politica agrara china com

Communist China's Agrarian Policy, 1954-56Author(s): S. B. ThomasSource: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1956), pp. 141-160Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British ColumbiaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2752603 .Accessed: 07/12/2014 16:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Pacific Affairs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.26.220.62 on Sun, 7 Dec 2014 16:03:03 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ubchttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2752603?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Communist China's Agrarian Policy, 1954-56

S. B. Thomas

C HINA HAS NOW embarked on a vast new program of agricultural collectivization which will almost certainly entrench Communist rule in the

countryside much more firmly than ever before. The Communist leaders in China have always laid great emphasis on agriculture in their drive to con- solidate their power and are now once again engaged in an immense reorganization of the countryside. It is still too early to predict the consequences of this ambitious social experiment which may have far-reaching significance for other Asian nations. It may be useful, however, first to trace the main stages of Communist agrarian policy which led up to the collectivization plan and then to examine the reports on progress (and difficulties) and the specific plans as announced by the Government and Party leaders. Any such survey of course, suffers from the inevitable limitations of Communist official source materials not subject to checking by independent observers.

Chinese Communist land policy in the I950-53 period, during which the Agrarian Reform Law of June i95o represented basic policy, coincided with the initial phase of Communist political and economic consolidation on the Chinese mainland, and was itself an important aspect of the consolidation process. The main objectives of the land redistribution program carried out during those years were the elimination of the landed gentry in the countryside and the expansion and strengthening of Communist political organization among the peasantry, thus laying the foundations for the eventual socialist reorganization of agriculture.

The beginning of a new phase was indicated in the so-called "general line of the state" which became official policy during 1953. China was now declared to have entered a "period of transition", during which there would be a steady transformation of the Chinese economy into a completely socialist pattern. Mao Tse-tung defined the main tasks of the state during this transitional period as "the gradual realization, over a considerably long period of time, of the socialist industrialization of the state, and the gradual realization of the socialist transformation by the state of agriculture, handicrafts, and private industry and commerce."' The new period, therefore, was to be

1 Yu Kan-chih, Explaining the General Line of the State During the Period of Transition, Peking: Shih Shih Shou Ts'e (Current Events), December lo, 5953. English text in Current Background, Hong Kong: American Consulate General, May 5, 1954.

141


http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Pacific A/airs marked by intense efforts at industrialization along socialist lines, at the gradual elimination of private business enterprise, and at the collectivization of agriculture. It was officially explained that this transitional period would be a "lengthy one," because of China's industrial backwardness, the need to move slowly in the "reform" of the still politically accepted "bourgeois class," and the overwhelming predominance of individually-owned farms throughout the country.

The first National People's Congress met in Peking in September 1954, at which time it formally approved the first Five Year Plan (then in its second year of operation), and also unanimously adopted the new Constitution of the People's Republic of China. Declaring that "the necessary conditions have been created for planned economic construction and gradual transition to Socialism," the constitution laid down as the "fundamental task of the state" for the period ahead the "step by step" socialist industrialization of the country and "socialist transformation" of agriculture, handicrafts and "capitalist industry and commerce." In regard to agriculture, the constitution stated that while the state "protects peasant ownership of land and other means of production according to law," it also "guides and helps individual peasants to increase production and encourages them to organize. . . cooperatives volun- tarily." And in the most significant change in agricultural policy, it declared that "the policy of the state towards rich peasant economy is to restrict and gradually eliminate it."2

The Agrarian Reform Law of i950 had spoken of the preservation of the rich peasant economy, but now a new phase had begun. The "struggle" against the landlord class, now virtually completed, was to be replaced by the longer-range campaign for collectivization, in the course of which the main obstacle would be the "capitalist mentality" of the rich peasant who stood to gain least by such a reorganization of agriculture and could thus be expected to oppose it most vigorously. The new policy of hostility towards the rich peasants (the "kulaks" in Soviet terminology) was officially elaborated in a June 1954 report by the party's rural work director, Teng Tzu-hui:

"Why must we restrict and finally wipe out the exploitation activities of the rich peasants? We must first understand that rich peasants are exploiters. They are the rural bourgeoisie. Although they also labor (in this respect they differ from landlords and capitalists) they did not become rich peasants solely on the strength of their own labor but from their exploitation activities as well, and in this way they are similar to capitalists. Rich peasants carry out exploitation in three ways: by issuing loans. at usurious rates of interest, by engaging in commercial speculation, and by exploiting hired labor. The development of mutual aid and cooperation will certainly narrow day by day and finally wipe out the possibilities of

2 Constitution of the People's Republic of China. Official English text distributed by New China News Agency (Peking), October 5, 1954.

142



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, i954-56 exploitation. Therefore rich peasant economy is in complete conflict with the development of mutual aid and cooperation and with Socialism. They are in opposite camps and cannot be brought to harmony. It is inevitable that the rich peasants will oppose and seek to destroy (from inside or outside) the mutual-aid and cooperative movement. . . ."3

According to the official Peking People's Daily, China's first Five Year Plan will "only lay the primary foundations" for socialist industrialization; approximately three Five Year Plans will be required to realize the objectives of the "transitional period". As in the Soviet Union, the primary emphasis in the Plan is on the development of heavy industry, and in connection with agriculture, this emphasis is considered essential in order to provide the farms with machinery and chemical fertilizer-vital technical requirements for successful collectivization. The "socialist transformation of agriculture," the People's Daily has declared, "is one of the most important elements in the plan," which calls for over one-third of China's iI0 million peasant households to join agricultural producer cooperatives by I957.4 It is clear, therefore, that agrarian policy remains one of the key elements in Chinese Communist economic and political planning for the future, and is intimately related to the Party's efforts to industrialize China.

