Economic Order of the People's Republic of China
Translated From The Political Economy Text Book, State publishing house of political literature. Moscow. 1954
Economic background of the Chinese people's revolution.
Prior to the victory of the people's revolution, China's economy had a semi-feudal and semi-colonial character. The semi- feudal nature of the economy was expressed in the fact that the landowners, making up 4-5% of the rural population, owned more than half of all land; the poor and middle peasants, making up 90% of the rural population, owned only 30% of all land. Pre-capitalist forms of exploitation of the peasantry were widely used; the land was cultivated in primitive ways. The semi -colonial position of the country was expressed in the fact that all the main branches of the Chinese economy were under the direct or indirect control of foreign imperialists and depended on them.
The semi-feudal nature of the Chinese economy determined the class structure of the country's population.
The
peasantry is the largest class in
China. With the penetration of commodity relations into the countryside, a
process of class differentiation took place among the peasantry. On the eve of
the victory of the people's revolution, farm laborers (landless) and poor
peasants (poor peasants) accounted for up to 70%, middle peasants - 20, kulaks
- 5 - 6% of the population of the village. The kulaks made extensive use of the
hiring of labor force (farmers), combining the capitalist exploitation of the
peasantry with semi-feudal methods of exploitation.
The people's revolution in China, which won in 1949, had deep historical roots. For almost three decades, the masses of the country, under the leadership of the working class, led by the Communist Party, waged a stubborn armed struggle against the rule of the feudal lords and the comprador bourgeoisie, against foreign imperialism. The main task of the Chinese revolution at its first stage was the abolition of semi-feudal relations, the abolition of feudal landownership, and the division of the landed estates by the peasants. In view of this, the Chinese revolution began as an anti-feudal, peasant, that is, bourgeois-democratic revolution.
At the same time, since the foreign imperialists have seized and placed under their control the main branches of industry, the railways and banks, the struggle against imperialism has also become one of the most important aspects of the Chinese revolution. "The bourgeois-democratic revolution in China is a combination of the struggle against feudal survivals with the struggle against imperialism" [1] .
Thus, the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution, being an agrarian, anti-feudal revolution, acquired at the same time a pronounced anti-imperialist, national-liberation character.
The main driving forces of the Chinese people's revolution were the working class and the peasantry. The working class and the peasantry marching under its leadership constituted the main army of the revolution, which ensured the victory of the Chinese people over their internal and external enemies. In addition, the urban petty bourgeoisie played a significant role in the Chinese revolution.
The revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people is led by the Chinese Communist Party, which is guided by the theory of Marxism-Leninism, creatively applies this theory in the conditions of its own country, and uses the experience of the victorious revolution in the Soviet Union. The Chinese revolution enjoys the sympathy and support of the international proletariat and all the progressive forces of the world.
The historical peculiarity of the Chinese people's revolution is that it unfolded in conditions when there is a camp of socialism headed by the Soviet Union, when socialism has triumphed in the USSR and a gradual transition to communism is being carried out, and the foundations of socialism are being laid in the European people's democracies. Under these conditions, the Chinese revolution could not be a revolution that established the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and opened a freer path for the development of capitalism. It was a bourgeois-democratic revolution of a new type, inevitably developing into a socialist revolution, establishing the dictatorship of the working people under the leadership of the working class.
Developing
Lenin's teaching on the nature of colonial revolutions in the era of the
general crisis of capitalism and on the development of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution into a socialist one, Mao Tse-tung writes: socialist revolution.
These are two revolutionary processes different in character, and only after
completing the first of them can one begin to complete the second. The
democratic revolution is a necessary preparation for the socialist revolution,
and the socialist revolution is the inevitable direction of the development of
the democratic revolution. The ultimate goal of all communists is[2] .
The Chinese revolution, at its bourgeois-democratic stage, successfully solved the problem of overthrowing the power of the feudal landlords and the big monopoly comprador bourgeoisie, the domination of foreign imperialism and the establishment of a people's democratic republic by the popular masses, led by the proletariat.
The People's Republic of China is a state of people's democracy, led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. People's democratic power, led by the working class, is a powerful tool for building socialism in the hands of the working people.
At the socialist stage of the revolution, the people's democratic government began to carry out socialist transformations in the economy, at the same time completing the solution of the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution. China has entered a period of transition to socialism.
The
greatest significance of the Chinese revolution lies in the fact that it opened
before a huge country a non-capitalist path of development from semi-feudal and
semi-colonial forms of economy to socialism. This is the main specific feature
of the economic development of the People's Republic of China in comparison
with the European countries of people's democracy. In pre-revolutionary China,
capitalism did not occupy a dominant position in the entire national economy.
