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CONTENTS
Vol. 13, No. 3: July-September 1981
Peter Nolan and Gordon White - Distribution and Development in
China
Victor Lippit - The Peoples Communes and Chinas New
Development Strategy
Carl Riskin - Market, Maoism, and Economic Reform in China
Edward Friedman - The Original Chinese Revolution Remains in
Power
Ralph Croizier - The Thorny Flowers of 1979: Political Cartoons
and Liberalization in China
Vera Schwarcz - How Lu Hsun Became a Marxist: Conversations
with Yuan Liangjun
Barbara H. Chasin - Human Adaptation and Population Growth by
D.S. Kleinman / A Review
Miriam Lo-Lim - Five Books on World Hunger / A Review
BCAS/Critical AsianStudies
www.bcasnet.org
CCAS Statement of Purpose
Critical Asian Studies continues to be inspired by the statement of purpose
formulated in 1969 by its parent organization, the Committee of Concerned
Asian Scholars (CCAS). CCAS ceased to exist as an organization in 1979,
but the BCAS board decided in 1993 that the CCAS Statement of Purpose
should be published in our journal at least once a year.
We first came together in opposition to the brutal aggression of
the United States in Vietnam and to the complicity or silence of
our profession with regard to that policy. Those in the field of
Asian studies bear responsibility for the consequences of their
research and the political posture of their profession. We are
concerned about the present unwillingness of specialists to speak
out against the implications of an Asian policy committed to en-
suring American domination of much of Asia. We reject the le-
gitimacy of this aim, and attempt to change this policy. We
recognize that the present structure of the profession has often
perverted scholarship and alienated many people in the field.
The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars seeks to develop a
humane and knowledgeable understanding of Asian societies
and their efforts to maintain cultural integrity and to confront
such problems as poverty, oppression, and imperialism. We real-
ize that to be students of other peoples, we must first understand
our relations to them.
CCAS wishes to create alternatives to the prevailing trends in
scholarship on Asia, which too often spring from a parochial
cultural perspective and serve selfish interests and expansion-
ism. Our organization is designed to function as a catalyst, a
communications network for both Asian and Western scholars, a
provider of central resources for local chapters, and a commu-
nity for the development of anti-imperialist research.
Passed, 2830 March 1969
Boston, Massachusetts
Vol. 13, No. 3/July-Sept., 1981
Contents
Peter Nolan and Gordon White 2 Distribution and Development in China
Victor Lippit 19 The People's Communes and China's New Development Strategy
Carl Riskin 31 Market, Maoism and Economic Reform in China
Edward Friedman 42 The Original Chinese Revolution Remains in Power
Ralph Croizier 50 The Thorny Flowers of 1979: Political Cartoons and Liberalization in China
Vera Schwarcz 60 How Lu Xun Became a Marxist: Conversations with Yuan Liangjun
68 List of Books to Review
Barbara H. Chasin 68 Review of D.S. Kleinman, Human Adaptation and Population Growth
Miriam Lo-Lim 70 Five books on world hunger!Review
72 In Memory of Peggy Duff
Contributors
Barbara Chasin: Montclair State College, Upper Montclair, Miriam Lo-Lim: Department of Geography, Mankato State
New Jersey. University, Mankato, Minnesota.
Ralph Croizier: History Department, University of Victoria, Peter Nolan: Jesus College, Cambridge, England.
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Carl Riskin: Department of Economics, Queens College, and
Edward Friedman: Associate Staff Director, Subcommittee on East Asian Institute, Columbia University, New York.
Asia. Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Rep Vera Schwarcz: History Department. Wesleyan University,
resentatives. Washington, D.C. Middletown, Connecticut.
Victor Lippit: Department of Economics, University of Cali Gordon White: The Institute of Development Studies at the
fornia, Riverside, California. University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex, England.
BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org
Distribution and Development in China
by Peter Nolan and Gordon White
The Maoist Legacy
In this paper* we intend to examine the changes in Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) policies concerning rural distribution
since the death of Mao Zedong, with particular attention to the
relationship between the pursuit of egalitarian socialist and
economic growth objectives in the context of a specific case of
state socialist development. A serious consideration of the new
strategy must first give some account of policies implemented
during and after the Cultural Revolution and their impact on
farm output and rural inequality. Only then can we gain a clear
idea of the degree to which policies have in fact changed and the
relationship of these changes to problems experienced during
the Cultural Revolution decade of 1966-1976.
Current Chinese pUblications portray a uniformly bleak
picture of the rural situation in this "disastrous decade. " They
argue that ultra-egalitarian policies were widely practiced with
little regard to their detrimental consequences for peasant pro
duction incentives. We have argued elsewhere that the reality of
rural distribution policies during this period was more complex
than this retrospective condemnation would allow. I Corres
pondingly, we feel that present rural policies do not constitute
such a radical break with preceding policies as is frequently
suggested, either in their conception or still less in their impact
on the grass roots. This is not surprising. Since the disastrous
experiments of the Great Leap Forward (1958-9) and the subse
quent collapse of farm OUtput,
2
all sides of the Chinese political
debate have been more circumspect in their approach to ag
riculture than to other sectors. Agriculture still produces the
lion's share of China's wage goods and export earnings. Conse
quently, radical organisational changes which might have ad
verse effects on farm output have been viewed with suspicion.
In contrast to the enormous institutional changes that occurred
from 1949 to 1958, the whole period since the early 1960s
appears as a time of relative stability in the rural organizational
structure.
Was the performance of farm output during the Cultural
Revolution decade as poor as is now being suggested in the
Chinese press? It appears true that by the late 1970s farm output
per capita had risen little compared to the 1950s (see Table l)
and in certain sectors (for example, cotton and oilseeds) was
lower than 1957.
The main advances have come in pork and sugar-cane
output. With the exception of grain, average consumption levels
of the main farm products are still very low
3
and it is unlikely
that this has altered significantly since the 1950s. Moreover,
Chinese farmers seem to have been working harder to produce a
roughly constant annual output per worker; earnings per labor
day are reported to have fallen by one-third between 1957 and
1977.
4
However, some important qualifications need to be made
to this negative assessment. First, China's population growth
continued at a rapid pace until the mid-1970s. On the most
optimistic assumption, it was not until the early 1970s that the
natural rate of population increase (apart from the exceptional
interlude of the early 1 960s) fell below 2 percent per annum, and
it has only fallen significantly below this in the latter part of the
decade.
s
Success in reducing the pace of popUlation growth is a
valuable legacy bequeathed to the post-Mao regime. Simply to
keep up with a popUlation growth of 2 percent or more is a major
* A slightly different version of this paper will appear in China' s New Develop
ment Policy. edited by Gordon White and Jack Gray, published by Academic
Press.
I. Peter Nolan and Gordon White, "Socialist development and rural inequality:
the Chinese countryside in the 1970's," Journal o/Peasant Studies, Vol. 7, No.
1 (October 1979), pp. 3-48.
2. In Guangdong province, for example, the index ofoutput (physical) (I 957 =
100) stood as follows in 1960: grain=80, sugarcane=75, peanuts=55,
pigs=59, draught animals = 84: written data given to the Queen Elizabeth
House, Oxford, China Study Group, June 1979 (hereafter Trip Notes).
3. The average per capita daily intake of calories in the mid-1970s was es
timated to be only about 2100, of which over 80% came from grain: H.J. Groen
and J. A. Kilpatrick, "Chinese Agricultural Policy" in Joint Economic Commit
tee, U.S. Congress, Chinese Economy Post-Mao (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 645. The average per capita daily calorie
intake in 38 low-income countries in 1977 was estimated to be 2052: World
Bank. World Development Report 1980 (New York: Oxford University Press.
1980), p. 152.
4. Zhang Liuzheng, "Developing agricultural production; transfonning the
peasants' living standard." NYJJWT.No. I. 1980.
5. 1.S. Aird, "Population growth in the People's Republic of China. " in U.S.
2 Congress, Chinese Economy Post-Mao, p. 467.
achievement for the farm sector of any country. Provided China
could have maintained a growth Of farm output at somewhat
above 2 percent per annum (as had been done since the mid
1950s) a declining rate of population growth would have permit
ted a steady rise in per capita output. There is no reason to think
this would not have been possible under the policies of the
Cultural Revolution decade.
A second qualification is a more careful consideration of
the criteria by which the growth in farm output should be
judged. The CCP inherited an agricultural sector whose growth
potential was limited by the fact that the possibilities for raising
output under "traditional" techniques had already been exten
sively exploited. Opportunities for extending cultivable land
(without enormous expense) were also very limited and, since
the 1950s, the total cultivated area has hardly altered. Conse
quently, the main route to increased farm output has been
through increased yields per unit of farmland, that is by increas
ing the number of crops per acre per year and raising yield per
crop. The mUltiple cropping index (sown area divided by arable
area) was already high in South China in the 1950s: in Guang
dong, for example, it stood at 186 (see Table 2).
Further north, climate has always been a fundamental
constraint on multiple cropping and, in general, labor shortages
at peak times in the farm cycle have limited the degree of
increase in cropping intensity. Consequently, the main channel
for raising farm output has had to be increased yield per crop.
Here China has been fairly successful. In Guangdong, for exam
pie, though grain yields were already relatively high by the
mid-1960s for such a large, heterogeneous area, yields were
pushed up significantly during the Cultural Revolution decade
(see Table 2). In Hebei province in north China, annual grain
yields (tons per hectare) rose in the following fashion: 1965=
1.8; 1970=2.3; 1973=2.6; 1978=3.3.
6
What is perhaps most striking about China's performance
of farm output from the early 1960s to the late 1970s was its
similarity with other Asian countries. Under the initial impact of
a rapid rise in the application of new farm inputs, the growth of
farm output accelerated ahead of population growth in the
middle and late 1960s. From 1964 to 1970 China's grain output
grew at around 3.8 percent per annum.
7
By comparison, food
grain output in India grew by almost 5 percent p.a. in the late
I960s. However, in the 1970s the early hopes of an Asian
"Green Revolution" were widely disappointed and the long
term growth of farm output returned to around 2 percent p.a. 8 In
China, as in other Asian countries, technological factors pre
vented a long-term acceleration of the growth of farm output.
The early increase in the application of modem inputs yielded
relatively high returns but diminishing returns set in quite
quickly. The regions which have received a relatively large
share of modem inputs since the early 1960s (the so-called
"high and stable yield areas") have been those with specially
favoured water supply, which tend to be the more fertile areas
near large cities. Yields are now very high in these areas. In
Guangdong, for example, the Pearl River Delta has been the
major recipient of new inputs. In the most fertile parts of the
delta (e.g. Nanhai county) rice yields are close to the highest in
the world and the margin for further increase must be rather
Table 1
Per Capita Output of Major Farm Products in China
1952,1957,1978
Item Unit 1952 1957 1978
Grain (incl. soya beans) I kgs. 285.0 304.0 318.0
Cotton I kgs. 2.3 2.5 2.3
Sugar cane I kgs. 12.4 16.2 22.0
Edible oilseeds I kgs. 6.4 5.9 4.8
Pigs (in the pen) I no. 0.16 0.22 0.31
Aquatic products
2
kgs. 2.9 4.8
Fruit
2
kgs. 4.3 6.9
Source:
I. W. Klatt. "China's New Economic Policy: A Statistical Appraisal." China
Quarterly. No. 80. December 1979.
2. Shi Shan. "Where is the breakthrough point to rapid agricultural growth in
our country?" Nongye Jingji (hereafter NYJJWT). 1980. No.2.
Table 2
Agricultural Production in Guangdong Province
1952-1977
Item Unit 1952 1957 1966 1977
Arable area m.ha. ** 3.31 3.46 3.16 3.24
Sown area m.ha. 6.17 7.08 6.93 7.39
mUltiple
cropping 186 205 219 228
index
of which
grain m.ha. 5.47 6.07 5.14 5.77
% total 88.7 85.7 74.2 78.1
Yields:
grain tons per
sown ha. 1.56 1.79 2.58 3.02
sugarcane tons per
sown ha. 43.5 42.8 33.2 41.5
peanuts tons per
sown ha. 1.0 0.8 0.9 1.6
Growth rate of
output (physical): 1952-57 1957-66 1966-77
grain %p.a.* 4.9 2.2 2.5
sugarcane %p.a. 10.7 2.5 3.9
peanuts %p.a. 5.4 5.6 1.3
pigs (in the pen) %p.a. 2.1 5.3 3.4
Source: From written data given to Queen Elizabeth House. Oxford. China
Study Group. June 1979.
* p.a. = per annum. ** M.ha. = millions of hectares.
6. Trip Notes. June 1979.
7. Groen and Kilpatrick. op. cit., p. 649.
8. World Bank, World Development Report 1980. pp. 112-113.
3
Table 3
Distribution of Collective Income Available for Consumption in No. 7 Production Team,
Xintang Brigade, Tangtang Commune, Fogang County, Guangdong Province, 1978
Mean house- Mean no. of Mean ratio of
Range of income No. of No. of No. of labor hold size labor powers labor powers to
(yuan p.c.) households people powers (persons) per household household size
3 I-50 (lowest = 36) 3 16 4
51-70 14 79 29
71-90 6 24 13
91-110 2 7 5
110 (highest = 162) 3 5 5
Source: Trip Notes of the authors.
limited.
The important lessons learned by all sections of the Chi
nese leadership from the utopian experiments of the Great Leap
Forward have also influenced official policies on rural distribu
tive issues. No systematic attempt has been made to revive the
radical egalitarian measures of the Leap. but it is true that at
certain times and in certain areas the Party did attempt to
introduce more radical policies on income distribution. For
most of the period since the Leap. leftist leaders had to accept
that it was quite unrealistic to try to eliminate rural inequality
and that the most they could hope to do was to "restrict" such
inequality.9 Specific policies aside. however. ever since the
establishment of collectives and the abandonment of predomi
nantly pri vate ownership of the means of agricultural production
in the mid 1950s. there have been important institutional factors
helping to constrain intra-village differentials in income and
standard of living. Income distribution by the collective to its
members has been primarily based on the number of "labor
days" (or work-points) earned per worker. As labor productiv
ity alters. so the value of the" labor day" alters for all members
alike-in the Chinese phrase, "the boat rises (or falls) with the
water level." Moreover, a portion of grain consumption has
been distributed "according to need" on a per capita basis
usually differentiated by age. 10 It was quite common during the
Cultural Revolution decade for poor households to consume
more grain than they had earned in workpoints, though the
extent and terms of such "overdrawing" (chaozhi) was a con
tentious issue.
However, in spite of such constraints on differentiation
within the village, important inequalities persisted, even within
the smallest unit, the production team. *While the private sector
was subject to periodic attacks, it remained through the Cultural
Revolution decade. For example, Jiading county (in Shanghai
municipality) was a focus of radical activity in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, yet the free market in its main town was closed
only for 2-3 weeks at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution
in 1966. Since then, various restrictions had limited the volume
of transactions, but the market was by no means eliminated. The
*The average size of the team in a 1979 survey was 193 people and 41
households':'" see footnote 10.
4
5.3 1.3 1:4.0
5.6 2.1 1:2.7
4.0 2.2 I: 1.8
3.5 2.5 I: 1.4
1.7 I.7 I: 1.0
private sector also constituted an important, if fluctuating, share
of peasant income during this period. A 1979 survey of 339
brigades, for example, showed that the private sector (still in the
early stage of expansion under the new policies) already con
tributed 25-30 percent of total household income. I I Our study
of the 1970s suggests that those households with more labor
power or greater skills were better placed to benefit from private
economic activity than their weaker neighbours 12-and this
suggests a hypothesis that greater scope for private economy
widens inter-household inequalities.
Except for cases where the value of grain distribution
"according to need" exceeded a household's collective earn
ings, all collective income has been distributed according to
workpoints throughout the I 960s and I 970s . During the cultural
Revolution important changes in an egalitarian direction occur
red in the method of workpoint allocation. There was a pro
nounced tendency toward the Dazhai method, i.e. workpoints
allocated to the person and recorded on a time-rate basis, rather
than allocated according to task and recorded on a piece-rate
basis. However it should be noted that even during the Cultural
Revolution it was quite common to combine these two methods,
using each for different tasks. Under the time-rate system, the
gaps between workers seem generally to have been quite nar
row; most adult male workers probably earned between 8-10
workpoints per day's labor.
While the span of collective earnings between individual
farm workers may have been narrow, the differentials in aver
age per capita incomes between households within a given team
were still substantial. The production team shown in Table 3 had
changed its method of workpoint allocation little from that used
before 1976. The critical factor in household income differen
9. For a discussion of policies on rural distribution before the death of Mao. see
Nolan and White. op. cit.
10. A national survey of 339 production brigades in 1979 found that in 1978
76.5'7r of the members' grain ration was "according to need." In 1979. the
figure had declined to 70%: People's Communes' Management Section of the
Department of Agriculture, "A survey of income distribution in 339 brigades in
the people's communes in 1979." NYJJWT, No.9, 1980, p. 29.
II. Ibid.
12. Nolan and White, op. cit.. pp. 25-26.
tials was obviously the worker-dependent ratio. The degree of
fluctuation in relative incomes under such a system is large as
households move into different phases in the family cycle.
However at any point in time differentials in per capita collec
tive incomes are large even with relatively small differences in
earnings per worker.
Let us turn now to differentials between teams or brigades
within communes. During the Great Leap Forward, the forma
tion of large communes amalgamating many collectives led to
drastic diminution in inter-collective income differentials as the
average value of the labor day was equalized between units
under centralized commune-level accounting. The dissatisfac
tion expressed by better-off collectives was enormous. The
early 1960s saw a reversal first to brigade and then to team level
accounting and income distribution-each unit retaining the
extra income or "differential rent" accruing from favored loca
tion as an incentive to production. In essence, thjs policy was
contrived to govern the official approach to inter-unit differen
tials throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Were there any special factors that tended to constrain local
(i.e., intra-county, intra-commune) differentials during 1966
76? In theory alI economic relations between local units
throughout this period were to be on the basis of "equivalent
exchange" and generally it appears that this was how exchanges
were handled. Simply on account of the similarity of local
geographical and economic conditions, it might be expected
that there would be certain limits to local inter-unit income
differences. Moreover, poorer units in fast growing areas have
probably benefitted from the spin-off effects of brigade and
commune-level activities, notably in the supply of welfare facil
ities but also in the provision of relatively highly-paid non-farm
employment. However, even at the local level, income differ
ences could widen cumulatively on the basis of differential
rents. There was radical pressure during the Cultural Revolution
decade, for example, to enforce the amalgamation of units of
different income levels or to directly redistribute the resources
of richer units to their poorer neighbors. These pressures are
now condemned, but, as we shall argue later in more detail, they
were intermittent and limited in their impact-adjuncts to a
basic set of policies which did not strongly interfere with local
differentials-rather than a dominating feature of rural policy
during 1966-76.
Data are meager but they suggest the following picture of
local spatial differentials within a given county. The dimension
of inequality between average income levels of communes
seems to be quite small. For example, in 1978 the average per
capita distributed income (APCDI) in Jiading county (Shang
hai) was 244 yuan. The county contained 19 communes of
which the APCDI in the highest was only 121 % and that of the
lowest 88% of the average for the whole county. Fourteen of the
19 were in the range of 230-260 yuan (Trip Notes). A similar
picture emerged from data on Fogang county, Guangdong, in
1978. Each commune encompasses a range of conditions, so
that the range of income between the constituent units could be
quite large, even at the end of the Cultural Revolution decade.
For example, in 1975 in Chengdong commune in Jiading coun
ty, out of a total of 157 teams, the lowest had an APCDI of 98
yuan and the highest 219 yuan. However, 83% of the teams fell
between the relatively narrow range of 120-179 yuan (Trip
Notes). In Chengdong commune the range between teams with
in brigades generally was not large. In 1978 there were 16
brigades with an average of 9.8 teams in each. In the brigade
5
.with the largest range (83 yuan) in 1978, the APCDI in the
highest team stood at 185% of the lowest. In only one other
brigade did the income of the highest team exceed that of the
lowest by more than 54 percent. Data on local differentials,
however, are extremely fragmentary and should be interpreted
with much greater caution than data on broad regional
differentials.
Turning to the latter, at the broad regional level, there is
little doubt that differentials in gross income per farmer widened
between the more and the less well placed areas in the I 960s and
1970s, as a relatively large share of new farm inputs were
purchased by units in areas which were already rich. For incen
tive reasons, the government avoided use of the agricultural tax
to siphon off rising surpluses from the richer areas. The main
constraints were twofold: pressure, first, to grow more grain
than they wished and, second, to control consumption growth
and maximize investment growth. The latter policy further
exacerbated gross income differentials. Certainly, by the end of
the "Gang of Four" period, there were large regional differen
tials even within a single province. For example, in Guangdong
in 1975,34 percent of teams had an APCDI ofless than 50 yuan,
54 percent had 51-100 yuan, and 12 percent more than 100
yuan (2.4% had more than 150 yuan) (Trip Notes). Across the
whole of China in 1978 (i.e., before the new policies had begun
Growth and welfare objectives and Maoist "egali
tarianism" were not as incompatible as current ac
counts would argue. In fact, many accounts published
in the late 1970s tend to overplay the significance and
impact of "ultra-leftism" and "egalitarianism" and
to underplay basic ecological, technical and institu
tional factors.
to bite), there were 377 counties (16.3%) with an APCDI of 50
yuan or less, 1387 (60%) between 51 and 100 yuan and 548
(23.7%) with more than 100 yuan. In Shanghai and Beijing,
100% of counties had more than 100 yuan APCDI, in Heilong
jiang 77%, Tianjin 73%, Jilin 67% and Zhejiang 44%. There
were eleven provinces/regions with over 20% of their counties
with an APCDI of less than 50 yuan: Guizhou, Yunnan, Fujian,
Gansu, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shandong,
Henan and Anhui. t3
To summarize this section on the background to the new
policies on rural distribution, it is wise to regard current
accounts of the previous situation in the Chinese media with some
caution. Their picture of the past is overly negative; this is
unsurprising given the fact that such descriptions are provided to
buttress the case for policy change. On the growth side, the
picture of frustratingly slow growth and stagnation in certain
areas is correct. These problems were serious enough to warrant
13. Shi Shan, "Where is the breakthrough point to rapid agricultural develop
ment," NYJJWT. No.2. 1980.
However, to the extent that radical egalitarian policies
were forced upon inappropriate realities and unwill
ing farmers from 1966 and 1976, they did have an
adverse impact on popular motivations and growth in
rural living standards.
a new approach to rural policy which will bring about a more
rapid improvement in rural living standards and the general pace
and volume of economic activity in the countryside. But this
limited growth was in itself quite an achievement given popula
tion pressure and technical constraints, and broad sections ofthe
rural population did gain substantially in welfare terms between
the 1950s and 1970s.
To the extent that these positive judgments are true, they
suggest that growth and welfare objectives and Maoist' 'egali
tarianism" were not as incompatible as current accounts would
argue. In fact, many accounts published in the late I 970s tend to
overplay the significance and impact of "ultra-leftism" and
"egalitarianism" and to underplay basic ecological, technical
and institutional factors. To this extent, the problem was not
growth vs. distributive policy, but growth vs. underlying con
straints. However, to the extent that radical egalitarian policies
were forced upon inappropriate realities and unwilling farmers
from 1966 and 1976, they did have an adverse impact on
popular motivations and growth in rural living standards. At the
same time, policies such as restrictions on private economy and
the free market, overly high rates ofaccumulation and excessive
redistribution were not so much a direct reflection of ' 'leftism' ,
emanating from Beijing or Shanghai but oflocal institutions and
"local policies," (difang zhengce), i.e., cadres at brigade and
commune levels exercising what they considered their respon
sibilities for accumulation and redistribution. To this extent,
though there was a real clash between growth and distributive
(or rather redistributive) priorities, the causes should be sought
at the structural as well as policy levels. This fact is recognized
by more recent Chinese critiques of previous rural strategy, in
which the anti-' 'Gang of Four" litany is increasingly marginal;
in fact, some of these critiques trace problems back to the
mid-1950s.
At the death of Mao in 1976, moreover, the Chinese
countryside contained substantial inequalities, notwithstanding
a decade of Maoist "egalitarianism." Indeed, Maoist policies
sometimes reinforced ot exacerbated inequalities, notably in the
implications of the principle of "self-reliance" for local and
regional disparities. Although there was much leftist huffing
and puffing about rural-urban inequalities, the leftist impact on
key indices of inequality, such as the share of state investment
devoted to agriculture, and price ratios between agricultural and
industrial goods, was disappointing or non-existent. Where
radical measures did operate to restrain intra-rural differen
tials-for example, popularization of the time-rate method of
income distribution-it was in an arena (intra-village) where
differentials were the least pronounced. In general, however,
the most powerful restraints seem to have stemmed less from
specific policies and more from the basic structure of rural
organization-the commune system-which organized pro
duction collectively and allowed for redistribution within and
between units at different levels. These factors should be borne
in mind in assessing the impact (or lack of impact) of the new
course in rural policy in the late 1970s.
The New Course in Agricultural Policy
The basic source of the new rural economic strategy which
emerged between 1977-79 was a realignment of political lead
ership at the summit of the CCP-the gradual consolidation.of a
leadership group led by Deng Xiaoping, who lay behind the
anti.radical coup of late 1976 and who gradually asserted politi
cal dominance over remnant' 'center-leftist" leaders. The redis
tribution of power among the top leadership produced a clear
switch from "left" to "right" at both ideological and policy
levels*-a switch so dramatic and comprehensive that it gave
credence to earlier Maoist portrayals of the "two-line strug
gle." The key dimensions of ideological differentiation are
clear: the enthronement of modernization as the central concern
of socialist development and a consequent indifference or hos
tility towards many of the policy initiatives previously pursued
under the banner of "Mao Zedong Thought," most notably
Maoist approaches to questions of equality, democratization of
state institutions, class formation, reforms in the labor process
and the development role ofpolitico-ideological consciousness.
In the sphere of rural policy, after an initial spurt of break
neck modernization-mania during 1977 and 1978, under the
banner of a new Great Leap Forward, the Dengist leadership
ushered in a more restrained and systematic process of "read
justment, restructuring, consolidation and improvement," de
cided at the Third Plenum of the Party Central Committee in
December 1978 and publicly ratified at a meeting of the Na
tional People's Congress in June 1979.
14
We shall focus primarily on this latter phase of policy and
its implementation in 1979-1980, with the qualification that some
of its general themes and specific policies were already current
before the Third Plenum and thus form part of our data base. **
It is not our intention to provide an overview of changes in
agricultural policy, IS but to focus on those elements of the new
* We think it realistic to emphasize the "left-right" nature of these changes in
contrast to attempts to portray them as a clash between "rationality" and
"irrationality," "dogmatism" and "pragmatism," or "radicalism" and
"moderation. "
** Indeed, much of the "new" policy direction is a return to the cautious
prescriptions embodied in the "60 articles" of 1962 and to the policies and
practices current in the era of advanced agricultural producer cooperatives in
1956-57. For the present leadership, these were both periods when "rational
ity:' ~ I e d rural economic policy.
14. For a report on the Third Plenum's impact on agricultural policy, see "An
important policy decision on accelerating agriCUltural development," Renmin
Ribao (People's Daily-hereafter RMRB), editorial, Jan. 22, 1979, translated
in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Repon: People's Republic of
China (hereafter FB1S) Jan. 23, 1979, pp. E2-E6. Compare "Premier Hua
Guofeng's report on the work of the government" (delivered at tbe second
session of the Fifth National People's Congress on June 18, 1979), New China
News Agency (hereafter NCNA) , Beijing, June 25, 1979.
15. For a comprehensive review of changes in agricultural policy since the
removal of the Shanghai group, see Benedict Stavis, Turning Point in China's
Agricultural Policy, Working Paper No.2, MSU Rural Development Series,
Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, East Lans
ing, Michigan, May 1979; and Bill Brugger, "Rural policy," in Brugger, ed.,
China Since the 'Gang ofFour' (London: Croom Helm, 1980), pp. 135-73.
6
policies which impinge upon the relationship between distribu
tion and development. Pervading the new strategy for rural
development, one can discern two major streams of ideas
*****************
rationalization and material incentives-which have particular
bearing on this problem.
Rationalization
Current Chinese political propaganda and economic theory
stress the need to rationalize the rural economy in several basic
ways. First, they call on policy makers and cadres at all levels to
"obey objective economic laws" through a diversificiation of
the agricultural production structure-at national, regional,
local and bastc levels-to match specific variations in ecologi
cal conditions. Leftist leaders, it is argued, were blind to the
diversity of ecological potential, imposing a policy of "grain as
the key link" and pressurizing collectives to grow grain where
natural conditions were unfavorable, resulting in low yields and
high opportunity costs. 16
Second, rationalization of the production structure em
bodies the principle of concentration. Given the fact that the
demand for modem inputs generally exceeds supply, rational
allocation demands that the State's fiscal and other financial
resources should be concentrated on certain key areas' with
proven or potential comparative advantage in the production of
particular commodities, whether they be "marketable grain
bases," bases for specific industrial crops, or special "export
bases." The same principle is applied to the program of ag
ricultural mechanization. The grandiose plans for rapid com
prehensive mechanization sponsored by Hua Guofeng in the
mid-1970s have been shelved in favor ofa policy which concen
trates machines on a few chosen areas. 17 Third, the principle of
rationalization has involved a wide-ranging effort (a) to improve
factor productivity through more skilled and systematic man
agement and cost accounting practices at the level of collec
tives and collective enterprises and in state enterprises providing
goods and services for agriculture; (b) to institute tighter finan
cial disciplines to make more effective use of development
funds; and (c) to cut down the number of "unproductive"
workers-administrative cadres, health, culture and education
personnel-at each level of the commune structure. 18
16. See, for example, "On so-called 'Eating the grain of guilt.' " Liaoning
Daily. Feb. 3, 1979 (reported by Liaoning Provincial Radio, Shenyang, and
translated in FBIS Feb 8, 1979); He Dongjun and He Maoji. "Voice from the
land oflovage, " NCNA. Beijing.l"farch 18. 1979(translatedinFB1SMarch21.
1979); NCNA (English edition), 6 Feb., 1980.
17. For example, see Tung Ta-Iin and Pao Tung, "Some views on agricultural
modernisation," RMRB 8 Dec., 1978, p. 3 (in FBIS 18 Dec., 1978) and "A
correct policy for speeding up farm mechanisation," RMRB. editorial, 6 Feb.,
1979 (in FBIS Feb. 6, 1979).
18. For example, see Kirin province's directive on income distribution, (issued
by the provincial CCP Committee on 9 Nov., 1977), reported by Kirin Radio, 14
Nov.. 1977 (in FBIS 22 Nov., 1977) sections 3 and 6; People's Daily editorial
on improving commune management, 14 Apr. 1980.
19. Guangming Ribao, 10 Apr. 1980, translated in BBC, Summary o/World
Broadcasts: Far East-hereafter SWB:FE. No. 6437, BII. 5.
20. "Distribution policy" (one of an eight-lecture series), Beijing Radio (do
mestic service) 22 Apr., 1978 (translated in Joint Publications Research Serv
ice (hereafter JPRS) No. 431, 24 May 1978.
Notice
Here, in a two-part special, the Editors present essays that
focus on China since the death of Mao Zedong. As with
our continuing series of articles on Southeast Asia since
1975, the contributions here and in the accompanying
issue (Vol. 13, No.2) are not definitive or final. We invite
other readers to join this dialogue by submitting essays or
research reports (in triplicate, please) that will, both in a
progressive and critical manner, further our understand
ing of contemporary China.
The Editors
*****************
Material Incentives
Agficultural policy over the past two years has been increas
ingfy dominated by the idea that the crucial determinants of
increased agricultural output-in the short run at least-are
individual and collective material incentives which are to be
strengthened by suitable distributive policies and institutions.
This has been accompanied by increasing skepticism about the
rapid, across-the-board plans for technical transformation cur
rent in the mid-1970s. Agricultural experts have argued that the
emphasis on large-scale mechanization and chemicalization of
farming dating from the early 1960s has had disappointing
economic results. For example, Zhan Wu, President of the
Institute of Agricultural Economics in the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences, has pointed out that while there was an increase
of 830 percent in farm machinery and 260 percent in chemical
fertilizers during 1965-1977, total production only rose by 80
percent and agricultural expenses rose by 130 percent. 19 The
same logic leads to a re-evaluation of the balance between
accumulation and consumption: excessive attention to the
former decreases production in the short and medium term by
reducing work motivation and reduces outlets -for other proc
esses of accumulation based on the peasants' ability to purchase
industrial consumer goods. The problem was exacerbated, it is
claimed with considerable justification, because high rates of
accumulation were often translated into wasteful and unproduc
tive investment.
According to the new position, the character of economic
incentives and distribution policy is described as "the core of
rural economic policies." "When pulling an ox," argued one
authoritative article, "pull it by the nose" -with distribution
policy the "nose. "20 This' is the view of Wang Gengjin,
vice-director of the Institute of Agricultural Economics in the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expressed in two col
laborative articles in the journal Jingji Yanjiu, (Economic Re
search). At the current stage of agricultural development, he
argues, stimulation of peasant "enthusiasm" is the crucial
mechanism for increasing output:
7
In developing the rural productive forces, we must ofcourse
make use of modernized means ofproduction and advanced
skills to arm agriculture. But modernized means ofproduc
tion and skills must be created and utilized by people. Iftheir
use is managed properly, the role of advanced skills in
spurring agricultural growth may be fully manifest; ifman
agement is inappropriate, the role of advanced techniques
cannot be developed adequately. The basic expression is a
fast rise in agricultural labor productivity. . . The raising of
agricultural labor productivity depends partly on the level at
which advanced scientific methods are utilized and the social
links of the productive process, etc., but first it includes
adequate development of people's enthusiasm. Our coun
try's agricultural production is currently still based on man
ual labor. From the national perspective, agricultural
mechanization and modernization are still only in their ini
tial stages and in some areas have not even begun. The
modernization of agriculture is not the work ofa day and a
night; it requires a process of gradual development. At
present, in conditions ofmanual labor and backward means
of production, in order to develop agricultural production
we must still rely directly on the experience and labor capac
ity of the laborers. In a certain sense, this still plays the
decisive role. Once we adequately stimulate the socialist
enthusiasm of the broad peasant masses, then we can fully
develop their labor ability and intelligence and can speed up
the development ofagricultural production. 21
The "socialist enthusiasm" of peasants must be aroused by
appealing to their "material interest" (wuzhi liyi).
The new course requires recognition of the necessity of
differentials (chengren chabie) between regions, collective un
its and households. Wang Gengjin et aI., argue the case as
follows:
Because the countryside at present still implements collective
ownership on the principle of "three-level ownership with
the team as the basis," there are still very big differences
between the level ofeconomic development between regions
and between collectives. As a result, after each production
team carries out distribution according to labor, the level of
payment will differ from team to team. These differences are
inevitable under conditions where the production team is the
basic unit of account. Recognition of this differential is
beneficial for encouraging each production team to strive to
develop production and increase income so as to be able to
raise the level of labor remuneration. Inside a production
team, there are differences between the individual labor of
the members. A recognition of these differences in labor
contributes to the encouragement of each member's labor
effort, to raising their labor capacity and technical level as a
means to increase labor remuneration. The rationale is
identical. 22
Other accounts have gone further by arguing that differen
tials should be encouraged as a spur to production. Material
inequalities were officially granted economic value and social
virtue through the slogan "getting rich first" (xian fuqilat). It
was argued that "it is glorious to receive more pay for more
work and become richer"; richer areas, collectives and indi
viduals would act as "a great demonstration force to influence
their neighbors. "Getting rich first, " it was claimed, was in fact
egalitarian since greater inequality would eventually lead to less
inequality as the poorer units and individuals emulated the rich
ones. Richer teams would "serve as examples to lead the poorer
teams forward, encourage them and make them see that there is
hope ahead. " On the "bright road to socialism," concluded a
Glorious Daily article, "people advance in a column, and not
'together' in a straight line. "23
The obverse of this argument has been a campaign against
the evils of "egalitarianism" (pingjunzhuyi), portrayed as a
mode of economic sabotage used by the former leftist leader
ship. The critique of "egalitarianism" is overdrawn and polem
ical, but rests on the following central tenets:
(i) Previous "egalitarian" measures (for example, the
compression of individual workpoint differentials within collec
tives or the restriction of income variations between collectives)
damaged productivity by failing to make clear distinctions in
material remuneration between better or worse, more or less
work.
Egalitarianism is a product of petty production and is not
compatible with the socialist principle of distribution ac
cording to work. The "Gang ofFour" produced a situation
in which there was no difference between working and not
working, doing more and doing less, doing good and bad
work. This attacked diligent people and encouraged lazy
people and caused great harm to the development of pro
duction.
24
(ii) The leftist leadership erroneously defined "egali
tarian" principles and practices as "socialist" or "communist"
with the result that "some people still look upon egalitarianism
as something 'socialist' or 'communist' to worship and adore."
They have also been castigated, somewhat unfairly, for equat
ing poverty with revolution and prosperity with revisionism.
Because they felt that greater poverty meant greater revolu
tionary fervor, runs the argument, the "Gang of Four" were in
favor of keeping people poor. 25
(iii) Egalitarianism encouraged the idea that socialism
provided an "unbreakable rice bowl" and the practice of "eat
ing from the common pot." As a result, "Liberation has be
come a symbol of the work of those people who shirk responsi
bility, are completely inattentive, relax vigilance and maintain
neutrality" -in other words it encouraged "free-loading" and
unproductive dependence on the collective. 26
21. Wang Gengjin, Yang Zhangfu and Wang Songpei, "To speed up the
development of agricultural production requires adequate concern for the peas
ants' material interests," Jingji Yanjiu (Economic Research-hereafter JJY]),
No.3, 1979, pp. 23-24.
22. Ibid., p. 28.
23. "It is glorious to receive more pay for more work and to become richer,"
Fujian Ribao (Fujian Daily) 13 Mar. 1979 (in FBIS 16 Mar. 1979). "Let some
peasants become well-off first, " Beijing Review. 9(2 Mar. 1979), pp. 5-6. "We
need to encourage a part of our peasants to become well-to-do first," NCNA.
Beijing, 17 Feb. 1979. Jin Wen, " 'Getting rich through labour' is in con
formity with socialist principle," Guangming Ribao (Glorious Daily-here
after GMRB) 15 Apr. 1979 (in FBIS 30 Apr. 1979).
24. Wang et aI., op. cit., p. 28.
25. Jin Wen, op. cit.
26. Liang Wen, "Holding an unbreakable rice-bowl and eating from the
common pot," Jilin Ribao (Jilin Daily) 20 May 1979, reported by Jilin Provin
cial Radio, Changchun, (FBIS 22 May 1979).
8
This critique of "egalitarianism" leads to a thorough re
orientation of theory and practice. First, "egalitarian" ideas
must be uprooted and replaced by three "correct" principles of
distribution, viz. "distribution according to work" (an lao
Jenpei), "more work, more pay" (duo lao duo de) and "do not
work, do not eat." Second, payment systems must be designed
to match as precisely as possible the quantity and quality of
individual effort with material return.
I
These general priorities and caveats have been embodied in
the official policies which emerged after the Third Plenum. In
I
1
'I
spite of the requisite lip-service paid to the primacy of" spiritual
motivation," the new strategy has hinged on appeals to peas
ants' immediate material interests, notably at the individual,
household or small collective levels. This has resulted in a
reorientation of macro-economic policies to raise ruml living
j
standards generally through changes in investment, financial,
I
!
I
procurement and taxation policies. For example, grain procure
ment prices, which rose by 69 percent between 1949 and 1978,
were increased by 20 percent in 1979, with a 50 percent prem
,j
ium for a set amount of surplus grain and 100% premium for any
amount beyond this. Agricultural officials have been instructed
not to raise procurement quotas on the "ratchet" principle but
stabilize them over several years to allow increases in produc
1
tion to increase peasant incomes directly. There has been an
I
I effort to increase the ratio of agricultural investment in the state
budget (this rose to 12.8% of total investment in 1979 and 16%
in 1980). The new strategy also involved policies to allow
I
I
I
greater freedom for individuals and collectives to dispose of
I
surplus produce, to stimulate individual labor initiative through
more highly differentiated payment systems; a reduced em
phasis on models (such as Dazhai brigade) which rely heavily on
non-material incentives; positive encouragement of the house
hold sector, provision for more autonomy for small work
groups below the production team level and a defense of the
production team against allegedly widespread depredations from
higher units and threats of transition to larger units of account.
