Tibet Transformed

606 Pages·38.582 MB·english

by  Israel Epstein

Israel Epstein
Tibet Transformed
NEW WORLD PRESS
BE1J ING
CORRECTIONS
First edition 1983
P.126 Picture p.8 after p.126, caption "Tsering Lharno
(right)" should be "Tsering Lhamo (second
left)".
P.144 Link 1 of footnote, "1970's" should be "1950's".
P.230 Picture of Ngapo Ngawang-Jigme on p.3 after
p.230, line 1 of caption, "1961" should be "1981".
P.256 Line 10 from bottom, "voluntarily" should be
"involuntarily".
P.262 Line 7 from bottom "will be reconciled" should
be "will never be reconciled".
P.283 Middle of page, "In 1955, forty years after
Grenard's te.s .ti .m" ony" should be "In 1955, sixty
years after
P.454 Last line of second paragraph "Przevalski"
should be "Przevalsk".
P.538 Line 3 from bottom,, "Missoori" should be "Mus-
sourie".
P.550 Line 8, column 2, "Ehergy" should be a new
entry, not under "Encyclopedia, Grept Soviet".
P.563 Line 26, column 2, "Tsemen Sonam Bianju, ex-
". . .
rebel, serf" should be ex-rebel, serf-
owner".
There are other minor technical errors not affecting
meaning for which we apologize.
ISBN 0-8351-1087-7
P~rblishedb y
NEW WORLD PRESS
24 Baiwanzhuang Road, Beijing, China
Distributed by
CHINA PUBLICATIONS CENTRE (GUOJI SHUDIAN)
P.O. Box 399, Beijing, China
Printed in the People's Republic of China
C O N T E N T S
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Foreword 7
;
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 1 Reincarnation 11
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 2 Contrasts 26
REVOLUTION IN THE MANORS
. . .
Chapter 3 Serfs and Slaves Rule Khaesum Manor 42
.
Chapter 4 Palha Manor - A Footnote to the Britannica 64
Chapter 5 Recollections of Two Beginnings . . . . . . 76
Chapter 6 Gyaepa Commune and Tsering Lhamo, Pioneer
Among Tibetan Women . . . . . . . . 90
Chapter 7 State Farms - In Class Struggle, Production and
Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
-
Chapter 8 The New State Farms Machines, Irrigation
and Grain . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL
Chapter 9 The Accusers . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
LEADERS OF THEIR PEOPLE
.
Chapter 10 Tibetan Cadres: From the Long March to Today 152
Chapter 11 Ngawang Gyatso - Steeled in the Heart of Lhasa 165
Chapter 12 Champa Gyaltsen - Serf Tailor to County Head 173
Chapter 13 Tsering Phuntso - People's Policeman in Lhasa 180
ARMS FREE THE PEOPLE; THE PEOPLE TAKE UP ARMS
.
Chapter 14 The People's Liberation Army in Tibet 192
. . . . . . . .
Chapter 15 The Old Tibetan Army 211
. . . . .
Chapter 16 Big Tashi Soldier of New Tibet 227
--
UNITE ALL WHO CAN BE UNITED
Chapter 17 United Front Always Open-Ended . 242
--
Chapter 18 Nachi: Khamba Serf Teacher to Lhasa Aristocrats 258
INDUSTRY AND WORKERS
. . . . .
Chapter 19 Industry From None to Socialist 266
--
. . . . . . . .
Chapter 20 Old Crafts in New Society 282
.
Chapter 21 Family of Tibet's New Workers 294
ANIMAL HUSBANDRY
. . . . . . .
Chapter 22 New Sun in the Grasslands 308
. . . . . . .
Chapter 23 Pasture Paths to Socialism 322
REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION AND CULTURE
Chapter 24 Tibet's State Schools . . . . . . . . . . 3 34
. . . . . .
Chapter 25 Schools by and for the People 347
Chapter 26 Higher Education Comes to Tibet . 352
Chapter 27 Science on the World's Roof . . . . . . . 3 61
Chapter 28 Tibet's New Culturein Birth . . . . . . . 3 66
. .
Chapter 29 Battle for Health -The Nationality Grows 386
RELIGION
. . . . . .
Chapter 30 Religion and Politics in Tibet 402
. . . . . . . . .
Chapter 31 Reform in the Cloisters 417
. . . . . . . . . .
Background: Facts from History 433
Appendices
I. SLAVE AND SERF REVOLTS AND RESISTANCE IN OLD
TIBET
IMPORTANT CHINESE COhlMUNIST PARTY POLICY
STATEMENTS AND NEW CHINA'S CONSTITUTIONAL
PROVISlONS CONCERNING NATlONALITIES \Excerpts]
Mao Zedong: On Coalition Government (April 24, 1941)
Common Programme of the Chinese Pcople's Political Consultative
Conference, 1949
The Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local
Govcrnment of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation
of Tibet (May 23, 1911)
Mao Zedong: On the Policies for Our Work in Tibet - Directive
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
(April 6, 19j2)
Mao Zedong: Criticize Han Chauvinism (March 16, 1953)
First Constitution of the People's Republic of China (1954)
Mao Zedong: On the Ten hlajor Relationships (April 25, 1956)
Mao Zedong: On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among
the People (February 27, 1957)
Concerning the Rebellion in Tibet (19j9)
Constitution of 1975
Constitution of 1978
Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since
the Founding of the People's Republic of China (June 27, 1981)
Draft Constitution of 1982
1x1. TWO NOTES IN PASSING
I. How the Greater Soviet Encyclopedia Has Reversed Its Treat-
ment of Tibet's Past and Present
The Revealing Perversities of Victor Louis
2.

