Mao's Third Front Covell F

Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-48955-3 — Mao's Third Front Covell F. Meyskens Frontmatter More Information

Mao’s Third Front

In 1964, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made a momentous policy decision. In response to rising tensions with the United States and the Soviet Union, a top-secret massive military industrial complex in the mountains of inland China was built, which the CCP hoped to keep hidden from enemy bombers. Mao named this the Third Front. The Third Front received more government investment than any other developmental initiative of the Mao era, and yet this huge industrial war machine, which saw the mobilization of fifteen million people, was not officially acknowledged for over a decade and a half. Drawing on a rich collection of archival documents, memoirs, and oral interviews, Covell Meyskens provides the first history of the Third Front campaign. He shows how the militarization of Chinese industrialization linked millions of everyday lives to the global Cold War, merging global geopolitics with local change.

Covell F. Meyskens is Assistant Professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Mao’s Third Front The Militarization of Cold War China

Covell F. Meyskens Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California

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www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108489553 DOI: 10.1017/9781108784788 © Covell F. Meyskens 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Meyskens, Covell F., 1978– author. Title: Mao’s third front : the militarization of Cold War China / Covell F. Meyskens, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identiﬁers: LCCN 2019053353 (print) | LCCN 2019053354 (ebook) | ISBN 9781108489553 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108784788 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: China – Economic policy – 1949–1976. | Defense industries – China. | China – History, Military. Classiﬁcation: LCC HC427.9 .M47 2020 (print) | LCC HC427.9 (ebook) | DDC 338.4/73550095109045–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053353 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053354 ISBN 978-1-108-48955-3 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Tables page vi List of Figures vii List of Maps viii List of Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements x

Introduction 1 1 The Coming of the Third Front Campaign 40 2 Good People and Good Horses Go to the Third Front 79 3 Concentrating Forces to Wage Wars of Annihilation 122 4 Produce First and Consume Later 165 5 Industrial Development amid Cold War Insecurity 201 Epilogue: The Demilitarization of Chinese Socialism 227

Appendix: Third Front Demographics 237 Bibliography 245 Index 272

Tables

5.1 Growth of coal development block in Third Front areas, 1964–1980 page 212 5.2 Growth of oil development block in Third Front areas, 1964–1980 215 5.3 Growth of electricity development block in Third Front areas, 1965–1980 218 5.4 Increases in industrial labor and industrial companies in Third Front areas, 1965–1980 221 5.5 Increases in research and educational infrastructure in Third Front areas, 1964–1980 221 A.1 Total Third Front population: rural and urban, 1964–1978 238 A.2 Labor participation by province and source, 1964–1980 238 A.3 Railroad labor by line and source 242

Figures

2.1 Mobilizing the First Automobile Works to build the Second Automobile Works in the late 1960s page 95 2.2 Cheng Zihua, Li Jingquan, and Deng Xiaoping in Panzhihua in 1965 99 2.3 A Third Front notiﬁcation letter made into a poster 106 2.4 Sending off recruits from Shanghai in July 1968 119 2.5 Workers march to a Third Front project 120 3.1 Drilling a tunnel for the Chengdu–Kunming Railroad in the late 1960s 138 3.2 Establishing a revolutionary committee in Panzhihua in 1968 149 3.3 Building the Gezhouba Dam in 1970 158 3.4 Making baskets for workers on the Shaanxi Southern Railroad in the early 1970s 161 3.5 Female commandos haul rocks on the Shaanxi Southern Railroad in the early 1970s 163 4.1 A Liberation truck transporting labor to the Third Front 170 4.2 Peng Zhen dines with local workers in 1966 175 4.3 Canvas tent lodging in Panzhihua 177 4.4 A mass meeting to celebrate the smelting of iron in 1970 185 4.5 Reading the Little Red Book at Panzhihua Steel in the early 1970s 192 4.6 Panzhihua elementary school in a tent 199

vii

Maps

0.1 The First, Second, and Third Fronts page 5 0.2 The Small Third Front 13 0.3 The Third Front in southwest China 14 0.4 The Third Front in south-central China 16 4.1 Map showing the location of Panzhihua in China 168

viii

Abbreviations

CCP Chinese Communist Party GMD Guomindang ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile PLA People’s Liberation Army PRC People’s Republic of China RMB renminbi – Chinese currency SOE state-owned enterprise

Acknowledgements

This book began as the consequence of a coincidence. I had just finished my PhD comprehensive exams, and I still had yet to settle on a dissertation topic. So, what I did was look through John K. Fairbank’s textbook on Chinese history and see what I could find that matched my interests in the Mao era and the Cold War, and that had occurred in Sichuan province, since my PhD adviser Jacob Eyferth had contacts there that I knew would be valuable for carrying out a research project. Flipping through the pages of Fairbank’s book, I came upon a brief mention of the Third Front. Having little idea what it was, I searched around for more information and uncovered a couple of articles by Barry Naughton which laid out the Third Front’s centrality to the political economy of late Maoist China. Intrigued by the idea of studying a topic that not only touched on geopolitics, economic development, and social history but was also understudied, I decided to make the Third Front into the focus of my dissertation. Looking back at that decision, I have often thought my younger self to be foolhardy for choosing to research the Third Front due to the problems that its size and complexity posed for making it into a manageable topic of study, to say nothing of the problems with acquiring sources on an issue directly related to Chinese national security. The fact that I was able to make the Third Front into the subject of this book was only possible thanks to the collegiality, guidance, and friendship of many people. My interest in the Cold War came from reading Bruce Cumings. It was his work on Cold War East Asia that initially sparked by intellectual interest in East Asian political economy and that brought me to the University of Chicago to pursue a PhD. The citations to his writings in the pages to follow are a testament to Bruce’sinfluence. If it were not for Jacob Eyferth, this project would not exist. It was only because he had conducted research in Sichuan that I came to learn about the Third Front. Jacob has over the years always been willing to go over drafts and talk through ideas, consistently challenging me to sharpen my analysis, flesh out my conceptual framework, and make links with the

