Case Presentation
After the liberation of the country, faced with the contradiction between the backward productivity and the harsh natural conditions. In the countryside far from the cities. China's peasants are also creating a new mode of production on their own land, that is, organizing and relying on collective power to transform nature. This is the cooperative agricultural movement, and in the midst of this movement, an interesting story has come out of a village called Xipu, at the foot of the Yanshan mountain range, in Zunhua County, the former Tangshan District of Hebei Province, about an ordinary farmer named Wang Guofan.
In 1952, Wang Guofan, a village cadre who participated in the revolution before the liberation of China, united 23 of the poorest farmers in Xipu village and set up a primary society. At the beginning of the organization, they were so poor that they could only rely on chopping wood in the mountains in their spare time, in exchange for some simple farming tools. The only donkey in the society, and a quarter of the right to use belongs to the villagers did not join the society, three donkey legs of the poor stick society so named. But it is with these three donkey legs, they started from chopping wood for farm tools, and in the second year it grew to 83 households. The grain yield grew from more than 120 pounds to more than 300 pounds per acre. The reputation of the Wang Guofan cooperative grew.
Mao Zedong was y moved by such an entrepreneurial move. He said, "In the cooperative movement in Zunhua County, there was a Wang Guofan Cooperative, where 23 poor peasants had only 3 donkey legs, and were known as the 'Poor Stick Society'. With their own efforts, they were able to fetch a large amount of means of production from the mountains in three years, causing some of those who visited to be moved to tears. I see this as the image of our whole country. Couldn't 60,000,000 poor sticks be transformed into a socialist, rich and powerful country in a few decades, thanks to their own efforts?"
In February 1957, Wang Guofan attended the National Congress of Agricultural Labor Models. He was awarded a gold medal by the Central People's Government for the "First National Conference of Agricultural Model Workers". At the closing ceremony of the conference, when Mao Zedong sent a brightly colored flag to Wang Guofan hands. He was so excited that he burst into tears as he held the flag and looked at the President. Mao Zedong was all smiles as he pointed to the words on the award flag. Kindly said, "You are a model worker, a credit to the construction of **** and the country! This is in recognition of the fact that you have taken the lead in the country."
Case Review:
The most famous example of the cooperative movement is the cooperative led by Wang Guofan in Zunhua County, Hebei Province, which was called the "Poor Stick Society" because the 23 poor farmers had only three donkey legs. This cooperative became a nationally famous model because of its "hard work and thriftiness in running the cooperative", which took three years to develop and grow by "'fetching' a large amount of means of production from the mountains" (Mao Zedong's phrase for cutting firewood in the mountains), and the "spirit of the poor stick" has become a synonym for hard work and thriftiness. Still in Hebei, the three poor farmers in Anping County, who continued to run their small cooperative after the withdrawal of the three old Chinese farmers, also became a model for the cooperative movement, and Mao Zedong even made a clear statement: "The direction expressed by these three poor farmers is the direction of the 500 million peasants of the whole country" (Mao Zedong, 1977a:174). In fact, each of the 176 articles included in Socialist Climax in Rural China is a typical example of the cooperative or collectivization movement, and it was under the impetus of these examples that the socialist climax was set off in rural China.
Teaching Mao Zedong to invite Wang Guofan to dinner
Mao Zedong rarely invited guests to dinner, but Mao Zedong once invited Wang Guofan to dinner twice. In his later years, Wang Guofan once recalled to his granddaughter Wang Xiuhong that there. One was a family dinner invited by Mao Zedong, and the main dishes were very spicy. The main dishes were very spicy, such as "stir-fried bitter melon with green peppers" and other simple Hunan dishes. Chairman Mao urged everyone to eat the dishes, and he asked Wang Guofan, who was beside him, "Hunan food is spicy, are you used to it?" Knowing that Wang Guofan is the north, can not eat spicy, so he advised him to eat the table is not spicy meat dishes.
