37 WAR ON PEASANTS
37 向农民开战
(1953–56 AGE 59–62)
1953～1956 年 59～62 岁
FROM AUTUMN 1953, nationwide requisitioning was imposed, in order to extract more food to pay for the Superpower Program. The system followed that of a labor camp: leave the population just enough to keep them alive, and take all the rest. The regime decided that what constituted subsistence was an amount of food equivalent to 200 kg of processed grain per year, and this was called “basic food.”
为了挤出农产品以供出口，毛政权在一九五三年秋制定了“统筹统销”政策。中共宣传说这是为了粮食分配更公平合理，以免有人食不果腹，有人囤积居奇。还说国家只是购买余粮，农民会有基本口粮留下。这一政策实际上是把农民的产品全部拿走，只留下维持生存和再生产的部分。
But this figure was rarely achieved under Mao. In 1976, the year he died, after twenty-seven years in power, the average figure nationwide was only 190 kg. As city-dwellers got more, the average peasant's consumption was considerably lower than 190 kg.
毛政权定了个人均“口粮”标准，依据的是传统南方农村“不饥不饱”的水准：四百斤“贸易粮”。但这个标准很少达到。毛去世的那年，人均口粮仅为三百八十一斤。对农民的口粮，毛说：“有些地方只要二百八十斤粮食就够了，有的只要二百二十斤粮食”。
Mao wanted the peasants to have far less than this. They “only need 140 kg of grain, and some only need 110,” he declared. This latter figure was barely half the amount needed for mere subsistence. Even though Mao's chosen minimum was not enforced at this stage, the results of his “squeeze-all” approach were painfully spelled out by some peasants to a sympathetic official within a year of the introduction of requisitioning. “Not a family has enough to eat.” “I worked for a year, and in the end I have to starve for a few months … My neighbors are the same.” “The harvest isn't bad, but what's the use? No matter how much we get in we don't have enough to eat anyway …” As for the “basic food,” “no one has had that much.” In theory, anyone starving was supposed to be able to buy some food back, but the amounts were never adequate, and Mao was constantly berating officials that “Too much grain is sold back!” and urging them to slash the amount “enormously.”
民盟中央的周鲸文下乡调查，问起北京西郊一位老农民收获的情形。老农说：“收成还不错，那有什么用，收了多少自己也吃不饱。”“土改分地以后，我分了这块地，一年忙到死，也混不了一家几口人的生活。未等秋收先把你的粮叫政府号下了。先交公粮，然后统购，给你剩下的粮食简直不够一家人吃，一年至少缺三个月的粮，全家是吃稀粥，煮点野菜，杂七杂八混吃一顿。统购卖粮所得的那点钱，还不够完杂税，和各样官派的开销，什么冬学费、清洁费、村公所办公费、报纸费、买公债等等，这些费用是说不完的。你想卖点余粮的钱能够用吗？
在毛的故乡湖南乡下，一个军属说：“表面上每家每人有三四百斤口粮，实际上谁也没有那么多。”“到头来我得挨几个月的饿……不但我一家如此，我的邻居，他们也是这样。”国家对农民说，粮不够吃的可以买“返销粮”。返销粮远不能满足农民的需求，毛还不断告诫干部们：“现在有的地方粮食销多啦！”
Mao's answer to the peasants' plight was pitiless. They should eat sweet potato leaves, which were traditionally used only to feed pigs. “Educate peasants to eat less, and have more thin gruel,” he instructed. “The State should try its hardest … to prevent peasants eating too much.”
对农民挨饿，毛的答覆是要农民用喂猪的“薯叶填补”，一九五五年八月三日批示道：“教育农民吃少点，吃稀一点，国家则要尽可能减少销售，以免在一般农民有粮季节吃得过多”。
One of Mao's economic managers, Bo Yi-bo, later acknowledged that under the requisitioning policy, “Most of the food the peasants produced was taken away.” And “force,” he said, was commonplace; people were “driven to death.” This violence was specifically endorsed by Mao, who discussed the consequences of the requisitioning with its architect, Chen Yun, on 1 October 1953. Next day, Mao told the Politburo that they were “at war” with the whole population: “This is a war on food producers—as well as on food consumers,” meaning the urban population who were now subjected to unprecedentedly low rationing. To justify treating peasants as enemies, Mao's fatuous rationale was that “Marx and Engels never said peasants were all good.” When, days later, Chen Yun conveyed Mao's instructions to provincial leaders in charge of extracting food, he told them they must be prepared for deaths and riots in 100,000 villages—one-tenth of all the villages in China. But this would not jeopardize Communist rule, he assured them, making a comparison with Manchukuo, where the occupying Japanese had requisitioned large amounts of grain. “Manchukuo,” he said, “would not have fallen if the Soviet Red Army had not come.” In other words, brute force à la japonaise would guarantee that peasants could not endanger the regime, no matter how hard it was squeezing them.
薄一波后来说：“国家征购过头粮的现象比较普遍，农民生产的粮食，大多都给收购上去了，所剩无几。”他还说：统购中“乱批乱斗、逼死人命等现象都发生过”。这样的暴力早在毛预料之中，他和征购政策的策画人陈云一九五三年十月一日在天安门城楼上特地讨论过这项政策的严酷后果。第二天，毛在政治局扩大会议上说征粮是打仗：“一面对付出粮的，一面对付吃粮的”。毛要以农民为敌，特别说：“马克思、恩格斯从来没有说过农民一切都是好的。”陈云接着向各省管粮食的传达毛的指示，要他们准备全国一百万个村子有十分之一，即十万个村子，出现“逼死人或者打扁担以至暴动”。陈云叫在座的放心，这是不会危及共产党统治的，他举例说：满洲国也搞过严厉的强行征购，“但就是这样，如果苏联红军不出，满洲国还不倒。”换言之，共产党是垮不了台的，不管它怎样对农民巧取豪夺。
BY EARLY 1955, requisitioning had brought utter misery. Numerous reports reached Mao about peasants having to eat tree bark, and abandoning their babies because they had no food. Mao had installed many channels for gathering feedback at the grassroots, as he needed to keep his ear to the ground to maintain control. One channel was his guards. When they went home for visits that year, he asked them to report back about their villages. The picture they painted was bleak. One wrote that 50 percent of households in his village were short of food, and had had to eat tree leaves that spring. Another reported that people were having to depend on wild herbs for food, and were dying of starvation.
