by John Avedon
When the pillaging was done, dynamite was placed in the gutted buildings and their walls blown up. Field artillery was also used, so that within a three-year period the entire landscape of Tibet stood scarred by ruins resembling bombed cities. Because the buildings’ walls were so thick, virtually none, not even Ganden—slated for total obliteration as the Gelugpa sect’s most sacred monastery—could be completely razed, but stood as ghostly ever-present reminders of what had been. The destruction of Tibet’s monasteries came as a collective shock that all but the youngest Tibetans found incomprehensible. Whatever personal tragedy Tibetans had experienced paled in the face of what now seemed to be the end of civilization as they knew it.
An essential corollary to the attack on Tibetan culture took the form of a reinvigorated propaganda campaign vilifying the old Tibet. The chief scapegoats were the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. In December 1968, Radio Peking delivered its most scathing attack yet on the Dalai Lama, portraying him as a “political corpse, bandit and traitor.” In Tibet itself he was condemned as a “red-handed butcher who subsisted on people’s flesh with a red mark on his hand to prove it.” It was alleged that whenever the Dalai Lama recited scripture, a human heart, liver or arm was sacrificed. He was said to be too frightened to return home, lest these facts be proved to the Tibetan people, who would then take retribution for his having lived on their “flesh and blood.” The stock questions of the nightly meeting were now: “Tell us who masterminded the revolt?” The answer: “The Dalai Lama.” The next question: “What type of life did he lead?” Answer: “He was a pleasure-loving lama who loved women, gold and silver and sold our country to imperialists.”
China’s ultimate portrait of the old Tibet was constructed, toward the close of the Cultural Revolution, in the Tibetan Revolutionary Museum, situated in the village of Shöl below the Potala. It was a mandatory stop for all foreign visitors allowed into Lhasa in carefully screened groups, from the mid-seventies on. In the museum’s first room documents were displayed purporting to prove that Tibet had been an inalienable part of China since the thirteenth century. These were followed by what a reporter for the Washington Post, accompanying George Bush (then U.S. liaison to China), on a three-day visit in 1977, termed a “revolting depiction of the alleged atrocities of the old regime.” The exhibit featured hands, arms and legs severed as punishment for minor crimes, the skins of two children said to have been flayed alive during a religious ceremony and an assortment of whips, knives and manacles used by the “feudal lords” to torture their “slaves.” “Pushing aside the black curtains at the exhibition room door, one enters the living hell which was old Tibet,” recounted China Reconstructs in a 1976 piece regaling the museum’s dramatically lit dioramas of 106 figures. Orchestrated by tape-recorded music and explanations, the dioramas were arranged in four groups entitled: The Feudal Manor—Hell on Earth; The Lamasery—Wicked Den for Devouring Serfs; The Kashag—Reactionary Local Government; and the Serfs Struggle for Liberation. The scenes included a “serf” forced to carry his “master” up a steep cliff in a snowstorm, “hatred flashing from his eyes”; a boy bartered by a feudal lord for a donkey; a leering monk standing over a debtor about to be dragged to death by a horse; another monk, enclosing a screaming child in a box as a sacrifice; and a woman, said to have led a people’s uprising, tied to a stake and sentenced to have her heart gouged out. In the final scene the “slaves” rise up and slaughter their masters, and a dying girl, scrawling a red star in her own blood on a boulder, expresses “her longing for the serfs’ delivery, Chairman Mao and the Communist Party.”
The chaos and destruction of the Cultural Revolution lasted for three years. Its political aftermath lasted another seven—until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. In Tibet’s case, though, there was a more durable legacy—communes. Central Tibet was the sole region in China to have thus far avoided communization, a fact Maoists viewed as the most flagrant example of the local party’s “revisionist” policies. No matter how pressing other duties were, all Red Guards considered it their sacred task to communize Tibet. But it was not so easy, as their predecessors could have testified.
