Taiwan Today

The commune is the craze on the Chinese mainland. Only this fad is not the result of popular endorsement but was arbitrarily imposed by a order of Mao Tse-tung. Noth­ing is more damning to Communist despotism and the coterie of cadres who think that a measure so adversely affecting the life and happiness of several hundred million human beings can be forced down the throats of the people. The commune was first tried out last April by combining the collective farms in Hsin Yang, Honan. The reason given was that conditions had changed so that it was necessary to discontinue farm collectivization and embark on the entirely new commune program. Evidently such a necessity was felt throughout the country, for on September 30, the Chinese Communist Hsin Hua News Agency circulated a news report with a Pei­ping dateline to the effect that there were 23,384 communes in the country with 90.4% of the farm families participating. Each commune had an average of 10,000 families, or some 50,000 people. In a typical commune, human beings are reduced to the status of ants. Like ants, their lots are limited to work and fight. But unlike these tiny insects, they do not even have the pleasure of working and fighting for themselves. Whatever they do is for the propaga­tion of Communism and for the glorification of the Communist empire under the aegis of the Soviet imperialists. After working, people are quartered in barrack-like dormitories, men separated from women. This means that the cadres in charge can regulate their pri­vate lives. Women are required to send their new-born infants to nurseries so that they themselves may be liberated to work on the farms or factories. For similar reasons, people are required to eat at public mess halls so that housewives may be freed to work for the state. In short, men and women are noth­ing but working automatons in the eyes of the Communists. They are required to work as hard as they can at a nominal pay, just sufficient to keep their body and soul together. What was the condition that had changed so much as to force the Chinese Communists to push their new program with such precipitation? It will be remembered that at the beginning of this year they were on the point of completing their collective farm program. The latter was started in the spring of 1954 and took fully four years for its com­pletion. Judging from the haste the Commu­nists changed into the communes and the fact that they had completed 90% of their program in six months' time, one has reason to believe that they expect to complete their entire program in the course of eight months, or before the end of the present year. Why is it necessary to junk a four-year program in the short space of eight months? Two explanations are possible. Either the commune is a step in the orderly progress from collectivization, or its adoption was due to some compelling force which the Commu­nists dared not disregard. It is not likely due to the first alternative, because anything that takes four years to complete should take some time to evaluate and be made to work. The Russians who started collectivization earlier than the Chinese Communists did not go into the communes after they had com­pleted their program. No, orderly progress is not the explanation. The undue halite to push the commune program shows that the Chinese Communists must have been under necessity to try some­ thing new. There must have been a thousand and one difficulties confronting the Communists in their attempt to enforce collectivization, not the least of which would be the insufficiency of the Communist cadres to manage and serve in the collectives. At the height of the movement, there were more than 780,000 collective farms. If we allow ten cadres to each collective, there would have to be 7,800,000 cadres to serve in the collectives alone. These would not include the number of cadres that the Communists must have for leadership in other political units—provincial, hsien, village, etc. Some of the cadres may serve concurrently in these and the collective farms but not all. This short­age of cadres is one of the many difficulties that have come to our mind, but it could easily prove fatal; for it is unthinkable that, in the Communist system of slave-driving a whole people, there should be a lack of ca­dres to wield the whip. By combining the collectives to form about 30,000 communes, the Chinese Commu­nists expected to achieve a great saving in personnel, because the commune is made co­extensive with a political unit called hsiang. At one stroke of the pen, they save great duplication of personnel in managing the hsiang and the collectives. This is not all. A commune is to consist of some factories, forests, militia units, etc. So the cadres that now manage the commune can look after the labor unions and other political and economic activities which used to necessitate separate sets of personnel. It means, there­fore, a saving of personnel all round. However, this seeming advantage would in turn involve the Communists in greater difficulties and would surely lead to their undoing. The Communist rule over the mainland people has so far been characterized by dividing local organizations into vertical compartments with one end leading directly to Peiping. All the local organizations, be it a labor union or a farmers association, are small, insignificant units receiving orders from above. With the Communist way of news blackout, few people prominent in one walk of life is known to another, except for his capacity to work overtime. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for people to start organized revolution simply because of the lack of leadership. With the birth of the commune, the situation is different. For this device may very well supply the nuclei for a successful revo­lution. In a community of some 50,000 people, it will not be difficult for some­one to distinguish himself as leader. Nor is it inconceivable for him to be known to sev­eral neighboring communes at the same time. As the commune is an economic, political, and military entity, it could easily serve as a workable unit to start a revolution. A number of such units would have much more opportunity of staging a successful revolution than the former leaderless, disorganized situation. The Chinese people are on the whole patient and have great capacity for suffering. But in their long history they have learned how to deal with their conquerors with the object of liquidating them. Since the Com­munist occupation of the Chinese mainland, there has been long, continuing opposition from the people. The latest commune pro­gram, marking as it does the culmination of a long line of oppression and atrocities, will give the people courage as well as the means to fight against the Chinese Com­munists. Those whom God wants to destroy are first made mad. In all history there has been no form of dementia more intolerable and oppressing than the communes. Fortunately for our compatriots on the mainland, the Chinese Communists have, by introducing this unique form of slavery and oppression, planted the seed for their own destruction.