15 Report from the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, 4 Oct. 1953, Jilin, 1-7(2)-7, pp. 69–70; the amounts required to get sufficient calories are in Jean C. Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, pp. 48–9; Urgent Telegram to the Centre, 17 Feb. 1955, Jilin, 1-1(11)-81, pp. 1–3; on Nanhe, see Report from the Centre, 28 Aug. 1953, Jilin, 1-7(2)-7, pp. 101–4 and 117–18.
16 Report on the western region of Guangdong, June 1953, Guangdong, 204-1-94, pp. 73–7; Jilin, 15 and 30 Dec. 1954, 1-1(10)-74, pp. 33 and 34.
17 Report on the western region of Guangdong, June 1953, Guangdong, 204-1-94, pp. 73–7.
18 Jilin, 12 May 1953, 55-7-2, p. 45; Sichuan, 23 Feb. 1953, JK1-729, p. 57.
19 Jilin, 12 Oct. 1954, 1-7(3)-2, p. 4; 24 Feb. 1955, 1-7(4)-1, p. 5; Zhang, Yijiusijiu nianhou Zhongguo nongcun zhidu biange shi, pp. 111–12.
20 See, for instance, Report from the Henan Party Committee’s Financial Committee, Shandong, 6 March 1953, A1-2-138, pp. 7–14, and Guangdong, Aug. 1953, 204-1-95, pp. 31–7.
21 Report by Cao Juru at Second National Conference on Finances, 28 July 1953, Shandong, A1-2-143, pp. 138–40; Bo, Ruogan zhongda shijian yu juece de huigu, vol. 1, pp. 267–80.
22 The shortfall in foreign trade stood at 140 million: see Report from Cao Juru at Second National Conference on Finances, 28 July 1953, Shandong, A1-2-143, pp. 138–40; Report from the People’s Government on Foreign Trade, Aug. 1953, Shandong, A1-2-138, pp. 70–1.
23 Minutes of conversation between Stalin and Zhou Enlai, 3 Sept. 1952, Archives of the President, Russian Federation, 45-1-329, pp. 75–87, quoted and translated in Cold War International History Project Bulletin, nos 6–7 (Winter 1995–6), pp. 10–17.
24 Li Fuchun, Report on the Soviet Union’s reactions to the Five-Year Plan, Shandong, 21 June 1953, A1-2-144, pp. 67–87, quotation on p. 73; Mao’s Instructions on the 1953 Plan, 1953, Hubei, SZ1-2-115, pp. 7–10; see also Zhang Shu Guang, Economic Cold War: America’s Embargo against China and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949–1963, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001, pp. 109–10; for the background on how Stalin returned to the first Five-Year Plan in the months before his death in March 1953, see memoirs of Yuan Baohua, ‘Fu Sulian tanpan de riri yeye’ (The days and nights of negotiation during my visit to Moscow), Dangdai Zhongguo shi yanjiu, Jan. 1996, pp. 17–22, and Li Yuran, ‘Woguo tong Sulian shangtan’ (Our country’s negotiations with the Soviet Union), in Pei Jianzhang, Xin Zhongguo waijiao fengyun (The shifting winds of new China’s foreign relations), Beijing: Shijie zhishi, 1991, vol. 2, pp. 15–18; Bo, Ruogan zhongda shijian yu juece de huigu, vol. 1, pp. 305–9.
25 On the decisions and debates behind the monopoly, see the memoirs of one of the key players, Bo, Ruogan zhongda shijian yu juece de huigu, vol. 1, pp. 267–80.
26 Ibid., pp. 267–72.
27 Guangdong, 1954, 204-1-122, pp. 19–21 and 31–3; Guangdong, Dec. 1953, 204-1-222, pp. 69 and 113; An Pingsheng, Report on Procurements in East Guangdong region, 8 Jan. 1954, 204-1-337, pp. 89–91.
28 Report by Li Tingxu on the Situation in Jiangxi, 15 Feb. 1954, Shaanxi, 123-1-1203, pp. 10–11.
29 Report by the Jingzhou Public Security Bureau, 28 Feb. 1954, Shaanxi, 123-1-1203, pp. 23–5; Sichuan, 4 Aug. 1955, JX1-418, pp. 115–16.
