Ralph A. Thaxton Jr.

This volume looks at the "early years" of the PRC. It delves into the lesser known events, avoiding the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution in favor of how the CCP consolidated power in the early 1950's. The main thrust is to argue against a) the idea that the PRC was working pretty well before the GLF, but Mao messed it up then, b) the American portrayal of the time that the PRC began as a brutal and oppressive regime that forced its subjects into meek submission.

Thaxton focuses on the village of Da Fo, which is in northern Henan. Da Fo makes an interesting study for several reasons. First, it was of no particular interest to the CCP, so had a fairly typical experience. If it was unusual, it was because it faced increasing salinization from floods of the Xiao river. It also faced a severe drought in 1920 and a wave of banditry from 1925, to 1937.

Although Thaxton is primarily concerned with the Great Leap Forward, he starts earlier to see how the villagers dealt with the difficulties of survival. He discusses their strategies for dealing with difficult times, especially the 1920 famine. Peasants were flexible in their crops, including using tuber crops instead of grain. Begging and migration to stay with relatives were also ways of dealing with famine. Famine and draught, however, were less destructive than GMD taxes, with the salt tax being the worst. Local salt was cheaper than GMD licensed salt, leading the GMD to establish a police force to cut off unauthorized production. This led to both subterfuge and violent resistance, which eventually worked with the help of local elites. Thaxton highlights how the horizontal class divisions imagined by the CCP did not understand the vertical integration of the village. Elites who aided the peasants earned loyalty. Those who did not were hated.

When the CCP organized the locals against the Japanese, they gained legitimacy through taxation reform and democratic elections. There was no massive land reform, the taxation focused on land, meaning a progressive system. However, there was a political division between those educated and those who were not. During the war, the lower educated faction gained more influence, particularly in the post WWII land-redistribution and weakening of democracy under war-communism.

Individual initiative was gradually weakened in the 1950's. The CCP initially pushed for small voluntary collectives, then moved to the larger collectives involving perhaps 30 families. Finally the CCP abolished private property in 1957 and forced production into large scale collectives. Thaxton suggests that Da Fo villagers had faith in the CCP, which had done well to that point, but did not realize the CCP's ultimate design of collectivization. By the time they did, it was too late.

In the Great Leap Forward, Da Fo's leaders promised too much to the CCP and forced the villagers to work night and day. They exhorted them by promises of prosperity and by threats of physical retribution for failure. They also used public criticism sessions as punishment. This strategy served to stem criticism early in the GLF. Previous strategies of loans and selling land was impossible because of the termination of private property.

Initial resistance was centered on survival: remittances for black market grain, leaving the area for less starved areas, gleaning. The CCP crack down on this resistance worsened the famine for peasants. Ultimately, the disaster of the GLF drove Da Fo villagers to protest the CCP specifically as an illegitimate ruler, particularly because it did not discipline leaders who contributed to its failure. The chaos of the Cultural Revolution unleashed the villagers desire to gain retribution against GLF leaders, but the overall disruption eventually forced the villagers to accept any leader who could reassert control, including Maoists. The reinstitution of Maoist leaders multiplied the resentment of the central authorities. After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping's reforms partially dictated from below. Da Fo villagers tried to surreptitiously restablish come personal involvement in the marketplace, trying to withdraw from the state-controlled economy as it had already tried to do with the state-controlled political system. In the 1980's, protests (included arson) managed to dislodge the CCP leaders involved in the GLF.… (mehr)