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The Road to Urumchi: Approved Institutions in Search of Attainable Goals During Pre-1968 Rustication from Shanghai

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Lynn T. White III
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Extract

An old saw of administrative theory holds that the structure of any institution should be generated from the goals for which it was established. This is an ideal, a means by which leaders explain programmes to followers, and thus also a road to understanding for outsiders.

The dispatch of urban people to rural places in China is a plan that has often been analysed in terms of its aims, and it may throw light on the limits of usefulness of this approach to policy programmes in general. Rural resettlement, which contravenes the usual patterns of increasing urbanization in the economic development process, is not unique to the People's Republic of China. Cambodia and Vietnam have recently established major rustication schemes. Other examples can be traced back to earlier days in the Soviet, German and even the old Roman and Chinese empires. Israel has its kibbutzim. The philosopher Berkeley advised young men to go west, where large cities had not yet grown. The very breadth of the possible comparisons suggests a question: is this one institution or several?

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 79 , September 1979 , pp. 481 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1979

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References

1. Bernstein, Thomas P., Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

2. Derived from tables in ibid. pp. 25 and 32. See also pp. 2 and 24.

3. Some material relating to this purpose may be found in White, D. Gordon, “The politics of hsia-hsiang youth,” The China Quarterly (CQ), No. 59 (07–09 1974), pp. 491–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and in Gardner, John, “Educated youth and rural-urban inequalities, 1958–1966” in Lewis, John W. (ed.), The City in Communist China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), pp. 268–76Google Scholar. An early analysis was Lee, Rensselaer W. III, “The hsia-fang system: Marxism and moderation,” CQ, No. 28 (10–12 1966), pp. 40–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also more about motives for rustication in White, L., Careers in Shanghai: The Social Guidance of Personal Energies in a Developing Chinese City, 1949–1966 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

4. The main treatment of this purpose is Bernstein, Up to the Mountains, Chap. 5, pp. 172–241.

5. An important statement is Chen, Pi-chao, “Over-urbanization, rustication of urban educated youths, and the politics of rural transformation: the case of China,” Comparative Politics (04 1972), pp. 361–86Google Scholar.

6. Concerning relevant ideals and statements, see Hsia, T. A., A Terminological Study of the Hsia-fang Movement (Berkeley: University of California Center for Chinese Studies, 1963)Google Scholar.

7. Ivory, Paul E. and Lavely, William R., “Rustication, demographic change, and development in Shanghai,” Asian Survey, Vol. XVII, No. 5 (05 1977), pp. 440–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Banister, Judith, “Mortality, fertility, and contraceptive use in Shanghai,” CQ, No. 70 (06 1977), pp. 255–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. See Hu, Chang-tu et al. , China: Its People. Its Society, Its Culture (New Haven: HRAF Press, 1960), p. 419Google Scholar.

9. See the chapter on 20th-century economic development (by Ramon Myers and Lynn White) in Cyril E. Black et al., The Modernization of China (forthcoming). See also U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, China: Economic Indicators (Washington: CIA National Foreign Assessments Centre, 1977), p. 8Google Scholar.

10. Calculated from cohort sizes for 1977 (which should, because of mortality in the older ages, understate the point in the text) in U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, China, p. 7Google Scholar. The totals of groups becoming 18: 1966–75, 173 m.; 1956–65, 113 m.; 1946–55, 92 m.

11. Age-stratified population data for Shanghai are not available for years before 1971, and then only for Luwan, a south-central district that largely comprises residential areas inherited from the old “French Concession.” These data, like national statistics, show a decrease, below the 1925–30 cohorts' level, in cohorts born during the 22 years before 1952. But there is no way to prove from 1971 data whether low cohort sizes at birth, or age-selective effects of the household registration system, or pre- or post-1967 rustication, or other factors caused this decline. Luwan has much larger cohorts born in the middle and late 1950s than previously. See Victor W. Sidel, and Sidel, Ruth, Serve the People: Observations on Medicine in the People's Republic of China (New York: Josiah Macy, Jr, Foundation, 1973), p. 248Google Scholar.

12. Ch'ün-chung (The Masses), No. 31 (28 08 1947), p. 205Google Scholar and Shao-ch'üan, Wu, Tao nung-ts'un ch'ü (Going to the Villages) (Shanghai: Sheng-huo Shutien, 1947)Google Scholar.

13. Hongkong Standard, 8 August 1971.

14. Lao-tung pao (LTP) (Labour News), Shanghai, 25 July 1950, explains that the Unemployed Workers' Relief Committee ran its first registration drive from that date until 7 September.