30 Guangdong, 1954, 204-1-122, pp. 19–21 and 31–3; Guangdong, Dec. 1953, 204-1-222, pp. 69 and 113; An Pingsheng, Report on Procurements in East Guangdong, 8 Jan. 1954, 204-1-337, pp. 89–91; Reports from the North-west Region, Gansu Provincial Party Committee and the Gannan Region, 21 and 29 Jan. and 1 Feb. 1954, Shaanxi, 123-1-1204, pp. 2–11; Hebei, 19 Nov. 1953, 25 and 26 Dec. 1953 and 13 March 1954, 855-2-420, pp. 2, 17, 26, 29 and 40–7.
31 Report from South China region, Hebei, 19 Feb. 1955, 855-3-605; Report by Luo Ruiqing at the National Conference on Public Security, Shandong, 13 June 1955, A1-2-1377, pp. 66–7 and 72; Sichuan, 4 Aug. 1955, JX1-418, pp. 115–16.
32 Reports from the North-west Region, Gansu Provincial Party Committee and the Gannan Region, 21 and 29 Jan. and 1 Feb. 1954, Shaanxi, 123-1-1204, pp. 2–11, quotation on p. 8.
33 Guangdong, 1954, 204-1-122, pp. 19–21 and 31–3; Guangdong, Dec. 1953, 204-1-222, pp. 69 and 113; An Pingsheng, Report on Procurements in East Guangdong, 8 Jan. 1954, 204-1-337, pp. 89–91; Report by the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, 4 March 1954, Shaanxi, 123-1-1203, pp. 3–10.
34 Joseph Needham and Francesca Bray, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 6: Biology and Biological Technology, part 2: Agriculture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 401.
35 Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary China, p. 75.
36 Shandong, 2 Feb. 1954, A1-2-236, pp. 12–15; Tung, Secret Diary, p. 142.
37 Report from the Bureau for Grain, 4 June 1963, Shandong, A131-1-70; Hebei, 10 Oct. 1956, 855-3-889, p. 36; Shaanxi, 1965, 231-1-703, entire table; Urgent Telegram to the Centre, 17 Feb. 1955, Jilin, 1-1(11)-81,pp. 1–3.
38 Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary China, pp. 48–9; Talk by Deng Zihui, 15 July 1954, Guangdong, 209-1-22, pp. 1–5.
39 Instructions from the Centre on the grain monopoly, 2 Jan. 1954, Guangdong, 204-1-337, p. 46; the reports on famine are in Neibu cankao,7, 9 and 12 April 1954, pp. 70–1, 88–9 and 126; Neibu cankao, 13 and 14 May 1954, pp. 174–5; 186–7; Neibu cankao, 30 June 1954, pp. 371–2; Neibu cankao, 7 July 1954, pp. 117–18.
40 Instructions from the Centre, 28 Aug. 1954, Guangdong, 204-1-333, pp. 167–9; Hebei, 3 March and 3 Aug. 1955, 855-3-605, pp. 39 and 68–75; on the monopoly on cotton and oil, see Zhang, Yijiusijiu nianhou Zhongguo nongcun zhidu biange shi, p. 101.
41 Background information in Tiejun Cheng and Mark Selden, ‘The Origins and Social Consequences of China’s Hukou System’, China Quarterly, no. 139 (Sept. 1994), pp. 644–68; Shandong, 12 April 1954, A1-2-236,p. 14; Ministry of Labour, Report on Migration from the Countryside,4 Dec. 1953, Gansu, 91-2-201, pp. 1–6; Neibu cankao, 5 Aug. 1954,pp. 76–7.
42 Cheng and Selden, ‘The Origins and Social Consequences of China’s Hukou System’, pp. 644–68.
11: High Tide
1 Lum, Peking, 1950–1953, pp. 164–5.
2 Telegram from Stalin to Mao, 20 April 1948, Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, quoted in Andrei M. Ledovsky, ‘Marshall’s Mission in the Context of U.S.S.R.–China–U.S. Relations’, in Larry I. Bland (ed.), George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947, Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Foundation, 1998, p. 435; Bo, Ruogan zhongda shijian yu juece de huigu, vol. 1, pp. 115–28.
3 Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary, New York: Public Affairs, 2007, pp. 87–8.
