The Communist Fight for Sustainable Development

This article is the latest in a series written by a comrade who grew up in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the fledgling Progressive Labor Party were fraternal parties at the time. The GPCR marked a turning point in China, as more than 40 million workers, peasants, soldiers and youth fought to defeat the “capitalist roaders” and protect the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The GPCR and socialism were ultimately defeated, in part out of a failure to break with the CCP, as PLP ultimately did, and form a new communist party. But mainly socialism was defeated because it maintained too many aspects of capitalism. In particular, the use of money and wages helped sow a division between workers and peasants on the one hand, and professionals and intellectuals on the other. After the defeat of the GPCR, China went full speed ahead down the capitalist road. Today it has emerged as the main imperialist challenger to U.S. imperialism.
This article reflects the tremendous gains made by the Chinese revolution, as well as a glimpse of the material incentives and wage differences that ultimately undid those historic advances.
 
In its quest for maximum profits, global capitalism has long been destroying the environment. This wholesale damage has sparked a movement for “sustainable development.” The term was coined by the United Nations’ 1987 Brundtland Report, which defined it as development that meets the needs of the current generation without undermining future generations’ ability to meet their needs. Five years later, the UN called on every nation to develop new plans for 21st-century development.
But since all capitalists must grow or die, the last two decades have proven that this system has no room for sustainable development.
The rich and powerful are always after more wealth, while the poor often struggle to get three meals a day. If we are serious about sustainable development, the world must look for a solution outside the capitalist system.
I grew up on a collective farm in rural Shandong, China. The thousand people in my village were divided into eight production teams of about 30 households and 120 people. Each team collectively owned about 13 acres of land, where we grew everything we needed to survive.  During idle times, the children went to school and adults tended the land. In busy times of harvesting and planting, school would close on Wednesday, Friday afternoon and Sunday, and children worked alongside adults. Like every other child in my village, I started in the fields when I was nine years old, getting paid in work points. My first year, I was paid 5.7 points, whereas adults made 10. Adults carried water on their shoulders from the river, and children would water the plants with ladles; adults dug field ditches, and we would plant and cover seeds inside them. In socialist China, everyone worked together to get things done — male and female, old and young.
Waste Not, Want Not
Most of what we grew, 70 percent of the grains and vegetables — were divided among the families in the production team — based on need. Bigger families received more than smaller ones. Regardless of whether people worked in the fields, everybody received their share. The remaining 30 percent was distributed according to work points or wages. People who worked more would earn more points and receive more foodstuffs. Families could earn additional points by collecting ashes and human and animal waste, and fermenting them into fertilizer. Nutrients were efficiently recycled to the soil. We wasted nothing.
The production team paid taxes to the state collectively, about ten pounds of grain per mu [.16 acres], or about 800 pounds each year. If we had any surplus, we were encouraged to sell it to the state first.  When we had a poor harvest, we could buy grain in the spring from the state-run granary for one or two cents more than our selling price. The state also guaranteed farmers at least 16 square feet of cotton cloth at a few cents a square foot to ensure they could have new clothes each year. Well-off farmers could buy more cloth at a higher price.
We produced about forty varieties of grain and vegetables, mostly for our own consumption. We bought cooking oils, farming tools, matches, liquor, vinegar, wine, soap, rope, clothes, and shoes from the state-owned shops and free markets. Under socialism, state-owned enterprises didn’t need lavish packaging to compete. We bought vinegar, liquor and wine to go into our own bottles. We bought matches in bulk. Everything was recycled. People would pick up pieces of glass, metal, paper, rubber and plastic, and sell them to the recycling stations. Our village, like all of China, lived a waste-free lifestyle.
Socialist Health Care: Rx for Equality
The village built its own school and hired its own teachers. Tuition was free for all children, who learned a curriculum relevant to their lives. Teachers earned work points, much as farmers did.
 Farmers had free medical care, though we had no well-trained doctors in the rural areas and no sophisticated pharmaceuticals. Each village sent a high-school graduate off for six months’ training in an army hospital. They came back to the villages as “barefoot” doctors, people who lived and worked like village farmers. After the first barefoot doctor returned, a second high school graduate was sent off. By the time I left my village for college, in 1978, we had four barefoot doctors serving about 1,500 people. They were on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When barefoot doctors could not handle a medical problem, they referred patients to the commune or county people’s hospital, where the cooperative medical system paid their expenses.
 Many dismiss the barefoot doctors, but I disagree. Despite their minimal training, they constantly bettered themselves on and off duty. They knew their patients and families well and cared deeply for them, which made a big difference. For example: my father worked for the government at the time and enjoyed free, state-provided medical care in a large hospital. Even so, he preferred to see our barefoot doctors.
Chinese Communists Made Historic Advances for Workers
At the time, many uprooted farmers in India, Brazil and Mexico ended up in the slums, where living conditions were horrible and crime rampant. But under socialism, collective farms provided free medical care and free education to farmers. China was the only major country to avoid large-scale urban migration in the 1950’s and 1960’s — and the high environmental costs that come with it. With urbanization, supplies must be shipped and heavily packaged, creating lots of waste. Chinese farmers who grew their own food generated very little waste, and what there was could be disposed of locally with minimal environmental impact.
Different people can make different judgments about China under socialism.  But it is undeniable that the Chinese made huge progress during the socialist experiments. Chinese life expectancy soared from 35 years in 1952 to 69 years in 1976, an advance unmatched in human history. By contrast, India had the same life expectancy, 35 years, in 1952. By 1976, it had increased only to 50 years.
Though a very poor country, China was able to provide all its people — rich or poor, urban or rural, mental or manual laborers — with free education and medical care. In terms of living standards, the gaps between these groups were small.
In light of the environmental degradation in capitalist countries in the West, development experts at the UN had good reason to call China the hope of the human race. We must remember that recent history contains a model of sustainable development — under socialism.

Comments

[Salasian Torghof]

This article was actually very helpful in giving a concrete picture of what life was like in the peoples communes. This article should be much more heavily promoted to educate people. Thank you for including it.