15. LTP, 3 August 1950.

16. New China News Agency (NCNA), Shanghai, 26 July 1951.

17. Tso was Hunanese, like Tseng Kuo-fan; but most of his military activities took place in East China, especially Chekiang. China's Seward is mentioned in Li-ho, Tsang et al. , Chung-kuo jen-ming ta tz'u-tien (Encyclopaedia of Chinese Biographical Names) (Taipei: T'aiwan Shang-wu Yin-shu Kuan, 5th edition. 1972), p. 189Google Scholar.

18. NCNA, Shanghai, 14 July 1956.

19. Ch'ün-chung, No. 37 (9 10 1947), p. 17Google Scholar.

20. Hsin-wen jih-pao (HWJP) (News Daily), Shanghai, 4, 10, 11, 12, 17, 21 and 25 December 1957. Obviously, Shanghai's newspapermen made sure that Wuhu relations were adequately reported.

21. Author's interviews in Tientsin and Tsinan in 1976. On Fukien: this idea comes from an informal conversation with the expert on that province, Victor C. Falkenheim.

22. See Whitson, William W., The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics, 1927–71 (New York: Praeger, 1973), Chap. 2, pp. 101–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and esp. the charts and the map on pp. 120–21.

23. NCNA, Urumchi (then called Tihua), 18 04 and 21 March 1952Google Scholar.

24. Two interviews, Hong Kong, September and December 1969.

25. An interesting Cultural Revolution defence of these policies is “Comrade Wang Chen's accomplishments in Sinkiang cannot be depreciated!” Hsin nung ta (New Agriculture University), Peking, 10 05 1967Google Scholar.

26. Whitson, , High Command, p. 115Google Scholar. Wang Chen was criticized lightly in the Cultural Revolution, but by 1975 he was a vice-premier. He was one of the leaders at a National Conference on State Farms that closed in Peking on 25 January 1978.

27. Shanghai News, Shanghai, 21 September 1951.

28. Shanghai News, 23 December 1951.

29. The recent history of Shanghai's Muslim community largely revolves around Hui efforts to strengthen, and Han efforts to neutralize, the local Islamic Association. The fact that many Muslims were small shopkeepers did not help. One Hui, Chin Yu-yün, raised objections to socialization during 1957 and was branded a “rightist.” See more in NCNA, Shanghai, 9 June 1955, 10 July 1956, 29 September 1957, and 27 August 1962. Also HWJP, 22 August 1957, 29 April 1959, and 27 September 1963.

30. NCNA, Sian, 9 05 1955Google Scholar; and NCNA, Shanghai, 27 May 1955.

31. HWJP, 5 July 1955.

32. HWJP, 9 September 1955.

33. HWJP, 13 September 1955. The amalgamate Shanghai Transport Company was at that time an important new unit. This “Yün-shu kung-szu” was apparently developed parallel to the older Transport Union, “Pan-yün Kunghui.”

34. NCNA, Shanghai, 7 February 1956.

35. Disinvestment means that depreciation in the city exceeded new capital inflow – a rare economic event in a big place. See Chao, Kang, “Policies and performance in industry,” in Eckstein, A. et al. (eds), Economic Trends in Communist China (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), 558–59Google Scholar.

36. HWJP, 12 September 1955.

37. NCNA, Shanghai, 1 April 1956. See also Wen-hui Poo (WHP), Shanghai, 22 February 1956, and NCNA, 21 February 1956, on a group of young Shanghai school teachers in Kansu.

38. For more on this in earlier years, see White, “Changing concepts of corruption in Communist China: the case of Shanghai“ (forthcoming).

39. Chieh-fang jih-pao (CFJP) (Liberation Daily), Shanghai, 4 June 1956.

40. Strongly suggested in NCNA, Shanghai, 15 June 1956.

41. CFJP, 15 June 1956.

42. CFJP, 4 June 1956.

43. See LTP, 17 August 1956.

44. HWJP, 4 January 1957.

45. Ch'ing-nien poo (CNP) (Youth News), Shanghai, 1 January 1957.

46. CFJP, 19 November 1956, and Chieh-fang-chün pao (Liberation Army News), Peking, 25 12 1956Google Scholar.

47. CNP, 19 March 1957.

48. Cf. the important article from Kuang-ming jih-pao (KMJF) (Bright Daily), Peking, 7 10 1963Google Scholar.

49. See Breese, Gerald, Urbanization in Newly, Developing Countries (Engle-wood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1966), p. 135Google Scholar.

