Asia: the Peasant's Way

...Ti Purposeful development, wherein developed industries do not encroach upon agriculture and other occupations on a lower technological level, is possible only where the key industries are owned by the State...

...But the peasant's connection with the land must not be severed, he must not be driven from the soil...

...The Japanese concentration on smaller projects checked, at least till the early Forties, over-capitalization...

...the Soviet economists had also found that small industries not only need less capital—because of lower capitalization— but the velocity of circulation of capital in them is markedly higher...

...he had favored what he called "the American way," where traditional privileges would be removed and everyone would have equal opportunity, but where, in due course some were bound to rise with concentration of ownership, and the rest to sink...

...Distribution of lands is important, but, by itself, it is not a generating factor in economic development...

...The rule should be: what is not nationalized will be nurtured with State aid...

...The social ideology of a peasant is not something that can be read on the run...

...Lenin did not believe that equality of opportunity to all peasants would lead to socialism, but that it would clear away obstacles to class differentiation and class struggle in the countryside...

...When the relationship of socialism and peasantry is explored, it is necessary to understand the peasant's conception of development...

...He would like to deal with the town on equal terms, to discover some way of collective bargaining for the peasants...

...This increase in output was brought about side by side with reduction of 14 per cent in the manpower employed in agriculture, which meant, therefore, a doubling of labor productivity...

...BECAUSE OUR OTHER RESOURCES ARE LIMITED, labor has to be fructified with organization...

...We can think of no other investment that is likely to yield bigger returns in the immediate future...

...Modern" industry and the traditional family are mutually subversive...

...If the peasant has a vote, notwithstanding his lack of organization and of ideological articulation, his wishes will be felt...

...The State should develop institutions to assist them...

...As noted in our last issue, the style and language of the original have not been tampered with...

...But when the sophisticated man has gone with the Communists, despite clear warnings, the peasant cannot be expected, on his own, to assimilate the lessons of contemporary history...

...Governments have either ignored the peasantry or sought to deal with the individual peasant directly...

...To understand a part of the complexities the following table is useful: Landless Laborers as Proportion of Owners Sc Tenants Percentage of Total C/o efo Agricultural Country Owners Tenants Population India 45 55 55 Burma 59 41 40 Ceylon Indonesia 75 90 25 10 44 30 The redistribution of lands should generally benefit the tenants, and help to increase the holdings of small owners, including the tenants-made-owners, to the level of a basic holding, e.g., 2.5 acres of rice lands in Japan...

...Alexander Bykov: The Development of the Soviet Economic System...

...In Asian countries, economic incentives cannot always be provided, nor do they unfailingly evoke response...

...We have reason to expect the food and cottage industry goods to expand rapidly in response to relatively small expenditures...

...External assistance, under suitable circumstances, would help to build up heavy industry, because the aid can come as capital goods...

...due to the handicaps imposed on private industry and on craftsmen outside the cooperative associations, and in particular to difficulties in purchasing raw materials, which were bought up by the supply syndicates of big industry...

...In Asia, where land hunger is so deep and so ancient, no social order that does not distribute land equitably can survive...

...On the other hand, a determined state is able to work for industrial development without land reforms...

...P. K. Chang in Agriculture and Industrialization...

...His philosophy, because of his "soil wisdom," is often a curious mixture of a narrow practicality and a diffused mysticism...

...Banks, foreign trade, and internal wholesale trade in strategic materials are also influential levers of economic development, and their control by the community is of decisive importance...

...The small industries lost their inherent advantage, because of the antagonistic policy of the Soviet state...

...It is, however, not easy to trace it...

...It would be producing goods, not staples of consumption like textiles and shoes, which must be reserved for the handicrafts and artisans, but other kinds of manufacture, including perhaps yarn for handlooms...

...The village cooperative, if fostered, would find room for small and simple machines, not so much for production as for processing the produce...

...2) use of local materials, and (3) provision of maximum employment part-time or full-time to the village people...

...Until the change can be brought about, the handicrafts have to be protected and the artisans looked after...

...For this to be achieved, there must be a very big effort at spreading agricultural extension services...

...more from land, not from fewer men...

...Lenin had denounced it as "the Prussian way," designed to strengthen the more efficient landowners and the kulaks...

