The History Behind Jan Myrdal's "Report from a Chinese Village"

Abstract

This article reexamines the production and reception of Report from a Chinese Village (1965) by Jan Myrdal, one of the most influential Western accounts of Maoist China. Long regarded as a pioneering, quasi-anthropological portrayal of rural life in the People’s Republic, the book shaped a generation’s understanding of Chinese communism at a moment when the Soviet model had lost much of its moral authority. Drawing on previously unexplored archival materials in Sweden and China, this study reconstructs the political and institutional context in which Myrdal’s report was conceived, researched, and written. Myrdal arrived in Beijing in 1962, shortly after the catastrophic Great Leap Forward, which resulted in tens of millions of deaths. Yet the famine is entirely absent from his account of Liulin village and from his later China writings based on the same visit. Using correspondence, diaries, and Chinese Foreign Ministry documents, this article shows that Myrdal’s trip was carefully orchestrated as part of a broader effort to counter Soviet criticism and shape foreign perceptions. His access, travel, and interviews were mediated by state-controlled organisations, and the village he studied belonged to a model revolutionary landscape near Yan’an. The article further argues that Myrdal encountered rumours and signs of severe rural distress but chose neither to investigate nor report them, in order to avoid damaging China’s international reputation. 

本文重新考察瑞典作家揚 · 米爾達1963年出版的《來自中國農村的報告》的成書過程及其歷史影響。該書長期被奉為西方理解毛澤東時代中國農村的典範之作，在蘇聯模式信譽式微之際，塑造了一代人對中國共產主義的認知。借助新發掘的瑞典與中國檔案，本文揭示米爾達的寫作深受政治與制度框架制約： 米爾達1962年訪華時正值大饑荒餘波未息，卻在其記述中全然回避饑饉問題。檔案顯示，其行程與訪談均由中方官方機構精心安排，所考察的村莊亦屬延安附近的“革命樣板”區域。儘管在京期間曾聽聞農村困頓之狀，米爾達出於維護中國國際形象的考量，主動放棄查證，轉而將官方及“友人”敘述奉為事實。本文由此揭示該書作為冷戰時代意識形態敘事的知識邊界與政治底色。