Chapter 12 Forced unified purchase and sale, the peasants began to starve 1955

Journalist: “Why do you want to force the unified purchase and sale?”

Mao: “In order to squeeze out agricultural products for export, I formulated the ‘unified purchase and sale’ policy in the autumn of 1953. The public propaganda said that it was for the sake of fair and reasonable distribution of grain, so that some people would not be unable to feed themselves and some people would hoard. It was also said that the state was only buying surplus grain, and the peasants had basic rations left. But in reality, the peasants’ products were largely taken away, leaving only a barely subsistence portion.”

Journalist: “You left grain to the peasants, according to what standard?”

Mao: “I set the standard of ‘ration’ for the peasants, is ‘not hungry and not full’ 400 kg per year. But this standard is rarely met. For peasants rations, I pressed very low, I said: ‘Some places as long as 280 pounds of grain is enough, some as long as 220 pounds.’”

Journalist: “Wow, 220 catties of grain a year, how can you get enough to eat?”

Mao: “It is not enough to eat. Zhou Jinwen of the Central Committee of the Democratic League went to the countryside to investigate and asked an old peasant in the western suburbs of Beijing about his harvest. The old peasant said, ‘The harvest is not bad, but it is useless, and I can’t get enough to eat even if I collect much. I was given this piece of land during the land reform, but I couldn’t even make a living for my family even if I worked until I died. Before the autumn harvest, the government first put your grain number down. First pay the public grain, and then the collective purchase, to give you the rest of the grain, not enough for the family to eat, at least 3 months a year short of food, the whole family eat thin porridge, cook some wild vegetables, miscellaneous mixed eat a meal. The money from the unified purchase and sale of food is not enough to pay the miscellaneous taxes, and the costs are endless.’”

Journalist: “Wow, the suburbs of Beijing are good, but there is still a shortage of food for three months a year?”

Mao: “Yes. In my countryside in Hunan Province, a military member said, ‘On the surface, each family has 300 to 400 pounds of rations, but in reality, no one has that much. In the end, you have to go hungry for months.’ To the peasants starving, I said: ‘I want the peasants to fill with potato leaves fed to pigs, and on August 3, 1955 I instructed: ‘Educate the peasants to eat less and eat more sparingly, and the state should reduce the sale of food as much as possible so that the peasants will not eat too much during the season when food is available.’”

Journalist: “Oh, you are lecturing the peasants from on high: eat less and eat more sparingly?”

Mao: “Yes. Bo Yibo said: ‘the state requisitioned over the head of the grain phenomenon, more common, the peasants produce food, most of the acquisition went, there are few left. The unified purchase in the chaotic wholesale and chaotic fighting, forced to die, have happened.’ Such violence was expected by me, and I talked about the harsh consequences of this policy with Chen Yun, the mastermind of the requisition, on October 1, 1953, at the Tiananmen Tower. The next day, I said in the Politburo: ‘food requisition is a war, one side of the face to pay for food, the other side against the food eaters. Marx never said that everything is good for the peasants.’ Chen Yun conveyed my instructions to the provinces, asking them to prepare for 1/10th of the country’s 1 million villages, i.e. 100,000 villages, where ‘people are forced to die, or beaten to death, or even riot. Chen Yun reassured everyone that the Communist rule would not be endangered, citing the example of Manchukuo, which had also engaged in forced requisitions, but if the Soviet Union did not send troops, Manchukuo would not fall. The Communist Party cannot collapse.”

Journalist: “Oh, Chen Yun actively conveyed your instructions and also played to your tune?”

Mao: “Yes, Chen Yun was active, good. The food levy was implemented for one year, and by early 1955, the whole country was in a state of anger and discontent. Countless reports flew to my desk, reporting how the peasants were ‘eating tree bark and grass bark,’ how they were ‘selling their children,’ and how ‘the old and weak were lying in bed and starving to death.’ When the soldiers of the Central Guard Corps came home to visit their relatives, I asked them to write reports about the situation in the village. They all wrote a dark picture. Some said, ‘The lack of food households reached 50%. There is nothing to eat this spring, only leaves.’ Some said, ‘Each person can only eat one or two meters a day, and they rely entirely on digging wild plants in the mountains to eat, and some people have died of poisoning.’”

Journalist: “Your guard regiment reflects that people are dying of hunger in your hometown, so you should be able to trust it, right? “

Mao: “Yes, you can trust it. Local reactions also: ‘just called the production of fuel, no oil to eat how to fuel it? The Communist Party treats us as fish eagles, and when the neck is pressed, the big fish and small fish are spit out.’ Zhao Ziyang of Guangdong Province, in his investigation report, told of grassroots cadres forcing peasants to hand over food by tying up, searching houses, and sealing homes. In one village, an old woman was sealed up in her house and made to hang herself. In Gaoyao County, where he investigated, there were 110 suicides in the county due to forced grain.”

Journalist: “Zhao Ziyang investigation report, a county due to forced grain, 110 people committed suicide?”

Mao: “Yes. Some people with a sense of justice and courage wrote to me and the central government. Huang Yanpei wrote to me that in his hometown in Jiangsu, the inhabitants were living in misery, and the peasants were particularly miserable, and the peasants said: How can we have the strength to farm if we don’t have enough to eat?”

Journalist: “Huang Yanpei also went out and cried out for the peasants’ suffering?”

Mao: “Yes. But I was not moved, I said with a straight face: ‘The food shortage households, not all year round, at most four months, at most six months shortage.’

Some senior cadres begged me with their ‘conscience’ to be merciful. I rebuked them: ‘We have no conscience in this matter! Marxism is so fierce, and conscience is not much. It is better to have less conscience. Some comrades are too benevolent, not powerful, that is, not so Marxist.’”

Journalist: “Wow, you distort Marx to lecture cadres? You openly say you are without conscience, too rampant, right?”

Mao: “I’m not afraid, the power is in my hands. In order to facilitate strong food requisition and grasp production, I strongly promoted rural cooperativeization in 1955. Without cooperativization, individual peasants harvested first and then turned over to the state, making it possible for peasants to hide food. After cooperativeization, the harvest went directly from the land to the state, which then distributed it to the peasants, and the state had total control over the harvest.”