China under Mao

Title: China under Mao – A Revolution Derailed

Author: Andrew G Walder

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780674975491

Pages: 413

China is a nation with a rich cultural heritage and history. Around the beginning of the nineteenth century, things began to go awfully awry for the Celestial Empire which ruled it. Unable to cope with the cut-throat deals of colonialist powers, it swallowed racial pride and had to follow the line dictated by western powers. A large part of its territory was annexed by Japan in the twentieth century. Chinese people’s historic struggle to evict the Japanese was fought by the Nationalists under Chiang Kaishek and Communists under Mao Zedong. After Japan was defeated, Mao’s troops established the first communist state in Asia. This was in true respect the first modern state China had ever had. But, the 27 years from Mao’s power grab to his demise rocked China through a series of upheavals orchestrated by the great leader, including the Hundred Flowers, Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Millions perished and an even larger number was displaced from their families in the turmoil generated in the wake of these vicious programs. Altogether, Chinese society and economy were in a bad shape when Mao left the scene. It took Deng Xiaoping to make a screeching U-turn in economic policy to place China back on rails. This book examines Mao Zedong’s disastrous policies and how he very nearly derailed his party and the Chinese revolution itself. Andrew G Walder is a professor of political science at the Freeman-Spogli Institute of International Studies. He is a specialist on the sources of conflict, stability and change in communist regimes and their successor states. His publications on China range from political and economic organization of the Mao era to changing patterns of stratification, social mobility and political conflict in the post-Mao era.

The very first sentence of the book succinctly puts the tenor of Mao’s regime as “the first quarter century of communist rule in China was dramatic and disastrous”. Discipline is stressed over and over in revolutionary organizations which eventually degenerate to abuse of authority when the leader commands unquestioned obeisance from cadres. Adding bureaucratic dictatorship in the party and government to this heady mix, what we get is the recipe for a disaster of global proportions. Mao’s disconnect from the people is evident the moment he ascended the throne. When Khrushchev denounced Stalin after his death, Mao thought his own evaluation by the people would be far more benevolent. His ‘Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom’ campaign initially encouraged the people to come out in the open with criticism of the party and its leadership. But the hate and invective Mao received in return upset his calculations and he soon recalled the program after hunting the rebels down for their deviant thought.

Mao’s disastrous ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958-60) was designed to surpass Britain in industrial production in 15 years. So blind was he to actual performance on the ground that the perceived ‘enthusiastic support’ from the masses persuaded him to revise the target to within 7 years and surpass the U.S. in 15 years. Technical experts were evicted from factories and party bureaucrats assumed their place. National output of steel in 1957 was 5 million tons, but overzealous party secretaries pledged 11 million tons for the next year when even a conservative figure of 5.8 million was ambitious. Needless to say, the actual production of quality steel was even lower than the first figure. Peasants were organized into collective farms and they were often diverted to industrial production during the slack farming season. Personal liberty and self-respect were pronounced bourgeois values and hence counterrevolutionary. Families were ordered to turn over their personal possessions to communes. Cooking was communal in which many families took part. Farmers were organized into brigades on military lines. They were required to work at least 28 days in a month. All were required to rise with the morning bugle call, take meals together and go to sleep at the same time. Private housing was replaced with communal barracks segregated by genders, with children housed in a separate building. Families were thus forcefully separated and practically lived under a form of modern slavery. Party officials having no exposure to agricultural practices advised close planting and deep ploughing of the land, which decimated its productivity. Even when famine raged, China exported grain to Soviet Bloc as loan repayments. Industrial output fell and the deluge of poor quality products led to depression. It is estimated that nearly 30 million people died due to famine and the deep fall in industrial output lasted half a decade.

