Taiwan Today

The Worst Famine in a Century

Despite the Chinese Communist subsequent denial of the existence of famine following their open admission last December that the current disaster was "the worst calamity in the past hundred years," thousands of emaciated but lucky Chinese refugees who have managed to escape into Hongkong and Macao from the mainland tell but one story - the story of famine. So does the world's non-Communist press. Even the Chinese Communist words and actions also confirm that a famine of unprecedented dimensions and intensity is going on the mainland.

The most definite word of the existence of an unprecedented famine on the Chinese mainland came from the official Chinese Communist mouthpiece, the New China News Agency of Peiping on December 28, 1960. It said that the Chinese mainland, in 1950, suffered "the worst calamity in the past hundred years."

The Communist mouthpiece claims that droughts hit 148 million acres of the mainland's 264 million acres of arable land. From 50 to 70 million acres suffered seriously and "a part of the agrarian land" produced nothing. It added:

"Of this year's calamities, drought was the worst. With the exception of Tibet which was free of calamities, and Sinkiang, which, despite very abnormal weather conditions, suffered no calamities, all other provinces and autonomous regions one after another experienced various degrees of drought.

"The acreage of farmland affected by the drought totaled 900 million mow (148 million acres).

"Principally, the drought occurred during the spring and summer. The provinces of Hopei, Honan, Shantung, Shansi, Shensi, Kansu, Inner Mongolia, Szechuan, Yunnan, Kweichow, Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Fukien underwent a sustained drought in the spring and autumn.

"There were also droughts in parts of the provinces of Kiangsu, Anhwei, Chekiang, Hupei, Hunan and Kiangsi in the summer. Among these provinces, the most extensively stricken areas were in the four provinces of Hopei, Honan, Shantung and Shansi, constituting more than 60 per cent of the total cultivated area of these provinces. The drought also lasted the longest in these provinces, on an average of six or seven months."

This was not, however, the first Communist word on the natural calamities. On August 25, 1960, the People's Daily of Peiping said in an editorial that an area of about 600 million mow (99 million acres) had been affected by natural calamities. Still earlier, about the middle of that year, the official Communist announcements predicted food production for 1960 would be below that of 1959 and 1958 due to natural disasters.

Natural disasters are not new to the Communists. Ever since their seizure of the mainland, they had been plagued by floods, lodged water, frosts, droughts, typhoons and pestilences.

However, the calamities in 1960 were the worst in a hundred years. The Chinese Communists compared them to the famine of 1877 during which hundreds of thousands of people in Shansi province died of starvation.

On the heels of the Communist admission of natural calamities, Peiping began to make concessions. The People's Daily in its 1961 New Year Day editorial said that the production quotas for agriculture and light industry for 1960 were not fulfilled. It then added: "In order to minimize the difficulties caused by the crop issues, it is an urgent task at the present moment to work out satisfactory arrangements for the livelihood of the people both in the rural and the urban areas." The main direction of the efforts, the editorial urged, should be "to save clothing and food in order to help the devastated areas." From this series of official Communist reports and appeals, it is obvious that food shortage on the Chinese mainland is extremely serious.

Development of the Famine

As a matter of fact, the mainland famine actually started as early as the spring of 1959. In his report to the "People's Congress" in late August 1959, Chou En-lai admitted that during the spring of 1959, five per cent of the whole mainland area had suffered food shortage. (See Peking Review, Issue No. 35, 1959, p. 15). According to the New China Fortnightly, food ration for farmers in Hopei province had been cut from 12 ounces to eight ounces each per day since the beginning of 1959. (See New China Fortnightly Issue No.6, 1959, p. 24). After the autumn harvest in 1959, the Chinese Communists launched a "small autumn harvest" movement by sending about 20 million farmers into the hills to collect wild plants. Beginning 1960, the Chinese Communists became more positive in encouraging people to grow a kind of aquatic grass to be used as feed for domestic animals in order to save the potatoes for human consumption. According to the official Communist statistics, in Chekiang province alone, over 3,000 mow of land were planted to this kind of grass and more than 15,000 hog farms started to use it as feed. This clearly indicated the existence of a serious food shortage.

In view of the famine at the time of autumn harvest in 1960, the Chinese Communists took the following emergency measures:

Supervision of Autumn Harvesting

On November 1, 1960, the People's Daily reported that led by party secretaries, more than 80,000 cadres in Kiangsi province, were sent to take part in harvesting in the country with each held responsible to clean up a tract of land. In Liaoning province, some 27,000 cadres were assigned to the villages to administer the food-producing areas that had been seriously stricken by the famine. Among them 7,000 were appointed directors of communes or leaders of production brigades and teams. The People's Daily again reported on August 2, 1960 that in Anhwei province, half of the cadres of various provincial organizations and 60 to 70 per cent of those of the hsien (county) organizations were transferred to the villages to work as secretaries of party sub-committee or production team leaders. All these moves indicated that the Chinese Communists had already lost confidence in the original group of cadres working in the communes and were afraid that they would collaborate with the farmers to hide some of the harvested crops for division among themselves.

Guard Against Farmers' Looting of Crops

According to the People's Daily of November 13, 1960, it is customary for the Chinese Communists to send troops stationed in various places suspended their daily drills and to move in complete units as divisions and regiments to the rural areas to help harvest the crops for the communes as soon as the harvest time starts. For instance, 75 per cent of the soldiers of the Shanghai Garrison District were sent out to communes to bring in the crops. Many inspection teams were also organized by the troops to keep the farmers from willfully discarding foodstuff during harvesting.

