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Printed in the People's Republic of China
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Editor's Note
The Tibet Autonomous Region, situated on China's southwest border, is on the world's largest plateau with snow-capped mountains, at an average altitude of more than 4,000 metres above sea level. Its main inhabitants are people of Tibetan nationality which boasts a long history and is a component part of the Chinese nation.
Before liberation Tibet was a hell on earth, where the labouring people suffered for centuries under the darkest and most reactionary feudal serfdom. The three manorial lords — the Tibetan local governments, monasteries and nobility — owning all the land and other means of production, ruthlessly exploited and oppressed the labouring masses. Tibetan serfs and slaves were deprived of freedom of the person and lived worse than animals. Such savage feudal serfdom obstructed the development of social productive forces so that Tibet steadily declined politically, economically and culturally and its population dwindled. On top of all this, a century of aggression and enslavement in Tibet by imperialist forces plunged the Tibetan people into an abyss of dire misery.
In 1951 Tibet was liberated, and imperialist aggressive forces were driven out. This marked a great turning point in the historic development in Tibet. Since then Tibetan people have lived with China's other nationalities in the family of the great motherland on the basis of equality, unity, fraternity,
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and mutual help. The Tibetan people are revolutionary and patriotic. But the Dalai-led reactionary ruling clique of the Tibetan upper social strata, trying to maintain feudal 1959 in collusion with imperialism and foreign reactionaries. serfdom, launched a counter-revolutionary armed rebellion in The Tibetan serfs and slaves rose in great wrath, and with their co-operation the People's Liberation Army rapidly put down the rebellion. A dynamic Democratic Reform Movement ensued, which toppled the serf-owning class and criminal serfdom and liberated the million serfs. Since then Tibet has marched with vigorous strides in transition from feudal serfdom to a socialist society, bypassing several centuries of Pasang historical development.
Led by Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China, a million Tibetan serfs have stood up and joined China's brother nationalities to become masters of the country. An earthshaking change has taken place in Tibet. Since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the general situation in the autonomous region has become still better. People of various nationalities there have conscientiously studied Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and their mental outlook has undergone profound changes. Constructive work goes ahead vigorously and the people's living standards rise. A great number of Tibetan cadres are maturing rapidly and the dictatorship of the proletariat is being consolidated and strengthened. Now Tibet is a thriving scene of socialism
This booklet contains eleven articles, presenting a general picture of Tibet's profound changes since liberation.
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Contents
NEW LOOK OF THE TIBETAN PLATEAU Pasang 1 FORMER SLAVE BECOMES MASTER OF COUNTRY— TALK WITH A TIBETAN WORKER Chi Che-wen 8 CADRES OF TIBETAN NATIONALITY ARE MATURING Hung Kan 13 WORKERS, PEASANTS AND SOLDIERS OF TIBET GO TO COLLEGE Chao Yang 19 LHASA'S NEW LOOK Hsin Mao 22 CHANGES ON THE ARI PLATEAU Kao Yuan-ching 27 LINCHIH—A RISING INDUSTRIAL BASE Kung Yeh 33 RAPID ADVANCES OF LOCAL INDUSTRY IN TIBET Chi Yueh-chin 37 THE KESUNG PEOPLE'S COMMUNE SPEEDS AHEAD Cheng Wen 41 SUCCESSES IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENTIFIC EXPERI- MENTS IN TIBET Keh Yen 46 FARMING AND STOCK BREEDING THRIVE IN TIBET Hung Nung 49
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PASANG1
New Look of the Tibetan Plateau
I was born in a slave's family in Konka County, Tibet. Under reactionary feudal serfdom, I was a slave for nine years and lived like a beast of burden. Chairman Mao and the Communist Party saved me from slavery and nurtured me to become a Communist and a responsible cadre. My mother gave birth to me, but it is the Party which saved me and invincible Mao Tsetung Thought which sustains me. I want to cheer again and again: "Long live Chairman Mao! A long, long life to him!"
October 1 of 1966 is the most unforgettable day of my life. As a representative of the minority nationalities, I met Chairman Mao, the great leader of the people of all China's nationalities, on the Tien An Men rostrum at the Peking National Day celebration rally. As I happily shook hands with the great teacher Chairman Mao, my heart pounded. There were so many things I wanted to say. With tears in my eyes, I said: "Chairman Mao, we the million emancipated Tibetan serfs are determined always to follow you in making revolution. We wish you a long, long life!"
1 Vice-Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
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For generations my forefathers were slaves under the rule of the manorial lords — the reactionary Tibetan local governments, the nobility and the monasteries. We had mouths but no right to speak. We had legs but no freedom of movement. The manorial lord's cattle and horses were fed garden peas and parched chingko barley whereas we lived on wild herbs. When my mother and younger brother died of hunger, the manorial lord took my elder sister away as payment of "death tax" and forced me to become his slave. His agent said threateningly to my father: "Pasang is born our slave. If you dare to resist, we'll clap you into prison and drag her away tied to a horsetail."
I was nine when I was taken to the manorial lord's estate. I became the maid of his wife Choma and her daughter. They beat and abused me every day. If the butter-tea I served was too hot, the vicious Choma would throw it in my face. If it was cold, she would beat me with her boot. I was always beaten black and blue and it hurt me all over to lie down to sleep. I had only thread-bare Tibetan robe for the severe winter. The few rags I mopped the floor with served as a mattress for the night. It was like sleeping on ice and I would tremble with cold. Every night Choma chanted sutras before she went to bed and I had to kneel behind her t0 massage her back. I was so tired I would sometimes doze off. Choma would take a big pin from her collar and poke it into my head. Blood streamed down my head and I felt dizzy. Nine years of enslavement brought me to the verge of death.
One summer day in 1956, I was beaten unconscious by Choma's daughter. A gust of cold evening wind woke
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me up. My body covered with wounds and blood, I thought of our kinsmen the People's Liberation Army. (Tibet was peacefully liberated as early as 1951. But the Democratic Reform was not yet carried out in 1956 and the manorial lords continued to rule over the serfs.) I remembered a P.L.A. unit had been stationed in our village in 1954 and the armymen told us how the poor people rose to make revolution. But they soon left for another village. I was determined to escape from the manor and look for the P.L.A. at the risk of my life. That night the masters were having a drinking party and I took advantage of their merry-making and the departure of guests to run away from the lair. I ran by day in the mountains and only in the evening I came down to pick pea leaves in the field to eat. After five days and six nights I finally found the P.L.A. who saved me. . . .
That was my life's turning point. I began to see the sunshine and live a new life. At first I became a worker. In the autumn of 1957, I was given the opportunity to study at an inland institute for minority nationalities. I studied politics and the Tibetan and Han languages. I began to understand many things about revolution and my class consciousness gradually rose. In May 1959 I had the honour of being admitted into the Communist Party of China. For several days I was so excited that I could hardly sleep. I reviewed the road I had travelled and realized that I owed everything to the education given me by the Party organization. I said to myself: "Pasang, you are no longer an ordinary emancipated slave but a vanguard fighter of the proletariat. From now on you must redouble your effort to study Chairman Mao's works in the course of struggle and make revolution all your
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life along Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line."
I returned to Tibet in summer 1959 to take part in the struggle to put down the rebellion of Tibet's reactionary ruling clique of the upper strata led by the Dalai, and in the Democratic Reform Movement to overthrow reactionary serfdom. All this was a profound education and tempering for me.
I became chairman of the Langhsien County women's association and later deputy county head. Being a leading cadre was no easy job for me, but I thought that so long as I remained loyal to Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and acted according to Mao Tsetung Thought, I could overcome all difficulties, however great.
