The 'Left' Deviation
New Democracy as a set of political, economic, and social institutions of rather liberal and benign character came into being in reaction to a brief period of 'Left' excesses that swept the Communist bases from the middle of 1939 through 1940. The full dimension of the excesses will perhaps never come to light. For my purposes, however, it is enough to show that they existed and presented serious problems for the stabilization of the Communist bases. The basic condition that gave rise to these excesses was the conjunction of foreign occupation and the latent civil war of class character. As direct causes and background factors for the radicalism committed in Communist bases, I will discuss (1) the changing sociological complexion of the Communist movement after it began base construction in the rural areas; (2) the impact of military friction with the Kuomintang; and (3) counter-blockades against the Japanese and premature attempts at market control.
By the end of 1939, the Communist bases in north China had extended the infrastructure down to the grass roots by co-opting and mobilizing the poorer majority. From the top down, the pre-existing structure of political and social power was undone and replaced by another, which was "democratic" in the majoritarian or plebiscitary sense. In the process, the sociological complexion of the rural bases took on a populistic character with the so-called "basic masses" in the saddle. If the previous regime of the landlords and officials was a "dictatorship" as the Communists maintain, so was its successor a "dictatorship of several revolutionary classes," as Mao put it. Both belonged to the genus of peasant authoritarianism.
In the fall of 1939, Yang Shang-k'un, the secretary of the Northern Bureau, took a trip through north China to observe the implementation of the August directive on Party consolidation. On the basis of a rough survey, he found that 60 to 80 percent of Party membership in north China was of peasant background; 5 to 10 percent of worker origin; and one-quarter were intellectuals in some places. Anywhere from 2 to 10 percent were women. Among the cadres, as many as 70 percent were from intellectual backgrounds, as in some areas of
Shansi. Yang recalled that two years earlier, when the Party entered north China in force, almost all of the cadres in the middle to upper echelons of the Party organizations came from outside. At the time of his trip, they still occupied more than half of the leading positions—except in Shantung and southern Hopei, where local cadres were in the majority.
Yang had an occasion to meet with soldiers of a Communist unit. He asked them, "What is the Communist Party?" In reply, they parroted the capsuled formula: "The Party is the supreme commander of the revolution," "It's the supreme commander." Yang had enough guile to snap back with another question, "Who is the supreme commander?" The replies disappointed him. Some said, "Chu Te is the supreme commander," while others said, "Yen Hsi-shan is the supreme commander." Yang also recalled the experience of a Communist cadre on an inspection tour of Shansi Province. His task was to observe the manner of transmitting the directives of the Sixth Plenum. When he mentioned the Plenum to a local Party member, the reaction was, "Yes, I know the Sixth Plenum. It was attended by Marx, Stalin, and Mao."[2] Li Wei-han, a veteran Communist and a long-time critic of Mao, indicated his displeasure at the changing social composition of the Party:
Ordinary peasants always have very simple social background and are politically very pure, so to speak. These people have joined the Party in considerable number. In their minds the Communist party is "small Eighth Route," and joining the "small Eighth Route" means to "strike the local bosses and divide their land" and to "rob the rich to help the poor." On the other hand, [politically] conscious and talented men are rejected by the Party because of their complex social background. . . .[3]
Communist expansion was made possible by the ready reserve of cadres recruited from among the educated youths of urban areas. But there was a tension between them and the old cadres of the former Red Army. Secretarianism in the army was serious enough to prompt Mao to draft a decision in December, 1939. He said, " . . . many of the army cadres are not yet alive to the importance of the intellectuals, they still regard them with some apprehension and are even inclined to discriminate against them or shut them out."[4] This was part of the more general problem of "new and old cadres," a topic of wide dis-
[2] "Hua-pei tang chien-she-chung ti chi-ke wen-t'i," pp. 324–325.
