Mao’s Era in the Balance - a starting point overview

Social life in Mao’s time thus became the life of the collective in both the countryside and the cities. Mistakes were undoubtedly made but there were also successes and not all of today’s successes can be regarded as despite rather than because of Mao.

The collective life did offer economies of scale in both production and distribution and productivity gains as at least potential benefits. It also allowed the political aims of the state to be most efficiently made manifest to and taken on board by the population. Goals could be clearly seen to be collective goals and were thus uniquely motivating to the community-minded. It was quite a spiritual thing. At the same time the provision of welfare was quite effective in this more localised environment than that of the centralised state planning system. The danwei or factory in the cities and the commune or production brigade in the countryside were expected to be self-sufficient in various welfare arenas.

After some of the disasters in the countryside especially, the collectives began to work rather better after reforms made in 1962. The countryside was now divided into People’s Communes made up of 20 to 30 production brigades that were in turn collectives of 100 to 300 households (the typical village size and the size of the old Higher-stage Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives). The communes continued to be responsible for things like education, health, military training, grain purchases and infrastructure coordination but production and distribution decision-making returned to a large extent to the more local brigade level. The Communes were now more like local governments than they had ever been intended to be initially. The earning of ‘work points’ over a year was again the basis of distributed income from the brigade level. The brigade or village level was now the official unit of society and for welfare and other local concerns. The famous ‘bare-foot doctors’ worked at this level.

The role of the centre in this was to discover best practice models in all of this both in rural areas and in the cities and propagandise them. Two well known examples of the models promoted in the propaganda were the Dazhai village for the country and Daqing for the cities. The slogans went “in agriculture study Dazhai” and “in industry study Daqing”. Naturally places like Daqing and especially Dazhai in Shanxi Province, west of Beijing, were models in part because they were given special and not necessarily completely transparent resource allocations precisely so that they could appear to be better models than they may in fact actually have been if left to their normal devices. In addition, Mao continued to lionise the peasants generally as a class in his state’s propaganda efforts as he rounded out the CR by sending the Red Guards to the countryside for ‘education’ by them.

Dazhai really was an example to an extent, though, of the transformation of a formerly barren piece of land into a fertile one with all of the mod cons (terracing, dormitory housing and irrigation) by means of collective labour.

Daqing, northeast of Beijing, was a new city established at the site of a significant newly discovered oil field and as such quite important as a model of progress to a developing China that had been previously thought not to possess substantial oil reserves. The workers were doubly praised for working so diligently in the inhospitable north of the country on projects of value to the whole country. Slogans especially praised the self-sacrifice of these workers.

From the Great Leap to the Cultural Revolution and beyond to the eventual demise of Mao

This post is another summary of PRC history (this time taking us from the first most widely recognised failure of Maoism to the last one and finally to its end as an unreconstructed CCP party policy with Mao’s death).

Mao’s extreme belief in voluntarism seems to have been reflected in the rather wildly optimistic Chinese economic forecasting of the 1950s. The CCP was fully expecting that China would be able to overtake Britain in industrial capacity within 15 years. As examples the predicted annual growth rates for the period 1955 to 1958 issued in the years 1955 and 1956 and in March 1958 as the Great Leap was commenced were revised upward dramatically with each new estimate. In 1955 in the first five-year plan as revised the predictions for industry and agriculture were 14.7 and 4.3 percent growth respectively. One year later as the second plan was being prepared, those figures had increased to 20.0 and 7.0 and by the time of the GLF in March 1958 they were a crazy 33.0 and 16.2.

As I’ve already suggested in an earlier post this kind of boosterism as I characterised it tended to produce an unrealistic atmosphere in which it seemed appropriate to misreport production: exaggerated targets produced exaggerated, unreliable reports, which then fed further distortions into the planning process.

The party organisation was made chaotic, the plans were undermined and a massive famine was the major result. Both the transportation and storage systems failed and the commune system contributed to massive wastage of resources. The grain harvest actually fell dramatically in the GLF years, 1958/59 to 1961, and estimates of the famine’s death toll range from 15 million to 45 million. In the period from 1952 to 1958 per capita grain tonnage had actually increased from around 0.325 tonnes to around 0.36 tonnes but had dipped to 0.26 tonnes by 1960 and didn’t recover to 1958 levels until around 1974.

A final result of this massive failure was Khrushchev’s order in July 1960, partly because he saw any further connection with the fiasco and a recalcitrant Mao as embarrassing, to withdraw all soviet assistance (experts fled China hurriedly, shredding blueprints as they went).

There were recriminations within the party in the early 1960s and even Mao resigned as head of state and chief economic planner in favour of his deputy, Liu. Mao had accepted some of the blame and Liu, Zhou and Deng began to reinstitute soviet-style planning infrastructure and to get the economy moving again.

Smaller scale agricultural collectives were re-established and small family plots (and small private incomes) were even permitted again. In the factories the use of material incentives for production that had fallen out of favour was also again in favour. At the same time, peasants and others who had been overworked for years were again allowed spare time.

Officially, though, everything was conveniently blamed upon the Russians (from whom the 1960 split had just occurred) and an actual significant drought.

