Dazhai - Daisai

A production battalion belonging to the Dazhai People's Commune in central Siyang County, eastern Shanxi Province, China. As of 1974, it had an area of ​​2 square kilometers, a population of over 450, and 56 hectares of cultivated land. Located at the foot of Hutou Mountain in the Taihang Mountains bordering Hebei Province, it was a mountain village where people only engaged in poor agriculture on the small amount of cultivated land in the mountains. However, since liberation, collective agriculture centered on poor and small farmers has cleared the mountains for cultivation, and dams and irrigation canals have been built, completely changing the surrounding landscape, achieving rapid growth in productivity and social reform in just over 10 years. This achievement attracted the attention of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and in 1964 Mao Zedong called for "learning agriculture from Dazhai," and Dazhai, which was only a production battalion, became known throughout the country. Since then, with the rise of the Cultural Revolution, Dazhai was praised as the most faithful model of agricultural practice of Mao Zedong's ideology, and the leader of the production battalion, Chen Yonggui, became Vice Premier of the State Council, and promoted "Dazhai-style" agriculture throughout the country. However, the development of Dazhai-style farming ignored the natural ecology and promoted the cultivation of mountainous land, and was a pre-modern method that relied on willpower and human wave tactics, and was promoted for political purposes rather than technical needs. Therefore, with the end of the Cultural Revolution, it was criticized, and today its name is no longer heard, and Chen Yonggui was also ousted. It was probably originally an attempt at independent development in a rural mountain village, but it was used for political purposes and the original intention was lost as it was forced to do more than it should be.

[Motohide Akiyama]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中国、山西省東部、昔陽(せきよう)県中部、大寨人民公社に属した生産大隊。1974年の時点で面積2平方キロメートル、人口450余、耕地は56ヘクタール。河北省と接する太行(たいこう)山脈の虎頭(ことう)山の麓(ふもと)に位置し、山間のわずかの耕地で貧しい農業を営むだけの山村であったが、解放以来、貧農、小農を中心とする集団農業によって山地を切り開いて耕地とし、ダムや灌漑(かんがい)水路も築くなどして周囲の景観を一変し、10年余で急速な生産力の成長と社会改造を成し遂げた。この成果が中国共産党中央の注目するところとなり、1964年毛沢東(もうたくとう)は「農業は大寨に学ぼう」という呼びかけを行い、一生産大隊にすぎない大寨が全国に名を知られるようになった。以来、文化大革命の高まりとともに、大寨は毛沢東思想の農業面での実践のもっとも忠実なモデルとして賞賛され、生産大隊の指導者、陳永貴(ちんえいき)は国務院の副総理となり、全国で「大寨式」農業が推し進められた。しかし大寨式の開発は、自然の生態を無視して山地の耕地化を進めたもので、また精神力や人海戦術に頼る前近代的な方法により、それが推奨されたのは技術的必要というより、きわめて政治的な目的をもっていた。したがって文化大革命の終了とともに批判を受け、現在ではその名も聞かれず、陳永貴も失脚した。おそらく当初は地方の一山村における自主的な開発の試みであったが、政治的に利用され無理を重ねることで最初の意図が失われたものであろう。

［秋山元秀］

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