Volume 1, No. 8, October 2000

A one-time low-yielding area, Chiaonan County in Shantung Province on the coast of the Yellow Sea has undergone great changes in recent years. Another good harvest was added last year to the county’s rapidly growing farm production. An important reason for this is that the Chiaonan County Committee of the Chinese Communist Party which gives leadership to the work throughout the county has made further efforts in studying and applying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and paid greater attention to investigation and study and grasping objective laws.

Comrade Chih Ching-teh, secretary of the county Party committee, time and again stressed: Whatever we do, there are two different lines in cognition. One is doing things in the "taking it for granted" manner from the subjective to the objective, the other is proceeding from objective reality and doing things according to objective laws. If we fail to draw a clear distinction between these two lines, we will not be able to do good work.

Chiaonan County produces very many sweet potatoes. Early last April just when they had been planted, a snowstorm hit the area and the mercury dropped sharply. Inspecting the quality of planting in a production brigade, Chih Ching-teh found that the upper halves of many planted tubers were frosted. Badly injured by frost as they were, he thought, the tubers might not strike roots and sprout at all. He suggested that the county Party committee issue a notice to the effect that all frosted tubers should be dug up and replanted.

Not very clear about it after he had made the proposal, Chih Ching-teh thought: Could the frosted tubers strike roots and sprout if they were left intact? Would replanting affect output since it was done out of season? Where could the tubers be obtained for replanting on over 10,000 mu hit by frost? He found it difficult to make up his mind.

"You can’t solve a problem? Well, get down and investigate the present facts and its past history! . . . Only a blockhead cudgels his brains on his own, or together with a group, to ‘find a solution’ or ‘evolve an idea’ without making any investigation. It must be stressed that this cannot possibly lead to any effective solution or any good idea." This and other teachings of Chairman Mao’s on investigation and study inspired him to disregard the severe cold and go among the peasants for advice.

The best first-hand information he got was from Li Feng-sheng, secretary of the Party branch of the Tungehiawa Brigade which had decades of experience in growing sweet potatoes. There was a heavy snowfall when tubers had just been planted one early April, and one-third was frosted. But the peasants did not replant them. After a period of sunning, the lower halves of the tubers which were not harmed by frost quickly set down roots and sprouted soon afterwards. That autumn they reaped another bumper harvest of sweet potatoes.

The practical experience of the cadres at the grass-roots level was an eye-opener for Chih Ching-teh. He came to realize that he was taking things for granted and had therefore made the mistake of subjectivism. He immediately withdrew his proposal. Those frosted roots later grew well and the yield was good.

Ways to solve problems stem from investigation and study. They differ when conditions differ. If we stick to old experience and do things in the same old way when conditions have changed, we will run into snags.

Chiaonan County has scores of small inlets along the coast and so the county Party committee organized commune members to cheek the tidal water and build plots of beach land. In charge of building the Huangtao dam, Li Sheng-yueh, a standing committee member of the county Party committee, carried out investigations among the fishermen and elderly peasants at the construction site. Having acquainted himself with the laws of the tide, he worked out a plan for the project and mobilized the masses to discuss and revise it. As the final plan conformed to actual conditions, work on the project went on smoothly. It took only 15 days to fill in that part of the sea and complete the dam.

Li Sheng-yueh was in charge of another similar project in 1971. Using the experience gained in Huangtao, he made a cursory investigation this time and decided to construct a dam exactly the way the one at Huangtao had been built. As a result, problems kept cropping up in the course of the project. At the crucial moment in joining the dam, strong tidal waters poured into the juncture threatening the dam. Several thousand sand-filled straw sacks used to hold back the water were swept away some 200 metres and the bottom of the juncture was washed into a 3-metre-deep hollow. The joining of the dam failed.

Why was the plan which proved correct through practice at Huangtao inapplicable here? Li Sheng-yueh and others in charge of the project went to the masses to make investigations. The outcome was: Huangtao is located in southwest Chiaochow Bay and surrounded by mountains, the sea is calm and the tidal flow steady. The dam to be built this time, however, faced the Yellow Sea and the water there is deep and the flow swift. When a high wind blows, tidal waves rise some three metres high. Therefore the successful plan for the Huangtao dam did not correspond to specific conditions there. Under different conditions, failure was only natural when they copied the old plan and did not act according to actual conditions.

The county Party committee called a meeting to revise the original plan on the basis of large quantities of facts collected. A magnificent dam was later put up by over 7,000 peasant-builders through arduous struggle. It holds up against tidal water and protects over 10,000 mu of newly reclaimed farmland.

Objective things are interrelated. In order to act according to objective laws, we must grasp the internal links between things and guard against one-sidedness.

Three years ago, the county Party committee worked out an overall plan for farm capital construction. When it was put forward for discussion, views differed among the committee members. Some said it was necessary to go in for water conservancy first, others stood for soil improvement and levelling the land, still others favoured giving first place to afforestation to counter sand drifts. As all these arguments were based on certain facts, no common ground was reached after two days of hot debate. In the end Party secretary Chih Ching-teh said: "Well, let’s go to the grass-roots units to investigate!"

Deputy Party secretary Sheng Yung-chih went to Wangtai Commune where a number of water conservancy works had been built several years earlier and grain output was higher than that in other communes. But from 1969 on, farm production developed more and more slowly. One reason was that they had one-sidedly stressed water conservancy works and neglected levelling the land. In some places, even though water flowed by the land, it could not be diverted into the fields.

Haiching Commune used to be prone to drought, waterlogging, alkaline and wind and sandstorms. With a view to combating these adverse conditions, they started with afforestation to do away with the harm caused by wind and sand, but the problem of drought and waterlogging remained unsolved. This was followed by water conservancy projects, but they did not make much progress because the land was not levelled. After learning these lessons and summing up their experience, they decided to transform hills, waterways and land and plant trees in a comprehensive way. After several years of strenuous efforts, grain output topped that of the relatively advanced Wangtai Commune.

Seventeen days of painstaking investigation enabled the leading members of the county Party committee to arrive at a clearer understanding. Basing themselves on the material obtained, they made a serious study of the interrelations between water conservancy, soil, afforestation and others and mapped out an overall plan. Over the past three years and more, the people of Chiaonan County have built more than 200 small reservoirs and ponds and over 50 pumping stations, thereby expanding the acreage under irrigation by 210,000 mu. In addition, they have terraced 120,000 mu on the hillsides. Initial efforts to harness waterways, which used to cause great harm have resulted in bringing water to the fields through criss-crossed irrigation channels and ditches. With the planting of evergreen trees such as pines and cypresses, the barren hills are now clad in green.

Experience obtained through practice has enabled the comrades of the county Party committee to gain a deeper understanding of Chairman Mao’s famous Theses "No investigation, no right to speak" and "To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it."

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