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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2021
In the late 1950s, the creation of a large reservoir for the Sanmenxia hydropower project required the displacement of tens of thousands of households along the Yellow River. Simultaneously, the state commenced a land-reclamation project, sending people from populated areas to the frontiers. Under the supervision of county and provincial authorities, more than 7,000 reservoir inhabitants from Henan were mobilized to migrate to Dunhuang, an oasis surrounded by the Gobi Desert in the northwest. The socialist state's pursuit of irrigation and hydroelectricity benefits not only altered the waterscape of the Yellow River; it also impacted nearby rural communities as well as those a thousand miles away. From the high-modernist perspective, the state-sponsored demographic engineering and the Yellow River engineering seemed to complement each other well. Yet, with the massive flight of resettlers, the state-envisioned integration of reservoir displacement and frontier reclamation ultimately failed.
1 Hua Shan 华山, “Sanmenxia: yige gaibian Huanghe ziran mianmao de weida jihua xuanbule!” 三门峡：一个改变黄河自然面貌的伟大计划宣布了！ Renmin Ribao, July 21, 1955.
2 In her comprehensive study of migration in Chinese history, Diana Lary introduces the internal migration during the early years of the People's Republic. Lary suggests that during the first decade and a half of Communist rule, migration was an integral part of social reorganization and economic growth. State-sponsored migration was a crucial mechanism to assert the Communist state's control over the far south and the far west; see Lary, Diana, Chinese Migrations: The Movement of People, Goods, and Ideas over Four Millennia (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012)Google Scholar; Judith Shapiro introduces the involuntary relocation of educated youths and rightists to frontier areas during the Mao era. While pointing out the environmental destruction wrought by reclamation and other state projects, Shapiro states that the Chinese people were comparatively powerless to resist the state-sponsored-resettlement plan. See Shapiro, Judith, Mao's War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On sent-down youth, also see Bernstein, Thomas P., Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011)Google Scholar. Ning Wang's study of political banishment of Rightists to the Great Northern Wilderness also reveals that the Anti-Rightist campaign in Beijing coincided with the state programs of land reclamation in frontier regions. In the pursuit of economic growth, the Communist state used political exiles as cheap labor on farms in the northeast; see Wang, Ning, Banished to the Great Northern Wilderness: Political Exile and Reeducation in Mao's China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017)Google Scholar; Gregory Rohlf illustrates the rationales and tensions throughout the resettlement movement to Qinghai in the 1950s. As state-building efforts, the state-led resettlement and reclamation programs aimed to increase agricultural production and to consolidate the Communist state's frontier control. Rohlf concludes that despite the efforts made by the central and local governments, few of the resettlers remained in Qinghai; this situation suggests that the Communist state's colonization of rural Qinghai had failed in the 1950s. Rohlf, Gregory, Building a New China, Colonizing Kokonor: Resettlement to Qinghai in the 1950s (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016)Google Scholar. State-sponsored frontier reclamation and resettlement were not invented by the Chinese Communist Party. It could be traced to the early stage of Chinese imperial expansion during the Qin and Han dynasties; see Lary, “The Qin/Han Era,” chapter 2 in Chinese Migrations; Perdue, Peter C., China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zhen, Zhao, “Agricultural Reclamation Policy and Environmental Changes in the Northwest China during the Qing Dynasty” Frontiers of History in China 2 (2006), 276–91Google Scholar. On spontaneous migration and migrations caused by war, disaster, and poverty, see Gottschang, Thomas R. and Lary, Diana, Swallows and Settlers: The Great Migration from North China to Manchuria (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacKinnon, Stephen, Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Muscolino, Micah, “Violence Against People and the Land: The Environment and Refugee Migration from China's Henan Province, 1938–1945,” Environment and History 17 (2011), 291–311CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shan, Patrick, Taming China's Wilderness: Immigration, Settlement and the Shaping of the Heilongjiang Frontier, 1900–1931 (New York: Routledge, 2017)Google Scholar.
3 See Lary, “The Early PRC, 1949–1965,” chapter 11 in Chinese Migrations; Rohlf, Building a New China, Colonizing Kokonor, 42–55.
