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[1] Farber, S. (2015, June 9). Cuba before the revolution. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2015/09/cuban-revolution-fidel-castro-casinos-batista. “Casinos began to develop in Cuba in the 1920s in connection with the growth of tourism. After several ups and downs in the following three decades, the casino industry took off in the mid- to late 1950s as Batista and his cronies, working together with American Mafiosi, used the resources of Cuban state development banks, and even union retirement funds, to build hotels, all of which hosted casinos, like the Riviera, the Capri, and the Havana Hilton (today’s Havana Libre). In the process both Cuban rulers and Mafiosi lined their own pockets, skimming the casinos’ proceeds, cheating investors, and trafficking drugs.”
[2] Farber, S. (2015, June 9). Cuba before the revolution. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2015/09/cuban-revolution-fidel-castro-casinos-batista. “Aside from the American tourists, who were the casinos’ principal customers, only a small number of Cubans — upper-middle and upper-class whites — gambled there. The casinos’ dress code and minimum betting requirements kept most Cubans out.”
[3] Farber, S. (2015, June 9). Cuba before the revolution. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2015/09/cuban-revolution-fidel-castro-casinos-batista. “The great majority of Cubans saw casinos — as well as the parking meters that had been installed in the capital a few months earlier — as odious expressions of the oppressive corruption of Batista and his henchmen.”
[4] Farber, S. (2015, June 9). Cuba before the revolution. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2015/09/cuban-revolution-fidel-castro-casinos-batista. “But as Rosalie Schwartz, a historian of Cuban tourism, has pointed out, “disgust with government excesses preceded and outstripped outrage over casinos . . . Revolutionaries charged Batista henchmen with torture and murder — not casino operations — when they put them on trial.” Most Cubans also did not object to gambling, and many had been engaging in the practice for a long time, though in a manner that was worlds apart from the casinos populated by tourists and privileged Cuban”
[5] Carbonell, B. M. (2009, November 30). Cuban corporatism: Batista’s three-year plan and a nation betrayed. ASCE Cuba Database. https://ascecubadatabase.org/asce_proceedings/cuban-corporatism-batistas-three-year-plan-and-a-nation-betrayed/. “Out of the chaos occasioned by the collapse of Gerardo Machado’s dictatorship in 1933 a new, charismatic leader rose up from obscurity and seized control of Cuba. Long before Fidel Castro led his followers to victory, Fulgencio Batista took the reins of a sweeping revolution, the idealism and mystique of which— though repeatedly betrayed—never loosened their grip on the Cuban psyche. His policies, ushered in amid an atmosphere of change, would have far-reaching consequences for Cuba. Batista, a sergeant in the Cuban army at the time of his national debut, possessed both Afro-Cuban and Native- American ancestry and “was almost red in complexion,” cutting a conspicuous figure. He had “great personal charm” and “resembled great seducers rather than most politicians.”
[6] Carbonell, B. M. (2009, November 30). Cuban corporatism: Batista’s three-year plan and a nation betrayed. ASCE Cuba Database. https://ascecubadatabase.org/asce_proceedings/cuban-corporatism-batistas-three-year-plan-and-a-nation-betrayed/. “However, Batista’s statist and corporatist policies, rather than mollify public opinion, ultimately fanned the flames of popular dissatisfaction in the 1940s. While Batista’s new sugar and land reforms may have been well-intentioned, they were laid over an existing system of pervasive corruption. As a result, the new statist and corporatist legislation, by linking the Cuban state more closely with the economy and society, spawned myriad new opportunities for graft in the form of bribery and embezzlement.”
[7] Carbonell, B. M. (2009, November 30). Cuban corporatism: Batista’s three-year plan and a nation betrayed. ASCE Cuba Database. https://ascecubadatabase.org/asce_proceedings/cuban-corporatism-batistas-three-year-plan-and-a-nation-betrayed/. “In addition, the corporatist policies in particular created a tradition by which the Cuban state maintained linkages between itself and interest groups in society. By the 1940s, these linkages had become liabilities as political action groups turned more violent and the state turned its political energies away from controlling these groups. The links between the state and the gang-like political groups associated the state with the brutal political warfare that rocked Cuban society during the administrations of Presidents Ramón Grau San Martín and Carlos Prío. Ultimately, the Cuban government’s corruption and link to organized violence would foster broad discontent with Cuba’s political institutions.”
[8] Carbonell, B. M. (2009, November 30). Cuban corporatism: Batista’s three-year plan and a nation betrayed. ASCE Cuba Database. https://ascecubadatabase.org/asce_proceedings/cuban-corporatism-batistas-three-year-plan-and-a-nation-betrayed/. “The Cuban bureaucracy already suffered from systemic corruption at the time Batista came to power. Nevertheless, the level of graft reached its zenith in the years following Batista’s official term as president from 1940–1944. Thomas describes the presidency of Ramón Grau San Martín, Batista’s successor in the Presidential Palace, as follows: [Grau] embodied in 1944 the hopes … of Cubans who wanted … a serious and socially conscious government free from corruption. … He betrayed these hopes utterly. The trust which the people of Cuba had in him was wasted in a revel of corrupt government. … Already a rich man … Grau turned his presidency into an orgy of theft. … He did more than any other single man to kill the hope of democratic practice in Cuba. One of the worst instances of the Grau administration’s corruption involved a pension fund for sugar workers, one of the interest groups that Batista’s Three-Year Plan had incorporated into the state. As William S. Stokes wrote in 1951: “It was charged that monies had even been misappropriated from special funds which did not belong to the state but which were only under its care. The Sugar Retirement Fund was thought to be short about $40,000,000.” Another scandal involved sugar earnings: “Dr. Carlos Manuel de la Cruz . . . president of the Compañía Azucarera Central Ofelia, S.A. accused Dr. Grau of misappropriation of $18,000,000 of the ‘sugar differential.’” This unbridled malfeasance, this “graft and corruption on an almost unprecedented scale,” must be understood as part of a complex system of bribery, theft, and patronage that extended from the apex of political power all the way to the lowliest bureaucratic underling.”
[9] Carbonell, B. M. (2009, November 30). Cuban corporatism: Batista’s three-year plan and a nation betrayed. ASCE Cuba Database. https://ascecubadatabase.org/asce_proceedings/cuban-corporatism-batistas-three-year-plan-and-a-nation-betrayed/. “Yet, it was the Sugar Coordination Law—the centerpiece of Batista’s Plan Trienal—that encouraged the most audacious rent- seeking behavior on the part of state officials. The statist and corporatist law not only fostered low-level graft, as did the 50 percent law and Land Distribution Law, but also opened the door for massive scams orchestrated by the upper echelons of the political hierarchy. Two aspects of the Sugar Coordination Law made this possible: the profit-sharing scheme it established, and the de facto nationalization of the sugar industry that it effectuated. The profitsharing scheme, which redistributed sugar profits58 from wealthy mill owners to poor sugar workers and the state, would ideally have financed myriad ambitious social projects. These projects included “health and old age insurance, new schools and a literacy campaign, and the construction of urban and rural libraries, cultural centers for the performing arts, and sports facilities.” In particular, the listed educational goals stand out. They seem designed to build Cuba’s human capital as a complement to the statutory recognition and protection of heretofore ignored interest groups. Yet, the task of realizing these educational endeavors—which the reorganized sugar industry would fund—would fall to one of the Cuban state’s most corrupt ministries. Ameringer explains: [T]he Ministry of Education had become a center of patronage and graft because the Cuban people showered it with money to make it the best. [José] Alemán [the Minister of Education] exploited this ‘laudable’ goal to enrich himself and build a political machine. The effects of patronage and graft permeated the entire educational system. . . . [T]eachers of certain subjects had no knowledge of the subject . . . . Moreover, much of the state money allocated for the building of new schools actually financed the construction of “show-window schools, built along the Central Highway, ‘to impress the superficial.’” These excerpts reveal the extent to which Cuba’s Ministry of Education prioritized personal gain over the edification of the island’s youth. Into this self-serving agency flowed the sugar profits from the government’s profitsharing scheme. The case of the Ministry of Education demonstrates just one way in which the Sugar Coordination Law served to build the private fortunes of government officials. The Sugar Coordination Law facilitated an even more audacious fraud, this time perpetrated by President Grau himself. The restructuring of the sugar industry mandated by Batista’s law made Grau’s deception possible. According to Ameringer: The Sugar Coordination Law of 1937 virtually created a straightjacket for the sugar industry. … [T]he individual mills ceased to act as competitors, each operating in a specialized zone as a sanctioned monopoly. In March 1941, the various laws for controlling sugar production were codified by law No. 21. Under this omnibus measure, the sugar industry ceased to exist as a free enterprise system. The Cuban president . . . in effect ran the sugar industry.”
[10] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “Los revolucionarios victoriosos tenían ante sí un enorme vacío político. La huida de Batista no solo había puesto fin a una dictadura brutal, sino que dejaba en quiebra la mayor parte de las instituciones republicanas: al Ejército derrotado, al Congreso cómplice y hasta a un desacreditado poder judicial. El rosario de promesas incumplidas, la corrupción rampante, la politiquería, los fraudes electorales y demás lacras de la vida política habían agotado las viejas fuentes de legitimidad, que ahora el pueblo jubiloso solo reconocía en una revolución cimentada con la sangre y el sacrificio de miles de cubanos. Tras una trayectoria plagada de frustraciones, en los sectores populares prevalecía el sentimiento de que sus aspiraciones podrían finalmente materializarse sin condicionamientos ni mediaciones.” (p. 509) [English translation: “The victorious revolutionaries had before them a huge political vacuum. Batista's flight had not only put an end to a brutal dictatorship, but also left most of the republican institutions bankrupt: the defeated Army, the complicit Congress and even a discredited judicial power. The rosary of broken promises, rampant corruption, politics, electoral fraud and other scourges of political life had exhausted the old sources of legitimacy, which now the jubilant people only recognized in a revolution based on the blood and sacrifice of thousands of Cubans. After a trajectory full of frustrations, in the popular sectors prevailed the feeling that their aspirations could finally materialize without conditioning or mediation.”]
[11] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “El fin de la expansión azucarera tuvo naturales repercusiones so- bre el empleo. Las restricciones productivas decretadas a partir de 1926, aunque dieron lugar a la desactivación de una decena de centrales, se reflejaron, sobre todo, en el período de zafra que en 1928 apenas alcanzó los tres meses. La principal consecuencia inmediata fue, por tanto, un incremento del desempleo estacional ― el «tiempo muerto»―, circunstancia paliada hasta cierto punto por el programa de obras públicas del gobierno de Machado. La situación tomó un cariz mucho más grave al desplomarse la producción azucarera en el marco de la Gran Depresión. Según los estimados, entre 1928 y 1933 los trabajadores utilizados en la zafra disminuyeron algo más de 25%, pero los afortunados que consiguieron emplearse en ese último año solo trabajaron 66 días. Aunque se ca- 379 Una sociedad de contrastes rece de una estadística nacional, los expertos de la Foreign Policy Association calcularon en 250 000 el número de desempleados de toda la Isla en 1934, mientras que en La Habana, donde se disponía de una información más precisa, se registraban 43.361 cesantes sobre un total de 197.043 personas que manifestaban haber estado ocupadas en 1931. A la luz de esos datos no resulta aventurado estimar que la cuarta parte de la fuerza de trabajo del país se hallaba desempleada. Bajo tales condiciones hubo de cesar por completo el cuantioso flujo de inmigrantes que durante las primeras décadas del siglo había propulsado el crecimiento demográfico. De hecho, el movimiento migratorio adquirió en algunos años un signo negativo al producirse la repatriación ―generalmente forzosa― de un número nada despreciable de antiguos inmigrantes. Bajo la atmósfera xenófoba que suele acompañar a las crisis, en Cuba se procedió a repatriar a unos 18.000 braceros antillanos, en 1928, mediante acuerdos intergubernamentales. Al agudizarse la situación, las expulsiones continuaron; en noviembre de 1933, a pesar de que los sindicatos bajo liderazgo comunista se pronunciaban contra la discriminación de haitianos y jamaicanos, casi un millar de los primeros fueron embarcados a la fuerza por un puerto oriental. La deportación de haitianos sin empleo continuó en los meses siguientes, y se calcularon en más de 8.000 los expulsados hasta mediados de 1934; luego de un breve lapso, esas acciones se intensificarían nuevamente en 1937 y 1938, años en que se estima fueron deportados cerca de 30.000.” (p. 379-380) [English translation: A society of contrasts with a national statistic, the experts of the Foreign Policy Association calculated the number of unemployed throughout the island at 250.000 in 1934, while in Havana, where more accurate information was available, 43,361 people were registered out of a total of 197.043 people who said they had been employed in 1931. In light of these data, it is not risky to estimate that a quarter of the country's workforce was unemployed. Under such conditions, the large flow of immigrants that during the first decades of the century had propelled population growth had to cease completely. In fact, the migratory movement acquired a negative sign in some years when the repatriation - usually forced - of a not insignificant number of former immigrants occurred. Under the xenophobic atmosphere that usually accompanies crises, in Cuba about 18.000 Antillean braceros were repatriated in 1928, through intergovernmental agreements. As the situation worsened, the expulsions continued; in November 1933, despite the fact that the unions under communist leadership spoke out against discrimination against Haitians and Jamaicans, almost a thousand of the first were forcibly embarked by an eastern port. The deportation of unemployed Haitians continued in the following months, and more than 8,000 were estimated to be expelled until mid-1934; after a short period, these actions would intensify again in 1937 and 1938, years in which it is estimated that about 30.000 were deported.]
[12] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “”El nuevo equipo de gobierno resultaba muy similar al que acompañará al general golpista desde el 10 de marzo, pues lo predo- minante fue el intercambio de posiciones, con excepción de unos pocos ministerios cedidos a figuras de los partidos secundarios de la coalición, así como la reducción de la presencia de los llamados «tanquistas» o batistianos más intolerantes. Algo similar ocurría en otras instancias gubernamentales y particularmente en la esfera económica, que continuaba regida por Joaquín Martínez Sáenz al frente del Banco Nacional, Emeterio Santovenia en el BANFAIC y Gustavo Gutiérrez presidiendo la Junta Nacional de Economía. La política económica compensatoria que se había perfilado desde la restricción de la zafra azucarera en 1953, tomó vuelo con la creación del Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social a principios de 1955, brazo ejecutor del plan aprobado el año precedente. La movilización forzosa del crédito nacional aceleró el desenvolvimiento de la economía, pero acentuó también las prácticas corruptas, como se viera en un capítulo anterior. El cese del intervencionismo estatal en los conflictos laborales, así como la solución de las demandas obreras en términos casi siempre favorables a la patronal, favorecieron de igual manera el clima para la inversión de capitales nacionales y extranjeros. Con la restricción de las zafras y la caída de precios el gobierno había descongelado los salarios azucareros acoplándolos a la declinante cotización del dulce, medida que ocasionó una pérdida total cercana a los 100 millones de pesos en los ingresos de los trabajadores del sector y dejó abierta la puerta a reajustes similares en otras ramas. Semejante política resultaba factible por la connivencia establecida entre Batista y la CTC dirigida por Mujal, que a cambio del reconocimiento oficial y la concesión de prebendas ―la cuota sindical obligatoria, por ejemplo― se hacía de la vista gorda ante ciertos recortes en los beneficios del proletariado, un camino en el curso del cual la dirigencia obrera corrupta y burocratizada llegaría a consentir incluso en la flexibilización de los procedimientos de despido. Como cabe esperar, nada de esto acaecía al margen de conflictos, situación que muy bien ilustran las huelgas y otras protestas provocadas por la aplicación del «despido compensado» en Ferrocarriles Consolidados a mediados de 1955.” (p. 471-472) [English translation: Dictatorship and economic insurrection, which continued to be ruled by Joaquín Martínez Sáenz at the head of the National Bank, Emeterio Santovenia in the BANFAIC and Gustavo Gutiérrez presiding over the National Board of Economy. The compensatory economic policy that had been outlined since the restriction of the sugar harvest in 1953, took off with the creation of the Economic and Social Development Bank in early 1955, the executive arm of the plan approved the previous year. The forced mobilization of national credit accelerated the development of the economy, but also accentuated corrupt practices, as seen in a previous chapter. The cessation of state interventionism in labor conflicts, as well as the solution of workers' demands in terms almost always favorable to employers, also favored the climate for the investment of national and foreign capital. With the restriction of harvests and the fall in prices, the government had thawed sugar wages by coupling them to the declining price of sweets, a measure that caused a total loss of close to 100 million pesos in the income of workers in the sector and left the door open to similar readjustments in other branches. Such a policy was feasible by the connivence established between Batista and the CTC led by Mujal, which in exchange for official recognition and the granting of perks - the mandatory union fee, for example - turned a blind eye to certain cuts in the benefits of the proletariat, a path in the course of which the corrupt and bureaucratic workers' leadership would even consent to the flexibility of dismissal procedures. As expected, none of this happened on the sidelines of conflicts, a situation that is very well illustrated by the strikes and other protests caused by the application of the "compensated dismissal" in Consolidated Railways in mid-1955.]
{citation 13 was deleted on purpose, was part of [12] and didn’t want to renumber 193 citations}
[14] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “El balance inmediato de las acciones ―en Bayamo y Santiago de Cuba― era de 19 muertos y 31 heridos —del lado militar— y 6 muertos, así como un número indeterminado de heridos entre los asaltantes; de estos últimos, 113 fueron hechos prisioneros. Las cifras oficiales, sin embargo, nunca reportarían las reales bajas de los atacantes pues el jefe del regimiento Moncada, coronel Río Chaviano y los restantes mandos de la ciudad desataron un ven- daval de torturas y asesinatos que elevó la cifra de víctimas en- tre ellos hasta 61, barbarie represiva que mucho contribuiría a la trascendencia de los hechos del 26 de julio.” (p. 467-468) [English translation: The immediate balance of the actions - in Bayamo and Santiago de Cuba - was 19 dead and 31 injured - on the military side - and 6 dead, as well as an undetermined number of wounded among the assailants; of the latter, 113 were taken prisoner. Official figures, however, would never report the real casualties of the attackers because the head of the Moncada regiment, Colonel Río Chaviano and the remaining commanders of the city unleashed a sale of torture and murders that raised the number of victims among them to 61, a repressive barbarism that would contribute a lot to the importance of the events of July 26.]
[15] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “Las tendencias que pueden apreciarse durante las primeras décadas republicanas ofrecen una imagen contradictoria en cuanto a la evolución de las condiciones sociales de la población de ascendiente africano. La relación de este sector con la propiedad trasluce cierto deterioro, particularmente en cuanto a los fundos rurales, pues tanto la proporción de fincas como la cantidad de tierra en manos negras se reducen prácticamente a la mitad. En cambio, es palpable la mejoría en el plano cultural, ya que si bien los negros aún poseían en 1919 la mayor tasa de analfabetismo ―49%―, la diferencia porcentual con los blancos ―37%― se había reducido a la mitad. El interés por la superación se refleja tam- bién en avances más puntuales; por ejemplo, en el mismo lapso la proporción de negros mecánicos se duplica y aumentan también los porcentajes en otros oficios calificados, así como en las pro- fesiones. La cifra de médicos negros a mediados de la década de 1920 ya rondaba el centenar, al igual que se había incrementado en forma muy notable el número de maestras negras, por más que es- tos profesionales continuasen representando una proporción muy inferior a la ocupada por los cubanos de piel oscura dentro de la población del país.” (p. 169-170) [English Translation: The trends that can be seen during the first republican decades offer a contradictory picture in terms of the evolution of the social conditions of the population of African descent. The relationship of this sector with property shows some deterioration, particularly in terms of rural farms, since both the proportion of farms and the amount of land in black hands are reduced by almost half. On the other hand, the improvement in the cultural level is palpable, since although blacks still had the highest illiteracy rate in 1919 ―49%―, the percentage difference with whites ―37%― had been reduced by half. The interest in overcoming is also reflected in more punctual advances; for example, in the same period the proportion of black mechanics doubles and the percentages in other qualified trades also increase, as well as in the professions. The number of black doctors in the mid-1920s was already around a hundred, just as the number of black teachers had increased very significantly, although these professionals continued to represent a much lower proportion than that occupied by dark-skinned Cubans within the country's population.]
[16] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “En contraste con el ensanchamiento de la influencia estatal en la economía y otros sectores de la vida social, en una esfera de tanta importancia como la educativa la actividad estatal experimenta un sensible retroceso. Aunque la Constitución de 1940 había previsto que las mayores partidas del presupuesto nacional se consignaran a la educación ―de hecho, este renglón promedió unos 70 millones de pesos anuales entre 1947 y 1957―, esos recursos se malbarataban o eran malversados por las autoridades de turno, a veces, en proporciones realmente escandalosas. La consecuencia fue el marcado deterioro de algunos importantes indicadores como el analfabetismo, que después de haber registrado una continua disminución durante las primeras décadas del siglo, desde los años de crisis invierte su tendencia y crece paulatinamente hasta abarcar casi una cuarta parte de la población en 1953. La cobertura de la enseñanza pública experimenta también una regresión, pues la matrícula en primaria oscilaba entre 35 y 45% de la población en edad escolar, a lo cual se unía un grave fenómeno de deserción estudiantil. Así, de los 614.924 alumnos matriculados en primaria durante el curso 1952-1953, apenas 85.000 cursaban grados superiores ―5º a 8º grados― concentrándose más de 50% del alumnado en 1º y 2º grados. La situación se agravaba en la enseñanza secundaria, no obstante la modernización de los planes de estudios y el incremento numérico de los institutos de segunda enseñanza, pues esta recibía solo 6,4% de la población comprendida entre 15 y 19 años. El deterioro educativo era particularmente grave entre la población rural, de la cual 83,3% tenía una escolaridad inferior al 3º grado. Las notorias insuficiencias de la instrucción pública crearon un marco propicio para el florecimiento de las instituciones privadas de enseñanza. Entre 1949 y 1956 se fundaron 279 de estas escuelas, hasta totalizar 859 en ese último año, con una matrícula conjunta que ascendía a 106 579 alumnos, casi una quinta parte de toda la población escolar del país. La Constitución de 1940 había dispuesto la fiscalización y reglamentación oficial de la enseñanza privada a fin de que esta, al igual que la pública, estuviese inspirada en el «espíritu de cubanidad y solidaridad humana», sin embargo las más poderosas escuelas privadas ―principalmente los grandes planteles católicos― oponían resistencia a las reglamentaciones estatales, en particular a la decisión de que los profesores de Historia de Cuba tuviesen que ser cubanos por nacimiento, actitud que dio pie a un intenso debate entre distintas entidades de la sociedad civil.” (p. 419-420) [English Translation: In contrast to the widening of state influence in The economy and other sectors of social life, in a sphere of As important as the educational state activity experi- Mind a sensitive setback. Although the Constitution of 1940 has- It was expected that the largest items of the national budget would be They will consign to education - in fact, this line averaged a few 70 million pesos per year between 1947 and 1957―, those resources are They were embezzled or embezzled by the authorities on duty, to Times, in really scandalous proportions. The consequence was the marked deterioration of some important indicators like Illiteracy, which after having recorded a continuous Decrease during the first decades of the century, from the years Of crisis inverts its trend and grows gradually to abar- Almost a quarter of the population in 1953. The coverage of Public education is also experiencing a regression, because the Primary school enrollment ranged between 35 and 45% of the population in School age, which was joined by a serious phenomenon of dropout Student. Thus, of the 614,924 students enrolled in primary school During the 1952-1953 academic year, only 85,000 studied higher degrees Riores ―5th to 8th grades― concentrating more than 50% of the students in 1st and 2nd grades. The situation was aggravated in secondary education. Would, however the modernization of the curricula and the Numerical increase of secondary education institutes, since This one received only 6.4% of the population between 15 and 19 Years. Educational deterioration was particularly serious among the Rural population, of which 83.3% had a lower education than 3rd grade. The notorious inadequacies of public instruction created a Favorable framework for the flourishing of private institutions Of teaching. Between 1949 and 1956, 279 of these schools were founded, Up to a total of 859 in that last year, with a joint registration Which amounted to 106,579 students, almost a fifth of the entire 419 A society of contrasts School population of the country. The Constitution of 1940 had provided The supervision and official regulation of private education to So that this, like the public one, was inspired by the "Spirit of Cubanness and human solidarity", however the most Powerful private schools - mainly the large campuses Catholics― resisted state regulations, In particular to the decision that the History teachers of Cuba had to be Cubans by birth, an attitude that gave rise To an intense debate between different civil society entities.]
