On September 29th, 1946 the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference passed the “Common Program”, Article 5 of this program guaranteed freedom of religious belief to members of the People's Republic (Welsh 3). According to Welsh this religious freedom was not an inalienable right and could be denied to reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, and “rightist” because since they do not support the government they are not entitled to the rights that a member of the government should have (Welsh 4, 12). Also Buddhist suffering discrimination were told in an September 1951 issue of “Modern Buddhism”, a magazine published by the new Chinese Buddhist Association, that it was their responsibility to prove to their discriminators that they were pro-government by helping expose counter-revolutionaries (Welsh 12).
The Chinese Communist Party's policy towards religion intentionally stayed vague while different ideas and strategies were discussed at various times and places. Firstly there was the idea that religion is a byproduct of suffering and as the conditions improved in China, religion would just naturally fade away, any attempts to forcibly remove it would not work (Welsh 4). Secondly, there was also the idea a reformed idealized Buddhism could be used as a foreign relations tool to convince nearby Asian-Pacific states to become communist (Welsh 9). The idea of using reformed Buddhist ideas as a tool for the spread of “liberation” may have been of interest to those interested in the “liberation” of Tibet (Welsh 9).
The idea to to use Buddhism as a catalyst for world communist revolution was the brain child of one Chu-tsan (Welsh 7-10). Chu-tsan was a monk that was in favor of reform long before the communist ever took over China (Welsh 7). He studied under the Republican Buddhist reformist, T'ai-hsu who had urged monks and nuns to become involved in the community by starting orphanages, schools, and hospitals, etc (Welch 7, 80). Chu-tsan called for reform in the sangha, in this context the communities of ordained monks and nuns, to “shift to production” and “shift to scholarship” (Welsh 8-9). The “shift to production” will be covered later, but it is not clear how much influence Chu-tsan had on later policies that required monks and nuns to start working (Welsh 9, 51-68). Chu-tsan argued, in a memorandum to Mao, that a shift to scholarship would eliminate superstition and would help Buddhism become a vehicle for world revolution (Welsh 9). “Superstition” was probably meant to convey acts that the Chinese Communist thought were immoral, such as charging for rights of the dead, considered to be exploitation of people's ignorance and insecurities (Welsh 9, 65). Chu-tsan argued that all change and reforms in Buddhism must first be applied to monks and nuns, since they were the top tier in Buddhism, and then later to lay people (Welsh 8). This may have been a ploy to secure his own role of leadership because he was competing against lay people who also had an interest in reforming Buddhism, like Chao P'u-ch'u, a lay person who also had interest in reforming Buddhism that became very influential in the Chinese Buddhist Association (Welsh 8, 17).
There were three main tools used by the Chinese Government to influence Buddhism; they are the publication Modern Buddhism, the new Chinese Buddhist Association, and the Religious Affairs Bureau (Welsh 11, 17, 29). At time went by their practices and policies became more defined, and they would collectively address issues and promote policy (Welsh 14, 35).
Chu-tsan was told time after time that his reforms were too radical and the government could not reorganize the sangha as fast as he wanted (Welsh 9-10). But all of his efforts to make himself seen as become to “go to” guy for Buddhism paid off somewhat when in 1950 he was chosen to become editor-in-chief of a new publication; Modern Buddhism (Welsh 10). This was to be the way the government was going to try to influence Buddhist ideas and practices until later the Chinese Buddhist Association we reestablished (Welsh 11, 17).
According to a later issue of Modern Buddhism in their early years of operating Modern Buddhism made many “mistakes” (Welsh 12). Evidently these mistakes were their willingness to publish questions in their question and answer column which reflected too much negativity towards policies of the Chinese Communist (Welsh 12). For example the letter that prompted the response about how monks and nuns are responsible for making sure people don't confuse them as counter-revolutionaries is an example of Modern Buddhism publishing things which may cause the Chinese Communist to lose face with foreign powers (Welsh 12-13). But by 1954 when Modern Buddhism was taken over by the recently formed Chinese Buddhist Association “serious mistakes” stopped happening (Welsh 13).
The next year 1955, the Chinese Buddhist Association passed a resolution asking all of its members, contributers, and readers to practice self-censorship and not submit any material that wasn't of a “patriotic nature” or criticized the regime (Welsh 14). The publication faired well but never published in large numbers, even after its competition of other Buddhist journals were outlawed, this may because of a paper shortage or because of the unwillingness of the Communist to mass produce a religious publication (Welsh 16). In 1960, according to Welsh, there was a shift towards making a good impression on foreigners and less emphasis on trying to educate local Buddhist (15). This may have been because of the reluctantence and inability of monks and nuns, who were now mostly elderly without new young members joining regularly, to support themselves (Welsh 55-67). According to Welsh it is very difficult to see how much influence Modern Buddhism had on changing the way monks and nuns thought, or even how widely it was read (17-18).
In 1952, after much lobbying and at least one failed attempt by Chao P'u-ch'u, a new Chinese Buddhist Association (CBA) was formed (Welsh 20). Their function was to be a liaison between the government and the peasants on subjects related to Buddhism and Buddhist reform ( Welsh 20). However as time went by it became clear that they began to promote some ideas that a large part of the sangha could not support, such as compassionate killing ( Welsh 21, 100). The members of the CBA were elected but it is not know by whom, but their members were representative of the the whole of Chinese Buddhist, with members from every minority, even an unbalanced number of Tibetans prior to the Tibetan Rebellion (Welsh 20, ). Despite the CBA's position of being a liaison they were very reluctant to set up local branches, like the former CBA had done, because they said it would cause inequality for the lay people (Welsh 19). However members of the CBA did function in local independent groups all over the country (Welsh 26-27). These local groups were usually run by high ranking monks and lamas and lay people were a minority, congruent with Chu-tsan's ideas about reforming the sangha from the top down (Welsh 10, 26).