4 Gao, Hong taiyang, pp. 491–5.
5 On Mao’s insomnia, see Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, pp. 107–13; on Mao’s erratic and shifting attitude towards government affairs and his ignorance of economics, see Michael M. Sheng, ‘Mao and Chinese Elite Politics in the 1950s: The Gao Gang Affair Revisited’, Twentieth-Century China, 36, no. 1 (Jan. 2011), p. 77.
6 Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp. 385–6.
7 Bo, Ruogan zhongda shijian yu juece de huigu, vol. 1, pp. 241–2; Jin Chongji and Chen Qun (eds), Chen Yun zhuan (A biography of Chen Yun), Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005, p. 880; the whole affair is recounted in detail in Sheng, ‘The Gao Gang Affair Revisited’, and Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics at Mao’s Court: Gao Gang and Party Factionalism in the Early 1950s, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1990, pp. 52–78.
8 Sheng, ‘The Gao Gang Affair Revisited’, p. 79; Note to Liu Shaoqi dated 19 May 1953 in Mao, Jianguo yilai, vol. 4, p. 229 (the emphasis is from Mao).
9 Mao Zedong, ‘Refute Right Deviationist Views that Depart from the General Line’, 15 June 1953, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 5, p. 93.
10 For the abandonment of the New Democracy, see Lin Yunhui, Xiang shehuizhuiyi guodu, 1953–55 (The transition to socialism, 1953–55), Hong Kong:
Chinese University Press, 2009.
11 Dai Maolin and Zhao Xiaoguang, Gao Gang zhuan (A biography of Gao Gang), Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 2011, pp. 306–7.
12 Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, Uncertain Partners, p. 68.
13 Wingrove, ‘Gao Gang and the Moscow Connection’, pp. 95–7.
14 Stalin’s death is described in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 649; on Gao’s visit to Moscow see Dai and Zhao, Gao Gang zhuan, p. 310; Andrei Ledovsky spoke to Gao Gang on the plane back to Beijing, and is quoted in Wingrove, ‘Gao Gang and the Moscow Connection’, p. 100.
15 Zhao Jialiang and Zhang Xiaoji, Gao Gang zai Beijing, Hong Kong: Dafeng chubanshe, 2008, p. 188.
16 On Beria’s execution see William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and his Era, London, Free Press, 2003, p. 256; Mao’s comment about Sergei Goglidze is in his speech at Lushan on 11 September 1959, Gansu, 91-18-494, p. 126.
17 Gao’s death as well as security arrangements in the capital are described by his secretary in Zhao and Zhang, Gao Gang zai Beijing, pp. 201 and 210; the tea boy appears in Chang and Halliday, Mao, p. 388.
18 Wingrove, ‘Gao Gang and the Moscow Connection’, pp. 100–3.
19 Mao Zedong, On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture, Shandong, 31 July 1955, A1-2-292, pp. 19–42; a translated version, from which the quotation is taken, appears in Kau and Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1949–1976, vol. 1, 603.
20 Liu Jianhui and Wang Hongxu, ‘The Origins of the General Line for the Transition Period and of the Acceleration of the Chinese Socialist Transformation in Summer 1955’, China Quarterly, no. 187 (Sept. 2006), pp. 729–30.
21 Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji (eds), Mao Zedong zhuan, 1949–1976 (A biography of Mao Zedong, 1949–1976), Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2003, p. 377; Mao, Jianguo yilai, vol. 5, p. 209.
22 Two examples of a provincial party committee that later confessed to ignoring the meeting of 17 May are Jilin and Shandong: see its self-criticism in Jilin, August 1955, 1-7(4)-1, pp. 72–9, and Report from the Provincial Party Committee, 17 Aug. 1955, Shandong, A1-1-188,pp. 204–6; the meeting on 11 July is detailed in Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan, 1949–1976, pp. 380–1; see also Liu and Wang, ‘The Origins of the General Line’, p. 730.
23 Mao Zedong, On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture, Shandong, 31 July 1955, A1-2-292, pp. 19–42.
24 Meeting with Provincial and Municipal Party Secretaries, Shandong, 15 Aug. 1955, A1-2-292, pp. 11–17; Peng Yihu wrote a letter critical of the grain monopoly to the Central Committee.