 

Control of Public Mess Halls

Under the slogan of "Let Politics Enter the Mess Halls; Let Cadres Work in the Kitchens", the Communists have transferred a great number of cadres to serve as supervisors in public mess halls. Their job was to keep a close watch on every move in the public mess halls, ranging from the storing of food to the issuing of exact amount of rice each meal, so as to reduce the consumption. (See the People's Daily, November 10, 1960).

 

Launching of “Small Autumn Harvest" Movement

In Heilungkiang province alone, a total of over 2,300,000 people were organized to take part in this movement between mid-August and late September. They collected over three million tons of fodder, herbs and maritime products from mountains, lakes and pastures. In Kirin province, 22 million piculs of wild plants were collected from the end of July to mid-September (See the People's Daily, October 8, 1960).

Under the strict control of the Chinese Communists, food rations have been steadily cut down. According to reports given by escapees from Canton, rice ration for a man with full working capability has been reduced to 0.6 kilograms per day, while that for the old and the young, reduced to 0.3 kilograms. (See the Hongkong Kung Sheung Daily News, November 4,1960). As a result of the repeated reductions of food rations, prices of foodstuffs in the black market went up considerably. In Swatow, Kuangtung province, a catty of potato was sold for over JMP$0.35 and a catty of rice over JMP$0.5. A survey undertaken by the Chinese Communists of a production brigade of the Chengkuan Commune in Chiho hsien, Shantung province, showed that the foodstuffs collected from autumn harvest, excluding those reserved as seeds and those to be used as feed were short by three months for the period from November 1960 to June 1961, even at the reduced ration in famine-stricken areas. (See the People's Daily, November 29, 1961). This was not an isolated case, but a common phenomenon everywhere, fully reflecting the graveness of the mainland famine.

Purchase of Food from Overseas

As a result of the serious famine, the Chinese Communists dispatched in early 1961 trade missions to Australia and Canada to purchase foodstuffs. They concluded an agreement with Canada on February 3 for the purchase of 750,000 tons wheat and 260,000 tons of barley (See the New York World-Telegraph and Sun, February 3, 1961). Another agreement was signed with Australia on February 5 for the purchase of 1,050,000 tons of wheat and 40,000 tons of flour (See the Melbourne dispatch in the New York Times, February 6, 1961). Earlier, the Chinese Communists had reached an agreement with Burma to purchase from 160,000 to 200,000 tons of rice this year. These unprecedented purchases of foodstuffs from the free world areas prove that the mainland famine has been extremely serious. Otherwise, the Chinese Communist regime, in view of its policy on "starvation export," would not have used its limited foreign exchange reserves to buy foodstuffs outside.

How Serious Is the Famine?

When the Chinese Communists claim that the current mainland disaster is "the worst calamity in the past hundred years," they have the picture of 1877 famine in mind. What happened in 1877? Quoted a New China News Agency dispatch on December 27, 1960:

"In the third year of Kuang-hsu, that is, the year of Ting-chou, not a drop of rain fell in a hundred days. The autumn and winter crops failed completely.... People took tree bark and grass for food. When a father died, the son would not bury him but would eat his father's flesh in order to satisfy his hunger. When a son died, the father would not cry but would take his son's bones for making fire....

"In Ping hsien and Jui hsien (both in Shansi province) alone, out of a total population of some 140,000 to 150,000 people, not over 30,000 to 40,000 people survived.... "

But the people of Shansi experienced a worse drought in 1960. Continued the dispatch: "This year, a severe drought happened in Pinglu hsien again. In the 300 days from the autumn of last year to July this year, no heavy rain fell. In 100 days within this period, not a drop of rain fell. The drought was severer than that in the third year of Kuang-hsu."

The Causes

The Chinese Communists put the blame of the current mainland famine solely on the natural calamities. But the whole world knows that this is not true.

The famine on the Chinese mainland is largely man-made. It could have been avoided. In 1960 or even today, the Chinese Communists still have in their hands more than enough foodstuffs to give each of the 650 million Chinese people a few ounces of rice a day.

Let us look at the facts.

The Chinese Communists through Chou En-lai said on November 15, 1960 that the 1960 food production would be less than that of 1959 and 1958 but more than that of 1957. The Communist journalist, Z. Slomkowni, wrote on January 4, 1961 in Warsaw's Tribuna Ludu that the mainland food production for 1960 had dropped to the 1957 level. As 1957 produced 370 billion catties, the 1960 yield was still sufficient to give each man, woman or child on the mainland 1.6 catties of food a day. In the year of 1956-57, the total food consumption on the mainland, according to Communist-published statistics, was only 333,450 billion million catties.

In other words, even the 1960 yield was more than enough to meet the needs of the people.

There should have been no famine on the mainland. But there is one, Why?

Communist Policy of Food Storing

The Chinese Communists have stored in their granaries at least more than one year's supply of foodstuffs. Peiping has never issued any official word on such storages. But it is fairly certain, by piecing together fragmentary reports by the Communist cadres and reports of the refugees, that while the people are going without food, Communist troops were marshaled to guard the food stores and storehouses against looting.

This policy results from the Communist preparations for a long drawn out future war. Thus, even in the worst days of 1960, the Communists refused to open up the storehouses to feed the starving millions.

"Starvation Exports"

Throughout all these years until the end of January this year, the Chinese Communists had given industry, especially heavy industry, top priority in all their development programs. In order to carry out this program, the Chinese Communists exported large quantities of agricultural products and raw materials to Soviet Russia and other satellite countries in exchange for loans and capital goods imports.

According to the Soviet Union's State Statistics Bureau, Peiping exported 1,896,900 tons of food supplies in 1958 and 2,229,000 tons in 1959 to Russia. This demonstrates that even when "natural disasters" were increasing, the Chinese Communists stepped up their exports of food to Russia.

