RED CHINA'S GREATEST GAMBLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-02771R000300120013-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 1998
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 14, 1958
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2001/11/08 : CIA-RDP78-02771 R000300120013-9
ASAIII EVENING NEWS, TUESDAY. C)CTORER 14, 1958
Communal Farms
Red China's Greatest Gamble
The Observer Servers, LaadwR
sINGArORIG--Tbe young farm- with a central kitchen and Rev}
tv in the tattered attderveo eral canteen which eoukt not
and meted Was ttrortam Led me 500. Behind each of its many
Sown a taae'row "bad path are. doors was a new home for tam!.
tweet alftemrrtag Selda of Hex moved from the rkxuned
transplanted rice. Far across cottager-two diminutive earth.
the rolling green plain rose that
tnonataia barrier of Msrchnaa
which the Japan~ had never
venturird to cross, This was the
rich and trsaqufi country of
aouthweet Chia an.
rover there! Stocked with Ruh
1 h v. We shall have enough for
!ourselves and to spare for the
-market. And that field beyond
is for potatoes. They are a fine
secondary crop: and what's
more we make wine from them,
too,"
l
sad,
For this was not just a farm.
but an Agricultural Pruduuerr'
Cooperative.
When the Chinese Commit,
nlsts Arat took over. they con-
fiscated all land front the land-
lords and redistributed It to
small parcels to the enthusiestlu
peasants. try degrees, however,
the peasant,: were then forced
Into Jining cooperatives in
which all members pooled both
their land, for which they were
paid rent, and their labor, for
which they received ptecevcoric
pay. The cooperative did all itq
nodding to a large group the State.
f of young children working Ry this year. these coopers-
quietly on a nearby patch. Civet--to which v7 per cant of
"Waste?" The farmer looked peasant households are said to
1 at tun In &jtt4zemeht.4 "Here, belong--had- become e advane-
I corx,is and ass the pigs. ,Atul4 ed:" the peasant receive moth-
la complex of sties, two bare- ing for his land anY mort. Re
foot peasant girls were pitching vas once again a paid laborer,
swill to .about a hundred slelk 'directed by a cooperative Com.
sows and potkert, itittee which he helped slant,
Just across try nay were the and only dignified by the
~iay'tvsp where halt a dozen men holding of one shire In the
note R'aettltig doles the cows. company, as It were.
It was all almost absurdly Single Voice Drowned
s clean and orderly. We might Tads this last vestigial
At first glance. in fact. this stake is becoming meaningless.
l looked like a well-run farm any- for the cooperatives themselves
where in the world, But as I are being grouped into large
walked round I began to notice "people's communes' in wbieh
differences. There was not just his single voice is drowned_
one large homestead but scorer But the, liege Ll Cooperative
of small ones. revealing that was also, I found, playing Its
thousands of peasants lived and part In an even more Important
worked on these acres. - drama; "Now this question, of
Boundaries Removed waste," the cooperative vicedi-
All boundary rector reiterated firmly. "You
see these fields over then?
removed outiandarkthe f kinp verges
laces ploughed up trope. Theesra They're. experimental. From
were a tractors, no signs There t what we have learned front
mechanisation, but in the fields we know we can get
I saw teams of farmworkers, 40 two o rice crops atl~ me wheat
and 80 strong--long lines of crop out of the "me patch of
men and women patiently work land every year. But to do thlR
ins with eh.iw h.-A. nniv you have to waste nothing, to
Insl- ---- --_.--_ ---_ --- give the land everything you've treattncttt? or are the Com? 01 cram. tine can on:v rep
emeots to be seen were a ? that Peking's dream of incrca
few twb?wheetad double-bladed got rauniatei about to turn the! eel farming output der not tor
ploughs. fe toUbout so was. coountry Into a dust bowl? into a nightmare, not only to
Some of the farmsteads were rn tearing out clumps gross Agricultural experts agree Cliina, but for the rest cif th
being pulled down, while in We and to others clearing weed that modern science has open- w,itId.
middle distance stood a gray from a pond, their conical hum- ft tip the way for almost In.
