At a time when the famine in Henan was reaching its height because of the massive demands of the land tax in kind, this was an important point indeed. Peasants forced to pay the Communists much higher levies felt bitter, but they escaped the harrowing deprivations experienced in Henan, where villagers gave their last grain to the tax collectors and were left to starve. The Communist policy was exacting, but it was progressive. It was also effective: during the war years, production of grain in Yan’an increased by almost 40 percent; more than fourteen times as many bolts of cotton were woven by
...more
