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Leadership and Mass Mobilisation in the Soviet and Chinese Collectivisation Campaigns of 1929–30 and 1955–56 A Comparison1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Thomas P. Bernstein
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Extract

The Soviet collectivisation campaign of 1929–30 and the Chinese campaign of 1955–56 were similar in that both turned out to be attempts at achieving nationwide breakthroughs in agriculture. Both régimes attempted in the course of about six months to make the radical transition from small-producer to collectivised agriculture. The plans and forecasts that had been formulated by both the Soviet and the Chinese leaders had not called for such a breakthrough. These plans had envisaged the completion of collectivisation at a fairly slow pace.i The following graph indicates the rapidity and scope of the changes that actually took place, as well as the dramatically different outcomes of the two campaigns.

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Research Article
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The China Quarterly , Volume 31 , July 1967 , pp. 1 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1967

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References

2 See Tse-tung, Mao, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), pp. 7 and 33Google Scholar. For a useful summary of provincial planning in August and September, see the report “Agricultural Co-operativisation in Communist China,” Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 373, 01 20, 1956Google Scholar. For the targets adopted by the 6th Plenum, see Decisions on Agricultural Co-operation (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), pp. 29–31Google Scholar.

3. For materials on the Five-Year Plan goals in collectivisation, see Jasny, Naum, The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1949), pp. 304–305Google Scholar. Revised targets for 1929–30 were published at various periods during the summer and autumn; see, for example, Pravda, October 13, 1929. On January 5, 1930, a Central Committee decision, “On the Tempo of Collectivisation and On Measures of State Aid to Kolkhoz Construction,” was published; see the collection of documents entitled Collectivisation of Agriculture (in Russian) (Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1957), pp. 258–260Google Scholar.

4 Tse-tung, Mao, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation, p. 33Google Scholar.

5 Stalin, J. V., “A Year of Great Change,” Works, XII (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1955), p. 131Google Scholar.

6 For some extremely optimistic Chinese statements with respect to the possibilities of agricultural production and the nature of the peasants, see “Outline of National Agricultural Development from 1956 to 1967,” both in Cheng-chih Hsueh-hsi [Political Studies), No. 2, 02 1956Google Scholar. For a most optimistic statement on the possibilities of rapid collectivisation, see the Pravda editorial of February 3, 1930.

7 Tse-tung, Mao, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation, pp. 30–31Google Scholar. For an example of criticism in the fall, see the November issue of Hsueh-hsi (Study).

8 For examples of provincial party meetings at which self-criticisms were made for conservatism with respect to co-operativisation, see Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily), September 23, 1955, on Hopei province and Ch'en-chou Ch'un-chung Pao (Ch'en-chou Masses Newspaper) (Hunan), 09 22, 1955Google Scholar, for a report on a Hunan province Party meeting.

9 The resolution of the 16th Party Conference on rightists and other matters is in “All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks),” in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of the Central Committee, Part II (in Russian) (Moscow: Political Publishing House under the CC-AUCP, 1941, 6th ed.), pp. 324–358Google Scholar (henceforth abbreviated as “ AUCP” in Resolutions). For castigations of rightist behaviour on the part of rural leaders, see Strel'stov, G., “The Struggle for the Party Line and against Opportunism in Practice,” Bolshevik., No. 18, 09 30, 1929Google Scholar, and S.I., “The Right Deviation in Practice,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 1, 11 1929Google Scholar. For the resolution of the November plenum, see “AUCP” in Resolutions, pp. 359–388. It should be noted that the right deviation in the Soviet Union was concerned with broad questions of industrialisation and with general régime-peasant relations, and not only with collectivisation. In this it differed from the right opportunists in China, whose sins were more specifically associated with co-operativisation.

10 For a telling example of competition among okrug party committees (the okrug was roughly equivalent to the special district in China), see Sharova, P. N., Collectivisation of Agriculture in the Central Black Earth Oblast (in Russian) (Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1963), pp. 126–127Google Scholar. For an example of hsiang-level competition in China, see Chu, T'ao, “The Great Development of Agricultural Co-operativisation in the New Territories and the Problem of Preserving Quality,” in Hsueh-hsi, No. 12, 1955Google Scholar. An important People's Daily editorial of March 4, 1956, refers to races and competitions at higher, unspecified levels.

11 For a description of the three types of producers' collectives, see Jasny, , op. dt., p. 299et seq. and p. 327 et seqGoogle Scholar.

12 See the Central Committee decision of January 5, 1930, “On the Tempo of Collectivisation and on Measures of State Aid to Kolkhoz Construction,” in Sharova, , Collectivisation of Agriculture, pp. 258–260Google Scholar

13 Model regulations for lower- and higher-stage co-operatives are appended to Tung Ta-lin, op. cit. For a recently published analysis of the Chinese strategy of collectivisation, see Walker, Kenneth R., “Collectivisation in Retrospect: The ‘Socialist High Tide’ of Autumn 1955–Spring 1956,” The China Quarterly, No. 26 (04–06 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See Mao Tse-tung's “Preface” to an anthology of materials entitled Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957)Google Scholar, in which he stated that the transition to higher co-operatives could be completed in 1959 or 1960 (p. 8). The editor's introduction to another article in this collection stated that most lower co-operatives that had existed for three years possessed the necessary requirements for the transition; see the editor's introduction to “ A Co-op That Advanced from an Elementary to a Higher Form,” p. 477. Many if not most of the editorial introductions to the articles in this volume were written by Mao himself and were widely publicised, e.g., in Hsueh-hsi, January and February 1956.

