MAOIST SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS IN CHINA, 1969

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A007000010002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2005
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 21, 1969
• Content Type: REPORT

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
Maoist Social Experiments in China, 1969
Secret
Np 40
21 March 1969
No. 0362/69A
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MAOIST SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS IN CHINA, 1969
Since summer, 1968, considerable progress has been made in restoring order and moving
the Cultural Revolution into a "constructive" phase. The era of Red Guard violence is over,
and although a low level of disorder and. political tension persists in the provinces, the
military have imposed firm rule on most of the country. Mao Tse-tung has successfully
purged the Chinese Communist Party of the major figures he believed were opposing him.
The new leadership around him is about to convene a party congress to adopt a new party
constitution and to form a new politburo and central committee which will reflect the power
structure that has emerged from the Cultural Revolution. These, however, are merely the
formal objectives of the congress. Real. progress in restoring stability and order may continue
to be slow in view of the staggering problems facing Peking.
The Chinese leaders still have far to go to repair the damage wrought by the Cultural
Revolution, and their effectiveness continues to be inhibited by turbulent behind-the-scenes
politics. Political jockeying is particularly apparent in the provinces, where factional struggles
among leaders still hinder consolidation of the new governing units that have been set up in
China's 29 provinces. While preparing for the forthcoming ninth party congress, the elite in
Peking have put on an outward display of unity, but there are probably still divisions over
both power and policy issues. These continuing divisions make it unclear what decisions the
congress will reach or what policy guidelines it will formulate.
One of the major divisive issues probably is how far to go in pushing the socioeconomic
policies and mass campaigns Mao believes are necessary to promote his unique vision of a
selfless, egalitarian, and "revolutionary" China. These include rural reforms, population
transfers, changes in education, purge efforts, and changes in administrative structure. Similar
measures were pushed during the Great Leap Forward and again in 1963-65, often with
ruinous results. Nevertheless, Mao seems determined to continue his experimentation, and
this may represent his price for closing out the Cultural Revolution.
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Socialist society is a fairly long historical stage.
During this stage of history, classes, class contra-
dictions, and class struggle continue, the struggle
between the road of socialism and the road of
capitalism goes on, and the danger of capitalist
restoration remains. (Red Flag, 20 June 1967)
The various social and economic experi-
m ents which have been under way since the sum-
mer of 1968 bear the unmistakable stamp of Mao
Tse-tung. In essence, they involve an effort to
transform China's society and economy to fulfill
Mao's ideals-presumably the object for which the
political.. battles of the Cultural Revolution were
fought. Among the wide range of complex factors
contributing to that upheaval was Mao's growing
belief gnat his conception of a "new China" had
been steadily losing ground since the debacle of
his Great Leap Forward in 1958.
After the Great Leap failed, Mao apparently
posited an almost indefinite timetable for the
"complete victory of socialism" in China. He saw
the development of socialist society as a process
of uninterrupted revolution, and the important
question for him was how to sustain revolution-
ary momentum for perhaps five or six genera-
tions. His answer was that the success of the
I h&
Chairman Mao instructs us: "As long as there are men, we can perform any kind of miracle in the world."
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revolution could be assured only if men could be
remolded into true believers. In his view, re-
making men is the really crucial task of the revo-
lution-more essential, even, than institutional
change, technical and scientific modernization, or
rapid industrialization.
Mao did not lose all grasp of China's practi-
cal problems, but the evidence is that his thinking
became increasingly colored by revolutionary
romanticism. While the regime pursued policies of
social and economic retrenchment to recover
from the disasters of the Great Leap, Mao became
progressively obsessed with the belief that Soviet-
style "revisionism" was spreading and under-
mining his revolutionary accomplishments. He
feared that the revolutionary elan the leaders had
fostered in the party and society as a whole
would gradually weaken, that there would be
pressures to moderate the harshness of political
dictatorship, and that private, personal interests
and enterprise would motivate China's masses
more than abstract virtue or long-range collectiv-
ist goals. Mao believed that the period of recovery
in the early 1960s accentuated such trends, and
his reaction was to renew the emphasis on pro-.
grams emphasizing austerity, self-sacrifice, and
ideological purity. At the same time he was devel-
oping a growing and probably well-founded suspi-
cion that many officials, and probably some
members of his inner circle, did not share his faith
in permanent revolution. This suspicion became a.
principal factor in triggering the Cultural Revolu-
tion.
