Democratic Reform in Tibet---Sixty Years On

The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China

March 2019

Contents

Preamble

I. Feudal Serfdom: A Dark History

II. Irresistible Historical Trend

III. Abolishing Feudal Serfdom

IV. The People Have Become Masters of Their Own Affairs

V. Liberating and Developing the Productive Forces

VI. Promoting a Range of Undertakings

VII. Enhancing Ecological Progress

VIII. Protecting the Freedom of Religious Belief

IX. Strengthening Ethnic Equality and Unity

X. Development of Tibet in the New Era

Conclusion

Preamble

The year 2019 marks the 60th anniversary of the campaign of democratic reform in Tibet. In traditional Chinese culture, the 60th year is always memorable as it completes a cycle called the Jiazi, a concept unique to the Chinese calendar.

Tibet’s democratic reform that took place six decades ago gave a new life to Tibet and the ethnic peoples living there.

These 60 years have changed Tibet completely. Tibet’s democratic reform is the greatest and most profound social transformation in the history of Tibet. By abolishing serfdom, a grim and backward feudal system, Tibet was able to establish a new social system that liberated the people and made them the masters of the nation and society, thus ensuring their rights in all matters.

These 60 years have turned Tibet into a beautiful home to the people of Tibet. Tibet’s democratic reform opened up bright prospects. With the strong support of the central government and the rest of the country, the ethnic peoples of Tibet have spared no effort in forging ahead and transforming their poor and backward old land into a beautiful new home that is economically prosperous and socially advanced, with a sound ecological environment where people live in happiness and contentment.

These 60 years have seen solidarity and enterprising spirit of the people in Tibet. Thanks to democratic reform, the ethnic peoples of Tibet and the rest of the country have worked together with one heart to develop ethnic relationships characterized by equality, unity, mutual support and harmony. In the fight to guard national unity and oppose separatism, the people of Tibet have closely followed the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the face of all forms of hardship, challenge, and test, reinforcing the communal strength of the Chinese nation.

These 60 years have seen a great leap of social progress. Under the strong leadership of the CPC, Tibet has been able to transform from a society under feudal serfdom to socialism, from poverty and backwardness to civility and progress. As Chinese socialism has entered a new era, the ethnic peoples of Tibet, led by the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the core, are working together with the people of the rest of the country to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

I. Feudal Serfdom: A Dark History

For centuries Tibet was ruled by feudal serfdom under theocracy. Millions of serfs were subjected to cruel exploitation and oppression until democratic reform in 1959.

– Serfs deprived of all rights by the three major estate-holders

The laws of old Tibet divided people into three classes and nine ranks, legalizing the unequal status of different groups and allowing the estate-holders to deny all human rights of their serfs. In the government, controlled by the three major estate-holders (government officials, nobles, and upper-ranking lamas in monasteries), all levels of official came from the families of high-ranking lamas and nobles. Children of major noble families, upon birth, would automatically obtain the fourth-highest official rank, and they could take key positions in government when they were 17 or 18 years of age. Children from middle-ranking and lesser noble families could also take up official positions in government after spending some time studying at official training schools. Most monk officials were lamas from noble families, while serfs, who constituted the vast majority of the Tibetan society, struggled hopelessly on the very bottom rung of society.

– The serfs’ life and death in the hands of the three major estate-holders

The three major estate-holders applied every means to maintain feudal serfdom, with cruel and barbarous laws and punishments imposed by judicial organs and courts set up within their scopes of influence. Apart from jails set up by the government, there were penitentiaries and private jails run by large monasteries and aristocrats where instruments of torture were kept and private tribunals were held. They cast verdicts, flogged and tortured serfs, had them chained and shackled. Volumes of documents written in Tibetan testify to the savage punishments meted out to serfs, such as cutting off the tongue, nose, hands and feet, wearing stone hat, gouging out the eyes, pulling out tendons, skinning, drowning, and even feeding them to scorpions. The Snang Rtse Shag, located to the north of the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, used to be the judiciary of old Tibet. Infamously known as a “living hell”, this was where serfs were tortured and slaughtered at will to supply the upper class of the Kashag (cabinet) regime and high-ranking monks with such horrible offerings as human head, skin, flesh, heart, and intestines, which were considered “necessary” when chanting certain scriptures.

