HHPYK-Hsin hua pan yüeh-k'an (New China Semimonthly) SCMM―Selections From China Mainland Magazines SCMM Supplement-Selections From China Mainland Magazines Supplement TKP-Ta Kung Pao (The Impartial) URS-Union Research Service WHP-Wen hui pao (Wen hui Daily) INTRODUCTION Several years of national recovery followed the victory of the Chinese Communists in 1949 and the end of civil war in the following year. Known as the rehabilitation period, it officially ended in 1952. The first 5-year plan (FFYP) period began in 1953 and ended in 1957. The following quotation from Chairman Mao Tse-tung's address on "Coalition Government," May 1945, summarizes the long-range goal of employment policy during these years: It is the peasants who are the source of China's industrial workers. In the future additional tens of millions of peasants will go to the cities and enter factories. If China is going to build up powerful national industries and many large modern cities, there will have to be a long process of transformation of rural into urban inhabitants.1 Transfer of labor from agriculture to industry was seen as a necessary precondition for economic development. The immediate short-term aim was recovery from more than a decade of war and achievement of increased production and an adequate living for the people of China. Greater labor inputs in combination with such institutional changes as land reform and the successive stages of cooperativization of agriculture were considered to be the best means of increasing agricultural production. In addition the policy of the Communist Party was to increase the area of cultivation, double cropping, and irrigation. At this stage mechanization of agriculture was not conceived of as a viable alternative for the immediate future. POLICY ON RURAL EMPLOYMENT Policies toward women in China are one aspect of the overall attempt to transform the whole country. Every change in general policy has engendered a concomitant change in policy on women. After 1949 the policies that were developed for employment in urban and rural areas showed marked differences.3 The differences were most clear 1 Mao Tse-tung, "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung." vol. III, p. 250. Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1967. 2 Chinese employment policy on women in urban production will be dealt with extensively in my book on "Women in Production in the PRC, 1949-78" to be published this autumn by the Scandinavian Institute for Asian Studies, Kejsergade 2, Copenhagen, Denmark. According to Chinese terminology an "urban" area is a place with either more than 75 percent of it's inhabitants engaged in nonagricultural pursuits or with a population over 2,000 at least half of which is nonagricultural. The distinction between "urban" and "rural" population is not equivalent to that between nonagricultural and agricultural population. A village with less than 2,000 residents may have a number of people in nonagricultural activities, all included in the rural population. Tung-chi kung-tso t'ung-hsin (Statistical Work Bulletin), No 12, 1955.12.17. cut in policy statements on employment of traditionally marginal groups in the labor force, such as the young, the old, and women. In contrast to employment of women in urban areas, at no time were women in rural areas officially encouraged to refrain from taking part in production. In rural areas, as policy on the employment of women developed in the early 1950's, women were urged to take part in agricultural production, and increase the number of days they did farm work. Already at the time of John Lossing Buck's study of the rural economy of China in the 1930's there was a great amount of underutilized labor in the countryside, especially during the slack season. Only 35 percent of the agricultural male population, 15-59 years of age, worked full time in agriculture. As many as 58 percent of the male peasants worked only part time in agriculture and were idle part time. Certain characteristics of the utilization of marginal labor could be distinguished at this time. The greater the number of busy seasons in agriculture in a region the greater the employment of the marginal labor force. Thus in North China with one to two harvests a year women, even during peak periods, played a negligible role in agriculture. On the other hand in South China, notably, in Kwangtung and Fukien provinces, women supplied up to a quarter of the labor force in the three to four annual harvests. Earlier, women in areas with more harvests had more frequently unbound feet and had looser foot bindings and greater proportions of unbound feet the lower their class. Facilitating the increased participation of women in agricultural production required at least partial solutions to problems of changing traditional views on the role of women in farm work and making practical arrangements for them to do such work. The main difficulties were first of all taboos and prejudices against women performing certain agricultural tasks. Views of the lack of working ability inherent in such peasant