The peasant condition in Xinjiang

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The peasant condition inXinjiangIldikó Bellér‐Hann a

a Research Fellow, University of Kent, EliotCollege , The Universit, Canterbury, Kent, CT27NSPublished online: 05 Feb 2008.

To cite this article: Ildikó Bellér‐Hann (1997) The peasant condition in Xinjiang,The Journal of Peasant Studies, 25:1, 87-112, DOI: 10.1080/03066159708438659

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The Peasant Condition in Xinjiang

ILDIKÓ BELLÉR-HANN

This article explores Uighur peasants' perceptions of their ownposition in the reform period in Xinjiang province, Northwest China,which remain predicated on their obligations towards the state aslandlord. Despite the emphasis on 'market economy ', the legacy ofthe Maoist period continues to impose constraints upon households- perhaps more in this remote region, dominated by ethnicminorities, than has been reported in other parts of China in recentdecades. The article examines various channels of state control, theagents of this control, and the sanctions enforced. It also argues thatsome concepts of the secular authorities converge in peasants'perceptions with a traditional religious world view. However, secularpower is resented and resisted in various 'everyday' strategies.

INTRODUCTION

The economic reforms implemented in rural China and their repercussionhave received a great deal of scholarly attention [e.g., Blecher, 1995Benewick and Wingrove, 1995; Feuchtwang, Hussain and Pairault, 1988Liu, 1994; Oi, 1989; Riskin, 1987; Nolan, 1988; Kelliher, 1989; Siu, 1989Hinton, 1990; Potter and Potter, 1990; Davin, 1991; Croll, 1988; 1995]Most analyses have focused on the situation among the Han Chinesimajority, and changes taking place in many minority regions have beeineglected. One such region is Southern Xinjiang. The purpose of the presenarticle is to give a brief account of how Uighur peasants, who form th<majority of the population in this region, have experienced change amcontinuity since the rural reforms were introduced in the early 1980s.1

Ildikó Bellér-Hann, Research Fellow, University of Kent, Eliot College, The Universit;Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NS. This article is the outcome of research carried out jointly with CHann. funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of Great Britain (R000 235709). Thauthor would like to express her thanks to Dr Tsui Yen Hu and Professor Fang Xiao Hua, to thChinese authorities who issued the research permit and to Uighur farmers and their families whgenerously welcomed her into their homes. She is solely responsible for the contents of thiarticle; the field sites were not of the researchers' free choosing. A further account of this projetis in preparation.

The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.24, No.4, October 1997, pp.87-112PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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88 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is situated in theNorthwestern corner of the People's Republic of China.2 It is the home ofthirteen recognized ethnic groups, although the number of unrecognisedgroups which would like to claim such status is much higher.3 Thepopulation is relatively small at just under 17 million, but since the regionmakes up about one-sixth of China's total land area and comprises astrategically very important border area, its stability is of great importanceto the centre.4 As the name of the province implies, the dominant group isthe Uighurs, people who speak a Turkic type language and profess Islam.Although the Uighurs still form a numerical majority in the province, therapid influx of Han Chinese from the poor inland provinces may soonchange this.5 This vast border region has had a long history of Chinesepresence going back to the Han dynasty. However, for a long time theChinese were unable to establish firm control over the region. The area firstbecame officially incorporated into the Qing Empire in the second half ofthe eighteenth century. Following the great Muslim rebellions of thenineteenth century it became a Chinese province in 1884 when it was givenits present name Xinjiang, meaning New Frontier. During the Republicanperiod the territory remained nominally part of China but little control wasexercised by the centre, and the first half of the twentieth century wascharacterised by the unstable rule of a series of Chinese warlords. The latestde facto political incorporation of the region into China came about at thetime of the communist victory in 1949.

Apart from mounting ethnic tensions, primarily between the Uighursand the Han Chinese, but also frequently involving Hui (Chinese Muslims),other factors also add to the growing instability of the region. Xinjiang hasfor a long time been perceived by the Chinese as a place for banishment, animperial tradition carried into the socialist period in the form of labourcamps. This is also the region where, making use of large desert areas,China carries out its nuclear tests.

The situation in the XUAR during the socialist period can be characterisedas colonial. There has been a strong Chinese military presence, exploitationof mineral resources (especially oil) for the benefit of interior regions ofChina, and the encouragement of large-scale Han Chinese labour migration towork in construction, mines and rural industry as a cheap labour force.Increasingly conscious of these disadvantages, the aspirations of ethnicminorities have received a great boost from the fact that Muslim groups suchas the Uzbeks, Kirghiz, Kazakh and Turkmen, closely related to the Uighursin language and culture and formerly dominated by Russian imperialismwithin the USSR, have recently gained independence [Dillon, 1995]. Thisarticle focuses on the southern part of Xinjiang, which has the largestconcentration of Uighurs and the least developed industry.

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THE PEASANT CONDITION IN XINJIANG 89

Post-liberation Xinjiang has experienced all the changes which the restof China has undergone: land reform followed by the establishment ofmutual-aid teams, then cooperatives, then the Peoples' Communes, theCultural Revolution, and most recently the reform era that began in the early1980s. Because of restricted access to reliable information and data, foreignobservers took a relatively long time to recognise the realities behind Maoistrhetoric. They emphasised the enormous achievements of the communeperiod in terms of eliminating poverty and realising a greater degree ofequality.6 Nowadays the Maoist period is viewed more critically, and theongoing reform period is hailed as bringing more substantial benefits inboth agricultural production and the welfare and freedoms of peasants. Theunleashing of market forces under the guidance of the Communist Partyhas, however, given rise to new problems on the macro level as noted bymany analysts [Nolan, 1988; Hinton, 1990; Kelliher, 1992; Blecher, 1995].Though informed by these analyses, the main focus of this article is on howthe reform era is perceived by Uighur peasants themselves.

Although great changes have taken place in many of the villages ofXinjiang, and these are acknowledged by peasants, the reforms have notadded up to a great advance for many of them. The euphoria among Uighurpeasants which followed the land reform in the early 1980s (see below) hasgiven way to a reassessment of the present situation, which in the view ofmany is far from satisfactory. Peasants' accounts of their daily lives focuson continuities with past practices and dissatisfaction with the new policies,which many of them consider misguided.7 Many aspects of the opencoercion of the local peasantry by the Chinese state during the years ofcollectivisation have persisted and these continue to create feudal-typeconstraints for Uighur peasants.8 The term feudal is used here in a loose,popular sense, to describe a situation in which peasants' freedom ofmovement remains seriously restricted, they have no rights of ownershipover their land, they are subjected to corvee type labour obligations, andhave limited control over their harvest.9 The term feudal is also used by thesocialist authorities as the official term for the pre-revolutionary socialstructure of China, including Xinjiang.10 Local and higher level partyofficials still make frequent use of the term to refer to 'backward' customsand ideas." A crusade against feudal customs is still being carried forwardin the name of modernity and progress. Feudalism is a particularly usefulidiom in Xinjiang for a Chinese state which is trying to reduce the role ofIslam, perceived as the major moving force behind ethnic separatism.12

However, while there are clear points of confrontation between themessages conveyed by religious authorities and those of the state, I suggestthat at some points the two may converge and reinforce each other. Theultimate irony is that when the Chinese state seeks to weaken Islam it also

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inadvertently undermines a force which, in some respects, provides usefulunderpinnings for the acceptance and respect of secular authorities.

