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

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

(I) 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.14 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.

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 Ibid.. 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. 67H.

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.

of 1950 stressed that women and men were equal socially, politically, and economically.

In the "Decision on the Development of APC's of 1953" the principle of equal pay for equal work was explicitly stated." In the early 1950's the slogan of equal pay for equal work was used to mobilize women for work in agriculture. When the drive for more women in agricultural production gained momentum in 1955, some organized services, like temporary child-care facilities during busy season, were added in order to sustain a high level of female participation. Both equal pay for equal work and services were downplayed in 1957 and early 1958.

With the formation of the rural people's communes in late 1958 a massive social reorganization in the Chinese villages took place. Through setting up canteens, nurseries, kindergardens, and special teams for washing, sewing, mending, and other services, women could be released from their traditional duties and were thus freed to participate fully in production. The main stress during this period was on freeing women from their traditional burdens through organizational changes, while less stress was put on equal pay. In a period of reevaluation of values, self-sacrifice, devotion and working spirit were encouraged, not obsession with personal gain. Thus, the question of equal work, equal pay, though perfectly in line with the ideology, received less emphasis during this period.

The failure of the Great Leap in 1960 saw the closing down of the service organizations designed to relieve women of some of their traditional tasks. When resources became scarce a low priority was given to maintaining services that women traditionally had given free to society. Because old men still dominated the decisionmaking in the rural communes, women's and particularly young women's interests could be sacrificed without too much opposition. Women, however, still had to work in the fields, because a great many men were needed in capital construction projects. Women had to be kept in collective agricultural production, though no canteens and most child-care facilities were no longer available. By giving women equal pay for equal work they were expected to endure a double work burden, both participation in agricultural production as well as housework and childcare. This was to be accomplished through equal pay and positive revolutionary thinking. If women did not manage their double workload they had only themselves to blame. In some cases young married women were told to use their old mother-in-laws or women neighbors to solve difficulties in arranging their personal lives, that is child-care and household work. This was made a private problem of women. Production had to be given first place.

After the Cultural Revolution a directive from the CCP Central Committee of December 1971, followed by criticism by the VicePresident of China, Soong Ching-ling, started a new drive lasting through 1973 to implement the principle of equal pay for equal work in agriculture. A synthesis of earlier policies was put forward. Women

17 (I) "Hun-yin fa-chi ch'i yu-kuan wen-chien" (The marriage law and related documents). Legal Com. mittee of the Central People's Government, 1950, Peking.

(II) Editorial, Theodore H.E. Chen, "The Common Programme of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, September 1949, p. 36, in "The Communist Regime Documents and Commentary," 1967.

(III) Chung-kuo chieh-fang-chu nung-ts'un fu-nu sheng-chan yun-tung (The production movement of the village women in the liberated areas of China), chap. 7, ACDWF, Shanghai, 1949.

(IV) "Decisions on the Development of Agricultural Producers Cooperatives Adopted by the Central Committee of the CCP," supplement to People's China, 1954.4.1, p. 8.

were still needed in the fields, because many men continuously were required for farmland capital construction and commune industry. Therefore, women were to receive equal pay for equal work and were to be relieved of some of their double workload, while men were encouraged to help with household work. Neither by itself alone, the establishment of service organizations nor equal pay alone, could release enough women for agricultural production for sustained periods, but both measures in combination might produce the intended results. By these means it was planned to reduce the workload of women at home but not in the fields where they were needed in collective agricultural production. The interplay of ideology, scarcity of resources and demand for women's labor explains the shifting priorities given to the question of equal work, equal pay.

The First Five-year Plan Period

In comparison to industry, the multitude of widely different nonstandardized tasks existing in agriculture posed greater problems in evaluation and comparison and were also more easily influenced by inherent traditional biases and ways of thought. To fight and change age-old values and prejudices was hard especially as the overwhelming majority of the rural cadres were male. Complaints were voiced in the press to draw the attention of the Women's Federation:

No matter how good their work is, women are usually graded 2-3 points below men, and even in some places the labor of women was counted as only one-third the value of men's labor. Usually men can get Y 400 and women Y 350. Therefore some women even retreat from labor.18

Old way of belittling women had not disappeared.19 That some work was traditionally done by women and therefore counted as light work still raised problems as well as the fact that even men doing relatively little work got the rewards of full-time able-bodied

men:

In Yin Lin county women usually get 7-8 labor points a day, while men usually get 12-13 points daily. First grade female labor gets less than third grade male labor. One of the male cooperative members, who is always absent, gets the same number of labor points as women, who attend every day. This is an unreasonable way of giving labor points. The female cooperative members even had a strike for one day. No matter how much we work the labor points are much less than those of a lazy man. But after summer planting, because of the introduction of a reasonable method of assigning of labor points they changed a lot. . . . The grade basis, however, for labor differs.

(a) The grading is not according to requirements of skill and labor, therefore, one labor point for women is worth less than one labor point for men.