During the violent struggles of 1966-1968,
Mao's concern with maintaining revolutionary fer-
vor was evident, but in the heat of battle, few
initiatives were taken to implement many of his
pet socioeconomic projects. As the leadership
finally moved to curb widespread factional vio-
lence last summer, Peking began issuing reform.
directives in Mao's name. These in turn paved the
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way for launching in the fall a series of mass
campaigns and social experiments which suggest
that the Maoists are as determined as ever to
make Chinese society more egalitarian and more
'`revolutionary"-regardless of the cost. Within
the past six months, a clearer picture has emerged
of the course on which the 75-year-old Mao hopes
to set China's development before he passes from
the scene.
SOCIOECONOMIC EXPERIMENTS, 1969
By the beginning of the new year, it was
clear that the campaigns under way on a national
scale were designed to resume the pressures for
greater socialization that had been largely sus-
pended during the Cultural Revolution. The vari-
ous programs identified to date include: 1) a
campaign to simplify administration, 2) dispersing
huge numbers of city dwellers to the countryside,
3) dispatching more medical personnel to rural
areas, 4) reform of education, 5) reforms of the
rural wage system, 6) changes in basic commune
institutions, 7) "re-education" of intellectuals,
and 8) an extensive campaign to clean out "class
enemies"-a broad category of former landlords,
ex-party cadres, recalcitrant commune leaders,
and other political undesirables. The experiments
have mushroomed since last fall, but local varia-
tions are substantial, suggesting that national pol-
icy is still vague and tentative.
A firm determination of how much addi-
tional impetus the experiments will receive may
not be possible until the ninth congress. At pres-
ent, social and economic policies are probably
being debated behind the scenes. There was some
evidence of this in Peking's most recent pro-
nouncement on economic policy on 21 February.
Although heavily encrusted in standard Maoist
slogans, that statement called essentially for a
more reasoned, systematic management of indus-
trial and agricultural production. This statement
may, however, reflect only one side in a
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Passing on production techniques to commune members to spur the development of collective economy.
Picture and Caption - China Pictorial No. 7, 1968
continuing debate, since no moderation of Maoist
measures has been noted. There is little doubt,
however, that moderate elements in the regime
are disturbed because Maoist reforms make it
difficult to operate the economy effectively, to
restore the cohesion of the state, and to maintain
the degree of law and order necessary for a return
to stability.
RURAL REFORMS
China's vast peasant population, for exam-
ple, has to bear increasingly heavy burdens as the
result of being on the receiving end of most of the
current campaigns. In recent months there have
been numerous reports of curbs against the re-
maining private sector in the rural economy,
which has provided peasants with a significant
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In order to promote a big leap forward in agricul-
ture, it is necessary to let revolution take com-
mand and put the factor of men in the first
place, shatter the revisionist line advocating 'ma-
terial incentives,' foster the idea of farming for
the sake of revolution, smash the idea of simply
relying on the state and foster the revolutionary
spirit of working hard. (Harbin Radio, 1 March
1969)
portion of their household income since 1961
There is also evidence of steps to increase the
authority of production brigades in the commune
structure while reducing that of the lower level
production teams, which had been the basic
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agricultural planning and accounting units.
The merging of richer and poorer localities wi
tend to reduce the income-and incentive to
work-of the more enterprising peasants and
production teams. Another scheme being experi-
mentally implemented, the so-called Tachai work-
point system, seeks to narrow rural income differ-
entials and reduce the role of material incentives
in favor of more political inspiration. A peasant
would be paid his points for a day's labor on the
basis of the correctness of his political attitudes as
well as what he has produced.
Other programs, such as new health and ed-
ucational reforms, place additional burdens on
the production brigades. Under a newly an-
nounced medical care system, the individual con-
tributes a token sum toward maintaining health
services, while the brigade picks up the bulk of
the cost. Brigades are also taking over the direc-
tion and most of the financing of former state-run
primary schools. In these two programs, the state
saves money, but ultimately the peasant bears a
greater cost because his individual share of the
collective income will be sharply reduced.
