Despite efforts to improve farmers’ welfare, the disastrous policies of Mao Zedong are still visible today
Josephine Ma 29 September 2009
Mao Zedong said the key to the success of the Communist Party’s revolution lay with the support of farmers, which he won through the promise of land ownership. But 60 years on, land ownership remains a major problem and farmers are still underprivileged.
From the outset, the party’s rural policies followed the principle of “maximising surplus in the countryside and extracting it to support urban and industrial development”. For decades, farm produce was sold to cities at discounted prices and the state spent most of its investment in cities. Farmers were denied the social welfare enjoyed by city dwellers until a few years ago. They were told to rely on the land allocated to them in the early 1980s as their only means of social security. At the same time they were not given full ownership, and their right to use the land has often been abused by cadres.
This explains the ever-widening wealth gap and that benefits from economic growth were not trickling down to the countryside. This philosophy was only altered in 2004, when President Hu Jintao announced it was time for cities to nurture the countryside and that the state would start investing more in rural areas.
Sixty years ago, the party promised farmers that it would overthrow the ancient feudal system, and those who toiled in the fields would be given land. In the four years after the party took power, a total of 46.7 million hectares of farmland was taken from the hands of landlords and distributed to some 300 million landless farmers, according to Xinhua.
The process was brutal. While officials now avoid talking about the number of landlords who died in the purge, many scholars believe two million of them could have been killed in prosecutions and public “struggle sessions”. By 1953, landlord as a class was virtually abolished.
Land ownership greatly boosted farmers’ incentives, and output leapt. In 1951, grain and cotton output jumped by 8.7 per cent and 49 per cent year on year, respectively, and 14.1 per cent and 26.5 per cent in the following year, Xinhua said.
The party’s land policies underwent a U-turn in 1953 when the nation drove itself into a spiral of collectivisation. It reached a catastrophic apex in 1959.
The change seemed abrupt, but organising smallholdings into larger entities had been on the agenda of the party leadership as early as the 1940s under the dual forces of Marxist-Stalinist ideology, and the requirements of mechanisation and efficient irrigation.
Collectivisation of rural land took several stages. From 1952-1954, five to six families were organised into mutual aid teams to work co-operatively during busy times. In 1954 to 1956, small-scale agricultural producers’ co-operatives were established by grouping 20 to 40 families together. But Mao was unsatisfied with the cautious approach and large-scale collectives comprising 150 to 200 families were introduced in 1956. In the latter system, farmers no longer retained their land ownership, but instead earned work points through their labour.
Mao announced the Great Leap Forward in 1958 and the people’s communes were set up by amalgamating dozens of large-scale collectives. A commune would eat up a town and scores of villages, or even several towns, and contain a population of 10,000 to 80,000.
The Great Leap Forward brought about the Great Famine. Half a century later, the government still glosses over the catastrophe and insists on using the euphemism “three years of natural disasters”. According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in the three years. Unofficial estimates vary. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua reporter who spent 10 years collecting information on the subject, estimated a toll of 36 million.
Yao Jianfu, a former researcher at the State Council Research Centre of rural policies and an aide to Du Runsheng, a guru of China’s agricultural policies, said: “Small-scale collectives were OK. Large-scale collectives were a mistake. But setting up communes was a crime.”
After the Great Famine, the party tried to work out a more feasible rural hierarchy comprising teams, brigades and communes. More flexibility was given to modes of production.
As the Cultural Revolution came to an end, farmers in Fengyang county, Anhui province, took the risk of dividing farmland among themselves, a move that later received tacit endorsement from paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. A leap in grain output in Fengyang prompted Deng in the early 1980s to introduce the household responsibility system, which allocated farmland to individual households according to their size and allowed farmers to decide what to grow on their own plots.
The right to farm on the land was protected by a 30-year contract, which was later extended to another 30 years. But rural land is still owned by villages and brigades collectively. Deng was hailed as a hero for the system. But Yao said it was simply “a return to common sense”.