征粮制度实行一年之后，到一九五五年初，全国已是一片天怒人怨。无数报告飞向毛的案头，报告说农民如何“吃树皮、草皮”，如何“卖子女”，如何“老弱者躺在床上饿死”。中共设有若干从基层收集反映的管道，毛要控制这个大国，必须随时了解真实情况。中央警卫团战士回家探亲，毛要他们写报告，讲村子里的情况。他们笔下出现的是一幅幅黑暗的图画。有的说：“缺粮户达到百分之五十。今春没有东西吃，只好吃树叶。”有的说：“每人每天只能吃到一两米，完全靠上山挖野生植物吃，有人因此中毒身亡。”
From other channels Mao learned that people were saying things like “What's so good about socialism? Even now when we've just begun we are not allowed cooking oil”; and “The Communist Party is driving people to death!” A then unknown official in Guangdong province called Zhao Zi-yang (who became Party chief in the post-Mao era) reported that cadres were searching houses, tying peasants up and beating them to force them to surrender food, and sealing the houses of those who said they had nothing left. He cited the case of an old woman who hanged herself after being imprisoned inside her house. In one not atypical county, Gaoyao, 110 people were driven to suicide. If this figure is extrapolated to China's 2,000-plus counties, the number of suicides in rural areas in this short period would be approaching a quarter of a million.
各地的反应还有：“社会主义在哪里呢？现在就不给油吃了！”“光叫生产加油，没有油吃还加油呢。”“共产党把我们当鱼鹰，脖子一压，大鱼小鱼都吐光了。”当时在广东省任职的赵紫阳，在调查报告里描述基层干部如何用捆打、搜屋，封家等办法逼着农民交粮。有一个村子“将一老妪封在屋内，至上吊自杀”。在他调查的高要县，“全县因逼粮造成的自杀事件一百一十一起。”
Some courageous individuals petitioned Mao. One prominent fellow traveler wrote to Mao that he had received many letters saying that peasants did not have enough energy to work because they were left too little food. Mao summed up: “10,000 reports [‘10,000' expresses hugeness] about deaths of humans, deaths of animals, about people raiding granaries: 10,000 reports of darkness …” But Mao was completely unmoved. He would punish the fellow traveler with what he disdainfully called “a good bit of persecution.” He was given to say airily that people were “not without food all the year round—only six … or four months” [sic]. Senior officials who invoked the traditional concept of conscience (liang-xin) to beg him to go easy found themselves being slapped down with remarks like: “You'd better have less conscience. Some of our comrades have too much mercy, not enough brutality, which means they are not so Marxist.” “On this matter,” Mao said, “we indeed have no conscience! Marxism is that brutal.”
一些有正义感，有勇气的人上书毛和中央政府。全国人大副委员长黄炎培给毛写信说，他的江苏家乡，“一般居民生活苦，尤其是农民特别苦，农民说：我们吃不饱，哪有力气去种田呢？”
Mao turned the screw even tighter from mid-1955 by forcing the entire countryside into collective farms. This was to make it easier to enforce requisitioning. Previously, peasants could harvest their own crops and bring them home before handing over the state's “share.” To Mao, this left a loophole: peasants could underreport the harvest and hide some of it, and checking nearly a hundred million households was not easy. With collectivization, however, the whole harvest went straight from the fields into the state's hands, giving the regime complete control over how it was allocated. As one peasant said: “Once you join the collective, you only get food the government doles out to you.”
毛不为所动，反而整黄炎培，说：“黄炎培，得意得不得了，整了他一下。”毛还理直气壮地说：“缺粮户，也不是一年到头都缺粮，顶多缺四个月”，“顶多六个月”。有的高级干部用“良心”这个概念恳求毛手下留情。毛斥责他们说：“在这件事情上，我们是很没有良心哩！马克思主义是有那么凶哩，良心是不多哩”，“良心少一点好。我们有些同志太仁慈，不厉害，就是说，不那么马克思主义。”
The other huge advantage of collectivization for Mao was that it made it much easier to keep the peasants under surveillance when they were working. With collectivization came slave-driving. Henceforth, the state dictated what hours peasants worked, and how hard. A People's Daily editorial on New Year's Day 1956 made it clear that the aim was to get peasants to double their working hours. Mao especially targeted women; those who used not to work in the fields would do so now.
为了便于征粮，一九五五年中期，全国农村实行合作化。没有合作化，个体农民是先收获，再上缴给国家。这就使农民可能藏粮。中国农民有几亿，要挨个检查谈何容易。合作化后，收成从田野里直接到国家手里，再由国家分发给农民，国家对收获全盘控制。
To stifle resistance to both requisitioning and collectivization, Mao wielded his old panacea: terror. In May 1955 he talked about another “Five-Year Plan,” this time for suppression: “We must arrest 1.5 million counter-revolutionaries in five years … I am all for more arrests … Our emphasis is: arrest in a big way, a giant way …” Using the scatological language of which he was enamored, Mao added: “My farts [i.e., orders] are socialist farts, they have to be fragrant,” i.e., obeyed. Anyone resisting food confiscation or collectivization, and any official sympathetic to them, was termed a criminal, and notices announcing their sentences were plastered up across the country.
合作化对毛的另一个好处是能监督农民劳动。个体农民出工收工、干多干少是自己的事，合作化后就身不由己了。一九五六年元旦，《人民日报》社论要今后农民干活时间加倍，妇女下田做工：“农村中的男劳动力，在黄河淮河一带，有些地方，从前每年只能做工一百多天，合作化之后，可以做工两百多天，女劳动力过去不使用或较少使用，合作化之后就使用上了，也可以每年工作一百多天或二百多天了。”
为了强行推行合作化，毛提出：“反革命五年抓一百五十万，每年三十万”，“我主[张]多抓”，“大捉特捉是重点”。
Collectivization of agriculture marked a big stride towards making China even more totalitarian. At the same time, Mao ordered the nationalization of industry and commerce in urban areas, to channel every single resource into the Superpower Program. However, businessmen were not persecuted like rural landlords, for pragmatic reasons. “The bourgeoisie,” Mao said, “are much more useful than … landlords. They have technical know-how and management skills.” Though he then proceeded to squander these managerial and technical talents spectacularly. In addition, China's glorious handicrafts withered over the coming years. Repair and maintenance shops would dwindle in number, greatly increasing the misery of everyday life. “We started socialism, and everything disappears,” Liu Shao-chi remarked pithily.