4 Heming, Li, Waley, Paul, and Rees, Phil, “Reservoir Resettlement in China: Past Experience and the Three Gorges Dam,” The Geographical Journal 167.3 (2001), 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Jing, Jun, “Rural Resettlement: Past Lessons for the Three Gorges Project,” The China Journal, 38 (1997), 65–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mo, Mou, Wenmei, Cai, “Resettlement in the Xin'an River Power Station Project,” in The River Dragon Has Come! The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China's Yangtze River and Its People, ed. Qing, Dai (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 104–23Google Scholar.
5 Lary, “The Early PRC, 1949–1965,” chapter 11 in Chinese Migrations; Also see Jing, Jun, The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a Chinese Village (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jing, Jun, “Villages Dammed, Villages Repossessed: A Memorial Movement in Northwest China,” American Ethnologist, 26 (1999), 324–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Huanghe Sanmenxia Shuili Shuniuzhi 黄河三门峡水利枢纽志 (Beijing: Zhongguo da baike quanshu, 1993), 172. On the number of displaced populations, because of the remodeling of the dam and the change of operation mode of the reservoir, riverbank collapse, and population growth after the completion of the dam, the number may vary in different sources. The number cited here is the official statistic released in 1965.
7 For more details about the design, debate, and remodeling of the Sanmenxia project, see Xiangli Ding, “The Yellow River Comes from Our Hands: Silt, Hydroelectricity, and the Sanmenxia Dam,” Environment and History (2019), https://doi.org/10.3197/096734019X15631846928729 (online).
8 Shapiro, Mao's War Against Nature.
9 Pietz, David, The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; an anonymous author using the pseudonym “Wei Shang” introduces the debate over the Soviet design, construction, and reconstruction of the Sanmenxia dam; see “A Lamentation for the Yellow River: The Three Gate Gorge Dam.” in The River Dragon Has Come! The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China's Yangtze River and Its People, ed. Dai Qing (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 143–59.
10 Hu Yingze 胡英泽, Liudong de Tudi: Ming Qing yilai Huanghe Xiaobeiganliu Quyu Shehui Yanjiu 流动的土地：明清以来黄河小北干流区域社会研究 (Beijing: Beijing Daxue, 2012).
11 Huanghe Sanmenxia Shuili Shuniuzhi, 172–73.
12 See Leng Meng 冷梦 Huanghe Dayimin 黄河大移民 (Xi'an: Shannxi lüyou chubanshe, 1998); see the English translation, Battle for Sanmenxia: Population Relocation during the Three Gate Gorge Hydropower Project (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999).
13 See Xie Zhaoping 谢朝平, “Da Qianxi” 大迁徙, Huohua, 2010.
14 The Mogao Grottoes near Dunhuang were discovered in 1900 and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Since then, Dunhuang has become a world renown tourism destination.
15 Hershatter, Gail, The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China's Collective Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011)Google Scholar.
16 Alongside the state-sponsored-resettlement programs, Rohlf discusses the voluntary resettlement to Qinghai for better employment opportunities in the 1950s; see Rohlf, “Resettlement Becomes a Frontier Policy, 1955–1956,” chapter 2 in Building New China, Colonizing Kokonor. On Chinese peasants’ counteraction in violation of the state policies during the socialist era, see Gao Wangling 高王凌, Zhongguo Nongmin Fanxingwei Yanjiu (1950–1980) 中国农民反行为研究 (1950–1980) (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2013).
17 Sanmenxia shizhi, vol. 1 三门峡市志 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji, 1997).
18 Lingbao xianzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui 灵宝县志编纂委员会: Lingbao Xianzhi 灵宝县志 (1936), 94–95.
19 For classic studies on Mao's rural revolution in the PRC period, see Edward Friedman, Paul Pickowicz, Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Ralph A. Thaxton Jr., Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao's Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). My focus here is on the general trend in Communist China.