[3] "Tsen-yang chih-hsing tang tsu-chih shang ti ching-kan cheng-ts'e ho yin-pi cheng-ts'e" [How to carry out the picked cadre policy and the concealment policy in Party organization], The Communist , No. 10, in Kung-fei huo-kuo , III, 136.
[4] Selected Works , II, 301.
cussion at the time. It resulted from the cultural, class, ideological, and generational gaps that separated the two groups.
Lo Jui-ch'ing, a close follower of P'eng Te-huai, portrayed the collective traits of the Long March cadres. The old cadres, he stated, were marked by political steadiness and reliability. This they owed to the fact of having come through the prolonged and cruel "revolutionary fire." They hailed from the vast masses in the rural areas of south-central China. Their peasant–worker origin gave them a personality of honesty, sincerity, loyalty, and straightforwardness. They were well adjusted to stringent organizational life and discipline. "Individualism" or "anarchism" were altogether absent in them. On the other hand, their cultural level was low. They understood little of political ideologies and military science. "Study" was a pain for them. Burdened with "the remnant of peasant consciousness and habit," they were inadequate in handling themselves in complex situations. The lower cadres in particular lacked agility and social sensibility in dealing with united front problems. When forced to relate themselves to the world outside, they were ill at ease and clumsy.[5]
Together, the comments by Yang Shang-k'un, Mao, and Lo Jui-ch'ing give us a glimpse into the changing sociological complexion of the Communist organizations in the rural areas by early 1940. At the top of each hierarchy was the Eighth Route Army controlled by former Red Army men. From the time of the December Ninth Movement and throughout the war, this core element was augmented by an influx of intellectuals and students from Peiping and Tientsin. Liu Shao-ch'i, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, P'eng Chen, and others, contributed to mobilization and "sending down" of urban youths who staffed the upper echelon in border region governments and mass organizations. They in turn helped train and recruit cadres of native peasant origin. Then in 1939 civil war was superimposed on the resistance. As the poor peasants gained the upper hand everywhere, border region governments shed their earlier united front character and became Communist bases in fact. The army was composed almost wholly of the natives. Its texture was coarse, and it was suspicious of alien elements. Then, too, the political tension between Mao and Wang Ming at the top must have created reverberations below. Consciously or unconsciously the Communist movement assumed an anti-urban, anti-intellectual, and anti-landlord orientation. This manifested itself in military friction with the Kuomintang forces and ostracism of urban youths.
[5] "Hsin-lao kan-pu kang chin-mi ti t'uan-chi ch'i-lai" [Further increase the unity between the new and old cadres], Cheng-chih kung-tso lun-ts'ung , pp. 89–90.
Contemporary signs that something was wrong in the Communist bases began to appear after the December Incident of 1939. In April, the Central Committee passed a decision demanding retribution for a serious error committed by a unit of the 115th Division in Shantung and transmitted that decision by radio:
In the Huhsi District (on the western side of the Weishan Lake in Shantung) in August, 1939, during the so-called anti-Trotskyite struggle, a serious political mistake was committed; instigated by the saboteur Wang Hsü-jen the methods of framing such as cruel punishment and examination by torture, demand for confession by random choice, and immediate arrest upon confession, etc. were adopted. As a result not only was the terror of random striking and random killing perpetrated but also the Huhsi District's political–military–mass work had incurred an extremely large loss; the work which had been concluded with difficulty by the local Party in the district has been completely destroyed. Loyal Party members and the masses were sacrificed without a cause. The political prestige of our Party and army has also received enormous injury. At the same time the anti-Communist elements and the Japanese bandits are exploiting the opportunity . . . to sever the relationship between our Party and army and the masses.[6]
The 115th Division was reprimanded for not investigating the incident upon receiving a report; the chief culprit was expelled from the Party, court-martialed and imprisoned; and a funeral was ordered for the victims. In Shantung and Kiangsu where base construction got off to a late start, Kuomintang opposition was considerable. In the P'in-chiang and Chuk'ou Incidents, the Kuomintang executed CCP cadres and their families.[7] In the course of subduing the opposition, the Communist forces were drawn into that fratricidal atrocity that marked the civil war. The tension erupted in the December Incident.