sayings as "when women dig a well the water dragon will be annoyed" or "when women transplant rice, no seedlings will sprout" had to be overcome by propaganda and education. By arranging temporary childcare and urging other members of the household to assist, more mothers could be released for agricultural work. Other practical arrangements included encouraging formation. of all-female production teams and locating women in worksites near their homes and in traditionally accepted tasks. In contrast to the agricultural male population, women of poor peasant origin from the beginning played a crucial role in production teams, as compared to men of the same origin, because they were the most skilled of their sex in farm work, since poverty forced them to do farm work from childhood on and often in low and despised jobs such as collecting manure. Among the women they were usually the most politically reliable as well as the most experienced in farming. In the male population, however, though the poor peasant might be politically the most trustworthy, he usually was not the most knowledgeable. J. L. Buck, "Land Utilization in China. A study of 16,786 farms in 168 localities and 38,256 farm families in 22 provinces in China, 1929-33", 1937, reprint 1964, New York, p. 289 ff. (hereinafter referred to as J. L. Buck, 1964). Ibid. In China in 1949 two types of areas existed defined by different criteria where the female participation rate was higher than the average; in the earlier mentioned areas with three to four harvests annually, reviewed in Buck's study, and in the old Communistdominated areas where land reform was carried out in the 1930's, according to Chinese Communist accounts. ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES IN CHINESE AGRICULTURE On June 30, 1950, the Agrarian Reform Law was enacted by the new regime. According to this law: The land ownership system of feudal exploitation by the landlord class shall be abolished and the system of peasant landownership shall be introduced in order to set free the rural productive forces, develop agricultural production, and thus pave the way for China's industrialization." After this land reform had redistributed land to over 300 million poor peasants, the new regime tried to widen and make permanent the traditional system of families cooperating during peak seasons in agriculture. This system of seasonal informal mutual help was through official encouragement converted into permanent mutual aid. The rationale for grouping peasant families into mutual aid teams on a year-round basis was to cope with the problems of unemployment in slack seasons and labor shortage during peak seasons. By developing subsidiary activities during slack seasons and coordinating agricultural work during busy seasons the problems of labor supply would be alleviated." On December 16, 1953, the Chinese Communist Party adopted a resolution, "On the Development of Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives." On June 30, 1956, collectivization of agriculture was introduced in the "Model Regulations for Higher-stage Agricultural Producers' Co-operatives." 8 In contrast to the earlier agricultural producers cooperatives (APC), often referred to as lower APC's, the advanced or higher APC's required their peasant members to give up their major means of production such as privately owned land, farm implements and animals to the collective ownership of the higher APC's. In August 1958 the party passed a resolution on "The Establishment of the People's Communes in the Rural Areas." This meant amalgamation of the advanced APC's into larger administrative units known as rural people's communes. The main rationale for the formation of the people's communes was "the overall and continuous leap forward in agricultural production." According to official Chinese claims, two-fifths of all peasant households were organized into mutual aid teams in 1953. In late 1955 three-fifths of all peasant households belonged to lower APC's, according to Communist claims, 1 year later after the big collectivization drive of 1956 practically all peasant households were included in higher APC's. In mid-1958 the first rural people's communes were • Land Reform Law of the Chinese People's Republic, 1950.6.28, in "Collection of Selected Laws of the Chinese People's Republic," pp. 127 ff. 7 A. Donnithorne, "China's Economic System," London, 1967, p. 31 ff. Chao Kuo-chun, "Economic Planning and Organization in Mainland China." A documentary study (1949-57), vol. 1, 1959, p. 129 ff. organized. At the end of the same year more than 99 percent of all peasant households were members of rural people's communes. Table 1 (below) shows changes over time in name and size of planning units in Chinese agriculture. TABLE 1.