I
Many of those policy changes have implications for rural in
t
equality and we shall discuss them in more detail in the next
section.
I
The Distributive Implications of the
!
New Agricultural Strategy
The Impact of Rationalization Policies
I
The third area of mtionalization-in the management and
accounting systems-is hardly new, being a frequent theme in
rural policy propaganda throughout the 1970s. The explicit and
systematic formulation of the principles of diversification and
concentration, on the other hand, does mark a change of em
I
l
phasis, though not a basic change in policy. Their implications
for rational resource use and rural welfare are compelling, but
we should bear in mind certain important qualifications. First,
to a considerable extent, the principle of regional concentration
is the mtification and intensification of a pattern of uneven
development already evident in the preceding decade. As we
argued earlier, there was a tendency during this period to con
centmte a relatively large amount of modern inputs in a rela
tively small part of China's total farm area, leading to the
emergence of a number of "high and stable yield areas" which
have helped to stabilize China's agricultural performance in the
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sees the Restoration as a revolution against feudal privilege
carried out from below by a service intelligentsia of minor
administrators, priests, scholars, and village officials. The book
focuses on the politically most effective body of activists, those
in the domain of Choshu, and on their most important leaders
ofthe 1850'S and 1860'S: Yoshida Shoin, Kusaka Genzui, and
Takasugi Shinsaku. A final chapter explains various heretofore
puzzling aspects ofthe Meiji period (1868-1912) in terms of
its revolutionary origins. $19.50
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face of fluctuating climatic conditions. The principle ofregional
concentration was accepted as economically necessary because
the application ,of new technology-a process which gathered
pace from the early 1960s on-required a strategy of integmted
application (water control, new seed strains, chemical fertiliz
ers, etc.). This has resulted in considerable disparities in the
regional allocation of modem inputs. In Guangdong province,
for example, one of the authors was informed that, as of mid
1979, the counties of the fertile Pearl River Delta use 80-100 jin
of chemical fertilizers per mu, compared to only 20-30 jin per
mu in areas outside the Delta. This pattern was replicated in
many other provinces and was evident to even the most casual
visitor during the 1970s. Judging from detailed discussions of
this issue with local cadres, the areas in Guangdong marked out
as "bases" during 1978-79 were none other than those which
already had a high level of application of modern inputs. The 27
counties of the Delta have been chosen out of the province's 107
counties as the priority zone for investment.
Second, in regard to the charge that the "Gang of Four"
forced peasants to grow grain at the expense of other crops,
there was in fact a heavy emphasis on grain production in the
1960s and 1970s, but the links between this policy and the
"Gang of Four" are tenuous. This policy was forcefully pur
sued since the early 1960s and was a mtional response to the
following considemtions: the relatively rapid rate of population
increase, the desire to maintain regional self-sufficiency in
food-grain production (partly for security reasons), and the
attempt to ensure that the basic food needs of the whole popula
tion were met. Hence the priority on "grain as the key link" in
agricultural production. Since the rate of population growth had
slowed by the late 1970s, it was possible to diversify the struc
ture of production while meeting basic food needs. The change
to a more differentiated production structure can be seen, there
fore, as a response to a new stage in rural development, made
9
Fading mural (Photo by Peter Nolan).
possible by the success of previous policies which emphasized
food grain. 27
Third, the principle of concentration on "key areas" does
not necessarily make economic sense in terms of maximizing
output, particularly in the medium or long term, since they are in
most cases already high-yield areas and may respond less favor
ably to increased agricultural inputs than "backward" areas
where present yields are low, potential returns greater, and
investment requirements substantial. Yet the success of the
"marketable grain bases" is central to the success of the new
agricultural strategy as a whole. If collectives throughout the
country are to be allowed to diversify into more profitable crops
and reduce their grain acreage accordingly, then the shortfall
must be borne by the bases or increased imports. Indeed, the
decision to increase the procurement and above-procurement
prices of grain reflected concern about a possible rush out of
grain, legitimized by the principle of diversification and aided
by the principle of team autonomy. The strategy worked well in
1979 when total grain production reached 332.12 million tons,
the highest since liberation and 27 .37 million tons up on 1978.
In 1980, however, signs of problems appeared. Total produc
tion dropped from the 1979 level by about 10-15 million tons,
but was still the second highest since 1949 But diversification
into more profitable crops had brought about a decrease of 5.3
million hectares in the total area sown to grains-leading a
policy shift in early 1981 towards a renewed emphasis on grain.
In 1981, priority was attached to "a good grain harvest" and a
halt was called to the diminution of grain acreage. 28 There have
been proposals to cushion grain shortfalls by increased imports,
to be paid for (on favorable terms of exchange) by increased
exports of economic crops produced by agricultural diversifica
tion. But restraints on external markets and competing import
claims make this a problematic solution.
Fourth, in addition to these economic question-marks, the
principles of diversification and concentration will probably
reinforce an already present pattern of uneven development at
the regional and local levels. For example, a revised program
was announced in early 1979 to coordinate the allocation of
inputs for agricultural mechanization with the construction of
"modem production bases" in crop farming, forestry, animal
husbandry and fisheries. The distributive implications were
clearly spelled out:
We need to change our past practice of spreading factories
everywhere, as if we were adding pepper to food. We must
make it possible, in a planned and systematic way, for some
key areas to advance ahead of others in promoting agri
cultural modernization and raising the people's living stan
dards. This will playa significant, exemplary and encourag
ing role throughout the country by making use of the good
experience ofone area to lead other areas. 29
Statements such as this are very hard-headed when defend
ing the virtues ofconcentration and its concomitant inequalities,
but are somewhat vague when it comes to defining the specific
mechanisms whereby the benefits of the base-areas can be
spread to the peripheries. Again, the logic of concentrating State
funds in these islands of modernization, already well supplied
with the financial wherewithal for expanded reproduction, and
virtually ignoring the sea of "non-major areas" may be ques
tioned. Would not a program of providing modem inputs and
infrastructure across a much wider spread, a more egalitarian
approach which fuelled local initiative and encouraged the capi
talization of low yield areas, provide a sturdier basis for in
creased output in the long run, as long as the current caveats
about the need for standardization, locational planning and
rational division of labor were observed?
At local levels, the principle of diversification according to
natural conditions may make economic sense but its implemen
tation may prove highly problematic. Who is to decide what is
"in accordance with local natural conditions?" What is to stop
production teams from rushing into more profitable and ignor
ing less profitable, but macro-economically crucial, areas of
production? The State plan should, of course, resolve these
problems but the new course emphasizes the right of production
teams to ignore "blind" orders from above. Again, who de
cides what is "blind?" These problems aside, moreover, the
principle of diversification is likely to increase differentials
between collective units. If production teams are allowed to
exploit their differing factor endowments to the fullest, without
significant restraint on decisions about the structure of produc
tion from above, then the gap between ecologically favorable
and unfavorable collectives is likely to increase unless deter
mined counter-measures are taken. Communes with favored
access to lines of communications and proximate markets, not
ably those in the suburbs of large and medium-sized cities, will
prosper compared to their less well-situated counterparts.
In short, the principles of diversification and concentration,
as presently stated, are problematic in conception, implementa
tion and likely results, and it is far from clear that the benefits
arising from their contribution to economic growth will ade
27. For a historical review of this issue. see the article by Yu Guoyao in Hongqi
(Red Flag) 5 Mar. 1980.
28. For example, see the interview with the vice-minister of agriculture. Zhu
Rong, in NCNA (English edition). 29 Jan. 1981.
29. "Correct policy for accelerating agricultural mechanisation." RMRB edi
torial, 6 Feb. 1979 (in FB1S 9 Feb. 1979. p. E 18).
10
quately compensate for their costs in terms of unequal develop
ment. Indeed, the current Chinese literature on agricultural
economics acknowledges some of these problems and measures
have been introduced to deal with them (for example, by redis
tributive subsidies to or financial support for profitable diversi
fication in poorer regions and collectives).
The Impact of Policies to Stimulate Material Incentives
(a) Redistribution ofinstitutional power:
the self-determination ofthe production team
The ideas of policy makers and advisors during 1978-1980
about the economic role of the production team in the rural
institutional system bear comparison with current views of the
role of the enterprise in the state political economy. The produc
tion team is likened to a firm, an economic actor with its own
juridical identity, administrative autonomy and scope for eco
nomic initiative, under the guidance but not direct control of
higher collectives and state organs. For some higher level
cadres, it is alleged, "the production tearn had actually become
a purely administrative unit appended to the responsible ad
ministrative organ and they consider it tQ be a bead on an abacus
that can only move when manipulated from above. "30 In many
areas, peasants were quoted as follows: "We have only one
production team in the whole county and only one person who
knows about farming, i.e., the first secretary ofthe county Party
committee. "31 As an autonomous firm, the tean1 is capable of
collective entrepreneurship to maximize its members' income
through good management and "business sense." To this end,
the decision power of the team is being expanded to cover
methods of labor organization, system of job responsibility, the
right to determine accumulation ratios and payment systems, to
dispose of surplus produce after fulfilling state assignments, to
define planting plans, and defy "coercion, commandism and
arbitrary orders" from above. The agricultural planning process
is to be more indicative, with fewer obligatory targets and more
flexible, decentralized implementation, eventually moving
from a system of compulsory assignments to one of negotiated
contracts.
Whereas in the earlier years of the decade, leftist prop
aganda had warned of the political and social implications of
"collective capitalism, " the new leadership selected exemplary
cases of entrepreneurial teams for public emulation. For exam
ple, a production team in Sanshui county, Guangdong province,
which achieved an astonishing per-capita income of755 yuan in
1978* from agriculture and a lime plant, was praised for having
"gone to rich from poor because it has grasped both grain in one
hand and money in the other." Such success could not merely
be attributed to good business sense, however, since ecological
conditions were particularly favorable-plentiful limestone and
firewood in the vicinity and easy access to transport facilities. 32
This kind of initiative and its egregious economic results
were no doubt atypical, but they reflected the CCP leadership's
highest expectations about the material fruits of greater team
* Each full labor power in the team made an annual income of 2232 yuan (186
yuan per month), a figure about three times larger than the average urban
industrial worker's wage. The team was a small one, with only 12 households
and 23 labor powers. The income spread between households, however, was
considerable, ranging from the lowest of 1,340 yuan to the highest (two) with
over 8000 yuan.
autonomy. The team is a suitable unit for collective action
because it is small enough to engage individual material aspira
tions directly in its operations and because it fits better into a
rural scene characterized by considerable inequalities. Wang
Gengjin et al. recognize the latter fact when they argue, from the
results of a detailed research program in Anhui province, that
one of the advantages of the team as the basic accounting unit
lies in the fact that "it can relatively thoroughly overcome
egalitarianism among production teams. "33
Given the hypothesized link between inter-team differen
tials and increased agricultural output, the new policies demand
that the team be protected against inappropriate and arbitrary
intervention from superior collective levels on the grounds that
such interventions are irrationally egalitarian and therefore
harmful to the crucial "socialist enthusiasm" ofteam members.
As a result, current analysts attack three types of practice which
were allegedly widespread throughout the preceding decade
under "pressure" (yaU) exerted by the "Gang of Four":
(i) Restrictions on income levels: Previous attempts by
local officials in some areas, motivated by a "leftist" fear of
"polarization, " to establish an arbitrary limit on the per-capita
incomes of the collective units under their jurisdiction have been
condemned as irrational "egalitarianism." In Laixi county in
Shandong province, for example, the Party leadership had
been alarmed by a pattern of uneven annual per-capita income
distribution ranging from 150 yuan in the rich brigades to 60
yuan in the poor. They therefore set an upper limit of 150 yuan
and ordered that the residuum be channeled into public accumu
lation. A simiiar system was apparently established in Beijing's
suburban communes viz. a limit of 150 yuan per capita in
grain-growing collectives and 180 yuan in those growing
vegetables. 34
The new leadership has argued that limits of this kind
restrain the initiative of peasants in richer collectives while
doing little to encourage higher income in poorer units: They
maintain that' 'the only way to narrow the gap between rich and
poor production brigades is to aid the poor production brig
ades. "35 This reasoning is sound but we should be aware of
certain qualifications. (a) It is not clear that the practice of
arbitrary income limitations was widespread throughout the
nation and there is little evidence that it was "official" policy
emanating from Beijing. It is more likely to have been a "local
policy" adopted by officials in certain areas in response to
intermittent egalitarian ideological cues from Beijing. (b) The
practice seems to have been counter-productive in any case
since the residual income of the rich brigades was'not con
fiscated, but fed into their public accumulation funds. If these
funds were well-invested and -managed, they would in fact lay
30. Lu Chen-mao, "The production team is also an enterprise," GMRB 18
Nov. 1978 (in FB1S 5 Dec. 1978, p. EI3).
31. GMRB 6 Nov. 1979,inFBIS 15 Nov. 1979.
32. "Southern Daily hails enrichment of peasants," Guangdong provincial
radio 4 Mar. 1979 (in FBIS 6 Mar. 1979).
33. Wang Gengjin and He Jianzhang, "Some problems in implementing rural
economic policies," ffff No.8, p. 17).
34. "Lin Hujia visits Beijing suburban counties," NCNA Beijing (Domestic
service), 27 Feb. 1979 (in FBIS 5 Mar. 1979), compare "One should not
postulate....", NCNA 6 June 1979 (in SWB 9 June 1979).
35. .. Shandong county lifts limit on peasant income," Shandong provincial
radio, Jinan 28 Nov. 1978 (inFB1S 30 Nov. 1978).
II
Bridge between two brigades, Fogang County, quangdong (Nolan).
the basis for even higher future incomes, thus increasing the gap
between rich and poor units. At present there is no intention to
tax away any of the increments to gross income resulting from
current policies, thus it is likely that areas with higher per capita
gross incomes will be allowed to "realize" their incomes in
increased consumption to a greater degree than in the past.
(c) The new policies may seem reasonable, but their distribu
tive impact depends on how much aid is to be directed to poorer
units, (particularly if this form of redistribution is opposed by
richer and more powerful areas and units), what redistributive
mechanisms are to be used, and on what terms it is to be offered.
(ii) Transition in poverty" (qiong guodu). According to
current analysis, leftist leaders had pressured production teams
to move up to brigade level accounting where material condi
tions were not yet ripe.
36
Though it is certainly correct that
radical spokesmen in the 1970s did stress the importance of
transition and encouraged it where possible, the current picture
of across-the-board forced transitions, based on the idea that
"insufficient (economic) conditions should not preclude transi
tion," is clearly overdrawn. 37 There is some evidence of over
hasty transition in the mid-1970s in certain areas, presumably
connected with the Dictatorship of the Proletarian Campaign in
1975. For example, it is reported that 223 production brigades in
Tianmen county Hubei province became accounting units pre
maturely and were disbanded in 1978.
38
Even in this case,
however, a considerable percentage of the mid-1970s transi
tions (58.5%) were apparently confirmed by the post-Mao lead
ership. On the other hand, in Jiading county-in the radical
base of Shanghai municipality-at the height of the "Gang of
Four's" influence, only 25 out of a total of 243 brigades prac
ticed brigade-level accounting and 18 of these were still doing
so in June 1979 (Trip Notes).
There is evidence, moreover, of speeded transition after
the removal of the "Gang of Four." In Fuping county in
Shaanxi province, for instance, a "wind of transition in a state
of poverty" began in the spring of 1978 and was not reversed
until January 1979 by a resolution from the provincial Party
committee.
39
The problems identified with this particular
"wind of transition" illustrate well the costs perceived by the
Dengist leadership. First rich teams did nothing while poor ones
awaited the 'coming of communism.' " In one production
team, for example, the value of a labor day (laodongri) in No.2
team was less than half that of No.3. When the announcement
of transition to brigade accounting was made, some members of
No.2 team allegedly said that "things are done well in No.3
team, so let us 'enter communism.' " Second, after brigade
level accounting was established, heavier production quotas
were imposed on the richer teams with the result that higher
output did not result in higher income for their members. For
example, in the summer harvest distribution of 1978, No.3
team's quota was 20,OOOjin (about 40% of the brigade's total)
while No. 2's was only 9,000 jin. In consequence, the per
capita grain rations in team 3 were only slightly larger than in
team 2. Third, the transition caused a drop in the amount of draft
animals and farm tools-some of which were sold off on the sly
when news of the impending transition spread. After transition,
the draft animals became "orphans" with nobody to care for
them properly, and their health suffered accordingly. Fourth,
the brigade leadership was not up to the new burdens of manage
ment, and therefore inefficiency increased at both brigade and
team levels.
The change in policy emphasis between 1977 and 1979
reflects disagreement within the post-Mao leadership, at both
national and provincial levels, about the priority of transition to
higher collectives. The spirit of the "learn from Dazhai" and
the "Dazhai county" movement of the mid-1970s, sponsored
by Hua Guofeng and Chen Yongguei, took a more positive view
of transition comparable to the "Gang of Four's" now vilified
"transition relying on the spirit of poverty " and apparently took
steps to encourage it in certain areas. With the rise of Dengist
influence, however, upward transition was subjected to more
criticism, and policy documents have advised caution and, at
least for the foreseeable future, stabilization* of the status quo.
According to this position, transition must not be used to reduce
inter-team inequalities; later transition is better than sooner;
"transition in poverty" must be supplanted by "transition in
wealth"; and the leftist leadership's previous emphasis on the
spiritual conditions for transition is dismissed as un-Marxist.
The necessary conditions for transition are "socialized means of
production" which produce "socialized production":
The course oftransition should be one ofagricuLtural mech
anization, factory production and automation . .. The tran
sition from small collective ownership to Large collective
ownership can only be carried out when the Large coLLective
has acquired a fairly large amount of accumuLation and
become relatively rich and when the economies ofthe various
small collectives are fairly developed and the gap between
them has been narrowed. 40
* This was advocated. for example. by Zheng Zhong. the Vice-Minister of
Agriculture. in an interview in lune 1979 (Trip Notes). According to Zheng.
90% of agricultural accounting units were teams, 7-8% of brigades were units of
account and only O. I% of accounting units were communes. The brigades, he
added, were mostly relatively small with strong leadership bodies and the
communes were mostly engaged in pastoral or fishery activity.
36. For a comprehensive analysis. see Xu Dixin, "On 'Transition in pov
erty,' .. JJYl No.4. 1979. pp. 2-7.
37. For example. see lin Wen (Chin Wenl. "On 'Transition in poverty.' ..
Liberation Army Daily, 5 Dec. 1978 (in FBIS 7 Dec. 1978).
38. Hubei provincial radio, 14 Jan. 1979 (in FBIS. 161an. 1979).
39. Shaanxi provincial radio. 10 Ian. 1979 (in FBIS, 171an. 1979).
40. Jin Wen, op. cit.
12
However, this theory is incompatible to some degree with
the priority of stabilization. Particularly in more prosperous
areas, there are clear economic and social advantages to be
reaped from transition to higher level units of accounting
economies of scale, greater capacity to help poorer units within
the larger collectives, opportunities for more rational allocation
of labor and other factors of production, more comprehensive
and better quality welfare services. Indeed, in an interview
conducted in June 1979 (Trip Notes), the vice-chairman of the
Beijing suburban commune of Lukouqiao, where brigade ac
counting is the norm, defended it as "superior" since it enabled
brigades to help backward teams to catch up with the ad
vanced. * It seems reasonable, therefore, that where conditions
are favorable-with a relatively homogeneous sociological and
ecological context, the absence of wide disparities between
teams and good management and accounting capacity at the
brigade (or even commune) level-transition should be
encouraged.
The new agricultural course is ambigu,ous on the issue.
Certain policies put a damper on transition: the insistence on
team autonomy, encouragement of inter-team differentials, a
generally critical stance towards "blind" directives from su
perior collective levels and an emphasis on "stabilization" of
the rural institutional system. On the other hand, as the new
policies began to take effect during 1979-80, a three-tiered
policy on ownership emerged (implicitly): Le., in "advanced"
areas, higher forms of ownership (including state farms) were
deemed appropriate and it was possible to move to higher levels
of accounting within the commune structure; in the majority of
"average" areas, the principle of team ownership was to be
stabilized; in "backward" areas, on the other hand, there have
been moves towards "transition downwards," not de jure but
de facto, through contracting production to households or
indi viduals.
(iii) "Equalization and transfer." Consistent with the
greater stress on production team autonomy, there has been
severe criticism of allegedly widespread depredations visited on
production teams, notably by brigades and communes but also
by State organs at the county level. This has involved a general
condemnation of interference, "blind commands" and intoler
ably heavy demands on the labor and funds of teams. The
tendency for "over-concentration," that is, the practice
whereby higher collectives derived part of their accumulation
from unrequited or only partially recompensed levies on teams,
has also been condemned.
41
More specifically, higher collec
* The average value of the labor day in this commune's teams was 1.50 yuan.
with a spread from a highest of2.5 yuan to a lowest of 1.2yuan.
41. For example, "Effectively protect ....", RMRB 24 Jan. 1979, editorial
(in FBIS 26 Jan. 1979, p. 12).
42. J.E. Nickum, "Labour accumulation in rural China and its role since the
Cultural Revolution," CambridgelournalofEconomics, No.2, 1978, p. 284.
43, "We should respect the right of a production team to make its own
decisions," Nanfang Ribao (Southem Daily-hereafter NFRB), Canton, 28
Oct. 1978 (in FBIS 9 Nov. 1978).
44, Beijing Radio (domestic service), I June 1979 (inSWB61335 June 1979);
"Boldly strengthen correct leadership of the production teams," NFRB 26
March 1979 (in FBIS 27 Mar. 1979).
45. For discussions of these problems, see the People's Daily article on rural
cadres in NCNA (domestic service), 6 Feb. 1980; and Wen Zhu, "This is
advance, not retreat," GMRB 2 Feb. 1980.
Fogang bridge construction (Nolan).
tive levels have been accused of "equalization and transfer" (yi
ping er diao) which involves the requisitioning of team re
sources without proper compensation according to the principle
of" voluntary mutual benefit and equivalent exchange" (ziyuan
huli, dengjia jiaohuan) and the use of higher-level projects as a
redistributive device to even out differentials between teams or
brigades.
Data from the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s suggests
that brigades and communes did increase pressure on teams as
part of a general strategy of encouraging industries and welfare
fac ilities at higher levels, and as a reflection of the importance
attached to large-scale farmland capital construction projects,
particularly in the area of water-control, based on the mobiliza
tion of idle labor in the quiet seasons-the process of "labor
accumulation." The number of such projects undertaken by the
brigade level and above increased rapidly during the 1970s.
According to Nickum's study of "labor accumulation" in the
1960s and 1970s, the principles for large-scale projects involv
ing more than one level had been laid down in the "Sixty
Articles" of 1962 and retained their normative power: voluntary
participation, mutual benefit for all participants and equivalent
exchange (Le., fair compensation for transferred resources).
Given the frequent financial weakness of the brigades and
communes, however, there was considerable pressure to violate
the principle of equivalent exchange and to use "equalization
and transfer," in Nickum's words, "a 'leftist' error involving
the unrequited transfer of resources from the haves to the have
nots. "42
To summarize, given the present emphasis on redressing
the balance between accumulation and consumption and in
creasing production incentives, measures to protect the auton
omy of the team and develop its initiative make develop
mental sense. The small unit allows a closer link between
collective and household or individual incentives, more flexible
accommodation to variations in agricultural conditions and com
plexities of work organization and greater scope for basic-level
democracy. At the same time, however, the new policies may
bring practical problems. First, there has been a tendency to
"absolutize" the principle of team autonomy: for example, in
an authoritative statement by the Guangdong provincial
newspaper:
13
(b) Individual and collective:
the encouragement ofprivate economy
{Leading] organs may give the production teams some sug
gestions on their production plans . . . {The] production
teams may completely accept a suggestion concerning pro
duction or management from higher authorities, they may
consider the actual situation and accept it partially and they
may refuse to accept it if it is wrong. 43
This type of policy, if implemented, creates many head
aches for brigade and commune leaderships. First, it becomes
more difficult to enforce the implementation of State agricul
tural plans (e.g., by determining the basic product mix of each
team); second, a strict observance of the principle of equivalent
exchange results in a shortage of funds at the brigade and
commune levels, a consequent diminution of their capacity to
act as a redistributive, equalizing force over teams or brigades
and to launch relatively large-scale capital construction projects
without resort to external funding. Problems of economic ad
cumulation and distribution aside, moreover, the swing towards
team autonomy has important political implications. It is likely
to weaken the influence of the Communist Party, whose lowest
rung of organization is at the production brigade level. It also
implies a significant redistribution of decisional power within
the commune structure, after a long period during which higher
levels, especially the brigade, seem to have been increasing
their power vis avis the team.
These political constraints make it unlikely that the move
toward team autonomy will be implemented in any thorough
going way. Indeed, complaints from brigade and commune
cadres were already visible in the media during 1978- I 980. For
instance, cadres in Liaoning province were reported as com
plaining that "the power of [the team's] decision is being
overemphasized" and "those at lower levels are disobeying
orders and everything is in a mess." Elsewhere, there were
complaints that the new policies were weakening Party leader
ship in the countryside, or that commune cadres were having
difficulties with recalcitrant teams which were only considering
their own interests by choosing crops to sell at a high price and
reducing their grain acreage excessively. 44 Given current policy
directions, such "selfish" behavior is hardly surprising; nor is
the exasperation of supra-team cadres who are charged with the
implementation of state plans and the construction of local
capital projects but are being drained of the political authority
and financial strength necessary to carry out these tasks. At the
ideological level, these complaints and opposition were
couched in terms of "progress" and "retrogression," i.e., the
new policies were encouraging or allowing a "departure from
socialism" by undermining collective economy and dividing
people into competing groupS.45 Such concerns are probably
shared by members of the central leadership and they provide an
important political base for future policy changes.
46. RMRB 15 Feb. 1978 (in FBIS 17 Feb. 1978).
47. Sichuan provincial radio. 22 Dec. 1977 (in FBIS 4Jan. 1978).
48. For the Jilin regulations. see Jilin provincial radio. 14 Nov. 1977 (in FBIS
22 Nov. 1977),
During 1977 and 1978, a great deal of official attention was
devoted to trimming down rural collectives which, it was ar
gued, had become over-blown during previous years. It is true
that there was considerable emphasis during the previous dec
ade on increasing the rate of collective accumulation and the
range of collective facilities at brigade and commune levels,
although this appeared to command wider support among the
central leadership than the anti- "Gang of Four" litany would
suggest. The Gang have of course been blamed for the problems
which arose when rural collectives tried to expand too fast:
overspending, wasteful or unprofitable investments, prolifera
tion of cadres and other "unproductive" personnel (such as
welfare or cultural workers) and a tendency for poor units to
emulate the services offered by their rich counterparts, thus
overstretching their resources, harming agricultural production
and retarding 'income growth. A common official criticism in
1977-78 was that collectives had syphoned off too large a share
of gross output and income for their own accumulation, with the
result that they "squeezed the state above and the commune
members below."46 The new emphasis, in the words of the
resurgent Zhao Ziyang, was on' 'pressing the center (the collec
tive) and guaranteeing the two ends" (the household and the
state).47 Quotas were established in the provinces to define
permissible rates of public accumulation (for example, in Jilin it
was fixed at a maximum of 10%)48 and the principle of increas
ing personal incomes along with increasing collective output
was firmly reiterated. The policy current earlier in the decade
whereby collectives with higher rates of growth were expected
to raise their level of accumulation accordingly was now con
demned for lowering peasant incentives through limits on per
sonal income growth and hampering rural development by
stunting the initiative of more dynamic units.
Restrictions on collective "over-accumulation" have been
accompanied by policies designed to encourage production and
exchange in the private or household sector. During the previ
ous decade, policies towards the private sector had been ambig
uous: on the one hand, it was recognized as a necessary adjunct
to the collective economy; on the other hand, it was regarded
14
with suspicion as a relic of "petty production," a potential
threat to the collective economy, a cause of increased inequality
between households, and a seedbed for "capitalist" activities
and attitudes. Official policy thus combined retention with
restriction. In practice, many local cadres found the balance
hard to strike and often "deviated" in one direction or the other.
Gi ven the leftist atmosphere of these years, there was a tendency
to "prefer left to right" (ning zuo wu you) and play safe by
severely restricting or even abolishing private production and
exchange.
Current policies have been far more favorable to private
economy, reaffirming its legitimacy and taking concrete meas
ures to promote its expansion. Private possession of livestock
and sideline production have been encouraged by higher pro
curement prices, "soft" loans, and greater provision of fodder
land. The household's right to hold and manage private plots
independently has also been reaffirmed and the scope of rural
"fairs" expanded to foster rural commerce. Available data
suggests that such measures have been effective in invigorating
the rural economy and raising household incomes in the short
Main street of Shanghai suburban commune (Nolan).
run, though they have run into problems of implementation and
local resistance. In some areas, for example, they have led to a
wholesale privatization of livestock rearing and the dissolution
of collective livestock farms, even where the latter were eco
nomically viable. Moreover, the liberalization of rural com
merce has encountered resistance from commune cadres who
continue to regard local fairs as "hotbeds of capitalism and
impediments to agricultural production." Such fairs, they
claim, encourage an over-expansion of the private sector, tempt
peasants to "leave agriculture for trade" and divert agricultural
and sideline produce from the state procurement net. The pre
sent leadership has proven sensitive to these and other prob
lems, and has attempted to institute certain restrictions: limita
tions on the size of private plots; minimum quotas (measured in
workdays) for collective work by team members; proscription
of private hiring of labor; and increased incentives for peasants
to sell their sideline produce and livestock to the state even
abolishing private production and exchange.
Current policies have been far more favorable to private
economy, reaffirming its legitimacy and taking concrete meas
ures to promote its expansion. Private possession of livestock
and sideline production have been encouraged by higher pro
curement prices, "soft" loans, and greater provision of fodder
land. The household's right to hold and manage private plots
independently has also been reaffirmed and the scope of rural
"fairs" expanded to foster rural commerce. Available data
suggests that such measures have been effective in invigorating
the rural economy and raising household incomes in the short
run, though they have run into problems of implementation and
local resistance. In some areas, for example, they have led to a
wholesale privatization of livestock rearing and the dissolution
of collective livestock farms, even where the latter were eco
nomically viable. Moreover, the liberalization of rural com
merce has encountered resistance from commune cadres who
continue to regard local fairs as "hotbeds of capitalism and
impediments to agricultural production." Such fairs, they
claim, encourage an over-expansion ofthe private sector, tempt
peasants to agriCUlture for trade" and divert agricultural
and sideline produce from the state procurement net. The pres
ent leadership has proven sensitive to these and other problems,
and has attempted to institute certain restrictions: limitations on
the size of private plots; minimum quotas (measured in work
days) for collective work by team members; proscription of
private hiring of labor; and increased incentives for peasants to
sell their siaeline produce and livestock to the state (through
restrictive regulations and higher prices). Practical enforcement
ofthese measures is another matter, however, made difficult by
the provisions for team autonomy, propaganda paeans to en
terprising households and individuals and a diminution of the
power of higher levels to interfere effectively if things get out of
hand in ways which recall the chaotic days of the early 1960s.
While the present political situation is not identical with that of
the early 1960s, it should be remembered that the private sector
then rapidly expanded beyond the letter of the law. It is not
inconceivable that the same thing could happen again if local
political controls are insufficiently tight.
Preliminary figures suggest that the private sector in
creased its share of total household incomes between 1978
1980. Moreover, the official statistics on the net income of a
national sample of peasants in 1979 reported a 19.9 percent
increase over 1978; collective income increased by 14.6percent
but income from "household side-line occupations" increased
by 25.3 percent over 1978 to 27.5 percent of total net income. 49
Earlier experience (notably in 1957 and 1960-62) suggests that,
when private sector activity increases rapidly and stronger
households divert labor power from the collective to more
iucrative private production and exchange, intra-village dif
ferentials increase. There is no systematic data as yet to test such
a hypothesis, but scattered examples would seem to support it.
For example, in Heze in Shangdong, an export base
for grey goat and angora rabbit products, where 95 percent of
goats and rabbits are raised by individual families, each family
gained an average of 35 yuan from such activities, but some
families made several hundred and even 1000 yuan. so Only
further research can document whether this represents a general
trend or an atypical case.
49. NCNA (English edition), 2 Jan. 1981.
50. NCNA (English edition), 15 May 1980.
15
(c) Intra-collective differentials:
changes in payment systems
During the decade preceding the death of Mao, the leftist
leadership at all levels fostered a move from a task-based to a
time-based system of labor remuneration. The model mode of
payment was embodied in the Dazhai system which assigned a
work-point grade to each worker on an annual basis after exten
sive discussion. Time-rate systems, whether close to the Dazhai
model or not, were favored for their relative simplicity (and
consequent lack of divisiveness, at least in theory) and relative
equality (since they compressed differentials between different
qualities of labor-power). In many areas and units the time-rate
system made little headway; in others it was tried for a while,
then dropped; in others, it was combined with piece-rate sys
tems of various kinds. *Where it did make headway, it probably
contributed to a narrowing of collective income differentials
within the team or brigade. Time-rates or not, however, the
payment system in most collectives was egalitarian in the sense
of providing a guaranteed floor under individual incomes
through a system of "basic rations" (jiben kouliang), which
combined the "communist" principle of distribution according
to need with the socialist principle of distribution according to
work (i.e., the rations still had to be earned through workpoints).
If an individual or household earned insufficient workpoints,
they still received the ration but owed the shortfall to the
collective.
The Dengist leadership has attempted to stem any tendency
towards egalitarian payment systems, arguing that poorer
households benefit from a general rise in agricultural produc
tion, not from specifically egalitarian policies. One delegate to a
Henan conference argued the point as follows: "Practicing
egalitarianism is not a solution to the households beset with
difficulties.... Only when the collective economy has be
come large can the incomes of members go up. As the water
swells, the boat rises." 52 Thus the new leadership has attempted
to move rural collectives towards systems of piece-rates com
parable to those current in the early 1960s.
Official spokesmen have favored one type of payment
system in particular-a form of "collective piece-rates" based
on the ideas of "fixed quotas on the basis of work-groups and
work evaluation on the basis of individuals." This has several
components. First, the accounting unit sets fixed quotas for
different agricultural tasks, the system of "fixed quota manage
ment" (dinge guanli). Second, responsibilities for fulfilling
* In North China, the resurgence of piece-rate systems was officially encour
aged by the North China Agricultural Conference convened in 1970. In the case
of Xinxiang prefecture in Henan (Honan) province, for example, this confer
ence led to a general return to a fixed quota and piece-rate system which
continued in use throughout the 1970s regardless of the "Gang of Four. "This is
but one of many areas where time-rate methods, such as the Dazhai method,
made little headway in the early 1970s.
5 I. Yi Xindian, "The system of production quotas must be implemented,"
RMRB 22 Apr. 1978 (in JPRS 431. 24 May 1978).
52. "Henan conference urges 'More pay for more work,' " NCNA, Beijing
(domestic service), 21 Jan. 1978 (in FBIS 24 Jan. 1978).
53. For example, see Guo Xiusheng and Gao Xiansong, "Recording work
points on the basis of fixed labour quotas is a good way of implementing the
policy of pay according to work," RMRB 2 Dec. 1978 (in JPRS 487,31 Jan.
1979); compare the article by Wu Xiang and Zhang Guangyou in NCNA
(domestic service), 9 Apr. 1980.
"Rural fair" (Nolan).
quotas are assigned to work-groups-the system of "guaran
teeing work to the work-group" (baogong dao zuoyezu). The
work-group is assigned responsibility for a fixed plot of land
throughout the farming cycle and is rewarded with a fixed
amount of workpoints for completion of the quota, and bonuses
or penalties for over- or under-fulfillment. Thus, if a work group
in the Evergreen commune in suburban Peking in mid-1979
overfulfilled its quotas, it received a bonus of 55 percent of the
over-fulfilled amount; in the case of shortfalls, it suffered a
penalty of 30 percent of the unfulfilled arnount (Trip Notes).
The work-groups are not temporary, ad hoc forms of labor
organization but take on a more permanent identity, taking over
some of the team's original functions. Finally, the distribution
of workpoints to individuals is to be on a piece-rate basis as far
as possible and is handled primarily within each work-group
through a precise personal responsibility system. In some cases,
work-norms within the work group are established by the group
leader whose performance in any particular task becomes the
norm (zuzhang daitou gan). 53
This type of system is viewed as optimal for a number of
reasons: it encourages initiative and thus productivity by match
ing reward more precisely with effort or skill; it improves the
organization of production and labor by subdividing manage
ment responsibilities and encouraging a disciplined sense of
responsibility among members of each work-group. It was
introduced in 1978 and clearly made slow initial headway in
many areas. For example, in Fogang county in Guangdong
province in June 1979, under one-fifth of production teams were
using work-groups in their fully-fledged form; time-rate sys
tems were still in widespread use, especially during the slack
seasons. But official policy has tried to encourage adoption by
urging flexibility, i.e., by allowing experimentation with dif
ferent forms and combinations of payment systems along cer
tain basic lines and advising teams to adopt the specific form
which suits their conditions. But by April 1980 only about
one-quarter of the nation's production teams had adopted the
basic system. One can identify certain constraints which will
continue to impede its implementation. First, experience from
the 1960s shows that, given the complex nature of agricultural
work, * a sophisticated piece-rate system which can accurately
measure and remunerate different levels of quantity, quality,
16
intensity or skill is very difficult both to design and manage. The
problem of setting appropriate norms and quotas is not merely a
technical headache for unit cadres, it is also a political headache
since complex piece-rate systems of this nature tend to be
divisive and "troublesome" (mafan). Judging from the amount
of official concern during 1979-80 about poor team manage
ment and the need to train team cadres, implementation of the
new systems was proving troublesome.
Second, though the devolution of management responsi
bilities to work-groups may cushion some of these problems,
the introduction of semi-permanent work-groups must be seen
as a mode of "decollectivization," a devolution of former team
functions to a unit situated between team and household. This
encourages a tendency towards the development of a "small
collective" consciousness among team members which may
well lead to conflicts between group and team interests and to
competition with other groups for resources (such as manure,
water, tools and machines) and lucrative quotas. More seri
ously, it has led in some areas to an informal disbanding of the
team as the unit of ownership and account. As such, the work
group system may well be resisted by team cadres who fear
organized "pluralism" in the team and resent their loss of
power. The same problem also attends the extension of the
principle of decentralized contracting to the household and the
individual, a system introduced in 1980 for a minority of teams
with particularly bad economic performance and weak collec
tive economies. 55 Third, the piece-rate system is likely to in
crease collective income inequalities between households and
individuals. The work-group system, if not handled properly,
might lead to growing differentials between strong and weak
groups. Policy-makers are aware of this latter danger and con
trols have been instituted to balance the allocation of resources
evenly between the groups, to set production contracts in a fair
way and to reshuffle assets every the question
again arises of whether in practice such controls will prove
effective in the long run.
The egalitarian system of "basic rations" has not been
altered fundamentally, but the leadership has attempted to intro
duce two marginal changes. First, they have decreased the ratio
of ration grain to "work-point grain" (gongfenliang)-for ex
ample, from 8:2 to 7:3 or 6:4-a change regarded as necessary
not merely to stimulate incentive but to restrain population
growth. ** Second, the leadership has adopted a tougher line on
unpaid "overdrafts" (for example, by charging interest on
them). The latter may prove difficult to enforce since, as one
report on Guangdong pointed out, it is nearly always cadres or
people with close connections with cadres who have the biggest
overdrafts and take the longest to repay them. 57 These changes
may increase inter-household differentials to some limited de
gree but, as long as the rationing system remains in force, it has
an egalitarian effect on intra-collective differentials by provid
ing a floor under household incomes, especially for "difficulty
homes" (kunnanhu).
In sum, it is likely that, for the foreseeable future, basic
level payment systems will vary widely from unit to unit, area to
area-as indeed they did in the preceding decade in spite of
leftist pressure in favor of time-rate systems in general and the
Dazhai system in particular. It is likely, moreover, that the
inegalitarian tendencies inherent in a move towards piece-rates
will be restrained by several factors: first, the retention of the
ration system; second, the presence of ideologically motivated
leadership cadres at team and brigade levels who view wide
gaps in income as "unsocialist"; and, third, mechanisms of
community solidarity-both socialist and pre-socialist-at
both the team and brigade levels will impose informal
group constraints on the widening of inter-household dif.
ferentials.