In enthusiastic response to Chairman Mao's great call "Get organized!", the poor peasants of Tengmu Township organized mutual-aid teams and co-operatives in 1963 and later wanted to organize a people's commune. Unreformed manorial lords and their agents made trouble in the village. They spread rumours and carried out disruptive activities. Class struggle was sharp. I went to the village with several comrades from the county to make an investigation. Resolutely implementing and defending Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, we supported the emancipated serfs in their revolutionary action and smashed the disruptive scheme of the handful of class enemies. The people's commune was organized. The once poverty-stricken Tengmu Township has undergone big changes. Formerly 80 per cent of the people in the township were dependent on state relief grain. Today the township is self-sufficient and has surplus grain to sell to the state.
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In autumn 1965, not long after I became deputy head of Langhsien County, I was sent by the county Party committee to lead 1,500 people in building a highway. It was shock work. Following Chairman Mao's teaching, I persistently put proletarian politics in commune of our work and the project went ahead quickly. Then we came upon a precipice when we were near the last stretch of the highway. Scores of people blasted the precipice for two weeks but progress was slow. It seemed that our work would lag behind schedule. I organized the road builders to make a conscientious study of Chairman Mao's brilliant article "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains". The study heightened the people's morale. With greater determination, we became more resourceful. A shock brigade was organized. With concerted efforts and combining hard work with ingenious methods, we completed the work in four days.
For the past decade and more I have always kept in mind Chairman Mao's teaching "We should be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and serve the Chinese people heart and soul. . ." and tried to carry forward the Party's glorious tradition of hard struggle and close ties with the masses. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, I gained a deeper understanding of Chairman Mao's revolutionary line. I realize that political line determines everything and Chairman Mao's revolutionary line guarantees victory in our revolution. When the Revolutionary Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region was set up in 1968 I was elected vice-chairman. I became concurrently chairman of the Langhsien County Revolutionary Committee when it was organized in 1970. I often remind myself:
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Though my position has changed, I should not forsake the true qualities of the working people, but remain loyal to Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and never waver in my determination to make revolution all my life.
The whole Tibetan Plateau has changed. There are many emancipated serfs or household slaves like me among the leading cadres at all levels in Tibet. Nurtured by Mao Tsetung Thought, they have matured politically. Yang Tsung, a former slave, was elected an alternate member of the Central Committee of the Party at the Party's Ninth National Congress. Tzujenlamu, another former slave, and Tutengnima, former slave and now a worker at the Lhasa Cement Plant, became vice-chairmen of the regional revolutionary committee. Tochi, a poor herdsman from the north Tibet grassland, became a member of the regional revolutionary committee. There are also emancipated serfs among those wielding power in organs of political power at the county level and below. Of the 15 members on the Langhsien County Revolutionary Committee, 9 are emancipated serfs, accounting for 60 per cent of the total. Emancipated Tibetan serfs and slaves are now chairmen of the revolutionary committees of the county's three districts and all the county's 26 townships.
In 1970, my 72-year-old father was elected a delegate to the Congress of Activists in the study of Mao Tsetung Thought in Loka Prefecture, where I come from. When we met, the first words he said were: "Daughter, you must fully arm yourself with Mao Tsetung Thought, and wield power well for the Tibetan people." I replied: "You are right, father, we mustn't forget the misery of
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the past now that we have healed our wounds. We must never forget the days when power was not in the people's hands. I will use Mao Tsetung Thought to guide me in wielding power."
Chairman Mao teaches: "The rights the people have won must never be lightly given up but must be defended by fighting." We the million emancipated Tibetan serfs are determined to follow our great leader Chairman Mao's teaching, continue the revolution, always remain revolutionary, advance valiantly along the course charted by the Party's Ninth Congress, and struggle to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat and build a new socialist Tibet!
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CHI CHE-WEN
Former Slave Becomes Master of Country—Talk with a Tibetan Worker
One day right before the Tibetan New Year, a traditional festival, I visited Ahwangtochi, a Tibetan worker of the Tungfeng (The East Wind) Shoe and Hat Factory in Lhasa.
In festival dress, Ahwangtochi and his mother Tzujenlachen came out to welcome me. His mother prepared butter-tea. The family, eight all told, live in three spacious and tidy rooms which were allotted them after liberation. On the white-washed wall of the middle room is a portrait of Chairman Mao. Beneath it are certificates of commendation presented to Ahwangtochi and his younger brothers and sisters by their factories. Piled high on the beds were quilts and Tibetan blankets. In the eastern room are four big chests full of clothes distributed to the family during the Democratic Reform as well as new ones they bought later on. Sides of beef and mutton hung from the beams; butter and cakes and other eatables are in store.
The mother said with feeling: "Without Chairman Mao and the Party, how could we poor people enjoy the New Year as we do now! In the old society we were
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vagrants without any hope of survival! . . ." Tears filled her eyes and she could hardly go on. There was a short silence. Ahwangtochi then continued what his mother had left unsaid and recounted the family's suffering in the old and criminal society.
Before liberation, the family used to live in Nanmulin County of Shigatse Prefecture and had been blacksmith slaves for many generations. In the old days, a blacksmith was regarded by the serf-owners as "the lowest man" and led a life of humiliation and hunger. Unable to bear the harsh exploitation and oppression, Ahwangtochi's father decided to escape with his family and begged all the way to Lhasa. The family thought that "Buddha" lived in Lhasa and that they could make a living there. But under reactionary serfdom, the whole of Tibet was a living hell. Within a month of their arrival in Lhasa, the grandfather, grandmother, and an uncle and aunt died of starvation and cold, one after another. His father could not support the family by working as a blacksmith. The back-breaking unpaid ula — corvée — made even bare existence impossible for the family. His father brought the family back to Nanmulin when Ahwangtochi was 12 years old. But they had neither house nor land. The family of eight huddled in a tent which did not protect them from summer rain or winter cold. Still, they had to pay the manorial lord a monthly tax of 2.5 yuan or be driven away. Both his parents were forced to do corvée labour, but for different manorial lords, and neither was entitled to any freedom. Unable to bear the cruelty any longer, the family fled to Nagchuka. But they were caught and brought back. Father was punished with three hundred lashes. Clench-
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ing his hands, Ahwangtochi said: "My mother's heart almost broke when she saw how cruelly father had been beaten. There was no way in the old society for us poor people to live."
Ahwangtochi's three younger brothers and two younger sisters sat and listened. The family's history roused them to bitter hatred for the criminal old society. "High as they are, the Himalayas have their summit; long as it is, the Yalutsangpo River has its sources; and poor as we Tibetan people were, we have finally seen the end to our misery. At last the spring thunder dispelled the dark clouds and the red sun rose," said Ahwangtochi with delight. "Chairman Mao sent the People's Liberation Army to Tibet in 1951. Under the kadership of Chairman Mao and the Communist Party, and with the help of the P.L.A., we eventually overthrew vicious feudal serfdom. Since then great changes have taken place in Tibet. The million serfs have become masters of the country and are today living a happy life."
The mother then said: "I had nine children. My heart almost broke when three of my daughters died of hunger and cold. Thanks to Chairman Mao, now we have a happy life. My eldest son and his wife, my two elder daughters and my third son are workers. They all study Chairman Mao's works hard and do their jobs well. Two of them have become Communist Party members and one, Communist Youth League member. My second son, now in the P.L.A., was elected as an activist in the study of Chairman Mao's works last year. I'm 53 but I don't want to sit idle. As a member of the
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neighbourhood committee, I am doing my best to serve the people."
