U569 Modern Inner Mongolia
Lecture, Thursday, Week 12

 

  1. Policy extremes:  function of governing by campaign
    1. Policy in IM increasingly linked to Beijing center
  2. Collectivization, 1956
    1. Collectivization was always the ultimate aim of CCP agricultural policy
      1. Soviet experience:  collectivization used to gain control--catastrophic
      2. Chinese experience:  land reform gains control>>collectivization
      3. Collectivization has various stages
        1. 1st limited pooling of equipment, returns divided by investment
        2. Middle stages:  land & equipment, returns by investment
        3. Last:  total pooling of recourses, pay by labor only
          1. Year end:  total coop profit divided by labor points
          2. 10 points/adult male per day, 7 points/adult female
      4. Aim:  Increase surplus, efficiency, investment, plus change mentality
    2. Collectivization in IM
      1. Agricultural areas completed by 1956
        1. As in all China, proceeded remarkably smoothly
        2. Leadership astounded by their level of control
      2. Pastoral areas:  basically carried through in 1957
        1. Heavy losses expected-herders would slaughter stock
        2. Significant drop in numbers, due, by statistics, to:
          1. low birth rates, low infant survival rates, high sales
          2. NOT high private slaughtering
      3. Like Japanese, Soviets, new breeds>>high quality wool, milk, meat
        1. Range animals in Mongolia:  coarse wool, low meat, milk yields
        2. New breeds:  need water, fodder>>less mobility
        3. Lower mobility, higher numbers>>grassland degeneration
        4. New state ranches:  often best areas, Chinese personnel
  3. Anti-rightist Movement, 1957-58
    1. De-Stalinization in Soviet Union, 1956 uprising in Hungary
    2. Mao:  Hundred Flowers campaign (1956-57)>>Anti-rightist campaign
      1. Rectification Leadership Small Group
        1. Wulanfu (&Tümed crony), several Suiyuan Chinese, (EM) Ting Mao
      2. IM's "biggest rightist":  Tübshin, criticized loss of Mongolia in cities
      3. Damrin's "Flowers in the Snow" (1959):  showed anti-PRPIM line
        1. Set in 1946/7 in Chakhar; civil war
        2. Nationalist/intellectual seen as sentimental but conniving hypocrite
  4. Sino-Soviet Split
    1. Mao sought to become new leader of Int'l Communism after Stalin
    2. Conflict open by 1957, Soviet advisors suddenly recalled, 1960
      1. Qingdao conference (spring, 1958):  PM Zhou Enlai cancels Cyrillicization
  5. Great Leap Forward
    1. Origin in problem of rapid industrialization
      1. Stalin's solution:  collectives squeeze peasantry, invested in industry
        1. Centralization, one-man rule, alien to CCP exp., Mao's ideas
      2. Mao's new solution:  "Walking on both legs," decentralization
        1. Agriculture will develop without investment by sheer will
        2. Investment available for industry
    2. Inner Mongolia:  to promote autarchy administrative units expanded
      1. Collectives merged to form communes, herding + farming
      2. Nine major admin. changes, 1958-1960, some later reversed
        1. Ulaanchab broken up, Shili-yin Gool + Chakhar merged
        2. Country level mergers
          1. Tuquan + Khorchin RR
          2. Ongni'ud + Wudan
          3. Wudong and Dörben Kheükhed/Siziwang
      3. Mongol administrative separation>>major decline
    3. Great Leap Famine:  largest famine in modern history
      1. Effect on IM mostly indirect, huge wash of people
      2. 1958-9:  semi-planned immigration "supporting the border region"
      3. 1960 alone:  1,060,800 immigrants (famine refugees mostly)
      4. 1958-1960:  total immigration:  1,926,600
  6. Retrenchment
    1. Great Leap forward reversed, 1960, Mao Zedong resigns, embittered
      1. Communes retained in name, accounting units returned to brigades
      2. Some administrative amalgamations reversed
    2. After retrenchment, refugees emigrate back to China proper
      1. 1961-2:  689,900 persons net emigration
      2. Initial yields in farmed steppe good, after 2-3 year to-soil destroyed