History of China 1961–1965
In the period from 1961 to 1965, the lines of Mao and Liu Shaoqi vied for power, with one and the other getting the upper hand. With the Socialist Education Movement began in 1963, a movement with which Mao more and more prevailed and which ultimately led to the Cultural Revolution .
The emergency program in 1961
Due to the failures and bad economy during the great leap forward , China had reached a low point in early 1961. The people were starving and industry was badly damaged. Grain production fell from 200 million t (1958) to 160 million t (1962), sugar from 0.9 million t to 0.34 million, cotton from 2.0 million t to 0.8 million, and pig iron from 13.7 million t to 8.1 million, cement from 9.3 million t to 6.0 million. Against this background, Liu Shaoqi prevailed at the 9th plenary session of the CPC in January 1961 with an emergency program. The program ran under the slogans “Regulation, Consolidation, Supplement and Level Elevation” and had the following objectives.
Regulation : The aim of regulation was to bring the individual economic sectors back into a better relationship with one another. The metal area has been cut back. Instead, the chemical and energy industries, which are important for agriculture, were promoted. Instead of the strict decentralization of the “Big Leap”, six regional offices were set up for centralization. The country should be turned into a unified chessboard.
Consolidation : closure of unprofitable businesses, suspension of unprofitable construction projects, sending 30 million townspeople to the villages in 1961 and 1962.
Supplement : increase in product types
Elevation : improving product quality, strengthening weak links in production, continuing the mass movement towards technical innovation.
From this original emergency program, Liu Shaoqi's group developed an economic model for building the Chinese economy, which was in sharp contradiction to Mao's approach.
The Liu economic model
The basic approach of Liu's economic model was that the economy must offer material incentives for the individual and not primarily rely on the revolutionary vigor of the masses, as Mao demanded.
In agriculture, the accounting, distribution and property functions were transferred back from the People's Commune to the production team, which was essentially the old Danwei (village community). Each production team had the right to dispose of its own workers, land, agricultural equipment and draft animals. Until then, higher-level authorities, for example state construction companies, could requisition people and equipment at will. From the point of view of the Maoists, this right of disposal only supported the traditional egoism of the Danweis again.
With the system of “ three guarantees and one reward ”, the relationship between the production team (Danwei) and the People's Commune was placed on a contractual basis. With this system of three guarantees, the production team committed itself to the superior production brigade to generate a certain amount of production, to work a fixed amount of working hours and not to exceed fixed costs. A production team that exceeded the set commitments was allowed to keep the surplus product, while penalties could be set in the event of non-fulfillment. The production team could, for its part, set specific remuneration standards for various jobs, depending on the required skill, effort or other requirements. The payment was therefore determined according to the performance principle.
The performance principle has also been reintroduced in industry. Instead of the primacy of “politics”, the values of productivity, efficiency, supply and demand now applied. The companies were released into their own responsibility, which in turn courted specialists and other “top performers”. Instead of being guided by “the workers”, there was again a functional separation. Technicians for technology, administrators for administration, workers for work. The achievement principle was also reintroduced in the educational system with precisely defined subject matter.
Criticism and Problems
Economically, Liu's policy was a complete success with double-digit economic growth. The Maoists, however, criticized the renewed emergence of what they believed to be unacceptable income differences. There were thirty ranks in the government apparatus, five among technicians and engineers, and eight wage categories among state workers. A worker received 39 yuan at the first level and 107 yuan at the eighth level. In the higher ranks, various tiered privileges were even more important than salary. Apartment, car, travel, hotels, leisure facilities - everything was reserved for a specific rank.
In the countryside, a layer of rich farmers quickly emerged while the number of poor farmers rose again. The differences between rich and poor regions also emerged again. The big difference between the permanent state worker, with a fixed salary, guaranteed medical care and pension and the “contract worker” who did not have all of this, gave rise to criticism. All of this was evidence to the Maoists that the old classes continued to exist and that class struggle continued to be necessary.
Fight for family businesses
In Anhui and Henan, towards the end of the famine from 1959 to 1961, the local leadership reintroduced family farms to agriculture. This model of family businesses on state soil was seen by many in the party as a promising alternative to the production teams. Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi spoke out in favor of introducing the model on a trial basis in selected areas. Mao managed to stop all attempts in this direction in 1962. He claimed that this model would lead to the reintroduction of capitalism. ((Anton Pam, 10))
Corruption among local cadres
Cadre morale has fallen disastrously in recent years. At the beginning of the 1950s, the peasants looked up to their cadres, and rightly so, as if they looked to caring parents. But, especially since the bad years from 1958 to 1961, more and more money was made into one's own pocket.
It was exploited that there were hardly any ordinances or even administrative laws in the young Chinese People's Republic to which the cadres had to adhere, and also no authorities or courts to which anyone could turn. Comprehensive codes of law were not built up until the early 1980s. What was accepted by the senior management was allowed. The old Chinese adage that the emperor's power ends in the village hedge contained much truth.
