Although this process was not without the difficulties of reality on the ground. In the early years of the revolution (45-49) when it was restricted to the Northern Provinces, the Party had held unrealistic expectations of what land reform could achieve. The Party accused the landlords of being only 10% of the population and holding over 70% of the wealth. This proved to be a gross over estimate and when all property had been redistributed, the Party found that at best the peasant’s problems were only partially alleviated. For the problem was that there was simply not enough wealth to go around.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
2. Progressive and graduated taxation was an important issue in Chinese society. During the nationalist years landlords and local officials were guilty of skimming tax payments made to them before they passed them on to the government. Over time this made them stronger and by zero sum, the government weaker. Therefore ignoring the Marxist premise for this tenet, the CCP were vigorous in implementing it as not to suffer a like result. The progressive and graduated tax was to mean to the CCP that the more wealth you were to hold, the more tax you were to pay. The taxes had to be paid not to the local landlord, but directly to party cadres. This also satisfied a Marxist principal of equality in that when the workers paid a share of the tax to the CCP/PRC, they were gaining their “share” of the crop and therefore further emancipating themselves from the feudal oppressions they’d been previously operating under.
Yet once again, Marxism had not taken into account the greed that had formed the bourgeoisie or in China’s case, the landlord elite, in the first place. Hence the local cadres found their fingers to be just as sticky as the previous feudal landlords and at times even protected certain landlords through friendship or personal gain. This is quite obviously against the laws of Marxism.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
3. Inheritance was a central tenet of Confucian thought. Not only did one inherit wealth from their parents but also title and therefore opportunity. This restricted opportunity to the elite and was one of the pillars of a class stratified Sino society. Therefore this Marxist doctrine was highly applicable to the CCP. The CCP demolished all remnants of this Confucian tradition to the point that even if you were not a land lord or exploiter of the peasants, it was said that your inheritance was a product of exploitation and therefore should be returned. And returned it was.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels
4. China’s history holds a story of foreign occupation by most of the world’s industrialized nations during the late 1800’s. From the early 1900’s Japan had been a constant harassing threat and occupier to the point when they launched a full scale invasion which proclaimed their involvement in the Second World War. So when the CCP came to acting on this Marxist principal, it was done eagerly. Any Chinese that were seen as collaborators with the occupiers were apprehended, stripped of their wealth and many times executed. At this point due to the earlier civil war between Chinese nationalists and the CCP, most foreign nationals had fled the country. This Marxist principal is assumedly proclaimed in an attempt to abolish levels of status and exploitation by foreign stronger forces. For under Marxism, any “controlling” force, which external intervention can only be, is exploitation, especially when the foreign force is seen to be leeching a country’s resources. Only this exploitation is on an international basis.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
5. This Marxist tenet was carried out by the CCP when the revolution reached the cities. But the CCP faced the same problem here as they faced with agriculture and means of production. The Marxist approach had not allowed for the skill vacuum created by removing all “capitalists” from what was originally a capitalist pursuit. Therefore it used the same approach. Those who were an asset because of their economic skills and experience were retained in their positions after the CCP took control of the organisation and also offered these people “incentives” to continue on. The fear of this was the same once again, that offering incentives of personal gain was the same premise of individual gain and inequality that Marxism itself was attempting to abolish. These problems were later to be rectified by the “great Proletariat Cultural Revolution”.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
6. This was easily done by the CCP without any real consequences to society or the revolution.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
7. This exercise of extending the states means of production and cultivation and improvement of land capabilities with a common plan was the basis for the great leap forward. And will discuss along with the 8th point.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
8. The conversion to a Marxist socialism/communism required a “communal” approach to production. This approach saw the families of each village pooling their recourses and efforts in view of a higher return and an equality of effort. These collectives grew from the original 5-10 family work unit into at the largest scale of up to 2000 families making up a single work unit. All return from effort was to be pooled and redistributed by the state on a basis of a return of effort. Whilst this Marxist principal is fine in its premise, it was all but impossible to implement in reality. This reward as to effort overlooked skill, strength and availability. If one had the skill to operate a tractor, his reward was higher. If one was stronger and fitter, his reward was higher. If one’s work units opportunity for work was higher because of land arability or access to tools, their return was higher. This obviously necessitates a stratification of wealth and opportunity within the socialist communes and bred the resentment that occasioned the peasant revolution in the first place. It may be possible to see this Marxist principal almost an impossibility due to human and material variabilities.
The great leap forward also saw agricultural practices formed from years of experience over ruled and dictated by the central committee in order to improve land quality and further agricultural production. As per most authority gained by force as the Communist Manifesto had prescribed, lower echelons were afraid to point out the faults of the central authority. Therefore when communiqués came down the line ordering impractical agricultural methods, there was no dissent. Further more, when the return was lower than previous years the local cadres fearful of giving bad news gave vastly overblown accounts of their return. This snowballed nation wide and resulted in the famine of 1967-69, which were dubbed “the bad years”. It seems that the theory of Marxist revolution of production and methods was being sapped by the greed and self righteousness of human nature to the point where everyone was equal and free in starvation.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
9. This was probably the CCP’s hardest Marxist tenet to implement. Not only was there a class stratification due to the ownership of property (remember that the distinction was in feudal terms, not capitalist/bourgeois) but there was a huge gap between the city and rural folk in both wealth, opportunity, identity and culture. Many times the CCP attempted forced migration of city to country and restricted movement into the city. But this was never to have any success, to the point that now after China’s economic rationalization, there is still a gap between the two and heavier restrictions are being placed on rural to city movement. The CCP also used “re-education through labour” to break down any capitalist sentiments of city folk by moving them to rural labour camps. As it turns out and ironically so. It was Deng Xiao Ping who implemented China’s economic rationalization, after even he had endured years of “re-education” via rural labour.
