Dialectics of Building a 10,000-Ton Freighter
By a Workers' Philosophy Study Group in Tientsin Hsinkang Shipyard
The broad masses of revolutionary workers in our Tientsin Hsinkang Shipyard, inspired by the Ninth Party Congress, have then studying and applying Chairman Mao's philosophic thinking in a living way and displaying undaunted proletarian revolutionary spirit. They thus succeeded in building a 10,000-ton freighter on a berth of 5,000 tons.
The launching of this freighter once again proved the incontrovertible truth: “Of all things in the world, people are the most precious. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, as long as there are people, every kind of miracle can be performed.”
Standard practice in building a ship is to use a berth corresponding in size to the ship under construction. Our shipyard has only a 5,000-ton berth. Was it possible to build a 10,000-ton freighter there?
Some shook their heads and said: “It would be sheer adventure.”
Others ridiculed the idea as “reckless.”
The bourgeois “experts” and “authorities” who could not get along without the crutch of foreign literature considered it out of the question to build a freighted of such size on this berth.
But the broad masses of revolutionary shipbuilders said firmly: “With invincible Mao Tsetung Thought we can certainly build a 10,000-ton freighter on a 5,000-ton berth!”
Whatever we do, we must base ourselves on existing objective conditions, and shipbuilding is no exception. But material is a dead factor, while men are living. Once we grasp Chairman Mao's teaching on materialist dialectics and give full play to man's dynamic role, we can create the conditions. As our great leader Chairman Mao has pointed out: “No one should go off into wild flights of fancy, or make plans of action unwarranted by the objective situation, or stretch for the impossible. The problem today, however, is that Rightist conservative thinking is still causing mischief in many spheres and preventing the work in these spheres from keeping pace with the development of the objective situation. The present problem is that many people consider it impossible to accomplish things which could be accomplished if they exerted themselves.” Those who thought it impossible to build a large freighter on a small berth actually saw only things, not people; they saw only the prevailing conditions and not the developing ones. This view is contrary to materialist dialectics.
The revolutionary cause of socialism requires the construction of large freighters. It is the inescapable revolutionary duty of us shipbuilders to develop the industry and construct a large number of ships in order to build a powerful maritime transport and fighting force in the coming years. However, over a long period of time the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi frenziedly opposed Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line, spreading his slavish comprador philosophy and doctrine of trailing behind at snail pace as expressed in such utterances as “building ships is not as good as buying them; buying ships is not as good as chartering them,” in an attempt to bind China's shipbuilders hand and foot and let the imperialists and modern revisionist lead us by the nose. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, we conscientiously studied Chairman Mao's great concept, “maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands and relying on our own efforts,” and with blazing indignation relentlessly criticized Liu Shao-Chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line. We determined to rely on our own efforts to achieve greater, faster, better and more economical results in developing China's shipbuilding industry. We of the working class have this aspiration and certainly the ability to realize it.
Building a 10,000-ton freighter on the 5,000-ton berth obviously involved many difficulties because of the objective material conditions. The “effective” length of the berth for a 5,000-ton vessel is 117 metres, its “effective” breadth 17 metres, and its “effective” load 2,400 tons. But a 10,000-ton freighter is at least 140 metres long, more than 18 metres wide, and its hull weighs over 3,000 tons. How could these contradictions be solved? The hull's being to long at most meant that the stem would extend beyond the berth and the stern into the water; its being too wide at most meant facing some inconvenience in our work. These problems were not insolvable. But the weight of the 10,000-ton freighter, which exceeds the berth's load capacity by almost 1,000 tons, was the key problem which had to be solved. Without its solution, it would be useless to talk about building a 10,000-ton freighter.
Chairman Mao teaches us: “Freedom means the recognition of necessity and the transformation of the objective world.” In order to solve the problem of over-load, we first made a scientific analysis of the berth. As the weight of the hull would increase, so would the pressure, proportionately, on the dock. To solve this, we could supply supporting blocks under the hull to disperse the weight. We took the example of dropping an awl. If it points down, it will make a hole in the ground and stick there. But if the handle is down, it will not stick into the ground although the weight of the awl is the same. That is to say, the smaller the area of contact, the greater the pressure, and vice versa. Acting on this principle, we changed the condition of the bearing pressure on the berth. After careful measurement and calculations, we added wood-blocks to the dock to increase the area of contact. To prevent distortion, we poured cement under high pressure in the heavy load area of the dock to reinforce its foundation, practice proved that so long as we followed Chairman Mao's teachings, the berth would answer our needs. Provided man's dynamic role is given full play, objective conditions can be changed.
