Fifty years of People's China

by Rob Gowland

Fifty years ago, on October 1, 1949, the Chinese Red Army marched 
triumphantly into Peking as it was then known. Despite the best efforts of 
the USA, its stooge Chiang Kai Shek had been routed and fled to Taiwan, 
under the protection of a US fleet, taking the national treasury and a 
fortune in cultural treasures looted from the imperial palaces of the 
Forbidden City.

The victorious Chinese Communist Party (CPC) found itself confronted by a 
new and even more formidable task than that of winning the revolution. The 
People's Republic, with 400 million people in 1949, was the most populous 
country on earth — a fact that brought its own huge problems.

China was also one of the poorest: war-ravaged following years of civil war 
and war against the Japanese invaders, it was largely agrarian, its 
industry was backward and starved for funds.

The country was subject to famines and regular, devastating floods, and 
imperialism would not allow it any respite from war so as to attend to the 
needs of its vast population.

Military provocations, incursions from Taiwan and Burma and all out war on 
the Korean Peninsular marked the first decade of the new China.

But the CPC which led the revolutionary struggles was determined to bring 
its people an end to internal wars (and warlords), an improved living 
standard and a measure of human dignity with security, food, shelter and 
work.

This seemed a modest goal but, applied to a quarter of the human race, it 
was a huge task and seemed, at times, unattainable.

A decade after the victory of the revolution, the food ration was still 
only a little over a pound of rice per adult per week, to feed oneself and 
one's children.

Peng Zengjun, Executive Editor of Beijing Review, recalling those 
times comments that "China, just like my mother, was simply too poor to 
provide enough food to feed her children."

But China, with the help of the Soviet Union — itself still trying to 
recover from the colossal devastation of the Second World War — was 
building industries and providing jobs.

And not just jobs: workers entering employment in a state-owned factory 
also received housing, medical care, labour protection and pensions.

The state centrally organised the distribution of the labour force. Wages 
were low and living conditions simple, even primitive, but the state 
endeavoured to secure work for everyone.

Compared to the chaos of previous decades, life for ordinary people for the 
first time became stable and secure.

However, in the face of complete economic blockade from the West, the task 
of creating the vast industrial base necessary for the building of 
socialism in China was proving more difficult than expected.

With better health care and nutrition the population kept growing at a 
prodigious rate, placing huge strains on extremely limited resources.

Essential major infrastructure projects often had to be undertaken by hand 
due to a lack of funds, machinery and know-how. What investment there was 
had to favour industrial projects which were usually based in the cities.

Despite the difficulties socialist construction forged ahead in the first 
10 years following the revolution.

Unfortunately, for the next decade, China's progress was substantially held 
back by the "leftist" policies implemented by Mao Zedong and his supporters 
in the Party and by the serious breach with the Soviet Union led by Nikita 
Khrushchov at the time.

Whereas the Soviet Union was giving considerable help to build and train 
Chinese workers in the development of China's industries this help was 
dramatically stopped in 1964.

The conflict between the Soviet Union and People's China became so sharp 
that it seemed at one stage that war could result. 

Mao's "leftist" errors resulted in the so-called "great leap forward" and 
the "cultural revolution" which actually set China's growth back by several 
decades and also seriously divided the Chinese Party and people.

Mao claimed that many representatives of the bourgeoisie and counter-
revolutionary revisionists had sneaked into the Party, the government, the 
army and cultural circles and that these bodies were no longer in the hands 
of Marxists and the people.

He claimed that they were taking the capitalist road and that the power of 
these "capitalist-roaders" could only be recaptured by carrying out a great 
cultural revolution and by mobilising the broad masses to expose these 
sinister people.

A great political struggle was necessary, in fact, a revolution in which 
one class would overthrow another. He advanced the "theory of continued 
revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat".

A period of savage attacks on Party cadres by ultra-"leftist" "Red Guards" 
was a trying time for the Party, for Chinese culture and for the working 
class and peasantry. 

However, these theories represented an incorrect appraisal of the class and 
political situation in the Party and the State. What was right and wrong 
was mixed up and the people became confused.

Nevertheless, after a very destructive decade, the ultra-"leftist" trend 
was overcome.

On the positive side, the experience of the communists of China in the 
three decades 1949-79 led them to think very hard about just what was 
involved in the process of laying the foundations of and building a 
socialist society.

