1957.12 红色中国

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红色中国
1957年12月号
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在1956年9月召开的中国共产党第八次全国代表大会上，周恩来总理指出，红色中国向现代工业化国家过渡所需的基本任务将于1967年完成。


提出将一个拥有6.4亿人口的国家（其中约5.5亿是农民）转变为一个现代工业国家，这本身就是一个大胆的设想，但期望在十年内完成这项艰巨的工作，则更是如此。今年将看到第一个五年计划的完成，从目前的结果来看，有可能对红色中国在工业化道路上的进展以及它在这个宏伟计划中的成功机会作出估计。

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在试图评估共产党的计划及其执行程度时，出现了某些事实。首先，根据将于今年完成的第一个五年计划，已经取得了非常大的进展。在满洲里，共产党人在日本人留下的现有工业综合体--发电厂、铁路、港口设施、工厂和船坞的基础上，重建了被破坏的工厂，翻新和扩大了现有设施，并重新补充了被苏联 "解放者 "掠夺的设施。

中国人在汉口用一个3700码长的巨型双层跨栏桥架起了长江，并重新启动了鞍山钢铁厂，该厂已经有64家运营的工厂，并计划在1960年前再建42家。鞍山还有一个无缝钢管厂，一位来访的德国工程师对该厂的生产效率和展示的技术能力程度表示惊讶。


满洲里，中国的鲁尔
在满洲里，抚顺煤矿（日本入侵的主要原因之一）提供了充足的煤炭，俄罗斯建造的丰满发电机和鸭绿江水电站为现有的工业提供了充足的电力，并为任何新的发展提供了可观的剩余。

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在长春有一家汽车厂，根据党的宣传人员的说法，每年生产3万辆 "解放 "卡车。每年有3万辆 "解放 "牌卡车，在穆克登和哈尔滨有米格喷气式轻型飞机组装厂。在中国的匹兹堡，穆克登还拥有机床厂、涡轮机和变压器厂以及重要的军工厂；在戴仁，船坞正忙于建造货船、小型油轮和其他船只，在这里，中国第一台自主设计的机车已经投入生产；在上海，船坞正在生产小型货船、拖船、打火机和驳船，以及苏联设计的U型船和红色海军的机动鱼雷艇。

但满洲里不是唯一的工业综合体。在那里，工业大大集中在沿海的一个巨大区域。两个新的工业中心正在建设中，一个在汉口，另一个在内蒙古的包头。这两个中心将成为重工业的中心，每个中心都围绕着鞍山模式的综合钢铁厂，而上海、天津、广州和其他城市将集中于消费品和轻型机械的生产。

为了建立所设想的巨大工业，红色中国正在到处推动勘探，特别是在西部和西北部的荒地上，在甘肃、青海、新疆，以及现在的西藏。实际上，工人大军，有些是由复员军人组成的，有些是被强制劳动 "改造 "的 "反革命"，正在油田工作，推动公路穿越沙漠和山脉，疯狂地扩展铁路，他们声称，其中一条铁路将最终到达新疆首府乌鲁木齐，并从那里与苏联境内的突厥铁路连接起来。


数以百计的地质学家、科学家和采矿工程师团队正在这些地区搜寻煤炭、石油、铁矿石和其他金属。铀当然是一个首要目标，最近从中国回来的日本科学家报告说，已经发现了几个含铀的矿石。

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寻找原材料
没有更多的原材料，中国的潜在工业化就会受到非常严格的限制。这个国家的石油非常少，即使它现在有足够的石油，如煤、木材和铝土矿，这些原材料还不能按计划工业所需的数量进行运输，以提供足够的原材料。除了锡和锑之外，没有足够的铁矿石或有色金属来供应任何巨大的工业扩张，因此，人们希望能够找到大量新的原材料来源。

中国人对柴达木和准噶尔盆地的油田抱有很大的期望，为了处理这些油田的石油，在黄河边的兰州，一个新的炼油厂即将完工。这个炼油厂应该每年处理一百万吨原油，但由于远西铁路的建设暂时停顿，从油田到炼油厂的原油运输问题还没有解决。在这个炼油厂附近，苏联工程师建立了一个机床工厂，为油田生产钻头、挖掘机械和钻机。


中国的新工厂也是培训机构，因为技术知识可能是比缺乏资源更严重的瓶颈。

现任政府认识到了这一事实，并制定了一个在国内外培训科学家和工程师的12年计划，但毫无疑问，红色中国在未来很长一段时间内将在很大程度上依赖外国技术援助；当然，这也是一个巨大的弱点。