20 Ash, Robert, “Squeezing the Peasants: Grain Extraction, Food Consumption and Rural Living Standards in Mao's China,” The China Quarterly 188 (2006), 959–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Li, Hua-yu, Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948–1953 (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006)Google Scholar; Bernstein, Thomas and Li, Hua-yu, eds., China Learns from the Soviet Union (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010)Google Scholar; Wemheuer, Felix, Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 See Dikotter, Frank, Mao's Great Famine: the History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 (New York: Walker & Co., 2010)Google Scholar; Rohlf, Building New China, Colonizing Kokonor.
22 “Henansheng yimin gongzuohuiyi fenzutaolun ziliao huiji” 河南省移民工作会议分组讨论资料汇集 (1956), J149/05/396 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives).
23 Schwarz, Henry G., “Chinese migration to Northwest China and Inner Mongolia 1949–59,” The China Quarterly 16 (1963), 62–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Li, Rose Maria, “Migration to China's Northern Frontier, 1953–82,” Population and Development Review 15 (1989), 503–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Population resettlement in China after 1949 was not only for land reclamation; it also served political and military purposes. See Shapiro, “War Preparations and Forcible Relocations,” chapter 4 in Mao's War Against Nature. During the second Sino-Japanese War, many wartime refugees resettled in the northwest for land reclamation. See Zhang, Genfu 张根福 Kangzhan shiqi de renkou qianyi 抗战时期的人口迁移 (Beijing: Guangming Ribao, 2006); Muscolino, Micah, “Violence against People and the Land: The Environment and Refugee Migration from China's Henan Province, 1938–1945,” Environment and History 17 (2011), 291–311CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Guanyu 1956 chungengqian yimin kenhuang gongzuode baogao 关于 1956 春耕前移民垦荒工作的报告 (1956), J149/05/396 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives). In general, about 529,000 migrants from Henan province migrated to frontier regions; among them, around 92,200 migrated to Gansu. See Shen Yimin 沈益民, and Tong Shengzhu 童乘珠, Zhongguo Renkou Qianyi 中国人口迁移 (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji, 1992). For studies on land reclamation resettlement in other provinces, see Zhao Rukun 赵入坤, “Ershishiji wuliushiniandaide zhongguo bianjiang yimin” 二十世纪五六十年代的中国边疆移民, Zhonggong Dangshi Yanjiu 2 (2012), 52–64.
25 Scott, James, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 6Google Scholar. Scott outlines several helpful analysis frames, such as state space versus non-state space, high modernism, and the state's consistent simplification effort in history. Drawing on Scott's analysis frames, the Yellow River valley could be understood as a space created through interaction among people, nature, and the state in the past thousands of years. Under the influence of global high modernism, the Chinese Communist state planned to build dams and reservoirs; these could be seen as high-modernist state space transformed from natural and agrarian spaces. To create this state space, residents in the valley were asked to resettle somewhere else under the dispensation of the state authority and with structural coercion.
26 Croll, Elisabeth J., “Involuntary Resettlement in Rural China: The Local View,” The China Quarterly 158 (1999), 469Google Scholar.
27 Henansheng yiminweiyuanhui 1956 nian gongzuozongjie 河南省移民委员会 1956 年工作总结 J149/05/396 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives).
28 See Wu, Odoric Y. K., Mobilizing the Masses: Building Revolution in Henan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Xie, “Da Qianxi.”
30 Sanmenxia yimin weiyuanhui 三门峡移民委员会, Haoshuji zai yimin gongzuo huiyishang de dongyuan baogao 郝书记在移民工作会议上的动员报告 (1956), folder 91/3 (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Municipal Archives).
31 “Gansusheng yiminju Wang Xianzhi tongzhi fayan” 甘肃省移民局王宪之同志发言 (1956), J149/05/396 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives).
32 On the practice of social classification, see Kuisong, Yang, “How a ‘Bad Element’ Was Made: The Discovery, Accusation, and Punishment of Zang Qiren” and Jeremy Brown, “Moving Targets: Changing Class Labels in Rural Hebei and Henan, 1960–1979” in Maoism at The Grassroots: Everyday Life in China's Era of High Socialism, ed. Brown, Jeremy and Johnson, Matthew (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.
33 Lingbaoxian yiminweiyuanhui 灵宝县移民委员会, “1957 nian yimin qinyou waiqian shenqingshu” 1957 年移民亲友外迁申请书 (1957), folder 55 (Lingbao, Henan: Lingbao County Archives).
