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Author talks about content in newy available archives to get a deeper understanding of the Cultural Revolution.
FRANK DIKOTTER, HISTORIAN: Well, indeed, one of the great things about the People's Republic of China over the last I would say five, six, seven, eight, nine years is that it has very gradually been opening up archives. So you can imagine that if you can get into the party archives to study episodes like Mao's Cultural Revolution, you'll get a very different sort of insight than if you were to rely on semi-official or official publications released by the state itself......
....Well, if I would have to describe what happens in the years following the red flag going up over Beijing - 1949, an event referred to as liberation - over to 1957, I would say that it is an effort to gradually close down all very basic civil liberties. The freedom of speech, the freedom of movement, the freedom of association, of belief, you name it - one by one are being gradually shut down as a - as the one-party state starts pretty much consolidating its power. So by the time that you're in 1957, in particular in the countryside, most ordinary villages have lost control over their own land, over their own tools, sometimes even over their schedules. They've become pretty much bonded servants at the beck and call of local party officials. So it gradually - a gradual closing down of all liberties.....
........ he does herd them into giant collectives referred to as people's communes. And in these people's communes, pretty much any and every type of private property is abolished in favor of radical collectivization. In other words, the land belongs to the state.
Tools, pots, utensils become collective property. Even the very schedule that farmers follow is now determined by a local carter on the ground. And this is one of the reasons why this backfired so badly. Once you strip farmers of any incentive to work, including any sense of private property, of course it becomes very difficult to have them work, and violence replaces incentives.....
......with the event of communism, Mao Zedong pits people against each other in a campaign of land reform in which a small number of large property holders are literally executed in public and land is redistributed in particular to poor people.
Now some of them might have been rather pleased in particular, the poor ones after 1949. But gradually from '49 up to '56, the state takes back that land and starts collectivizing most of the private property in the countryside. So you would have small-scale collectors already by 1953 expanded into state farms by 1956.
Now, the introduction of people's communes in 1958 is something quite extraordinary in that they are absolutely giants, and they are based very much on the monologue "The Army," with man and woman separated from each other, meant to sleep in dormitories, children sent to kindergartens, people deployed very much like brigades and platoons - that's what they are referred to. So if you were - '58 is a sense of absolute radical collectivization with the abolishment of any sense of private property.
DAVIES: And what was the impact?
DIKOTTER: Famine. The effect is famine on a devastating scale. As local party members have to use the stick in order to compel these villagers to carry out work for which they're barely paid. Not only that, but all sorts of half-baked schemes to increase the crop backfired rather badly.
So already by '59, you can see famine appearing. By '61 we're talking about tens of millions of people, not just starved to death but also neglected, worked, if not beaten to death.
DAVIES: And how did the regime respond? I mean, this obviously is not sustainable.
DIKOTTER: It's not sustainable. Chairman Mao 1961 is very much forced by circumstances to somehow step back and allow at least an element of economic freedom to be reintroduced in the guise of small, private plots, which farmers used to more or less survive. So the famine is over by 1962.
DAVIES: Now, when you describe this mass collectivization, you know - there's been a lot of dispute over the years about the way Chinese communism was characterized. And some would say, no, that's, you know - that's a reactionary point of view that, in fact, things weren't as bad as they were or that, you know - that there were many people who were treated more fairly than they had been under the previous system in which they were, you know, feudal overlords in some cases. How can you be sure of the picture you're getting?
DIKOTTER: Well, this is the great thing about gaining access to the archives of the party itself. Until recently, it would've been very difficult to come up with real factual information with evidence. Whereas once you can get into the party archives, you are exposed to a whole mass of evidence that very clearly points towards a catastrophe on a gigantic scale.
It is sometimes said that China, even before communism, went through famines. But they were not man-made, and they did not take place at a time of peace. And they certainly weren't on the scale of what happened in China between 1958 and 1962.
FRANK DIKOTTER, HISTORIAN: Well, indeed, one of the great things about the People's Republic of China over the last I would say five, six, seven, eight, nine years is that it has very gradually been opening up archives. So you can imagine that if you can get into the party archives to study episodes like Mao's Cultural Revolution, you'll get a very different sort of insight than if you were to rely on semi-official or official publications released by the state itself......
....Well, if I would have to describe what happens in the years following the red flag going up over Beijing - 1949, an event referred to as liberation - over to 1957, I would say that it is an effort to gradually close down all very basic civil liberties. The freedom of speech, the freedom of movement, the freedom of association, of belief, you name it - one by one are being gradually shut down as a - as the one-party state starts pretty much consolidating its power. So by the time that you're in 1957, in particular in the countryside, most ordinary villages have lost control over their own land, over their own tools, sometimes even over their schedules. They've become pretty much bonded servants at the beck and call of local party officials. So it gradually - a gradual closing down of all liberties.....
........ he does herd them into giant collectives referred to as people's communes. And in these people's communes, pretty much any and every type of private property is abolished in favor of radical collectivization. In other words, the land belongs to the state.
Tools, pots, utensils become collective property. Even the very schedule that farmers follow is now determined by a local carter on the ground. And this is one of the reasons why this backfired so badly. Once you strip farmers of any incentive to work, including any sense of private property, of course it becomes very difficult to have them work, and violence replaces incentives.....
......with the event of communism, Mao Zedong pits people against each other in a campaign of land reform in which a small number of large property holders are literally executed in public and land is redistributed in particular to poor people.
Now some of them might have been rather pleased in particular, the poor ones after 1949. But gradually from '49 up to '56, the state takes back that land and starts collectivizing most of the private property in the countryside. So you would have small-scale collectors already by 1953 expanded into state farms by 1956.
Now, the introduction of people's communes in 1958 is something quite extraordinary in that they are absolutely giants, and they are based very much on the monologue "The Army," with man and woman separated from each other, meant to sleep in dormitories, children sent to kindergartens, people deployed very much like brigades and platoons - that's what they are referred to. So if you were - '58 is a sense of absolute radical collectivization with the abolishment of any sense of private property.
DAVIES: And what was the impact?
DIKOTTER: Famine. The effect is famine on a devastating scale. As local party members have to use the stick in order to compel these villagers to carry out work for which they're barely paid. Not only that, but all sorts of half-baked schemes to increase the crop backfired rather badly.
So already by '59, you can see famine appearing. By '61 we're talking about tens of millions of people, not just starved to death but also neglected, worked, if not beaten to death.
DAVIES: And how did the regime respond? I mean, this obviously is not sustainable.
DIKOTTER: It's not sustainable. Chairman Mao 1961 is very much forced by circumstances to somehow step back and allow at least an element of economic freedom to be reintroduced in the guise of small, private plots, which farmers used to more or less survive. So the famine is over by 1962.
DAVIES: Now, when you describe this mass collectivization, you know - there's been a lot of dispute over the years about the way Chinese communism was characterized. And some would say, no, that's, you know - that's a reactionary point of view that, in fact, things weren't as bad as they were or that, you know - that there were many people who were treated more fairly than they had been under the previous system in which they were, you know, feudal overlords in some cases. How can you be sure of the picture you're getting?
DIKOTTER: Well, this is the great thing about gaining access to the archives of the party itself. Until recently, it would've been very difficult to come up with real factual information with evidence. Whereas once you can get into the party archives, you are exposed to a whole mass of evidence that very clearly points towards a catastrophe on a gigantic scale.
It is sometimes said that China, even before communism, went through famines. But they were not man-made, and they did not take place at a time of peace. And they certainly weren't on the scale of what happened in China between 1958 and 1962.
