RED CHINA

at the chinese commies 10th anniversary celebration Joanne Lai admitted indirectly that something had happened to the Great Leap Forward after that few foreigners were allowed inside China's borders for the outside world there were only scattered hints that something was wrong Joanne Lai walking out of the Soviet Party Congress Chinese agents in Canada spending China's precious foreign exchange for wheat not machines Foreign Minister Chen Yi in Geneva insisting that everyone in China was well fed and closed but admitting natural calamities but even as Jenny spoke in the summer of 1961 at the height of secrecy one non-communist westerner was in China with a camera able to see and film as much as the authorities would allow of what was really happening his name is penology Baum I was carrying three still cameras one film camera and 60 reels of film that's six thousand feet of film I had one bit of technical trouble which no one in China was able to rectify light from a certain angle tended to get into my camera and I only found out when I got back to Geneva but when I was in China I didn't know whether I'd be able to take any film at all I didn't know where I'd be able to do so or how the film I did take as one important advantage it exists by the way all my reels were in fact smuggled out of China no one has been authorized to do any filming in China for the past 20 months nobody was able to do any filming in China and unfortunately I won't be able to get back to China to redo anything that can't talk I stayed at the hotel of the love of the masses this was the scene from my hotel window down there is the Pearl rural rivers are still the main roads of China those boats have no motors they go with the tide their work is now controlled by the state and their crews are given political indoctrination few cars few trucks in the streets muscle power replaces steam power the heaviest clothes are pushed or pulled by humans strength billboards like this one are seen all over the place they celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party the party newspaper called people's newspaper is posted everywhere propaganda supports industry and pictures like this one are seen all over China you will see a soldier in the right corner of this picture it is forbidden to take pictures of soldiers as soon as one comes around the policemen will tell you to stop here our comic books they are all over the place in every street and out of doors children devour them avidly without paying a penny these books sing the heroic deeds of the heroes of the classical theater or else they exalt the courage of the revolutionaries of 1948 [Music] [Applause] to save electricity old light bulbs are being replaced by new ones which are no more than 40 watts in strength they're unloading cucumbers that have come in from the countryside Canton is relatively rich in food I did not see signs of shortages there [Applause] this man is eating a meal consisting of rice fish pickles and a few water vegetables there are 2,000 different kinds of vegetables in China people who live and die on their SAM pans are called the egg people now they are working in teams of five boats under the supervision of a political chieftain each is paid by the state according to his work here is a school serving the sampan community in present-day China every child begins to learn how to read and write from the age of six he studies the new latinized alphabet until the age of 8 this alphabet will enable them will enable the child at that point to read Chinese with greater facility but China is not renouncing her ancient characters but simplifies them 90 million children are now attending school here is an example a typical example of classroom shortage while some children are learning how to write indoors others are learning how to read outdoors [Applause] the children are swimming in very dirty and polluted water without suffering any untoward effects or so it seems much remains as it has always been at all times especially in the southern part of the country women have been assigned it to the severus hard work the regime has not changed this the contrary is true here they are lifting a five hundred and fifty pound drum in the middle of the street workers are stretching iron bars everyone in China is duty-bound to work oftentimes the manner of working is rather primitive but the Chinese are an ingenious and skilful people [Applause] I was able to film scenes for four to five hours relatively unhampered then a gamble a political boss as they're called in China stuck to my heels saying nothing doing nothing doing in other words it's prohibited you'll have to ask for authorization from Peking which happens to be 1,300 miles from Canton I therefore went to Peking this is the Avenue of the long piece 9 miles long this film was made from a fox Vardhan I wanted to shoot without being seen but from a heavier car but my embassy felt it would be too dangerous to give me one of their big cars that's why the scene bounces like this if you looked quickly you glimpsed the queue of some kind it might be food cue people look clean and well-fed almost everyone travels on foot I wanted to shoot the streets because there you can really see what a place is like these scenes were filmed a while I was hiding behind the door in torrid heat in midsummer this is why you see no Chinese wearing those blue clothes as they do in winter these busses come from Czechoslovakia many are now manufactured in Shanghai during the period of the Great Leap Forward buses were occasionally made to pull up to seven trailers but the motors wore out today no more than two trailers are authorized look at these women their feet are bound remembrance of times past on the other hand some of them look like American women going to the supermarket but their baby strollers are made of bamboo sticks only metals are still very scarce except of course for bicycles now here are pedicabs these men who haul Freight are considered as heavy laborers and they according to receive a double food ration those who transport passengers make more money but they do not get any extra food rations notice this cab pulling a load of pig iron Peking is a great city of more than 3 million inhabitants but it has only one storm sewer accordingly water backs up after a rainfall here are young pioneers aged 7 to 15 there are 60 million of them in the entire country they are under the guidance of specialists and political indoctrination here they are going into a park where they will have fun playing games but they will also get lessons and politics in the form of lectures the basic idea of the leadership is to teach the children the art of living collectively and to instill a political outlook the Communists cultivate the worship of physical exercise here you see the children of the elite they attend a model kindergarten which is shown to all foreigners communists or otherwise the same kindergarten is always shown these are the children of doctors soldiers professors or high officials here you see rhythmic exercises as they are done at the Peking classic opera the regime Foster's everything that relates to the classical theater and popularizes it among the masses in these exercises every muscle is used every movement is prepared in advance and at a certain sign the government no longer requires every Chinese to engage twice a day in obligatory calisthenics on the country today the regime calls upon people to spare their