34 “Guanyu wosheng chungengqian xiangshengwai yimin gongzuo de juti buzhide yijian” 关于我省春耕前向省外移民工作的具体布置的意见 (1956), J149/05/396 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives).
35 “Henansheng 1956 nian chunji xiangshengwai yimin gongzuo de zongjiebaogao” 河南省 1956 年春季向省外移民工作的总结报告 (1956), J149/05/396 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives).
36 Shi Yun 石耘, “Huanghe Sanmenxia kuqu yiminqingku qingkuang gaishu” 黄河三门峡库区移民清库情况概述, Sanmenxia Wenshiziliao 17 (2007), 110.
37 “Gansusheng yiminju Wang Xianzhi tongzhi fayan” (1956).
38 “Gansusheng yiminju Wang Xianzhi tongzhi fayan” (1956).
39 “Shengyiminweiyuanhui zhuren Jia Xinzhai guanyu Henansheng yinianlaiyimingongzuo de jibenqingkuang de baogao” 省移民委员会主任贾心斋关于河南省一年以来移民工作的基本情况的报告 (November 9, 1956), J149/05/0397 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives).
40 Xie, “Da Qianxi,” 87–90.
41 Zhangye zhuanqu 张掖专区, “1956 nian yimin anzhi gongzuo jiancha baogao 1956 年移民安置工作检查报告 (1956), 138/004/2521–2” (Lanzhou, Gansu: Gansu Province Archives).
42 Zhangye zhuanqu, “1956 nian yimin anzhi gongzuo jiancha baogao.”
43 “Guanyu Minlexian yimin zinaoshijian de chuli baogao” 关于民乐县移民滋闹事件的处理报告 (April 12, 1957), 138/004/2521–2 (Lanzhou, Gansu: Gansu Province Archives). To avoid potential ethnic or religious conflicts, the provincial government intentionally avoid placing Han resettlers in Hui Muslim communities. Therefore, despite the ethno-religious differences between Henan and Gansu, religion and ethnicity played only a minor role in the tension between Dunhuang inhabitants and Henan resettlers.
44 Yang, Jisheng, “The Tree Red Banners: Source of the Famine,” chapter 2 in Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012)Google Scholar.
45 Duanhuangxian renminweiyuanhui minzhengju, 敦煌县人民委员会民政局 (Dunhuang County People's Committee Bureau of Civil Affairs), “Guanyu 1956–1959 nian yimin gongzuo de anpai, zongjie, baogao” 关于 1956–1959 年移民工作的安排, 总结, 报告 (1959), folder 34 (Dunhuang, Gansu, Dunhuang Municipal Archives).
46 Zhonggong Dunhuangxian weiyuanhui mishushi 中共敦煌县委员会秘书室 (Office of the Chinese Communist Party Dunhuang county Party committee secretary), “Liuyue fanjiyimin qingkuang tongbao” 六月返籍移民情况通报 (1957), folder 349 (Dunhuang, Gansu, Dunhuang Municipal Archives).
47 On the Anti-Rightist Movement at the local level, see Cao Shuji “An Overt Conspiracy: Creating Rightists in Rural Henan, 1957–1958,” in Maoism at the Grassroots, ed. Brown and Johnson, 77.
48 Wang Yuan 王渊 Dunhuang Yishi 敦煌轶事 (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin, 2005).
49 On the experience of Rightists in labor camps in Gansu province, see He Fengming 和凤鸣 Jingli-Wode 1957 经历-我的 1957 (Dunhuang: Dunhuang Wenyi, 2001); Yang Xianhui 杨显惠 Jiabiangou Jishi 夹边沟纪事 (Huacheng, 2008), and see its English translation, Woman from Shanghai: Tales of Survival from a Chinese Labor Camp (New York: Anchor, 2009).
50 “Henansheng 1956 dongji weiwen yimin heqingkenduiyuan gongzuo zongjie baogao” 河南省 1956 冬季慰问移民和青垦队员工作总结报告 (January, 1957), J149/05/03967 (Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Province Archives).