THE REFORM CONTEXT

'The Central Party Committee and the State Commission have issueda series of guidelines to reduce the burden on farmers. Variousresponsible organizations and local governments have also devisednumerous ways to implement the spirit of these guidelines, but inmany places the old situation has not changed at all and the fanners'outcry can be heard everywhere.'

(from The Peasant Cries)"

These lines introduce a poem on a tape played to us by a young peasantduring an interview in his house.14 The tape contained a collection of poemswritten by an Uighur school teacher, himself of peasant origin. The title ofthe tape and the first poem was: 'It is difficult to be a peasant'. Accordingto our young host the poems were an accurate representation of thepeasants' position in the new economic climate. The young man who playedit for us explained that in 1996 this tape had been officially banned, soonafter its release. Later we learnt that the producers of the tape had beenarrested and briefly imprisoned.15 Copies none the less circulated and wereextremely popular among Uighur peasants, who felt the poems to give anauthentic account of their current grievances.16

This latest era for Uighur peasants began with the Third Plenary sessionof the Eleventh Congress of the CCP in 1978 and the land reform which wasimplemented in the early 1980s. Uighurs refer to these changes as simplythe 'time when land was given to us' (ydr bdrgdn gag)" or land reform (ydrislahati) while others call the period which began at this time the era offreedom (drkinlik).1* As is well known, this second land reform was not astraightforward reversal of collectivisation. Decollectivisation did not meanprivatisation, because land was not returned to private ownership.19 Landownership was retained by the collective. Villagers were given the right touse land as household units with long-term leases [Nolan, 1988: 87]. Landwas distributed on the principle of equality, and at varying pace in differentlocations. The amount of land distributed varied not only from village tovillage but also among production teams within each village.20 In thevillages where my data was collected the average size of plot each adultreceived was around 1 mu.2'

The limitations of the principle of equality of the land reform have beenrecognised by many commentators: changes in family size, and especiallyvariations in the number of surviving sons who will sooner or later claim a

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share of their father's land, lead to increasing inequalities [Bramall andJones, 1993]. Freedoms to employ hired labour and to engage in specialisedactivities within and outside agriculture have opened the way to theaccumulation of wealth for some. Peasants can also have access to landother than that allocated to them by the collective, for example, by takingover a piece from another peasant who is unable or unwilling to till his ownshare. The right to cultivate this land is retained by peasant A to whom ithad originally been leased out by the collective, but peasant B whocultivates it will typically pay either cash or grain to the holder of the lease.Peasants view land leased from the collective very differently from landtaken over for cultivation from a fellow villager. The former is seen as'permanent' (muqim) land which is referred to as one's own, over whichpeople feel they have a degree of ownership. The latter case is seen as atemporary undertaking (hoddigd elis) which is 'unstable' {muqim dmds).The leasing of additional pieces of land from the collective is anotheroption, although there is limited scope for such arrangements because of thegeneral scarcity of cultivated land in the oases. It seemed that this optionwas only open to a privileged few who had particularly good personalrelations with the village cadres. The saying that 'no land is taken awayfrom the dead and no land is given to the newborn' (oluktin ydr almaytugulganga ydr bdrmdydu) is implicitly interpreted as a licence to pass onthe right of land use to the next generation. This statement emphasises thetotal control of land by an outside force, the Chinese state. In many familiesfathers have already given their married sons their share no matter howsmall, as pre-socialist customs required. Many other families, however,have opted for not dividing the small land holdings into smaller parcels.Rather, after the married son's separation the two households may becomeseparate units of production and consumption but continue to cultivate theland and share the produce between them equally. In some cases two or eventhree married sons shared the land with the paternal household, in othersonly the youngest son, whose elder brothers had already received their shareof their patrimony.

All peasants prioritise their own subsistence needs. But in oasissettlements land tends to be scarce and in recent decades this has certainlybeen the case here.22 The small parcels of land cultivated by Uighur peasantfamilies are barely enough to satisfy subsistence needs and seldom providework for all the available labour force in their households. The villageswhere my interviews were conducted are situated near the city, where manyfamilies can derive their incomes from other sources (through engaging incommercial activities).23 Although most of these families derived most oftheir income from sideline production, commerce or wage labour ratherthan agriculture, they continued to identify themselves primarily as

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peasants. Agriculture remained fundamental for them, regarded as a basicnecessity to satisfy subsistence needs rather than a source of income. Whenwe asked about forms of co-operation, one young man said: 'We docooperate in jobs to earn money, but we do not cooperate in agriculturalwork.' Agriculture is not regarded as an income-generating activity, and, asMcKinley and Griffin found elsewhere in China, farm size is not animportant determinant of income [1993: 78],

Although unofficial leasing arrangements between households havemade it possible for a few people to cultivate large areas through employinghired labour and thereby generating substantial cash incomes, for themajority of peasants the main sources of cash income are the crafts,commerce and household specialisation encouraged by the state since 1983[Croll, 1988]. Peasants with no skills and no means of accumulating enoughcapital for such sideline activities have to subsist on agriculture and manycan hardly meet their families' subsistence needs. I met relatively few suchpeople in rich villages near Kashgar, but was told that they constitute themajority in villages situated further away from cities. Such peasantstypically require grain loans repayable in kind from those who produce agrain surplus. Since they have to pay substantial interest they are rapidlyentangled in a web of accumulated debts. Even in the prosperous villageswhere I worked24 new problems have emerged: not only has incomeinequality risen within the framework of a supposedly still socialisteconomy, but social benefits such as free or heavily subsidised health careand education characteristic of the past have partially broken down, suchthat considerable expenses now have to be met by individuals.

THE OBLIGATIONS

The great advances of the early 1980s were halted by the agrarian'backlash' of 1985 which aimed at reasserting strong state control overpeasants [Kelliher, 1992: 132-3]. Many farmers continue to feel theambiguity of this situation. They tend to perceive the responsibility system(a term hardly ever used by them) as a relationship of dependency on thestate. For them the reform era means, as one man put it, very few rights inexchange for a great many duties.

Peasants' obligations to the state can be summed up in six main points:

(1) They are tied to their place of residence and therefore to their land.

(2) They are obliged to grow an industrial crop (cotton) and sell this to thestate which holds a monopoly over it.

(3) They are subject to compulsory grain procurement by the state.

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(4) They are required to practise methods of cultivation imposed uponthem from above.

(5) They must contribute to communal work, according to the size of theirplots.

(6) They must observe compulsory family planning policies.25

Residence

'We are the most numerous of the whole population,We are the peasants, the masters of mother earth,We are the guarantors of everyone's food and wealthWe are the hard workers of earth.'