...The necessary atmosphere of buoyancy and effort will not emerge unless work is found for surplus men in the villages, unless handicrafts are revived and artisans are rehabilitated...

...comparatively, the output of modern industries demands larger expenditure which are only slowly accompanied by increased output...

...That is not the only factor in favor of small industry...

...After World War I, 25,000,000 acres of land were distributed in the countries of Eastern Europe (as against 30,000,000 acres in the same group of countries after World War II) . This massive distribution did not lead to significant development because the vital link between agrarian radicalism and proletarian socialism was not forged...

...An equally important means of development is the mobilization of voluntary labor...

...The impulse," to use Engels's words in a parallel situation, "has to come from without...

...We agree with Marx's sentiments subject to one proviso: the buying should be accompanied by a graduated levy on capital...

...But the peasant yearns to make the crossroads the pathway to his destiny...

...if the assistance given by the state is intelligently linked up with local labor, voluntarily offered, a new dimension of growth is opened up...

...He needs roads, he needs credit, he wants responses to his felt needs...

...if the peasant needs assistance, he must work for the nationalization of the developed sector of the economy—like big banks, insurance firms, foreign trade and large-scale industries...

...It is not that small holdings means no use of machines...

...The peasant's alternative, embodying the felt needs and questing hopes of the man behind the hoe, has a great relevance in the framework of democracy...

...The following table shows the "weight" of the peasant in Asian economy, and therefore in any democratic polity: Percentage of Population Percentage Engaged in Engaged in Agriculture, Trade, Industry and Country Forestry and Fishing Mining India 67 17 Burma 70 20 Ceylon 65 23 Indonesia 70 6 Japan 44 30 China 70-75 10-15 The peasant's basic demand is for land...

...To give freedom and assistance to the undulating expanse, the commanding heights must be with the State...

...The attitude towards the small entrepreneurs should be one of goodwill and cooperation...

...reprinted with some small statistical deletions from Asoka Mehte's pamphlet, SOCIALISM AND PEASANTRY, stirred broad enthusiasm and interest, notably among students of Asia...

...The possibilities of development on these lines are greater in countries like India and Pakistan, where the scope for intensive improvement is greater than in China or Japan...

...if the Soviet state could direct development towards large-scale and heavy industry, another state can direct the development towards small-scale industry and a balanced economy...

...The output of large-scale industries, the administration of which was extremely centralized, declined much more rapidly than did that of small industries...

...His roots, his milieu, are as significant to him as economic betterment—in fact they are all woven into a common fabric of his hopes...

...The peasant needs land...

...The peasant's devotion to his family is another reason for his dislike of big industry...

...Russia in her craze to overtake America, allowed herself to be made a victim of giant-mania...

...Development for him is not a set of decisions by a cadre of planners, but the piecemeal adaptation of individuals to goals which emerge in the process of work...

...The problem of his absorption remains...

...In India, of course, depressed humanity counts in millions: there are 50 million untouchables and 20 million aboriginals...

...Such assistance demands a simultaneous move towards nationalization of the developed sector of economy...

...In a state of the peasants' creation, the government would be solicitous about the needs of peasants...

...Before the revolution, in Russia, Stolypin had tried to set up substantial farmers, with "sound" holdings...

...In undeveloped countries, the accent should initially be on light industry...

...He has not gone in very much for blueprints and master plans...

...To MEET THE NEEDS OF ELECTRIC POWER, small machines and transport, strategic heavy industries—such as hydro-electric stations, steel plants, locomotive and wagon factories and shipyards—will have to be built up...

...The peasant disapproves of both the attitudes...

...The small holding, according to Stalin, "stands at the crossroads of capitalism and socialism...

...Our effort to sketch the peasant's alternative is therefore tentative, The peasant has a different sense of "income," and a different conception of "development...

...Such a mobilization of labor diverts to economic use labor lying unused, so it neither leads to inflation nor to depressing of consumption...

...The peasant would reject both ways as alien to his ambition...

...If the village is recognized in all matters of administration and economy as a unit, its organic filaments would become strong again, and it would produce all the elements of organization that are needed for raising an old, stagnant economy to a new vibrant level...