Conclusions
It is as yet too early to make a definite assessment of the new
policies-these conclusions will be preliIninary judgments. It is
important to avoid a black and white view of the pre- and
post-Mao stage. This may lead one, on the one hand, to overes
timate the amount of leftist influence over rural policy before
1976 and exaggerate the levelling effect of egalitarian policies
in this period and, on the other hand, to overestimate the amount
of change embodied in the new policies and particularly their
actual impact on the grassroots. Many of the new policies are
mere of emphasis or ratifications of pre-existing policy
or realIty rather than massive swings in orientation. The basic
commitment to collectivized agriculture appears to be un
impaired.
We must analyze the new strategy as a serious effort to
tackle long-standing problems and to raise rural output and
living standards. In certain key aspects, it represents an attempt
to further Maoist goals through non-Maoist means. There is a
basic commitment to raising rural living standards, increasing
state investment in agriculture, encouraging basic-level democ
racy and mobilizing the "enthusiasm" of the peasantry-all
central elements of the Maoist credo. But these are now being
by methods which Mao rejected, distrusted or only
grudgmgly accepted: stimulation of individual material incen
tives, expansion of free markets, a weakening of the collectives,
and encouragement of inequalities.
At this early stage in the new strategy, its impact on rural
economic growth and peasant living standards appears to have
been very favorable on most indices: gross output of key com
modities, average rural incomes (rising from 117 yuan per
capita in 1977 to 160 in 1979 and 170 in 1980), volume of rural
market activity, and growth in rural savings. Yet is it wise to be
cautious in interpreting these statistics. In the early years of new
policy strategies, statistics tend to be favorable for political
reasons, and problem areas tend to be downplayed or ignored.
Some of the "new" statistics, moreover, may reflect either an
increase in the state's capacity to collect information or the
inclusion of data (for example, on household economy or free
markets) which was previously embarrassing or taboo.
There is also a basic question about the extent to which the
dramatic improvements of 1979 and, to a lesser extent, 1980 are
* For example, the Pany committee of Deyang county in Sichuan estimated in
mid- 1980 that there were 834 agricultural work processes in the county -labor
norms were established for each.
** The door has been left open for more radical changes, including the abolition
of ration grain altogether, but these have not been pushed as official policy.
54. RMRB 2 Apr. 1980.
55. For a discussion of this innovation in Hebei, see the speech by Li Erzhong,
reported by Hebei radio, 10 Aug. 1980, in FBIS 165, R2; compare Guizhou
radio, 20 July 1980 (inSWB:FE. 6479).
56. For example, see Jilin radio, II Nov. 1980 (in SWB:FE 6580).
57. NFRB I Dec. 1979 (in SWB:FE 6298 BII, 3).
I7
evidence of a long-run upward trend or a "once-for-all" surge
which will soon peter out,leaving the new leadership faced with
the basic constraints which confounded their predecessors such
as inadequate investment, ecological and technical limitations
and population pressure. The attempt to bring more rapid incre
ments in rural living standards have also contributed to the
state's financial problems which became critical at the end of
1980. Although the rise in procurement prices pumped more
money into the countryside (estimated as an extra 8,000 million
yuan in 1979 and even more in 1980), it contributed to a
spiralling budget deficit in 1980 and fuelled inflationary pres
sures in the economy as a whole, eroding some of the nominal
gains in rural incomes. This financial crisis reveals the difficult
predicament in which the new leadership finds itself, caught in a
vice between three sets of priorities and political forces: the big
spending organs of the state, both civilian and military; the
urban population clamoring for long-denied wage increases and
a rise in general welfare standards; and the peasantry. These fix
the parameters of what is financially possible. Thus it was
extremely difficult to compensate for a dramatic increase in
rural expenditure through substantial savings elsewhere (for
example, decreasing urban food subsidies or slashing minis
terial budgets) and the leadership finally resorted to print!ng
more money with consequences which had become alarming by
early 1981, precipitating an intensification of the process of
macro-economic ' 'readjustment. "
Though there appears to have been a substantial improve
ment in aggregate rural growth indices between 1978 and 1981,
the fruits of increasing prosperity have been shared unequally.
In other words, the new rural strategy has intensified an already
existing pattern of inequalities at regional, local and intra-unit
levels. Does this mean that these policies, pursued consistently
and effectively, will produce the "polarization" about which
the previous leftist leadership had cautioned? There are certain
influential countervailing factors which may well keep in
creases in rural inequality within reasonable bounds. At the
policy level, questions of equality have not been completely
abandoned-they have been put on the back burner. There are
officials and experts at all levels concerned about the economic,
social and political consequences if present policies are taken
too far. For example, measures have been taken to curb ex
cessive private economic activity, dramatic declines in accumu
lation ratios at the team level, the tendency to break up teams
into small units and divide land and means of production
amongst them, and unwise forms of diversification. There is
concern, moreover, about differentials between poor and rich
units in specific localities. Present policy dictates, though, that
richer units should not be impeded from increasing their wealth
and realizing it in higher personal incomes. But provisions must
also be made to help poor units caught in a vicious cycle of
backwardness. These would include, for example, exemptions
from agricultural tax or industrial and comqlercial taxes on
collective enterprises, state development grants and low
interest loans particularly for infrastructural projects such as
roads in hilly regions. But this redistributive thrust is not sub
stantial as yet. In the late 1970s, direct aid in the form of
construction and rural relief funds was running at I.S billion
yuan per year, (8.6% of total state aid to agriculture), a rela
forms of redistribution to increase, given competing claims on
resources at the national levels and the capacity of richer, more
powerful units and localities to torpedo redistributive programs
at the local level. The relative autonomy of local party networks
from vested interests is a crucial factor in tackling this problem.
At the intra-unit level, as we have seen, the system of "basic
rations" has been retained with marginal changes, and the new
regulations governing the expansion of private production and
exchange contain provisions to keep the private sector within
bounds. By contrast, there seems much less official sensitivity
to the impact of present policies on regional inequality and the
principle of concentration will almost certainly reinforce the
already existing pattern of uneven development. In short, prob
lems of increasing inequality grow more serious as we move up
from the unit to the regional levels.
Policies are little more than statements of intent, however,
and it is at the level of practical implementation that issues of
equality and inequality will be worked out. Here, the question of
political control is central and one might hypothesize that, from
the point of view of Beijing at least, this becomes more prob
lematic the lower the level in the chain of command. The new
agricultural strategy contains certain elements-e.g., the en
couragement of private economy, the reallocation of power
within the teams and the communes-which threaten to get out
of control ,and lead to rapidly widening inter-household and
inter-collective disparities anq incipient forms of informal ex
ploitation. This same strategy, moreover-through its attempt to
promote a "hands off the team" approach and to stimulate a
kind of cellular market economy with the team as the basic
unit-has weakened the ability of the state in general and the
Communist Party apparatus in particular to correct "devia
tions" at the basic level. Evidence of "deviations" has been
plentiful during the latter part of 1979 and early 1980 such as the
move in some areas towards an informal partition of the produc
tion teams. These tendencies may well produce policy backped
ailing in the direction of recollectivization, towards a restoration
of political and economic power of brigades and communes.
This recollectivization may prove economically necessary,
moreover, since changes in the basic, underlying determinants
of agricultural growth (farmland, capital construction and tech
nological change) require a strengthening of the authority and
economic power of the higher collectives.
Policy changes may also result from political opposition to
the new course. Constant references in the official press to
opposition, disagreement and "ideological confusion" suggest
strongly that the more egalitarian conception of socialist de
velopment which dominated public propaganda and shaped
rural distribution policies during the decade before Mao's death
and which was clearly associated with the personal beliefs of
Mao himself, penetrated the consciousness of people at all
levels of society. To such people, the present "development
alist" conception of socialist development is unacceptable.
They appear to retain considerable power at all levels, from
Politburo to production team, and may be expected to intervene
to curb those elements of the new course which threaten egali
tarian and collectivist ideals. Far from being a strategy which
will regulate the course of Chinese development well into the
1980s, therefore, the new course may well be just another curve
* tively small amount given the fact that one-quarter of all teams on the undulating graph of Chinese rural development.
are defined as "poor." In early 1980, moreover, notice was
gi ven that the level offunds from the state could not increase for
the foreseeable future. 58 Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect these 58. RMRB editorial 17 Jan. 1980.
18
The People's Communes and China's
New Development Strategy
by Victor Lippit
Since the overthrow of the Gang of Four in 1976, China has
sharply shifted its development strategy. Many of the policies
associated with the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath h ~ v e
been eliminated. Since those policies were associated with a
unique strategy for rural development with the people's com
munes at its core, it is appropriate to reconsider the future
prospects for the communes under the new policies. It is this
question that I would like to address here. Beginning with a
review of the principal characteristics of the communes and
turning next to an examination of agricultural policy and per
formance in the 1957-1977 period, I will continue with a review
of the new overall development strategy and conclude with an
analysis of its implications for the agricultural sector and for the
commune as an institution in particular. I hope to show that
despite a number of significant changes, the successful develop
ment of the communes remains an intrinsic part of the new
development strategy, which appears likely to strengthen them
in a number of critical respects.
Commune Characteristics
In China, unlike most third world countries, rural develop
ment has been a central component of the overall development
strategy. The key institution making this possible is the people's
commune, which combines agriculture, capital construction
and local industry with health, welfare, education and cultural
activities. The commune is a unique institution which, by com
bining farming and other productive activities with the activities
of local government, integrates the social, political and eco
nomic life of the countryside ..yithin a single unit.
China's overall popUlation is now approaching one billion
people; at the end of 1980 it was 982.6 million, excluding
Taiwan, and growing at 1.2% per year.
l
Approximately 80
percent of the population or 800 million people live on com
munes, which now number 50,000. The communes average
about 16,000 persons or 3,800 households each; individual
commune sizes vary widely from the average, with communes
in mountainous regions typically much smaller than the average
while those in flat, densely-populated plains areas not uncom
monly reaching 60-70,000 members. When the entire country
side was first organized into communes in 1958, 26,000 com
munes were established. These proved to be too large for effi
cient administration and the number was increased to a peak of
19
78,000 in the early 1960s before a new round of consolidation
brought the total down to the present number around the end of
the decade.
The communes are divided into four levels, each of which
has its own sources of income and each of which has its own
sphere of decision-making autonomy. The four levels are the
commune, the brigade, the team and the household. The com
mune level is typically responsible for providing secondary
school education, maintaining a hospital, organizing cultural
activities and carrying out the functions of local government. At
the same time, it carries out larger-scale industrial activities,
capital construction and some farming activities. At the Chang
jun (Long March) People's Commune near Shanghai, for exam
ple, the commune level has six small factories and four service
enterprises in addition to an animal-breeding and seed farm.
2
The factories make agricultural machinery, agricultural tools,
chemical fertilizer, chemical dies, rubber and fence-wire; the
products are sold both outside and inside the commune. The
four service enterprises include a tractor station, a construction
team, a (boat) transportation team and a packaging team. The
eleven enterprises employ 1,900 workers out of the commune's
labor force of 19,500. In China as a whole, commune and
brigade enterprises together employ 28 million rural workers
out of a total commune labor force of 300 million.
Brigades
An average commune has 15 brigades, which in tum aver
age about 253 households or 1,067 people. The brigades operate
enterprises that are smaller in scale than those of the commune
and sometimes receive income aswell from assessments levied
on teams which are members. The brigades, which are typically
organized around natural villages, carry out smaller-scale capi
tal construction projects and provide smaller-scale educational
and health facilities; elementary schools and clinics, for exam
ple, are normally operated at the brigade level. At the
I. Beijing Review (hereafter BR), May 18, 1981, p. 20.
2. The descriptive materials on particular communes were gathered on a trip to
China made by the author in April 1980 to investigate economic conditions.
i
l
I
f
f
f
f
i
,

I
,
I
I
I
!

f
I
Brigade leader of the Malienhua Brigade, Sino-Japanese People's
Friendship Commune, suburban Beijing. Translator-interpreter
at left. (photo by V. Lippit)
Malienhua Brigade of the Sino-Japanese Friendship People's
Commune near Beijing, for example, there are 180 households
divided into 3 production teams (the average brigade in China
has 6.7 teams and the average commune 1(0). Of the brigade's
820-member labor force, over 80 work in the brigade-level
enterprises, which are engaged in polishing magnifying glasses.
making tiles for house construction, operating a fish pond,
making glass display cases and making paper bags for herbal
medicine. The brigade receives 80 percent of its income from its
enterprises, 20 percent from its member teams.
Teams
The teams are the basic units for agricultural production
and, with the exception of a limited number of instances in
which brigade-level accounting is practiced, of income-distri
bution as well. The average team in China has about 38 house
holds or 160 people. At the No. 2 team of the Malienhua
Brigade, however, there are over 90 households. In 1979, the
gross income of the team was 450,000 yuan (one yuan is about
U.S. $0.65), of which 170,000 yuan (38%) represented costs of
production. For China as a whole, the cost of production is
typically some 30 percent of gross agricultural income, but the
figure may range over 40 percent in highly mechanized com
munes. At the No.2 team, further deductions for taxes (which
nationally average 3% of gross agricultural income), the ac
cumulation fund (for expanding investment). the welfare fund
(for which most teams use about 2% of gross income), and dues
paid to the brigade, which in 1979 provided electric meters and
piped running water to each household among its other ac
tivities, left 153,200 yuan to be distributed to team members as
collective income. For the Sino-Japanese Friendship Commune
as a whole, cash income from the collective economy was 493
yuan per member of the labor force in 1979, or 243 yuan per
capita. As the discussion (below) of the agricultural sector as a
whole will show, these income figures are exceptionally high,
reflecting in large measure the commune's suburban Beijing
location.
Households
In addition to their collecti ve activity, commune members
have a right to maintain private plots. which typically amount in
the aggregate to some 5 percent of the collective lands. At the
Sino-Japanese Friendship Commune, each family has about 66
square meters of land. yielding an estimated cash income of
about 150 yuan per family. In China as a whole, the per capita
income from collective labor in agriculture was 83.4 yuan in
1979.
3
roughly half in kind and half in cash, and the Ministry of
Agriculture estimates that family sideline activities and private
plots added about 30 to 40 yuan more to this figure.
4
Peasants
can use the plots to grow food for their own consumption or for
sale to the state or. except for grain and cooking oil, at local free
markets, where somewhat higher prices prevail. Many urban
consumers buy agricultural produce both at state stores, where
prices are lower, and at free markets, where the food is fresher.
Reflecting 1980's 4.2 percent decrease in grain output to
318.2 million tons
5
-a consequence of bad weather-the
per-capita income from collective labor rose by only 2.5 yuan in
1980. (Higher purchasing prices and non-grain products ac
counted for the gain.6) Although precise figures are lacking,
income from sideline activities and private plots appears to have
risen by a substantially greater amount. This is reflected in the
fact that retail sales for China as a whole rose by 12.2 percent in
real tenns in 1980,7 and the increase in rural areas was greater
than that in urban ones.
It is common to find team and brigade leaders elected by
their members, but commune-level cadres are typically ap
pointed by the state; their charge is to see that the commune as a
whole operates in accordance with public policy and party
principles. Thus the commune blends in a unique way not only
different aspects of social life but also grass-roots self-determi
nation with state power.
In order to grasp the organization of agricultural activity in
China, it is important to note that the commune level is merely
one level in a structured hierarchy of authority and initiative.
This hierarchy appears in somewhat simplified form as follows:
State
Ministry of Agriculture State Planning Commission
province
I
prefecture
I
county
I
commune
I
brifade
team

3. BR. August 18. 1980. p. 4.
4. This and subsequent Ministry of Agriculture estimates were provided to the
author by senior Ministry officials in April 1980.
5. BR. May II. 1981. p. 25.
6. BR. May 18. 1981. p. 19.
7. BR. May 18. 1981.p. 17.
20
Other government agencies also playa role, but the point here is
to emphasize the character of the vertical linkages. Thus the
county. for example, stands in relation to the commune much as
the commune does to the brigade; communes are not isolated.
discrete units. Important targets like those for grain will be
determined by the State Council in consultation with the State
Planning Commission. Ministry of Agriculture and other com
petent bodies. These will be disaggregated at the levels of
province. prefecture and county. The counties disaggregate
their targets among the communes, which do likewise among
their brigades; the brigades assign the team targets. Each level is
supposed to be intimately acquainted with the local conditions
within its own region and to consult extensively before reaching
final plans for the localities or production units within it. Inno
vation-initiative in the technical transformation of agriculture
can come at any level and spread rapidly via the vertical linkages
indicated.
Agricultural Policy and Performance, 1957-1977
The communes were first formed in 1958, and by Septem
ber of that year, 98.2 percent of China's rural households were
commune members. The main drive for the formation of com
munes came during the summer, by which time favorable
weather conditions seemed to assure a bumper crop. This mate
rialized as expected in 1958, but in the succeeding three years
output fell sharply, creating near-crisis conditions in the ag
ricultural sector and forcing a sharp shift in national policy
toward agriculture. Whereas the development of heavy industry
had been stressed in the 1950s, from 1960 agriculture was
supposed to have been accorded priority. The terms of trade
between industry and agriculture shifted gradually in favor of
agriculture and the development of industries which provided
inputs for agriculture (chemical fertilizer, farm machinery, etc.)
was accorded priority. At the same time, reorganization of the
communes emphasized making the production team, rather than
the commune, the basic unit of accounting and distribution, thus
linking income more closely to productive effort.
Changes at the macro-level appeared to be reinforced by
the shift in ideological orientation ushered in with the Cultural
Revolution, whose active phase was from 1966 to 1969. Since
the Cultural Revolution policies were maintained, on the whole,
until the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976, however, we may
consider the entire 1966-76 period as the Cultural Revolution
period. Between 1960 and 1965, the changes in agricultural
policy had primarily been pragmatic, but these were reinforced
from 1966 by the broader vision of social change which the
Cultural Revolution incorporated. Self-reliance, the develop
ment of local industry and elimination of the three great differ
ences (between town and country, agriculture and industry, and
mental and manual labor) gave a distinctive cast to rural de
velopment in China.
The common pattern in capitalist countries and in the
Soviet Union has been to focus on urban-industrial develop
ment, usually at the expense ofthe countryside, which provides
r e ~ o u r c e s and cheap labor but begins to draw some benefits from
the development process only when it is relatively far advanced.
China. by contrast, has been trying to make the development of
the countryside one of the central pillars of the overall develop
ment effort. Peasants are not free to migrate to the cities;
improvement in their lives must come through the transforma
tion of their own environments. The development of industry at
the brigade and commune levels is a part of this process. These
Peasant member of the No.2 Team of the Malienhua Brigade.
local industries provide cash income for the collectives (which
can use this to purchase agricultural machinery), employment
opportunities for the commune members, important agricultural
inputs and everyday consumption necessities. The state will
provide technical guidance in the establishment of these local
industries and sometimes help with the financing, but they rely
on a combination of state and local initiative to get under way.
The spread of health services to the countryside, a hallmark of
the Cultural Revolution period especially, the spread of rural
education (which took place from the 1950s), and innovation in
educational and cultural services have also been important com
ponents of rural development.
Until recently, in the absence of direct data on changes in
per-capita income in the countryside, indirect or partial indi
cators were used in the West to assess changes in living stan
dards. These have proved in the light of recent evidence, how
ever, to have been highly misleading. Increases in grain produc
tion and the gross value of agricultural output, combined with
improving terms of trade for the agricultural sector, gave the
appearance of firmly rising living standards in the countryside,
and the model units open to foreign inspection tended to confirm
this. In fact, however, evidence available only recently has
made it clear that gains in income over the entire 1957-77 period
were marginal.
Even if output is increasing and the terms of trade improv
ing, incomes do not necessarily rise. If the costs of production
rise sharply or an increasing share of net income is used for
re-investment, then the income available for distribution to
commune members may fall. During the Cultural Revolution
period especially, at least the former factor-and possibly the
latter as well-either limited gains in peasant incomes or led to
actual declines. How this can happen is shown clearly by the
case of the Nanshunchun Production Brigade in Nanyang Peo
pie's Commune, Baixiang County, Hebei Province.
8
8. The following account of the Nanshunchun Brigade is based on information
provided to the author by a former Vice-Chairman of the Nanyang People's
Commune.
21
The average cash income per production worker in the
Nanshunchun Brigade was in excess of 100 yuan in 1969, when
average grain yields were 500-510 jin/mou. * Three years later,
in 1972, the average yield passed 700 jin/mou, a gain of some
40%, but only 10% of the production workers received more
than 100 yuan for the year. There was a drought in 1972. The
commune administration required each team to buy for irriga
tion purposes at least four diesel pumps costing 5,500 yuan each
and four electric motors costing in excess of 300 yuan each. The
electric motors were used for pumping, but power failures were
frequent so the diesel pumps were necessary as well. The state
stood ready to make partial loans-or complete ones for the
poorest teams-but these had to be paid back. The great in
crease in production cost led to a sharp decline in members'
incomes; in 1972 some families received negative cash in
come-the net earnings for their collective work at the end of
the year were insufficient to cover the cost of the food they had
been advanced during the year.
This case is of particular interest because it reveals the
importance of perspective in assessing agricultural perfom1
ance. During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution period, the Chi
nese press was filled with accounts of successful struggle
against droughts and other natural disasters. The record of the
N anshunchun Brigade in raising output markedly despite the
drought provides an example of the kind of "success story"
frequently cited by the press at that time. And if maintaining or
The target of China's new development strategy re
mains "attaining" the four modernizations-indus
try, agriculture, science and technology, and national
defense-by the turn of the century, but the strategy
itself has changed.
increasing output in the face of natural adversity is the criterion
of success, there can be no doubt that this was indeed a success
story. At the same time, however, information on changes in
real income tended to be suppressed systematically during the
Cultural Revolution period. And if changes in real income are
considered part of the success criteria, then the record of the
Nanshunchun Brigade and indeed of Chinese agriculture as a
whole is much more ambiguous.
Although the evidence is impressionistic, former em
ployees in the provincial governments of Hebei and Heilongjiang
indicate that they believe that with the exception of brigades
with successful enterprises, peasant living standards in those
provinces declined during the Cultural Revolution period. 9 Dur
ing this period, rural cadres were judged and promoted largely
according to their success in increasing grain output. Taking
"grain as the key link" received so much emphasis, and the
"Dazhai model" emphasizing grain output rather than cost of
production or net output was so popularized, that peasant living
standards were relatively neglected.
* I jin = I catty orT I lb. I mou = I16th of an acre.
The data for the period immediately prior to the Cultural
Revolution are lacking, but data on peasant incomes between
1957 and 1977 confirm the extent to which China's develop
ment strategy neglected the peasants' livelihood. In 1957, per
capita income from collective labor in the countryside was 57
yuan, half in cash and half in kind. 10 In 1977 it was 65 yuan.
Thus in a twenty-year period, cash income rose by 4 yuan or
about U.S. $2.60. Now the cost of living in the Chinese coun
tryside is not high and medical and other services are sub
sidized, but people remain quite poor despite working ex
tremely hard, and a $2.60 gain over 20 years can scarcely be
considered adequate. Further, it should be noted that the aver
age is pulled up by the highly successful suburban communes,
which means incomes are often much below the average in
less-favored locales. Thus the case of a father and son on a
Shandong commune, aged 55 and 25, both strong workers and
in good health, earning together a total cash income of 20 yuan
in 1979 for an entire year's collective labor is somewhat unusual
but by no means extraordinary. II
Living standards depend on both personal income and
public services. In China's countryside, the provision of public
services still accounts for a very small portion of real income, so
even a substantial improvement in public services would have a
limited impact on living standards. In fact there was a substan
tial improvement only in medical care and not in public services
as a whole during the Cultural Revolution period, so the stagna
tion in personal income was not offset to any material extent by
an improvement in such services.
The stagnation in rural incomes had its counterpart in
urban-worker incomes, as I will show below. Both phenomena,
far from being coincidental, were natural outgrowths of the
development strategy China had adopted after the First Five
Year Plan ended in 1957, a strategy which reached its zenith
during the Cultural Revolution period. The strategy relied upon
stepping up the pace of capital formation to sustain economic
growth, thus limiting the resources available for consumption.
It involved holding down price increases for agricultural prod
ucts, leaving the terms of trade with the industrial sector un
favorable to agriCUlture, despite the gradual improvement from
the extremely unfavorable terms established in 1950; higher
payments to peasants would have required diverting industrial
production from producer to consumer goods.
The development strategy also downplayed material incen
tives, hoping in effect that the growth of consciousness could
replace such incentives as a motivational force. in resource
allocation, the strategy emphasized administrative decision
making rather than a significant role for the market. The cost of
the doctrinaire rejection of the market was a high level of
inefficiency. Firms, for example, that were unable to go out and
buy needed parts, tended to stockpile them or even develop
facilities to produce them, thus leading to exceptionally high
investments in inventories or in uneconomic ally small, duplica
tive production facilities. Growing inefficiencies of this sort
underlay the need to raise investment levels to sustain economic
growth, thus limiting the resources that could be channeled into
9. Information provided in the personal discussions with the author.
10. Data provided by officials of the Ministry of Agriculture.
I I. Information provided to the author in a discussion with a member of their
family.
22
the production of consumer goods. Thus, whereas 24.2 percent
of China's material output went into investment during the First
Five Year Plan period (1953-57), the figure averaged 33 per
cent between 1970 and 1978.
12
By limiting consumer good
production, the high investment rate required restricting peasant
cash incomes. Low peasant incomes, in other words, were the
logical outcome of the development strategy China followed
during the Cultural Revolution period.
The increase in production costs is perhaps the major
immediate factor why gains in agricultural incomes fell far
behind gains in agricultural output. Table I shows the increase
and increase rate in some of the principal inputs between 1952
and 1978. Whereas costs of production in the late 1950s came to
about 25 percent of gross output value, this proportion increased
to about 30 percent on average in the late 1970s and over 40
percent in the highly mechanized communes.
The example of the Nanshunchun Brigade shows how
heavy production expenses can depress member incomes de
spite rising yields. In addition to the rise in production costs,
however, the extremely low price received for agricultural pro
ducts has remained a sharp constraint on peasant incomes. It is
true that the terms of trade have moved gradually back in favor
of agriculture since the early 1950s, but until the sharp increases
in prices implemented in March 1979, agricultural prices re
mained extremely low relative to the cost of inputs and other
industrial products. Even after the 1979 increases, moreover,
which increased the purchasing price index for farm and sideline
products by 22. 1 %, \3 agricultural prices remained low relative
to industrial prices. Further price relief for the agricultural
sector will be necessary and the rise in the index by 7. 1 % in
1980 compared to a 4.4% rise in retail prices in rural areas
indicates that adjustments are continuing. 14
Thus, although grain output rose 2.4 percent per year
between 1952 and 1978, slightly in excess of population
growth, and the real value of gross agricultural output as a whole
grew by 3.2% per year in the same period, IS incomes in the
countryside have increased very little and living standards re
main very low. This, again, is not to belittle the real gains in
living standards not reflected in personal income, gains most
notable in areas like improved access to medical services, but to
set these gains within a broader perspective. For the country as a
whole, per-capita grain output in 1978 was no higher than in
1957. One of the central questions which current policy must
address is why the agricultural sector, aided by massive in
creases in material inputs and labor, and with the communes
12. BR.December21.1979.p.IO.
13. BR, May 18, 1981, p. 17.
14. Ibid.
15. State Statistical Bureau, People's Republic of China, Main Indicators,
Development of the National Economy of the People's Republic of China
(1949-1978). Beijing, 1979.
16. For a discussion of the role of the commune in Chinese development see my
article, "The Commune in Chinese Development," Modern China, Vol. 3, No.
2 (April 1977), pp. 229-255.
17. Thomas Rawski, "Economic Growth and Employment in China," World
Development, Vol. 7, Nos. 8/9 (August-September 1979), p. 777.
18. Nicholas Lardy, Economic Growth and Distribution in China (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 175.
23
The shift to material incentives on a national level
appears to undermine the collective ethos and cer
tainly undermines the Dazhai model from which the
entire nation was exhorted to learn during the Cul
tural Revolution period.
providing an institutional framework exceptionally well-suited
to rapid development, 16 could register no better than a margin
ally satisfactory performance. There was, in other words, a
policy failure during the Cultural Revolution period which must
be explained.
The evidence on agricultural labor input suggests that-while
output per worker increased by about 10 percent between 1957
and 1975, output per labor-day declined sharply-from 15 to
36%-as the number of days worked per person increased
sharply. 17 During this period, industrial output was rising about
10 percent annually, but some of the difficulties in the industrial
sector paralleled those in the agricultural sector. Substantial
increases in investment reflecting a rising incremental capital
output ratio were needed for the output gains, limiting the scope
for increases in real wages in industry, which remained un
changed between 1956 and 1975.
18
Table 1
Increase in the Production of Principal Agricultural Inputs
Average annual
increase rate,
Item Unit 1952 1978 1953-1978
Chemical Fertilizer thousand tons 39 8,693 23.1
Large & Medium Tractors thousands 0.60 557 30.0
Hand Tractors thousands 1,373
Power-driven Drainage
& Irrigation Machines thousand hp 128 65,575 27. I
Source: Statistical Bureau, People's Republic of China, Main Indicators, De
velopment of the National Economy of the People's Republic of China ( 1949
1978) Beijing: 1979. pp. 1-3.
",ACE RITE
s..,.ERllIZD
PURE BRISTLE
300
"' __ Of /oj CI-I "'4-'
China's New Development Strategy
Soon after the Gang of Four 'fell, China announced an
ambitious set of targets for rapid industrial expansion, including
a doubling of steel output to 60 million tons by 1985.
19
It soon
became clear, however, that the nation lacked the infrastructure
to support such a program, and that imbalances between heavy
and light industry, industry and agriculture, infrastructure and
directly productive activities, saving and investment, and for
eign exchange requirements and availability made the long
range plan impractical. Official announcements then stressed
that the targets were being postponed, not abandoned, which is
true, but this tended to obscure the fact that a radically different,
balanced development strategy was being substituted for the
initial crash program.
The target of China's new development strategy remains
"attaining" the four modernizations- industry, agriculture,
science and technology, and national defense-by the turn of
the century, but the strategy itself has changed. A three-year
period of adjustment, running from 1979 to 1981, was estab
lished at the outset of the new program; its main thrust was the
correction of imbalances, especially in infrastructure. The
major emphasis during the adjustment period was to be on
power and transport, with priority given to coal mining, elec
tricity, oil, transport and building materials industries. 20
It soon became evident that the economic adjustment peri
od would require much more than three years, especially when
the meaning attributed to adjustment was broadened in a basic
sense to include structural reform of the economy. As a conse
quence, the Sixth Five-Year Plan period (1981-85) has also
been designated as a period of readjustment. The changes all
point toward rationalization of the economy and creation of
conditions for balanced growth. The lopsided development of
heavy industry is to be corrected with a decline in investment
and increase in consumer goods production. Improvements in
technical levels and management are to be stressed at enter
prises, which will be accorded greater autonomy, and the weak
links in the economic structure-energy, transportation and
utilities especially-are to be strengthened.
21
The plans for the
Sixth Five-Year Plan period indicate a continuation and deepen
ing of the new economic strategy that has emerged since Mao's
death.
In sharp contrast to the Cultural Revolution period, official
policy under the new strategy is stressing material incentives
over moral exhortation or social and political pressure as a
means of inducing productive effort, although the latter ele
ments are still present in the overall incentive structure. The new
emphasis on material incentives requires a sharply stepped-up
production of consumer goods, and thus light industry is also
being stressed in current investment policies. This is a two
edged sword, since the high profit rate in light industry will
serve to help finance the overall investment program the four
19. Robert F. Dernberger and David Fasenfest. "China's Post-Mao Economic
Future." in U.S. Congress. Joint Economic Committee. Chinese Economy
Post-Mao (Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Otlice. November 9.
1978). p. 6.
20. A rather full discussion of the logic of the three-year adjustment policy
appears in Shi Zhengwen. "Readjusting the National Economy: Why and
How?" BR. June 29. 1979. pp. 13-23.
21. BR. May II. 1981.
Plastic sheets covering early crops at the Long
March People's Commune, suburban Shanghai.
modernizations will require. The emphasis on material incen
tives also calls for increased agricultural production, especially
of meat and animal products, since close to half of consumers'
incomes is spent on food.
Although allocating increased resources to expanding con
sumer goods and agricultural production is an essential part of the
new strategy, the issue is far more than one of aggregate re
source allocation in itself. As noted above, industry was produc
ing greatly increased quantitites of agricultural inputs through
out the Cultural Revolution period and was itself expanding
about 10 percent per year. These results were achieved, how
ever, at a cost of sharply rising investment requirements per unit
of output in both industry and agriculture, limiting the resources
that could be devoted to improving people's living standards.
The new strategy seeks to improve the efficiency with which
resources are used and thereby to free some for consumption
purposes even while aggregate growth continues at a rapid pace.
The aim, therefore, is to improve the efficiency of the economic
system such that a lower investment rate, freeing resources to
improve mass consumption, will sustain the same or a higher
rate of economic growth. The challenge is magnified by the
economic imbalances which are the heritage of the Cultural
Revolution period, imbalances the correction of which will now
require costly investments in the energy and transport sectors
which typically have extremely high investment requirements
per unit of output.
A wide range of pragmatic measures to improve efficiency
has been introduced or is in the process of being introduced, but
the most important among these is a limited insertion of market
forces in the economic system and greater autonomy for deci
sion-making units in agriculture and industry. Industrial en
terprises are now being given greater say over the use of their
profits and depreciation funds, and the role of profit as a success
indicator is being strengthened. At the same time, enterprises
are increasingly free to purchase their input requirements di
rectly from other enterprises and to sell their output directly to
other enterprises or even abroad, as well as to state commercial
units. Further, unde.r an experimental program begun in 1979
and expanded considerably in 1980, some enterprises have been
able to accept new employees by examination rather than have
24
Greenhouse for vegetable-growing at the
Long March People's Commune. (Lippit)
them assigned by one of the state labor bureaus (although the
labor bureaus still determine the pool of qualified applicants
eligible to take the examinations).
In agriculture, output targets remain part of the planning
system, but acreage targets.are now supposed to be left to the
discretion of the commune production units. Purchase prices
have been raised sharply for grain and subsidiary products and
the free markets for private-plot produce are flourishing, con
tributing to a sharp rise in peasant incomes. Income from collec
tive labor rose from 65 yuan per capita in 1977 to 74 yuan in
1978,22 83.4 yuan in 1979,23 and 85.9 yuan in 1980, with
incomes from the private plots now adding an additional 30-40
yuan per capita to collective income. The long-term moderniza
tion plan for agriculture calls for its mechanization and the
accelerated development of scientific agriculture.
The new development strategy incorporates as well a
sharply stepped-up role for foreign trade and investment, de
creasing the investment rate to allow increased consumption,
and placing a greater emphasis on the acquisition of m o ~ e r n
technology as a means of sustaining economic growth. The
increased role of foreign trade means that exports must increase;
since the products of agriculture and light industry constitute a
major share of exports, and since light industry still depends
mainly on agricultural inputs, the strategy accords agriculture a
key role. Indeed, since agriculture remains the weak link in the
economy, the overall strateg:y for balanced growth depends
heavily on improvement in the agricultural sector.
The Prospects for Agriculture
It might be most helpful to consider the outlook for ag
riculture and for the communes in particular from the standpoint
of problems which the new strategy may appear to raise. I would
like to consider these under four main headings. First, as I have
indicated, the agricultural sector provides employment for
about 300 million people, about 75 percent of China's labor
force (of these, some 28 million are actually employed in
commune and brigade-level industry). The commune system
has played a key role in China's ability to employ productively
I
virtually its entire labor force, an ability which stands in marked !
contrast to the typical underdeveloped country in the capitalist I
world, whose combined unemployment-underemployment rate
is nearing 30 percent. 24 In capitalist countries, potentially pro
ducti ve labor will remain unutilized if the wage rate is above the
marginal product of labor, but the commune does not treat
wages as a cost so there is nothing to be gained by allowing
people to remain idle as long as there are useful things to do. If
China proceeds with agricultural mechanization, however, as is
clearly its intent, it might appear that that will create serious
employment problems in the countryside and undermine the
commune system.
Second, the entire process of industrial rationalization and
standardization would also appear to create problems for the
communes. The communes have been largely-although by no
means absolutely-self-reliant units and, in many respects,
self-sufficient as well. Local industry was based on using re
sources not substantial enough to warrant state investment. The
new plans call for the standardization of parts for agricultural
machinery and for specialization in production. Thus commune
and county factories will increasingly be producing parts for
agricultural machines rather than whole machines, and there is a
question as to whether they can be competitive with urban-based
industry on this basis. Further, relative self-sufficiency will also
be broken down by the increasing concentration of agricultural
production in the regions best suited for the various crops.
Finally, since production will have to be justified on the basis of
efficiency and cost, and since the cost per unit of output is
usually higher in the smaller plants than in the larger, state
owned plants,25 there appears to be a threat to commune-based
local industry.
Third, the shift to material incentives on a national level
appears to undermine the collective ethos and certainly under
mines the Dazhai model from which the entire nation was
exhorted to learn during the Cultural Revolution period. Ac
cording to the Dazhai model, the shared belief that the collec
ti ve, self-reliant transformation of the environment provided the
only basis for individual prosperity was to be the basis of
agricultural development. Confronting extremely unfavorable
natural conditions, the Dazhai brigade members, relying pri
marily on their own labor, worked very hard in carrying out
terracing, water conservancy and other capital construction
projects, greatly increasing the yield of the land.
26
The new
stress on material rewards stands in marked contrast to this
22. HR. August 18. 1980. p. 4.
23. HR. April 21. 1980. p. 17.
24. The reference here to productive employment is not meant to suggest that
productivity is high; the truth is quite to the contrary as the data in the text on
income levels and declining labor productivity should make clear. Despite low
I
productivity. however. people in China are employed and are making a net
i
contribution to output. A major task for economic refonn in China is to raise
productivity without generating unemployment. The contrasting datum for the I
capitalist world is from Michael P. Todaro. Economic Development in the Third I
World (New York: Longman. 1977).
25. Jon Sigurdson. "Rural Industrialization in China," V.S. Congress. Joint
Economic Committee, China: A Reassessment of the Economy (Washington,
I
D.C:: V .S. Government Printing Office, July 10, 1975), pp. 411-435.
26. An excellent account of the Tachai model appears in Neville Maxwell.
I
"Learning from Tachai." World Development, Vol. 3. Nos. 7 & 8 (July-August
1975), pp. 473-495.
,
i
25
!
I
!
I
ethos. No longer is the system of mutual assessment used to
determine work points in most of the communes but specific
jobs accomplished (e.g., so many points for plowing a field).
Production for the market on private plots' is encouraged. Ma
terial disincentives are also being used; in one commune near
Shanghai, families which have a third child have 10 percent of
the income to which they would otherwise be entitled deducted.
Thus the new policies might appear to undermine collective
effort in the countryside and indeed the commune as a collective
institution.
Finally, the impact of the new strategy on the relative
position of agriculture must be clarified. The Cultural Revolu
tion's stress on equality incorporated attempts to overcome the
"three great differences," two of which, the differences bet
ween urban and rural areas and between industry and agricul
ture, bear directly on the relative position of agriculture. The
Cultural Revolution period in general was marked by a stress on
Duck pond at the Long March Commune. (Lippit)
agricultural and rural development, as reflected in the spread of
medical coverage throughout the countryside, the development
of the' 'barefoot doctor" system, the settling of urban youths in
the countryside and the marked increase in the production by
industry of agricultural means of production. Since China has
attempted to make agricultural development the cornerstone of
its overall development program, the impact of the new de
velopment strategy on the material prosperity and cultural de
velopment of the countryside must be examined.
Employment and Mechanization
The first question concerning the new strategy is that of
employment; how is agricultural mechanization to be reconciled
with full employment in the countryside? It should be noted first
of all that Chinese government officials are quite sensitive to
this question, and that the mechanization program is by no
means simply a labor-saving one. Rather, its form is to be
tailored to the particular needs of different locales. In certain
seasons or in certain regions, labor is indeed relatively in short
supply, and under such circumstances, the use of labor-saving
machinery is considered appropriate. Thus in the Northeast and
Northwest, where this situation often prevails, the government
plans to mechanize plowing and weeding first. Mechanization is
also considered appropriate where the labor is especially heavy
and where land productivity can be raised, often through mak
ing possible multiple cropping. Thus in the south, the govern
ment plans for mechanization focus on the transplanting of rice
and drying it after the harvest. This will release labor, but the
surplus labor power can be used productively. Near Shanghai,
mechanization has released peasants to engage in finer, more
meticulous farming, greatly increasing yields. Such labor can
also be used in capital construction work or in the development
of forestry, fishing, animal husbandry and sideline activities,
including handicrafts. Finally, the development of commune
and brigade enterprises is also expected to absorb labor.
