Great Changes in Possession
I was born
into a serf family in Lamu Village, Dazi County.Before the
Democratic Reform, my father and my mother belonged to two
different estates. My mother told me that my father was a
serf belonging to the Sangang Monastery in Dazi County,
while her family were serfs of the Lamu nobles. Although
they lived in Lamu Village after their marriage, my father
had to work at Sangang Monastery 20 kilometers away. At that
time they had no lands and the family depended on little
glutinous rice cakes that my mother received from herding
sheep for Lamu manor, and small earnings from my father's
sewing and mending. After a few years as more children were
born,it became difficult to support the family. My father
begged the manor to rent him a few ke of land so he could
grow grain crops (15 ke equal a hectare). He managed to
lease four ke of land, but then the problem was seeds.
Finally he borrowed 4 ke (1 ke equals 14kg) of seeds from
the Gandan Monastery through a friend.
My
mother recalled that for a time things went smoothly but
they didn't know that the family's burdern was to become
heavier and heavier. At that time, we could only produce 75
kg of grain per ke of land because of poor soil conditions
and lack of water.Even so, we could still manage to keep
some money after paying the land rent. We didn't realise
that the four ke of seeds deal which we were forced into by
circumstances, were usurious loans. After a few years, the 4
ke of seed turned into a debt of more than 80 ke. The master
of the monastery demanded payment of the debt every autumn
and took away all the grain. During the Democratic Reform, a
member of the working group dealing with the debts of Ganda
monastery told my mother: '' The debt you owed the monastery
amounted to 250 ke.If Tibet had not been liberated, it would
have doubled again in a few years. But now you owe nothing
to the monastery." My mother was so grateful that she
went down on her knees and kowtowed.
My family
story is only one of many similar in Tibet. Material wealth
is the sum total of material goods possessed by a society.
After liberation, possession changed greatly with the social
change of Tibet.
In the feudal serf society,
Tibet's material wealth, including all products (tools of
production, raw materials, consumer goods, and so on) and
natural resources involved in production (land, mine,
forests), was in the grasp of an exploitive system. This was
based on the feudal estate ownership of land and the
relationship of serfs attached to the estate
holder.
From the start of the feudal serfdom in
the 13th century to the Democratic Reform of Tibet in 1959,
Tibet's social wealth was possessed mainly by estate holders
or serf owners, who accounted for less than 5 percent of the
population.
According to wealth possession,
people in old Tibet were divided into serfs and serf
owners.
Serf owners were principally the three
major estate holders - local administrative officials,
nobles, monasteries and their deputies. Serfs were graded
into tralpa (people who tilled plots of land assigned to
them and had to provide labor for the serf owners), duiqoin
(small households) , nangzan (hereditary household slaves)
and vagrant.
Local administrative officials,
who occupied a great deal of land, managed manors and
pastures directly. The land and earnings were divided into
four parts. The first part was given to Dalai Lama's
relatives, officials and monasteries. The second part was
salaries for high-ranking officials. The third part was
salaries for other officials and administrative expenditure.
The last part was special farmland which was assigned to
serfs, and serfs had to turn in part of their produce as
taxation.
The nobles were governmental
officials who were rewarded with titles, or relatives of all
successive Dalai and Bainqen lamas. Altogether about 400
families were granted with noble titles. But some died out,
others lost favour and had their lands confiscated. As a
result, there were only 197 families with noble titles in
1959 when the Democratic Reform began.
All
hereditary nobles had certain amount of land, pastures and
manors, according to their ranks. For example the big noble
Duoren occupied more than 40 thousand ke of farmland. Serfs
and slaves dependent on the manors were also the noble's
property.
Monasteries, one of the three major
estate-holders, were refered to the upper-rank lamas. After
the revival of Tibetan Buddhism in the 10th century,
monasteries began to acquire a great amount of land. When
the Geluc Sect (Yellow Sect) came into power, local
governments and nobles granted monasteries more lands. From
then on monasteries became independent economic groups.