The final and most important organ of the government, to be discussed here, related to Buddhism was the Religious Affairs Bureau. Because of the delicate nature of religion and how important it was to foreign policy, foreign opinion, and possibly to the spread of communism a special bureau was set up to be in control of all government policies related to religion (Welsh 29-31). The Bureau would also be in charge of identifying and squelching counter-revolutionary actions that took the guise of religious practice (Welsh 30). The chain of command of the Religious Affairs Bureau was complex but they did seem to enjoy some autonomy and freedom because they were practically a direct branch of the Chinese Communist Party, but they were technically classified as being under the Civic Affairs Bureau (Welsh 30 -32).
One of the Chinese Communist Party's polices that had a profound effect on the sangha was land reform because Buddhist monasteries were some of the largest landholders in the country (Welsh 42). There was a lot of resentment towards landlords by communist and rent was one of the main way many monasteries made money (Welsh 42-45). The Agrarian Reform Law stipulated that the land of monasteries be requisitioned and then redistributed (Welsh 43). This caused some problems with interpretation because since monasteries were seen as communal property it was unclear if the land redistributed back to the monks was suppose to be done so on an individual basis or if the land they received back was to also be communal (Welsh 43). Welsh says that the there doesn't seem to be a clear policy either way and different localities did different things, but Modern Buddhism published an question and answer article which said that the land belonged to the monks as individuals (44).
Welsh says that his informants report that the land the monasteries received after the land reforms were usually not as high quality as the property they had owned before the reform, and not as high quality as that given to people seen as more favorable to the regime (45). Additionally, monasteries were not given more land if population rose, but land was taken away from them if their population fell (Welsh 45). This seems to have been very devastating to some monasteries where the population would fluctuate (Welsh 45, 49). The reason for the large fluctuation is because smaller monasteries in rural areas would close down, and the monks that didn't disrobe, usually the older ones, would move into a larger monasteries that had remained open (Welsh 45, 64, 67, 73).
According to Welsh, many monks proved to be bad candidates for farm labor because they had spent most of their life studying Buddhism and didn't have the technical knowledge to effectively farm (48). Also many of them tended to be older because the younger monks were more likely to leave the sangha after being exposed to pressure from the communists (Welsh 45). The lack of able bodied persons, the poor land, and also an unwillingness to work lead to tensions between the government and the sangha (Welsh 48, 58).
Very soon after the Chinese Communist Party took control of the country there were a lot of young monks and nuns who decided to leave the sangha (Welsh 67). Monks were “taught” to learn that the whole world depends on labor and were expected to feel shame and change their ways (Welsh 63). Monks were encouraged to disrobe and many of the young ones did (Welsh 67-68). One of the easiest jobs for them to acquire was to join the People's Liberation Army, PLA, (Welsh 99).
Another significent cause to the lack of younger monks and nuns was also because smaller monasteries were being shut down (Welsh 73). Smaller monasteries served the function of training young nuns and monks the rules of how to live in a monastery, without this advanced training it would have been nearly impossible for the larger monasteries to function with so many people living so close together (Welsh 73-75). This compounded with the Chinese Communist Party activily discouraging people from joining the sangha and fear that being associated with the sangha would also mean being associated with the landlord class it is easy to see why there were not enoung young people around to help the monasteries become self suficent (Welsh 80). But this doesn't mean that some monks did not enthusiasticly try to meet the new demands on them be reviving the lost tradition of “Farming Ch'an”. Farming Ch'an was an old tradition from the T'ang dynasty and it provided the model for many monks that wanted to live well under the new regime (Welsh 85).
Monks living in urban areas where this kind of land reform wasn't a problem for them had their own set of problems. If an urban monastery had empty rooms the local government officials could “borrow” or rent the rooms from the monastery (Welsh 51). The monastery had the right to be consulted and could refuse, but could not do so unreasonably, if they had empty rooms that really weren't being used then they had to let the government move in (Welsh 51). This however wasn't new to the monks and nuns, because their buildings were used this way by the Republic as well (Welsh 52).
One of the jobs that was decided the Buddhist monks may be good at is producing gunny sacks out of burlap because this wasn't a labor intensive , didn't require much skill, and only required a small investment (Welsh 51). Some monks put up their own capital to get into the gunny sack trade, others rented out their monasteries to a third party that they would in turn work for (Welsh 51). Monks that lived in monasteries that were traditionally places of pilgrimage and recreation continued to do traditional hotel and restaurant services (Welsh 52).
Buddhist monks have long been accused to doing communal work for the good of the monastery and for working without pay, except for being able to live in the monastery (Welsh 52). However this tradition didn't always translate well into mutual aid teams (Welsh 52-56). However monasteries were some of the first to apply for cooperativization (Welsh 52). One of the problems seems to be a subtle idealogical one, mutual aid teams goal was to improve the material world and create a paradise on Earth while traditionally Buddhist monastic life was to escape from samsara and help others do so as well (Welsh 54). Welsh cites one example of monks who pretended to be deaf and dumb in order to avoid doing worldly activities (60).
Making monks and nuns become self suffient was seen by the monks to be less than ideal because they felt that they were already doing what was best for society be praying for people and bringing themselves to higher spiritual levels (Welsh 59).
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