51 Yang, “The Three Red Banners.”
52 Zhou Xun, ed., The Great Famine in China, 1958–1962: A Documentary History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 12.
53 Zhou, The Great Famine in China, 1958–1962, 67. Also, on cannibalism in Gansu, see Yang, Tombstone.
54 “Dunhuang remingongshe yimingongzuo zongjiebaogao” 敦煌人民公社移民工作总结报告 (January 5, 1959), folder 34. (Dunhuang, Gansu: Dunhuang Municipal Archives).
55 Xie,”Da Qianxi,” 93.
56 “Guanyu yimin daoliuqingkuang de baogao” 关于移民倒流情况的报告 (August 20, 1959), 138/004/1721 (Lanzhou, Gansu: Gansu Province Archives).
57 Zhonggong Dunhuangxian weiyuanhui mishushi, “Liuyue fanjiyimin qiangkuang tongbao.”
58 Sanmenxiashi yiminweiyuanhui 三门峡市移民委员会, “Guanyu dongyuan kuquyimin fandun de gongzuoanpai” 关于动员库区移民返敦的工作安排 (1956), 91/1 (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Municipal Archives).
59 “Duifanjiyimin qingkuangde fenxirenshi he jinhou gongzuo yijian” 对返籍移民情况的分析认识和今后工作意见 (1957), 91/4 (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Municipal Archives).
60 Zhou Enlai 周恩来 1958 nian Sanmenxia huiyi jianghua” 1958 年三门峡会议讲话 (Zhou Enlai's Sanmenxia project meeting), (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Gazetteer Office).
61 “Sanmenxiashi yiminbangongshi guanyu dongyuan yimin chonggananzhiqude yijian” 三门峡移民办公室关于动员移民重返安置区的意见 (1957), 91/5 (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Municipal Archives).
62 Cheng, Tiejun and Selden, Mark, “The Origins and Social Consequences of China's Hukou System,” The China Quarterly 139 (1994), 644–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; This validates that the household registration system was gradually implemented in the 1950s. See Brown, Jeremy, City Versus Countryside in Mao's China: Negotiating the Divide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
63 “Duidangqian yimin gongzuo de jinjizhishi” 对当前移民工作的紧急指示 (July 28, 1959), 1/261 (Dunhuang, Gansu: Dunhuang Municipal Archives).
64 Shi, “Huanghe Sanmenxia kuqu yiminqingku qingkuang gaisu,” 120.
65 “Lingbaoxian yiminweiyuanhui guayu chengguan gongshe jieshou Dunhuang fanjiyimin juzhuchengshi de baogao” 灵宝县移民委员会关于城关公社接受敦煌返籍移民居住城市的报告 (February 2, 1964) 55 (Lingbao, Henan: Lingbao County Archives).
66 Jing, The Temple of Memories.
67 Shi, “Huanghe Sanmenxia kuqu yiminqingku qingkuang gaishu,”117.
68 Sanmenxiashi yiminweiyuanhui 三门峡移民委员会, “Guanyu Gaomiaogongshe Da'an dadui duizhang Yu Youcai tanwuyiminkuan he shehuijiujikuan de diaochao baogao” 关于高庙公社大安大队队长虞有才贪污移民款和社会救济款的调查报告 91/52 (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Municipal Archives).
69 Shi, “Huanghe Sanmenxia kuqu yiminqingku qingkuang gaishu,”116.
70 Sanmenxiashi minzhengju 三门峡市民政局, “Sanmenxiashi 1959 nian yimin gongzuo zongjiebaogao” 三门峡市 1959 年移民工作总结报告, 42/1 (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Municipal Archives).
71 Sanmenxiashi minzhengju 三门峡市民政局, “Guanyu jiejue 57nian neiqian Cizhong yimin zhufangyiliuwenti de qingshi” 关于解决 57 年内迁磁钟移民住房遗留问题的请示, 91/40 (Sanmenxia, Henan: Sanmenxia Municipal Archives).
72 Schudder, Thayer, “The Human Ecology of Big Projects: River Basin Development and Resettlement,” Annual Review of Anthropology 2 (1973), 51Google Scholar.
73 Brown and Johnson, Maoism at the Grassroots, 1.