Struggle Now Prosper Later Blog #4

Dear Tongzhimen, 

Once again, my correspondence is infrequent, but take it as a sign of the prosperity of the People’s Republic of China and the Party! The last you heard from me, I moved back to my beloved city of Beijing, where I started writing all those years ago. It is almost unbelievable to imagine the immense change our great nation has gone through in the past thirty years. Of course, anyone can see that the last three years have been hard, for some more than others. I have immense faith in the Party, especially Chairman Mao, and their efforts to get everything back on track! However, society will forever be changed if my observations in the countryside are accurate. 

I truly believe the worst is behind us. Unfortunately, the combination of natural disasters and Mao’s great campaigns, such as collectivization, the Four Pests, and the mass steel melting movements in the countryside, have had detrimental effects on the health and wellness of our country and people. Until 1959, I had no idea anything was wrong until millions of people rushed into Beijing looking for food. This caused me immense worry. As you know, my family is located in the countryside in Anyang. I was eager to return home and investigate other areas to see why this mass exodus was occurring. What I found in 1959 was horrific. All around me, there were almost too many problems to report on in my village, and others I passed through on my way back to Beijing to write this. 

First, I noticed the lack of housing and basic necessities. In 1958, my village, like many others, collectivized all private property, and communal housing was developed. However, many were left homeless and left to survive in the elements if they were not fit for agricultural production in the eyes of the greedy cadres who do not reflect the values of our beloved Party. When I arrived, I learned my elderly father was cast out of the village commune in 1958 by the cadres due to his inability to work. There was no reason to do this because I have been told the Henan province is now completely infertile and unworkable due to over-irrigation. After visiting other villages, I heard many of the same cruel and tragic tales. Furthermore, many families lack clothing, blankets, and other essentials. I have witnessed women working fields with no tops and orphans running around entirely naked. Much of the melted steel that these people donated for the backyard steel furnace campaign has been rendered useless. Just years earlier, I was teaching these same cadres and communes how to implement policies that have so deeply strained the countryside. The Great Leap Forward did not aim to cause these issues, and I believe our great Chairman Mao had no knowledge that these greedy cadres and a lack of revolutionary spirit would convolute his policies. Little did I know that homelessness was the least pressing problem I would soon find.

I quickly came to understand why so many peasants were rushing into urban areas, a total lack of food, and utter inhumanity. Unfortunately, it seems repeated years of bad weather and the quick transitions to CCP collectivization campaigns have rendered the countryside with barely enough grain to feed themselves, let alone export it to the cities and debt-collecting countries such as the USSR. This is not because Mao is ignoring their plight. I have visited numerous towns in which the cadres over-report their grain production to placate the leaders with false numbers that leave their village with no leftover grain and even more problems. In every village I went to, there were starved bodies piling up, some even being eaten for food or dug up and boiled for ineffective fertilizer. The makeup of our nation will forever be changed as children, and the elderly have become the most likely to die in these horrible times. Besides the constant visage of death, there is a health crisis among the living. In the countryside and in the cities, the healthcare system has collapsed. People are suffering en masse from edema, babies are developing rickets, and women have a multitude of gynecological problems, including infertility! My sister-in-law can no longer produce milk for her 2-week-old baby. These are dire times indeed.

Fortunately, the Party seems to be making moves towards recovery after these three years of struggle. No thanks are needed to our former ally, the USSR, who have shown they would rather exacerbate our plight than help us in our time of need. We are incredibly fortunate to have such thoughtful leadership, and it is exciting to see we will soon be able to resume the work we had started all those years ago in Yenan. Although our nation will not be as it was before due to immense population loss, economic decline, and agricultural problems, I am sure we will come back stronger from these Three Hard Years. 

To Future Prosperity,

Cui Shuli