China was an agrarian country dominated by semi-feudal relations. Due to the
semi-colonial nature of the economy, large-scale industry was extremely poorly
developed in it, which the socialist revolution finds in the capitalist
developed countries. The dominance of semi-feudal relations determined the
technical and economic backwardness of the country. In new historical
conditions, with the presence of a powerful socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union and with the help of this camp, the possibility of successfully building socialism has opened up before China.
The people's democratic government, using these opportunities and relying on the support of millions of people, in the shortest possible time made the most profound revolutionary changes in the Chinese economy and led the country along the path of building socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage of development.
Revolutionary
agrarian reforms. socialist nationalization.
Among the fundamental social and economic transformations in the People's Republic of China, agrarian transformations are of great importance. The semi-feudal character of social relations in China was the main brake on the country's economic, political, and cultural development, the root cause of its age-old backwardness, and the basis of its enslavement by foreign imperialism.
In 1950, the Central People's Government of China passed the "Agrarian Transformation Law of the People's Republic of China", which states: "The system of land ownership based on feudal exploitation carried out by the landlord class is being abolished; a system of peasant land ownership is being introduced in order to free up agricultural productive forces, develop agricultural production and pave the way for the industrialization of the new China. Under this law, landed estates of landowners, churches and monasteries were confiscated free of charge. The landowners were also confiscated working livestock, agricultural implements, surplus food, and surplus buildings.
The confiscated lands and other means of production were distributed among the peasants equally (per capita), regardless of age, sex and nationality. Landless and land-poor peasants received the bulk of the landlords' land and implements. All indebtedness of peasants to landowners for land rent and to usurers for loans was liquidated. Agrarian transformations were carried out by the people's democratic government with the active participation of the broad peasant masses. By the beginning of 1953, agrarian reform had been completed throughout the country (with the exception of a small number of areas inhabited by national minorities) in an area with a rural population of about 450 million people. Landless and landless peasants received 47 million hectares of cultivated land.
In People's Democratic China, the old, feudal tax system has been abolished, under which there were many state and local taxes in the countryside, and taxes were levied from the population for many years in advance.
The agrarian revolution in China completely abolished feudal landownership, the medieval system of agrarian relations, and the feudal exploitation of the peasantry. The class of landlords was abolished. Instead of landlordism, small-peasant private ownership of land was established.
The people's democratic government in China, while carrying out the agrarian reforms that completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution, simultaneously switched to the path of socialist transformations.
It carried out socialist nationalization: it confiscated and transferred to the ownership of the people's state all industrial, agricultural and other enterprises of the Kuomintang, so-called state, monopolies ("bureaucratic capital"). Of great importance in mastering the commanding heights of the economy was the confiscation and transfer to state ownership of China's largest banks, which belonged to representatives of comprador capital.
All unequal treaties with foreign states were abolished, all the old customs laws and regulations, on the basis of which foreign imperialists - American, British, Japanese and others - robbed the Chinese people and strangled domestic industry. Most of the enterprises owned by foreign capital have been requisitioned. State control over foreign trade was established . China finally got rid of imperialist enslavement.
A specific feature of the socialist nationalization carried out by the people's democratic government in China is that it did not affect the property of the national bourgeoisie, which is in its majority the middle bourgeoisie.
Socialist nationalization in China ensured the creation of a state socialist sector, which is the most important economic pillar of the people's democratic state in economic and cultural construction.
Forms
of ownership of the means of production and the class structure of society in
the People's Republic of China.
As a result of revolutionary agrarian reforms and the socialist nationalization of large-scale industry and banks, fundamental changes took place in the Chinese economy. The large capitalist property of the comprador bourgeoisie and foreign monopolists was replaced by socialist property of the whole people, and feudal landowner property was replaced by the private property of the peasants.
At present, the People's Republic of China has the following forms of ownership of the means of production: state, that is, public property; cooperative property; small private property of individual workers - peasants and artisans; capitalist property.
State, public property is socialist. It covers enterprises formerly owned by monopoly capital and foreign capitalists, nationalized by the people's democratic government, as well as enterprises newly created by the state after the victory of the revolution: factories and plants, mines and power plants, railways and other modes of transport, communications, etc.