15 Recent Soviet writers have criticised the régime's failure during the drive to differentiate clearly between artel and commune. See, for example, Danilov, V. P. and Ivnitskii, N. A., “The Leninist Co-operative Plan and Its Realisation in the U.S.S.R.,” in Danilov, V. P., ed., A Survey of the History of the Collectivisation of Agriculture in the Union Republics (henceforth abbreviated as A Survey) (in Russian) (Moscow: State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1963), p. 45Google Scholar. The model statutes for the artel—one published in March 1930 and the final, definitive one in early 1935—may be found in Collectivisation of Agriculture, pp. 282–287 and pp. 531–539.

16 See Walker, Kenneth R., Planning in Chinese Agriculture: Socialisation and the Private Sector, 1956–1962 (London: Frank Cass, 1965), pp. 61–62Google Scholar.

17 Bogdenko, L., “For a History of the Initial Stage in the Solid Collectivisation in the U.S.S.R.,” Voprosy lstorii, No. 5, 05 1963]Google Scholar, translated in Current Digest of the Soviet Press (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The Joint Committee on Slavic Studies), XV, No. 36Google Scholar. For Stalin's article “Dizzy with Success” (March 2, 1930), see Works, XII, pp. 197–206Google Scholar.

18 See Abramov, B. A., “The Collectivisation of Agriculture in the R.S.F.S.R.,” in Danilov, V. P., ed., A Survey, pp. 103–104Google Scholar, for livestock data and mention of revolts. For a citation of the stupendous Soviet livestock losses during the collectivisation years, see Stalin, J. V., “Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress,” Works, XIII, p. 328Google Scholar.

19 Schiller, , op. dt., p. 44Google Scholar; Shifts, op. dt., p. 32.

20 For a sober appraisal of some of the things that went wrong during the upsurge, see Teng Tzu-hui's speech at the June 19, 1956 session of the National People's Congress, printed in Record of the Third Session of the First National People's Congress of the Chinese People's Republic (in Chinese) (Peking: NPC Editorial Secretariat, 1956), pp. 150–162Google Scholar. On the question of side-line production, see Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture, Chap. 4. For some overall data on the livestock population in China—which shows that losses occurred primarily among hogs—see Liu, Ta-Chung and Yeh, Kung-chia, The Economy of the Chinese Mainland: National Income and Economic Development, 1933–1959 (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 364CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Withdrawals took place primarily in the southern provinces, particularly in Kwangtung, but also in Chekiang and elsewhere. See, for example, a speech by T'ao Chu, New China News Agency (NCNA), January 9, 1957, and a report by the First Secretary of Chekiang, Hua, Chiang, in People's Daily, 12 28, 1957Google Scholar, in CB, No. 487, 01 10, 1958Google Scholar, which reported on the collapse of apparently most of the co-operatives in one hsien. It should be noted that in both countries there were important regional differences which cannot be analysed here in detail. Problems were usually greatest in the southern provinces of China, in part because these provinces lacked experience in co-operativisation, having completed land reform only in 1952 or even 1953 (as in Kwangtung). Regional differences were greater on the whole in Russia than in China, however. By March 1930, for example, Moscow province had collectivised 73 per cent, of households; only 7–2 per cent, remained by June. In the North Caucasus region, in contrast, about 75 per cent, of households had been collectivised by March 1930 and over SO per cent, remained in June.

22 See the People's Dally editorial, “Universally Overhaul the Co-operatives, LaunchProduction for Spring Planting,” March 4, 1956. A series of policy statements by the Central Committee and the State Council addressed themselves to the major problems of consolidation. For the first one of these, see NCNA, April 4, 1956, “CCP Central Committee and State Council Issue Joint Directive on Running of Co-operatives,” in Survey of the China Mainland Press (SCMP) (U.S. Consulate General, Hong Kong), No. 1268, 04 16, 1956Google Scholar.

23 For a provocative analysis of compliance patterns in China, see Skinner, G. William, ”Compliance and Leadership in Rural Communist China: A Cyclical Theory,” paper presented at the 1965 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 09 1965Google Scholar. Skinner distinguishes between the use of normative, remunerative and coercive power.

24 It should be emphasised that both régimes considered it legitimate to use direct coercion or violence against class enemies such as rich peasants and landlords. Hence the main issue here is not the forcible expropriation and mass deportation of rich Russian peasants—kulaks—during the collectivisation in Russia. The issue is coercion of social groups that were within the ranks of the “people” in the Maoist sense of the term.

25 People's Daily editorial, “Rely on the Party's Rural Branches, Manage Well the Agricultural Producers' Co-operatives,” November 2, 1955.

26 For one affirmation of the necessity of “practical assistance” to collectivisation by industrial workers, see Molotov's, V. report at a party conference of Moscow Oblast', September 14, 1929, in Pravda, 09 20, 1929Google Scholar. See also V. S., “For the Strengthening of the Cadres of Rural Party Workers,” Izvestiia Tsentral'nogo Komiteta Rossiiskoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (Bolshevikov) (News of the CCRKP [b]) (henceforth abbreviated as Izvestiia TsK), No. 15, 05 15, 1929Google Scholar.

