Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-08-09

he would be eligible for "rectifica-
ton" or education" as a mild
preliminary to more drastic action,
should he turn out a difficult
pupil.
Every factory, however small, is
organized for AFTERNOONS discus
sions" and education rigidly
controlled by the Communist Party
activists in every group of work.
ers. These meetings are generally
propaganda lectures on the dan
gers of Western imperialism" and
the need to work ever harder for
the safety of the people" 1t is
a rare and foolish worker who
would presume to divert this
theme to any subject of personal
interest, such as better working
conditions or more wages.
What the government wants
from the workers is precisely what
Samuel Gompers once said is what
American labor wants from man
agement: More" The study"
meetings are merely the device to
achieve this by making it seem
that the ideas preached in these
voluntary" assemblies actually
originated right there rather than
in the party star chambers in
Picking.
Incentive Pay
One example Of this liaison is
the party decision that workers
paid on a pieee-work or incentive
basis are getting too rich, that
Inequalities" are springing up,
that incentive pay is. concomi-
family costing the government too
much, etc. So a great campaign
is under way to remove incentive
pay, and naturally enough, the
workers themselves are said to be
demanding what amounts to a
plain pay cut "for the good of the
fatherland."
This is a Communist admission
that their own incentive plan,
based on the Soviet system, was
a failure in practice, that in
creased pay Qast raise: Is per
cent in 1856 has not been justi-
fled by greater production, and
that the fact of some workers
earning more than 100 per cent
over their base pay is an embar-
rassment to Communist doctrine.
Red China is now in the second
year of its second Five Year
Plan," itself part of larger pro-
gram called THE Great Leap
Forward" designed to make her
industrial productivity equal to
that of Great Britain by 1872.
This drive is replete with slogans,
the workers are called soldiers"
and a work group is battalion"
Within the organizational pattern
of industry set from above, the
workers are eXhorted day and
night by loud-speakers in their
mess halls and on street corners,
by posters everywhere, by muralS
and phrases etched on the very
mountainsides.
To goad workers to work harder,
loudSpeakerS roar out production
figures and goals every morning
in the factories themselves. Fac
tories are compared with similar
factories elsewhere. A fast fac
tory is called a "Sputnik" factory,
a slow one a snail factory
workers themselves are similarly
tabled at the inevitable meetings
after hours. In recent years,
Communist production statistics
have been considered abSurdly
exaggerated by serious students of
the country. Even the Communist
journals admit that Justification
in production figures by low-rank-
ing officials has led to a grand
Justification when the various
sums were added together.
Workers Are Ienoront
The worker, however, knows
nothing of life any where else in
the world, let alone elsewhere even
in China; for him to choose to
disbelieve, or even more startling,
to voice Skepticism, would be the
act of an unusual man indeed, a
surviving individualist in a land