– Land, pastures and other means of production monopolized by the three major estate-holders

According to statistics gathered prior to democratic reform, a staggering 99.7 percent of all the 220,000 ha of cultivated land in Tibet was owned by the government (85,580 ha), the monasteries and high-ranking monks (80,960 ha), and aristocrats (52,800 ha), while the remaining 0.3 percent of cultivated land was owned by a handful of land-tilling peasants in remote areas. Most pastures were controlled by herd owners. A ballad among serfs of the time goes:

Even if the snow mountain melts into butter,

It is the property of the masters.

Even if the river water turns into milk,

There is not a single drop for us.

– Serfs owned and enslaved by the three major estate-holders

The bondage of serfs to the land owners was protected by the powerful theocratic rule. The Kashag regime prescribed that all serfs must stay on the land within the manor of their owners. They were not allowed to step out of the manor without permission; fleeing the manor was forbidden. Any serf who attempted to flee might receive a lashing as punishment or have their feet chopped off. The Kashag and the Dalai Lama also issued decrees prohibiting the furnishing of refuge to fleeing serfs.

With their absolute control of land, the three major estate-holders held the power of life, death and marriage over their serfs. Since serfs were their private property, they could trade and transfer them, present them as gifts, use them as gambling stakes or as mortgages for debt, or exchange them at will.

The three major estate-holders also imposed heavy corvée labor on serfs. For example, before liberation of Tibet in 1951, the Darongqang Manor owned by Gyaltsap Tajtra held a total of 96 ha of land, and 81 able-bodied and semi-able-bodied serfs. They were assigned a total of 21,266 corvée days per year, including 11,826 days working for their owners and 9,440 days for the government. The average corvée labor of each serf amounted to 262.5 days a year, or 72 percent of their entire year of labor.

– Serfs exploited by exorbitant taxes and levies

In old Tibet, the three major estate-holders possessed almost all means of production. They burdened their serfs with inhumane taxes and levies. The Kashag regime alone imposed some 200 different taxes. Serfs had to borrow money to survive, and more than 90 percent of serfs were in debt. Serfs were burdened with all kinds of debts such as debts passed down from previous generations, new debts, debts resulting from joint liability, and debts apportioned among all the serfs. The debts that were passed down from previous generations and could never be repaid even by succeeding generations accounted for one third of the total debts. There was a widespread ballad that described the debts that bound serfs:

The debts owed by the grandpa of my grandpa

Could not be paid off by the father of my father,

And the son of my son

Will not be able to repay even the interest.

According to statistics collated in 1959-60, during Tibet’s democratic reform usurious loans of 236,600 tons of grain and 700 million liang of Tibetan silver were written off. The loans written off during democratic reform surpassed the entire 175,000-ton grain output of the whole of Tibet in 1958.

– Strict mind control in the name of religion

The three major estate-holders exercised mind control over serfs so that they accepted their fate in the hope of entering the “Elysium” after they died and obtaining “happiness in the next life”. In Tibetan Travel Notes (Chibetto Taizaiki), a Japanese monk named Tokan Tada, who entered Tibet in 1913, wrote: “The Tibetans are very religious. They are convinced of their sins, and believe that the Dalai Lama’s heavy taxes are a means of redemption. They also believe in happiness in the next life if their sins are cleansed in this life.”

In “Abolishing the Feudal Privileges and Exploitation in Tibetan Lamaist Monasteries”, well-known Tibetologists Wang Sen and Wang Furen wrote: “From 1958 to the spring of 1959, one chapel in the western suburbs of Lhasa, for the purpose of prayer, asked for 27 human heads, six skulls, four leg bones, one full human skin, one corpse, 14 bundles of intestines, eight chunks of human flesh, and nine bottles of human blood.”