The bowels of the earth, water, as well as defined by law as state forests, virgin lands and other natural resources are also state property and belong to all the people. In the field of agriculture, state-organized machine and tractor, rolling and agro-technical stations and state agricultural enterprises - state farms, are state property. In the sphere of circulation, the state owns commercial enterprises, which play a decisive role in wholesale trade. Almost all foreign trade and almost all banking are in the hands of the state.
In 1952, 80 per cent of heavy industry and about 50 per cent of light industry (not including handicraft production) were already concentrated in the hands of the state. The share of the socialist system in industry and trade is growing rapidly. In 1949, state-owned enterprises produced 43.8% of the total industrial output of the country, and in 1952 - 67.3%. The share of wholesale and retail state and cooperative trade in 1950 was 44.4% of the total domestic trade turnover, and in 1952 - 62.9%.
The state controls all foreign trade and directly controls about 90 per cent of all import and export operations, including all trade with the USSR and the people's democracies. The State People's Bank has a monopoly right to issue and controls over 90% of all deposits and loans.
In 1950, for the first time in the history of China, a unified state budget was drawn up, which had a real basis. Since 1951, the budget has been carried out with an excess of revenues over expenditures. About 60% of the budget funds in 1953-1954. directed to national economic and cultural construction.
State, public ownership of the means of production forms the basis of socialist production relations in industry. The state economy is the leading force of the entire national economy and the material basis for the people's democratic state to carry out socialist transformations.
On the basis of public socialist ownership of the means of production in the state economy, the basic economic law of socialism began to take shape and manifest its effect. The goal of state socialist enterprises is to satisfy the growing material and cultural needs of the working people. Socialist industrial production is armed with advanced technology. But the effect of the basic economic law of socialism is still very limited, since private property forms of economy are predominant in the national economy of the country.
In contrast to the law of competition and anarchy of production, the economic law of the planned (proportional) development of the national economy arises and begins to operate. The People's Government of China, relying on state socialist ownership of the means of production,. carries out current and long-term planning of the national economy. State enterprises are developing more and more according to the plan, economic accounting is applied to them and wages are paid to workers and employees in accordance with the quantity and quality of the labor they expend. The state sets prices for the most important products of industrial and agricultural production, regulates money circulation and controls foreign trade. Thus, the state exerts a regulating influence on other, non-socialist sectors of the national economy.
Cooperative property covers supply and marketing, credit, consumer cooperation, production cooperatives and trade artels. Unlike state enterprises based on public socialist property, cooperative enterprises are the property of individual collectives and organizations. The most developed forms of cooperatives are socialist in nature.
Along with this, the cooperative sector includes the simplest types of cooperatives, which are only the embryos of socialist forms of economy. These cooperatives include, for example, temporary, seasonal groups of mutual labor assistance, in which the collective labor of peasants is used to carry out some work in the fields of individual farms. At the same time, not only private ownership of land is preserved, but also of agricultural implements, as well as of manufactured products. As the means of production and labor are further socialized, these simplest forms of cooperatives will gradually be transformed into large-scale socialist collective farms.
Cooperation in the sphere of circulation is represented mainly by rural supply and marketing cooperatives engaged in supplying their members with consumer goods, agricultural implements, fertilizers and purchasing products from them.
Supply and marketing cooperation is under the guiding influence of state trade and contributes to the strengthening of economic ties between the small-scale peasant economy and the state socialist economy, the strengthening of planning in supplying the peasants with industrial goods, as well as in state purchases of grain, cotton and other raw materials for industry. Credit cooperation is associated with the State People's Bank, which directs its activities and provides it with financial assistance. The people's democratic state helps in every possible way the development of the production cooperation of individual peasants and artisans, facilitating its gradual transition from lower to higher forms.
As of April 1954, more than 50% of all peasant households were in temporary and permanent self-help groups. There were more than 90 thousand agricultural production cooperatives in the country, which consisted of 1,660 thousand peasant farms. By the time the first five-year plan (1957) is fulfilled, it is planned to unite 35% of all peasant farms and about 40% of the entire cultivated area of the country into agricultural production cooperatives. In 1954, supply and marketing cooperation united 150 million people. Credit cooperatives in rural areas are presented in the form of agricultural credit cooperatives. There are currently 9,400 credit cooperatives in the country with 6 million members.
Petty private ownership of land and other means of production, based on personal labor, embraces the many millions of peasant farms and artisans. As a result of the revolutionary agrarian reforms, the stratum of the middle peasantry greatly increased and the number of poor peasants and farm laborers who, having received land, began to run their own economy, significantly decreased.
