What Socialism Meant for My Great-Grandfather
A modest Chinese farmer’s livelihood was wrecked in the name of ideals that sound all too familiar.
Helen RaleighJuly 7, 2019 3:11 pm ET
My great-grandfather wasn’t a wealthy man, but he was relatively well-to-do by the standard of his time. He lived in a small village on the east coast of China where everyone was related to everyone else. In an old photo, he looked handsome and scholarly. He hoped one day to become a government official. Unfortunately, the imperial court ceased to exist when rebels forced the last Qing emperor to abdicate in 1912. With no court to serve, he became a wheat farmer.
After the Communist Party took over in 1949, it pushed for “land reform” to win the support of the country’s 300 million landless peasants. The Party claimed landowners were class enemies and exploiters of the poor, and that unequal land ownership was the main cause of social injustice.
Helen Raleigh's great-grandfather. Illustration: Courtesy of Helen Raleigh
Though many villagers shared similar economic conditions, a government worker came to my great-grandfather’s village and divided everyone into five classes: landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants and laborers. Then a work team organized “speak bitterness” struggle sessions so the poor could vent their frustration against the “rich.”
At first, villagers hesitated to speak ill of one another, especially their kin, in public. But the work team was good at stirring up envy and greed and inflaming hatred toward any villager who owned property. My great-grandfather often had to stand in front of the village with his head bent, listening to his neighbors and relatives accuse him of wrongdoings that were grossly exaggerated or plain false.
Throughout China, landlords and rich farmers were rounded up and executed or sent to labor camps. Local governments confiscated their property and redistributed it to landless and impoverished farmers. My great-grandfather’s life was spared, but neighbors didn’t hesitate to take his land, cattle and even farming tools away from him. He became a landless farmer overnight.
The poor farmers didn’t come out ahead for long. In 1953 the Chinese government started a movement to collectivize agriculture. The land that had been handed to poor farmers was gradually returned to the state. By 1958 there was no private land ownership. Private farming was prohibited. Farmers were required to sell their produce to the government at fixed prices; no private sales were allowed. Farmers couldn’t choose which crops to grow. They had to follow the orders of local Communist leaders, many of whom didn’t know much about farming. Crops perished and millions of people starved.
My great-grandfather never stopped farming the land, even though he no longer held the deed to it. He went to the field until the day he died in 1988 at 88. His final wish was to be buried near his ancestors on the land he once owned. But since our ancestral grave plot had been turned into government farmland, we had to lay him to rest in a faraway public cemetery.
A few years later, I immigrated to the U.S. My great-grandfather’s plight and China’s history have cemented my belief that socialism is evil and I was lucky to escape it. Yet nowadays, I sometimes feel as if I’m back where I came from. I want to scream every time I hear the American left’s eerily familiar slogans: “Make the rich pay their fair share,” “Level the playing field,” “You didn’t build that.” This is the same sort of rhetoric the Chinese Communist Party used against landowners like my great-grandfather. The policies advanced by that rhetoric ruined China’s economy along with millions of lives.
The American left offers nothing new. Socialism always begins with a great promise and ends in disaster. It has failed every time and everywhere it was tried. Let’s not throw away American prosperity so that a few leftists can give it another go.
Ms. Raleigh is a senior contributor to the Federalist and author of “Confucius Never Said.”
Correction
An earlier version misidentified the Qing dynasty.
吉田 康彦 （よしだ やすひこ、1936年2月4日 - ）は、日本の国際問題評論家、元埼玉大学教授。大阪経済法科大学アジア太平洋研究センター客員教授。
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この節は検証可能な参考文献や出典が全く示されていないか、不十分です。出典を追加して記事の信頼性向上にご協力ください。
東京都出身。埼玉県立浦和高等学校、東京大学文学部仏文学科卒業。同大学新聞研究所（現在の同大学大学院情報学環・学際情報学府）修士課程中退。
日本放送協会（NHK）に23年間勤務し、ジュネーヴ支局長、国際局報道部次長を務めた後、1982年に国連職員となる。ニューヨーク、ジュネーヴ、ウィーンにて勤務し、国際原子力機関（IAEA）広報部長などを務め、1990年に帰国。
1993年より埼玉大学教養学部教授となり、国連、国際機構、NGO（非政府組織）、核・原子力問題、朝鮮半島問題についての解説・評論記事を数多く執筆。また、テレビ・新聞等のメディアで頻繁に登場し、発言している。2001年に同大学を定年退官後は、大阪経済法科大学教授を経て、現在、同大学アジア太平洋研究センター客員教授。他に財団法人日本国際フォーラム有識者政策委員、「核・エネルギー問題情報センター」常任理事、「放射線教育フォーラム」理事、「ポリシーフォーラム」共同代表・編集長、「北朝鮮人道支援の会」代表、日本国際フォーラム政策委員[1]などを務める。
子息の吉田徹は政治学者。
北朝鮮による日本人拉致問題との関わり
編集
吉田は北朝鮮による日本人拉致問題について、1997年に「（拉致は）伝聞に基づくものであり、工作員の特定もされておらず、実態として韓国安企部の情報操作に躍らされている」[2]と述べ、北朝鮮による犯行を否定していた。これらの発言などから、拉致被害者家族の支援者や右派系メディア・論壇などから「拉致否定派」として批判を受けることがある。
批判に対して吉田は、北朝鮮による日本人拉致そのものを否定したことはない[3]と弁明しているが、「拉致軽視」と取られかねない主張を自身のホームページや毎日新聞などへ寄稿しており[4][5]、『文藝春秋』での西岡力との対談で「私は拉致疑惑事件は韓国公安機関の安全企画部による謀略ないしデッチあげ、と信じる」と述べていた。
A modest Chinese farmer’s livelihood was wrecked in the name of ideals that sound all too familiar.
