Author: Arvind Panagariya
Publication: The Times of India
Date: February 6, 2010
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/A-Tale-Of-Two-Trajectories/articleshow/5540022.cms
Introduction: To understand the relative achievements
of India And China, look at the pre-1980s decades
India-China comparisons often take 1980 or
a later year as the starting point. But a balanced understanding of the relative
achievements of the two countries requires a look at prior decades as well.
Chairman Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic
of China (PRC) in 1949, establishing the Communist Party of China (CPC) as
the sole authority. Approximately around the same time, India opted for a
democratic regime under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
While most Indians have a good idea of what democracy delivered to them between
1950 and 1980, they perhaps know far less about China. Today, it is commonplace
to argue that the Chinese economy is performing better because authoritarianism
allows its government to be more effective. But few observers care to record
the gigantic failures of the same authoritarianism in the early decades.
Industry and agriculture in China made progress
similar to that in India in the early years of the PRC. Indeed, China was
far more successful in land redistribution that quickly equalised ownership
of arable land across households. On the industrial front, it set up several
major factories with large-scale Soviet assistance.
Then, in 1958, Mao decided that China had
to massively mobilise its workers to speed up agricultural and industrial
development. He launched the so-called "Long Leap Forward", calling
for the conversion of collective farms into gigantic "people's communes".
By end-1958, party cadres had created 24,000 communes out of 753,000 collective
farms. Each commune consisted of 5,000 households, 10,000 workers and 10,000
acres of cultivable land.
The communes were to engage in local industrial
production, giant irrigation and construction projects, rural schooling and
organisation of local militia. Consistent with Mao's disdain for intellectuals,
ideological purity was to take precedence over technical expertise. The result
was the adoption of unscientific "innovative" methods of cultivation
such as close cropping and deep plowing to produce grain, and setting up of
backyard furnaces to produce steel. Furthermore, factories were encouraged
to move to the countryside to give farmers first-hand factory experience.
The "Leap" proved a disaster. Diversion
of peasants to non-agricultural activities, unscientific methods of cultivation,
breakdown of the traditional incentive system and diseconomies of large communes
combined with bad weather led to an economic debacle. Grain output sharply
fell in 1959 and 1960 and made no recovery in 1961. Nevertheless, to show
to higher authorities that the Leap was succeeding, local party cadres went
on to file inflated output reports. The reports, in turn, led the central
and provincial authorities to procure vast quantities of grain to supply towns
and cities. Keen to demonstrate to the outside world that the Leap was a success,
Mao also saw to it that significant quantities of grain were procured for
export.
Such vast procurements in the face of poor
crops led to massive food shortage in the countryside. From 1959 to 1961,
China witnessed the worst famine mankind has known. Though little of this
calamity became known to the outside world at the time, we now know that the
famine killed as many as 20 to 30 million people.
The failure of the Leap temporarily weakened
Mao and strengthened pragmatists Liu Shaoqi, president, PRC, and Deng Xiaoping,
general secretary, CPC. They went on to reverse the policies of the Leap with
happy results. By 1965, agriculture and industry had recovered to their 1957
levels. But Mao and other radicals disapproved of this revisionism and struck
back with the so-called "Cultural Revolution" in 1966.
Mao mobilised the youth, mainly high school
and college students, asking them to join the Red Guard and attack the four
'olds': old customs, old habits, old culture and old thinking. While public
humiliation was to be the commonest punishment for those identified as carriers
of 'old' elements, the Red Guard often went far beyond it, engaging in destruction,
physical abuse and killings.
Distinguished historian Jonathan Spence provides
a graphic description of the destruction and death the Cultural Revolution
wrought. "With all schools and colleges closed for the staging of revolutionary
struggle, millions of the young were encouraged by the Cultural Revolution's
leaders to demolish the old buildings, temples, and art objects in their towns
and villages, and to attack their teachers, school administrators, party leaders,
and parents." Spence adds, "With the euphoria, fear, excitement,
and tension that gripped the country, violence grew apace. Thousands of intellectuals
and others were beaten to death or died of injuries. Countless others committed
suicide...Thousands more were imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, for
years. Millions were relocated to purify themselves through labour in the
countryside."
Liu Shaoqi was purged and killed in 1969.
Deng Xiaoping was also purged but miraculously survived. He would later reemerge,
be purged again and reemerge to launch China's open-door policy. But the ghost
of Mao would forever haunt China: it would be Mao's large-size portrait and
not Deng's that would hang on top of Tiananmen. Gmail accounts of Chinese
dissidents would be attacked. And, even as late as 2010, CPC cells would sprout
in private businesses. Will such a China smoothly transition to democracy?
- The writer is a professor at Columbia University.