-CHANGE OF NAME AND SIZE OF PRODUCTION UNITS IN CHINESE AGRICULTURE, 1952-74 [In number of households per unit! Kenneth R. Walker, "Planning in Chinese Agriculture," 1965, pp. 3-19, line 1-5, line 7 (hereafter referred to as K. R. Walker 1965). Audrey Donnithorne, "China's Economic System," 1967, ch. 2-3, line 3: 1957-54 (hereafter referred to as A. Donnithorne 1967). Frederick W. Crook, "The Commune System in the People's Republic of China, 1963-74" in Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, "China; A Reassessment of the Economy 1975" (hereafter referred to as F. W. Crook, 1975), line 6: 1960-61, 1974, line 9: 1971, 1974, line 10: 1971, 1974. C. S. Chen, "Rural People's Communes in Lien-chang," 1969, pp. 3-8, line 6, 9, 10: 1963 (hereafter referred to as C. S. Chen 1969). Ed. N.-R. Chen, "Chinese Economic Statistics," 1967, pp. 54-61, 370–371, line 10: 1958, average for year-end 1958 (hereafter referred to as N.-R. Chen 1967). Through all organizational changes in Chinese agriculture the smallest planning unit, first called the mutual aid team, then the production team, consisting of 6 to 8 households, remained almost unchanged in size up to 1959, when it was amalgamated into a larger basic unit.10 This unit of 20 to 50 households was in 1955 established as a lower APC, and with the formation of the higher APC's was renamed a production brigade in the higher APC's. From 1958 onward it was made a basic planning unit in the people's communes. At first it was called a production brigade and later was referred to as a production team. This unit was often made up of a small village or part of a village." The higher APC from 1956 consisted of 100 to 350 households and from the establishment of the people's communes in 1958 was first renamed a large production brigade and later was called simply a (T) State Statistical Bureau, "Wei ta ti shih-nien" (Ten Great Years), September 1959, Peking, pp. 23-30. (II) N.-R. Chen "Chinese Economic Statistics," 1967, p. 371. 10 See table 1 (above), lines 1 and 2. 11 Ibid., lines 3-6. production brigade in the commune. Since 1958 it was the intermediate level of commune organization.12 Encompassing all aspects of rural life and including 1,500 to 5,000 households, the rural people's commune from 1958 was the largest planning unit up to that time and represented the highest level of planning at the local level. It replaced the township (hsiang) government as the basic unit of government administration.13 Over time, names, tasks, and responsibilities have changed back and forth among the different levels of planning and production. The existence and endurance of a basic unit of at first 6 to 8 families and later of 20 to 50 families may be a clue to explaining both adaptability to change and also resistance to change. Though tasks and names of the production units changed, peasants were still working within their basic unit with their kinsmen or neighbors of the same village. Within their production unit people could be organized for work according to sex, age, or skill. Because the basic division was made along family and village lines the impact of tradition would most likely be more strongly felt than if individuals were organized in the first instance along criteria like sex, age, class or skill or were frequently reorganized. Except for a very brief period in 1958 and 1959 this did not occur. During this brief period traditions were attacked more than in the preceding period, and also more than in the period following. Not until the Cultural Revolution in 1966, and from 1972, were these traditions again seriously questioned and struggled against. The attempts to implement the policy of equal work for equal pay for women and men illustrate the struggles between traditional values and new ideas. EQUAL WORK, EQUAL PAY Renumeration in Chinese traditional agriculture gave high values to certain necessary factors such as physical strength, while some other important traits such as experience and conscientiousness counted for less. Traditional male characteristics were usually overvalued, even when they were not of prime importance, while traditional female skills were for the most part undervalued. Only in regions specializing in sericulture could women earn more. Except for cultivating mulberry trees, sericulture operations, such as reeling and spinning of silk were exclusively women's work. The income of peasant women in the 17th century from spinning silk thread for sale could match that of their husbands who worked in the rice fields.15 In traditional China able-bodied women working full-time would usually get onethird to a half of what men could earn in agriculture.16 Most women working in agriculture, however, were unpaid family workers. 14 Summary of major changes Already in the 1940's the Communist women's movement propagated the implementation of the principle of equal pay for equal work. Both the Common Program of 1949 and the Marriage Law 1. Ibid., lines 7-9. 13 Tbid., line 10. 14 Evelyn Sakahida Rawski, "Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China", 1972, p. 55. (II) Marjorie Topley, "Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung" in ed. M. Wolf, R. Witke, "Women in Chinese Society," 1975, p. 67. 15 Ibid., 141. 16 Fei Hsiao-tung and Chang Chih-i. "Earthbound China. A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan." London, 1948, p. 65 ff. |