27 While the Bolsheviks sanctioned the seizure of land by the peasants in 1917 and 1918, they were not in control of the process. They began to exert influence on it only in the second half of 1918 with the organisation of the committees of the poor (kombedy); no lasting organisational base resulted from this. For a survey of the period, see Carr, E. H., The Bolshevik Revolution, II (London: Macmillan, 1953), especially p. 48Google Scholar.

27a During NEP the Soviet régime confined itself to the introduction of credit and marketing co-operatives. The régime was neither able nor willing to undertake the more fundamental job of mobilising peasants to organise producers' co-operatives (kolkhozy).

28 Lewin, M., “The Immediate Background of Soviet Collectivisation,” Soviet Studies, XIII, No. 2, 10 1965Google Scholar.

29 Ta Kung Pao (Tientsin), 11 25, 1955Google Scholar.

30 For the Kwangtung figures, see Chu, Tao, “The Great Development of Agricultural Co-operativisation in the New Territories and the Problem of Preserving Quality,” Hsueh-hsi, No. 12, 12 1955Google Scholar. One indication of the presence of fairly sizeable branches in the old areas was that many co-operatives already had small Party groups or sub-branches; e.g., for Kiangsu, see Hsin-hua Daily (Nanking), 09 25, 1955Google Scholar.

31 See, for example, Hsin Hunan Pao, August 11, 1955; or Nan-fang Daily, July 2, 1954, for a report on Honan.

32 Vlasov, V., “The Party Organisation of the Village, As It Exists,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo (Party Construction) No. 9, 05 1930Google Scholar. Some reports put the percentage of village Soviets within whose jurisdiction a party cell functioned at about one-third of the total, since in some of them several cells might be organised (e.g., one in a sovkhoz and another in the soviet itself).

33 “The Checking and Purge of the Party's Ranks (as of November 1, 1929),” in The Communist's Calendar for 1930 (in Russian) (Moscow: Workers’ Publishing House, 1930), pp. 152–154Google Scholar.

34 See People's Daily, March 25, 1953, and May 25, 1953; see also Kuang-ming Daily, January 14, 1953.

35 People's Daily, March 24, 1953, and July 16, 1953. In his speech of July 31, 1955, Mao quoted a Central Committee warning given in the spring of 1955 which said: “Do not commit the 1953 mistake of mass dissolution of co-operatives again, otherwise self-critical examination will again be called for”: Tse-tung, Mao, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation, op. cit., pp. 11–12Google Scholar. Lin Tieh, the Hopei Party secretary, wrote in October 1955 that the “lesson” of the dissolutions of 1953 had been “a most painful one”; see People's Daily, October 30, 1955.

36 “Speech by Liao Lu-yen,” People's Daily, July 26, 1955, in CB, No. 352, 09 1, 1955Google Scholar. In his July speech Mao castigated the dissolution of the 15,000 co-operatives in Chekiang. See Tse-tung, Mao, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation, op. cit., p. 11Google Scholar. For a bleak appraisal of the 1954–55 drive, see Lu-yen, Liao, “Report on Basic Conditions of Agricultural Production in 1954 and Present Measures for Increasing Agricultural Production,” NCNA, 03 9, 1953Google Scholar in CB No. 319. 03 15. 1955Google Scholar

37 “The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Holds the First Nationwide Work Conference on Rural Basic-Level Organisations,” in Collection of Materials on the Socialist Transformation of Agriculture (in Chinese) (Peking: Financial and Economic Publishing House, 1956), II, pp. 283–287Google Scholar.

38 People's Daily editorial, November 2, 1955.

39 This example was given national recognition in the People's Daily editorial of November 2, 1955.

40 In the summer of 1955, Ch'en-chou Ch'un-chung Pao (Hunan) published a series of articles on the experience in co-operative establishment accumulated by a work team of the Ch'en-chou special district committee. This model process took from July 7 to early September. See the issues of July 22, July 28, August 10, September 1 and September 4, 1955.

41 T'ao Chu, “The Great Development of Agricultural Co-operativisation in the New Territories and the Problem of Preserving Quality.”

42 See, for example, Nan-fang Daily, January 11, 1956.

43 See “Look Forward and Not Backward,” People's Daily editorial, January 24, 1956, in SCMP, No. 1223, 02 6, 1956Google Scholar, for an account of optimistic planning. See “CCP Central Committee and State Council Issue Joint Directive on Running of Co-operatives,” NCNA, April 4, 1956, in SCMP, No. 1268, 04 16, 1956Google Scholar, for an admission of irrational planning.

44 “Co-operatives Cannot Be Run Properly with Methods of Compulsion and Commandism,” People's Daily editorial, June 27, 1956, in SCMP, No. 1326, 07 11, 1956Google Scholar.

45 See Nan-fang Daily, July 6, 1956, for an example from Kwangtung of co-operativisation carried out poorly as a result of weak leadership, resulting in compulsion, peasant dissatisfaction and withdrawals from the co-operatives in the summer of 1956.

46 For an example of this pattern, see “Overall Overhauling of APCs in Anhwei” NCNA, February 17, 1956, in SCMP, No. 1238, 03 1, 1956Google Scholar.

47 Nan-fang Daily, July 1, 1955, and July 2, 1956. The People's Daily editorial ofNovember 2, 1955 called for the establishment during the upsurge of branches in all those hsiang that still lacked them.