Li Ping, Beijing representative of the US-based NGO Rural Development Institute and a land expert, said Deng’s contribution was still remarkable. “Given the political situation at that time, it took a lot of political will to make that happen.”
However, the damage of the collectivisation era remains visible today, Li said. A new class of rural elites, represented by village cadres and township officials, still wields substantial clout in rural life. Theoretically, they could not lease or convert farmland for other purposes without the majority consent of villagers, but land and collective assets were often sold without proper procedures, he said.
Following the disbandment of communes, farmers were left to pay for local infrastructure, such as roads and irrigation pipes, and education. The state and city governments spend most of their money on urban development.
Land grabs became a major source of grievances in the countryside since urbanisation quickened in the late 1990s. Land was taken away by city governments and converted to construction land, which was later sold at a 40 or 50 times premium to property developers. Most of the profit went to city governments to finance urban expansion and infrastructure.
Another cause of protests has been pollution. Rural cadres often leased land to factories without going through the proper environmental assessment procedures.
Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial Work Leading Group and director of the Office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, said in 2002 that farmers had made a sacrifice of 600 to 800 billion yuan to the nation during the planned economy era. But the land acquisition by urban governments had deprived farmers of at least 2 trillion yuan in profits.
Li said China’s rural land laws and regulations were sufficient, but they were often violated by local cadres. “On a scale of one to 10, and 10 represents full land ownership, the regulations and laws in China score eight. But their implementation only scores four to five.”
The campaign to build a new socialist countryside proposed by the government in 2005 - which aims at modernising the countryside such as by providing better public facilities - also provided a convenient excuse for local cadres to take away residential land and shovel farmers into multi-storey buildings.
“Even Chen Xiwen said the song of a new socialist countryside had gone off-key,” Yao said.
China is now reaping what it sowed. At a time of global recession, it has found it difficult to expand its domestic market because of the sluggish rural economy. It will take a long time and strong commitment to improve farmers’ welfare.
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Great leap backwards
Despite efforts to improve farmers’ welfare, the disastrous policies of Mao Zedong are still visible today
Josephine Ma
29 September 2009
Mao Zedong said the key to the success of the Communist Party’s revolution lay with the support of farmers, which he won through the promise of land ownership. But 60 years on, land ownership remains a major problem and farmers are still underprivileged.
From the outset, the party’s rural policies followed the principle of “maximising surplus in the countryside and extracting it to support urban and industrial development”. For decades, farm produce was sold to cities at discounted prices and the state spent most of its investment in cities. Farmers were denied the social welfare enjoyed by city dwellers until a few years ago. They were told to rely on the land allocated to them in the early 1980s as their only means of social security. At the same time they were not given full ownership, and their right to use the land has often been abused by cadres.
This explains the ever-widening wealth gap and that benefits from economic growth were not trickling down to the countryside. This philosophy was only altered in 2004, when President Hu Jintao announced it was time for cities to nurture the countryside and that the state would start investing more in rural areas.
Sixty years ago, the party promised farmers that it would overthrow the ancient feudal system, and those who toiled in the fields would be given land. In the four years after the party took power, a total of 46.7 million hectares of farmland was taken from the hands of landlords and distributed to some 300 million landless farmers, according to Xinhua.
The process was brutal. While officials now avoid talking about the number of landlords who died in the purge, many scholars believe two million of them could have been killed in prosecutions and public “struggle sessions”. By 1953, landlord as a class was virtually abolished.
Land ownership greatly boosted farmers’ incentives, and output leapt. In 1951, grain and cotton output jumped by 8.7 per cent and 49 per cent year on year, respectively, and 14.1 per cent and 26.5 per cent in the following year, Xinhua said.
The party’s land policies underwent a U-turn in 1953 when the nation drove itself into a spiral of collectivisation. It reached a catastrophic apex in 1959.