50. NCNA, Shanghai, 16 November 1955. See also Howe, Christopher, Urban Employment and Economic Growth in Communist China, 1949–1957 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 66Google Scholar.

51. Ibid.

52. CFJP, 2 August 1955.

53. Ibid. describes a meeting on July 29 in Fuhua Road Office of Ch'angning District, and a farewell party at the Sixteenth Street Office in Chapei District.

54 NCNA, Shanghai, 21 June 1955.

55. HWJP, 5 September 1955.

56. KMJP, 29 March 1956.

57. The absolute figures are from HWJP, 28 November 1956. Cf. also NCNA, Shanghai, 29 November 1956; and CFJP, 6 September 1956. The term “labour education and cultivation” (Jao-tung chiao-yang) is used as well as the more common “labour reform” (lao-tung kai-tsao).

58. HWJP, 17 January 1957.

59. HWJP, 8 January 1957.

60. HWJP, 23 July 1957.

61. HWJP, 13 October 1957.

62. LTP, 23 November 1957.

63. CFJP, 7 January 1958.

64. It was calculated that the total population in June 1956 was 6,080,000, and the increase during the next 12 months was about 791,000.

65 Hsü said that between June 1956 and October 1957 there had been a natural increase among temporary residents of 30,000, that the permanent residents rose by 820,000, and that the total registered rise had been 1,120,000. But at another place in his speech, he said that the total temporary-residents' increase for this same period had been 280,000 – and that the other components of total increase add up to 1,130,000, which is used here as the total instead of 1,120,000.

66. Calculated and derived from HWJP, 10 January 1958.

67. HWJP, 18 January 1958.

68. A wide-ranging article on this generalized “hsia-fang” is in LTP, 20 November 1957.

69. HWJP, 30 November 1957. Hsühui had been the centre of Roman Catholicism in China. The percentage is calculated as 145 cadres out of 180.

70. HWJP, 27 November 1957.

71. LTP, 30 November 1957.

72. Hsin-chiang jih-pao (HCJP) (Sinkiang Daily), Urumchi, 5 June 1957. See also HCJP, 29 June 1957.

73. HCJP, 13 and 19 September 1957. HCJP, 11 October 1957, reports on some rustications of top officials from Urumchi City to Sinkiang farms.

74. NCNA, Shanghai, 31 August 1956. The original idea seems to have been that Chiaot'ung's well-known name should be moved entirely to Sian, even if some of the faculty stayed in Shanghai to teach at a resuscitated “Nanyang Engineering College.” But this plan made too clear who was trying to fool whom. In the event, two “Chiaot'ung” universities were allowed.

75. HWJP, 21 June 1957.

76. HWJP, 20 June 1957. Other Chiaot'ung references can be found in HWJP, 23 June 1957 and 10 November 1957, and in NCNA, Shanghai, 14 Abril 1958. Also, NCNA, Sian, 6 March 1957. An intellectual ex-resident of Shanghai, interviewed in November 1969 in Hong Kong, and HWJP, 18 June 1957, both reported that Premier Chou En-lai met with Chiaot'ung professors privately, asking them to go to Sian for one or two months at least, to see how they liked the place. One professor, P'a n Chen-ts'ang, resigned in protest; HWJP, 18 August 1957.

77. WHP, 8 June 1959, and HWJP, 13 July 1957. A report on another Shanghai school's move to Sian is in HWJP, 6 November 1957.

78. For example cf. KMJP, 24 or 29 January or 27 February 1962.

79. NCNA, Urumchi, 17 January 1962.

80. Hsin-min wan-pao (HMWP) (New People's Evening News), Shanghai, 1 November 1963.

81. NCNA, Shanghai, 3 May 1964.

82. KMJP, 10 May 1965, reports that less than 2 per cent in the First Agricultural Division of youth from Shanghai were Party men, and even Youth League membership was less than 12 per cent. But 1966 witnessed an increase in the rate of honours: NCNA, Urumchi, 16 March 1966, Ta-kung pao, Hong Kong, 9 May 1966, and HMWP, 23 June 1966, indicate that more youths from the city were admitted to the local Party. See also Bernstein, , Up to the Mountains, p. 191Google Scholar, on the mid-1970s.

83. HMWP, 22 April 1964.

84. HMWP, 1 May 1964.

85. HMWP, 21 May 1964. On 28 May HMWP reported that Liu Yi-ts'un, a deputy director of the Political Bureau of the Army Group, met this contingent on arrival in Urumchi. Shen Hung-chüan (literally, Miss “Shen Redgirl”) gave a speech on behalf of the newly arrived volunteers.