48 On this point, see Schumann, H. Franz, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), p. 451Google Scholar. A People's Daily editorial of October 15, 1955, “Servicemen Demobilised for Construction Must Contribute Meritorious Service to Agricultural Co-operativisation,” SCMP, No. 1158, 10 27, 1955Google Scholar, pointed out that there were some veterans who did not want to return to their villages. Evidently they posed a problem as well as providing a source of potential leadership. For one case, see Ch'en-chou Ch'un-chung Pao, March 28, 1956.

49 See the data in Tung-chi Kung-tso Tung-hsun, No. 15, 08 14, 1956Google Scholar.

50 For one example of general tasks and the methods of rural leaders, see “Party Work in the Village,” The Communist's Calendar for 1928 (in Russian) (Moscow: Workers’ Publishing House, 1928), pp. 201–213Google Scholar.

51 For a quantitatively impressive account of rural mass organisations and mass mobilisation, see TrapezrUkov, , op. dt., pp. 156–159Google Scholar. For a more critical appraisal of a major region's performance in carrying out the tasks detailed in the para-graph above, see “On the Fulfilment of the Decisions of the November Plenum of the CC According to the Report of the North Caucasus Regional Committee” (Decision of the Central Committee, July 18, 1929), in Izvestila TsK, No. 22, 08 10, 1929Google Scholar.

52 See in particular Molotov's, “Report on Work in the Village,” Fifteenth Congress of the AUCP(b), Stenographic Report (in Russian) (Moscow: State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1962), II, pp. 1174–1229Google Scholar.

53 In China the suppression of class-enemy groups was carried out primarily during land reform. In 1954 Liu Shao-ch'i announced that “…it will no t b e necessary to start a special movement…to eliminate the rich peasant class.” See Shao-ch'i, Liu, Report on the Draft Constitution of the PRC (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1962), pp. 28–29Google Scholar.

54 Draft statutes of the artel were published on February 6, 1930, an d officially adopted on March 1. See “Model Statute of the Agricultural Artel,” Collectivisation of Agriculture, op. cit., pp. 282–287. In recent years Soviet historians have sharply criticised th e Stalin régime's failure to provide early and explicit guide-lines for the rural leadership. They have criticised the Kolkhoztsentr—the national organisation of kolkhozy—for issuing a directive in December calling for extremes in socialisation of peasant property. See Danilov, V. P., ed., A Survey, op. cit., pp. 36 and 41Google Scholar.

55 Kukushkin, Iu. S., The Role of Village Soviets in the Socialist Reconstruction of the Countryside, 1919–1932 (in Russian) (Moscow: Moscow University Publishing House, 1962), p. 50Google Scholar.

56 The monthly journal Na Agrarnom Fronte, published by the Communist Academy, contained numerous such materials.

57 Mamaev, P., “The Organisation of Mass Work in the Soviets in the Middle-Volga Region,” Sovetskoe Stroitel'stvo (Soviet Construction), No. 1, 01 1930Google Scholar.

58 “On the New Tasks in Connection with the Broad Extension of Collectivisation in the Village” (Decision by the CEC and Sovnarkom of the U.S.S.R., January 25, 1930), in Collectivisation of Agriculture, op. cit., pp. 261–263.

59 Ul'ianov, I., “Errors in Collectivisation in the North Caucasus,” Sovetskoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 6, 06 1930Google Scholar.

60 V., V., “The Growth of the Party in the Village,” Partiinoe StroiteVstvo, Nos. 11–12, 06 1932Google Scholar. The percentage of workers is given in Selunskaia, V. M., The Worker Twenty-Five Thousanders (in Russian) (Moscow: Moscow University Publishing House, 1964), p. 116Google Scholar. This author gives the total number of village members as 339,201 as of January 1, 1930. Constant complaints were voiced that most party recruits in the villages were not receiving systematic training; e.g., Orshanskii, B., “The Party's Educational Work with New Masses of Candidates,” Kommunisticheskaia Revoliutsiia, No. 9, 03 1930Google Scholar. By the spring of 1930, according to one report, 47,897 kolkhoz officials, mainly chairmen, had been given short-term training courses. (This number did not include the twenty-five thousanders.) Most kolkhoz cadres, however, were not exposed even to such brief training. See Lar'kina, E. I., The Training of Kolkhoz Cadres in the Period of Mass Collectivisation (in Russian) (Moscow: Publishing House of Socio-Economic Literature, 1960), pp. 88 and 91Google Scholar.

61 See Fainsod, Merle, Smolensk under Soviet Rule (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 123Google Scholar, for a discussion of middle peasants seeking entry into the party. During the height of the conciliatory policy towards the kulaks, when franchise restrictions were liberalised, many well-off middle peasants and kulaks got into positions in the Soviets. For an analysis of the NEP period, see Carr, E. H., Socialism in One Country, II (New York: Macmillan, 1960), Chap. 22, and especially p. 336Google Scholar.

62 For some typical reports on chronic difficulties in organising poor peasants and batraki, see “How the Work with the Batraki Is Going,” Izyestiia TsK, No. 7, 03 20, 1929Google Scholar, which notes that in Byelorussia there were 200,000 batraki and 715 batrak party members; Lapidus, I., “The Work with the Poor Peasants in the Lower Volga,” Kommunisticheskaia Revoliutsita, No. 19, 10 1929Google Scholar.

63 One reason sometimes given was that batraki and poor peasants were so busy making a living that they simply had no time or money to participate in politics.