{ barrack of a place, looking like boo hats bobbing and dipping in credible leaps in output, and
{a penltentlary on a m0Or'Ai ntr6ed?lWigKAlea... 2(1(11ii 1/flf#Fi'iC:yA!p1 rt-tl2W4F nimin 112001n-9
Tears' -the 5432 houachulds or Quiz of wheat-two million to
the ccuperrtive are divided into more than the United Stat,-s
theca learns whose leaders take 71) per cent mtwe than last yea
orders fre.m the committee- Chins also has vast expar,s,rt of
'the-y're collecting green man- land a-. yet untilled in her n t-
tire. We use everything we can Cr provinces.
lay our nan(N on for fertilizer. Poor Today.. ,
Thi.a year we are Fprcadln:r shout tlu-e? tong if it per acre. pert the que.alon-mark
t.ut to reach our new pr.riuc- mains. Jluntied up by ther
tion targsts we reckon to put
clown up to 400, even W, tons
her are' next year-."
Tide was an awkward silen^e
as he sensed my d[at ellef and
we cot tinued our tour. I. remark-
ed the slid advantages the
cooperative bought for its
mernh.-rs from Its profits-the
small tidy ril.spen.:ary and cflnh,
staffed by three nurses; the
little primary school, and the
meeting hall.
ty these brilliant increases
pioductitdly should bring. Ci i
ua', ffi0 million peasants a r
pr tting u with poverty torts '.
At the Min IA ('oolwrative I
learned that the workers the l
a.-lves were paid only alai t
a 60 per household---ur L I
head in kind or money-for U e
entire year of IR57.
Furlherttwro, this grain ga-
hlv is Important in a far wid.
context. it is of Vital interest
th
h
ld
t Chi
e wor
t
a
na should
Experimental Fi nets
able to finance her lndustri I
But, sipping hot water In the program with agricultural p
cool. tare afire of the con- dues and still feed her growl
tnittete, my host and his cob population without being ubli -
le?eytuee, returned to their them--. ed to expand outwards.
This year, wheat output on the Ir. low the ChI?-ss 1e,s-e4
farm wot:id reach l,w IM. pct ed a family planning camases
sore. but next year it would be and exhibitions of btal!
2.t 0 to ibr. per acre-nearly frank anatomical d I a R r a m
cu
thirteen time, as much. The which I now all over China gay
first ric? crop of 165$ had yielded the Impression that this w
1.OAO ins per acre. The second being sustained.
would y Lelci nearly 20,000 lbs. But the more, in their tie Whet I queried these figures aggressive mood, the leaders I
T found they were bared on the faking boast of the power
yield, of the highly closed OIL- presented by C'hina's "FK*1 oil -
p+ rimental acreage, The Mc'- ;ion and more" p~tj~eople, the nor
director n+?vertheless tnstatei unconvincing the hirti-contr .
that comparahle increases in campaign becomes.
produrtloit could he achieved by '1fa)thu.i was wrong," a cha:-n
pitrugl:,ng deeper, uing bettor Ing old la told me in Peking.
semis and more fertilizer and .'An lncretue In populattut: due
by planting so elnsely that 10 not lead to short!; ,s; on th
shoots would grow where one contrary it leads to inetwam
grow today, prtxlucLion." The fast that ih
This was not Just an isolated v+-as director of the maternit
ease of eirIte?d figuring. The uepartment a the Ministry e
etatinas' planning of China VP Health, and * therefore at th
toned ribs such forecasts. Aut cen'??r of the family plsnnin
ei?q the Chines! repeat on a campaign, tells itt~ own story.
netloewide seals anything like Trxily about every one hums
the ou'.tiut achieved on a few in fo,ir ii a Chinese. In :;o yea
thous red selected acres? And inert may easily be one bi.liu.