It is still uncertain whether the current ex-
perimentation will result in a "new" system for
the communes-the largest administrative and
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grains. There are some signs that the Maoists are
again seeking to promote the communes as self.
sufficient agricultural and industrial units in a
manner faintly reminiscent of the Great Leap
period when communes were first introduced. In
some areas there is also a push to increase the
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self-sufficiency of communes by increasing
peasant manufacture of farm tools and expanding
brigade-run "factories." The heavy stress in recent
propaganda on the need for training "new style
agrotechnicians" and workers capable of both in-
dustrial and agricultural jobs also implies that
communes will be expected to rely less on the
state and more on themselves for basic goods and
services.
There is mounting evidence that the amal-
gamation of production teams and the efforts to
establish a new commune system are meeting
strong peasant resistance. In recent weeks other
reports have suggested that these institutional
changes are being accompanied by a campaign, in
South China at least, to replace entrenched rural
cadres. Presumably this effort is aimed at creating
a more activist and responsive rural leadership.
Tempered in the struggles of the great proletarian
cultural revolution, town dwellers long divorced
from labour, have raised their socialist conscious-
ness greatly. They have come to understand that
taking no part in productive labour puts burdens
on the state and is not conducive to the nation's
socialist construction, nor to reducing the differ-
encea between town and countryside, nor to re-
moui'ding their thinking or that of their chil-
dren. (Peking NCNA, 21 December 1968)
The strains in the countryside have been
greatly :.ncreased by large-scale transfers of urban
dwellers-perhaps as many as 20 million-to rural
.areas to share work and hardships with the farm-
ers. This crash program was begun last fall with
the limited objective of bringing under control
unruly students and factionalists by assigning
them to agricultural labor. Since October, the
program has broadened to include underemployed
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adult city residents and their dependents, profes-
sional people, administrative and technical cadres,
and in some cases, even skilled workers. There are
propaganda claims that as much as one fourth of
the population of some cities has been sent to la-
bor in farming and mining communities for an in-
definite period.
Peking propaganda asserts that this dispersal
eases the urban unemployment and food situa-
tion, but, in fact, it merely transfers these prob-
lems to already overpopulated rural communities.
There have been numerous reports of the addi-
tional burden of feeding these people, of the
inability and unwillingness of urban emigrants to
adjust to rural life, and of violent clashes between
the newcomers and their reluctant hosts. The
forced emigration confronts already harassed
provincial authorities with serious administrative
problems and adds to the burden of maintaining
public order. in
some communes troops are
being permanent y assigned to keep people in
line.
The dispersal to the countryside is also
highly unpopular in urban areas. The disruption
of family and work life, the lower standards of
rural living, and the prospect of a lengthy rustica-
tion have increased the personal insecurity of city
residents and sparked both covert and overt forms
of resistance. Recent provincial broadcasts em-
phasizing "war preparedness" and the revival of
the old "liberate Taiwan" theme also suggest that
local officials are casting about for a justification
of the dispersions to counter growing public dis-
affection. Apparently urban officials responsible
for public security are becoming increasingly con-
cerned over unauthorized flights back to the cities
by emigrants who are dissatisfied enough to run
the risk of stiff prison sentences should they be
caught. F_ I the re-
turnees to one city were so numerous that they
form a new "criminal" underground.
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Sending the masses of cadres to do manual work
gives them an excellent opportunity to study
once again; this should be done by all cadres
except those who are too old, weak, ill or dis-
abled. Those who are not working as cadres also
should go in groups to do manual work. (Peking
Radio, 4 October 1968)
The transfer to the countryside of large
numbers of China's urban cadres-officials who
manage industry and coordinate the economy-
reinforces the notion that the Maoists' effort is
not aimed at economic and social rationalization
but at social transformation. To serve the over-
riding goal of maintaining revolutionary fervor
and creating a truly egalitarian society, the dis-
tinctions between town and countryside, between
leaders and led, must be eliminated. There must
be "better troops and simpler administration"
and special efforts must be made to prevent the
growth of a privileged bureaucratic ruling group.