25 These statistics, as well as the overall development of the co-operatives during the Socialist High Tide, have been provided many times, and I take them from Kenneth R. Walker, ‘Collectivisation in Retrospect: The “Socialist High Tide” of Autumn 1955–Spring 1956’, China Quarterly, no. 26 (June 1966), pp. 1–43; the ban on the blind was passed in Hailong county; see Jilin, 4 Feb. 1956, 2-12-37, pp. 87–90.
26 Instructions from the Centre, 15 March 1956, Guangdong, 217-1-8, p. 2.
27 Li Choh-ming, ‘Economic Development’, China Quarterly, no. 1 (March 1960), p. 42.
28 Loh, Escape from Red China, pp. 149–50; Guo Dihuo, ‘Wo he Pan Hannian tongzhi de jiaowang’, Shanghai wenshi ziliao xuanji, vol. 43 (1983), pp. 26–8, quoted in Bergère, ‘Les Capitalistes shanghaïens et la période de transition entre le régime Guomindang et le communisme (1948–1952)’, p. 29; the reasons behind the arrest of Pan and Yang, who were rehabilitated decades later, are complex, and the most up-to-date guide is Xiaohong Xiao-Planes, ‘The Pan Hannian Affair and Power Struggles at the Top of the CCP (1953–1955)’, China Perspectives, no. 4 (Autumn 2010), pp. 116–27.
29 Report from the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, 27 Sept. 1955, Hebei, 855-3-617, pp. 24–31.
30 Pang and Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan, 1949–1976, pp. 448–9.
31 Loh, Escape from Red China, pp. 179–80.
32 Ibid., p. 188.
33 Ibid., pp. 181–92; Rong Yiren’s later career is described in Becker, C. C. Lee, p. 63.
12: The Gulag
1 On the early period, the work of Patricia Griffin remains the best on the subject; see Patricia E. Griffin, The Chinese Communist Treatment of Counterrevolutionaries, 1924–1949, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976; on Shandong, see Frank Dikötter, ‘The Emergence of Labour Camps in Shandong Province, 1942–1950’, China Quarterly, no. 175 (Sept. 2003), pp. 803–17; for a more general history of the Chinese gulag, nothing to date surpasses Jean-Luc Domenach, L’Archipel oublié, Paris: Fayard, 1992; in English, the work of Harry Wu is essential: Harry Hongda Wu, Laogai: The Chinese Gulag, Boulder: Westview Press, 1992; see also Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu, The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
2 Dikötter, Crime, Punishment and the Prison in Modern China.
3 Frank Dikötter, ‘Crime and Punishment in Post-Liberation China: The Prisoners of a Beijing Gaol in the 1950s’, China Quarterly, no. 149 (March 1997), pp. 147–59; the terms for these political crimes were juntong, zhongtong, Guomindang, hanjian and pandang.
4 The figure of over 1 million appears in Report from the Third Conference on Public Security, 1 June 1951, Sichuan, JX1-834, p. 101; on Hunan see Report on Labour Camps, 8 June 1951 and Report from Li Xiannian on the Campaign against Counter-Revolutionaries, 1951, Hubei, SZ1-2-60, pp. 51, 79–85 and 115; Report from the Guangxi Provincial Party Committee, 7 July 1951, Sichuan, JX1-836, pp. 78–82, also Hebei, 7 July 1951, 684-1-59, pp. 12–15.
5 Sichuan, 1951, JX1-839, pp. 486–7; Inspection Report on the Chongqing County Prison, 24 July 1951, Sichuan, JX1-342, pp. 33–4; see also Public Security Bureau Report on Prisons in Western Sichuan, 1951, Sichuan, JX1-342, pp. 92–3; on death rates in south-west China see Sichuan, 5 Sept. 1951, JX1-839, pp. 386–7; Hebei, 31 May 1951, 855-1-137, p. 47; Quentin K. Y. Huang, Now I Can Tell: The Story of a Christian Bishop under Communist Persecution, New York: Morehouse-Gorham, 1954, p. 22.
6 Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping, Rao Shushi, Deng Zihui, Ye Jianying, Xi Zhongxun and Gao Gang, 20 April 1951, Sichuan, JX1-834, pp. 75–7.
7 The decision to put 300,000 prisoners to work is in Minutes of the Third National Conference on Public Security, Shandong, 16 and 22 May 1951, A1-4-9, pp. 14, 38 and 43; Report by Luo Ruiqing, Shandong, 4 June 1951, A1-5-20, pp. 149–51.