(from The Peasant Cries)

From the 1950s the Chinese authorities imposed strict controls over place ofresidence in order to avoid the problems of many developing countries andcontrol rural migration into urban centres. In spite of some significantrelaxation in the 1990s, which has led to a large influx of poor peasants intoChina's major cities, the household registration system ensures that ruralmigration into the large urban centres remains under control in Xinjiang.26

From the peasants' point of view this policy has created a sharp dividingline between urban and rural residents, the former enjoying a number ofprivileges in terms of health care, access to better education and jobs and tosubsidised food.27 In modern Xinjiang Uighur peasants regard this as amajor impediment to improving their lot. They see the regulations as, ineffect, a means of binding them not just to their peasant status but to theirplace of birth, for they have no entitlement to land in any other location.

Although some may eventually move to the city, their status of residencewill officially remain rural thereby excluding them from some of thebenefits of town residence.28 Conversely, teachers and other governmentemployees who reside in the village have no right to cultivate the land, buttheir residence status is essentially the same as that of urban residents, forexample, in relation to social security entitlements. Thus residenceregulations create tangible divisions within the village as well as serving toentrench the urban-rural divide.29 Rural residence also means entitlement toland. For some young farmers tiny plots which they are allowed to cultivateare more of a burden than an asset. They may consider opting out ofagriculture altogether and trying their hand at business. However, such amove is very risky, since business enterprises often end in failure and mostpeople choose to retain their small plots. A typical solution to this problemwas Mijit's. He has to support his wife and two young children but has lessthan two mu of land to cultivate. He leaves his wife for many months at a

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time to do all the agricultural work by herself while he goes to the provincialcapital, Uriimci, trying to set up a carpet business with the help of a familymember.

Although few fanners view rural residence and access to small pieces ofland as an advantage, losing one's rural residence without gaining an urbanregistration can have very serious consequences. One woman, a native of aKashgar village, was married off to Aqsu as a young girl. There she borefive children and after the death of her husband she remained there makinga living as a peddlar. As her sons were growing older she decided to returnto her native village, because, although she could do business, she felt thatit was increasingly difficult to handle her sons. She moved into the home ofone of her brothers, who provided the necessary male authority for theunruly teenagers. In Kashgar she was unable to continue her businessbecause here peddling was not an acceptable job for a woman, and she andher childrenhad to live off the charity of her brother. Since she had left hervillage during the collectivised period and returned only after the onset ofthe reforms when land was contracted out, she had not been given aresidence permit by the local township authorities, which would entitle herto participate in the household responsibility system and therefore to a pieceof land. Although she and her children had birth certificates they had noresidence registration, yet without this her sons could not sit examinationsfor higher education or get married. Her repeated attempts to get a residencepermit in her natal village had been rejected and her eldest son had run awayfrom home. Even though it is widely perceived as disadvantageouscompared to city registration, rural residence is the only route to access toland. Farmers describe families whose members enjoy a 'mixed' residencestatus as the most advantaged: not only do they receive cultivation rightsand through it a degree of security but also the social benefits that cityresidents enjoy. Furthermore, since a child's residence status is determinedby that of its mother, marriage between a rural teacher, who invariably hasa residence status akin to that of an urban resident, and a rural residentfemale will entitle the couple to have three children.30

Cotton Cultivation

'The white gold fattens others but we still remain poor,Instead we get into debt.'


The state continues to interfere in virtually all aspects of production.Despite the ostensible commitments to 'market economy', each year quotasspecified from above determine how much land has to be used for grainproduction and for cotton.31 Quotas for cotton production, which is a state

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monopoly, come from the provincial level and are then broken down atlower administrative levels until each household receives a prescribedminimum allocation expressed in terms of the area to be sown. When theyfirst saw us, many peasants often assumed that we were there to check uponcotton production. They called the obligation to grow cotton a form ofoppression (zulum) and said that if it was up to them they would prefer togrow wheat on all the land available to them. In this way more familieswould be able to ensure their basic subsistence needs, and profit from thesale of any surplus wheat. As it is, some families cannot produce enoughwheat to satisfy subsistence needs and have to buy wheat from the market.Officials claim that the centrally planned compulsory cotton cultivation is inthe peasants' own best interests, whatever they themselves say, since formany families with no sideline production or commercial activities cottonprovides the only source of cash income. Peasants, however, insist that thevarious inputs (chemicals, fertiliser and plastic film) for cotton plus itslabour intensity mean that there is no real profit in cotton growing. Theybelieve that the state insists on it to ensure that peasants will have enoughcash in hand in late autumn to pay tax and land rent (which neither they northe authorities distinguish clearly) and other bills. Individual farmerscalculate that the cash they receive from the sale of cotton to the the stateowned cotton factory does not cover their labour and cash investment incotton growing, which makes the whole enterprise unprofitable.

Farmers receive subsidised supplies of agricultural inputs, includingchemical fertiliser, but these supplies are often not enough and many haveto purchase more on the market at normal cost. The cost of these subsidisedinputs is lumped together with land rent, water use, education and otherservice charges in a single bill that peasants have to pay at the end ofOctober or early in November, a few weeks after the compulsory selling oftheir cotton to the cotton factory. This is termed 'accounting time'(hisapla"). This pattern is described by peasants as very similar to theannual accounting undertaken during the collective era.

Grain Procurement

'We are forced to sell our grain ... '(from The Peasant Cries)

Farmers are also obliged to pay disguised taxes to the state in the form ofcompulsory grain procurement. This, too, has been inherited from communetimes, when the struggle for the harvest was between the production teamsand the state [Kelliher, 1992: 157-8]. According to Blecher, in 1985 thegrain procurement system was abolished and replaced by a contract betweenstate and farmers for part of the harvest with free markets taking the rest

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[Blecher, 1995: 110]. For their part peasants see this no differently from theprevious arrangements, since in their experience many of them have nosurplus to sell, and some are forced to buy extra grain to satisfy familyneeds. In other words, 'the struggle over the harvest that is central to peasantpolitics' [Oi, 1989: 227] has not been eliminated during the reform period.Peasants do not get cash from the state when they sell their quota of wheatat prices fixed by the state (significantly lower than market prices). Theamount they have sold is written on a receipt in June and its value isdeducted from their debt to the collective at the time of the annualaccounting several months later.32

The priority of Uighur peasants with small plots is to ensure that theygrow enough wheat to satisfy their family's need: the size of their plots, theobligation to grow cotton on a certain percentage of their land, and thecompulsory selling of grain to the state at fixed prices prevent many of themfrom fulfilling this basic aspiration." This is grave since a very highpercentage of Uighur peasant families' diet is wheat-based [Hoppe, 1987:239]. For families with no other source of income this multiple stateinterference creates an inescapable poverty trap. Farmers who can only justfulfill their families' subsistence needs with the wheat they produce, or whohave to supplement their grain store with wheat bought from the market,also have to use the market to fulfil their compulsory grain procurementobligation. Of course they have to buy this wheat at a higher price than theyare paid for it, but they calculate that this entails a smaller loss than the finethey would otherwise be liable to pay for not fulfilling their grainprocurement.34