Accounting fraud, black market and back door practices had become almost natural. Cadres credited work points for work not done and used collective property as if it belonged to them or overwritten it entirely. Many village officials believed they were the center of the village, refusing to do physical labor, giving instructions and harassing people they disliked. The population spoke more and more of the new local emperors. In addition, the cadre apparatus had grown everywhere. Each cadre tried to provide one more family member with a post.
With the emergence of a new layer of "rich farmers" and wealthy traders, further fields arose for the cadres for useful cooperation. In return for an appropriate consideration, the cadre could use state funds to support the business of the rich farmers and traders. In the private sphere, too, the rich farmers and traders and the village cadre moved ever closer together. Mao spoke of the corruption of the rural cadre by the village bourgeoisie.
The cadres became more and more a burden for the population. The Liuists had also known the problem with the corruption of the country cadres for years. It was not disputed that this problem needed to be addressed. The only question was how.
Mao's counterattack at the CCP's 10th Plenary Session (1962)
At the tenth plenary session of the seventh Central Committee in September 1962, Mao was able to prevail with his program of ten points. It contained the demand for a "socialist educational movement". This paved the way for a campaign that lasted from May 1963 to 1965 and became the forerunner of the Cultural Revolution. The cause was the corruption of the cadres in the country, but as the course of the campaign should show, Mao was concerned with the entire liuistic cadre policy.
In May 1963 the Central Committee passed a resolution allowing Mao to enforce his positions; Mao himself had written it. It was found that there were still class struggles and class contradictions that must be directed against corrupt cadres at this point in time. The recommendation that this purification process should be carried out by newly formed farmers' associations, consisting of “poor and lower middle farmers”, and not by the party itself, was explosive. These farmers' associations were supposed to redistribute class membership in the village, then start the class struggle and carry out the purges against corrupt cadres. However, the campaign was a failure. It ran in the sand. The analysis revealed different views within the party. Mao claimed that the "rich peasants" and the "rulers of the capitalist path within the party" had thwarted the campaign, which Liuists pointed to organizational and technical problems. ((Anton Pam, 10))
This typical Maoist demand for the party's reorientation by peasant associations was reminiscent of the Hundred Flower Movement, as well as people from outside the party were encouraged to help reorient the party, as well as of the later Cultural Revolution, when the young Red Guards drove deserved party functionaries before them.
The agricultural production brigade of Dazhai and the oil production center of Daqing were presented as shining examples for China . In Dazhai, as an ideal socialist village, there were no private parcels, all farmers earned the same and when the rice fields were badly damaged after heavy rains, everything was repaired through community work, allegedly without outside help. It was not published that this flagship brigade was nurtured by interested parties. Daqing also allegedly stood on its own two feet and there was a constant rotation between management staff and the base. The elements of the later Cultural Revolution were built up.
Liu's counter-draft with the "late 10 points" (1963)
In September 1963, a resolution was passed in Liu's handwriting. Firstly, the term “cadre corruption” should be made more precise, secondly, the confusion between corruption and the individual economy should be abolished and thirdly, it turned against Mao's general attack on the “revisionists” who were supposedly sitting in the middle of the Central Committee. Corrupt cadres should not be held accountable through farmers' associations but through party committees and, if necessary, removed. The procedure should also follow clear legal requirements.
The cultural revolution is prepared with the "23 points" (1965)
The tenor of Liu's design corresponded to the mood of large parts of the Chinese population. The class struggle, campaigns, attacks and experiments should finally be over. Despite this, Mao managed to win the majority of the Central Committee on his side again in a struggle for persuasion through one-on-one talks in January 1965. The Central Committee document of the “23 points” was adopted.
While the Liuists emphasized that the corruption among the village cadres was individual violations that also had to be punished individually, the “23 point document” was directed against the whole direction of the “rulers in the party who went the capitalist path ". The attack was aimed at the party leadership around Liu. It is important to wage a war of annihilation against the capitalists there. First, however, the village supporters of these capitalists at the top of the party must be held accountable. To this end, a “second land reform” should be carried out, which should proceed in a similar way to the first one in the early 1950s. The local farmers' associations, which should treat each of the local cadres with a capitalist presumption, were appointed as the carriers of this second land reform. In many villages all cadres were locked up and then subjected to hours of humiliating interrogation, often in a forced "propeller position". To do this, the head had to be bent down to the knees and the arms had to be held straight up. In the long run this position hurt and the rural interrogators were able to hit the village functionary so nicely on the head and pull his hair.
In a short time, the village officials who had previously been on the high horse suffered a massive loss of face. However, only a few were now ready to accept such a dangerous position as village officials. It soon became apparent that there was a prelude to what was later repeated up to the highest levels. In 1967, Liu Shaoqi was first stigmatized, then "interrogated" for months, and finally tortured to death. In 1965 the Cultural Revolution was just around the corner.