It should be kept in mind that the demand for labor, a
demand derived from the demand for agricultural products, can
also be expected to increase with the four modernizations.
Mechanization in remote mountainous regions, for example,
will often focus initially on improving transport, thereby open
ing new markets. The planned development of intermediate
sized cities, the national improvement in transportation, the
opening of export markets, the development of light industry
and rising consumer incomes can all be expected to expand
agricultural markets, raising indirectly the demand for labor. It
is within this context that mechanization-modernization is being
pursued in China, and it is clear that there is no lessened
commitment to full employment on the part of the government.
As development proceeds, the communes will increasingly be
come integrated agricultural-industrial-service organizations,
absorbing labor through the diversified activities this integrated
character makes possible.
Labor power released through mechanization could. in
principle, be absorbed in new collective activities or in the
private plots and sideline activities. Although modest expansion
in private activities has clearly taken place. it is unlikely that this
could continue to a point where serious inroads on collective
labor would occur. Several factors are responsible for this.
First, public policy recognizes private activity as spare-time
activity, and people are not free to participate in the collective
economy just to the extent that they feel like it. Both mass
pressures-the good of the whole depends on everyone's par
ticipating-and the entire leadership structure of the commune.
from the team-level to the commune-level. tend to insure con
formity in this respect. Thus at the Malienhua Brigade, for
example, a bell rings at 8 A.M. to signal the start of collective
labor for the village and again at 6 P. M. to signal its end.
Second, incentives in the collective economy are geared to
tasks completed. Each job is assigned a certain number of work
points and less intensive efforts will reduce the number of points
earned. The recent spread of the contract system links reward to
effort even more closely. Under the contract system, small
groups within the production teams contract with the team as a
whole to farm specific fields. They must tum overto the team an
agreed amount of the harvest and have the right to retain any
excess. Finally, employment in non-agricultural activities
within the commune is growing faster than that in agricultural
activities, and workers in commune enterprises have even less
leeway than those doing agricultural work to substitute private
for collective activity.
26
Industrial Rationalization
The rationalization of industry, like mechanization, poses
no threat to the agricultural sector. It is true that an increased
division of labor is in prospect, but the commune enterprises
will be incorporated in that division rather than excluded from
it. New opportunities are expected to open up for producing in
dustrial parts under contract for state-owned enterprises. Public
policy and the whole strategy of development require that the
commitment to rural, small-scale industry be maintained. Com
munes are expected to pay for their own mechanization. The
principal source of funds for this is the development of com
mune enterprises. The stepped-up pace of mechanization prom
ises to release some labor for commune enterprises even while it
requires their expansion for funding. The government is highly
conscious of this need and is committed to developing rural
industries where rural areas have productio.n advantages or
economies of scale are not very significant. Thus, for example,
the transfer of sugar beet and cane processing from urban areas
to the countryside is planned. Finally, it should be noted that one
principal target of rationalization is lowering the cost of ag
ricultural inputs, an objective which promises to raise rural
incomes. All of these factors would lead us to expect public
policy to support a vigorous expansion of commune, production
brigade and production team enterprises. In fact, such enter
prises produced an output value of 49 ,000 million yuan in 1978,
about 25% more than in 1977, which in turn was 43.7% higher
than the 1976 figure. 27
Material Incentives
Third, the shift to material incentives is quite real, but it is
not immediately evident that this will eliminate the collective
ethos. It should be kept in mind that Dazhai was a model, and
that the reality of most of the countryside has been poverty with
people working longer and longers hours for miniscule gains in
income. Under such circumstances, which tend to breed cyni
cism as the promise of collective agriculture remains un
realized, we may question whether the collective ethos had very
much power. Now the situation has changed; people's incomes
for working for the collective are rising (from 65 yuan per capita
in 1977 to 85.9 yuan in 1980) and further gains are in sight.
Rising prosperity in the countryside not only increases indi
vidual cash incomes for collective labor, it also increases social
services the collective can provide. Starting in 1979, for exam
ple, the Long March People's Commune near Shanghai in
stituted a retirement system. The retirement age is 65 and the
pension is 20-28 yuan per month. Although very few communes
are prosperous enough to institute retirement programs, such
programs are clearly the wave of the future; China is in the midst
of an historic shift from the family providing material security in
old age to the collective. But to provide material security, output
and income must rise greatly. In this sense we can say that
material incentives which help to raise output levels are not
necessarily in conflict with the collective ethos.
If material incentives were emphasized to the exclusion of
27. BR. September 28, 1979, p. 4.
28. BR. May 19, 1980,p. 18,andJuly7, 1980.p.6.
29. BR. July 20. 1979, p. 9.
30. BR. March 24, 1980, p. 17.
the development of socialist consciousness then it is of course
possible that the commune as a collective institution would be
undermined. It is also possible-although rather un
likely-that recent changes will ultimately lead in that direc
tion. What must be emphasized at present, however, is that
reasonably-implemented material ince'ntives per se are not
necessarily anti-collective or anti-socialist, and under current
conditions may well be essential to the development of the
commune as a collective institution. That is to say, a pre
maturely egalitarian emphasis on socialist relations of produc
tion may, by cutting short the development of the forces of
production, ultimately forestall the realization of an egalitarian,
socialist society.
Agriculture and Economic Priorities
Finally, the new strategy remains committed to overcom
ing the differences between urban areas and the countryside,
between industry and agriculture. Investment in agriculture is
now a much higher share of state investment than at any time
during the Cultural Revolution period. The commitment to rural
However, the failure of the Cultural Revolution pol
icies-expressed most notably in the failure of in
comes to rise, the perpetuation of social hierarchy, the
rigid censorship, the failure of educational reform in
the critical area of the substantive content of educa
tion, and the inability of the direct producers to con
trol their own workplaces or participate meaningfully
in higher levels of social decision-making-Ieft no al
ternative to seeking a new strategy.
development has certainly been increased, purchase prices for
farm produce have been raised sharply and peasant incomes
have leaped upwards, increasing on the average more rapidly
than workerincomes. In 1979, peasant incomes from the collec
tives grew by 11.4 percent compared to an average real wage
rise for workers in state-owned enterprises of 7.6 percent. 28 The
four modernizations strategy calls for balanced growth, and
since agriculture has been a weak link in the economy, special
efforts are being made to develop it. Thus the share of state
capital construction devoted to agriculture increased from
10.7% in 1978 to 14% in 1979
29
and will increase further to a
planned 18% by 1982-84
30
even while accumulation within the
sector was (and presumably will be) promoted by the sharp
improvement in the terms of trade and the successful develop
ment of smaller local industry.
Further, other aspects of the development strategy promise
to provide complementary support to the agricultural sector.
The modernization of science and technology includes agricul
tural science as one of its emphases. Moreover, in the efforts to
rationalize industry and thereby reduce production costs of
industrial products, particular emphasis is being placed on low
ering the costs of inputs for agriculture as part of a self
conscious effort to improve the terms of trade for the agricul
tural sector.
27
The new development strategy, like any possible course
of action the Chinese could choose, has its own pitfalls and
contradictions. Many of these are associated with the new
reliance on market forces, even though these are not given
completely free rein. Allowing the market to playa greater role
in allocation, for example, gave rise to strong inflationary
pressures in 1980 especially,
remedial action (prices have been stabilIzed In the maIn SInce a
State Council edict of December 7, 1980, calling for price
controls
31
). Moreover, since prices are a mix of admini
stratively set prices-some set long ago in a different economic
environment-and market-influenced ones, it is clear that they
cannot always send the right signals; the most profitable crop,
for example, is not necessarily the socially most desirable one.
Further, material incentives have a logic of their own, and
it is not immediately clear how an aspiring socialist society can
escape the smooth progression from material incentives to mate
rialistic culture that has accompanied the development of the
capitalist West. In addition, the new strategy will tend pro
mote an elite status for those who are educated or techmcally
trained. Finally, the new strategy has the potential to increase
certain inequalities, especially if those regions most favored or
possessing the most favorable initial conditions develop far
more rapidly than other regions. (It should be noted here as well,
however, that the Cultural emphasis on self
reliance had a similar implication for intensifying initial in
equalities.)
Indeed, concerns like those enumerated above underlay the
whole Cultural Revolution effort to find a viable alternative
strategy. However, the failure of the Cultural Revolution
icies-expressed most notably in the failure of incomes to nse,
the perpetuation of social hierarchy, the rigid censorship, the
failure of educational reform in the critical area of the substan
tive content of education, and the inability of the direct produc
ers to control their own workplaces or participate meaningfully
in higher levels of social decision-making-left no alternative
to seeking a new strategy. The emergence of the present strategy
must be understood within this context.
According to the argument I have presented, China's new
development strategy is both necessary and viable. Although
problem areas do exist, the leadership is aware of these for the
most part and has taken measures to minimize the problems.
Nevertheless, a number of contradictions will inevitably in
tensify as the new strategy is implemented, and the successful
resolution of these will be a critical issue in the transition to
socialism in China. If certain regions are allowed to prosper
first will decisive measures be taken at the appropriate time,
increased resources can be channeled to the lagging re
gions to help them catch up? Will rising incomes lead to a
materialistic culture or provide the basis for a fuller develop
ment of social consciousness? Critical issues like these will have
to be confronted in the fairly near future, but the inevitability of
the confrontation does not in itself negate the validity of the new
strategy, which was made necessary by the failure ofthe old an.d
the absence of viable alternatives. To say that the new strategy IS
necessary and viable, however, is not to say that it will succee?;
the issue of success will be determined ultimately by the skill
and insight with which its own emerging contradictions will be
dealt.
31. BR,MayI8,198I,p.21.
Changes in the Communes
The favorable implications for agriculture of the new de
velopment program are reinforced at the commune level by a
series of policies which promise to strengthen the commune as
an institution. It should be noted first that communes are collec
tives rather than state-owned institutions; that is to say, mem
bers receive instead of wages a share of the income after costs of
production, taxes and various fund payments. have been de
ducted from gross receipts. Although collectives have been
regarded as socialist in China, they have been regarded as
distinctly second-class socialist institutions. In urban areas,
collective members have been prohibited by explicit govern
ment policy from receiving wages and benefits comparable to
those of employees in state enterprises, and in the countrysi.de
this attitude has been reflected in intermittent pressures to raise
the level of distribution from the team to the brigade or even the
commune, which could lead ultimately to making the commune
comparable to a state farm or factory with members receiving
wages.
Such pressures were reflected in making the commune
level the basic unit of distribution when the communes were first
formed, and even when this proved impractical it remained a
target for the near future. Thus Mao wrote in 1960:
Within a certain number ofyears our people's communes will
have to carry through the transformation from ownership by
the basic team to ownership by the basic commune, and then
into ownership by the whole people. 32
In the same year he also wrote:
The socialist state and socialist construction cannot be es
tablished for any great length of time on the basis ofowner
ship by the whole people and ownership by the collective as
two different bases ofownership. 33
Mao argued on the one hand that communes as collectives
would stifle the development of the productive forces and there
fore limit peasant consumption and agricultural ?rowth, 34
on the other that " ... if we do not let collective ownership
become people's ownership ... present living standards will
surpass those of the workers to the detriment of both industrial
and agricultural development. "35
Now Mao of course contradicts himself here-the com
munes as collectives won't do because they won't meet the
peasants' material needs and they won't do because they will
make the peasants too prosperous-but what is significant is
that whatever the pretext, the communes are viewed as improper
and unsustainable in their present form. Mao's analysis, how
ever, overlooks some of the unique features of the communes.
As they are currently constituted, the communes offer
much greater scope than state-owned enterprises for local
tive and community action, at least at the team and bngade
levels. Charles Bettelheim argues that socialism is a system of
control by the direct producers as a class over their conditions of
32. Mao Tse-tung, A Critique of Soviet Economics (New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1977). p. 34.
33. Ibid., p. 53.
34. Ibid.. p. 54.
35. Ibid., p. 68.
28
existence, and in the first instance over their productive activity
and products.
3
& This appears to be a satisfactory first approxi
mation. Since state factory workers in China have much less
control over their work activity. environment and products than
commune members. it is questionable whether changing the
ownership system as Mao advocates will really mark progress
toward socialism.
The new attitudes towards the communes and to the collec
tive form in general are much more practical and less ideological
than those which prevailed during the Cultural Revolution. In
urban areas. collectives are viewed as an essential means of
absorbing the substantial influx into the labor force in recent
years. In 1979 more than 9 million people found urban jobs. an
unprecedented figure, and of the net increase in the urban labor
force of 4.68 million (subtracting those who retired or left the
labor force from the newly employed), 2.26 million or almost
half increased employment in the collective sector.
37
To pro
mote the development of the collectives, policy restrictions
limiting collective-sector employees' wages and benefits com
pared to state sector employees have been abolished. In the
same vein, pressure for rapid change in the ownership system of
the communes has abated. In other areas, however, basic
changes in the communes have either taken place or are in store.
Changes
First, the fact that the new development strategy,accords
material prosperity a much higher priority is of great impor
tance. The commune, we should recall, is an institution which
mixes local autonomy with state power. When most people
were getting by on less than 65 yuan per year, the material needs
of the population were not being met satisfactorily and en
thusiasm for collective labor may not have been quite spon
taneous. At the same time, the commune level was 'firmly 'an
organ of state power and it was not unusual to find, for example,
labor requisitioned to carry out certain projects.
At present the commune level is still an organ of state
power, but there have been important shifts in the way that
power is exercised. "Commandism" has been criticized and it
is no longer permissible to order people to do uncompensated
labor; all work must be paid for. Commandism of course has
been criticized before, but the criticisms taken on a special
significance this time because they have been made in the
context of a concerted effort to unleash economic initiative at
the level of the production unit and of the direct producer. The
institutional basis for this effort is being established by the
limited introduction of the market system in a context of overall
planning. Without the market, production must be guided by
administrative decisions centrally made and handed down,
making some form of commandism almost inevitable.
With regard to the structure of material incentives as well,
an important shift has taken place: the carrot has been enlarged
and the income available for successful performance has been
increased substantially. In March 1979, state purchase prices
for grain were raised by 20 percent with a 50 percent bonus
36. Charles Bettelheim and Paul Sweezy, On The Transition to Socialism (New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1971). p. 35.
37. BR, May 19. 1980, p. 23.
38. BR, July 20, 1979, p. 8.
Malienhua Brigade in suburban Beijing: plastic sheets
covering early plantings at night. (Lippit)
above the new price for deliveries to the state in excess of the
planning quotas, and the 18 principal farm and sideline product
purchase prices were raised by an average of 24.8 percent. 38
Not only have all prices and bonuses for above-quota production
been raised, the quotas have been lowered so that a larger share
of output will qualify for the bonus payments. Furthermore,
paying commune members according to work accomplished
rather than according to the system of mutual assessment in
creases the maximum earning capacity of-and therefore the
incentives for-the most productive workers. Thus state power
is increasingly exercised within the commune indirectly through
the structure of incentives rather than directly in the form of
commands or ideological pressures.
This change is reflected also in the changes in the planning
system. In the past, plans typically specified the acreage to be
devoted to specific crops, and regional self-sufficiency was
stressed, especially in the growing of grain. Now, plans for
agriculture continue to specify output targets, but land use is left
up to the producing units. Further, specialization is being en
couraged, so that communes well situated for growing cotton or
others whose hilly terrain is more suited to fruit-growing than to
grain cultivation have increasing latitude to use their land in the
most productive manner, State policy still expects some degree
of self-sufficiency in grain, but the requirements are less severe
than in the past and the scope for local initiative broader.
The active encouragement of the productive use of the
private plots and of the free markets for the sale of their produce
marks another shift in policy. The policy has already led to
substantial gains in peasant incomes-and in urban supplies of
pork, eggs and other farm products. In 1979, household sideline
production contributed 30 to 40 yuan per capita to peasant
incomes, 36-48% of the average collective income of 83.4
yuan.
39
In the same year, statt! purchases of eggs rose 48.1
percent to a record 825,000 tons,40 and the total output of pork,
beef and mutton rose 24.1 percent to 10,624,000 tons,41 with
the private plots making a substantial contribution to these
increases. The revival of the private plots is of course part of the
broader policy of increasing the use of material incentives to
stimulate the growth of production.
29
The shift to paying people according to work accomplished
is perhaps the most significant change in this respect. At the
Sino-Japanese Friendship People's Commune, for example,
men could receive a maximum of ten work points for a day's
labor and women nine under the mutual assessment system.
Today those are the average number of work points earned, but
some men earn as much as 15 in a day and some women as much
as 13-14; the men generally earn more in heavy work like
leveling land and loading, the women earn more in transplanting
rice, picking fruit and so forth. If work is done collectively, the
group leader within the team can adjust the number of points
each member receives to reflect differences in quantity and
quality of work as long as he or she stays within the total number
of points allotted for the task. Five work points is the minimum
for a day's work, and six is the standard for junior high school
graduates working as apprentices for one year. The main practi
cal consequence of the change in the work point system appears
to be raising the upper limit on the incomes the most productive
workers can receive from collective labor.
Although the "revolutionary committee" structure is still
to be found in the communes, the committees have become
basically ordinary administrative bodies. Like many other local
institutions in China, the communes increasingly use formal
democratic procedures, as in the election of team and brigade
leaders. Some commune-level cadres may increasingly be
elected in the future as well, but we should expect most com
mune leaders to be appointed from above for quite some time to
come, for that is the way the party-state assures itself that the
communes will adhere to public policy. The role of the state has
become less direct but no less significant because of that; public
policy remains committed to the modernization of agriculture
and the party continues to see a need for cadres to carry out that
policy. Although the state is trying to interefere less with local
production activities and to stimulate local initiative, its plan
ning at an aggregative level has if anything been increased.
China is trying to establish twelve regions within the country as
areas of high, stable yields which can provide a dependable
grain surplu for urban areas and to serve other purposes; these
areas will receive priority in mechanization and supplies. Other
areas will specialize increasingly in cotton and other industrial
crops according to their natural advantages. China's agriCUlture
remains very much a planned operation, and although agricul
tural purchase prices are likely to be raised further in the future,
the market is not basically replacing planning in agriCUlture but
serving as an adjunct. Under these circumstances, the basic
structure of the commune is not likely to be altered.
Stepping up the pace of agricultural modernization, how
ever, will have important consequences for the communes. The
initiation of pensions is of outstanding importance among a
range of social services that increased material prosperity will
make possible. At the same time, the accelerated diversification
of commune activities that modernization will simultaneously
require and lead to promises to speed the transformation of the
Chinese countryside. The outlook is not only for a narrowing of
the differences in the nature of productive activity as well. Over
the long run, China's unique development strategy points to
ward a balanced growth of industry and agriculture in a "civil
ized" countryside, with the commune as its institutional core.
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30
Market, Maoism and Economic
Reform in China
by Carl Riskin
China has been in the throes of an economic riptide. * A
reform-minded leadership, attempting to reverse the direction
of two decades is promoting an economic system quite dif
ferent from any espoused by the late Mao Zedong-one with
independent enterprises practicing "scientific management',
and responding to the signals of the market. Such a system.
according to the reformers. has the best chance of overcoming
the still prevalent attitudes of "feudalism" in China, streng
thening the forces of economic rationality and ultimately speed
ing 'econo[l1ic growth. Yet the partial reforms introduced
have conflicted with still dominant elements of the old
approach to economic management, erode central control of
investment activity. and worsen longstanding problems of eco
nomic imbalance that the leadership is equally committed to
solving. Economic reform has therefore been slowed, and its
future put in doubt.
When leaders and intellectuals dwell on the obstructive
remnants of the past in today's China, it is "feudalism" rather
than capitalism they mention. During the Cultural Revolution.
seventeen years after the achievement of state power by the
Chinese Communist Party. "feudal" habits were said to have
still permeated Chinese thought and behavior sufficiently to
threaten the revolution itself and bring the economy "to the
brink of disaster." Implicit in this view. is '.the idea that certain
phenomena historically associated with capitalism still lie ahead
for China. When Oriana Fallaci asked Deng Xiaoping in Oc
tober 1980 whether he thought "capitalism is not all that bad."
Deng replied offhandedly, "We must distinguish what is capi
talism. Capitalism is superior to feudalism." I
The term "feudalism" as. used in China refers generally to
the means of domination of Chinese society employed by a
privileged class for many centuries. 2 The Party journal Hong Qi
(Red Flag) put it bluntly in 1980:
* This essay will appear in Victor Lippit and Mark Selden. eds . The Transition
to Socialism in China (White Plains. N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. Inc .. forthcoming). I
am most grateful to Lippit and Selden for a painstaking critique of an earlier
draft. Helpful comments were also received from Robert Heilbroner. Tom
Rawski and Dorothy Solinger. As usual, responsibility for the final result is the
author's alone.
[FJeudalistic 'ideology is so prevalent that it has permeated
every corner of the society. For instance, the concepts of
respectability and inferiority, the hierarchical system and
patriarchal behavior manifest themselves everywhere. At the
same time, the ideology ofthe agricultural small producers is
characterized by the belief that they cannot take their destiny
into their own hands, but rather entrust it to some
saviour.' "3
As applied to the economy, the term "feudalism" as the
current leadership uses it embraces several current and recent
hallmarks of Chinese economic organization: the overlapping of
political and economic jurisdiction, permitting government or
gans to milk economic units for their taxes and profits; the quest
for local self-sufficiency with insufficient regard for the princi
ples of specialization and division of labor; an overemphasis on
the motivating force of loyalty, patriotism and authority, and an
underemphasis on material interest; an attempt to organize pro
duction directly for use, rather than allowing and encouraging
the development of the market and of production of commodi
ties for the market; the resort to supraeconomic coercion; over
staffed and overlapping administrative structures; one-sided
emphasis on mobilizing labor, to the neglect of science, tech
nology and intellectuals. 4 These are all modes of thought and
behavior presumably rendered obsolete in the advanced West
and Japan by the rationalizing power of capitalist development,
but still strong in China, where such development was weak and
I. Foreign Broadcast Information Service. People's Republic of China (FBIS).
Nov.18.1980.pp.L6-IO.
1. James D. Seymour. China. The Politics ~ f Revolutionarv Reintegration
(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976). p. 180.
3. Translated in Beijing Review. 4. 1980. p. 16. Another discussion (Beijing
Review, 36, 1980, p. 24) lists the following manifestations offeudal ideology in
modem life: "despotism, monarchism, authoritarianism. the 'special privilege'
mentality. obsession with hierarchical stratification. clanship. obscurant-
Ism ...
4. "To Combat Remnants of Feudalism in the Economic Sphere: An Important
Task." lingji Yanjiu (Economic Research). 9. 1980, FBIS. Nov. 18. 1980. pp.
L 10-16. Also Xue Muqiao. "Some Opinions on Reforming the Economic
System." Renmin Ribao. June 10. 1980. in FBIS. June 25. 1980, p. L15.
31
truncated.
The metaphor of riptide is limited, however. Neither the
inexorable force of the moon's pull nor the inevitability of its
result has an analogue in the efforts of China's leadership to
reform the economic system. The most elementary kinds of
errors have been committed: building factories without first
investigating the availability of raw materials, power and trans
port facilities; rushing in the "foreign leap forward" of 1977-78
to import advanced technology ahead of China's needs and
capacity to pay: turning enterprises loose in a market that still,
inevitably, ge'nerates the wrong signals. Moreover, there has
been a deliberate weakening of whatever remained of the old
Maoist ethic of collectivism in favor of one of individual "ma
terial interest. "5 Enough "material" in the form of consumer
goods must be found to satisfy a growing public appetite whet
ted by an unprecedented influx of affluent tourists, as well as by
the newly discovered art of advertising and shop window dis
play. b Growing sectoral imbalances and inflationary pressures,
to which these problems have contributed, have now caused the
leadership to adopt a stringent austerity program, pushing other
objectives-including further basic reform of the economic
system-temporarily into the background.
7
Austerity may not
receive within China the same ringing endorsement it has won
from the International Monetary Fund. It will disappoint expec
tations, only recently fanned by the leadership itself, of rapid
improvements in living standards. It stands as a painful remind
er of fiscal blundering by that leadership, and it is providing an
excellent opportunity for the defenders of bureaucratic econom
ic administration to rally their forces.
What the reformers want, on the other hand, is to free
China's economy from the stultifying structure of centralized
power that was copied from the Soviet Union in the 1950s and
that then became congealed by a multitude of bureaucratic
interests. Under this system, most important activities of enter
prises-even those normally under collective ownership
were controlled by the central plan; the enterprise had only to
fulfill its allotted tasks. If it made profits, they reverted directly
to the state; if losses, they were subsidized. Virtually all of its
capital came in the form of nonrepayable budget grants, ineffec
tive use of which ihcurred no automatic penalty. Wages and
salaries were fixed by the state, and depended in no significant
way on economic performance. Initiative was thus largely in the
hands of the government itself. Enterprises inevitably reacted
like bureaucratic organs, doing the minimum necessary to avoid
criticism, and exercising no independent initiative. As the econ
5. E.g. a People's Daily article. decrying a prevalent "suffocating atmosphere
of 'money. money. money.' "complains of "articles defending 'looking up to
money' and 'preoccupation with personal gains and losses,' while on the
other hand. correct revolutionary slogans. such as 'selflessness' and 'utter
devotion to others without any thought of oneself ... have been subjected to
criticism." See FBIS, Jan. 21, 1981. p. Ll8.
6. The major attraction offall 1980 in the windows of Beijing's largest depart
ment store was a complete modem kitchen. in which stood a Western manne
quin hovering over a mobile serving table labelled (in English) "wifely
wagon. "
7. See New York Times, March I. 1981. Articles in the Chinese media since
December 1980. when the austerity requirements of "readjustment" began to
impose on "structural reform" policies, have revealed differences of opinion
over whether the reforms can continue to be implemented, and. if so, how
quickly. during the current readjustment.
omy grew and became more complex, the ability of the state to
administer it effectively from the center declined, and the irra
tional consequences of the system became more pronounced,
These consequences-e.g., overemphasis on quantity of output
to the detriment of quality and variety, hoarding of labor and
materials, wasteful vertical integration, etc. -are quite familiar
to students of Soviet and East European economies,
Such is the case that is now made with tedious regularity in
journal articles and to inquiring visitors. Although in some
respects a caricature-especially because it altogether omits
ideology from the picture-it undoubtedly contains a large if
unmeasurable portion of truth, Western economists who study
China's economy have long been aware of the structural charac
teristics described above, yet many judged on the basis of
available evidence that such indefinables as organizational elan
and ideological commitment, as well as forms of decentraliza
tion of economic administration worked out from the late 1950s
on, were sufficient to neutralize such problems, at least in part,
and permit China to chalk up a most creditable economic de
velopment record despite them. It is not clear that this is entirely
wrong, despite the devastating self-criticisms coming out of
China.
What lends credibility to the indictment of China's previ
ous organizational system, however, is that much of it was
shared by Mao Zedong himself. The irony is that Mao, whose
cult is now being deflated and the last twenty years of whose
thoughts will not in the foreseeable future be published, was
himself a most cogent critic of overcentralization and bureauc
ratism. Some people, he said of the Center, were always trying
to lift stones too heavy for them, and ended by dropping them on
their own feet.
But Mao's approach to attacking bureaucratism differed
radically from that of today's reformers. Rather than de-empha
size political criteria governing the daily activities of economic
units and replace them with "objective economic laws," Mao
sought to mobilize localities precisely on the basis of political
enthusiasm. For example, in criticizing a Soviet textbook for
condemning "crash programs,:' he wrote:
If one wants to overtake the advanced, one cannot help
having crash programs. ff construction or revolution is at
tacked with executive orders . . . there is bound to be a
reduction in production because the masses will not have
been mobilized, and not because ofcrash programs. R
For Mao, the alternative to the command economy based on
"executive orders" was not the market, but rather social mobil
ization using" mass line" methods ofleadership. 9
The proper environment for implementing this approach
was an administratively decentralized one, with substantial con
trol over economic activity wielded locally, primarily by the
local Party committees. Mao criticized the same Soviet text for
subordinating the Party role to that of local economic bureaus,
8. Mao Tsetung, A Critique o/Soviet Economics. tr. Moss Roberts, New York.
MRPress.1977,p.87.
9. For a brief discussion of this concept, which involves a continuous two-way
relationship between leaders and masses, and of its Marxian origins, see Mark
Selden, The People's Republic of China. A Documentary History o/Revolu
tionary Change. New York, Monthly Review Press, 1979. pp. 16-20.
32
which. he complained.
become the heads under the direct administration of the
central government. Local party organizations cannot take
the political lead in those areas, making it virtually impossi
ble for them to mobilize all positive forces sufficiently. 10
In the ideal case. the localities and collectives on which eco
nomic authority would devolve would be small enough for their
members to perceive personal benefit in economic success and
therefore to be more highly motivated. "Material interest" was
thus a part of Mao' s solution. although it operated chiefly at the
group level.
Mobilization depended much on direct communication
between the political center and the regions and localities.
bypassing much of the state bureaucracy. Therefore. while
Mao's concept of administrative decentralization heightened
the authority of local areas, it simultaneously concentrated
power at the very top. The Cultural Revolution, with the Chair
man and the Cultural Revolution Group appealing directly to the
masses, and much of the ordinary state machinery lying dor
mant. was a stereotype of this arrangement.
The guiding hand of Mao's economy. unlike Adam
Smith s. was a visible one. There is no idea here of the transfor
mation of individual selfishness into common benefit; instead,
the motive of individual gain was to harmonize with that of
social welfare: people were to work at one and the same time for
themselves, their unit. and the nation. True, Mao recognized the
existence of contradictions between these various levels. But his
solution was to combine ideological education with adjustments
in the distributive system so as to give each level its due.
Such a view. in principle, is incompatible with a major
market role in organizing and motivating economic activity. In
the first place, the scale of economic organization called for by
Mao's motivational system would correspond only by coinci
dence with that dictated by a market-guided division of labor.
Second. the concern for overall social interest that is supposed.
via ideology. to constrain individual and group acquisitiveness
in the Maoist system, is strictly at odds with the discipline of the
market. Although all market-oriented societies must adopt some
ethical and legal constraints. it is fair to say that the challenge to
which the Maoist system submitted the market was so great as to
severely inhibit any devlopment or expression of "market
mentality. "
With neither center nor market guiding and regulating
economic activity. Mao' s administrati vely decentralized sys
tem relied for this purpose upon the sense of political responsi
bility of the individual and the collective. A deeply ingrained
socialist consciousness in each individual. achieved in part
through education and in part through political struggle, were to
lead to the internalization of Party goals and policy and their
conscious acceptance as parameters within which community
and individual gain were pursued.
Certain implications of the Maoist approach seem inevi
table, especially in the light of hindsight. The simplification of
policy into slogans, easily grasped by large numbers of grass
roots decision-makers far from the centers of power, is one of
them. Another is the focus in propaganda and political line upon
ethics and worldview. Both stem in part from the rejection of the
market as organizer of decentralized economic activity, and
have the function of replacing it with alternative criteria of
choice.
What lends credibility to the indictment of China's
previous organizational system, however, is that much
of it was shared by Mao Zedong himself.
Implied also was the small-scale and relatively selfsuffi
cient nature of much economic activity that characterized the
periods most influenced by Mao's concepts: the Great Leap
Forward (1958-60) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-68).
There are two reasons for this: first, in a poor country with
limited communications. technical skills and planning apparat
us. the nonmarket allocation of resources and coordination of
economic activity require stringent limits on the scale of coordi
nation, as well as on the division oflabor; second. as a motivat
ing force, "material interest" must be clearly linked to the
collective effort--not to some elaborate web of activity that
extends far beyond the group. concerned and whose success is
only in small part due to that group's efforts. Both of these
considerations dictated the relatively small size of economic
unit and its basic self-sufficiency.
Of course, Mao also advocated "walking on two legs,"
and a large-scale, modem industrial "leg" in fact grew up
rapidly under his leadership. Indeed. small industry was always
regarded not as a substitute for big, modem industry, but as its
adjl;lnct and supplement. to speed up the overall rate of in
dustrialization. Ironically. however, while the adjunct' 'leg" fit
into a fairly coherent ideological strategy, the main "leg" of big
industry did not-nor did it have a clearcut ideology of its
own. II Through all the conflict over worker participation in
management, cadre participation in labor, the elimination of
rigid hierarchies and of restrictive rules and regulations within
the enterprise. the fact is that little authority actually was left to
the state industrial enterpise to share among its constituent
members. These issues, imP9rtant as they were, had little direct
economic significance because they concerned how orders from
above were carried out. rather than the nature of the role per
formed by the enterprise itself.
Nor was there much scope for giving workers and mana
gers-either collectively or as individuals-a "material in
terest" in the results of their performance. Wage and salary
scales were fixed nationally, and bonuses played an ambiguous
I
role in the Maoist schema.
12
Profitable or not, advanced or
backward. efficient or wasteful, it rarely made a difference to
I
, the earnings of manager or worker, or to their collective wel
fare. They might be chosen as models for emulation or as
10. Mao. A Critique ofSol'iet Economics, p. 79.
I I. The best study of the evolution of Mao's approach to industrial manage
ment is Stephen Andors' China's Industrial Revolution, Politics. Plannin/i, and
Management, 1949 to the Present (New York: Pantheon. 1977).
12. Mao wrote favorably of bonuses during the Great Leap Forward (See A
Critique ofSoviet Economics. p. 90). but they were abandoned as a manifesta
tion of "economism" during the Cultural Revolution.
33
Some of China's reformers believe, like their East
European counterparts, that a root cause of such
chronic structural imbalances is the centralized, ad
ministrative economy itself.
negative examples, winning fame, suffering humiliation, or
both (as in the case of the famous Dazhai Bligade), but this is
different in principle from "material interest."
The Maoist approach of administrative decentralization
made more sense the lower the level of administration con
cerned. Commune and brigade industry is a prime example of
collective economic activity with a clear tie to collective mater
ial welfare. At the country level (average popUlation 500,000),
the link is much more remote, while the average province
exceeds in population most members of the United Nations. For
relatively small collectives, the benefits of cooperative effort
and widespread diffusion of initiative might well outweigh the
allocative inefficiency of duplicative local production and limit
ed division of labor. But this solution is applicable after all to
only a small portion of the nonagricultural sector of the econ
omy, and to agriculture; the ideological and organizational
implications of it-a high degree of politicization of decision
making and an emphasis on comprehensiveness, or "self-reli
ance" - is not so easily isolated in the relevant sectors. Nor did
administrative decentralization solve the problems of the larger
scale economic units; in some respects it exacerbated them. As
one of China's most perceptive modernizers puts it: 13
Reducing the question to one ofcentralization or decentrali
zation does Ilot help to clarify its essence alld will not lead to
fundamental solution. Neither can a way out be found by
dividing power between the central government, the local
government and the enterprise. Subjective designs which do
not touch the heart of the matter inevitably give rise to a
recurring cycle ill which "centralization leads to rigidity,
rigidity leads to complaints. complaints lead to decentraliza
tion, decentralization leads to disorder, and disorder leads
back to centralization."
Moreover, despite Mao's unmistakeably anti
feudal objectives, certam aspects of his approach are
seen by the current reformers as giving fertile soil to
the survival of feudalist traditIOns and attitudes.
These include what they regard as the confusion of
political and economic functIOns, the denigration of
specialization and division of labor in favor of local
self-reliance, excessive attention to ethics and de
emphasis of material interest, and, in the end, the cult
of personal loyalty (and of loyalty to the Thought) that
became the supreme criterion of right and wrong in all
things.
13. Jiang Yiwei, '"The Theory of an Enterprise-Based Economy," Social
Sciences in China. I, I, 1980. p. 55. Jiang. an influential reformer. is Deputy
Director of the Institute of Industrial Economics, Chinese Academy of Social
Science, and Managing Editor of the journal linKji Guanli (Economic
Management).
To say that the Maoist system of organization contained
contradictory elements does not imply that it was bound to fail.
could not have resolved such problems, or did not achieve
notable results despite them during its period of ascendancy
roughly 1958-76. Indeed, during those years, an impressive
rate of economic growth was achieved, averaging about 10
percent per year for industrial production and 6 percent for
national income. 14 These rates are in fact higher than the current
growth targets (e.g., the industrial growth target is 6 percent for
both 1980 and 1981
15
) and compare favorably with the econom
ic growth performances of other less developed countries. 16
Such an impressive record does not seem consistent with the
much repeated statement that the policies of the" gang of four"
brought China's economy to the "brink of collapse." The
numbers have not been basically revised, for they continue to be
used in Chinese economic writing. 17 However, they are now
widely regarded as exaggerations. Ma Hong, Director of the
Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of
Social Science, states bluntly that figures were sometimes falsi
fied during the. "gang of four" period. The most well known
example is the case of Xi yang County (home of the now deflated
Dazhai Brigade), whose past agricultural output is said to have
been exaggerated by as much as 20 percent. Mr. Ma states that
similar exaggeration certainly occurred in industry, although to
a still undetermined extent; but that even where technically
accurate, the figures conceal problems that tarnish their luster.
For instance, much output was useless to consumers and indus
trial users. Even in late 1980, over 20 million tons of steel
almost equivalent to one year's production-lay idle in ware
houses because it was produced in the wrong varieties, e.g., big
steel plates high in nominal value but with no demand. 50 billion
yuan (over $30 billion) worth of machinery and equipment was
similarly stockpiled, an amount equivalent to the annual na
tional investment in capital construction, about 60 percent of
which has gone for the purchase of machinery and equipment
(some of it imported). Because of such concealed flaws, the
historical IO percent industrial growth rate "does not reveal the
low efficiency of our production. ' , 1 R
A comprehensive overview of the Maoist approach
which is not attempted here-would have to consider the anom
olies of this historical record in some detail. For example,
despite rapid industrialization and an ideological commitment
to steadily improving living standards, wages and salaries re
mained more or less constant for twenty years
l9
while the
14. Dwight H. Perkins. "Issues in the Estimation of China's National Pro
duct," in A. Eckstein, ed., Quantitative Measures of China's Economic Output
(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. 1980): also, National Foreign
Assessment Center, "China: Major Economic Indicators." February 1980.
15. BeijinK Review. 1980, nos. 38 (p. 36) and 16 (p. 18): Actual industrial
growth in 1980 is put at 8.4 percent (New York Times. March I. 1981, p. I).
16. See World Bank, World Development Report. 1980, Table I, p. 110 and
Table 2, p. 112.
17. See State Statistical Bureau of the PRC. Main Indicators, Developmentol
the National Economy oJthe People's Republic ofChina ( 1949-1979), Beijing.
1980.
18. Interview with author, September 16, 1980.
19, According to a recent source. the real wages of workers and staff members
in state enterprises Jell 4.46 percent between 1957 and 1978. while in the case of
peasants, the average per capita income from collective sources rose 81.5
34
investment rate soared at times to unconscionable heights. Even
the per capita food consumption level did not improve. Nor
could the many political aberrations of Mao's last years be
ignored. This is not to say that all such things can be laid
automatically at Mao's doorstep; only that his long dominance
in Chinese policy formation requires that any full evaluation of
his ideas about organization, development and social change
must come to grips with their impact on actual events.
Attacking accumulated economic problems in a very dif
ferent way, China's new leadership inaugurated in 1979 a policy
of readjusting, renovating, rectifying and improving the na
tional economy. Principal objectives of this policy, which will
in fact be extended beyond the three years initially planned for
it. include a reduced national investment rate and a higher
proportion of consumer goods and services in total output; faster
development of agriculture and light industry, and slower
growth of heavy industry; turning from what is now regarded as
a one-sided agricultural policy of stressing foodgrains, to en
couraging the growth of other crops, animal husbandry, forestry
and fisheries; and concentration upon helping such problem
sectors as fuel and power, transport and communications, con
struction materials and urban housing.
Some of China's reformers believe, like their East Euro
pean counterparts, that a root cause of such chronic structural
imbalances is the centralized, administrative economy itself. In
principle, they argue, government has no business issuing com
mands to enterprises regarding what and how to produce. Politi
cal and economic authority ought basically to be separated, and
the latter left to those in the best position to exercise it-the
enterprises themselves, responding to market signals. Neces
sary government intervention should use economic levers rather
than administrative orders. Accordingly, they would like to
establish an "enterprise-based economy. "20 But, unlike, say,
in Hungary. where thorough preparation for economic reform
was followed by the simultaneous introduction of all new laws
and regulations governing it,21 China is proceeding by testing
the water one toe at a time before taking the plunge. This
approach, while peFIllitting experimentation, has the disadvan
tage of creating severe contradictions between coexisting ele
ments of the new and old systems-the "riptide" effect re
ferred to earlier-with respect to both efficiency conditions and
ethical assumptions. 22 The inherent problems of mixed systems
are still not well understood by the Chinese, who have been
forced to scramble in response to individual difficulties as they
crop up.
Profits and Prices
For example, the first step on the way to an "enterprise
based economy" is to permit enterprises to keep a certain
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proportion of their profits for investment, social welfare, and
bonuses. Altogether, 6,600 enterprises were on such a system in
late 1980, and it was to have been spread in 1981 to all of the
more than 90,000 state-owned enterprises 23 This system gives
the economic enterprise a certain degree of autonomy in deci
sion-making, and also stimulates the initiative of workers and
managers by linking their compensation to their unit's perform
ance. At the same time, it creates a host of new problems, partly
rooted in the still unreformed price structure. Because some
prices (e.g., oil) are fixed high relative to costs, while others
(e. g., coal) are fixed low, profitability varies over industries for
reasons that have nothing to do with enterprise performance.
The same profit retention rate would arbitrarily reward the
high-profit industries more than the low-profit ones, a phe
nomenon Chinese economists have referred to as, literally,
"inequality of happiness an,d bitterness" (kule bujun)24. For
merly. when profit was just another target, like output, and did
not affect anyone's income or control of resources, its arbitrary
distribution mattered little. Now, however, it is a potential
source of widening and unjustified inequality between indus
percent (from an extremely low base. however). A substantial increase in the
number of working members per household enabled per capita income of worker
families to rise despite thefall in wages. See Beijin!? Review. 8. 1981. pp. 8. 16.
20. The term is Jiang HYiweis. See note 13.
21. Janos KomaL "The Dilemmas of a Socialist Economy: The Hungarian
Experience." Cambridge Journal of Economics. 4.2. June 1980. p. 147.
22. Komai. ibid .. contains an excellent discussion of the clash between effi
ciency and such socialist ethical values as economic security. solidarity and
payment according to work.
23. Beijing Review, No. 39. 1980. p. 20. Because of the current retrenchment
policy. the latter step has been cancelled. See the State Council directive
reported in FBIS. Feb. 5. 1981. p. L6.
24. See. e.g. Xue Muqiao article in Renmin Ribao, June 10. 1980. translated
in Foreign Broadcast Information Service. People's Republic of China (FBIS).
~ 5 June 1980. pp. L 12-18. where the phrase in question is rendered simply as
"inequality. "
35
I
tries and enterprises, and of equally arbitrary expansion of
productive capacity in high-profit items relative to low-profit
ones.
One obvious solution is to reform the price system to make
prices reflect the forces of supply and demand as amended by
government intervention in specific markets to achieve specific
objectives. But China's economic leadership feels that this
reform "is a very complicated task that cannot be accomplished
for the time being. "25 The existing price structure is, after all,
the principal determinant of state revenue, since both taxes and
the bulk of the profits of state enterprises revert directly to the
government coffers. Any substantial change in price structure
would reverberate throughout the economy, changing costs and
profits everywhere to a degree that planners cannot fully predict
or control, and would thus threaten the stability ofthe budgetary
system. Moreover, the distribution of income, as well as the
relative price stability that has been one of the great sucesses of
Chinese economic policy until recently, would also be threat
ened. So price reform is on the back burner.
As a long transitional stage, socialism thus does not
merely tolerate a limited sphere of inherited commod
ity production for the market (as Stalin held); under
China's backward conditions, it must generate a great
expansion of this sphere. Such a perspective alters the
traditional view of the transitional character of social
ism, because it posits that for a long time socialism
must increasingly resemble capitalism in certain basic
socioeconomic institutions in order to stimulate eco
nomic development and overcome still powerful pre
capitalist forces. Whether such a path risks capture by
capitalism's powerful gravity is a question that does
not seem to worry the reformers.
Nevertheless, price structure adjustments have been under
taken in at least two ways. First, the widespread amalgamation
of previously autonomous enterprises has permitted the replace
ment of the irrational prices at which these previously traded by
rational internal transfer prices. Second, a large proportion of
output was freed up for marketing at negotiated prices (see
below). This practice, under conditions of large government
deficits, overextended spending on capital construction proj
ects, and general shortages, has helped to stimulate an inflation
officially estimated at 6 percent for 1980, including an 8 percent
rise in the cities, and a 14 percent intrease in state prices of
non-staple foods-startling to a population accustomed to price
stability and ony three decades away from one of history's most
25. Ibid .. p. Ll4. See also Ren Tao. "On the Refonn of Our Economic
System." People's Daily, Feb. 10.1981.p.5.inFBIS.Feb. 18. 19SI.p.LI2:
"At present. commodity prices are very irrational. ... However. in order to
stabilize commodity prices. we can only let thing remain as they are."
destructive hyper-inflations. Accordingly, it was sharply cur
tailed in December 1980 by a State Council directive forbidding
price increases for goods formally subject to state control, and
mandating the localities to set maximum prices on other
goods. 26 It is clear that the whole issue of economic reform, and
the inflationary pressures to which it has contributed, have been
caught up in the continuing political conflict in China, and the
reformers have been forced once again to backtrack to a more
cautious position. They thus remain far firom the announced
goal of permitting freely negotiated prices fer all but a small
number of especially important
Meanwhile, to deal with arbitrary differences in profitabil
ity between industries and enterprises, the leadership has tink
ered with profit retention ratios, varying them to match profita
bility conditions. For instance, the oil industry, with high prices
and profits, is assigned a low profit retention rate, whereas the
coal industry, with low prices and profits, is permitted to keep a
high share of profits. Thus an elaborate network of retention
rules is effected to neutralize the errant price structure. But this
is far from being a satisfactory solution, not only because the
profit retention rates will have to be repeatedly altered in light of
changing profitability conditions, but also because their very
existence makes fundamental price reform more difficult: every
change in prices must be accompanied by negotiations over the
appropriate new profit retention rate.
Taxes
The tax system is afflicted with similar problems. Now that
enterprises are motivated to pursue profits, they also have good
reason to avoid taxes, and the system in industry of a single tax
on sales makes this quite easy. The more production steps that
can be integrated within a single enterprise, the less tax that has
to be paid. Where before several specialized enterprises might
sell semi-finished goods to each other, paying a tax at each
transaction, now there is an incentive to group them all together
in one integrated company, coordinated internally. Moreover,
where the specialized enterprises still exist as such, they may be
unable to compete with a less efficient integrated firm that pays
lower taxes. "Integration" is one of the "three trump cards" of
current Chinese economic policy, along with "competition"
and "competitive advantage." But there can be little doubt that
many enterprises are playing this card on their own behalf, to
trump the state.
To this conflict between enterprise and state must be added
one between locality and center. Under the current financial
system, local governments in China get revenue directly from
the profits and taxes of their own local enterprises. It so happens .
that the sale of processed farm and mining products generates
much revenue under the current price structure and tax system.
If these products leave their places of origin to be processed
elsewhere, the original localities lose that revenue. Local gov
ernments therefore strenuously resist the transfer of their pri
26. However. some departments which had been given authority to "adjust"
prices prior to December were permitted by the directive to continue such
adjustments.
27. Xue Muqiao. "Regulation by Plan and Regulation by the Market." Renmin
Ribao. Oct. 13. 1980. The State Council directive referred to is published in
Rellmin Ribao. Dec. 8. 1980.
36
mary products, even when processing can be done much more
efficiently elsewhere. 28
All of these problems are manifestations of the dissonance
produced when economic actors are freed and encouraged to
respond to market signals that are still set by the old administra
tive planning system. It is as though automobile drivers were
paid to observe traffic lights that produced pile-ups at each
intersection. There are two possible results: that the traffic lights
will be fixed; and that the pile-ups will discredit their use
entirely. The latter possibility sounds remote only because the
analogy omits the element of bureaucratic and ideological re
sistance to the new system that is openly acknowledged to exist
in China.
The repair of one important signal will considerably reduce
the amount of distortion in the system as a whole. The price of
fixed capital for state-owned enterprises has up to now had only
two values: zero and infinity. An enterprise obtained capital
from the government in the form of a free budget grant. Once
that was negotiated, additional capital was hard to obtain at any
price. Now, however, enterprises are to be charged a fee for the
use of state-owned fixed capital, or must obtain investment
funds from the bank at interest. If these fees and interest rates are
properly set, they will reduce or eliminate the profitability of
inefficient producers (and potential producers) relative to effi
cient ones and generally inhibit the waste of scarce capital. This
is one reform that appears to be escaping the current retrench
ment in reformism. 29
The second step on the way to the" enterprise-based econ
omy" is known as "self-responsibility for profits and losses"
(ziju yinkui). Under this system, the enterprise pays a number of
different taxes formulated to correct the allocative inefficiency
and disincentives of the current tax structure, after which it is
free to use any remaining profits as it sees fit (although it is still
presumably constrained by broad government policy). Con
versely, any losses it makes will not automatically be subsidized
by the state. In 1980, only ahandful ofenterprises experimented
with this system, and they kept about half of their gross profits,
on the average. In 1981, every province and municipality in
China was to have such enterprises, but this step too has fallen
victim to the new spirit of caution. The system of enterprise
responsibility for profit and loss represents a big step toward
cutting the enterprise loose from the system of administrative
commands that characterizes the old central planning approach.
Reformers have seen it as an escape route from the maze of
profit retention regulations required by the prior stage, which
have occasioned endless disputes. Better to pay taxes to the state
than to share profits with it. Without price reform, however, the
profit retention rules will only have to be replaced with equally
unwieldy tax regulations.
Markets and Planning
The process of shifting from total reliance on plan to
general orientation to the market picked up momentum last
18. The problems of the tax and financial system are discussed in a blunt article
in the Chinese journal Jingji Guanli (Economic Management). No.9. 1980. by
Luo ling-fen: "Price and Tax Refonn Is an Important Link in Refonn of the
Economic System" (in Chinese).
19. See FBIS. lan. 6. 1981. p. L11.
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!
year. The role of fairs, exhibitions and commodity exchange
conferences was greatly expanded. Enterprises were allowed to I
seek customers for much of their output, and to seek needed
e
inputs from the market. Not only were goods transferred out of
i
I
I
categories previously reserved for exclusive state control and
into the category of freely marketable commodities, but control
even of the former categories was relaxed. Producers of machin
ery. timber or steel could market their above-quota output and
the within-quota goods that the state chose not to purchase.
Shanghai's "production materials market," for example, is of
national scope. Factories from various parts of China list their
I
excess and stockpiled goods there, and needy enterprises can
contact potential suppliers without having to dispatch person
I
nel to travel the country in search of supplies. Even if a shopping I
enterprise cannot immediately find what it needs in Shanghai. it
I
is likely to meet there a number of potential suppliers with
whom to deal. Whereas previously the busiest trade personnel
were purchasing agents-nobody being particularly motivated
to sell products-now the Chinese have discovered the fine art
37
of salesmanship, and publicly bemoan their lack of experience
with advertising. Although the ultimate balance of plan and
market is still unclear, the market in Shanghai and Chungking
was said already to handle some 20 to 30 percent of total output
in 1980. (Ironically, Beijing, thrusting up new buildings every
where in the rush to become a model "modernized" capital,
lags behind in development of the market.) This burgeoning of
market activity was the immediate backdrop of the December
State Council directive, mentioned earlier, which clamped
down on price increases.
The Chinese are currently both firmer and clearer about the
need to combine planning with market than about what such a
marriage will look like or the respective roles of bride and
groom.
30
In fact, there appears to be some disagreement be
tween those who think that essential and services should
still be physically allocated by the government, and those who
advocate principal reliance on the manipulation of prices,
wages, interest rates, credit policies, etc .. to influence the
decisions of the economic actors. But the remarkable thing
about the reform literature in this still planned economy is its
relati ve neglect of planning itself. Material balances planning is
still essential to the Chinese economy; if it is to evolve into other
forms of planning, the transformation will require considerable
thought and study. The worsening of sectoral imbalances in the
economy over the last few years was due as much to neglect of
planning by reformers seduced by the promises of the market, as
it was to atavistic "leftist" contempt for balanced growth. The
current stringent retrenchment has forced renewed attention to
central planning, but more as an emergency measure than as a
longterm problem demanding the attention of the best minds.
Agricultural Policies
In the countryside. where most Chinese still live and work,
collectivism has by and large meant far greater security than
most people enjoyed in the past. But improvement in living
standards has been both slow and unevenly distributed. Statis
tics compiled during the summer of 1980 from almost all basic
level units in the countryside show that more than one-quarter of
them had average annual per capita incomes of less than 50 yuan
(US $30).31 Members'of the poorest production brigades and
teams' 'could not even solve the problem of having enough to
eat and wear," must depend for survival on subsidies, and have
little enthusiasm for collectivism. Some 100 million rural in
habitants are said to exist in this pitiable state-a fact which, if
accurate, constitutes the severest indictment of the economic
policies of the past. Perhaps chiefly responsible among these
were infringement by the government on the right of basic-level
farm collectives (production teams) to manage their own eco
nomic affairs; the use of this usurped authority to pressure
farmers to grow foodgrains, even in areas unsuited to them; the
30. Xue Muqiao. "Regulation by Plan and Regulation by Market." Renmin
Rihao. Oct. 13. 1980 (in Chinese).
31. The exact percentage given is 27.3. No details are given as to how income
was calculated. Clearly. the figure of US$30 understates the actual living
standard. as is apparent if one considers the possibility of surviving for one year
on that amount in. say. New York City. (Wu Xiang. "The Open Road and the
Log Bridge-A Preliminary Discussion of the Origin, Advantages and Dis
advantages. Nature and Future of the Fixing of Farm Output Quotas for Each
Household." RenminRihao. Nov. 5.1980. in FBIS. Nov. 7.1980. p. Ln.)
corresponding suppression of other farm products important in
the diets and budgets of the rural population; and a general
underpricing of agricultural goods.
China's leaders could have limited their reforms in ag
riculture to the reversal of these policies, raising prices of farm
products, emphasizing the right of production teams to decide
for themselves what and how to produce in the light of their own
conditions and of market demand, investing resources in poten
tial grain surplus areas to provide the staples to be exchanged for
specialized products raised elsewhere and giving special assis
tance to the poorest regions and units. Such policies have, in
fact, been put into effect and seem to have already brought some
improvement both in farm production and peasant incomes. 32
Beyond such initiatives, however, the leadership has taken
steps to reduce the degree of collectivism in agriculture. Con
vinced that, as early as the "socialist hightide" of 1956, col
lectivism was coercively enlarged beyond a scale that most
peasants would willingly accept and could successfully man
age, it has moved to break up the production teams into small
working groups and even, in some cases. down to individual
families. The teams still own the larger tools and oversee the
distribution of tasks and of income, but the groups or individuals
are allocated particular fields on a longterm basis and are free to
keep their output beyond a quota with the team. As of
late 1980, about one-fifth of production teams in China were
contracting production tasks to individual households. 33
It is impossible to evaluate from afar this erosion of col
lecti vism. In backward areas where it did not bring results, or in
areas of sparse and dispersed popUlation where it did not fit
conditions, collective organization of production may indeed be
discredited. Elsewhere, however, where break-up of collective
organization has resurrected old problems of sharing water.
animals and machinery, joining forces to fight natural disasters,
undertaking capital construction and disseminating new tech
niques, there is resistance to the change, and "many of the
peasants have demanded that we stick with the old system. "34
The essence of Party policy today is to let organizational forms
vary in accordance with natural conditions and peasant desires,
but the habit of heavy-handed bureaucratic interference dies
slowly.
Socialism
With all the changes occurring in economic structure and
organization, Chinese theorists have been worried about trans
gressing the boundaries of socialism. For some months, the
social science journals were dominated by articles on the rela
tion between socialism and commodity production; these at
tacked Stalin's argument that, under socialism, the sphere of
commodities (i.e., goods produced for sale), and the influence
of market forces on production, were limited to "the exchange.
chiefly, of articles of personal consumption. "35 Capitalism.
32. In the aftermath of the 1980s fall in foodgrain output. the press has been
warning against pemitting diversification to threaten the required growth in
staple production. It seems likely that production teams will continue to be
subject to nonmarket pressure to accept foodgrain quotas. except (as in pasture
areas) where this is clearly irrational.
33. Wu Xiang. op. cit. (but not in FBIS translation).
34. New York Times. Nov. 5. 1980.
35. J. V. Stalin. Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R .. Peking.
Foreign Languages Press. 1972. p. 18.
38
they pointed out, performed the historic function of vastly
expanding commodity production and circulation as an inextric
able part of its industrial revolution. A country like China,
adopting socialism on the basis of an underdeveloped, "semi
feudal, semi-colonial" capitalism, still dominated by the "nat
ural" economy of self-sufficient producers, must replicate the
historic contribution of capitalism by stimulating commodity
production in virtually every sector of the economy. Otherwise,
economic development would inevitably be impeded by bur
eaucratism and the continued, unchallenged dominance of
"feudal" behavior traits. These negative features cannot be
willed away; they can be overcome only by the more powerful
system of organization and values associated with the market
and the production of commodities for the market. Only an
economy of enterprises with autonomous powers making their
decisions under the discipline of the market can avoid the
dilemma of choice between central, bureaucratic commandism
and decentralized "feudal" chaos.
As a long transitional stage, socialism thus does not merely
tolerate a limited sphere of inherited commodity production for
the market (as Stalin held); under China's backward conditions,
it must generate a great expansion of this sphere. Such a per
spective alters the traditional view of the transitional character
of socialism, because it posits that for a long time socialism
must increasingly resemble capitalism in certain basic socio
economic institutions in order to stimulate economic develop
ment and overcome still powerful pre-capitalist forces. Whether
such a path risks capture by capitalism's powerful gravity is a
question that does not seem to worry the reformers. They tend to
the position that the future of socialism depends only on adher
ing to its two basic tenets, viz., public ownership of the means
of production and distribution according to work: "So long as
public ownership is maintained, there can be no violation of
socialist principles. "36 This unquestioning attitude toward
"public ownership" quite extraordinary for a country that has
been among the world's most severe critics of the USSR, is not,
however, universally held. China's experience with the Cultural
Revolution, in which the form of "public ownership" is now
seen as masking quasi-feudal practices, has forced some people
to take a closer look at the meaning of "ownership." In July
1980 a Beijing scholarly forum on economic manifestations of
"feudalism" arrived at the following conclusion:
The system of ownership is the sum total of production
relations. The transfer ofownership ofthe means ofproduc
tion, despite the legal recognition given to it, does not imply
an overall solution to the problem ofproduction relations. 37
Similarly, Jiang Yiwei, acknowledging fears that leaders of
independent enterprises might "become a new privileged stra
tum or even become capitalist," recognizes the need to look
beyond the question offormal ownership to that of "who wields
the power in an enterprise." Jiang advocates that authority rest
in the hands of democratically elected representative commit
tees of workers and staff. 38
36. liang Yiwei. "Enterprise-Based Economy." p. 67.
37. "To Combat Remnants of Feudalism in the Economic Sphere: An Im
portant Task:' Jillgji Yalljiu. No.9. 1980. pp. 76-80: FBIS. Nov. 18. 1980.
p. LIS.
'Ill. liang Yiwei. "Enterprise-Based Economy." pp. 69-70. and interview with
author. October 3. 1980.
Toward the Pandora's box that is the market, the reformers
reveal a certain innocence. The market is for China a way out of
the rigid, centralized bureaucracy, a means of instilling
efficiency-mindedness and demand-orientation in the working
popUlation, and the framework for applying the spur of profit
orientation to an ideologically disillusioned workforce. As the
East Europeans have discovered, however, the market is way
ward and unruly, pushing its own values and world view. Some
reforming economists have been so infatuated with its dynamic
motivational potential that they have overlooked its capacity to
contradict social objectives. There is a genuine naivete about the
market.
Thus, there was surprise when official encouragement of
individual material incentives for workers gave rise to endless
bickering over distribution of wages and bonuses. According to
Jiang Yiwei, "it was very difficult to decide the recipients ofthe
[1979] wage increase. " Jiang criticizes a wage system that sets
worker against worker as being at odds with both socialism and
social psychology. He has proposed establishing instead a sys
tem in which groups (enterprises, workshops) compete while
solidarity is preserved among individuals within groups. 39
Although the Chinese media daily have to deal with mani
festations of the tensions between market and socialist values,
the general inevitability of such conflict is given scant recogni
tion. For example, both the profit-sharing and zifu yinkui sys
tems are really at odds with the.principle of payment according
Although the Chinese media daily have to deal with
manifestations of the tensions between market and
socialist values, the general inevitability of such con
flict is given scant recognition.
to work. Both systems pay workers partly out of profits, which
vary for a multitude of reasons only some of which are as
sociated with work done. The distribution of profitability
among enterprises is affected by structural conditions (e.g.,
location of natural resources, transport availability, quality of
inherited equipment and machinery, and the arbitrary price
system) which in theory can be adjusted by using taxes, sub
sidies, fluctuating prices, etc. It is also a product of shortrun
forces of supply and demand. For example, a particular en
terprise might enjoy high profits because of a shift in demand
toward its product or an overproduction of its inputs, in neither
case justifying superior compensation to its workforce (and in
only the former case calling for a shift in resources toward th{
enterprise).40 As soon as income distribution is linked t(
profitability, the principle of payment according to work is
bound to be compromised. If the state steps in to correct struc
turally caused inequities and compensate for disequilibria due to
39. Interview with author. Oct. 3. 1980. liang's wage proposal is spelled out in
Rellmill Ribao. luly 14. 1980. and translated in FBIS. luly 18. 1980. pp.
LII-LI4.
40. The example. and much of the argument preceding it in this paragraph. is
taken from Mario N uti. "The Contradictions of Socialist Economies: A Marxist
Interpretation." The Socialist Register. 1979. pp. 265-66.
39
shifting market forces, it is almost certain to affect also the
"pure" relation that it wants to preserve between performance
and income. This is not only because of the difficulty in practice
of separating desired from undesired causes of profit variations;
it also follows from the fact that the state is not a neutrally
programmed computer. The myriad of theoretically justified
grounds for intervention legitimize special pleading and lobby
ing by affected interests, and the bureaucrats with responsibility
for deciding such issues are themselves subject to social, profes
sional (and perhaps economic) ties to those who are affected one
way or another by regulation. This is all a drearily familiar story
to Americans.
41
To encourage the incentive function of the market, the state
must exercise a large degree of "benign neglect," intervening
only to correct the most glaring inequities but staying far from
the margins of the efficiency-reward relationship. This policy
runs the risk of generating such sense of injustice among those
on whom the market does not smile, as, in alliance with the
disgruntled bureaucracy, to bring the experiment to a halt.
The Hungarian experience is one to which the Chinese
have paid special attention. In Hungary, the contlict between
the market and socialist values has led to the creation ofcomplex
formulas detern1ining the division of profits between state and
enterprise, as well as to various ad hoc interventions to ease
"objective difficulties" or reduce "excessive" incomes. Al
most two-thirds of gross enterprise profits have thus been taxed
away and redistributed over the long run. 42
The particular compromises between normative principles
arrived at under given national circumstances depend on the
constellation of social forces, which normally changes but
slowly. After a number of years of bargaining and redesigning,
it becomes possible to identify the broad parameters within
which a particular national system is normally capable of vary
ing. Where the balance offorces is undergoing abnormally rapid
change, however, as in a revolutionary situation, the ultimate
limits of compromise are less easy to discern. Politically, such a
period is not always a propitious time for leaders to stress the
necessarily imperfect and compromise nature of the system they
advocate; rather, they are likely to take an idealistic view of it,
using this as a weapon in the still ongoing struggle. If anything is
clear about China since 1976, it is that such a systemic conflict
has been occurring; but that actual changes have still fallen far
short of the fundamental shift from bureaucratized command
system to enterprise-based, market-oriented system desired by
the reform-oriented leadership,43 At this point, the ultimate
41. A recent example from China concerns the notorious Baoshan steel com
plex being built with Japanese help in the suburbs of Shanghai. The worst of
several sites considered for this enormous project because of its swampy
ground. necessitating the expenditure of large sums on underground support
systems. Baoshan was apparently chosen because of the political pull of a
high-ranking Shanghai party official. Extraordinarily expensive. ridden with
cost overruns. involving major environmental pollution issues that were never
investigated. the project was kept alive by a powerful metallurgical lobby.
Finally. after persistent criticism. the second phase of the project. involving half
of its originally designed capacity. was postponed indefinitely last November.
See China Business Review. Jan.-Feb. 1981. pp. 9-13.
42. Kornai. "The Dilemmas of a Socialist Economy." pp. 151-152.
43. Cf. Xue Muqiao, "Some Opinions on Reforming the Economic System."
Renmin Ribao. June 10. 1980. FBIS, June 25. 1980. p. L 13: "Over the past year
or so. only a breach has been made in the old system."
structure of the Chinese economy (including the role of the
state) is still quite unpredictable.
Under these circumstances, the reformers have tended to
disseminate a naive view of the wonders of the market. Xue
Muqiao, a senior economic adviser to the State Planning Com
mission, contrasts China's continuing interregionaf inequal
ities, on the one hand, with the situation in the United States,
where' 'Many advanced areas vied with one another to invest in
the backward areas with the result that all the states are fairly
developed today.' '44 Not only does this comparison ignore a
large literature on the link between economic growth and re
gional inequality in market economies and the well-known
impact of market forces on regional problems in the U.S. today,
but it also implicitly deprecates China's own record of regional
redistribution, which is most creditable by international stan
dards.
45
Similarly, Xue, in discussing the propensity of local
governments to make economic decisions that maximize their
own benefits at the expense of the nation as a whole, somewhat
plaintively asks, "Why are they [capitalist countries] free from
these problems? Because their enterprises are privately owned
and the state has no right to interfere." In China, however, local
administrative units intervene in the economic activities of
enterprises: "Whether this interference damages the organic
linkage and balance of the national economy is not their busi
ness. "46 The unmistakable implication of this argument-that
private enterprise and capitalist public finance nicely reconcile
local with national interest and' 'maintain the organic linkage
and balance of the national economy"-is bound to create
expectations that cannot be met, and to provide the more sophis
ticated elements of the opposition with an obvious ideological
weapon against reform.
Because Chinese history, culture and revolutionary experi
ence are exactly shared by no other people, the possibilities and
constraints China faces in reconstructing its socioeconomic
system are to a degree unique. The results of the current reforms
cannot yet be perceived. Neither can their full impact on peo
ple's lives. With the exception of the bureaucracy, all sections
of Chinese society are promised improvements by the re
formers. Everyone is to be made better off by increased supplies
of consumer goods; women are to be helped by smaller families
and the promise of payment according to work: urban dwellers
by improved housing; poor regions by special aid; rich regions
by less redistribution; peasants by higher prices for their pro
ducts and more freedom to make economic choices; workers by
wage increases; intellectuals by higher status and better salaries;
the unemployed by freedom to establish collective and private
enterprises. The recent inflationary pressures and resulting cut
backs in government spending and in reformism itself, suggest
that such a general advance on all fronts simultaneously will not
44. Xue Muqiao. interviewed in Beijing Review 36. Sept. 8. 1980. p. 3.
45. See Nicholas Lardy. Economic Growth and Distribution in China. Cam
bridge and New York. 1978. In contrast to Xue's rosy view of market and
regional equality in the U.S. is that of the well-known Maoist. Felix Rohatyn
who. writing in the New York Review of Books (Dec. 4. 1980. p. 22). warns
about' 'the great shift in wealth from the Northeast and Midwest to the energy
producing areas of the U.S. as a result of price decontrol. This trend will
ultimately turn the country into 'have' and 'have-not' regions."
46. Xue Muqiao. "Some Opinions on Reforming the Economic System."
p. U2.
40
take place. The actual distribution of true social benefits and
costs has not yet emerged from the confusion of economic
policy.
Moreover, China's leaders have lately re-emphasized the
role of central administrative planning as a means to implement
readjustment and austerity . Yet it is just this approach that the
reformers blame for the chronic imbalances of the past. If it is
renewed,. where will the constituencies favoring readjustment
be found? How will the need for higher living standards, re
duced investment rates, demand-oriented production, be expre
ssed? There is in current leadership directives a very Maoist
strain: that rectification of planners' attitudes is the basic re
quirement of better planning. In fact. is no <;loubt that
central planning can be done much better than it has been in
China. The reformers, in seeking to discredit the system at its
root, have understated the responsibility of bad planning for
China's difficulties. If administrative planning is not strength
ened and its effectiveness increased, the road ahead for struc
tural reform may be rocky. indeed. *
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41
The Original Chinese Revolution
Remains in Power
by Edward Friedman
The Chinese revolution fundamentally changed state and
society. State power and control over much of the more indus
trial and financial economy were transferred to the hands of
Marxist socialists dedicated to using the surplus to improve the
ife of the many. In the countryside, the landlord system was
<'!xploded.
A basis was set for future progressive developments. There
was still much good and important work to do. But the revolu
tion was over. There no longer was social dynamite to explode
or a hated state to topple. It makes little sense to discuss what
occurred afterwards as a second revolution, a revolution after
the revolution. There is even less sense to the idea that in China
people associated with a capitalist road have been struggling
with those committed to the socialist road. Socialism is a rah-rah
word in China among ruling groups. Therefore whoever is
defeated is almost by definition a capitalist-roader, a bad per
son. someone who would have led society astray. But surely,
the defeat of thiS or that faction is notf a revolution.
Revolutions are not everyday occurrences. They happen seldom,
if ever, in the life of a nation. The forces that make for revolu
tion take time and circumstance to accumulate, and have not
been present in China since the establishment of the People's
Republic.
Depending on which of numerous groups have temporarily
seized hegemonic control of the levers of state power, different
and contradictory policies have been described as anti-socialist.
While outsiders may joke aboOt it, there is [lOthing funny"about
being labelled a capitalist-roader in China. A person so labelled
suffers the penalties associated with being convicted of subver
sion. of plotting to overthrow the government, of trying to
return China to a people-eating system which devoured families
and once brought misery and starvation beyond reckoning.
But none of China's ruling groups have opted fora landlord
system. for private usury. for industry owned by a handful with
a legal right to buy or sell such factories to enrich themselves.
for laborers left to their own devices to sell their labor as a
commodity in a market. The issues even in sum and even as
caricatured by one's opponents never add up to capitalism as
capitalists comprehend it.
The term capitalist roader, however, is more than a con
vention to give good conscience to China's victors in sending
the vanquished to a Sinic Coventry. It is a poison which makes
compromise and open politics iJnpossible. Since defeat means
defamation and worse, opposition groups secretly plot to under
mine their opponents. To define Chinese politics as a Mani
chean combat between good and evil, socialism and capitalism,
creates political dynamics where all politics are ploys toward
coups and any means-slander, imprisonment, torture or mur
der-is legitimate since one is persuaded that one must do unto
one's opponents before they do unto you. When state power
holders use that coercive apparatus against adversaries defined
as class enemies, they are not arm-chair social analysts making
dynamic structural distinctions; they are executioners. Their
words are weapons which silence and smash alternatives.
While I agree with those who argue that the socialist
commitment could not be truly achieved without making politi
cal and economic democracy real. there was after 1949 in China
no revolutionary movement promoting that needed change. But
how should we understand an end to possibilities for revolu
tionary change? The conservative view of how revolutions
the revolution ends. The conservative view of how revolutions
end-best expressed by Brinton and premised on Pareto-is
that revolutions restore normality. N9thing fundamental
changes. Dangerous utopians, who understand nothing of real
ity except power aggrandizement. seek fundamental change.
More recent embodiments of this conservative approach include
the technological determinism, modernization and convergence
theories. Be still. they say. Nothing better can be achieved by
aroused. ignorant masses. The Chinese have come to their
senses.
In the second view. classically formulated by Trotsky in an
analogy between the French and Bolshevik revolutions, the
revolution ends with betrayal. The ruling fraction that would
continue the revolution is ousted by traitors to the revolution. a
process identified with the month of its supposed occurrence in
France. the Thermidorian reaction.
But there is no Thermidorian reaction. What occurs in a
France or Soviet Union or China or Kampuchea is that, if a new
ruling fraction tries to force society beyond what society desires
42
It is the use of terror that indicates that the revolution
has passed what is progressively possible, that the
revolution is over.
or will bear, the new state must resort to terror. It is the use of
terror that indicates that the revolution has passed what is
progressively possible, that the revolution is over. The ter
rorists may be thrown out of power as the lacobins were and the
gains of the revolution consolidated or the terror may continue,
as with Stalin or Pol Pot, thereby alienating the citizenry as the
state imposes forms with even more inhuman content.
Understood in this light, there is only propagandistic non
sense to the notion that the death of Mao and the arrest of some
of his left terrorist allies, labelled a Gang of Four, abruptly
ended the revolutionary process in China. Discussions of this
topic are confused not only by conceptual errors but by bald
ignorance of the facts.
People say that the stories of terror now coming out of
China are exaggerated to serve selfish political purposes, that,
in fact, there were but a few excesses, mostly of a minor nature.
I remember during the Cultural Revolution when it was possible
to believe that bloody noses of a few Red Guards was the extent
of the violence. Even the known deaths-as when unarmed
soldiers were murdered by Red Guard factions in the soldiers'
attempts to restore order-seemed to prove that the excesses
were few. After all, the soldiers were sent in unarmed. The
state's goal clearly seemed to be to minimize violence.
Nonetheless, it is now obvious that the terror and suffering
were mammoth, mind-boggling in the extreme. In fact, the
reports in the post- J976 Chinese press grossly understate the
brutal acts of violeilce. There is no campaign to reveal all. Many
people are ashamed to describe the cruel humiliations their
family members suffered, some not surviving the cruelty. Many
protectors or precipitators of the violence remain in power or
may return to power. People are still afraid to talk. Outsiders
mistake this caution and shame for equanimity and no desire for
revenge.
Although even in sum the printed words on the terror offer
but a pale reflection of the blood that flowed, no one is qualified
to deny the bloody reality until he or she at least reads Amnesty
International reports, the Hong Kong patriotic journals, and
books such as the Chinese literature of the wounded. But since
silence and shame are the rule, there is no substitute for simply
talking to as many Chinese as possible.
Facts on the horrors of the Cultural Revolution period leak
out one by one, more by accident than by design. There is no
campaign to reveal the whole, cruel truth. Someone visits the
People's Publishing House and discovers that an editor is blind
in one eye. Only later is it revealed that it was punched out in rhe
Cultural Revolution, I visit a university and discover by hap
penstance about the scientist who was driven to suicide by
drinking lye. A Chinese youth tells of visiting Nanning and
seeking hundreds of dead bodies from a continuing carnage she
swiftly fled. A foreign resident scholar hears about the two
scholars whose heads were smashed in. An American of Chi
nese descent wishing to return home is informed that his elderly
father, long unheard from, was killed in the Cultural Revolu
tion, and has now been rehabilitated. Children of accused and
jailed people were left to wander alone till they went mad.
Others were left with their brains smashed and scrambled. One
visitor listens to the story of the woman forced to beat with a
whip her own frail father, and is told, after the whip breaks, to
have another ready the next morning to continue the whippings.
The zealots leave. The woman and her father hang themselves.
Another visitor carries the tale of the high school students who
beat their principal to death and then forced his closest colleague
to carry the coffin in a supposed celebration of the death of a
class enemy. Someone else recounts the beating to death of his
elderly father, already exiled to the northeast because of free
speech in the hundred flowers period, murdered by new zealots
extirpating powerless, weak, defenseless victims a decade later.
The press carries some few tragic accounts, too: Xia Yen
left a permanent cripple, Peng Dehuai sealed up in a roc...,
without light or sound, the slitting of wind pipes to silence
opponents, the brutal degradation of Lao She driving him to
suicide, the execution in 1970 of Yu Loke, the author of the
Cultural Revolution essay opposing class inheritance by blood.
The numerous accounts of sadistic degradation, of human bru
tality almost cannot be absorbed.
At first the accounts of murder, terror and torture seem
endless. Then one realizes that the Chinese leaders and people
are ashamed. They are not trying to expose all these horrors.
Only a fraction of the ugly truth is seeping out. The real horror
has to be much worse. We can only guess at how much worse.
At an absolute minimum the number of dead is in the hundred
thousands. There is no way the victims of incarceration, may
hem, torture and maiming can be less than millions. And the
victims of verbal abuse have to be ten or a hundred times that.
Anyone labelled or accused brought disgrace to friends and
family. The accused walked with head lowered, looked no one
in the eye. Children, neighbors, workmates, friends and family
were abandoned or similarly branded and disgraced for associa
tion with the one beyond the pale. It was medieval cruelty in the
extreme.
Some people brush all this aside as accidental or incidental,
but the terror should have told us that the revolution was over.
Ignoring the real world of flesh-and-blood, ravaged, crippled
and scarred Chinese population, these foreign progressives
claim that what really matters is that those who believed in the
continuing revolution have been ousted by people who lack that
faith. It is then argued that China has abandoned self-reliance
for subordinate integration into world capitalism, that China has
abandoned the peasantry and levelling up for a policy ofprimar
ily benefitting the already privileged urban minority, that China
is allowing a separate strata of intellectuals to rule over the
people. In sum, the Maoist attempt to continue the revolution
after the revolution, the only real second revolution, has lost
power.
But even a perusal of the record proves that this lament has
no factual base. What it does is measure the claims of a previous
faction of the future they hoped for against a worst-case descrip
tion of some present policy tendencies. It does not compare
what is in progress with what was in process. We should.
43
There is no evidence, beginning with 1955-1956 collec
tivization, that any levelling up of the peasantry occurred. Even
scholars previously sympathetic to the vision and claims of the
Shanghai faction now agree that those claims were bogus. The
Japanese economist Kojima Reiitsu 1 even declares that that
faction lost power precisely because it couldn't improve condi
tions in the countryside, the rural areas being the heart-beat of
the decisive Chinese military. Ben Stavis finds that malnutrition
was close to 15 percent.
2
Nick Lardy finds that inequality grew
with anywhere from 100 to 200 million left short offood. 3 The
imposed irrational policy of grain self-reliance destroyed more
suitable crops, reduced protein available and denuded the soil in
large regions ofthe north, northwest and southwest. In Yunnan
Province, for example, grain production per capita had de
creased by 94 jin from 1956 to 1978. The post-Shanghai faction
government rapidly and radically tried to grapple with the in
herited disaster.
During the spring festival of 1977 ... our country was
confronted with many problems: the reserve grain. . . could
last only ten months, many warehouses were empty, and our
foreign exchange was almost exhausted. At that point we in a
gamble still appropriated reserve grain and used up all our
foreign exchange to buy sugar, to import edible oils and
flour. Why did we do this? ... [T]he task of the greatest
urgency was to solve that [food] probblem, and, at a Polit
buro conference, the Party Central Committee decided to
distribute the reserve grain and buy grain and sugar abroad
to make sure that the people would have enoughfoodfor the
Spring Festival. When that major task was settled, the pro
duction work could be continued . ...4
Deng Xiaoping and the other leaders who were victimized
by China's ultra-left and punished by being sent to poor villages
were shocked that such poverty and misery could persist in
"socialist" China. Appalled by China's failure, they have re
sumed power with a primary commitment to eradicating the
causes of persistent misery in rural China. Not to comprehend
this fact, not to understand that levelling up had not occurred,
not to put that at the center of one's comprehension of Chinese
dynamics after October 1976 is among the largest errors-if not
the largest error-one can make in misunderstanding China
today.
The economic extremes in China's countryside are much
greater than the 4: I or 5: I ratio claimed in official government
statements and reproduced in the scholarly literature. But in the
one commune on the North China plains where I have done
work the gap is already larger. And outside of Beijing in Red
Star commune where I have stayed, the wealth is four times that
of the richest village in the commune where I have worked. In
addition. rich suburban communes in the south are more than
twice as wealthy as Red Star, while poor mountain villages
often have less than half the wealth ofeven the poorest village of
that North China commune. In short, I have seen differences of
over \00 to I.
A long essay would be necessary to do justice to the large
number of changes intended to benefit the rural poor that have
been instituted by the Marxist materialist coalition headed by
Deng Xiaoping since taking power in the autumn of 1976. They
have begun to tum around a previously regressive rural tax
system. Tax holidays have been declared for especially poor
regions. Whereas all rural China has been given much higher
prices for its farm products, an additional price premium is paid
to poor regions. More bank loan money (which is subsequently
written off as a gift when used productively) has been earmarked
for such regions. The price the state charges farmers for produc
tion inputs has been cut. Specialists are being sent out all over
the countryside to help peasants move into high value produc
tion. The state is investing in the infrastructure that will make
this payoff. The new government holds out the promise of
having previously poor Chinese areas specialize in particular
foods-e.g. meat or fruit-and then win good money when the
state pricing policy wins profits from prices charged wealthier
urban dwellers on such items. In 1979-80 value was transferred
to the countryside while city people suffered from 15% infla
tion. For the first time since the forced collectivization of 1956,
a dent may have been made in the rural-urban gap. The govern
ment is persuading poor peasants that, in contrast to the previous
period, if they act to enrich themselves, they will no longer be
denounced as capitalist roaders. 5
An official "Commentator" claimed in a July 4, 1978,
People's Daily essay, "Transforming Poor Production Is an
Urgent Task," that
leading cadres in many prefectures have not paid attention to
the urgent demands of the masses ofpoor production teams
or listened to their appeals. Some leading cadres have not
visited these poor production teams for years to examine
their work and solve problems. They simply let these masses
live in misery and allow problems to accumulate.
The "Commentator" urged regional leaders to involve them
selves with "poor production teams and help change their
features and catch-up with well-to-do production teams as soon
as possible. " The "Commentator" concluded that that kind of
leadership and social change "is a matter of great importance
which affects the general situation. " Taking 50 yuan a year per
capita income as the definition of a poverty line, the new
policies led to a decrease in the number of poor rural Chinese
work teams from 18.6 percent of all teams in 1978 to \0 percent
in 1979,!i
Perhaps the most startling aspect of recent revelations is
just how much the Maoist policy never was carried out. Con
trary to claims of having put more stress on the peasant and
agriculture, in fact, the percentage of investment in the Mao era
that went into heavy industries such as steel and electronics for
the military actually increased. This is because Mao opposed
balanced development and emphasized campaign economics.
Steel and defense came first, They were the priority items. The
rural sector was slighted. It was a residual concern. Peasants
may have been first in Maoist hearts but they were last in the
budget,
7
I. Kojima Reiitsu. an unpublished paper presented at a panel of the 1980
session of the Association for Asian Studies.
2. Stavis. "The Standard of Living in Rural China," forthcoming.
3. Lardy, "Food Consumption in the People's Republic of China," August
1980. (unpublished ms.)
4. "Chang P'ing-hua's Speech to Cadres on the Cultural Front," Issues and
Studies 14: 12 (December 1978), p. 102.
5. This does not make for a free peasant market as Cuba has where the sky is the
limit on prices. In China, the state keeps prices within a controlled band of
possibilities.
6. Hong qi. 1980, No.6, p. 39.
44
Perhaps the most startling aspect of recent revelations
is just how much the Maoist policy never was carried
out. . . . Peasants may have been first in Maoist
hearts but they were last in the budget.
The poor peasants pouring into Beijing in 1979 carried
heart-rending tales of how previous ruling groups slighted their
needs. The new ruling group's demotion of steel from its posi
tion as a priority product tells us a story which many of us were
not ready for. Mao, with his continuing stress on heavy in
dustry, steel and grain slighted the necessary investments in and
price arrangements for light industry, foreign trade and eco
nomic crops needed to raise the rural poor. Others among ruling
groups would have broken-and have now broken-further
from the Soviet Stalinist model than Mao.
In fact if we but go back over the political history of the
People's Republic of China we discover that one major out
standing story is that all the Marxist materialist opponents of
China's Marxist ideologues contended, and not without some
good reason, that they would do better for China's tillers of the
soil than would Mao. In the years before Mao on 31 July 1955
instigated rapid collectivization, these people worried about the
material losses such as the slaughter of animals and morale
losses from mere uncomprehending obedience that would ac
company coerced collectivization. Their concerns were
justified.
Mao tried to extract himself from the dilemmas he caused
by premature collectivization by initiating in 1958 a Great Leap
Forward linking an impossibilist promise of' 'to each according
to self-defined needs" with mass mobilization of labor. The
resulting destruction of production and of labor incentives took
rural China but one step from mass starvation. Minister of
National Defense Peng Dehuai's subsequent critique of Mao's
Great Leap policy and interventions on behalf of suffering
villagers were, if anything, constrained and understated. He
was nonetheless denounced by Mao as a "rightist opportunist. "
Is a rightist, in the view of China's Marxist ideologues, some
one who puts at the center of policy the material needs of
China's rural poor?
Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun et al. readjusted policies in the
early 1960s to re-woo country people through increased mate
rial rewards for production. This successful attempt to get the
economy going again and to speak to village notions of equity
was denounced in the Cultural Revolution period as the essence
of taking the capitalist road. Consequently the ultra left could
never win most of rural China to its side.
Once the Cultural Revolution ended, Zhou Enlai, Li Xian
nian, Yu Qiuli and other economically oriented planners in
Zhou's State Council networks organized an August 1970 ag
riculture conference to inaugurate a program intended to raise
productivity and market value for the countryside. That pro
gram became the target of Zhang Qunqiao's ultra left pot-shots
at alleged capitalist tails in the countryside. It is, however, still
the program that defines policy in China today. Hua Guofeng's
1975 addition to Zhou' s program sought to make richer villages
and communes take responsibility for raising up poorer ones as a
means of achieving equality in each county. The Jiang Qing
group promised to raise the rural poorest by pushing distribution
to larger geographical units so that more from production by
richer areas would go to less well off units. That approach, too
divorced from increasing the overall pool of goods and wealth
produced, was experienced as levelling down and, seeming
unjust and primitive, made little headway. Nonetheless, it is a
fact that the Marxist materialists had since 1953 developed a
critique of Marxist ideologues-Chen Boda, Zhang Qunqiao et
al., -in China and an alternative program which offered more
to rural dwellers.
In short, there was nothing wrong with the values by which
foreign progressives weighed Maoist China. It is just that the
facts were often close to the opposite of the claims. This is true
on the issue of factory democracy, too. Previous positive evalu
ations of the Maoist model were premised on analyzing data
similar to a study of racism in the U.S.A. based on the Constitu
tion, a reading of the Supreme Court's Brown VS. Board of
Education decision and subsequent civil rights legislation, plus
reports of progress and improvement toward the egalitarian
goal. In other words, Chinese factory life in fact was un
democratic, alienating and unproductive. 8
It is perfectly understandable that many progressives who
were committed to the Maoist vision have suddenly grown
cynical and rhetorical. Such people's transformation is a mirror
image but a few years later of a similar process which occurred
among people in China following the Lin Biao clique's coup
attempt. Chinese who had worked hard to see the world such
that Lin was Mao's only true successor to continue the revolu
tion which was being betrayed by Liu Shaoqi et al. suddenly
were informed that Lin and Liu were in fact similar kinds of
people. This was too much to take. Cynicism spread like a
malignant cancer in China after 1971. Maoism was dead.
Now the same thing is happening outside of China. The
source is obvious. The Cultural Revolution's rendering of
China's political history to legitimize terror and stagnation as
revolution was a fraud. Innocent victims who were fooled by the
fraud must rethink everything, otherwise they cannot under
stand that the original Chinese revolution remains in power.
But this should not be surprising. It was, after all, a
revolution which won power in 1949. Society was fundamen
tally transformed and that change was for the better. Such
extraordinary events are few and far between. The social tinder
of revolutionary dynamite cannot be manufactured overnight.
There is no immediate new social misery to organize for yet
another revolution tomorrow in China. For the state to insist on
more revolution despite society is for the state to become ter
roristic against society. Those Maoist, statist terrors have split
I
7. In other words. foreign progressives who welcomed Maoism as an alterna
tive to Stalinism were in no small part misled. The critical alternative to f
Stalinism in China from the early I950son has always rested more with the Chen
Yun. Sun Yefang group. Cf. my "Maoism. Titoism. Stalinism." in The
t
Socialist Transition in China (Victor Lippit and Mark Selden. cds.:
forthcoming).
8. Cf. Andrew Walder. "Some Ironies of the Maoist Legacy in Industry."
Australian Journal (){China Studies. January 1981.
I
45
f
i
state and society asunder, erupting in fiery divisions, outrages
and hates-but not revolution. Revolution is impossible.
The Deng Xiaoping regime has enacted a series of liberat
ing reforms which promise a new and better day for most
Chinese. The labels have been removed from families who
previously had been put in "black" categories. This frees many
times more than the millions of individuals directly labelled.
Their family members, and not always merely immediate ones,
also suffered disgrace and disability, isolation and ostracism.
How cruel the days when family members did not dare even visit
or speak or express concern for the other, when obloquy, pariah
status and virtual internal banishment were the political reality
for millions upon millions of Chinese.
In sum, Deng Xiaoping, Chun Yun and their allies, like the
Maoists before them, cannot transcend the forces that both made
and delimited the original revolution. Some of these forces are
beyond Chinese control. China cannot repeat growth by the path
taken by Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong starting a quarter
of a century ago. The world market has changed. The U. S. A. is
no longer so open to importing many products in which China is
competitive, Given the costs of high technology, the soaring
nature of international interest rates, etc., China has been com
pelled to abandon its optimum vision of leaping ahead by using
the value earned on energy exports.
In like manner, the new government cannot simply order
the lower officials to act on rational economic calculations.
These people, usually veterans of the last years of the revolu
tionary civil war or the Korean War, now perhaps aged 55 orso,
feel too old to learn these new skills. And they'll be damned if
they'll abandon their new security, just having been rehabili
tated after having survived the Cultural Revolution's
vigilantism.
Similarly, the more than 10 million officials promoted in
the Cultural Revolution decade are not enamored of the new
policies. People in their regions are often afraid to act while that
violent left remains entrenched in power. The post-1976 ad
ministration is constrained from launching an attack on so many
people.
Thus as in the Maoist period there is a huge gap between
the official promise and the day-to-day practice. In contrast to
the friendly foreigners' fear that intellectuals now run China, in
fact, Chinese intellectuals don't yet even run universities. The
ex-military types in charge there refuse to budge. The original
revolution remains very much entrenched in power.
Yet much of Chinese culture is bursting again with energy.
Hundreds upon hundreds of journals have bloomed. How glori
ous to see Ding Ling returned from the Chinese Siberia to which
Mao had sent her. How wonderful to be able to look forward to a
new novel by that creator. How sad to hear that her persecutors
ripped up and destroyed a previous draft.
For the first time in living memory China is beginning to
confront openly some of its most serious problems. Previously
China had been silent about its rape problem. Suddenly it is
acknowledged. Newspapers run stories about the capture of
murdering rapists. Their crimes are detailed. A trial of one such
accused has been televised.
In like manner, there has been open acknowledgement of
the pervasive abuse of power for petty personal, familial, or
clique advantage. Some guilty parties have been punished and
their crimes detailed in the local or national press. The govern
ment has launched a campaign requesting private letters to
investigative agencies as a way of ferreting out and checking
those who abuse their bureaucratic power. And to keep the
campaign from turning scurrilous and libelous or a matter of
settling personal grudges, stiff penalties are put on false
accusers.
Lots of powerful people in China, especially at middle and
local levels and in the military, do not like these changes. They
proudly claim that they no longer watch the dirt on TV or read
the corrupted press. They preferred the ultra-left period when
the media was optimistic and romantic and the stress was on
positive heroes. What they see these days is not liberation but a
tearing down of an image of a pure China. These anxious
people, fearful of losing the little they have, are cultural con
servatives. They are like fundamentalists in West Virginia who
are not easily won to the cause of gender equality by explaining
the naturalness of lesbianism, and the artificiality of the family
system. They too value families.
The Chinese Revolution has, among others, a familistic
content. It was fought by people who had lost family. Its fruits
included stable, secure families, marriage, children (and a
population explosion) and government support for burial (which
along with fuel, clothing, education for their children and food
are guaranteed to the families of army veterans).
Already in the early 1950s Mao abandoned the politics of
equality for rural women to hold the loyalty of male rural Party
leaders who wished to enjoy the familial fruits of victory,
marriage, children, family.9 Wnen Mao promoted the notion
that under socialism a person was first a producer such that more
people meant more productivity, not less for each to consume,
he was very popular in the countryside. Big, male-run, three
generation families, the Confucian ideal, came closer to being
realized for the majority of China's people under Mao's tutelage
than at any other time in Chinese history. But Mao's population
policy was a catastrophe for China. No doubt it was more than
necessary by 1979 to do something drastic to reverse the tide.
But a suddenly imposed population control system of dis
incentives could not help but be mammothly unpopular in
China.
The same syndrome exists in many policy areas. What is
popular is catastrophic; what is necessary is unpopUlar. The
result has to be compromise and trade-off. The historical reality
is that there is not and cannot be an over-all correct policy line.
Any viable policy will also have costs, create problems and
make enemies, It is a political issue and not a social science how
one weighs and balances these complex and unpredictable refle
xive relations. Consequently, an attempt to comprehend Chi
nese politics as a two-line struggle between'good and evil is not
merely Manichean nonsense; it also calls attention away from
most of the decisive factors and forces which shape, limit and
persist in continuing to define and deflect Chinese policy
options.
In China familial items are naturally made the law of the
land. Wives can be divorced if they don't bear children. Chil
dren have the obligation to care financially for parents in their
later years. Factory workers can bring back a child from the
countryside if they can retire and therefore legally make the
child heir to the job. Traditional thought and behavior such as
these give content to the Chinese government's universalistic
policies.
9, Kay Ann Johnson, Feminism and Chinese Socialism. forthcoming,
46
The language of pure income, of the worker as com
modity, the language of free capitalism-Marx's lan
guage-obscures the social structural dynamics and
relations of bureaucratic and statist societies.
Familism means that the Deng regime's stress on indi
vidual behavior today and in the future as a just measure of
reward is not obviously authoritative to peasants, especially the
major early beneficiaries of the revol ution who have close ties to
the army. Especially in early liberated areas-perhaps a fourth
of rural China. no more- more commiHed to the collective and
egalitarian path, the new economic policies often seem a perver
sion to steal from the revolutionaries the familial fruits of their
revolution.
The entire period since the establishment of the People's
Republic of China in 1949 starkly reveals the limits of the
original revolution. The Maoist transition to socialism was
claimed to be a transition to ever larger units of distribution until
finally the state itself would distribute the wage pool equally to
all. But "the state" is coercive power over others. What a
wonderful faith to believe that it would not treat its own ruling
stratum and related social base better than others. Marx assumed
that democratic forms now given real content would preclude
this. But the Maoist theorists of the transition to state planning
accompanied by state distribution do not see why that broad
democracy is necessary. They believe good people at the top
they themselves-will do good. But this often ignores the
nature of bureaucratic reality: access to resources is conditioned
by personal ties.
In bureaucratic societies, income obscures more than it
reveals. Income disparities at an enterprise level often overstate
inequality by not including subsidized health, education. hous
ing, etc. On the other hand, income does not measure perqui
sites: for example, "work meetings" at resorts, travel money,
access to special stores, priority to better housing and medicine,
being in the know about what's available and how to get it,
being part of networks which offer opportunities for kith and
kin. The language of pure income, of the worker as commodity,
the language of free capitalism-Marx' s language-obscures
the social structural dynamics and relations of bureaucratic and
statist societies. It is an index of the irrelevance of Marxist
idealist theorists that they focused on capital and defined bu
reaucracy in capital's categories and never did the opposite, the
increasingly necessary work, of giving priority to statist and
bureaucratic realities. Marxist theorists of the long transition
and the Chinese Marxist idealists are of little help
central issues of checking inequality of power, status and wealth
as it takes on institutional form.
It was one entrenched grouping seeking with its allies to
remove another such grouping which characterized the Cultural
who feared they would lose out in attempts to expand and
transcend the revolution's original social base. These are em
bodied in the politics of the military at the highest level of state
power.
How can the new Chinese leadership win the military and
its peasant base (tied to the military by the hope of jobs and the
glory of higher status and shared memories) to the new cause of
socialist democracy and market-oriented modernization? How
can it win that peasant-military backing when it is in the process
of carrying out a policy to end the special privileges of military
service which had made an army posting once so attractive to so
many peasant youth? The armed warfare of revolutionary strife
in China brought a new army to power. The meaning of that
decisive fact was clear in the villages as well as at the highest
reaches of state power. '0
Soon after liberation, one high party leader, Gao Gang,
decided to move against the groups and policies linked to State
Council leader Zhou Enlai and Party leader Liu Shaoqi. Gao's
tactic was to appeal to the obvious fount of power in China, the
liberation armies. Gao claimed that those of the military revo
Iutionary base areas had had their revolutionary birthright stolen
by such as Zhou and Liu whose people came from the areas not
controlled by the new armies. Gao underestimated Zhou's ties
to the army leaders and Mao's ties to Zhou. Liu and the army.
But Gao surely well understood that that victorious army had the
power to make or break groups policies in the new China.
This became obvious to anyone with eyes to see during
China's Cultural Revolution. Even Albanian strongman Enver
Hoxha's writings then note in mock shock that it was the
military which was the base of power in China. But all informed
observers understood that through Minister of National
Defense Lin Biao had ousted competing military leaders such as
Peng Dehuai, Lo Ruiqing, He Long and even Zhu De to assure
his group and policies of military backing before launching the
Cultural Revolution against Party power-holders.
Differences among military groups were revealed as deci
sive differences within Chinese politics. Ultra-left Red Guard
groups hoped the army's Thirty-second Division would support
and save them. Lin Biao would rely on the Air Force as the core
of his coup plan. But the dominant center of the military in 1967
tried to call a halt to this destructive chaos launched by Beijing's
ultra-left state power-holders. The renounced and well
connected author of "Whither China," Yang Xiguang, sadly
commented:
A senior army cadre openly and arrogantly assailed the
Central Cultural Revolution Group. This was their general
policy in August and September {1967]. 'Does the Central
Cultural Group still want the People's Liberation Army?' If
it doesn't, then we will pack up and go home. The Central
Remlution Group has so shifted the veteran army cadres that
they are separated from' their wives and children, their
homes broken up and their kin lost!"
10, In her magnificent. albeit tlawed novel. The SIIII Shilles O,'a the Sal1gkan
Ril'er, (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. 1954) China's great feminist writer.
Ding Ling. described a late 1940s landlord out to escape the worst pains of
pending land reform and power change. His escape is to have a son join and tight
Revolution period. Fear, fawning and fierce fighting were fore
in the revolutionary army. An army family. he could see. was specially privi
leged in the new China,
most. All the struggles since 1966 brought to the fore resisting
II, The Rel'O/lItioll/s Dead, Long Lil'e the Rel'O/utiol1 (Hong Kong: The 70's.
groups which benefitted from the original revolution, groups
47 1976). p. 190, -
Military leaders would see themselves as traitors to their
family and their revolution should they let unreliable student
rebels prevent them from passing on their heritage. Those stu
dent rebels, or at least a section thereof. had concluded that to
keep power-holders in China from becoming a self-replicating
ruling class, the Cultural Revolution would have to be carried
into the military. But that the military powers would not permit.
Not to accept the military definition of the limits of the
Cultural Revohltion, Chairman Mao Zedong found, was to risk
civil war, military coup and right-wing reaction. Mao conceded
to them. The extension of the Cultural Revolution ended. Mar
shall Ye Jianying and other leaders of armed forces put an end to
the quest for power of the Shanghai Group in 1976. This
military may be opposed to the ultra-left but they are also
attached to Mao, the peasants and their army heritage. This
creates quite a problem for the Deng Xiaoping group.
The post-Mao rulers of China have set out to woo this
military so that their democratic policies can go forward. This
requires pushing the military out of politics, and explains why
high-level Communist Party people are committed to democ
ratization in ways that many top military people are not. Most
importantly, the Party people in power were the victims of the
capricious mass vigilantism of the Cultural Revolution whose
ultimate meaningless, factionalized, ultra-left violence is
sketched by Nancy and David Milton. 12 Not only these Party
people as individuals but their closest friends of a lifetime of
revolutionary endeavor and their family members were de
graded, beaten, banished, tortured, even driven to their death.
Precious few leaders lack painful scars.
This experience has left many such top Party people-as
well as ex-Red Guards whom Mao used and tossed away
passionately committed to never allowing such things ever to
happen again in China. Perhaps it is something akin to Europe's
experience with religious wars, inquisitions, and pyres of in
tolerance which led many there to dedicate themselves to lib
erty. There can be no doubt that the deep identification with
such as law, rights, constitutionality, due process and checking
abuses of power is genuine. But so are the obstacles to it from
sectors of the military. And the history of post-liberation China
warns us that the military-while not in charge of daily af
fairs-regularly has the final say on large policy reorientations.
The new government is trying to attach its version of Mao
to the peasantry's popular culture. It welcomes happy celebra
tions of the traditional New Year. It exp-lains that the ultra-left
distorted Mao's activities to injure the peasantry's cultural iden
tities. wrongly denouncing the popular as the feudal. Former
Chief of Staff Lo Ruiqing wrote a letter dated 27 February 1968
explaining that some people, fearing that it would dim Mao's
shining image, hid from everyone Mao's actual thoughts and
deeds such as his 1959 visit to Shaoshan where he climbed a hill
to visit his parents' burial place and laid a bundle of pine twigs
on their tomb. When Mao climbed down the hill, he said,
We communists are thorough-going materialists. We do not
believe in ghosts or deities. But we must acknowledge thefact
that we owe our birth to our parents . .. The next time I come
back I will pay them another visit. 13
The post-Mao Party democratizers are likewise trying to
hold the loyalty of the military elite to their cause. They have
called attention to those few top generals-He Long, Lo Rui
qing. et al. -who did suffer from the forces of Lin Biao and the
ultra-left. The indignities heaped upon the martyred dead, He
740 Million Aspirin a Day?
By JONATHAN KWITNY
Staff Reporter of THE 'VALL STREET JOURNAL
After a 20year embargo, American corpo
...'1S have begun to do business with Com-
I
turl1.<- ....1-tina.
'nothing , American products and technol
i which it is t.. "s Republic has just started,
; merce Departmb.. . Still, it amounts to at
cedes, "That has as 1.. ''>llars a year. And
us as I have of getting t.. no trade with'
the Ballet Rousse."
740 Million Aspirin Chewers? "'rnpa
The Chinese themselves are even m...
cretive. They encourage the view that th.
aren't intersted in American trade, and the
decision to tolerate a little of it seems to have
been based at least partly on economic neces;
sity. The Chinese still rebuff American busi
nessmen who try to approach them directly,
and deals through middlemen are made in a.n
atmosphere of international intrigue.
Monsanto, one of the companies that h.as
been identified, has sold China through subsidi
aries abroad roughly $750,000 worth of chemi
cals, including base materials for aspirin and
for rubber compounding. Transactions not yet
consummated for which Monsanto has received
approval may push its sales to China past the
$1 million mark.
Monsanto talks more freely about its sales
than do other companies. A spokesman says it
could take 10 years for mainland China, with
its 740 million people, to rival Nationalist China
(Taiwan) as a purchaser ot U.S. products, al
though Taiwan has only 14 million people.
"But you just can't look at a market of that
size and not believe that eventually a lot of
goods are going to be sold there," he says.
'I' "One aspirin tablet a day to each of those
guys, and that's a lot of aspirin."
Long and Lo Ruiqing, have been described in vivid detail. The
restored Fu Qiongbi has described the injustices he suffered
because of illegality, frame-up and lack of a system of justice.
But the most important figure is Peng Dehuai who already
in 1959 stood against Mao's left excesses which so wounded the
Chinese people. His speeches confronting Mao then have re
cently been exhumed. Early in 1979 the military paper, Libera
tion Army Daily, published a long memoir by Peng's nieces and
nephews titled "Tearful Recollections in Memory of our Uncle
Peng Dehuai." The article treated Mao as merely a misled
emperor. It focused on the evils of the "empress" (their term.
not mine), Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and the terrors Peng faced
starting with the Cultural Revolution. You
... were thrown down to the 18 depths of hell. Thev ...
paraded you through the streets and beat you with fists:
people wearing boots kicked you if! the groin . ...
His relatives' homes were sacked. They were investigated and
labelled "alien class elements." The decree was. of course, on
the family as a whole: "No matter how well they behave, they
must not be admitted to the party."
12. The Willd Will Not SlIbside (New York: Pantheon. 1976).
1:1. Rl'IIlI1ill Ribao. 23 March 1978.
48
THB NBW YORK TIMBS, SUNDAY, SBPTBMBBR 7, 1980
Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's has soV
$1 mUllon in Chinese .
year slnc:e 1972, and '
The store sells more better, Store execl '
attend next mf.Y
than $1 million in
company off'
visit man"
seare"
T"
d
'
China goods yearly.
The purport for the anny leadership and their familism is
clear. It is underscored by the rest of the tale. Peng's niece,
Meiguei was allowed to visit her uncle in a hospital on April 23,
1973. She found the windows covered with newspapers so that
no light could get in. Confined to bed, her uncle was denied not
only light but also writing material and sound. His jailers had
broken his radio. "I am not even allowed to see the view
outside," Peng commented. No one would speak to him. Peng
requested of Meiguei: "After my death, send my ashes to our
native place. Bury me there and plant an apple tree on my grave
so that my ashes can make the tree grow."
But when "uncle's heart ceased beating" at 3:35 in the
afternoon of November 29, 1974, only his niece Peng Qang was
allowed to go to the hospital to try to make final arrangements.
Since officials only allowed her 20 minutes off from her factory
job, she found no way to bring the ashes home. The enemies of
Peng, those who mistreated him are then described as "black
hearted people who put on red hats," people who lacked "any
humanitarian sense and who enforced their fascist despotism. "
The lengthy piece concludes:
Uncle. you mav rest now. The Party's Central Committee
headed'bv Hua Guofeng has smashed that news
window to let in the sunshine and the colors of
spring. Rest in peace.
But the future is not safely assured. Reading the Chinese press,
controlled in the main by people friendly to the Party democrats,
modernizers or Deng, creates the misleading impression of
stable power. People in 1975 and 1976 over-rated the power of
the ultra-left when their allies dominated China's media. The
ultra-left was easily quashed in 1976 because it had virtually no
military base. But that is not true about the opponents today of
socialist democratization. They are led by soldiers. One cannot
even rule out the possibility of civil war or a straight military
take-over or a "left" alliance of anti-intellectual, anti-market
nativistic blood and soil types which takes China to fascism.
The continuing clash is real. The military may have to be bought
off and appeased with new, expensive weaponry and strong
policies on Taiwan or Vietnam. The future no more than the past
will be made at will by a few civilians at the center of state
power. The revolution entrenched powerful, legitimate interests
both at the levels of state and society.
While we cannot be certain of the role of China's military
in shaping China's future, the Shanghai Group's push to ever
more left policies did not benefit China. Twenty years ago the
Cuban government too promoted a slogan" Always to the left. "
49
In retrospect, the policies behind that slogan boomeranged. By
going economically too far to the left, a situation was created
that fostered a backlash, the increasing imposition of a system
similar to the Soviet Union's, even including the secret police.
The renowned socialist thinker, E. P. Thompson has exposed
the cant hidden in the notion "No enemies to the Left!" Thomp
son wrote:
how is it possible to say there are no such enemies. after the
experience of high Stalinism. after Budapest 1956. {{fter
Prague /968? . . . what possible meaning is attached to
"the Left" when it teaches lessons of anti-moralism, anti
humanism . .. ? ... Does the suppression of reason and
the obliteration of the imagination have any place on "the
Left" ?14
There are enemies to the left, and people who write of the
dynamics of the socialist project in the People's Republic of
China must come to tenns with the new evidence of wasted
efforts, cruelty, and death. One no more learns if the USSR
under Stalin was on the way toward communism by a brilliant
explication of the rules of Soviet collectives-while remaining
silent about the struggles among rulers and about the death
toll-than one learns where China was going by examining the
rules of factory management while remaining silent about a
deterioration of housing, education, culture,
productivity, and the damage to truth-telling, trust, honor, de
cency and all that makes life secure and hopeful. We must deal
with the reality of the splitting of families, the torture, forced
suicides, beatings, degradations in the tens of millions, and
things such as people, for l$lck of space, cooking in the bath
room and keeping their baby under the bed. China has meant no
contraceptives, and marriage delayed into the thirties because
there is no place to live. Fear and rage, depression and cynicism;
these are an integral part of the legacy of Maoism.
And for what? Regional inequalities did not decline. The
rural-urban gap did not decrease. What fell was both faith in
Marxism and belief in a socialist future. In such systems,
Thompson wrote.
"Marxism" performs the function of an "Ideological State
Apparatus." and Marxists are alienated. not in their self
identity, but in the contempt ofthe people. 15
It is to the credit of the post-Mao rulership that it is trying to
end what previously had won the contempt and cynicism of the
people, and that it is re-examining and rethinking the meaning
of Marxism and Leninism and Stalinism and Maoism and Tito
ism and many other approaches to the problems of our time.
Everything affecting China's real problems-overpopulation,
limited land, weak infrastructure, powerful military, tradition
alist peasantry, high cost of extracting resources, and so on-is
under scrutiny, including the Party, the relation to the world
market, other nation's socialisms, etc. Just how much democ
ratization and demilitarization is possible when the Chinese
revolution remains in power and very much entrenched in
power? That remains an open question to be decided not in the
abstract here but in real struggle in the People's Republic of
* China.
14. The POl'em' of Theory and Other Essavs (New York: Monlhly Review
Press. 1978). p, 189,
15, Thompson. The POI'erty ofTheory and Other Essavs. p, 25.
The Thorny Flowers of 1979:
Political Cartoons and
Liberalization in China
by Ralph Croizier
Nineteen-seventy-nine was a vintage year for both artistic
and political experiments in China. In the arts the continued
revival of traditional plays and paintings almost entirely re
placed the stereotyped political art of the Cultural Revolution.
Even more remarkable, growing contact with the West brought
Brecht to the Chinese stage, Beethoven at the Beijing sym
phony, impressionism in art exhibitions. Foreign travellers
were treated to the vaguely art nouveau nudes of the Beijing
airport murals. Chinese readers were exposed to a new "real
ism" in literature which went beyond recounting the' 'wounds"
of the Cultural Revolution period to frank exposure of defects in
contemporary society.
Not all of these innovations were unambiguously wel
comed by the political leadership. After much controversy over
possible insults to the Dai minority people whose females were
shown not only nude but also "unrealistically" elongated in the
celebrated airport murals, the more offensive portions were
screened off from public view. But nudes have not disappeared
from Chinese art schools or art magazines and, even more
significantly, both Chinese ink and oil painters pushed closer
and closer towards abstraction. Similarly, the exposure litera
ture touched off a backlash calling for positive stories to "praise
the virtues" of socialist society. But the ensuing debate during
the summer and fall came down generally on the side of further
exposure in order to correct defects. Finally, at the Fourth
National Conference of Writers and Artists in late October,
Deng Xiaoping called for a continuation of the hundred flowers
atmosphere, albeit with certain provisos about supporting so
cialism and promoting the four modernizations.
The political front was no less active and, of course,
intimately related to these artistic questions. Tighter control
over the Party's center by Deng Xiaoping's moderates after the
Third Plenum of the Central Committee in December 1978 gave
further impetus to liberalization in two ways. First, the Party
leadership wanted the intellectuals' support in discrediting and
weeding out surviving Cultural Revolution leftists in the State
and Party bureaucracies. Second, the intellectuals' best efforts
were needed to spur the somewhat flagging drive for the four
modernizations upon which the new leadership had staked so
much. These considerations were at least partially behind many
of the most prominent political developments in 1979. The
rehabilitation of erstwhile rightists (both political and intel
lectual figures), the identification of Lin Biao and the Gang of
Four as leftist deviationists rather than closet rightists, con
tinued exposure of Cultural Revolution crimes along with reas
surances of socialist legality, the growing movement against the
cult of Mao-all served to reassure intellectuals that their secur
ity lay in support for the Party moderates. Similarly, Deng
Xiaoping's call for an "emancipation of the mind" and his
widely publicized dictum that "practice is the sole criterion of
truth" were slogans designed to appeal to intellectuals just as his
economic policies gave them greater importance in leading the
four modernizations.
This is not to say that Chinese politics in 1979 were made
solely by or for the intellectuals. The struggle within the Party,
both over issues of principle and over paying off old scores, had
its own causes. Nor did the ascendancy of the "moderates"
make for smooth and unambiguous liberalization. Apart from
stubborn rearguard action by remaining leftists and ordinary
cadres' qualms about rapid abandonment of so many key Maoist
policies, there were misgivings among Party administrators
about too much freedom and diversity of opinion, especially
when it led to criticism of their own position and privileges. So
the politics of liberalization acquired a complex three dimen
sional character. The Party administrators appealed to the in
tellectuals, especially writers and artists, for support against the
left. The creative intellectuals carried their attacks on leftist
authoritarianism over to authoritarianism in general. The new
power holders then felt threatened and retracted some of the
newly extended freedoms. Thus, early in the year Deng Xiao
ping defended "democracy wall" but by the fall it was shut
down and the most outspoken dissidents were silenced. "Expo
sure" literature was welcomed when it attacked leftists and
rooted out irrationalities in the system but was restricted when it
questioned the system itself. Airport nudes were covered, un
covered, and covered up again. Despite more freedom of expres
sion than at any time since 1957, intellectuals and artists were
not making Chinese politics, but they were an important part of
the process.
No other art form so directly reflected this connection
between art and politics as did the political cartoon. The genre
was hardly new in the People's Republic. Since 1949 political
cartoons have been a regular feature of the Chinese press,
supporting Party policies and attacking enemies both foreign
and domestic. But the kind of social and political satire as
sociated with political cartoons in the West, the ridiculing of
50
those in power and exposure of serious problems in society, has
usually been absent. As a result, Chinese cartoons have lacked
the sting or bite of the pre-liberation left-wing cartoons and
woodblock prints. When the cartoonist cannot draw the Em
peror without clothes he becomes more propagandist than satir
ist. This has generally been his role in the People's Republic,
although the first two "hundred flowers" campaigns showed
that the talent for sharp political and social criticism had not
disappeared. But neither 1957 nor 1961 saw cartoons with so
much bite and so much topical relevance as the crop in 1979.
The special political circumstances of that year-struggle
within the Party leadership, appeals to the intellectuals, encour
agement of at least a certain amount of criticism, the sense of
liberation from the artistic tyranny of the Gang of Four
provided specially favorable conditions for this most irreverent
of political art forms.
Starting early in the year national ana regional newspapers
increased their publication of cartoons both by professional and
amateur artists. The former, from older artists such as Hua
Junwu and Liao Bingxiung, often expressed the frustrations of
creative intellectuals with political controls. The latter, from
workers and students, often expressed popular complaints about.
living standards and work conditions. Some newspapers, such
as the People's Daily and the Workers' Daily, expanded their
cartoons into special supplements. The most important was
People's Daily's "Satire and Humor" (Feng Ci Yu Yo Mo), four
pages of foreign and domestic'cartoons. By fall, ieading literary
and art magazines carried articles explaining the healthy, demo
cratic nature of this art form and by the end of the year exhibi
tions of cartoon art were held in such major cities as Beijing,
Shanghai, Sian, and Guangzhou. 1
This greater prominence for cartoons was noteworthy in
itself. But more significant was the enlarged scope of their
subject matter, their elevation to a vehicle for serious social
satire. Amidst the hundred flowers of the new liberalization in
the arts and thinking, these stand out as the most prickly species.
Not all, however, were critical or even serious. There was
I. "An unbreakable date." Gungren Ribao (Workers' Daily), August 8. 1979.
also more room for light humor, amusement, or entertainment
in China than there had been at any time since 1957. After all,
relaxation of political controls over culture and daily life was
part of the reaction against the rigors of the Cultural Revolution
and in itself an important political decision. Other non-prickly
cartoons were political but carried a positive message support
ing accepted government goals and policies. But even here they
showed some interesting changes as in the Workers' Daily car
toon linking technological modernization with a boy-girl ro
mance theme (Illustration I). The title is. "A 'date' whose time
could not be changed. " In the upper panels the boy tells the girl
he has something to do this evening and asks to change their
date. She smilingly agrees because she has something to do, too.
In the bottom panel, as they bump into each other at a meeting
on science and technology, each exclaims' 'I'm still seeing you
this evening!" Shades of the Soviet tractor. romances of the
1930s! But in China personal romance had been a forbidden
theme under the collectivist morality of the Cultural Revolution.
Now art and literature recognize the legitimacy of personal life
and interests, although ideally linking them to the general social
purpose.
But it is the critical cartoons that arouse the most interest,
for these "thorny flowers" are what prick the conscience of a
society and most clearly reveal its problems and tensions. For
the last five years the Gang of Four have been favorite targets for
cartoonists' wit, and bile. Of course, this castigation of the
fallen radicals has had official support but it has been more than
a campaign orchestrated from higher up. It has also been a
genuine catharsis for the resentment felt by intellectuals (and
artists) over how they were tceated during the period of leftist
predominance and for their fear of its revival. The identification
of the Gang as leftists and the campaign against their' 'remain
ing poison" allowed cartoonists to zero in on present-day
leftists, not just the ghosts of the Cultural Revolution.
This anti-leftist campaign put some interesting new twists
on the reversal of political verdicts from the Cultural Revolu
tion. The radicals were now condemned, or ridiculed, not just
for their tyranny, fanaticism, and impracticality but also for
dogmatism and conservatism. In many of the cartoons it is the
radicals who, by clinging to outworn dogmas and especially
"textualism" (benbenjuyi), are the real conservatives who ob
struct change and modernization. Ironically, the reverence for
texts and neglect of practice with which surviving Maoists are
now charged was one of Mao's favorite criticisms of his oppo
nents. It shows that just who is a dogmatic conservative depends
very much on the political point of view. In 1979 that viewpoint
emphasized economic progress and a general loosening of col
lectivist restraints. Thus a favorite symbol of the leftist con
servative mentality was the Party member with a pigtail hidden
under his cadre cap. Lizo Bingxiung shows one blowing his top
when exposed to a magazine with a picture of a couple kissing
(Illustration 2). The issue of sexual morality, or prudery, was a
good one for drawing attention to similarities in Maoist and
traditional thinking. Other cartoOI).S extended it to other spheres
but it is worth noting that, compared to the vitriolic exuberance
of the wall newspaper caricatures of the Gang of Four, most of
these new anti-leftists cartoons were relatively restrained. For
example, a smilingly complacent cadre in an "always leftist"
revolving chair represented those opportunists who followed the
left line through all the twists and turns of the Cultural Revolu
tion decade. Or a boatload of earnest rowers all crowded to the
left-side of a boat about to capsize from the imbalance satirized
51
the prevalent belief that it was safer to lean to the left rather than
~
I
2. Liao Bingxiung, "Explosion," Gwimgzhou Cartoon Exhibition, December
1979.
the right, Another cartoon, appearing in Workers Daily in early
summer, raised some more sinister aspects of the leftist devia
tio.n (Illustration 3). It showed a dogmatic cadre who leans so far
to the left he almost falls down but he refuses the hand of his
straight standing comrade because, "You are leaning to the
right," The upright cadre has a book clearly labeled "Marxism
Leninism" under his arm. The left deviationist has a worn-out
volume without a recognizable title, but readers might guess
whose writings it represents, particularly in the context of the
campaign against cadres who insist that whatever Mao said was
right and whatever he did not say cannot be right. He also carries
a capitalist hat to "cap" his opponents as capitalists and the
leftist club to beat those who do not agree with him.
The club became a frequent symbol for the violence and
oppression of the fanatical left, something on which intellectu
als were very sensitive. Huang Weichiang shows two of these
animated clubs mourning their departed master, "The Soul of
the Extreme Left" (Illustration 4). A more chilling and less
humorous reminder of leftist oppression and the fear of leftist
remnants waiting to get back at their critics came from the
"explosive" pen of the older cartoonist Liao Bingxiung (Illus
tration 5). It shows a wild-eyed leftist fanatic going through
"works that criticize Lin Biao and the Gang of Four" and
recording the names and offenses of their authors. His, copy
book has the caption "Repay good for good; repay evil for evil;
what still has not been repaid; the time has just not yet come."
Behind him stands the "extreme left" club, broken but repaired
for future use. On the wall hang pictures of Lin Biao and Jiang
Qing. The "loyalty" of the red heart (the original is in color)
can only remind viewers of the cult of loyalty towards Mao
which the left had fostered.
For the intellectuals and artists who, like Liao Binaxiung,
had suffered under the Gang of Four this was a crucial issue.
How could the crimes and persecutions ofthe Cultural Revolu
tion be understood, and how could they be prevented from
reocccuring? Therefore, when the Party mounted a nationwide
campaign over the particularly cruel persecution and eventual
execution of an anti-leftist female cadre, Jang Zhisin, in Man
churia, it stimulated art which was not always limited to the
approved purposes of attacking the Gang of Four and remaining
3. Wang Dungtien, "When you are not upright you see others as deviant." 4. Huang Weichiang. "Mourning." Gwangzhou Cartoon Exhibition. Decem
Gungren Ribao (Workers Dailv), July 24, 1979. ber 1979.
52
5. Liao Bingxiung. "One more record." Jian Hua (Sword Flowers). Gwang
zhou. November 1979.
6. Guo Changxin. "When she was alive we were friends." Fung Ci Yu Yo Muo
(Satire and Humor). Renmin Ribao (Peoples Daily). August 20. 1979.
53
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7. Jang Kaisi. "Locked up." Gungren Ribqo (Workers Daily). August 15.
1979.
leftists. Much of the lang Zhisin commemorative art was senti
mental kitsch.2 A wistful, rather delicate young girl fallen
among flowers tinged with her blood. Or a martyr ascending
through rose colored clouds to a Marxist heaven. But some of it
was very moving and very powerful. In a woodcut which was
reproduced in the People's Daily cartoon supplement, a shame
faced cadre wearing a black arm band for lang Zhisin covers his
face while the accompanying poems reads (Illustration 6):
Earth produces grains inabundance
Some people claim the credit
Now that things have taken a turn
They say when she was alive we were friends
Ifyou seek the true face
Only heaven knows.
The message is plain, and embarrassing for those cadres who
made the transition from the Cultural Revolution to the new era.
Where were they when such crimes were being committed?
Why didn't they speak out then, "when she was alive"? The
woodcut itself in its stark black color and strong, simple lines is
reminiscent of the Lu XuIi inspired social protest woodcuts of
the 1930s. It is not "funny paper" stuff.
So lang Zhisin became a symbol for protest minded in
tellectuals, with implications for present authoritarianism as
well as past crimes. The exhibition of cartoon art held in
Gwangzhou in December was dedicated to the "memory of
comrade lang Zhisin" with a mock tombstone near 'the en
trance. On the tombstone was a mirror with an invitation for all
Party members to look in it and see how they measured up to her
standards of truth and courage. The exhibition itself castigated
present bureaucratic and authoritarian cadres as much as the
discredited radicals.
Indeed, for artists and intellectuals authorized attacks on
leftist autoritarianism led to issues of freedom and democracy in
general. One area particularly close to their hearts was political
control over the arts. More than one cartoon has shown the artist
or writer as a caged bird, fed and protected by the Paity, but not
allowed his freedom (Illustration 7). Here his keeper says,
"Release you? I think I am taking care of you!" In 1979
cartoonists were not alone in demanding less care and more
creative freedom.
8. Tan Yungdao. "Management." Jian Hua (Sword Flowers). Gwangzhou. 9. Hua Junwu, "What I say goes," Chinese Literature. 1979.
November 1979.
W M , ~ ~ r ~ ________..... ~ ______-.
10. Hua Junwu, "The tiger's rump," Jian Hua (Sword Flowers). Gwangzhou,
November 1979.
1I. Wang M i. "Bureaucratic rumps," F eng Ci Yu Yo Muo (Satire andHumor).
Renmin Ribao (Peoples Daily), November 20, 1979.
54
They also took up demands for more democracy and less
authoritarianism from other groups in society. For instance, Tan
Yungdao drew a four panel cartoon showing a Party boss'
reactions to demands for factory democracy (Illustration 8).
First he tears in half the worker's petition for democracy (in
Chinese, "people as boss") saying, "You are people, I am
boss. " He continues, "You want democracy for the proletariat?
Well, you represent the capitalist class." He puts a capitalist hat
on the worker and concludes, "not going along with me is to
oppose the Party. ' ,
Such unflattering portraits of Party administrators were
numerous. Some of the most interesting might be called a
bureaucratic bestiary or, because many drew on the common
proverb about not daring to touch the tiger's rump, might be
better termed a bureaucratic rumpology. The most famous of
these cartoons by the Beijing.cartoonist Hua Junwu shows a
tiger in Party cadre uniform arrogantly strutting and defying
anyone to criticize him (to touch his rump) (Illustration 9). Run
in the People's Daily, this cartoon was known throughout
China.
3
Interestingly, this phrase about the tiger's rump was
used by Mao in criticizing Party bureaucrats. In the post-Mao era
it is apparently still relevant. Hua Junwu brings out one of the
reasons why in another cartoon lampooning the servile career
ists who support bossism in the Party (Illustration 10). The long
tongued smiling cadre says, "The tiger's rump cannot be
touched, but it can be licked."
Extending this rumpology beyond authoritarianism to
other defects in cadre leadership, in November Wang Mi pub
lished his "Bureaucrats' Rumps" in the People's Daily (Illustra
tion II). The tiger's rump can't be touched-he won't tolerate
criticism. The hippopotamus' rump can't be moved-he sits on
urgent work. The monkey's rump can't sit still-he abandons
his own work to flit about with incidentals. The horse's rump
needs a lot of patting-he wants praise from his subordinates.
Hardly a flattering picture of Party leadership in actiun but the
top leaders also have an interest in exposing these abuses and
inefficiencies among cadres. Mao, himself, had tried a similar
cure for bureaucratism, inefficiency and separation from the
masses during the first hundred flowers campaign and had used
very different medicine for the same ailments in the Cultural
Revolution. These cartoons are evidence that the disease has not
been cureg. Although the post-Mao leadership seems to be less
concerned with socialist principles than with economic results,
it is trying just as hard to eliminate these obstacles to progress.
To follow the bestiary a little further, Hua Junwu 's tea-drinking,
cigarette smoking and newspaper reading cadres on snail back
represent the speed with which they get things done (Illustration
12).
From the workers' point of view, indolent bureaucrats not
only retard modernization but pass more of the burden on to
those who work. A Workers' Daily cartoon has three bosses
supervising two straining workers (Illustration 13). It takes the
Maoist injunction "Deeply penetrate to the front lines" as its
ironic title. The frustrations of other sections of the population
with bureaucratic inefficiency and leftist dogmatism are seen in
Liu Yung's People's Daily cartoon "Preventing 'individual
prominence' " (Illustration 14). This was one of the leftist
pieties during the Cultural Revolution and apparently it has not
entirely disappeared. The Party cadre here makes sure that all
runners keep the same pace.
This theme of obstacles to modernization extends beyond
criticisms of Party cadres to general social problems which are
1",11
12. Hua Junwu. "Comparative Slowness." Feng Ci Yu Yo Muo (Satire and
Humor). Renmin Ribao (Peoples Daily). November 20. 1979.
revealed in more graphic detait than ever before in the People's
Republic. Laziness, sloppy work, waste, lack of public spirit,
bad manners, crime and public indifference to it are all exposed.
One cartoon that brings together exposure of social evils with
criticism of bureaucratic inefficiency again comes from the
sharp pen of Hua Junwu (Illustration 15). As a policeman leads
away a criminal arrested for graft, a cadre squanders a bag of
gold labelled, "National property, the blood & sweat of the
people. " The caption reads "Graft is a crime; waste is un
stopped. " This cartoon is in the context of several well publi
cized cases of Party cadres being involved in large scale embez
zlement of public funds. Ordinary crimes and bad habits were
satirized but the sharpest barbs seemed to be aimed at those in
positions of authority.
For instance, there are innumerable cartoons on the preva
lence of bribery and corruption in the bureaucracy. Some of the
wittiest went back to the Party's guerrilla war heritage for ironic
contrast (Illustration 16). In "storming the pass," representa
tives of one unit use a cigarette machine gun and liquor bottle
grenades in their battle to get needed supplies or authorization
from another unit. Another common tactic was to show the
Party cadre as a traditional deity, the god of wealth, or in this
case the multi-armed Buddha (Illustration 17), who can dis
tribute the good things of the new society such as money,
political power, job assignments, watches, T.V. sets. Of course,
he must be prayed to and given offerings.
Beyond corruption and inefficiency as obstacles to mod
ernization, there is the protest against favoritism and privilege.
This may be the sharpest criticism of all in a society dedicated to
equality. A People's Daily cartoon in October showed how the
fish (in America, the "pie") is cut in China (Illustration 18). A
large slice for relatives, a large slice for leaders. another for
oneself, and one for delegates. Then when only the head and tail
remain it is hung up with a sign offering fish for sale to the
general public. Other cartoons show cadres enjoying the good
life and its material goods. Television sets are especially promi
nent, along with food, cigarettes and liquor. But not all corrup
tion is in material goods. The Workers' Daily ran a four-panel
ss
"""">:"
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14. Lin Yung, "Preventing 'individual prominence: " Feng Ci Yu Yo Muo
(Satire and Humor), Renmin Ribao (Peoples Daily). August 20, 1979.
13. Liu Kedung. "Deeply penetrate ttl the front lines," Gungren Ribao (Work
ers Dailv), August 10. 1979.
15. Hua Junwu. "Corruption is a crime; waste goes unstopped," Feng Ci Yu Yo
Muo (Satire and Humor), Reflmifl Ribao (Peoples Daily), August 20, 1979.
16. Jang Jungjin, "Storming the pass," Feng Ci Yu Yo Muo (Satire and
Humor), Renmin Ribao (Peoples Daily), September 20, 1979.
---1
I
17. Hua Keguan, "The many-armed Buddha," Gungren Ribao (Workers
Daily), August 22, 1979.
56
"*"
18. Fellg Ci Yu Yo Milo (Satire alld Humor). October 20. 1979.
strip showing how proletarian fraternity breaks down in a hier
archical society (Illustration 19). At first two workers embrace
each other, then when one returns to the factory as department
head he still extends his hand to his comrade. But when .he is
section head he has only a cursory wave and a grunt for his
former workmate. Finally, the worker remains silent as a sign
announces the inspection tour of bureau chief Wang. Friendship
and solidarity give way to power and position.
The importance of personal connections with those in
positions of power for getting ahead is shown in another cartoon
called "Three Faces" (Illustration 20). When a young job
applicant brings a letter of introduction to a Party cadre and
announces that, "My father is the Provincial Committee Secre
tary . . ." the boss rises from his chair to greet him with a
smiling face. But as he goes on to add". . . Provincial Commit
tee Secretary's wife's colleague's fellow classmate," the smile
fade!i and indifference replaces the warm welcome when he
thought this youth well connected with those in high position.
The cartoon resembles the play, "Supposing I Were Real?,"
which was something of a sensation in 1979 for it told how an
imposter gained all kinds offavors and privileges by pretending
to be the son of a high ranking Party leader. When finally
exposed his only defense was, "What if I were real?" Would
that have justified the favoritism?
Complaints about favoritism for friends and relatives of the
elite, about getting ahead through personal connections or what
the Chinese call "going through the back door, " were not new
but in the last few years they have surfaced with a vengeance.
There is an ironic congruence here between these cartoonists,
who were opposed to the fonner tyranny of the left, and the
Cultural Revolutionaries' original complaints about privilege
for Party autocrats. These artists may oppose the radicals in
many areas, and they have been quick to note that in power the
radicals also took care of their own, but on the specific issue of
19. Gungren Ribao. January 24. 1980. 20. Da Gung Bao (HK) reprinted from Renmin Ribao. December I. 1979.
57
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"the back door" dissident intellectuals and Maoist radicals contrast to the amusing picture. "Because the leaders have to
share a common complaint. So does the new Party leadership, ride in a sedan chair, there are people who have to carry a sedan
which does not want nepotism inhibiting the drive for modern chair. Those who ride are happy, those who carry get the grease
ization. Still, so long as the Party apparatus has a monopoly of from it. Important people also carry, they also then ride in sedan
power and so long as individual cadres are tempted to use that chairs. One layer carries another layer. It seems like the old
power for private ends, such phenomena as satirized in bureaucracy. If this kind of unhealthy phenomenon is not elimi
Wang Shukang's "Dialogue between a Monk and a Baldy" will nated, the fate of the nation is in peril."
remain (Illustration 21). The monk asks "baldy" (a Party cadre How seriously the leadership will take such warnings and
also seated on a prayer mat with a shaven head like a monk)
how much it can do about the problems remains to be seen. The
"Can you chant the sutras?" "No." "Can you beat the wooden
immediate question for Deng Xiaoping and company seems to
fish?" "No." "On what did you getto be a monk?" "As a bald have been how far they could let such criticisms go before they
head." "How did you get in?" "The back door." started to call into question the legitimacy of Party leadership
The boldest and most explicit warning about the net effect and socialist society. By the end of 1979 the tentative answer
of all these abuses of power comes from Liao Bingxiung who in was no further. As "Democracy Wall" was closed and the most
an article in Fine Arts commented that restoring feudal attitudes outspoken dissidents put away, the tone of China's political
was a greater danger to socialist society than any surviving cartoons started to change. Criticisms of inefficiencies and
bourgeois influences.
4
He illustrated this in a cartoon for last exposure of social problems continued. So did some digs at
December's exhibition in Gwangzhou (lllustration 22). A Party cadres but the attacks on cadres in general diminished in number
boss rides in a sedan chair born by cadres on poles reading and intensity. On the issue of democracy, the last issue of The
"trumpeting praises and patting the horse's rump." They in People's Daily's "Satire and Humor" for 1979 ran a cartoon on
tum are borne by lower cadres and all receive promotions, "Two Authoritarians" (Illustration 23). One shows a bureau
assignments and favors from higher up. The caption reads crat telling his audience "What democracy? What I say goes."
"Everybody very Happy." The accompanying text is in somber The second has a sloppy long-haired dissident in Western-style
clothes writing a wall poster' 'What I say goes, only then it is
democracy. " The leadership was condemning both extremes
and trying to find a road down the middle. But by early 1980, if
the cartoons are any guide, they were veering away from open
criticism in favor of order and authority. Dissidents labelled
"anarchists" and "extreme individualists," were shown as
selfish, bigoted, and irresponsible. The situation was summed
up in a cartoon of a wrecker trying to tear down the gate of
socialist democracy so that his two enormous bags of extreme
individualism and anarchism could fit through. He is being
stopped by a worker (Illustration 24).
Perhaps the gates of possible democracy in China are not
wide enough to admit much more diversity of opinion or criti
cism of the system at present. The rehabilitation of Liu Shaochi
and cancelling of wall newspaper type of mass criticism does
not augur well for further experiments with freedom of speech
I and criticism. But the renewed Campaign against the Gang of
Four makes the Party sensitive to charges of perpetuating the
kind of authoritarianism and "cultural dictatorship" which was
one of the fallen radicals' main crimes. More important in the
long run, the present leadership will need the intellectuals and
need to encourage more"emancipation ofthe mind" if China is
21. Wang Shukang, "Dialogue between a monk and a baldy," Feng C{Yu Yo
Muo (Satire and Humor), Renmin Ribao (Peoples Daily), October 20, 1979
22. Liao Bingxiung, "Everybody very happy." lian Hua (Sword Flowers),
Gwangzhou. November 1979.
S8
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24. Wang Jeji. "Won't go in." Feng Ci Yu Yo Muo (Satire (llId Hilll/or).
Renmill Rihao. January 1980.
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to have rapid technological and economic progress. Cartoons
remain a potent weapon for stimulating thought and exposing
abuses. There may not be another crop to compare with the
"thorny flowers" of 1979 for some time, butthey should not all
wither. The society, and especially the Party, needs its internal
critics. Some of the sharpest wield cartoonists' pens.
One final cartoon may best sum up the situation (Illustra
tion 25). In it a genial Party cadre lifts various art flowers into
the vase of "one hundred blooming flowers." Ink painting, oil
painting, posters-all go nicely. But when he comes to pick up
cartoons his fingers are pricked by the sharp thorns. The Party
can, of course, cultivate thornless cartoons but they will lose
their most important function in satirizing the worst defects in
the new society. It might be better if the Party grew a thicker
skm and endured some thorns among the new hundred flowers.
* 59
23. "Two authoritarians." Feng Ci Yu Yo Muo
(Satire and Humor). Rellmill Rihao (Peoples Daily),
December 20. 1979.
25 Tan Yungdao. "Thorny !lowers." Cartoon ellhibition, Gwangzhou. De
cember 1979.
Notes
I. The author attended, and was allowed to photograph at. the Guangzhou
ellhibition in December. Held in a large hall at the Cultural Park. it drew large
crowds.
2. A sample of these may be found in the leading art journal Mei Shu Yue Kan
(Fine Arts Monthly), Beijing, September and October. 1979.
3. Another version of it was shown in the Guangzhou clIhibition. In it a Party
boss is bawling out a worker for putting up a cartoon about touching the tiger's
rump. The bureaucrat is confounded when the worker shows him the same
cartoon published in Peoples Daily.
4. Mei Shu (Fine Arts), Guangzhou, vol. I, no. I, December 1979.
How Lu Xun Became a Marxist:
Conversations with Yuan Liangjun
by Vera Schwarcz
After thirty years, we are beginning to talk again. The
"we" has changed during these three decades. Western sinol
ogists with experience in pre-1949 China and senior Chinese
intellectuals whose major research was accomplished in the
1950s are markedly absent in this first round of renewed com
munication. Instead, a novel and delicate exchange is just be
ginning in Chinese universities, where we now have a chance to
Ii ve and work for a prolonged period of time. The participants in
this exchange are American students whose knowledge ofChina
has been shaped by the isolation of the Cold War and middle
aged Chinese survivors of the Cultural Revolution.
2
The scope
of our talks is limited. We lack shared memories and are bur
dened by mutual ignorance. Still, our conversations matter not
only because, through these conversations, we have an op
portunity to learn anew. This possibility, however, will materi
alize only if we can acknowledge our mutual preconceptions
and only if we are patient with (rather than bristle against) the
halting pace of the intellectual emancipation underway in Chi
nese academic circles today.
This is a tenuous moment in our scholarly contacts-one
which could be easily squandered if we look for acceptable
answers to familiar questions. How Lu Xun became a Marxist
has not been a pressing or familiar question in Western scholar
ship on modem Chinese history. Nor has it been a debatable
issue in China where, more than three decades ago, Mao
Zedong had declared the great writer to have been a forerunner
of the communist revolution. And yet, this question can-did
for me-become a window onto the controversies which mark
the rebirth of Chinese scholarship and onto the thought of a
particularly creative young scholar. *
I happened upon Yuan Liangjun's name shortly after arriv
ing in China on February 23, 1979. 3lt was a near accident, like
so many other openings one finds on the periphery of Western
expectations of focused research. I first read an article by Yuan
Liangjun during our second weekend in China. I was in the
midst of scanning various journals for an overview of recent
Chinese historiography. Among a series on Ming-Qing history,
which most often quoted Engels as a primary source, Yuan
Liangjun's piece on "Some Noteworthy Problems on Research
about Lu Xun, "4 stood out rather sharply. In that context, it was
surprising to find a scholar using original (May Fourth period)
60
Yuan Liangjun was born in 1936 in Shandong Province. His
parents were poor, illiterate peasants. He passed the en
trance examination for Beijing university in 1956 and has
been on itsfaculty since 1966. From 1969 to 1971, he went
down to labor in the countryside along with the rest of the
staff of the Department o.fChinese. He has just published his
first book: Lu Xun Suxiang Lunji (Essays on the Thought of
Lu Xun), Tianjing: Renmin Chuban she, 1979. I
* This essay was written while Ms. Schwarcz was in China. [Editors.]
I. Although his first book had just come out, Yuan Liangjun has been a
prolificandmuch published cultural critic in China. He began writing ~ a w e n in
his freshman year at Beida. His first piece which received national attention was
an essay called "Emotion and Reason" first published in the student literary
magazine at Beida, Hong Lou (vol. 2. 1958) later reprinted in Zhong guo
vingnien baa. March 1958. By his junior year in college. he was debating with
Guo Moro and Chien Bozan about the historiographical issues of the late Han
(see his essay "Toward an Objective Evaluation of Cacao," in Guang Ming
Ribao. March 5, 1959, p. 4 in the section on historical studies). He kept writing
zawen forKuang Ming Ribao throughout the early I 960s.
There have been only two periods of relative slowing down in Yuan
Liangjun's writing. First, immediately after he was kept on at Beida upon
graduation. he was asked to teach composition, "so I spent all my time reading
students' notebooks." Second, the prolonged period of social activism during
the later part of the Cultural Revolution (1969-1974) when the Beida faculty
was forced into more political commitments than other intellectuals in China at
that time. In 1975, he began serious research on Lu Xun especially on his
collection of zawen: Er Yi Ji, which later provided the foundation for Yuan's
theory of the "leap" of consciousness. In the year following the fall of the Gang
of Four (1976-1977), he wrote twelve essays criticizing previous misreadings
of Lu Xun and developed the perspectives now included in this volume on Lu
Xun's thought.
Currently, Yuan Liangjun is working closely with Ding Ling on collecting
and interpreting her work while she can still function as collaborator. He is about
to publish an article about her most controversial story, "The Diary of Miss
Sophie" (see "Between Praise and Blame" Shi Yue, December, 1979). He has
also written an essay about Ding Ling's thought before and after the Yenan
Forum (1942) as well as compiled a chronological bibliography of all her
works-many of which had not appeared in previous collections. He is also
editing a volume Ding Ling Ji Wai Ji (Collection Outside the Collection) on the
model of Lu Xun who collaborated on a book about his uncollected essays in his
last years). He plans to complete two books in the next year: Lu Xun Yon Jiu
(research on Lu Xun-a more detailed discussion of fiction, poetry and some
essays not touched upon in his first book) and Ding Ling Yan Jiu (research on
Ding Ling).
texts to counter claims for Lu Xun's early (1919), unequivocal
stance as proletarian revolutionary. The author juxtaposed pri
mary sources and secondary claims in order to argue for more
careful reasoning about the past. He seemed, to me, to be
suggesting new directions for genuinely critical scholarship,
when he wrote:
Chairman Mao's brilliant theses cannot replace concrete
analysis of the problems. The expression "greatest and
bravest standard-bearer" is a generalization about Lu Xun's
achievement. It cannot be considered as a concrete analysis
ofhis thought.
5
On the margins of that article, I remember jotting down: "Here,
in the guise of literary criticism, there is, finally, an explicit
historical methodology. "
A week later, I was sitting in Yuan Liangjun's crowded
lecture course on the history of modem literature at Beida
(Beijing University). Among Chinese students he had the repu
tation of being openminded- "perhaps the' most outspoken
instructor in the department this term," remarked a friend who
is an undergraduate senior majoring in literature. Her perception
was borne out by my own impressions. Yuan Liangjun is a
lively lecturer who invites, really incites, students to reason
more critically with his own contentious interpretations of Ding
Ling. the Yenan Forum, etc.
We began to talk after I raised some questions concerning
Lu Xun's poetry in the 1920s. Later, he showed me another one
of his essays: "Certain Doubts Concerning the 'Completion' of
Lu Xun's Thought."6 The more we talked, the more I read his
work and others', the clearer it became that Yuan Liangjun's
scholarship had a vitality far beyond the dutifully "anti-Gang of
Four" reevaluation of Lu Xun going on in China today. Shortly
after our first conversation, Wen Yi Bao (April 1979) published
two pointed rejoinders to Yuan Liangjun's "doubts."7 Here, I
sensed a dispute about the history of consciousness quite unlike
Western debates about the thought of Lu Xun. I asked Yuan
about the possibility of writing an article introducing his work to
American scholars. He told me he preferred to wait until his
book was released-some time during the summer. Until that
time. we kept talking. always frankly. Slowly, over the next
four months. we developed the kind of trust which made no
question "off limits" and which enabled us to state differing
points of view, to argue without embarrassment or apology.
In September, we began a more focused dialogue. We met
six times for two or three hour sessions. Each time I prepared a
set of questions based on some theme in Yuan Liangjun's book.
On September 25th, we discussed the relevance of Lu Xun's
thought to China's contemporary problems-especially the di
lemma of appropriation from the West. On October 17th, we
focused on the history of Yuan Liangjun's own interest in the
theme of Lu Xun's world view. On the morning of November
5th, we clarified the meaning of the 1926 "leap of conscious
ness" which Yuan Liangjun sees as the turning point in the
process which made Lu Xun into a Marxist. In the afternoon of
November 5th, we explored the differences between "research
on" and "emulation of" Lu Xun. On December 14th, we
resolved remaining questions about Lu Xun sources and Yuan
Liangjun's biography. Throughout these conversations, Yuan
Liangjun made it clear that all he hoped to do was "to contribute
to the opening of a dialogue between Chinese and American
scholars-a dialogue based on mutual respect and a shared
concern for scientific truth."
I, on the other hand. was hoping for more. More than Yuan
Liangjun. I was aware of the limitations of Western scholarship
on the later developments in Lu Xun's thought and hoped that
our conversations might broaden the perspective of scholars at
home. Up to now, the question of how China's greatest modem
writer became a Marxist has been subsumed in American schol
arship under some hasty, sadly recorded whys. For example,
T. A. Hsia in The Gate of Darkness portrays Lu Xun as a
literary giant taken advantage of by manipulative political or
ganizers. The culturally disoriented iconoclast is thus made to
appear as a rather duped fellow traveller. Harriet Mill's work
has consistently focused upon the psychological elements in Lu
Xun's turn toward the left. She identifies a quest for relief from
personal despair as the source of the 1927 "conversion to
Marxism": "As with his European counterparts, Hsun's sym
pathy grew out of desperation and remained more emotional
than intellectual. "8 Both of these interpretations emphasize the
moody, impulsive temperament of Lu Xun. His literary
achievement is, thus, made to stand in contradistinction to his
political convictions. In Hsia's view, Lu Xun was great in spite
of his politics. According to'Mills, he was great because his
politics were incomplete: "he never allowed his interest in
Marxism to restrict his literary horizon. For him. Marxism was a
new and helpful way to examine the world, not a creed to dictate
what he should read or how he should feel about it. "9 There is
2. In the past four years. there has been a quickening pace of scholarly
exchanges between China and tile United States. Many of the initial talks have
taken place through the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Although these
meetings have been important in establishing the foundation for scholarly
communications. they have been general in content and. necessarily. limited by
the temporary nature of the visits of various delegations. Few senior American
scholars have been able. as of yet. to live in a Chinese university and to cultivate
the ordinary. prolonged kinds offriendships which might result in more in-depth
discussion. One would hope that before long. they might be able to spend as
much time in conversation with university faculty as with researchers at the
various academies. In this context. my opportunity to get to know Yuan'
Liangjun over the past ten months has spurred this effort to record some of our
conversations.
3. I came to China as a member of the first group of Advanced Trainees
selected by the Committee for Scholarly Communications with the PRC (Na
tional Academy of Sciences). The other six were: Stephen Alee (University of
Washington. Seattle). Lynda Bell (UCLA). Tom Gold (Harvard). Karen Got
schang (University of Michigan). John Grobowski (University of Chicago) and
Carl Walter (Stanford).
4. I first read an excerpted version of"Lu XoUn Yanjiu zhong zhi de zhuyi
de ji ge wenti" in Xinhua Yuebao No. I. 1979 pp. 186-188. Later. I found the
full text in Wen Yi Bao vol. 5. 1978. The Ming-Qing articles referred to here
were published in Shehui Kexue Janxian in 1978-a year in which intellectual
emancipation (i.e .. the revival of scholarly activity) was just getting underway.
By 1979. however. there has been a veritable outpouring of historical documen
tation. as I was able to witness myself at the Nanjing Conference on the Taiping
Rebellion in May. 1979.
5. Xinhua Yuebao. p. 188.
6. First published with title "Lu Xun suxiang wancheng zhiyi" in Beij
ing Daxue Xuebao. no. I. 1978. pp. 53-64.
7. Zhang Jianye. "Wancheng shuo cuowu rna" (Is the theory ofcomple
tion wrong?) and Teng Yun. "Ye tan bogao he fuhui" (also discussing 'infla
tion' and 'augmentation'" in Wen Yi Bao. no. 4. 1979. pp. 41-45.
8. Harriet Mills. "Lu Hsun and the Communist Party. " China Quarterly
(no. 4. October-December. 1960). p. 17.
9. Harriet Mills. "Lu Xun: Literature and Revolution." Goldman ed .
Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era (Cambridge. Mass: Harvard
Univ. Press. 1977). p. 211.
61
no hint in these scholars' works that Lu Xun's greatness might
be related to his complex political understanding or that his
commitment to revolution might have augmented rather than
hindered his work as an artist. In their depreciation ofLu Xun's
Marxism, American scholars have taken succor from the fact
that Lu Xun did not write fiction after 1927. Thus they seem to
have misunderstood a transformation of his creative genius as an
exhaustion of it.
Yuan Liangjun's book focuses on Lu Xun's essays-espe
cially those written in the half decade from 1925 to 1930. to
From these difficult texts, full of veiled language and sharp
irony, this author has argued that Lu Xun' s greatness as a writer
is inextricably connected to his greatness as a thinker. The link
posited here is Lu Xun's highly self-conscious, constantly
evolving world view. Where American scholars have tended to
see a temperamental genius battered by history, Yuan Liangjun
depicts a fierce, painstakingly honest intellectual who was able
to use each twist of China's revolutionry history to deepen his
understanding of its causes, obstacles and likely outcome.
An antithesis to the "conversion to Marxism" metaphor
may be found in Yuan's "leap of consciousness" paradigm.
Using a Marxist framework to interpret Lu Xun's Marxism,
Yuan Liangjun manages to challenge both foreign scholars who
have denied Lu Xun's greatness as a political thinker and
Chinese scholars who have assumed this out of doctrinaire
necessity.
To clarify the meaning of Yuan Liangjun's challenge, I
have presented his views according to these four themes: (a) the
leap of consciousness; (b) rebuttal of other interpretations of
how/when Lu Xun became a Marxist; (c) controversies evoked
by the paradigm of incomplete consciousness and (d) the dis
tinction and relationship between the "Lu Xun yanjiu" (re
search on Lu Xun) and "xuexiLu Xun" (emulation ofLu Xun).
Lu Xun's Leap of Consciousness
At the center of Yuan Liangjun' s book is the concept of Lu
Xun's "world-view" (shi-jie guan) which became identifiably
Marxist after April 1927. When we began our conversations, I
was more interested in the notion of a "leap" than in the
question of "a leap in what?" Since I had done some work on
Lu Xun's thought during the May Fourth Movement, I was
familiar with his quest for a new "life perspective" (ren-sheng
guan). But Yuan Liangjun turns out to be exploring something
else. His work concentrates not so much on how Lu Xun viewed
the fate of humanity as on "how he came to take an encom
passing stand on contemporary social issues ( 10/17). "
By using the concept of a Marxist world view, Yuan is
explicitly moving beyond the question ofLu Xun's sympathies
toward and contacts with the Communist Party. Rather, what he
wants to prove is that Marxism became the organizing frame
work for Lu Xun's consciousness only when his own historical
experience proved its validity-that is, during the White Terror
10. Although Yuan Liangjun's books draw upon the whole corpus ofLu
Xun 's work: studies. essays, letters, miscellaneous essays not included in either
1958 or 1976 version of collected works-his analysis depends most exten
sively on Eryi ji (That's All Collection) which Lu Xun completed in the wake of
the 1927 Terror and on Lu Xun's self-summary of his own intellectual develop
ments in the 1932 prefaces to Er xinji (Divided MindCo/lection) and San xianji
(Three Leisures Collection).
he witnessed in Canton. Yuan Liangjun's book emphasizes the
days of anguish which tried Lu Xun's political resolve and
which crystallized his understanding of history. According to
him. Lu Xun's Marxism became fully manifest only when he
had coped with the horror of 1927 in all its historical specificity:
On April 15th, Lu Xun stood gravely on the side ofrevolution
and was unstinting in his efforts to rescue revolutionary
youths. Having seen with his own eyes how large was the
number of youths arrested and murdered, he became filled
with rage. At the emergency meeting ofdepartment chairmen
at Sun Yatsen University on the very day of April 15th, he
launched a scathing attack on the KMT [GuomindangJ reac
tionary faction and fought hard for the demand that all
arrested students be released. On April 16th, he worked hard
again raising contributions and solicitously inquiring about
the students arrested. He became so consumed by the effort
to rescue revolutionary youths that he forgot all about his
personal needs. After he realized that the rescue effort was
hopeless, Lu Xun angrily left his position at the University as
a sign ofprotest. In the midst ofthe White Terror this was a
difficult and precious action. The scathing storm and bloody
torrent of reactin damaged quite afew weaker bones: some
people compromised the cause while others betrayed it. But
Lu Xun underwent this grim experience without dread,
standing mightily in thefront line o.frevolutionary struggle,
towering in his rage. Without Marxism-Leninism this would
have been inconceivable. t t
Shortly after our conversations got underway, I challenged
Yuan Liangjun's claim that Lu Xun was so thoroughly fierce,
staunch, and "optimistic" in 1927. I brought to our discussion
those bleak passages written in the wake of the White Terror, in
which Lu Xun confesses his impotence to save youth, to
improve society or to use his art to create any significantly
audible sound in the deafening din of revolution and counter
revolution. Yuan Liangjun replied with his favorite quote from
Lu Xun written on April 26th, 1927 ,"The volcanic fire moves
swiftly underground. When it bursts out, it will scorch all wild
grasses, even the trees. Thus, all that might rot will be no
more. " t 2 He argued that the storm of reaction had set off Lu
Xun's simmering rage, that it had evoked a deep, steady convic
tion that the revolution was necessary and that it would therefore
have to succeed in the long run. According to Yuan, when Lu
Xun spoke of 1 9 ~ 7 as a "momentous time" (da shidai), he was
not expressing a naive exuberance or a childish enthusiasm for
the future:
What he had come to understand in that historic moment is
that huge changes were already underway, that China had
either to win the revolution or die. Lu Xun had reached this
conclusion from his own painful experience and based on his
own tough-minded reflection. (11/5)
II. Yuan Liangjun. Lu Xun sixiang /unji. pp. 48-49.
12. Ibid.
62
In Yuan Lingjun's interpretation, 1927 is a turning point in
history as well as a turning point in Lu Xun's thought. Yuan
argues that this setback in the revolution sparked a qualitative
advance in the writer's understanding of history. He points out
that whereas before 1927 Lu Xun had placed his hopes in young
intellectuals, had longed for "men of genius," and had ex
pressed contempt for "ignorant folk," during the April mas
sacres he came to understand how and why the working class
must determine the outcome of the Chinese Revolution. "To
put it simply, Lu Xun acquired his historical consciousness
during the White Terror. That awareness of the class conflict
which shapes events was the essence of his leap to Marxism. "
( 11/5)
The evidence which Yuan Liangjun uses to prove this
interpretation ranges from one particular essay to a more general
overview of Lu Xun' s work in the 1920s. To draw attention to
the manifestation of the 1927 "leap" he refers to a recently
discovered essay "The Other Side of Celebrating the Recovery
of Shanghai and Nanjing" which Lu Xun wrote on April 10th
and published on May 5th, 1927.
13
In this zawen, Lu Xun
quotes Lenin and praises "his deep understanding ofthe reason
for the success and failure of previous revolutions." Yuan
Liangjun emphasizes that merely five days before the Canton
murders, Lu Xun warned: "The final victory does not depend
on how many people rejoice, but on how many fight on to the
end." In Lu Xun's appreciation of Lenin as "an old hand" at
the business of revolution, Yuan sees a readiness to appropriate,
that is to say, apply Marxism to the Chinese situation at hand.
When pressed in our conversations, however, Yuan Liang
jun acknowledged that one essay cannot be used to prove too
much. To do that, he pointed out, would be to fall into the
"Gang of Four" type manipulation of limited sources in order
to confirm preconceived notions. What he, himself, wants to
do, he said, is to lead the attention of Western scholars to "the
scientific understanding of struggle which Lu Xun acquired in
1927 and which enabled him to rationally choose his weapons of
resistance to the White Terror. The artist's leap toward Marxism
must be judged by what he was able to write after that event. "
~ L u Xun's barbed, small, c l e ~ e r essays after 1927, he argued,.
"uncovered the big, unmentionable issues of the day." (11/5)
the word "scientific" is not incidental either in Yuan
Liangjun's conversation or in his writings. It stems from his
belief that the Marxist paradigm is most appropriate for an
interpretation of Lu Xun's Marxism. His aim is to analyze the
1927 "leap ofconsciousness" .as an objective manifestation ofa
material' 'leap" from quantitative change to qualitative change.
In contrast to Western theories about Lu Xun' s "conversion" to
Marxism and to certain Chinese claims for Lu Xun's "illumina
tion" (be that in 1919, 1925 or 1928), Yuan Liangjun's use of
the "leap" paradigm is meant to draw attention to a process
which is distinctly not sudden. He emphasizes two precondi
tions for any "leap"': a process of rapid transformation already
on the way and a spark which provides an occasion for the
transformatin of one kind of matter into another. He likes to use
Lu Xun' s own analogy about how water becomes ice: not only
because of its own dropping temperature but also because of the
presence of moving air which forces/enables the chilled liquid
to coalesce. 14
It is not a matter of happenstance that both Yuan Liangjun
and Lu Xun choose a cooling metaphor to describe an unhasty
"leap" in political consciousness. Whereas others dwell on
outbursts of passion (either despair against KMT or enthusiasm
for the proletariat), these two writers point out that nothing
quick or hot lasts very long. The 1927 "leap of consciousness"
interpretation thus depends on an organic yiew of history which
seeks to explain why Lu Xun was not a Marxist before the White
Terror and how his subsequent world view affected his stance on
all other issues, most obviously in matters of literary theory.
13. This essay was discovered jointly by the Sun Yatsen University
Library and Chinese Department in 1975. After a debate on its verification. it
was held to be fully in keeping with Lu Xun's handwriting and style and
published first in Canton and then in Ren Min Ribao. When I challenged Yuan
Liangjun on the reliability of this text "discovered" at the height of the "Gang
of Four" period when "proofs" of Lu Xun's proletarian consciousness
were most needed-he offered to have a copy of manuscript version
sent up from Canton. Furthermore, he pointed out there were many
archeological discoveries during the "Gang" era and that these, as
well as the Lu Xun text will surely stand up to the test of historical
verification.
14. Yuan Liangjun. op. cit .. p. 104 and Lu Xun, "Shanghai Wenyi zhi i
pie" (A Glance at Shanghai Literature) in Er Xinji.
63
The "leap qf consciousness" paradigm 15 is a model of
dialectical change, or more precisely, of partial modifications
which result in a total transformation. According to this view,
Lu Xun became a Marxist only when his previous belief in
evolutionism was radically challenged and thoroughly dis
placed by class analysis. The essays in Yuan Liangjun's book
trace the emergence and the erosion of Lu Xun' s faith in
Nietzsche and Darwin-philosophical mentors who led Lu Xun
to believe that "supermen" would overcome the mire oftradi
tion and that "new youth" would bring about a better world. It
is Yuan Liangjun's argument that certain parts of Lu Xun's
evolutionary perspective pegan to crumble after the 1920 split in
the New Culture Movement while other parts wore thin in the
wake of the student demonstrations and the mass movements of
1925-26. He even points to some Marxist ideas in Lu Xun's
writings before 1927: the primacy of economic changes, the
necessity of vigilance against liberalism. But, he argues, the
"leap" was consummated only in 1927 when history- "the
moving air" -shattered Lu Xun's faith in young intellectuals
and crystallized his previously vague ideas about class antago
nism into the "ice" of his Marxist world view. The leap, thus,
occurred in 1927 in Canton when Lu Xun no longer berpoaned
but came to understand why the murderers of revolutionary
youth were not only aged conservatives but young reactionaries
as well.
Clearly, Yuan Liangjun is not the first scholar to draw
attention to Lu Xun's tum to the left. He is, however, more
precise than most about when and how Lu Xun's assorted
sympathies and hostilities coalesced into a coherently Marxist
world view. Unlike Westerners who emphasize the impulsive
response of the "convert" to Marxism and certain Chinese
theorists who tend to dwell on the perennial lucidity of this
prophet of Communism, Yuan Liangjun spells out the criteria
by which we may evaluate the Marxist extent ofLu Xun's world
view.
After 1927, according to him, Lu Xun had a comprehen
sive stance which included:
a recognition of the importance of armed struggle;
an understanding that the purification of the revolutionary
ranks had to be achieved rather than proclaimed;
a strong faith in the ultimate victory of the proletariat;
a commitment to the use of the materialist dialectical method
to interpret contemporary society;
a new literary theory;
and an increasingly self-critical assessment of his own previ
ous views. 16
It is this confluence of perspectives which adds up to a leap
rather than the sudden modification of any single previous
belief. Based on these critel;a, Yuan Liangjun argues that Lu
Xun became a Marxist slowly, with great difficulty. Once
certain parts of the puzzle fell forcibly into place, however, he
was able to undertake even greater changes-that is to say, he
became an even more skilled writer and an even more insightful
opponent of reaction.
15. These criteria are spelled out most clearly in the first, more contentious
version of this essay which appears in Beijing Daxue Xuebao. op. cit.. p. 59.
16. Van liayan. a self-educated factory worker until he passed the exami
nation for graduate study at Beida in 1956. has been researching literary history
and criticism since 1963. He. according to Yuan Liangjun. did most of the work
In documenting his case for the 1927 leap of conscious
ness, Yuan Liangjun has had to contend with some problematic
evidence. For example: Lu Xun did not put forth an explicitly
Marxist position on the relationship between art and society
until after his debates with the Creation Society and only after
his translation of Plechanov-that is sometime in 1929-30.
Although these two years might seem unimportant to foreign
scholars, they point toward certain obstacles Yuan Liangjun had
to face in making his argument in China. Reliance upon a
Marxist paradigm of Lu Xun's Marxism has led him to argue
that a change in world view must and does precede any new
understanding of literary theory. According to this perspective,
Lu Xun could take on the Creation Society critics and could
explore the theory of proletarian literature only because he was
already a Marxist, not the other way around. Throughout our
conversations, Yuan Liangjun reiterated his basic historical
materialist conviction that changes in the material-historical
world spark changes in consciousness which, in tum, nurture
new views about culture, etc. This reasoning, which is rather
alien to American literary critics, has not been necessarily more
acceptable to Chinese scholars.
An important breakthrough in support for Yuan Liangjun's
theory of the 1927 leap occurred in 1979, when he co-authored
with Yan Jiayan an article for the opening issue ofLu Xun Yanjiu
Jikan (Shanghai, 1979). Yan Jiayan is Yuan's senior colleague
at Beida and a well-known scholar in the field of literary his
tory. ! 7 After long months of discussion at the University, Yan
Jiayan agreed with Yuan Liangjun that Lu Xun's evolutionism
was indeed irrevocably shattered by 1927.
Once he accepted the fact that the White Terror had shaken
the very foundations ofthe principle which had informed Lu
Xun's previous artistic work and social activism. Yan had to
acknowledge that an empty-minded. despondent-spirited Lu
Xun could not have written that outpouring ofskilled, effec
tive zawen against the Creation Society and others in the
period 1927-1930. (10/17)
What persuaded Yan Jiayan, and what seems so hard to convey
to American scholars now, is Yuan Liangjun's point that "Lu
Xun could change more and faster as a result of becoming a
Marxist." (10/17) This notion of quantitative changes made
possible by a qualitative leap turns out to be as difficult to grasp
and to accept in China as in the West.
Yuan Liangjun: A Contentious Voice
in Contemporary Chinese Scholarship
Not all Chinese scholars who consider themselves Marx
ists share Yuan Liangjun's views about Lu Xun's Marxism.
What seems to nag quite a few of them is not only his single
minded effort to locate a precise date for the leap of conscious
ness but also his determination to prove that all other interpreta
tions are wrong. While there seems to be a general acceptance in
China today of the fact that the' 'Gang of Four" had used-or
for the history of modern literature currently appearing under the general
editorship of Tang Yan, Zhongguo xiandai wensue shi (Remmin chubanshe.
1979-only volume one has appeared up to now).
17. See path breaking call to "Liberate Nei-bu" in first issue of Dushu
(1979). pp. 8-9.
64
rather, misused Lu Xun to buttress their own views about
absolute dictatorship of the proletariat, few scholars have gone
on to document exactly how Lu Xun was misread during the past
fifteen years. Fewer still are willing to raise the issue of how
"Gang of Four' , habits of mind continue to affect contemporary
scholarship on Lu Xun.
Yuan Liangjun has done just that. Not content to praise in
principle the new era of "hundred flowers and hundred
schools," he has grasped the newly sanctioned atmosphere of
debate to call into question several current views about how Lu
Xun became a Marxist. His book is a thoroughly Lu Xunesque
study of Lu Xun; barbed and witty. It has brought certain nei-bu
(for internal consumption only) scholarly debates into the open.
Yuan Liangjun's essay on "Some Noteworthy Research Prob
lems about Lu Xun" contains his most encompassing critique of
what he believes are "erroneous" t(}ndencies in current
scholarship.
According to him. the most pervasive problem in Lu Xun
scholarship is to inflate (bo-gao: literally. to yank upwards) the
thought and works of Lu Xun. He goes on to identify and to
dissect the erroneous logic offour types of .. inflation":
I) the "inflation ofLu Xun' s thought during the May Fourth
period-the claim that during the May Fourth period Lu
Xun was already a Marxist-Leninist. This interpretation,
according to Yuan Liangjun, ignores Lu Xun's own self
descriptions about hisfaith in evolutionism at that time. Yuan
sees this "inflation" as merely "sticking on" the label of
Marxism-Leninism.
2) the "inflation" of Lu Xun's relationship with the Party,
especially the exaggeration of his relationship with Chair
man Mao, Premier Zhou and even comrade Yang Kaihui
(Mao Zedong'sfirst wife).
3) the "inflation" of Lu Xun's relationship with the armed
struggle led by the Party.
4) the "inflation" of the intellectual content of certain
works of lu Xun and of the "timeless significance" of his
thought.
Inflation itself is an unhealthy, counter-factual (bu shi
shi chiu shi) tendency in scholarship and writing. From the
point of view of intellectual methodology, it is akin to meta
physics. In order to make something out ofnothing, to make
much out of little, the proponents of "inflation" naturally
fall into the common failing ofstraining meanings andforc
ing analogies. IS
Yuan's essay goes on to illustrate how this strategy of "infla
tions" depends on flimsy historical coincidences; for example.
the claim that Lu Xun actively Gollaborated with Zhou Enlai in
Canton "when Lu Xun, very likely, did not even know Zhou
Enlai's name at that time," or that Lu Xun supposedly paid
tribute to Yang Kaihui "when he merely referred to a certain
female revolutionary. "
Yuan Liangjun is most thoroughgoing when he criticizes
those who would claim that Lu Xun was a Marxist before 1927.
In his view proponents of "inflation" include all those who
believe that Lu Xun was already a Marxist at the time of the May
Fourth Movement (when he made some assorted remarks on the
October Revolution) and those who date Lu Xun's tum to the
left from 1925 (when he began to take a more encompassing
stand on social and political issues). 19 Yuan questions both
points of view for continuing the tradition of the "Gang of
Four" -a tradition of distortion which violated historical truth
and the principle of independent, scholarly inquiry.
In his critique of mistaken points of view, however Yuan
Liangjun tends to lapse into the kind of doctrinaire textualism
characteristic of the authors whom he attacks. He often uses his
favorite, "correct" predecessor in Lu Xun criticism, Qu Qiubai
(a delicate public resuscitation of a cultural theorist still in
question in China because of his supposedly wavering com
munist faith on the eve of his execution in 1935), to criticize
other scholars. This tendency to resort to rhetoric to counter the
influence of the' 'Gang of Four' , has not gone unnoticed among
other scholars. In fact, one of Yuan Liangjun's former class
mates at Beida wrote an article drawing attention to the "in
flated" rhetoric of critics of "inflation." Arguing for more
tolerance and less stridency in the next round of intellectual
debate. he concluded:
If !iOmeone believes that Lu Xun was a Marxist-Leninist
during the May Fourth period and you say he has "i'lflated"
Lu Xun and has been influenced by the poisonous traces of
the Gang of Four, how then can that person ever develop a
scholarly perspective? And how are we to advance the spirit
of scholarly debate? And how is emancipation of thought to
really take place?20
Yuan Liangjun with Vera Schwarcz. (Photo by Karen Gottschang)
18. Yuan Liangjun. op. cit .. p. 143.
19. The main proponent of the 1919 position attacked by Yuan are: Zhang
Jianye and Liu Guoying. authors of the 1976 book lian/un Lu Xun de chianoi
suxiang (Discussion of Lu Xun's early thought) and Zhong Benkang "Guanyu
Lu Xun suxiang fazhan ji ge wenti" (Some questions about the development of
Lu Xun's thought) in Lu Xun Yanjiu niankan (joint issue 1976-77) . The main
advocate of the 1925 position is Wang linquan. author of "Lu Xun chianqi
suxiang chugao" (Draft on the early thought of Lu Xun) in Tianjin shiyuan
xuebao no. 3. 1976.
20. (Teng Yun was Yuan Liangjun' s freshman classmate at Beida in 1956.
Teng was a student in the journalism department.) See Teng. op. cit .. p. 43.
6S
Controversy Around The Theory
Of Lu Xun's Incomplete Consciousness
Yuan Liangjun's claim that Lu Xun's Marxism was
never "thoroughly completed" has also sparked a debate. As
our conversations progressed, I began to understand why
Yuan Liangjun was so concerned about how Lu Xun became
a Marxist-the preconditions, the leap, the consequences.
Through this notion of process, of quantitative changes
which lead to a qualitative transformation and which signal
the possibility of further qualitative leaps, he intends to
counter pervasive misconceptions about political" illumina
tions" and "permanent" wisdom. In our conversations,
Yuan Liangjun often used passages from Lu Xun or descrip
tions of his own experience to argue his point that "class
consciousness is not something you wake up with one morn
ing-like you didn't have it the night before and suddeny
you have become the tried and true ally of the proletariat."
(10/17) His book contains several essays in which he con
trasts the painstaking way in which Lu Xun has acquired
political consciousness with the romantic, impulsive politic i
zation of people like Guo Moro-who suddenly and f1alJl
boyantly advertised their own conversion to Marxism.
It is a mark of Yuan Liangjun' s scholarly ambition and
theoretical sophistication that he has not been content just to
document the difficult process through which one writer
became a Marxist. He seems determined to think through the
problem of how "complete" and definitive anyone's Marx
ist world view can ever be-anyone, that is, who has ac
quired it through historical experience rather than pretending
to have been born with it. Through research into Lu Xun's
writings after 1927, especially some of his most reflective,
self-dissecting essays, Yuan Liangjun has become convinced
that at no point can Lu Xun's transformation of conscious
ness be considered fully achieved. He sees in this essay
evidence ofLu Xun's awareness ofthe possibility of political
relapse. Yuan Liangjun's paradigm of the "leap" includes
the idea of a "leap backward" - "something which Lu Xun
had observed concretely in the failed revolution of 1911 and
in the phenomenon of temporary revolutionaries-those
leftist fellow travelers who became liberal bystanders during
the White Terror." (11/5) Using the evidence of Lu Xun's
complex, evolving Marxism, Yuan Liangjun has thus chal
lenged all who would make the acquisition of political con
sciousness a matter of simple faith:
21. Yuan Liangjun, op. cit., pp. 101 and 103.
22. Zhang Jianye, op. cit .. p. 41.
23. Ibid., p. 42
Can the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist world view be
considered the completion (}f a transformation of world
view? The implication that the transformation of a non
Marxist-Leninist world view into a Marxist-Leninist world
view, the responsibility ofchanging one's thought isfar from
complete . . . not only must one consolidate the foundations
ofa progressive outlook, but furthermore there is always the
possibility ofa relapse . .. Lu Xun' s greatness is just this: he
was endlessly becoming a revolutionary . ... But comrades
who advocate the theory of a complete (i.e. final) transfor
mation ofworld view seem to imply that at the same time the
responsibility for transforming one's world view has been
completed . . . A Marxist-Leninist world view acquired
through realistic experience always exists in danger ofbeing
lost again. So how can the responsibility of reforminf( one's
world view ever be considered completed?21
This then is the core of Yuan Liangjun's argument against
those who claim that Lu Xun was "thoroughly" a Marxist, by
1928 or even by 1930. It seems to have touched a rather
sensitive assumption in the theoretical framework of contem
porary Chinese politics. The most pointed rebuttal to Yuan
Liangjun has appeared with the understated title "Is the Theory
of Completion Wrong?" 22 The author, Zhang Jianye criticized
Yuan Liangjun for being too lax in labelling all proponents of
the completion theory as "metaphysicians" and for his barbed
attacks on the inertia of Chinese scholarship. Zhang claims that
the notion of an "established" world view which remains
"incomplete" is even more "metaphysical than what Yuan
Liangjun opposes. " This rebuttal begins as a dispute about the
content and development ofLu Xun's Marxism. It develops into
a dispute about the Marxist consciousness of Marx and Lenin.
Yuan Liangjun's question about the "completeness of con
sciousness," in Zhang Jianye's view, leads to doubts about the
final authority of Marxism-Leninism itself. Thus his article
emphasizes Lenin's belief that Marx "completed" his transfor
mation from idealism to materialism in 1844.
This rebuttal does not seem to take into consideration that
in Russian the word "complete" does not necessarily mean
"final" or that Marx's transition from "idealism" to "materi
alism" entails a rather different historical process than the one
which led Lu Xun to acquire a Marxist world view. What is at
stake, according to Zhang Jianye, is nothing less than the
objective authority'of communist ideology. He claims that the
theory of incompleteness might, in effect, weaken the funda
mental authority of the communist movement: Does this mean
that from the beginning of the communist movement, in the
whole world, there has not yet appeared a single Marxist who
has undergone the transformation from revolutionary democ
racy to communism? What logic lies behind comrade Yuan
Liangjun's notion of still incomplete and "once more incom
plete." What sorts of conclusions might it lead to? This really
ought to evoke our deep concern. 23
Yuan Liangjunis not surprised by the debate sparked by his
theory of incomplete consciousness. Lu Xun's point, he count
ers, was simply that any revolutionary-such as Stalin, for
example-who is not constantly on guard against backward
leaps of his own world view risks the betrayal of the revolution.
Yuan Liangjun summarized this view in these words: "Every
one, absolutely everyone, changes cQnstantly, we all must do so
because we are not deities after all." (12/ i4)
66
Research on and Emulation of Lu Xun
There have been many xue-xi campaigns in the course of
the Chinese revolution. Lu Xun was neither the first or the last
model held out by Mao Zedong for emulation by the people. The
achievement of Yuan Liangjun's book is that he has built upon
Mao to go beyond him. While most of the essays focus on new
directions 'for research (yan jiu) on Lu Xun, the last third of the
book discusses dimensions of Lu Xun's greatness as a thinker
which Yuan Liangjunbelieves most applicable to China today.
For example, his essay on "Lu Xun's Grab-ism Thought"
presents an argument for the relevance of Lu Xun's methodol
ogy of appropriation from the West and from the Chinese past.
At the present, when Chinese policy is erratic and the population
still ambivalent about how open China should be in its contact
with foreigners, their ideas, machines and social system, Yuan
Liangjun has consciously put forth Lu Xun's complex sugges
tions that one ought to take from abroad all that is beneficial and
necessary for the creation of a new Chinese culture. In a similar
vein, he has collected from Lu Xun's writing passages which
prove the worthwhile ness of reading books and the benefits of
broad-minded learning.
Outsiders might smile-consdecending, most liRely-at
this new wave of "studying from Lu Xun." Unless one is living
in China today, however, it might be impossible to understand
just how deep has been the devastation of intellectuals' self
confidence during the past decade. Repeatedly the targets of
attack in the 1950s, intellectuals were labeled the "stinking
ninth'; (after counter revolutionaries, capitalist roaders etc.)
during the Cultural Revolution. Thus they as individuals, and
the realm of knowledge which they represent, was nearly tram
pled underfoot by those who claimed ignorance was a
positive political virtue. Where other Chmese scholars have
been content to return to their academic pursuits, grateful for a
respite from the recent wav:es of condemnation, Yuan Liangjun
has decided to tackle this recent history head on. He talks and
writes about the importance of intellectuals. But he is not simply
arguing for more material appreciation of their mental labors
something which is now a priority. in the national plan, and
which has already resulted in luxurious favors for some highly
placed intellectuals, mostly scientists. plan, now,
has provided little or no support for the mIddle aged, rank
scholars of Yuan Liangjun's generation.) Rather, m the true
spirit of Lu Xun, he argues that intellectuals must
strive to remake their world view so as to become true mhentors
ofLu Xun's model of the "bow-headed ox"-not meekly, but
strenuously politicized.
Everybody has his or her favorite, personally inspiring
passage from Lu Xun. In the West, where the xue-xi notion is
anathema on principle of scholarly objectivity, we tend to sneak
in our admiration between the lines, as it were. It is there
nonetheless and is worth contrasting what we find admirable in
Lu Xun, and what inspires intellectuals in China today. For
example, Harriet Mills concludes her recent essay on Lu Xun's
politics with a muted praise for his fierce independence in
face of the pressures to become partisan: "Let them go on hatmg
me, (Lu Xun wrote), I have no sword only a pen and it is not for
sale. "24 Yuan Liangjun, on the other hand, opens his essay on
Lu Xun's model of the "ox" with the following quotation
reflecting Lu Xun's modest self-assessment in the face of com
mitment:
Although I am the offspring oj a ruined elite . . . still my
thought is rather up to date and not too infrequently I get
concerned about others and the future. Because ojthis I have
become somewhat less than totally selfish. 2S
Yuan Liangjun's admiration for Lu Xun, is neither covert
nor absolute. His book is intended as a contribution to the
eventual combination of yuan-jiu and xui-xi. At the same time,
it is not meant to reject their imposed identity. We talked about
the differences between the two activities for the present:
Obviously there are aspects oj Lu Xun' s thought which are
instructive Jor everyone. such as his understanding oj the
relationship between history, class and art. However. not all
who can benefit from Lu Xun are able to carry on research
about him. The latter task requires a certain rather high level
oj education, a kind ojcultural background which right now
is lacking among the vast majority ojyoung people in China.
Furthermore. they have been affected by the Gang's distor
tions and are still unable to be critical about literary texts
and about historicalJacts. For myself, there is no question
that I pursue research on Lu Xun because I admire him. This
is why I cannot. will not work on Guo Moro, Jor example.
( 11/5)
Dunng our conversation, Guo's negative example had
cropped up often. Yet, being critical of Guo Moro did not strike
me as the same as being critical of Lu Xun. So I pressed on,
asking Yuan Liangjun if there were things he found not so
admirable about Lu Xun, things which made a positive reading
of his texts more difficult, emulation more problematic.
His answer was surprising in its range, revealing a rather
traditional hope that great thinkers were consistently wise men
as well. Some of the things which Yuan Liangjun mentioned as
not so admirable about Lu Xun are:
his excessively sarcastic barbs (wa-ku. literally bitter
digs) against the Creation Society in the 1928-29 debates;
his tendency to attack personally those whom he op
posed on matters of principles;
his propensity for hasty judgments-for example, the
time he lashed out against a short story by Guo Moro without
having read it, solely on the basis of what others told him about
it;
his ascetism (ku-xin zhu-i. literally pained-heart-ism)
a quality which Yuan Liangjun described as "suicidal" in Lu
Xun's later years-when he kept on smoking even after his
lungs were diseased.
You know what was worse? His Joolishness in smoking the
cheapest, harshest cigarettes. It was well known that he
could afford better ones. In fact. he often offered those to
guests. For himself, however, he kept buying the poorest
quality. And that hastened his death. A most irresponsible
thing Jor a revolutionary so needed by the cause. (11/5)
Yuan Liangjun's criticism of Lu Xun highlights his stance
toward his subject-the stance of an intimate admirer. To
outsiders this might seem too close, too compromising of schol
arly objectivity. Our qualm about the xue-xi attitude, however,
24. Harriet Mills. "Lu Xun Literature and Revolution." p. 217.
25. Yuan Liangjun. op. cit., p. 220.
67
ought to alert us to the requirements for distance in our own
culture-requirements which insure that we find little that is
useful in the things we study. In China, on the other hand, where
utility has been a narrow, doctrinaire requirement over the past
fifteen years, Yuan Liangjun's qualified admiration of Lu Xun
and his insistence upon the historical background of his sub
ject's virtues provide the basis of new, critical research. Both
his methodology and his topic testify to his interest in the
phenomenon of "limitations," ju-xian. This interest is, in tum,
closely related to a conviction that no person, no matter how
great or admirable is truly without shortcomings. "In real life
there is no such thing as pure gold or a perfect man" (jin wuzu
chi, ren wu ren-another classical allusion he quotes mischie
vously, with the inverse meaning in the Lu Xun manner). (11/5)
Such reservations about thorough goodness, perennial wis
dom, unblemished morality are a generational phenomenon in
China today. They distinguish YuanoLiangjun's generation of
middle-aged critics from the more cynical youth and from their
more dogmatic elders. His contentious voice, however, is not
typical among survivors of the Cultural Revolution who are in
their 40s and 50s today. He grasps the opportunity provided by
the official call for "intellectual emancipation" and
democracy in scientific work. " Relatively unscathed during the
Cultural Revolution and untouched by the Anti-Rightist Cam
paign of 1957, Yuan Liangjun is more bold in his scholarship
these days than other intellectuals. He just might be able to open
a door through which others can follow more comfortably. Then
his inscription on the copy of his own book which he kept for
himself will not be merely a personal hope but a social promise
as well: "A ten thousand mile journey begins with the first
step. "
This injunction is also fitting for communications between
Chinese and American scholars. Slowly, patiently we might be
able to repair the thirty-year divide. Toward that end, we will
need common beginnings. Lu Xun might provide such a "first
step. " The time might be ripe for an international conference on
his thought which would enable Westerners to hear about,
discuss and debate issues raised by Yuan Liangjun and other
Chinese scholars. *
Books to Review
The..following review copies have arrived at the office of the
Bulletin. are interested in reading and reviewing one or
more of them. write to Joe Moore. BCAS, P.O. Box 918.
Berthoud, Colorado 80513. This brief list contains only books
that have arrived since the last issue. the first of the two-part
special on China. Please refer to that list as well for other books
currently availablefrom BCAS.
Xue Muqiao: China's Socialist Economy: (Beijing. 1981).
Wang Xizhe: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Remlution: (Hong Kong. 1981).
Kenneth A. Grossberg (ed.): Japan T.oday: (Philadelphia. 1981).
Heri Akhmadi: Breaking the Chains o.fOppression of the Indonesian People:
(Ithaca. 1981).
Skhdev Singh Charak: History and Culture o.f Himalayan States: (Humanities
Press. 1980).
Clausen and Bermingham (eds.): Pluralism. Racism and Public Policy: (Bos
ton. 1981).
A Short Review
Human Adaptation and Population Growth: A Non-Mal
thusian Perspective, by Davis S. Kleinman, Allanheld:
Osmun & Co., 1980. pp. xiii, 281, index.
by Barbara H. Chasin
This study is a thorough refutation of the Malthusian ap
proach to population issues. The book is of great relevance to
Asian scholars since, so often, the problems of that area are
described as resulting from population growth; in addition many
of Dr. Kleinman's examples are drawn from Asian data. The
author, an expert in the field of public health, shows by amass
ing a large amount of empirical evidence that the Malthusian
and neo-Malthusian models are over oversimplifica
tions of what is, in fact, a very complex reahty. In
Kleinman's own p'hrasing the book "is In the tradition
of radical anti-Malthusianism." It is radical because, in
stead of looking at the numbers of people in a given
region, Kleinman examines the underlying economic
A.no class realities that people respond to.
Kleinman's review of population data makes it evident that
people do not mindlessly reproduce themselves until resources
are exhausted and intervenes; rather, humans adapt
their numbers to the circumstances they face at a particular
historical time; as these change so do their population patterns.
In the author's own words:
. . . fertility behavior is adaptive . . . people have children
to enhance their security and their chances for survival, as
well as for personal satisfaction. When children no longer
perform these functions. when populatin pressures restrict
the opportunities for and magnitude of livelihoods. and the
costs of rearing children increase while their anticipated
contribution to family welfare decreases, fertility tends to
diminish.
68
I
t
!
;
The book deals systematically with each ofthe main argu
ments of Malthus and the neo-Malthusians. For example, wars,
seen by Malthus as resulting from population pressure, are
shown by an examination of several examples including
medieval Europe, to be more directly related to the exactions of
the nobility. Relative peace was more likely to be associated
with population growth and a concommitant economic expan
sion. When growth declined there was a tendency for the elite
to increase their demands on the peasantry who in tum rebelled.
Another example, that of China, leads to a similar conclusion.
China had more internal violence when the population was
much smaller than it is now. Kleinman also comments on
Vietnam where the less densely populated provinces were the
ones which had the most insurgency. These coincided with the
areas where commercial economic relationships prevailed and
none of the traditional protections of paternalistic landlords
were available. The National Liberation Front offered a new
model of society that attracted the exploited peasants, small
tradesmen, etc.
Pestilence and famine are also seen by the Malthusians as
the consequence of unbridled population growth. Kleinman is
able to show that disease patterns are far more complex than this
view would have it. Epidemics result from a number of factors
including an increase in cultural contact, which may occur'llS a
result of peaceful trade or of war. In addition, the state of health
of a given group will effect its susceptibility to disease. Health,
of course, is a reflection of levels of nutrition, types of work
performed, etc. Ecological changes will effect disease patterns.
When irrigation canals are built, schistosomiasis becomes more
common. (This is a disease in which a snail-borne fluke bores
into the skin, travels to the liver and other organs, laying eggs
and causing internal bleeding.) Both the development of ag
riculture and urbanization have created conditions which effect
death rates and life expectancies.
Famine too is linked by Kleinman not to numbers but to
social variables, particularly patterns of landholding. Five cases
of famine in the book illustrate this point, three from Asia and
two from Europe: China, India, Bangladesh, seventeenth cen
tury France and mid-nineteenth century Ireland. In China,
famines were "accompanied by the transfer of large acreages
from food to opium production. This was in response to pressure
by ruling war lords who levied taxes geared to the capacity of the
land to produce opium rather than grain. " needless to say, the
landlords did not see to it that their tenants were able to buy food
to compensate for the fact that they were no longer producing a
subsistence for themselves.
In India, the British accepted Malthus' theory and saw
famines as a needed check on population. Bad weather in one
locale was not offset by the English administrators shipping
food from more fortunate areas. If, in any country, peasants'
labor will only enrich their landlords but not change their own
standard of living, there is a disincentive to work harder than is
absolutely necessary. Thus, the production of food is lower than
it might be under other social conditions and in times of great
scarcity there will be that much less to go around.
Kleinman offers evidence that actually fertility rates in the
Third World countries may be falling faster than was the case in
Europe as it became industrialized. Changes in the age of
marriage and increasing use of contraception are responsible for
some of the changes. Land reform is also associated with de
clines in fertility. The patterns according to Kleinman, how
ever, are complex and he does not make facile generalizations.
He does point out, citing among others the work of Mahmood
Mamdani, that" a significant deterrent to lower rates of popula
tion growth are those conflicts and competitions which con
strain families and communities to maintain large forces."
Class relationships, taxation policies, relationships between
men and women, landholding systems, etc. will all effect the
ways in which a couple perceive the need for additional children.
Population growth, Kleinman notes, may be very benefi
cial to a society. He does not share the Malthusian gloom about
our most important resource-ourselves. People are not just
hungry mouths clamoring to be fed. Kleinman makes the very
important point that
. . . large populations may be better able to defend them
selves against the vicissitudes ofclimate and other calamities
precisely because people are available to construct works.
impound water. control floods. They can more readily sup
port trade and transportation networks that if other consid
erations do not intervene would relieve shortages in one area
by importing supplies from other areas.
Labor, if rationally organized, can create resources, not just
devour them. Subsistence itself can increase if there is both an
incentive to do so and a rational analysis of society.
This book is extremely useful both for the logic of its
arguments and for the wealth of data it contains. There is an
abundance of footnotes for those wishing further information. A
separate bibliography would have been of use as well. In addi
tion, it would be interesting to know how Kleinman interprets
the emphasis on overpopUlation. If Malthusianism can be
shown, as he so skillfully does, to be a misleading way to
analyze social problems, why has it become so entrenched, so
well funded, so widely propagated? Is it because ofthe ideologi
cal functions it serves, obscuring the working of imperialism,
and of internal exploitation; making the victims of these things
the alleged source of their own miseries?
In spite of this omission, this book would be a valuable
addition to the library of all Asian scholars. *
Moving?
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Let us know.
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69
A Short Review
by Miriam Lo-Lim
I would like to compare the Trilateral Commission Takes
on World Hunger by Earthwork Publications with a few other
books on food and population that were published at about the
same time. This 53-page book is simply written, and presents a
succinct and critical examination of the Trilateral Commission's
own Food Task Force Report.
The Trilateral Commission, founded in 1973, claimed in
1977 that its objective was to study the fast-growing world
population and incidence of world hunger and malnutrition. The
book under review maintains that the Commission's real motive
is to secure global political stability for the benefit of business
corporations. The book is pertinent because the Trilateral Com
mission's Food Task Force has presented to unwary readers a
persuasive report regarding world hunger. In taking up the Task
Force's Report, the book reveals the politics of the Commission
and of food production and world hunger. As reported by the
Earthwork book, the Trilateral Commission's Food Task Force
proposes the following methods to solve the problem of world
hunger:
a) Slow the growth of food demand by encouraging and
supporting programs to reduce the rate of population
growth.
b) Improve income distribution and food distribution both
among income groups and among different regions within a
given nation, so that the malnourished may have more food.
Substantial changes in income distribution may require
sweeping political and economic reforms which may not be
imminent in many areas. Since many of the poorest people
live in farm areas. increasing farm productivity could have
favorable effects upon the income of many who are mal
nourished.
c) Increase food production. This is a very complex process.
involving both more extensive and intensive use ofland and
water. increasing the availability ofbasic agricultural inputs
(such as fertilizers and pesticides). appropriate agricultural
policies and institutions. and agricultural research. It should
be firmly kept in mind that the yields of cereals and other
crops throughout the world are far from being uniform.
reflecting the uneven distribution of agricultural inputs and
skills.
d) Reduce the present waste in the entire food system. from
production to final consumption. Decreasing these losses
requires substantial improvement of the post-harvest proc
essing. transportation and storage system. and better control
ofpests. (pp. /8-/9)
Let me examine the more pertinent aspects of these proposals,
and in doing so, refer to other books on the subject.
That world population is rapidly increasing is nothing new.
For example, Monckeberg in "Food and World Population:
Future Perspective" in Hauser's World Population and De
velopment still quotes Thomas Malthus extensively (pp. 124
125) and comments thus:
PLANNING FOR INTERNATIONAL AGRICUL
TURE, THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION TAKES
ON WORLD HUNGER by Earthwork Publications
Centre for Rural Studies, 3410 - 19th Street, San
Francisco, CA 94110, May 1979.
FOOD, ENERGY AND SOCIETY by D. & M. Pimen
tal. New York: a Halstad Press Book, John Wiley &
Sons, 1979.
HUNGER FOR JUSTICE, THE POLITICS OF
FOOD AND FAITH by J. A. Nelson. Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1980.
FOOD FIRST, BEYOND THE MYTH OF SCAR
CI'[Y by F. M. Lappe & J. Collins. Boston: Houghton
Mimin Co., 1977.
WORLD POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT by
P. M. Hauser (ed.). Syracuse University Press, 1979.
One hundred and eighty ~ a r s have passed since then.
What has happened during this time? Has what Malthus
predicted come true? At least. until today. we must recognize
that it has not. On the one hand. the population's growth has
exceeded the most pessimistic expectations. From the 800
million inhabitants the world had at that time. population has
increased to four billion. On the other hand. however. food
production during this period has exceeded the growth ofthe
population. Thus. for example. the rate ofthe production of
cereal. which represents 70 percent ofthe calories consumed
by the world. has remained above the growth ofthe popula
tion. allowing an annual improvement of per capita con
sumption of about one percent. This has also meant an
improvement in nutrition. It could be said that the best levels
of nutrition in the whole history of humanity have been
reached.
Malthus' prophecy has not yet come to pass. but the
recent food crisis of /972 once again raised the problem. It is
true that on the average. the nutritional situation has im
proved. but never before have there been so many under
nourished people in the world. Approximately 500 million
individuals are undernourished and two billion are under
fed. The situation is uneven and seems to have deteriorated
during recent decades. Rich countries have increased their
cereal production at a rate of 3 percent per year. and their
population by / percent per year. This has left a surplus of2
percent per year available in cereal supplies. In poor coun
tries the population growth rate has reached 2.5 percent per
year. and cereal production has increased by 3 percent per
year. leaving only one-half of / percent cereal surplus avail
able. A", a consequence. the population of rich countries
have improved the quality and quantity oftheir diet because
their surplus in cereal production has been used to feed
animals and thus increase the availability ofanimal protein.
On the other hand. in the poor countries. the increase in
cereal production has been used directly for human con
sumption. (p. /25)
70
What else has Monckeberg to say about future perspec
tives? "Food production must necessarily be increased at a rate
higher than at present" (p. 128); "water is another resource
fundamental to increasing food production" (p. 130); "the
productivity of land is directly related to the use of fertilizers"
(p. 131); and "the high efficiency level reached by developed
countries in their agricultural production is closely related to the
use of fossil fuel. When food production was based on human
and animal inputs efficiency was very low. "(p. 132) It is not so
much what Monckeberg says as what he fails to say that I react
to. Nowhere are distribution problems addressed except to
quote the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): "present
food availability in the world would be enough, if equitably
distributed, to provide a quantitatively adequate amount offood
for all of its population" (p. 127, emphasis added). Moncke
berg adds just one phrase matter-of-factly: " ... but food is not
evenly distributed in the world today" (p. 127).
That is the crux of the matter, but no explanation for the
historical reasons is provided. Monckeberg is not alone in
failing to provide for an explanation. D. and M. Pimentels in
Food, Energy and Society also return to Malthus, " ... at this
point [given the rapid population increase], it is relevant to
consider seriously Malthus' biological law . . ." and they go on
to quote him". . . In the face of present reality, Malthus may be
proven correct" (pp. 132-133):
One is tempted to ask who is responsible for the shortages in
food supplies. Who is responsible for the growing shortages
llf our major sources of energy? Who is responsible for
environmental pollution? Man cannot escape the answer that
he, himself, has allowed his members to increase up to and
even beyond the capacity of his biological environment to
provide adequate supplies ofneeded resources. (p. 142)
Who are the members of mankind that are responsible?
Why is redistribution not proposed? Who has to lose to do that?
On these questions, Lappe and Collins.in Food First, Beyond
the Myth of Scarcity and Nelson in Hunger for Justice. the
Politics of Food and Faith present some answers. Lappe and
Collins dare question what corporations and/or advanced coun
tries intend: "If you ever weary of pessimistic assessments
about world hunger, just listen to what corporate executives
have to say. Hunger to them is clearly a 'growth industry' "(p.
251). This is exactly what the Earthwork book is saying: hunger
is in the interest of the Trilateral countries. That book argues that
the Trilateral Commission is acutely aware of world hunger and
wants to do something about it so that it will not lead to global
discontent among the poor; as the Commission puts it, 'to
diffuse [sic] social unrest and revolutionary activity" (p. 38).
It is profitable to the Trilateral Commission to do some
thing about world hunger in two ways. Firstly, they would
undertake the green revolution 'using high-yielding varieties of
seeds and the required inputs of chemical fertilizers, water and
pesticides and other essential social reforms geared to the mech
anization of farming; it is good business for the producers of
such inputs, the rich, industrialized, members of the Trilateral
Commission. Secondly, by thus tying the recipient countries to
the capital-intensive programs, these countries become further
dependent and, therefore, more manipulable by the Trilateral
members, who are the ones with both the technology and the
capital. It is also important to note here that in so doing, the
Trilateral Commission is promoting the growth of a consuming
class that will inevitably strive to imitate the lifestyle of the
industrialized nations. The net effect of the scheme is beneficial
to the Trilateral members (pp. 12, 22-23, 27-29, 31-34). The
Trilateral Commission picks on Asia to apply the green revolu
tion because Asia is a fertile potential market for agricultural
supplies from Trilateral countries." (p. 22) And, as Earth
work's publication points out, the Trilateral Commission's
Food Task Force reports thus: 'the income-creating effects that
[an] increase in food production will have on the peasants of
Asia ... should, in turn, contribute to the broadening of mar
kets for industrial products in Asia." (p. 23) What they want is
what Lappe and Collins call "a global farm for the global
supermarket." (pp. 252-254) I strongly advise readers to con
sult Lappe and Collins' book to seek an answer to the role played
by agribusiness on the maintenance of world hunger.
- Nelson, in Hunger for Justice: the Politics of Food and
Faith (1980), (chapter 2), also analyzes the economics of
hunger for us. Nelson's analysis of the colonial and post
colonial relationships of dependency between the colonizers
and the colonies and ex-colonies reveals the role played by
colonization and aid in world hunger.
The Food Task Force realizes that the fundamental causes
of world hunger and malnourishment are unequal distribution of
available food and the low incomes of the poor which therefore
prevents them from purchasing food. The basic question to the
Task Force, however, is not how one can change these condi
tions. It merely acknowledges. that "sweeping political and
economic reforms . . . may not be imminent in many areas"
and "since many of the poorest people live in farm areas,
increasing farm productivity could have favorable effects upon
the income of many who are malnourished." I wish to make two
points. First, it is not in the interest of the Trilateral Commission
to see sweeping political and economic reforms; as the book
clearly states, its goal for its members is to "increase their
ownership and control of the world's productive resources and
to maximize their profits from these resources" (p. 21). Sec
ond, there is doubt as to whether the poorest people live in farm
areas. Rural-urban migration, coupled with chronic urban prob
lems, have perhaps created an urban class that may be as poor or
poorer than the rural poor, so that an improvement of farm
productivity will not necessarily overcome the problems of
poverty and hunger, be they in rural or urban areas.
Few would quarrel with the idea of population control.
India and China, for example, know well that if you have a pie
and you divide it equally among ten people, each obtains one
tenth of the pie. The question, ofcourse, is who decides how the
pie is to be divided. The problem is not the large number of
people we have to feed. It is simply who gets to eat. The
Trilateral Commission wants to do business, to accumulate
wealth, to treat food as any other commodity in the market
place, and to make it available only to those who have the
purchasing power. As the books reviewed here consistently
indicate, hunger is a good business. Methods proposed by
international agencies such as the Trilateral Commission are
designed to perpetuate hunger, not to eradicate it. There is no
wonder, under these circumstances, that efforts such as the
Green Revolution have not and will not improve the standard of
* living of the poor.
71
Peggy Duff
The members of the Editorial Board of the
Bulletin wish to exr.ress their deep sadness at the
death of Peggy Duf . Peggy died in 1981 from
cancer. Peggy was a good friend to the Bulletin and a
close personal friend and trusted adviser to many
members of the Editorial Board and to an even wider
circle of contributors and collaborators connected with
the Bulletin. She could always be counted on for
and advice which was informed, honest and principleo
-and made even more valuable by her combination of
vast historical experience and sound personal judge
ment. As Mary Ka1dor wrote in the (London) Guardian;
"beneath her brusque and sometimes difficult manner
which all who worked with her knew, she was a pas
sionate, idealistic and realistic person--extremelx
perceptive about both politics and people.'
We would like to express our immense ad
miration for two of Peggy's many qualities: first, her
unflagging commitment, up to her last breath-
and nol just in words, but 10 deeds, in real hard work
and personal sacrifice--to what she deemed most impor
tant in life; and, second, her great personal courage in
the face of sickness, pain and death. Especially in a
time of disillusion and disorientation, lier qualities
shone bright. Peggy will be not only missed, but also
long remembered. '
The Bulletin wishes to place on record its
recognition of Peggy Duffs outstanding contribution
to peace and social change and social justice through
out the world, and partIcularly in East Asia. Pe..Kgy
travelled indefatigably to Japan and Vietnam. Few
people did so mucn for so many important causes of our
time - an especially the two great issues of the epoch:
preventing nuclear war and supporting the Viet
namese Revolution. Not only we, but even more so the
peoples of Asia, who often are prevented from making
theIr voices heard internationally, owe her an enor
mous debt.
Jon Halliday, for the Editors
and the Editorial Board
"Get United and Look Ahead." (photo by P. Nolan)
72

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