In March, 1940, Mao warned in a directive, "At the moment the 'Left' tendency of neglecting to win over the middle bourgeoisie and the enlightened gentry is the more serious danger."[8] This directive introduced the Three-thirds system. In April, the Northern Bureau
[6] Chung-yang kuan-yü Huhsi ti-ch'ü fan-T'u tou-cheng-chung piao-hsien ti yen-chung ts'uo-wu ti chüeh-ting [The Central Committee's decision concerning the serious errors which occurred in the anti-Trotskyite struggle in the Huhsi district] (April 20, 1941), in Tang ti sheng-huo , No. 4, pp. 10–11. It is conceivable that this decision was involved in the intra-Party dispute between Mao and Wang Ming. Wang Ming showed an extraordinary interest in anti-Trotskyite struggle. "Wo ti hui-i," Ming Pao , No. 61, January, 1971, pp. 90–94, passim . But the kind of terror described here seems to have been quite common in connection with the anti-traitor campaign, which was a veritable witch hunt. See Isabel and David Crook, Ten Mile Inn , pp. 80–88.
[7] These were the Kuomintang's raids on the New Fourth Army's organizations.
[8] "On the Question of Political Power in the Anti-Japanese Base Areas," Selected Works , II, 418.
held the Lich'eng conference in the T'aihang District to "rectify the mistakes in 'Left' deviation barbarism" committed in southern Hopei and southeastern Shansi following the December Incident.[9] The conference curbed mass mobilization. At about same time, Chang Went'ien was warning that "many comrades in the Party . . . light-heartedly take the die-hard elements to be traitors, the intermediate elements to be die-hard elements."[10] To be branded a traitor probably entailed the same consequence as being branded a "counter-revolutionary" during the civil war. Toward the end of 1940, Mao warned again, " . . . there must not be too much killing, and no innocent person should be incriminated."[11]
Agricultural production and exchange began to decline in north China as the war began. Severe strain and destitution began to appear toward the end of 1939: mortgaging of land increased suddenly; subsidiary productions ceased as raw materials were used up; railroad rollingstock, brokers, and peddlers stopped circulating; periodic markets and market towns were practically dead; landlords demanded rent in produce; farm laborers went begging for jobs which could not be found; and consumption of salt declined to two-thirds of the pre-war level. Japanese investigators noted that the poor peasants had reached the "limit of their lives."[12] Guerrilla war, counter-guerrilla war, and increase in banditry were directly responsible for this state of affairs. If poverty was related to the revolution, therefore, the most massive poverty came with the revolution rather than as its precondition.[*]
The Communist bases were no exception to the general decline in production and exchange. But serious countermeasures were not taken until the middle of 1940 because, I surmise, expenditures were met by the savings of the rich. In the meantime, the Communist governments followed economically irrational policies. There was consider-
[*] Ramon Myers' authoritative findings on Chinese agriculture are very important in this respect. He states that in Shantung and Hopei, between 1890 and 1937, the standard of living among the peasants remained constant except in times of wars and natural disasters. The Chinese Peasant Economy: Agricultural Development in Hopei and Shantung, 1890–1949 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 124. I must acknowledge my debt to this book. Its refutation of the so-called "distribution theory" cleared up a large problem in my work.
[9] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 48.
[10] "K'ang-Jih min-tsu t'ung-i chan-hsien-chung ti tso-ch'ing wei-hsien," p. 454.
[11] "On Policy," Selected Works , II, 446.