A significant part of the peasants in remote and sparsely populated regions of China (Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia) lead a subsistence and semi-subsistence (patriarchal) economy in the form of primitive agriculture and nomadic pastoralism, which satisfies the personal needs of the peasants and is very weakly connected with exchange and the market.
Small-scale private ownership of the means of production is also represented by handicraft production, which is especially widespread in the countryside, small trading establishments in cities, small workshops for consumer services, etc.
Due to the fact that China is an agrarian country with an underdeveloped industry, small-scale production occupies a predominant place in the economy.
There are over 100 million small and very small peasant farms in the Chinese countryside. There are about 30 million artisans in the country. Agriculture continues to be based on dispersed and backward small-peasant production. The land is divided into dwarf plots and is cultivated by the manual labor of peasants or with the help of draft animals with old, primitive agricultural implements. Most of the industrial goods consumed by the peasantry are produced by handicraftsmen and artisans.
Small-scale
peasant and handicraft production inevitably gives rise to capitalist elements.
In the countryside, a class differentiation of the peasantry into poor peasants
and kulaks is taking place. But it is limited in the conditions of a people's
democratic state.
In the small-scale commodity sector, the law of value plays a regulatory role, manifesting its effect in a spontaneous form. The law of value also has a significant effect on production in state and cooperative enterprises. As state and co-operative property is strengthened and the operation of the law of planned development is extended, the state increasingly masters the law of value, money, and trade and turns them into instruments of socialist construction.
The People's Democratic State renders assistance to individual farms of peasants and artisans in the use of their production possibilities, at the same time it encourages them in every possible way to switch to the socialist path of development through cooperation on the basis of strict observance of the principle of voluntariness.
Private capitalist ownership of the means of production includes capitalist industrial enterprises in the city, kulak farms in the countryside, commercial capital enterprises, and occupies a large place in the Chinese economy. This form of ownership also includes numerous handicraft workshops with hired labor and manufactories, the number of which is quite significant.
In 1952, private capital controlled 31% of the output of large-scale industry, at least half of all light industry, and 70% of the entire retail trade turnover. As for the kulaks, they were partly expropriated in the course of the civil war and revolutionary agrarian reforms. At present, the share of kulaks in the Chinese countryside is about 1% in the old, liberated areas, and from 2 to 4% in the areas liberated later.
The law of value acts as the regulator of capitalist economies. The law of surplus value continues to operate in capitalist enterprises.
Since at the present stage there are no economic prerequisites for replacing capitalist production with socialist production, there is a need to use industrial, handicraft and commercial enterprises that are in the hands of private capital to advance the economy. In order to increase industrial and agricultural production in the country and develop trade turnover, the People's Government of China provides credit to private enterprises, gives them orders for the production of certain types of goods, supplies them with raw materials and purchases finished products from them.
At the same time, a policy is being pursued to limit the exploitative tendencies of the capitalists in the cities and the kulaks in the countryside. The bourgeoisie seeks to expand and intensify the exploitation of the working class and peasantry, to drive up the prices of essential goods in circumvention of the existing laws of the people's government, to weaken the control of the working class in private enterprises, etc. The people's government suppresses the activities of the capitalists, disorganizing the economy, undermining state plans and thereby harming the state and people, strengthens its regulatory role in relation to private capitalist enterprises in the interests of raising the national economy as a whole. An essential role in limiting the capitalist elements in town and countryside is played by the tax policy of the people's power.
Of particular importance in China's transitional economy is state capitalism. State capitalism is represented mainly by mixed industrial and commercial enterprises, banks, credit societies, in which the state and private capital participate. These enterprises operate under state control. About a quarter of the profits of state-capitalist enterprises fall into the hands of the capitalists, and the rest goes in the form of income tax to the state, to improve the living conditions of the workers, to expand the equipment of enterprises. The share of state-capitalist enterprises in the output of large-scale industry in 1952 was 6%.
The People's Government of China encourages the transition of private capitalist enterprises to various forms of state capitalism in order to gradually replace capitalist property with state, public property.
Thus,
in the modern economy of China, there are three main economic structures:
socialist, small-scale commodity and capitalist.
In accordance with changes in the economy, the class structure of society has changed. The main classes in the People's Republic of China are the working class and the peasantry. In addition, there is a class of national bourgeoisie in the city and kulaks in the countryside, as well as a numerous stratum of the urban petty bourgeoisie.