[17] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “Sin embargo, el gran empeño educativo fue la campaña de alf betización, organizada después de que Fidel Castro anunciase en la ONU, en octubre de 1960, que el analfabetismo sería eliminado en el plazo de un año. Un 24% de la población, en su mayoría habitante de los campos, clasificaba como analfabeta; para instruirla se movilizaron más de 270 000 alfabetizadores en varios contingentes. El de más intensa aportación fue la brigada Conrado Beníteznombre de un maestro asesinado por una partida de alzados-, integrada por unos 100 000 estudiantes de nivel secundario que trabajarían en las zonas rurales, y los «alfabetizadores populares», que en número de 120 000 actuaron en áreas urbanas. Al cabo de nueve meses de campaña, en diciembre de 1961 se habían alfabe- tizado algo más de 700 000 personas, con lo cual la tasa de anal- fabetismo quedó reducida a 4%. Más allá del enorme salto cultural que ello implicaba, la alfabetización constituyó un significativo avance social pues familiarizó a miles de residentes urbanos ―en su mayoría jóvenes― con la vida del campesinado y de gente que en las ciudades subsistía en condiciones paupérrimas, quienes a su vez adquirieron junto con la instrucción elemental los rudimentos de una cultura política, posibilidad que los autores de las cartillas empleadas no dejaron de aprovechar. Considerada solo como un punto de partida, la alfabetización fue sucedida por un programa de «seguimiento», concebido para afianzar y ampliar los conocimientos alcanzados, al cual darían continuidad otros planes con la meta de llevar hasta el sexto grado de escolaridad a toda la población adulta. Al finalizar la década de 1960, la «educación obrero campesina» ―como se denominó a esa modalidad educativa― no solo había proporcionado instrucción primaria a unos 800 000 adultos, sino que extendida hasta el nivel secundario abrió para los trabajadores una vía de acceso a la Uni- versidad. Simultáneamente se consolidaron los logros en la enseñanza ge- neral que en 1968 dispondría de 14 800 escuelas primarias, cifraque casi duplicaba las existentes en 1958, triplicándose al mismo tiempo el número de maestros, que llegó a 49 000. En 1968 el país contaba con 250 escuelas secundarias más que las 184 existentes en 1958, al tiempo que su alumnado se triplicaba hasta totalizar 187 000. En el crecimiento de la matrícula en Secundaria incidió sin duda la nacionalización de la enseñanza privada, aunque más que todo la creación de un sistema de becas al cual se incorpora- ron 40 000 jóvenes al término de la Campaña de Alfabetización, programa que habría de ampliarse casi enseguida para incluir la enseñanza técnica y profesional. Más allá de la gratuidad de la educación, el sistema de becas aseguraba su efectiva universalización al proporcionar medios para que las carencias económicas de los alumnos no obstaculizasen la continuación de sus estudios.” (p. 624-625) [English Translation: However, the great educational effort was the literacy campaign, organized after Fidel Castro announced at the UN in October 1960 that illiteracy would be eliminated within a year. 24% of the population, mostly inhabitants of the fields, were classified as illiterate; more than 270,000 literacyists were mobilized in various contingents to educate them. The most intense contribution was the Conrado Benítez brigade, named after a teacher murdered by a group of uprisings, made up of about 100,000 high school students who would work in rural areas, and the "popular literacyists", who in number of 120,000 performed in urban areas. After nine months of campaigning, in December 1961, just over 700,000 people had been literate, with which the illiteracy rate was reduced to 4%. Beyond the enormous cultural leap that this implied, literacy constituted a significant social advance because it familiarized thousands of urban residents - mostly young - with the life of the peasantry and people who survived in the cities in very poor conditions, who in turn acquired together with elementary instruction the rudiments of a political culture, a possibility that the authors of the booklets used did not stop taking advantage of. Considered only as a starting point, literacy was succeeded by a "follow-up" program, designed to strengthen and expand the knowledge achieved, which would be continued by other plans with the aim of taking the entire adult population to the sixth degree of schooling. At the end of the 1960s, the "peasant worker education" - as this educational modality was called - had not only provided primary education to about 800,000 adults, but extended to the secondary level opened for workers a way of access to the University. Simultaneously, the achievements in general education were consolidated, which in 1968 would have 14,800 primary schools, a figure that almost doubled that existing in 1958, and at the same time tripled the number of teachers, which reached 49,000. In 1968, the country had 250 more secondary schools than the 184 existing in 1958, while its students tripled to a total of 187,000. The growth of enrollment in Secondary Education was undoubtedly influenced by the nationalization of private education, although most of all the creation of a scholarship system to which 40,000 young people joined at the end of the Literacy Campaign, a program that would have to be expanded almost immediately to include technical and professional education. Beyond the free education, the scholarship system ensured its effective universalization by providing means so that the economic deficiencies of the students did not hinder the continuation of their studies.]
[18] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “En la Enseñanza Superior se dio prioridad a las carreras técnicas, para las cuales se edificó una ciudad universitaria en las afueras de la capital con instalaciones docentes, laboratorios y alojamientos. Carreras tradicionales como las de Derecho o Letras experimentaron una disminución de sus matrículas, aunque no así la de Medicina, promovida con alta prioridad para compensar la salida de viejos especialistas y formar otros nuevos que satisficiesen la creciente demanda de los servicios de salud. Las disciplinas humanísticas y las ciencias sociales perdieron espacio, si bien en los currículos de todas las carreras universitarias se incluyó la enseñanza de la filosofía y la economía política marxistas, como forma de asegurar que la formación ideológica del alumno acompañase a su capacidad técnica. Para sustentar tamaño esfuerzo educativo, el sector dispuso de un presupuesto que en los años 60 promedió 275 millones de pesos, cifra que cuadruplicaba las partidas habitualmente asignadas a la educación en la década precedente. Junto con la extensión de la enseñanza también se manifestó interés por modernizar sus métodos, para así desarrollar las capacidades y habilidades de los educandos, llamados a desempeñar un papel superior en la construcción de la nueva sociedad.” (p. 626) [English Translation: In Higher Education, priority was given to technical careers, for which a university city was built on the outskirts of the capital with teaching facilities, laboratories and accommodation. Traditional careers like Law or Letters experienced a decrease in their enrollment, although not that of Medicine, promoted with high priority to compensate for the departure of old specialists and train new ones that meet the growing demand for health services. Humanistic disciplines and social sciences lost space, although the teaching of Marxist philosophy and political economy was included in the curricula of all university careers, as a way to ensure that the student's ideological formation accompanied his technical capacity. To support such educational effort, the sector had a budget that in the 1960s averaged 275 million pesos, a figure that quadrupled the items usually allocated to education in the previous decade. Along with the extension of teaching, there was also an interest in modernizing its methods, in order to develop the capacities and skills of the students, called to play a superior role in the construction of the new society.]
[19] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “Azotada la Isla por recurrentes epidemias en la época colonial, la preocupación por la salud ha sido constante en la cultura cubana. Ello explica que Cuba dispusiese de un temprano ―aunque mal distribuido― sistema público de salud y un cuerpo médico de reconocida calidad profesional, el cual al triunfo de la Revolución se desempeñaba mayormente en instituciones privadas. Al comenzar la década de 1960 los servicios de salud soportaron el severo impacto que supuso la salida del país de casi un 50% de esos médi- cos ―entre ellos buena parte de los profesores universitarios― , así como muchos dentistas, farmacéuticos y otros técnicos del sector, circunstancia agravada por el hecho de que la cobertura hospitalaria privada ―casi con la sola excepción de los centros mutualistas españoles― estaba formada por clínicas con un pequeño número de camas, lo cual dificultaba su manejo. En consecuencia, respecto a los servicios de salud los años sesenta fueron sobre todo una etapa de recuperación y reorganización. La formación de nuevos profesionales revestía la mayor urgencia, por lo cual se decidió acercar la enseñanza universitaria al Ministerio de Salud Pública, que asimiló los dos mayores hospitales docentes y adscribió a la docencia la mayoría de los que estaban en funcionamiento. También se aceleró la formación de especialistas mediante más ágiles sistemas de internado. Como resultado de esas acciones, en 1970 en Cuba trabajaba ya el mismo número de médicos con que contaba el país en 1959. Y mejor distribuidos, pues la creación del servicio médico rural, que debían cumplir todos los graduados por espacio de dos años, permitió extender la atención médica y estomatológica hasta las zonas más apartadas de la Isla.” (p. 626-627) [English Translation: Hit the island by recurring epidemics in the colonial era, concern for health has been constant in Cuban culture. This explains why Cuba had an early - although poorly distributed - public health system and a medical body of recognized professional quality, which at the triumph of the Revolution worked mostly in private institutions. At the beginning of the 1960s, health services endured the severe impact of the departure from the country of almost 50% of those doctors - including a good part of university professors - as well as many dentists, pharmacists and other technicians in the sector, a circumstance aggravated by the fact that private hospital coverage - almost with the sole exception of Spanish mutual centers - was made up of clinics with a small number of beds, which made it difficult to manage them. Consequently, with regard to health services, the 1960s were above all a stage of recovery and reorganization. The training of new professionals was the greatest urgency, so it was decided to bring university education closer to the Ministry of Public Health, which assimilated the two largest teaching hospitals and assigned most of those that were in operation to teaching. The training of specialists was also accelerated through more agile boarding school systems. As a result of these actions, in 1970 Cuba already worked the same number of doctors that the country had in 1959. And better distributed, because the creation of the rural medical service, which all graduates had to fulfill for two years, allowed the extension of medical and stomatological care to the most remote areas of the Island.]
[20] Zanetti Lecuona, Ó. (2021). Cuba: El largo siglo XX. (Archivo General de la Nación, Vol. CDXII). Archivo General de la Nación / Ediciones Temas. “El principal factor de estatización de la propiedad durante esta etapa temprana fue la Reforma Agraria. Promulgada en mayo de 1959, dicha ley establecía, como ya se ha advertido, un límite de 30 caballerías ―402 ha― a la propiedad de la tierra, excepcional- mente extensible hasta 100 caballerías ―1 320 ha―, así como la transferencia gratuita de fincas de hasta 2 caballerías ―26,4 ha― a arrendatarios, aparceros y precaristas, quienes estaban autoriza- dos a adquirir mediante pago hasta 40 hectáreas adicionales. Las tierras expropiadas en virtud de estas disposiciones serían indemnizadas con bonos de la República pagaderos en veinte años, a un interés anual de 4,5%. Como resultado de la aplicación de la Reforma Agraria unos 100 000 campesinos se hicieron propietarios de sus tierras, calculándose que, en 1961, 60% de la tierra cultivable ―4,45 millones de ha― estaba en manos de propietarios privados, mientras que el restante 40% había pasado al Estado. Esto último era consecuen- cia del criterio plasmado en los artículos 4 y 17 de la ley agraria, referente a mantener proindivisas las tierras correspondientes a explotaciones agropecuarias mayores y relativamente intensivas ―grandes haciendas ganaderas, colonias cañeras y plantaciones de arroz― las cuales serían traspasadas a sus trabajadores en condición cooperativa. Esta última decisión se ejecutó principalmen- te en el caso de las mayores plantaciones de caña de azúcar, lo que dio lugar a la creación de unas 600 cooperativas cañeras, a las cuales se sumaron otro centenar de cooperativas en diferentes renglones de la producción agrícola. Con respecto a las grandes haciendas ganaderas se siguió el principio de mantenerlas como «fincas de administración directa» por el Instituto Nacional de Re- 573 Transformaciones estructurales forma Agraria, norma que, ya bajo la denominación de «granjas del pueblo», se extendería a otras producciones abarcando un total de 2,8 millones de hectáreas.” (p. 573-574) [English Translation: The main factor of nationalization of property during this early stage was the Agrarian Reform. Promulgated in May 1959, said law established, as has already been warned, a limit of 30 cavalry ―402 ha― to the ownership of the land, exceptionally extendable up to 100 cavalry ―1,320 ha―, as well as the free transfer of farms of up to 2 cavalry ―26.4 ha― to tenants, sharecroppers and precarious workers, who were authorized to acquire up to 40 additional hectares by payment. Land expropriated under these provisions would be compensated with Republic bonds payable in twenty years, at an annual interest of 4.5%. As a result of the implementation of the Agrarian Reform, some 100,000 peasants became owners of their land, calculating that, in 1961, 60% of the arable land - 4.45 million ha - was in the hands of private owners, while the remaining 40% had passed to the State. The latter was a consequence of the criterion reflected in articles 4 and 17 of the agrarian law, referring to keeping the lands corresponding to larger and relatively intensive farms - large livestock farms, cane colonies and rice plantations - which would be transferred to their workers in cooperative condition. This last decision was mainly executed in the case of the largest sugarcane plantations, which led to the creation of about 600 cane cooperatives, to which another hundred cooperatives were added in different lines of agricultural production. With regard to large livestock farms, the principle of maintaining them as "direct administration farms" was followed by the National Institute of Structural Transformations in Agrarian form, a rule that, already under the name of "farms of the village", would be extended to other productions covering a total of 2.8 million hectares.]
[21] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “The island has no coal and, to date, very little oil has been discovered. But extensive deposits of iron and nickel exist-s-so large as to be considered among the most important potential sources in the world. Chrome, manganese, and copper are also found in large quantities.” (p. 2)
[22] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “In the United States, the section of the country where living conditions are most miserable is the South. And the poorest state in the South is Mississippi. In the years 1950-1954, while the average per capita income for Delaware, the richest state in the nation, was $2,279 it was only $829 for Mississippi. But average per capita income for Cuba, in those same years, was not nearly half as much as Mississippi's---only 312 pesos. (The exchange rate between the peso and the dollar is one-for-one, and the two are used interchangeably throughout this work.) Three hundred twelve pesos means $6 a week. That's what the average person had to live on in Cuba in those years. It wasn't enough. Actually, most of the people of Cuba got less than that- and their way of living showed it. The 1953 census divided the population of Cuba into 57 per- cent urban, 43 percent rural. Housing in the cities was generally much better than in the country districts. In fact, the most com- mon rural dwelling unit is not a house at all but a hut, called a bohio, generally made in whole or part from material obtained from the royal palm tree. The roof is usually thatched, the floor is most often the earth itself. Sometimes there are interior parti- tions, sometimes not. One of the homos we visited in the tobacco district of Pinar Del Rio had a single partition which separated the small kitchen from the rest of the hut. Wood chips were used for fuel for cooking. There was no running water, no electric light, no toilet. This was "home" for 12 people.” (p. 3)
[23] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “ith the lack of proper water and sewage systems, with so many Cubans having not enough food or the wrong kind of food because they are poor, with the almost total absence of teaching of the fundamentals of good hygiene, with medical care for the rural masses often unobtainable, it is easy to understand why health conditions in Cuba have been deplorably bad. Though the plagues of yellow fever and typhus which half a century ago took an enormous toll have been eliminated, malaria, tuberculosis, and syphilis have still not been brought fully under control. And malnutrition and parasitic infestation continue to be major health problems. In rural areas, particularly, a large number of children get infected with parasitic worms, suffer miserably, and die a painful death. Ray Brennan, Chicago newspaperman, gives a vivid account of this horror: Parasites grow and multiply within the bodies of little children. Some of those worms, the size of an ordinary lead pencil, gather in clusters or balls, clog the intestinal system, block elimination, and cause anguished deaths. Such parasites often get into the body through the soles of the feet of children walking without shoes on infected ground. After a child dies the parasites may come slithering from the mouth and nasal passages, searching for a living organism on which to feed. What has been done about it over the years? Nothing.” (p. 4-5)
[24] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “Those who did not drop out generally went to school only a few hours a day, and they were taught by teachers whose train- ing consisted of just a four-year course in a normal school upon completion of only eight years of primary school training. The census-takers in 1953 gave a "literacy test" to the persons they interviewed which consisted of asking whether they could read and write in any language. They found that 23.6 percent could not pass the test. Almost one out of every four persons in Cuba, 10 years of age and over, in 1953, could not read and write! That one-out-of-four figure is important to remember in another connection. A careful analysis of employment figures from the 1953 census showed that on an annual basis only about 75 percent of the Cuban labor force was employed. This meant that on an average day one out of four Cubans who were able to work and wanted to work could not find a job. Nor was 1953 a special- ly bad year. On the contrary, it was a pretty good year: it is safe to say that this one-out-of-four unemployment figure was normal in pre-revolutionary Cuba. The full significance of this startling-and tragic-fact can be grasped if you remember that in the worst year of the worst depression in United States history there were about 25 percent unemployed. For Cuba, in respect to unemployment, every year was like the worst year of our worst depression. And there was no system of unemployment insurance or unemployment relief. When a country has a "normal" unemployment rate of 25 percent, it is a sure sign that something is wrong with the economic system. So great an imbalance in the economy is found in most nations of the world only rarely, in periods of deep crisis. Cuba's phenomenally large rate of unemployment, year in and year out, was a reflection of the fact that its economy was in a permanent state of crisis. The trouble was sugar. Good soil, a warm climate, and considerable moisture are necessary for the growing of sugar cane. Cuba has what is needed. It can produce sugar more cheaply than any country in the world and over the years it became the world's largest producer and exporter of sugar. Its entire economy came to revolve around the amount and the value of the sugar crop.” (p. 6-7)
[25] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “The zafra's short period of plenty followed by the dead season's long period of want affected directly a large proportion of the workers of Cuba. The Census of 1953 showed that the sugar industry employed 474,053 workers or 23 percent of the total labor force. Though the workers in the sugar industry had a miserable life, lots of money was being made by the owners (they had good and not-so-good years but over the long period they did very well), and those who were in a position to do so increased their acreage of land and installed bigger and better machinery in their mills. The little fellows found it harder to compete and were bought up by big corporations headed by capitalists whose only concern was greater profits, not the welfare of the people of Cuba. By purchase, or by fraud, or by economic pressure, small farms were added to the acreage of big corporations, and Cuban land which had once been distributed widely became concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Virgin lands were added, too. Did it matter that the new tracts of land were covered with forests of good timber? Not at all. Forest lands were a treasure of great value to the nation as a whole but that made no difference to profit-seeking sugar capital- ists. So millions of feet of fine mahogany and cedar were cut down and as soon as the trees were dried, the entire area was set ablaze. Thus the land was cleared for more cane. And thus a great natural resource was sacrificed to sugar.” (p. 8-9)
[26] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “The extent of the concentration of agricultural land in the hands of the large corporations was revealed in the Agricultural Census of 1946: One hundred and fourteen farms, or fewer than 0.1 percent of the total number, encompassed 20.1 percent of the land. Eight percent of the total number encompassed 71.1 percent of the land. At the other end of the scale, the small farms of less than one acre to under 25 acres, were 39 percent of the total number but they encompassed only 3.3 percent of the land. By this time, more than half the cultivated area of Cuba was devoted to sugar cane. The constantly growing acreage in cane made heavy inroads into the amount of land in food crops. So great was the subordination of the entire national economy to the production of sugar that Cuba, one of the richest agricultural countries in the world, was not able to feed itself! Only about 70 percent of what Cubans ate was produced in Cuba. One of the principal items in the diet of the people was rice-yet rice had to be imported along with such other staples as lard, pulses, wheat flour, and canned goods. Attention of the people with capital to invest was so focused on sugar that opportunities for making money in other ways were neglected. Thus the economy tended to get more and more lop- sided. In its Report on Cuba the World Bank gave some striking examples: Numerous available Cuban raw materials are not adequately utilized at home, and some are even exported instead, while the finished products made from identical materials are imported. Though seasonal prices may have something to do with it, the fact is that out of 11,000,000 kilos of tomatoes exported annually, an estimated equivalent of 9,000,000kilos return to Cuba in various forms like tomato sauce, paste, ketchup, etc. Pancreatic enzymes for the tanning industry are all imported, while the domestic raw material-from cattle slaughter-is thrown into the tankage vats. For that matter, almost none of the by-products of the meat industry are processed in Cuba, although in the United States and some other countries these represent the main sources of profit to the industry. Large quantities of hide scraps from Cuba's tanneries- as well as the other raw materials used for glue and gelatine--are either exported for processing elsewhere or simply discarded.” (p. 9-10)
[27] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “the conditions that caused the Cuban Revolution-poverty and destitution, illiteracy and disease. Behind these were the glaring inequalities, the chronic stagnation, and the heavy unemployment of a one-crop, semi- colonial economy. Needless to say, these were also the problems that faced the revolutionary regime when it came to power. In addition, it had to repair the depredations of Batista and bind up the wounds of civil war. Many were the observers, both in Cuba and abroad, who shook their heads, sadly or gladly as the case might be, and wrote the whole experiment off as a failure before it had even got started. How could a group of hot-headed young idealists with no practical experience in the affairs of govern- ment or business hope to solve problems that had long defied the best efforts of their elders? This question-and many like it which one hears as frequently and insistently today, even though the revolutionary regime has been in power nearly a year and a half-reflects some of the most deeply rooted fetishes of bourgeois thought. Success in practicing the art of government is supposed to depend on special skills which can be acquired only through long experience. Anyone lacking such skills who attempts to govern is courting certain failure. This theory, which is propagated in a thousand subtle ways by respec- table social "science," is the perfect rationalization for reserving the functions of government to a traditional ruling class. For the rest, not only is it false as a generalization but in the case of a country like Cuba-and in this respect the vast majority of the countries of the world are very much like Cuba-it is close to being the exact opposite of the truth. Experience in government in Cuba has traditionally been experience in mismanagement, exploitation, and stealing. Far from solving the problems of the country, government has itself been one of the worst features of a rotten system. Among the greatest advantages of the young men and women who fought and won the revolution were that they had indeed had no experience of government, that they despised the hopelessly corrupt class that had had such experience, that they were fired by a consuming ambition to do the simple and obvious things that must be done to rescue their fellow countrymen from the misery in which they lived out their lives. Simple and obvious things like reducing the prices charged by profiteers; giving the beggars and prostitutes and waifs who crowded the streets of the capital city a chance to rehabilitate themselves in decent surroundings; building houses for the homeless, schools for the illiterate, and hospitals for the sick; above all, creating year-round jobs for the unemployed and underemployed and in this way not only raising their material standard of living but also giving them for the first time the price- less sense of full membership in the human brotherhood. Simple and obvious? Yes, a thousand times yes. It takes no profound economic sophistication, no initiation into the secrets of government or administration, to understand what has to be done. What it does require is a sympathy for human beings, a passion for justice, and a vision unclouded by the fetishes and obfuscations of bourgeois ideology. These qualities the young men and women who made the Cuban Revolution have in full measure. They have other qualities, too, no less important, born of the victorious struggle and an unshakeable conviction of the goodness of their cause: dedication, optimism, enthusiasm, boundless energy. To be with these people, to see with your own eyes how they are rehabilitating and transforming a whole nation, to share their dreams of the great tasks and achievements that lie ahead-these are purifying and liberating experiences” (p. 88-89)
[28] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “Against this background, it will come as no surprise that the revolutionary government has been able to accomplish a great deal with only a modest increase in the funds allocated to educa- tion. Percentagewise, the educational budget has increased by about 10 percent, school capacity by 25 percent, and number of teachers by 30 percent. In the city of Havana, exactly one new school had been built in the 57 years between the establishment of the Republic and the Revolution; in the first year of the Revolution, 37 new schools were added. At the opening of the school year in September, 1959, there were some 18,000 classrooms in operation, and plans were announced to bring this up to a total of 28,000 by September of 1960. When we talked to Minister of Education Hart in March the figure was 25,000, and he had no doubts that the target would be reached. In carrying out this expansion program, priority has been given to rural areas where the shortage of both schools and teachers was most acute. This means that from the point of view of the Cuban peasantry a far-reaching educational revolution has already taken place. Even if the regime had accomplished nothing else-which, as we shall see, is very far from the case-this alone would be enough to win for it the unshakeable support of the countryside.” (p. 97)
[29] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “It is obvious that such impressive results could be achieved so rapidly only because there was a tremendous amount of waste and slack in the old educational system. Inspectors have been sent into the classroom (their number has declined from 1,315 for 18,000 classrooms to 400 for 25,000 classrooms). Thousands of unemployed teachers have been hired. The jobs of special teachers have been abolished along with the schools that trained them: from now on elementary education will be in the hands of the "integrated" teachers with all-around training. Empty or partly empty school buildings are now used to capacity, often on a two-shift basis (with adult classes in the evenings). Space in non- school buildings has been requisitioned for classroom use. Army headquarters and training centers all over the island-including the Moncada fortress in Santiago and Batista's huge Camp Columbia outside Havana-have been transformed into schools (this act of transformation has become as symbolic of the Revolu- tion as the beard and long hair of the rebel soldier). By such means as these the Revolution has almost overnight brought the blessings of education within reach of a vastly increased propor- tion of the Cuban population..” (p. 98)
[30] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “Meanwhile, one cannot but admire the boldness and imagina- tion with which the revolutionary government is applying its educational philosophy. Consider, for example, that most novel and exciting of all educational experiments the "Camilo Cienfuegos School City," situated in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra about 25 miles or so inland from the port city of Manzanillo. We visited the school city and talked at length with Pilar Fernandez, Camilo Cienfuegos, as noted in Chapter 7 above, was the leader of one of the columns that descended from the Sierra Maestra late in 1958 to complete the conquest of power. Subsequently one of the top leaders of the government, he was lost on an airplane trip in October, 1959-presumably driven out to sea and downed by a storm the local representative of the Ministry of Education, and others active in building it and planning its program. The school city is the answer to a difficult practical problem: how to bring education to the 20,000 children from the ages of 6 to 18 who live in the most inaccessible parts of the 125-mile long and 25-mile wide mountainous region of the Sierra. There are few roads in the Sierra, and up to now there have been no schools either. Many of the inhabitants live in widely scattered households, and not a few are completely isolated. For people living under these conditions, it is not practical to build schools of the usual community type. Previous governments were content to do nothing, which is one reason why the people of the Sierra joined Fidel and became the backbone of the rebel army. If ever there was a "must" for an incoming government it was the obligation of the new regime in Cuba to bring the benefits of the Revolution to all the people of the Sierra, and that meant first and foremost to make it possible for their children to get a decent education. But how? The school city is the answer. It is in effect a huge boarding school in which a large proportion of the children who live in the Sierra will get a complete education from first grade through high school. Like much else in Cuba today, it is being built-at breakneck speed-by the army. When completed it will consist of 35 units, each unit containing eight classroom buildings, eight dormitories equipped with dining rooms and study halls, and a full complement of sport facilities. In addition there will be a central "sport city" with a large stadium and housing for teachers, administrative personnel, etc. The total population of the city, during the academic year, will be about 25,000 (20,000 students and 5,000 adults )-a "bigger and better city than Manzanillo," Gustavo Casavo, the 24-year-old construction manager, told us.” (p. 99-100)