Cultivation Methods

'They say you must grow a particular crop ... '(from The Peasant Cries)

After the wheat harvest in midsummer most Uighur peasants plant maize onthe same plots, which is made possible by the exceptionally hot and longsummers. The state has no direct interest in obtaining a good maize crop,since it does not form part of the compulsory procurement. In 1996 thecounty government in the vicinity of Kashgar decided to enforce thereplacement of the traditional local maize by another variety promisinghigher yields. While peasants acknowledge this difference in yield, most ofthem have a clear preference for the local variety, called white maize (aqqonaq), as opposed to the yellow maize (seriq qonaq) promoted by theauthorities. They say that the bread they make out of it 'tastes sweeter', andthat the traditional, local variety produces more leaves which provide fodderfor their sheep. Although wheat bread (nan) is preferred, many households

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occasionally still bake corn bread (zagra) especially during the wintermonths. Corn bread used to be the staple food of the poor before 1949, andwas also an important part of local diet during the 30 years ofcollectivisation. For families which subsist primarily on agriculture, cornbread continues to be important since, because of the inadequate size of theirplots and obligatory grain procurement, they do not grow enough wheat fortheir own needs and have no cash to buy what they need from the market.The importance of corn as animal feed should not be underestimated either.In all the villages I visited even the poorest households try to keep at leasttwo or three sheep. Sheep are needed for the annual ritual of the Festival ofSacrifice (Qurban) but, more importantly, for poor and middle incomefamilies alike sheep are 'walking moneyboxes'. Although some farmers takeadvantage of bank loans, for many the interest rate is far too high andinvesting into sheep appears to be the favoured way of insuring the future:against a sudden need for substantial amounts of cash in cases of familycrises such as illness and death or for other life cycle rituals.

Although observers comment on the increased autonomy of peasants,intervention in cultivation methods still seems drastic from the peasants'point of view. In the summer of 1996 following instructions from thecounty, township officials were actively interfering with cultivationprocedures. Peasants were instructed in new, more orderly techniques: cornseeds should be sown by machine in tidy rows at regular intervals, and thenewly planted corn should be covered with plastic film, a practice requiredin cotton cultivation for years. Rural cadres were summoned for a series ofmeetings with township leaders, agronomists and other leaders, and afterthe new methods were demonstrated to them they were told to pass on theseinstructions to individual farmers. The peasants themselves were notconsulted before the changes were implemented. They simply receivedorders through the local cadres, who themselves had no say in the matter. Atthe same June meeting the cadres received further instructions about thecompletion of the wheat harvest and the procurement deadline. The tone ofthe township leader and the chief agronomist was stern and threatening:

We have to employ strict measures. The wheat harvest must befinished and the wheat sold to the state within the next five days. If themaize is sown later, there will be no crop. Everybody must work.During the following fifteen days no weddings can be held, and partyofficials at the township offices will not be allowed to registermarriages or births. Funerals are the only exceptions, but if a deathoccurs only the closest relatives will be allowed to take part. Peasantsnot obeying us will be fined. Rural cadres must set a good example inall these matters. It they do not do this, they will have to account for

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their behaviour. These orders are for your own good. We want to makeyou rich. The Communist Party cares about you and it is in your bestinterest to obey.33

This meeting lasted for an hour and a half. No one took notes. Manyrural cadres arrived late and some of those sitting around were chatting ordozing. The later dissemination of these decisions was exclusively oral. Insome cases leaders used the village loudspeakers, a well-tested method ofthe commune period. Some production team36 leaders personally deliveredthis message to every household head, but another favoured shortcut was toannounce such decisions to peasants when they assembled at the mosque forthe Friday prayer.

During the two weeks that followed this meeting I spent most of my timein the fields monitoring compliance. Many people were late with the wheatharvest and consequently with delivering their grain to the state. I watcheda great many villagers sow their maize: most sowed the local, preferredvariety using the old methods. Nobody in the neighbourhood, as far as Icould tell, apart from some cadres, used plastic film. Peasants grumbled thatthey had to buy the new variety seed (delivered to their house by theproduction team leader) whether they liked it or not, and many gave it totheir animals as fodder since the seeds provided were of particularly inferiorquality. At the time no machine for laying the plastic film was available inthe village; in any case peasants were loath to pay for its use. They said thatthe plastic was a waste of time, especially as a sandstorm could easily rip itall away. Some people resorted to a compromise and sowed both types ofseeds using the old method. But most we talked to ignored the orders, andclaimed later that they had only learned of the orders when they had alreadyfinished sowing.37 At a later meeting the results of this particular campaignwere evaluated. Out of the sixteen villages that made up this township onlyone could report that the set goals had been fully achieved. The leader ofthis village boasted that in the name of increased decentralisation andautonomy he had arbitrarily imposed heavy fines (120 yuan per family) onthe villagers who resisted.

Communal Work

'The obligation to feed silk worms was distributed among householdsThey are not silk worms, they are our masters ... '.


The right to cultivate land also entails the duty to perform communal work.38

Such work - to open up wasteland, construct and maintain irrigationchannels, build schools and even main roads — is widely resented bypeasants. If the need arises, the township authorities may increase the

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number of workdays. The exact number of days required of each householdis not decided uniformly. I heard that in some locations the number could beas high as 90 days a year, although it was more commonly between 30 and60. In one township it was uniform for every household with rural residenceuntil May 1996, with the exact number of workdays changing from year toyear. From May 1996 the number of compulsory workdays a household hasto fulfill is determined in accordance with the amount of land it hascontracted from the state, so families with more land have to perform ahigher number of labour days than those with less land. In one village it wasfixed as five days per mu. It is a painful reminder of the times ofcollectivisation, when all work was both compulsory and communal.Nowadays household farming, business and sideline activities are clearlydistinguished from communal work, which is known officially as'voluntary' work (xalis dmgak). The word xalis is used in other contexts toexpress voluntariness or even altruism. For instance, it is often juxtaposedwith the words help (xalis yardam) or additional prayers (xalis namaz).However, since it became a synonym for corvee work, the expression xalisdmgdk has become devalued, and it is no longer used to denote trulyvoluntary enterprises such as the building of a village mosque. This is nowtermed 'work done of one's free will' (oz ixtiyari bildn dmgdk). Manypeasants continue to refer to communal work as alwang, the expressioncommonly used in pre-1949 society to denote corvee.*9

Communal work obligations are allocated from township leadersthrough villages and production teams to individual households. Farmersoften have to work in a different part of the township away from their ownvillage, and in such cases they do not feel that their work is benefiting theirown community. Communal work is typically interpreted as work for thestate and a form of oppression.