Of decisive importance for the success of socialist construction is the strengthening of the alliance of workers and peasants under the leadership of the working class. This is the main condition for drawing the peasant masses into the building of socialism. The policy of the people's power is aimed at developing in every possible way the economic bond between state industry and peasant farming and at cooperating peasant farms. Since at the present stage a socialist industry capable of laying the foundation for large-scale machine production under agriculture has not yet been created in China, the link between town and country has not yet been developed. Economic ties between the city and the countryside are carried out mainly in the form of a commercial link. The state is developing state and cooperative trade in every possible way, ousting private capital from trade. In order to meet the country's needs for food and overcome spontaneous capitalist tendencies, the state began from the winter of 1952/53 to carry out planned grain harvesting.
The main class contradiction in the transition period is the contradiction between the working class and the working masses of the peasantry, on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie in the city and the kulaks in the countryside, on the other. The socialist transformation of China's economy is accompanied by a sharp class struggle.
Ways
of socialist industrialization of China.
During the recovery period, great strides have been made in the development of China's economy. Already in 1952, in the main branches of industry and in agriculture, the volume of production exceeded the highest figures that have ever been in the past. The share of socialist forms of economy has increased and their leading role in the entire national economy has become stronger. The successful growth of agriculture, the increase in incomes and the purchasing power of the peasant masses are creating a broad domestic market, millions of peasants are demanding industrial products: agricultural implements, textile, leather and other industries. Developing agriculture on an ever-growing scale supplies industry and cities with raw materials and foodstuffs. Commodity turnover is developing, the financial system and money circulation are being strengthened.
The Communist Party of China, based on taking into account the economic structures and classes of the transitional economy, knowing and using the economic laws of the development of society, determined the general line of the Party for the entire transitional period. In 1953, Mao Tse-tung said: “The general line and central tasks of the Party during this transitional period are to gradually carry out the socialist industrialization of the country over a fairly long period of time, to gradually carry out the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft industry and private trade and industry. This general line is the beacon that illuminates all our work. To carry on any kind of work in isolation from it is to commit the mistake of a right deviation, or a left deviation .. The people's democracy system in China makes it possible to eliminate exploitation and poverty and build a socialist society.
The beginning of the implementation of this general line, developed by the Communist Party and the People's Government, is the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of China (1953-1957). The main economic task of the first five-year plan is to develop heavy industry and create a basis for the industrialization of the country. The five-year plan outlines the further development of transport, light industry, agriculture and the expansion of trade. Particular attention is paid to the development of cooperation in agriculture and handicraft industry. The first five-year plan ensures the predominant development of socialist forms of economy.
In the development of China's economy along the road to socialism, the industrialization of the country is of primary and decisive importance.
As already mentioned, in pre-revolutionary times, Chinese industry had a colonial and semi-colonial character. Its main part was light industry, mainly cotton, concentrated mainly in Shanghai - the center of domination of foreign capital. In most cities and regions, there was no industry or it was very poorly developed. Heavy industry enterprises were mainly repair plants (shipyards, railway workshops) owned by foreign capital, as well as poorly equipped mines and factories that supplied raw materials and semi-finished products to the imperialist states. The metallurgical industry was extremely weak; there was no real machine-building industry.
The
task of China's socialist industrialization is to transform an agrarian,
economically backward, formerly semi-feudal and semi-colonial country into a
powerful socialist industrial power. Despite enormous difficulties (technical
backwardness, lack of qualified industrial personnel, unexplored natural
resources, etc.), China has favorable conditions and enormous opportunities for
solving this historic task.
China has the richest natural resources for the development of all branches of industry and, above all, heavy industry. The industrialization of China is carried out by building enterprises equipped with the latest technology. The People's Republic of China receives first-class equipment from the Soviet Union and the European People's Democracies, borrows the richest technical experience, experience in organizing labor and production at large socialist enterprises.
The government of the Soviet Union is assisting China in the construction and reconstruction of 141 major industrial facilities: metallurgical plants, enterprises for the production of non-ferrous metals and for the extraction of coal and oil, machine-building plants, automobile plants, tractor plants, power stations, etc.
In their economic policy, the Communist Party and the People's Government of China are consistently carrying out the task of planned, systematic, and rapid development of heavy industry: mining, metallurgical, machine-building, coal, chemical, and electrical industries. Along with the reconstruction and expansion of old plants, factories, shafts and mines, large investments are being made in the construction of new heavy industry enterprises.
The industrialization of the country means a predominant increase in the production of means of production, which is a necessary condition for increasing the production of means of consumption. In accordance with this, as early as 1952, the share of heavy industry reached 43.8% of the value of all industrial output, compared with 32.5% in 1949. In 1953, work began and continued on the construction of 173 large industrial facilities. After the construction of these enterprises is completed, the production capacity of industry will increase significantly. China will have its own heavy industry, providing the basis for the industrialization of the country.
