The Urban Scene – Consolidation (1949 to 1952)

Firstly I want to consider the political structure of the party and state and the consolidation of power in the cities before getting to what happened with the industrialisation project. This was what was being set up and managed while collectivisation was rapidly happening in the countryside and women (there especially) were being told to wait for further liberation from their red-necked men. Industrialisation really had to wait to some extent for the reforms in the countryside to bear their as yet prospective fruits.

There were four levels of both the party and the state set up with an additional fifth very localised and committeefied level of the party (and still are): the Centre (there is 1); the Provinces (30); the Counties or Cities (2,500); the Town or District (40,000); and the Rural Collectives, Urban Work Units and Residents’ Committees (600,000).

At the Centre, running of the party was formally by the National Party Congress, the Party Chairman (Mao), a 200 person Central Committee, a Standing Committee of from 5 to 7 members and a 20 person Politburo with a General Secretariat.

The party was mainly responsible for deciding broad issues of policy and the National Congress was ostensibly the supreme decider. At first (in the 1920s before the PRC was formed) it was anticipated that the Congress would meet annually but it later came to meet less frequently to the point where from 1977 onwards it has met five-yearly (so far without fail). The next Congress (expected in 2012) will be the 18^th. The 17^th occurred in 2007 and still has the following English language website: http://www.china.org.cn/english/congress/225438.htm. The congress formally appoints the central party leadership group. In Mao’s time he was given the role of Chairman and also Supreme Leader. The above Standing Committee (ostensibly appointed by the Congress) is formally a standing committee of the Politburo and is the next most important congressional leadership group after the Chairman and his advisors.

The corresponding central arms of government from 1949 on were the State Council and Premier (Zhou Enlai until his death in 1976 – for virtually all of Mao’s time) and 20 to 30 Central Ministries. The state then extended its control outwards via most of the ministries in the form of Provincial Departments, County/City Bureaux and Town/District Offices for each ministry.

The government was mainly given the role of implementation of party policy (decided formally by the Congress and Central Committee of the party but informally by Mao and the Standing Committee of the Politburo). The main difference when compared with the party structure was that the Premier formally ruled over the State Council whereas the Congress was formally supreme in the party (i.e. over the Chairman).

So how did the CCP consolidate its power from 1949 to 1952 using this dual structure? Mao had stressed to the party just before his 1949 victory that the cities would need to be a real focus of reform and engaged socialist learning immediately following the victory. The principles of ‘New Democracy’ were still applied in the cities for the time being, however. Only foreign and unrepentant GMD-sympathiser-owned industrial properties were immediately nationalised (especially if they were large properties). Other businesses were allowed to remain in private hands. The major unrepentant GMD sympathisers had already mainly fled to either Taiwan or the US.

The first priority for Mao was getting industry working again after the mismanagement and corruption that were partly the results of the long war of independence and then civil war. Socialism and class war could wait. The first five-year plan was set to begin in 1953 but in the meantime Mao sought to produce a good base from which to build in the plan period.

The CCP re-established itself in the trade union movement as early as possible. The movement was made a party link and a socialist educational structure (for businesses and workers). The workers were immediately given the role of supervising their bosses (where they remained private employers) in anticipation of them later becoming the bosses once socialism got fully underway (and also for party purposes). Workplaces were made social, political, economic and welfare units of the party structure and of urban society.

The other social and political unit set up was the neighbourhood via the formation of street committees. In part this was to enable the regulation of people like street vendors (and really anyone) who didn’t have workplaces and so would otherwise not have come under immediate party control. These committees would be notified by the party of bad elements (usually people with some connection at some time with the GMD) so that their activities could be monitored and reported on by the committees back to relevant officials.

