Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-08-09
REDS pERpETUATE cooLE SYSTEM +,
A Look at Labor in China


of sharp knives when heads rise
above the crowd.
Communist China Is a land
where production goals are speci-
fed in infinite detail, but ac-
complished in the most makeshift
and ill-organized manner con-
ceivable. When the party de-
creed last year that steel produce
ton must be increased, hundreds
of thousands of tiny, crude fur
naces were set up all over the
country, scrap metal was collected
in mammoth drives so whipped up
in frenzy that even structural
steel parts of buildings were dis
mantled. After many months, the
resulting production was crude,
nearly unusable steel, that ended
up in the form of rough household
utensils for the most part. The
steel was not up to industrial
quality. 1t was, in effect, new
scrap rendered extensively from
old scrap. There was neither the
transportation nor the distribu-
ton plan to make use of it. Mil
lions of city-dwellers were short
OF food from the labor lost in the
countryside by the steel-making
craze
Peking'S dream project is the
future establishment of urban
communeS, goal that is receding
more into the future than into
the present. The farm COM
muneS are far from satisfactory,
all statistical and emotional
claims Notwithstanding, and the
tough individualiSm of China's
cities is something else again to
cope with, especially when even
the peasants can be so trouble
some.
With volunteer" labor from the
cities working in the countryside
extra hours almost every day and
every week end, the differences in
actual effect between farm and
city labor are lessening.
Transportation Problem
Enormous transportation prob
lens have magnified Red China's
transportation of raw materials,
foods, and goods in general;
theory is far outrunning practice
in the wise administration of the
country's overlooking human re-
sources. Irony of ironies, even
proliferating China is short of the
right men in the right places,
working well at the proper tasks
for them. Perhaps not even over
whelming numbers can indefi-
nitely compensate for this de-
flciency.
Hand shovels and wooden plows
till the fields and dig canals, hand
tools prevail in coal mines despite
propaganda pictures showing
pneumatic drills. Factories are
proclaimed in full production
while assembly lines are notion
less. "Showplace" factories turn
out limited stocks of machinery
and consumer goods to impress
the rest of Asia or the occasional
visitor from abroad.
In the country Of the blind,
the one-eyed man is king" Com
muniSt China lacks the refine
mentS of industrial organization,
the fine points of production pro-
gramming, operations and meth
DDS, time-study research, psyche
logical evaluation of working
times and conditions, solid cost
accounting, efficiency techniques
to say nothing of man-saving
machine tools and measuring de-
vices. Instead, there is I'M
limited manpower to be used in
all its overwhelming abundance.
Why labor saving devices when
labor itself is more plentiful, ap-
parently, than the waves of the
sea? Where the many millions
of China are largely illiterate and
unlearned, even the slightly edu-
Gated have positions of power. A
man who would be a clerk in
America is a factory manager in
China, and Chinese manufacture
ing shows the result. Similarly on
the farms and in the government.