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Problems of Village Leadership after Land Reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
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Two threats arose in China after land reform that imperilled the transition from the anti-feudal, new democratic revolution of land reform to the socialist revolution of collectivisation. One threat came from “below,” from the village environment; the other from “above,” from the hierarchy of party and government. Both threats centred on the basic-level leadership and activists who had been recruited into political roles during the guerrilla years and especially during land reform. One threat arose as the interests of the peasants in the maintenance of the small-producer economy affected the attitudes and behaviour of village leaders, leading them to such responses as wanting to withdraw from political involvement. The other threat arose as the rural administrative system became increasingly burdened by numerous tasks and assignments. As pressure to produce results increased, rural leaders tended to become administrators and command mobilisers, orientated towards getting each job done quickly, using coercion. This approach caused a variety of problems; for example, it jeopardised a central goal of the socialist transformation of agriculture of securing peasant support and cooperation with this change.
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- Copyright © The China Quarterly 1968
References
2 The ch'u was an administrative unit between hsiang and hsien of considerable importance in the early 1950s.
3 Ch'ang-chiang Jih-pao, 2 November 1951.
4 The distinction between long-term hiring of labour and the temporary engaging of harvest help was a criterion defining exploitation.
5 Shansi Jih-pao, 25 June 1952. Another such case was reported in the same paper on 3 July 1952.
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8 See also Shansi Jih-pao editorial and article, 20 January 1951, on Party reform in the old areas. Chalmers Johnson's point on peasant nationalism as a central ingredient in the communist victory may well be valid, but judging by the press accounts in the early 1950s, not even peasant cadres seem to have retained a lasting and powerful commitment to the system outside the village.
9 Honan, had its “Lei Yu Ssu-hsiang” campaign: see Honan Jih-pao, 27 12 1951Google Scholar; Hunan, had Li Ssu-hsi: see People's Daily, 26 09 1951Google Scholar, and also Shou-tao, Wang, “P'i-p'an Li ssu-hsi Ssu-hsiang, chia-ch'iang kan-pu ssu-hsiang chiao-yu” (Criticise Li Ssu-hsi's thought, strengthen cadres' ideological education), Hsueh-hsi, No. 12, 1 10 1951Google Scholar; and Hupei, had its “Wang Jenying Ssu-hsiang” campaign, see Ch'ang-chiang Jih-pao, 2 12 1951Google Scholar.
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26 People's Daily, 26 September 1951; the cadre was the Hunan model for withdrawal, Li Ssu-hsi.
27 Marxist-Leninist theory predicts, of course, that class differentiation will lead to the separation of the village into two sharply polarised groups of exploiters and exploited majority. In fact, as a result of land reform, the opposite happened, as middle peasants of various types came to constitute the majority in the village, a state of affairs that did not significantly change before all-out collectivisation.
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31 People's Daily, 17 November 1953. In view of the current attacks on Liu Shaoch'i's “black line,” it is worth pointing out that Mao Tse-tung too was very sensitive to the issue of production. For example, in 1948, he suggested that new rich peasants who had appeared in the years of communist rule in the old areas should be treated as well-off middle peasants “for the sake of agricultural production.” See “On Some Important Problems of the Party's Present Policy,” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. IV (Peking, 1961), p. 185Google Scholar. This does not of course prove that the leaders were unanimous on this issue. Most likely, what was in dispute was not the policy of encouraging rich peasants as such, but its timing and duration. Speaking of socialist transformation generally, one could probably say that all leaders were in agreement on the desirability and necessity of this goal, but that there was disagreement over the timing, nature and content of the change. Thus, the speed of collectivisation was a matter of dispute at least until the second half of 1955. Disagreement on such issues is the stuff of politics and its existence should not occasion surprise, and it does not by itself prove the existence of unified factions with an established policy position.
32 Shansi Jih-pao, 26 July 1952.
33 Kao Kang, “ Stand at the Forefront of Economic Reconstruction in the North-east,” op. cit.
34 Fukien Jih-pao, 1 February 1952; see also the materials on Ssu-hsi, Li, People's Daily, 26 09 1951Google Scholar.
35 Shansi Jih-pao, 22 August 1951. A related problem was that many of the rural cadres were illiterate or semi-literate. The survey just cited showed that of the 109 members, 37 were illiterate and 35 had had up to two years of schooling. Aside from teaching them how to read, the CCP coped with this by relying heavily on oral communication, and especially group study as techniques for spreading knowledge of ideology and policies.
36 Po Yi-po, op. cit.
37 Shansi Jih-pao, 10 August 1951.
38 Shansi Jih-pao, 23 September 1951. The same attitudes were also found in the South, as reported in the case of one training class for prospective Party members in the villages of Kwangtung. See Nan-fang Jih-pao, 2 August 19S2. In their case, a visit to factories, where they could admire the superior skills of the workers, reportedly dispelled these confused notions.
39 People's Daily, 8 May 1952; also, Chieh-fang Jih-pao, 15 July 1952.
40 Fukien Jih-pao, 8 January 1953; 27 August 1952. See also Kao Kang, “Overcome the Corrosion of Bourgeois Ideology; Oppose the Rightist Trend in the Party,” op. cit.
41 Shansi Jih-pao, 20 February 1953.
42 As R. H. Solomon has recently suggested, the use of enemies has not just been a technique in the arsenal of political approaches but is really an internalised part of the Maoist world view. See Solomon, Richard H., “America's Revolutionary Alliance with Communist China: Parochialism and Paradox in Sine-American Relations,” Asian Survey, Vol. VII, No. 12, 12 1967Google Scholar.