Consequently, administrative organs and factories
have been ordered to make wholesale transfers of
personnel from managerial and technical staffs to
positions where they work with their hands, in
effect, to a sort of forced labor camp.
There is clear evidence that
some cadres have been given assignments related
to their skills, and temporarily, at least, most
cadres may still draw their regular salaries. Many
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reports to date, however, suggest that the major- study
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heavy manual labor, and large doses of political
Before starting labor, leading comrades (front) of the Revolutionary Committee of the "May 7" Cadre School study
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung together with the students.
Picture and Caption - China Pictorial No. 1, 1969
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Retrenchment and eviction from urban areas
has sharply undermined cadre morale and built up
a reservoir of resentment, disillusionment, and
insecurity. This attitude has not been helped by
additional injunctions to senior cadres to send
their children to rural areas. In an apparent effort
to forestall mounting cadre criticism of the pro-
gram, People's Daily of 16 January made rare
mention of the fact that Mao had once sent his
own son, Mao An-ying, to attend a "labor univer-
sity" in the countryside in 1945 (An-ying had just
returned from a school in the USSR). The ob-
vious implication was that truly revolutionary
cadres should be only too glad to follow his
example.
REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION
Over the past 19 years, students of philosophy,
literature, economics, and history have failed to
change their ideology because they did not go to
the masses of workers and peasants. So it is
better for us to send them to work in the fac-
tories and on the farms. After a period during
which they are subjected to criticism and strug-
gled against by the masses, they will sincerely
integrate themselves with the workers and peas-
ants, thus ending their alienation from the
masses. Is there anything wrong with this ap-
proach? (Wen Hui Pao, 21 December 1968)
Other key groups that are being asked to
follow Mao's prescriptions for a new China, and
are suffering consequent disillusionment and loss
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of social position, are teachers and the 1966,
1967, and 1968 "graduates" of middle schools
and universities. Over the past six months, the
future of most has become highly uncertain as
they have been caught up in a Maoist revolution
in education aimed at breaking the hold of "bour-
geois intellectuals" on China's future generations.
classes will remain
suspended in universities nor the next two or
three years, and all teachers are to be sent to
teach in farming villages. It is apparent that no
meaningful education is currently being con-
ducted above the primary school level, and the
debate on educational reform begun last summer
is still going on.
Since mid-September, 1968, central prop-
aganda media have been publicizing selected local
level experiments in schooling as models for edu-
cational reform. The main features of the reforms
now being publicized generally follow the desider-
ata laid down at the beginning of the Cultural
Revolution: eliminating "bourgeois" control over
the schools; easing entrance requirements for
children of workers and poorer peasants; and "re-
forming" the system of teaching, teaching materi-
als, and the grading system. A new element is the
emphasis on decentralization and efforts to
minimize central government expenditures. An-
other innovation is that over-all direction of the
schools is to be taken out of the hands of profes-
sional educators and entrusted to committees of
workers and peasants.
In the rural areas the financing and staffing
of schools are in the hands of village-level organi-
zations. In the towns these functions have fallen
to local factory and residents' committees-a de-
velopment which is likely to result in a serious
lowering of educational standards. In rural areas
the trend is toward the amalgamation of primary
and secondary schools, and in urban centers, to-
ward a reduction of schooling below college level
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Here revolutionary teachers and students work side by
side with the poor and lower-middle peasants. Taking part
in collective productive labor is the basic course for both
teachers and students.
Picture and Caption - China Pictorial No. 2, 196 9
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from 12 to 9 years. At present, it seems that
truncated secondary schools will remain intact in
the cities, but in the countryside it appears that
the former two-year agricultural middle schools
will be tacked on to the primary schools to pro-
vide peasant youth with what amounts to seven
years of education. While the ultimate fate of
professicnal teachers is being debated, many are
being sent to labor in rural areas and their places
taken by semiliterate peasants and workers.
