Chapter 30 Public canteen I grabbed the right to eat 1961

Journalist: “The public canteen issue, why is so important?”

Mao: “Rural public canteens, and urban units of the canteen is different, unit canteens to facilitate staff dining, free from the trouble of cooking at home, eat at home, canteens, self-convenience. Rural public canteens, is mandatory across the board, only allowed to queue to the canteen to eat. All the food is in the hands of the collective, and the peasants are empty. I strongly advocate public canteens, that is, the Communist Party to the right to eat, seize the hands, also equal to seize the peasants’ life and death power, to all the peasants to listen to my orders, listen to my command of the revolution, or not to give food, this is to grasp the lifeblood of the peasants. But this word, I am not good to say openly and directly.”

Journalist: “Oh, you strongly insist on rural public canteens, is to take the peasants’ right to eat, in the hands of the Party?”

Mao: “Yes. But the opposition to public canteens, early opinions, I do not deny, I shrugged off to let the central leadership to go down to investigate. Zhu De as early as February 1959, went to Guangdong Jiangmen inspection said: rural public canteens, like the army, a little raw. in July he went to Changsha and said: to distribute food to households, better than in the public canteen. Last year, eating a large pot of rice, eaten things, a great lesson. Zhu De’s words spread, Anhui Secretary Zhang Kaifan, in the summer of 1959, ordered the disbanding of more than 4,000 canteens in Wuwei County, the implementation of ‘three restoration, two open,’ eating restoration, house restoration, restoration of small plots of land, open free market, open fish ponds.”

Journalist: “Zhu De saw that the peasants wanted to live and restore openness? How do you deal with it?”

Mao: “Yes, the incident of the dissolution of the canteen in Wuwei County, I saw the briefing and became furious, and on August 10, 1959 I approved: Zhang Kaifan stood in the bourgeois position, plotting to undermine the dictatorship of the proletariat and split the Communist Party. On August 12, 1959, I said at the Lushan Standing Committee: ‘I was worried that the Commander-in-Chief might make a mess.’ I can’t tolerate Zhu De without my consent and talk nonsense below.”

Journalist: “Zhu De kindly, by you a stick to beat down?”

Mao: “Yes. The public canteen problem, I have long known that the following opinions are many, in February 1959, I sent Tian Jiaying to Sichuan to investigate. He rushed to Shanghai in April to report to me, saying that the countryside is serious pomp and misrepresentation, public canteens drink thin rice, said he saw an old lady came to the canteen to play thin rice, fell on the steps, spilled the thin rice, cried out. Tian Jiaying saw the slogan ‘Long live the public canteen!’ I’m afraid it’s half an age.”

Journalist: “Didn’t Tian Jiaying also reflect the truth to you?”

Mao: “Yes. In April 1961, Zhou Enlai went to Hebei to investigate, a peasant said to him unkindly: two more years to eat pot rice, even you will starve to death. May 7, Zhou called me in Handan and said: ‘the vast majority of willing to go home to cook, is piloting the canteen disbanded, arrange to go home to eat.’”

Journalist: “Zhou Enlai investigation, also said the canteen must be disbanded?”

Mao: “Yes, on May 9, 1961, Zhu De gave me a personal letter from Sichuan, again suggesting the dissolution of the canteen. He mentioned that Henan allowed to cook at home, a month of swelling dropped 40-50%.”

Journalist: “In the end, how do you deal with it?”

Mao: “There were a lot of opinions from all sides, and all of them wanted to disband, and the central government finally reached a document in June 1961 to abolish the public canteens in rural areas, and I agreed to it, so I had to back down against my will for the time being.”