The goals for China's agricultural reorganization, as set in the plan for 1957 were: one-third of China's peasant households to be in agricultural producers' cooperatives (a "lower form" of collective), with full collectivization to be achieved in approximately fifteen years.

The Chinese Communist determination to collectivize agriculture is moti- vated fundamentally by the same factors which spurred the Russian collectivization campaign in the early I930's. In the first place, collective farming will eventually allow the large-scale introduction of modem agricultural machinery and chemical fertilizer, as well as the use of "factory" methods of production. It thus is believed to hold the promise of greater productivity and efficiency (greater yields per acre and per man hour of labor). This is vital in a period of rapid industrialization if agriculture is to keep pace with the increasing need for such industrial crops as cotton, and for foodstuffs to feed the rapidly- growing urban industrial population. At the same time, it will allow a siphoning off of labor from the farms to newly-created factories. Secondly, collective organization facilitates the introduction of new farming techniques and processes which the individual farmer working his own plot of land might resist or ignore. Thirdly, the Communists hope that collectivization will eliminate the individualistic, "capitalistic" mentality of the peasants, in

3Teng Tzu-hui, Rural Work During the Transition Period. July I5, I954, address to the Rural Work Conference of the Central Committee of the New Democratic Youth League. English text in Current Background, op. cit., November 22, 1954.

4 Peking jen Min lih Pao (People' Daily), July 8, i955.

143



Pacific Affairs other words, their attachment to private property and private enterprise which poses a constant threat to the overall consolidation of the Communist new order.

In the fourth place, collective farming gives the Communists much greater political and organizational control over the peasantry, since the leadership in the newly-formed cooperatives and collectives will fall to trusted cadres who are either party members or enthusiastic supporters of the party program. At the same time it will lead to elimination of the "rich peasants" (regarded as potentially the greatest remaining threat to the Communist order in the countryside) while transferring more power to the hands of the "poor peasants" who have most to gain by the new develop- ments on the land. And lastly, collective organization will give the state much greater control over the production, marketing and consumption of agricultural products-so vital to its planned control and direction of the Chinese economy. Such control also guarantees the accumulation of grain in the hands of the state, thus ensuring the government's capital investment program. Teng Tzu-hui therefore declared in I954:

"Industrial development demands an uninterrupted and abundant supply of foodstuffs and industrial crops; in fact, demands a relative growth of agricultural production.... In the first year of the Five-Year Plan it became clear that the development of the productive forces of the small-peasant economy was lagging behind the demands of Socialist industry; it became clear that the small-proprietor individual economy had the inherent weakness of inability to satisfy the demands of the rapid expansion of the industrial areas, the steady growth of the urban population, the constant rise in the general standard of living, and the demand for an ever-larger quantity of consumer goods; it became clear that there was a con- tradiction between state planning and the peasant's spontaneous tendency towards capitalism, a tendency arising from the fact that the peasant is a private owner of means of production and seller of grain and raw materials; it became clear that this new tendency toward class disintegration in the countryside was daily becoming a real menace to the economic position of the liberated poor peasants after land reform . . . a small peasant economy, if allowed to develop along its natural course, ... will undermine the foundation of Socialist construction and our system of people's democracy."5

In a further report, Teng, discussing the element of state control, said: ... individual peasants cannot be directly controlled by the State plan. They formulate their production plans according to their own requirements and particularities; they cannot formulate plans according to the requirements of the State."6 An important aspect of collective and cooperative farming, he

5 Teng Tzu-hui, "China's Agriculture on Way of Socialist Transformation" in For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy, Bucharest, September IO, I954.

6 Teng Tzu-hui, Rural Work, op. cit.

144



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, i954-56 therefore concluded, is that the peasants "can be brought under the control of the State plan."

The Chinese program, however, involves a step-by-step approach spread over a period of at least fifteen years, in contrast to the rapid, "one-step" Russian collectivization. Teng Tzu-hui declared that while China "agrees entirely" with the Soviet Union on the necessity of collectivization, "we differ from her in regard to the steps and measures for reform."7 In Russia, he continued, collectivization and mechanization took place simultaneously in the i930-32 period. China, however, does not have the means to do this at present. For one thing, China's industry is too backward: "we can neither manufacture tractors in large quantities ourselves nor produce a sufficient quantity of petrol." Besides, the Chinese peasant has "a relatively deep" feeling for private land ownership, and the Communist party possesses insufficient cadres to make rapid changes in this respect. Therefore, China's agricultural reorganization must proceed in two stages, each of these in turn being subdivided into a number of separate steps. The first stage would be a "'social revolution" during which the peasants will be collectivized; the second stage would involve a "technological revolution," during which large-scale mechanization would be carried out.8

According to Teng, the collectivization process, after having passed through the initial stage of formation of mutual-aid teams, has now entered the next phase: the formation of "semi-socialist" agricultural producers' cooperatives which, "after a certain number of years . . . will be transformed in a measured and discriminating manner, into Socialist cooperative forms, that is, collective farms."9 As for mechanization, until large-scale manufacture of tractors is possible, there will be extensive use of animal-drawn "double-wheel, twin-blade rakes," and other "new style" farm implements. Later on, as tractors, fuel, and chemical fertilizer become available in large quantities, "we can carry out large-scale mechanization."

The first stage, that of collectivization, Teng declared, could "generally be completed" during the first two Five Year Plans, while "relatively large- scale" mechanization "may be realized" in the course of the third Five' Year Plan.1" It is clear that no hard and fast timetable for these changes was set up, and that the tempo of change will be determined by the practical con- siderations involved-technical, economic and political. As will be seen, an acceleration in timetable occurred beginning in mid-i955.