In April 1959, Wang Guofan attended the first session of the National People's Congress as a deputy to the National People's Congress. He met Mao Zedong again, and once again shed tears of excitement.On April 1, 1969, the Ninth National Congress of the Chinese ****anufacturing Party was held in Beijing. Mao Zedong presided over the meeting, and he proposed that Wang Guofan join the Party's Central Committee. At the April 28 meeting, Wang Guofan was elected a member of the Central Committee, entering the Party's top guiding body. Thereafter, at the 10th National Congress of the CPC held in August 1973, Wang Guofan was elected as a new member of the Central Committee.In August 1977, the 11th National Congress of the CPC was held in Beijing. Wang Guofan had been re-elected as a member of the Central Committee. Wang Guofan told Mao Zedong that he would carry forward the spirit of "poor stick", self-reliance, hard work, and lead the peasants to a happy life.
Wang Guofan's name resonated throughout China, and his exploits were included in elementary school lessons at the time, educating and influencing subsequent generations.
Wang Guofan lived a very frugal life. In people's memories, he was always in that peasant's attire, 1.85 meters tall, black lapel top, black cloth pants, home made black cloth shoes and black bindings. After being elected to the Central Committee, some comrades in the province suggested that he should stop wearing such simple clothes, he smiled and said: "I'm a farmer, how can I work on the ground in cadre clothes? He was reluctant to leave the countryside and the land where he worked so hard.
Starting in 1967, Wang Guofan took up a leadership position, having served as a leading cadre at the commune, county, district and provincial levels, and was elected to the Central Committee several times. However, in addition to going out to meetings and work, he has been living in his own earth hut in Xipu village, every day to the production team to work, the production team also like other people, one to give him 10 labor points, the end of the year he is also like the masses in the village. He received his share of grain and other foodstuffs. His son, Prince Hua, recalled that at that time, because his father had no time to take care of things at home, their house was very old and life was tight. A few times, he said to his father, "Our house is too old, let's repair it. But Wang Guofan said, the house is still livable, so let's not repair it. It was not until 1995, when the house was so dilapidated that it was uninhabitable, that the family built a new house. Wang Zihua said fondly, "My father has never enjoyed any happiness in his life, he is quite bitter!"
(Global Vision from China's Children)
Mao Zedong: "Thrift and Diligence in Running a Cooperative"
The cooperative described here is the so-called "Poor Stick Society" led by Wang Guofan. Thrift and diligence should be the policy of all agricultural cooperatives in the country, no, it should be the policy of all economic undertakings. The principle of thrift and diligence should be implemented in all things: in factories, in stores, in all state-run and cooperative undertakings, in all other undertakings, and in everything else. This is the principle of thrift, and thrift is one of the basic principles of socialist economy. China is a big country, but it is still poor, and it will take decades to make China rich. The principle of thrift and diligence will also need to be enforced decades from now, but it is within the present decades, within the present periods of these five-year plans, that thrift and diligence should be especially advocated, and that special attention should be paid to economizing. At present there are many cooperatives which have a bad style of not paying attention to economizing, and this should be corrected quickly. In every province and every county there can be found some examples of thrifty cooperatives, and these examples should be spread so that everyone can follow them. Rewards should be given to those cooperatives which are thrifty and most productive and which do well in all respects, and those which are wasteful and very unproductive and do poorly in all respects should be criticized.
"In the cooperative movement in Zunhua County, there was a Wang Guofan cooperative with twenty-three poor farmers who had only three donkey legs, and were known as the 'Poor Stick Society'. With their own efforts, they 'fetched' large quantities of means of production 'from the mountains' in three years' time, causing some of those who visited to be moved to tears. I see this as the image of our whole country. Couldn't 60,000,000 poor sticks be transformed into a socialist, rich and powerful country within a few decades, thanks to their own efforts? The wealth of society is created by the workers, peasants and laboring intellectuals themselves. As long as these people are in control of their own destiny and have a Marxist-Leninist line, not avoiding problems but solving them with a positive attitude, any earthly difficulties can always be solved.