RED CHINA

the subcontinent of China has always held a fascination for westernize its sites leave indelible impressions for 10 years after the Communists took power Western eyes were fed a new set of images this is the Communist 10th anniversary celebration [Music] since 1959 this is what Western eyes have been allowed to see filtering out have been rumors of famine break down revolt in the past 20 months only one non communist Western journalist had inside with a film camera this is the man his name is fair Nagi gone he is Swiss this program is about what has been happening inside China what is happening inside China today [Music] we do not recognize Communist China officially we have no relations with it nevertheless it exists we have met its armies in Korea its agents in Southeast Asia its diplomats in Geneva and Warsaw but for 12 years its borders have been closed to us for 20 months they have been closed to the non-communist world it is clear that during this period vast changes have taken place in China our lack of information has led to much speculation this is an attempt to pierce the wall of secrecy to piece together the facts this is Communist China population 700 million the island of Formosa nationalist China population 11 million the British crown colony of Hong Kong if you want to know what's going on inside China this is a good place to start Hong Kong could be compared to a huge radar it's critical focus China into Hong Kong every day our railroads coming from the mainland of China that filled with passengers now many of these people are carefully interrogated by the many specialists in Hong Kong Americans English and from other Asian countries and out of this probably comes the most concrete and concise information and what is going on in China today this report is based on nine months of investigation by NBC News talking to experts refugees diplomats around the world this report also turned up the one Western journalist who had been inside China with a film camera during this period in September 1961 fair no Eagle came to Hong Kong from China he had gone in in June he had been inside for three months it was the second time for him it was in 1956 when I visited first Communist China surely personally granted to me when I think you see I Burton heard him at ban dongs conference Indonesia it was in 1955 yes and now you have heard my terrific French accent and I believe it's enough sugan interpreter it will be easier for me and certainly for you this authority Deepika mythic pass on short didn't know where Chinese were not particularly eager to see me come back but my embassy in Peking had issued almost 200 visas to Chinese diplomats journalists and interpreters they were going to the Liao's conference in Geneva and I was the beneficiary of that fact hence I got a few visas that had been issued lately at all but no one can within three months grasp the full sweep of a great country especially if one cannot see everything when once at sea owing to the tissue of restrictions and prohibitions but life in towns and villages reveals itself to you in the streets it's like an open book all you have to do is turn the pages and make your judgment on June 26th I went to lo Wu by train that's 22 miles from Hong Kong the railway station teamed with Chinese I was the only European around for a foreigner entering China is the same as plunging into a dark tunnel right off the back the foreigner is isolated in a special railway car not one Chinese will speak to him and this was not the same in 1956 China has withdrawn into herself to understand the China she gone was about to see you need to know what had happened in the last 15 years 1946 yen on 1,000 miles north of Hong Kong the Communists are holed up here in these caves where they have been driven by junga shek during the war with Japan there has been an uneasy truce now the name of Mao Zedong appears prominently for the first time in news dispatches bloody civil war begins again a peasant army hardened by 20 years of guerrilla fighting strikes at the cities held by the Nationalists war has become part of John's life he has been fighting the Communists since 1920 for a generation in China has grown up knowing little but war millions have been displaced or died before the fighting ends more will be displaced or died [Music] [Applause] Shanghai on both sides the war is fought savagely without quarter executions are commonplace the killing goes on for four bloody years by 1949 the Nationalists are beaten Zhang's army carrying the traditional umbrellas of Chinese armies retreats to Formosa many of his supporters follow thousands caught in the middle leader Hong Kong left behind is a nation in chaos left behind a few of those who have lived well through all the bad times [Applause] their money is now almost worthless what one Chinese dollar would buy in 1939 it takes 8 million to buy in 1949 banks closed life savings are lost mob stormed through the streets of the cities everywhere the wreckage of war is visible devastation and disorder what industry and housing China had is now in ruins [Applause] China's main heavy industry built by the Japanese in Manchuria has been stripped of two billion dollars worth of equipment by the Russians the land is producing less than it did before the war with Japan and it must feed 15 million more people every year October 1st 1949 the war is over the Communists take over China for the first time since 1911 China has a central government effectively able to control the whole country the Communist promised China will be a great power again ma arrives in Peking he has been a revolutionary for 28 years this is the day he has been preparing for behind him is a tough army under rigid political control now he can begin remaking China Moscow December 16 1949 Mao comes for help to his old Soviet comrades he is a classic Marxist he believes China can be powerful only if China has heavy industry he wants Soviet money Soviet machines Soviet technicians he is a guest in Moscow for nine weeks February 4th 1950 a 30-year friendship treaty is signed Joe and Lai signs for China Molotov for Russia China gets a 300 million dollar loan later will come machinery and advisers among those present Stalin Mickey Yan Khrushchev on his way back to Peking mall crosses a country where 80 percent of the people are peasants many of them have never seen a machine more complicated than a wooden plow this is his raw material 500 million peasants patient and during obedient still calling themselves the central people believing