Mao spent some of the early 1960s mainly studying Chinese classics and other works and partying at his dances (that he increased in frequency from once a week to twice a week) but by 1963 he yearned to return to power.

He was 70 years of age but still dreamed of Communism and believed that virtually he alone knew how (and truly wanted) to bring it about. He was still, of course, revered by the masses and a particularly important supporter in the early 1960s was Lin Biao, whom he had made Minister for Defence. In 1964, Lin arranged for the publication of a book of Mao quotations called “Quotations from Chairman Mao” that many know now as the ‘little red book’. This publication and the deliberate inculcation of children in a Mao personality cult contributed to a resurgence in Mao’s potential power base. The children were taught to revere and trust Mao.

Liu, Zhou and Deng may have felt this process weakened them but never felt able to directly resist it. The Mao cult may have also contributed to their own legitimacy (so long as they didn’t fall foul of Mao, publicly, of course). Publicly they all acknowledged Mao but privately they all tended to ignore his advice (which tended to be too radical).

Mao soon came to think the party needed to be publicly attacked and proceeded to do that via a newspaper ‘piece’. This was the origin of what came to be simply called the Cultural Revolution (CR). He adopted a tactic he had used before of bypassing the party and speaking directly to the most disadvantaged of the masses in order to gain control of the party. They naturally trusted him because of the effect of the long-standing personality cult enhanced in more recent times by the new education and publication of the ‘little red book’.

This foray into political oppositionism led at first to demonstrations and poster campaigns and soon schools and universities were in chaotic disarray (from a traditional educational perspective).

Mao made a point at around this time to publicly go swimming in the strong-flowing Yangzi to demonstrate that he still ‘had it’ even at his advanced age. When Liu, Zhou and Deng (who had previously not wanted his advice finally sought it, he pointedly refused to give it to them. Mao denounced Liu as a counter-revolutionary but as he didn’t yet have the power to remove him to a labour camp or have him executed he was only able to have him demoted to number eight in the regime. Deng was demoted to number six. With Mao’s support Lin Biao became the new head of state (Mao’s old role and Liu’s – Mao had still not formally returned to holding any position).

Groups calling themselves Red Guards formed and in speeches Mao praised their revolutionary spirit and blessed the movement. They were given free travel rights on public transport. In the year 1966 the new school year never started. In October of that year on China’s national day Mao addressed a spectacular and climactic rally at which thousands of ‘little red books’ were raised to salute him.

Mao came out against what he called the ‘four olds’ and western influence of any kind. In response, guards searched and looted homes and temples and destroyed property and people that appeared to represent these things. They encouraged peasants to attack officials.

The labels of old were brought up to persecute even the grandchildren of representatives of former ‘bad’ classes such as the landlord and rich peasant classes and to prevent them having contact with their parents who had at worst been the children of those representatives.

Various old scores were able to be settled under the cover of all of this. Even the expression of sympathy for those who were persecuted brutally in this period was suspected by many to be the expression of a bourgeois emotion.

While violence ruled in some ways in this early part of the CR it appears that going into 1967 there was a fair degree of centralised control exercised notably by Lin and Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. Zhou had attempted to mediate between the sides but had finally been forced (or chose) to side with Mao. When a group of guards finally came for Liu and his wife, Zhou’s intercession on their behalf was to no avail. Deng was exiled. Liu was beaten and placed under house arrest before eventually being imprisoned. His wife was humiliated and sent to a camp never to see her husband again.

Meanwhile at the mass pointy end, guards’ factions began to turn on each other. Groups called ‘rebels’ also began to form (supported by Mao and Jiang) with membership drawn from young people who for class reasons had not been allowed to join the guards. One way or another the factions became armed and certain army units supported certain factions. Factions attempted to take over the party and pitched street battles were fought between various groups. Embassies were also attacked as the complex civil war gained steam.

Mao sought to end all of this in 1968 and the end finally had to be accomplished by the PLA. Mao was still revered in the army. The guards were finally ‘sent down’ to labour in the countryside with the peasants from late in that year.

In April 1969, Mao opened the 9^th Party Congress. The Chinese were fighting the Russians over borders. In these circumstances Mao, quietly at first, made peaceful overtures to the US. He would never publicly admit that this was what he was doing.

Lin opposed this attempt at rapprochement and suffered for it dying while fleeing from the consequences of Mao’s wrath. His death served as the catalyst that woke up large numbers of Chinese people to Mao’s folly of the last few years.

Meanwhile, Nixon visited Beijing in February 1972. The worst of the CR was now over and the ‘barefoot doctor’ scheme of the period was actually found to have been something of a success in getting better health care to rural areas. Many including Deng were later rehabilitated. Mao at 81 was a shadow of his former self but remained a major player until his death.

The year 1976 proved a fateful year. Zhou had become ill with cancer two years earlier and finally died on 8 June 1976. Mao was too ill to attend his funeral. A Tiananmen Square tribute to Zhou turned into a protest against the so-called “Gang of Four” but indirectly against Mao, too. It was violently dealt with and at about that time an earthquake killed about 400,000 people. Traditionally in China such an event portends a change of dynasty and in fact it did. Mao’s death followed close behind it. He never publicly accepted that he had committed any substantial errors.