The criticism of a drama Wu Hans (1965)
In September 1965, Mao submitted a motion to intensify the party's struggle against opposition tendencies, which was rejected by the Politburo. Mao had to realize that he was stuck in Beijing against the Liuists and traveled to Shanghai, where he had the support of the city committee, in order to start a journalistic campaign from there. In November Mao, through his front man Yao Wenyuan, published a review in Shanghai of Wu Han's drama "The Dismissal of Hui Rui," in which Mao claimed that the example of this drama showed that the revisionists already dominated a large area of cultural life and Mao again called for a fight against the revisionists at the top of the party. The article was then reprinted by the military newspaper “Newspaper of the People's Liberation Army”. After a lengthy discussion, the article was reprinted in the party newspaper Remnin Ribao , albeit with an editor's note that this was only a literary and not a political debate . Now Mao was able to add additional articles and further stir up concerns about “revisionists” within the party.
Socialist transformation in Tibet
Riots broke out in Tibet in 1959. At first they did not proceed from the "inner Tibet" (U-Tang), but from the peripheral areas. Until then, the Dalai Lama ruled in U-Tang and communist influence was low, while in the peripheral areas in Qinghai, West Yunnan and West Sichuan "socialization measures" had already expired. The unrest reached Amdo in 1958 and spread to Lhasa in 1959. On March 10, Tibet's "independence" was proclaimed and on March 28, the communists dissolved the previous government of the Tibet province. On March 29th, the Dalai Lama, who had fled, reached India.
The Chinese government began to carry out "democratic reforms" in the province of Tibet. In 1964 the province of Tibet was included in the "Socialist Education Movement", and in 1965 the people's communes, which also existed in the rest of China, were introduced. Tibet officially received the status of an "Autonomous Region" in 1965.
Tensions in Chinese society
In 1965, massive tensions had developed within Chinese society, which Mao was able to use when the Cultural Revolution was proclaimed. From 1962 the number of permanent workers in the state-owned companies was reduced. This meant that there were two classes of workers. Two thirds of the workers remained permanently employed, with all the safeguards of the “ iron rice bowl ” (job guarantee , health insurance, etc.), one third of the workers became “contract workers” who did not have social security and who, when the temporary contract had expired, at any time fired and, if they could not find a new job, sent back to the country. Many farmers who had come to the cities illegally during the famine were also brought back to the countryside. A passport system had existed since 1958, according to which farmers were only allowed to move into the city with special permission.
On the other hand, millions of young people were sent out to the countryside from the early 1960s. The farmers viewed them as "useless eaters" because they were not familiar with agriculture, but on the other hand these people were looking for a way to come back to the city. The families of the “deviants”, “landowners” and other victims of the many campaigns were also excluded from society and looked for ways to improve their status.
Reasons for Mao's victory in the dispute over directions
Mao pursued his course in the direction of the Cultural Revolution, although with his ideas of constant class struggle he had neither a majority in the party nor in the population. To do this, he had to take responsibility for the famine during the Great Leap in the early 1960s. The main reasons for Mao's success were the personality cult around Mao and the support from the military under Lin Biao .
Even during the civil war, Mao had a special position within the party and society. During the civil war, internal party discussions were often difficult due to the lack of transport and communication options in a warlike environment, and decisions had to be made quickly, the party cadres had to rely on the instructions of the party leader Mao, from whom they hoped the necessary wisdom and expertise. This behavior then led to victory in the civil war. Even after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao retained this special position - now as the founder of the state - and the party for its part supported this cult as an element in maintaining the unity of China. This special position of Mao was further developed by his surroundings from 1957 and from 1959 a particularly ardent advocate of the Mao cult, Lin Biao, became Minister of Defense. The military, for its part, had a high reputation and political influence as the victor in the civil war, and so Lin Biao was able to further promote Mao's exaggeration. In 1964, a collection of Mao's sayings, the Mao Bible, appeared, initially for the soldiers, and the newspaper of the military, the “Newspaper of the People's Liberation Army”, was a mouthpiece for Mao that he could use at will. In this way Mao always managed to get the Central Committee to his side - even if the majority were initially reserved about his course - through one-on-one discussions. For the broad mass of the population, the matter was already clear. The masses loved Mao because, in their view, the CCP, under his leadership, had lifted them out of poverty and misery. So they showed gratitude to Mao and glorified him as a great savior.
Deng Xiaoping , who as secretary general and organizational talent kept the state going and was overthrown during the Cultural Revolution, said:
“The structure is the decisive factor. The structure at the time was just like that. At that time, merits were awarded to a single person. We actually hadn't contradicted some issues and should therefore accept part of the responsibility, but we found it difficult to oppose under the conditions at the time. "
literature
- Oskar Weggel : History of China in the 20th Century (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 414). Kröner, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-520-41401-5 .
Web links
- Khaled M. Kayali: Political integration of the chinese communist party elite 1952–1966 ( PDF )
- Anton Pam: How Mao Zedong's Socialism Failed ( PDF )
Individual evidence
- ^ Uli Franz : Deng Xiaoping, a biography, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 1987
- ↑ The Chinese Cultural Revolution, University of Bonn by Changshan Li, Harbin, China, page 110 ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
