After Famine- The Restoration Of Private Farming Flashcards
Who restored private farming
Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping
a
campaign was launched to overthrow the management of communes and root out corrupt elements, why
In order to shift the blame onto subversive local officials (whom
he accused of being counter-revolutionaries), rather than admitting any personal responsibility,
This campaign was followed by
an emergency directive, in November 1960, that allowed villagers to keep their
private plots of land and to engage in side occupations as well as farming. and restored local markets.
This marked a turning point in the famine. It depended how far local leaders were prepared to go, but
the commune system could now be dismantled if they chose to do so.
The initial architect of this strategic retreat was
the economic planner, Li Fuchun, who, unlike
Peng, managed to present grim facts to Mao without incurring his wrath.
How did Li get away with it
Li told the party that Mao’s
directives were entirely correct, but they, the leaders, had collectively made mistakes in carrying
them out.
In 1962, Mao called on President Liu Shaogi and CCP general secretary Deng Xiaoping to
take responsibility for restoring food production levels and ending the chaos in the countryside. They
encouraged local officials to make full use of the 1960 directive
Subsequently,
many communes broke up into smaller collectives of about 30 households, where
villagers were rewarded according to their individual input, as in the earlier days of the co-operatives,
while some reverted entirely to private farming,
To reduce the pressure on urban food supplies,
25 million city-dwellers were forced to move to the countryside,
In 1961, massive grain imports were arranged from
Canada. Australla and even the USA, until. by 1965, the yield of the Chinese grain harvest was back
up to its level of 1957, before the Great Leap had been launched. Imports, however, remained at a
high level until the 1970s
The replacement of ideological fanaticism by economic realism was illustrated by Deng’ comment
to the Communist Youth League in Joly 1962, that
Whether white or black, a cat is a good cat as long as it catches a rat
Was Mao happy about this
No- unhappy that people rejected the communes, and capitalist practises undermining the values on which his reputation was based. Also suspected that Liu and Deng were using the popularity that the recovery was earning them to prepare a plot against him from within the Party.