The initial phase of cooperative organization, the formation of mutual-aid teams, was originally begun by the Communists in their wartime bases dur-

7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid.

I45



Pacific Affairs ing the Sino-Japanese war. They were organized then principally as a means of spurring production in those lean years of war, blockade, and manpower shortage. After a temporary lull during the early years of the Communist land redistribution program, the mutual-aid movement was again intensified. It involved principally the mutual exchange of labor, work animals and the use of farm implements among neighboring peasant families. Many of these teams were organized only on a temporary seasonal basis, but others on a "higher level", were permanently organized. By I95I there were reported to be some 4,300,000 mutual-aid teams of various kinds in the country, over twenty percent of China's peasant households being members of such units.1"

Though, according to Communist sources, some increase in production was achieved through the mutual-aid program, progress was limited because, though labor power was pooled, each member still continued to operate as a separate component and "to carry on his business independently." 12 Conse- quently, utilizing certain experiences in the old "liberated areas," the Com- munist party inaugurated, during the first half of i95i, a number of experimental agricultural producer cooperatives in specially selected areas. During that year, i29 of these cooperatives were set up.

The major characteristics of this new organizational form are the following: (i) Each member contributes his land to the cooperative as a "share," and receives annual "dividend" payments on it out of the profits of the cooperative. Thus the peasant at least theoretically retains his right of private ownership, since his land represents a private "investment" in the cooperative. In addition to remuneration for his labor, therefore, he also receives a return on his land, the amount depending on the quantity and quality of his land "share." (2) Farm animals and implements may be pri- vately-owned (though communally-used) during the early stages of a cooperative, but after a limited period, these must be purchased by the cooperative, and become collective property. (3) A fixed proportion of the annual yield of the cooperative is to be set aside each year for "communal savings" and "welfare funds." The former fund is to be used to purchase additional equipment for the cooperative, while the latter is to be used for relief of poverty-stricken or disabled members.

According to Teng Tzu-hui, the one non-Socialist element in this type of cooperative is the fact that land remains private property. However, he added, "after a certain number of years, when remuneration for land is abolished and when the land is brought under collective ownership, then the cooperative can be called entirely Socialist in nature." 13

11 Cheng Lin-chuang, "The Development of Agricultural Producer Cooperatives and the Mutual-Aid Movement in China," Hsin Chien She (New Construction), no. 4, April 3, I955.

12 Ibid. 13 Teng Tzu-hui, Rural Work, op. cit.

146



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, 1954-56 It is reported that these agricultural producer cooperatives have resulted

in increased production. Teng claimed, for example, that within two to three years of the formation of one of these cooperatives, production can be increased by 30-50 percent, the reasons given being as follows: (i) with unified operation of the land, crops can be planted where soil conditions are best; (2) with farm animals, implements, and other capital goods under unified control, all such equipment and animals can be put to full time use; (3) labor power can be more fully and efficiently utilized, through a division of labor in line with the skills and interests of the individual farmer; (4) technical and scientific farming innovations can be more easily carried out than under conditions of individual farming.

Establishment of the agricultural producer cooperatives constitutes an easier initial step for the peasants to take than full collective farming would be. As such, it is an important stage in the "gradual reform of the system of peasant private ownership." The Chinese peasants "have harbored the conception of private ownership of land for a long, long time," Teng stated, and under the agricultural producer cooperatives this concept of private ownership is still respected to some extent. However, "through these cooperatives the peasants' conception of private ownership can be gradually changed [so that] when the necessary conditions are at hand, it will be easy to abolish remuneration for land."14

Perhaps the most important advantage to the Government of these cooperatives is the one, already mentioned, that under this type of agricultural organization, the peasant can for the first time "be brought under the control of the State plan." 15

The agricultural producer cooperatives are only a step in the direction of full collectivization. This, government leaders have declared, will take place when remuneration for land is abolished, and the individual "shares," of land become the collective property of the cooperative as a whole, each peasant receiving remuneration only in terms of his labor.

Such "higher level" cooperatives were begun on an experimental basis in I953, with some twenty such collectives established in that year, but thus far, these "higher level" cooperatives, representing the "next higher stage" in agricultural reorganization, are not undergoing rapid expansion. For the time being, primary attention is being given to organizing the "lower level" agricultural producer cooperatives throughout the country. However, a "case study" of the transformation of a model agricultural producer cooperative to a full collective was given by the official New China News Agency in January I955. This cooperative, the Han En cooperative, located in Kirin

14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

I47



Pacific Affairs province in Manchuria (where the reorganization of agriculture is further advanced than anywhere else in the country), had started as a mutual-aid team in i947. After three years, it was transformed into an agricultural producer cooperative. During its subsequent five-year history as a cooperative, its membership increased from a total of twenty-five families to I45 households. Through increased production, substantial reserve funds were built up. At the same time, remuneration for land to the individual members was gradually reduced, from i.2 piculs of grain per hectare of first-grade land in i952, to i picul in I953, and to o.8 piculs in I954. By the latter date, remuneration for land accounted for only 4.6 percent of the total amount of grain distributed to the members. The "members' labor income is now far in excess of remuneration for land, thus creating conditions for elimination of remuneration for land, and basic introduction of remuneration according to labor."'6 The decision to form the "higher type" of cooperative, it was reported, was made by the members after "socialist education" had been carried out among them.