energies so as not to be obliged to replenish them by additional food intake here I filmed some of the 300,000 demonstrators who attended the welcome oven crew map President of Ghana in the rain I was not authorized to film the demonstration itself these scenes were taken from the top of the wall which runs around Peking and no one could see me in China the government's assessment of the political importance of an event may be computed from the number of people who participate the guineas say coutore drew 1/2 million the population is mobilized to watch the arrival of a political leader in the street but the people are delighted to do so because these demonstrations these shows vary the routine often special food rations are granted for the occasion [Music] these people who remain standing in the rain for hours on end constitute a proof of the strength of the regime but here you may see a proof of its weaknesses these garden plots here in the middle of the capital every available square yard is cultivated to grow vegetables these garden plots are evidence of the precariousness of the food situation and they likewise reveal the regime's concessions to private property if the inhabitants of the area cultivate these garden plots and retain the produce for their own use and these are not deducted from their rations the same concessions have been made to the peasants up to five percent of the arable land I have seen sidewalks plowed up to grow vegetables this is one of the most significant scenes seen during my voyage from Peking no farmer not even a communist is allowed to travel outside this triangle my visits to the people's communes began near Wuhan they were prepared in advance by the political cadres the president and secretary of the commune met me on my arrival along with my interpreter and my chauffeur this made five people charged with watching me and keeping me happy but I was allowed to expose only one roll of film in each commune one roll is 100 feet and it takes only three minutes to film it made no difference that I had come from Switzerland ten thousand miles away Here I am in the rural community n two or three minutes before a small boy Harold at my arrival and gave the order to these peasants who are wearing their Sunday best to set to work despite the unbearable heat not a drop of perspiration appears on their faces they were there for my benefit like actors and they were working so as to enable me to film an idyllic scene of country life the Chinese often accused me of having filmed scenes which were detrimental to the dignity of the people as they put it but I was only looking for the truth these scenes were taken without my guards being aware of it from inside the car here the workers are not wearing their Sunday best the soil is dry even little boys are cultivating it this is the way China really is there has been great progress in some areas but there's a long long way to go irrigation wheels continue to turn they are centuries old here is a plow the same as was used 21 centuries ago exactly the design may be seen in the barrel Leafs of the Han Dynasty political decrees or directives issued by political appointees have often led to errors for example cotton had to be planted in wet soil it slaughtered as the presence had foretold this example multiplied by 1000 accounts in part for the disastrous crops because politics has never persuaded rice to grow in another commune here's an example of the restoration of private enterprise these melons for a soup dear to the Chinese are to be sold in the free market I am told that there used to be four tractors in this commune three of them are out of commission the government ordered a nationwide campaign to exterminate birds they said the birds ate too much grain now in China they must spray the fields to kill the insects the birds would have eaten the man who started to kill the birds campaign is now in the fields killing insects these murals exalt life under the Communist ideal of the future I had no special interest in filming them but it was a pretext to show you the farm over on the left that's how most Chinese live today in very primitive conditions on the farm few things have changed since my visit of 1956 China still gives the impression of unchanging eternity Wesly secure she's young she security so this is what I saw and here are my conclusions from what I was able to see China's number one problem is the problem of food when I was there on my first visit the Communist Party thought itself capable of overcoming famine and obviating natural disasters too but this has not been the case in many towns I saw children with distended bellies their arms and shoulders covered with sores and boils dogged with some sort of purple antiseptic doctors told me that these were the effects of beriberi and of malnutrition it seemed to me moreover that the people were fatigued exhausted I did not find one trace of the enthusiasm of 1956 just before the Great Leap Forward for the first time I did hear two or three Chinese who were grumbling against the regime and against the political Cadbury's the government has cut food rations the black market which is called the free market flourishes everywhere in the neg a chicken or a trout will fetch five times the official price when you get to a factory which has ten or twelve chimneys only two or three are smoking despite all that despite officially acknowledged errors despite the contradictions the government seems to be very strong the masses are subjected to systematic political indoctrination neither the young nor the old can escape that China has stumbled in her Great Leap Forward I cannot tell you whether she'll fall backward or whether she will regain her balance I can only tell you that China today presents all the features of a great appalling tragedy in preparing this report we talked with more than 50 experts in government in universities in all parts of the world in general they agree on these points the Great Leap Forward has ended China's drive to industrialize has been seriously slowed down famine in the classic Chinese sense people starving in the streets does not yet exist hunger is widespread they also agree that China over the past 12 years has industrialized at an almost unprecedented rate but China is a major Asian power that China is not yet a world power that China can and will build an atomic bomb some say within two years most experts feel that although the people are tired and hungry the communist regime with its weapon of terror and its appeal to Chinese nationalism will not fall a few believe that another year of bad crops could bring about the overthrow of the government most experts feel that within a short time China will begin to move ahead industrially again a few filled China's industrial growth has been stunted for many years to come most feel that the rupture between China and the Soviet Union although fundamental will not split them apart some believe the break cannot be healed in China today an awesome experiment is being carried out with 700 million lives China is poor hungry underdeveloped it's only real resources manpower in the space of this hour that manpower has increased by 7,200 is increasing by two every second in the strength of this resource its energy endurance obedience perhaps lies the future of this story whatever the present situation it gives little cause for complacency for us in the West [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause]