Shanghai Sweet Factory And The Cultural Revolution: Workers' Self-Management In 1967
Mao-Era Workers Seize Power: Joan Robinson's Small Factory Case Study in 60s Shanghai
Part One. Part Two of this series
At the other extreme of the industrial spectrum is a small sweet factory in Shanghai employing 250 workers. It belonged to a capitalist and was taken into the state-private system in 1956. In September 1966 it was taken over completely. The capitalist who, under the state-private system, got his 5 per cent amounting to 360 yuan per month, has been expropriated, but he is still allowed 160 yuan per month, which is considered adequate for him to support a family of six, taking into account the fact that one son is earning.When the factory was taken over in 1956 all production was by hand. Technical innovations were made in 1958; now it is about 40 per cent mechanized. About 30 per cent of the output is exported to South-East Asia.
The course of the Cultural Revolution in this small enterprise followed the general line in the city. The workers began to criticize the cadres. The Party branch took a reactionary stand. In November 1966 the rebels in the factory appealed to the Headquarters in the city for support. In January 1967, in the ‘great storm’ they seized power.
Mao Tse-tung Sixteen Points
At first the workers tried to run everything themselves, but they found that it was necessary to make use of the experience and ability of the cadres. The question now came up, how to treat cadres who had been on the reactionary side during the struggle. The workers studied the directive in the Sixteen Points, articles in the press on the question of cadres and the quotations from Chairman Mao’s writings. They understood that it is necessary to allow the cadres to correct their mistakes. They analysed the history and attitudes of their own cadres.
The Vice Director (who was sitting at the table while this conversation went on) had been on the wrong side; he had fomented disputes among the workers; but when they took power he came over to them. They looked into his past life. He came from a poor peasant family and he had been a child beggar. At the age of 13 he became a landlord’s servant (a kind of domestic slave). At 16 he joined the PLA. He became a Party member at 18. His work in the factory had been under the guidance of the Party and he could not be too much blamed for loyalty to his superiors. He was classed, in the categories of the Sixteen Points, as comparatively good.
The Secretary of the Party branch had taken a strong line against the rebels. She sowed dissension among the workers and branded the leaders of the rebels as ‘ghosts and monsters’. (This phrase of Mao’s, an allusion to folk lore, is intended to apply to evil remnants of the old feudal and bourgeois society.) When she was accused of having made mistakes, she resisted stubbornly, and abused the rebels and Party members who were supporting them.They analysed her life story. She had been a child worker and had suffered bitter oppression. When she joined the Party she set herself up as a superior person, she divorced herself from the workers and carried out her responsibilities in an undemocratic style. They decided that she was not basically anti-socialist; she was placed in the third category, as one who had made serious mistakes. In the end she recognized her mistakes and made a self-criticism. She was brought into the Triple Combination, and is now in charge of propaganda.
The Cultural Revolution in Shanghai
The former Director of the factory made serious mistakes. He was slack in his Party work and let in untrustworthy elements. He believed in co-existence with the old bourgeois characters. He helped the capitalist to run the supply department of the factory and allowed him to put ‘feudal’ designs, of dragons and fairies, on the wrapping paper of the sweets. He was accused also of putting politics in command. He followed ‘revisionist’ policies. He did not take the workers into his confidence. He told them that without the capitalist they could not produce. In management, he followed the capitalist and built up his authority. He told the workers that they could not produce without the capitalist.
He was graded as a man who had made serious mistakes and as a bourgeois who had not sufficiently remoulded himself, but he was not branded as an anti-Party Rightist. They propose to help him recognize his mistakes. He is difficult to help because he is afraid of losing face, but they consider that he has made some progress. He and the old capitalist are now working on the shop floor.
The system of management has been simplified and the number of cadres reduced by 42 per cent. Each team of workers has a leader who looks after production. Unnecessary rules have been abolished. Both quality and quantity of output have been markedly improved; the annual plan of output was being over-fulfilled. Even in the hectic month of January 1967, output was above the planned level.
The wage system has not yet been altered. The average wage is 70 yuan per month. A worker who has been with the factory for fifteen years has a right to a pension on retirement of 75 per cent of earnings. Veteran workers receive full pay during sickness; others, 50 per cent of earnings.The former Trade Union worked on the Liu-Teng line and has been repudiated by the workers.
The factory is now managed by a committee of eleven members. Some 60 per cent of the workers are women but there are only three women on the committee.This story provides a picture of the high degree of devolution and workers’ self-management that has been achieved in the process of the Cultural Revolution. The workers accept guidance from the cadres because they find that they need it.
Self management during the Cultural Revolution
This kind of self-management is very different from the Yugoslav system which gives representatives of the workers control over prices and the commodities to be produced, and it is different also from the experimental systems in the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies which instruct the management of enterprises to earn profits. Prices and supplies are given to an enterprise in China; in the case of this sweet factory, the plan is given by the Shanghai Food Corporation; the product mix is controlled by market demand; if actual costs are kept below the planned level, the extra profit is not kept by the enterprise, but costs and prices are reckoned to include the social security payments for which the enterprise is responsible. Management is not concerned with commercial affairs, but purely with production and human relations within the factory. ‘Putting politics in command’ means that pride in the factory rather than money earnings gives the incentive to production and management alike to maintain and improve production. – THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA
Notes & Sources (from the original)
Peking Review, 2 August 1968.
† ibid., p. 22.Hsinhua Supplement (13), September 1968.
See p. 144.
† Reported by Kyril Tidmarsh, The Times, 9 October 1968.