The Rise of the Chinese People’s Communes

by Anna Louise Strong

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Journalism

133 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1959

About the author

American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

Reviews

[Sappho · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is quite good and informative. It feels incomplete knowing that hunger and famine is right around the corner and I am pleased to learn that Strong released and updated version with commentary on the subsequent years of hardship and look forward to her journalistic approach towards that. It’s amazing how simple it is for bourgeois scholars and politicians to distort this period and reduce Mao to a tyrant or dictator given the truly democratic reality of China under Mao’s leadership portrayed here and in many other works. It seems that as long as they control academia this history will remain alive only among radical circles until we control superstructural institutions and can liberate the proletarian view of this history.

[MorningSun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Often times, in defending China's Socialist period, accusations have to be dealt with of "forced labor," "over-centralization by the evil Communist state," and so on. These accusations, often levied with minimal sourcing (beyond Wikipedia and virulently anticommunist books & articles), are not based in fact, rather in a moralistic fantasy meant to drive people away through pathos from a balanced education about how Socialism truly operated in China.
Into that fold comes The Rise of the Chinese People's Communes, a truly elucidating and enlightening book about the institutions that became the rural building blocks of Chinese Socialism once the period of New Democracy and capitalist accumulation had ended. In that regard, I see it as essential reading; Strong's firsthand accounts demolish the notion that the People's Communes were created from the outset by state decree, further showing that accusations of coerced or forced labor are chauvinist lies. However, even beyond its utility in debunking Cold War-era absurdities surrounding the People's Communes, Strong's work is immensely compelling as a narrative and book in itself, painting a vivid and indeed beautiful picture of everyday life in the highest Socialist society thus far constructed in history. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

[Jeff McLeod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy, if ever there was a book that did not age well, this is it, lol. Weird vibes reading this. A nice little glowing portrayal of the communes written in 1959, which is admittedly extremely interesting, and inspiring until you consider their ultimate fate. At least she published an addendum a few years later discussing the retrenchment of the early 60s, but I'm sure even then she didn't have much of an idea of the full extent of the famine since she lived in Beijing.