Acknowledgements xi

existing historiography. After arriving in Chicago, I met Michael Geyer. An early conversation with him played a formative role in helping me to think through how to take the many issues related to the Third Front and divide them up into discrete chapters. I came to know Ken Pomeranz about halfway through my dissertation. My research has been enriched from his extensive advice. To Ken and Jacob, I owe my still limited ability to think like a social historian. Both at Chicago and after, I also learned much from banter about academic affairs with Max Bohnenkamp, Anne Rebull, Guoquan Seng, Nianshen Song, Limin Teh, Saul Thomas, Jake Werner, and Hai Zhao. The research for this book was made possible by multiple Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships, a Republic of China Language Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, a Fulbright Institute of International Education Fellowship, a write-up fellowship from the University of Chicago’s Center for East Asian Studies, and the Naval Postgraduate School’s Research Initiation Program. I would also like to express my gratitude to Liu Shilong and Chen Bo of Sichuan University for all that they did to facilitate my field- work in Southwest and Central China as well as Chen Yongfa and Yu Miing-lin for hosting me at Academica Sinica’s Institute of Modern History. An abundance of thanks is especially due to Chen Donglin and Xu Youwei who put me in touch with their contacts and generously discussed with me what they knew about elite politics and everyday life at the Third Front. Over the past four years, I have been fortunate to have a supportive group of colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School. Mo Hafez and Clay Moltz have provided consummate mentorship on how to chart out a scholarly career while at the same time navigating the specificities of working for the U.S. Department of Navy. Having draft chapters produc- tively critiqued by Naaz Barma, Anne Marie Baylouny, Anne Clunan, Erik Dahl, Ryan Gingeras, Mike Glosny, Wade Huntley, Dan Moran, Afshon Ostovar, Jessica Piombo, James Russell, Zach Shore, Rachel Sigman, and Chris Twomey all profoundly contributed to the clarifica- tion of the book’s aims. Chris Darnton’s comments on a draft book introduction were particularly helpful, as have been his thoughtful responses to my ample questions about scholarly life writ large. Teaching at the Naval Postgraduate School has endowed me with an invaluable sounding board, as conversations with students have given me insights into how military folk think about national security, the policies that states implement to shore up national defense, and the multiple motivations that inform people’s experiences of military service.

xii Acknowledgements

Presenting research-in-progress at academic venues also signiﬁcantly contributed to writing this book. Participating in scholarly events organized by Jennifer Altehenger, Denise Ho, Aaron Moore, Gai Hershatter, Emily Honig, Malcolm Thompson, Fabio Lanza, Melissa Dale, Karl Gerth, Joshua Howard, and Jessica Dahl all provided stimulating forums to discuss different aspects of the book with members of the Chinese studies community. I learned much as well from Association of Asian Studies’ conference panels organized with Judd Kinzley, Jeremy Tai, Scott Relyea, Harrison Kim, Aaron Moore, Jaewoong Jeon, Maggie Clinton, and Hou Li. It was at AAS where I met Fabio Lanza, who not only helped me to traverse the travails of the publishing process, but also read multiple drafts, gave pointed criticism, and talked over my many queries. Anonymous reviewers’ astute comments also pushed me to dig deep, develop the book’s conceptual framing, and locate and mobilize more sources. The process of revising the book gained an additional boost from judicious comments by Karl Gerth, Mindy Smith, Alex Day, and Barry Naughton. Lucy Rhymer has, likewise, been a model editor, and Natasha Whelan, James Baker, and Podhumai Anban have skillfully shepherded the book through the production process. I would also like to thank John Hopkins University Press and Routledge for allowing me to use previously published materials in chapter 3 and 5.1 This book would have never come to fruition without the solicitude of my wife Hsin-Hui Tseng and support of my family members. I knew that it was clearly time to ﬁnish the dissertation when our two-year old daugh- ter Ya-Yen began talking about how she was collecting materials for a chapter for her dissertation, and I knew that I was talking too much about my book when she started offering advice on how to revise it at the dinner table. Finally, I dedicate this book to the millions of people who gave their lives to building the Third Front and have shared their varied experiences in interviews, memoirs, and archival documents.

1 Parts of chapter 5 are from the following article. Covell Meyskens, “Third Front Railroads and Industrial Modernity in Late Maoist China, Twentieth-Century China, Volume 40, Issue 3, October 2015, pages 238–260. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Parts of chapter 3 are from this article. Covell Meyskens, “Building a Dam for China in the Three Gorges Region, 1919–1971.” In Water, Technology, and the Nation-State, edited by Erik Swyngedouw and Filippo Menga, 207–222. London: Routledge, 2018.