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lectivization. But beyond that, there is a limit to the amount of physical labor even highly motivated people can do. Peasants on many communes soon reached that limit. CCP officials did- n’t help matters by pressing ahead with massive infrastructure projects. Production brigades had to do the backbreaking work of building dams and digging canals with nothing more than picks and shovels. Exhaustion of the labor force added to another problem: the lack of incentives for extra effort. Under the commune system, everyone received the same compensa- tion. And—at least in the beginning of the Great Leap Forward—commune members were promised as much food as they wanted. Under these circumstances, it was human nature for individuals to slack off a bit in the rice paddies and wheat fields. The new agricultural techniques were based not on science but on wishful thinking. According to the CCP’s “experts,” a lot more grain could be grown on less land if the grain were very densely planted. Of course, nature doesn’t work that way. Plants need adequate space and nutrients to grow. Catastrophe By the end of 1958, clear signs of trouble had appeared. Crop yields were plummeting all over the country. Nevertheless, commune managers reported bumper har- vests for their communes. In turn, regional Communist Party officials reported huge crop yields for their provinces. After one official announced that his province had doubled its grain production, another claimed that his province had tripled its production. Soon another province was reporting quadruple

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Communism: Control of the State