Solangwangmu, the eldest daughter, who works in the Lhasa Farm Machinery Plant, cut in: "We poor people in the past didn't have enough parched chingko barley to eat; now in addition to barley we have rice, flour, butter, beef and mutton. We had only ragged yak-hair clothes in the past and no shoes, even in the dead of winter. But now we have clothes of better material and also boots to wear. We had to serve corvée like beasts of burden under the manorial lords' whip; but now we have become masters of the country, enthusiastically and selflessly working to build socialism. The monthly income of our family is more than enough to meet our needs. We have now watches and bicycles. We owe all this to Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China."
Ahwangtochi told me that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution had helped raise their consciousness of class struggle and the struggle between the two lines — Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and the bourgeois reactionary line. They often run Mao Tsetung Thought study classes in the family. They recall the past bitterness in contrast to their present happiness, criticize the revisionist line of the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi and his agents in Tibet and denounce the Dalai clique's crimes of betraying the socialist motherland. He said with great feeling: "A person who gropes in the dark values the light and those who have suffered hunger and cold love the warmth of the sun. The sun is Chairman Mao; the sun is the Communist Party. We the million emancipated serfs will
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never allow Liu Shao-chi and his agents in Tibet to vilify and attack our socialist system in an attempt to restore vicious feudal serfdom and make us suffer again."
The story of Ahwangtochi sums up the life of thousands upon thousands of emancipated serfs in Tibet who are now living a happy life. The million former serfs in Tibet have embarked on the bright road of socialism. No one can block their advance. "Follow the road charted by the great leader Chairman Mao, fight the class enemy to the finish!" This is their will and determination.
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HUNG KAN
Cadres of Tibetan Nationality Are Maturing
Nurtured by great Mao Tsetung Thought, many cadres of Tibetan nationality have come to the fore on the Tibetan Plateau. They are loyal to Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and active in the three revolutionary movements of class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific experiment. They are the backbone in building a socialist Tibet.
During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, several thousand outstanding Tibetan workers, peasants, herdsmen and cadres have been elected to leading posts of the autonomous region's revolutionary committees at various levels. Four Tibetan Party members of the autonomous region attended the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China and one was elected an alternate member of the Ninth Central Committee. In the rural and pastoral areas, nearly all the cadres at the commune (township), production brigade and team levels and over 90 per cent of the cadres at the district level are of Tibetan nationality. With the rapid development of socialist construction, many Tibetans have been trained as scientific and technological workers in industry, com-
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munications, agriculture, animal husbandry, culture, education, health and medicine and other fields of work.
The Party and the government pay close attention to training cadres of Tibetan nationality. After liberation groups of children of the emancipated serfs have been sent to study in other parts of the country, and many schools and training classes have been set up in the region. The revolutionary committees at all levels often run study classes to help cadres study Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought so as to raise their consciousness of class struggle and the struggle between the two lines. The cadres of Tibetan nationality have increased and matured faster during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution than at any other time since liberation.
Most of the cadres are former slaves and serfs or come from the families of poor peasants and herdsmen. They were cruelly exploited and oppressed by the former Tibet local governments, the monasteries and the nobility. Many of them were jailed and bear scars from beatings and torture. They bitterly hate serfdom and love socialist society with all their hearts. Since taking part in the revolution, particularly being tempered during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, they have rapidly raised their consciousness of class struggle and the struggle between the two lines and their awareness of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. They eagerly study Chairman Mao's works so as to arm themselves with Mao Tsetung Thought. They take an active part lii revolutionary mass criticism of the counter-revolutionary revisionist line pushed by the renegade,
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hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi and his agents in Tibet. They are advancing steadfastly under the guidance of Chairman Mao's revolutionary line.
The history of Pasang, Vice-Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region, epitomizes the rapid maturing of numerous Tibetan cadres nurtured by Mao Tsetung Thought.
Communist Chuchia of the Ari area had been a household slave at the age of eight. After liberation Chuchia worked on a state stock farm and later was sent by the people's government to study in Peking. He returned to Tibet in 1959 and took an active part in the struggle to put down the armed rebellion of the reactionary clique of the Tibetan upper strata, and then in the Democratic Reform. He was elected advanced worker three times and had the honour of being admitted to the Chinese Communist Party. For the past decade or more Chuchia has studied Chairman Mao's works diligently and with proletarian feeling and remoulded his world outlook conscientiously. He had served as head of the district and deputy head of the county, and was recently elected deputy secretary of the prefecture Party committee.
Following Chairman Mao's teaching "Remain one of the common people while serving as an official", the cadres of Tibetan nationality always retain the fine qualities of the working people. They take an active part in productive labour, keep close ties with the masses and wholeheartedly serve the emancipated peasants and herdsmen. They have made outstanding achievements at their fighting posts.
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Chiatso is a repair worker at the Lhasa Power Plant. Though he was elected member of the plant revolutionary committee, he has kept on studying and working with the workers and consulting them on matters. He always strives to do the hardest work. In order to save the lives of the people and their property from a mountain torrent in July 1970, he was the first to jump into the stream at the risk of his life. Encouraged, the others bravely joined the battle. After a hard round-the-clock struggle, they overcame the flood. Chiatso was admitted into the Party in November the same year.
Paimatochi, member of the Ningpa District Revolutionary Committee and leader of the district veterinary group of Sohsien County on the northern Tibetan grassland, has conscientiously studied Chairman Mao's brilliant works "Serve the People", "In Memory of Norman Bethune" and "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains". He often goes to the grazing grounds or stables to treat the animals. He modestly learns from the experienced herdsmen and, with them, he has worked out dozens of remedies for animal diseases. This has greatly reduced animal mortality.
The Tibetan cadres at the basic level lead the emancipated peasants and herdsmen along the socialist road and in fighting nature, greatly propelling the socialist transformation of agriculture and livestock breeding and the socialist construction in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The masses praise them as "pace-setters on the socialist road". People's communes are springing up all
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over Tibet and the mass movement to learn from Tachal1 is surging forward. Tzujenlamu is Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chiehpa People's Commune in Naitung County. Firmly responding to Chairman Mao's great call "Get organized!", she mobilized eleven households of slaves in 1961 to form a mutual-aid team which is known throughout Tibet as "example for the million emancipated serfs". A handful of class enemies tried constantly to undermine and disrupt the team, but the members, united as one, firmly followed the road of cooperation and promoted the collective economy. Later, Tzujenlamu and the team members took the lead in setting up the Chiehpa People's Commune, after smashing interference by Liu Shao-chi and his agents in Tibet. They fought nature and class enemies and have increased grain and livestock production year by year. The commune's per-unit yield surpassed its target, and the number of livestock has increased by a big margin. Tzujenlamu was elected Vice-Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region which was organized in September 1968.
Ahchiang, Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Hsuchung People's Commune in Mangkang County, organized more than 300 commune members to cut a channel through the mountain to lead in water so as to transform this barren area. After four years of
1 Tachai, a production brigade of a people's commune of the same name in Hsiyang County, Shansi Province, is a standard-bearer in building a socialist new countryside by self-reliance and hard work. in 1964, Chairman Mao issued the call: "In agriculture, learn from Tachai."
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hard struggle, they dug a tunnel 280 metres long, 2.2 metres high and 2.5 metres wide through the Tzechiula Mountain to conduct water from the Maya River ten kilometres away. This has brought almost 100 hectares of land under irrigation and achieved great increase in grain output. The commune has undergone tremendous changes.
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CHAO YANG
Workers, Peasants and Soldiers of Tibet Go to College
Around 400 workers, peasants and soldiers, most of them sons and daughters of emancipated serfs of the Tibetan, Loba and Monba nationalities in Tibet, have been sent to study in colleges in Peking and Shensi Province. The revolutionary people of various nationalities consider this a happy event in their political life. They hail it as a great victory for Chairman Mao's proletarian line in education and a great victory for the Communist Party's policy towards nationalities.
