communism and the work unit

Although the work unit has been a unique product of Communism, we are not completely unfamiliar with it in the West. Large corporations such as Ford and Chrysler, and government bureaucracies, used to offer relatively secure jobs in the U.S. up to a few years ago, with good benefits. The work unit is to some extent similar to these big corporations and bureaucracies that provide many benefits to their employees, and much more.

The work unit had a twin origin in the traditional Chinese clan system and the Communist bases in rural China in the 1920s-1940s.

1. The clan in traditional China and its new use in the Communist era:

Historically, the clan was a very important part in Chinese society. Because of budgetary constraints in Chinese history, the central government only reached the provincial level. Local governments were not very developed, so families, or clans, were encouraged to take over and supervise their own members. Very often villages would be populated by people with the same last name, who were from the same clan. Wealthier family members would help out the poorer ones, by sharing their children's tutors (as there was little formal schooling in China before the 19th century) with the children from poorer relatives. The Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC), whose teaching was turned into the state ethic after 200 A.D., encouraged the government to rely not on law, but on moral education and the self-regulation of the family/clans.

After the Communist takeover, the state reached much further than ever before and wanted to abolish the traditional loyalty to one's family and clan, redirecting this loyalty to the Communist Party. Therefore in many revolutionary propaganda stories, such as the dream Rae Yang had about her imagined hero, there were often enemies who were one's family members. Despite this, as Dutton argues, tradition is harder to change than what can be achieved in a political campaign. The family clan was appropriated in some form by the Communist work unit.

• Like the traditional clan that often lived in an extended courtyard, the work unit was walled, and provided housing for its staff at virtually no cost. There was usually security at the gates of each work unit checking ID.
• People were assigned to their work units by the state, and they would be there for life if they had no particular reason to change work units (e.g. spouse being in a work unit in a different city). Since housing was also assigned, they were also stuck with the same neighbors for 10, 20, or 30 years. They have the same colleagues for the rest of their working life.
• Promotion was usually not the result of hard work, but depended on the number of years you worked there. The same was true with salary raises. For about twenty years in Communist China (1959-1978) there was no salary raise for any one.
• Whenever some one was sick, or died, the work unit leaders were responsible for visiting them in the hospital, at home, hold funerals, financially compensate the surviving members of the family. In other words, the work unit leaders were not just factory managers or university presidents, they, and their colleagues at lower levels of management in their units were responsible for taking care of their staff in one way or another, occasionally even arbitrating between spousal fights. The fact that they all lived together on the work unit premise made contacts between leaders and staff more frequent (e.g. in the school cafeteria, school clinic, children's schools attached to the work unit, while out strolling for an after-dinner walk, as well as in the office) all this work easier to carry out.

2. The experience of the Communist bases

From the 1920s to the 1940s, the Communists fought guerrilla wars in rural China, first against the Nationalists, then against the Japanese, and after 1945, again against the Nationalists. They were often faced with economic blockades, from both enemies. Therefore they developed a policy of self-reliance. One song in Yanan from the 1940s went like this: "The army and the peasants, together we farm the land...." The Communist bases in Yanan not only mobilized the soldiers not yet in the combat zone to farm the land, they also organized their own textile cooperatives and munitions factories, built their own universities, and issued their own currency. This experience, like the clan, also prepared the prototype of the work unit that developed after the Communist takeover in 1949: like the Communist bases, it was "self-sufficient" to some extent, with its own cafeterias providing subsidized meals to its members only, who purchase food not with money, but coupons specially issued by the work unit to valid ID holders from the work unit, to bar outsiders from eating there. Similarly, there were clinics, schools (including preschools) attached to the work unit just for children from the work unit staff.

The work unit idea fitted neatly into a Communist state-run economy because every one would belong to a proper place in Communist China and the state was in a position to regulate individuals according to larger social units. Individual practices were restricted by their work units: if they wanted to visit other work units, they needed permission or letter of introduction from their own. Their freedom was further restricted by the lack of services (such as medical and educational) to them outside their work unit. Even checking into hotels, as we learned, needed work unit IDs. This was an effective form of social regulation.

Not all work units were the same, however. Like corporations in the U.S. that provide different benefits, so work units provided different benefits. Those directly affiliated with the state ministries provided the best benefits, those affiliated with the provincial or municipal governments provided less but still good benefits. Those called collectives or cooperatives, such as the people's communes, received least benefits.