After presiding over the enthronement ceremony of the 14th Dalai Lama in 1940, Wu Zhongxin, chief of the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs of the National Government, described the situation in old Tibet in his “Report on Tibetan Affairs on a Mission”: “People of all classes and ranks believe they are destined to belong to a certain class or rank from the previous life, and they are accustomed to it. Even those in the lowest rank are content with the status quo.” Monopolizing the spiritual and cultural life of the Tibetan people, the three major estate-holders attacked as heresy any idea or culture that ran contrary to their interests. The Tibetan scholar Gedun Chophel, who exposed the corruption and degeneracy of monks and advocated reform in Tibetan Buddhism, was imprisoned and persecuted by the Kashag government.

II. Irresistible Historical Trend

Serfdom is the most brutal form of slavery in feudal society. It is a barbaric and backward social system in terms of economic development, political democracy or human rights protection. By the 1950s, the very existence of feudal serfdom had violated the development trend of human history. Such a system was a stain on civilization and was destined to be eradicated by history.

Throughout human history, slavery and serfdom have existed in most parts of the world. The two systems were renounced as backward and outdated as new ideas and enlightenment emerged in modern times, and abolitionism or abolitionist movements began to appear in many countries, ringing the death knell of slavery and serfdom. With the rise of the bourgeois revolution in Europe and the United States, the two were successively abolished in France, Britain, Russia, and the United States. In 1794, during the French Revolution, France put an end to slavery. Britain enacted the Slave Trade Act in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. In 1861, Russia abolished serfdom with a top-down peaceful reform. In 1865, by virtue of victory in the Civil War, the US federal government abolished slavery and forced labor by means of a constitutional amendment.

The end of the Second World War ushered in a new era of development, when peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom became the goals of human society. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations clearly stated: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” In 1956, the United Nations adopted the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. Article 1 of the Convention states that “Each of the States Parties to this Convention shall take all practicable and necessary legislative and other measures to bring about progressively and as soon as possible the complete abolition or abandonment of the following institutions and practices...”

On October 1, 1949 the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded, opening a new era in Chinese history. Under the leadership of the CPC, a new socialist system was established, making the people the masters of the country. On May 23, 1951, the Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (hereinafter the “17-Article Agreement”) was signed, officially proclaiming the peaceful liberation of Tibet.

In view of unbalanced social development and special circumstances in some places, Liu Shaoqi, then chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), said at the First Session of the First NPC in 1954: “Ethnic minority areas that have not completed democratic reform can complete it in some gentle manner in the future and then gradually move forward to socialism.”

In 1953, Xinjiang completely abolished all remaining feudal serfdom. Beginning in 1956, democratic reform was also carried out in Tibetan areas of Gansu, Sichuan, and Qinghai provinces. In Yunnan Province, parental slavery among the Lisu, Jingpo, and Va ethnic groups and the slavery of the Mosuo people in Yongning were abolished in 1956 through peaceful negotiation; slavery among the Xiaoliangshan Yi people in Ninglang and feudal slavery in Deqen Tibetan area were abolished in 1958. From early 1956 to late 1957, democratic reform was carried out in the Liangshan Yi ethnic area in Sichuan Province which completely abolished slavery. The abolition of serfdom was a major trend of social progress in China in the 1950s. However, Tibet at that time was still ruled by feudal serfdom under theocracy, which seriously obstructed social development and the process of civilization.

– Agricultural production was stagnated by theocratic feudal serfdom in Tibet for a long time.

Before the 1950s, agriculture in Tibet remained bound to extensive farming methods or even primitive slash-and-burn farming. Wooden tools were widely used, and the average yield was only four or five times that of seeds sown – not much different from hundreds of years ago. Most of the food, clothing, and supplies were made by hand by individuals or manors. There was no vitality in society.

– Feudal serfdom under theocracy caused sharp conflicts and opposition between serf owners and their labor.