[12] North China Economic Investigation Section, Research Division, South Manchurian Railway Co., Jihenka no hokushi noson[*] : Kahoku-sho[*] Tei-ken nai ichi noson jittai chosa[*] hokoku[*] [North China village in the war: investigative report of the conditions in one village in Tinghsien in Hopei Province] (1941) (hereinafter cited as Tinghsien Investigation Report ), chaps. III, IV, V, passim .
able improvisation by each border region in response to the most pressing current needs. Maintenance of the army was the greatest fiscal demand, and it was met by a haphazard confiscatory policy directed at the rich. No systematic effort was made to promote production or commerce. In attempting to increase revenue, the Communists resorted to static methods such as hunting down the "black field."[13]
When the Japanese forces dispersed themselves for pacification campaigns in 1939, they occupied junctions of communications network and administrative–commercial centers. The Communist governments had to adjust their boundaries without regard to the ecology and structure of traditional rural markets. Furthermore, the CCP sought to undermine the significance of Japanese-controlled towns by instituting stringent trade control. A Japanese-controlled area was regarded as a "colony" or a foreign country.[14] For example, Wujench'iao in Ankuo hsien was one of the largest market towns in central Hopei.[15] It was linked with Tientsin by a canal, and in peace time it was a trading center for nearly one hundred villages in the surrounding countryside. In 1937 Lü Cheng-ts'ao collected his forces in the Shentze–Ankuo area and started guerrilla activities. In the fall of 1938 Ho Lung's 120th Division moved in to organize the Central Hopei Military District of the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region. Wujench'iao was supervised by the Eighth Special District Commissioner's office. In September, 1939 the Japanese 110th Division occupied Wujench'iao. Pacification and blockade war began.
The Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region's currency, of which 300 million yuan were issued in early 1938, appeared in Wujench'iao in the summer.[16] When the Japanese forces moved in, they discovered that the currency of the North China United Reserve Bank (Japanese-controlled) exchanged at 20 percent discount for the border region currency.[17] The border region bank issued its currency against a reserve in Fapi (national currency) and Chinch'ao (Shansi currency). In Communist-controlled areas, Fapi and Chinch'ao were forcibly exchanged for border region currency. Possession and use of United Reserve Bank's currency were severely punished. Those found carrying less
[13] Growth of one revolutionary base , pp. 147–151.
[14] Ibid. , p. 150.
[15] "Kahokusho[*] ichi noson[*] ni okeru Chukyo[*] no tai-noson[*] shisaku" [Chinese Communist agricultural policy in a village in Hopei Province], Chosa[*] geppo[*] , Vol. 1, No. 11, November, 1943, pp. 1–54. For information on the Wujench'iao area, I rely on this valuable document.
[16] Shina kosen-ryoku[*] chosa[*] i'inkai [Committee to investigate China's capacity to resist], Research Division, South Manchurian Railway Co., Shina kosen-ryoku[*] chosa[*] hokoku[*] [Report of investigation into China's capacity to resist] (Tokyo: San'ichi shobo[*] , 1970), p. 168.
[17] "Kahokusho ichi noson . . ., " p. 25.
than ten yuan of it had to submit to confiscation. Those who were caught having more than 100 yuan were executed.[18] Currency control went hand in hand with trade control.