This presumably will be the method by which the agricultural producer cooperatives will gradually be transformed into collective farms. The model nature of the Han En Collective, however, was emphasized by the fact that it was organized by a "model peasant" who visited the Soviet Union in i952; and this new collective was officially declared to be "still in the nature of an experiment for the country." 17

A further report on the Han En Collective indicated that problems in shifting to full collective organization were encountered even in this "model cooperative." Those members with more land than others, as well as those with "weaker labor power," at first voiced opposition to abandoning remuneration for land, fearing this would lower their income. It was because of this factor that the gradual reduction in remuneration for land was adopted. Basically the shift was made possible by important increases in production over the years, an increase ascribed to reclamation of waste land, soil improvement, and the introduction of new-type animal-drawn plows.

With the increase in production, the percentage of income from labor power became much greater than the fixed amouixt for land shares, thus making it easier to shift to full collectivization. Members had also originally been paid interest of 20 percent per year on their investments of carts and horses, but this rate was also cut to I3 percent, and was now to be abolished altogether.

A significant indication of the present unmechanized and backward state of Chinese agriculture appeared from the picture of the assets of this model collective: with I45 households, the collective owned 260 hectares (some 642

16New China News Agency (Changchun), January i8, i955. 17 Ibid.

I48



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, i954-56 acres) of land, fruit trees, and a fish pond. It had 55 draft horses and cattle, 14 ordinary carts, and 4 rubber-wheeled carts, in addition to one and one- half sets of new-type farming tools.18

A number of model state farms, employing modern machinery, have been established in certain areas as prototypes for future farming development. The most notable of these is the Sino-Soviet Friendship State Farm, built with Soviet assistance and equipped with large quantities of modern machinery and other equipment donated by the Russians. This farm is scheduled, during the current Five-Year Plan, to reclaim 25,000 hectares of waste land. According to Li Fu-chun, the director of China's economic plan, this farm "will play an important role as a pilot plant and pioneering venture in the mechanization of agriculture in China."'9

The agricultural producer cooperative movement is at present much further advanced in North and Northeast China than elsewhere in the country. These are areas mainly of wheat and cotton farming, with much larger plots of land than in the rice growing south. Most of the 580,ooo producer cooperatives established by February 1955 were reported to be in North and Northeast China, ioo,ooo of them in Hopei province (a leading cotton area) embracing 34 percent of the people there. While for China as a whole, some thirteen percent of the peasant households were in producer cooperatives at that time, the total for the North and Northeast was over thirty percent.20 It should be noted that this area is not only much more con- ducive to cooperative organization because of the larger size of holdings, the type of crops grown and the greater practicability of pooling labor and equipment, but is also the area of greatest Communist party consolidation in the country.

As for successes in increasing production, the Communists have officially claimed that despite severe drought and flood conditions in 1953 and I954, agricultural output in i953 was some io percent above highest prewar production, while the I954 figure (some I70 million tons of food-grains) was about 3 percent over I953 output.2' However, planned targets for both these years were not reached, and Teng Tzu-hui emphasized that "although agricultural production has increased somewhat year by year, the rate of increase has fallen far behind that of industrial development."22 According to a March 1955 report of the Minister of Agriculture, "not only cotton and

18 Ibid. 19 Li Fu-chun (Chairman of the State Planning Commission), Report on the First Five Year

Plan for the Development of National Economy, (Delivered to the National People's Congress, July 5 and 6, I955.) English text in Current Bac4ground, July 12, 1955, p. 17.

20 Liao Lu-yen (Minister of Agriculture), Report on Basic Conditions of Agricultural Pro- duction in i954 and Present Measures for Increasing Agricultural Production. New China News Agency (Peking), March 9, I955.

21 Peking fen Min Jih Pao (People's Daily), December IO, 1954. 22 Teng Tzu-hui, Rural Wor4, op. cit.

'49



Pacific Affairs grain, but oil materials, silk, tea, tobacco, hemp, pastoral products and aquatic products also generally fall short of demand."23

Moreover, the State Council (the "cabinet" of the Peking Government), in a March 3, i955, decree on spring plowing and production, noted that "during the first two years of the Five Year Plan, although agricultural production-mainly grain output-has increased, the original production- increase plans of the state have not been fulfilled owing to serious natural calamities." This failure to reach planned goals was particularly serious since "demand for marketable grain has increased with the development of factories and mines and the growth of urban population."24

However, while "natural calamities" received much of the blame for this failure, Minister of Agriculture Liao Lu-yen, in his report to the State Council at that same time, also listed a number of other contributory factors. The introduction of new farm implements, technical guidance and training, financial assistance-all these lag behind the rate at which producer cooperatives are being organized. Overall planning for developing production is lacking, and current economic needs are not adequately understood by the cadres. Many of the latter, he complained, either "commit commandism [a dictatorial approach to the peasants] or let things take their own course in enforcing the measures for production increase."25

Many difficulties, he continued, remain to be surmounted in fulfilling the remainder of the current Five Year Plan. Well over 8o percent of China's peasants "still perform production in a scattered manner and on a small scale, and mutual-aid teams . . . still operate in a scattered manner." Such conditions, he added, are "incompatible with the demand for big-scale increase of agricultural production." Also, current state measures for formation of producer cooperatives and for the planned purchase and marketing of grain go counter to "the spontaneous capitalist tendency of small producers and to the force of habit." As a result, Liao Lu-yen acknowledged, "a state of tension is sometimes created in the rural areas" which hurts production. "It is inevitable," he went on, "with the speedy development of cooperatives, . . . inadequate experience, [and] insufficient preparations, . . . that in the practical work at the lower level the principle of voluntariness and mutual benefit is not fully observed in some cases, or the interests of the members are not well taken care of. . . ." In addition, "some peasants still have misgivings and misunderstandings" with regard to cooperatives. Because of the great rapidity with which cooperatives have been formed since late 1954, many have been inadequately "consolidated." This fact, plus the continued activity of "some

23 Liao Lu-yen, op. cit. 24 State Council Decision on Spring Plowing and Production. (Adopted March 3, 1955.) New

China News Agency (Peking), March 9, I955. 25 Liao Lu-yen, op. cit.

