Causes of Food Crisis
What are the causes that led to the food crisis on the mainland? To begin with, the political institutions of the puppet Peiping regime are extremely detrimental to the peasants. For thousands of years, Chinese peasants have lived close to the soil. They devote their whole time to the cultivation of their land. They are not interested in politics. They till their soil and mind their own business. Except for occasional contacts with their kinsmen, relatives, or their immediate neighbors, they try to keep themselves as detached as possible from the authorities. With the coming into power of the puppet Peiping regime, the peasants' way of life has been completely changed. They have to attend mass meetings, join in Communist inspired parades, listen to long and monotonous political harangues by local Communist cadres, participate in endless group discussions and attend a thousand and one indoctrination courses. All these activities have taken up a lot of their time normally given to farm work.
Furthermore, as a result of their "land reform," farms have been parcelled into tiny lots. Due to the lack of farm implements, animals, fertilizers, seeds, unreasonable procedures of inspection and assessment of property taxes, the farmers have lost much of their incentive for work.
Since the establishment of the puppet Peiping regime in 1949, many people have changed over from productive agricultural occupations to non-productive occupations. The tendency is steadily growing. The puppet Peiping regime maintains a huge war machine and a mammoth civil administration. On top of 6 million Communist party members, innumerable administrative personnel, special agents, local and state police, and a huge labor force engaged in military construction projects, there are 3,500,000 men in the armed forces and about ten million men in the militia. About two-thirds of the military and administrative personnel come from rural areas. They were originally engaged in work on the farm. Now these people are no longer engaged in the production of food. Instead of producers, they have become consumers.
Furthermore, the rapid increase in the size of the urban population also poses a serious problem to the puppet Communist regime. As a result of natural disasters and the exploitation of the farmers by the local Communist cadres, many people in the rural areas have been forced to move to the cities. It is estimated that more than 20,000 peasants flock to Mukden and Anshan in Manchuria every month. In Sian, Shensi Province, more than 600 peasants move in from the villages every day. It has also been revealed that more than 5,100 able-bodied peasants have left their farmsteads in Chuan Hsien, Hopei Province. From these unrelated figures, we may derive some idea of the seriousness of the situation created by the mass migration of farmers into cities in search of food.
So long as the puppet Peiping regime persists in the industrialization of China at the expense of agriculture according to the Soviet pattern, the Chinese mainland cannot be expected to produce sufficient food to meet the needs of the people. Industrialization requires the importation on an unprecedented scale of all sorts of machinery and industrial equipment. To pay for these supplies, the puppet Peiping regime has no alternative but to export raw materials and foodstuffs vitally needed at home.
Since 1949, the puppet Peiping regime has seized for export thousands of tons of rice from the people. It is estimated that in 1953, the volume of foreign trade on the mainland came to US$3,000,000,000 half of which was for export. Foodstuffs rank high among the export commodities. For instance, the puppet Peiping regime has so far exported 27,000 tons of rice to Ceylon. Large quantities of grains have also been exported to Hongkong and India.
In addition to these exports, the puppet Peiping regime has to provide a huge quota of grains to Russia which has been short of food as a result of both collectivization and war.
Despite its industrial development and military build-up. Russia has failed to increase its food, output. Reporting on the food situation to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party on March 2, 1954. Nikita S. Khrushchev, Secretary-General of the Communist Party, revealed that "the quantity of grains under state control is unable to meet the actual needs." Under such circumstances which are the inevitable result of its economic policy. Russia has to make up its grain deficit by extorting grains from the satellite countries. Russia lives on the hunger of its satellites. According to the terms of the "Sino-Russian Trade Agreement", hundreds of thousands of tons of rice have been shipped to Russia.
We have dealt with some of the factors which have led to the food shortage on the mainland. These factors are of a permanent character. They will remain as long as the puppet Peiping regime exists. The grain crisis is further aggravated by other causes such as floods, drought, and insects. With the exception of 1952, the famine on the Chinese mainland has been increasingly serious, culminating in the unprecedented floods which occurred earlier this year and which have wrought untold damage. In the Yangtze valley, the area most seriously affected by flood includes Hupeh, Hunan, Honan, Kiangsi, Anhwei and Kiangsu. In North China, the Yellow River overflowed its banks in different places. In South China, Kwangsi and Kwangtung were flooded by the West River. Droughts and insects plagued the Northwest and Northeast. It is estimated that floods have inundated more than 170,000,000 mows, of land. roughly one-fifth of the total cultivated land, and rendered more then 80,000.000 persons homeless.
Besides these natural calamities, the participation of the puppet Peiping regime in the Korean and Indochina wars has further aggravated the grain crisis on the mainland. In the Korean War, the puppet Peiping regime had to ship large quantities of grains to the battle zones not only to feed its own troops but also the North Koreans. Still larger quantities of grains have been exported in the course of the War in exchange for strategic materials and munitions. The puppet Peiping regime's logistical support for the Vietminhs, though on a much smaller scale, has nevertheless dissipated a considerable pact of its grain reserve. It is estimated that the puppet Peiping regime has shipped out more than 19,900,000 tons of grains in the course of these two wars.
