The regime imposed corvée labor (unpaid porterage) on innumerable peasant families. Xie and other moderates wrote to Mao many times arguing against this harsh method, but Mao told them flatly that the policy “is not only nothing to criticise, but is also completely correct.” Peasants, he said, must be “forced” to do it, and, he specifically enjoined, “in the
THE LOCAL PEASANTS were having to support an administration that was both huge and inefficient. A British radio expert who was in Yenan in 1944–45, Michael Lindsay, was so frustrated by the inefficiency that he produced a document called “What’s Wrong with Yenan.” The system stifled initiative, Lindsay wrote, and made people frightened of proposing improvements, as any suggestion could be twisted into a lethal political accusation. “Technical people all [
Others had raised their voices against the bloated bureaucracy earlier. In November 1941 a non-CCP member of the region’s dummy parliament had proposed cutting down on the army and administration, quoting a traditional adage that a good government should have “fewer but better troops, smaller and simpler administration.” For propaganda purposes, Mao made a public show of adopting the adage. But he was not interested in reducing the number of cadres, or soldiers. He wanted more of them, not fewer, in order to conquer China.
It is part of the founding myth of Communist China that in Yenan both the army and the administration were reduced, and that this relieved the burden on the population. In fact, what the regime did was to weed out the politically unreliable (termed “backward”), and the old and the sick, and reassign them to manual labor. The rules for relocating them said they “must be placed round the centre of the region to avoid the Nationalists enticing them away.” In other words, to prevent them fleeing. But even with these reductions, as a secret document of March 1943 noted, there was actually “an overall increase” in employees in the region’s administration, mainly at lower levels, in order to intensify control at the grassroots. Meanwhile, Mao used the drive to merge departments and carry out a reshuffle at the top to tighten his grip.
THE GERMAN INVASION of Russia in June 1941 made Mao look around for an alternative source of funding in case Moscow was unable to continue its subsidy. The answer was opium. Within a matter of weeks, Yenan brought in large quantities of opium seeds. In 1942, extensive opium-growing and trading began.
To a small circle, Mao dubbed his operation “the Revolutionary Opium War.” In Yenan, opium was known by the euphemism
The major opium-producing counties lay on the borders with the friendly Nationalist general to the north, Teng Pao-shan, who was actually known as “the Opium King.” Mao received invaluable collaboration from him, which he reciprocated by facilitating Teng’s own opium-trafficking. When Chiang Kai-shek was thinking of transferring Teng, Mao sprang into action to prevent this: “Ask Chiang to stop at once,” he told Chou in Chongqing, saying that he (Mao) was “determined to wipe out” the unit scheduled to replace Teng. Chiang canceled the transfer. Mao showed how much he appreciated Teng by mentioning him twice when he addressed the 7th Congress in 1945, once even in the same breath as Marx, leading the Russian liaison Vladimirov to ask: “What sort of man is this Teng Pao-shan whom Mao Tse-tung cited … alongside Marx?” Yet Mao never trusted his benefactor. After the Communist takeover in 1949, Teng remained on the Mainland and was rewarded with high nominal posts. But when he asked to travel abroad, the request was denied.