Peiping also exported large quantities of foodstuffs to non-Communist countries such as Ceylon and Cambodia. The United Nations International Trade Yearbook for 1958 said the mainland export of rice in 1956 to non-Communist countries totaled 1,003,000 tons.

There are no statistical figures on Communist food exports to East European satellite countries.

Also lacking are statistical figures on the amount of food Mao exported in 1960. Official figures released in Taipei, however, said that the 1960 exports reached 6,000,000 tons. That would make it 12 billion catties, or nearly four per cent of the total grains produced that year on the mainland.

The percentage should have been higher. The production figure speaks only of grains. The exported foodstuffs are the grounded rice, refined edible oils and processed farm products. Probably the Communists exported some six per cent of the foods produced.

Even this year, the Communists announced the existence of food shortages, Peiping was selling 300,000 tons of rice to Ceylon. It also offered to sell rice to Japan though Japan had offered to send relief rice to the mainland.

This policy of "starvation exports" contribute substantially to the famine on the mainland. It is a man-made factor having nothing to do with natural elements.

Maladministration

The Chinese Communists have themselves grudgingly admitted that in farm policies and water conservancy projects, there had been poor administration misguided plans, mistakes made from ignorance or arrogance besides great waste.

Two articles by Lu Li appearing in the People's Daily last November and December gave ample evidence. Lu Li criticized the blind following of the Communist policies of "deep plowing" and "close planting." He also accused the cadres in charge of farms with completely ignoring the wisdom of farming traditions and giving orders which were not practicable.

Said he: "There were places where the nature of the soil was disregarded, systems and methods of cultivation which did not suit the nature and conditions of the place were adopted."

He gave an example of wet rice cultivation. The cadres, he said, "did not look at the natural conditions and rigidly insisted on 'change-over to wet rice. They do not see the difference between one soil and another and insist on a uniform treatment over wide expanse of land. They do not look at the diverse needs of the country and of the people and insist on the elimination of 'plants of low yield.' ... "

These articles completely negated the earlier Communist policy as enunciated by their "eight-word constitution" for the farmers. The "constitution" called all past farming tradition "old superstitions" and new scientific methods "new superstitions." It suggested and ordered deep plowing and close sowing, on all land indiscriminately, the digging of innumerable canals and immense water regulations schemes without a scientific blueprint.

Duncan Wilson, former British charge d'affaires in Peiping, said that in 1959 he visited a huge water conservancy project on the outskirts of Peiping. It was a huge dam. About two million people were building it. But the dam would benefit the farmers of only three villages while the farmers in other places would get nothing out of it.

This was a good example of Communist waste of manpower. As Lu Li pointed out in his articles, in adopting deep plowing and close sowing without a first-hand study, "the result would be that more would be sown and less harvested."

The haphazard and rash handling of water conservancy during the three years of the Great Leap Forward (since 1957) also contributed greatly to the deterioration of water and soil conditions. The worst drought in 1959 and 1960 occurred in the provinces in which millions were digging canals in 1957-59. The water distribution of the whole North China plain was supposed to have been reshaped. Wide scale changes had been effected but the results were opposite to the anticipations. The land had been damaged but not improved.

In mid-1959, the People's Daily boasted, "The works done on water conservancy function well in the present fight against flood, water-logging and drought. This is an achievement unprecedented in history." The unprecedented achievements led to the unprecedented disasters and famine of 1960.

For another example of Communist maladministration and poor planning, here is a quotation from the Dec. 11, 1960 issue of the Nanfang Jih Pao published in Canton:

"Some production teams, to fulfill the daily task fixed by the commune and production brigade, cared for quantity but not quality, for sowing but not field management, with the result that much of the sowing failed, causing waste of energy and material and dampening the enthusiasm of the masses."

Bureaucracy helped in cutting production and creating waste too. Wang Jen-chung wrote in the year's first issue of the Red Flag magazine: "Agricultural production is extremely complicated. It must be carried out by relying on millions of peasants. To supervise agricultural production well, we must earnestly overcome subjectivism and bureaucracy, genuinely combine a high degree of revolutionary enthusiasm with a scientific spirit of seeking truth facts."

From these accounts, it can be safely said that improper water conservancy projects, inadequate productive methods based on party policy instead of actual conditions, bad work styles featuring bureaucracy and subjectivism and waste in manifestations, of the Communist maladministration.

However, one basic factor should not be neglected. The introduction of the people's commune since August, 1958 has made every farmer an enemy of communism. The commune has proved a failure. It is also one of the main causes leading to the famine.

Sabotage by the Farmers

The farmers' resistance against the communalization of their land reached a climax in 1960. They started widespread sabotage activities. They destroyed land and cattle. They also left grains in the field without harvesting them.

The People's Daily said on July 26, 1960, that there had been a great deal of land laid " waste in the provinces of Shantung, Hopei, Kiangsu, Shansi, Heilungkiang, Honan and Shensi. In Heilungkiang and Liaoning such land amounted to ten per cent of the total cultivated land. In August, the People's Daily reported that one third of the cultivated land in Shantung was completely overrun by weeds.

In July, 1960, the People's Daily editorially conceded the hog-raising campaign had been hindered by acts of sabotage. Plum pigs, together with mother pigs, were found perishing en masse in some areas between spring and summer in 1960, when their death rate reached as high as 50 per cent. This was caused, the paper pointed out, partly by the shortage of food and partly by deliberate poisoning by "bad elements" hiding in the hog-raising farms.

The newspaper often mentioned the deliberate abandoning of crops by the farmers. On an October day, it said, 81 tons of grains were salvaged from 3,200 hectares of land already harvested at Taian hsien in Kirin province. In Heilungkiang's Sunghuakiang region alone, abandoned grains were found to amount to 2,845 tons.