农村合作化是中国完备极权体制的重要一步。工商业国有化也同时進行。对城市工商业者，毛没有像对农村地主富农那样狠，原因是实际的。毛说：“资产阶级要比封建地主有用的多，有技术和管理能力”-- 尽管这些能力在他统治下大都被浪费掉了。中国灿烂的手工业像霜打的鲜花一样萎缩，维修保养等服务行业大批关门。用刘少奇的话来说：“我们一搞社会主义，反而什么都没有了。”
To scare state employees into conforming, Mao launched a purge campaign in which no fewer than 14.3 million men and women on the state payroll were put through terrifying vetting that involved “confessions and informing,” frequent public denunciation meetings, and physical abuse. Offices and residential buildings were turned into detention centers, as were sports halls and university dormitories. Mao decreed that “Counter-revolutionaries … make up … around 5 percent” of those vetted, which would mean that 715,000 people were condemned and received various punishments, including execution. In fact, Mao indicated that more people than this could be done in, as one of his instructions reads: “Whenever this figure [5 percent] is exceeded, authorization should be obtained.”
为了使城市里的人规规矩矩，毛搞了个运动叫“肃反”。一千四百三十万国家工作人员受到“审查”，方式是“坦白检举”，既有精神恐吓的公审大会，也有肉体折磨的所谓逼、供、信。办公室、住宅楼、礼堂、书斋都成了关人的地方。毛说暗藏的反革命分子占受审查人的大约百分之五左右，下指示说超过比例须得到批准。也就是说在这场运动中，至少有七十一万五千人被打成反革命。
This campaign was accompanied by a clampdown on literature and the arts. With his characteristic thoroughness, Mao had begun to strangle culture from the moment he took power. The cinema industry was almost shut down. In 1950, 39 feature films were produced; in 1952 the figure was 5. In 1954 he had started a drive to eradicate the influence of the great non-Communist writers, historians and scholars, some of whom had fled abroad, or to Taiwan. Now he turned to those who had stayed and who showed some independence. Mao picked on a well-known writer called Hu Feng, who had called for a more liberal artistic environment, and had a following. In May 1955, Hu was publicly denounced and thrown into prison, from which he only emerged, his mind destroyed, after Mao died more than two decades later.
和肃反运动一起来的是对文艺自由的進一步封杀。毛掌权以来已以他特有的彻底性搞了一个又一个摧残文化的运动，像“思想改造”、批判电影《武训传》等等。仅就电影业来说，一九五O年还有三十九部剧情片出品，一九五二年就只剩五部了。一九五四年，毛搞了一场批判胡适等流亡海外，深具影响的中国文人的运动。一九五五年，他转过头来对付留在大陆的、保持着独立精神的文化人。毛选中了胡风。五月，胡风被公开批判，投入监狱。直到二十多年后毛死了，才重见天日，但已精神失常。
The Hu Feng case was headlined in the press. And it served another purpose—to scare people out of writing to each other about their views. Letters that Hu and his followers had exchanged were published, revealing thoughts critical of the regime, and these were presented as evidence against them. As a result, people became wary of putting any thoughts on paper. Not being able to write one's thoughts down, on top of not being able to voice them, or having to censor them all the time, undermined people's ability to form their own independent judgment.
给胡风定罪的重要依据是胡风和朋友之间的来往信件，里面有书生议政，有牢骚怨言。毛把这些放在报上发表，以此说他们是“反革命集团”，吓得人们不敢在通信中谈论国事。
Terror worked. At the beginning of 1956, Mao told the top echelon:
一九五六年初，毛说：“一九五五年上半年是那样的乌烟瘴气，阴霾满天”，“到处骂我们，党内党外都说我们不行，就是为几颗粮食，下半年不骂了。下半年有几件喜事，丰收和合作化是两件大喜事，还有肃反也是喜事。”
The first half of 1955 was simply foul … with black clouds all over the sky … There were curses against us everywhere. People said we were no good. All because [we took] a few bits of grain. In the latter half of the year, the curses disappeared. Some happy events emerged. A good harvest and collectivisation were two big happy events, and then there was the purge of counter-revolutionaries, another happy event.
Another “happy” event, which Mao kept quiet about, was in many ways the most significant of all. He had acquired the single thing dearest to his heart: the start-up technology to make the atomic bomb.
毛泽东没有提的，对他也许是最大的喜事，是拿到了朝思暮想的原子弹技术。
In 1953, Mao had failed to get the Bomb out of Moscow through the device of trying to prolong the Korean War. But he soon found another way—by starting another war, this one concerning Taiwan. In July 1954, Peking gave the appearance of seriously preparing to go to war over Taiwan. Chou En-lai went to Moscow and gave Mao's message to the Kremlin: he must have a war to “liberate Taiwan.”
早在一九五三年，毛就曾用拖着朝鲜战争不停战的办法，想要苏联人给他核技术。但苏联人不点头，毛只好停战。一九五四年七月，毛作出一副要打台湾的样子，利用苏联担心被拖下水，来实现他的目标。台湾与朝鲜不一样，打不打由他说了算。周恩来被派赴莫斯科告诉苏共领导人，毛决心要“解放台湾”。
In fact, China's military chiefs had told Mao there was little chance of a sea crossing succeeding, and he had actually decided not to make a move on Taiwan until he was ready. The point of this hullabaloo about attacking Taiwan was really to push the situation to the brink of nuclear confrontation with America, which would face Russia with the possibility of having to retaliate on China's behalf unless it let Mao have the Bomb.
On 3 September, Mainland artillery opened fire on the Nationalist-held island of Quemoy, which lies only a few kilometers off the coast, and was considered the jumping-off point for any move on Taiwan. This detonated what became known as the “first Taiwan Strait crisis.” Washington perceived the crisis to be between itself and Peking, but in fact it was a ploy by Mao to exert pressure on Moscow.
九月三日，中共军队向国民党占领的金门岛开炮，引发了第一次台海危机。炮打金门不久，苏联头号人物赫鲁晓夫来北京参加中共建国五周年庆典，还带来好些苏共领导人，这在斯大林时期是不可思议的。赫鲁晓夫想消除两国间的芥蒂，主动提出取消斯大林同毛签订的条约中损害中国利益的秘密附件。他还答应除现有的一百四十一个项目外，再卖给中国十五个大型企业，同时给中国一笔五亿二千万卢布的新贷款。
Soon afterwards, Nikita Khrushchev, who had just established himself as No. 1 in the Kremlin, arrived in Peking for the fifth anniversary of the Communist regime on 1 October 1954, accompanied by an array of senior colleagues, something unimaginable under Stalin. Khrushchev came determined to establish the best possible relations. He wiped much of Stalin's slate clean, offering to scrap the secret annexes in the 1950 treaty which infringed on China's interests. He also agreed to supply more equipment for the 141 arms factories already under way, and to sell Mao another 15 enterprises, and extend a new loan of 520m rubles.
Mao immediately seized the initiative and requested help to build his own Bomb to deter the Americans. Asked by Khrushchev what might prompt a US attack, he cited the Taiwan crisis. Khrushchev attempted to talk him out of making his own Bomb by promising shelter under Russia's nuclear umbrella, and guaranteeing to retaliate if China was attacked. Khrushchev also adduced the economic argument that making the Bomb was too expensive for China. Mao acted as though his national pride was offended. Though this irritated Khrushchev, the Soviet leader reluctantly promised to consider helping China build a nuclear reactor.
毛就势提出要赫鲁晓夫帮他造原子弹，说是为了抵御美国人。赫鲁晓夫问他美国为什么要朝中国扔原子弹，毛说因为“台湾危机”。赫鲁晓夫没有劝毛不要因台湾问题而引发核大战，他在回忆录里写道：“原因是；我们认为统一中国领土的举动是无可非议的。”赫鲁晓夫只劝毛不要造原子弹，说：我们这个大家庭有核保护伞就行了，无须大家都来搞。须知那东西既费钱费力，又不能吃，不能用。假使目前要搞核武器，把中国的全部电力集中用在这方面是否足够，还很难说。那么其他各项生产事业怎么办？国计民生怎么办？
毛摆出一副样子，好像赫鲁晓夫的话伤了他的民族自尊心。赫鲁晓夫虽然心里不痛快，但还是答应考虑帮中国建设一个核反应堆。
Soon after Khrushchev left, Mao escalated the crisis by bombing and strafing more Nationalist-held islands. US President Eisenhower responded by agreeing to sign a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. Mao pressed on, apparently intent on taking the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu—and more. His calculation was to nudge America into threatening to use nuclear weapons. In March 1955 the US said it would use nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. Eisenhower very deliberately told a press conference on the 16th that he could see no reason why they should not be used “just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.” Mao had what he had aimed for—a situation in which China seemed to be in real danger of a US nuclear strike.
赫鲁晓夫走了以后，毛加紧了对国民党控制的沿海岛屿的轰炸，导致美国总统艾森豪威尔与台湾签订《共同防御条约》。毛继续攻占沿海的一系列岛屿，扯开架式准备進攻金门、马祖，给人他不惜一切要打台湾的印象。一九五五年三月十六日，艾森豪威尔暗示他可能使用核武器，在记者招待会上说：为什么不能像用子弹或者别的什么弹一样使用原子弹。赫鲁晓夫不想卷入跟美国的核武对抗，将来也不想卷進去。他答应向毛提供核技术。毛的目的达到了，台海危机结束了。
Not wishing to be drawn into a nuclear confrontation with America, Khrushchev took the momentous decision to provide China with the technical assistance to make the Bomb.
At this time, substantial uranium deposits had just been confirmed in Guangxi province. Mao was extremely excited, and immediately ordered a demonstration on 14 January. Geology chief Liu Jie recalled:
这原子弹毛也有了原料。这时苏联专家刚在广西省发现了铀矿。毛兴奋已极，把它称作“福音”， 马上召来地质部负责人刘杰。刘杰回忆道：
I put the uranium ore on the table, and … waved a Geiger counter across it. The Geiger counter went “ga-ga-ga …” Chairman Mao looked so intrigued. He laughed like a child, and picked up the Geiger counter himself, waving it across the ore, listening to the “ga-ga” sounds again … When I said goodbye … Mao held my hand and said: “Liu Jie—ah! I want you to know that what you are doing is the thing that decides our destiny!”
“寒喧以后，主席让我汇报铀矿石的情况。我把铀矿石放在桌上，又用计数器对着铀矿石作表演，当计数器在铀矿石上面晃动便发出“嘎、嘎、嘎……”的声音时，毛主席感到非常好奇，他天真地笑了，并自己拿起计数器，也学我的样子在铀矿石上晃了晃，于是又听到了“嘎嘎”声。总理也在旁边乐得合不拢嘴。”“临走时，毛主席、周总理把我们送到门口。毛主席拉着我的手说：“刘杰啊……这是决定命运的事哟，你可要好好地干啦！””
Afterwards, there was a banquet. Mao's toast was straight to the point: “Bottoms up … to having our own atom bombs as quickly as possible!”
事后开庆祝宴会，毛举杯祝酒：“为了我们能尽早有自己的原子弹，干杯！”
In April, the Russians agreed to build China the two key items needed to make a Bomb: a cyclotron and a nuclear reactor. Mao was en route to becoming a nuclear power. Large groups of Chinese scientists set off to be trained in Russia. In December, news came that the Russians had committed to help build a comprehensive nuclear industry in China. Mao was ecstatic. On the advice of Russian scientists, a twelve-year nuclear plan was drawn up. As 1956 dawned, Mao told his aides he was in better spirits than when he had taken China six years before. He felt on top of the world, and announced grandly to his inner circle: “We must control the Earth!”
四月，苏联正式签约帮助中国搞两个发展原子弹的必需之物：一座重水反应炉和一台回旋加速器。中国成为核大国就此起步。一组组中国科学家立即赴苏受训。十二月，在苏联科学家协助下，一九五六年至一九六七年十二年发展核工业的大纲订出毛的喜悦就不用说了。他对秘书说：他很高兴，一九四九年全国解放时都没有这样高兴。他感到自己已在世界之巅，气概冲天地说要“把地球管起来！”
TO CORRESPOND WITH the twelve-year nuclear plan, in January 1956 Mao and a group of his cronies drafted a twelve-year plan for agriculture. This was really Mao's scheme to extract much more food to fund his upgraded and expanded Superpower Program. It ordered peasants to produce the equivalent of 500 billion kg of grain per annum by the end of the twelve years, more than triple the highest-ever previous annual output (in 1936). And this tall order had to be achieved with virtually no investment, not even of fertilizer.
要实现核工业的十二年计划，毛需要更多的农产品来偿付。他制定了个有关农业的十二年计划，即《一九五六年到一九六七年全国农业发展纲要》。《纲要》要求农民到一九六七年时年产一万亿斤粮食。这个数字是毛根据十二年中需要多少农产品出口推算出来的，比历史最高年产量一九三六年的三千亿斤，高出两倍多。
At this point, Mao met with new resistance—this time from virtually the whole Politburo, spearheaded by the usually doglike Chou En-lai, who was in charge of planning, and Chou was backed by Liu. They all knew that Mao's astronomical output target was unattainable. Mao had set the figure by a process of “back-calculation,” starting not from reality, but from the amount of food that he would need to fund his purchases, and working back from there. The obvious conclusion was that Mao's plan would involve extracting a much larger percentage of the harvest from the peasantry than before. As the peasants were already living on a knife-edge, millions, at a minimum, would be tipped over the edge into starvation and death.
这个指标完全不切实际，遭到几乎整个政治局的反对。出声最高的是负责编制国民经济计划的周恩来，为他撑腰的是刘少奇。大家都很清楚，如按《纲要》征粮，已经在饿饭的千百万农民就得饿死。
Realizing the implications, in February 1956, Chou cut spending on industrial projects by over a quarter. He was just as keen as Mao for China to be a superpower, but he was willing to face up to the fact that the country did not have nearly enough resources to pay for everything Mao wanted, much less simultaneously. So he opted for focusing on the nuclear program and key projects, and cutting back on other projects, which was necessitated anyway by shortages of basic materials like steel, cement and timber.
一九五六年二月，一向顺从的周恩来把计划中的以军工为核心的重工业投资砍掉大约四分之一。周知道中国没有条件买毛要的所有的东西。他的打算是集中资金发展核工业和主要项目，把次要项目放一放。其实不放也不行，中国没有足够的钢铁、水泥、木材等物资。周的这一举动，被称为“反冒進”。
Mao, however, wanted all the projects, and all at once. Quite apart from his devil-may-care attitude to his subjects' welfare, Mao had no grasp of economics. According to Bo Yi-bo, Mao asked to read and listen to reports from the ministries at this time, but “he found it extremely taxing,” and complained that the reports contained “only dull lists and figures, and no stories.” Once, as he listened to a minister, he knitted his eyebrows, and said it was “worse than being in prison” (where he had never been). Chou En-lai found himself being admonished for “flooding Chairman Mao with boring materials and figures.”
毛要的是所有项目一齐上马。毛对经济是外行。薄一波说，毛那时要听管经济的部委汇报，但听得非常吃力：“毛主席十分疲劳。有次听完汇报，他带着疲乏的神情，说他现在每天是“床上地下、地下床上”……听完汇报就上床休息。”累的原因是：“汇报材料很不理想，只有干巴巴的条条或数字，没有事例，使他听起来非常吃力。” 一次，听一位部长汇报，毛紧皱眉头，抬起头来说，这是使他强迫受训，比坐牢还厉害。周恩来某次检讨说，他给毛的报告是材料数字一大堆，没有故事性。
Mao had trouble even with basic numbers. Once, while he was talking about trade with Japan, his prepared notes contained a figure of US$280 million, but one line later he wrote this as US$380 million, throwing the whole calculation out by US$100 million. “Statistics and numbers were not in any way sacred to him,” Yugoslavia's No. 2, Edvard Kardelj, observed after he met Mao in 1957. “He said, for example, ‘In two hundred years' time, or perhaps in forty.' ” The chief Soviet economic adviser in China, Ivan Arkhipov, told us, with a sigh of exasperation, that Mao “had no understanding, absolutely no understanding at all” of economics.
数字跟毛无缘。南斯拉夫第二号人物卡德尔(Edvard Kardeli)跟毛打交道后说：“数字对他是不必抠死的。比方说，他说：“要两百年的时间，或者四十年。””苏联在华经济总顾问阿尔希波夫(Ivan Arkhipov)对我们叹着气说，毛对经济“完全不通，一窍不通”。
In April 1956, Mao told his colleagues that the cuts must be restored, but for once they dug their heels in. Mao dismissed the meeting in a fury. Afterwards, Chou went to see him and begged him to accept the cuts, saying, most extraordinarily, that his “conscience would not allow” him to obey Mao's orders. This sent Mao into a mad rage, but he could not stop the cuts going through.
毛对自己想达到的目标却一点儿也不糊涂。四月一次政治局会议上，毛叫把砍掉的部分加回去。政治局没有从命，坚持他们的意见。毛怒而宣布散会。会后周恩来去找毛，想说服毛，最后实在无法时冒出一句，说他“从良心上不能同意”毛的做法。周恩来跟毛讲良心，使毛怒不可遏。但毛无可奈何。
Mao's colleagues stood up to him because, hard men though they were, the consequences—millions dying of starvation—were too appalling. They were also emboldened by an event that had just occurred in Moscow. There, on 24 February 1956, at the 20th Congress of the the Soviet Party, Khrushchev had denounced Stalin for his killings and tyrannical behavior—and for the costs of his forced-march industrialization, a process which in fact was a lot less extreme than Mao's was to be. Mao's colleagues now started criticizing Stalin on these same issues (always within the confines of the inner circle). Liu called Stalin's peasant policy one of his “major mistakes.” Former Party No. 1 Lo Fu observed that Stalin “put too much emphasis on … heavy industry.” “When I was ambassador to Russia,” he noted, “I went to the shops and found almost nothing to buy. They are also always short of food … We should draw a big lesson.” “We will be making big mistakes if we ignore agriculture,” Chou told the State Council on 20 April. “The lessons in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries all proved this.” The parallels with Mao's practices hardly needed laboring.
