Red China's leaders these days no longer
talk of the great leap forward, but of the “law of undulating
progress.” It means, presumably, that every economic leap is inevitably
followed by a backward stagger. Most of China's hapless millions were
wondering when the staggering would stop and the leaps begin. In Shanghai last week the rice ration again was slashed—from an average
22 Ibs. per month to 17.6 Ibs. Vegetables were rare, and fish was hard
to find; no meat has been distributed since the Chinese New Year last
February. It has been a harsh, cruel year, and another like it seems in
prospect. Best estimates are that grain production this year will reach
no more than 180 million tons, 40 million tons short of the target, and
actually less than the harvest in 1957 when there were 60 to 70 million
fewer mouths to feed. Peking's Communist government blames it all on the weather. But in a
recent study, Hong Kong University Economist E. Stuart Kirby points out
that Hong Kong, Formosa and Red China's Kwangtung province all get more
or less the same weather. And the weather has unquestionably been bad.
But while Hong Kong's crops are off only 8%, and Formosan output is
down 13%, Kwangtung's yield has fallen 30%. His conclusion: Red
China's problem is not just weather, but a wide demoralization of the
peasantry. Fish Underfoot? The shunting of millions of workers out of factories to
help on the farms has sharply cut production of light industrial goods.
Near Tientsin, a cement works normally employing 6,000 workers limped
along with only two of its eight kilns operating, in some months shut
down completely, and has now been converted to the production of
“substitute food”—a ground-up mixture of hay, grass roots and other
plants. Elsewhere, factories in need of spare parts or raw materials
are standing idle. Families are now rationed to 2 ft. of cotton cloth
a year—”enough to patch my pants,” growled one refugee who fled to
Hong Kong. Faced with a leather shortage, there is a desperate search
for new material to make shoes. One Dairen factory is trying to make
shoes from fish skins. Trying to whip the tired, sullen masses into greater production, the
Communist regime now allows farmers to have their own small plots of
land, raise chickens and pigs privately in addition to their work in
the production brigades, and sell their produce in the towns and keep
the profits. This has promoted a black market in edibles that flow to
special luxury restaurants, where highly paid government officials can
dine without ration cards. But the limited “free market” produces its
own social problems; it not only encourages conspicuous luxury buying
by a privileged few in full view of the hungry masses, but also puts
money in the hands of peasants who can find nothing to spend it on.
