Vernacular prose: looking back on the situation when the production team was in the past.
Text: Yang Xiaoguang
From 1958, when the "people's communes were good", to 1984, when the rural areas fully implemented the contract responsibility system for joint production, the people's communes existed for 26 years. In connection with this, the production team, which is the "** all team based" of the commune, also exists in the memory of several generations. From the time I was born to the time I left my hometown in the countryside, my memories of the production team are unforgettable.
The production team is a cooperative organization of the rural collective economy, and is the smallest social unit that organizes members to participate in rural collective labor. The third production team of the four village brigades of the Shajiatuo Commune, Changli County, where I worked, was led by Xu Kuan, deputy captain Xu Chunying, and there were also bookkeepers (accountants) and custodians. The production team leader is responsible for the organization of agricultural production and the distribution process of remuneration according to work; The accountant is responsible for the statistical custody of the daily work score and the usual income and expenditure accounts, as well as the year-end accounts and dividends. The custodian is responsible for the storage of seeds, fertilizers, and forage, as well as the management of production materials and tools such as vehicles and wooden plows of the production team, and provides forage to the breeders who feed cattle and pigs.
Larger production tools such as ploughs, rakes, ox carts, etc., are added and kept by the production team, and small tools such as shovels, picks, hoes, sickles, etc., which are used by people working in the fields, are equipped by the members' families. The fixed assets of the production team are only a handful, which are nothing more than the team site and the workshop, seed and feed warehouse, cowshed, pigsty, yard, etc. The cattle and piglets raised by the production team are fed and managed by the breeders.
Vernacular prose: looking back on the situation when the production team was in the past.
Each production team has a fixed location for asking for work, and the dispatch point of our three teams is located under the willow tree in front of Xu Qing's house. There was an abandoned ploughshare hanging on the branch, and the captain arrived at the post in advance to knock on the "bell", and the male and female members heard the sound of the "bell", put down their rice bowls, put down their clothes, took the tools for doing farm work, and trotted all the way with a piece of cake in their mouths. What work to do that day, which field to do, follow the arrangement and distribution of the team leader, and ask the work to be assigned in three times, namely morning, morning and afternoon.
During the busy farming period, the production team of men, women and children all went into battle, and we elementary school students were no exception. Capturing the green worms that gnaw on the straw of crops and eliminating pests and diseases is the main battlefield of our primary school students. As soon as the "bell" rang in the morning, when Xu Kuan shouted on the street, my grandmother woke me up from her sleep: the eldest grandson is slipping away, and the "bell" is going to work. I rubbed my sleepy eyes and reported to the dispatch point to receive the task. After concentrating, we drove to the crops. The procedure for exterminating insects is very simple, use your fingers to pinch and twist the green worms from the back of the crop leaves, and the cycle repeats, and the hands are covered with slimy pest liquid. Until the sun bounced and rose, a group of our little members who caught pests bounced home for breakfast. Catch pests for the crops for a morning, and earn 1 cent.
After harvesting the autumn field crops, it is time to plant winter wheat. "The white dew is early, the cold dew is late, and the autumn equinox is the right time to plant wheat. "Our group of students who returned to the production team to work in the autumn after the agricultural vacation listened to the captain's dispatch twice in the morning and afternoon. Which people follow Uncle Xu of the point of planting, and which few people are in a group of Uncle Li of the point of planting. It's very easy for us to step on the wheat seeds, just walk. Lined up in a column longitudinally, along the furrow where the wheat seeds were sown, one heel after the other and trampled hard, this is called stepping on the seeds. There are five or six people in the team of stepping on the seeds, and there are seven or eight people, all the way, the boys are playing all the way, the girls are talking and laughing all the way, smelling the smell of the soil in the fields that have just been harvested, and blowing the cool autumn breeze that wafts over from time to time. Taking advantage of the rest of the smoke, we went to the edge of the trench and the wheat stubble crop field to pull thatch, pick up branches and firewood, and take advantage of the lack of attention to get into the bean field to pick up a handful of plump red bean pods and soybean pods into our pockets. As soon as the captain's call for work sounded, everyone carried a bundle of hay on their backs, and their pockets were bulging, and as for what goods were in their pockets, everyone knew what was in their pockets, and no one pursued them, so they were not surprised, and they laughed all the way home full of harvest.
After dinner, each family sent one person to the production team site to record the work points, and I went to the team site to register the work of my grandmother and me. Uncle Xu Jinyi, a clerk, will register the plot, time and score of each member's work in the work book, and then register the work reported by the next person after being confirmed by the worker. "The division of labor is the lifeblood of the members", and the total value of each household is used as the basis for year-end dividends and distribution of grain and firewood. The good year score of our three teams is higher, which is equivalent to more than three cents, and a work point in the first year of the poor harvest is worth about one cent and five cents at best. In most years, the year-end dividends are not much energy, and the labor score at the end of the year is removed from grain, cotton, melons and vegetables, and the Buddha can be basically equal. Those peasant households with more children and less labor often end up settling accounts and owe the production team a share of the work. Xu Mian's family in our third team belongs to this kind of difficult household, a widow with six and a half children next to each other, some people eat and no one works, and then life is really unbearable, so I have to take the child to marry far away to the northeast, and there is no news for many years.
The team site of the production team is a place where the members often meet after dinner, and people record the completion score, roll a dry tobacco, or light a cigarette pouch. Barefoot doctor Xu Jinbao, who can play and sing everything, is a popular protagonist every night, and we all belong to his die-hard fans without exception. He can perform the entire revolutionary modern Peking Opera "Red Lantern" alone, Li Yuhe's singing is correct and round, and the singing of Grandma Li and Tiemei, after his interpretation, its vivid timbre is not inferior to today's Li Yugang.
Between the labor and life of the production team, talking, laughing and rapping, people eliminate fatigue, add joy, and adjust their mood. In the more than 20 years of the existence of the production team, people have declared war on poverty, asked for food from the barren land, gone through the days of being in the same boat, tasted the sweets and sorrows of life, united and helped each other, shared joy and hardship. That dusty hometown past is like a jar of old wine, brewing in the heart and warm in the heart.