86. This important meeting was reported by NCNA, Shanghai, 26 June 1964; by JMJP on 27 June; and on the front page of HMWP on 24 June.

87. HMWP, 4 July 1964.

88. Letter to the editor in HCJP, 6 January 1957; also HMWP, 14 May 1964.

89. HMWP, 15 May 1964.

90. Ibid. 11 April 1965 and 17 May 1964.

91. Ibid. 22 May 1964.

92. Ibid. 25 June 1966.

93. Ibid. 28 May 1964.

94. WHP, 28 July 1965.

95. See the stages of rustication reported in HMWP, 11, 20 and 30 June 1965. They all went to Aksu in Sinkiang, to work there together; the trip took eight days.

96. Interview, Hong Kong, December 1969.

97. White, , Careers in Shanghai, pp. 208–17Google Scholar.

98. “Shanghai Newsletter” column of South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 12 06 1965Google Scholar; written by a White Russian.

99. HMWP, 10 May 1964.

100. Ibid. 22 August 1964.

101. Ibid. 12 June 1965.

102. Ibid. 24 August 1964.

103. Ibid. 30 June 1964.

104. Ibid. 25 October 1964.

105. Ibid. 16 January 1965.

106. Ibid. 12 February 1964.

107. Ibid. 17 August 1965.

108. Ibid. 28 August 1964.

109. Ibid. 9 September 1964.

110. Ibid. 3 September and 8 December 1965, and Hsing-tao jih-pao (Singtao Daily), Hong Kong, 20 April 1966.

111. NCNA, Peking, 10 March 1966.

112. HMWP, 10 August 1965. See also the picture of Chou and youths at Shikotze (Shihhotzu), p. 175 in Hsu, Kai-yu, Chou En-lai: China's Grey Eminence (Garden City: Doubleday, 1968)Google Scholar.

113. A blow-by-blow summary is in the tabloid Jen-min chiao-ta (The People's Communications University), Sian, 12 November 1966.

114. HMWP, 22 June 1966, and Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien pao (China Youth News), Peking, 29 07 1966Google Scholar.

115 Ming pao and Hsing-tao jih-pao, Hong Kong, 2 06 1967Google Scholar.

116. WHP, 25 January 1967.

117. Interview, Hong Kong, December 1969.

118. WHP, 11 February 1967. Other examples are at WHP, 9, 12, and 19 February, and 17 March 1967; CFJP, 16 and 28 February 1967; Shanghai Radio, 28 June, 2 August and 9 September 1967; and WHP, 2 March 1968.

119. Ko-ming lou (Revolutionary Tower), Shanghai, 10 March 1967, “Brief Reference News” section.

120. WHP, 10 July and 17 August; CFJP, 27 December 1967.

121. WHP, 10 February 1967, and 21 September 1968.

122. Shanghai Radio, 9 June 1967.

123. WHP, 25 February 1967.

124. WHP, 7 June 1968.

125. WHP, 26 May 1968. This occurred in Hsühui District (Fenglin Road), a largely Roman Catholic area before 1949. The rumour's imagery may be affected by this tradition.

126. WHP, 25 May and 10 June 1968.

127. See WHP, 26 May 1968.

128. On a rustication to Kiangsi for 1968 spring ploughing only, see NCNA, Peking, 19 June 1968.

129. WHP, 10 August 1968.

130. Bernstein, , Up to the Mountains, p. 119Google Scholar, and a tentative suggestion in personal correspondence from Pi-chao Chen, based on his interviews in Shanghai.

131. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, China, p. 28Google Scholar.

132. Just before the Great Leap Forward, in early 1958, old First Field Army cadres assumed some startling positions: Yü Ch'iu-li became minister of the Petroleum Industries; and Wang Chen took (of all posts!) membership in the Sungari River Valley Planning Commission. See Klein, Donald W. and Clark, Anne B., Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Communism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), Vol 2, pp. 893 and 1019Google Scholar. Wang later represented Heilungkiang at a National People's Congress. Yü's post-1967 replacement in the Petroleum Ministry, K'ang Shih-en, is a younger cadre. See Chung-yen, Kao, Chung-kung jen-shih pien-tung (Changes of Personnel in Communist China) (Hong Kong: Yulien Yenchiu So, 1970), p. 304Google Scholar. But K'ang is apparently Yü's protégé; they appeared together at various functions in the mid-1970s. See also Whitson, , High Command, pp. 116–19Google Scholar.

133. Also see Ivory, and Lavely, , “Rustication,” p. 455Google Scholar.