Communal work can be 'traded in' for other forms of obligation. Foryears production teams have also been allocated quotas of silk they mustproduce each year and sell to the state. People who take this job on may beexempt from forms of communal work described above. Farmers in theproduction team where we worked apparently had hardly any trainingbefore they started raising silkworms (pild). Furthermore, they complainedthat the work was labour intensive, and that conditions in their village werequite unsuited because they did not have enough mulberry trees. Instead ofmaking a profit, in 1995 farmers in this village were unable to meet theofficial target and were obliged to pay a heavy fine. They proudly told usthat they made such a mess of it last year that this year their village hadreceived no silk assignment, while the neighbouring village, whoseperformance was not so disastrous, had once again been burdened with theexploitative silk quota.

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Misguided construction policies also increase fanners' resentment. Oneclear example was the laying down of pipes for drinking water in severalvillages. In one township, peasants reported that although they had to payand contribute a great number of labour days to this job, they were initiallyhappy to do so because they recognised the future benefits of theundertaking. Yet, although the job had long been finished, the peasants hadbeen told that to have the pipes extended to their own courtyards anadditional payment was required from them, a sum many could not afford.Those who had paid this sum came to regret doing so: although they nowhad a tap in their courtyard, there was hardly ever any water in the pipesbecause of the inadequacy of the water supply.

Communal work is allocated to all who have contracted land, andanyone who fails to meet his obligations risks a heavy fine. What peasantscan do, however, is transfer their labour obligation to others. For eachlabour day a peasant receives a chit which has no name on it and is thereforetransferable. Richer peasants can buy poorer peasants' labour to perform thejob for them. The price paid to poorer peasants sometimes matches the priceof wage labour in town but, given rural unemployment, it is usuallyconsiderably lower. All those who take part in communal work do their bestto make the workday short and to work in as relaxed a style as possible,another clear legacy from the commune period. The allocation of communalwork within the household is determined by gender and age. As a reactionto the collectivised period when 'all work was compulsory' and whenwomen were also obliged to take on heavy work, not only in the fields butalso at the construction of irrigation channels, communal work is now doneby men only. If there are several generations available it is always theyounger men who perform the job, and lending and borrowing of labour forthis purpose - as part of informal exchanges of various services betweenrelatives and friends - has also become common. Families with financial orother resources can get rid of the burden altogether. Those with money cansimply pay a certain sum per day as a fine instead of performing labourservice. Others who work as cadres or who are on very good terms withcadres can get out of it altogether. Peasants' general opinion is that low levelcadres in charge of organising communal work manipulate the system,allocating more work to ordinary people while they themselves do muchless than their share or nothing.

Family Planning

'In actual fact we are the slaves of fines...'(from The Peasant Cries)

Compulsory family planning for Han Chinese all over China has been

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enforced since the 1980s [Croll, et. al, 1985; Kane, 1987; Rai, 1995]. Thepolicy was implemented in minority areas only in the early 1990s, but isalready high on the list of Uighur peasants' complaints. Although the policyis more generous toward minority groups, both urban and rural Uighurfamilies are unhappy with its limitations. Urban Uighur couples are allowedto have two children, rural couples three. As in Han Chinese areas, manyrumours circulate of forced abortions and consequent revenge taken onofficials. The number of newborn babies each year is decided at countylevel and broken down to township, village and group levels. If a child isborn without permission (plansiz = outside the plan) the parents will haveto pay a heavy fine, even if it falls within the three to which they are entitled.Alternatively an abortion can be induced at any stage of the pregnancybefore the child is born, and township and village officials regularly drivewomen to the nearby hospital against their will.40 Peasants makecomparisons with food rationing during the commune period, saying thatthey used to have food rationing, but now they have a prescribed quota(norma) of children. Others point at small children born outside the 'plan'for whom a fine has been paid and point out, as if speaking of an animal,that this is 'a child worth 700 yuan'. They find the idea of measuringchildren's worth in money repulsive.

Family planning in the form of various contraceptive methods andforced abortions is perceived as highly detrimental to women's health.Family planning does not extend to antenatal or postnatal care, and evencounty level female cadres acknowledge a dramatic decline in women'shealth as a result of the indiscriminate use of the IUD, contraceptive andabortion inducing pills. To avoid being detected, many pregnant womenprefer to give birth at home with no medical assistance since they fear thata hospital birth will entail their sterilisation without their consent.41 On thewhole, it seemed to me that as far as family planning is concerned localofficials, themselves subject to the same regulations, allow as much leewayto villagers as possible. Peasants get around the regulations throughmanipulating local customs surrounding birth (one of which is that womenusually give birth to their first two or three children in their natal home), andinformal adoption within the family.

THE MEANS OF ENFORCEMENT

Peasants literally pay a high cost for defying authority openly. With certainexceptions, notably in the enforcement of abortions, the usual means ofdisciplining them nowadays, in the reform period, is economic: fines areextracted for every act of disobedience. Those who refuse to plant cotton oronly partially fulfil the requirements are required to pay a fine. Peasants

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who do not sell their grain to the state have to pay cash instead. Those whodo not follow decreed methods of cultivation are fined. Avoiding communalwork and having children outside the official plan also lead to fines. Peoplerecognise the legitimacy of this form of punishment, and prefer it to otherforms used in the past (when beatings, imprisonment, self-criticism andother forms of public humiliations were common). They have never, to thebest of my knowledge, organised any campaign of non-payment, either offines or of the annual bills they must pay, as described above. Peasants makecalculations, and when the fines are manageable they will pay up and buythemselves certain types of freedom. For example, many farmers choose notto grow cotton, or to grow less than their assigned quota, and pay the fineinstead. The 700 yuan charged for an unplanned child was considered agood bargain by many, but recently this fine has gone up dramatically ( to2500 Yuan) and is beyond most people's reach. Manipulations of oldcustoms surrounding births and adoption practices are employed to avoiddetection and payment. Family planning is rejected by Uighurs on moralgrounds, but for peasants it is also an interference with their future laboursupply, a vital resource. That coercion is equated by minority peasants withoppression by an alien state is perhaps illustrated by the fact that whileurban intellectuals use the native word for fines (jarimana), Uighur peasantsprefer to use the Chinese equivalent (pakan).

Economic coercion through fines is now a pervasive theme in Uighurlife.42 It deepens the gulf between the interests of peasant and state and thestrategies peasants pursue to avoid fines (including feigning ignorance andlying) strengthen trust and interdependence between them.

The Agents of Enforcement

Peasants and state interact through local rural cadres who, like otherintermediaries (such as the colonial headmen studied by earlieranthropologists), play a crucial and ambiguous role. In the reform periodthey have been endowed with more power to manoeuvre for their ownbenefit. As elsewhere in China, they are often seen simply as representativesof the state who abuse their positions for their own ends. The lowest levelof government administration is that of the township (the former commune),and below are the levels of village and production team. While most oftownship cadres are Uighur, there are some Chinese in top positions. Lowerlevel cadres, however, are Uighur, usually members of the village orproduction team where they work. In one township where the top positionwas held by a Chinese cadre, the blame for misguided agricultural policieswas put on him. In the other township, where the top position was occupiedby an Uighur cadre of humble peasant origins, peasants' resentment wasdirected primarily against low level cadres.