Under the cruel exploitation and oppression by the reactionary rulers in the old society, the serfs led a miserable life and their children could not go to school. There were only two schools in Tibet, both training officials, one ecclesiastical and the other secular. None of the sons and daughters of the labouring people could go to these schools.
It was not until liberation that the children of the working people got the opportunity to go to school, thanks to the efforts of the Party and the people's government in setting up many primary and middle schools in Tibet. However, interference and sabotage by the renegade,
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hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line in education held back the carrying out of Chairman Mao's proletarian line in education and many school-age children from working people's families couldn't go to school, not to mention to college. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution smashed the counter-revolutionary revisionist line pushed by Liu Shao-chi and his agents in education and ensured schooling for the workers, peasants and soldiers. The emancipated serfs were overjoyed when they heard that the Peking Central Institute for Nationalities and other colleges were to enrol worker-peasant-soldier students from Tibet. They considered the selection of students a political task in bringing up successors to the revolutionary cause of the proletariat and in consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat. Workers, members of agricultural co-operatives and people's communes, People's Liberation Army fighters, cadres at grass-root levels and sons and daughters of the emancipated serfs who suffered before liberation and love Chairman Mao, the Communist Party and socialism were sent to college. Upon their departure, they were given a warm send-off by the revolutionary people who encouraged them to study well for the sake of the revolution. The students pledged to fulfil the task entrusted them by the Party and the expectations of the emancipated serfs.
Tserenwangdui, a postman in Loka, was thrilled when he was admitted to the Central Institute for Nationalities. In the old society his family had been "nangzan" (hereditary slaves) of manorial lords for generations and not one had a chance to go to school. He said: "Today we emancipated serfs have the honour to enter
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institutes of higher education thanks to Chairman Mao's concern for the million emancipated serfs. I am determined to study hard so as to serve the people all my life.
Kaoying of Monba nationality and Chienchang of Loba nationality are two young women. Under the vicious feudal serf system, the labouring women of minority nationalities suffered the most. Daughters were looked upon as "bad luck" and treated no better than beasts. The manorial lords forced the parents of Kaoying and Chienchang to sell the girls when they were only two years old, on the pretext of eliminating "disasters". Today they have become college students. They feel very happy now and have pledged never to forget the bitter class oppression. They are determined to study hard for the revolution and strive to be genuine successors to the revolutionary cause of the proletariat.
Communist Yungti was platoon leader of a People's Liberation Army unit stationed in Tibet. For generations his family were herdsmen working for manorial lords on a northern Tibet grassland. His family was completely emancipated only after the overthrow of the feudal serf system when the Democratic Reform was carried out in Tibet in 1959. Yungti then joined the People's Liberation Army where he studied politics and military affairs and raised his educational level. He made rapid progress. Now he has been sent to college. He made the following pledge: "No matter what work I do, I will always remain a people's fighter resolutely defending Chairman Mao's revolutionary line and try to make new contributions to the people."
These new college students left in late November 1971 for colleges and institutes.
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HSIN MAO
Lhasa's New Look
Lhasa, an ancient city on China's Tibetan Plateau, has undergone tremendous changes since the Democratic Reform in 1959 and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Tibet was for centuries under the rule of feudal serfdom and Lhasa was then the centre of the regime of the serf-owning class in Tibet. Dalai, who reigned supreme as the political and religious ruler, and the several hundred big serf-owners' families all lived in Lhasa. They called Lhasa "the sacred land" and a "paradise". The fact is Lhasa was then a paradise for the bloodsuckers and a hell on earth for the working people. The three manorial lords enjoyed all privileges. They exercised a brutal rule over the serfs and punished them for the least offence by gouging out their eyes, pulling out their tendons and cutting off their tongues, hands or feet. The three manorial lords owned all the land and most of the means of production. They lived in big mansions, kept large numbers of slaves and led an extravagant and licentious life. Take Dalai for instance. His family alone had 27 estates and more than 4,000 serfs. The serfs and slaves had no freedom whatsoever and lived worse than beasts of burden. Old Lhasa had
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several thousand beggars and loafers, who made up one-fifth of the city's population. They lived in shelters made of stones and rags. Some of them slept on street corners and roamed the streets all year round. It was common to find poor people lying dead from cold and hunger on the streets, in alleyways or alongside garbage heaps.
Tibet was peacefully liberated in 1951 and Chinese People's Liberation Army units came to station in Lhasa. The city witnessed rapid political, economic and cultural advances in a few years under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the people's government. But the Dalai-led reactionary upper strata of the Tibet ruling clique unleashed an armed rebellion in 1959, which was soon put down. A great Democratic Reform Movement covering the whole of Tibet ensued, which resulted in overthrowing once and for all the reactionary feudal serfdom in Tibet and emancipating the million downtrodden serfs.
During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the emancipated serfs, guided by Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line, smashed the plot to restore serfdom carried out by the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi and his agents in Tibet in collusion with a handful of class enemies. From 1968, revolutionary committees at all levels in Tibet were triumphantly inaugurated one after another; Most of the members of these committees are former serfs or slaves who suffered the deepest misery in the old society. Take Lhasa and its suburbs. More than 95 per cent of the members of their revolutionary committees at various levels are emancipated serfs and slaves. Tutengnima, a former serf and now a worker at the Lhasa Cement Plant, was elected
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Vice-Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region's Revolutionary Committee. Tsunchu, a former serf and now gate-keeper at the Lhasa Department Store, was elected member of the regional revolutionary committee. This shows that those down-trodden in the old society have become masters of Tibet. Nurtured by Mao Tsetung Thought, they have matured politically and are playing a heroic role in the struggle to build a new socialist Lhasa and Tibet.
Lhasa had not a single modern factory under feudal serfdom. There were only a few handicraft workshops making luxury articles for the manorial lords. The Democratic Reform and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution liberated the productive forces. Now Lhasa has many factories including a hydro-electric power plant, woollen mill, farm machinery plant, cement plant, tannery and motor vehicle repair plant. The handicraft workers who were on the verge of bankruptcy before liberation got a new lease of life with the Democratic Reform. In response to Chairman Mao's call "Get organized!", they established co-operatives and took the collective road in 1970 and have steadily increased production. They can now make pumps, forage cutters, soap and scores of other manufactured goods. The number of handicraft workers has increased from 1,000 at the time of the Democratic Reform to more than 4,000. With the constant growth of industry and handicrafts, Lhasa has eliminated unemployment. There is no more the miserable sight of beggars swarming the streets as in old Lhasa.
Agriculture on the outskirts of Lhasa was backward, with yield per hectare as low as 0.75 tons. Now the
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grain output of quite a number of people's communes and production brigades has surpassed three tons per hectare. No vegetables were grown in Tibet before liberation. Now some 40 to 50 varieties of vegetables are grown, which means a decided improvement in the people's diet.
Not a single school was open to the working people in Lhasa before liberation, let alone any scientific research institute. There are now 39 primary and middle schools run by the government or by factories, people's communes and neighbourhood communities in the city proper and on the outskirts. Total enrolment is nearly 10,000, mostly sons and daughters of emancipated serfs. In addition, institutes of scientific research in agronomy and animal husbandry have been set up.
There was no hospital or doctor available for the working people of Lhasa before liberation. The city proper now has four modern hospitals and many clinics. The working people can get prompt, free medical treatment. The health of the people is steadily improving.