8 Report from Luo Ruiqing to Mao Zedong, 5 Dec. 1951, Sichuan, JX1-834, pp. 240–5; the tin mines at Lianxian are mentioned in Report from Qian Ying, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, to Zhu De, 25 March 1953, Sichuan, JK1-730, p. 36.
9 Yearly report from the Ministry of Public Security, 28 April 1956, Shandong, A1-1-233, pp. 57–60; Sichuan, 21 June 1953, JK1-13, pp. 40–1; the experts in the gulag are mentioned in Order from Deng Xiaoping, 24 July and 13 Aug. 1956, Shandong, A1-1-233, pp. 74–5.
10 Duan, Zhanfan zishu; Report from the Inspectorate, 14 March 1953, Hebei, 855-2-298, pp. 16–27; Report from North-west China to the Centre, 21 March 1953, Hebei, 855-2-298, p. 30.
11 Sichuan, 20 March 1953, JK1-729, p. 29; Report on the Three-Anti Campaign in Judicial System, 16 March 1953, Beijing, 2-5-18, p. 6; the electric device is described in Huang, Now I Can Tell, pp. 22–7 and 89.
12 The comment about the Auschwitz of the mind is from Harry Wu, who is quoted alongside Robert Ford and Wang Tsunming in Kate Saunders, Eighteen Layers of Hell: Stories from the Chinese Gulag, London: Cassell Wellington House, 1996, p. 73; a good description of cellmates being forced to beat each other appears in Harold W. Rigney, Four Years in a Red Hell: The Story of Father Rigney, Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1956, p. 156; see also Huang, Now I Can Tell, pp. 106–10; Simon Leys commented a long time ago on the two alternatives facing anyone caught up in the gulag, one being suicide, the other a complete renunciation of one’s former self: see Simon Leys, Broken Images: Essays on Chinese Cultur
e and Politics, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1980, p. 146.
13 Report on Re-education through Labour Camps, 10 Jan. 1956, Shandong, A1-1-233, pp. 33–7; the figure of 300,000 comes from the Third National Conference of the Ministry of Public Security on Reform through Labour, 27 Oct. 1955, Shandong, A1-1-233, p. 39.
14 Report on Western Sichuan to the Fourth National Conference on Public Security, 19 July 1952, Sichuan, JX1-843, pp. 53–5; Report by Changwei County Party Committee, 22 May and 1 June 1953, Shandong, A1-5-85, pp. 86 and 992–4; Report by Luo Ruiqing, 6 Feb. 1953, Shandong, A1-5-85, pp. 20–3.
15 Loh, Escape from Red China, p. 69.
16 Report by Luo Ruiqing, 6 Feb. 1953, Shandong, A1-5-85, pp. 20–3.
17 Neibu cankao, 27 May 1950, pp. 80–1.
18 Report on the Huai River, 14 Oct. 1950, Nanjing, 4003-3-84, pp. 143–4.
19 Neibu cankao, 24 March 1951.
20 Neibu cankao, 23 March 1953, pp. 548–55.
21 Report on the Jingzhou region, 15 Dec. 1951, Hubei, SZ37-1-63, p. 3; Shaanxi, 27 Dec. 1953, 123-1-490, n.p., first document in folder.
22 Beijing, 30 March 1956, 2-8-58, p. 17.
23 Beijing, 1 Dec. 1956, 2-8-58, p. 34; Report by Xie Juezai on Migration, 27 July 1956, Beijing, 2-8-47, p. 4; Letters from the Public, 8 Dec. 1956, Beijing, 2-8-247, pp. 113–14.
24 Tyler, Wild West China, pp. 192–5.
13: Behind the Scenes
1 Valentin Chu, The Inside Story of Communist China: Ta Ta, Tan Tan, London: Allen & Unwin, 1964, pp. 13–14.
2 Ibid., pp. 37–48.
3 Cameron, Mandarin Red, pp. 33–5; see also Hung Chang-tai, Mao’s New World: Political Culture in the Early People’s Republic, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011, pp. 92–108; letter fom Cai Shuli, 24 April 1957, Beijing, 2-9-230, p. 58; Liang Jun, one of China’s first female tractor drivers, was eulogised in posters, novels and films after 1953 (later she appeared on 1-yuan banknotes).
The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 Page 41