Sin means that we cannot have a perfect world now
I’ve just finished reading a thorough and very interesting historical account of China’s Great Leap Forward in 1958-62. The book is called ‘Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe’ by Frank Dikotter. It’s a harrowing read at times. In an attempt to bring China’s industrial output in line with the developed countries around the world, the Chinese leadership did all they could to improve the economy. They forcibly took people’s land and made the farmers live in communes. They set impossible production targets for harvests and for steel production. Women and children were enlisted to do back-breaking work to build dams and run small smelters. All of this was run by local communist party leaders.
China did indeed increase production, though never by as much as was hoped, but the cost was immense. While it is hard to know the exact numbers, those who were killed for opposing the plan and those who died due to the famine it caused numbered in the many, many millions. The output might have increased, but the quality of much of the steel was so poor that it was unusable. Exports of grain might have increased, but countless people within the country died of hunger. It changed China forever but not all for the better.
Why didn’t it work the way it was planned to? That’s a question with many answers. There was widespread corruption at all levels. The high communist officials in the large cities lived in large houses like kings while the peasants were forced into communes. When the government rationed food and goods, a black market sprung up at high costs. Local officials kept back grain and other items for themselves to make the most of the profits on offer. When the farmers discovered that they were given the same rations regardless of their output, they refused to work. People with no hope in their village left for the big cities, even with government efforts to prevent this. Farmers would eat the grain they produced on the spot to ensure their family survived rather than give it to the local boss. People at every level acted in their own self-interest.
When we think about this from a Christian perspective, the answer to why it didn’t work is simple: sin. All people are inherently selfish and greedy. In any situation, our natural tendency is to do what seems best to us. It is like the sin of Adam and Eve, where they chose to do what seemed best to them rather than obey God. It is like the sin of the judges, where everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
This is, of course, true everywhere in the world, not only in China at the end of the 1950s. Communist systems have never worked well because people do not naturally sacrifice themselves for some greater good. Capitalist systems also have big problems with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer; even with government intervention, people get excluded and left behind and not cared for. Whatever ideology you can think of, we cannot have a perfect world this side of heaven. You cannot legislate against sin. Sin is deep in our hearts. All of our hearts.
What we need is a Saviour. Government rules will not make people better, and even our best efforts will be thwarted by our own selfishness and that of other people as well. Jesus is the only answer to our sin problem. One day, when sin is gone forever, we will have a perfect society, one of unity between all kinds of people where every knee will bow before King Jesus. Now, we have disunity and problems as look forward to the Day these things will come to pass.