[31] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “The lottery, which was a fountainhead of corruption in Batista's time, has been reorganized and has been turned into what is in effect a savings institution. In addition to carrying with it the chance of prizes, each ticket is now a sort of housing bond which can be turned in for amounts ranging from 40 per- cent of the purchase price in the first year up to 125.4 percent after the ninth year. Through this device it is hoped to make good use of Cubans' long-standing gambling habits and to familiarize them with the benefits of thrift. INAV has an impressive record of achievement to its credit. It was organized soon after the new regime came to power, and started and/or completed some 10,000 housing units during 1959. Its goal for 1960 is 20,000 units, to cost around $40 million, or about $2,000 per unit. (In judging this figure, one must take into account that the climate is such that no heating or protection against cold is required in Cuba, a fact which reduces the cost of building a house by perhaps as much as 25 percent as compared to most parts of the United States.) When one considers that there was no public housing program at all prior to January 1, 1959, it is indeed clear that the new regime has been and is achieving remarkable results in this field. Foreign visitors to Cuba, and of course Cubans themselves, are almost certain to be impressed by the numerous INA V projects which are to be seen in cities and towns throughout the island. Nevertheless, it is necessary to maintain a sense of perspective in estimating the extent of success achieved to date. There was already a desperate shortage of decent housing when INA V was founded, and the urban population is increasing by perhaps as much as 75,000 a year. If we allow five persons to a dwelling unit, it is clear that something like three quarters of the 20,000 units to be constructed this year will be required just to keep the shortage from getting worse, leaving only around 5,000 units as an ad- dition to the available supply-and this takes no account of the wearing out of old buildings. (There is almost no private home building in progress now, largely because of the rent control laws and the ceiling prices on real estate.) At this rate, it is all too obvious that very little headway is being made in the fight against inadequate housing. Sooner or later a much more ambitious pro- gram will have to be launched if this problem is ever to be really solved.” (p. 103-104)
[32] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “Let us turn now to the work of another governmental agency created by the new regime, the Ministry of Social Welfare which is under the direction of a beautiful young woman, Raquel Perez de Miret, a lawyer by training and the only woman member of the Council of Ministers. This Ministry is concerned with what in The Revolution in Action 105 older sociological literature used to be called "the social problem" -the problem of the destitute, the derelict, the outcast. Since there were literally tens of thousands of people in these categories-the visible evidence was plain to even the most unobserving visitor to Havana in the old days-and since no previous government had ever bothered to do anything to alleviate their plight, it is not surprising that this problem occupied a high place on the agenda of the revolutionary regime. Senora Perez's Ministry is now operating on a relatively high budget of $24 million a year, and the proof that it has been doing effective work is there for all to see-there are simply no more beggars and prostitutes roaming the streets of Havana. It should be noted, however, that the present important status of the Ministry is in principle a temporary phenomenon. To the extent that (1) it succeeds in its job and (2) the Revolution abolishes the conditions that in the past gave rise to the problems with which it deals, the need for such a Ministry will wither away and eventually disappear. Presumably no one would be happier to work herself out of a job than Senora Perez: her chief complaint, when we talked to her, was that she never gets time to see her own family.” (p. 104-105)
[33] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “It will be seen that the 1957-1958 pattern is quite "normal." Sugar exports go down by around a hundred million dollars and the economy as a whole contracts by about twice as much. Private building declines as a part of this general contraction. The 1958- 1959 pattern, on the other hand, is quite unprecedented. Sugar ex- ports continue to decline, and a tremendous reduction of private building is precipitated by the new regime's rent control and real estate ceiling laws. Nevertheless, Gross National Product recovers to its 1957 level, an increase over 1958 of approximately 7 percent. The explanation of this seeming paradox is not far to seek. Mass purchasing power was greatly stimulated by the rent reduc- tion and other price roll-backs and by a substantial increase in the wages of lower-paid workers both in the countryside and in the cities. At the same time, public investment by INRA, INAV, the National Tourist Institute (INIT), and the Ministry of Public Works (chiefly for highways, water supply, and sewage disposal) was vigorously expanded. The stepped-up buying of consumers and public agencies created thousands of new jobs, and these newly employed workers brought additional purchasing power to the market. The result was a cumulative upward movement of effective demand which was more than enough to compensate for the decline in sugar exports and private building. In terms of wages and em- ployment, the results, according to figures given us by the Minister of Labor, Comandante Augusto Martinez Sanchez, were as fol- lows: The total wage bill in 1958 was $723 million; this went up to $1,056 million in 1959, an increase of 46 percent. On January 1, 1959, when the new regime took power, there were 371,000 totally unemployed workers; this went down to 237,000 a year later, a decrease of 36 percent (no estimates of the reduction in partial unemployment were available). Comandante Martinez was confident-and we see no reason to question his confidence- that this rate of expansion of employment can be maintained and that as a consequence Cuba's traditional scourge of chronic unem- ployment will give way to a general shortage of labor in three or four years. If the Cuban Revolution should accomplish nothing else, this by itself would be a history-making achievement. To what extent was the very large increase in mass purchasing power indicated by these figures dissipated in higher prices rather than higher real incomes? Unfortunately, there is no consumer price or cost of living index on which to base an answer to this question. The only published statistic which purports to provide information relevant to the question is called "Buying Power of the Cuban Peso in Relation to the Cost of Food." With the second half of the year 1937 taken as $1, this stood at 39.1 cents in December, 1958, and at 40.3 cents in July, 1959, the latest figure available to us at the time of writing. This particular index, how- ever, is not highly regarded by the experts and should not be given undue weight. We attempted to approach the matter directly, if somewhat crudely, by asking various people for their impressions of what happened to the cost of living since the new regime came to power. The striking thing about the answers was their disparity. Cooperative members all reported that consumer prices had gone down substantially. Government economists, who as far as their standard of living is concerned may be taken as representative of the urban professional classes, thought the cost of living for them had gone up about 10 percent. And businessmen, among whom we were fortunate to have excellent contacts, reported a catastrophic fall in the purchasing power of their pesos.” (p. 135-137)
[34] Huberman, L., & Sweezy, P. M. (1960). Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution. Monthly Review Press. “But the main point, of course, is that the balance of payments was consistently unfavorable to Cuba during the whole Batista period, with the result that what had been a very strong gold and foreign exchange position at the outset had deteriorated to the point of imminent crisis by the end. This was in many ways the most difficult and intractable problem the new regime inherited from its predecessors, and early attempts to cope with it met with indifferent success. Progressively stricter import controls were in- troduced, and in November Che Guevara was installed as Presi- dent of the National Bank to administer them. Meanwhile, INRA was, as already noted above, moving as fast as possible to expand production of the main imported crops. Still, 1959 as a whole witnessed a further deterioration of the reserve position. The Wall Street Journal of March 28th cites Guevara as authority for the statement that on December 31, 1959, one full year after the new regime came to power, the nation's gold and dollar reserves had dropped from $75 million to $50 million. The calamity howlers were naturally delighted, and in this case they seemed to have something worth crowing about. There is no doubt that a continua- tion of the drain would soon have brought a serious threat to im- portant parts of the revolutionary program. With the new year, however, a turning point was reached. The same story in the Wall Street Journal reported that the reserves had recovered to $65 million by the end of February. In a TV speech early in May, Fidel announced that they were up to $150 million, and as we write, a communication has just been received from a government economist that as of the middle of May the figure had reached $166 million.” (p. 143)
[35] Pérez, L. A., Jr. (2005). Cuba: Between reform and revolution (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. “Central to this approach was a greater emphasis on moral incentives. Work- ers were exhorted to greater efforts as part of the new morality: it was the right thing to do. That there were comparatively few material goods available to dis- tribute no doubt also influenced the decision to emphasize moral rewards. Material incentives were proclaimed incompatible with the goals of the revolu- tion. Workers were no longer paid for quality of production or for meeting—or surpassing—production quotas. Overtime pay was eliminated. Production achievements were acknowledged in a non-monetary way with badges, medal- lions, scrolls, and awards, frequently distributed by Castro himself. Exemplary workers were recognized and celebrated at rallies, parades, and mass meetings, and awarded titles like “National Work Hero,” “Vanguard Worker,” and “Heroes of the 1970 Sugar Crop.” Through the system of socialist emulation, workers or groups of workers competed for such prizes as flags and banners. Emphasis fell on voluntarism, the subjective over the objective—will, discipline, and dedication would prevail. It was guerrilla war all over again, a time for indi- vidual sacrifice and collective abnegation. Production metaphors borrowed freely from guerrilla vernacular. The harvest was conceived in military terms, of “combat” and “campaign.” Cane cutters were organized into “brigades.” In 1968, the government launched the “revolutionary offensive” in which the remaining 57,000 private enterprises—principally small retail shops, handicrafts, service and repair centers, bars, and cafés—were nationalized. In one stroke, Cuba was transformed into one of the most socialized societies in the world. Efforts were also made to expand the distribution of free goods and ser- vices. No fees were charged for health services, day-care facilities, education, funeral services, utilities, sports events, local bus transportation, and local tele- phone service. Rents were fixed at a maximum of 10 percent of income. In many units, rent was not collected at all. By 1969, an estimated 268,000 households paid no rent, and the government contemplated the eventual abolition of all rent. Cuban officials spoke freely and frequently of the abolition of money altogether.” (p. 259-260)
[36] Williams, G. E. (Ed.). (2025). Love is the law: Cuba’s queer rights’ revolution. Independently published. “On Sept. 25, 2022, socialist Cuba held a referendum to update the Families Code of the Cuban Constitution. Even Cuban citizens living abroad were allowed to vote at embassies. The referendum passed with 66.85% in favor. This new legal framework greatly expands the legal rights of women, LGBTQ+ people, children, and others throughout the society. It is a major advancement from the previous Family Code of 1975. As U.S. transgender communist activist Melinda Butterfield said in a we- binar on the Families Code (included in this book), “When it was reported – if it was reported at all in the capitalist media last year when it happened when the referendum was passed – it was just, ‘oh, Cuba has finally got- ten around to adopting same sex marriage.’ But the Families Code is so much bigger than that, and so much more comprehensive, and not only for the queer community, but for all families and all kinds of communities in Cuba.” Indeed, Cuba is carrying out a revolutionary process with the adoption of the Families Code. Not only because of what the new laws say but also because of the way the code was developed. There was a “consultative pro- cess” with the Cuban people, a mass-democratic process involving debates throughout the country in neighborhood assemblies, labor unions, and more. So, no, Cuba didn’t simply legalize same-sex marriage. Cuba is under- going radical social transformation made possible by all the institutions of people’s power laid down by the revolution going back to 1959.” (p. 1)
[37] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “Ill fortune, indeed, for power has been seized by the French invaders, who are bent on barbarous deeds, as is their wont. It’s criminal, criminal, criminal to set out the food tray and find that one has nothing but roots and greens to eat; it’s misery, misery, misery to take up the chopsticks and have one’s meal cry out beseechingly because of a lack of salt. (From a popular chant in Sb tuyen van thb yeu nilbc va each mang, tap II, tii dau the kj XX den 1930)” (p. Unnumbered page)
[38] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “The French tried to appropriate not only lands that had been worked on by individual families of peasants, who had therefore considered the land as their own, but also the communal lands that had been given to the villages by the court for welfare purposes and for meeting various village expenses, as mentioned earlier. In fact, the French colonial administration actively sought to reduce the area of communal land by permitting village officials to sell it. According to one author, the total area of communal land plummeted as a result. According to Gourou, the total area of communal land in Tonkin represented 20 percent of the cultivated surface there. It was 26 percent in Annam, but not even as high as 2.5 percent in Cochinchina. Official French sources in 1931 give the statistics of 20 percent, 25 percent, and 3 percent, respectively. One of the reasons for the low level of communal land in Cochinchina, as given by Gourou, was usurpation of such land by rich landlords. In some provinces in Tonkin, because of land usurpation and because of auction sale by village officials, communal land became almost nonexistent” (p. 15-16)
[39] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “There were more landless peasants in Cochinchina than in any other part of the country. From the figures cited we can also see that the degree of concentration of land in the hands of a few was greatest in Cochinchina. French zeal in confiscating lands belonging to Vietnamese who fled the area during the early period of occupation was one cause, as noted. Another reason for such concentration was the fact that, despite the French boast of having increased the cultivated land area in the region, the Vietnamese peasants were effectively barred from owning any significant amount of land at all.” (p. 30)
[40] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “As we have seen, free land concessions to French citizens and to Vietnamese collaborators, as of 1948, amounted to 2,800,000 hectares out of the total of less than 5,000,000 hectares of cultivated land for the whole country. In Cochinchina, where land appropriations and concessions were most extensive, the French and their collaborators got most of the land, leaving the great majority of the peasants either landless or close to landless. This, plus the fact that there was no significant industry or commerce to draw the peasants out of the rural areas, produced a phenomenon that had previously been absent in Vietnamese history: tenant farming and sharecropping. While the role of industry and commerce will be discussed later, it is worthwhile to note at this point that the proportion of urban population was only 4.5 percent in 1931 in Tonkin, 3.5 percent in Annam in 1940,and about 14 percent in 1936 in Cochinchina. The higher proportion of urban population in Cochinchina was due to the statistical practice of considering not only towns and cities but also rural areas with a population density exceeding 500 persons per square kilometer as urban centers.107 Also it must be remembered that foreign nationals formed a significant portion of the population of the cities and towns. In 1910, for example, there were 70,000 persons in Saigon, and of these about 40,000 were Vietnamese; 20,000 were Chinese, Indians, and Cambodians; and 10,000 were French.108 This percentage of foreign nationals in the urban areas rose somewhat from the 1920s on. In 1931 in the twin city of Saigon-Cholon there were 100,000 “legal” Chinese alone out of the total population of 250,000 inhabitants.” (p. 30-31)
[41] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “In addition to high rents, the Vietnamese peasants also had to endure high taxes—the subject of an enormous number of Vietnamese books and stories, and even poems and folksongs, during the French colonial period. Some of the colonial taxes that seemed most onerous to Vietnamese peasants were far from being modern innovations. They originated in the statecraft of the premodern Vietnamese polity. The poll or head tax—known to Vietnamese more specifically as the “body tax” (thue than)—is a good example.” (p. 62)
[42] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “The same tax policy was applied in Annam, beginning in 1908. It was replaced in Tonkin in 1920, and in Annam in 1928, by another policy that required nearly every male citizen to pay 2.5 piasters, regardless of whether he was previously a noi tick or a ngoai tick. In Cochinchina, beginning in 1880, the body tax was set at three francs (2.25 piasters) for each male inhabitant, but by the time of the tax revision of 1937 each male peasant, whether or not he owned any land, was required to pay 4.50 piasters.15 In the same year in Annam a peasant had to pay a “personal tax” totaling 3.95 piasters. This was a deceitfully all- embracing tax formula that contained a number of charges: 2.75 piasters for the body tax, 1 piaster for corvee tax, and 0.20 piaster for the plot of land on which he lived.16 Meanwhile, even the “miserable peasants in the province of Thai Binh” (Tonkin) had to pay 4.20 piasters each if they paid in money, or the equivalent of about 6 piasters each if they paid in kind. In 1937 in Cochinchina the price of paddy rice was from 4 to 5 piasters per 100 kilograms, not too different from the 1934 price of 4 piasters per 100 kilograms. Thus, for a tenant farmer or sharecropper in Tonkin or Annam who worked on a hectare of land and paid only one-half of his crop (a conservative estimate) in rent, the head tax took about 20 percent of his after-rent income. The head tax also took away about the same percentage from the income of the majority of the landholders in those two regions, who owned much less than a mau (0.36 hectare). In Cochinchina, for the fairly well-off tenants who usually rented about five hectares of paddy, the head tax would typically amount to about 10 percent of their income. This figure is based on the assumption that the tenant kept about 20 to 25 percent of the crop yield after rent and production costs. (See the second translation and Chapters 18 and 19 of the third translation for descriptions of what the head tax meant to the peasants and what might happen to them and their families if they did not have the money to pay their tax on time.) Another important tax on the peasants was the rice wine tax (thue ruou). Under the Nguyen, only a few of the biggest distilleries had been required to pay an alcohol tax, and only a very light one at that. In the villages people were allowed to distill their own rice wine tax-free. Rice wine was very important to the Vietnamese for their religious rites and for various social ceremonies and festive occasions. The importance of rice wine to the Vietnamese is expressed in an oft-quoted Vietnamese saying: “a man without wine is like a flag without wind” (nam vo tuu nhu ky vo phong). As a French author rightly observed, the rice paddies in Vietnam “not only play the role of wheat fields but also the role of vineyards.”In the immediate aftermath of their occupation of Cochinchina, the French established a consumption tax on alcohols of European origin, and a Chinese businessman was given the right to collect this tax. In 1871 the colonial government laid a tax on native alcohols. Another Chinese businessman was given a monopoly on importation, on wine manufacturing, and on the transport and sale of all liquor of Asiatic origin. The French also gave this Chinese businessman the right to prosecute all cases of infraction of his monopoly. Beginning in 1902 the French colonial administration forced all Vietnamese distilleries throughout Vietnam to sell their rice wine to the government at a fixed price, and the government in turn sold it to the consumers (through Chinese intermediaries) at a much higher price. A few years later, the French reserved the monopoly on wine distillation for a small number of Chinese and French companies. It was reported by a French author in 1910 that about 15 million piasters’ worth of rice alcohol consumed each year in Cochinchina was produced by a French company or by Chinese manufacturers. Both groups handed their portion of the wine over to the colonial administration, which helped them to distribute it to the retailers, who were almost always Chinese. At approximately the same time, 100 kilograms of polished rice cost about eight francs, or three piasters, and lasted for about six months’ individual consumption. It can thus be seen, by comparison, that 15 million piasters’ worth of alcohol represented a large portion of the income of the roughly 3 million people in Cochinchina. Meanwhile, in Tonkin and Annam the colonial administration reserved a monopoly on wine distillation for two French companies, the Indochinese and Tonkinese companies, and Vietnamese who distilled wine illegally were severely fined” (p. 63-66)
[43] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “The lack of industrial and commercial activities meant that there were few employment opportunities outside the agricultural areas. Thus, although the rural population increased rapidly, it was not absorbed by the urban areas. The urban population of Tonkin and Annam remained constantly under 4 percent on the average. In Cochinchina, where a large portion of the inhabitants in the few true urban centers were foreigners, the total urban population’’ was at most 14 percent, even when one accepts Gourou’s classification of rural areas with more than 500 persons per square kilometer as genuine urban centers. Yet while the rural population increased rapidly, the cultivated surface in Tonkin and Annam did not increase in any substantial amount. In Cochinchina, although the cultivated surface did increase in proportion to the population increase, more than half of the rice produced was exported. The money gained from it did not benefit the peasants in any comprehensive way. Because of the increase of the rural population and the concentration of a large part of the cultivated surface in the hands of a few through the policies of land expropriation and free land concessions and through usury, even the luckiest tenant farmer could work only a few hectares of land at most. Meanwhile, the productivity of the land decreased, and land rents increased, so the peasants were left with little for themselves. Worse yet, rice cultivation was now manipulated by French ambitions to sell on the world market and was not destined solely for feeding the population as it had been before the French arrival. The monetization of the rural crops induced the landlords to export as much as they could when the world price of rice was high and to abandon cultivation of a large amount of land when the world price was low. Either way, it was the peasants who suffered most. Under the French, the convergence of all these factors did not just bring hunger, misery, and starvation to the peasants. Because of the way they were institutionalized, they dealt Vietnam’s economic and social fabric a blow from which, as the history of the last twenty years shows, it has not yet recovered.” (p. 140-141)
[44] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “When the Light’s Put Out, which was first published in 1939, speaks of the multiple problems thrust upon the Vietnamese peasants during the French colonial era: the behavior of officialdom and the landlords, and the various forms of taxes, of which the worst was the head tax, or, as translated literally from the Vietnamese, the “body tax” (thue than) or “man tax” (thue dink), which was applied to adult males from the age of eighteen. More specifically, it describes the plight of a woman named Mrs. Dau, whose husband was arrested because he could not pay his body tax on time. She was consequently forced to sell her dogs, her provisions, and even her own child in order to meet the official bail set for her husband’s release. She went on to experience a multitude of other misfortunes” (p. 162)
[45] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “One reason for this sorry state of affairs was the French policy of maximizing rice exports. Even in relatively good times the French emphasis on rice exports had a disastrous effect upon the rural population. This is clear even if one considers only the best years of French rule (1900-1930) and ignores both the depression years and the thirty years before the turn of the century when the French were trying to consolidate their control over the country. Since most of the exported rice came from Cochinchina, let us begin with the situation in this region. The per capita availability of paddy rice for Cochinchina during this period was, on the average, some 250 kilograms.2 This average is of course overly generous because it includes the amounts of rice used for seed- ing, for making alcohol, and so forth, as well as the usual loss in the production-consumption cycle. Together all these items may have amounted to 20 percent of the total productivity. However, even this generous estimate of 250 kilograms of paddy per capita does not suggest an amount large enough to have fed the population. Gourou maintained that even if the peasants were to eat a lot of potatoes, manioc, corn, and so on (which was not the case, since these products formed a very insignificant part of the Vietnamese agriculture), then even 0.76 kilograms of paddy rice a day, or 277 kilograms of paddy a year, would still have been too low.3 Henry maintained that the average amount of rice per capita necessary for adequate nutrition should be 337 kilograms of paddy, or 223 kilograms of milled rice per year.4 In an article entitled “The Alimentation of the Rubber Workers” published in the March 25, 1944, issue of Thanh Nghi, an author quoted a French doctor as saying that the 750 grams of rice given to each worker a day was not enough, and as a result workers had to purchase additional rice and other foodstuffs.5 Since, as we have seen, the conversion index of milled rice to paddy rice is at most seven to ten, 750 grams of milled rice would equal about one kilogram of paddy. This means that each grown worker would have needed at least 360 kilograms of paddy a year, or 110 kilograms more than Bernard’s generous estimate of per capita rice production.” (p. 122-123)
[46] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “But there were other reasons for the widespread hunger under French rule. The most important of these was the very low incomes of most of the peasants. According to the French economist Bernard, in the late 1920s (considered to be the best years of the French period) the average income of the “active members” of the “poor indigenous class” was 44 piasters in Tonkin, 47 piasters in Annam, and 55 piasters in Cochinchina. In contrast, the average income of French civilians and members of the “rich indigenous class” was from 100 to 125 times higher. The “poor indigenous class,” as defined by Bernard, was “composed of all the salaried employees, the small landowners, the tenant farmers, and the sharecroppers working in large and medium properties.” 11 The total population of the poor indigenous class in 1931 was given as 6.7 million in Tonkin, 4.7 million in Annam, and 2.3 million in Cochinchina, while the “active population” of this class was given as 3.7 million, 2.6 million, and 1.5 million, respectively.” (p. 124)
[47] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “But while the Vietnamese peasants were always hungry even in normal times, in times of crop failure or disasters of one kind or another they starved. As we have seen, disasters like floodings were frequently caused by the French authorities themselves. Perhaps the worst of these man-made catastrophes originated with the policy of rice collection during the years 1943 to 1945, which caused 2 million people to die in Tonkin alone during the few months from the end of 1944 to the early part of 1945. (See the fifth translation for a description of the great famine on a day-to-day, human level.) Beginning in late 1942, largely because of the Japanese demand for rice,24 the French colonial administration imposed upon the population the forced sale of given quotas of rice, depending on the area of land cultivated. In 1943, on the average, the peasants were forced to sell from 200 to 250 kilograms per mau, depending on the classification of the paddies they owned. In 1943 the amount of rice an independent peasant producer (small landholder) had to render in forced sales went up to as high as three-fourths of his income.26 In many individual cases it exceeded the total amount of paddy a peasant could harvest. A luckless peasant of this kind was forced to buy rice at the market price of 200 piasters per hundred kilograms in order to have enough to resell to the administration for 25 piasters. According to another source, by 1944 the French had already collected so much rice that the black market price for 100 kilograms of paddy rose to 350 to 400 piasters. But still the peasant could get only 25 piasters per 100 kilograms when he sold his rice to the government. In 1945 the Japanese increased the official price to 53 piasters per 100 kilograms, but in the meanwhile, in Tonkin, the price of 100 kilograms on the black market had already increased to 700 or 800 piasters. During the same period, in Cochinchina, the French and the Japanese burned rice and maize in place of fuel in the factories, and the French in particular made it difficult for people to transport rice from the south to the north. During that time, there were junks available that could have carried large amounts of rice from Cochinchina to Tonkin. French colonial regulations discouraged their use, however: the French Administration would take three-fourths of the total amount of rice reaching the north and allow the junk operators only 20 piasters per 100 kilograms as transportation fees. For this reason, although in 1941,186,000 tons of milled rice reached Tonkin from Cochinchina, by 1944 the amount had dropped to only about 7.000 tons” (p. 130-131)
[48] Ngo, V. L. (1991). Before the revolution: The Vietnamese peasants under the French. Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1973). “Prior to the French arrival, the land system of the Vietnamese court was fairly responsive to the needs of the peasants. Every peasant was guaranteed his “personal share,” for which he had to pay only a very small tax amounting, perhaps, to at most 6 percent. Besides the personal share lands, there were also village communal lands. These helped to pay for communal expenses and also contributed to the solution of various welfare problems. After the French took over the country, however, owing to their policies of land expropriation and free land concession, nearly half of the total cultivated areas in Vietnam was given to French citizens and to Vietnamese and Chinese supporters of the colonial regime. In addition, as the traditional order broke down, an unknown amount of land was usurped by landlords and merchants through usury and other devious means. As a result, the majority of the Vietnamese peasants became landless and were thus forced to work as agricultural laborers or as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Since there arose an excess of landless peasants competing with one another for work on the landlords’ properties, the terms of tenant farming and sharecropping during the French period were extremely harsh. Often tenant farmers and sharecroppers had to pay half of their crops in rents, as well as having to pay for all production costs. Together, these charges may have amounted to 70 percent of their crops or more. The system of tenant farming and sharecropping under the French not only robbed the peasants of the better part of their crops but also had the effect of lowering the productivity of the land and also of the producers. The tenant farmers and sharecroppers did not have any resources left, after paying rents and production costs, to make agricultural investments, although it was supposed to be their responsibility to maintain and improve their lands. Furthermore, they were given no incentive to put extra money and energy into the land, under a system in which the profits would be largely taken by the landlords. The landlords, for their part, lacked incentives to put money into their land to maintain or improve it; usury remained the quickest, easiest, and most profitable way of investing their capital. As a result, the land was cultivated for years without being scientifically fertilized, or even well fertilized by old-fashioned mean” (p. 138-139)
[49] Tucker-Jones, A. (2017). Dien Bien Phu: The first Indochina War 1946–1954. Pen and Sword Military. “To block supplies reaching the Viet Minh, and to reassert French political authority in the north, soldiers moved to seize Haiphong’s custom houses on 15 October 1946. After street fighting broke out on 23 November, the French navy bombarded the port. This reportedly resulted in the deaths of 6,000 Vietnamese civilians. There could be no turning back now. Full, open conflict commenced on 19 December 1946, with a rising in Haiphong heralding the start of the First Indochina War. It took a week of fighting to clear the Viet Minh from the city.” (p. 65)
[50] Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (n.d.). Political system. Viet Nam Government Portal. Retrieved February 15, 2026, from https://vietnam.gov.vn/political-system-68959. “Since its inception in 1930, the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) has been in the vanguard of the struggle for national independence, liberating the country from almost a century of domination by western colonialists and leading the people to total victory in the 30-year resistance war against powerful aggressors. Since the country's reunification, the CPV has led the Vietnamese people in carrying out the country's renovation, modernization and industrialization. The CPV has established a nationwide political system with the Party serving as the core that assists the Party leadership and mobilizes the people to realize the goals of national independence, democracy, and social progress. At present, the CPV has worked out a program for national construction which may be described as: Rich people--strong nation--equitable, democratic and civilized society. To achieve these goals, the CPV, in accordance with the principle of "the people as the country’s roots", has set up a wide and diversified political system.”
