Word: communes
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...came at a time when Peking's leaders are admitting that despite boasts of great success in increasing food production, Chinese agriculture in general is beset by far more problems than most Western analysts have realized. TIME'S Peking bureau chief, Richard Bernstein, recently visited another showcase commune that has fulfilled all the claims made by Peking. He then inspected a very different kind of commune that offered ample evidence of the failures of Chinese agriculture. His report...
...scene is like a calendar photograph displaying the splendors of rural life. At the Jin Ma (Golden Horse) commune on the lush Chengdu Plain of Sichuan province, the well-watered rice fields are emerald green. Thatch houses are surrounded by luxuriant clumps of bamboo and persimmon. Hundreds of teen-agers work at a prosperous collective silk-spinning plant near by. The peasants have radios, watches, bicycles, money in the bank, food on the table. Some of them treasure framed red certificates, whose bold black characters commend them for having achieved "wealth through diligent labor." Clearly, the Jin Ma commune...
Indeed, only 100 miles to the southwest of Jin Ma, in one of the province's many hilly regions, the picture is far different. On the remote Long Chi (Dragon's Pond) commune, perched on the lower slopes of 9,000-ft-high Mount Emei, the soil is rocky and dry. Farming is confined to low-yielding terraces that have been carved out of the hills and planted primarily with corn. Peasant incomes are one-third of those on the wealthy Jin Ma commune; they average $44 a year, more than half of which is distributed in grain...
...pattern of such poverty remains widespread; in many regions farm life is even harsher than on Long Chi commune. The most startling revelation in a series of remarkably candid press stories in recent months is that in three decades of rule, the Communist regime has barely begun to improve the lot of a vast number of its peasants. Some regions in the chronically poor provinces such as hilly Guizhou, arid Gansu or often flooded Shandong have not had a single good year since collectivization began in the late 1950s. According to one article, a quarter of the rural population...
...propounded by Hua following his accession to power in 1976 are being discredited. His much publicized slogan, "Speed up socialist modernization," has been replaced by "Haste makes waste." Earlier goals set by Hua for rapid agricultural growth have been revised or abandoned. A model work brigade on a Shanxi commune that he had so zealously promoted has been exposed as having faked production figures (see following story...