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Production team and village leaders are the only officials with whommost peasants have regular contact. Commune officials are alreadyperceived as remote, not seen by ordinary peasants (unless they happen tobe residents of their neighbourhood). Low level rural cadres are chargedwith announcing and implementing the often unpopular policies, collectingland rent and other debts, allocating communal work and organising grainprocurement, and so on. They are often accused of fiddling the accounts soas to minimise their own grain sales, while causing more to be extractedfrom others. It is also commonly believed that they do not perform as manycompulsory labour days as they should, while making others work moreinstead. They are seen as representatives of the state, who are supported bypeasant labour. The lowest level village cadres (team and brigade leaders)are not salaried state employees but receive only a modest annual fee,which is indeed paid from peasants' contributions. Furthermore, since theyare themselves land cultivating peasants with rural residence they are notentitled to any of the privileges enjoyed by urban residents and stateemployees resident in the village.

Low level rural cadres receive bonuses if they implement a policysuccessfully, for example, meeting particular deadlines. If, however, theirvillage performs badly in any area they too may be subjected to heavy fines,and perhaps the loss of their position. They are expected to set a goodexample in following regulations. If they do not comply, they risk losingtheir position. In one village this happened to the local representative of theWomen's Federation after she became pregnant with her fourth child andrefused abortion. Low level cadres' prestige and popularity as well as theireconomic position are perpetually in the balance. It seemed to me that somelow level cadres had less room for manoeuvre than cadres elsewhere inChina, but many peasants perceived them as parasites. Many times I wastold: 'the policies issued at top are good, but they are not implemented asthey should be'. Yet from the point of view of the higher level authorities,rural cadres are seen as primarily peasants, whose interests and loyalties arewith the peasants, and who are therefore potentially subversive anduntrustworthy. Thus these cadres occupy a highly ambiguous position: asintermediaries they are constantly surrounded by resentment and bydeference.43 In effect they are the buffers mediating between the main actorsof the rural scene: the state and the peasants. It also seems likely that sincethe highest levels of authority, where policies are formulated, cannot becriticised without severe punishment, the only way for peasants to voicetheir dissatisfaction is to praise the good intentions of the highest authorityand blame the small officials, with their ambiguous position as both officeholders and vulnerable individuals. This widespread and automaticscapegoating of low level cadres can be understood as a weapon devised by

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peasants to express discontent without openly criticising higher authorities.Rural cadres' mediating role at the lowest level is unambiguous only in

the matter of family planning, as noted earlier. Here they side with the localpopulation, and turn a blind eye to strategies employed by peasants to avoidbeing 'caught out'.

While government employed township cadres are openly appointed'from above', low level rural cadres supposedly are elected democraticallyby their neighbourhood and village. Many peasants, however, describe theseelections as undemocratic: favouritism and corruption prevail, and thenominees of existing cadres at the same level are almost invariably elected.Information in this hierarchy seems to flow only in one direction: from topto bottom. Although I was assured by township cadres that peasants wereregularly consulted, for example about decisions concerning productionmethods, peasants did not confirm this claim. They may, however, turn tothe authorities with requests: on three occasions I was present when requestsfor social or material aid were made directly by ordinary peasants to villageor township officials. On each occasion the cadre addressed declared thathe/she was unable to help. Yet a great deal depends on them: when askingfor a bank loan, trying to do business outside the village, or even to getmarried, peasants will need a reference letter from their local cadres.

At the same time, somewhat paradoxically, Uighur peasants generally donot distinguish between local authority in the village and higher levels ofauthority as far as the issue of land ownership is concerned. Althoughtechnically the land leased to peasants is owned collectively, and thetownship has become the socialist landlord [Oi, 1989:189], Uighur villagerstypically consider their landlord to be the state (doldt). The state is equatedwith the government (hokiimaf) and the communist party (partiya). Thisconcept of authority implicitly includes that of the collective, but peasantsnever mention the collective as an authority. When asked about thecollective's role in the post-reform era they say that today the collective hasno power and no property to speak of: it is regarded as a thing of the past.Villagers see themselves as dealing directly with the state.

In the two townships near Kashgar I found that the power of villagecommittees remains limited. They are dominated by the townshipgovernment, as has been reported elsewhere in China [Oi, 1989: 178-80;Dearlove, 1995: 123]. Thus peasants are correct in their assessment of theirposition, which they conceptualise in terms of direct dealings with, andoften opposition to, the state. In this situation all cadres are primarilyrepresentatives of the state since their orders always come from higherlevels. Peasants are also clear about cadres' abuses of their power and asindividuals who use their position for manipulation they are resented; but asrepresentatives of the higher, state authority with a certain degree of control

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over peasants even the most corrupt cadres command a measure ofdeference. I turn in the final section of this article to examine the widercontext of local ideas of authority and respect, which brings us necessarilyto a discussion of religion.

THE TWO AUTHORITIES: STATE AND RELIGION

Religious intolerance is another legacy of the Maoist era that has persistedstrongly in this region.44 Today Uighur peasants are not banned fromattending the mosque but are constantly reminded of the dangers oforganising activities that are labelled illegal, such as participation in Sufirituals, or sending their children to religious instruction. (Women's positionremains ambiguous. Most women prefer to keep their religious practicesconfined to the privacy of their homes.) Muslim religious leaders who areperceived as collaborating with the authorities are not tolerated by radicalUighurs: shortly after we arrived in Kashgar one such leader was the victimof an assassination attempt. Given this general situation in Xinjiang, itwould seem that religious and secular authorities are locked into openconflict. Yet I argue that in some respects they reinforce each other, sincepeasants' attitudes towards these two types of authority are ultimatelysimilar.

My first interviews with villagers took place in highly formalcircumstances with an array of cadres accompanying us, and notsurprisingly informants felt that they had to toe the official line. TheCommunist Party was mentioned with great frequency and deference, andeveryone told us how well things had been going for them since the launchof the reforms . One old lady repeated several times: 'Our Party has madeus rich. With the help of our Party we have become successful and content.'Then she quickly corrected herself: 'With the help of my God and our Partywe have become successful.' Her idea of political correctness was clearlyhierarchical, and even in a monitored conversation she decided that God hadto come first, immediately followed by the Party. A similar ordering wasrepeated in other households. I did not find this juxtaposition of religiousand secular hierarchy surprising, since I had not expected that decades ofsevere religious repression would erode religious sentiments. But I wassurprised when, in the course of many later interviews in more relaxedconditions, informants persistently made explicit comparisons between theworkings of the religious and secular authorities. It seems that in their dailylives Uighur peasants confront two basic types of authority, religious andsecular, and that there is a high degree of congruence between the two.