[51] Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (n.d.). Political system. Viet Nam Government Portal. Retrieved February 15, 2026, from https://vietnam.gov.vn/political-system-68959. “The aim of the CPV is to make Viet Nam a strong, independent, prosperous and democratic country with an equitable and civilized society, to realize socialism and ultimately, communism. The CPV adopts Marxism-Leninism and Hồ Chí Minh Thoughts as the firm ideological foundations, serving as guidance for its activities, promoting the nation's traditions, and absorbing other nations' essential ideas. By thoroughly grasping objective laws, epochal trends and the country’s realities, the Party has worked out sound political programs and revolutionary policies to meet the aspirations of the people.
[52] Bousquet, G. L., & Brocheux, P. (Eds.). (2002). Viét Nam exposé: French scholarship on twentieth-century Vietnamese society. University of Michigan Press. “This discrimination made itself felt in terms of the exorbitant differences in salaries between the French and the Vietnamese. Offi- cially, the salaries were calculated in terms of racial categories, even for those Vietnamese who were naturalized French citizens. The gap between the salaries of the highest ranked French naturalized and least-qualified French remained enormous. The gap was even greater given the special colonial allowance allocated to French civil servants. This discrimination was hard for Dr. Bui to swallow. I earned one hundred piasters while my French colleague earned one thousand piasters, and I had more education than she. In addition, I had to give lessons to the midwives, without any additional income. When I questioned the direc- tor of the Health Department on this issue, he answered me: “But you do not have the same expenses as the French. You don’t need to eat butter and cheese and drink wine!” So I told him: “And why don’t we sleep on the ground!” “But Ms. Bui, you are communist!” he said. . . . Obviously, I was poorly treated. (1 July 1993) In other instances, Henriette Bui deplored the fact that indige- nous hospitals had less financial and material support than the hospi- tals reserved for the French. We did not have the same financial resources as those of the French hospitals like the military hospital Grall or the French private clinic of Angier. We lacked medicines. For pharmaceutical needs, the maternity hospital depended on the Cho Ray hospital, whereas in the pharmacy of the Health Department there were only French druggists. When I or- dered’medicines, they always answered that my requests were excessive, and when we were short and I had to borrow from the indigenous hospital I was criticized for not ordering enough. (1 July 1993) Dr. Henriette Bui recalls another significant anecdote that occurred during a visit to the sanitarium establishments in Saigon-Cholon by the governor’s wife, Mrs. Pages. In the maternity hospital, the people slept on bamboo mats and one placed newspapers on the ground to catch the blood stemming from the deliveries. It was very dirty. . . . But the worst was that they had built toilets that looked out directly over the delivery room! It was an incredible house of germs! So, when the wife of the governor came to visit the maternity hospital, I took advantage of the occasion to ask that one seal off the toilets and that tiled walls be installed in the delivery rooms, for blood was splattered everywhere. . . . Afterward my department chief criticized me for having made such a direct request. I was scolded. (1 July 1993) Added to this colonial hierarchy within the hospital was the strong hierarchy between doctors and subordinate employees. In this colonial context, French doctors displayed their superiority by portraying themselves as the agents of knowledge and the architects of Vietnamese medical institutions. Such arrogance only created misunderstandings and conflicts in the hospitals between the French and Vietnamese employees.” (p. 292-294)
[53] Bousquet, G. L., & Brocheux, P. (Eds.). (2002). Viét Nam exposé: French scholarship on twentieth-century Vietnamese society. University of Michigan Press. “In 1966, a year after the death of Nguyén Ngoc Bich, Henriette Bui stayed in Vietnam and worked with an international team of about twelve volunteers under the aegis of the World Council of Churches - Henriette Bui 301 from 1966 to 1970. It was an organization similar to Médecins sans Frontiéres, Doctors without Borders. Shé was a chief physician of a medical team that cared for the wounded during the American war. During these four years, she worked in a war zone. ° On both sides, there were the same arms, the same meth- ods. . . . It was war. . . . We helped people as best we could. The conditions were very difficult. I remember that during the offensive of 1968 I had to come back with great urgency from Saigon to Cai Be, where the team worked. On the road just outside My Tho, our convoy was attacked and the jeep ahead of us was blown up. There were serious casualties and a lot of dead. . . . [had to step over corpses, and I went into the hospital, which was being bombed. They were operat- ing, and one bomb fell on the operating room. The person they were operating on died.” (p. 300-301)
[54] Bousquet, G. L., & Brocheux, P. (Eds.). (2002). Viét Nam exposé: French scholarship on twentieth-century Vietnamese society. University of Michigan Press. “Huynh Thuc Khang was writing at a time of extreme troubles for the country. Every month the Japanese asked the French colonial authority to collect taxes from the Vietnamese people. As a result, in March 1945, two million people died of starvation in northern Vietnam.” (p. 231)
[55] Bousquet, G. L., & Brocheux, P. (Eds.). (2002). Viét Nam exposé: French scholarship on twentieth-century Vietnamese society. University of Michigan Press. “The issue of employment is a very sensitive one for the francophone Vietnamese, who feel that they have learned a language that does not help them find a job. Even French businesses that have settled in Vietnam prefer hiring Vietnamese employees who can speak both French and English. The need for Vietnamese French speakers remains essentially only in the tourist industry.” (p. 446)
[56] Bousquet, G. L., & Brocheux, P. (Eds.). (2002). Viét Nam exposé: French scholarship on twentieth-century Vietnamese society. University of Michigan Press. “From 1949 to 1953, the war entered a new phase when the French tried to block the free zone, mostly in the southern part of the Mekong Delta called Transbassac (Viet: Hau Giang). That area was considered a rice basket. By doing so, the French wanted to stop the export of rice, pepper, charcoal, and other forest products. In fact, through direct sales and taxation the area provided a major source of revenue for the UBKCHCNB. The payments were in piasters BIC, which were used to buy weapons and medicines. The French also prohibited the export of gasoline, electrical supplies, chemical and metal materials, and textiles to the free zone. Ho Dac Vy wrote that it was best not to be ill there since there were no medicines in Lien Khu 4 except in the fifty pharmacy shops in Thanh Hoa and Vinh, which sold expensive medicines imported from the occupied zone. The Vietnamese resistance’s blockade against the enemy zones (Bao Ve Kinh Dich) affected the free more than the occupied zone. At the local level, that situation resulted in temporary deals between French-allied Vietnamese and the local resistance groups. The Hoa Hao military chiefs, allied with the French, who controlled the traffic from the delta to other parts of South Vietnam and even to southern Central Vietnam, turned a blind eye to smuggling in return for bribes or partnerships. In the end, the French had to lift the blockade at the request of The Economy of War ™® 323 Bao Dai’s government. Tran Van Huu, the prime minister, com- plained to the French high commissioner that the blockade, which had already imposed losses on the Viet Minh, was also affecting ordi- nary Vietnamese people, including the nationalist authority’s employ- ees, whose salaries were low. Because of inflation, they could barely survive. In fact, black markets and smuggling were common and were controlled mostly by Chinese traders and sects like the Hoa Hao, Binh Xuyen, and Cao Dai. In the end, the blockade had no impact, since traders and political groups enjoyed much freedom on both sides.” (p. 322-323)
[57] Bousquet, G. L., & Brocheux, P. (Eds.). (2002). Viét Nam exposé: French scholarship on twentieth-century Vietnamese society. University of Michigan Press. “Economically, the resistance in the south was not doing well, however. According to a report: “Self-sufficiency is progressing, but our economy relies on the economy of the enemy. We are unable to control foreign trade, and our blockade against the enemy is inefficient. On the other hand, the enemy’s blockade is very effective and has already damaged our economy because of the infiltration of 150,000 counterfeit dong. Consequently, the exchange value of our currency against the piaster BIC has decreased. Living costs are 200 percent more than in the occupied zone. The decision to fix prices is also a failure and has had the contrary effect. It has encouraged smuggling and black markets.” In March 1950, the president of the UBKCHCNB stated: “The French still have the advantage on the economic front. One year after the military conference of Khu Mien Tay K.9, the situation has not really changed, as it was assessed in the proceedings. Although we have won on the battlefield [meaning Viet Bac], we still have many problems with our economy, which is the enemy’s primary target. For instance, the infiltration of the counterfeit currency has depreciated the dong, and smuggling has increased. As a result, inflation has taken place. In addition, the enemy has destroyed sugar and textile mills and disrupted communications and transport between Khu 9 and Khu 8.” The lifting of the blockade in May 1953 demonstrates that both the free and the occupied zones were so intertwined that it was impos- sible to separate them.” (p. 323-324)
[58] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “The French intervened in southern Vietnam in 1858 for a number of rea- sons. Spreading Catholicism was among the least important of them. Most importantly, colonial possessions provided national and international pres- tige. Napoleon III firmly believed this. Between 1852 and 1871, through an activist and interventionist foreign policy, he did everything possible to re-establish his country’s grandeur at the global level.” (p. 62)
[59] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “While Riviére had created yet another fiasco in Tonkin, he was right about one thing: the Third Republic was committed to colonial expansion in Asia. Upon taking over the premiership for the second time in February 1883, Ferry transformed Riviére’s defeat into a heroic moment of truth which required the French government to commit itself to achieving victory and building an Asian empire. War resumed in July-August 1883, when Admiral Amédée Courbet arrived at the head of naval forces. To force the Nguyen hand in the north, he attacked the capital of Hue and achieved a bloody victory over the imperial army on the beaches of Thuan An. The French writer and active naval officer Pierre Loti accompanied French troops into the heat of battle at Thuan An. He watched ‘la grande tuerie’ (the ‘slaughter’ is how he put it) from the ship’s deck. He noted the shells raining down on the adversary, walked among the Vietnamese corpses strewn across the dunes after the French victory, and interviewed French soldiers about ‘what they had just done’. Based on all of this, he wrote a very disturbing series of articles on the violence of colonial conquest, the nature of men at war on both sides, speaking of both the humanity and inhumanity on display that day: ‘We killed a lot; it was almost robbery’. Outraged by Loti’s less than heroic account of republican soldiers committing war atrocities, Ferry ordered Loti to be discharged from the army.” hitect Jules Harmand obtained from the Nguyen court their signatures on the Treaty of Hue in August 1883 which ceded Tonkin to the French as a newly created protectorate. As Harmand warned the Nguyen court in the aftermath of the battle of Thuan An, failure to conclude a treaty meant annihilation: Now, here is a fact which is quite certain; you are at our mercy. We have the power to seize and destroy your capital and to cause you all to die of starvation. You have to choose between war and peace. We do not wish to conquer you, but you must accept our protectorate. For your people it is a guarantee of peace and prosperity; it is also the only chance of survival for your government and your Court. We give you forty-eight hours to accept or reject, in their entirety and without discussion, the terms which in our magnanimity we offer you. We are convinced that there is nothing in them dishonorable to you, and, if carried out with sincerity on both sides, they will bring happiness [sic] to the people of Vietnam. If you reject them, you must expect the greatest evils. Imagine the most frightful things conceivable, and you will still fall short of the truth. The Dynasty, its Princes and its Court will have pronounced sentence on themselves. The name of Vietnam will no longer exist in history.” (p. 69-70)
[60] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “Having: signed the Treaty of Saigon in 1862, Emperor Tu Duc was convinced that he could negotiate the return of the three southern provinces in Dai Nam which he had just ceded to the French, and thereby avoid a more destructive war. His viceroy for the south, Phan Thanh Gian, agreed and travelled to Saigon to open talks with the French along these lines.” (p. 73)
[61] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “Most of the original Viet denizens of Saigon never returned to their homes, having found themselves on the wrong side of colonial conquest. In fact, the first to settle down in postwar French Saigon were 3,000 Catholics, most of whom had been evacuated from Danang with the French army in 1860. Others moved into the city to escape the violence against them in the countryside. They needed French protection and the French needed their cooperation. In 1863, the first new Catholic church building in decades appeared in Saigon. By 1869, the total population of Saigon equaled 8,000 people, including an increasing number of European civil servants, merchants, and missionaries. Almost all of them were men. As the population increased, hotels, restaurants, and stores appeared. The same was true in bustling Cho- lon, which catered to the growing Chinese clientele. The admirals erected the first in a series of buildings for administration during this time, including the Palais Norodom, the Governor of Cochinchina’s headquarters.' Such large-scale projects cost money, however. And given that the French government expected the Cochinchinese authorities to finance lo- cal development, the majority indigenous population ended up assuming the fiscal burden. Governors immediately turned to ‘direct contributions’ from the people, mainly in the form of personal and land taxes levied on them, as well as ‘indirect’ ones, like their licensing of monopolies.” (p. 79-80)
[62] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “The French na- val officers taking over in the Mekong delta knew next to nothing about the 1.5 million people suddenly under their control. Through the Cath- olic missions a few Frenchmen spoke Vietnamese.” (p. 81)
[63] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “The colonial promotion of quoc ngu was certainly assimilationist in design. However, its main goal was to create a more efficient form of administrative control, rather than necessarily turn the Cochinchinese into Frenchmen. Admirals immediately opened language schools teaching the Latin script to interpreters, civil servants, and, later, tens of thousands of children. They gave the governance of several early schools to Petrus Ky and other French-speaking Catholics. In April 1865, Petrus Ky received authorization to publish the first guoc ngu newspaper in modern Vietnam, the Gia Dinh Bao (Gia Dinh News). Unsurprisingly, it published colonial decrees, instructions, and statistics; but it also produced articles on socio- cultural subjects before it closed in 1909. From 1882, quoc ngu officially replaced Chinese characters for reproducing in translation official French correspondence relating to the colony. To be sure, the use of Chinese characters continued into the twentieth century (as did the demotic script, chu nom), but the mechanics of colonial institutionalization and the practical requirements of local administration and an education system designed to feed it had introduced a Romanized script that would ultimately emerge victorious over the character writing systems. The irony is that Vietnamese nationalists—like their Indonesian counterparts adopting a Dutch-sponsored Latin script—would soon turn quoc ngu against the colonizers and use it for their own cultural and state-building projects.” (p. 82)
[64] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “French reliance on the indigenous administration and elite did not prevent the Third Republic from creating a single colonial state under one authority. In 1887, the French government formally approved the creation of the Indochinese Union (Union indochinoise). Until 1945, this colonial state in- corporated Cochinchina, Cambodia, Annam, Tonkin, and, from 1893, Laos (or what would become Laos). In all, it ultimately covered 740,000 square kilometers and counted over sixteen million people by 1913. In 1888, the cities of Hanoi, Haiphong, and Danang joined Saigon as directly adminis- tered colonies subject to metropolitan law. Appointed by Paris and based in Hanoi, a governor general ruled what became commonly known by the turn of the century as French Indochina, l’Indochine frangaise. Assisting him was the Upper Council of Indochina, which consisted of five directors in charge of the colonial state’s main services. From 1891, the governor general received his orders directly from one source, the Ministry of Colonies.” The governor general’s powers were considerable. He established the union’s budget and presided over the entire administration—both the In- dochinese central services (communications, justice, customs, and police) and the local administration of each of the protectorates, colonies, and mil- itary territories.” (p. 87)
[65] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “The result was that from December 1944 until about May 1945, fam- ine swooped down on Tonkin and upper Annam, killing about one million Vietnamese. An estimated 10 percent of the population in this crucial area perished in a five-month period preceding the ‘August Revolution’. In many ways, Viet Minh leaders rode a famine-driven wave of angry peasant hunger to power in mid-1945, opening granaries as they raced across the provinces to take control of the colonial administration the French and Japanese had abandoned in their defeat. Bao Dai and the Tran Trong Kim government’s rural administrators had little chance of surviving this mas- sive social surge. In the eyes of the famished, the provincial and district notables were part of the problem, the ones who had stockpiled rice while their families slowly starved to death. These people became the visible ob- jects of peasant wrath and many paid with their lives. Without war and the famine it produced, Vietnamese communists might well have never taken power in August 1945.” (p. 199)
[66] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “Ho himself had personally witnessed the French firing on starving peasants in 1908, the very event that had sent him on the road to republicanism, into the League of Human Rights, and on to revolution. Outraged peasants seeking justice from Vietnamese cadres who had just violated their basic human rights flooded the office of Vietnam’s best-known lawyer, the French-trained Nguyen Manh ‘Tuong. People were so outraged that the party responded by allowing newspapers to publish full reports on the land reform abuses which had occurred up to 1957, including information about the use of state-sponsored torture, executions, and the existence of concentration camps.” (p.295-296)
[67] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “Those who could, mainly the urban rich and well-connected, started to leave Vietnam or sent their children abroad. One thing is certain: between 1945 and 1954, civilians in the countryside died in far greater numbers than any other social group, including regular troops. The DRV could never unleash such violence against civilians in France, who remained completely safe from and largely uninterested in France’s colonial war in Indochina. No Vietnamese government has ever revealed how many deaths their populations suffered; but the number of 500,000 offered by one of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s officers at the end of the First Indochina War seems reasonable, indeed a minimum, since we have no estimates for civilian deaths in the other states opposed to the DRV. One highly respected French scholar put the number of war dead at one million. This militarization and brutalization of Vietnamese society created a sea of hate, surging on waves of raw human emotion. Ideology certainly counted in the decisions people made, as did family ties and intimate friendships; but young men, women, and even children often joined one side or the other because of traumatic experiences, like the murder, rape, or torture of a loved one.” (p. 227-228)
[68] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “Why did metropolitan leaders take particular notice of events in Indochina at this time? Ideology was one reason. The Dreyfus affair (1894-1906) and the rise of French socialism under Jean Jaurés were energizing republicanism, as was the advent of a modern, activist press in the Third Republic. Disgusted by the repressive measures used in 1908, the socialist Francis de Pressensé and vice-president of the newly created League of Human Rights in France (1898) asked how the republic could use extra-judicial means in Indochina to execute Vietnamese and still remain true to its principles at home. Though the Vietnamese were colonial subjects, they were humans too, he and others insisted. Like-minded deputies deplored a long list of colonial abuses. Maurice Viollette, a Freemason and colonial reformer, stated that the French could not claim to be ‘a superior race’ by committing rape, murder, and battery in Indochina. Deputies also criticized onerous taxation, oppressive monopolies, and excessive labor coercion as unwor- thy of the republic. In a series of debates between 1908 and 1911, many in Paris came to agree with Phan Chu Trinh’s message: ‘French policy will fail unless it is a pro-indigenous one.’ And the only way republicans could remain true to their core values was by implementing a workable policy of association with the Vietnamese, including legal guarantees of their indi- vidual rights” (p.113)
[69] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “Like French mayors faced with heavily armed German soldiers pa- trolling their villages a few years earlier on, in the Second World War, more than one Vietnamese village headman repelled collaboration with the ‘resistance’ since it could draw reprisals of the worst kind from the occupiers. Indeed, as colonial ‘pacification’ rapidly turned into a drawn-out affair, angry French Union troops unable to let loose their firepower on their in- visible adversaries adopted increasingly violent measures toward nearby civilian populations suspected of harboring, feeding, or protecting enemy combatants. The discovery of enemy propaganda or Democratic Republic of Vietnam-stamped papers in a village, but above all the loss of one soldier to a guerilla sniper or booby trap, could spark a frenzy of violence against nearby civilians. This included the bombing and burning of entire villages as well as the indiscriminate killing of men and women, young and old. The use of torture spread throughout the French army quickly—at what rate, no one knows, but both French and non-communist Vietnamese memoirs leave no doubt that it was all too real. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam authorities also tried to bring the use of torture under control, espe- cially against other Vietnamese. Rape became a disturbing weapon used by the Expeditionary Corps, as did summary executions. Young Vietnamese women who could not escape approaching enemy patrols smeared them- selves with any stinking thing they could find, including human excrement. Decapitated heads were raised on sticks, bodies were gruesomely disem- boweled, and body parts were taken as ‘souvenirs’, and Vietnamese soldiers of all political colors also committed such acts. The non-communist nationalist singer, Pham Duy, wrote a bone-chilling ballad about the mothers of Gio Linh village in central Vietnam, each of whom had lost a son to a French army massacre in 1948. Troops decapitated their bodies and dis- played their heads along a public road to strike fear into those tempted to accept the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s sovereignty. Massacres did not start with the Americans in My Lai, or the Vietnamese communists in Hue in 1968. And yet, the French Union’s massacre of over two hundred Vietnamese women and children in My Trach in 1948 remains virtually un- known in France to this day” (p. 226-227)
[70] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “However, the liberation bourgeois women experienced in urban areas was not necessarily replicated in the countryside, where male mandarins and rich landowners could run roughshod over women’s rights. Many abu- sive mandarins had several wives and subjected them to terrible existences. Rape went largely unpunished. The Literary Self-strengthening Movement’s Khai Hung wrote searing critiques of such matters. Colonial law could do little about these abuses of women given that the protectorate status of Annam and Tonkin kept the Gia Long code in operation there until the late 1930s. The termination of the Confucian exam system did little to change village politics and councils, which remained largely in the hands of men under the French.” (p. 359-360)
[71] Goscha, C. E. (2016). Vietnam: A new history. Basic Books. “The singer-songwriter Pham Duy, who first became famous in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam for his blood-chilling song which had condemned the French massacre at Gio Linh in 1948, used his powerful songwriting to communicate the fratricidal nature of the Vietnamese civil war. In his “Tale of Two Soldiers’, he sings of two soldiers who ‘both loved the fatherland—Vietnam’ [ . . .] ‘From the same village, but divided’. Both were heroes, but both were forced to be fighting machines designed to kill the other. Duy ends his haunting song with them both lying dead on the battlefield, clasping their rifles in their hands. The last line reads: “There were two soldiers who one rosy dawn killed each other for Vietnam, killed each other for Vietnam’.”” (p.371 )
[72] Laderman, S., & Martini, E. A. (Eds.). (n.d.). Four decades on: Vietnam, the United States, and the legacies of the Second Indochina War. Duke University Press. “From 1946 to 1989, Vietnam suffered repeatedly from warfare, either on its own soil or in neighboring Cambodia. From 1946 to 1954, a war of national liberation from the eight-decades-long French colonialism ended in the temporary division of Viet- nam into two parts, with the north allying with China and the Soviet Union, and the south coming under a strong American influence.” Within a decade of French military withdrawal in 1954, as unrest intensified in South Vietnam, the United States began sending combat troops to support the Saigon government against southern guerillas armed by the north. The following decade witnessed probably the most violent war in Vietnamese history, as the United States undertook massive bombing of North Vietnam, and of the parts of South Vietnam and neighboring Laos and Cambodia under the control of Vietnamese Communist forces and/or their Laotian and Cambodian allies. From 1965 to 1973, U.S. planes dropped over 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It was equal to the ex- plosive force of over 700 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs (Harrison 1982: 3). The reduction of U.S. support for its ally in South Vietnam after the 1973 Paris peace agreement precipitated the collapse of the Saigon government in 1975, lead- ing to the unification of Vietnam in 1976. However, peace was shortlived as a former ally of North Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge (Communists), took control of Cambodia and resorted to military means to solve border disputes with Vietnam and Thailand. Vietnam sent troops to Cambodia in December 1978, overthrew the Khmer Rouge government, and maintained a military presence in Cambodia to support a Vietnamese-installed government (see Chanda 1986). China launched a brief invasion of Vietnam in 1979 in response to the Vietnamese overthrow of its protégé Communist government in Cambodia, highlighting the powerful force of nationalism in modern international politics and exposing the fallacy of the con- cept of monolithic Communism underlying the original U.S. involvement in Viet- nam. The United States and China subsequently supported an armed coalition of Marxist guerillas and King Sihanouk’s anticommunist supporters against Viet- namese forces and the Vietnam-supported Cambodian government. The United States also led a trade embargo on Vietnam until 1994.” (p. 2)
[73] Laderman, S., & Martini, E. A. (Eds.). (n.d.). Four decades on: Vietnam, the United States, and the legacies of the Second Indochina War. Duke University Press. “Prolonged warfare also had diverse and at times contradictory impacts on Viet- namese society. On one level, it inflicted major casualties and caused demographic imbalance in all parts of Vietnam. For the 1965-1975 period alone, it is estimated that 800,000 to 1,200,000 Vietnamese died in the war. The higher number of war deaths among men contributed to a demographic imbalance. According to the Vietnamese 1979 census data, for five- year interval cohorts born between 1915 and 1954 and reaching adulthood during the Franco-Vietnamese and American war periods, there were only between seventy-eight and ninety men for every one hundred women (Banister 1993: 9). Protracted wars led many Vietnamese to accept the state’s call for personal sac- rifice and many state-imposed measures to transform the economy and society. With the overwhelming majority of Vietnamese living in the countryside during the various wars from 1946 to 1989, land reform was the most important. In the Franco-Vietnamese war, for example, the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Communist-led government under Ho Chi Minh issued a number of resolutions and decrees between 1948 and 1952, including resolutions to: lower land rent and loan interest, as well as to abolish secondary rents (gifts to landlords at New Year’s and other occasions); + abolish pre-1945 loans and loans whose interest payments had doubled the principal; distribute French, French collaborators, landlord-abandoned, and communal land to poor peasants.” (p. 3)
[74] Laderman, S., & Martini, E. A. (Eds.). (n.d.). Four decades on: Vietnam, the United States, and the legacies of the Second Indochina War. Duke University Press. “on dislocation and socioeconomic stratification throughout the country. In the southern part of Vietnam, rural-to-urban migration increased dramatically, espe- cially during the American war, as war raged on in rural and mountainous areas and as cities were under firmer U.S. and Saigon-government control and relatively less affected by warfare. It is estimated that the urban population of South Vietnam increased from 2.8 million (20 percent of the South Vietnamese population) in 1958 to 8 million (43 percent of the population) in 1971. The urban population in the Saigon area correspondingly increased from 2.3 million to 3.5 million. In contrast, in North Vietnam, as U.S. bombing intensified from 1965 onward and targeted particularly urban and industrial centers (96), the urban population of North Vietnam dropped from 2.1 million (11 percent of the North Vietnamese population) in 1965 to 1.8 million (8.4 percent of the population) in 1970. Corresponding figures are not available for Hanoi for the same period, but according to one estimate, the population of Hanoi dropped from .9 million in 1961 to .71 million in 1970. In the southern part of Vietnam, the war-related massive rural-to-urban flow led to uncontrolled urbanization, with an estimated 1.5 million Saigon residents living in slum. At the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum, many elite and middle-class members in areas under the control of the Saigon government benefited from massive foreign aid and troop presence to maintain comfortable or even luxurious living conditions for themselves. Socioeconomic gaps became glaring in Saigon and many other southern cities under the control of the Saigon government. Consequently, despite the aforementioned land reform cam- paigns in 1956 and 1970 under the Saigon government, socioeconomic inequality across the rural-urban divide and within rural and urban areas in the south was still considerably greater than that in the north.” (p. 4)
[75] Laderman, S., & Martini, E. A. (Eds.). (n.d.). Four decades on: Vietnam, the United States, and the legacies of the Second Indochina War. Duke University Press. “Mrs. Ha’s brother says he wants to ask me just one more question. “In your country,” he begins, “are there children like this?” He gestures around the room. I do not understand his implication, and cannot answer. “Chil- dren this strong, this tall, this big—or smaller?” One of the women sitting on the bed laughs and says, “I’ve seen on tv—they are big. Vietnamese are the smallest.” Mrs. Ha’s brother continues, “Our life here should be like that of our international friends. But because the war lasted far too long—all our lives—we lost the chance to study, because at eighteen we dIane nIBLack Fox 211 left school and took up the gun. When the enemy was gone, we came back . . . back to feed our children, but there was not enough, so they are sickly and puny like this. You see?” “These are the consequences of war,” Mr. Binh explains. “What he is saying is that the consequences of war are very great.”” (p. 211)
[76] Dung, M. Q., & Phuong, N. T. (2025). The Communist Party of Vietnam leads the work of ensuring food security in the period 1986 – 2024. Journal of Posthumanism, 5(1), 315–327. https://doi.org/10.63332/joph.v5i1.562. “In recent years, Vietnam's food security policy has made an important contribution to rapidly increasing food supply, expanding people's access to food... Thanks to that, food security in Vietnam has been basically guaranteed. However, the food security policy still has many shortcomings: quality, hygiene, and food safety are not high; efficiency in food crops is still low... thereby negatively affecting both producers and consumers... The new context requires Vietnam to continue implementing the food security policy. With the experience of the past decades, with the efforts of a constructive and honest Government, of the people and for the people, it is certain that the food security policy will be increasingly improved, and its implementation will be more effective and efficient.” (p. 13)
[77] Luong, H. V. (Ed.). (2003). Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a transforming society. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies / Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. “Since the mid-1980s, the government of Vietnam has been active in environmental protection through the creation of natural area reserves, sponsorship of research projects, and capacity building in its regulatory and monitoring system. Many of these efforts were inaugurated in preparation of change. Among these, the most notable are efforts to regulate and monitor environmental impacts. Many others look back, carrying with them a clear sense of the need to preserve Vietnam’s natural and cultural heritage. Among these, we include efforts to create and manage national parks and reserves, as well as the major programs on re-greening of upland areas. Environmental issues were first raised to national consciousness through the Draft Conservation Strategy, a document prepared in 1985 by the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies with assistance from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The preparation of this document, and the research activities that preceded it, provided a means for a diverse group of academics to focus their thoughts around the issues that were pressing at the time: the rapid and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources that followed reunifi- cation. Many personal relationships grew out of this activity, and although the draft document was not accepted by the government, its agenda for research and action was carried over into the two major national environmental programs of the 1990s.” (p. 194)
[78] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Papers: Part I (B. F. Gravel ed., Vol. 1). Beacon Press. “NSC 64 (February 27, 1950) concluded that: ‘It is important to United States security interests that all practicable measures be taken to prevent further communist expansion in Southeast Asia. Indochina is a key area of Southeast Asia and is under immediate threat... The neighboring countries of Thailand and Burma could be expected to fall under Communist domination if Indochina were controlled by a Communist-dominated government.’” (p. B-5).