These acts of sabotage led the Peking Jih Pao to say on Feb. 2, 1961 "We must educate the commune members in the necessity of handling correctly the relations between the state, the collective and the individual through discussions on production plans; and we must encourage the commune members to whip up further their revolutionary enthusiasm, to make every effort to turn the country into a strong power, to strive for the upper reaches and to cherish a big ambition to scale the peak."

No Famine?

Several undisputable facts lead to the conclusion that there is a famine on the Chinese mainland: the open admission of the Chinese Reds last December that the current mainland disaster is "the worst calamity in the past hundred years," the record high purchases of wheat in decades from Canada and Australia and the relaxation of the ban on the incoming food parcels from overseas.

Despite all these, the "Red Cross Society" in Peiping, in a cable in reply to the League of Red Cross Societies' query as to the famine situation on the mainland on February 22, flatly denied the existence of any famine. The cable from Peiping reads in part:

"Although our rural areas suffered serious natural calamities in the past two years, there has never been a famine."

Then the Peiping regime brazenly boasted that it "was fully capable of overcoming temporary difficulties caused by natural calamities."

Not Even for the Birds

Following their open admission last December that their 1960 agricultural production targets had not been met, the Chinese Communists call upon the mainlanders to further tighten the belt. Thus urged the People's Daily editorial on January 1: "In order to go through the difficult situation arising from losses in agricultural production, all urban and suburban areas must work out plans for rational use of grain."

On January 23, the New China News Agency also "suggested": "If each of us were to save one ounce per day, we could help our province save 770 million catties of food a year. Therefore, proper attention must be paid to the planned consumption of food in every locality, be it a place of poor or bumper harvest."

As a result, the already scanty food rations on the Chinese mainland receive further drastic cuts. Letters from the Chinese mainland and reports from refugees who fled Chinese communism verify that the rice rations on the mainland are extremely meager, ranging from three to thirteen ounces per person per day. People in many counties in Kwangtung, Fukien, Kiangsu, Honan and Shensi only get less than five ounces of rice daily which even the birds would find it hard to survive!

Reporting on the severe food shortage condition on the Chinese mainland on January 28, the New York World-Telegram & Sun quoted a refugee arriving at Macao as saying: "Things are really grave now...There have been cuts before, but never so bad as this time.

"A bird would find it hard to survive on four taels (5.3 oz.) of rice a day, let alone a human being.

The Aftermath

The repercussions of the famine are far-reaching and widespread. The famine has completely upset the Communist timetable in economic buildup and in their planned transition into the Communist phase of society. It also made the Communists decide to go slow on heavy industry as well as on the people's commune.

In short, it has caused a "Great Leap backward."

Farming Ahead of Industry

The ninth plenary session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party held in January this year made the painful decision that as of that day agriculture should be preferred over industry. This was really a painful decision because the Communists the world over believe in industry as the raison d'etre of Communist strength. Said the communiqué:

"The ninth plenary session of the Eighth Central Committee held that, in view of the serious natural calamities that affected agricultural production for two successive years, the whole nation in 1961 must concentrate on strengthening the agricultural front, must carry out the policy of taking agriculture as the foundation of the national economy and of developing agriculture and grain production in a big way for the whole party and the whole people, must step up support for agriculture by all sectors and occupations and must exert the utmost effort to win a better harvest in agricultural production. In the rural areas, efforts must be made to consolidate further the people's communes, carry out the various policies concerning the people's communes and the rural economy, adopt effective measures to take good care of the livelihood of the people's commune members, help them tide over the difficulties entailed by natural calamities and make good preparations for increasing agricultural output this year."

This is a complete reversal of the basic Communist policy. It shows how serious the aftermath of the famine is.

Virtual Abandonment of the Commune

Although the Communists continued to mention the achievements of the communalization project they have actually decided to shelve the communes for the time being.

When the communes were started in August, 1958, they were the production unit, the administrative unit, the accounting (distribution) unit and the militia unit.

But everything went wrong. The natural calamities only hardened the peasants' resistance to the commune. The Communists had to back down.

First, the militia was taken away from the communes. Then, in 1959, the commune was made an empty frame. The production brigade, a subordinate group in the commune, became the basic unit. The commune stopped providing residence centers and mess halls.

In 1960, another backward step was taken. The commune remained an empty shell, owning only the communal industries, mostly very small in size. The production brigade kept ownership of all production means and of land. The brigade had to surrender the right to use these means to the yet smaller production teams under it. The brigade only could assign production quotas to the teams but could not interfere with the team's work or take away the farming tools.

The brigade still remained the accounting unit. It therefore got the produce from the teams, and distributed the benefits to the teams.

New Rectification Campaign

Admitting that "10 per cent" of the mainland people are against communism, the Chinese Communists promised a new purge, or, rectification campaign. The communiqué said:

"There is an extremely small number of landlord an bourgeois elements, accounting for only a few per cent of the population, who have not yet been sufficiently remolded and are always attempting a come-back as was stated in the 1957 Moscow Declaration; they have taken advantage of the difficulties brought about by natural calamities and some shortcomings in the work at the lower levels to carry out sabotage activities. Among the party and government functionaries, more than 90 per cent work faithfully and conscientiously for the people; and a few per cent are bad elements, i.e., landlord and bourgeois elements who have not yet been sufficiently remolded, who have sneaked into the revolutionary ranks and various economic organizations, and also those elements who have degenerated due to influence and corrosion by the reactionary classes.

"These elements infringe law and violate discipline in the villages and cities to the detriment of the interests of the people ...

"In view of all this, the party organizations in many places have in accordance with the instructions of the Central Committee carried out a rectification movement among the functionaries in the rural and urban areas which has already yielded good results.