At this stage, the new system appears to be
primarily an expression of Mao's "leveling" tend-
encies, and the net result is likely to be a regres-
sion in higher education in China-particularly
since the content of education in the new system
has been so strongly diluted. The model experi-
ments described to date place heavy emphasis on
ideological and basic practical training and very
little on academic, technical, or advanced train-
ing. A model school for agrotechnicians in
Kiangsu, for example, was recently praised be-
cause most teaching was done while the students
actually worked at farm tasks, and grading had
been eliminated in favor of rating students on
Mao's thought. Secondary education now is sup-
posed to consist almost entirely of manual labor
and the study of basic farm or factory practices,
with a minuscule amount of academic work
thrown in.
Graduating students, however, are expected
to be something more than good laborers. They
are also supposed to be "activists in the living
study and application of Chairman Mao's
thought " This commitment to political activism
is clearly a major goal of the new education.
Although it is true that Chinese Communist
schooling has always emphasized ideology and
indoctriaati.on, the present reduction in academic
work is musually drastic.
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At the lower levels the Maoist experiments
in education are designed to produce large num-
bers of politically reliable vocational youth, who
will receive at most seven years of education in
rural areas and nine to ten in cities. The proposed
system ignores the requirement of preparing stu-
dents for university. This does not seem to bother
the Maoists, whose notions about higher educa-
tion are impractical. According to recent propos-
als, which apparently are not to be acted upon for
some time, however, universities will shorten their
courses to two or three years and recruit their
student body from politically reliable peasants
and workers.
At this stage, there is serious doubt that any
form of higher education will be resumed soon.
Universities and even some scientific research in-
stitutes-except for those directly run by the
army-are still closed, and there are no signs of
plans to reopen them. There is also no reliable
evidence that a large new class of politically quali-
fied laborers and military men is being prepared
to enter into advanced training. As a result, it is
highly likely that China will suffer serious short-
ages of personnel trained in the modern tech-
niques that its long-term development requires.
This problem is compounded because only
limited efforts are being made to employ produc-
tively those 1967-1968 "graduates" whose
schooling was terminated by the Cultural Revolu-
tion. At present, nearly all of them must work as
peasants or in factories for at least one to two
years. Apparently even some "graduates" in criti-
cal fields, such as physics, chemistry, and mathe-
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In recent months there has
been some evi ence of a concerted effort to give
1966 technical graduates-those who completed
their full schooling-job assignments related to
their training. Presumably even greater care will
be taken in the future to obtain appropriate jobs
for the products of the new university system. At
this juncture, however, most graduates are still
being assigned to ordinary labor in farms, fac-
tories, and mines, or are being sent to reclaim
THE HIGH COST OF REFORM
Some people have argued this way: "7f doing a
good job in revolution can raise production, then
it can also be said that doing a good job in
production means doing a good job in revolu-
tion. " This is a type of logic which reverses right
and wrong. It is a fallacy to say that revolution
must show results in production. (Kiangsi Daily,
23 February 1969)
Maoist social experiments have already im-
posed a heavy burden on the nation. Unless their
more extreme aspects are blunted, they are likely
to undermine any constructive efforts to initiate
long-range programs of development. The
Maoists, of course, offer a variety of rationaliza-
tions and justifications for their programs. In gen-
eral, these "reforms" are somehow supposed to
"unleash" enthusiasm and energy. Forced emigra-
tion to the countryside is supposed to ease over-
crowding in the cities and the retrenchment of
cadres is supposed to break bureaucratic bottle-
necks and simplify administration. Educational
reforms are supposed to make schooling more
egalitarian, more responsive to practical needs,
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and available to more people, especially in rural
China. The transfer of large numbers of medical
personnel to the countryside is supposed to meet
the never before achieved goal of adequate health
services for the majority of the country's popula-
tion.
Such arguments all express legitimate con-
cerns, but on balance the thrust of the programs
in their present form appears far more negative
and destructive than positive. This is immediately
apparent in such programs as the forced exodus
to the countryside. Millions of people are being
thrust upon the communes to be "re-educated"
by peasants who are already hard pressed. Fur-
thermore, there is little likelihood that hordes of
unskilled city dwellers can make a significant con-
tribution to increasing agricultural production.
The possibilities of social disorder in such an
experiment are obvious, and even if the present
campaign is temporary, it will leave a legacy of
bitterness and disillusionment.