A stadium, a cultural palace, cinemas, theatres and other recreational centres have been built. Tibetans crowd these places on holidays and at week-ends. The modern revolutionary Peking opera Shachiapang and the modern revolutionary ballet The White-Haired Girl have been performed by emancipated serfs themselves in the theatres of Lhasa.
The total area of the city proper is now twice its pre-liberation size. The vast waste land and marshes at the foot of the Potala Palace have been transformed into a new part of the city proper with broad asphalt roads,
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and all kinds of buildings, including a department store, bookshops, barber shops, bath houses and cinemas, covering a total floor space of 30,000 square metres. With the expansion of the city proper, the Potala Palace, originally in the western suburb of Lhasa, is now in the centre of the city. The western and northern outskirts of Lhasa have become industrial areas. A 500-metre long modern highway bridge has been built across the Lhasa River. Buses now go between Lhasa and the outlying counties of Tuilungteching, Chushul and Tatse and between Lhasa, Loka, Shigatse and other areas. The refuse heaps that accumulated over the centuries have been cleared from the streets. People's Lhasa is today a clean and beautiful city.
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![[A photograph]](tibet01.jpg)
Pasang (second right), Vice-Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region's Revolutionary Committee, often goes to the rural grass-root units to be among the emancipated serfs.
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![[A photograph]](tibet02.jpg)
People's Liberation Army men in the Ari area on patrol with Tibetan militia on the motherland's border.
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KAO YUAN-CHING
Changes on the Ari Plateau
Ari Plateau in Tibet lies between the Karakoram Mountains and the Himalayas, having an area of 350,000 square kilometres. Feudal serfdom had ruled this area for centuries. Under the leadership of the Communist Party and the people's government, the people there have now entered socialism, bypassing centuries of historical development. A thriving scene prevails over the area.
A western tip of the immense Chinghai-Tibet Plateau, the highest in the world, the area averages over 5,000 metres above sea level. It used to be regarded as a "forbidden zone" for agricultural production owing to low temperature and rarified air.
Before liberation the local people had to drive their sheep or transport salt hundreds of kilometres across mountains and streams to barter for grain with foreigners. But their sheep brought them back only a tiny amount of grain after the payment of over 20 kinds of taxes and exploitation by merchants. Besides, the trip was fraught with great dangers as the snowstorms often threatened death both to people and sheep.
After liberation the people's government sent large quantities of grain to the area every year, at a cost four
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times the price at which the grain was sold locally. Knowing this, the emancipated serfs made up their minds to grow grain by collective strength. After the Democratic Reform they set up mutual-aid teams which later merged and developed into people's communes in 1967.
The first people's commune in the area appeared in the Jechiao Township of Rudok County on the bank of Pangong Lake. The very first year proved a bumper year for the emancipated serfs, both in grain and livestock breeding. Their achievements helped spark off a campaign for setting up people's communes. More than 100 townships in the area had responded to the campaign by the autumn of 1970 and over 90 per cent of the peasants and herdsmen were well on the road to socialism.
All emancipated serfs were warm in their praise of the people's commune. No crops had ever grown before at the high altitude of Menshih Township of Gar County at the foot of Kangtiszu Peak. After the Democratic Reform some emancipated serfs broke down the taboo by planting chingko (highland barley) on land 4,500 metres above sea level, but their hard work bore no fruit for five successive years. After the establishment of the Menshih People's Commune, the cadres and the masses dug irrigation ditches in the spirit Of "the Foolish Old Man who removed the mountains". They also spread the ashes of cow-dung to quicken the thawing of ice. This and other methods brought success. They sowed 20 hectares in 1970 and reaped 70 tons of chingko that made the commune nearly self-sufficient in grain.
Peasants in Pulan County grew chingko, wheat and peas on the slopes of the Himalayas 4,000 metres above
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sea level and reaped more than 3.2 tons per hectare for two consecutive years thanks to the establishment of people's communes. Relying on their collective wisdom and strength, they dug 21 hill-girdling canals of a total length of 135 kilometres and built 11 small reservoirs, thus benefitting most of the county's farmland. Over the past years the people's communes have bought large numbers of new-type farm implements with collective funds to supplant the primitive, Tibetan wooden or stone ploughs, hoes and sickles. Some people's communes have started using hand-tractors.
Most of the people's communes in the An area have succeeded in growing grain crops some 5,500 metres above sea level. Two-thirds of them are now sufficient or semi-sufficient in grain. Agriculture and livestock breeding have developed simultaneously in many of the traditional pastoral areas, and nomadic herdsmen have begun taking to a settled life. This helps increase the people's ability to ward off natural disasters. As a result, the number of livestock in the area has more than doubled in the past decade.
Ari had not even a handicraft workshop to its name before. Now it boasts seven small thermal power stations, a factory to make and repair farm tools, a tannery, a carpet mill and two small coal mines. Thanks to the all-weather Sinkiang-Tibet Highway and the road from Shihchuanho to the seven counties in An, the inflow of consumer goods from inland areas has been three or four times that during the years before the Democratic Reform.
Emancipated serfs on the plateau often tell their sufferings in the old society and express their gratitude for
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the new. The Hsiachulung Production Team of the Hung-chi People's Commune in Rudok County comprises eight households of former serfs. Before liberation two-thirds of their meagre gains from back-breaking labour were exploited by manorial lords, they had to live on wild plants and dwell in caves. Seven of the eight families went begging. Now each person, on the average, is provided with more than 150 kilogrammes of grain and over 50 kilogrammes of meat and butter a year. Their purchasing power has been rising. Every household has savings and surplus grain.
Every county in the area has a hospital, most of the people's communes have a clinic each, and many production teams have their own "barefoot doctors".1 Expansion of the medical service and the improved living conditions have resulted in a 50 per cent increase in population compared with pre-liberation days.
Before the Democratic Reform there was no school in the area, nor was there any student from among the children of the toiling people. Now a total of 151 primary schools have been set up, and teachers make regular rounds of grazing grounds to teach children of school age who live far from the schools. Adults learn to read and write in evening schools. It has been a moving sight that former serfs are studying earnestly in their spare time. Tibetan herdswoman Yihsi became a house slave of a manorial lord at the age of eight. She had no freedom of the person, to say nothing of learning to read and write. Libera-
1 The name given by the poor and lower-middle peasants to those who work as part-time peasants and part-time doctors in the countryside.
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tion put her on her own feet. She has become a worker on the Chata Stud Farm. She learned to read and write in the course of studying Chairman Mao's works in Tibetan edition. While grazing sheep by day, she would use a tamarisk twig as pen to practise writing on the ground. In the evenings, she would go to the evening school to learn phonetics. After one year's intense effort, Yihsi is now able to read and write and keep accounts.
The emancipated serfs are learning the language with great zeal, because they know that only by so doing can they study Chairman Mao's works still better and arm themselves with Mao Tsetung Thought.
The mass movement for the study of Mao Tsetung Thought is spreading as vigorously in the An area as elsewhere in the country. The family of Pengtsotzujen, a Communist Party member, had toiled for generations as slaves for the three manorial lords in Tibet. His parents were beaten to death by the feudal rulers when he was eight years old. Then he became a slave of the head lamas of a monastery, grazing sheep for them, and was often beaten black and blue. After liberation he was admitted to the Chinese Communist Party and elected secretary of the Party branch of his production team. Through his personal experience, he has learned the truth: Chairman Mao is the great liberator of the people of all nationalities of our country, and Chairman Mao's teachings are the beacon guiding the emancipated serfs to happiness. Pengtsotzujen has persistently disseminated Mao Tsetung Thought among the people and leads them unswervingly in taking the socialist road.
His elder brother Shihchia is the bookkeeper of the production team who devotes himself wholeheartedly to
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the interests of the collective and wins approbation by the masses for his conscientious work. Shihchia's wife Tsaiwanglamu, too, always puts the interests of the collective first. One day in the summer of 1970, a violent rainstorm sent the cattle stampeding across the Tselung River. In the teeth of the storm Tsaiwanglamu forded the river, stopped the stampede and got the herd together.
In the autumn of the same year Pengtsotzujen, Shih-chia and Tsaiwanglamu attended a meeting of activists in the study of Chairman Mao's works in the An area. Their production team was cited as a Red Banner on the An Plateau in learning from Tachai.
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KUNG YEH
Linchih—a Rising Industrial Base
Linchih, on the bank of the Nyang River, was a desolate valley overgrown with brambles. Great changes have taken place in the past few years since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and now Linchih has become a new, rising local industrial base on the Tibetan Plateau.
New Linchih boasts a dozen small and medium-sized factories producing woollen goods, paper, and timber, printing books and generating electricity. Many are the first for Tibet. Roads branch out to Lhasa, Nagchuka, Shigatse, Chamdo and the plateau in northern Tibet. Various kinds of agricultural produce, wool and timber keep pouring in from all parts of Tibet and manufactured goods is dispatched daily.
Known as "the Pearl of the Plateau", the Linchih valley, stretching tens of kilometres, is washed by the clear water of the Nyang River. Precipitous cliffs and ancient trees soar on the banks. Farther away are snow-capped mountains. Before liberation, the fertile land and woods were all in the grip of the reactionary Tibetan local governments, monasteries and nobility. The Tibetan herdsmen and peasants after liberation showed great enthusiasm for collectivization and organized themselves
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into mutual-aid teams under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Production progressed and their life improved. Local industry was also begun at this time. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the people of Linchih relentlessly criticized Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line and the counter-revolutionary crimes of the Dalai traitorous clique, and this brought about an upsurge in revolution and production. More than 10,000 people threw themselves into building the local industries.
The workers overcame all kinds of difficulties and set up and put into production one factory after another in the spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle.
Take the Hsinhua Printing House. Eager to start producing books as soon as possible, the printers built factory buildings and installed equipment themselves. They had difficulty in hoisting a ten-ton machine because they had no cranes and to get one from another place would be expensive and, what was more, time-consuming. Workers devised a crane of wood and solved the problem. With great revolutionary enthusiasm, they set up the print shop in less than a year.
Construction on a battery factory started in winter 1970. More than 200 Tibetan and Han young people, braving bitter cold, felled trees in the mountains in the daytime and studied Chairman Mao's works by kerosene lamp in the evening. Defying hardship and fatigue, they completed building the battery factory in a matter of several months, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1971. This made Tibet self-sufficient in batteries which used to be brought in from other provinces.
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The Party Central Committee and the people's government pay attention to the construction of Linchih, the other provinces and cities also give substantial support. The state allocated many machines and sent a large number of technical personnel. Some factories in Shanghai vied to manufacture paper-making equipment for Linchih. The Chengtu Battery Factory gave the Linchih plant some of its own equipment. Shanghai, Shensi, Szechuan and other provinces and cities helped train technical personnel and sent many veteran workers to Linchih. With the expansion of industry, the number of Tibetan workers has steadily increased. Most of the workers came from Tibet's farming and stock-raising areas. Nurtured by Mao Tsetung Thought, they have made rapid political and technical progress with help from the Communist Party committees at all levels and Han workers. Most of the 100 and more new workers of the paper mill were able to work independently three to four months after they entered the mill. Many have become activists in the study of Chairman Mao's works.
Tibetan cadres who enjoy popular support among the workers of all nationalities are in leading bodies at all levels in the factories. Chihliehwangmu, a member of the Hsinhua Printing House Revolutionary Committee, is one.
Chihliehwangmu is the daughter of a blacksmith. Before liberation the Tibetan ruling class divided the people into different strata and blacksmiths were at the bottom of the social ladder. Under the brutal exploitation and oppression by the reactionary ruling class, her father, unable to support the family, took his three sons to go
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begging. They were all murdered by the Dalai traitorous clique in 1959.
Later on, the Party and government sent Chihlieh-wangmu to school. After graduating from the Tibet Institute for Nationalities in 1970, she became a worker in the printing house. She sets a good example in both study and work. During her spare time she often helps the public canteen cooks wash dishes and feed the kitchen's pigs. She is praised by the workers as "a good worker of Chairman Mao". The workers unanimously elected her a member of the printing house revolutionary committee.
The People's Liberation Army units stationed in Tibet have made important contributions in building Linchih. A company of the P.L.A. engineering corps arrived in Linchih as soon as construction started. They have worked and studied alongside the workers and with them hacked across mountains to build bridges and roads. In 1970 the company, displaying the revolutionary spirit of fearing neither hardship nor death, quickly fulfilled the task allotted it.
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CHI YUEH-CHIN
Rapid Advanced of Local Industry in Tibet
Tibet, the "roof of the world", has made rapid advances in industry since liberation, particularly since the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, thanks to the concern of Chairman Mao, the great leader of the people of all nationalities in China.
The Tibet Autonomous Region now produces coal, electricity, machines, chemicals, building materials, paper, textiles, leather, matches, soap and several dozen other products. About 100 medium-sized and small hydro-electric power stations are in operation and some others are under construction. Lhasa, Shigatse, Nagchuka, Loka and Chamdo have their own plants to make and repair farm machines. Supplied with an increasing number of pumps, machines to process agricultural produce, and transport equipment, Tibet's agriculture and animal husbandry have forged ahead in the past few years.
Industry was non-existent in Tibet before liberation when it was under the reactionary rule of serfdom. Even a match, a simple pick or a screw had to be sent in. There were only a small number of blacksmiths capable of repairing farm tools. Farming was done by the primitive slash-and-burn method.
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Under the leadership of the great leader Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China, the emancipated serfs have become masters of the new society and participated in socialist industrial and agricultural production with utmost ardour. Given help by inland provinces and cities, the autonomous region had by 1964 set up 67 medium-sized and small plants producing farm tools and cement, tanneries, lumber mills and motor vehicle repair shops, laying a preliminary foundation for Tibet's industry.
Progress, however, was thwarted by the counter-revolutionary revisionist line pushed by the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi and his agents in Tibet. On the pretext that Tibet was "special" and "backward", they opposed the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle displayed by the emancipated serfs in developing industry that was in line with Chairman Mao's teachings, and closed down many of the plants and mines already set up.
The people of various nationalities in Tibet have studied Mao Tsetung Thought in earnest during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. They hit hard at Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist fallacies, and Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line on running enterprises won wide support from the people. Tibet's local industry began to develop anew in rapid progress. The plants and mines opened in the past four years greatly, exceed in number what had been set up in the previous 15 years.
In the winter of 1966 a number of Han workers and Tibetan herdsmen braved wind and snow to climb a
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mountain over 5,000 metres above sea level in order to start the Machala coal mine. The evening they arrived, they sat around a campfire to study Chairman Mao's three articles, "Serve the People", "In Memory of Norman Bethune" and "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains", and his teachings on self-reliance and hard struggle. From this they drew tremendous strength. Early the next morning they started to work. They felled trees for timber and used chisels instead of pneumatic drills. The miners devised safe methods for drilling blast holes and setting off explosives. This raised efficiency greatly. Overcoming one difficulty after another, they built the first coal mine on the "world's roof", a contribution to the motherland's socialist construction.