I50



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, i954-56 landlords, rich peasants and hidden counter-revolutionary elements" resulted in the "production morale" of some of the peasants becoming "unsteady."

A further point listed by Liao to explain China's agricultural shortcom- ings was the country's inadequate technical base. The "shortage of commercial fertilizer is a problem which will remain unsolved for a long period of time." Also, China "is still unable to turn out farming machines, nor is she able to import [them] in large quantities. Renovation of farming tech- nique also lags behind, and [the number] of technical cadres is insufficient." At the same time, China's financial resources are limited and, with the present concentration on heavy industry, "state investments in agriculture do not run to large amounts in the first Five Year Plan." This shortage of available capital drastically limits the immediate possibilities of reclaiming waste land on a large scale, as a means of expanding agricultural production.

Finally, Liao noted that agricultural production suffered each year as a result of flood, drought, storm, and insect pests. This, too, is "a problem which cannot be completely solved in the short span of a few years." The loss of grain due to such calamities during I954, he estimated at over i6 million tons.26

The Peking People's Daily, in a February i955 editorial, elaborated on some of these points. The major problem now facing the agricultural producer cooperatives program, it declared, "is not increase in numbers but improvement in quality." If "we want the peasant to accept new ideas of socialism and get rid of the old ideas of private ownership, we should under no circumstances resort to coercion and should not simply have recourse to general political agitation; the main thing to be done is to attract the peasants by clear facts showing the superiority of cooperative economy over individual farming."27 Communist party workers, the editorial continued, must take responsibility for the "consolidation" of cooperatives on a systematic and continuous basis. This is true for both political and economic aspects of the work. First of all, the cooperatives must be kept "pure" in membership, i.e., such "class enemies" as landlords and rich peasants must be kept out, and where it is found that such groups have taken over leadership of a cooperative, it must be disbanded and "replaced by a cooperative led by the Com- munist Party and organized by the laboring peasants."28

This point of party guidance and control of the newly-organized cooperatives was stressed in another People's Daily editorial. It declared that the rapid expansion of cooperatives had been achieved because the party had "assigned hosts of the best Party cadres to agricultural producer cooperatives to direct and run the cooperatives personally." The editorial then warned,

26 Ibid. 27 Peking len Min Zih Pao, February 28, 1955. 28 Ibid.

'5'



Pacific Affairs "(if the cooperatives) are directed and run by our Party cadres, the peasants can be guided to embark upon the path of socialism; if they are not directed and run by our Party cadres but are run by rich peasants and persons holding serious capitalist ideas, then there is the possibility that some peasants will be tempted to advance to capitalism."29 It emphasized that cooperative organization is not enough; there must also be party leadership, or the cooperative will develop in the wrong direction. Thus, the development of local party organizations must proceed hand-in-hand with the expansion of cooperatives.

On the point of cooperative membership, the Chinese Communists are stressing their current "class policy". This policy, it is declared, is to rely on the "poor peasants" (including those "middle peasants" who were "poor peasants" before the land redistribution program), and "firmly to unite with the middle peasants" in forming cooperatives. In doing this, the "rich peasant economy" will be gradually restricted and finally eliminated.

However, according to the People's Daily, some party cadres look upon the poor peasants as "lazy bones and loafers" and thus tend to ignore them in forming cooperatives. This is wrong, the newspaper declared, since first of all, the poor peasants and "new middle peasants" constitute 50-70 percent of the rural population. Also, they are the "mainstay of the Party and the working class in the rural districts" and "are the force actively supporting Socialism." Only they are immune to the capitalist instincts among the peasantry. Though they may be economically weak and perhaps inefficient, they at the same time stand to gain most by cooperative organization, and it is thus politically vital to place chief reliance upon them. Therefore, all rural organizations-party, government, and also the agricultural cooperatives-"should be properly adjusted by placing poor peasants in the leading posts and establishing the leading superiority of poor peasants in all organizations."30 Thus, in line with the trend to collectivization, Communist class policy in the countryside continues to veer steadily leftward.

While acknowledging the various problems and difficulties listed above, Party leaders naturally also stress the progress thus far made in Chinese agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture, in his March i955 report, for example, listed such technical progress as the introduction of new farming techniques, new implements, improved seeds, and the expansion of technical stations and the number of trained technicians for rural areas. A sign of the general progress being made, he held, was the increased output of I954, which was achieved "under very unfavorable natural conditions." He then went on to list the factors which favor the successful completion of China's agricultural plans for the future.

29 Ibid., JanuarY 30, 1955. 0o Ibid.

I52



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, 1954-56 First, he pointed to the expansion of the cooperative and mutual-aid move-

ment, which, he claimed, had resulted in a I5 to 20 percent increase in output in such areas. Additional increases in yields could be achieved through further technical innovations, including more irrigation work. At the same time, better use should be made of existing irrigation and natural fertilizer facili- ties, crops which are best suited to certain areas should be introduced there, and reclamation work carried out wherever practicable.

In line with this last point, the Communists are now beginning to carry out a large-scale resettlement of peasants from areas of excessive population in such provinces as Shantung, to new regions in the Northeast and Inner Mongolia. A May I955 dispatch, for example, spoke of i2,000 peasant families leaving Shantung province since April to settle in the provinces of Kirin and Heilungkiang (the less populated provinces of Manchuria), and Inner Mon- golia. It was explained that the resettlement (at government expense) was undertaken to open up new tracts of land in those regions, thus increasing overall food production, and at the same time helping to solve the problems of Shantung, "where people are crowded into areas where there is not enough land for all.""1 Thus it would appear that one of the age-old factors under- lying Chinese rural poverty, the pressure of population on available land resources in the North China plains and in the central and southern river valleys, is still a problem under the Communist regime.