Religious and secular authorities are often seen as reinforcing each otherin the realm of morality: the idea of sin as discussed in the mosque is

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perceived as closely corresponding to what the secular authorities regard ascrime. In both cases one is bound to be punished, in this world withimprisonment, in the other world with hell fire. This parallel was drawnexplicitly by a man who said that all men (apart from those who die youngand therefore in an innocent state) go to hell first after their death. GoodMuslims will then be released and allowed to enter paradise 'just as when acriminal has finished his punishment he will be set free again by thegovernment'. The Orthodox clergy forbid all practices recognized assuperstitions incompatible with Islam, while the state condemns visitingshrines and resorting to the activities of sorcerers and shamans as outmodedfeudal customs. The imams' teaching against gambling, drinking, drugs andfistfights are echoed in the message of the secular authorities, which seek tocurtail any kind of informal socialisation among Uighur men for fear thatthey can take on political colouring. Although Sufism is widespread andclandestine meetings are regularly held in both villages and cities, officiallythey are condemned by both the Orthodox clergy and the Chineseauthorities.

Peasants describe their obligations towards the state as their duty,responsibility or task, wdzipd (or compulsion 'mdjburiydt'). The termwdzipd is used to describe a whole range of obligations: peasants talk abouthaving a cotton duty, grain duty, family planning duty, duty to performcommunal work and so on. Wdzipd has a strong moral connotation:women's and men's daily activities are described in terms of wdzipd, andthe individual's moral conduct is also conceived in similar terms. It is aman's duty to look after his wife and family, it is a woman's duty to keephouse and have children. In this sense the concept of duty also has religiousconnotations. Peasants' moral discourse and to some extent daily lives aregoverned by the principles of sin (guna) and meritorious deed (sawap),which, according to some people, were written down by God himself. It iscommonly believed that each person has two angels sitting on his shoulders.The one on the right shoulder records a person's good deeds, the one on theleft shoulder takes notes of his sins. Thus each person has a book (ddptdr)and his or her fate after death will be decided according to what has beenwritten in this book. This is called hisapla or accounting for. One informantexplained this more explicitly: 'this is very similar to our position in thevillage: village leaders have our books (ddptdr) and they keep note of ourduties and debts. Once a year there is an accounting, hisapla".' The imageof the ddptdr is also present in an annual ritual which is frowned upon bythe Muslim clergy because it is regarded as non-Islamic, and by the stateauthorities because of its 'feudal' character. This ritual involves one to threenights of vigil beginning on. the 15th Shaban during which people prayincessantly for the pardoning of their sins. According to informants this

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ritual, the tiindk, serves the purpose of washing away sins and opening anew page in one's book (dapttir).

The image of each person having a book kept by a superior in thehierarchy, who notes the fulfilment or dereliction of duties to higherauthority, is rich in irony. Both Chinese and Islamic cultures have had a longhistory of elite literacy. More recently compulsory education has become asomewhat painful issue to many peasants. They do not see the point ineducating their children to the end of primary school, since furthereducation is not considered open to most peasants. But if they do not sendtheir children to school, they are fined. Many peasants, some of whom wererendered illiterate by the stroke of a pen in the early 1980s when the Uighuralphabet was changed, have had to attend new literacy courses [Beller-Hann, 1991] and those who refused were fined. In spite of these efforts andthe long tradition of literacy in their culture, government authoritiescontinue to reach Uighur peasants almost exclusively through oral means.This reinforces their feeling that literacy is useless for them. Being kept inthe dark about most details of their finances is an integral part of thisapproach. Keeping a ddptdr is regarded as the prerogative of the higherauthorities, and most peasants, even those with secondary education, do notkeep track of their own accounts.

Parallels between the agents of religious and secular authority weredrawn by a young peasant. When asked why he thought that low level ruralcadres, themselves primarily peasants, showed little or no understanding ofthe plight of ordinary farmers, he smiled and answered with a proverb:'When the priest's stomach is full, he does not want to know anything'.(Xojaning qosigi toq, hig i"tin xdwdri yoq).

CONCLUSION

Struggle for the harvest has remained an important theme of the reform eraand the Chinese state insists on remaining firmly in control of peasants'lives. Peasants often say that 'the state keeps us under tight control' {doldtbizni bdk ging tutidu). For many Uighurs agricultural modernisation is amixed blessing. They see a confrontation between traditional, 'religiousagriculture' (diniy dixangiliq) and modern scientific agriculture (pdnniydixangiliq). While they usually acknowledge that the introduction of newmethods may yield more, many also point out that the widespread,compulsory use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers has led to a generaldecrease in young people's health. Health problems in humans and badcrops, especially the declining quality of local fruit products, are frequentlyattributed to the nuclear tests regularly performed by the Chinese military inthe Taklamakan desert.

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I have argued that the economic reforms of the 1980s opened up newinequalities among Uighur peasants, and that the responsibility systemleaves little room for most peasants to manoeuvre. Only those withsubstantial resources can avoid the tighter grip of the state by purchasingnew freedoms, such as a city residence, higher education for their children,better health care, and freedom from corvée work. In the socialist marketeconomy such freedoms have themselves become commodities: peasantswith the means to pay the prescribed fines can acquire the right to controlall their crop, and make their own decisions over production, utilisation oftime and numbers of children. Although economic coercion dominates,Uighur peasants also continue to fear other forms of punishment,imprisonment or worse, if they are suspected of exercising freedoms whichat the moment are not for sale, such as taking part in 'illegal religiousactivities'.

Uighur peasants are seen by the Chinese state as a serious threat: theyconstitute the largest pool of subordinates in a region with a long history ofantagonism towards the Chinese. These peasants resent Chinese rule, andtheir linguistic and cultural affinity to the peoples of the independentCentral Asian states, in combination with their Islamic faith, helps themformulate repudiation of this alien state. But peasants' attitudes towardauthority show some ambiguities. In their daily lives the state is representedby Uighur cadres — peasants from their own communities, to whomdeference is shown because of their position, but also resentment because oftheir perceived abuses of it. The conceptualisation of secular authority (inwhich the state, the government and the party are subsumed together) showssome congruence with the conceptualisation of the traditional religiousauthorities. Dependence on and submission to both guiding authorities isconsidered right: both have a degree of legitimacy. But the actualmanifestations of state control over the two most important resources ofpeasants, land and labour, and over the birth of new humans are stronglyresented and provoke the many forms of everyday peasant resistancedescribed above.

NOTES

1. Although there is now a sizeable literature concerning Xinjiang, most studies concentrate onhistory, or on ethnic relations in the urban setting. Some recent studies are focusing on therural population [Hoppe, 1987] and social change [Mackerras, 1995], but researchopportunities in the countryside for foreigners remain notoriously difficult.

2. For a general introduction to the region see Lattimore [1950]; Weggel [1984]. For adiscussion of the years of collectivisation see McMillen [1979], and for the position of theMuslim minorities there see Dillon [1994, 1995].

3. On the politics of ethnic identity and state recognition of minority groups in China see

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Gladney [1994a, 1994b].4. See Sinjiang Statistika Yillig Toplimi [1996: 48].5. In 1995 the total number of Uighurs was 7,800,038, and that of the Han Chinese 6,318,114

Sinjiang Statistika Yilliq Toplimi [1996: 48].6. For a brief overview see Zweig [1990: 39].7. After 1985 peasants witnessed a 'reassertion of stricter controls' [Hinton, 1990: 24]. See also

Kelliher's comments [1992: 157-8].8. On continuities with the past see, for example, Kelliher [1992] and Oi [1989].9. According to Lattimore, the most important methods of coercion in pre-industrial China used

to be share-cropping and corvée work. Restrictions imposed upon Uighur peasants in thisnew phase of socialism meet his definition of feudal [Lattimore, 1962: 479].