By exploiting serfs, serf owners hoarded social wealth and spent it on extravagant and dissipated lives, in addition to supplying ecclesiastical and secular officials and their servants. Serfs, who were brutally deprived of the fruits of their hard work by serf owners, lived a miserable life. As they could barely survive, they had no choice but to rebel or flee.

– Feudal serfdom under theocracy seriously impeded the spread and development of modern science, technology and culture.

To consolidate its rule, the government of Tibet controlled by three major estate-holders practiced theocracy, promoted superstition, and opposed science by every possible means, which seriously hindered the spread and application of modern science and technology. Although the ruling clique sent youth from aristocratic families to study modern science and technology abroad, the purpose was mainly for the rulers’ own satisfaction, rather than to learn and apply advanced science and technology.

Thanks to the efforts of the central government, the peaceful liberation in 1951 ended Tibet’s long-lasting chaos, conflict, occlusion and stagnation. It experienced new economic and social development. Based on the 17-Article Agreement, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered Tibet in October 1951, and the Tibet Military Region was established in 1952 to take up the task of defending this frontier region. The central authorities established the CPC Tibet Working Committee and its branches in Lhasa and other places to perform its functions.

Before democratic reform in 1959, Tibet had political powers with different nature: the Kashag regime and Panchen Kampus Assembly; and the Qamdo People’s Liberation Committee and the Tibet Autonomous Region Preparatory Committee. As the 17-Article Agreement stipulated, “The central government will not alter the current political system of Tibet.… In matters related to reform in Tibet, there will be no compulsion on the part of the central government. The local government of Tibet shall take initiative to carry out reform, and when the people raise demands for reform, the central government shall consult with the leading personnel to settle the issue.”

The Central People’s Government adopted a circumspect attitude and a rather lenient policy, actively persuading and winning over patriotic people from the upper class while patiently waiting for Tibet’s ruling class to carry out reform.

In the meantime, in response to the long-term influence of theocracy in Tibet, CPC-led organizations and staff at different levels carried out meticulous work among the people and conscientiously implemented the policy that no reform should be carried out in Tibet within six years, thus winning the support of the ordinary people and of patriots from the upper class.

Even as they were aware that feudal serfdom under theocracy was coming to an end, the 14th Dalai Lama and the reactionaries in Tibet’s upper class had no wish to conduct reform. Instead, they tried to maintain the system for fear that reform would deprive them of their political and religious privileges, together with their huge economic benefits.

It was through feudal serfdom under theocracy that the three major estate-holders gathered enormous wealth. Before democratic reform, the family of the 14th Dalai Lama possessed 27 manors, 30 pastures and over 6,000 serfs, and annually wrung out of them more than 462,000 kg of highland barley, 35,000 kg of butter, 2 million liang of Tibetan silver, 300 head of cattle and sheep, and 175 rolls of pulu (woolen fabric made in Tibet).

III. Abolishing Feudal Serfdom

According to the 17-Article Agreement, in the early days of the peaceful liberation of Tibet, the CPC focused on winning over the people of the upper class and endeavored to get support from the ordinary people, rather than mobilizing them immediately to launch reform. The PLA and CPC organizations in Tibet worked hard to benefit the local people, giving free medical treatment, working to eliminate infectious diseases, building water conservancy projects, roads and bridges, providing disaster rescue and relief, distributing interest-free loans, offering certified seeds and farm tools, showing films, and providing jobs instead of handouts.

During the construction of the Sichuan (Xikang)-Tibet Highway in 1950, the people in Tibet realized that they were neither providing corvée labor to the PLA, nor being enslaved by serf owners, but working for themselves and their own future generations. The construction workers in Jomo Dzong (present-day Bayi District of Nyingchi City, Dzong is roughly equivalent to today’s county) and Tsela Dzong (present-day Mainling County of Nyingchi City) said, “The PLA soldiers are living gods. Those who spoke ill of the PLA are wolves in sheep’s clothing and demons hidden among our Tibetan people.”

