Is There No Alternative?

Dear Readers: 

How times have changed in China since I started keeping my blog! I never thought such drastic changes would occur in my own lifetime for me to witness and, as my job requires, record. In the spirit of keeping everyone educated on the things going on in this country, I have traveled around the country to report on the key points of China’s political upheaval; the story of Communist China and its ongoing revolution would not be complete without the inclusion of the CCP’s ambitious campaign of land reform in the countryside. As you may remember, I spent quite some time in the countryside in Yan’an in the CCP’s satellite but returned to Beijing with other intellectuals after the PRC was officially established to finish my education. However, I have been called back to the countryside to continue my reporting for the Party as a guest of one of the work teams being sent to educate the peasants and guide them through agrarian revolution. 

Mao has adamantly pushed for the participation of the masses in the revolution in general, noting in his 1927 Hunan Report how the “strength” and “extensive organization” of the peasants in the countryside demonstrated their capability of “action.” The power of the masses has long been heralded by the CCP as the driving force behind the revolution in China, so it makes sense that the Party would funnel the unstoppable force of the people into achieving their agenda. It seems that the societal roles have been flipped, with work teams of intellectuals being sent to learn from these unstoppable peasants rather than the other way around. Learning from books just doesn’t cut it anymore in the PRC, and understanding the state of the country as well as its possibility for reform cannot be accomplished “without social practice” obtained from living and working amongst the masses. With so many people working toward land reform, especially those as passionate about the revolution as the oppressed peasants, an immense amount of progress can potentially be made in a shorter amount of time and, since it’s coming from the ground up, changes would actually be happening rather than just being decreed and never enforced. 

I can’t help but be excited about the idea of a government that actually wants its people to do rather than just sit back and have things done to them. The peasants I’ve met with the work team seem to be enthusiastic about this as well. I recently met a woman in the countryside named Ge Yang who joined the Party because of this powerful message; communism meant that “the people would be masters of the country,” and it was being realized by the people, “a mighty storm,” themselves. This, however, means that the Party has to educate every intellectual in the work teams who then have to educate every peasant that they’re responsible for. It’s quite an intense process and the intellectuals in my team have had a hard time letting go of their biases toward the peasants as well as using language that they would understand. Although getting off to a shaky, unconvincing start, peasants began to respond to the work teams, vocalizing “bitterness” and realizing how they had been exploited for years by their landlords.

I am happy to report that land reform has done its job. There is surely a more equal distribution of land amongst the peasants in the countryside (even for women and children) as well as tools which has made production more efficient and plentiful all around from what I’ve seen. However, the methods of obtaining this land and wealth have left a pit in my stomach. The violence I have witnessed in the countryside in the name of land reform has completely unsettled me. I have seen peasants pull the limbs off of landlords and heard the screams of those accused of secretly harboring more wealth being buried alive. These people have taken the work teams’ proclamations of exploitation and suffering to heart and, while there is obviously truth to these condemnations of landlords, I can’t help but think the Party has taken all of this much too far. Peasants are encouraged to be violent and there are no repercussions for the killing or torturing of landlords or richer individuals who are accused of hiding wealth but in reality have nothing more to give. And, seeing as how this revolution has been put into the hands of the masses rather than a few elites, this means that land reform has perpetuated extreme amounts of violence and death. I have heard people whispering about there already being over one million people dead as a result of land reform and I can’t say that I don’t believe it. Not to mention those being taken advantage of or sexually assaulted by the corrupt cadres, or even the peasants themselves who have taken the wives and daughters of struggled landlords for themselves! With there also not being enough land to go around for everyone in China, I’m worried about what will happen when some peasants don’t get what they were promised.

I can’t help but think of my own family, more well off than the others in our village. I can only hope that they have been assigned as “middle peasants” through their work teams’ arbitrary systems and will only have to redistribute some of their belongings rather than lose their lives. I am almost scared to go back home, in case I come back to find crude graves where my home is supposed to be. I avoid speaking about my family now so that nobody interprets my fear as sympathy for the landlord class. I am glad that less people are suffering in poverty now, I am, but I’m not sure I can accept the idea that all of this violence was the only way for China to reach this achievement.

That’s all for now.