A small carpenter and smith shop succeeded in producing three kinds of equipment for hydro-electric power stations and its success became a popular story among the people. The shop has some 20 workers most of whom are Tibetans. With three ordinary lathes it formerly produced only simple farm tools. To help develop hydro-electric power, the workers trial-produced generators, motorsand water turbines — an undertaking never attempted before. A "three-in-one" technical innovation group composed of veteran workers, technicians and leading cadres was formed. Unskilled, the group boldly made repeated experiments while sending personnel to learn from other enterprises. In processing the castings they renovated a lathe so as to be able to cut parts of big diameter. Thus they produced generators, motors and water turbines and put them into serial production.
Construction on the Linchih Woollen Mill began in 1966. The impact of the Great Proletarian Cultural Rev-
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olution speeded its building. Production soon started and has gone up steadily in the past years. It produces over 20 kinds of woollen fabric, including overcoating and phrue (cloth made of yak's hair), carpets and blankets, knitting wool of various colours, and felt. Nurtured by Mao Tsetung Thought, the Tibetan workers in the mill have made rapid progress politically and technically. Tunchu, a worker in the machine repair shop, is a member of the workshop Party branch committee. He looks on the mill as his own home and always bears the interests of the collective in his mind. For this he has been praised by the whole mill. Tzujenyangtsung, a woman worker of 20 in the carding workshop, could operate the machine independently in less than one month after she entered the mill. In a year's time, she has become an experienced worker and her apprentice Tochichoka is also independently working a machine.
With the vigorous progress in local industry the first generation of Tibetan workers has increased to tens of thousands. A large number of activists in the study of Mao Tsetung Thought have come forward and many outstanding Tibetan workers tempered in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution have been promoted to the leadership of revolutionary committees at all levels. These young workers have become a vigorous force in the socialist revolution and construction in the autonomous region.
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CHENG WEN
The Kesung People's Commune Speeds Ahead
The Kesung People's Commune, Naitung County, on the southern bank of the Yalutsangpo River had been the manor of the family of big serf-owner Surkong Wong-ching-galei for 400 years before the Democratic Reform in 1959. Under reactionary feudal serfdom, the serfs were treated as chattels and were in a condition of hereditary servitude. They led a life worse than beasts of burden.
The Democratic Reform gave Tibet's one million serfs a new life. Shortly afterwards the serfs of the manor set up mutual-aid teams and then agricultural producers' co-operatives which they incorporated into a people's commune in late 1965. Since then they have had successive good grain harvests and their living standards keep improving. While pressed black beans were a luxury to the serfs in the old days, every household now has grain reserves. The people are full of joy and a thriving atmosphere reigns everywhere.
The former serfs are now the country's masters wielding political power. Nimatzujen, secretary of the commune Party branch and chairman of the commune revolutionary committee, was the only survivor of his family of eight. The old society destroyed his home. His
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experience made him conscious of the fact that the poor suffered in the old society because political power was not in their hands and therefore it is important for them to wield that power in the new society. Over the years he has led all commune members in taking the socialist road and striving to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat. The commune's revolutionary committee members, production team leaders, bookkeepers and work-point recorders are all emancipated serfs.
Since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao Tsetung Thought has been widely popularized and the mass movement for the study of Mao Tsetung Thought has deepened in the locality. Love for Chairman Mao and the Communist Party inspires the Kesung people to study Chairman Mao's works enthusiastically. They get together to study, discuss things and hold meetings to exchange ideas on their study during work breaks and in the evening, and many activists have come to the fore.
Kesangtochi, who is in his sixties, was a slave in the old society. He was illiterate because the vicious old society deprived him of the right to study. But with deep proletarian feelings for the great leader Chairman Mao he has made painstaking efforts to study his works. He asked the young people to read him Chairman Mao's three articles — "Serve the People", "In Memory of Norman Bethune" and "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains" — which he has learned by heart. He always acts in line with the teachings in these articles. In the past few years he has made use of his spare time to reclaim nearly one hectare of waste land for the production team. In 1970 when he was assigned to take care
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of the crops in a gully about five kilometres away, he moved there so as to fulfil his duty better. One night a mountain flood occurred, threatening the crops. Recalling Chairman Mao's teaching "These battalions of ours are wholly dedicated to the liberation of the people and work entirely in the people's interests", Kesangtochi jumped into the torrent and put up field ridges of stone and cleared the ditches to drain off the water. Thanks to his hours of hard work, the crops were saved. Since 1966 he has been elected a county activist in the study of Mao Tsetung Thought.
There are many people in Kesung like Kesangtochi, who studies Mao Tsetung Thought conscientiously and works with utter devotion for the common good. Their advanced deeds are an inspiration to others.
Agricultural production in Tibet had been backward under reactionary feudal serfdom. Before the Democratic Reform, ploughing was done with wooden ploughs and threshing by using yaks to tread out the grain. Average grain yield per hectare in the Kesung area was less than 1.5 tons. It is quite a different picture today. Members of the Kesung People's Commune now use horse-drawn hand ploughs as well as sowing and husking machines. In 1970 the commune's per-unit grain yield and total grain output were more than double that before the Democratic Reform.
Bringing into play the great superiority of people's communes, the Kesung people have also developed sideline production in the light of Chairman Mao's principle "Take grain as the key link and ensure an all-round
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development". They set up a small hydro-electric power station which provides every household with electric light. In addition, they have planted four orchards of apple and peach trees.
Pig raising, a practice foreign to Tibetan peasants, has made rapid progress since the establishment of the Kesung People's Commune. The number of pigs, both those raised by the commune and by its members, now comes to 500. Valuable experience has been worked out for raising pigs on the Tibetan Plateau. The progress in pig raising has helped solve the shortage of fertilizer for the fields and contributed to increased grain output.
The commune runs a primary school providing education for all children of the former serfs who were denied such an opportunity in the old society. It has a cultural centre where the commune members often rehearse theatrical items in the evening after farm work.
The commune also has an exhibition centre for class education where one can see whips and other instruments of torture the serf-owners used to persecute the serfs in the old society and pictures and objects illustrating how families of many serfs were broken up. Tzujen, a former slave, often takes his four sons to the exhibition centre to recall the past suffering and contrast it with their present happiness. He had a daughter who was beaten to death by a manorial lord on the trumped-up charge that she had stolen his grain. Tzujen himself was hungry all the time. Now his family has a house, warm clothing and grain reserves. His three elder sons are doing farm work in the commune and his youngest son
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is in school. In his seventies, the old man frequently volunteers to spin woollen yarn and twist rope for his production team. He often says: "We owe our emancipation to the Communist Party and our happiness to Chairman Mao!"
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KEH YEN
Successes in Agricultural Scientific Experiments in Tibet
The Tibet Autonomous Region has made successful scientific experiments in raising output of grain, industrial crops, vegetables and livestock. This is due to the efforts of the emancipated serfs and Tibetan and Ran scientific workers under the leadership of the Party and revolutionary committees at all levels in carrying out Chairman Mao's teaching "Take grain as the key link and ensure an all-round development".
The peasants and scientific workers have over the past few years developed and popularized many good crop strains suited to the natural conditions in the plateau. The Tibetan Institute of Agricultural Science and the Shigatse Agricultural Experiment Station developed eight high-yield wheat strains which are large-grained, hardy and resistant to lodging and cold. In general they yield 10 per cent more than ordinary strains. Five new high-yield, disease-resistant chingko (highland barley) strains have also been produced.
Tibet formerly had to depend on supplies of tobacco, tea and sugar beet from other areas since it grew none. In the past few years, the peasants and scientific workers
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introduced many strains of these crops which can now be grown. Tungfeng Tea Farm in Linchih County processed by its own methods black, green and brick tea. Lakang People's Commune in Lowan County of Loka Prefecture got a good tobacco harvest from over one hectare in 1971 thanks to careful cultivation. Fine results were also obtained in trial-growing sugar beets in Lhasa, Linchih and Shigatse. Tibet used to be limited to radishes, potatoes and a few other vegetables; it now produces dozens of kinds. In particular tomato, cucumbers and green peppers, which were confined to hothouses, can now be grown in large fields.