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (1950s) – Precursors of the Great Leap Forward

The first update to what I’ve already written about the land reforms of the 50s that I need to give for this history is the phase that occurred in 1958 and 1959 just as the Great Leap was getting underway. The move was made from the Higher-stage Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives of from 100 to 300 households to the People’s Communes. The total number formed was 24,000 and the notable difference was that they now aimed to and began to engage in more than agriculture. They also became engaged in industry, education, health, administration and military training. Typically a commune consisted of a large number of villages combined. Further economies of scale were hoped for. Some of the new features of the rural communal landscape included:

1) The idea of ‘walking on two legs’ (regional self-sufficiency) – farmers and farming would be organised by the localised cadres ‘sent down’ so that a region’s farmers could be taught to produce their own tools (and also produce other items) in regional light industrial plants;

2) So the countryside was to become industrialised for the first time. The rural/urban divide would be broken down;

3) The commune was to replace the family to some extent as the recognised basic social unit in the countryside;

4) Women were brought into production more;

5) Peasants were to become ‘proletarianised’; and

6) The whole operation became militarised in its style (with marching and expected sacrifices included). Campaign posters of the period often had a distinctly military flavour.

This element of militarisation and urbanisation as models of efficiency just made sense in the fledgling PRC of the 1950s concerned at how to emerge from the thrall of and repel the powerful forces of feudalism locally and capitalism worldwide, aided as they often both had been historically by powerful military and urban industrial bases, and aware of how successful the Red Army and Soviet urban industrial development had apparently been. Here’s a quote from a Red Flag issue from August 1958 that hints at the nature of all of this:

The working people have unfalteringly accepted the organisational forms of the people’s commune and have unfalteringly transformed many antiquated production relationships... The rapid development of agriculture demands that they greatly emphasise their own organisational character, demands that in their work they act faster, in a more disciplined and efficient way, that they can better be shifted around within a broad framework, like the workers in a factory or the soldiers in a military unit.

And another:

The people’s commune, which combines the industrial, agricultural, commercial, educational and military, is an advancing army fighting against nature, fighting for the industrialisation of the village, the urbanisation of the village and for the happy future of communism in the villages.

Collectivisation (1952 to 1957)

The problem with all of the reform of the last post, too, was it wasn’t what Mao was really on about (or at least it wasn’t all he was on about); it was at least partly only his popular means to a relatively obscured end (for the time being, at least). He required peasant support and these reforms went some way to acquiring it but what he really aimed at was rapid industrialisation on the Marxist-Leninist model and the most efficient way to feed industrial workers, feed the peasants and fund the industrialisation.

The gentry (the landlord classes) that had been in charge for centuries were removed as obstacles to Mao doing whatever he wanted in the countryside and he thus ensured that what now remained of any consequence for him were mostly complaisant and satisfied peasants ready to support whatever the CCP ‘suggested’ next. Mao was preparing to modernise farming in the way the gentry appeared unwilling or unable to do, bound as they, too, were (as much as anybody) by the Chinese tradition. This is an example of how pragmatically Mao ruled.

The model of the Soviet Union at this time impressed Mao and adopting it seemed the only way to survive economically while dragging a semi-feudal semi-colony into the modern industrial world. Soviet heavy industry had developed rapidly in the three and a bit decades since the USSR had been established notwithstanding the demands of the intervening and brutal Second World War.

In the country, Mao required a gradual/rapid process of collectivisation (large scale joint-venture farming replacing in stages mainly nuclear family farming of small private plots) to begin as soon as the people could be brought along with it. This was basic economics: economies of scale could be much more easily achieved with larger production units (also with more buying clout when it came to the purchase of modern technologies and equipment). Also, modernisation ideas were most easily and efficiently disseminated from the centre (the source of all good) to these relatively few and large structures. The final argument for collectivisation as far as Mao was concerned was the potential for a bourgeois utopia to produce a new landlord class if allowed to develop as organically as bourgeois utopianists might have wished. There was to be no regression. Continual socialist progress was vital in orthodox Marxist ‘theology’.

There were three stages of collectivisation undergone in quick succession following the initial land reform: the set up of Mutual Aid Teams, then of Lower-stage Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives and finally of Higher-stage Agricultural Producers’ Cooperatives.

In the first stage (from 1952 to 1954) five to eight households pooled their animals, tools and labour in working alternatively on each other’s land (initially voluntarily) in a joint venture.

The next stage occurred from 1954 to 1955 and the co-ops now consisted of around 30 combined households and their plots. All property and labour was pooled and income was divided according to a formula based on the initial amount of property ‘invested’ in the co-op.

Finally, collectives of from 100 to 300 households formed in 1956 and 1957 and all income was now ‘earned’ by an annual tally of ‘work points’. Private property in arable farmland was now virtually meaningless.

All of the stages were designed to progressively increase the agricultural productivity of the land. You can see the gradual increase in scale and change to the incentives provided by changed determinations of income for the individual households. There were also none too subtle changes in the voluntariness or otherwise of the ventures.