毛的同事们跟他顶撞，原因是毛的要求太过分，后果太严重。这时莫斯科发生的一件大事，也使他们的胆子格外壮。这年二月二十四日，赫鲁晓夫在苏共“二十大” 上做秘密报告反斯大林，谴责斯大林的肃反杀人、独断专行，还有斯大林的工业化措施。中共领导人现在纷纷就这些问题批评斯大林。刘少奇说斯大林的错误第一是“肃反扩大化”，还有“农业上犯错误。苏联至今没有解决农业问题”。张闻天说：“苏联内政主要错误是没有把农业搞好，粮食问题始终没有解决。”“太偏重于工业，特别是重工业。苏联轻工产品几十年无改進，我在苏联当大使时去商店几乎没什么可买。粮食也一直很紧。……值得从中吸取教训。”四月二十日，周恩来在国务院说：“优先发展重工业是对的，但忽视了农业就会犯大错误。苏联和东欧人民民主国家的经验都证明了这一点。”
Mao did not mind seeing Stalin denounced, but not over these issues, which were at the core of his own rule. He tried to hold the line with the crude formulation that Stalin was 70 percent correct and only 30 percent mistaken. The 30 percent was not to do with murder, torture and economic misrule, but mostly with how Stalin had treated Mao Tse-tung.
在这些问题上对斯大林的批评打在毛泽东身上。毛反守为攻，规定对斯大林必须“三七开”，“正确是七分，是主要的；错误是三分，是次要的。”错的三分不是别的，仅是斯大林怎样虐待了毛：“这些事想起来就有气。”
But Mao could not come out openly against Khrushchev, who carried the authority of the Soviet Union, the head of the Communist camp—and was giving Mao so many arms factories, plus the Bomb. What was more, Khrushchev's sudden and drastic denunciation of Stalin had taken Mao by surprise and made him sit up and take notice of Khrushchev. As Mao observed, Khrushchev's move had destabilized the whole Communist camp and “shaken the entire world.” It struck awe into Mao, and made him feel he was dealing with somebody unusually bold, unpredictable and not to be trifled with. He commented several times in a pensive mood: “Khrushchev really has guts, he dares to touch Stalin.” “This indeed needs courage.”
但毛不能公开跟赫鲁晓夫翻脸。赫鲁晓夫代表共产主义阵营的“老大哥”。毛离不开赫鲁晓夫，他的军工项目、原子弹，都得从赫鲁晓夫那里来。赫鲁晓夫出其不意地大反斯大林，也让毛对他刮目相看。毛觉得这个人不简单，多次若有所思地讲：“赫鲁晓夫有胆量，敢去碰斯大林”，”这确实需要点勇气。”毛拿不准赫鲁晓夫，他得小心从事。就是在这样的心态下，当他的同事们赞同赫鲁晓夫而反对他的政策时，毛没有一榔头打过去。他忍下了。无从发泄的怒火使他拂袖而去，离开北京到了外省。中国各省的“第一书记”，都是毛特别挑选的。
Mao felt he had to be careful. In this situation, he could not rebut his colleagues when they cited Khrushchev to oppose his policies. Frustrated and angry, he left Peking to ponder a solution in the provinces. The provincial bosses (known as first secretaries) were a special group selected for their blind devotion. They had to be 100 percent yes-men, as they were the on-the-spot enforcers who made sure that every corner of the vast country did what Mao said.
毛这次离开北京的方式不同以往。他在深夜亲自给空军司令刘亚楼打电话，要他准备飞机。毛一向认为飞机危险而不愿意坐，上次还是在一九四五年，他不得不飞到重庆去跟蒋介石谈判。毛这次要坐飞机了，可见他是多么迫不及待地要离开北京。
Sudden unscheduled departures were routine for Mao, but this time he left Peking in an unprecedented manner. He got on the phone himself to his trusted follower, air force chief Liu Ya-lou, out of the blue, in the deep of one night at the end of April, and told him to have planes standing by. Mao had never taken a plane, except in 1945, to Chongqing, under pressure from Stalin. Now he could not wait to be among his cronies.
毛第一次坐由中国人驾驶的飞机。为了照顾他的生活习惯，机舱里放了张木板床。登机前一刻，机组人员才得知乘坐飞机的是毛。这是五月三日早上，一个难得的好天气。毛跟机组握手，接着站着不动，良久不作声。刘亚楼提醒他上了飞机后，他坐下再度陷入沉思，手里夹着的香烟烟灰结得老长也未弹去。突然他像醒过来似的命令起飞。
Because this was Mao's first flight with his own air fleet, inordinate measures were taken in the way of both comfort and security. A large wooden bed was installed in his plane, and the crew were only told who their passenger was at the last minute. To them, Mao appeared somewhat distracted; sitting in silence, he let his cigarette burn into a long column of ash before he suddenly seemed to wake up, and ordered the plane to take off. Mao landed first at Wuhan, where he was met by the local chief, an arch-devotee, who had installed a big statue of Mao in the airport waiting room—perhaps one of the first in China. Mao showed annoyance, as this was just after Khrushchev's denunciation of the cult of personality, and told the devotee to get rid of it; but the man could not tell whether Mao really meant it or not, and the statue stayed.