FOREWORD
As indicated throughout this book, it is based on three journeys
to Tibet, in 1955, in 196j and in 1976.
It is an eye-witness and ear-witness account, with the dimension
of comparison from observations at ten-year intervals, given largely in
the words of hundreds of people who were there all along - mainly
Tibetans, within a frame of historical background from many sources,
and of comment.
Now it is 1982. Additional important changes and readjustments
have occurred. These I have not personally seen on the spot, though
I hope to later. But I have tried to follow them in other ways.
Life moves faster than books can be written. In times of revolu-
tion - with advances, setbacks and corrections - this is all the more
true. Books, particularly in such a situation, are mere stills, or seg-
ments, in the unfolding film of reality.
Nonetheless, I believe the reader will find this account a true
reflection of the essential nature and historicallydetermined direc-
tion of the great and basic process of change that has occurred, and
is continuing, in Tibet.
What are the key essentials in the light of many centuries and of
today's realities?
First, despite all zigzags, there has been tremendous advance.
The grim burdens of stagnation and suffering under which the masses
of the Tibetan people lived for a thousand years have been thrown off.
The 17-article Agreement of 19j1, the peaceful liberation of Tibet, the
isolation and defeat of the serfowner revolt of 1959, the subsequent
revolutionary reforms which ended feudal serfdom under theocracy
8 TIBET TRANSFORMED
-
and put Tibet on the socialist path all these were profoundly eman-
cipator~,p hysically and mentally, for the overwhelming majority of
Tibetans.
Second, today as for many centuries past, Tibet is an organic part
of the multinational polity of China, its woe and weal linked to that
of the other areas and peoples of this vast land.
Third, within this larger entity, Tibet has its own strong distinct
features - in historical, social, linguistic and cultural development -
including its ancient and close interweaving of religion and custom.
Fourth, the logical conclusion from Tibet's particularities is not
separatism, as history has proved again and again. The Tibetan sepa-
ratism of modern times, from its very birth, has been concretely and
demonstrably linked not with the needs of the region's progress and
people but with the manoeuvres of imperialism (including, lately,
Soviet social-imperialism). The common aim of such manoeuvres has
been to weaken and partition China as a whole with the object of
preventing all its peoples, including the Tibetans, from realizing their
own deepest interests and desires. In the case of Tibet, the foreign
encouragement of separatism has been linked not only with the eco-
nomic-political-military gnawing at all China but with specific geo-
political drives to dominate the strategic "roof of the world" for
global ends.
Fifth, in the context of the liberating Chinese revolution (which
includes that of Tibet), there have been not only countrywide errors
-
but specific ones in relation to the minority nationalities the Tibetan
among them.
In China as a whole for some years, the Leftist urge to undue
speed of advance led economically to disregard of the proviso
wisely adhered to by the Chinese Communist Party up to the middle
1950's that social change must be accompanied by year-to-year im-
provement of the people'ls livelihood. (It was this that made the land
reform and subsequent collectivization in China, along with early
industrialization, so much less costly, given the essential necessity
of the process of socialist revolution and construction in both cases,
than in the Soviet Union.) Politically, Leftism led, particularly in
the 1960's and I~~o'tso, China-wide blurring of the meticulous dis-