The drive to communize had actually begun as early as 1962. At that time, communes were introduced on an experimental basis around Lhasa, Shigatse and Lhoka. They were not developed, however, owing to the shaky state of the Democratic Reforms, the same difficulties which delayed the founding of the TAR. Tibetans viewed communes as nothing less than mass imprisonment: the ultimate means of social control in which the modicum of freedom they had maintained—including ownership of land, farm tools, animals and the few possessions remaining to them—would be lost to a final leveling of society by the state. Their fears stemmed from the awareness of the effects of enforced collectivization in Kham and Amdo both before and after 1959. Though production goals had risen annually, harvests had been systematically appropriated and famine was now endemic in the once bountiful east. The people of Kham—in the main women and children after years of fighting—were said to be yoked to plows like beasts of burden, toiling year round to meet state quotas.
As with the Democratic Reforms, the desire for communes had to appear as if it emanated from the people. Hence, Tibetans were compelled to sign documents requesting communes, whereupon the Tang or CCP promised to “grant” them. In addition to its propaganda value, this technique had long been recognized by Chinese cadres as a valuable tool for forestalling criticism of daily work. Complaints were easily dismissed with the simple observation that the people themselves had requested that the policy be implemented—so how, then, could they now claim to oppose it? In Central Tibet’s case, the stage in socialization following Mutual Aid Teams, cooperatives, was bypassed altogether. Where others had walked, the Tibetans were thus to “leap” to communes—and they needed the Party’s help to do so.
The Chinese began by galvanizing the “leading element” of people’s activists. Meetings were called in 1964 at which it was promised that, if communes were successfully established, they would be allowed to govern them, holding the ranks of turing and dbutang—chairman and overseer—a promotion over their usual position of tsoutang or group leader. Their methods were to be twofold. On the harsh side, commune formation would constitute the key topic for three to four months at the nightly meeting; whoever opposed it would be made an example of by thamzing and imprisonment. The burtsun chenpos or “diligent ones” carried this out so eagerly that—acquainted now with the requisite behavior for survival—people all over Tibet, as refugees recounted, were soon saying, “Even if the communes cannot be established today, please set them up tomorrow!” On the soft side, the Chinese promised that communes were none other than “the Golden Bridge to the Socialist Paradise.” A few model communes, amply supplied with yaks, sheep, horses, pigs, carts, tools and fertilizer—all of which were promised to every burgeoning commune—were established to serve as inspiring examples. Immediately following the inauguration of the TAR in 1965, some 130 communes had been formed. Then, with the advent of the Cultural Revolution, the “soft sell” was abandoned and communization was implemented across the country. By the summer of 1970, more than one thousand communes had been set up; by December 1975, the drive had been completed in 93 percent of the TAR’s 71 chou, or districts—some 1,925 communes having been established.
Getting people to relinquish their possessions—the first stage in communization—proved the greatest obstacle. A compensation rate was set—far below the actual worth of the given item: 150 yuan or roughly $75 was to be paid for the best horse; 70 yuan or $35 for a yak (the usual value being $250); $15 for a donkey and plow; $2.50 for a hammer; $4.00 for a long knife; $3.00 for a shovel and saddle; $2.00 for a rope. In most cases reimbursement was to be made over a three- to five-year period. Tibetans, however, never received the promised money. Payment would begin, the Chinese said, only when the commune produced a surplus—a stipulation which made a mockery of the entire premise of “compensation,” as the Tibetans’ own labor was t
o “pay back” what they had given to begin with. Thus, the state expended nothing at all on communes—its propaganda claiming, all the while, vast contributions of materials and seeds. To add insult to the injury, each person over sixteen years of age had immediately to contribute up to 11 yuan toward his commune’s starting capital. As no one had this money, the Chinese were compelled to lend it—bringing the entire nation into their debt and thereby justifying a regular raising of taxes through interest at each harvest. Short of bringing in the PLA, it was difficult to get Tibetans to voluntarily impose such devastating conditions on themselves. Eventually, though, the army was dispatched to many regions, mass arrests were carried out, and to those who remained intransigent it was soon made clear that while survival inside the commune structure might be distasteful, existence outside meant certain doom—the communes having confiscated all water sources and the best land in each area. Only a few classed families, purposely not permitted to join, henceforth remained beyond the fringe of the new society.