Statistics in 1959 showed that the three big monasteries in
Lhasa (Zhaibung, Sera, Gandan) occupied 321 manors,l47
thousand ke of land, and 26 pastures. They owned 110
thousand head of livestocks and more than 40 thousand
serfs.
These monastery-owned manors were in two
divisions: the public property of monasteries and the
private property of Living Buddhas and upper-ranking lamas.
Some of the major Living Buddhas owned as many manors as the
nobles. The deputies of serf owners were sent to manage the
manors. They also made their fortunes by exploiting the
serfs.
According to statistics from the early
Qing Dynasty, there were 3 million ke of arable land - 30.9
percent of which was occupied by local governments,and 29.6
percent by nobles, with the remaining 39.5 percent belonging
to monasteries and upper-ranked lamas.
This
shows that although the three big estate holders only
accounted for 5 percent of the population, they ruled the
whole Tibet, and controlled almost all of the region's
revenues. Now let's analyse the situation of the serfs which
made up 95 percent of the population.
Tralpa
meant people who tilled plots of land assigned to them. In
return, they had to do corvee for the land owners, based on
the size of the land assigned to them, or turn in their
earnings in the form of produce or money. Usually, the
estate holders didn't recall the land unless a tralpa
couldn't pay or died. The land tilled by a tralpa could be
passed down to his children if they could pay the dues.
According to their economic situation, tralpa were divided
into three groups. Ten percent of tralpa were better off, 20
percent could support their families after paying the dues,
but the remaining 70per cent were door and always on the
averge of bankruptcy due to poor production condititons and
lack of farm tools and animals as well as heavy
debts.
Generally, the situation of tralpa was
better than that of serfs at the bottom of the scale. But
their bodies literally belonged to the land owners. They
were therefore also serfs.
Duiqoin were the
second section of serfs. They were small households. They
had no land to till, and some were impoverished tralpa.
Usually they had to live by craftsmanship or doing odd jobs
and pay taxes to the estate holders. If they managed to
lease a little land from manors or richer tralpa, most of
the harvest went to the estate holders. In old Tibet,
duiqoin accounted for 30 to 40 percent of serfs, and up to
70 percent in some places.
Nangzan in Tibetan
means home-bred. They were the lowest class of serfs, they
had no means of production nor personal freedom. Nangzan
were little better than livestock as far as the serf owners
were concerned. They could be sold and presented as a gift,
Nangzan were serfs from generation to generation. According
to statistics in 1959, there were 60,OOO Nangzans,
accounting for 5 percent of Tibet's
population.
The serf strata also included
vagrants, beggars and poor lamas. Before the Democratic
Reform, there were 3,000 to 4,000 beggars living in Lhasa
ghettos. Poor lamas were a special stratum of Tibet's Lama
Group. In Tibet's monasteries, the lamas' position was
related to family background. Lamas born into rich families
were nobles in monasteries. But lamas from serf families had
to work hard and had fewer opportunities for promotion. The
poor lamas were always exploited by others.
The
highly centralized possession of land and other means of
production owned by the three big estate holders in Tibet
deprived the serfs of the essential material means of life.
The system was not only the basis for serf-owner
exploitation but also the important prerequisite for
serf-owner to own the serfs.
The exorbitant
taxes and levies together with usuary lending were important
channels through which the three big estate holders
centralized social wealth.
The main form of
exploitation was through corvee, taxation, land rent, and
livestock rent. There were as many as 30 leviable
items.
In feudal society, the three big estate
holders were all creditors, including the Dalai Lamas, other
Living Buddhas and high-ranking monks, The Dalai Lama had
two special departments managing usury. One was vtsis bu and
the other vtsis chung.These two departments lent out Dalai
Lama's annual allowances as usurious loans. According to the
accounts of these two departments in 1950, the year's
usurious loans amounted to 151 , 929 kg of silver with a
return of 15,193 kg of silver in interest. In old Tibet, all
monasteries practised usury. The interests on usury
accounted for 25 to 30 percent of earnings of the three big
monasteries in Lhasa.
The burden of the serfs
included new debts and those of descendants and guarantees.