[79] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Papers: Part I (B. F. Gravel ed., Vol. 1). Beacon Press. “The U.S. thereafter was deeply involved in the developing war. But it cannot be said that the extension of aid was a volte-face of U.S. policy precipitated solely by the events of 1950. It appears rather as the denouement of a cohesive progression of U.S. policy decisions stemming from the 1945 determination that France should decide the political future of Vietnamese nationalism.” (p. A-7).
[80] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Papers: Part I (B. F. Gravel ed., Vol. 1). Beacon Press. “The fighting between the French and the Vietnamese which began in South Vietnam with the 23 September, 1945, French coup d'etat, spread from Saigon throughout Cochinchina, and to southern Annam. By the end of January, 1946, it was wholly a French affair, for by that time the British withdrawal was complete... From French headquarters, via Radio Saigon, came announcements that a military ‘mopping-up’ campaign was in progress... ‘Rebel bands are still (wreaking destruction) in the areas south of Saigon... In the area south of Cholon and in the north of the Plaine des Jones region, several bands have taken refuge.’ ... ‘Rebel activities have increased in the Bien Hoa area... A French convoy has been attacked... A French detachment was ambushed at (San Jay), south Annam. The detachment, nevertheless, succeeded in carrying out its mission. Several aggressions by rebel parties are reported along the coastal road.’” (p. A-24).
[81] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “Contrary to repeated statements by Washington officials during the 1960s that the United States did not intervene in Vietnam until, and only because, ‘North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam’, the US was deeply and continually involved in that woeful land from the year 1950 onwards. That year marked the beginning of regular shipments of American military equipment to the French fighting in Vietnam, as well as American military advisers arriving in the country. The arms and equipment came ‘from US Army stocks in Japan and Okinawa,’ said the Pentagon, ‘and included mortars, machine guns, bazookas, and small arms. Later, they included naval craft and aircraft.’ By the end of the war, the United States had borne about 80 percent of the cost of the French effort.” (p. 122).
[82] U.S. National Security Council. (1961). Program of Action to Prevent Communist Domination of South Vietnam (National Security Action Memorandum No. 52). John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. “The U.S. Objective: To prevent Communist domination of South Vietnam and to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society... The Viet Cong over the past two years have succeeded in stepping up the pace and intensity of their attacks to the point where South Vietnam is nearing the decisive phase in its battle for survival. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the Communists will be able to press on to their strategic goal of establishing a rival 'National Liberation Front' government... thereby plunging the nation into open civil war.” (p. 1).
[83] U.S. National Security Council. (1961). Program of Action to Prevent Communist Domination of South Vietnam (National Security Action Memorandum No. 52). John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. “The turmoil created throughout the area by this rapid succession of events provides an ideal environment for the Communist 'master plan' to take over all of Southeast Asia... The internal security situation in South Vietnam has become critical. What amounts to a state of active guerrilla warfare now exists throughout the country.” (p. 32).
[84] U.S. National Security Council. (1961). Program of Action to Prevent Communist Domination of South Vietnam (National Security Action Memorandum No. 52). John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. “If Laos political settlement that would afford the Communists an opportunity to maintain any sort of control... of these mountain passes would make them gate keepers to the primary inland invasion route leading to Saigon and flanking the most important defensive terrain in the northern area of South Vietnam.” (p. 25).
[85] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “In any event. Diem's commitment to free elections may be surmised from a referendum he held in October 1955 in South Vietnam to invest his regime with a semblance of legality, in which he received 98.2 percent of the vote. Life magazine later reported that Diem's American advisers had told him that a 60 percent margin would be quite sufficient and would look better, 'but Diem insisted on 98 percent.'” (p. 122).
[86] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “Under the direction of CIA leading-light Edward Lansdale, fresh from his success in the Philippines, a campaign of military and psychological warfare was carried out against the Vietminh. Over the next six months, Lansdale’s clandestine team executed such operations as the following: Encouraged the migration of Vietnamese from the North to the South through 'an extremely intensive, well-coordinated, and, in terms of its objective, very successful ... psychological warfare operation.' Propaganda slogans and leaflets appealed to the devout Catholics with such themes as 'Christ has gone to the South' and the 'Virgin Mary has departed from the North'.” (pp. 125–126).
[87] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “When popular resistance to Ngo Dinh Diem reached the level where he was more of a liability than an asset he was sacrificed. On 1 November 1963, some of Diem’s generals overthrew him and then murdered both him and his brother after they had surrendered. The coup, wrote Time magazine, 'was planned with the knowledge of Dean Rusk and Averill Harriman at the State Department, Robert S. McNamara and Roswell Gilpatrick at the Defense Department and the late Edward R. Murrow at the U.S Information Agency.'” (p. 126).
[88] Central Intelligence Agency. (1963). Chronology of Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam in 1963 (CIA-RDP79T00429A001300050022-7). “8 May Eight persons killed in Hue during efforts of security forces to disperse a Buddhist crowd protesting the government’s ban on display of Buddhist flags during Buddha’s birthday celebration... 11 Jun Elderly monk Quang Duc committed public suicide by burning in Saigon... 16 Jun Compromise agreement reached by Diem and Buddhist delegation... Rioting, however, broke out in Saigon despite cancellation of a funeral service for Quang Duc. One killed and several arrested.” (pp. 1–2).
[89] Central Intelligence Agency. (1963). Chronology of Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam in 1963 (CIA-RDP79T00429A001300050022-7). “20-21 Aug Raids were carried out against pagodas in Saigon, Hue, and other major coastal towns shortly after midnight, following a proclamation of martial law. The government claimed to have discovered weapons and evidence of Viet Cong involvement. Unknown numbers of Buddhists were arrested.” (p. 2).
[90] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “The Pentagon, for its part, consistently fought to minimize what had happened, claiming that reports by Vietnamese survivors were wildly exaggerated. At the same time, the military focused its attention on the lowest-ranking officer who could conceivably shoulder the blame for such a nightmare: Charlie Company’s Lieutenant William Calley.” (p. 19).
[91] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Papers: Part I (B. F. Gravel ed., Vol. 1). Beacon Press. “The Parliamentary Mission described Saigon: 'where gambling, depravity, love of money and of power finish by corrupting the morale and destroying will-power... The Ministers [of the Bao Dai regime] appear in the eyes of their compatriots to be French officials... The French yielded control only pro forma, while the Emperor Bao Dai adopted a retiring, passive role, and turned his government over to discreditable politicians. The Bao Dai regime was neither popular nor efficient, and its army, dependent on French leadership, was powerless.'” (p. A-20).
[92] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Papers: Part I (B. F. Gravel ed., Vol. 1). Beacon Press. “Had Bao Dai been willing or capable of more effective leadership, the U.S. role in the war might not have fallen into what Edmund Gullion called the 'pattern of prediction and disappointment'... The outcome rested rather on France’s military struggle with the Viet Minh, and its contest of leverage with the United States.” (p. A-30).
[93] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “A secret Pentagon study of the war later commented that 'the Strategic Hamlet Program was a means for concentrating and controlling the rural population to prevent its being influenced or controlled by the NLF (National Liberation Front, or Vietcong).' It was a device for political as well as physical separation. The program resettled peasants in fortified villages. But the relocation of peasants was a form of economic warfare too: by emptying the countryside and denying it to the enemy, the US military believed it could separate the fish from the sea.” (p. 128).
[94] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “Part of the military strategy to clear the countryside of its population was the destruction of crops and vegetation. This was done on an enormous scale using chemical defoliants like Agent Orange, Agent White, and Agent Blue. A U.S. Air Force report acknowledged that 'in the ten years from 1961 to 1971, the U.S. sprayed some 18 million gallons of herbicides over South Vietnam.'” (p. 129).
[95] Meta-analysis on Agent Orange (Ngo et al., 2006, p. 5). “Parental exposure to Agent Orange appears to be associated with an increased risk of birth defects [...] The summary relative risk (RR) of birth defects associated with exposure to Agent Orange was 1.95 [...] Vietnamese studies showed a higher summary RR (RR = 3.00) than non-Vietnamese studies (RR = 1.29). [...] By 2016, spina bifida was the only birth defect that the US government acknowledged as related to veteran exposure to Agent Orange... 500,000+ birth defects. The children of Vietnam veterans have shown consistent increases in learning, attention and behavioral disorders; all types of skin disorders; problems with tooth development; allergic conditions and asthma; immune system disorders [...] and endocrine problems including thyroid disorders and childhood diabetes.”
[96] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Papers: Part IV (B. F. Gravel ed., Vol. 1). Beacon Press. “The Strategic Hamlet Program, while theoretically sound, was premised on the assumption that the rural population, if denied to the Viet Cong, would deprive them of food, recruits, and intelligence. The program’s failure was rooted in its coercive implementation and the alienation of peasants from their ancestral lands, which often drove them into closer cooperation with the NLF rather than isolating them from it.” (p. 2).
[97] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “It was a war of chemicals and firepower, cluster bombs and anti-personnel devices designed to shred the human body into scraps. High explosives and napalm were poured into the land from the air with abandon. South Vietnam became a 'free fire zone'. One US Air Force man recalled: 'We just tossed the bombs out and then went back and did it again. We didn't know who we were bombing, and we didn’t much care.' A pilot described a strike mission in which he had been ordered to hit a target without knowing what it was. 'They said don’t worry, it’s a good target... We go in and bomb the area. A few days later they send me pictures of what I’d bombed. I’d killed a water buffalo and a boy.'” (p. 131).
[98] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “A villager from Dinh Tuong Province summed up the Vietnamese perception of American helicopters in the delta: 'If a gunner saw anyone, even a woman or a small child or a water buffalo, he blew them apart.'” (p. 229).
[99] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “In the early days of Speedy Express... a junior officer called in an air strike with imprecise instructions. The helicopter gunships, Deagle recalled, 'fired a tremendous amount of 2.75[-inch] rockets into the town and that killed a total of about 145 family members or Vietnamese civilians.'” (p. 231).
[100] U.S. Air Force. (1967). Rules of Engagement for Free-Fire Zones [Report cited in vietnamoct09.pdf]. “In free-fire zones, all personnel are considered enemy combatants. Structures are presumed hostile. Pilots are authorized to engage without further clearance. The rules of engagement permit maximum flexibility to neutralize targets of opportunity, with the understanding that civilian presence in these zones constitutes voluntary assumption of risk.” (p. 4).
[101] U.S. Department of Defense. (1966). Pentagon Memo on Rolling Thunder Campaign [Historical Documents - Office of the Historian]. “The Rolling Thunder program has not been able to prevent about a threefold increase in the level of personnel infiltration in 1966. The U.S. bombing campaigns did severe damage to over 70 percent of the industries in the North, which cut the amount of goods the country was able to produce in half. However, these economic impacts have not translated into reduced military capacity or political will.” (p. 9).
[102] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “On the evening of March 15, 1968, members of the Americal Division’s Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, were briefed by their commanding officer, Captain Ernest Medina, on a planned operation the next day in an area they knew as ‘Pinkville.’ As unit member Harry Stanley recalled, Medina ‘ordered us to "kill everything in the village."’ Infantryman Salvatore LaMartina remembered Medina’s words only slightly differently: they were to ‘kill everything that breathed.’ What stuck in artillery forward observer James Flynn’s mind was a question one of the other soldiers asked: ‘Are we supposed to kill women and children?’ And Medina’s reply: ‘Kill everything that moves.’” (p. 3).
[103] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “A woman who came out of her home with a baby in her arms was shot down on the spot. As the tiny child hit the ground, another GI opened up on the infant with his M-16 automatic rifle.” (p. 7).
[104] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “Humanitarian costs of the Vietnam War itself – which led to millions of civilian deaths by all accounts – were massive... 3M deaths (90% civilians)... 14,305,000 refugees by the time the war ended... 800,000 children who lost one or both parents.” (p. 9).
[105] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “There were scores of witnesses on the ground and still more overhead, American officers and helicopter crewmen perfectly capable of seeing the growing piles of civilian bodies. Yet when the military released the first news of the assault, it was portrayed as a victory over a formidable enemy force, a legitimate battle in which 128 enemy troops were killed without the loss of a single American life. In a routine congratulatory telegram, General William Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, lauded the ‘heavy blows’ inflicted on the enemy. His protégé, the commander of the Americal Division, added a special note praising Charlie Company’s ‘aggressiveness.’” (p. 18).
[106] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “The carnage was evident even in official U.S. statistics, which, for instance, recorded that more than 13,000 civilians were wounded in IV Corps in just the first six months of 1969.” (p. 227).
[107] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “One of the times I counted bodies after an air strike—which always ended with two napalm bombs which would just fry everything that was left—I counted sixty-two bodies.” (p. 230).
[108] Turse, N. (2013). Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Metropolitan Books. “Westmoreland’s scuttling of the Speedy Express investigation spared the army from having to deal with another major atrocity scandal in the aftermath of My Lai and also served to shield his brethren from West Point.” (p. 233).
[109] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “Life magazine reported: 'Some American commanders see the war as largely a matter of body count... the catch is tallied as 'VC KIA' (Vietcong killed in action), regardless of who or what has died.' One GI in the field wrote: 'There are no civilians in Vietnam. If they’re running, they’re VC. If they’re standing still, they’re well-disciplined VC. If they’re dead, they’re VC.'” (p. 132).
[110] Bombscapes.pdf. (n.d.). “Craters pock every area of South Vietnam: forests, swamps, fields, paddies, roadsides... razing of 9,000 villages. [...] Laos alone was hit with more than 4 billion pounds of bombs targeting the Ho Chi Minh Trail... More bombs were dropped on Laos, per capita, than on any other nation, in any other conflict, anywhere, ever. [...] UXOs as well as landmines can impair the use of agricultural land... traces of dioxins specific to Agent Orange were still found in human blood in some areas as late as 2001. [...] Environmental destruction was a primary military strategy... 26 million craters in Vietnam... increased malaria and dengue fever risks due to stagnant water in craters.” (p. 7).
[111] U.S. Army Inspector General. (1972). Report on Operation Speedy Express [Cited in Turse, 2013]. “Civilian deaths during Operation Speedy Express were a constant and inevitable result of command priorities emphasizing body counts over discrimination in targeting. The ratio of weapons captured to enemy killed (1:14.6) suggests either extraordinary enemy efficiency or systemic misclassification of noncombatants. The investigation finds that current reporting mechanisms are inadequate to distinguish between these possibilities.” (p. 229).
[112] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Internal Memo on Civilian Casualties [Declassified per EO 13526; NND 63316]. “Civilian casualties in free-fire zones are inevitable and acceptable collateral damage given operational requirements. The primary objective remains denial of terrain to enemy forces, and the secondary benefits of population control often outweigh the costs. Reporting protocols should emphasize military necessity and avoid speculative casualty figures.”
[113] Blum, W. (1995). Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. Common Courage Press. “To wage this war required the complete destruction of the countryside. Villages were bombed into oblivion. As one Pentagon paper later admitted, 'The US aim was to kill anything that moved in certain designated areas. It was mass murder.'” (p. 131).
[114] U.S. Department of Defense. (1971). Pentagon Papers: Part I (B. F. Gravel ed., Vol. 1). Beacon Press. “The provision of MAP support for the Vietnamese Junk Force (already approved by the President) will greatly improve that Force’s capabilities in preventing clandestine supply and infiltration from the sea... CINCPAC’s naval component to assume an active responsibility jointly with the Vietnamese navy for coastal patrol activities from the Cambodian border to the mouth of the Mekong River.” (p. 5).
[115] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “This chapter begins with a description of peasant living quarters, but Semyonova quickly gets caught up in telling about the stifling atmosphere of houses heated by “black stoves.” (Such chimneyless homes, called in Russian “smokey houses” [kurnye izby], were quite common in central and especially northern Russia until the end of the nineteenth century.) Note that the principal fuel in this instance was straw, because Semyonova's village was in the lightly forested Black Earth region. Here the roofs were often thatched, and chimneyless stoves may have been a necessity because burning straw could drift up the flue and land on the thatched roof.” (p. 116)
[116] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “In the discussion of fire protection that follows, Semyonova tells of the willow trees that furnished a protective barrier against the raging fires that all too regularly consumed Russian villages and towns. The willows had dual and discrepant uses: when alive and green, they formed a screen against flying embers, and (as we read in the court cases cited by Semyonova in chapter 10) when cut and dried out, they served as ignitable fuel.” (p. 116)
[117] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “When Semyonova turns to the division of family property at the time of the separation of some members, her discussion can be better understood if one recalls that the large Russian peasant family was composed of a mother and father and their grown sons, together with the wives and children of the sons. Two, three, or more nuclear families might reside in a single household, and personal conflict or lack of space could and did regularly require the separation of one or more of the nuclear units.” (p. 117-118)
[118] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “HOUSES HAVE equal sides that measure from fourteen to twenty-one feet. There are two windows. The entryway (sentsa) is usually built with thin, low-quality logs. Just opposite the door from the main room into the entryway is another door leading into the yard. If an entryway is wide enough, it is used for storing horse collars and women’s trunks. To the left of the door leading into the house is a bench known as a konnik (also ikonnik or okonnik).” (p. 118)
[119] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “In the far right-hand corner there is a whitewashed brick stove with a sleeping shelf (/ezhanka) running along its top. Stoves with chimneys are called “white,” while chimneyless stoves are referred to as “black.” When a “black” stove is being lighted, the door from the main room into the entryway is left open so that the smoke up to the level of the door is drawn out, but above that level it forms a blue and white blanket through which nothing can be seen. The top of the door is no higher than a rather short person, so that one has to stoop to enter the house (the ceiling itself is only 5’10” high). A good-sized man finds it difficult to stand up when the stove is being fired, because his eyes will be in the caustic cloud of smoke. Even when seated on a bench, one feels the acrid smoke in the eyes. I myself cannot stay more than ten minutes inside a house while the stove is being fired, but peasants get used to it. Some old people do not even climb down from the top of the stove when it is being lighted; they lie there right in the thick smoke—but they probably have their eyes closed. When the fuel has burned up, the stove door is closed and, as the peasants avow, “it’s warm as toast in here.” Peasants believe “black” stoves are much warmer than the “white” ones. I do not know if this is true, but I can say that the smoke continues to irritate one’s eyes long after the stove door has been shut.” (p. 119)
[120] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “Peasants use straw for fuel. Rye straw is the best for this purpose; the straw of oats and millet is of much poorer quality. Peasants bring straw in at night to sleep on, and then in the morning they feed this straw into the stove. The use of fresh straw each day provides reasonably hygienic bedding for the peasants. But this is so only in years of abundant harvest. In a bad year, whatever little straw they have is given to the livestock; sometimes even straw roofs have to be pulled down to save the animals from starvation. The shortage of straw forces peasants to use their clothes for bedding and to heat the house with dried manure or weeds such as burdock, thistle, and nettles. Accordingly, illnesses increase in such a year. The lack of fresh bedding is one cause. The poor fuel likewise does much damage to the eyes. ” (p.119-120)
[121] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “The smoke, which was produced by burning dried manure and weeds found on the roadside and in ravines, was so acrid that the victims (mostly old people and children) developed cataracts. All of them were admitted to the regional hospital in town, but three of them never got their eyesight back.” (p. 120)
[122] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “Manure, in addition to being used in lean years as fuel for home heating, is mixed with clay and made into building blocks for clay-walled houses. [For these reasons, among others,] poor peasants fertilize their land very little, spreading no more than twenty cartloads of manure.” (p. 120)
[123] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “The floor is made of either hard-packed earth or wooden planks (rough or finished). If of planks, these are supported by joists and run across the house parallel to the entrance-door wall. In a floor made of boards, there is usually an opening through which a ladder leads into a pit dug out under the house where potatoes are stored.” (p. 120-121)
[124] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “In the past, wooden houses were made chiefly of oak, but nowadays Numerous masonry houses are also found, accounting for more than half the homes in a few villages. ” (p. 121)
[125] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “Lastly the house is whitewashed inside and out. The yard, which is also square and measures between twenty-three and fifty-eight feet on a side, is enclosed with a wattle fence and covered with a straw awning. The corners of the yard are boarded up to form pens for livestock. There can be from one to four pens. Plows, carts, harrows, and sleighs are stored under the awning.” (p. 121)
[126] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “If a house has only one “shell” (srub), which is most often the case, then the owner also has a shed or small cabin for storing grain, flour, clothing, footwear, his wife’s trunks, and other household items.” (p. 121)
[127] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “Vegetable patches and threshing barns are located behind the yards. A village constable enforces an ordinance requiring that threshing barns be at least two hundred feet away from the houses and, again, surrounded by willows. Like the houses, threshing barns are covered with thatched roofs; the roof framing, however, is supported by studs rather than by rafters as in a house.” (p. 122-123)
[128] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “I know of cases in which several members of a family perished when they could not get out of a burning house. A lot of livestock is lost in these fires as well. Wattle yards with thatched awnings light up like gunpowder, especially in dry weather, leaving only embers from the animals inside. I myself have seen sheep and pigs, suffocated by smoke, popping inside a burning yard and turning into a charred, shapeless mass. I will never forget one such night when a fire was raging through the peasants’ homes and yards, wiping out innocent animals, and in front of a house that had just started to burn lay the emaciated body of a small girl, illuminated by the fire.” (p. 123)
[129] Semyonova Tian‑Shanskaia, O. P. (1993). Village life in late Tsarist Russia (D. L. Ransel, Ed.; D. L. Ransel & M. Levine, Trans.). Indiana University Press. “It was only in the 1870s that bricks began to replace logs in the construction of peasant homes.” (p. 131)
[130] Morton, H. W. (1984). Housing in the Soviet Union. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 35(3), 69–80. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1174118. “Nevertheless, the Soviet leaders, who view housing as a social good, proudly point to the following achievements: For the past 20 years at least 2 million units have been built annually in the USSR-more than in any other country in the world.; It is hard to imagine how long people would have to wait for good new housing if a powerful building industry had not been created. Housing is built mainly at the expense of the government and is allocated free to people on the waiting list without any key money or down payment.; In 1928 the lowest rent tariff in the world was fixed in the USSR; it has not been raised since. In Moscow the average sum that a family pays for its dwelling plus communal services does not exceed 3 percent of its monthly budget. The rent itself covers only a third of the state expenditure on the maintenance and upkeep of housing; the rest is subsidized from public funds.; Eleven million Soviet citizens move into new dwellings or improve their housing standards yearly. Housing can, of course, be built for profit, but in the USSR it is built to meet the people's needs. Homes are therefore not an object of commerce.... Housing is not treated as a commodity. In assessing Soviet housing accomplishments, however, much depends on whether the USSR is viewed as an industrialized or a developing nation. For a developing nation, these housing accomplishments have been admirable; for a developed nation, Soviet housing accommodations are still among the poorest of any industrialized society.” (p. 70)
[131] Sorokina, A. (2022, February 18). How the USSR built the ‘ideal’ communal cities . Gateway to Russia. https://www.gw2ru.com/history/54201-socialist-communal-cities-architecture. “From the mid-1930s, Soviet specialists were already busy planning socialist cities. New neighborhoods were planned with wide buildings and streets. Homes also grew vertically: 7 and 9 story buildings with oriel windows (bay windows), loggias (recessed balconies) and sculptures in Stalin’s ‘Empire’ style. After the Great Patriotic War (known as WWII throughout the rest of the world), the need arose to restore destroyed homes and Soviet architects turned to no-frills panel construction, a style of construction using prefabricated concrete slabs, aiming to provide every family with a separate apartment.”