64 For some examples, see Strel'tsov, G., “The Struggle for the Party Line and against Opportunism in Practice,” Bolshevik, No. 18, 09 30, 1929Google Scholar. Kritsman, L., in Class Differentiation in the Soviet Village (in Russian) (Moscow: Communist Academy Publishing House, 1926)Google Scholar, makes some telling remarks on the influence on political institutions of the village verkhushka, p. 165.

65 See The Communist's Calendar for 1930, op. cit., pp. 152–154; Vlasov, V., “Village Party Organisation, As It Exists,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 9, 05 1930Google Scholar; Kaplan, V., “The First Results of the Purge,” Izvestiia TsK, No. 28, 10 10, 1929Google Scholar.

66 The purge of the village Soviets was done by dissolving them and holding elections ahead of schedule. In one okrug (an administrative unit embracing several countysized districts) of the North Caucasus, 65–8 per cent, of deputies were ousted. See Kukushkin, , op. sit., p. 91Google Scholar.

67. Kang, Kao, “Overcome the Corrosion of Bourgeois Ideology, Oppose the Rightist Trend in the Party,” People's Daily, January 24, 1952, in CB, No. 163, 03 5, 1952Google Scholar.

68 T'ao Chu, “The Great Development of Agricultural Co-operativisation in th e New Territories and the Problem of Preserving Quality,” op. cit.

69 See Mao’s, introductory comments to “How Control of the Wutan Co-operative Shifted from the Middle to the Poor Peasants,” an article from Huna n dated 07 26, 1955Google Scholar, in Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, op. cit., p. 235. For some other examples of discriminatory practices against poo r peasants an d the question of class background in leadership positions, see Hsin Hunan Pao, August 19, 1955, Nan-fang Daily, October 22, 1955, an d especially the People's Daily editorial of December 28, 1955, dealing with this subject.

70 For cases of “phony” co-operatives an d of “infiltration” of class enemies into leadership positions, see Szechwan Daily, January 14, 1955, and People's Daily, June 27, 1955. These are only two of quite a large number of such cases that were publicised in the press.

71 On the selection of poor-peasant core elements (ku-kari), see People's Daily, January 21, 1956. For one typical example, a story reporting that 100,000 poor and lower-middle peasants in Fukien had been trained in short-term courses to serve a s core elements, see Kuang-ming Daily, November 4, 1955.

72 See Mao's, introductory comments to “Wage a Relentless Struggle against Counter-revolutionary Wrecking,” an article from Kweichow dated 07 30, 1955Google Scholar, in Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, op. cit., p. 336.

73 An excellent case study of a Party member's taking the capitalist road in the class line may b e found in Ch'en-chou Ch'un-chung Pao, January 25, 1956. A n article in Hsin Hunan Pao, July 1, 1956, asserted that about 1 percent, of Hunan’ s rural membership was impure. Party rectification was to take place simultaneously with co-operative consolidation: see People's Daily, November 10, 1955.

74 Stalin, “A Year of Great Change,” op. cit. For a revealing analysis of Soviet grain policy, see Moshkov, Iu. A., The Grain Problem in the Years of Solid Collectizisation(in Russian) (Moscow: Moscow University Publishing House, 1966)Google Scholar.

75 Jasny, , op. cit., p. 363Google Scholar.

76 The clearest and most pronounced period of shared identities between peasants and local cadres came in 1932–33 when the régime enforced obligatory deliveries even at the price of famine. The resistance of locally recruited cadres (many of them recruited during the collectivisation drives) resulted in the purge of an extremely high proportion: 49 per cent, of kolkhoz chairmen in the key North Caucasus krai (region), for example (Lar'kcina, , op. dt., p. 109)Google Scholar. According to Chinese refugee informants, during the Great Leap some Chinese village cadres similarly identified with the peasants against the régime. During the Great Leap the régime increased its grain-production quotas drastically, on the erroneous assumption that production had greatly increased. The increased quotas meant that less was left for local consumption, and this gave rise to resistance on the part of peasants and peasant cadres.

77 Yeh, K. C., “Soviet and Communist Chinese Industrialization Strategies,” in Treadgold, Donald W., ed., Soviet and Chinese Communism: Similarities and Differences (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1967), p. 350Google Scholar.

78 In part the different approach was due to the fact that the Soviet government viewed grain collection primarily as a class-enemy problem: kulaks were thought to be deliberately trying to destroy the régime by withholding grain from the market. In China, the class enemy having been largely destroyed during land reform, the grain-collection problem was essentially one of dealing with “the people.”

79 See the People's Daily editorial of April 24, 1955, and a speech by Yun, Ch'en, “On the Question of the Unified Purchase and Distribution of Grain,” NCNA, July 21, 1955, in CB, No. 339, 07 27, 1955Google Scholar, for statements that some cadres had been too liberal in acceding to peasants' requests for permission to buy grain from the state.

80 See “Provisional Measures for Unified Purchase and Unified Sale of Grain in Rural Areas,” NCNA, August 25, 1955, in CB, No. 354, 09 7, 1955Google Scholar.

81 See People's Daily, October 20, 1955, for a general report on the implementation of san-ting, and the Ta Kung Pao (Tientsin) editorial of 09 27, 1955Google Scholar, for the report on Kwangtung.

82 See Nai-ch'i's, Chang speech in Records of the Third Session of the First National People's Congress of the Chinese People's Republic, op. cit., p. 524Google Scholar.