A wall went up around the Communist bases. All traffic in and out of the bases was checked rigorously as a part of anti-traitor activities. Exchange of goods was supervised by Trading Departments. In the Shangtang area of southeastern Shansi, which had a bank of its own, those who purchased goods from outside with Fapi without a permit from the government were treated as traitors.[19] In this area a misguided trade policy of buying as much as possible from the Japanese-occupied area and refusing to sell anything in return was adopted temporarily in 1939, with the result that the excess of imports had to be paid for by Fapi.[20] Cotton production once flourished in Hopei as an important cash crop. The Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region government banned its production in the guerrilla areas and caused serious depression in the rural economy.[21]
In Wujench'iao the CCP's counter-blockade caused severe hardships for its inhabitants, many of whom were not peasants. They had to seek out friends and relatives in the outlying villages to buy food in secret. What was more surprising was that the CCP banned the free market in its own area of control. The purpose behind this seems to have been anti-inflationary price control. In the Shangtang area, each hsien government was empowered to determine a fair price for each item of goods. Anyone who speculated or otherwise ignored the government price could be punished.[22] In central Hopei inter-village as well as intra-village fairs were banned. Those who needed food for consumption had to report to the manager of a cooperative. The buyer was then taken by a member of the cooperative and a broker to a seller. But because of stringent enforcement of low prices, few peasants were willing to part with their surplus. In the village of Hsipeima, near Wujench'iao, which had 238 households, an average monthly transaction of three to five piculs of grain was reported. There was a flood in Hopei in 1940, and food was in short supply in many families. When the poor peasants and hired laborers went hungry, relief was sought in "contributions" from the rich.[23] Japanese observers in Wujench'iao noted that the period of one year from the fall of 1939 was the "most radical and most Left excessive."[24]
[18] Ibid. , p. 27.
[19] Hoshun Investigation Report , II, 17.
[20] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 149.
[21] Tinghsien Investigation Report , pp. 71, 86, 91.
[22] Hoshun Investigation Report , II, 5.
[23] "Kahokusho[*] ichi noson[*] . . . ," pp. 19–22.
[24] Ibid. , p. 19.
Three years of taxation under the "rational burden" system began to show its impact by the middle of 1940. A Communist source states:
In 1939 the enemy turned his forces on north China . . . and with destruction, burning, and killing by the enemy, the economy of the bases suffered serious losses. At that time relatively comfortable landlords, gentry, and merchants everywhere fled to Chiang Kai-shek-controlled areas or enemy-occupied areas en masse. Although the burden on the basic masses was greatly reduced, productive spirit was not raised and agricultural production drastically declined. . . .[25]
In order to avoid paying taxes, poor and middle peasants were reluctant to be reclassified upward in tax brackets.[26] The landlords, who had borne the cost of the Communist bases for three years, had been taxed out of existence in some places. The initial goal of the CCP in liquidating this class and winning the support of the masses had been accomplished. It was time to redistribute the burden and appease the landlords who chose not to side with the Japanese or the Kuomintang.
The virtual freeze on rural markets was undone in August, 1940. There was a parallel between this freeze—thaw cycle and the similar cycle at the end of the First Five Year Plan (1955–1956) and again during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1959). In all instances it was the effectiveness of the CCP's control over the masses which led to a kind of self-strangulation. In presenting a reform measure, Yang Shang-k'un said,
To imagine that officially managed enterprises can substitute for free enterprise is bound to lead to the result that we blockade ourselves. Within the production relationship of the society today, free trade is a necessary means of commodity distribution. Therefore all restrictions on free enterprise are mistaken.[27]
In early 1940, a comprehensive program for liberalization in political, economic, and social spheres was being proposed in the highest councils of the CCP leadership. These reforms were no doubt debated as part of the over-all adjustment of united front relationship. The immediate result of this debate was the "Double Ten Program" (Shuang shih kang-ling , so-called because it had twenty points) or The Current Administrative Program for the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region adopted by the Northern Bureau in mid-August, just prior to the Battle of One Hundred Regiments. "The Double Ten Program" in
[25] Growth of one revolutionary base , p. 150.
[26] Ibid.
[27] "Kahokusho[*] ichi noson[*] . . . ," p. 19.