Land Reform and Social Change in Rural China – 1949 to 1953

The first part of the decade (until 1953) was occupied reproducing ‘New Democracy’ in parts of China (now the PRC) that hadn’t previously been ruled by the CCP. To recap: ‘New Democracy’ was a compromise designed to ease the transition to real CCP rule. This ‘Democratic dictatorship of the people’ was actually based on the promotion of Sun Yat-sen’s ‘three principles of the people’ stated in 1924: national independence, democracy and livelihood. Theoretically, Mao considered this arrival at freedom from external powers, democracy and material well-being and equity a stage of revolution that amounted to the completion of a bourgeois nationalist democratic and capitalist revolution left undone by Sun and the GMD (and a preparatory stage for Marx’s socialist phase of development guided by the party and the later Communist revolution).

Above all, the country needed to be well run to achieve those three goals. The idea was that feudalism and imperialism should be ended in this first period throughout the country (uniting rural and urban nationalist Chinese as the mission of national industrialisation would unite the nationalist Chinese in its cities). Only major feudal landlords and compradors would be adversely affected.

Land reform became national but it began mildly as dictated by the ‘New Democracy’ policy.

Social reforms also occurred as the CCP found its feet aiming to successfully rule a large country for the first time and feed its people both in the country and in cities.

Purity of ideology was a problem as it would be for any ruler and this period of Chinese history demonstrates clearly the tension between political-economic theory and practice. Consolidation of power and the economy was the first priority for the first four or five years of CCP rule. By 1953, however, Mao considered that the usefulness of ‘New Democracy’ and Capitalism was at an end.

The first stage of land reform occurred between 1949 and 1951. The aim was firstly to eliminate the landlord class. Mao had defined all the classes in 1933. He defined the landlord as follows (Selected Works, Vol. 1, pp. 137-9):

A landlord is a person who owns land, does not engage in labour himself, or does so only to a very small extent, and lives by exploiting the peasants. The collection of land rent is his main form of exploitation; in addition, he may lend money, hire labour, or engage in industry or commerce. But his exaction of land rent from the peasants is his principal form of exploitation. ... Warlords, officials, local tyrants and evil gentry are political representatives and exceptionally ruthless members of the landlord class. Minor local tyrants and evil gentry are also very often to be found among the rich peasants [the nearest class to the landlords in Mao’s theory]...

The remaining aims were: to fulfil the promise of ‘land to the tiller’, to extend the CCP organisational structure throughout rural China, to improve the productivity of agriculture and to consolidate rural support for subsequent collectivisation among the natural constituency for radical anti-feudal rule and policy, the poorest of the peasants. The initial redistribution would benefit virtually everybody so it was expected to be a win-win for the revolution. Productivity did in fact increase in this initial period of ‘land to the tiller’ fulfilment (as would be expected when poor peasants could now work land of their own and thus most fully benefit from their labours – it’s basic Capitalism 101). Maurice Meisner called the resulting situation a petty bourgeois utopia par excellence in his history of Mao’s China and after, entitled aptly enough Mao’s China and After: a History of the People’s Republic.

The reform first required the definition of all the rural ‘players’ so that redistribution could be carried out according to formal and just rules. Mao’s landlord definition is above but he also defined rich peasants, upper middle peasants, lower middle peasants, poor peasants and (rural) workers. These labels were then handed down through the generations as though they were the indelible marks of Cain long after the ancestor had been well and truly made one of the dispossessed if he had been a landlord or made relatively rich if had been a rural worker or poor peasant (in fact this attitude persisted until the death of Mao two and a half decades later in 1976). Here are the remainder of Mao’s definitions from 1933 (note that he had not yet completely divided up the middle peasant class but mentions a well-to-do class of the middle peasants that tends to do some exploitation that would later become known as the upper middle peasant class):

The rich peasant as a rule owns land. But some rich peasants own only part of their land and rent the remainder. Others have no land of their own at all and rent all their land. The rich peasant generally has rather more and better implements of production and more liquid capital than the average and engages in labour himself, but always relies on exploitation for part or even the major part of his income. His main form of exploitation is the hiring of labour (long-term labourers). In addition, he ... exploits other peasants by means of land rent, loan interest or in other ways...

Many middle peasants own land. Some own only part of their land and rent the rest. Others own no land of their own at all and rent all their land. All of them have a fair number of farm implements. A middle peasant derives his income wholly or mainly from his own labour. As a rule he does not exploit others and in many cases he himself is exploited by others, having to pay a small amount in land rent and in interest on loans. But generally he does not sell his labour power. Some middle peasants (the well-to-do middle peasants) do practice exploitation to a small extent, but this is not their regular or their main source of income.