Helen RaleighJuly 7, 2019 3:11 pm ET
My great-grandfather wasn’t a wealthy man, but he was relatively well-to-do by the standard of his time. He lived in a small village on the east coast of China where everyone was related to everyone else. In an old photo, he looked handsome and scholarly. He hoped one day to become a government official. Unfortunately, the imperial court ceased to exist when rebels forced the last Qing emperor to abdicate in 1912. With no court to serve, he became a wheat farmer.
After the Communist Party took over in 1949, it pushed for “land reform” to win the support of the country’s 300 million landless peasants. The Party claimed landowners were class enemies and exploiters of the poor, and that unequal land ownership was the main cause of social injustice.
Helen Raleigh's great-grandfather. Illustration: Courtesy of Helen Raleigh
Though many villagers shared similar economic conditions, a government worker came to my great-grandfather’s village and divided everyone into five classes: landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants and laborers. Then a work team organized “speak bitterness” struggle sessions so the poor could vent their frustration against the “rich.”
At first, villagers hesitated to speak ill of one another, especially their kin, in public. But the work team was good at stirring up envy and greed and inflaming hatred toward any villager who owned property. My great-grandfather often had to stand in front of the village with his head bent, listening to his neighbors and relatives accuse him of wrongdoings that were grossly exaggerated or plain false.
Throughout China, landlords and rich farmers were rounded up and executed or sent to labor camps. Local governments confiscated their property and redistributed it to landless and impoverished farmers. My great-grandfather’s life was spared, but neighbors didn’t hesitate to take his land, cattle and even farming tools away from him. He became a landless farmer overnight.
The poor farmers didn’t come out ahead for long. In 1953 the Chinese government started a movement to collectivize agriculture. The land that had been handed to poor farmers was gradually returned to the state. By 1958 there was no private land ownership. Private farming was prohibited. Farmers were required to sell their produce to the government at fixed prices; no private sales were allowed. Farmers couldn’t choose which crops to grow. They had to follow the orders of local Communist leaders, many of whom didn’t know much about farming. Crops perished and millions of people starved.
My great-grandfather never stopped farming the land, even though he no longer held the deed to it. He went to the field until the day he died in 1988 at 88. His final wish was to be buried near his ancestors on the land he once owned. But since our ancestral grave plot had been turned into government farmland, we had to lay him to rest in a faraway public cemetery.
A few years later, I immigrated to the U.S. My great-grandfather’s plight and China’s history have cemented my belief that socialism is evil and I was lucky to escape it. Yet nowadays, I sometimes feel as if I’m back where I came from. I want to scream every time I hear the American left’s eerily familiar slogans: “Make the rich pay their fair share,” “Level the playing field,” “You didn’t build that.” This is the same sort of rhetoric the Chinese Communist Party used against landowners like my great-grandfather. The policies advanced by that rhetoric ruined China’s economy along with millions of lives.
The American left offers nothing new. Socialism always begins with a great promise and ends in disaster. It has failed every time and everywhere it was tried. Let’s not throw away American prosperity so that a few leftists can give it another go.
Ms. Raleigh is a senior contributor to the Federalist and author of “Confucius Never Said.”
Correction
An earlier version misidentified the Qing dynasty.
吉田 康彦 （よしだ やすひこ、1936年2月4日 - ）は、日本の国際問題評論家、元埼玉大学教授。大阪経済法科大学アジア太平洋研究センター客員教授。
人物
編集
Learn more
この節は検証可能な参考文献や出典が全く示されていないか、不十分です。出典を追加して記事の信頼性向上にご協力ください。
東京都出身。埼玉県立浦和高等学校、東京大学文学部仏文学科卒業。同大学新聞研究所（現在の同大学大学院情報学環・学際情報学府）修士課程中退。
日本放送協会（NHK）に23年間勤務し、ジュネーヴ支局長、国際局報道部次長を務めた後、1982年に国連職員となる。ニューヨーク、ジュネーヴ、ウィーンにて勤務し、国際原子力機関（IAEA）広報部長などを務め、1990年に帰国。
1993年より埼玉大学教養学部教授となり、国連、国際機構、NGO（非政府組織）、核・原子力問題、朝鮮半島問題についての解説・評論記事を数多く執筆。また、テレビ・新聞等のメディアで頻繁に登場し、発言している。2001年に同大学を定年退官後は、大阪経済法科大学教授を経て、現在、同大学アジア太平洋研究センター客員教授。他に財団法人日本国際フォーラム有識者政策委員、「核・エネルギー問題情報センター」常任理事、「放射線教育フォーラム」理事、「ポリシーフォーラム」共同代表・編集長、「北朝鮮人道支援の会」代表、日本国際フォーラム政策委員[1]などを務める。
子息の吉田徹は政治学者。
北朝鮮による日本人拉致問題との関わり
編集
吉田は北朝鮮による日本人拉致問題について、1997年に「（拉致は）伝聞に基づくものであり、工作員の特定もされておらず、実態として韓国安企部の情報操作に躍らされている」[2]と述べ、北朝鮮による犯行を否定していた。これらの発言などから、拉致被害者家族の支援者や右派系メディア・論壇などから「拉致否定派」として批判を受けることがある。
批判に対して吉田は、北朝鮮による日本人拉致そのものを否定したことはない[3]と弁明しているが、「拉致軽視」と取られかねない主張を自身のホームページや毎日新聞などへ寄稿しており[4][5]、『文藝春秋』での西岡力との対談で「私は拉致疑惑事件は韓国公安機関の安全企画部による謀略ないしデッチあげ、と信じる」と述べていた。
