CHINA AT THE HOUR OF " RECTIFICATION"
The technique of statistics affords, in its data and interpretation, a considerable margin of ambiguity. In one sense good statistics are the result and the reflection of an organization that is planned and endowed with a high cultural, scientific, and technical level.
Authoritarian regimes have often indulged in deceptive statistics, the fabrication of which was a wellkept secret. But there will rarely be found in the annals of this technique so extraordinary an adventure as that announced in the communiqués and other documents produced by the 8th plenary session of the VIlIth Meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which met at Lushan between 2 and 16
The effort at self-criticism made by the Chinese leadership may admittedly be admired. But it is more difficult to accept the fact that a serious leadership can be wrong on so colossal a scale.
Let us examine the admitted facts:
The entire world was seized by admiration for the exploits that the Chinese economy, especially culture, achieved in 1958. Their scope equaled the Soviet prestige attained by sputniks.
And now here are the terms in which the CC of the Chinese C P "corrects" the official figures, reaffirmed on several occasions up until still very recently, concerning last year's production: Repeated check-ups made in the first half of this year show that the figures previously published on the 1958 agricultural output are a bit high [our emphasis]. Verification shows that the actual amount of grain gathered in 1958 was 250 millions tons [as against 375 million previously announced]; the actual amount of cotton gathered in 1958 was 2,000,000 tons [as against 3,350,000 previously announced]
As for the production of steel, which in 1958 reached 11,080,000 tons, only 8 million "produced by modern equin resume these retications, of what must be
As a result of these admitted to be a colossal scope, it was natural that the CC "found that the original targets set for 1959 were somewhat too high and need to be appropriately adjusted." (Our emphasis.)
There will therefore be this year only 12 million tons of steel (as against 18 million forecast), 335 million tons of coal (as against 380 million), 275 million tons of grain (as against 525 million), and 2,300,000 tons of cotton (as against 5,200,000).
Compared to the corrected 1958 production figures, the goals for 1959 represent an increase in the value of industrial production of about 25%, and of agricultural production of about 10%. It can be seen to what relatively modest dimensions the "great leap forward," vaunted in 1958, has been reduced.
The embarrassment of the Chinese leadership in face of this retreat is evident in spite of the flood of attacks against the imperialist slanderers and against "the emergence of right opportunist ideas among cadres" - all the more so in that this retreat became public on the eve of the first anniversary of the people's communes, the tenth anniversary of the Chinese revolution, and the Khrushchev-Eisenhower meeting.
For the Chinese leadership under these conditions to feel obliged to reduce the "Chinese miracle" to its real proportions, lacking any exceptional character, have had particularly imperious reasons. With a correction of the 1958 figures, it became impossible to face the realities of current production. These realities are, furthermore, clearly felt by the population, which is experiencing a severe "strain on the supply of certain commodities."
Chou En-Lai, in a report on the 1959 Economic Plan, delivered at the plenary meeting of the Standing Committee of the Second National People's Congress, explicity admits this:
In the case of about a dozen commodities día supplies drop in the first half of this year: these included pork, beef, mutton, egg products, aquatic products, sugar, cotton wadding: for
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL domestic use, leather shoes, etc.
Chou En-Lai then devotes himself to refuting the arguments of those - including some among C P cadres - who are criticizing the present economic situation and the policy of the have alleged that the market was
Some people strained all around. [...] A handful of people even said that before liberation one could get anything in the market but now nothing was available. [...] Some people suspect that the strain on the supply of certain commodities was due to excessive exports.
But the criticisms extend from the food situation to the party's economic policy:
Some people hold that during last year's mass campaign to make iron and steel much power was used, much money was spent, and part of the total products was iron and steel made by indigenous methods; as a result, it was
"more loss than gain" or at most "loss and gain was a 50-50 affair.
Even the rise of the people's communes is naturally brought into question:
Those who assert that the People's Communes "an awful mess" are none other than imperialists who are violently hostile to our country's socialist cause, as well as some rightists and other reactionaries who are against the people, and against socialism.
Apart from these, there are some people who pay lip-service to socialism but find fault with this and that in the People's Commune movement, and maintain that the People's Communes have been set up prematurely and have gone
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Chou En-Lai himself gives certain indications concerning this last criticism:
In the initial period of the establishment lof the communes], owing to lack of experience in management and to the influence of the bumper harvest and the mass campaigns for making iron and steel and for developing industry, some dining rooms failed to manage their grain and non-staple foods well, so that a little too much was consumed.
What conclusions are to be drawn from all this?
Certainly not that the drive of the Chinese economy is a myth, nor that the communes do not represent a form of economic and social organization which gives promise of a great future.
But the Stalinist style in which the Chinese leadership always operates - of bureaucratic commands, pride, and braggadocio - distorts the optimum possible accumulates social tensions that are not absolutely cor rhythms of the country's economic development, and cessary. By glorifying the "general line," always rect" despite the obvious disproof of the facts, and by preventing a discussion and a democratic path for the party and the country, the Chinese leadership and its chief run the risk of imperceptibly getting bogged down in the way of the errors and then inevitably the crimes of a Stalin.
For this reason, the active aid of the world proletariat to the Chinese revolution is still necessary. By extending revolution, by broadening the economic foundation for the construction of socialism, the difficulties and tensions built up in China will be prevented from barring the road to the democratic and revolutionary renewal of the communist movement and delaying the hour of the final fall of Stalinism.