Taking descendants debt as an example, serfs didn't know how
much they owed or what had been borrowed and repaid. Serf
owners decided all these matters. Descendants debt was
snowballing usury, and often the debt had been repaid many
times. It was easier to get into debt than to get out of it.
The grandmother of the serf Cering Goinbo in Mal Gro Gung
Dkar Rin Cheng Lin borrowed 700 kg of grain. Three
generations continued to repay the debt, but it still grew
into more than 1.4 million kg of grain.
Such
examples could be found everywhere.
In such a
society, the Tibetan people were driven beyond forbearance.
It was inevitable that the Democratic Reform would finally
come about for it represented the wishes of millions of
serfs.
The reform was a great turning point in
Tibetan history. It was also a magnificent feat which has
changed the class and economic structure of Tibet. Since
then, Tibetan people have become masters of their society.
Tibet's material wealth has finally returned to the serfs
who create the wealth.
The Chinese Communist
Party helped Tibetan people carry out the Democratic
Reform,which was in compliance with the demands of the poor
people and progressive public figures who made up 95% of the
Tibetan population. Therefore, the reform has been supported
and welcomed by the majority people in
Tibet.
By the end of 1960, two years of
democratic reform had been completed. Serfom and the feudal
ownership system were abolished. The former serfs had their
own land, livestock and other means of production for the
first time.
According to the statistics, 2.8
million ke of land was confiscated or bought from serf
owners, and was distributed to 800, 000 serfs and slaves
without land. Tibetan people have started a new life ever
since.
Now, more than thirty years have passed.
Let us take a look at an ordinary Tibetan's work and life.
Then we will focus on the great achievements made by
Tibet.
As l have mentioned, my family members
were all serfs with a heavy debt burders. When I was 6 years
old, we had 18 ke of land after the Democratic Reform, but
we were still poor following three years of natural
calamities. Because my father died when I was very young,
the burden of life was on my mother's shoulders. Although my
elder brothers and sisters could help my mother, the
disasters made our endeavor useless. I still remember one
day when I cried for glutinous
rice cakes, my
mother sobbed sadly. At that time we had no grain for days
and the whole family depended on the government for relief
food, but I did not know this. Life was difficult, but my
mother, who survived the feudal serfdom, was still
satisfied. She said that since we were masters of the land,
not its slaves, we did not have to provide free labor or pay
rents to serf owners. She encouraged us as long as we had
the land, things would improve gradually.
After
the natural calamities ended, we had enough grain. As life
was getting better, we bought some furniture. From then on
we were on a path to prosperity. When it was Spring Festival
or at other festival times, we all had new clothes. And I
had an opportunity to go to school in Tibet until I went to
college in Beijing.
When I graduated from the
Central Nationalities Institute in 1975, I found that my
family had changed greatly. When we sat down for lunch, my
elder sister gave me a bowl of fried eggs, a pot of mutton
and a bowl of rice. The meal was the most sumptuous that I
had at home. For supper, I ate a big bowl of egg noodles and
a plate of pickled Chinese cabbage. My mother prepared a
silk quilt and new kha gdan (woolen blanket) for me. At
first, I thought that I was getting special treatment but I
found later that everybody had them.
The second
day, all the people in the village held a grand ceremony for
me, the first college graduate of the village from Beijing.
The seniors in the village gave me highland barley wine and
presented me with white hadas. In the crowded yard, people
not only asked me about things in other parts of the
country, but also told me of their new lives. I was very
excited by their warmness and felt happy about the great
changes in my hometown. It was clear that people in the
village would never worry about
provisions.
Since 1980, according to the actual
situation of Tibet, the central government has adopted a
series of special policies in Tibet, such as privatization
of Livestocks, household-responsibility system of land use
and management, and tax exemptions. These policies have
greatly spurred the local people's enthusiasm in production.
I could feel and see the changes every time I returned to my
hometown. People in the village always told me, ''we are
really the masters of our own affairs
now.''
