Russian View Of Chinese Workers’ Conditions

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31235, 6 December 1966, Page 23

Russian View Of Chinese Workers’ Conditions

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) MOSCOW, Dec. 4. A Soviet journalist has drawn a picture of vicious exploitation of workers and peasants by the Chinese Communist state, and said the ideas of the party chairman, Mao Tse-tung smelt of labour camps.

“Many Chinese workers receive a miserly wage, live on grain husks, are permanently in debt, and see no way out of their poverty-stricken position,” Vladimir Fetov wrote in the “Literary Gazette,” the organ of the Soviet Writers’ Union.

His analysis, based on reports from the Chinese press, struck observers here as stronger than anything currently appearing in the Soviet press about life in the nonCommunist countries. Fetov said young Chinese ! peasants were hired out by

their communes to factories in the towns and cities, underpaid, and sent back to their villages after a few years when they were worn out. The peasants were either hired for seasonal work, or as temporary hands -for periods ranging from three to eight years, under a campaign supposed to eliminate the differences between workers and peasants. But in the towns, the young peasants received smaller wages than the permanent employees, part of which they never saw because it was sent to their commune, and sometimes they were not paid at all, Fetov wrote. On top of this, they were not allowed to take their families with them to the towns, and lived as bachelors for the period of their contract. At the end of his contract, the peasant was compelled to

return to his village. The whole point of the system was to ensure a regular supply of “fresh blood” for industry, Fetov added. Generally, Fetov wrote, “people live so poorly that they do not even think about buying clothes, and just wear an upper garment of cotton for several years.” The working day on the communes was normally 12-13 hours. There was practically no house building in China, and the few new residential areas were fearfully overcrowded. On top of this there was a systematic drive to militarise the country’s life, aimed at instilling discipline, “which means unquestioning obedience and subordination,” Fetov declared.

The teachings of Mao Tsetung, which were used as the basis for these practices, “smell of labour camps,” Fetov said.