过多，过快
向外国游客展示的模型工厂是真实的，但没有人被告知真实的产量、废品率、生产成本、材料的浪费、产品的最终质量。

有能力的观察家认为，中国只能够生产非常少量的高速钢或特种钢。没有石油化学工业；冶金工业很简陋，高精密仪器几乎不存在，尽管东德人现在正在西安城外建造一个巨大的新中央精密仪器厂；几乎没有先进的电子工业。


毛泽东和周恩来都承认，计划是不好的，开始了太多雄心勃勃的计划，导致了浪费和低效率。毛泽东最近指出，重点应该从大型重工业转向小型单位，转向发展中小型工业；换句话说，就是要做中国人知道如何做的事。当然，在1955年和1956年，他们试图做得太快了，经济遭受了非常明显的挫折。

情况如此严重，以至于周恩来在1957年6月举行的全国人民代表大会上不得不勉强承认，政府的无能导致了巨大的预算赤字，这主要是由于基本建设的过度支出、糟糕的管理和糟糕的计划。此外，多年来最严重的台风和洪水使7000多万人陷入贫困，4000万亩耕地被淹没，结果是政府不得不释放大量囤积的粮食，并花费大量现金以缓解灾区的饥荒。除此之外，消费品变得短缺，某些外国物资没有运到，事实上，所有物资的短缺造成了工业生产和日常用品供应的紧张。最后，周恩来承认，前些年的所有积蓄都用在了大量的建筑工程和救济款上，这使预算严重亏损。


去年夏天，本来就不充足的服装券被减少到购买价值的一半，此后又在更严格的配给制度下进一步减少，这显然是棉花作物的失败。

前往中国的游客报告说，各种形式的运输工具、机械和零部件；航空汽油、喷气燃料和柴油都严重短缺。兰州的新炼油厂据说几乎无法运作，因为只有少量的原油运到；汽车厂大幅减产，拖拉机厂不得不停止生产，因为没有柴油驱动它们。外贸也令人失望，因为出口和进口都被削减了，但根据1957年的预算计划，它们将被进一步削减。只允许第一优先级的进口，这将有效地抑制那些手里拿着订单赶到中国的日本人和其他国家的热情。

紧缩政策：新模式
中国1957-1958年的预算将是一个严峻的紧缩模式，以试图挽回1956年的损失，并将中国人从经济流沙中拉出来。每项开支都要减少，新的建设也不鼓励。人民将减少消费，并减少主要商品的收入。税收要增加，衣服要减少，工资不增加，每个人的生活要更艰难。在大会上的经济报告中，财政部长概述了所有这些令人不快的计划，但是，他评论说，尽管一些刻薄的批评家说五年计划被搞砸了，但周总理本人却极力否认。


必须记住，中国伟大的工业发展在很大程度上依赖于美国-苏联提供的信贷、技术人员和材料。最近有证据表明，中国共产党人没有得到他们希望的那么多援助，而且俄罗斯对实施第二个五年计划的要求也没有表现出什么热情。

天堂变暗
很明显，党的宣传员长期承诺的农民的天堂在很大程度上没有实现，人们普遍有怨言。"党进城后忘记了农民 "这句话变得如此流行，以至于不得不由毛泽东本人在一份长篇报告中正式否认。也有证据表明，农民在强制性的国家合作制度下坐立不安，阻挠交货，并故意欺骗他们的新主人。

即使在城市，一些工人也发现共产主义并不是他们所希望的天堂，有报道称一些工厂发生了罢工和减速战术，甚至发生了对党内老板的暴力事件。失业率上升，承诺的生活水平的提高也没有实现。


原本支持党的知识分子现在公开批评，并成为谴责的主要对象。官方公布的政策 "百花齐放，百家争鸣！"所产生的反应显然比想象的要大，因为一些有影响力的人发出了令人吃惊的批评声，对党的路线造成了损害，以至于不得不对该政策进行 "重新解释"。对于那些误以为毛泽东和党至少会允许（如果不是听取）反对意见而轻率地沉溺于批评的人进行了严厉的打击。当然，声明中暗示的自由讨论的承诺对那些上当受骗并提出批评的人来说是适得其反，因为他们现在似乎受到了比以往更大的压制。



Red China
DECEMBER 1957 ISSUE
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AT THE Eighth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party held in September, 1956, Premier Chou En-lai stated that the basic tasks required for Red China’s transition to a modern industrialized state would be completed by 1967.