"The session decided that this movement be carried out throughout the country stage by stage and area by area to help the functionaries raise their ideological and political level, improve their method and style of work and purify the organizations by cleaning out the extremely few bad elements who have been verified by careful check as having sneaked into the party and government organizations, and at the same time prevent and stop the sabotaging activities of the bad elements."

To make it a real reign of terror, the communiqué added: "The session held that all this work must be done by fully arousing the masses, by the free and complete airing of views and by great publicity."

News is lacking about results of this new purge. But observers do believe that the Chinese Communist party today is divided, as divided as in the days after Lenin's death and prior to Stalin's coming to power.

Therefore, it is worthwhile watching the developments on the Chinese mainland. The man-made famine may yet lead to a great change in the Chinese Communist regime!

What the World Says About the Famine

No doubt there have been major natural catastrophe in mainland China, but we may suspect that nature's blows were augmented by Peiping blunders ... Moreover, we may suspect that the system of Peoples Communes, with its fantastic effort to reduce the individual Chinese peasant to the status of a worker ant in an ant colony, has played a role in the present catastrophe,"—New York Times.

"The famine report itself may be a hoax foisted upon the Chinese people by a regime stopping at nothing to achieve its 'great leap forward.' There is evidence that an internal grain shortage is being created to increase the amount available for export ... Non-Communist weather observers in Asia doubt that the Red Chinese report of crop failure can be laid entirely on the weather."—Washington Post.

The major practical preoccupation of mainland China today is to grow more food ... but we fear the Chinese people are condemned to suffer from further experiments in the vain attempt to build an all-inclusive totalitarian state which ignore all individual popular rights."—Japan Times.

"The real reason for the trouble on the mainland is the inherent incompatibility of communism and efficient farming ... It is evident that the communes in China are not working out according to script ... There have come reports of dissatisfaction over the breakup of the old family farms, and farmers have been criticized for throwing in the sponge and moving to cities." —Chicago Daily Tribune.

"Far from ushering in the promised era of prosperity and plenty, ten years of communism in China have only culminated in the present failure. It (Peiping regime) still swears by the communes and is loath to admit that its policy of forced industrialization might have something to do with the precipitous fall in agricultural production. It ascribes the disaster at least partially to 'bad elements' and saboteurs. The natural calamity is thus worsened by ideological obtuseness. To save its face, Peiping even continues Its food exports to some countries ... "—Indian Express, Bombay.

"Specialists on Chinese affairs maintain that the commune system's defect are responsible for the Communist failure. Because of its uncongeniality with human nature, the commune system aroused the opposition of the people and could not, therefore, be carried out ... The Turkish old saying 'The quicker you run, the easier you fall' may be applicable to Communist China's present-day situation." —The Ulus, Ankara.

"It is difficult to say whether the present crisis can be ascribed entirely to natural calamities ... In any case it is clear that the communes have not fulfilled all the hopes of their sponsors and that the hectic industrialization drive, the communization of the countryside and the increasing demands made on the transport system have imposed a terrific strain on agriculture ... The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party itself seems to think that other factors are at least partly responsible for what has happened. Its call to weed out the 'bad element' which have sneaked into the party shows that there has been a large-scale defiance of its decision."—Times of India.

"The breakdown in Red China is attributed to amazing bureaucratic bungling, inexpert agricultural methods and the fact that the overworked and underfed peasants simply lacked the energy they might have applied to crops and farm animals —The Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Peking has had very bad luck with the weather and natural disasters have been compounded by bad policies ... To provide the labor for intensified farming, Communist leaders decided to cut down the area sown to grain and to employ more people on smaller areas. Unfortunately, it turned out that, quite apart from the exaggerated claims made for experimental plots, specially high yields could not be obtained ... Furthermore, the human factor must have been important. The peasant, deprived of his plot and ordered by often inefficient officials to work all hours, had little incentive to produce more than he himself needed."—Daily Telegraph, London

"Inefficiencies and lack of interest due to forced communization may also have been large factors ... "—Christian Science Monitor.

“It is fair to point out that collectivization of agriculture has usually led to bad harvest or even, as in the Soviet Union, to starvation for million ... The crop failure (whatever part nature may have played in them) may do for Communist China's economic reputation that Tibet did for its political reputation." —Manchester Guardian.

"Peking blames the drought and famine; but every Chinese knows only too well that the peasants were forced into the communes precisely under the promise that by means of this social system China would at last overcome these ancient twin foes ... Now they are in their communes; they live in barracks as soldiers from cradle to grave; their very families are militarized; the tombs of their ancestors are flattened and ploughed; their children are taken from them and put into crèches to free fathers and mothers for work in the fields and giant irrigation projects; .... all in the name of the 'great leap forward'; and still they starve."—The Scotman.

"The droughts, floods, storms and insect plagues which have staggered Communist China's agriculture in the last year show that neither 'socialist legality' nor Leninist ideological techniques nor the farm commune system have been able to solve the great problems inherent in Chinese food production ... It is permissible to wonder the dramatic announcement from Peiping is, in its unprecedented form, somewhat exaggerated, perhaps for the sake of disguising the fact that the commune system is not working well."—New York Herald Tribune.

Peiping's Gloomy Outlook for 1961

Peiping's agricultural outlook for 1961 is gloomy.

As revealed in the communiqué issued at the end of the 9th plenary session of the 8th Central Committee of the last January, the Chinese Communists openly admitted that the 1960 agricultural production targets had not been met. As a result, the communiqué called upon the people on the mainland to "concentrate on strengthening the agricultural front" in 1961.