In his March i955 report, the Minister of Agriculture indicated that no sweeping technical innovations to increase agricultural production could be introduced in the immediate future. Instead, he stressed the more practical policy of making better use of what is available. For example, while large scale irrigation projects could not generally be undertaken at present, a large number of small irrigation works could be built by the peasants themselves in various localities where needed. "If the projects are undertaken by the people with government aid, the State does not have to spend much, but the results will be great." Similarly, modernization and improvement of existing-type implements, rather than large-scale introduction of new farming machines will be the order of the day during the first and second Five Year Plans. At the same time, however, some i,ooo,ooo to i,8oo,ooo new animal- drawn implements are to be distributed by I957. Also, since draft animals will continue to be the prime source of power on the farms for years to come, efforts will be made to increase their number. Since chemical fertilizer will also be in short supply for the foreseeable future, stable manure and night soil must be "fully utilized." As a final step, water and soil conservation must be practiced energetically by the peasants, and to aid them in this, the estab-

31 Tsinan Ta Chung lih Pao, May 2i, i955.

I53



Pacific Afjairs lishment of an agricultural technical station in every district is scheduled for 1957.32

Here we see the characteristic policy of the Chinese Communist leaders: realistic adjustment to circumstances and maximum use of the meager resources available. Recognizing that Chinese agriculture will continue to be in a pre-technical stage of development for some time to come, they are mapping out a program which, through the application of better techniques and a more rational use of available resources, may bring about substantial production increases with a minimum investment of capital. Since they acknowledge that very little capital is presently available for agriculture, this is the only realistic path open to them. That it presents a difficult task is admitted by the Communists themselves.

The overall goals China set both for agricultural production and agricultural reorganization, for the remainder of the first Five Year Plan, were outlined in great detail in the course of an important report delivered by Li Fu-chun, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, to a July I955 session of the National People's Congress in Peking.33 In the course of this plan (I953-57), "the gross value of output of agriculture and subsidiary rural production" is to increase 23.33 percent, or 4.3 percent annually. He listed the following production targets for 1957: i92.8 million tons of grain (a 17.6 percent increase over 1952); i,635,000 tons of cotton (a I9.7 percent increase over 1952); tobacco, 390,000 tons (a 76.6 percent rise over 1952); sugar cane, 13.15 million tons (an 85.I percent increase over 1952); and oil-bearing crops, an increase of 37.8 over I952 in terms of sown acreage.34 According to Li, China's prewar high (reached in i936) was a production of I50 million tons of grain, an amount that dwindled to ii3 million tons in i949, the first year of the Communist take-over.

Agricultural development is vital to the success of the first Five Year Plan, Li declared, for the following reasons: it supplies the nation's food and vital industrial raw materials, and exports of agricultural goods will supply the "bulk" of the foreign exchange needed to import industrial equipment. "Without the appropriate development of agriculture, our industrialization cannot be realized."35 Since planned targets for agriculture were not achieved during I953 and i954, he warned that the task for the remaining three years of the plan will be correspondingly heavier.

Among specific measures for increasing production, Li Fu-chun listed the following: (i) The reclamation of arable wasteland. The plan set a "minimum

32 Liao Lu-yen, op. cit. 33 Li Fu-chun, op. cit. 34 Ibid., p. I9. 35Ibid., p. 3I.

'54



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, i954-56 target" for expansion of cultivated acreage of 2,578,ooo hectares. Most of the reclamation work will be done by state farms which will be established in areas where there are large tracts of wasteland. The employment of machinery (mostly on such state farms) and the resettlement of population (discussed above) are other means of achieving this expansion. The state will also undertake to complete the survey of some 6.6 million hectares of wasteland in preparation for "the large-scale land reclamation envisaged in the Second Five Year Plan."36

(2) The construction of water conservancy projects, both for purposes of extending irrigated acreage and to prevent floods.

(3) Land improvement measures, such as changing alkaline and sandy soil into fertile fields, irrigating arid areas, terracing sloping fields, etc. These projects will have to be of a limited nature, because of the shortage of capital resources already noted.

(4) The planting of such high-yield crops as rice, corn and potatoes, will be expanded. According to Li Fu-chun, the yield per acre of rice is nearly double that of wheat, while corn and potatoes have much higher yields than other coarse grains. "Without doubt, the expansion of the area under these high-yielding crops will play an important role in reducing the tension in the supply of food and fodder."37

(5) In line with the earlier report of the Minister of Agriculture, there will be the introduction of improved, animal-drawn farm implements, better use of manure and other fertilizer, promotion of high-grade seeds, and the elimination of insect pests-all of them important elements in plans to raise output.

The difficulties of achieving these goals, in terms of the limited capital available, was made clear by Li Fu-chun in listing the areas where capital construction funds would be allocated under the plan. Of the total, only 7.6 percent will go to agriculture, forestry, and water conservancy work. "Our investments in agriculture in the first Five Year Plan are not proportionately large," Li acknowledged. "This is because during these five years, the extensive mechanization of agriculture cannot yet be realized, and larger conservancy projects and forestry construction cannot yet be universally developed."38

However, some 9i new mechanized state farms and i94 new tractor stations are to be set up by I957; I3 big reservoirs will be built by then, with a general dredging of important waterways and repairing of dikes also under-

6 Ibid., p. 33. 37 Ibid., p. 34. 38 Ibid., p. 13.

'55



Pacific Affairs taken, and the project of harnessing the Yellow River will be begun. This latter project is eventually to be grandiose in scope: "dozens of dams" will be built along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and its main tributaries, while huge reservoirs and hydroelectric stations will be erected at five sites along the river.