Young people in the village, including
those who had herded cows with me, begin to pay atention to
their clothing. Men have black robes, leather boots, some
even wear gold or silver earrings which only rich families
could afford in the old society. Women look beautiful in
their black or purplish blue short-sleeved robes, colorful
skirts and silk and fiber shirts. At festivals, they wear
high-heeled shoes, watches and bracelets. They told me about
the improvements in the quality of their lives. The young
people now ride bicycles to go to work in the fields.They
also bring along boxes of deli- cious lunch with
them.
After my mother died, my elder sister
managed the family. There are six people in my family, We
have 25 ke of land producing 7,500 kg of grain every year.We
also keep nearly 100 sheep,15 cows and other livestock. We
have bought many modern machines, such as tractors, sowing
and thrashing machines.In 1992, we rebuilt our houses. My
sister told me with pride:'' The serf owners houses were no
better than ours and their window glass was smaller than
ours.In old Tibet, it would take a serf owner manager one
day to go to Lhasa on horseback, but now we can do it in
three hours on our tractor.''
During last
twenty years, l have been to much of Tibet in the course of
my work, from Chab Mdo in the east to Mngav Ris Plateau in
the west and from the borde villages in the south to
pastoral areas in the north, I've had an opportunity to
learn of the great changes in Tibet and people's new lives.
Next, I will tell you several interesting
stories.
While celebrating the 30th anniversary
of the Democratic Reform in Tibet, we visited the Khae Song
Village in Lho Kha Sne Gdong Shan County, situated on the
south bank of the Yar Klung Gtsang Po
River.
Before 1959, the village's owner was Zur
Khang Dbang Chen Dge Legs, one of the four Bkav Blon of the
old Tibetan government. Khae Song means'' triple benefits''
in the Tibetan language because this area has fertile land,
ample labor and rich resources. The statistics showed that
15, 000 ke of grain could be produced each year, but 12, 000
ke would go to Zur Khang. There was only 3000 ke left for
more than three hundred serfs in the manor. And, they had to
pay land rent,exorbitant taxes and loan charges with so
little grain. There were always some people running away,
and some tralpa became duiqoin after losing their land. Some
duiqoin were degraded into household serfs or
beggars.
Nyi Ma (Tshe Ring was once a serf. He
was 24 when the reform took place. He remembered the serf
owner telling his mother'' the little boy is mine, I can
crumple him into a ball and put him in my pockets, I can
also pull him into a long narrow strip as my belt.'' He said
his only concern at that time was to get enough to eat
because he often went hungry.
Things are
totally different now for Nyi Ma Tshe Ring. He said after
putting aside enough grain for his family, he can sell about
1000 kg of commodity grain every year. During the slack
season, he and his son can easily earn 2000 yuan per year by
doing business.
Like Nyi Ma Tshe Ring, many
other former serfs and slaves in the village have become
masters of the land, living a happy life. Almost all
families in the village have surplus grain. Every year, the
villagers sell 140,000 kg of grain. The annual per capita
income is 700 yuan. At present, the village's population
increased to 700. Before the Democratic Reform, few people
had seen paper currency, but now, the villagers have bought
70 tractors, trucks and other modern machines. New houses
can be seen everywhere in the village. Plenty of grain is
good news for people who were hungry before liberation. When
we visited Vgyal Vtse County in Gzhis Ka Vtse Region, we
found another problem, It was difficult to sell surplus
grain. Lha Pa Vah Vgyas, a fifty - year - old farmer in
Lcang Ra Village told me when he was a slave in the biggest
manor in old Tibet more than 30 years ago, his biggest wish
was to fill his stomach. He never treamed that someday he
would worry about the surplus grain he couldn't sell
out.
In his new two-story building, he showed
us his storehouse filled with wheat and highland barley. He
said that this was a happy family with five people and 22 ke
of land. Every year they produce 8000 kg of grain. Except
some used to make rice cakes and highland barley wine about
5000 kg of grain was left. He told me that he was anxious to
sell grain and buy fertilizer.Almost every family had this
problem because of favorable weather and scientific farming.
During the visit, we found that the grain storehouses in
this region had been filled with 35000 tons of grain. To
solve the problem, the local government encouraged farmers
to develop food processing industry and breed livestock or
barter with pastoral areas.