We would have to design the 10,000-ton freighter according to the characteristics of the 5,000-ton berth. Large equipment was needed which we did not have. Nor were there any blueprints. These seemed to be unfavourable factors which could put us in a passive position, But, “the inferior side can wrest the initiative and victory from the superior side by securing certain conditions through active subjective endeavour in accordance with the actual circumstances.”
We workers have rich practical experience and are the most familiar with the 5,000-ton berth. So long as we summed up our experience scientifically, we could produce a practical design for a 10,000-ton freighter. So we organized a “three-in-one” designing group with workers as the main body and revolutionary leading cadres and technicians participating. Experience-rich veteran workers from all departments were chosen to take part in designing. Thus workers of all branches knew at once the whole perspective of the design and their specific tasks. This broke through the old way of having “experts” do the designing and workers the work. The working class' wisdom and ability showed clearly after introducing this approach to designing, which relied on collective wisdom and effort. As a result, we spent only a little more than two months to complete the designing of the hull, a task which took the bourgeois “experts” or “authorities” one or two years. Instead of some one hundred blueprints, we used only nine to guide the work of building the hull. Enlarging the design of the hull took us 18 days and the calculation of the materials needed in building the whole ship was finished in a very short time.
A heavy-duty crane of over 75 tons capacity was needed to build the 10,000-ton cargo ship, but we had only one of 40 tons capacity at our berth. Under ordinary conditions, the hull of such a freighter should consist of 50 or 60 separate parts. A 40-ton crane cannot handle such heavy pieces. The odds were heavily against us. But by dividing big parts into some one hundred small ones, we constructed the hull with the crane we had. In this way we gained absolute superiority in every separate aspect and guaranteed success in the work of assemble. The propeller, the main part of a large freighter, has a diameter of over five metres and weighs 13.5 tons. Such a heavy casting part requires a big vertical lathe, but we had none. Adopting the method of “ants nibbling at a big bone,” we used a horizontal boring machine with a small tool holder of only 20 cm diameter to make the propeller. It proved successful and our role became active. Through the workers' efforts and wisdom, a 10,000-ton cargo ship appeared on the 5,000-ton berth!
Building ship may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and launching the ship to the day of the birth. Only successful launching can give “life” to a ship. Launching has always been a big test, and to launch a ship of 10,000 tons from a 5,000-ton berth is even more demanding. The load capacity of the berth is low and all the wood-blocks had to be removed before the launching. The whole weight of the hull would rest on the two ground ways and the problem of overload again cropped up. If we pressed the “trigger,” the problem of the ship remaining in the berth might arise. This has happened in the history of shipbuilding.
How to solve the problem?
Chairman Mao has taught us: “When you do anything, unless you understand its actual circumstances, its nature and its relations to other things, you will not know the laws governing it, or know how to do it, or be able to do it well.” it is known that when an object touches the ground for a short time or while it is in motion, the strain is less than when its contact with the ground is long or when the object is at rest. To ensure the successful launching of a 10,000-ton cargo ship in the shortest possible time we would have to concentrate our efforts to master the law of sliding, to solve this question,.
According to the dialectical-materialist viewpoint, all laws are knowable. The law of sliding in launching a 10,000-ton freighter could be known. The only way was through practice. We followed Chairman Mao's teaching “Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge,” and after repeated experiments finally grasped the law of sliding and worked out the formula for the needed lubricant. We lengthened the launching-way, reinforced the frontal props and prolonged the time of stern floating to ensure successful launching. All this made us realize that “the active function of knowledge manifests itself not only in the active leap from perceptual to rational knowledge, but – and this is more important – it must manifest itself in the leap from rational knowledge to revolutionary practice.”
“Matter can be transformed into consciousness and consciousness into matter.” After grasping invincible Mao Tsetung Thought, we of the working class become wiser and brave. In the great struggle of changing the objective world and on the stage of revolutionary history, we can display infinite power and direct the performance of a drama full of sound and colour, power and grandeur!