Nevertheless, major concentration in this Five Year Plan is clearly in heavy industry. Only thus, Li Fu-chun declared, "may we supply agriculture with tractors and other modern agricultural implements, with sufficient fertilizers so that agriculture may be transformed technically.""9

The main immediate concentration in agriculture, therefore, lies in its reorganization along socialist lines, the full-scale technical revolution of agriculture being postponed for the more distant future. Socialism, Li Fu-chun declared, "cannot be built on the basis of a small-peasant economy; it can only be built on the basis of large-scale industry and large-scale collective farming.. . . Only by gradually turning agriculture and handicrafts from individual operation to collective operation, and on this foundation intro- ducing the use of modern technical equipment, may agricultural productivity be greatly developed, . . . (and) output raised to cope with the demands of the Socialist industrialization of the State."40

But this "cannot be lightly realized within a short period." First the entire economy must undergo considerable development so as to be in a position to aid agriculture, the peasants must acquire "culture and knowledge" in order to support the new order of things, as well as personal experience in cooperative practices. "All these require time."

By the end of I957, according to the original Five Year Plan, "the Socialist transformation of the small-peasant economy will have been carried out only to the degree that elementary forms of cooperatives are organized among about a third of the country's peasant households, large-scale reconstruction of agriculture on a new technical base will not yet have begun, and the lag of agriculture behind industry will not yet have been completely overcome." 41 More specifically, by the end of I957 one-third of China's peasant households will be in agricultural producer cooperatives (about 50 percent for the "old liberated areas" of the North and the Northeast). The value of these cooperatives, Li Fu-chun stated, is that they represent "a means for increasing agricultural output that involves small investment and yields good results in a short space of time. It is also a step necessary to lead the peasants to Socialism. To move gradually from this elementary form of cooperation with initial technical improvements to a higher form of cooperation with mechani-

39 Ibid., p. 8. 40 Ibid., p. 9. 41 Ibid., p. 2i.

i56



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, I954-56

zation of agriculture and other technical reforms is the way leading to the uninterrupted development of China's agricultural production."42

A further important step taken by the Peking government in the direction of greater state control of agriculture has been the "planned purchasing and supply of grain" initiated in November 1953. This was followed in 1954 by the planned purchase of edible oils and cotton. These measures have enabled the state more directly to control the production and marketing of these agricultural supplies, and at the same time to exercise greater control of prices and prevent speculation in these commodities.

The advantages to the state of this program were summed up by Li Fu- chun as follows: (i) it guarantees the food needs of the more than ninety million people in urban, mining, and industrial centers, as well as for the army and public security forces; (2) it keeps the buying and selling of grain out of the hands of speculating merchants; (3) it enables the state to supply food to the people of famine-stricken areas at fixed prices.

Under this purchasing and marketing program, the state fixes a certain quantity of grain (or other products) to be supplied to the state by each peasant for a certain fixed purchase price. According to the Peking People's Daily this program has caused "misapprehension" among the peasants "that the more they produce, the more the State would purchase and that the grain they can keep would not be much."43 To allay these fears, the newspaper advised that the fixed quantities of grain to be requisitioned and purchased by the state should be announced at the time of spring planting. In this way each peasant would know what was expected of him, and would not fear producing as much as possible on his land. Any surplus grain above these figures, the newspaper continued, would then be kept by the peasants, except where "bumper harvest areas" must make up deficiencies of "calamity- stricken zones."44

This planned purchase and marketing policy is being expanded throughout the country and, it is officially stated, "puts the vast majority of essential commodities under the unified control of the state."45 It is claimed that this program helped to maintain price stability in China during I954, even in drought and flood areas, this being accomplished through the "reshuffling" that is part of the program (i.e., the purchase of grain in surplus areas for resale by the Government in deficiency areas). Indicating the constantly increasing activity of the state in this area, was the report that the Govern- ment sold 33 percent more grain in 1953-54 than in the previous year.

It is interesting to note that 35 percent of the grain sold by the state in

42Ibid., p. 32. 43 Peking fen Min Jih Pao (People's Daily), March 9, 1955. 44 Ibid. 45 China News Service (Peking), December 24, 1954.

I57



Pacific AfFairs I953-54 was sold to peasants. These included peasants who grow cotton and other industrial crops as well as peasants "who must buy grain to meet their needs after selling their grain to the State."46 Thus, state grain quotas in many cases have obviously left the peasant with insufficient grain, which he must in turn repurchase from state marketing centers. It was reported that peasants in this category were issued grain-purchase coupons for use in the state network of marketing stations set up by the Ministry of Food, where they were able to purchase needed grain at prices 5.6 percent higher than the price at which they had sold their grain.

In a further measure of state control, the Agricultural Bank of China was established on March 25, 1955, under the overall direction of the state- owned Chinese People's Bank. The announced tasks of the new bank were to guide rural credit cooperatives, to utilize surplus funds in the countryside, and to extend long and short term credit to agricultural producers. Its financial and credit policies will basically be directed toward "promoting socialist agricultural transformation. "48

At the same time, it was announced that by March I955, more than i8o,ooo rural credit cooperatives, with over 70 million members, had been set up throughout China. They too are part of the Government's drive to socialize agriculture, and their policies are also directed to that end.49

Communist Party membership in rural areas is also undergoing expansion. Rural membership in March I955 was reported to be nearly four million, and it was announced that there would be a continued expansion of party organizations in the countryside so that, by the end of the current Five Year Plan, there would be a party branch in every hsiang (there are 220,000 hsiang, or county sub-divisions, in China).

