El Gran Salt Endavant i els anys de fam

HUANG, S.-m. (1998). The Spiral Road. Change in a Chinese Village trough the eyes of a Communist Party Leader. Boulder, Westview Press. Pàg. 57-64.

"The Great Leap Forward was initiated in the countryside with the establishment of the People's Communes. It seemed that very few people had any clear idea of what was to happen when the government proclaimed the establishment of People's Communes throughout China in late 1958. There was a kind of agitation, or perhaps excitement, in the air. The bumper crop in the previous two years had impressed the peasants so much that all their previous reservations about the Communist Party and their reluctance to participate in collective organizations dissolved. We were poised for the final leap. Over the last hurdle would be the paradise promised in the Communist Manifesto. No one was surprised when the order came that from then on there would be no private land or hearth. Any vestige of self-interest was to be renounced. All production instruments, including land, tools, and animals, were to be turned into public property. Everyone would be working on communal land as farm laborers and eating at the communal canteen. The ultimate goal of Communism, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,' was to be achieved with a single proclamation from the central government!
The slogan then was 'First Big, Second Selflessness!' (ida, ergong!). The idea was that if we could expand the size of the collectives continually until the entire nation became a classless commune, we would then be able to accomplish the socialist transition in a single stroke and become a true Communist society.
"The thing that impressed peasants most under this new rural collective organization was the availability of white rice, which was cooked dry and seemed to be in unlimited supply in commune canteens. Most peasants in southern Fujian had eaten mainly sweet potatoes as their staple. It was only during important festivals, such as New Year's or weddings that ordinary peasants would cook dry white rice. But now, the peasants were happy to discover that the public canteens provided white rice congee for breakfast, and dry white rice for lunch and dinner. The government's slogan in promoting communal organizations then was that peasants should open up their stomachs and eat as much as possible. Not only were people told to eat more and better food, but all these canteens also competed to provide better food for the people. Even schools served free meals for students. The kindergarten in this village, for instance, not only provided rice congee for pupils in the afternoon as snack, it also supplied fruit, which peasant children never dared to dream of before, to supplement the congee. Anyone who had reservations about the new policy, or anyone who did not enjoy a full stomach at every meal, would be criticized for lacking faith in Communism.
"Alongside this new collective agriculture was an emphasis on industrial development. Every collective unit, either the brigade or even a production team, was encouraged to establish its own backyard steel furnace. In Lin Village, a steel furnace made from bricks was erected by villagers under the direction of a village blacksmith in mid-1959. At that point Chairman Mao issued a slogan:
'Surpassing Great Britain and Catching Up with the United States.' (chaoying, ganmei). The idea was that if we could drastically increase our steel production, the basis of modern industrial society, we would become a first-rank world power within a few years. I don't remember exactly how the idea was phrased; I only remember the goal at that point: If we increase our steel output by several percentage points per year, we should be able to out-perform Great Britain in seven years, and be on a par with the United States in fifteen years.
"At that point everyone seemed to be caught up by this frantic socialist devotion. Nobody had any doubt that we could achieve these goals. Was it not true that we had already entered the final Communist stage when we organized these rural communes? Was it not true that after we had organized the communes we had unlimited supplies of rice? A paradise materialized through the guidance of the Party and Chairman Mao. As a new nation with newly reformed citizens, we were to chart our own future course and realize the Communist dream.
"As I look back at those early years, I don't believe that any sober-minded human could have engaged in such wasteful, meaningless activity as we did during the Great Leap Forward years. Since the goal of the backyard furnace was so simplistic and neat, namely to increase the volume of steel output by a certain percentage over a certain duration, everyone seemed to have developed a belief that this production goal was sacred. Peasants were led to believe that if the volume of steel production could reach the government's target, China would automatically turn into a Communist paradise. You cannot imagine how easily the masses were fooled by simplistic political slogans. If all that was needed was a few grams of steel to enter the paradise, most ordinary peasants were prepared to make the sacrifice. Scrap metal was collected and fired to red hot in the furnace. It was then hammered into square blocks with no apparent use. Nobody questioned the purposes of this madness. Perhaps there were people who had reservations about these activities, but they never dared express them. Who could afford to be considered disloyal to Chairman Mao and to the Party?
"Probably the most devastating effect the Great Leap had was in agriculture. All the able-bodied men were assigned to work in steel furnaces. After spring transplanting of the first rice crop in 1959, all the farmland in this village was literally abandoned. Nobody came to irrigate the fields or weed them or spray pesticides. By summer harvest time, only a few farmers were assigned to harvest the crop. Apparently the assumption then was that the reorganization of the countryside into communes had already solved half of China's agricultural problems. The top priority was to promote industrial output, especially steel production. Agricultural production could be handled with new technologies, made possible through collectivization.
"Several directives were issued by the central government to deal with agriculture and promote what was termed 'scientific farming.' The essence of this scientific farming was not to encourage the use of better seeds or pest control methods, but to plant as many plants in a single plot of land as possible, in the belief that this could boost production immediately. For instance, the traditional method of transplanting rice seedlings in irrigated terraces is to allow about fifteen centimeters between each hill of rice seedlings. The scientific farming method called for reducing the space between hills to only seven centimeters, thus quadrupling the number of stalks in the same plot. If a production team planted crops in the traditional manner, the higher authority would come and put a white flag along the field. This was a warning to the entire team, for the white flag implied that people in that unit cherished more white than red. On the other hand, the work unit that doubled or tripled the number of plants in a single field received a red flag to signify its dedication to the cause of Communism. Needless to day, the fields that adopted this new scientific farming lost most of their yields by the 1959 summer harvest.