Now that we have
seen the great changes in the life of the former serfs and
slaves. How about the life of their former
masters?
By the way, during the Democratic
Reform, the government adopted two ways to deal with the
serf owners: land and other means of production were
confiscated from those who opposed to the Democratic Reform,
or participated in the armed rebellion aimed at splitting
the motherland. The government carried out the policy of
redemption towards those who did not join the rebellion. The
statistics at that time showed 900, 000 ke of land was
bought out, accounting for 32 percent of the region's arable
land, plus 824, 000 Iivestocks accounting for 29 percent of
the total, 64,200 houses and 20, OOO pieces of farm
equipment. The prices were discussed and decided by the
government and serf owners. Progressive nobles and poor
serfs all thought it reasonable.
The serf
owners not involved in the rebellion, not only received a
great deal of compensation money, but also found jobs in
local governments, Buddhist Association and other
organizations. Some people involved in the rebellion were
also given jobs in these organs after they were reformed.
Many of the regional government officials are former serf
owners. One of them, Vha Klu Tshe Dbang Rdo Rje, was once
the commader of the rebel army in 1959. Among the high
ranking officials in the Tibetan Autonomous Region
Government and the regional People's Congress, four were
nobles and living Buddhas.
However, during the
Cultural Revolution, these people were also involved in
trouble. Byms Pa was one herd owner we
visited. In 1971 ,he and his wife were branded “herd
owners”because his father and father-in-law were herd
owners, That situation lasted until 1979. Byms Pa recalled
:" At that time, life was hard. Besides earning our own
life, we must do community work for no pay.'' He said
humorously: “If was a little like doing corvee In the
old days.''
During those years, although the
whole family worked hard, they owed two or three hundred
yuan to the village every year.However, Byms Pa said that
they never went hungry because the village guaranteed
everyone's needs such as grain ration, butter and
meat.
When the Cultural Revolution came to an
end in 4976, things turned for the better. Byms Pas was
rehabilitated in 1979 and received 8000 yuan in compensation
for the property confiscated from him.
When we
visited his family, they had 70 yaks, 230 sheep and 4
horses. With an annual income of 7,000 yuan, their life
ranked in the middle among the twelve families in the
village.
Byms Pa told us that he had no
complaints about his suffering during the Cultural
Revolution. He said that a lot of people were in trouble,
including many high ranking party officials. He added:
“When all the village was inundated by flood, you
could not find a dry stone”He also told us that he
felt very happy now. He had built four new rooms. He spent 1
,000 yuan installing a wind generator to light his house. He
was also planning to buy a TV set because of the
generator.
Byms Pa has seven children, the
oldest was 21 ,and the youngest was 2 years old. At present,
his eldest daughter works in a shop in Naqu town, and other
children go to school or herd
livestock.
Everyday after the children go
herding, Byms Pa and his wife begin their work. His wife
prepares the meal while he does house chores. Every summer
he used to take butter and meat to agricultural areas to
exchange for grain, but now he doesn't have to go out
because the market is prosperous.
Byms Pa said
that although he was much richer before the liberation, he
felt happier now because he depended on himself. He told me
that his biggest wish was to bring his children up and make
them honest people.
The latest statistics of
Tibet's revenue and expenditure show that in 1993 Tibet's
GNP amounted to 3.65 billion yuan, primary industry
accounting for 1 .77 billion yuan, secondary industry, 530
million yuan, and tertiary industry, 1.35 million yuan. The
local government's revenue was 149 million yuan, and the
average per capita income was 515
yuan.
Compared to revenue of 4 million yuan
before the Democratic Reform, this is a great
change.Although Tibetan people have achieved great
success,Tibet's economy still lacks a solid foundation. It
depends mainly on central government's support. According to
statistics, the subsidies from the central government and
the special investments total 25 billion yuan since
1951.
These investments relate closely to
education, agriculture and animal husbandry, operation
expenses such as public employees' salaries, free medical
services and cultural undertakings.