...Special educational facilities, priorities in distribution of lands and in employment offered to the submerged people would release vast creative energy...

...Their theories therefore have not adequately covered the new developments and possibilities...

...Even the redistributed lands, with millions of small holdings, would lead to stagnation and bankruptcy unless their functions are increasingly cooperativized, and the lands fertilized with state aid...

...He favors diversified farming in family economics, woven into the wider texture of village life...

...In all measures of nationalization small owners should be fully compensated...

...Electricity introduces a new factor in technology...

...Communism first encourages the peasants to help themselves to land so that it might have its hands free to grasp political power, and then uses the political power to deprive the peasants of land"—this indict ment of Mitrany's is true...

...Below we present another section of Mehta's pamphlet...

...The part produced for the needs of the family and which never reaches the market should remain the business of the peasant family also in the future...

...It is by exchanging the products of light industries that initially capital goods will have to be imported...

...Japanese farmers employ mechanical equipment adjustable to the size of the farm, but it is employed to process agricultural produce and not directly in raising crops...

...His pattern of industrialization is based on three criteria: (1) manufacture of goods needed for daily use, in consumption and production, by the peasant...

...He wants changes that increase the yield per acre...

...By keeping the sectors of economy—banks, insurance firms, foreign trade, rail and sea transport and big industries where capital tends to accumulate—in the hands of the community, the strain of accumulation is considerably reduced...

...In Russia, however, the trend of development—collectivization and mechanization —was irreversible...

...As to the other part, production for the market, the trend of evolution leads towards cooperative production of the village as a whole...

...That organic unity has to be accepted and respected...

...They can be built up either from national savings or from foreign aid...

...very often Marx expressed to me the opinion that the cheapest way would be to buy off the whole gang...

...A small farmer cannot survive without support from the community and the state...

...In Japan, major industrial triumphs were achieved where 50 per cent of the land was held by 7.5 per cent of the households, and the other 50 per cent of the households held just 9 per cent of the land...

...From a strictly economic point of view, Pei-Kang Chang recommends such a policy: "China will undoubtedly depend in a great measure on the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union for the supply of heavy equipment, chemical products, and such durable goods as automobiles and trucks, and in return to pay for them, she will most probably export 'specialty goods' of which a large part will be produced in the light i ndustries...

...and displace labor...

...Further research is essential in all the four directions: (1) check on over-capitalization, (2) balance between different industries, (3) decentralization of processes of production, and (4) dispersal of the stages of production...

...The peasant wants land...

...The peasant is politically a radical...

...The whole of Asia may not be as caste-ridden as India is, but it undoubtedly suffers from social stagnation and stratification...

...He fears their encroachment and exploitation...

...On that point Bykov's observations are decisive: "Small-scale industry and, in particular, home handicrafts which manufactured mainly articles of general consumption, had not yet (1927-28) recovered to the same extent as big industry...

...Of course, if others fail, the Communists will do it...

...There is no inherent urge in economy towards big industry that cannot be channelled differently...

...The relationship between industrial and agricultural sectors—between towns and villages —assumes a crucial character...

...Redistribution of lands is essential and imperative, but unless it is accompanied by the growth of cooperatives and state aid to villages the reform will fail...

...Secondly, he claims capital, he does not want to yield surplus value...

...Capitalist technology of ever bigger units threatens the twin roots of the peasant: his land and his family...

...For the peasant, income depends on, in a way consists of, the "welfare" patterns which the societies, or the individuals composing them, have chosen in accordance with their environment and objectives, their inherited traditions and disposition...

...It is really creation of new wealth...

...Assistance in obtaining scarce materials, cooperatives for credit and marketing, and protected markets against developed industries would preserve the skill and faith of millions of craftsmen...

...Up to a point, Japan had shown some care in both directions...

...However, the problem is not disposed of with land reforms...

...There was no uprooting of peasants—only concentration of ownership in land and increased burden of debt on the peasant...

...This was * "Economic Bulletin for Asia and the Far East, III...

...The peasant is not interested in changes that reduce man-hours • Hugh Seton-Watson in The Decline of Imperial Russia...

...On that point, every Asian should be a Leninist...

...He favors universal franchise and representative government, but cares even more for local initiative and clevolution of power from the village upwards...

