‘Women’s Liberation’ and the Early CCP

It may have been expected that the early CCP, inspired in part as it was by the May Fourth Movement, would be interested in the liberation of women. That movement was animated by anarchist theory and the anti-marriage ideal of ‘free love’. Marriage was considered an anachronism and exploitative of women per se. Concubinage and foot binding were also anathema to the movement. The CCP, however, was in fact a more traditionalist and conservative strand of the movement in some ways, hence its relative success, in fact, in conservative and rural areas. Marxism was not then a feminist theory in the way anarchism had already become.

Nevertheless, the CCP did have an eye toward some modernisation of the patriarchy as it clearly was a progressive party. They did ban practices such as concubinage and foot binding as I’ve mentioned (on the basis that they were considered feudal in their tenor).

From the Jiangxi period the CCP had also banned dowries in areas they controlled so marriage had become ‘free’ at least in that sense but this was intended to benefit poor males as much as anything. It was a practical measure to promote the contentedness of poor males with the party and indeed Mao viewed it mainly as a measure for recruiting males.

At the same time, however, the CCP made divorce easier especially for women which at least potentially benefited them more directly as a group. Nevertheless when large numbers of women in unhappy situations took up this opportunity for divorce it is indicative of the CCP’s focus on the happiness of men (especially soldiers), that when unhappily divorced soldiers began to be noticed by the party this led to the law being amended to again make it relatively difficult for women to obtain divorces from soldiers in particular.

As part of its later ‘new democracy’ policy, the CCP confirmed the amendment and that ‘family harmony’ was a higher order priority for the CCP than women’s emancipation and equality. This tactic of thus backsliding and pandering to poor males and the patriarchate may have been necessary to enable Mao to eventually overcome the GMD forces.

Finally once the CCP had come to power and formed the PRC it introduced the 1950 Marriage law. This replaced the ‘feudal family’ with the ‘new democratic family’, reaffirmed the nuclear family as the basic unit of socialist society and favoured mediation (and as I’ve said ‘family harmony’) over easy divorce. It was puritan in its assertion of the moral order required for the socialist project and marriage and family arrangements most favoured by the poor male peasant. The party considered that a high divorce rate would be potentially too stressful in its impact on the all-important productivity.

In 1949 the party had founded a Women’s Federation as an official state-sponsored ‘mass organisation’. It was supposed to represent the interests of women but instead it really functioned more as a mobiliser of women to contribute to the pre-determined economic goals of the state. It was really about dissemination of socialism and socialist goals among women that may have in fact extended patriarchy rather than about listening to them about inequality. For example on one occasion when there was a high unemployment rate among men in some areas it encouraged women not to work in those areas in order that men might find more work there. Demands for equality were formally subordinated to the alleged larger aims of socialist construction and social stability. You may remember me noting in earlier posts such calls for subordination were also contained in standard memes coming out of the Arab world of the later 20^th Century.

Changes to this parlous state of women’s liberation would have to wait until at least the Cultural Revolution.

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.

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.