To propose to convert a country of 640 million of whom about 550 million are peasant farmers into a modern industrial state is alone an audacious conception, but to expect to complete this Herculean job in ten years is even more so. This year will see the completion of the First Five Year Plan, and from the results so far it is possible to arrive at an estimate of Red China’s progress on the road to industrialization and its chances for success in this grandiose scheme.

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In attempting to evaluate the Communist plans and the extent of their execution certain facts have appeared. First of all. under the First Five Year Plan, to be completed this year, very considerable progress has been made. In Manchuria the Communists, admittedly building upon the existing complex of industry left behind by the Japanese — the power plants, railways, harbor facilities, factories, and dockyards have rebuilt the damaged factories, renovated and enlarged the existing facilities, and restocked those plundered by the Soviet “liberators.”

The Chinese have bridged the Yangtze at Hankow with a giant 3700-yard-long doubledecked span and have reactivated the Anshan Iron and Steel Works, which already has 64 operating factories and plans to build 42 more by 1960. At Anshan there is also a seamless steeltube plant where a visiting German engineer confessed surprise at the efficiency of production and the degree of technical ability demonstrated.


Manchuria, the Chinese Ruhr
In Manchuria the Fushun collieries, one of the major causes of the Japanese incursion, supply adequate coal, and the Russian-built generators of Fengman and the Yalu River hydroelectric stations supply plenty of power for the existing industries with a handsome surplus for any new developments.

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At Changchun there is a car factory producing, according to the Party propagandists. 30,000 “Liberation” trucks per year, and at Mukden and Harbin there are MIG jet lighter aircraft assembly plants. Mukden, the Pittsburgh of China, also boasts machine tool plants, turbine and transformer factories, and important armament works; at Dairen the dockyards are busily constructing cargo vessels, small tankers, and other vessels, and here China’s first home-designed locomotives have gone into production; at Shanghai the yards are turning out small freighters, tugs, lighters, and barges as well as Soviet-designed U-boats and motor-torpedo boats for the Red Navy.

But Manchuria is not the only industrial complex. There, industry is greatly concentrated in one huge area on the coast. Two new industrial centers are under construction, one at Hankow and the other in Inner Mongolia at Paotow. These are to be centers of heavy industry, each grouped around an integrated iron and steel plant on the Anshan model, while Shanghai, Tientsin, Canton, and other cities are to concentrate on the production of consumer goods and light machinery.

In order to build the huge industries envisaged, Red China is pushing exploration everywhere and particularly in the wild lands of the West and Northwest, in Kansu, Tsinghai, Sinkiang, and now Tibet. Literally armies of workers, some made up of regiments of demobilized troops, others of “counterrevolutionaries" being “remolded” by enforced labor, are working in the oil fields, pushing roads across the deserts and over the mountains, and feverishly extending the railways, one of which will, they claim, ultimately reach Urumchi, the capital of Sinkiang, and from there link up with the Turksib Railway inside the Soviet Union.


Hundreds of teams of geologists, scientists, and mining engineers are scouring these areas for coal, oil, iron ores, and other metals. Uranium is of course a prime goal, and Japanese scientists, recently returned from China, report that several uranium-bearing ores have been discovered.

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Without more raw materials the potential industrialization of China is very rigidly constricted. The country has very little oil, and even where it has a sufficiency now, such as in coal, timber, and bauxite, these raw materials cannot yet be transported in the quantities needed to provide enough for the planned industry. There is not enough iron ore, or nonferrous metals except tin and antimony, to supply any great expansion of industry, and in consequence the hope is that vast new sources of raw materials will be found.

The Chinese have great expectations for the oil fields in the Tsaidam and Dzungaria basins and, to handle the oil from these fields, a new refinery is nearing completion at Lanchow on the Yellow River. This refinery is supposed to process one million tons of crude per year, but with construction on the Far West railways temporarily at a standstill, the problem of transporting the crude from field to refinery has yet to be solved. Near this refinery Soviet engineers have built a machine tool factory to produce drills, digging machinery, and rigs for the oil fields.


China’s new factories are also training institutions, since technical know-how is perhaps an even greater bottleneck than lack of resources.

The present government recognized this fact and established a twelveyear plan for the training of scientists and engineers, both at home and abroad, but there is no doubt that Red China will be largely dependent on foreign technical aid for a very long time to come; and herein of course lies one great weakness.

