Economy

Socializing Agriculture

Once the first land-reform drives had broken the landlords, the state began methodically to group the peasantry into forms of cooperative labor. The first stage was to encourage peasants to join mutual-aid teams, which built on the social consciousness developed in land reform by showing the heightened productivity that could be obtained by pooling certain quantities of labor power, tools, and draft animals. (SMC, 490)
In 1952 and 1953, the government tentatively experimented with bonding peasant workers from mutual-aid teams into cooperative units of thirty to fifty households. Land as well as labor was pooled in these cooperatives, even though each peasant family kept its title to the plots it contributed. ... At the end of each year, after the government procurement quotas had been met and some money set aside for investment in the cooperative, the balance was divided between a “land share” based on the acreage contributed to the cooperative by each family and a “labor share” based on the daily amount of work each family performed. This was only a semisocialist arrangement, since richer peasants, by contributing more land, also gained a greater reward, for which reason these were termed “lower-stage cooperatives.” (SMC, 491)
By late 1955, however, after extensive propaganda campaigns and careful experimentation in target areas, the state began to whittle away at the land share, and increase the percentage that went into the labor share. ... These higher-stage cooperatives were organized on a much larger scale, often including 200 to 300 households. They thus exceeded the size of most traditional rural villages, and demanded more full-time administrators and party representatives. By 1956 this shift was well under way, and the lower-stage cooperatives began to shrink in number as the higher-stage cooperatives gained (see table below). At the same time, the government dropped its emphasis on mutual-aid teams, which then ceased to be a significant factor in rural life.

 
Why was Mao so concerned about private land ownership
and the sale of produce on the open market?
 
 
Were there potential dangers of eliminating all land ownership
and all opportunities to engage in entrepreneurial activity?

Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom and a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend During the first years of the People’s Republic, the intellectuals of China struggled to find a satisfactory position under the new regime. ... Education remained a time-consuming and costly process, and most intellectuals continued to come from families that had made or inherited money from landholdings or business. Those with staff positions in the government bureaucracy, or who worked in the teaching or legal professions, had inevitably had extensive contacts with, or been employed by, the Guomindang. Those in universities and the medical and scientific professions had often obtained their advanced degrees overseas or been taught by Westerners in China.        Since such backgrounds were now considered “feudal,” “reactionary,” “comprador,” or “capitalist,” it was incumbent on the intellectuals to show their loyalty to the CCP. Most were ready to make the effort to help the new regime because they had become sick of the inefficiencies of the old China and had lost any faith that the Guomindang could bring enduring, constructive change. The CCP’s promise that even Guomindang officials might stay on at their jobs had been reassuring. (SMC, 505-6)     During the early stages of the First Five-Year Plan, Mao Zedong began to see that intellectuals — writers as well as scientists and engineers — of all political persuasions would be needed if there were to be a surge in China’s productive capacities. ... Cadres were told that they were wrong to “take the ability to grasp Marxist-Leninism as the sole criterion on which to base their judgments.” Intellectuals who “are capable of working honestly and of knowing their work” must be encouraged.        Yet when writers went too far in following up the logic of these remarks they met with ferocious opposition. ... A curious situation now developed in which China’s leadership became bitterly divided over how to deal with its own demoralized intellectuals. Of the wide spectrum of positions on the matter, two polar views stood out. One favored continuing the united-front alliance of the CCP with the intellectuals, arguing that their skills were desperately needed in the drive to achieve the First Five-Year Plan and in the transition to collectivized agriculture, and that their loyalty could ultimately be trusted even if they did criticize the party. The other held that the unity of the CCP was paramount, that the CCP had led the revolution and could not now be criticized from outside without fatal effects on party effectiveness and morale. The tortuous course of what came to be called the Hundred Flowers movement emerged slowly from these political divisions. ... In a speech he delivered on May 2 to a closed session of party leaders, Mao elaborated on the idea of “letting a hundred flowers bloom” in the field of culture, and “a hundred schools of thought contend” in the field of science. (SMC, 507-9)    Mao had to use all his influence to get a full Hundred Flowers campaign going. In a free-wheeling and often utopian-sounding speech of February 1957, delivered to a large group of intellectual and Communist leaders, Mao tried to instill the idea of flexibility and openness into the minds of his captive audience, in sharp contrast to what had become the party’s more authoritarian mode — one which he himself had helped to create. ... Only in late April of 1957, after months of pressure against foot-dragging party secretaries around the country, did the full weight of the press and other propaganda organs swing in favor of the campaign. It was now couched in the rhetoric of a full rectification movement, in which intellectuals were encouraged to speak out against abuses within the party. ... The language of the campaign directive, however, tried to reassure cadres that they would be gently treated. This was to be a campaign for unity that would bind all in common progress. It would be, said Mao,    a movement of ideological education carried out seriously, yet as gently as a breeze or a mild rain. It should be a campaign of criticism and self-criticism carried to the proper extent. Meetings should be limited to small-sized discussion meetings or group meetings. Comradely heart-to-heart talks in the form of conversations, namely exchange of views between individuals, should be used more and large meetings of criticism or ‘struggle’ should not be held. (SMC, 510)     Hundred Flowers Speech Lu Dingyi, Director of the Central Committee Propaganda Department May 26, 1956 If we want our country to be prosperous and strong, we must, besides consolidating the people’s state power, developing our economy and education and strengthening our national defense, have a flourishing art, literature and science. That is essential.        If we want art, literature and science to flourish, we must apply a policy of letting flowers of many kinds blossom, letting diverse schools of thought contend.    Literature and art can never really flourish if only one flower blooms alone, no matter how beautiful that flower may be. Take the theatre, an example which readily comes to mind these days. Some years back there were still people who set their face against Peking opera. Then the Party decided to apply the policy summed up in the words “let flowers of many kinds blossom side by side, weed through the old to let the new emerge” to the theatre. Everybody can see now how right it was to do so, and the notable results it led to. Thanks to free competition and the fact that the various kinds of drama now all learn from one another, our theatre has made rapid progress. In the field of science, we have historical experience to draw on. During the period of the Spring and Autumn Annals (722-481 B.C.) and of the Warring States (403-221 B.C.) more than two thousand years ago, many schools of thought vied with each other for supremacy. That was a golden age in the intellectual development of China. History shows that unless independent thinking and free discussion are encouraged, academic life stagnates. And conversely, when they are encouraged, academic growth speeds up. (DC, 399)   Professors Speak Out Chang Po-sheng & Huang Chen-lu June 10, 1957 Chang Po-sheng and Huang Chen-lu at a “contention” meeting of the faculty members of the Shenyang Normal College on June 10, jointly made a long speech lasting about three hours. ... The central problem brought up in the joint speech by these two men was “doing away with the absolute leadership of the Party.”        “Doing away with the absolute leadership of the Party,” said Huang Chen-lu, “is aimed at strengthening the Party leadership and making the Party a vanguard. ... Before the liberation the Party enjoyed high prestige, maintaining intimate connections with the people and uniting with the people, and there were no such contradictions as exist today. Since the founding of the Republic, particularly in the last one or two years, the Party has become superior to the people and has assumed privileges, praising itself for its ‘greatness, glory and correctness’ and placing itself above the state, above the people. For this reason, Party prestige is falling day by day. More and more persons with impure motives join the Party. They join the Party because they can win glory and acquire power, influence and money. ... The Communist Party has 12,000,000 members, less than 2 per cent of the total population. The 600 million people are to become the obedient subjects of these 2 per cent of people. What sort of principle is this! The absolute leadership of the Party must be done away with. The privilege of Party members must be done away with!”…        “If this state of affairs is to be changed, a system of general election campaigns should be put into effect alongside the abolition of the absolute leadership of the Party. ... The Communist Party, if it really represents the people, will not be kicked out; if the Communist Party is kicked out, it means it no longer represents the people. Is it pitiable to have such a Party kicked out?” (DC, 404-6)