Based fundamentally on the policies for agricultural collectivization outlined above, Chinese Communist policy in general veered somewhat further to the left in mid-i955. Apparently countering the trepidation expressed by some of the party's cadres concerning the rapidity with which agricultural producers cooperatives were being formed, Mao Tse-tung, in a lengthy report on agricultural policy delivered to a Communist party conference in July i955, charged sharply that "some of our comrades are tottering along like a woman with bound feet, always complaining that others are going too fast."50 The stress now is not so much on the earlier talk of the necessity of con-

46 New China News Agency (Peking), December i8, 1954. 47 Ibd. 48 New China News Agency (Peking), March 25, 1955. 49 Ibid., March 20, 1955. 50 Mao Tse-tung, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation (A report delivered at a meeting

of secretaries of provincial, municipal and area committees of the Communist Party of China on July 31, I955). People's China (Peking), November i, 1955, p. 3.

i58



Communist China's Agrarian Policy, i954-56 solidating existing cooperatives before going full speed ahead on the formation of new ones. "Some people," Mao declared, "say that last year's plan to set up 500,000 was too big, too rash, and that this year's plan to set up 350,000 is too big, too rash, too. So many cooperatives have been organized that they doubt if they can be consolidated." He then asserted that they certainly could be consolidated and that any hesitation in going ahead with the program was unjustified.

Summing up China's agricultural plans, Mao reiterated China's intention to achieve full collectivization by the end of the third Five Year Plan in i967. The Soviet Union, he noted, had achieved this goal in a six-year period (I92t- 1934), and although certain mistakes were made (as noted in Stalin's famous "dizzy with success" criticism), the job was successfully completed. "The Soviet Union's experience," Mao announced, "is our model.""5 By the spring of i958, he stated, about 55 million peasant households (some 250 million people) would be in agricultural producers cooperatives. By ig60, the remaining half of the rural population would also, by and large, be organized in such cooperatives. After i960, these cooperatives "will gradually change, group by group and at different times from cooperatives of a semi-socialist nature to fully socialist ones." This, he noted, would complete the "social reform" of agriculture. Its "technical reform" (the achievement of mechanization, etc.) would take roughly four or five five-year plans-some twenty to twenty-five years.52 Mao stated that some 65oooo agricultural producers cooperatives had been organized by June i955, and he called for the doubling of this number by the spring of I956. Since he spoke of a total of ii0,000,000 peasant households in China, this would suggest that the goal previously announced by Li Fu-chun for the end of I957 was to be virtually achieved by the spring of i956.

The sixth plenary session of the Central Committee of the Chinese Com- munist Party, held in October i955, apparently devoted most of its time to a discussion of agricultural policy and to Mao's July report. Its various resolutions basically underlined the goals and objectives outlined by Mao.53

Tle formation of cooperatives has apparently been taking place even more rapidly than Mao had demanded. By mid-November I955 the number of such cooperatives were said to have reached I,240,oo0-virtually fulfilling the goal set by Mao for the spring of I956.54 At the same time, the campaign against rich peasants, and for reliance on poor peasants, was further intensi-

5'[bid., p. 12. 52Ibid., p. 14. 53 See Documents of the Sixth Plenary Session (enlarged) of the Seventh Central Committee

of the Communist Party of China (Supplement to People's China, December I, i955). 54See Henry R. Lieberman, Hong Kong dispatch to the New York Times, November 22,

I955.

'59



Pacific Affairs fied. It seems probable that the general goal set by Mao for i96o is likely to be reached much earlier.55 In Mao's words, a "high tide of a new Socialist mass movement is approaching" in the Chinese countryside. Chinese Communist policy has definitely entered on the Soviet-patterned road of collectivization, and the speed of the transformation of Chinese agriculture will now be limited mainly by the various technical and economic obstacles discussed earlier. New York

55 A Reuters dispatch of June 8, 1956, from Peking reported that 56 percent of all China's farm families were now members of "Soviet-style" collective farms and said "it seems certain that this figure will rise to more than go percent of the i20,000,000 peasant families in China by the Spring of next year," this being "at least eighteen months ahead of plans published as late as last January." It noted that by the end of March 1956 90 percent of the Chinese farm families were in some kind of cooperative. See New York Times, June io, 1956.

i6o



Article Contentsp. 141p. 142p. 143p. 144p. 145p. 146p. 147p. 148p. 149p. 150p. 151p. 152p. 153p. 154p. 155p. 156p. 157p. 158p. 159p. 160

Issue Table of ContentsPacific Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1956), pp. 107-207Front Matter [pp. ]Indonesia's Development Plans and Problems [pp. 107-125]The Challenge of Tropical Australia [pp. 126-140]Communist China's Agrarian Policy, 1954-56 [pp. 141-160]Colonial Development in Central New Guinea [pp. 161-173]Notes and CommentJapanese Election Candidates in 1955 [pp. 174-181]Feudalism and Asian Societies: A Review Article [pp. 181-186]A Note on Books from Nepal [pp. 187]

Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 188-189]Review: untitled [pp. 189-190]Review: untitled [pp. 190-191]Review: untitled [pp. 191-192]Review: untitled [pp. 192-194]Review: untitled [pp. 194-195]Review: untitled [pp. 195-197]Review: untitled [pp. 197-199]Review: untitled [pp. 199-200]Review: untitled [pp. 201-202]Review: untitled [pp. 202-203]Review: untitled [pp. 203-204]Review: untitled [pp. 204-205]Review: untitled [pp. 205-206]Review: untitled [pp. 206-207]

Back Matter [pp. ]

politica agrara china com

Documents

communist leaders

chinese communist land

communist rule

official policy

basic policy

jstor terms

jstor archive

pacific affairs