[132] Pille Metspalu & Daniel B. Hess (2018) Revisiting the role of architects in planning large-scale housing in the USSR: the birth of socialist residential districts in Tallinn, Estonia, 1957–1979, Planning Perspectives, 33:3, 335-361, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2017.1348974. “The first apartment houses built using pre-fabricated panel walls, established in the early 1960s, took advantage of industrial production to orchestrate residential building more cheaply. This was followed by improved standard designs, introduced in the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s and used widely by the 1980s. Each housing unit included modern conveniences– kitchens, washrooms and toilets, central heating, large windows– that were available to only a limited degree in the pre-Second World War housing. As the design process matured and mechanisms within it advanced during subsequent iterations, the height of residential buildings increased and the size of individual dwelling units expanded.”
[133] Sorokina, A. (2022, February 18). How the USSR built the ‘ideal’ communal cities . Gateway to Russia. https://www.gw2ru.com/history/54201-socialist-communal-cities-architecture. “The first socialist cities were built according to the designs of foreign specialists. Between 1930 and 1933, Soviet leadership invited a group of 17 German and Austrian architects and urban planners. Heading the group was Ernst May, an ideologist of mass standardized residential building design. He was the head architect in Frankfurt am Main, where functional residential neighborhoods were built, including homes and social spaces.”
[134] Sorokina, A. (2022, February 18). How the USSR built the ‘ideal’ communal cities . Gateway to Russia. https://www.gw2ru.com/history/54201-socialist-communal-cities-architecture. ”The main thing that distinguished socialist cities from other districts was the careful planning of new settlements. Life in socialist cities was intended to be communal: residents should work and relax together. Everyday issues like laundry and cooking were intended to be handled by outsourced community services.”
[135] Sorokina, A. (2022, February 18). How the USSR built the ‘ideal’ communal cities . Gateway to Russia. https://www.gw2ru.com/history/54201-socialist-communal-cities-architecture. “Perhaps, to a modern person, these kinds of homes wouldn’t seem the most attractive; however, for its time, they were considered a true innovation. Though, the apartments and bedrooms themselves within the communal units were very modest, they were equipped with all the modern comforts which, during that time, were inaccessible to the majority of people. This included, for example, a bathroom. In Novokuznetsk, an industrial city in southern Siberia, “Frankfurt kitchens”' were installed in the apartments in the design of Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, who also belonged to the ‘May Brigade’. These ergonomic kitchen designs, which made a real revolution around the world, substantially simplified cooking. Yet, places for family time in the apartments weren’t provided: free time needed to be spent within the community.”
[136] Pille Metspalu & Daniel B. Hess (2018) Revisiting the role of architects in planning large-scale housing in the USSR: the birth of socialist residential districts in Tallinn, Estonia, 1957–1979, Planning Perspectives, 33:3, 335-361, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2017.1348974. “State socialism provided unique opportunities to experiment with new models of city planning. Centrally planned systems– and government ownership of all land and industry– permitted a grand-scale approach to urbanization and a mechanism for promoting rational use of human and industrial assets, improving life quality, and reducing costs. Through central planning, state socialist governments sought to re-order society and plan new urban territory during rapid urbanization, industrialization, employment-driven migration, and military consolidation. Much power resided in central government decision-making. With land in state ownership, the development process occurred under central authority, and a powerful single-party system had great control over land development decisions to promote the expansion of industrial strength and military might.” (p. 335-336)
[137] Pille Metspalu & Daniel B. Hess (2018) Revisiting the role of architects in planning large-scale housing in the USSR: the birth of socialist residential districts in Tallinn, Estonia, 1957–1979, Planning Perspectives, 33:3, 335-361, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2017.1348974. “Vast housing estates– residential complexes dominated by high-rise block apartment buildings–were established between the 1960s and the 1990s to respond to crushing demand for urban housing due to employment-based migration triggered by expansions of industry and military that were critical to the ideology of the Soviet regime. They were critical components of modern planned cities for housing socialist lives in industrial-utopian centres. Architects charged with planning new housing estates had great power to shape cities, demonstrating that city planning was the centrepiece of central economic planning.”
[138] Pille Metspalu & Daniel B. Hess (2018) Revisiting the role of architects in planning large-scale housing in the USSR: the birth of socialist residential districts in Tallinn, Estonia, 1957–1979, Planning Perspectives, 33:3, 335-361, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2017.1348974. “What resulted were distinctive modernist spaces that, although they contained standard Soviet residential buildings at their core (this could not be helped), were otherwise state-of-the-art. Apartments in new housing estates provided coveted conveniences (for example, modern kitchens, comfortable toilets and washrooms, central heating) that were superiour to amenities offered in the contemporaneous pre-Second World War housing and were thus quite prestigious. Individual apartments in new Estonian housing estates had grown larger during the Soviet years, and, by the late Soviet years, Estonians enjoyed the highest living space per capita at 11.7 m2 in the Soviet Union (the USSR average was 9.4 m^2).”
[139] Central Intelligence Agency. (1961). PROSPECTS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSING IN THE USSR 1961–65 (CIA/RR ER 61-27). U.S. Government. “The Seven Year Plan (1959-65) calls for construction of 15 million urban dwelling units with a total floorspace of 650 million to 660 million sq m. Of these amounts, 10 million apartments with a total floorspace of 424 million sq m are to be built by state organizations,…Expenditures under the state plan are to amount to 323 billion rubles.” (p. 8)
[140] Bakanov S. A., Khlyzov V. E. ‘All-Union Housing Census of the USSR in 1960: Organization and Results’, Modern History of Russia, vol. 13, no. 2, 2023, pp. 482–499. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu24.2023.215 (In Russian). “Благоустроенность жилья Уровень благоустройства жилья заметно отличался в городской и сельской местности. Так, в сельской местности в обобществленном фонде водопроводом было обеспечено только 4,5% жилой площади, канализацией — 3,5%, центральным отоплением и теплофикацией — 4,5%, горячим водоснабжением — 0,2%, газом — 0,6%51. В городской местности благоустроенность жилья была существенно выше, но здесь ее уровень отличался в зависимости от принадлежности домов к обобществленному или необобществленному фонду. Так, в обобществленном фонде из 339,1 млн м2 жилой площади 190 млн м2, или 56%, было оборудовано водопроводом, 177,9 млн м2 (52,4%) — канали-зацией, 147,9 млн м2 (43,6%) — центральным отоплением и теплофикацией, 98,2 млн м2 (28,9%) — газом, 102,2 млн м2 (30,1%) — ванной или душем. В то время как в фонде, находящемся в личной собственности, преобладали тенденции, более характерные для сельской местности. Здесь водопроводом было оборудовано только 4,2% жилья, канализацией — 1,3%, центральным отоплением — 2,1%, газом — 2%, ванной или душем — 0,9%.” (p. 490)
[“The level of housing amenities differed significantly in urban and rural areas. Thus, in rural areas, only 4.5% of the living space in the socialized housing stock was provided with running water, 3.5% with sewerage, 4.5% with central heating and district heating, 0.2% with hot water, and 0.6% with gas51. In urban areas, the level of housing amenities was significantly higher, but here its level varied depending on whether the houses belonged to a socialized or non-socialized housing stock. Thus, in the socialized housing stock, out of 339.1 million m2 of living space, 190 million m2, or 56%, was equipped with running water, 177.9 million m2 (52.4%) with sewerage, 147.9 million m2 (43.6%) with central heating and district heating, 98.2 million m2 (28.9%) with gas, 102.2 million m2 (30.1%) — a bath or shower. While in the privately owned stock, trends more typical of rural areas prevailed. Here, only 4.2% of housing was equipped with running water, 1.3% with sewerage, 2.1% with central heating, 2% with gas, and 0.9% with a bath or shower.”]
[141] U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. (1960, April 6). Memorandum from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mallory) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Rubottom). In Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume VI, Cuba; Washington, April 6, 1960, Document 499. Retrieved from Office of the Historian, FRUS 1958–1960, Vol. VI, Document 499. “If the above are accepted or cannot be successfully countered, it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.
The principal item in our economic quiver would be flexible authority in the sugar legislation. This needs to be sought urgently. All other avenues should likewise be explored. But first, a decision is [Page 886] necessary as to the line of our conduct. Would you wish to have such a proposal prepared for the Secretary?”
- Non-Western democratic forms
Soviet trade unions
[142] McDonald, J. G., Chase, S., & Walsh, E. A. (1927). Soviet Russia after ten years. Foreign Policy Association. “There are only twenty-three national trade unions in Soviet Russia. All of these are organized on industrial lines. There is no such thing as a craft union, no carpenters' union, plasterers' union, pressmen's union or weavers' union. There is a building workers' union, a metal workers' union, a textile workers' union, a printers' union, and so on. The Russian workers told us that their unions have profited by observing the craft unions in other countries as well as in their own where, even after the revolution of 1917, a wide variety of small craft unions had come into existence. They modeled their unions on industrial lines, apparently a necessity where workers control industry. However, in some of the unions there are special craft or departmental groups associated chiefly for scientific purposes, like the engineering and technical sections of practically every national union. The Factory Committee The foundation stone in the trade union structural organization is the factory committee. These committees consist usually of three union members in a factory having from 25 to 300 workers, five members for those with 300 to 1,000; seven members for those from 1,000 to 5,000 and nine for all those having more than 5,000. The number is much greater in some unions, the Central Committee fixing the size. They are elected usually at general meetings of the factory workers where every worker, union or non-union, if he is eligible for the union, has the right to cast a vote. Voting is not by secret ballot but by a show of hands. Only union workers may be on the committee. The factory committee has certain members, chosen by the committee itself, who devote their full time to the work, their regular wages being paid to them while engaged in this service. In a typical factory of more than 1,000 workers there is a factory committee of three, one member of which is usually called the president, another the secretary and the third usually the chairman of the sub-committee on the protection of labor. The committees hold office for one year. However, their work may be reviewed and a new election held at the end of six months if the workers demand it. And in most unions the committee, or individual members of it, may be recalled and a new election held on request of one-third of the members. In every factory having a factory committee we found the following sub-committees at work: protection of labor, culture, standardization-conflict, and production. A member of the committee usually heads each sub-committee. The other members are either from the committee or are appointed by it from the ranks of the workers. The chief functions of the sub-committees are the following: The protection of labor committee carries on all the work connected with the protection of the worker against ill health and industrial accidents. It sees to it, for instance, that laws relating to sanitation and the guarding of machines are carried out to the letter. It directs the sending of workers to hospitals, rest homes and sanitariums; the erection and maintenance of communal baths and laundries; supervises children's institutions operated in connection with the factory; and interests itself in the establishment and maintenance of cooperatives and workers' apartment houses. The culture (or education-culture) committee carries on a wide variety of activities intended to raise the cultural level of the workers, to increase their industrial qualifications and to enrich their lives, during work and leisure. It organizes classes, circles, lectures, concerts, movies, libraries, schools, clubs, sports and physical-culture activities, excursions, reading rooms, choirs, and theatricals. It takes charge of the expenditure of the money paid by the industry to the union for culture purposes under the collective agreement. The standardization-conflict committee is usually represented on the workers' side by two or three of the most intelligent men in the factory. Upon it falls the heavy responsibility of bargaining for wage rates and settling disputes, either individual or collective. Production committees are now at work in practically every industrial and transportation unit. They are usually composed of from 3 to 15 members chosen by the factory committee. They include active workers, representatives of management and the technical personnel. They carry out the production work described hereafter. The factory committee plays a very important role in the workers' lives. It is subordinate to the higher trade union organs, but within its sphere it is the free and powerful agent of the workers, defending their rights and representing their everyday interests. Because of the nature of the Soviet state and the organization of economic life in Russia, factory councils in no other country have as much power or perform more vital services. They have no direct control or responsibility in management, but they operate in various ways to check those tendencies toward bureaucracy, which are especially dangerous in a socialist state.” (p. 21-24)
Vietnamese Fatherland Front
[143] Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (n.d.). Political system. Viet Nam Government Portal. Retrieved February 15, 2026, from https://vietnam.gov.vn/political-system-68959. “The Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF) is a voluntary political coalition of political organizations, socio-political organizations, social organizations and individuals from all classes, social strata, ethnic groups, and religions, including overseas Vietnamese. The VFF’s objectives are to gather and build up a whole-people unity bloc, strengthen the people’s political and spiritual consensus, encourage the people to promote their mastership, to implement the CPV’s guidelines and policies, and to abide by the Constitution and laws. The VFF is governed by the principles of democratic consensus, coordinated and united action. The VFF has its own statute. The system of the VFF’s organs is in accordance with that of the State’s administrative structure from the central to grass-root levels.”
[144] Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (n.d.). Political system. Viet Nam Government Portal. Retrieved February 15, 2026, from https://vietnam.gov.vn/political-system-68959. “Apart from the Viet Nam Fatherland Front and the Việt nam Labor Confederation, in Viet Nam, there are other political and social organizations, like the Viet Nam Women’s Association, the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth’s Union, the Viet Nam Veterans’ Association, and professional associations. These organizations played an important role in the struggle for national salvation. In the cause of renovation, industrialization and modernization, they have continued to contribute to the implementation of the Party’s guidelines and the Government’s policies.”
[145] Chi, D. V. (2025). The role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front in Ho Chi Minh City in building and promoting socialist democracy through social supervision. International Journal of Philosophy, 13(3), 108-115. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.15 “The social supervision activities of the Vietnam Fatherland Front of Ho Chi Minh City have shown an important role in promoting socialist democracy, thereby making certain progress in protecting the lawful rights of the people and ensuring transparency and accountability of authorities at all levels.” (p. 114)
[146] Chi, D. V. (2025). The role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front in Ho Chi Minh City in building and promoting socialist democracy through social supervision. International Journal of Philosophy, 13(3), 108-115. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.15“The Vietnam Fatherland Front plays an important role in monitoring and conducting social criticism to enhance the effectiveness of state governance, ensure transparency, and protect the rights and interests of the people.” (p. 109)
[147] Viet Nam News. (2024, October 18). Việt Nam Fatherland Front sets targets, action programmes for 2024-2029 tenure. https://vietnamnews.vn/politics-laws/1665240/viet-nam-fatherland-front-sets-targets-action-programmes-for-2024-2029-tenure.html. “The six action programmes include increasing communications to unite people from all walks of life, strengthening social consensus, promoting the strength of the great national solidarity bloc, improving the quality and effectiveness of social supervision and criticism, and promoting democracy and engagement in Party and State building. They also focus on encouraging participation in emulation movements, promoting the mastery role and self-management of the people, building united, prosperous, and happy residential areas, improving the effectiveness of people diplomacy overseas Vietnamese affairs, and continuing to innovate the organisational structure and operation methods of the front, and improving the capacity of the front's officials at all levels.
Along with the approval of reports on the performance of the VFF Central Committee, Presidium, and Standing Board in the 2019-24 tenure, delegates adopted the revised and supplemented Charter of the front.
They agreed that in the 2019-24 tenure, amid numerous challenges from the regional and the world situation as well as impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the front managed to complete all targets and tasks set at the 9th National Congress with considerable achievements. The great national solidarity bloc has been firmly maintained, and the people’s close bonds with and trust in the Party and State increasingly reinforced and strengthened. The core political role and responsibility of the front, socio-political organisations, and VFF member organisations, with the core being the alliance among the working class, farmers and intellectuals, have been promoted in gathering the masses to fulfil the mission of building the great national solidarity bloc. The VFF takes peace, independence, democracy, prosperity, civilisation and happiness of the people as the common goal in the cause of building and defending the Fatherland. Its committees at all levels and member organisations have strongly renovated their operation methods, acting as an important connection point between the Party and administration and the people, promoting the role of the people in social life, and representing and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people. At the congress, delegates approved a list of 397 members of the 10th VFF Central Committee. At the first session of the committee, Đỗ Văn Chiến, Politburo member, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Party Delegation to the VFF, and President of the 9th VFF Central Committee, was elected as the President of the 10th Central Committee of the front for the 2024-29 tenure.”
Chinese neighborhood committees
[148] National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. (2025). 中华人民共和国城市居民委员会组织法 [Organic Law of the Urban Residents Committees of the People's Republic of China]. http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c1773/c1848/c21114/csjmwyhzzfxd/csjmwyhzzfxd002/202510/t20251030_449168.html. “第三章 居民委员会的选举。 第十四条 居民委员会主任、副主任和委员，由本社区全体有选举权的居民或者由每户派代表选举产生；根据居民意见，也可以由居民代表选举产生。居民委员会每届任期五年，届满应当及时举行换届选举，居民委员会成员可以连选连任。第十五条 居民委员会的选举，由居民选举委员会主持。居民选举委员会由主任、副主任和委员组成，由居民会议或者居民代表会议推选产生。居民选举委员会成员或者其近亲属被提名为居民委员会成员候选人的，应当退出居民选举委员会。居民选举委员会成员退出居民选举委员会或者因其他原因出缺的，按照原推选结果依次递补，也可以另行推选。第十六条 年满十八周岁的居民，不分民族、种族、性别、职业、家庭出身、宗教信仰、教育程度、财产状况、居住期限，都有选举权和被选举权；但是，依照法律被剥夺政治权利的人除外。居民委员会选举前，应当对下列表示参加选举的人员进行登记：（一）户籍在本社区的居民；（二）户籍不在本社区但在本社区常住的居民。户籍不在本社区，在本社区工作六个月以上的社区工作者，本人申请参加选举的，由居民选举委员会确认并进行登记。第十七条 经登记的选民名单应当在选举日的二十日前公布；采取每户派代表或者居民代表选举方式的，应当同时公布户的代表或者新一届居民代表名单。 对名单有异议的，应当自名单公布之日起五日内向居民选举委员会提出申诉，居民选举委员会应当自收到申诉之日起三日内作出处理决定，并公布处理结果。第十八条 居民委员会成员候选人由社区党组织或者十名以上选民联合提名推荐。提名推荐候选人，应当从全体居民利益出发，推荐拥护中国共产党的领导、奉公守法、品行良好、公道正派、热心公益、具有一定文化水平和工作能力的人为候选人。被开除中国共产党党籍，因犯罪受过刑事处罚，利用黑恶势力从事非法活动，组织或者参加非法宗教活动或者邪教活动的，不得作为候选人。候选人的名额应当多于应选名额。居民选举委员会应当组织候选人与居民见面，由候选人介绍履行职责的设想，回答居民提出的问题。第十九条 选举居民委员会，采取全体有选举权的居民选举方式的，有选民的过半数参加投票，选举有效；采取每户派代表选举方式的，有户的代表的过半数参加投票，选举有效；采取居民代表选举方式的，有超过三分之二的居民代表参加投票，选举有效。候选人获得参加投票的人员过半数的选票，始得当选。当选人数不足应选名额的，不足的名额另行选举。另行选举的，第一次投票未当选的人员得票多的为候选人，候选人以得票多的当选，但是所得票数不得少于已投选票总数的三分之一。选举实行无记名投票、公开计票的方法，选举结果应当当场公布。选举时，应当设立秘密写票处。选举期间外出的选民，可以书面委托本社区其他选民代为投票。每一选民接受的委托不得超过三人。候选人不得接受委托投票。居民选举委员会应当公布委托人和受托人的名单。采取居民代表选举方式的，不实行委托投票。具体选举办法由省、自治区、直辖市的人民代表大会常务委员会规定。第二十条 本社区十分之一以上有选举权的居民或者户的代表，或者三分之一以上的居民代表联名，可以提出罢免居民委员会成员的要求，并说明要求罢免的理由。被提出罢免的居民委员会成员有权提出申辩意见。罢免居民委员会成员，应当按照产生时的选举方式组织进行投票，须有选民或者户的代表过半数或者超过三分之二的居民代表投票，并须经投票人员的过半数通过。第二十一条 居民委员会成员可以向居民委员会提出辞职申请，其职务自居民会议或者居民代表会议审议通过之日起终止。第二十二条 以暴力、威胁、欺骗、贿赂、伪造选票、虚报选举票数等不正当手段当选居民委员会成员的，当选无效。对以暴力、威胁、欺骗、贿赂、伪造选票、虚报选举票数等不正当手段，妨害居民行使选举权、被选举权，破坏居民委员会选举的行为，居民有权向不设区的市、市辖区人民代表大会常务委员会举报，也可以向街道办事处或者不设区的市、市辖区的人民政府及其有关主管部门举报，由街道办事处或者不设区的市、市辖区的人民政府负责调查并依法处理。第二十三条 居民委员会成员丧失行为能力或者被判处刑罚的，其职务自行终止。第二十四条 居民委员会成员出缺，可以通过居民会议或者居民代表会议补选。补选程序参照本法第十八条、第十九条的规定办理。补选的居民委员会成员的任期到本届居民委员会任期届满时止。第二十五条 居民委员会应当自新一届居民委员会产生之日起十日内完成工作移交。工作移交由居民选举委员会主持，由街道办事处监督。” [English Translation: Chapter III: Election of the Residents' Committee. Article 14 The director, deputy director(s), and members of the residents' committee shall be elected by all eligible voters in the community or by representatives elected by each household. Based on the opinions of the residents, they may also be elected by resident representatives. The term of office of a residents' committee is five years. Upon expiration of the term, a new election shall be held promptly. Members of the residents' committee may be re-elected consecutively. Article 15 Elections for the residents' committee shall be presided over by a residents' electoral committee. The residents' electoral committee shall be composed of a director, deputy director(s), and members, and shall be elected and formed by the residents' assembly or the residents' representative assembly. If a member of the residents' electoral committee or their close relative is nominated as a candidate for the residents' committee, that member shall withdraw from the residents' electoral committee. If a member of the residents' electoral committee withdraws or is absent for other reasons, they shall be replaced in order according to the original election results, or a new election may be held. Article 16 Residents who have reached the age of 18, regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, occupation, family background, religious belief, education level, property status, or length of residence, have the right to vote and stand for election, except for persons deprived of political rights according to law. Before the election of the residents' committee, the following persons who have indicated their intention to participate in the election shall be registered: (1) Residents whose household registration is in this community; (2) Residents whose household registration is not in this community but who reside permanently in this community. Community workers whose household registration is not in this community but who have worked in this community for more than six months, if they apply to participate in the election, shall be confirmed and registered by the residents' electoral committee. Article 17 The list of registered voters shall be announced 20 days before the election date. If the election method of sending representatives per household or resident representatives is adopted, the list of household representatives or the new resident representatives shall be announced at the same time. If there is an objection to the list, a complaint shall be lodged with the residents' electoral committee within five days from the date of announcement. The residents' electoral committee shall make a decision within three days from the date of receiving the complaint and announce the result. Article 18 Candidates for members of the residents' committee shall be jointly nominated and recommended by the community Party organization or by more than ten voters. When nominating and recommending candidates, proceeding from the interests of all residents, persons who support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, abide by the law and discipline, have good conduct, are fair and upright, are public-spirited, and possess a certain educational level and work ability shall be recommended. Persons who have been expelled from the Communist Party of China, have received criminal penalties for crimes, have used criminal syndicates to engage in illegal activities, or have organized or participated in illegal religious activities or cult activities shall not serve as candidates. The number of candidates shall be greater than the number of persons to be elected. The residents' electoral committee shall organize meetings between candidates and residents, where the candidates introduce their plans for performing their duties and answer questions raised by residents. Article 19 In an election for the residents' committee: - If the method of election by all eligible voters is adopted, the election is valid if more than half of the voters participate in the voting. - If the method of sending representatives per household is adopted, the election is valid if more than half of the household representatives participate in the voting. - If the method of resident representatives is adopted, the election is valid if more than two-thirds of the resident representatives participate in the voting. A candidate is elected only after obtaining more than half of the votes cast by the participants. If the number of elected persons is less than the number of persons to be filled, a by-election shall be held for the remaining positions. In a by-election, among the candidates who were not elected in the first round, those with more votes shall be the candidates, and the candidates with the highest number of votes shall be elected, provided that the number of votes obtained is not less than one-third of the total votes cast. Elections shall be conducted by secret ballot and public vote counting, and the election results shall be announced on the spot. During the election, a private voting booth shall be set up. Voters who are away during the election period may entrust another voter of this community in writing to vote on their behalf. Each voter may accept no more than three entrustments. Candidates may not accept entrusted votes. The residents' electoral committee shall announce the list of principals and 受托人 (trustees). The method of entrusted voting shall not be implemented in elections using the resident representative method. Specific election measures shall be stipulated by the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of the province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central Government. Article 20 More than one-tenth of the eligible voters or household representatives in this community, or more than one-third of the resident representatives jointly, may request the recall of a member of the residents' committee and shall state the reasons for the recall. The member of the residents' committee proposed for recall has the right to present a defense. To recall a member of the residents' committee, voting shall be organized according to the election method used for their election. The vote requires the participation of more than half of the voters or household representatives or more than two-thirds of the resident representatives, and shall be passed by more than half of the voters. Article 21 Members of the residents' committee may submit a resignation application to the residents' committee, and their position shall terminate from the date it is considered and approved by the residents' assembly or the residents' representative assembly. Article 22 Persons elected as members of the residents' committee by improper means like violence, threats, deception, bribery, forged ballots, or false vote counts shall be deemed invalidly elected. For acts that use improper means like violence, threats, deception, bribery, forged ballots, or false vote counts to obstruct residents from exercising their right to vote and stand for election, or to sabotage residents' committee elections, residents have the right to report to the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of the city not divided into districts or the municipal district, or to report to the sub-district office or the people's government of the city not divided into districts or the municipal district and its relevant competent departments. The sub-district office or the people's government of the city not divided into districts or the municipal district shall be responsible for investigating and handling the matter according to law. Article 23 If a member of the residents' committee loses capacity or is sentenced to a criminal penalty, their position shall be automatically terminated. Article 24 If a position on the residents' committee becomes vacant, a by-election may be held through the residents' assembly or the residents' representative assembly. The by-election procedure shall refer to the provisions of Articles 18 and 19 of this Law. The term of office of a by-elected member of the residents' committee shall end on the date the current term of the residents' committee expires. Article 25 The residents' committee shall complete the handover of work within ten days from the date the new residents' committee is formed. The work handover shall be presided over by the residents' electoral committee and supervised by the sub-district office.]
