Posted on 03/31/2011 10:07:52 AM PDT by ancientart
In 1958, Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched his “Great Leap Forward,” a plan to radically change the economy of China.
Mao and his central planners cooked up an imaginative scheme designed to increase industrial and agricultural production and to make China into a workers' paradise.
In agriculture, especially, there would be dramatic changes. Farms would be collectivized instead of left to individual farmers. By adopting new, scientific, government-approved approaches to farming, the collectives would be able to ensure record harvests year after year.
To bring about collectivization farmers were held for hour upon hour until they “voluntarily” agreed to join the collectives and adopt the new methods. Plant the land with twice as much seed as normal, they were told. Plow 6 feet deep to allow more room for roots. Use all your fertilizer and manpower on the most productive land and leave the rest unplanted. Better yields for sure!
The farmers knew better. But the first rule of bureaucracy is that the bosses are always right, and, if the bosses are wrong, see rule one.
Throughout China, collective farm managers and local officials were under tremendous pressure to show that the Great Leap was a success and that agricultural yields were improving dramatically. Naturally enough, they did what minor bureaucrats always do in such circumstances. They lied. Agricultural production was dropping, but local officials submitted reports claiming record harvests: yields four, five or even 10 times the size of any earlier harvests.
Elated at the apparent success of his plan, Mao pushed forward aggressively.
With record harvests, labor could be diverted away from agriculture and used to achieve some of Mao's other goals. Further, Mao could confiscate the surplus grain to feed the cities and to sell abroad, raising the capital so badly needed for industrialization. Confiscating a third of the grain seemed entirely reasonable, and Mao sent out his agents to collect the grain local officials told him was to be had in abundance. Mao's agents got their “third,” leaving the farmers what remained: nothing.
Throughout rural China, people were soon starving to death - while Mao and his central planners exported Chinese grain to other nations. Thus began one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in history. Within the next three years at least 20 million people died of starvation, perhaps more than 40 million.
And the bureaucrats blamed - no, not themselves - the people who opposed them. Mao insisted that his Great Leap failed only because of reactionary elements in Chinese society clinging to the old ways. To remedy the situation, Mao launched another dramatic effort: the Cultural Revolution. Time to sweep away everything “old,” everything in China that predated Mao's 1949 revolution. Another rule of bureaucracy: if your scheme doesn't work, blame those who oppose it and intensify your efforts.
President George Washington is supposed to have said: “A government is like fire: a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Our own bureaucrats and central planners are becoming more and more powerful, and many of them dream of their own Great Leaps and Cultural Revolutions. Our “public servants” are fast becoming our masters - and if the process is not checked, we are going to get very, very badly burned.
Sadly this is probably what inspired Reagan’s Soviet potato joke.
Communism is a dead letter.
Ahh Mao Zedong.
Who else remembers Antia Dunn? Chairman Mao is a favorite of hers. One of her favorite political philosophers.
And who is Anita Dunn? Only one of Øbama’s stooges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Dunn
I’m going to keep a stack of copies of this article to give out to people who don’t get it. It’s short, clear, and strong. ( Like my minister’s sermons should be.)
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