Before
liberation, Tibet lagged in education. Only 2 percent of
children went to school. After the peaceful liberation in
Tibet, especially after the Democratic Reform in 1959,
Tibetan people have recognized that education is important
in building a modern , united, prosperous and civilized
Tibet. In 1993, education received 170 million yuan. In
today's Tibet, some 200 thousand students are studying in
school, accounting for 50 percent of children of school age.
In order to develop education rapidly, Tibet adopted since
1980 the policies that students in key primary or middle
schools under county level should not worry about eating,
housing and clothing. The Tibetan government also
established Tibetan middle schools in inland cities. The
huge investment has brought great changes. From 1980 to
1993, the total floor space of schools amounted to 2.7
million square meters. More than 100,000 students have
graduated.
At the same time, agriculture and
animal husbandry,the foundation of Tibet's national economy,
were exempt from agriculture taxation since 1980. Five
million yuan was invested in commodity grain bases every
year. At present,Tibet has set up a fixed assets system for
agricultural production,which is the highest in the country
when compared in terms of per capita
avervage.
Financial support has strengthened
the power of agriculture and animal husbandry, and Tibet has
achieved good harvests for five consecutive years. Last
year, the whole region produced 669 million kg of grain and
the total amount of livestock on hand was 22.8 million head.
Before the Democratic Reform, the total amount of livestock
on hand was only 9. 55 million. Now, total meat production
is 100 million kg, and milk production is 185 million kg,
increasing by 108.4 and 87.4 percent over 1980 respectively.
With the development of agriculture and husbandry, people
have become richer. In off seasons, people engage in
sideline occupations such as textile and planting economic
crops. They have also established 9,118 township
enterprises, attracting 51 ,000 people with 144,64 million
yuan of fixed assets.
These expenditures came
from the local gorernment's revenue and more than 1 billion
yuan annual subsidies provided by the central government.
According to Tibetan financial departments, the central
government gave Tibet huge special investments every year to
strengthen its economic frastructure construction, to solve
bottleneck problems, to help new industries and to enlarge
its economic power. Now, Tibet has many new
industries.
In 1959, Tibet's first feather
factory was established in the western part of Lhasa. The
categories and types of its products have increased from 10
to more than 70, and among its 350 workers, Tibetan
employees accounted for 69.5 percent. In 1960, Tibet's first
cement factory emerged in western Lhasa. After expanding, it
has now the annual capacity of 110,000 tons of cement. At
present, Tibetan workers make up 80 percent of its 900
employees.
Tibet's first civil air line
(Beijing-chengdu-Lhasa) was established on March 1, 1965. In
November, 1966, Gongga airport was completed. Now, after a
273- million- yuan-expansion, Gongga has become the highest
modern airport in China, with the longest runways, modern
waiting rooms and communication equipment. The first
geothermal station in Tibet was built in July, 1977. More
than 200 million yuan has been invested in the station which
is the largest geothermal experimental base in China and the
tenth largest in the world with 250,000 kw. of installed
capacity.
In 1989, 24 million yuan was used to
build the first beer factory in Tibet. Every year, 5000 tons
of beer is produced: The factory has sent its products to
other parts of the country and plans to develop in foreign
market.Tibet's transportation has developed rapidly. A
highway network connects Lhasa and other parts of Tibet with
7152 km of arterial highways and 5977 km of highways of
county or town level. Post and telecommunications are fast
developing with a SI 2.4 million program-controlled
telephone system completed in 1992. This lifted telephone
capacity to 10,000. The first batch of VAST equipment are
under installation in 58 VAST ground satellite
stations.During the Eighth Five- Year Plan period, almost
all the counties will be connected with telephone. Seven
prefectures or cities and some counties will be connected
with the country's automatic telephone network. The country
will provide 336.2 million yuan to these projects. Tibet's
industry has formed a modern industrial system, including a
ferrous metallurgical industry, electricity, textile
industry and handicraft industry with nationality
characteristics. There are many huge construction projects
such as the biggest chromite base in China at Luobusay the
largest water conservancy project in Tibet the Yangzhuoyong
Lake hydroelectric station and the light industry zone in
Lhsa.
These projects will set off a new upsurge
in construction. It is clear that Tibet's economic power and
social material wealth will be increased.
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