首站是武汉，湖北省委第一书记王任重在候机大厅里立了座毛的立体塑像，这大概在全中国尚属第一。当时赫鲁晓夫刚谴责了斯大林搞个人崇拜，毛对塑像表示不满意，叫王任重“一定要搬掉，不然唯你是问。”王翻来覆去地想，搬好还是不搬好，最后决定不搬，塑像就留了下来。毛从武汉飞往广州，接他的是另一个对他五体投地的省委书记陶铸。江青也在那里。毛的别墅是美丽的大庄园“小岛”，靠在珠江边上。因为毛来了，江上交通运输都停了下来，附近江面也封锁起来。毛的随从奉命不许见客，不许写信，不许打电话，更不必说出门走一走了。天气又闷又热，毛的房间里放了五桶冰块也无济于事。花园里的热带花草茂盛，蚊子到处乱飞，从香港买来灭蚊的DDT杀虫剂，但漏网分子众多。毛怪工作人员灭蚊不力，发了脾气。
Mao then flew on to the southern provincial capital of Canton, to be met by another major acolyte, as well as by Mme Mao. His vast estate here, “the Islet,” sat on the Pearl River, so river traffic was stopped and that stretch of the waterway was sealed off. Mao's entourage was banned from receiving visitors or letters, or making telephone calls, much less going out. The weather was steamy, and even five giant barrels of ice in Mao's room made little difference. The grounds, blooming with tropical shrubs, swarmed with mosquitoes and midges. DDT was bought from Hong Kong to kill them, without total success. Mao lost his temper with the servants, whom he blamed for doing too little swatting.
What was really getting to Mao was events in Peking, where his colleagues, particularly his Nos. 2 and 3, Liu and Chou, continued to defy his wishes, and even pressed harder to cut back on military–industrial projects. In thwarted fury, Mao decided to flash them a unique warning signal. At the end of May, he left Canton for Wuhan to swim in the Yangtze, the biggest river in China. He wanted to demonstrate his resolve to take on his opponents, and his stamina to see the battle through.
真正使毛心情烦躁的是北京。刘少奇、周恩来继续地不听话，还在那里砍军工项目。五月底，毛离开广州飞回武汉。他要用游长江的方式，给刘、周们发出一个严厉而又意味深长的警告：他身强力壮，有体魄、有决心斗到底。
At Wuhan, the Yangtze spreads wide, and many of his entourage tried to dissuade him from plunging in. But Mao felt safe. As one of his chief guards remarked, he “would not do anything … that was risky.” Later, Mao wanted to swim in the Yangtze Gorges, but he dropped the idea the minute he learned that the water was seriously treacherous. In Wuhan, scores of officials, from the province chief downward, joined security men to test the eddies and undertows. When Mao actually got into the water, dozens of specially trained guards formed a cordon around him, followed by three boats.
长江宽阔流急，游泳似乎有风险。但就像毛的警卫所说，毛游泳“是有限度的，没有把握和冒风险的事他是不会做的”。后来他想游三峡，警卫告诉他那里的水情险恶，他就没有游。在武汉，王任重带领几十个人先试游，找暗流，探漩涡。当毛游泳时，若干训练有素的警卫按照规定的位置，把毛围起来，使他万无一失。旁边还有三条船，以便他略感不适或有任何不测时，可以随时上船。
Mao swam across the river on three occasions. There were high winds and big waves, but he was unperturbed, flaunting his strength. Before his first swim, he stood and posed for photographs at the prow of the boat, looking to his entourage “like an unshakeable mountain.” On the last day that he swam, in drizzle, several tens of thousands of people were organized to watch him from a distance, shouting “Long Live Chairman Mao!” This rare public appearance was Mao's way to get his message out to his colleagues. He further showed his determination in a poem about the swims. Part of it read:
毛连游了三天。风大，浪也高，但是毛怡然自得，写了首词，称自己是“不管风吹浪打，胜似闲庭信步”。最后那天下着小雨，长江两岸组织了几万人从远处观看毛游泳，“毛主席万岁！”的口号声不断。
I don't care—whether the winds thrash me or the waves pound me,
I meet them all, more leisurely than strolling in the garden-court.
Back in Peking, Mao's colleagues stuck to their guns. On 4 June the Politburo endorsed further spending cuts, and canceled more industrial projects. Mao returned to Peking that afternoon, but his presence made no difference.
在北京，六月四日，政治局進一步决定更多的项目下马。毛在这天下午回到北京，他的“回銮”并未影响同事们的决心。
On the 12th, Liu sent Mao a draft of an editorial he (Liu) had commissioned for People's Daily. Its target, as its title stated, was “the mindset of impatience.” It criticized people who “plan actions beyond their means, and try to force things that cannot be achieved” and “want to achieve everything in one morning,” and “so create waste.” “This mindset of impatience,” it said, “exists first and foremost among the leading cadres,” who were “forcing” the country into it. As Mao was later to say, these strictures were plainly aimed at him. In a fury, he jotted three characters on it: “I won't read.” But the editorial came out nonetheless.
十二日，刘少奇把他安排写的“反对急躁情绪”的《人民日报》社论送给毛看。社论批评说：“一切工作，不分轻重缓急，也不问客观条件是否可能，一律求多求快……齐头并進，企图在一个早晨即把一切事情办好”，“贪多图快而造成浪费”。社论还说：急躁情绪“首先存在在上面”，“下面的急躁冒進有很多就是上面逼出来的”。毛后来说，社论“尖锐地针对我”。他在稿上批了三个字：“不看了”，就退给了刘少奇。尽管毛明显恼怒，社论照样在二十日登出。
Mao's problem was that this was a time of great uncertainty for him—in some ways even more uncertain than under Stalin, who had fundamentally been committed to Mao because Mao was a Stalinist. But Khrushchev had rejected Stalinism, and there was no telling if this bulldozer might not turn on Stalinist leaders—maybe even on Mao himself. Indeed, Khrushchev had just brought down the Stalinist Hungarian Party chief, Rákosi, the only European Communist leader Stalin had trusted to talk to the Chinese leader during Mao's visit to Russia. Furthermore, in August, emboldened by Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, a move had been made to try to vote North Korea's seemingly well-entrenched dictator Kim Il Sung out of power at a Party plenum.