83 Trapeznikov, , op. cit., p. 153Google Scholar, and Trifonov, I., A Survey of the History of Class Struggle in the U.S.S.R. During the Years of NEP (1921–1937) (in Russian) (Moscow: State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1960), p. 218Google Scholar.

84 Gushchin, N. la., “The Workers of Leningrad and Moscow in the Struggle for the Collectivisation of Agriculture in Siberia,” Istoriia S.S.S.R., No. 6, 1965Google Scholar.

85 Pravda, January 4, 1930.

86 Ibid., January 3, 1930.

87 In the summer of 1929 a Pravda article approvingly described an example of a worker who went to his native village to organise the peasants. The article called for thousands of such workers to emulate his example, but little seems to have come of this: Pravda, June 22, 1929, cited in Selunskaia, , op. dt., p. 34Google Scholar. The source for the data on the twenty-five thousanders is The Struggle of the CPSU for the Socialist Industrialisation of the Country and the Preparation of Solid Collectivisation of Agriculture, 1926–1929 (Documents and Materials) (in Russian) (Moscow: State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1960), pp. 494–495Google Scholar.

88 Several Central Committee decisions dealt with the troubles of the twenty-five thousanders after the 1929–30 drive: see Parttinoe Stroitel'stvo, Nos. 13–14, July 1930; see also Lar'kina, , op. cit., p. 43Google Scholar, on their relations with local officials.

89 In April 1930 an article in Prayda complained that the mechanical application of the methods of factory production had given good results “far from everywhere,” presumably because workers did not think much of such un-factory-like practices as the retention of private plots: Pravda, April 18, 1930.

90 Lar'kina, , op. cit., p. 42Google Scholar.

91 For one example of urban mobilisation (from Wuhan), see Chang-ch'iang Daily, July 23 1955. The Chinese also put great stress on the concept of proletarian leadership. But as Benjamin Schwartz has pointed out, the organic connection between the Party leadership and the industrial proletariat was severed in the course of the CCP's coming to power through rural bases. See Schwartz, Benjamin, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univenity Press, 1958, 2nd ed.), p. ixGoogle Scholar.

92 People's Daily, August 21, 1955, and Chekiang Daily, July 6, 1955. San-ting work and the overhauling of existing co-operatives were the main tasks of individuals going to the villages during the summer of 1955.

93 Ch'i-ch'in, Yü, “To Develop Agricultural Co-operatives It Is Necessary to Rely Mainly on the Strength of Local Cadres,” Hsueh-hsi, No. 11, 1955Google Scholar. The sources for the numbers of cadres are the following: Ta Kung Pao, September 13, 1955; People's Daily, November 30, 1955; Ta Kung Pao, November 9, 1955; and People's Daily, September 8, 1955.

94 Work teams apparently played a more direct role in “strong-point villages” (chung-tieri) in order to enable cadres from higher-level Party committees to gain direct experience in leading village work.

95 People's Daily, August 24, 1955; see also Nan-fang Daily, October 28, 1954, and Chekiang Daily, November 21, 1954, for materials on hsiang relations with higher levels.

96 Tzu-hui, Teng, op. tit., p. 157Google Scholar. Mao's, introduction to an article in Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, op. cit., p. 235Google Scholar, says that the job of higher-level committees was to check and control the class composition of co-operative management committees.

97 Scheffer, Paul, “A Leap in the Dark,” Berliner Tageblatt, 09 20, 1929Google Scholar, quoted in Halpern, I. P., Stalin's Revolution: The Struggle to Collectivize Rural Russia, 1927–1933 (unpublished Columbia Ph.D. dissertation, 1965), p. 106Google Scholar.

98 Lenin, V. I., “Report on the Substitution of a Tax in Kind for the Surplus Appropriation System,” delivered at the 10th Congress of the R.C.P.(b), March 15, 1921, in Alliance of the Working Class and Peasantry (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959), p. 358Google Scholar.

99 Chinese propagandists did so with far less justification than the Russians, since the Chinese government had already acknowledged the impossibility of introducing collectivisation simultaneously with mechanisation. Refugee interviews, however, indicate widespread use of this appeal.

100 The Central Committee reportedly set the condition that lower-stage co-operatives could convert to fully socialist status only if it would be possible to increase the income of over 90 per cent, of the members: see Ch'i-ch'ang, Keng, “How Does the Hsin-hsiang Administrative District Reflect Its Fully Socialist Agricultural Co-operation?” Hsueh-hsi, No. 4, 04 2, 1956Google Scholar, in ECMM, No. 34, May 7, 1956.

101 The Chinese government claimed that 70–80 per cent, of households had increased their income in 1956: “Income of Most Peasants Raised,” NCNA, 02 21, 1957, in SCMP, No. 1478, 02 27, 1957Google Scholar.

102 For provincial data on the progress of collectivisation in 1955–56, see Materials on the History of the Movement of Co-operathisation of Agriculture in China (in Chinese) (Peking: San Lien Bookstore, 1959), II, pp. 1012 and 1019Google Scholar.

103 For a report of coercion (ch'iang-po ming-ling), see the Fukien Daily editorial of December 21, 1956. For a report of killing of draught-animals, see “Slaughtering of Draught-Animals Serious in Kansu,” Kansu Daily, December 27, 1956, in SCMP, No. 1462, 02 4, 1957Google Scholar.