Among the poor peasants some own part of their land and have a few odd farm implements, others own no land at all but only a few odd farm implements. As a rule poor peasants have to rent the land they work on and are subjected to exploitation, having to pay land rent and interest on loans and to hire themselves out to some extent. In general, a middle peasant does not need to sell his labour power, while the poor peasant has to sell part of his labour power. This is the principal criterion for distinguishing between a middle and a poor peasant.

The worker (including the farm labourer) as a rule owns no land or farm implements, though some do own a very small amount of land and very few farm implements. Workers make their living wholly or mainly by selling their labour power.

Records (based on the household) from 1941 to 1945 for the central Chinese counties of Xinxin, Erlian, Zhangtang, Xinsi and Baishui indicate that, on a China-wide basis, around 5 to 10 % of China’s rural population were probably considered landlords. The breakdown for the other five classes is: 10% rich peasants, 15% upper middle peasants, 15% lower middle peasants, 50% poor peasants and 2% rural workers. Here are the actual 1941 to 1945 figures for those five counties (again the middle peasant class is not further subdivided here):

	Xinxin	Erlian	Zhangtang	Xinsi	Baishui
Landlord (%)	7.6	7.1	2.3	9.0	5.1
Rich Peasant (%)	4.8	3.5	7.0	10.0	9.0
Middle Peasant (%)	31.0	47.1	34.5	30.0	13.2
Poor Peasant (%)	40.0	34.0	50.5	51.0	72.2
Hired Hand (%)	16.6	2.2	3.6	0.0	Not Known
Other (%)	0.0	6.1	2.1	0.0	Not Known

The classes that were considered acceptably ‘red’ (revolutionary) to the CCP were the lower middle peasants, poor peasants and workers.

The classes having been decided upon in Mao’s theory it was the job of the CCP ‘work team’ (often attached to an advancing army group) to enter a village, contact and mobilise the ‘red classes’, especially, from among the peasants, and organise ‘struggle meetings’ to identify and publicly expose the local tyrants and landlords and their alleged ‘crimes’. Land and other property (including any cash) would then be redistributed fairly equally among the peasants. The party would then recruit members and staff for the local headquarters and form and arm a local ‘people’s militia’ to defend the revolution and police the reforms (many of these militias were also ultimately deployed to fight in the Korean War of the early 1950s). These actions followed the pattern the CCP had already established in areas as they came to control them before the final 1949 victory.

These reforms were accompanied by ‘consciousness raising’ exercises designed to extinguish any tendency to accept feudal norms including serious and systematic humiliations of the landlords (from the ‘struggle meetings’ on, aimed at starkly convincing everyone they no longer had any power at all as a class), destruction of the self-help lineage and clan groups (usually managed by a family member of the landlord class) and redistribution of their property (e.g. schools, temples and family benevolent organisations), banning of the ancestor worship (often promoted by the groups) and other religious practices deemed feudal, the liberation of concubines (concubinage was banned) and the unbinding of women’s bound feet (binding was also now banned). Former temples were often put to utilitarian use as warehouses. Let the petty bourgeois utopia begin!?! Utopia it may have appeared for many but around 2,000,000 people of the rural classes were killed during the reform process of these few years.

The Yan’an Period

While the CCP was still licking its wounds, recovering and regrouping at Yan’an in 1937, Japan got greedy. This proved a relatively great boon for the greatly weakened party. Japan was regarded as a hated enemy by many Chinese especially since it had been engaged in brutal occupations of various parts of China since the early 1920s (sharing the WWI ‘spoils’ of the other ‘foreign devils’ on the winning side). CCP success in fighting the Japanese would begin to rebuild their popular support and the GMD would also be too busy with the Japanese to attack Yan’an with full force. They might even be forced back into an actual alliance with the CCP, however shaky that might prove. This forced alliance provided breathing space the CCP desperately needed. In the meantime, it had a chance to practice government over around 3,000,000 people.