To be more specific, it further urged the mainlanders to "carry out the policy of taking agriculture as the foundation of the national economy," "step up support for agriculture by all sectors and occupations" and "exert the utmost effort to win a better harvest in agricultural production."

"In rural areas," it added," efforts must be made to consolidate further the people's communes, carry out the various policies concerning the people's commune and the rural economy, adopt effective measures to take good care of the livelihood of the people's commune members, help them tide over the difficulties en tailed by natural calamities and make good preparations for increasing agricultural output this year."

In other words, all are not well and the Chinese Communists place the blame for all these solely on the natural calamities. Obviously this is not true.

Survey of the mainland events shows that the Chinese Communist "starvation exportation" of food supplies to other countries, failure of water conservancy systems throughout the mainland, clumsy leadership in implementing their agricultural policies and sabotage of commune members are the real causes for "the worst calamity in the past hundred years."

The Chinese Communists, however, are not unaware of these. The communiqué noted that the tasks in 1961 are "extraordinary great and arduous."

Red Flag, theoretical organ of the Chinese Communist Party also conceded in its January 1 issue: "In 1961, we must make greater efforts to save more money and manpower to strengthen agriculture ... It will be difficult to eliminate the influence of great calamities. This is a serious task before the people of the en tire country at present."

The People's Daily, in its New Year's editorial, also stated: "It is the task not only of the over 20,000 rural communes and all the peasants but of all the people throughout the country to strive by every effort to achieve better harvest next summer and autumn in order to facilitate gradual improvement of the agricultural situation ... So long as we concentrate on strengthening agriculture and overcoming difficulties arising from natural calamities and greatly push the growth of agricultural output, we shall be able to lay a more solid foundation for our national economy and enable it to stride forward more successfully."

With this gloomy agricultural outlook, the Chinese Communists will find it more difficult to feed their light industry with adequate raw material. Meanwhile, they will have to further reduce the scope of their capital construction in the year to come.

A Noble Call

In response to President Chiang's call for mainland famine relief, free Chinese everywhere move with alacrity. The Free China Relief Association has chartered many a night to airdrop relief supplies to the Chinese mainland.

'Operation Sympathy'

At one of the collecting booths of the Free China Relief Association in Taipei a shabbily dressed old man emptied his pocket into the collection box and walked away without a word. The contribution was not much—only NT$7. But it was all he could afford, for he was himself on the relief list.

In a grade school deep in the Central Mountain Range, barefooted tribal kids filed past a wooden box on the school campus and dropped into it coins and bank notes of small denominations.

In a packing factory at Taichung, women workers worked around the clock to turn out hundreds of thousands of food and gift packages while air transports warmed-up at a nearby airfield to take off for the Chinese mainland.

With minor variations, similar scenes presented themselves in free China since early February. The people are responding to a noble call issued by their President—the call to rush aid to the hungry millions on the mainland.

At the weekly Dr. Sun Yat-sen memorial meeting on January 30, President Chiang launched the now famous one-dollar-per-person donation campaign to save the people on the mainland who have been suffering "the worst calamity in the past hundred years", a calamity largely created by the Communists.

"Our compatriots in the tyrannical people's communes," said the President passionately, "are facing mass starvation. Not only the government, but everybody in free China feels the deepest concern over the plight of the people under the Communist yoke.

"There have been suggestions in foreign countries to send surplus food to the mainland for relief purposes. The Government of the Republic of China in particular has the sacred responsibility of saving the people on the mainland from enslavement, hunger, epidemic and death."

Lest the world should misunderstand the motive behind the humanitarian move, President Chiang declared: "What we propose to do is the responsibility of our government toward our people, and is meant only to express the brotherly love of all free Chinese toward their compatriots shut behind the Iron Curtain. There are no ulterior motives, political or military."

The President called on the governments of all free world nations, as well as all freedom-loving people and philanthropic organizations, "to demand jointly that the Communist puppet regime on the Chinese mainland open a port and a route whereby relief goods from this Government and from all international sources can go in and reach the hands of the population on the mainland." He said he could give assurance that no advantage would be taken of relief operations to start any military action against the Communists.

He charged that the Chinese Communists, even in the face of this famine, "have been exporting food in large quantities not only to Soviet Russia, but also to target areas of Communist expansion in other parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, to carryon political infiltration and economic warfare against the free world. It is estimated that during the past year they have exported 6,000, 000 tons of food, enough to feed 180,000,000 people for one year. We hope that foreign governments as well as international organizations and individuals engaged in relief would stop the Chinese Communist regime from continuing this malignant food export, and that transportation enterprises of all free countries would, out of humanitarian considerations, refuse to allow their facilities to be used to handle this food export.

He added: "If the Chinese Communists should flagrantly refuse relief from the outside we would have to use every available means at whatever risk to send relief supplies to the mainland by land, air or sea. This will be one way to help our compatriots on the mainland to survive. I earnestly hope the free nations, especially our ally, the United States, would give us sympathy and support on humanitarian grounds in our undertaking to save our own people."

President Chiang concluded his speech by saying: "The famine on the mainland today is so serious that aside from the Government's effort to open up a channel of relief and its readiness to give 100,000 tons of rice for emergency relief, I call upon all our people to launch a campaign to collect food and clothing and to donate 'one dollar per person' so that through our combined efforts we could save our compatriots on the mainland from starvation."

Thus began in Taiwan one of the most impressive relief campaigns in Chinese history. The campaign has been dubbed by the free press as the "Operation Sympathy."

As the campaign rolled on, the wheels of governmental and charity agencies ran at full swing. Newspapers and radio stations joined in urging the people to give whatever they could spare for the relief of the hungry people on the mainland. Political parties of all hues closed ranks behind the President. The nation rose like one man to extend aid and comfort to the hungry millions behind the Iron Curtain. Relief committees and collecting stations sprung up in quick succession at every nook and corner throughout free China.