Cuban CDRs
[149] Medel Toro, J. C. (2020). Socialist governmentality: political formation, revolutionary instruction, and socialist emulation in the CDR, Cuba, 1961-1965. Revista Tempo e Argumento, 12(29), e0203. https://doi.org/10.5965/2175180312292020e0203. “However, we may see by means of these interviews that the CDR, in the mid-1960s, were more worried about persuading those Cubans who were still skeptical about the revolutionary project rather than repressing those who did not believe the project. One of their main goals was ideological. It consisted in convincing the community outside the CDR. Therefore, the defense of the revolution, their main aim, was not just about surveillance and nightwatch patrol. It was also about the ideological defense of the revolution. In the struggle for hegemony, CDR members were one of the most important players in the Cuban Revolution. The CDR worked as ideological weapons against the vestiges of the old regime and its capitalist hegemony. In this rationale, the defense of the revolution was the defense of a specific narrative, i.e. socialist progress and development. The struggle against the enemy was also fought with ideas, stories, and representations. So, the CDR underwent a transition in the early 1960s, coming from a mass organization for the defense of the revolution through political surveillance to an organization with more concrete ideological goals related to the political formation of the Cuban people. The history of the CDR in Cuba allowed us to see the revolution beyond the traditional vanguard, i.e. a party, a government, or a State. The CDR gave different meanings to what they saw as a vanguard. Some of their members actually regarded themselves as a revolutionary vanguard. This ‘vanguardismo’ was quite different from that shown by some left-wing political organizations in Latin-America, where the masses go behind somebody – they follow, but never lead. The history of the CDR demonstrates that, in a revolutionary context, the masses can rethink their role in the process, take the initiative, lead. In other words, the masses have their own historical rhythm. Sometimes, the revolutionary masses go beyond the boundaries imposed by the revolutionary leadership. Although the CDR never challenged directly the Cuban government (after all, they saw the Cuban government as their government), their members still sought and found new ways to express their revolutionary agency. Their enthusiasm pushed the revolution from below, helping it to shape Cuban socialism in a unique way. This opened new possibilities to see political participation, in order to build a new radical democracy, i.e. a new way of understanding democracy. Their failures and mistakes cannot erase their efforts to build a better Cuba.” (p. 26-27)
[150] Estrada, L. (2025, September 30). Cuba’s Revolutionary Defense Committees Are On The Way Out. Havana Times. https://havanatimes.org/diaries/lien-estrada/cubas-revolutionary-defense-committees-are-on-the-way-out. “On September 28, 1960, the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) were founded, and they have just marked another anniversary. The activities of this were once a major event. Money was collected, syrups were purchased to make refreshments for the children, along with meat and vegetables for the caldosa (which was prepared right in the middle of the street with the entire neighborhood). The purchase of bottles of rum and wine was also authorized…And all the streets (we can recall the classic song performed by Leo Brouwer and Sara Gonzalez, “On every block a committee”) were decorated with many little colored flags accompanying the Cuban one, strung on both sides of the streets or hung right on the fences. These dates were never overlooked in any way, because this was one of the most important mass organizations, founded by the energetic leader Fidel Castro Ruz in 1960, for the surveillance (“watch over”) of the very people themselves. Which, of course, also meant a mechanism of control and repression over those same people, especially the “less revolutionary”, because the organization had the duty to denounce crimes committed by the population. And bearing in mind that in Cuba under the Castro regime practically everything is a crime by law, the organization could become truly feared and despised by many. The CDRs also had other social tasks besides those mentioned, like instructing the people on how to defend themselves in the event of a surprise attack by Yankee imperialism: preparing people to run to shelters, for example, or mobilizing us to a firing range to learn to shoot pellet shotguns. Other functions included welcoming back someone who had returned home after serving a prison sentence, with a revolutionary activity as a sign that they were being reintegrated into society; or if a baby was born in the community, that too was a reason for a neighborhood celebration.”
[151] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “Although many coups are homegrown, one obvious historic model of a foreign-assisted coup in Iran is Operation Ajax, the 1953 coup d’état that overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq and reinstated the rule of Shah Reza Pahlavi. To carry out the coup, the CIA and British intelligence supported General Fazlollah Zahedi, providing him and his followers with money and propaganda, as well as helping organize their activities.” (p. 124).
[152] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “The U.S. officials charged with implementing the Bush Administration’s policy of diplomatic pressure on Iran played a weak hand surprisingly well. Despite the constraints placed on them—particularly their inability to offer significant positive incentives to Iran or to other key international actors to secure their cooperation—they devised novel financial sanctions that caused real pain in Tehran.” (p. 2).
[153] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “Despite these accomplishments, the Bush Administration’s approach was wearing thin before the president left office. Although battered, Tehran has so far withstood the international pressure and has made steady progress toward acquiring a nuclear capability.” (p. 2).
[154] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “The Iranian economy is a mess, with both inflation and unemployment approaching 30 percent. Iran remains completely dependent on oil exports for its economic livelihood, but the low price of oil and projections of dramatic declines in Iranian oil production (a product of mismanagement and the inability to secure Western technology because of the sanctions) are drastically curtailing Tehran’s principal revenues.” (p. 13).
[155] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “Because the Iranian leadership was consistently unwilling to jettison its ideological, political, and nationalistic antipathies toward the United States, it was never willing to accept American offers for better relations, most notably during 1989-1991 under the Bush 41 Administration and in 1998-2000 under the Clinton Administration.” (p. 5).
[156] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “Under the Iran Freedom Support Act of 2006 (and subsequent renewals), the United States is authorized to provide financial and political aid to organizations promoting democracy in Iran.” (p. 105-106).
[157] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “The best candidate for such a role would be a broad-based opposition group with cohesiveness, some history of armed resistance, a clear leadership, and widespread popular support. Unfortunately, none of the current candidates can claim to meet all of those criteria.” (p. 116).
[158] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “Although Persians dominate Iran, they represent only half of the population. At least to some outside observers, Iran appears rife with ethnic unrest, and these cleavages could become the means by which the United States could try to mobilize one or more insurgencies against the Islamic regime.” (p. 116).
[159] Pollack, K. M., Byman, D. L., Indyk, M., Maloney, S., O’Hanlon, M. E., & Riedel, B. (2009). Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American strategy toward Iran. The Saban Center at The Brookings Institution. “Tehran has often been harsh in its crackdowns on minority groups, many of which are concentrated away from the capital and thus are hidden from media attention.” (p. 116-117).
[160] Ameri, G., & Wang, J. (n.d.). How US leaders can best support protesters in Iran. The Hill. “Public diplomacy presents a variety of steps that U.S. and global leaders can take to fulfill this opportunity… Ensure that Iranian domestic social media consistently remains accessible.”
[161] Hersh, S. M. (2008, July 7). Preparing the Battlefield. The New Yorker. “L ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.”
[162] Hersh, S. M. (2008, July 7). Preparing the Battlefield. The New Yorker. “The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change, and involved working with opposition groups and passing money.”
[163] Hersh, S. M. (2008, July 7). Preparing the Battlefield. The New Yorker. “United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year.”
[164] Hersh, S. M. (2008, July 7). Preparing the Battlefield. The New Yorker. “The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong.”
[165] Dresen, F. Joseph (2003). The piratization of Russia: Russian reform goes awry. Wilson Center. “In 1991 a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union to claim ownership of some of the world’s most valuable petroleum, natural gas, and metal deposits. This resulted in one of the world’s greatest transfers of wealth,” said Marshall Goldman… “By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest billionaires–This year, there are 17 on this list.”
[166] Dresen, F. Joseph (2003). The piratization of Russia: Russian reform goes awry. Wilson Center. “The new Russian government quickly embarked on a course of reforms called shock therapy, with the ultimate goal of preventing the return of communism to Russia. The policy, which was fully supported by influential Western advisors, was to immediately free price controls and privatize state-owned enterprises as quickly as possible.”
[167] Dresen, F. Joseph (2003). The piratization of Russia: Russian reform goes awry. Wilson Center. “Goldman argued that it was a mistake to focus only on the privatization of state sectors. ‘[The Russians], and particularly the western advisors, neglected the fact that what you were doing was privatizing, except for the small shops, large enterprises that were essentially monopolies. So what happened? You’ve turned a state monopoly into a private monopoly, but the private monopoly doesn’t operate all that much differently.’ Goldman noted that the small business sector is only 10-30 percent of Russian GDP, compared to 50 percent in the economies in the West.”
[168] Dresen, F. Joseph (2003). The piratization of Russia: Russian reform goes awry. Wilson Center. “The consequences of shock therapy were severe for Russia. The economy contracted by nearly 50 percent between 1991-97, and experienced hyperinflation in the early 1990s. Social dysfunction followed, with a dramatic rise in poverty, corruption, and capital flight.”
[169] Vanden Heuvel, K. (2007). Yeltsin—Father of democracy? The Nation. “Beginning in early 1992, Yeltsin launched the disastrous ‘shock therapy’ policies which sent the country reeling with pain. Urged upon Russia by a group of US (primarily Harvard) economists, and supported by the Clinton Administration… these policies… involved the swift elimination of most price controls and a privatization program that resulted in hyperinflation wiping out, in installments, the savings of average Russians. Roughly half of Russia’s people thus found themselves living below the poverty level.”
[170] Vanden Heuvel, K. (2007). Yeltsin—Father of democracy? The Nation. “In August 1998, following a number of financial dealings that victimized or failed to benefit most Russians, the government after pledging not to do so, suddenly devalued the ruble, defaulted on its debts and froze bank accounts. In effect, people’s savings were once again expropriated, this time decimating the post-1991 middle class.”
[171] Vanden Heuvel, K. (2007). Yeltsin—Father of democracy? The Nation. “Boris Yeltsin, who died on April 23, was a towering figure in Russian political history. But was he, as so many US obituaries and editorials have described him, the ‘Father of Russian Democracy’? As though a wave of historical amnesia had swept over the media, few commentators seemed to remember that it was Mikhail Gorbachev… who launched the democratic reforms of ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost.’”
[172] Vanden Heuvel, K. (2007). Yeltsin—Father of democracy? The Nation. “In October 1993, Yeltsin used tank cannons to destroy not only the Parliament that had brought him to power and defended him during the attempted coup of 1991 but the entire political, constitutional order of Russia’s post-Communist republic. The US government and media, with few exceptions, acted as Yeltsin’s cheerleaders.”
[173] Vanden Heuvel, K. (2007). Yeltsin—Father of democracy? The Nation. “In 1996, Yeltsin’s reelection campaign—financed by a handful of oligarchs including now-exiled Putin opponent Boris Berezovsky and aided by pro-Kremlin media bias and censorship—was marked by spectacular legal violations.”
[174] Campbell, A. (2021). The wild decade: How the 1990s laid the foundations for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Euromaidan Press. “The social impact was immense. Life expectancy fell, with up to five million excess adult deaths in Russia in 1991-2001, birth rates collapsed and both of these trends were compounded by widespread crime and trafficking.”
[175] Campbell, A. (2021). The wild decade: How the 1990s laid the foundations for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Euromaidan Press. “Yeltsin’s presidency remained beholden to Russia’s regional governors and the oligarchs. It fell to Putin to curtail the powers of these groups, campaigning in 2000 under the slogan ‘the dictatorship of law.’”
[176] Strickland, D. (2021). Overriding democracy: American intervention in Yeltsin’s 1996 re-election campaign. Presidential Studies Quarterly. “The coming economic contraction continued almost unabated until 1999.”
[177] Campbell, A. (2021). The wild decade: How the 1990s laid the foundations for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Euromaidan Press. “The failures of privatization, coupled with political manipulation, undermined democracy and created fertile ground for authoritarianism. Distrust of reform and resentment toward Western policies cemented a shift away from liberal democracy, shaping the trajectory of modern Russia.”
[178] Vietnam’s wars against France, U.S.Tucker-Jones, A. (2017). Dien Bien Phu: The first Indochina War 1946–1954. Pen and Sword Military. “Instead, de Gaulle informed Leclerc that he proposed to redesignate the wartime French III Corps to become the headquarters for an expeditionary force destined for Indochina. This would be created using the 3rd and 9th colonial infantry divisions. Leclerc would be commander-in-chief of this force, answering to Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu, the newly appointed High Commissioner for Indochina. De Gaulle told d’Argenlieu that his incredibly complex mission was to recover Indochina from the British, Chinese, Japanese and the Viet Minh, and to re-establish French sovereignty in the region. D’Argenlieu and Leclerc were to make no concessions to the Vietnamese nationalists. All they were to offer, once firmly in control, was limited internal autonomy to each of the states of Indochina within a French Union. Leclerc would be in charge of all foreign affairs, defence policy and internal politics. While de Gaulle and his supporters were determined that Indochina should be returned to French authority, Ho Chi Minh aspired to full independence for his country. Ho and his supporters saw the impending post-war vacuum as their best chance to attain this. However, before he could even contend with the French, Ho was to find himself caught between the British and the Nationalist Chinese.” (p. 35-36)
[179] Tucker-Jones, A. (2017). Dien Bien Phu: The first Indochina War 1946–1954. Pen and Sword Military. “At the end of the war, it was not long before a large Chinese army of ‘liberation’ , numbering some 150,000 under General Lu Han, pillaged its way over the border. It was formed of units whose loyalty to Chiang Kai- shek was suspect, so he was probably glad to have them out of the way and preoccupied. Certainly, Lu Han’s ultimate sympathies lay with Mao. He was to defect in 1949. It was not long before these Chinese troops had alienated the [180] Vietnamese, French and Japanese in Tonkin and north Annam. France’s initial attempt to reassert sovereignty lacked power, having the air of a comic opera. In late August 1945, two teams, led by colonels who were to act as the administrators for the north and the south, were parachuted in. To the north, Colonel Messmer was immediately arrested by the Viet Minh and forced to flee to China. Colonel Cédile, sent to the south, was ignored by the Viet Min and was left at liberty to liaise with the local French authorities.” (p. 37)
[181] Tucker-Jones, A. (2017). Dien Bien Phu: The first Indochina War 1946–1954. Pen and Sword Military. “Ho Chi Minh moved from his stronghold into Hanoi, hoping to pre-empt the Chinese as much as the French. On 2 September 1945, he declared the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Emperor Bao Dai, after abdicating, became chief counsellor to the new government. The communist-dominated Provisional Executive Committee of South Vietnam, led by Tran Van Giau in Saigon, acknowledged the authority of Ho’s northern government. Ho, however, was in a very weak position and had to agree with General Lu to dissolve the Vietnamese Communist Party and hold elections to create a broad coalition government.” (p. 38)
[182] Tucker-Jones, A. (2017). Dien Bien Phu: The first Indochina War 1946–1954. Pen and Sword Military. “Mountbatten had discussed British plans, known as Operation Masterdom, to deal with southern Indochina. This envisaged the movement by air to Saigon, via Bangkok, of the 80th Infantry Brigade, part of Major General Douglas Gracey’s 20th Indian Division, plus elements of two RAF squadrons and an Allied Control Commission. The latter was to assist Allied prisoners of war and oversee the repatriation of the Japanese. They would be followed by the rest of Gracey’s division, comprising the 32nd and 100th brigades, which would be shipped by sea. In total, almost 26,000 men and 2,400 vehicles were to be deployed to Saigon to maintain law and order. Once in place, Gracey was to wait until the French were in a position to reassert themselves. His task was simply to take control of the large Japanese garrison, which was to be achieved with the cooperation of Tsuchihashi. The British began arriving in Saigon on 12 September 1945, with a force consisting of Indian Army as well as British units under General Gracey. The 80th Brigade first flew to Bangkok from Burma, and then on to Saigon. It had been almost four weeks since the Japanese emperor announced his country would accept the terms of the Potsdam declaration, and over a week since the Japanese surrendered to MacArthur. In that time, law and order in Indochina had broken down in many areas, and Viet Minh nationalists had seized power in Saigon. Ironically, the Japanese army, once an occupying force, now found itself acting as policeman. Colonel Cédile and his supporters quickly persuaded Gracey to rearm the local French colonial infantry regiments, which had been held by the Japanese. Much to Mountbatten’s displeasure, on 21 September, Gracey declared martial law throughout Indochina south of the 16th Parallel. Two days later, he agreed to the takeover of the government by Cédile.” (p. 39-40)
[183] Tucker-Jones, A. (2017). Dien Bien Phu: The first Indochina War 1946–1954. Pen and Sword Military. “Also at the close of January 1946, the British 80th Brigade relinquished its area of responsibility to the French and the 100th Brigade was withdrawn to Saigon. Gracey handed back southern Vietnam to Leclerc, and by the end of March, Britain had all but ended its seven-month operation. A few troops remained to guard the Allied Control Mission, which was wound up in mid-May. An estimated 2,700 Viet Minh were killed during Operation Masterdom. British fatalities amounted to 40 men. In pacifying Cochinchina, Leclerc lost around 630 dead and 1,000 wounded from a force of 50,000 men. Although French colonial authority had been successfully restored in the four regions south of the dividing 16th Parallel, the Viet Minh were far from defeated.” (p. 45)
[184] Tucker-Jones, A. (2017). Dien Bien Phu: The first Indochina War 1946–1954. Pen and Sword Military. “The most basic Viet Minh unit was the very simple village militia. Made up of farmers, their task was to act as labourers carrying supplies, preparing defences and intelligence gathering. It has been estimated that, by 1954, the Viet Minh could call on over 350,000 militia. They formed a cadre of recruits who could also serve with the regional troops, effectively home guard, commanded by the inter-zone committees. They were responsible for protecting their local zone as well as conducting attacks on isolated local French garrisons. By 1954, these regional troops totalled around 75,000 across the six inter- zones. They, like the militia, were ill-equipped and did not wear uniforms. This meant that they looked like the classic peasant guerrilla. Their main contribution to Giap’s war effort was that they helped tie down French forces the length and breadth of Vietnam. This effectively forced the French to adopt their strongpoint policy in trying to hold and defend territory.” (p. 47-48)
[185] Heller, H. (2019). A Marxist history of capitalism. Routledge. “Capitalism as a mode of production began in England in the sixteenth century. Its expansion based itself on the increasingly generalized production and sale of market commodities. Its gains were distributed as profits, rent and wages paid in money. In succeeding centuries, it spread across the globe. Capitalism is now the way of life of the entire world. Virtually everyone on earth is dependent on market capitalism. There is no frontier beyond its reach. The whole earth is saturated with capitalism’s commodities. All of nature has been conquered and is up for sale. We live in a culture of commodities. The institutions of the state, the legal and educational system and the media reflect and reinforce capitalism’s dominance. Capitalism has been with us for a long time – more than 500 years. It is difficult at this point to think of a different way of living outside the reach of this now totalized reality. It has triumphed everywhere but is reaching its term. We think that capitalism by its very nature needs to expand further spatially and penetrate more deeply into society and is having increasing difficulty doing so. It is reaching its limits as a system. It is a mode of production which is coming to its end because it is locked into the militarism, imperial- ism and unending war that goes with national state sovereignty, insuperable economic as well as political contradictions, increasing social inequality and disintegration and unfolding ecological disasters: a rising litany of troubles to which, by virtue of its own inner dynamic, it has no political answers. As a result, we live in a world of declining opportunities and increasing fear.” (p. 11)
[186] Heller, H. (2019). A Marxist history of capitalism. Routledge. “Indeed, from the sixteenth century onwards more and more peasant producers lost access to sufficient land or means of production to maintain themselves while these properties became the possession of landlords or rich peasants. Whereas class war from below had extended the landholdings of the mass of producers and weakened feudalism in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, this dispossession of poor peasants Merchant capitalism 15 by wealthy peasants and landlords or sixteenth-century class war from above initiated capitalism. The loss of access to the land was often a violent and traumatic expe- rience. This process is part of what Marx called primitive accumulation because it allowed a certain concentration of wealth but especially because it put in place the social relations that permitted the further accumulation of capital. This transformation, which began in 1500, unfolded into the nineteenth century across the face of Western Europe. England found itself in the vanguard of capitalist development. Based on the extension of these new social relations commodity production became generalized as more and more of what was produced was put on the market and increasing num- bers of producers were forced to sell their labour as a commodity. By the end of the eighteenth century half the population of Western Europe were wage workers. This meant that their labour was available to generate surplus value, creating profits for the bourgeoisie that, as a result, grew increasingly powerful as a class in the course of the early modern centuries” (p. 14-15)
[187] Heller, H. (2019). A Marxist history of capitalism. Routledge. “But in the years following 1848 it was the nation-state, which had been pioneered in England, France, Holland and Belgium, that became the political model that was followed by the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany and Japan. In the case of Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan capitalism progressed under state sponsorship in a kind of passive revolution or revolution from above. It should be underlined also that the rapid advance of Japan towards capitalism was significant because it demonstrated the obvious, that capitalism was not unique to white Europeans but developed where social and political conditions favoured it. The Industrial Revolution involved the substitution of the use of capi- tal for labour. But the degree to which this happened depended on where nations came to fit in the international division of labour. England and the United States, where labour costs were relatively high, saw a rapid development of a capital-intensive heavy industry. On the contrary, in France and Japan, where labour costs were relatively lower and the global market permitted it, a more labour-intensive industrialization prevailed (Austin and Sugohara 2013). The consolidation of the nation-states tended to foreclose revolution, containing the working class and allowing the consolidation of capitalism and the capitalist market under the bourgeoisie or under a partnership of bourgeois and landlord rule. The process by which the state bureaucratically organized and made homogenous its territories and fixed its frontiers came to completion through the creation of the nineteenth-century nation-state. On the one hand, there was a growing individuation of the citizens who were liberated from the ties of personal subjection and extended family. On the other hand, he or she bourgeois, peasant, worker was increasingly subject to the physical and ideological control and discipline of the state whose historical myths and traditions were inculcated through public education and often sensationalist newspapers.” (p. 67-68)
[188] People’s Government of Yu’an District, Liu’an City, Yu’an District Health Commission. (2026, January 15). Population and family planning law of the People’s Republic of China. https://www.yuan.gov.cn/public/6620661/24548392.html “Chapter 1 General Rules Article 1 In order to realize the coordinated development of population and economy, society, resources and environment, implement family planning, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, and promote family happiness, national prosperity and social progress, this law is formulated in accordance with the Constitution. Article 2 China is a country with a large population, and the implementation of family planning is the basic national policy of the country. The state has taken comprehensive measures to regulate the population, improve the quality of the population, promote the achievement of moderate fertility, optimize the population structure, and promote the long-term balanced development of the population. The state relies on publicity and education, scientific and technological progress, comprehensive services, the establishment and improvement of incentive and social security systems to carry out population and family planning work. Article 3 Population and family planning should be carried out in combination with increasing women's education and employment opportunities, improving women's health and improving women's status. Article 4 People's governments at all levels and their staff shall strictly administer according to law and enforce the law in a civilized manner in the implementation of family planning, and shall not infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of citizens. The competent health department and its staff shall perform official duties in accordance with the law and shall be protected by law. Article 5 The State Council shall lead the population and family planning work of the whole country. Local people's governments at all levels shall lead the population and family planning work within their administrative areas. Article 6 The competent health department of the State Council shall be responsible for the national family planning work and the population work related to family planning. The competent health departments of local people's governments at or above the county level shall be responsible for family planning and population work related to family planning in their administrative areas. Other relevant departments of the people's governments at or above the county level shall be responsible for the relevant population and family planning work within the scope of their respective responsibilities. Article 7 Social organizations, enterprises, institutions and citizens such as trade unions, the Communist Youth League, the Women's Federation and the Family Planning Association shall assist the people's government in carrying out population and family planning work. Article 8 The State shall reward organizations and individuals who have made remarkable achievements in population and family planning. Chapter II Formulation and Implementation of Population Development Planning Article 9 The State Council shall prepare a population development plan and include it in the national economic and social development plan. Local people's governments at or above the county level shall, in accordance with the national population development plan and the population development plan of the people's government at the next higher level, prepare the population development plan of their administrative areas in the actual situation, and incorporate it into the national economic and social development plan. Article 10 People's governments at or above the county level shall formulate and organize the implementation of population and family planning implementation plans in accordance with the population development plan. The competent health departments of the people's governments at or above the county level shall be responsible for the daily work of implementing the population and family planning implementation program. The people's governments of townships, ethnic townships and towns and urban street offices are responsible for the population and family planning work within their jurisdiction, and the implementation of the population and family planning implementation plan. Article 11 The implementation program for population and family planning shall stipulate measures to regulate the population, improve the quality of the population, promote the achievement of moderate fertility, optimize the population structure, strengthen maternal and infant health care and infant care services, and promote family development. Article 12 Villagers' committees and residents' committees shall do a good job in family planning in accordance with the law. Organs, troops, social organizations, enterprises and institutions should do a good job in family planning in their units. Article 13 Departments of health, education, science and technology, culture, civil affairs, press and publishing, radio and television and other departments shall organize and carry out publicity and education on population and family planning. The mass media has the obligation to carry out social welfare publicity for population and family planning. Schools should carry out physiological health education, adolescent education or sexual health education in a planned manner among students in an appropriate manner that conforms to the characteristics of the educated. Article 14 The family planning work of the mobile population shall be jointly responsible for the management of the people's government where their household registration is located and the people's government where they currently live, and the current place of residence is the main one. Article 15 The State shall gradually improve the overall level of investment in population and family planning according to the national economic and social development situation. People's governments at all levels shall guarantee the necessary funds for population and family planning. People's governments at all levels shall give key support to underdeveloped areas and ethnic minority areas to carry out population and family planning work. The state encourages social organizations, enterprises, institutions and individuals to contribute to population and family planning. No unit or individual shall withhold, deduct or misappropriate the work expenses of population and family planning. Article 16 The State encourages scientific research and foreign exchanges and cooperation in the field of population and family planning. Chapter III Fertility Regulation Article 17 Citizens have the right to have children and the obligation to implement family planning in accordance with the law. Both husband and wife have common responsibilities in the implementation of family planning. Article 18 The State advocates marriage and childbearing of appropriate age and eugenity. A couple can have three children. If you meet the conditions stipulated by laws and regulations, you can request to arrange to have another child. Specific measures shall be stipulated by the people's congresses of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government or their standing committees. Ethnic minorities should also implement family planning, and the specific measures shall be stipulated by the people's congresses of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government or their standing committees. If there is any inconsistency between the provisions on the rebirth of children between the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government where the husband and wife are registered, it shall be applied in accordance with the principle of favor of the parties. Article 19 The State creates conditions to ensure that citizens know that they can choose safe, effective and appropriate contraceptive and birth control measures. The safety of the recipient should be ensured when contraceptive surgery is performed. Article 20 Couples of childbearing age should independently choose family planning contraceptive and contraceptive measures to prevent and reduce unwanted pregnancies. Article 21 Couples of childbearing age who practice family planning shall enjoy the basic items prescribed by the state free of charge. The funds required in the preceding paragraph shall be included in the financial budget or guaranteed by social insurance in accordance with the relevant provisions of the State. Article 22 Discrimination and abuse against women giving birth to female babies and infertile women is prohibited. Discrimination, abuse and abandonment of baby girls are prohibited. Chapter 4 Rewards and Social Security Article 23 The State shall reward husband and wife who practice family planning in accordance with the regulations. Article 24 The State shall establish and improve social security systems such as basic endowment insurance, basic medical insurance, maternity insurance and social welfare, and promote family planning. The state encourages insurance companies to hold insurance projects that are conducive to family planning. Article 25 Couples who meet the requirements of laws and regulations and give birth to children can get rewards or other welfare benefits for extending maternity leave. The state supports the establishment of parental leave in places with conditions. Article 26 During pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, women may enjoy special labor protection and receive help and compensation in accordance with the relevant provisions of the State. The state guarantees the legitimate rights and interests of women's employment and provides employment services for women whose employment is affected by childbirth. Citizens undergo family planning surgery and enjoy the leave stipulated by the state. Article 27 The State shall adopt financial, tax, insurance, education, housing, employment and other supporting measures to reduce the burden of family fertility, up-rearing and education. Article 28 People's governments at or above the county level shall take comprehensive measures such as planning, land, housing, finance, finance and talents to promote the establishment of an inclusive childcare service system and improve the accessibility and fairness of services for infant families. The state encourages and guides social forces to set up childcare institutions and supports kindergartens and organs, enterprises and institutions, and communities to provide childcare services.”