...We have received many requests for reprint copies of the two articles and we regret that we cannot yet supply these—The Editors...

...In this further development two precautions need to be taken: (1) maintain a balance between the different sectors of economy, (2) keep capitalization within check...

...Here too the ratio of output to input is greater in cottage industries than in big industries...

...But such alertness, industry and cooperation would be evinced only where the tiller owns the land and is freed from the weight of all parasites, like landlords or money-lenders...

...very little mechanical equipment was used for securing this result...

...Full development of electric power, and its widespread use for agricultural and industrial operations in rural areas would help to lift the life of the peasant to a new level...

...The peasant is not a very articulate being...

...IN THE PAST THE NEEDS OF THE PEASANT have received no consideration...

...The publication in our last issue of "Can Asia Industrialize Democratically...

...The conclusion is obvious that the pattern of development is decided by State policy...

...Japan is not being offered as a model, but as a mild foil to the Soviet pattern of development...

...The peasant with his passionate attachment to land, his natural joy in labor, wants just that dose of capital that he can absorb...

...The peasant would welcome the use of advanced machines for reclamation of submarginal lands...

...Japan could check over-capitalization because it had decentralized some processes of production, as in bicycle manufacturing, and had sought to distribute the work of production before the final assembly stage...

...In hundreds of thousands of villages there is scope for tremendous conservation and development...

...While railways and highways expand, the simplest approach-roads to villages remain unattended...

...that means that it could either develop into capitalist concentration and differentiation or move towards the collective...

...cooperative and administrative decentralization are the natural expressions of the economic and political philosophy of a peasant...

...In those countries of Asia where democracy is striking roots social change must be informed with the peasant's needs and hopes...

...The United Nations' experts, in their Report, are clear on the point: "We believe that an increase of 50 per cent (in yield of land) in two decades or less would be possible even without substantial increase in capital or any substantial reorganization of the agricultural system, if farmers were taught modern techniques— mainly the use of fertilizers and of seed control...

...Both these tendencies were later reversed and corrected by the land reform of 1950 and the wiping out of debt through the war inflation...

...The moral unity of the village is basically different from that of a factory...

...In Soviet Russia, small industries had shown greater sturdiness in the period of dislocation brought about by the war and civil wars than large industries...

...Even if capitalization is kept low and projects are kept small, the problem of capital accumulation would remain acute...

...Transmission of electric power was perfected only in the last decade of the nineteenth century, that is, after the demise of Marx and Engels...

...Such a policy will leave the landless laborers almost untouched...

...But the assistance would not be rendered individually or directly, but through the village...

...Russian and Japanese developments were almost at the same level in 1927-28...

...Income is not necessarily reducible to financial calculations, as we have been doing so far...

...He is suspicious of town and city...

...For Asia social mobility, free movement sideways and upwards, would constitute a major incentive to economic development...

...The peasant is not opposed to industrial development, but he is against big trusts, against industries propped up with high prices and tariffs...

...The peasant has naturally a different set of priorities...

...Their social reclamation would impart a major impetus to development...

...Asian socialism therefore will not only be peasant conscious, decentralized, democratic and pacifist but also informed with ethical awareness...

...This cannot be done with capitalism...

...Every peasant holding produces partly for the needs of the peasant family and partly for the market...

...The pattern, therefore, is of small units scattered widely, dispersal as against concentration...

...Refusal to compensate has resulted in vast losses to the national economy, and even the fathers of socialism were not opposed to compensation: "Under no conditions do we regard," Engels had said, "indemnity as inadmissible...

...something approaching a total of one per cent of the national income should be spent annually in underdeveloped countries upon such services, including agricultural research...

...from that Russia moved on to construction that spelled a sevenfold increase in heavy industry in twelve years (19281940) ; in Japan the increase achieved was fivefold in twelve years (19301942) . The strain on the people of Japan was however markedly less...

...Where there is a lack of land new possibilities of earning a livelihood must be created within the village, ranging from home industries to village factories...

...In Japan, for instance, agricultural production was increased by 77 per cent between 1890 and 1920 mainly through the use of better seeds, manures, insecticides and the improvement of agricultural practices...

...The small family holding is not a mere means of living, not even social security, but a way of life...