In July 1954, ice collapse caused disastrous floods in the upper reaches of the Nyangchu River. The floods drowned 91 people in Gyantse Dzong and Panam Dzong, destroyed 170 villages, affected more than 16,000 people, swallowed over 4,000 ha of land, and drowned about 8,000 head of cattle and sheep. In response, the central government allocated 800,000 silver dollars for disaster relief. The CPC Gyantse Working Committee and the local PLA garrison fought the floods and provided succor to the victims. Despite limited supplies, they provided 730,000 kg of food, loaned 560,000 kg of seeds, distributed farm tools to a value of 15,000 silver dollars, donated 28,000 meters of tent cloth, and contributed cash and clothes to a total value of more than 100,000 silver dollars.

As a contrast, in March 1956, Nagchu Dzong (present-day Seni District of Nagqu City) was stricken by a catastrophic blizzard. The government of Tibet did not send relief to victims, but urged them to pay their rents without offering any reduction or exemption. The headman of Damshung Dzong even prevented the CPC Nagchu Working Committee from distributing highland barley and tea among the victims. Through these incidents, the people in Tibet acquired a better understanding of the CPC and the PLA, and realized that only by abolishing feudal serfdom could they start a new life.

The contrast awakened the people in Tibet. Some serfs stood up to oppose oppression and exploitation; some cast off the control of their serf owners and fled. According to Pasang, formerly a slave and now a senior official, she had been forced into hard labor for her master when she was a teenager. Unable to tolerate any more beatings from her master, she fled at the age of 15. In 1956, more than 100 peasants in Lang Dzong and Palbar Dzong gathered for a meeting to demand democratic reform. On July 25, 1956, some 65 peasants in Lhunzhub County of Lhasa submitted a letter carrying their finger prints to the 14th Dalai Lama, saying, “We are all peasants. We are more anxious for democratic reform than anyone else.”

Seeing the contrast, some members of the upper class in Tibet began to support democratic reform. From 1952, the CPC Tibet Working Committee organized several dozen delegations from Tibet to visit other parts of China, including delegations to visit the central government, delegations to celebrate the anniversaries of the founding of the PRC in Beijing, visiting groups, and delegations of Buddhists. As the delegates witnessed the rapid development elsewhere, some patriotic individuals from the upper class changed their minds and began to support the idea of democratic reform in Tibet.

A peasant from Pangcun Village of Doilungdeqen District in Lhasa recalled two incidents. In 1956, the central government invited the manor owners in Tibet to visit other parts of China, and after the visit, one of them named Chadrak Kelzang Sherab decided to free his serfs and distribute his land to them. In 1956, a Tibetan women’s delegation led by Thangme Konchog Palmo, an aristocrat, completed a trip outside of Tibet. On their return, they publicized the policies and benefits of democratic reform among the peasants in the suburbs of Lhasa, and persuaded many members of the Tibetan Patriotic Youth Association and the Tibetan Patriotic Women’s Association to stand up for democratic reform in Tibet.

In September 1957, Palgon Chogdrup, a headman in Gyantse, savagely tortured a serf called Wangchen Pungstog. Hearing of this, Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, then a Kalon (cabinet minister) of the government of Tibet, was furious, saying, “The people in Tibet are sure to choose socialism and anxious to start democratic reform. This is what they need. They want to boost political, economic and cultural development and pursue happiness. It is also an inexorable law of human development and an unstoppable trend of progress.”

In 1952, Samling Tsering Paldron, daughter of aristocrat Yuthok, began to teach the Tibetan language to the PLA men in Tibet, heedless of opposition of the reactionaries from the local upper class. She said, “I firmly believe that one day the people in Tibet will finally shake off oppression and exploitation imposed by feudal serfdom. One day we will finally build a political power of our own under the leadership of the CPC.”