As the country's population ballooned to a billion (now about 1.3 billion), 
the material improvement of the lives of the people had to be a priority. 
But how?

In the '50s, food was cooked on fuel stoves and women gathered together 
after work to do their family washing in wooden basins using a washboard.

In the '60s sewing machines became available for home use. A decade later 
the three "luxury" articles people saved for were a bicycle, a watch and a 
sewing machine.

Washing machines began to appear in Beijing in the late '70s (a very modest 
400 units being produced in 1978).

Although hundreds of millions of people cooked rice every day in China in 
1978, only 36,400 electric rice cookers were manufactured. 

Small factories with limited capacity simply couldn't cope with the 
country's needs. And the people would not wait forever for their lives to 
improve.

In the '50s, the state had raised money for construction by issuing 
national economic construction bonds. The practice was discontinued at the 
beginning of the '60s.

Faced with the need to accumulate large amounts of capital the government 
in 1981 recommenced issuing state treasury bonds which the public could buy 
as investments.

They were slow to move at first but they became popular after interest 
rates were raised. Then, in 1984, Chinese companies were permitted to raise 
capital by selling shares to the public.

But, on the economic charts, China remained well down the list of 
countries. While its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had doubled between 1958 
and 1978, so had its population.

With ten percent of the world's cultivated land, China has had to solve the 
problem of feeding and clothing 22 percent of the globe's population.

If China was to be able to successfully resist imperialism's economic 
warfare and prevent it turning into military warfare, it had to become an 
economic powerhouse that Western capitalists literally could not afford to 
ignore — or attack.

The Chinese leaders decided to take advantage of capitalism's desperate 
need for new sources of profit. The bait would be China's huge labour pool 
and potential market.

Foreign investment was invited, but this had to be handled in a way that 
permitted China to benefit economically, accumulate capital, acquire 
technical knowledge and learn management skills.

All this had to be done without compromising China's independence or the 
socialist system.

Beginning in the early-mid '80s, special economic zones were created where, 
hopefully, the socially undesirable effects of capitalist activity could be 
quarantined. Joint ventures were permitted and even some industries wholly 
owned by foreign capital.

The policy of the Government and Party has had a remarkable effect on 
China's economy. By 1988, the production of electric rice cookers had 
leaped to over six million units a year.

The country's GDP in 1978 was only 3.6 billion yuan. By 1988 it was six 
billion yuan and by 1998 it had soared to 80 billion yuan.

In 1997, the World Bank rated China's GDP seventh in the world after the 
US, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

At the same time, China has had to make the most efficient use of its own 
investment capital. Many older publicly-owned plants built several decades 
ago were now technically out of date and inefficient. They are now being 
reformed but not privatised as some commentators assert.

The policy of the CPC is to retain the "predominance" of public ownership 
together with macro economic planning and controls.

It is these policies which insulated China from the full effects of the 
recent Asian economic crisis.

Despite this crisis China's rate of economic expansion has remained at 
about eight per cent which makes it the fastest growing economy in the 
world. Before the Asian economic crisis her rate of expansion was regularly 
over 10 per cent.

The encouragement of foreign investment (a policy also being pursued in 
Vietnam and Cuba) inevitably leads to greater acceptance by some people of 
the pursuit of profit, more individualism and willingness to "go into 
business for yourself".

The closure of ministries and older factories have also created problems of 
reemployment and unemployment.

The CPC, however, is confident that these problems are only temporary and 
has invested huge sums in infrastructure development to provide alternative 
employment.

China's economy continues to surge ahead and many predict that in 20 years 
time it will be the largest economy in the world, a prospect imperialists 
must find chilling even as their eyes light up with greed.

The CPC has no illusions about the intentions or methods of imperialism and 
they constantly battle its devious activities.

Based on the last half century of varied and educative experience, the CPC 
has concluded that China is at the beginning of the process of laying 
the foundation for the building of socialism.

The Chinese people are today celebrating the first 50 years of liberation 
from the former imperialist domination and exploitation. China has become 
really independent and sovereign.

They are celebrating the huge progress made under the leadership of the 
CPC, the big steps made towards socialism and in the living standards and 
freedoms of the Chinese people. The giant of the East has stood up.

The next 50 years should bring new giant strides in the building of a great 
socialist society which will bring greater prosperity for all the people of 
China.

It will be an example to the people of many other countries who remain 
under imperialist and capitalist domination. They will make China a 
powerful force for peace in the world.

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