An average commune comprised from 100 to 200 families, or 1,000 people. It was organized in production teams (but not, due to the low population, in brigades as in the rest of China) usually encompassing a single village, with a bank and general store shared by up to seven communes in the local subdistrict. As the 1970s progressed, the limited facilities, including health care and primary schools, were spread even thinner, as communes were conglomerated into groups of four while still being treated as a single unit. The communes were run by a staff of officers under a leader who issued work orders based on demands received from the local party office. In the administration of certain communes there were as many as fifty different ranks. These positions were held exclusively by Tibetans, who were required to carry out their duties over and above their daily burden of farm labor. Under them, the Tibetan people’s remaining freedoms were lost. Movement beyond one’s house and field, not just the surrounding area, was forbidden. Even trips to collect firewood required prior permission. To take a day’s leave for illness or to tend to a sick relative, often necessitated signatures from as many as twelve officials.
The day began with the dirgelike, monochromatic notes of China’s favorite anthem, “The East Is Red,” played from loudspeakers on Peking time—two hours before sunrise in Tibet. After roll call in one’s production team, work commenced at 5:00 a.m. Labor then continued until 8:00 or 10:00 at night, depending on the season, followed by the two- to three-hour political meeting that ended about midnight. Though many people took one Sunday every fortnight off from work, there were only seven sanctioned holidays a year—three days for Communist celebrations, three for Chinese New Year’s and one for Western New Year’s. Mothers with new babies were granted the special dispensation of a half hour in the morning and another in the evening for breast feeding. Though the old, the infirm and children below school age were officially exempt from labor, without work points they received no grain ration. Thus every man, woman and child in Tibet from the age of six or seven to that of eighty or more was compelled, if physically able, to work. Exhaustion was so common and the rules so strictly enforced that frequently the corpses of those who died went unburied for days at a time. As Tibetans commented, in a new expression, on their lot: “In Tibet there are only three things left to see. In the morning you see the stars, during the day the locks on the houses and at night, returning from work, the moon.”
In addition to farming, miles of canals were dug, dams, roads and water tanks built. Breaking new land became an obsession with the communes—as was, by the early seventies, planting winter wheat. The Chinese preferred wheat to barley, so 80 percent of the arable land was sown with it. When the shoots were five inches high, local officials took inventory of the expected crop, and the harvest was scrupulously checked against their figures to make sure there was no pilfering. Acreage, though, was not allowed to lie fallow on alternate years, a practice which, in Tibet’s fragile environment, leached the soil and resulted in massive crop failures. This abuse of the land, not rectified until the end of the 1970s, accounted for ongoing pockets of famine throughout the country.
Tibet’s nomads, many of whom had delayed for long periods of time in Mutual Aid Teams, were by no means excluded from communization. Their possessions and herds were collectivized and a strict breeding requirement with 90 percent of a given herd’s mature females having to reproduce annually—was enforced. Accidental casualties of up to 2 percent of the animals were permitted; any beyond had to be turned over to the authorities with a full explanation—whereafter, if the herder was found responsible, he was punished. The staple nomad diet of meat, cheese and butter was replaced, in the main, by state-issued barley. In Central Tibet, meat was appropriated for the PLA; in Amdo and Kham, it was shipped, along with hides, directly to China.
Within a year of their founding the economic oppression of the communes drastically altered life in Tibet once again. An intricate system of work points and taxation combined to reduce the population to below subsistence level, with grain rations running out, unless further apportioned by individuals—from now until the late seventies—on average, three to four months before year’s end. The work-point system had been originated in Dazhai, China’s leading commune (whose astronomical production figures, it was later revealed, had all been falsified), and represented the ultimate in collectivization. In Tibet, the people were rewarded with karmas or stars, recorded in a small booklet called a kardeb. Every three days, group leaders took their charges’ books and noted how many stars they had earned; at two-week intervals the numbers were totaled. In a day, the best worker earned eight toten stars, the worst earned five and children earned four. Though varying in worth when translated into currency, the average karma was valued at around 1 motse or 5 cents. Thus, the maximum earned by top-ranked Tibetan cadres was 50 cents a day, $14 a month, $168 a year. The general per capita income, taking into account both dependents and the average wage earned, fell in the vicinity of $60 a year, making Tibet at this time the poorest nation on Earth, below even Bhutan, whose people earned $10 more each, annually. However, with all goods obtained by rationing only, monetary value was secondary. Where work points or stars mattered was at the end of the year. At this time, a full twelve months’ labor was assessed and translated into grain rations. Not, though, prior to taxation.