The people in Tibet began to develop a proper understanding of reform, and some people of the upper class began to see it in a more positive light. However, in an attempt to maintain their vested interests and to perpetuate feudal serfdom under theocracy, a group of Tibetans launched a rebellion in a bid to halt social progress.

In March 1959, reactionaries from the upper class working in the government of Tibet tore up the 17-Article Agreement and staged an all-out armed rebellion in Lhasa. The rebellion ran counter to the will of the people of Tibet and the current of history. In response, the central government decided to dissolve the government of Tibet and quell the rebellion, and at the same time, mobilized the people of Tibet to begin democratic reform.

Democratic reform in Tibet was a continuation of China’s New Democratic Revolution led by the CPC, and an inevitable result of the social transformation from degeneration to progress. Democratic reform was implemented progressively in the rural areas, pastoral areas, monasteries, and urban areas.

In the rural areas, which had a population of 800,000, the central government mobilized the people to take part in a campaign against rebellion, corvée labor, and slavery, and in favor of lower rents for land and a reduction of interest on loans. Subsequently, the central government distributed land to peasants so as to completely eradicate feudal serfdom.

As a result, the serfs, who had been exploited and enslaved for generations, finally won freedom. They took ownership of more than 186,666 ha of land and other means of production. When their slave indentures and so-called IOU were burned in fire, they sang and danced to celebrate their liberation. In early 1960, about 200,000 farm households in Tibet acquired land certificates. Benefiting from policies such as the harvest of a farmland belonging to the one who sowed, lower rents for land, reduction in interest on loans, and the cancellation of old debts, the peasants gained more than 500 million kg of grain in total, over 750 kg per person.

Tsering Drolkar, a 68-year-old peasant from Khesum Shika of Nedong County said, “We had been providing corvée labor our whole lives. We never owned a single piece of land, what we worried about was how to find food for survival. Now with the land given to us by the people’s government, we will no longer go hungry.” The freed serfs cheered, “The sunshine of the Dalai Lama touches only the nobles, while the sunshine of Chairman Mao showers on us poor people. The noble’s sun is setting and our sun is rising.”

In the pastoral areas with a population of 280,000, the central government launched a campaign against the rebellion, corvée labor and slavery, and adopted policies that were beneficial to both hired herdsmen and herd owners, but the latter were deprived of their feudal privileges. The central government confiscated the cattle and sheep of the estate-holders and herd owners who had participated in the rebellion, and distributed the livestock to their hired hands and other poor herdsmen. The central government did not discriminate against or punish herd owners who had not been involved in the rebellion, and allowed them to continue to own their cattle and sheep.

These protective measures changed feudal enslavement to an employment relationship. This motivated the hired hands to protect and grow their herds, and the herd owners to operate and develop animal husbandry. Both people and cattle were able to live in peace. Although a large number of cattle and sheep had been slaughtered by the rebels, animal husbandry in Tibet soon recovered and began to prosper. The herdsmen on the Damxung Prairie sang a ballad:

In the past, the Damxung Prairie belonged to our herdsmen,

But it was later taken by Sera Monastery.

Ever since then, we have been living in hell.

Now the people’s government has issued a new decree,

And we have elected our own leaders.

The beautiful Damxung Prairie has been returned to our herdsmen.

In the monasteries, by means of prudent and steady measures, the CPC launched a campaign against the rebellion, feudal privileges and exploitation, and dealt with matters of political persecution, class oppression, and economic exploitation. These measures abolished feudal privileges, exploitation and the system of oppression.

The CPC promoted political unity and separation of government from religion, and punished the rebels and reactionaries acting under the guise of religious beliefs. It maintained the principle of freedom of religious belief, respected and protected citizens’ civil rights in this regard, protected patriotic and law-abiding monasteries, and established a democratic management system in monasteries. The CPC adopted a buying-out policy with respect to the means of production owned by those monasteries uninvolved in the rebellion. During the campaign of democratic reform, a large number of monks and nuns voluntarily resumed secular life. After the campaign, 553 monasteries were retained in Tibet, housing over 7,000 monks and nuns, which fulfilled the religious needs of local believers.