这时的毛心里很不踏实，甚至比跟斯大林较劲时还不踏实。毛了解斯大林，但赫鲁晓夫是个未知数。赫鲁晓夫摒弃了斯大林主义，天晓得这个莽汉下一步会干什么。特别是赫鲁晓夫刚把匈牙利的斯大林信徒拉科西弄下了台。金日成的同事们，为赫鲁晓夫反斯大林所鼓舞，也差点儿把看去地位牢不可破的“伟大领袖”在八月党的全会上选下台。
Mao, too, was facing a Party conclave: the first congress of his own Party since taking power, which was set for September. He could not delay it, as it had been widely publicized, and the new climate since Khrushchev's exposure of Stalin was very much one of abiding by the rules. Mao's concern was that if his colleagues felt cornered they might try something at the congress, like kicking him upstairs, or even voting him out, by exposing the full implications of the Superpower Program. Only a few weeks before, Khrushchev's delegate to Mao's congress, Anastas Mikoyan, had supervised the dethronement of Rákosi in Hungary.
毛泽东本人面临他掌权以来的第一次党代表大会：“八大”。大会即将在九月召开，改期是不可能的，赫鲁晓夫时期的新精神是按章程办事，大会宣传也已作出。毛担心他要是跟政治局闹翻了，逼急了他们也许会在党代会上对他来这么一手，比方说给他一个有职无权的职位，或者是把他的政纲的灾难性后果在大会上公开，这样一来把他选掉也未可知。共产党的党代会当然都是精心操纵的，但问题是谁来操纵，毛平时都是靠政治局，现在政治局跟他处在“交战”状态。莫斯科派来参加“八大” 的代表又是米高扬，正是此人在几个星期前具体策划把拉科西拉下马。
Mao took a series of steps to make sure that the congress posed no threat. First he fired warning shots across his colleagues' bows. A few days before the congress, on 10 September, he reminisced to them about how much opposition he had faced in the past, and how he had always prevailed. Most unusually, he volunteered that he had made “mistakes” in the past, mentioning the purge in the early 1930s, and the two biggest disasters on the Long March, Tucheng and Maotai, which he called “the real mistakes.” This was not, as it might seem, an apology, but a way of driving home the message: Nothing can topple me; none of these mistakes, however disastrous, made the slightest difference. So don't even try.
为了使’八大”不会危及自己，毛采取了一系列措施。首先是提醒同事们不要想入非非。九月十日，“八大”开幕前的一次预备会议上，毛彷佛推心置腹似的说：“有些话我过去也没有讲过，我想在今天跟你们谈一谈。”接着他长篇大论地讲起从前他受到的各种处分、打击，“包括“开除党籍”、开除政治局候补委员，赶出红军等，有多少次呢？记得起来的有二十次。”毛承认：“我是犯过错误的。比如打仗。”“长征时候的土城战役是我指挥的，茅台那次打仗也是我指挥的。”毛还说：“肃反时我犯了错误，第一次肃反肃错了人。”如此等等。毛的坦诚并非心血来潮作检讨，他是在强调：再犯错误，造成再大的灾难，我毛泽东也垮不了，谁也奈何不了我。
But Mao's main tactic was to appear conciliatory and willing to compromise. He allowed his own cult to be played down by letting the phrase “Mao Tse-tung Thought” be dropped from the Party Charter—although he made up for this with other forms of self-promotion, like having himself portrayed as the wise leader who had always rejected the cult. In the end he managed to turn the anti-personality cult tide to his advantage by having portraits of his colleagues taken down, and by getting rid of slogans like “Long live Commander-in-Chief Zhu De!,” making himself the sole focus of worship.
毛的主要步骤还是表现得通情达理，愿意让步。他同意在党章中不提“毛泽东思想”。当然，他用别的办法来补偿。党章报告中把他称为英明领袖，“从来厌弃对于个人的神化”。反个人崇拜的潮流被他导向对他有利的方向。“朱总司令万岁！”这类口号一律不准喊了，中共其他领导人的肖像一律去掉，只留他一个人的肖像。毛对外国人说起时，好像他是不得已而为之：“过去我们游行中拿着马、恩、列，斯的像，拿着几个中国人--毛、刘、周、朱的像和兄弟党领袖的像。现在我们采取了“打倒一切”的办法：谁的像都不拿……但是有五个死人--马、恩、列、斯、孙的像，和一个活人--毛泽东的像还挂着。挂就挂吧。”
Mao gave the impression that he was making other important concessions, not least by letting colleagues speak about the rule of law. Liu Shao-chi promised to stop massive killings and violence, and to set up a legal system: “We must … convince everyone … that as long as he does not violate the law, his citizen's rights are guaranteed and he will not be violated …” Another report criticized “campaigns,” which were the essence of Mao's rule. Mao had the last laugh, though. He let a criminal code be drafted, but then made sure it was never approved in his lifetime.
毛在别的方面也给人印象他在妥协。“八大”推崇法制，刘少奇的政治报告说要“着手系统地制定比较完备的法律，健全我们国家的法制”。毛泽东统治的法宝“搞运动”被批评为：“助长人们轻视一切法制的心理”。不过，“八大”一完，法制也就完了。
Mao's most important concession was to relax the timetable for the Superpower Program. In the main report to the congress, he deleted his own pet slogan “More and Faster …,” and allowed the deadline of fifteen years to be replaced with “in a rather long time.” The report reprised Liu's criticisms of over-hasty industrialization that “places too much burden on the people … and causes waste.” Mao endorsed lower levels of food requisitioning. The result was that in 1956 the average food allowance was 205 kg of grain (equivalent)—the highest amount there was ever to be under Mao. He accepted a further cut of 21 percent in investment in arms industries for 1957. As a result, 1957 was, like 1956, a relatively better year for ordinary people.
毛最大的让步是同意他的以军工为核心的工业化走得慢一点。在政治报告上，毛删去他喜欢的口号：“又多、又快”；允许把他“十五年”内实现工业化的提法改成“在一个相当长的时间内”；忍耐了对他的批评，如暗示他犯了““左”倾的错误”，“冒险主义的错误”，“脱离经济发展的正确比例，使人民的负担过重”，“造成浪费”。
For Mao, however, these concessions were intolerable; they slowed down his Program.
由于毛的退让，军工项目减少，一九五六年人民吃粮水准是毛二十七年统治下最高的：四百一十斤。一九五七年，经毛点头，军工投资继续下降百分之二十一。
Within a year he found ways to roll them back and reassert his old master plan.
一年工夫，他将卷土重来。