On the 50th year anniversary of victory of China�s democratic revolution
The socialist transformation of the countryside and its reversal

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

When the revisionist regime dismantled the cooperatives and communes in China starting 1978, it unleashed forces in the countryside that yanked back and shackled the Chinese peasant masses to oppression, poverty and hunger. At present, private property and privilege are in command, giving free rein to a small section to exploit the majority of the peasants and creating widespread inequality in the countryside.

Alongside the completion of land reform in 1949, the democratic government in China immediately carried out step-by-step the socialist transformation of agriculture especially in the northeastern parts of China. Cooperatives, established as initial forms of socialist property,

The cooperative system of production, the collective effort to raise the productivity of large tracts of land, opened avenues for widespread mechanization and expanded agricultural production. This laid out the foundations for firmly establishing unity between the cities and countryside and between workers and peasants. A large part of the labor force in the countryside was freed from agricultural production to build light industries for the production of consumer goods and the construction of large public infrastructure projects especially since 1959 during the Great Leap Forward.

The countryside advanced all-sidedly. This was achieved in line with Chairman Mao Zedong�s call to �take grain as the key link, develop silviculture (forestry, fruit growing), animal husbandry, fisheries, and sideline occupations in order to realize the full potential of each rural community�.

The victories in the revolutionary transformation of the Chinese countryside under proletarian dictatorship were squandered by the revisionist regime through policies that were aimed at resurrecting the right to own and expand private property.

The socialist transformation of agriculture was abandoned in favor of the �family contract� and �responsibility system�. Under this scheme, the administration and development of �state-owned� land are shouldered by individual families contracted to sell to the state a certain quota of grain at prices also set by the state; production in excess of the quota accrue to the individual contractors. Although the land remains public property in name, in essence, control is in the hands of individuals and families. These contracts, in fact, may be passed on to one�s heirs.

Upon orders of the revisionist regime, collectives and communes were forcibly dismantled. This destroyed the peasants� unity and gave rise to widespread poverty in the countryside.

Contracts were awarded to close friends and relatives of local officials or to those who could shell out large amounts of bribe money. In the first year alone of the �responsibility system�, more than 30% of former members of communes and collectives were excluded, with only half of this number able to find alternative employment. With the unity of industry and agriculture destroyed, industry is no longer able to absorb the surplus labor from the countryside, resulting in an ever burgeoning reserve army of labor.

The large farms that used to be tilled collectively were divided into separate parcels and allotted to individuals and families who were awarded contracts. Because of the parcelling out of farmland, large machineries such as tractors that were designed for use on vast tracts of land fell into disuse and rotted.

Although there was a slight growth in agricultural production in the first years under revisionist rule due to the infrastructure built by the collectives and communes, grain production eventually stagnated. By the latter part of the �80s, tens of thousands were plagued by famine or intense shortages.

To have dismantled the cooperatives and communes and abandoned agricultural mechanization was to have destroyed the unity of industry and agriculture, of city and countryside and of workers and peasants. The correct role of agriculture as the base of industry was shattered.

Because of the reversion to small-scale production, the prices of agricultural products increased�consequently raising the cost of living of workers, the cost of industrial production and prices of industrial products. The costs of agricultural production also shot up, including production inputs from industry such as fuel, fertilizers, small tractors, threshers as well as rent paid for use of privatized irrigation facilities.

The revisionist slogan �Get rich quickly!� and �Some will get rich before others� caused further disunity among the people. This served as a license for the privileged few to exploit the poverty of the vast majority who did not benefit from the dismantling of the collectives. Ever larger tracts of land are being concentrated in the hands of a few. Corollarily, the hiring of wage-labor and other forms of exploitation have returned.

After more than two decades of �modernization� and �reforms�, the most backward practices and forms of exploitation once again prevail. Local government officials carry on like the warlords and feudal lords of old. They are free to capriciously impose taxes and other levies such as dues for acquiring licenses, road taxes and so on. Usury is also widespread, feeding on the extreme poverty of poor peasants.

With the repudiation of collectivization and mechanization and with production now individual- and familybased, premium is given to having sons who serve as extra hands in working the land. Thus, women are once again accorded low status, a mark of the old feudal China. Abortion and female infanticide are growing widespread.

From practicing a revolutionary culture that upheld the key role of the masses in transforming society, there has been a revival of mysticism and other feudal beliefs. The number of young people who are able to acquire an education is dwindling. More than 70% do not finish secondary education both because they need to work on the fields and because of the rising cost of education.

Battered by extreme poverty and oppression, millions of peasant masses are rising up to oppose the despised local authorities. In 1996-97, gigantic demonstrations of several hundred thousand peasants were launched in Hubei, Anhui, Hunan and other provinces. But since these have yet to be organized into a definitive revolutionary movement, such struggles have not gone beyond the level of expressing the oppressed peasants� demands concerning everyday problems. There have been instances when these struggles ended up in riots and raids on granaries out of the peasants� desperation and hunger.

Nonetheless, for the revolutionary proletariat, these are all indications that there is fertile ground for the reemergence and solid advance of the revolutionary movement in the countryside, indications that need to be correctly taken advantage of to fight for the interests of the Chinese peasant masses.

00 September 1999
English Edition

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