Jiang actually refused to fight the Japanese in 1937 and this led to his kidnapping by agents of the CCP and his being forced to resume heading a new alliance with the CCP (along with other nationalist parties). Zhou, a former colleague at Whampoa, was instrumental in bringing about his agreement to this state of affairs. The GMD was forced to re-enter into an alliance (a second ‘united front’) with the CCP for the sake of national unity. The fact was, however, that the GMD continued to prefer containing the Communists (while the latter actually fought against the Japanese) to actually fighting the Japanese themselves. For much of the war against the Japanese, around half a million of the GMD’s crack troops were occupied blockading CCP territory.

The GMD forces of the GMD 2IC in fact ran away from Japanese forces invading Manchuria in the North and even in the heartland the GMD abandoned Shanghai to them in November of 1937 (albeit after a little more of a fight than in Manchuria). Japan also took the prizes of Beijing and Tianjin to go along with Manchuria and Shanghai in 1937.

The Japanese proved a brutal occupier and committed notable atrocities in October (around the time their aerial bombardment of Shanghai was also producing mass casualties). In a few short months Japan had gained control of half of the seaboard of China and in December they commenced the so-called “Rape of Nanking”, the by then abandoned capital of the GMD, massacring an estimated 200,000 people there. Further to that, Jiang’s idea of inundating a significant region of China to halt the Japanese advance not only didn’t work, its fruition was the death by drowning of several hundred thousand more Chinese men, women and children and the homelessness of several hundred thousand more again.

Meanwhile Chongqing further west (on the Yangzi in eastern Sichuan province) became the new GMD capital. The Japanese then commenced the bombing of Chongqing. The exodus of people and infrastructure from Nanjing (Nanking) to Chongqing was phenomenal but equally noticeable was the bleeding of many people to the Communist capital of Yan’an (and to a party that was actually fighting the Japanese). People were also inspired by the relative closeness of the CCP leadership to its people (admittedly they had the advantage in this connection of ruling over a smaller population but the 'mass line' (see below) was practiced and that practice was noted and widely admired).

Mao had set up the Anti-Japanese University in Yan’an. This attracted students from all over China seeking training to become military and political/intellectual cadres of the CCP. They were then sent all over China to do the party’s work and could even belong to rural capitalist classes such as the landlord class; this was based on the idea of ‘New Democracy’ (again see below) (provided they weren’t actually collaborating with the Japanese in any way). Women were also permitted to contribute to this mobilisation for the first time in China (as women in the West were also fighting for virtually the first time).

In this war period (after the initial Japanese successes), the Red Army became a formidable fighting force, due in part to its practice at simultaneously fighting external and internal enemies (and making alliances across classes based on the Sun idea of ‘New Democracy’ (again see below - this later proved to be merely pragmatism for Mao)).

The CCP commando/guerrilla tactics proved successful against the Japanese while the GMD preferred to hold back from fighting the Japanese in anticipation of the expected later fight with the CCP, which they hoped would be severely depleted by their virtually unaided fight with the Japanese.

There were indeed also several actual GMD/CCP skirmishes in this period. One that occurred in January of 1941 actually wiped out a complete CCP unit and brought about the end of the formal coalition. Jiang noted at one point something to the effect that “the Japanese are a disease of the skin but the CCP are a disease of the heart” when discussing his attitude to his two foes.

While fighting the Japanese (and GMD) the Communists didn’t neglect home affairs at Yan’an and a style of rule developed that later came to be referred to as “the Yan’an Way”. There were five features:

1) ‘New Democracy’ as a pragmatic theory that recognised the interests of a middle class and ‘national’ capitalists as well as those of workers and peasants;

2) A “mass line” policy that compulsorily and regularly brought leaders (and all CCP members) into close contact with the masses (including a manual work requirement);

3) A comprehensive political, economic, social and military party organisational structure;

4) Ideological and educational campaigns were used to spread correct ideas; and

5) Intellectuals were required to labour with the peasants and literature, intellectualism and art were regarded as subordinate to the service of the revolution.