Before work points were tallied and the grain ration for each production team determined, up to eight different kinds of taxes were levied on the harvest: these included 6 percent State Grain (called either Loving the Nation Tax or Voluntary Tax—as Tibetans were supposed to give it voluntarily out of their love for the party), Seed Grain, Fodder Grain, Famine Prevention Grain, War Preparation Grain, Grain for Commune Expenses and two categories of so-called Surplus Grain, the last of which, though not strictly a tax, would be “voluntarily” sold to the state at incredibly low prices—1 khel (or 28 pounds) generally going for a little more than 3 yuan, or $1.50—the price of three packs of cigarettes. In addition, the money was then placed in commune banks, to which individuals had no access. After all of these taxes were subtracted, workers, depending on their performance, would be awarded rations for the year. Under this system each person’s normal annual intake of grain amounted to 8 to 12 khels, or 224 to 336 pounds, for most far less than a pound a day. Meat, vegetables, butter, milk, yogurt and tea, all previously staples, continued to be absent from the diet. Families with aged or infant dependents suffered the most. Their food, insufficient for two adults, often had to be shared among five people. A new beggar or “loitering” class was thus created. And while the commune would extend an initial loan to some of these unfortunates, it would never do so twice. As there was no means of paying back the loan, people continued to beg, and the party announced that it was not its responsibility but that of the “better off” members of the community to support them. Produced by the system itself, the new class became a millstone overnight, increasing in weight as children were born and more families fell into debt. Tibet
ans now said among themselves, “Liberation is like having a wet leather cap put on one’s head. The quicker it dries, the tighter it gets, until it kills you.”
The truth of the aphorism turned increasingly clear under a new wave of famine which, despite increased cultivation, was the sole result Tibetans experienced from the communes. To add to the Cultural Revolution’s disruptions, a slew of natural disasters befell Tibet—the worst drought in a hundred years, the heaviest snowfall in fifty and, in 1972, severe earthquakes. All produced widespread crop failures. Where small pockets of famine had occurred in the lull between 1963 and 1968, the Chinese had occasionally agreed to loan grain from state stores. In 1969, however, in the midst of a nationwide war preparation campaign, they ceased doing this, and retained all reserve stocks for the PLA alone. Furthermore, when harvests were poor the Chinese refused to reduce taxes, creating a devastating drop in the already subsistence-level rations. Even when hundreds of starving people poured into Gyantse and Shigatse in 1972, grain rations having descended from 7 to 5 and then an incredible 4 khels or 112 pounds a year—thereby running out after only four or five months—nothing was forthcoming from the well-stocked army granaries. Unwilling to arrest the demonstrators—because they would have to be fed—the PLA dispersed them back to the countryside. Here, they subsisted by foraging for wild herbs, roots, mushrooms, scorpion plants in particular and a plant called chung, used in the past for making green dye. Previously such foraging had been the only means of survival for many old people who could neither work nor receive support from their families. Now almost the entire population of Tibet took, often with fatal results, to living off the land, returning, as they had in the early sixties, to picking undigested grain from the manure of PLA horses, stealing discarded food thrown by the Chinese to their pigs and chickens and digging for worms. The plight of the city dwellers, though, remained even worse than that of the country folk. From early in 1968, both Shigatse and Lhasa ceased to receive supplies. Stores remained empty—devoid even of matches, kerosene, candles and cigarettes, much less sugar and tea. For years nightly meetings were held by the light of a single candle or two—a boon, ironically, for Tibetans, who no longer had to strain to stay awake for fear of being caught inattentive. When the chaos of the Cultural Revolution began to ease, commodities returned to Tibet; yet through the end of the famine in 1973, they remained in such short supply that only cadres and Chinese settlers had consistent access to them. For Tibetans a box of matches a month was considered a luxury. A tin of cooking oil cost more than the average laborer earned in two months. The four yards of cloth issued a year, insufficient in itself to make even a single new chuba, was in many cases forgone, people’s clothes now becoming so reworked that the original material could no longer be seen for the patches. As Tibetans were barred from such necessities as soap, mud was used instead. Chinese, however, were rationed a single cake of bathing soap every three months, and half a cake for washing clothes every two months. There were so many instances of looting and robbery that those who were caught had to be released after making a simple confession.