The change seemed abrupt, but organising smallholdings into larger entities had been on the agenda of the party leadership as early as the 1940s under the dual forces of Marxist-Stalinist ideology, and the requirements of mechanisation and efficient irrigation.
Collectivisation of rural land took several stages. From 1952-1954, five to six families were organised into mutual aid teams to work co-operatively during busy times. In 1954 to 1956, small-scale agricultural producers’ co-operatives were established by grouping 20 to 40 families together. But Mao was unsatisfied with the cautious approach and large-scale collectives comprising 150 to 200 families were introduced in 1956. In the latter system, farmers no longer retained their land ownership, but instead earned work points through their labour.
Mao announced the Great Leap Forward in 1958 and the people’s communes were set up by amalgamating dozens of large-scale collectives. A commune would eat up a town and scores of villages, or even several towns, and contain a population of 10,000 to 80,000.
The Great Leap Forward brought about the Great Famine. Half a century later, the government still glosses over the catastrophe and insists on using the euphemism “three years of natural disasters”. According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in the three years. Unofficial estimates vary. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua reporter who spent 10 years collecting information on the subject, estimated a toll of 36 million.
Yao Jianfu, a former researcher at the State Council Research Centre of rural policies and an aide to Du Runsheng, a guru of China’s agricultural policies, said: “Small-scale collectives were OK. Large-scale collectives were a mistake. But setting up communes was a crime.”
After the Great Famine, the party tried to work out a more feasible rural hierarchy comprising teams, brigades and communes. More flexibility was given to modes of production.
As the Cultural Revolution came to an end, farmers in Fengyang county, Anhui province, took the risk of dividing farmland among themselves, a move that later received tacit endorsement from paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. A leap in grain output in Fengyang prompted Deng in the early 1980s to introduce the household responsibility system, which allocated farmland to individual households according to their size and allowed farmers to decide what to grow on their own plots.
The right to farm on the land was protected by a 30-year contract, which was later extended to another 30 years. But rural land is still owned by villages and brigades collectively. Deng was hailed as a hero for the system. But Yao said it was simply “a return to common sense”.
Li Ping, Beijing representative of the US-based NGO Rural Development Institute and a land expert, said Deng’s contribution was still remarkable. “Given the political situation at that time, it took a lot of political will to make that happen.”
However, the damage of the collectivisation era remains visible today, Li said. A new class of rural elites, represented by village cadres and township officials, still wields substantial clout in rural life. Theoretically, they could not lease or convert farmland for other purposes without the majority consent of villagers, but land and collective assets were often sold without proper procedures, he said.
Following the disbandment of communes, farmers were left to pay for local infrastructure, such as roads and irrigation pipes, and education. The state and city governments spend most of their money on urban development.
Land grabs became a major source of grievances in the countryside since urbanisation quickened in the late 1990s. Land was taken away by city governments and converted to construction land, which was later sold at a 40 or 50 times premium to property developers. Most of the profit went to city governments to finance urban expansion and infrastructure.
Another cause of protests has been pollution. Rural cadres often leased land to factories without going through the proper environmental assessment procedures.
Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial Work Leading Group and director of the Office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, said in 2002 that farmers had made a sacrifice of 600 to 800 billion yuan to the nation during the planned economy era. But the land acquisition by urban governments had deprived farmers of at least 2 trillion yuan in profits.
Li said China’s rural land laws and regulations were sufficient, but they were often violated by local cadres. “On a scale of one to 10, and 10 represents full land ownership, the regulations and laws in China score eight. But their implementation only scores four to five.”
The campaign to build a new socialist countryside proposed by the government in 2005 - which aims at modernising the countryside such as by providing better public facilities - also provided a convenient excuse for local cadres to take away residential land and shovel farmers into multi-storey buildings.
“Even Chen Xiwen said the song of a new socialist countryside had gone off-key,” Yao said.
China is now reaping what it sowed. At a time of global recession, it has found it difficult to expand its domestic market because of the sluggish rural economy. It will take a long time and strong commitment to improve farmers’ welfare.
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