turn served as a model for a series of administrative programs for each border region government.[28]
In April, 1941, the Northern Bureau issued the Proposal Concerning the Base Construction in the Chin-Chi-Yü Border Region containing fifteen points ("the Northern Bureau Fifteen Points").[29] On May 1, the Politburo adopted The Administrative Program for the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region .[30] This was the most important one of all and was accompanied by a directive that it be disseminated and explained in the Party–army–government hierarchies. In October, the Huaipei Su-Wan Border Region issued its program. The Huainan Su-Wan Border Region passed its own program in May, 1942. The Chin-Sui Border Region passed its program at the first session of its temporary council in October of 1942. In August, 1943, the Shantung Sub-bureau of the Northern Bureau adopted a program for the Shantung bases.[31]
New Democracy was the label for the sum total of all the institutions which came into existence as a result of these programs. Four major traits distinguished the New Democratic regime from its predecessor. First, all of the new administrative programs established the Three-thirds system. The new program for Shen-Kan-Ning demanded not only that Communist party members should not exceed one-third of those nominated for public offices; it also stipulated that when a Communist party member was elected a chief officer of an administrative organ, at least two-thirds of other offices must be filled by non-Communist candidates. An exact share of one-third for CCP members could not be exceeded in nomination and election.[32]
Second, a system of universal direct election was instituted in all the border regions.[33] Voter participation in three elections—at the border region, hsien , and hsiang or at comparable township levels—
[28] Kung-fei fan-tung wen-chien: Politics , pp. 181–184. The report by Yang Shang-k'un cited above accompanied the Double Ten Program. That the Double Ten Program served as a model for other administrative programs is my own inference. P'eng Chen stated at the time that the Double Ten Program was a local implementation of the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Ten Point Program of August, 1937, but that it was not national in application. Chieh-fang , No. 119, p. 22. The Administrative Program of the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region was presented as a national model, though it was identical in substance to the Double Ten Program.
[29] Growth of one revolutionary base , pp. 306–310.
[30] Shen-Kan-Ning pien-ch'ü ts'an-i-hui wen-hsien hui-chi , pp. 103–106.
[31] Kung-fei fan-tung wen-chien: Politics , pp. 174–187.
[32] Shen-Kan-Ning pien-ch'ü ts'an-i-hui wen-hsien hui-chi , p. 104.
[33] Universal direct election was in contrast to the system in use during the soviet period. At that time, ballots were weighted in favor of the voters of proletarian origin. Elections were conducted indirectly by levels. A voter cast his ballot only once to choose his delegate, who in turn voted for a higher delegate.
was required. Free election was the goal of the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Ten Points Program of August, 1937, as well as of The Administrative Program of the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region of April, 1939. But popular election was never promoted with such vigor prior to 1940. There was a special reason for this, having to do with the stage of development in the Communist bases, as will be shown below.
Third, the new administrative programs signaled the transition in the taxation system from rational burden to unified progressive tax. This stood for rationalization of taxation. Shen-Kan-Ning's 1939 program already stipulated unified progressive tax. But it was very certain that most of the Communist bases were not yet ready to institute such a complicated system of taxation at an earlier stage. Stability and security of a base were prerequisite. The switch to the new taxation system took more than one year in the more advanced bases, while others made do with the rational burden system until the end of the war.
Fourth, the over-all economic design of the new programs could be characterized as controlled "liberalization." Labor discipline was tightened and work stoppage was curbed. While the tax burden was distributed more widely among the poorer masses, business and industrial enterprises were given tax privileges. The new programs continued to pay lip service to rent and interest reduction, but the emphasis after 1941 was on punctual payment of rent and interest that were due. Depression in the rural economy was reversed in order to weather the most intensive phase of Japanese pacification. Eventually the policy of "liberalization" led to the emergence of Chinese NEP men,[*] so to speak, among the new proprietors.
The foregoing shows some of the contingent factors which shaped the New Democratic regime. There were others, and they will be dealt with as I explain the actual implementation of the programs in detail in the rest of this chapter. Voluminous statutes, regulations, and directives were passed and enforced in all border regions in pursuance of the new administrative programs. I will concentrate on only two aspects of the New Democratic regime: (1) Political intention of the CCP in instituting the Three-thirds system; and (2) Political intention and designs of the CCP behind the new economic system.
[*] Small capitalist traders that emerged in Soviet Russia in 1922–1928 when the stringent War Communism was replaced by the liberalization of the New Economic Policy.