U569  Modern Inner Mongolia
Lecture, Thursday, Week 10

 

  1. Campaigns (yundong/khödelgeen):  fundamental part of CCP governance
    1. Utopian end:  abolition of distinction of leaders and led
    2. Campaigns moved through standard procedure
      1. Initiated from above, often through ad hoc working committee
      2. Transmitted to populace by press, party, gov't, mass orgs.
        1. Received in small group meetings over key document
      3. Campaign's target group must be "struggled" (douzheng/temechekhü)
        1. Masses must participate in attacking the target
        2. During campaign, doubts about struggle=resisting the party
        3. Party position, past services no guarantee of immunity
      4. Top accesses campaign, usually finds it went too far
        1. Some verdicts would be reversed, etc.
    3. First "classic" campaign"  Rectification Movement in Yan'an, 1942-1945
      1. Target groups:  "dogmatists" mechanically applying Soviet exp.
        1. Mao eliminated "Wang Ming" line
        2. Target extremely vague, virtually anyone could be guilty
      2. Results:  Mao Zedong thought written into party constitution
    4. In Campaign gov't, the "medium is the message"
      1. Among party members, Pervasive sense of guilt before Mao
      2. In campaigns, no official safe from denunciation, attack
      3. Conformity in small groups is only mode of security
  2. Land Reform:  most widespread campaign in CCP history
    1. Aims and Justifications
      1. Popular:  landlords hold 70-80% of land, impoverish people by exploitation
      2. Scientific:  Landlords block advance from feudal to capitalist society
        1. Landlords extract surplus value, don't use it productively
        2. No landlordism>>state takes surplus value, uses it better
        3. Thus:  privately owned industries respected till 1956
      3. Political:  divided village into committed majority, crushed minority
        1. Landlordism not a neutral feature, but guilt and innocence
        2. Right deviation:  land redistributed but no mass humiliation, violence
        3. Left:  humiliation and violence but only by a few cadres, activists
    2. Schedule
      1. During WWII, no land reform but progressive land tax
      2. After war, "Settle Accounts" campaigns against collaborators
        1. Not explicit land reform, but a lot of land made available
      3. May 4, 1946:  directive reduces rent, confiscations, distribution
        1. In much of NE China, IM, not applied comprehensively
      4. Sept. 13, 1947:  directive condemns right errors, reform re-done
        1. Leftist period, movement to uncover gold
      5. April, 1948, "left" errors rectified, land reform completed in NE, IM
    3. Basic process, beings when basic CCP control assured
      1. Village students go to mil.-pol. school, trained, return, set up work group
        1. In Mongol villages all chosen would be Mongols
      2. Work team would investigate identify classes, notorious abuses
      3. WT calls meeting, coaches poor and hired before hand
      4. Meeting:  intimidation, beating necessary to break landlord prestige
      5. Poor & hired form peasants league, inventories, redistributes assets
      6. Might be approved, might have to be redone, if left or right errors
      7. Result:  New elite in militia, league, gov't, sons in PLA, cadre school
  3. Land Reform in Inner Mongolia
    1. Mongols had been traditional landholders, vulnerable in land-reform process
      1. Are rents received through the banner yamens exploiting income?
      2. Monastic treasuries completely seized
      3. Mongols vulnerable to "Settle Accounts" campaigns
    2. Agricultural East Mongolia:  land reform, 1946-1948
      1. Mongols tended to have more targets, fewer beneficiaries
        1. Among Han, usually 2-14%, rises with development level
        2. Mongols: 5-12%:  lowest percentage where Mongols majority
      2. Widespread rebellions in 1947-8, clerical and landlord classes
    3. Land reform in low steppe areas:  Chakhar, Juu Uda, Khorchin Right, by 1948
      1. Sürüg (herd) system seen as exploitative
        1. 25-15% in Chakhar treated as landlords
        2. Massive slaughter of animals (on top of huge 1945 losses)
      2. Policies in high steppe areas:  Shili-yin Gool, Hulun Buir
        1. July 1948:  Harbin conference, special policy on high steppe
        2. "Don't struggle, don't divide, don't draw class lines"
        3. "Pastures publicly owned, herds privately owned"
        4. "Mutual benefit for hired herders and land-lords
      3. Land reform after 1949
        1. 1949:  Suiyuan (Ulaanchab, Tümed, W. Chakhar, Ordos) to PRC
        2. 1951-2:  land && herd reform conducted throughout
        3. Similar problems, more studied resolution