Li Zhi, and Wu Zetian—promoted the imperial examination and struck at and weakened the powerful families. During the Wu Zetian era, cruel officials like Lai Junchen and Zhou Xing were even produced to frantically strike at the power of the noble clans. But eventually, by the generation of Li Longji, the upward channel was still controlled in the hands of the Guanlong noble clans, ultimately leading to the An Lushan Rebellion.

By the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, although the imperial examination system destroyed the noble clans, it formed regional interest groups, and the country was still dragged down.

The Manchu Qing era engaged in minority privileges, oppressing the vast number of other ethnic groups, and finally destroyed China's creativity completely. Faced with foreign aggression, it suffered crushing defeats and surrendered its sovereign rights under humiliating terms. Trying to solve the problem purely through education, historical experience is also not optimistic.

Li Runshi lit a cigarette and thought silently. That set of European and American systems was even more nonsense. Spain and Portugal once created the "Line of Demarcation," dividing the earth into two. Now these two countries have long since shrunk back to Europe, becoming insignificant.

The current Britain and France rely on the Versailles system to occupy the greatest benefits of the global order. The countries capable of overturning the Versailles system include China and the United States. At this stage, it is just that both countries are based on their own interests, plus they are not well prepared and the strategic timing has not arrived, so the two countries have not launched an attack.

Whether it is China or the United States, there is still no mature solution to the relationship between the ruling power and the civil society. Although under the leadership of the He Rui regime, civilian think tanks are just professional organizations, and the Civilization Party as the ruling party is unprecedentedly powerful. It is in an overwhelming position in terms of knowledge structure. However, a final solution to completely resolve the relationship between the ruling party and the opposition cannot be seen for the time being.

Li Runshi finally made a decision to first look at the capabilities of the think tank. In the future, with the diffusion of knowledge, the capabilities of opposition intellectuals will indeed rise rapidly, but the capabilities of current think tanks may not necessarily reach a level exceeding that of the ruling party.

Three days later, the think tank members came by invitation and conducted a training session for the Publicity Department. It could be seen that these civilian think tank members were high-spirited and prepared to give the government members a good lesson. The course had only started for twenty minutes when most of the Publicity Department members who came to listen frowned.

These members of the civilian think tank all felt they had professional knowledge, but in terms of political understanding, they began to expose their completely unsystematic knowledge structure. The understanding methods that these civilian think tanks considered their original creations—the Civilization Party had long since ended discussions on such analytical methods, and their depth and breadth were simply not comparable to what this group of civilian think tanks offered.

Li Runshi heard the civilian think tank even bring out some theories from the time of the Debate on Salt and Iron in the Han Dynasty to explain, and he almost laughed out loud. It would be one thing if they couldn't understand the theories of grand industry, but not even understanding the economic theories of the Debate on Salt and Iron meant they were inferior to even those officials with real economic brains among traditional Confucians.

When the course finally ended with difficulty, Li Runshi had already made a judgment. At this stage, there was absolutely no need to worry about so-called civilian think tanks. Since the ideological field has always been a situation where one wanes and the other waxes, one advances and the other retreats, the Civilization Party must strengthen its propaganda to society and propagate the Civilization Party's model of understanding the world.

What He Rui initially saw was Li Runshi's evaluation of that think tank. In the process of reading, He Rui laughed heartily. The approach of civilian think tanks is just "using the small to gamble for the big," attempting to gain others' attention through various seemingly fancy remarks in a certain field.

However, He Rui did not mind Li Runshi spending a little money to hear the views of civilian think tanks, because Li Runshi's summary was very much on point. Even just this summary had enough value.

After reading this report, He Rui felt physically and mentally happy. He continued to study the materials of the 1932 US election. In He Rui's view, the most powerful opponent in the world at this time was Roosevelt of the United States. And the planning scheme for the future world order proposed by the American elites represented by Roosevelt.

During World War II and after World War II, although there were various accumulated struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union, they always cooperated in dismantling the British and French colonial systems. Because without dismantling the colonial system established by Britain and France, the American world order could not be established.

What He Rui was implementing was also a world order. The order established by the Soviet Union after dominating Eastern Europe could only be considered a regional order, which was not a strategic consideration on the same level as the world order He Rui wanted to implement.

The joy brought to He Rui by reading Roosevelt's campaign platform was about the same as the joy brought by reading Li Runshi's report. Roosevelt's campaign platform was based on two things: the American bourgeoisie could no longer do whatever they wanted and must establish a bottom line for American laborers. Moreover, the United States must restore financial order, and the financial industry that once grew savagely must accept stricter supervision.

Just with these two campaign cores, American traditional forces and the small-government advocates in the US Republican Party had already labeled Roosevelt a "Communist." but from the current stage, the negative impact of this title on Roosevelt was far less than the positive impact.

The US economy was in such a terrible state that the American people needed change. It didn't matter if the changer was a Communist.

It could even be said that precisely because the US economy had reached a point where change was imperative, the American people were willing to believe that the change a Communist could implement would definitely be more thorough than the change proposed by a spokesperson for capitalism.

Seeing He Rui smilingly looking at the report, the secretary did not want to disturb He Rui's reading for a moment. However, He Rui asked, "What is it?"

The secretary hurriedly said, "Chairman, Rockefeller wants to see you."

"I won't see him. Let him go find Premier Wu," He Rui replied decisively.