China Under Communism (Revised Edition): Strohm 0053 (1962, sound)

for I'm John stro this is my film report on red China a nation that I think will make more headlines in the Next Generation than Russia did during the last it was a memorable experience to me to be the first American correspondent inside red China to see firsthand this Awakening giant of the Orient why did I go to China well let's take a look China is a tremendous country geographically as you can see rich in natural resources coal iron ore all over the country water power and when it comes to people China is the biggest one out of every four persons on Earth is a Chinese what I saw was a revolution so profound and far-reaching that it inevitably will leave its mark on China on the other nations of Asia and on the rest of the world and that includes us for in today's air age what happens in China is vitally important to us in America I entered China after a long trip across Russia and Siberia and down into ping where I traveled all over the country I had traveled extensively in China 20 years ago and since then have logged 70 countries around the world as a foreign correspondent but none of these experiences prepared me for the changes in China communist dictators now run China but even their sweeping decrees cannot make overnight changes in a nation as big and old as China so much that I saw was traditional the rice patties masses of people on the Move traffic jams of camels and goats The Familiar Chinese wall was built in the third Century BC to protect China from outside Invaders today an unseen bamboo curtain seeks to isolate red China from the outside world in these temples and palaces of the Forbidden City City in ping once lived the autocratic Emperors who ruled China for centuries but today they are museums to the Past for these old Chinese Emperors were Swept Away in the first great revolution in 1911 led by the Beloved sonat sen his tomb is still a shrine to communist and non-communist alike while this first Revolution touched the intellectuals and ruling class it made little impact on the vast majority of Chinese for 85% of the people then and now are farmers like this man their life remained relatively unchanged many tilled their tiny plots of land paid High rents were at the mercy of Warlords and they fought a running battle with famine to enrich the soil The Peasants carefully saved all manure to spread on their land at Harvest Time the villagers often joined in a Cooperative effort to thr the Millet with tools as ancient as the Bible but in those days this work was voluntary with poverty the chief driving force the family from Grandfather down through countless uncles aunts and cousins was a closely knit group they ground their precious grain into flour using millstones powered by hand or oxen but famine was never far away for millions of Chinese this map gives some Clues to China's great problem how to feed the biggest population on Earth as you can see much of China is covered with mountains and deserts the great river valleys are often subject to disastrous floods and the population keeps growing ping says there are now 700 million persons in red China nearly 40,000 new miles to be fed daily the problem of too many people for too little land was one of the reasons for the Communist Revolution of 1948-49 China is still in the throws of that far-reaching Revolution the Communist rulers have attempted to remake this ancient Land by persuasion and force by inspiration and liquidation The Peasants have been herded into Super communist units called communes they were organized along military lines each had its own militia and in the early days of the Revolution The Peasants were encouraged to denounce and in many places to kill the landlords so their land could be given to the peasants but the peasants were then organized into Collective farms and finally into communes and once more The Peasant found found himself landless however bad times have forced the Communists to back away from the commune over enthusiastic propaganda about the tractors that were going to be manufactured in China caused many communes to quit breeding oxen and water buffalo to The Peasants sorrow for they ended up pulling their plows by hand The Peasants were driven hard to meet the goals set by the communist bosses in piking but there is a limit to human endurance and The Peasants began to resist the government had to make concessions to the Sullen peasants and in some areas they let them have a private garden plot and raise a private Pig but these concessions were not enough for China's food production has gone downhill since the Great Leap Forward of 1958 because of bad weather and bad management often guards are posted before Food Supplies such as this corn this is a cotton field they're short of cotton needed to clo their 700 million people someone got the idea that deep plowing was good so they reasoned that deeper plowing must be better and here they are trying to dig 3 ft deep which is Impractical every commune has experimental plots good in themselves but they misled the bureaucrats into exaggerating crop yields for example they tried to tell me this rice plot would yield more than 100 times as much as the typical rice yield in China the experimenters used wind machines to get air to the roots overhead lights and aund pairs of hands to separate the head so that the air and the sunlight could get down into the heavy mass of shoots they're attempting to introduce scientific methods such as chemical sprays but all chemicals are sadly limited the Chinese are especially short of fertilizers the government knows that it must use irrigation to grow more food I was told that more than half of all crop land is now irrigated but many hastily built irrigation structures have been badly damaged by floods in the beginning of the commune all life was regimented along military lines the ringing Bell called you to work it called you to eat in the Community Canteen the Bell called the women to their washing the workers to the field as pointed out before much of this strict discipline is broken down the children their kept in the central Nursery while their parents work and women must work the children are taught to love their communist leaders these children are singing a song of Praise about the Chinese Revolution called the Great Leap Forward they're too young to know that the Great Leap Forward has stumbled badly but I found children the world over very appealing and certainly the Chinese children are no exceptions the Chinese woman is no longer a slave to her mother-in-law but she now must work for the all powerful state after work there are always indoctrination sessions in the early days of the Revolution the boss has kept the people off balance by constantly exhorting them to volunteer for labor to build the new China there were constant parades from the city to Collective Farms or to factories they built railroads dug canals did whatever work was needed most at a frantic Pace the people are taught that it is important to learn to work with their hands as well as their heads this truck pulled 31 loaded trailers through the streets of piking a sort of symbol of red China's ambition to LEAP overnight into an industrialized 20th century an exhibition Halls like this display the techical Wonders which symbolize their hopes of becoming an industrial power all kinds of irrigation equipment like this other machines made in China this self-propelled green combine is the only one I