In addition to the above-mentioned factors, the food situation has been made more acute by waste and loss in the Process of purchase transportation and stockpiling. The inadequate capacity of granaries, the dispersion of storing centers, mismanagement, faulty granaries, shortage of insecticide and carelessness in handling food transportation are other factors resulting in losses.
Since November 1953, a large quantity of food stored in public buildings in Peipilig has been eaten by worms, or lost through fermentation, fire and theft. To cite a few instances, the Administrative Commissioner's Office in Shaokan, Hupeh Province, revealed that in seven hsiens under its administration, 980,000 catties of grains had been eaten by worms. In Hanchuan, Hupeh, 90,000 catties of soybeans were found in a state of fermentation. Heavy food losses have also resulted in transportation. According to the Da Kung Pao, published in Tientsin of May 31, 1953, during the first four months of 1953, 11.2% of the 182,000,000 catties of grains were lost during transportation in the provinces of Honan, Anhwei, and Shantung.
Measures to Relieve the Grain Crisis
Since the winter of 1952, the seriousness of the food situation on the mainland has become increasingly obvious. The puppet Peiping regime failed to reach the target set for its grain purchasing program. At the same time, a larger quantity of grains was sold than was permitted by the Communist authorities. The situation become very serious in the months of September and October, 1953. Usually, September, and October make up the season of harvest; vast quantities of grains would flood the market. But in 1953, contrary to expection, the quantity of grains to be purchased by the puppet regime fell far below the target set, while the grain sold in the market greatly exceeded the quantity previously set. For the sake of clarity, the conditions of grain purchasing and grain marketing during these two months are tabulated as follows:
|
Percentage of |
Percentage |
Percentage of | ||
|
Purchase |
of Sales |
Sales Over | ||
|
Compared |
Compared |
Purchase | ||
|
to Target |
with Target |
|||
|
Sep. |
80.11% |
118.47% |
10.71 | |
|
Oct. |
72.17% |
120.42% |
41.22% | |
The unbalanced position of grain purchasing and marketing soon resulted in a grain crisis in the urban areas and in the industrial and mining centers. As a consequence, speculation, hoarding and all sorts of illegal dealings in grains took place. The repercussions were profound. The scarcity of grains in the market brought about a general increase price grains and other foodstuffs, making things difficult for people. As grain crisis swept over rural areas, many poor peasants were forced to wander elsewhere in quest of food, further aggravating the economic situation. Food riots became frequent occurrences.
According to an editorial which appeared in the Peiping People's Daily on April 28, 1954, as a result of the food crisis, the people took every opportunity "to fabricate and scatter rumors, commit organized theft, destroy state grains, cable wires, railway materials, farm products and hydraulic installations, set fire to granaries, assassinate Communist cadres and commit highway robbery". The grain crisis added also to the financial difficulty of the puppet Peiping regime.
Confronted with the unusually serious grain situation, the puppet Peiping regime did everything it could to avert a political crisis. In November, 1953, major policies concerning grains were announced namely, planned purchase of grains; planned supply of grains; control of the grain market and prohibition of private grain merchants in dealing in grains; and the enforcement of the grain control policy. The four-point major grain policy was embodied in the "Decree Concerning the Enforcement of Planned Purchase a Planned Supply of Grains" promulgated by the puppet "State Council" on November 23, 1953.
A careful study of the puppet Peiping regime's system concerning the unified purchasing and marketing of grains show that the measures adopted are contrary to sound economic principles. It is bound to worsen the grain crisis instead of solving the basic problem.
According to well-established economic principles, the solution of the grain crisis is to be found in the achievement of an equilibrium between demand and supply. On the side of supply, every effort should be exerted to increase the grain output; on the side of demand, wastage and consumption of grain must be reduced to minimum.
The increase of grain production and reduction of grain consumption involve technical problems. For instance, to increase production, it is necessary to expand the acreage of cultivation augment the per unit output, prevent plant diseases, use insecticides improve farming techniques, use fertilizers, improve working conditions, and heighten efficiency.
With reference to consumption, it is necessary to avoid wastage through milling, encourage the consumption of subsidiary grains, lower the quality of animal fodder, and improve the system of transportation and storage.
The puppet Peiping regime completely disregards the well-established economic practices of the civilized world. It follows slavishly the Russian pattern and concentrates its attention on the state control of grains. The Chinese people are called on further to tighten their belts. The puppet regime is apparently unaware of the fact that after more than 20 years of hard struggle, Russia is still far short of self-sufficiency in food.
Economically, the puppet Peiping regime does not enjoy certain advantages enjoyed by Russia. On the mainland, there is little virgin land that may be turned into state farms. The industrial foundation of the puppet Peiping regime is so weak that it does not have the ability to turn out reasonable quantities of machines to industrialize its agriculture. It would therefore be naive to expect a solution of the grain crisis on the mainland in the forseeable future.
We should not forget that on the Chinese mainland, as in other Communist-controlled areas, economy is made to serve political aims. The grain policy of the puppet Peiping regime has a double purpose, to concentrate all the grains and to deliberately create grain crises. The Chinese Reds are trying to satisfy the requirements of their comrades, to give, the fellow-travellers something to eat, but to starve the "undesirable elements" in the country. Such is the cornerstone of their political strategy. As a consequence, the grain crisis on the mainland is by no means accidental. It is the result of the policy of the puppet regime and may be said to be a means to their political end.