Out of their brotherly love, the people responded to the relief call with alacrity. Old and young, rich and poor, people of all social strata swarmed to the various relief agencies to make their contributions. Government employees voluntarily offered to take a cut of their pay checks for transfer to the relief fund. Religious bodies fasted and prayed. Private and public enterprises passed the hat among their workers. Civic organizations sponsored charity sales and fund-raising campaigns. Entertainment groups staged shows and turned over the entire gate receipts to the Free China Relief Association. Teaching faculties and student bodies of the various universities and schools gave as much as they could scrape together. Members of the armed forces vowed to deliver their mainland compatriots from the Communist yoke besides giving generously to the relief chest. Members of the diplomatic corps and foreign communities in Taiwan also made substantial contributions.

Among individuals and at private homes, the relief drive was answered with a readiness without precedence. Children voluntarily wavered their candy and toy allowances. Housewives strived to save a few dollars every time they went to the market. At the entrance of entertainment establishments, patrons dropped banknotes into the collecting boxes before entering. Pedicab drivers turned over one whole day's income to the relief fund. One of them gave up NT$5,000 he had saved up for a number of years. To his protesting wife he replied: "Remember, your parents and mine are at this very moment suffering from hunger on the mainland."

Among the vast overseas Chinese communities all over the world, the relief drive rolled on furiously. In Hongkong and Macao, relief funds were raised and hundreds of thousands of food packages were mailed to the mainland.

While the funds poured in and relief materials piled up in Taiwan, the Free China Relief Association requested the League of Red Cross Societies at Geneva to negotiate with the Peiping regime for an unhindered passage to allow the relief goods to reach the famine-stricken people on the mainland.

The League complied, but its repeated requests with the Communists ended in dismal failure. In late February, the League announced that the Communists had flatly denied the existence of famine on the mainland and turned down all offers of outside help. The League quoted the "Chinese Red Cross Society" at Peiping as saying, "Although our rural areas suffered serious natural calamities in the past two years, there has never been a famine" and asserting that "the nation was fully capable of overcoming temporary difficulties caused by natural calamities."

Upon receiving Peiping's negative reply via the Red Cross League, the Free China Relief Association immediately translated into action President Chiang's pledge to send the relief supplies to the mainland by all possible means. The relief materials, including foodstuffs and daily necessities, were wrapped into neat packages, and wave after wave of air transports flew from Taiwan to airdrop them on the mainland.

On the government side, Vice President Chen Cheng, in his verbal report to the Legislative Yuan in late February, pledged the utmost effort of the free Chinese in Taiwan and overseas to relieve the mainland famine. At the same time, he called on the Communists to do the following:

Immediately withdraw the troops stationed in the communes and stop killing the starving people;

Immediately open all public granaries for relief to the people;

Immediately stop the export of food, including all kinds of edibles;

Immediately lift all travel restrictions in famine-stricken areas and along the borders, to enable the starving people to find food in other places or countries, and to enable the overseas Chinese to enter the mainland for relief of their relatives;

Immediately lift all restrictions imposed on food packages and daily necessities mailed from overseas, deliver them to the famine-stricken people without charges, levies or taxes on the recipients;

Immediately accept the relief offers of this Government and other international organizations, open up ports for delivery of relief supplies and admit relief personnel from international organizations into the Chinese mainland to distribute food and clothing;

Immediately stop all measures implementing the program of making "everyone a soldier" and the expansion of armaments, reduce the size of military forces, and use the funds thus saved for importation of food supplies for relief purposes;

Immediately abolish the people's commune system and return all the land and properties to their peasant owners.

Food Influx to Mainland

Following the relaxation of the Chinese Communist ban on incoming food supplies from overseas, millions of food parcels have been mailed from Hongkong and Macao to the Chinese mainland. Mailing agencies put up huge signs to attract clients.

This "operation sympathy" poses a sharp contrast to the Communist inhumanity on the mainland. It is bound to have far-flung repercussions within the Peiping regime. Last month, the British-owned South China Morning Post in Hongkong reported that a strong and well-organized movement against the Red government has made itself felt in Shanghai. Such resistance movements will inevitably spell the doom of the Chinese Communist regime.

 

Text of CCP Central Committee Communiqué

Editor's Note: On January 20, 1961, the New China News Agency released the full text of the Communiqué of the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, held in Peiping January 14-18, 1961. In the communiqué, the Chinese Communists openly admitted that the agricultural production for 1960 had failed, that a relaxation in state ownership and management policies must be made so as to permit the masses of farm laborers to carry on domestic sideline occupation and that the party had to launch a rectification movement among urban and rural party and government officials. The communiqué reads as follows:

The 9th plenary session of the 8th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Peking January 14-18, 1961.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung presided over the session. 83 members and 87 alternate members of the Central Committee attended. 23 other comrades from the departments concerned of the Central Committee and from Party committees of various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions were also present.

The session heard and discussed a report by Comrade Teng Hsiao-ping, General Secretary of the Central Committee, on the meeting of the representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow, November 1960, and adopted a corresponding resolution. The session expressed satisfaction with the work during the Moscow meeting of the delegation of the Communist Party of China headed by Comrade Liu Shao-chi. The session warmly welcomed the great achievements of the meeting of the representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties, fully approved the statement and the appeal to the peoples of all the world unanimously adopted at the meeting and firmly resolved to strive for the realization of the common tasks set forth in the documents of the meeting. The session called on all members of the Party and the people of the whole country to hold aloft the great banner of Marxism-Leninism of the 1957 Moscow Declaration and the 1960 Moscow Statement and, in international affairs, to strengthen unity with the Soviet Union, strengthen the unity of the entire socialist camp and of the international communist movement and strengthen the unity of the world's working class and of all the peoples who love peace and freedom, and to strive for new victories in the cause of world peace and human progress.