43 For one account, see People's Daily, 14 April 1953.
44 Ch'ang-chiang Jih-pao, 24 August 1951.
45 Ch'ang-chiang Jih-pao; the issues of 2 November, 8 November and 26 December 1951 carried stories on these issues.
46 Hsin Hunan Pao, 31 August 1954.
47 For example, after the Great Leap, cadres no longer wanted to carry the burden of wanting to be cadres, and they were affected by spontaneous forces. For discussion, see Baum, Richard and Teiwes, Frederick C., “Liu Shao-ch'i and the Cadre Problem,” Asian Survey, Vol. VIII, No. 4, 04 1968Google Scholar.
48 Indeed, the ch'u often had direct operational responsibility in the early years, because of the weakness of the hsiang-ts'un leaders.
49 For an article describing the consequences of struggle against right deviation, see Shansi Jih-pao, 20 February 1953; the article is characteristically entitled “Forcing the masses to merge mutual-aid teams turned a good thing into a bad one.”
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52 For some sources on the movement, see People's Daily, 24 March 1953, 29 March 1953; Fukien Jih-pao, 20 February 1953; Shansi Jih-pao, 20 February 1953. An enormous number of other sources is available.
53 Shansi Jih-pao, 20 February 1953.
54 The model approach, it should be noted, is not what is normally understood as the mass line, i.e., an approach based on persuasion, mass participation, and voluntariness. The approach legitimate from the CCP's point of view is more complex, and always includes a measure of coercion, however disguised and indirect. This includes, for example, coercion directed against particular class enemies, which, naturally enough, has an impact on the response of those who are not classified as such, at least for the time being. Also, it includes public criticism, and “helpful advice” to deviants, which has coercive overtones. Official definitions have specifically excluded “criticism” and “education” from the definition of what constitutes commandism, as in North China Central Committee Bureau regulations. What matters are the proportions of the various approaches, and what is at issue is the more or less exclusive reliance on coercion.
55 T'ieh, Lin, in People's Daily, 3 02 1953Google Scholar, op. cit., and 26 July 1953, in CB 259, Appendix, 15 09 1953Google Scholar.
56 Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 14 January 1953.
57 In North China, 2,600 LPCs of 9,000 in existence at the time the movement was broken off in March 1953 were turned back into mutual-aid teams; 400 apparently dissolved. See Shansl Jih-pao, 21 July 1953.
58 Some of the sources for these points are:
(i) An Tzu-wen, “To struggle for eradication of the passive attitude and unhealthy conditions in Party organisations,” op. cit.
(ii) T'ieh's, Lin article in People's Daily, 11 02 1953Google Scholar, op. cit.
(iii) A decision by the North China Bureau of the Central Committee, “Ta li kai-chin tui-yu nung-ts'un ti ling-tao kung-tso” (Greatly improve the work of leading the village), Shansi Jih-pao, 23 06 1953Google Scholar.
(iv) For a report on “ya jen-wu,” see Shou, Lung, “Chieh-shao Hsin Hunan Pao kuan-yu Li Ssu-hsi ssu-hsiang ti t'ao-lun“ (Introducing the discussion in Hsin Hunan Pao on Li Ssu-hsi's thought), Hsueh-hsi, No. 11, 16 09 1951Google Scholar.
(v) For a report on how higher levels treat hsiang leaders as messenger boys (p'ao-t”ui), Chieh-fang Jih-pao, 27 August 1953.
(vi) On keeping village leaders busy collecting non-essential information, Shansi Jih-pao, 8 February 1953.
59 “Provisions for Dealing with Problems Relating to Corruption, Waste, and Commandism on the Part of Members and Cadres of the Party during the Period of the Readjustment of Party Organization,” by North China Bureau of the Central Committee, People's Daily, 26 02 1953Google Scholar, in SCMP 532, 17 03 1953Google Scholar. Translation slightly modified.
60 Tzu-wen, An, “To struggle for eradication,…” People's Daily, 12 02 1953Google Scholar, op. cit.
61 Case reported in People's Dotty, 9 April 1953, in SCMP 557, 24 04 1953Google Scholar.
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63 T'ieh, Lin in People's Daily, 11 02 1953Google Scholar, op. cit.
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68 “Provisions for Dealing with Problems Relating to Corruption,…” People's Daily, 26 February 1953, op. cit.
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71 In the summer of 1953, a campaign wa s begun against the “five to o many”: too many meetings, tasks, organisations, concurrent posts, official documents, and forms. T'ieh-ting, Ma, “Fan-tui ‘wu-to,’ pu shih fang-ch'i ling-tao“ (Opposing the five too many doesn't mean abdication of leadership), Hsueh-hsi, No. 9, 2 09 1953Google Scholar.
72 As more villages acquired Party organisations, and as the pace of post-land reform recruitment was stepped up, especially in 1955, the branch replaced the village government as the “leading core” of the main decision-making unit.
73 e.g., Fukien Jih-pao, 21 April 1953; and some long reprints from Shansi Jih-pao, in People's Daily, 14 April 1953, and 14 August 1953. See also my article, “Leadership and Mass Mobilisation in the Soviet and Chinese Collectivisation Campaigns of 1929–30 and 1955–56: A Comparison,” The China Quarterly, No. 31 (07–09 1967)Google Scholar.
74 An American sociologist studying the relations between welfare bureaucracies and lower-class groups in the U.S. has suggested that bureaucracies generally are ineffective in getting lower-class people to change their ways, because a functionally specific approach fails to treat with the whole person, “… helps to keep the lower-class person in his place and inhibits change. In fact, modern bureaucracies have proved to be singular failures in resocializing their clients.” Sjoberg, Gideon, “Ideology and Social Organization in Rapidly Developing Societies,” Comparative Administration Group—Occasional Papers, Indiana University, 12 1966Google Scholar.