Word: po
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first clear confession was made by Vice Premier Li Hsien-nien, who reported that because of "a decline in revenue from the agricultural tax," Red China last year suffered its first budget deficit-about $750 million. Next came Vice Premier Po Ipo, with the bad news that the 1956 crop failure, not only the worst since the Reds took over but the "worst in decades" (TIME, May 13), had gummed up Mao's entire industrialization program...
...admitted Po, the value of Red China's industrial output will jump only 4.5% instead of the much-heralded 15%. Worse yet, "because China's agriculture is still lagging behind the needs of the people," exports of foodstuffs will be cut 22% this year. Since the bulk of China's capital goods is imported, and paid for with agricultural exports, this could have only one consequence. "In import plans," Po went on blandly, "major reductions have been made in the amount of general machinery and transport equipment, to provide incentive to our own machine-building industry...
...rich, black loam of Italy's Po River Valley is fertile soil for the seeds of discontent. There, in a densely overpopulated farmland whose every square mile must support 470 people, 80,000 field hands seek work on a puny 132,000 acres of farmland, get their wages-if any-in the wheat and sugar-beet yield of the land itself. With holdings averaging 20 acres or less apiece, the farmers are themselves poor, bitter, hard pressed. For years the richest harvest reaped in the Valley has been one of violence, distrust and hatred...
Last April, seeking a likely spot to resow the seeds of class warfare after their failures in industry, Italy's Communists turned their attention to the Po Valley farm workers. "Why should you leave the land where you were born?" they asked. "Stay and fight for your heritage...
...farm hands in the district were refusing to work, either in sympathy with the Communist cause or in fear of Communist bullyboys. Red big shots poured into the district to pour oratorical fuel on the flames. Czechoslovakia's Prague radio chimed in across the air waves urging the Po strikers...