In the past, pig raising in the Tibetan Plateau was poor because the pigs were thin and small, the biggest producing about 25 kilogrammes of meat. Through repeated experiments over the last few years, the local people and technical personnel have bred a big, fat hybrid pig that thrives in the local climate. The number of pigs of the Kesung People's Commune in the Loka area averages one per capita. There has been rapid progress in improving the breeds of cattle and milch cows. The hybrid cattle bred by the Tibetan Institute of Agricultural Science are strong and have stamina and the improved milch cows yield twice as much milk as local breeds.
In the mass movement of scientific farming, many communes and brigades have set up "three-in-one" experimental groups that, consisting of peasants, technicians and cadres, do research work on experimental farm plots and seed-growing plots to serve production. Situated at the foot of a snow-covered mountain 4,500 metres above sea level, the Weihsing People's Commune of Kangma County in Shigatse was a place where the crops
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were damaged by frost nearly every year. In the mass movement to learn from Tachai, the national pace-setter in agriculture, the peasants made bold experiments to improve farming by sowing earlier so that the crops would ripen before the frost. This ensured high yields.
Technical personnel of both Tibetan and Han nationalities follow Chairman Mao's call to integrate themselves with the workers, peasants and soldiers. They go deep into the countryside among the peasants to make experiments so that their research work closely co-ordinates with production. The Tibetan Institute of Agricultural Science and the Shigatse Agricultural Experiment Station have set up centres in the countryside. The technical personnel of these centres study and work with the peasants and help the nearby communes and brigades set up experimental groups. They modestly learn from the peasants and sum up and spread their advanced experience in production. In the past it took years to breed and popularize a new strain of seed. This could not meet the needs of production. While carrying out experiments on breeding new strains of seed, the technical personnel and the peasants work together to appraise, propagate, popularize and improve them. This cut the time and is welcomed by the peasants.
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HUNG NUNG
Farming and Stock Breeding Thrive in Tibet
The emancipated serfs and herdsmen of Tibet are marching triumphantly along the socialist road under the leadership of the Communist Party and people's government. They have expanded agriculture and stock breeding rapidly since the Democratic Reform in 1959. The aggregate farm output in 1970 was more than double that in 1959, as was the total number of animals.
Before liberation, both farm production and stock breeding were backward in Tibet under the prolonged rule of reactionary feudal serfdom. In some areas, people farmed by the slash-and-burn method even up to 1959. Hoes and ploughs were made of stone; there was no manuring, irrigation or weeding. Hence the low grain yield. Pastures were not tended, and the death rate of animals was high.
After the Dalai traitorous clique's counter-revolutionary rebellion was put down in 1959, Democratic Reform began in Tibet. The productive forces were freed as serfdom was overthrown, and land and animals were divided up among poor peasants and herdsmen. At the same time, everything was done to change the backward-
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ness of the agricultural and stock-breeding areas. The people's government allocated Tibet big funds to expand agriculture and stock breeding each year, built farm-tool works to improve outdated tools, and set up a scientific research institute of agriculture and stock breeding to popularize advanced farming technique and scientific stock-breeding methods. Huge quantities of seed, farm tools, insecticide, chemical fertilizer and serum and medicine for animals were shipped in from other provinces. Peasants and herdsmen were sent to advanced units in other provinces to learn the latest experience in production. The People's Liberation Army men in Tibet lent a hand in reclaiming waste land and building water conservancy works.
Tibet's farmland now is 66,000 hectares larger than the acreage at the time of the Democratic Reform. Not only are the valleys and plains on the middle and lower reaches of the Yalutsangpo River reclaimed but fields have been opened up on snow-covered mountains 4,000 metres above sea level on the Northern Tibetan Plateau. Water conservancy works now irrigate over 80 per cent of the total farmland.
No trace is left of the primitive farm tools. Every prefecture now has its tractor stations and farm implements factories. Some people's communes have put up workshops to serve farming and animal husbandry. More than half the counties now have hydro-electric power stations. The Hydro-Electric Machinery Plant and "July First" Farm Machinery Plant in Lhasa are turning out many types of machinery, including water-turbine generators, motors, huskers and seeders.
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In the light of Chairman Mao's Eight-Point Charter for Agriculture (which consists of soil improvement, rational application of fertilizer, irrigation, improved seed strains, rational close planting, plant protection, field management and improvement of farm implements), the emancipated serfs have launched a mass movement for scientific farming. Tibet has in the past few years obtained good strains of highland barley, wheat and rapeseed as well as fine breeds of animals. Good breeds and strains have also been introduced from other provinces and abroad.
For the first time Tibet is growing tea, tobacco, sugar beets, and different kinds of vegetables and fruit. The people have made big progress in afforestatioon. They are raising four times as many pigs as at the time of the Democratic Reform, averaging one per household in some of the communes. A veterinarian network cowers Tibet, which has a research institute of veterinary science. Each prefecture has its general veterinary stations in each county its veterinary centre. Tibet has over 2,000 veterinary doctors and produces enough animal serums to meet local needs. Animal diseases have been basically brought under control.
The million emancipated serfs and herdsmen owe all these achievements to their conscientious study of Mao Tsetung Thought and their determination to march along the socialist road pointed out by Chairman Mao. As soon as the Democratic Reform was completed, they started to set up thousands of mutual-aid teams in June with Chairman Mao's teaching "Get organized!". Two or three years later, they established a number of producers'
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co-operatives and, in 1964, the first group of people's communes.
However, the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi and his agents in Tibet enforced a counter-revolutionary revisionist line, in a vain attempt to turn the emancipated serfs and herdsmen back from the road of collectivization. Convinced of the great truth "Only socialism can save China", the emancipated serfs bravely defended Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, fought the class enemy doggedly and safeguarded the socialist positions in the countryside.
During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao Tsetung Thought spread far and wide in the villages and on the grasslands, raising the people's consciousness of class struggle and the struggle between the two lines. Thousands uponthousands of activists havecome forward in the study of Mao Tsetung Thought. Basic Party organizations in rural and pastoral areas have been strengthened. Large numbers of cadres at the grass-root level have matured from among the emancipated serfs and herdsmen. They have led the people in bringing about an upsurge in socialist revolution and construction. Today there are people's communes in more than half the townships of Tibet.
Firmly carrying out Chairman Mao's teaching "In agriculture, learn from Tachai", the cadres at the grassroots and the emancipated serfs and herdsmen have launched a mass movement in this direction and large numbers of advanced units have appeared. This movement and the people's communes have given play to the dynamic role of people's initiative. The peasants and
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herdsmen have overcome various natural disasters in the past few years, depending on their collective strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and hard work. As a result, both farm production and stock breeding thrived. In 1970 Tibet registered a grain production 10 per cent bigger than that of 1969, while the per-hectare yield of more than 50 communes and townships outstripped the required targets. Over 95 per cent of the peasant households in the present Tungfeng People's Commune of Kangma County had depended on state relief grain at the Democratic Reform. Wrking hard in later years, they reclaimed 180 hectares of land and dug a total of 50 kilometres of irrigation ditches. The commune in 1970 registered a grain output 3.5 times that of 1959, and doubled its livestock.
The Tibetan peasants and herdsmen are redoubling their revolutionary efforts in grasping revolution and promoting production. They are determined to strive for still greater successes in farm production and stock breeding.
[End]