K. This is the 1st working draft of vol. VI. It still ... - From Marx to Mao

432 MAO TSE-TUNG
ing. Most of these people were intellectuals and youths who had
never previously taken part in production. Together with cadres from
worker and peasant backgrounds and service personnel, cooks and
grooms, they were organized into production groups to open up the
land. All hilltops near Yanan with unused land became covered with
men and women opening them up. They automatically showed labour
discipline and declared competitions in clearing land. The
strong took up hoes and the weak grew vegetables and raised pigs,
or took food and water to the workers.
The gains from this production movement were: (i) the official
organizations and schools of the whole Border Region opened up
113,414 mou of land, harvested 11,325.63 tan of grain (equivalent to
FROM MARX
TO MAO
5,830.17 tan of hulled grain) and harvested roughly 1,200,00 jin of
⋆
vegetables. At prevailing market prices the two harvests were worth
over 368,000 yuan (over 10,179,000 yuan at 1942 prices). This provided
one-quarter of the grain requirements of 20,000 people, onehalf
of the horse fodder and some of the vegetables and meat. (ii) It
enabled over 10,000 intellectuals and young people to understand
from their own experience what physical labors is. This tempered
them. (iii) When the common folk of the Border Region saw or heard
that all working personnel and young students in all the Party and
government official organizations — from Party Central Committee
members to young service NOT personnel FOR — were all going up into the
mountains to farm, they were moved. Everyone was keen to open
up land and it became an exceptional year for doing so.
On the other hand, COMMERCIAL
the stipulated task for grain productions was
not fulfilled in this year because of lack of labour experience and
because the application of manure, seed planting and weeding was
not done at the right time. Also, in some areas there was drought
and so forth. As DISTRIBUTION
a result, although a lot of land was opened up, the
harvest was not large and only 45 per cent of the original grain target
of 13,000 tan of hulled grain was achieved. Secondly the error
of egalitarianism was committed in leadership and organization. The
different nature of each organization and school was not considered.
Some were given tasks that were too great such as the call for district
and township cadres to be self-sufficient in grain. In fact they
only achieved one-quarter. Some put off and spoilt their work or
study in order to carry out production with the result that it was
uneconomic. In some cases male and female comrades, physically
too weak to do hard work, were forced to labour and their health