10. As Hinton points out, the revolution of 1949 was not a socialist revolution, even though itwas led by the working class and the party. Its targets were feudalism (landlordism)internally and imperialism externally [Hinton 1972: 18].

11. See for example Mackerras [1995: 111]; Rudelson, [1992: 123-4].12. One of the many painful measures imposed upon Uighurs by the state is increasing

restrictions on religious freedom, which in the summer of 1996 took the form of compulsorystudy sessions organised for state employees.

13. I thank Mr Sunnat Mamtimyn and other friends in Xinjiang for helping me in transcribingand translating these lines from a tape. Although I have been told the poet's name, thisidentification is not certain and therefore reference to the poem is made by the title.

14. The data presented here were largely collected in two villages near Kashgar in the course ofopen ended interviews which I conducted in Uighur in the presence of an Uighur speakingChinese academic. Occasionally other low level cadres were also present. Although initiallymany peasants were reluctant to say anything other than what they thought was an officiallyacceptable view, after a while their suspicions receded. Many informants took the view that,even if I and my Chinese companion were working for the Chinese government (which somefirmly believed), we were a potential channel through which their plight could be transmittedto the higher authorities.

15. Friends in the regional capital later told me that the tape was legally available several monthslater there, but peasants in the Kashgar area were convinced that its circulation was illegal.

16. On the increased burdens of China's farmers since 1989 and the growing unrest resultingfrom them see Blecher, [1995: 115-19].

17. The transcription of Uighur words closely follows the system adopted by SchWarz [1992].18. This term refers of course mainly to economic freedoms rather than the exercise of democratic

rights. This was illustrated in a number of instances when Uighur peasants, who wanted toexplain some of their present difficulties to us, were severely rebuked by cautious local cadres.On one occasion we went past a large group of men doing communal work on an irrigationchannel. They wanted to know who we were and what we were doing. When they heard thatwe were interested in peasants' lives, one said: 'I tell you the truth. Things are better now thanthey used to be. Now half our stomach is full, only the other half is empty. You write aboutthis!' His words were followed by the hearty laughter of his fellow workers. The young femalecadre, the local leader of the Women's Federation, angrily rebuked him: 'How can you say sucha thing in front of foreigners? Are not you ashamed of yourself? You are telling them lies!!'The laughing immediately died out. The men were scared. Then the one who had spoken beforespoke up: 'Yes, we are very happy and content, and above all, we are free!' - he winked at us,and as the leader of the Women's Federation moved on they began to smile again.

19. See Madsen [1991: 669-71] and also McKinley and Griffin who talk about 'de factotenancy' and the creation of de facto private property rights in land [1993: 72].

20. There was a slight variation in the principles upon which land distribution was decided: insome production teams land was allocated according to the number of persons living in ahousehold at the time, in others the number of available workers was also taken into account.But the overarching desire to ensure equality was clear in the fact that each household wasgiven tiny parcels in different locations within the common property owned by theproduction team to ensure that everybody had land of equal quality. In the villages where weworked the size of allocated land was determined partly according to household size and

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partly according to the number of workers in the household. See Nolan [1988: 86].21. 1 mu= 1/15 hectares = 1/6 acre.22. For a summary of agriculture and its resources in Xinjiang see Weggel [1984: 60-84].23. Both villages where the interviews were conducted were relatively wealthy because of their

proximity to the city, though their sideline specialists differed significantly.24. The two villages where we were allowed to conduct interviews had an annual income per

capita around 1000 Yuan. In other villages which we visited socially or the conditions ofwhich had been described to us by residents visiting the city had much lower annual incomeper capita. The average annual income per capita of fanners in the Kashgar prefecture in1995 was calculated at 882,01 yuan [Şinjiang Statistika Yilliq Toplimi, 1996: 219].

25. This list corresponds quite closely to Nolan's list of key economic channels through whichthe CCP can exercise power in the villages [Nolan, 1988: 85].

26. On the household registration system see, for example, Kelliher [1992: 103]; Oi [1989];Selden [1988: 165-8].

27. In Kashgar in 1996 there was still a considerable difference between the prices of subsidisedfoodstuffs for urban residence and the market prices peasants had to pay.

28. Apparently under certain conditions it is possible to buy an urban residence permit: onevillage woman told me that she paid 3,000 yuan for such a permit for her daughter after shehad graduated and got a job in town.

29. Marriages between urban and rural residents often end in divorce as a direct result of thepreferential treatment of town residents. When Aynisaxan, a village woman, married anurban man and moved to his home, her in-laws kept on making demands for grain, meat andother agricultural produce from her family, saying that she was more expensive to feedbecause of her lack of access to subsidised foodstuffs. Eventually her family refused to meetthe increasing demands and caused her to divorce her husband.

30. The minorities of Xinjiang in urban areas are entitled to have up to two children, while ruralresidents can have three.

31. Specifying the crop to be cultivated on land leased out by the state is in theory part of theresponsibility contract, but farmers do not use these terms and view it as merely an obligationto the landlord state [Madsen, 1991: 669].

32. Officials told us that the collective receives cash payment from the state for the wheat it sells;but this never reaches the peasant, who does not distinguish between collective and state.

33. This problem was also elaborated in a recent article in the literary magazine Tarim whichoften voices social problems in literary disguise [Toxti, 1996: 7].

34. Similar strategies have been reported from other parts of China [Kelliher, 1992: 157].35. Quotation from my field diary.36. Although in the early 1980s the names of administrative units were changed, peasants and

officials alike use the designations inherited from the collectivised period: the township isstill called a commune, the village a brigade, and the smallest unit, the group, is still referredto as a production team.

37. Feigned ignorance is one of the most common 'weapons of the weak', as identified by JamesScott [1985: xvi].

38. Obligation to render labour services to his landlord was a characteristic trait of peasants'condition in pre-revolutionary Xinjiang, see Lattimore [1975: 181]. On communal work inthe collective period see, for example, Liu [1994: 107].

39. For a description of the hardships of compulsory communal work see Mätrozi [1996].40. These rumours were confirmed to me in a moving, emotional interview with a young official

in charge of family planning, who was deeply uncofortable in his role.41. It is a widespread belief that if a woman dies during childbirth she will go straight to heaven,

while an abortion is an unpardonable sin which will condemn her to eternal hell fire. In viewof such beliefs it seems particularly insensitive and crude that slogans popularising familyplanning are regularly written upon the walls of village mosques, as I observed on severalmosques in one village.

42. Once I heard small children chanting the Uighur and Chinese words for 'fine' in unison forabout two minutes, as part of their game.

43. For a detailed analysis of cadres' ambiguous position see Oi [1989].

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44. For a discussion of official attitudes towards Islam during the collectivised period seeMcMillen [1979: 113-29].

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The peasant condition in Xinjiang

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