anyone who is not Chinese is a barbarian from their labor Mao intends to squeeze the food to feed China the capital to buy machines to industrialize China they are to bear the cost of trying to make China great again the campaign for their minds begins to organize mobilize convert the largest population on earth by persuasion or intimidation or force to a new way of thinking they portray Uncle Sam as their arch enemy there are appeals to their pride their nationalism their hatreds campaigns against imperialists counter-revolutionaries flies some who resist are killed some kill themselves thousands go to prison to undergo thought reform brainwashing to confess their sins to accept the Communist Dogma in the villages peasant associations are formed guided by the party organizers at what are called speak bitterness meetings grievances pent up during past years are aired landlords are denounced the land is confiscated and given to the peasants rents are abolished landlords are killed flee or go to prison the peasants are promised the land belongs to them from this time on harvest 1952 the peasants have had three years of communist rule century old ways remain but now they own their own land agricultural production is the highest in 16 years in the war blasted cities reconstruction begins by hand many factories are rebuilt few houses many owners and managers flee but in 1952 production in some industries is 25% above pre-war levels by 1952 the first goals of the revolution has been reached the people have been mobilized opposition has been crushed the war in Korea has United the country behind the Communists they play on old fears of imperialism old tide of nationalism America the great white Western power has been fought to a stalemate the Communists boast of keeping their promise to make China a power again they announce a five-year plan aim to build heavy industry price wood and bricks are to be used to build factories not houses labor to build roads to produce more to consume less hands and wooden tools to do the job of machines which they don't have the people to work in labor battalions everyone clerks intellectuals teachers to work everyone to do some manual labor Steele to go to make more blast furnaces not cars or kitchen stoves after a day of this they are expected to attend political indoctrination meetings to confess their errors to criticise themselves in return the Communists hold up the promise of a future when their lives will be better workers swarm over the countryside like ants they build irrigation ditches canals dams they use what materials they have some of the things they build work some fall apart when they are testing they start a road through impassable mountains to Tibet they have no heavy machinery they have only their hands their picks their shovels their energy their endurance their numbers [Applause] they are told the road is impossible to build they build it from the Soviet Union come technicians with blueprints and directions over the trans-siberian railroad come whole factories to be assembled in time 211 factories the Soviet technicians teach the Chinese to operate the machines later they complain that the Chinese have no respect for the machines they push them too hard burn them out the Chinese who have been instructed become instructors they teach other Chinese they teach girls they teach schoolboys they teach peasants who have never before been inside a factory one point of friction begins to appear the Soviet factories and technicians are not gifts the Chinese are expected to pay for them despite the frictions by 1955 steel production has been doubled coal production is up 50 percent iron 100 percent almost no underdeveloped nation in history has industrialized at such a pace at a price the price is in what can be squeezed out of the people especially the peasants [Applause] what machines they have are made of wood devised ingeniously to take advantage of the only kind of power they have on most farms manpower it is 1955 a new order comes from Peking the farms are to be collectivized they are to be taken away from the peasants despite the promises of only three years ago now the peasants will work together on the collectives what they produce will belong to the collectives they will be paid according to their work harvest 1955 the best crops in a decade resistance to the collectives crumbles within a year the peasants are 96% collectivized the Communists point out proudly that it has been accomplished more quickly with far less bloodshed than in the Soviet Union [Music] it is a moment of triumph for the Communists the new way seems to work the proud future the Communists have promised does not seem far off 1956 nature turns on the people of China as it has for centuries thousands of tons of grain are lost people are homeless hungry the people salvage what they can this is a rice crop the Communists learned nothing much has really changed they're not yet able to control nature their industrial advances still depend on the harvest the harvest still depends on nature in 1956 the Chinese Communists made a disconcerting discovery they thought they had solved their food problem floods and droughts that here showed them they were still at the mercy of nature they found that the population of China was growing faster than its supply of food in 1957 they launched an intensive campaign of birth control it lasted for six months then it was abruptly abandoned it had been a failure confronted with the crisis of too many people and not enough food the Communists had a choice they could play it safe cut back on their drive to industrialize China concentrate on producing more food or they could gamble they could try to use their population as a weapon mobilize it totally try to increase industrial and agricultural production at the same time they choose to gamble we're the only stakes they have the Chinese people they go out among the people to launch what they call the Great Leap Forward the leaders have been together for almost 40 years on the long march in the anon caves through the Civil War even their Russian allies find them arrogant in their self assurance they listen to no one what other nations have done with time and money and machines they decide China will do with the sheer weight of our manpower a few miles outside Peking they build a dam with their hands and feet with wooden wheelbarrows everyone is expected to work at his regular job his regular hours then he is expected to work at another job on a dam a road a factory 20 million build roads