(b) In addition standards for the quality and quantity of labor are set too high, therefore only a few people can meet the standard.

(c) The division of labor is not according to heavyness of work or requirements of skill. Usually the kinds of work women customarily do were counted as low grade work. To harvest with a sickle is no lighter than plowing with a cow. But cutting with a sickle is counted as second, sometimes as third or fourth grade

18 For labor evaluation the workpoint system was used. Workpoints usually were calculated on a time-rate basis. Workpoints were awarded after the number of days a person worked in a month for the cooperative. The actual value of a workpoint was first determined at the end of each fiscal year when the share of the distributable income of the collective unit was computed.

"The phenomenon of looking down upon female labor is common; the women of South-West China give an article to Women's Federation of all ranks to emphasize the antifeudal propaganda and struggle, and to rectify deviations of labor cooperation groups who suppress women", Hsin-hua jih-pao (New China Daily), Chungking, 1952.8.4.

19 "Women alone shall not be put in a production team because this can influence the progress of produc tion," Che-chiang jih-pao (Chekiang Daily), 1956.8.12.

work, because it is usually done by women, but plowing with cow is always first grade work, because it is men's work.20

The traditional way of always regarding men's work as harder and therefore more valuable was hard to uproot:

In Ching Teh chen, men do lighter work, while sailing men row while women paddle, but men get over 100 work points while women get only 35." 21

In an APC in Shansi Province on the division of work, women's work points are recorded lower than men's. Men plowing get 7.5 points, while women collecting manure get 5 points. Women then reported this to the party committee. The party branch secretary said that if women get more, men will get less. He said that women had to be skillful. To prove his point he forced the women to plow quickly for 3 days. The women were unused to plowing and got very tired and sick. This also happened to the women who walked behind the plow with manure. The party secretary won.22

Also, when doing the same work, women's work was scrutinized more closely and therefore sometimes regarded as of lower quality:

In the Liang Yuan agricultural cooperative there were 4 women who had cut 2 baskets full of grass but were only given 2.5 work points for this, while male members got 4 points for 1 basket full of grass. The reason given for this was that the quality of the grass women had cut was poorer and the women's grass was not neatly arranged. When the women protested the man said that the women also were afraid of the smell of the cow's droppings and that they had trod on the new sprouts while cutting grass.23

After taking part in agricultural production for 8-10 days, some women don't even get 1 labor point, because they are not counted as a full labor unit, only as 0.2 or 0.3 of a full labor unit. . . . In a certain village 3 women got 18 labor points after finishing 3 whole days jobs, but the cooperative group took away 12 labor points. As for male labor the maximum is six points a day, while these women each got 2 points for 3 whole days job. Therefore these 3 women weep.

24

Village women did the same work as men, but they only got 4.5 work points while men got 10. When a woman objected about this to the leader, he got very angry,25

26

Not only were women as labor power basically rated lower than men, women among themselves were also rated in different categories. This type of differentiation did not occur among men:

In Fen Yi county, in a cooperative, women without children are given 1.5 works points, while those with children get 1 point. As a result of this their labor enthusiasm is low and what is more, work without pay is usually done by women.27

20 "We must carry through equal pay for equal work," Kuang-hsi jih-pao (Kwangsi Daily), 1955.12.30. 21 The demand of all Kiangsi women activists in building socialism, "Never embezzle women's labor compensation," Chiang-hsi jih-pao (Kiangsi Daily), 1956.7.5.

22 "Stand up for women cooperative members," CKFN, No. 9, 1956.

23 See footnote 26.

24 On the 3d session of the 1st People's Congress of the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region speech by delegate Sai-li-ma-t'a-li-fu-wa, "Emphasize solving all problems in women's work," Hsin-chiang jih-pao (Sinkiang Daily), 1956.8.5.

25 Editorial, "For men and women carry out, in earnest equal-work-equal-pay-system," Chiang-hsi jih-pao (Kiangsi Daily), 1956. 7.6.

26 (I) "Let even more women because activists in socialist construction," Ho-pei jih-pao (Hopei Daily), 1956.12.14.

(II) "Correctly solve the problem of village women's work," Chiang-hsi jih-pao (Kiangsi Daily), 1956. 11.13. (III) On the 3d session of the 1st People's Congress of the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region, speech by delegate Sai-li-ma-t'a-li-fu-wa, "Emphasize solving all problems in women's work," Hsin-chiang jih-pao (Sinkiang Daily), 1956.8.5.

(IV) Speech to the 2d plenary session of the 1st Kwangsi provinced committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, "Women's role in construction in Kwangsi," Kuang-hsi jih-pao (Kwangsi Daily), 1956.4.28.

(V) "Resolutely protest for the labor right of women," Chiang-hsi jih-pao (Kiangsi Daily), 1956.11.15. Speech by delegate Chang Pao-chen, on the the 5th meeting of the Kiangsi People's Congress.

27 See footnote 25.