China: Great Dragon Rising - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 297

Figure 11-1
This is Hohhot, the “Green City .” Hohhot has been
the capital of Inner Mongolia (Nei Menggu) since
1952. Part of Mao's decentralization and industri-
alization plans, the city now has more than
2 million residents. Hohhot is one of China' is most
polluted cities. These are workers' apartments.
Chimneys attest to the presence of industry , mostly
iron and steel and related products. Hohhot is
dominated by ethnic Chinese. Why do you think
this is the case? Photograph courtesy of
B. A. Weightman.

general mismanagement caused agricultural production
to actually decline.
Communization was expanded to include urban and
industrial regions (Figure 11-1). Collective living, public
eating halls, child-care centers, and the like, served work-
ers who were organized into brigades, battalions, and pla-
toons to produce every conceivable kind of output.
Everyone was to participate in industrialization.
Thousands of backyard steel furnaces sprang up across
the country . Production quotas were raised sky high, and
outputs burgeoned. However, quality was sacrificed for
quantity—in 1959, the government admitted that almost
a third of the steel made was unfit for industrial use.

This conflict led to the withdrawal of Soviet
technicians—along with tools, supplies, and blueprints—
in 1959. China, determined to go it alone, successfully
completed the major construction projects. In 1964, China
exploded its first atomic device in Xinjiang. However, all
was not well. Bad weather, poor harvests, and the departure
of the Soviets created severe economic dislocations.
Overall, the Great Leap Forward was a disaster for
China. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, dis-
tribution systems became dysfunctional, and products
were shoddy and useless. Most serious was the fact that
famine and disease swept the countryside, resulting in
anywhere from 14 million to 26 million deaths between
1959 and 1961.

SINO-SOVIET SPLIT
The problematic circumstances of the Great Leap For-
ward were compounded by the Sino-Soviet split. A formal
Moscow-Beijing axis had been established in 1950, and
thousands of Soviet scientists, technicians, and advisors
were sent to the PRC. In 1957, the Soviets agreed to help
China in its nuclear development. It sent the Chinese a
heavy water reactor the following year. But by the end of
the decade, strains were evident in the relationship.
The Sino-Soviet pact, once described as “lasting, un-
breakable, and invincible,” degenerated into a bitter ide-
ological and territorial dispute. While Mao counted on
the rural masses as the basis for communist transforma-
tion, Soviet Marxists scorned their potential, stressing
the importance of the urban proletariat in organizing the
revolution. Disagreement over the path of international
communism meant that Mao was challenging Soviet
hegemony over the movement.

GREAT PROLETARIAN
CUL TURAL REVOLUTION
The Great Leap Forward, communes, and the Sino-Soviet
rift fomented dissension in the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP). Some members questioned the wisdom of cam-
paigns stressing “redness” over technological expertise.
Others held that Soviet aid was essential for continued
economic, military , and scientific development. In 1966,
ideologies collided in the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution —a giant social, political, and cultural upheaval.
Pure communization in agriculture was altered, with
a policy of “Three Privates and One Guarantee.” This al-
lowed peasants to cultivate their own plots (about 5 per-
cent of the arable land), operate private handicraft
enterprises, and sell their products at rural free markets.
The One Guarantee called for the fulfillment of agricul-
tural quotas set by the government.