"The crop failure in production units that adopted this scientific farming method contradicted the government's claims, but nobody dared to acknowledge it openly. The central government's goal then was to increase crop yields in rice paddies to more than 1,000 catties per mou, called mouchan qianjing. Under pressure from higher-level authorities to reach this production target, the brigades and teams had to fabricate their production data. One of the most common forgeries was to harvest rice from several fields in less accessible areas, and then combine all the crops in a single 'model' plot to make it look as if this densely planted field had indeed tripled or quadrupled its yield. A high-level cadre, from either the commune government or the county government, would be invited for inspection. The local officials who put up this fraudulent show would be praised by their superior as models who faithfully carried out Chairman Mao's assignment.
"To make their fraud appear plausible, the team and brigade officials had to fabricate production data on paper, too. They claimed on their seasonal reports to commune and county authorities that they had enjoyed an astronomical rate in grain production increase the preceding season. Based on these falsified reports, commune or county authorities assigned even higher procurement quotas to buy the supposed surplus rice and pork from brigades or teams. The teams and brigades had no choice but to provide the required foodstuffs to sell to the government at official prices. To meet these new procurement quotas the team and brigade officials had to dig into whatever private storage the peasants might have. This forced sale of nonexistent surplus produce aggravated food shortage problems in the countryside later.
"It is funny to look back at those years. The people at the top deceived and misguided the masses, and the masses deceived their superiors, who in turn formulated new policies on the basis of fraudulent reports. It formed a vicious circle, to be exploded when only a small grain of truth emerged to pierce through those inflated political myths.
"The good days lasted for about six or seven months. During that time everyone was happy to have all the food they could eat in the canteen. But then, suddenly, there was no more food. By the fall of 1959, hunger suddenly emerged without warning and brought the entire pretense to an end. For the next twenty years the problem of hunger was part of our lives.
"Without food, the first thing to collapse in our village was the communal canteen. Peasants were told that they should return to their own families and cook their own meals with rationed food at the end of the harvest season. Each family was left to find its own food between fall 1959 and the next harvest of sweet potatoes at the end of that year.
"The human error of 1959 was followed immediately by three years of natural disaster. Children today have never experienced real hunger. They could never imagine the torment of hunger: the chronic pain in the stomach, the dizziness and emptiness in the head, and the constant craving to chew on something that is solid and edible. Just imagine what we had to eat every day then: a large cooking potful of water with only a handful of rice and a few slices of dried sweet potatoes. When you ate, you actually drank a lot of water to fill up your stomach. I still remember one morning when I was walking to school and found half of a carrot, probably dropped from a peasant's shoulder basket, on the road. I carefully wiped off the dust and put it in my pocket. Whenever I felt the cramps in my stomach in school that day I took the carrot out for a nibble. For that whole day I thought I was the happiest person in the world.
"The situation in our village during those three years of starvation was, comparatively speaking, not bad at all. Elsewhere in southern Fujian Province, especially the inland counties and in large cities, a lot of people actually starved to death. We were better off for several reasons. First of all, we are in the frontline area directly facing the enemy and can be seen with binoculars from the Nationalist-occupied islands. Our government made an effort to provide us with at least some food, so that this massive starvation would not be seen by the Nationalists and used as propaganda. The second reason for our relatively good condition was that this area was not heavily populated. Farmers could easily dig out a root plant or pick up a few greens in their fields for food.
"Because of this insufficient nutrition level, a lot of people became ill easily during this period. Edema was the most common symptom, even among my classmates. All four limbs, but especially the legs, would be swollen like inflated balloons. The remedy for edema was rice chaff, a by-product of brown rice and used today only to feed pigs, mixed with a spoonful of brown sugar, a precious item then, and a few pieces of gingerroot. This mixture was stirfried in a wok and was to be eaten once or twice a week, depending on the person's income level, to cure edema. Even though this remedy was a much better food than the watery congee of sweet potatoes we had everyday the harshness of the rice chaff was hard on the digestive system. Stomach ache became a constant problem when edema subsided. There was always blood in our stools. Bowel movements caused acute pain.
"During those few years, money meant very little to ordinary people, for there was virtually nothing to buy. The value of our currency was very low. People who lived in Xiamen City paid RMB$.20 or .30 per catty to buy rotten cabbage leaves.
"Another indicator of the low value of our currency then was the high price of ration coupons. For instance, the rice ration coupon issued to city dwellers today entitles them to buy rice at government supply stores for RMB$. 18 per catty. If you buy the same quality rice in the free market it would cost RMB$.25 per catty. The difference of 7 cents reflects the current value of a one-catty rice ration coupon in the free market. But during the starvation years, the value of a one-catty rice ration coupon went up to RMB$.60, sometimes even .70, or four to five times higher than the value of the grain itself.
"I have always been puzzled by the level of hunger in those years. We had the same amount of land then as we have now, but today there are more mouths to feed. The quality of our land has been virtually the same, producing approximately the same amount of food. But why is there such a big difference between now and twenty-five years ago? Today, my children refuse to eat those steamed rice cakes after the first day, the same way you did. We have so much more rationed rice than we can eat now that we feed it to our hogs. Imagine feeding hogs bright white rice! The question I asked was, 'Where did the food go during the Great Leap Forward? And why was there a shortage?' The government propaganda now blames natural disasters for the widespread famine in those years. It is true that weather conditions were not extremely favorable, but that was only a relatively minor part of the reason. Based on my observations I was forced to conclude that the real cause of this disaster was human error. Chairman Mao was responsible for all the sufferings that plagued our country for the next two or three decades."