104 In China rural households reportedly fell into the following categories (according to a survey apparently made in 1955 of 192,760 households in 22 provinces):

In Russia, 1926–27, the rural population was divided as following, according to a sample of 22,773 adult individuals:

Source: Danilov, V. P., The Creation of the Material-Technical Basis for the Collectivisation of Agriculture in the U.S.S.R. (in Russian) (Moscow: (State Publishing House, 1957), p. 76Google Scholar. Taken from a report of a Sovnarkom commission which studied taxation policies. For comparable data and a general analysis of the economics of rural class structure during NEP, see Jasny, op. cit., Chap. 8.

These percentages may not be accurate but they are important as guides to communist policies and actions. Other surveys further subdivided the middle peasants into a larger but less well-off group (malomoshchnyi seredniak) and a smaller but better-off group (zazhitochnyi seredniak), as in this survey from the North Caucasus region:

Source: Gabter, A., The Differentiation of the Soviet Village (in Russian) (Moscow: Communist Academy Publishing House, 1928), p. 110Google Scholar.

105 Tse-tung, Mao, The Question of Agricultural Co-operation, op. cit., pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

106 In 1928, for example, poor peasants who helped the authorities received part of the grain taken from the kulaks. See kov, Mosh, The Grain Problem, p. 32Google Scholar.

107 Stalin, J. V., “Reply to the Svardlov Comrades,” 02 9, 1930, in Works, op. cit., XII, p. 195Google Scholar.

108 Also lacking in Russia was the lengthy process of arousing grievances and hate among poor peasants, so characteristic a feature of Chinese land reform. Whether this would have been possible—whether the attitude of Soviet poor peasants and batraki towards the kulaks was the same as that of Chinese poor peasants towards landlords—is very difficult to say and would require lengthy analysis that is not possible here. One observer, Fischer, Markoosha, in My Lives in Russia (New York: Harper, 1944)Google Scholar, does describe an instance of poor peasants participating in the expropriation process with great enthusiasm (p. 27).

109 Lenin, v. I., “Report on Work in the Rural Districts Delivered at the Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(b), March 23, 1919,” in Alliance of the Working Class and Peasantry, op. cit., p. 283Google Scholar.

110 “Program of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks),” adopted in 1919, in Triska, Jan F., ed., Soviet Communist: Programs and Rules (San Francisco, Cal.: Chandler, 1962), p. 148Google Scholar.

111 This quote was cited by Stalin, , for example, in “Results of the July Plenum of the CC, CPSU(b),” 07 13, 1928, in Works, op. dt., II, p. 223Google Scholar.

112 For data on income distribution in pre-drive producers' collectives, see Terletskii, E. P., ed., The Kolkhozy of the U.S.S.R. (in Russian) (Moscow: Book Union, 1929), p. 45Google Scholar.

113 For a highly interesting article on the debates of the Politburo's collectivisation commission, see Ivnitskii, N. A., “The History of the Preparation of the CC-AUCP(b) Decision on the Tempo of Collectivisation of Agriculture of January 5, 1930,” in Sources on the History of Soviet Society (in Russian) (Moscow: Science Publishing House, 1964), pp. 265–287Google Scholar.

114 The term is Stalin's: see Stalin, J. V., “Reply to the Collective Farm Comrades” 04 3, 1930, in Works, op. ctt., XII, p. 208Google Scholar.

115 Sharova, P. N., Collectivisation of Agriculture, p. 153Google Scholar.

116 The one exception to this was that in 1930 and after, the régime permitted kolkhozy to assign 5 per cent, of their income to pay the former owners of horses and other livestock. This was an attempt to stop the disastrous slaughter of draught-animals.

117 “Model Statute of the Agricultural Artel,” adopted to March 1930, Art. VI. Similar provisions are in the Model Statute adopted in 1935 and still in use today; see the “Model Statute of the Agricultural Artel” of February 17, 1935. Both are in Collectivisation of Agriculture, op. cit., pp. 282–287, 531–549.

118 Shen, Fan, “How to Deal with Individual Peasants,” Cheng-chih Bsueh-hsi, No. 5, 05 13, 1955Google Scholar, in ECMM, No. 11, October 24, 1955.

119 Except those poor peasants, such as widows and orphans, who lacked manpower (lao-li). In the lower-stage co-operatives these peasants depended on the land dividend for a living. The higher-stage co-operatives provided for them in theory (wu-pao system), but in fact, however, the transition to higher co-operatives was quite an economic blow for them.

120 For a summary of the two interests, see Tzu-cheng, Lo, “On Consolidation of Agricultural Producers’ Co-operatives,” Hsueh-hsi, No. 6, 06 2, 1955Google Scholar, in ECMM, No. 1, August 15, 1955.

121 See, for example, Chekiang Daily, May 11, 1955.

122 See the People's Daily editorial, “Continue to Correct Discrimination against Poor Peasants,” December 28, 1955; and Ming, Lin, “The Idea of Relying on Poor Peasants Must Be Firmly Established,” Hsueh-hsi, No. 11, 1955Google Scholar, in ECMM, No. 21, January 16, 1956.

123 For a typical case, see Ta Kung Pao (Tientsin), 08 20, 1955Google Scholar; see also, in People's Daily, February 7, 1956, an article on weeding out counter-revolutionaries while new co-operatives were being consolidated.