The 9th plenary session of the 8th Central Committee also heard and discussed a report on the fulfillment of the 1960 national economic plan and the main targets for the 1961 national economic plan by Comrade Li Fu-chun, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, Vice Premier of the State Council and Chairman of the State Planning Commission. The session pointed out that during 1960 the people of the whole country continued to hold aloft the three red banners of the Party's general line, the big leap forward and the people's communes and won the victory of the continued leap forward of the national economy on the basis of the big leap forward of 1958 and 1959. China's level of industrial production has been greatly raised as a result of the big leap forward in three consecutive years. In steel production, China's place in the world has risen from ninth in 1957 to sixth, and in coal production from fifth to second. The material and technical base of industry has been enormously strengthened. The stock of machine tools is more than double that of 1957; and the number of engineers and technicians has also more than doubled. In the past three years, the gross value of industrial output increased at an average annual rate of over 40 per cent, or more than double the average annual rate during the first Five-Year Plan. In agriculture, the production plan was not fulfilled in 1960 because the country suffered the most severe natural calamities in a century following upon the serious natural calamities of 1959. In the past three years, however, the organization of the people's communes has steadily improved and become more firmly consolidated. Water conservancy work has made tremendous progress with an increase of more than 300,000,000 mow in the effectively irrigated area in three years. There has been a definite improvement in the technical equipment for agriculture with a roughly 9-fold increase in irrigation equipment and an approximately 3-fold increase in the number of tractors in three years. The "8-point charter" for agricultural production has been enriched and developed in the course of extensive practice. All this has not only mitigated the loss caused by the severe natural calamities in the past two years, but also provided favorable conditions for the expansion of agricultural production in the future. The great achievements of our country during the past three years show that the Party's general line for socialist construction, the big leap forward and the people's communes suit the realities of China.

The 9th plenary session of the 8th Central Committee held that, in view of the serious natural calamities that affected agricultural production for two successive years, the whole nation in 1961 must concentrate on strengthening the agricultural front, must carry out the policy of taking agriculture as the foundation of the national economy and of developing agriculture and grain production in a big way by the whole Party and the whole people, must step up support for agriculture by all sectors and occupations and must exert the utmost effort to win a better harvest in agricultural production. In the rural areas, efforts must be made to consolidate further the people's communes, carry out the various policies concerning the people's commune and the rural economy, adopt effective measures to take good care of the livelihood of the people' commune members, help them tide over the difficulties entailed by natural calamities and make good preparations for increasing agricultural output this year. The departments of light industry should strive to overcome the difficulties of raw material shortages brought about by natural calamities, open up new sources of materials, increase production and insure the supply of the people's daily necessities as far as possible. In heavy industry, inasmuch as tremendous development has been achieved over the past three years and as the output of major products has greatly exceeded the levels originally scheduled for 1961 and 1962, the last two years of the second Five-Year Plan, the scope of capital construction in 1961 should be appropriately reduced, the rate of development should be readjusted and a policy of consolidating, filling out and raising standards should be adopted on the basis of the victories already won. This means that efforts should be made to improve the quality of products, increase their variety, strengthen the weak links in production and continue to develop the mass movement of technical innovations, to economize raw materials, to lower costs of production and to raise labor productivity.

The temporary difficulties in supplying the market caused by the poor harvest and the shortage of raw materials for light industry are important problems demanding imminent solution. The plenary session called on all departments concerned to take prompt steps to help the development of light industry, urban and rural handicraft industry, domestic side occupations and suburban agriculture and to increase the production of all sorts of consumer goods and non-staple foodstuffs, while improving commercial work and stimulating primary markets in the villages so as gradually to improve the conditions of supply.

The 9th plenary session of the 8th Central Committee proposed to the State Council that a draft national economic plan for 1961 be drawn up according to the policy adopted by the plenary session and be submitted to the National People's Congress for consideration.

The 9th plenary session of the 8th Central Committee pointed out that at present it was of the utmost importance to strengthen the ties between the Party and government organizations at various levels and all their functionaries on the one hand and the masses of the people on the other. The overwhelming majority, or over 90 per cent, of the urban and rural population in the country support the line and policies of the Party and the People's Government. They know that the Party and the government will firmly lead them through the present temporary difficulties to win new victories, they are actively and enthusiastically helping the Party and the government in this work. There is, however, an extremely small number of landlord and bourgeois elements, accounting for only a few per cent of the population, who have not yet been sufficiently remolded and are always attempting a come-back as was stated in the 1957 Moscow Declaration; they have taken advantage of the difficulties brought about by natural calamities and some shortcomings in the work at the lower levels to carry out sabotaging activities. Among the Party and government functionaries, more than 90 per cent work faithfully and conscientiously for the people; and a few per cent are some bad elements, i.e., landlord and bourgeois elements who have not yet been sufficiently remolded, who have sneaked into the revolutionary ranks and various economic organizations, and also those elements who have degenerated due to influence and corrosion by the reactionary classes. These elements infringe laws and violate discipline in the villages and cities to the detriment of the interests of the people. Besides, there are a few functionaries who, although good-willed and well-intentioned, are inadequate in their ideological consciousness. They lack understanding of the fundamental policies of the Party and the government, they lack sufficient understanding of the distinction between socialism and communism, of the distinction between socialist ownership by the collective and socialist ownership by the people as a whole, of the three-level ownership in the people's communes with the production brigade as the basic level, and of the socialist society's principles of exchange of equal values, of