Too much, too soon
The model factories shown to foreign visitors are real, but no one is told the true output, the rate of rejections, the costs of production, the wastage of material, the ultimate quality of the products.

Competent observers believe that China is capable of producing only very small quantities of high speed steel or special steels. There is no petrochemical industry; the metallurgical industry is rudimentary and high precision instruments are virtually nonexistent, though a great new central precision instrument factory is now being built by the East Germans outside of Sian; there is almost no advanced electronic industry.


Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai have admitted that planning has been bad, that there were too many ambitious schemes started which resulted in waste and inefficiency. Mao recently stated that the emphasis should be changed from large heavy industry to smaller units, to the development of smalland medium-sized industry; in other words, to do what the Chinese know how to do. Certainly in 1955 and 1956 they tried to do too much too quickly and the economy suffered a very decided setback.

It was so grave that Chou En-lai reluctantly had to admit at the National People’s Congress held in June, 1957, that government ineptitude had resulted in a huge budget deficit, mainly due to excessive spending for capital construction, bad management, and bad planning. Added to this, the worst typhoons and floods in many years impoverished over 70 million people and inundated 40 million acres of arable land, with the result that the government was compelled to release huge quantities of hoarded grains and to spend large amounts of cash in order to relieve the famine in the stricken areas. On top of all this, consumer goods became short, certain foreign materials did not arrive, and, in fact, a shortage of all supplies caused tensions both in industrial production and in the supply of daily necessities. Finally, Chou En-lai admitted, all the savings of former years had been used up in the vast amount of building and on payments for relief, and this had put the budget badly in the red.


It was apparent that the cotton crop had failed by the fact that clothing coupons, already inadequate, were reduced last summer to one half their purchase value and have been further reduced since, under more stringent rationing.

Visitors to China reported grave shortages in all forms of transportation, machinery, and parts; in aviation gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel. The new refinery at Lanchow was said to be virtually inoperative, since only a trickle of crude had arrived; the automobile plants had cut production drastically and the tractor factories had to stop turning out units, as there was no diesel fuel to drive them. Foreign trade also was disappointing as both exports and imports were curtailed, but under the 1957 budget plan they will be even further reduced. Only firstpriority imports will be permitted, which will effectively dampen the ardor of those Japanese and others who have rushed over to China with order books in their hands.

Austerity: new model
China’s budget for 1957—1958 is to be a model of grim austerity, in order to try to recoup the losses of 1956 and to pull the Chinese out of the economic quicksand. Every expense is to be reduced and new construction discouraged. The people are to spend less and to receive less in staple goods. There are to be higher taxes, fewer clothes, no wage increases, and a harder life for everybody. In his economic report at the Congress, the finance minister outlined all these unpalatable plans, but, he commented, although some carping critics had said that the Five Year Plan had been bungled, Premier Chou himself had vigorously denied this.


It must be remembered that China’s great industrial developments are largely dependent on the credits, technicians, and materials provided by the U.S.S.R. Recently there has been evidence that the Chinese Communists are not getting quite as much aid as they had hoped for and that Russia is showing little enthusiasm for the demands to implement the Second Five Year Plan.

Paradise dimmed
It has become obvious that the heaven for the peasant farmer, long promised by the Party propagandists, has largely failed to materialize, and there are widespread grumblings. The phrase “the Party forgot the peasants when it entered the towns” became so current that it had to be officially denied in a long report by Mao himself. Also there is evidence that the farmers are restless under the compulsory state coöperative system, are obstructing deliveries, and are deliberately trying to cheat their new masters.

Even in the cities, some workers are finding that Communism is not the paradise they had hoped for, and there have been reports of strikes and slowdown tactics in several factories and even cases of violence to the Party bosses. Unemployment has increased, and the promised improvement in the standard of living has not materialized.


The intellectuals who originally gave their support to the Party are now openly critical and have become the chief target for condemnation. The official published policy, “Let 100 flowers blossom and 100 schools of thought contend!" apparently produced more of a reaction than was bargained for, since a surprising number of influential voices were raised in criticisms so damaging to the Party line that the policy had to be “re-explained.” There has been a harsh clamp-down on those who were gullible enough to indulge in criticism in the mistaken belief that Mao and the Party would at least permit, if not listen to, adverse comment. Certainly the promise of free discussion implied in the statement backfired upon those who fell for it and voiced their criticisms, since they now seem to be in for greater repressions than ever.