The machine-building industry is developing widely. In 1933, mechanical engineering accounted for only 1% of China's large-scale industry. Most of the machine-building plants were mainly engaged in the repair and assembly of machines and machine tools, the details of which were imported to China from the imperialist countries.
. Over the past few years, China's machinery industry has developed rapidly. If we take the total value of the production of state machine-building enterprises in 1949 as 100, then in 1950 it was 282%, in 1951 - 473, in 1952 - 776 and in 1953 - 1,273%, that is over 4 years, the output of the machine-building industry in value terms increased 13 times.
A plant for the production of seamless pipes, a steel-rolling plant and two blast furnaces of the Anshan Iron and Steel Works were built and put into operation, and the largest Haizhou open-pit coal mines in Fuxing were created.
A characteristic feature of socialist industrialization is the faster growth of state industry. During the first five years, the total value of the output of all Chinese industry will approximately double compared to 1952, that is, the average annual increase will be 15%, and the total value of the output of state industry, including local state industry, will increase by about 2.5 times, that is, the average increase will be about 20% per year.
The rapid development of industry requires significant savings. The sources of funds for this purpose are, first of all, the savings created in the state sector of the economy, income from domestic and foreign trade, then taxes levied on capitalist enterprises, as well as taxes received from the population.
The main funds allocated for the development of the national economy belong to the state and go to the socialist sector of the economy; the capitalist sector, on the other hand, has much less capital investment. In view of this, the absolute size and share of the state sector will rapidly increase, while the share of the capitalist economy will decrease.
One of the main conditions for the successful development of China's national economy is the growth of labor productivity of workers and peasants. Among the workers of state enterprises, labor competition is developing for increasing production, improving the quality of products, for saving raw materials and making better use of equipment. Production leaders receive financial incentives. There are thousands of labor heroes who have received government awards.
Gradual
socialist transformation of agriculture.
At present, the basis of agriculture is small-scale peasant farming. The use of the production possibilities that have not yet been exhausted in this economy is a necessary condition for a further increase in agricultural production. The revolutionary agrarian reforms in the Chinese countryside had a significant impact on the development of the productive forces of agriculture and on the position of the peasant masses. For the first time in the history of the country, measures are being taken on a nationwide scale aimed at a significant development of agricultural production. Needy peasants receive government assistance in seeds and loans. Organized pest control. Propaganda of modern agrotechnical knowledge is being carried out.
An example of the largest hydrotechnical construction projects is the hydrotechnical construction in the basin of the river. Huaihe, which employed 2 million people within three years. The channels of 77 rivers with a total length of 3,000 kilometers were cleaned and laid again, 104 locks were built. Only one dam in the lower reaches of the Huaihe saves 20 million peasants from flooding. According to incomplete data, from 1950 to 1953 the peasants themselves built more than 6 million small irrigation canals, ponds and reservoirs, dug more than 800 thousand wells, restored and built more than 250 large irrigation facilities. Thanks to this, the area of irrigated land has been increased by 56 million mu [4] .
At the beginning of May 1954, the construction of the Guanting reservoir, the largest in China, was completed in the upper reaches of the river. Yongdinghe (Northern China), which prevents floods in the Beijing and Tianjin area.
In 1952, agricultural production was fully restored, and agricultural output reached the highest level in Chinese history, far exceeding the maximum pre-war production levels. The gross grain harvest in 1952 was 145%, and that of cotton was about 300% compared to 1949. The first five-year plan provides for an increase in grain production by 30% compared to 1952. It is assumed that in two five-year periods or a little more, the grain crop will be increased to 275 - 300 million tons, which will exceed the level of 1952 by 70% and will amount to 500 kilograms of grain on average per person per year.
Despite significant successes in the development of China's agriculture, the small peasant economy, based on the private ownership of the working peasantry of the means of production, is unable to satisfy the ever-growing needs of the people, especially the rapidly growing urban population, for food, and industry for agricultural raw materials. On the basis of small peasant farming it is impossible to eliminate the differentiation of the main masses of the peasantry and radically improve their position.
The
victory of the People's Democratic Revolution opened up a non-capitalist path
for the development of China's agriculture—the path for its gradual socialist
transformation. The Communist Party and the People's Government of China,
having rejected the capitalist path of development, have outlined and are
implementing a plan for the gradual voluntary transition of the peasants from
small-scale privately owned peasant farming to large-scale collective socialist
farming.
The Decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Development of Agricultural Industrial Cooperation (December 16, 1953) states:
“In order to further develop the productive forces in agriculture, the party has set the following central task of its work in the countryside: using forms and methods understandable and acceptable to the peasants, educate the peasant masses and promote their gradual unification and organization; gradually carry out socialist transformations in agriculture in order to transform agriculture from a backward small-scale individual economy into an advanced and highly productive cooperative economy, gradually eliminate the disproportion in the development of industry and agriculture and enable the peasants to gradually get rid of poverty and achieve a prosperous and happy life. [5] .
In China, there are the following forms of cooperative associations of peasants, differing primarily in the degree of socialization of the main means of production.
The peasants' cooperation in the sphere of circulation in the form of supply and marketing and credit cooperation is gaining ever wider development. These types of cooperation help the peasants gradually free themselves from exploitation by merchants and usurers. They assist the peasants in selling food and agricultural raw materials to the state, in supplying the countryside with means of production and consumer goods, in granting credit to the peasants at low interest rates, and in developing the savings business. They help organize the production cooperatives of peasant farms: self-help groups and agricultural production cooperatives.
Temporary mutual assistance groups are created to carry out some agricultural work by joint labor in the fields of individual peasants while maintaining private ownership of land and tools of production. On the basis of collective labor, permanent mutual aid groups carry out basic agricultural work on the farms of individual peasants. Many permanent groups unite the labor of the peasants not only in agriculture, but also in subsidiary trades. They carry out a certain division and specialization of labor. Some of these groups create public funds. Representing a higher form than the temporary groups, the permanent groups retain private ownership of the land and the instruments of production. Agricultural production cooperatives they presuppose the unification of land on a share basis, the socialization of the peasant means of production, the unified management of the economy on the basis of collective labor, and the creation of relatively large public funds. In these cooperatives, income is distributed according to the size of the land share and according to the labor expended in the public economy. The highest form of agricultural cooperation is a production cooperative of the type of agricultural artel in the USSR, based on public ownership of the means of production, including land, and collective labor. In such agricultural production cooperatives, income is distributed exclusively by workdays.
An integral part of the socialist transformations carried out in the transitional period is the co-operation of small-scale individual handicraft production. Directing the development of small-scale handicraft industry along the socialist path, the People's Government of China organizes handicraftsmen into various types of artels of handicraft and trade cooperation (production groups in handicraft industry, supply and marketing artels of industrial cooperation, handicraft and trade cooperatives).
As has already been said, the predominant form of production cooperation among peasant farms at the present stage of the socialist transformation of China's agriculture is the lowest, simplest forms of cooperation in the form of temporary and permanent mutual aid groups. But even these lower forms of cooperation, thanks to the joint, collective labor of the peasants, have great advantages over the individual labor of the individual peasant. Self-help groups prepare individual peasants for the transition to agricultural production cooperatives based on the socialization of the means of production and collective labor. Agricultural production cooperatives make it possible to apply modern machinery and agricultural technology, introduce a rational division of labor, organize agricultural planning, and ensure the personal material interest of the peasants in raising labor productivity on the basis of the distribution of income according to work.
State socialist agricultural enterprises are called upon to play a large role in the co-operation of peasant farms. The first machine and tractor stations and many rolling and agricultural stations have already been set up. In 1954 there were 59 mechanized state farms and more than two thousand state farms under district and district subordination. State agricultural enterprises render real assistance to the peasants, showing in practice the advantages of large-scale mechanized farming.
The
overwhelming majority of the cooperatives that have been created do not yet
have the material basis of machine production. Thus, in the northeast of China,
only 2% of the existing agricultural production cooperatives cultivate their
land with machines provided by the first machine and tractor stations. The rest
of the cooperatives cultivate the land by hand and with the help of livestock,
using old agricultural tools or tools of an improved type. But even in these
primitive cooperatives, as a result of a simple addition of peasant means of
production and collective labor, the yield of agricultural crops is 15-20%, and
in some even 30% higher than in individual peasant farms. Agricultural production cooperatives carry out the construction and repair of small irrigation facilities, turning upland lands into irrigated ones, carry out thorough soil cultivation and apply fertilizers, increasing soil fertility, control pests of agricultural plants, develop public animal husbandry and increase its productivity.
