CHINA ORGANISING PEASANT FARMERS

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28016, 10 July 1956, Page 8

CHINA ORGANISING PEASANT FARMERS

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

PEKING. China’s rapid advance towards the complete collectivisation of agriculture has outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts of her leaders and planners. Already 56 per cent, of all peasant families in the land are members of advanced co-operatives (collective farms) and it seems certain that this figure will rise to over 90 per cent, of the estimated 120.000,000 peasant families in China by the spring of next year at the latest—at least 18 months ahead of plans published as late as last January.

Collectivisation is an integral part of China’s plan to increase her agricultural production two and a half times bv 1967, the end of the third five-year plan. It must be inrceased to serve the wants of the growing industrial society, to pay for imports and industrialisation and to feed the rapidly expanding population. Officials say that collectivisation brings with it a more efficient use of land and facilitates the distribution and wider use of improved strains of seeds and better fertilisers. Above all it organises labour in a more economic and useful way. Thus peasants who formerly spent much of the winter in idleness can now be used on subsidiary tasks such as digging irrigation canals and wells, doing flood prevention work, reafforestation or reclaiming land, all part of the countrywide drive to help increase production by preventing the natural calamities which have so often ravaged China’s agricultural lands in the past. In addition collectivisation prepares the way for the mechanisation of agriculture which is planned for the future. Agriculture Major Factor The spread of collectivisation is a natural process in the “socialisation’’ of the country for, even with the accent of industrial development, agriculture remains the major factor in all Chinese life being her immediate wealth and the daily preoccupation of about 80 per cent, of her population of 600.000.000. But the speed of its development in the last nine months has been nothing short of amazing. In old Imperial China the Emperor used to perform a ceremonial ploughing as a symbol of the importance of agriculture. The Communist Government is no less aware of the vital problems it poses but its actions have been revolutionarv rather than symbolic. Last July Mr Mao Tse-tung made his most important pronouncement for years, when, following a tour of agricultural districts in Central China, be laid down the plans and the party line on agricultural co-operation and gave the “go-ahead” signal. Mr Mao’s speech emphasised that collectivisation must bring about a rise in agricultural yields which the country badly needed and said “socialisation” must not be hindered by those who wanted to “mark time” or those who wanted to go too fast and force collectivisation on the countrvside. It also underlined the Communists’ fear that if the countryside was left too Inng without a change towards “socialisation” the richer peasants and those who were wavering would “take the road of capitalism.”

Mr Mao said: “What still lingers in the countryside is capitalist ownership by the rich peasants and individual peasant ownership—an ocean of it. As everyone has noticed in recent years the spontaneous tendency in the countryside to develop towards capitalism is daily growing stronger and new rich peasants are springing up everywhere. Many well-to-do-middle peasants are striving to become rich ones.” It was a striking indication that the Government was aware that the poorer peasants might accuse them (and perhaps were already doing so) of not completing the revolution. This was borne out in another part of his speech in which he said the mass movement was moving ahead of the leadership—“and the leadership is not catching up.” It was a shrewd evaluation, possibly due to personal observation on his tour, ‘that the mood of the poorer neasants was such that they could be led “willingly” into collectivisation and thus to increased production. To give the peasants this “correct leadership” the Government sent out a task force of cadres (Party trained officials, most of whom were very young) into the countryside to "guide and assist” the peasants. These ideological commandos achieved a success the speed of which for so it would apnear from the figures he quoted) even Mao himself did not exnect. although he was far more optimistic than many Party members. From last autumn the movement has “snowballed” all over the country with mutual aid teams becoming semisocialist co-operatives and these in turn becoming advanced or fully socialist co-operatives. The movement is at present getting its “second wind” during the planting and harvesting season but may be expected to gather momentum again in the coming autumn.

When Mr Mao made his speech last July about 14 per cent, of the peasant families throughout China were members of some sort of co-operative: by January it was 60 per cent, and by the end of March 90 per cent., of whom 56 per cent, were members advanced co-operatives. Its success and growth has been • achieved by the old Chinese Communist maxim: “Use the poor peasants, unite with the middle peasants and gradually eliminate the rich peasants.” (The general classification of peasants is: poor peasants—those with no land or so little that it is not enough for their own subsistence and who have to hire themselves out as labourers: middle peasants—those with, enough land to live on and who neither hire themselves out nor hire labour; rich peasants—those who have more land than thev can work themselves and who employ labour). Persuasion All Communist edicts on co-opera-tion say that peasants must not be forced to join but must be shown the advantages and persuaded by example. The cadres, it seems, would work on the poor peasants who make up between 60-70 per cent, of the rural population. They would point out th* 5 advantages of co-operative farming and explain that they had everything to gain in higher incomes and joint ownership of land. It was not difficult to persuade these (for indeed many had nothing to lose) and they in turn at organised meetings talked the middle peasants into it. Many of these had only reached the status of middle peasants since the land reforms following the Communist victory and thus had no long tradition of land ownership.

Finally the rich peasants, probably more reluctantly, joined in, although happy perhaps that they had got off more lightly than the landlords following land reform. There have been reports of rich peasants killing off cattle rather than surrender them to the common poel and these were emphasised by a recent editorial in the “People’s Daily.” organ of the Communist Party, which said that a few of the many deaths and illnesses of cattle had been caused by “Pich neasants and reactionaries.” But the Communists know well and use to th? full the power of mass suggestion and also the psychological truth that those who live in small communities neve*like being left out of anything, particularly if it is going to harm them indirectly. In many places the transformation has been gradual to allow the peasants to adjust themselves slowly but of recent months the change through the three stages has been much quicker. They have moved from mutual aid teams where peasants merely helped one another in busy seasons to semisocialist co-operatives where peasants received pay for work done and land owned —variously in proportions of 7030 or 60-40—and finally to advance co-operatives where all land, animals and some implements are held under joint ownership and a peasant’s income is reckoned only by work done