saw but it's a promise of tomorrow for the sickle swinging peasant tractors including this steam tractor and this mechanized rice transplanter invented by a peasant stir the Chinese with pride for they were made by Chinese hands the Chinese were constantly telling me how Americans and Europeans had said the Chinese could never become an industrialized Nation China needs Iron and steel in 1943 she made only 1 million tons of steel China now says she makes 20 million tons she claims to have doubled steel production in the steel mill that the Japanese built in Manu to the Chinese as well as to all emerging Nations steel is a symbol of industrial might and international prestige typical of their new drive for steel production is this big new plant near Hana in central China it's a modern steel works but it was laboriously built by the muscles of 50,000 workers they tamped the Earth as they're doing here they move the dirt in little baskets 100 men working 100 hours May produce only as much as one machine but there are millions of workers in China and few machines China is desperately short of capital and certain resources so her Industrial Drive is in trouble typical of the ambitious but misguided plans to industrialize China in a hurry was the campaign for little steeve I saw thousands of tiny backyard furnaces where the people were turning out pig iron the crude furnaces were built of stone and mud the coal was crushed with stone implements like this powered by foot Limestone was crushed with little hammers iron ore was hammered into tiny pieces by hand no tool was too simple air was pumped into the furnace by hand blowers and out flowed pig iron of a sort a very inferior grade that was practically useless I saw these furnaces in every scoop stard City alley Collective Farm they claimed they made nearly 10 million tons of pig iron like this in one year but the pig iron was poor it wasted valuable resources transportation and Manpower but this backyard campaign is a good illustration of what a dictatorship can do to stir all the people it gave the people a big lift for the Chinese peasant could say to himself we are making steel with our own hands just like the Americans and the British we are helping build the new China having served this psychological purpose the great campaign for little steel has long since been discontinued while steel is given much attention other Industries are also encouraged in so far as they have the raw materials and factories and technicians to man them heavy copper wire is being produced here in this modern Factory I saw in Shenyang but these spinning wheels on which women are winding copper wire are more typical of Chinese industry today Village Industries not new in China are being organized on a gigantic scale as she tries to raise herself by her own bootstraps production quotas are prominently displayed on bulletin boards in factories and on Collective Farms the red flag is the symbol of achievement this is an automobile Factory although it may not look like one being able to manufacture cars is a great Triumph for a nation that has long had to depend on the outside world for almost all Industrial Products even though private ownership of Autos is forbidden their infant Auto industry is a source of national pride to the people but there are few cars outside the big cities and outside EX Halls like this transportation is mainly a matter of muscle human and animal everywhere you see bicycles Petty cabs and horse carts fuel is very scarce so buses using attachments like this burn wood and coal as some other nations did in world War I to reduce its dependence on Russia for oil China is developing a chemical industry that extracts oil from coal this woman is a chemist and here she is checking a sample in this modern coal cracking plant in fushun parades are used to whip up the spirit of the people this parade is against flies mosquitoes rats and sparrows a children's hospital millions of people suffer from chronic malnutrition deserving Factory workers can go to this tuberculosis sanitarium in Manchuria every Factory every Farm I visited had medical clinics but medicines are scarce and Refugee doctors tell me the health of the people is worse than at any time since the communist took over the country factories formerly stopped work at 10:00 a.m. and 400 p.m. so everyone could take setting up exercises to music from loudspeakers but workers are now urged to conserve their energies for work the Chinese are very sports-minded and have thousands of outdoor basketball courts although the ball doesn't seem to go through the hook very often this is piking University the Communist leaders are putting much stress on education they also lay great stress on youth propaganda in all forms plays an important role posters extol the virtues of the new China ridicule foreign imperialists I saw hate America posters like this all over China on this small steel mill the the workers have put up a sign which says liberate Formosa our national territory bulletin boards and political cartoons are also used to Spur the people on to Greater effort but the regime attempts to give the people a unifying purpose it gets a lot of people into the act it tries to give them a sense of participation and a promise of the future you see it in this parade against Imperial and in an ambitious construction project like this bridge across the yansi river the Chinese insist American Engineers told them it could not be built the Army too is employed on massive government projects these Red Army soldiers are helping build a big Dam here a bridge and here they're working on a new Factory building in tinin peasants who never have seen the city find themselves building sewers in piking seeing and hearing new things when they return home they carry the message of the Chinese Revolution into their Villages this building was Russia's Monument to Chinese friendship this friendship is cooling today this war Monument celebrates China's long struggle against outside oppressors we must go It Alone the red government is now telling its people I left red China by the Misty road that crosses the barbwire Frontier into Hong Kong this Great British hell port on the southern coast is the main doorway between China and the West I recently Revisited Hong Kong and maau talked with many refugees to find out what is going on inside red China today they report that work has slowed down somewhat though the iron discipline of the Communist continues its Relentless mobilization of human strength to build a new China a communist world of course built by persuasion and coercion their Great Leap Forward has stumbled badly Their Food Supplies are gravely short their population is suffering from disease and malnutrition their Industrial Drive has lost some of its momentum but the Chinese are a friendly optimistic and ingenious people as visitors to this country will testify don't underestimate them they are making steel Autos tractors they're building new apartment houses Bridges hospitals they're desperately trying to meet the awesome challenge of feeding 700 million people the China of today is different and will never again be like the old China tradition is being flouted by the Communist dictatorship even their written language is being streamlined no one knows where this will lead but the fact that one out of every four persons on Earth is a Chinese holds vast significance for the rest of the world and I am sure that we will hear much more of China in the years ahead