124 See the People's Daily editorial, “Evaluate the Output of Land That Is Being Entered into Co-operatives Fairly and Rationally,” December 3, 1955; and the People's Daily editorial, “Co-operative Members’ Means of Production Must Be Disposed of Through Full Consultation,” December 7, 1955, in SCMP, No. 1191, 12 19, 1955Google Scholar. See also K. R. Walker, “Collectivisation in Retrospect: The ‘Socialist High Tide ‘of Autumn 1955–Spring 1956,” op. cit.

125 “The Agricultural Co-operative Movement in Heilungkiang Is Entering a Transition Stage from a Lower to a Higher Form,” NCNA, December 12, 1955, in SCMP, No. 1202, 01 6, 1956Google Scholar.

126 This is a term frequently used by refugee informants to convey the idea of indirect coercion such as threats to raise tax assessments or to deny access to irrigation facilities. For an estimate of compulsion during the upsurge, see Teng Tzu-hui's NPC speech, op. cit.

127 An article from Anhwei, for example, reports that this was done in 923 co-operatives in seven hsien: see “Overall Overhauling of APCs in Anhwei,” op. cit.

128 For Chinese regulations on entry into co-operatives of either type, see the “Model Regulations” for both in Tung Ta-lin, op. cit.

129 In the winter of 1956–57, when upper-middle-peasant resentment was at its height, the Kwangtung provincial committee called for “all-out propaganda on the policy of mutual benefit. In the distribution of income, the initiative should be taken to give special consideration as is necessary to the higher middle peasants and those who previously had special income”: “Kwangtung Adopts Active Measures to Consolidate Agricultural Producers’ Co-operatives,” People's Daily, 12 15, 1956Google Scholar, in SCMP, No. 1443, January 4, 1957. See also Po-wei, Ch'en, “Correctly Handle the Contradictions Between Poor and Middle Peasants,” Cheng-chih Hsueh-hsi, No. 6, 06 13, 1957Google Scholar, in ECMM, No. 99, September 16, 1957.

130 See, for example, the banner headline “We will certainly establish more and better agricultural producers' co-operatives,” Ch'en-chou Ch'un-chung Pao, December 4, 1955.

131 The typical pattern in the conversion, especially in the southern provinces, was for the provincial committee to adopt a plan to organise a few hundred higher co-operatives in “key-point” hsien. Once this start had been made, the competitive pressures unleashed among local Party committees probably led to the spread of the conversion movement from key-point hsien to other hsien. For one such plan, see “Kwangtung to Form Higher APCs,” NCNA, 01 11, 1956, in SCMP, No. 1215, 01 25, 1956Google Scholar.

132 K. R. Walker, “Collectivisation in Retrospect: The ‘Socialist High Tide’ of Autumn 1955-Spring 1956,” op. cit.

133 Cited from Bolshevik, No. 12, 1929, by Selunskaia, , op. cit., p. 25Google Scholar. For a report on exploitation in collective farms, see Karavaev, A., “Kolkhoz Construction and the Class Struggle,” Na Agrarnom Fronle, No. 10, 10 1929Google Scholar.

134. “Plenum of the CC-AUCP (b) from November 10 to November 17, 1929,” in “AUCP” in Resolutions, op. cit., p. 375.

135 For the Soviet legislation on the dispossession and deportation of the kulaks, see “On Measures to Strengthen the Socialist Reconstruction of Agriculture in Regions of Solid Collectivisation and on the Straggle with the Kulaks” (Decision of the CEC and Sovnarkom of the U.S.S.R., February 1, 1930), in Collectivisation of Agriculture, op. cit., p. 267. For a number of interesting accounts of defcuZafcisation, see Bogdenko, L., “For a History of the Initial Stage in the Solid Collectivisation of the U.S.S.R.,” op. cit. The official History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960)Google Scholar puts the total number of families evicted from their villages at 240,757 between 1930 and 1932 (p. 470).

136 See Decisions on Agricultural Co-operation, op. cit., p. 29, and Ch'en-chou Ch'unchung Pao, May 10, 1956. See also the section on leadership above. These data suggest that the conclusion on this point reached by Professor Schur-mann in his Ideology and Organization in Communist China is rather too strong. He writes of the 1955 period: “Class warfare within the village, which had halted after land reform in favour of ‘more orderly procedures,’ erupted once again. Power had to be seized from the traditional village leadership” (p. 446). The kind of power struggle implied in this quotation seems to have taken place only in a small minority of villages.

137 See Arts. 4 and 5 of “Outline of National Agricultural Development from 1956 to 1967 (Draft),” in Cheng-chih Hsueh-hsi, No. 2, 02 1956Google Scholar.

138 On a national scale, according to one report, 60–70 per cent, of rich peasants were admitted as candidate members, 20–30 per cent, as probationary members and 10 per cent, were subjected to control: see Yu-jen, Chang, “The Path of Eliminating the Rich Peasants in China,” Ching-chi Yen-chiu, No. 6, 1956Google Scholar. With regard to class enemies classified as counter-revolutionaries, Lo Jui-ch'ing reported in the summer of 1956 that 14–7 per cent, of them in 4,028 hsiang in Honan had been allowed to join as full members, 56–1 per cent as candidate members and 29–2 per cent, as elements under control: see Jui-ch'ing, Lo, “The Suppression of Counter-revolutionaries,” speech at the June 1956 meeting of the NPC, Record of the Third Session, op. cit., pp. 336–348Google Scholar.