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Foreign News: China’s Stumbling Leap

5 minute read
TIME

Four months ago Peking boasted that true Communism would be achieved in as little as “three to six years.” Last week the Chinese Reds sang a different tune: it might take “15 or 20 years” to do the job. And in the midst of these signs of strain, Red Boss Mao Tse-tung stepped down from the prestigious but not crucial position of head of state, which he has held ever since 1949. He remained as party chairman—the key job in Communist China.

These decisions were made at Wuchang in central China, where every prominent Communist in the nation, save one,* gathered for two weeks of intensive and secret discussion. The news of Mao’s stepping down as chairman of the People’s Republic of China was confided by the Foreign Ministry to trusted outside diplomats (not invited: the British, the Dutch, the Yugoslavs) after Nationalist China—which says it has an agent inside the party councils—first spread the word. A week passed before China’s 650 million-people were told the news.

“A Big Zoo.” At the party conclaver comrades were told that 99% of the peasants are now in communes, i.e., jammed into barracks (TIME, Dec. 1). But plainly, things had gone too fast. And though the Reds proclaimed a bumper crop of 375 million tons of grains, there was a serious shortage of food in the cities. This could be partly explained by the fouled-up transportation system. Under the forced industrialization drive, trucks and trains that might have transported food were kept busy rushing from place to place with loads of pig iron ineptly made in thousands of primitive village smelters.

Such setbacks came at an inopportune time. Unrest and conspicuous uprisings in communes like that of Lappa Island opposite Macao (TIME, Dec. 22) added to the national loss of face from the failure of Red guns and planes to “liberate” Quemoy and the offshore islands (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). The antlike life of the communes had been greeted abroad by coolness in the Soviet Union, by horror in the West, by outspoken distaste in India. Crossing the border to Hong Kong, an Indian population expert last week said that Red China “was like a big zoo” and “in all my travels there I never saw any real sense of happiness in any face.”

At the Wuchang meeting, the Central Committee admitted that the communes were in trouble in two areas: 1) the uprooting of families, which caused violent opposition as men, women, children and old people were herded into separate barracks, and 2) great unrest over wages and work, from peasants laboring sometimes from 19 to 20 hours a day. The Central Committee seemed surprised to learn that many local leaders were rude and dictatorial, and that they warned commune members to keep their mouths shut and “do what you are told.”

Tidying Up. A committee resolution proposed that a worker might be more efficient if he got at least eight hours’ sleep a night and was fed “decent food.” The Central Committee promised a “tidying up, consolidation and expansion” of the rural communes—but then revealingly added that, for the present, communes would not be extended to urban centers because “bourgeois ideology is still prevalent in the cities.” Tibet (where Red troops have their hands full with the rebellious Khamba tribesmen) was also exempted from the dubious joys of the people’s communes. The Communists now soft-pedal their boast that they have wiped out China’s patriarchal system. Tweaked on this point by John Foster Dulles, the Central Committee passed a unanimous resolution referring to Dulles as “a stupid fellow.”

As usual, Mao blamed his troubles not on his policy or his own execution of it, but on the rank and file below. So far as anyone knew, he was still plainly in control. A trusted, aging comrade, most likely General Chu Teh, would probably get the job of head of state (the same sort of job held by Kliment Voroshilov in the U.S.S.R.).

Mao’s own dislike of ceremony and his wish to “concentrate his energies on dealing with questions of the direction of policy” were the apparent reasons for his stepping down as chairman of the nation. Nonetheless, he had suffered a severe setback. The man who fancies himself the greatest living Communist theoretician was retreating from his boast of achieving true Communism (“To each according to his need”) ahead of Russia, which had a 30-year head start and is still far from achieving it. Retreating from its great leap forward, the Central Party’s resolution used the words gradual and gradually in times in 40 pages. The document was peppered with dilatory phrases: “It takes time.” “We should not be in a hurry.” “We should wait a bit.” “There is yet insufficient experience.” “Socialism must continue for a long time before we achieve Communism.” “We cannot prematurely and hastily carry out a changeover.” Nikita Khrushchev must have enjoyed reading all this.

Hard-worked citizens of China, shivering last week in Peking’s first heavy snowfall as they stood reading the wall newspapers, could see only that the policy of the communes would continue, and so would the bitterness of their lives.

*Defense Minister Peng Teh-huai, who remained in Peking to greet visiting VIPs.

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