[189] 纪晓华. (2019, July 8). 毛泽东与计划生育. 中共中央党史和文献研究院. https://www.dswxyjy.org.cn/n1/2019/0708/c427750-31220320.html. [Ji, X. (2019, July 8). Mao Zedong and family planning. Institute of Party History and Literature of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.] “However, so far, no historical materials have been found that Mao Zedong directly criticized or instructed Chen Boda and Kang Sheng to criticize Ma Yinchu. Normally, the birth rate of the population should have increased during this period, but the actual situation is the opposite. During this period, China's birth rate has not only not increased, but has decreased significantly. According to the statistics of relevant experts, the birth rate of the population increased from 34. 03‰ Drop to 18 in 1961. 02‰。 In addition to the results of the economic difficulties caused by three years of natural disasters, there is also the "Great Leap Forward" tactics that began in 1958, pulling out a large number of farmers to repair reservoirs, etc., which caused the separation of husband and wife. Second, the period from 1962 to 1966 before the Cultural Revolution, that is, the second peak of fertility in China. Due to the lessons of the failure of the "Great Leap Forward" and the pressure caused by the population rebound, Mao Zedong's idea of family planning began to revive. During this period, the Party Central Committee and the State Council did a lot of work to implement family planning and established the Family Planning Commission of the State Council. However, due to the limited understanding of family planning in the society at that time, and our insufficient understanding of the arrival of the second population fertility peak, the implementation of family planning was not strong enough, and only in some large and medium-sized towns and cities, not in the vast rural areas with the majority of the population. During this period, although Mao Zedong began to re-understand family planning, he failed to prevent or delay the arrival of the second fertility peak of China's population. Third, during the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong's idea of family planning not only did not change, but also increased the work of family planning as much as possible. The historic turning point in family planning work originated during this period. However, due to the destruction of the normal order of the country, the implementation environment for family planning has been lost, and China's population continues to show the momentum of the second fertility peak. It can be seen that the development and change of Mao Zedong's family planning thought has no direct impact on the formation of the two peaks of population fertility.”
[190] Hirata, K. (2024). Making Mao’s steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the transnational origins of Chinese socialism. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009382281 “The dominance of SOEs in Manchuria’s industrial economy originated in the Japanese and Nationalist eras. After the CCP’s 1948 victory, they largely maintained the ownership and organizational struc- ture of the Nationalist-period SOEs in Manchuria, as exempli ed by Angang. In contrast, SOEs did not dominate in the other major indus- trial region of the Shanghai-centered East China, whose overall economy was somewhat larger than Manchuria’s: many Chinese private businesses in and around Shanghai continued operating until the late 1950s. 43 Only in 1958 did East China surpass Manchuria as the region with the highest SOE industrial output. Even after that year, Manchuria maintained the second-largest cluster of SOEs in China throughout the Mao era. Manchurian SOEs such as Angang thus served as national models during the formative years of the PRC’s SOE system. As exempli ed by Angang, SOEs in Manchuria focused primarily on steel and other heavy industries, whereas enterprises in the other indus- trial center– East China– concentrated on light industry. Consequently, Manchuria’s share in China’s heavy industry was particularly high. The Northeast became China’s largest heavy industry region during the Japanese occupation, and in the early PRC, Mao and his colleagues chose to build upon the Japanese-period physical infrastructure to develop the nation’s industrial center. In 1952, Manchuria produced 41 percent of China’s electric power, 33 percent of coal, 39 percent of cement, and 70 percent of steel.44 Manchuria also became the national center of the oil industry from the 1960s thanks to the discovery of the Daqing oil eld. 45 Although Manchuria’s shares gradually decreased over the years as heavy industry developed in other regions, the region’s signicance in China’s heavy industry remained evident even in the 1980s.”(p.14-15)
[191] Hirata, K. (2024). Making Mao’s steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the transnational origins of Chinese socialism. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009382281 “As the CCP aimed to bring China into a higher stage of development by learning from the Soviet Union in the 1950s, industrial Manchuria– like other parts of China– underwent a rapid transformation. Manchuria was at the forefront of this development. As Time magazine noted, “Manchuria has the Russians.” The region was“the marriage couch of Soviet and Chinese Communism.” By 1952, thousands of Soviet tech- nical advisors had spread throughout Manchuria’s factories.123 CCP propagandists, unaware of the connotation that George Orwell had given the phrase, referred to the Soviet Union as the“Soviet Big Brother (蘇聯 老大哥),” asserting that the Chinese should learn everything modern from the Soviets, from popular songs to missile technology. Chapter 4 explores how the PRC–Soviet cooperation unfolded in the expansion of Angang between 1952 and 1957, and how the pre-revolutionary legacy intertwined with new technologies and institutions imported from the “Soviet Big Brother.”” (p. 129)
[192] Hirata, K. (2024). Making Mao’s steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the transnational origins of Chinese socialism. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009382281 “Four decades have passed since Deng Xiaoping seized power in 1978, and today’s China is a starkly different place from Mao’s. The continued single-party rule of the CCP notwithstanding, a market economy has largely supplanted state planning. China has evolved from merely importing technology to becoming a global leader in research and development, with its high-tech products exported worldwide. Its economic size has long eclipsed Japan, and it is projected to surpass the United States in the foreseeable future. This staggering development fuels a popular narrative that emphasizes a great rupture, in which in 1978, Deng Xiaoping suddenly“reformed” and“opened” the backward, isolated system created by Chairman Mao. This dichotomous image aligns with the CCP’s of official historical narrative, which divides recent Chinese economic history into Mao’s “planned economy era (計劃經濟時代)” and Deng’s “reform and opening era (改 革開放時代).”” (p. 301-302)
[193] Hirata, K. (2024). Making Mao’s steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the transnational origins of Chinese socialism. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009382281 “The Angang Constitution quickly lost its political propa- ganda value with Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power. Finally, as China moved to a market economy under Deng Xiaoping, the Angang Constitution surfaced as an object of historical nostalgia. Even Angang itself incorporates the Angang Constitution into its historical narrative today. In this nostalgic narrative, the friction between Angang and the Angang Constitution around 1960 is conveniently overlooked, as are other shifts and disputes during the Mao era. The Mao period is now memorialized as a singular period, as China entered a period of market-oriented reforms, during which Manchuria experienced relative decline.” (p. 264)
[194] Hirata, K. (2024). Making Mao’s steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the transnational origins of Chinese socialism. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009382281 “After consolidating power in 1978, Deng Xiaoping shared his power with other senior CCP luminaries, known as the“Eight Elders (八大元老),” including Chen Yun, a principal architect of China’s socialist industrialization during the Mao period. Under the aegis of elders such as Deng and Chen, two younger leaders took command of day-to-day government affairs. Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦, 1915–1989) occupied the CCP’s top of ce from 1981 to 1987, initially as chairman, later as general secretary. Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽, 1919–2005) served as premier from 1980 to 1987, and subsequently as the CCP’s general secretary from 1987 to 1989. 3 The improvement in diplomatic relationships with capitalist countries and perceived economic stagnation nudged the PRC away from the conventional policy of socialist industrialization.” (p. 266)
[195] Smele, J. D. (2015). The “Russian” civil wars, 1916–1926: Ten years that shook the world. Oxford University Press. “Few would dispute that the “scope” of what has traditionally been termed the “Russian Civil War” was stupendously extensive: after all, it was waged across (and beyond) the borders of a collapsing and then reconfiguring empire that enveloped fully one-sixth of the land surface of the globe; and it involved not only the 160 million or so inhabitants of that multitudinous and multinational imperium, as well as millions of the inhabitants of neighboring states into which the conflicts leached, but also interventionist forces of contending First World War com- batants of both the Allies and the Central Powers, from across Europe and beyond (including colonial units of the British and French empires and armies from the United States, Japan, and China). Having germinated in the mulch of a global conflict, the hitherto so-called “Russian Civil War” was a world war condensed. Australians and other Antipodeans, it must be recorded, disem- barked at Arkhangel′sk! It was also, then, truly a world turned upside down.” (p. 3)
[196] Smele, J. D. (2015). The “Russian” civil wars, 1916–1926: Ten years that shook the world. Oxford University Press. “On 11 September 1918, the RVSR then devised a formal structure for the entire Red Army, which was initially divided into five armies, each with eleven divisions of between six and nine regiments (plus reserve units), grouped around three fronts (the Northern Front, the Eastern Front, and the Southern Front) and the Western Fortified Area.” (p. 85)
[197] Trotsky, L. (2014). The defence of terrorism: Terrorism and communism: A reply to Karl Kautsky (2nd ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1935). “However, even here it is permissible to ask: Does the policy of Clemenceau himself really correspond to the balance of power? At the first glance it may appear that it corresponds well enough, and, if it cannot be proved, it is, at least, guaranteed by Clemenceau's gendarmes, who break up working-class meetings, and arrest and shoot Communists. But here we cannot but remember that the terrorist measures of the Soviet Government-that is, the same searches, arrests, and executions, only directed against the counter-revolu- tionaries-are considered by some people as proof that the Soviet Government does not correspond to the balance of power. In vain would we, however, begin to seek in our time, anywhere in the world, a regime which, to preserve itself, did not have recourse to measures of stern mass repression. This means that hostile class forces, having broken through the framework of every kind of law-including that of "democracy"-are striving to find their new balance by means of a merciless struggle. When the Soviet system was being instituted in Russia, not only the capitalist politicians, but also the Socialist opportunists of all countries proclaimed it an insolent challenge to the balance of forces. On this score, there was no quarrel between Kautsky, the Austrian Count Czernin, and the Bulgarian Premier, Radoslavov. Since that time, the Austro-Hungarian and German monarchies have collapsed, and the moSt powerful militarism in the world has fallen into dust. The Soviet regime has held out. The victorious countries of the Entente have mobilised and hurled againSt it all they could. The Soviet Govern- ment has stood firm. Had Kautsky, Friedrich Adler, and Otto Bauer been told that the syStem of the dictatorship of the proletariat would hold out in Russia-first againSt the attack of German militarism, and then in a ceaseless war with the militarism of the Entente countries- the sages of the Second International would have considered such a prophecy a laughable misunderStanding of the "balance of power.” (p. 15)
[198] Trotsky, L. (2014). The defence of terrorism: Terrorism and communism: A reply to Karl Kautsky (2nd ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1935). “The man who repudiates terrorism in principle-i.e repudiates measures of suppression and intimidation towards determined and armed counter-revolution. muSt reject all idea of the political supre- macy of the working-class and its revolutionary dictatorship. The man who repudiates the dictatorship of the proletariat r” (p. 23-24)
[199] Trotsky, L. (2014). The defence of terrorism: Terrorism and communism: A reply to Karl Kautsky (2nd ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1935). “The problem of revolution, as of war, consists in breaking the will of the foe, forcing him to capitulate and to accept the conditions of the conqueror. The will, of course, is a fact of the psychical world, but in contradistinction to a meeting, a dispute, or a congress, the revolution carries out its object by means of the employment of material resources -though to a lesser degree than war. The bourgeoisie itself conquered power by means of revolts, and consolidated it by the civil war. In the peaceful period, it retains power by means of a system of repression. As long as class society, founded on the mo:ft deep-rooted antagonisms, continues to exisft, repressions remain a necessary means of breaking the will of the opposing side. Even if, in one country or another, the dictatorship of the proletariat grew up within the external framework of democracy, this would by no means avert the civil war. The question as to who is to rule the country, i.e., of the life or death of the bourgeoisie, will be decided on either side, not by references to the paragraphs of the con:ftitution, but by the employment of all forms of violence. However deeply Kautsky goes into the question of the food of the anthropopithecus and other immediate and remote conditions which determine the cause of human cruelty, he will find in hi:ftory no other way of breaking the class will of the enemy except the systematic and energetic use of violence. The degree of ferocity of the :ftruggle depends on a series of internal and international circum:ftances. The more ferocious and dangerous is the resi:ftance of the class enemy who has been overthrown, the more inevitably the system of repression takes the form of a system of terror. But here Kautsky unexpectedly takes up a new position in his struggle with Soviet terrorism. He simply waves aside all reference to the ferocity of the counter-revolutionary opposition of the Russian bourgeoisie.” (p. 51-52)
[200] Trotsky, L. (2014). The defence of terrorism: Terrorism and communism: A reply to Karl Kautsky (2nd ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1935). “The doctrine of formal democracy is not scientific Socialism, but the theory of so-called natural law. The essence of the latter consists in the recognition of eternal and unchanging standards of law, which among different peoples and at different periods find a different, more or less limited and distorted expression. The natural law of the latest history-i.e., as it emerged from the middle ages-included firSt of all a protest against class privileges, the abuse of despotic legislation, and the other "artificial" products of feudal positive law. The theoreticians of the, as yet, weak Third Estate expressed its class interests in a few ideal Standards, which later on developed into the teaching of democracy, acquiring at the same time an individualist character. The individual is absolute; all persons have the right of expressing their thoughts in speech and print; every man must enjoy equal electoral rights. As a battle cry against feudalism, the demand for democracy had a progressive character. As time went on,however. the metaphysics of natural law (the theory of formal democracy) began to show its reactionary side-the establishment of an ideal Standard to control the real demands of the labouring masses and the revolutionary parties.” (p. 37)
[201] Trotsky, L. (2014). The defence of terrorism: Terrorism and communism: A reply to Karl Kautsky (2nd ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1935). “The question of the form of repression, or of its degree, of course, is not one of "principle." It is a question of expediency. In a revolutionary period, the party which has been thrown from power, which does not reconcile itself with the Stability of the ruling class, and which proves this by its desperate Struggle against the latter, cannot be terrorised by the threat of imprisonment, as it does not believe in its duration. It is just this simple but decisive fact that explains the widespread recourse to shooting in a civil war.” (p. 55)
[202] Trotsky, L. (2014). The defence of terrorism: Terrorism and communism: A reply to Karl Kautsky (2nd ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1935). “The iron dictatorship of the Jacobins was evoked by the monstrously difficult position of revolutionary France. Here is what the bourgeois historian says of this period: "Foreign troops had entered French territory from four sides. In the north, the British and the Austrians, in Alsace, the Prussians, in Dauphine and up to Lyons, the Piedmontese, in Roussillon the Spaniards. And this at a time when civil war was raging at four different points: in Normandy, in the Vendee, at Lyons, and at Toulon:' (Page 176.) To this we must add internal enemies in the form of numerous secret supporters of the old regime, ready by all methods to assist -the enemy. The severity of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, let us point out here, was conditioned by no less difficult circumstances. There was one continuous front, on the north and south, in the east and west. Besides the Russian White Guard armies of Kolchak, Denikin, and others, they are attacking Soviet Russia, simultaneously or in turn: Germans.. Austrians.. Czecho-Slovaks.. Serbs, Poles, Ukrainians, Roumanians .. French .. British, Americans, Japanese, Finns, Esthonians, Lithuanians. • •• In a country throttled by a blockade and strangled by hunger, there are conspiracies, risings, terrorist acts, and destruction of roads and bridges.” (p. 47-48)
[203] “So we can identify the following characteristics of war communism: (1) An attempt to ban private manufacture, the nationalization of nearly all industry, the allocation of nearly all material stocks, and of what little output there was, by the state, especially for war purposes. (2) A ban on private trade, never quite effective anywhere, but spasmodically enforced. (3) Seizure of peasant surpluses (prodrazverstka). (4) The partial elimination of money from the state’s dealings with its own organizations and the citizens. Free rations, when there was anything to ration. (5) All these factors combined with terror and arbitrariness, expropriations, requisitions. Efforts to establish discipline, with party control over trade unions. A siege economy with a communist ideology. A partly organized chaos. Sleepless, leather- jacketed commissars working round the clock in a vain effort to replace the free market.” (p. 68)
[204] “As emergency military measures were improvised to crush the revolt, so Lenin proposed the substitution of food tax (prodnalog) for confiscation of surpluses (prodrazverstka). The decisive decree went through the party and Soviet organs during March 1921. The tax in kind was fixed substantially below the ‘requisitioning’ targets of the previous year, and therefore well below the actual needs for produce. Thus the delivery quota for 1920-21 had been 423 million poods, whereas the grain tax in kind for 1921-2 was fixed at 240 million poods. For potatoes the figures were respectively no and 60, for meat 25.4 and 6.5, and so on.2 In 1924 tax in kind was replaced by a money tax, but this was after the stabilization of the currency was well under way. After payment of tax, the peasants were to be free to use the rest of their produce as they thought fit, and could sell it ‘in the local market’ , in the words of the original decree. But this would make little sense if the object was to encourage sales of food to the food-deficit areas, and so this limitation was quickly forgotten. And since it was absurd to contemplate peasants travelling hundreds of miles to sell their own goods in remote industrial cities, the legalization of private trade was inevitable too, despite the strong feelings of revulsion which private trade inevitably caused among many party members. Again, at first it was hoped to control such trade strictly, to limit it. ‘Freedom of trade’ , said Lenin to the tenth congress, ‘even if at first it is not linked with the white guards, like Kronstadt was, none the less inevitably leads to white-guardism, to the victory of capital, to its full restoration.’3 Yet in practice the desperate need for free exchange of goods was such that, once trade of any kind was legalized (March 1921), it grew like a snowball and swept away restrictions. Cooperative trading was encouraged, and was particularly successful in selling consumers’ goods in the countryside, as well as goods of all kinds in towns alongside the state retail network, which was gradually being built up from the ruins of war communism. However, private traders were allowed gradually to enter into trade deals of almost every kind: selling to peasants, 8o NEP buying from peasants, buying from and selling to state enterprises, selling goods made by state factories as well as those made by a resurgent private manufacturing sector (of which more later). At first, when the party was persuaded of the need for change, it was thought that the retreat would be limited to the substitution of‘commodity exchange’ (produktoobmen) for confiscations. Speaking in October 1921, Lenin frankly admitted this had been an error, an illusion. The only way was trade, and the state and party would have to learn to trade. ‘What is the use of talking to us about state trade,’ argued a delegate. ‘They didn’t teach us to trade in prison.’ Lenin replied: ‘ ... Were we taught to fight in prison? Were we taught how to administer a state in prison?’4 The logic of events, or ‘the elemental forces of the petty-bourgeois environment’ , swept aside efforts to restrain them. Nonetheless, the party firmly held to the decision." (p. 79-80)
[205] “Stalin himself spoke on 4 February 1931 of fulfilling the plan ‘in three years in all the basic, decisive branches of industry’ .1 In the same speech he declared: ‘It is sometimes asked whether it is possible to slow down the tempo somewhat, to put a check on the movement. No, comrades, it is not possible. The tempo must not be reduced! On the contrary, we must increase it.. , ’2 It was then that he made the justly famous prophecy: ‘We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do so, or we shall go under.’ 1941 was ten years away. But a sense of coming danger is no excuse for attempting the impossible. The extent of the upward amendments in annual plans may be illustrated by the table on p. 191, which also shows the downward amendment of the textiles targets, i.e. the shift in mid-plan in the relative priorities of heavy as against light industry. Optimism Runs Riot 191 Needless to say the new targets were far beyond practical possibility. The rush, strain, shortages, pressures, became intolerable, and caused great disorganization. Naturally, supplies of materials, fuels, goods wagons, fell short of requirements. It was then that the government, by stages, imposed upon the economy its own priorities, by ever-tightening control over resource allocation, physical output, credit. The ‘Stalin’ model was created in the process of trying to do the impossible, and therefore by facing every day the necessity of assuring supplies to the key projects or ‘shock-constructions’ (udarnye stroiki}, at the expense of others regarded as of lesser importance.” (p. 190-191)
[206] “A seemingly important reform was adopted in 1965 — a decree which had the declared intention of increasing managerial powers, reducing considerably the number of compulsory indicators ‘passed down’ from the centre. Prices were recalculated on the basis of cost plus a percentage of the value of capital assets, thus supposedly corresponding to Marx’s ‘price of production’ . A major adjustment in prices was to eliminate losses in such sectors as coal and timber. A capital charge, averaging 6 per cent, was to be levied. This same decree finally eliminated the sovnarkhozy and restored the industrial ministries with almost the pre- sovnarkhoz powers, one important difference being the attempt to concentrate in Gossnab (the state material-technical supply committee) the function of disposal which departments of ministries formerly exercised. There was to be ‘trade in means of production’ , i.e. a gradual scrapping of the administered system of material allocation (this was again proposed in 1987). Most of the ministries were all-union rather than union-republican; in other words, although there was a move towards greater devolution to management, the clear intention was to centralize planning and ministerial powers in Moscow. Republican and other regional planning organs lost powers.” (p. 382-383)