The transition from the lower forms of cooperative associations to their higher form occurs gradually, taking into account the various conditions in the economic, political and cultural development of each region, with the strictest observance of the principle of voluntariness. The Communist Party and the People's Government of China are waging a resolute struggle both against drifting in co-operative farms and against running ahead—transition to higher forms of co-operative associations without preparing the necessary material and political prerequisites for this.
Raising the material and cultural standard of living of the Chinese people.
Socialist construction in the People's Republic of China is accompanied by an improvement in the working conditions of workers and an increase in their well-being. At state and private enterprises, the working day is limited to 8-10 hours (instead of the previous 14-16-hour day), collective agreements have been introduced between enterprises and workers. The wages of workers and employees in state and private enterprises are set at the same level for the respective categories of workers. Throughout the country, trade unions have been created and are functioning, in which the majority of workers and employees are united. In 1951, social insurance was introduced for workers and employees.
The Chinese people have already achieved great success in cultural construction. Previously, workers and peasants did not have access not only to secondary and higher educational institutions, but also to primary schools. About 90% of the population before the revolution was illiterate. In the People's Republic of China, education has become accessible to the working masses.
The improvement in the material situation of the Chinese people finds expression in a significant increase in the purchasing power of the population, which increased by about 20% in 1953 alone. The total volume of domestic trade in 1951 was 130%, and in 1952 - about 170% compared to 1950 (in comparable prices). In 1952, the real wages of workers in state industrial enterprises were 75% higher than in 1949.
During the years of the republic's existence, the number of students has more than doubled. In 1953, over 55 million children attended elementary school, which is almost 2.4 times the maximum number of elementary school students before the liberation of China. In 1953, 3.6 million people studied in secondary schools, and more than 220,000 students in higher educational institutions. In 1952, about 50 million peasants studied in winter schools for the elimination of illiteracy.
The revolution fundamentally changed the position of women in China. For equal work, they receive the same pay as men. During the agrarian reforms, peasant women received the same allotment of land as men. Much attention is paid to the protection of motherhood and infancy. Women enjoy full political rights on an equal footing with men and are actively involved in the economic and socio-political life of the country.
The victory of the people's democratic revolution liberated the Chinese people from national enslavement, it created the conditions for the economic and cultural upsurge of all the nationalities of free China on the basis of complete equality.
The victory of the revolution in China is of worldwide significance. Its role is especially great for the countries of the colonial and semi-colonial world, which, in terms of their political and economic situation, are in conditions close to those in which China was before the victory of the people's revolution. They are developing along the same path of struggle that the Chinese people have traveled.
SUMMARY
1. The People's Republic of China, which emerged as a result of the victory of the revolution, is a state of people's democracy, led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. In the course of its development, the Chinese revolution developed from a bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, as a result of which China entered a period of transition to socialism.
2. The people's democratic state has carried out fundamental social and economic transformations. As a result of the revolutionary agrarian reforms, land and other means of production were confiscated free of charge from the landowners, which were divided among the peasants per capita, into their private property. At the same time, the people's democratic state carried out socialist transformations. The overwhelming majority of enterprises in heavy industry, part of light industry, large banks, the most important means of transport, most of the wholesale trade, almost all foreign trade, as a result of the expropriation of the big comprador bourgeoisie and foreign capital, have passed into the hands of the people's state. This is how the state socialist sector of the national economy was formed.
3. In China's economy after the victory of the people's revolution, there are the following forms of property: state, cooperative, small private property of peasants and handicraftsmen, capitalist property. The main economic structures are: socialist, small commodity and capitalist. The state socialist economy is the guiding force of the country's economy and the material basis for the state to carry out socialist transformations. In China's industry and trade, a significant role is played by private capital, which is under the control of the state and used by the people's democratic power to increase the production of industrial goods. At the same time, state capitalism became relatively widespread.
4. The main classes of modern China are the working class and the peasantry. The class struggle takes place between the working class, which is marching in alliance with the bulk of the peasantry, on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie in the city and the kulaks in the countryside , on the other, between the socialist and capitalist elements of the national economy.
5.
The people's democratic state, by carrying out the industrialization of the
country and the gradual socialist transformation of agriculture, thereby
creates conditions for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man and the
building of a socialist society.
[1] J. V. Stalin, The Revolution in China and the Tasks of the Comintern, Works, vol. 9, pp. 286 – 287.
[2] Mao Tse-tung, The Chinese Revolution and the
Chinese Communist Party, Selected Works, vol. 3, pp. 180–181.
[3] See Pravda, June 22, 1954.
[4] My = 0.06 hectares.
[5] People's China No. 8, 1954
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