Walder’s narrative stands out for two prime reasons – it summarizes the factors that made Chairman Mao different from other leaders of the Socialist Bloc and the causes for the miserable living standards seen in all communist states. At considerable variance with Marxist theory that extolled dictatorship of the proletariat, Mao turned his attention to rural revolution. This helped his party to have closer ties and involvement with peasants in the countryside. It also saved the burden of fighting against the occupying Japanese forces usually stationed in cities, leaving the Nationalist troops under Chiang Kaishek to engage the enemy. Kaishek’s troops bore the brunt of the Japanese onslaught so that even their eventual victory came at a crippling cost in terms of men, material and other resources. Mao implemented land reform measures as soon as the party assumed power. Families of landowners and large farmers were evicted from their possessions without any compensation and their land was redistributed among the poor. However, the joy of the landless getting ownership of productive land all on a sudden was short-lived. The land was usurped by the government and conglomerated into collective farms managed by the party leaders. Inhabitants were not allowed to leave the farms. The grain they produced had to be sold at government procurement stations at low prices fixed by the party. If anybody dared to lift a finger against the program, they were rounded up, tortured and sometimes executed labeling them as reactionaries. Troubled with the excessive number of executions, Mao once put an upper limit of 0.1% for executions as a percentage of people arrested. Fanatic cadres took this as a target to be adhered to! Prisons were unable to manage the continuous stream of the accused, who were then sent to labour camps and farms for manual labour. Miserable conditions in these places ensured a high death rate.

Observers to Soviet-sponsored economies frequently mentioned their appalling living standards at the same time employing an impressive sector of heavy industry. Walder demystifies this paradox. Stalin’s socialist growth machine failed everywhere it was applied. Huge investments in heavy industries dictated high rates of savings and selective investment. Non-essential sectors like consumer goods, textiles and automobiles were relegated to the backburner. The private sector was not allowed entry even in these low-priority areas. Farmers were paid low prices for grain. Such cheap food was sold in cities where industrial wages could then be artificially held down. The money saved in this exercise was then channeled into industrial investment. This led to corruption in a command economy and falling living standards. Rationing, shortages and substandard housing and public infrastructure prevailed in the communist countries. Bureaucratically administered economies in these states utterly rejected market mechanisms. A disciplined and unitary party organization extended its tentacles deep into the society and economy.

Mao was a creative thinker in politics and a tinkerer too. His ideas were very daring even to the level of being reckless. As soon as the ill effects of Great Leap Forward somewhat died down, he came up with another grand scheme of open rebellion within the party in which free criticism and censure against functionaries in party and bureaucracy was allowed to pinpoint class enemies and revisionists. In a nationwide purge that came to be called the ‘Cultural Revolution’, millions of rebels detained, questioned, forced to confess, tortured and sometimes executed their leaders. University professors and teachers were especially targeted for maltreatment by their own students. The purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to remove people in authority taking the capitalist road. Standard treatment included public humiliation, beatings at the hands of rebel groups, brief imprisonment in makeshift cells and long stints of manual labour in factories or the countryside. What Mao didn’t anticipate was the splintering of the rebels into rival groups over petty points of ideology. Civil war broke out between factions which grew to alarming proportions when Mao ordered the army to hand over military-grade weapons to rebels. The Chairman seemed to revel in an orgy of blood and violence! The army was eventually called in and entrusted with civil administration. As the military rule stabilized the atmosphere, Mao again became upset and ordered power back to revolutionary committees. At this point, his health failed and his slow downward slide began. After his death, power fell to Deng Xiaoping who immediately reversed Mao’s policies and guided China towards progress in 1978. The rest is history.

The personality cult of Mao developed during the height of Cultural Revolution mocked the entire Marxist-Leninist ideology when Mao was elevated to the status of a quasi-divine being. A campaign of ‘Boundless Loyalty’ to Mao was staged across China. Worship of Mao reached ridiculous depths. Workers in factories assembled in front of a portrait of Mao and ‘asked for instructions’ for the day. During the shift, they’d read Mao quotations posted on the walls to boost their enthusiasm for work. When changing shifts, they exchanged Mao quotes and at the end of the working day, they’d once again turn to Mao’s portrait and ‘report back’ (p.278).

The book is very well researched and structured in an objective way. As the Chinese Communist party itself now tries to downplay the Mao era, truth can safely be credited with the author’s account. A good number of photographs of the period are included as also a commendable bibliography section and a huge number of notes. The reading is effortless, but a bit of repetition is slightly off-putting.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star