they make their own tools invent them as they go along [Applause] a few pumps and generators appear there are no cranes to lift them no trucks to transport them only people the methods are 50 centuries old they were used to build the pyramids of Egypt China is like a human ant he says one faun observer the Communists set a target in 15 years they say they will be a greater industrial power than Great Britain ceaselessly the work goes on nothing is impossible they say [Applause] [Music] [Applause] out of sheer mountainsides they hack roads with shovels and picks and with their hands in the snow the working day is 14 hours long at night there is time for political indoctrination those who resist are sent to labor camps to be reeducate most do not resist the pace grows more frantic ceaselessly without rest one observer writes even bigger masses are hurled into the battle the countryside is in convulsion the bottom of the Yangtze River is shifting sand Western engineers have said a bridge cannot be built communist engineers say it can the bridge is built the first train crosses the bridge holes [Music] there is wild celebration the barbarians are on the communists say each new bridge new dam new road is hailed is bringing China closer to being a great world power again some of the projects fail roads crumble dams break but many hold in the air there is the emotional fervor of a nation at war the imperialists threaten us the Communists try 40 million peasants are harmed some with wooden rifles they march in labor brigades to work in the fields the collectives give way to communes the land now belongs to the commune members of the communes eat in common mess halls their children are sent to common nurseries two hours a day are set aside for political indoctrination they get two days a month off true communism Peking says is now close at hand the peasants work for the government they are told their loyalty is owed to the government they are told the old biological family unit is obsolete they own nothing they are paid by the commune mostly in food what they produce belongs to the commune tractors appear made in China for once each peasant cultivated his stamp size plot of land with a wooden plow tractors will now plow a thousand acres but now there are only a few there are fewer than 20,000 tractors in all of China but some do exist they are showing off to foreigners this is the way it's going to be say the Communists everywhere the Communists report production records are being broken those who doubted that agricultural production would keep up with population says chairman Liu Shoji have been proved wrong 375 million tonnes of grain are said to have been harvested almost twice as much as ever before no area is immune to the Great Leap Forward in one commune a mechanized waiter is devised that delivers a Chinese dinner by automation ten million peasants make steel in their spare time in backyard blast furnaces the meat production quotas hand railings and kitchen utensils are melted down the furnaces are everywhere flickering like glowworms from one end of the country to the other always nearby is the voice of the party ceaselessly urging them driving them to work harder produce more the Great Leap has started China on the road to industrial power China has become one of the three great coal producers of the world one of the half-dozen great steel producers in 1952 China produced less than two million tons of steel in 1959 the Communists say they are producing 11 million tons in 1960 they say 18 million foreigners are shown modern generators a modern cotton mill working two shifts a day six days a week with four holidays a year some foreigners remember cotton was China's great pre-war industry how does the production of cotton for clothing been increased the Communist answer there is still a shortage Peking 1959 this is a special year for the Communists they have been in power ten years the people look clean well fed to a foreigners I there is no sign of crisis the King begins to be sprayed and scrubbed down for the coming celebration [Applause] October first Nikita Khrushchev arrives [Applause] he has just been with President Eisenhower at Camp David he has been talking peaceful competition with the West Mall greets his chief alive [Music] [Applause] [Music] every one of importance is present but some observers think they detect distant disapproval by the Chinese 1 million Chinese parade before the communist leaders first chop speaks of the possibility of coexistence the imperialists can be beaten he says without war Joe my answers pointedly China has found her own way of building socialism he boasts production has been doubled industry has drawn more in this one year than in the whole five-year plan Khrushchev sees pictures of angles Marx and Stalin everywhere he sees no picture of first job the men who came out of the Union caves ten years ago look out on the revolution they have made but as the celebration goes on behind the scenes it becomes evident that something is wrong reports are heard of peasants collapsing from fatigue of passive resistance of production breakdowns the public display of military power is impressive but behind the scenes the leaders make some admissions 1959 has been a record year but steel production was not 11 million but 8 million tonnes grain production was not 375 million about 250 million tons later experts say it was closer to 200 million pounds there is less meat less cotton less shoe leather fewer eggs the backyard blast furnaces are being abandoned the transportation system has suffered breakdowns from overstrain the harvest has been bad many people are hungry the communist cadres have falsified production reports figures have to be revised downward 1959 targets have to be cut back still the marchers swarm past the reviewing stand on the surface the revolution is a huge unqualified success with a complete support of the people behind the scenes there is trouble the Communists admit that they have not yet created a new socialist man as they believe they have it will take a long time to industrialize china communism is still a distant dream as the celebration continues into the night the men of the Yunnan caves know their gamble has failed the Great Leap Forward now hangs in midair will China fall back or leap ahead as the fireworks celebrating their first 10 years light up the Peking night this is on the minds of all the leaders of a communist world it is at this point that the wall of secrecy goes up and Western observers are barred from China