The retrenchment of technical and adminis-
trative cadres is another program that seems to
serve little rational purpose. It will make opera-
ting the economy more difficult and probably
further reduce industrial productivity. Moreover,
thinning the ranks of both provincial level and
central ministry personnel on the scale that is
probably occurring will reduce Peking's ability to
administer a nation of over 800 million people.
The high cost of some other Maoist pro-
grams may seem less obvious. The resumption of
any education at all after two years of upheaval,
for example, appears to be a plus. The continua-
tion of what amounts to an agricultural middle
school in the countryside and the reliance on
half-study half-work programs in both rural and
urban areas is an economical approach and does
serve to give larger numbers of both adults and
young people some form of education. A legiti-
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mate question, however, is how much more prac-
tical training China's agricultural and industrial
workers need to acquire. While some of the Mao-
ists' educational goals may be useful in maintain-
ing an essentially primitive economy, they are
unlikely to meet China's current and future edu-
cational needs, especially the need for skilled
technicians, scientists, engineers, managers, and
educators..
Even though Mao recognizes the necessity of
scientific and technical colleges, his call to return
their graduates to "labor" after two to three years
casts doubt on his understanding of advanced
training. Communist China badly needs rapid
development in the technical and managerial
fields, but Maoist prescriptions for higher educa-
tion-with their calculated anti-intellectualism
and systematic denigration of teachers and theo-
retical studies-seem designed to deny China some
of the tools of modernization. Formal scientific
and technical training and probably much of the
research and development work outside of ad-
vanced weapons programs have already been
seriously curtailed as a result of the Cultural
Revolution. This shows that the Maoists will
make major sacrifices to achieve domestic politi-
cal and social goals by halting activities which
even they regard as vital to making China a great
power.
One further example serves to point up the
Maoists' penchant for pushing ill-conceived pro-
grams regardless of cost. Large numbers of urban
doctors are now being transferred from the cities
in response to Mao's instruction: "In medical and
health work, put the stress on the rural areas."
Official media have also extensively praised the
contributions of "barefoot doctors" (peasants
trained in rudimentary first aid work) in the
countryside and bragged that more peasants than
ever before are receiving expert medical attention.
There is increasing evidence, however, that the
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newly available medical personnel are still too few
and spread too thin to fulfill the claims made for
them in offical propaganda.
To a large degree, then, the primary aim of
the costly reform programs at this stage appears
social and political rather than economic. In the
long run such extreme programs are bound to be
self-defeating. In the wake of the Cultural Revolu-
tion, China urgently requires more systematic,
effective planning to make better use of its exist-
ing and potential resources, but in many respects
the Maoist programs seem to work in the opposite
direction. The answer to many of the nation's
basic problems appears to lie in a managerial
revolution rather than in another round of politi-
cal and social revolution.
PROSPECTS IN 1969
The policy debate within the regime is likely
to continue during and after the ninth party con-
gress. It increasingly appears that the leadership
may enter and leave the congress still divided on
key issues. If the congress confirms "conserva-
tive" provincial power holders and at the same
time endorses Mao's radical policies, divisions
within the leadership are likely to be widened,
and many major issues-on which views are in-
creasingly polarized-will be unresolved. Thus the
immediate prospects are for continued pulling
and hauling in which more pragmatic elements
attempt to blunt Mao's initiative while his closest
colleagues attempt to push his radical programs.
There is little likelihood that those leaders
who are seeking to end the Cultural Revolution
can initiate many positive programs of dd'velop-
ment as long as Mao retains his present capability
for influencing the course of events. As a result,
any successor regime to Mao's will have to cope
with still enormous problems of reconstruction
while attempting to rule a demoralized and pos-
sibly fractious nation. The prospects for a new
regime's success will probably be directly in pro-
portion to its ability to abandon Mao's revolu-
tionary dogma in practice and to recognize that
the contents of his latest programs have O roved
irrelevant to China's problems.
25X1
Special Report - 12- 21 March 1969
SECRET
25X1
25X1
Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP79-00927A007000010002-4
 SAecrovted For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP79-00927AO07000010002-4
Secret
Approved For Release 2005/01/27 : CIA-RDP79-00927AO07000010002-4