In the urban areas, the central government launched a campaign against the rebellion, the feudal system, exploitation and privileges, and in favor of lower rents for land and a reduction of interest on loans. The central government adopted a buying-out policy with respect to land and means of production owned by those serf owners and their agents uninvolved in the rebellion. It protected industry and commerce, adopted different policies towards rebels and non-rebels among industrialists and businessmen, and protected rights and interests of those engaged in industry and commerce. It organized aid for poor citizens and vagrants, resumed commerce and free exchange of goods, secured urban supplies, and restored social and economic order. At the same time, the CPC strengthened the united front work and strove to unite all available forces. Those serf owners and their agents who were patriotic, opposed imperialism, and accepted democratic reform, were provided with appropriate employment.

IV. The People Have Become Masters of Their Own Affairs

Through democratic reform, feudal serfdom under theocracy in Tibet was abolished completely, bringing fundamental changes to the Tibetan social system. It was a historic leap. Due to democratic reform, about one million serfs were liberated. They gained personal freedom and became masters of the new society. The completion of the reform laid a solid foundation for the establishment of socialism in Tibet.

– One million serfs were liberated and gained personal freedom.

When feudal land ownership was abolished in democratic reform, serfs were no longer treated arbitrarily by serf owners as their private property, and the personal ownership of serfs by serf owners came to an end.

Tibet’s democratic reform destroyed the institutional shackles which infringed serfs’ rights to subsistence, marriage, migration, residence, work, personal freedom, human dignity, and education. Thanks to this reform, one million serfs gained true personal freedom. Anna Louise Strong, a renowned American journalist and activist, included the remarks by a serf interviewee in her book When Serfs Stood up in Tibet: “Always I wanted to send my son to school to learn to read and to have some trade like a tailor. This was impossible, but now my son has gone to study in the interior and when he comes back he will be a skilled worker for a factory. He will not be weighed down by all those things that weighed down my head.”

Through democratic reform, all feudal privileges of monasteries were annulled. Monks and nuns gained equal rights and the right to be the masters of their own destiny. Many of those who were at the bottom of the hierarchy broke free of their religious bondage and resumed secular life. In Ganden Monastery alone, more than 300 monks demanded to return home or resume secular life in the surrounding areas of the monastery. The local government granted them the fare for their journey home and a settlement allowance. It also found jobs for 13 young monks who asked for employment at the Lhasa Department Store Company, and sent some child monks to school. As to the 312 monks who wanted to stay at the monastery, the local government made arrangements to ensure their daily life. In democratic reform, the system by which monasteries assigned monk and nun quotas to counties, manors and tribes was abolished. Monasteries were prohibited from coercing people to become monks or nuns.

– People’s governments were established at various levels for the people to exercise their rights.

On March 28, 1959, the State Council announced that the government of Tibet was dissolved. The Qamdo People’s Liberation Committee and the Panchen Kampus Assembly were also abolished, thus ending the coexistence of political powers of different nature. Under the leadership of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region, people’s governments were gradually set up at various levels. In mid-July, 1959, the first township-level peasants’ association, known as the Peasants’ Association of Khesum Village, and the first county-level peasants’ association, known as the Peasants’ Association of Nedong County, were established. Former serfs were elected as chairs or members of the associations, leading the people to conduct democratic reform. By the end of 1960, Tibet had established 1,009 organs of state power at township level, 283 at district level, 78 at county level and eight at prefecture (city) level. The number of officials from Tibetan and other minority ethnic groups totaled over 10,000. More than 4,400 liberated serfs became officials at community level. In the second half of 1961, a general election was held all over Tibet. For the first time, the former serfs were no longer regarded as “speaking tools”, and emerged on the political stage as the masters of the new Tibet.

Now enjoying the broadest possible democratic rights endowed by the Constitution and other laws that they had never had in the pre-liberation society, former serfs engaged in elections with great enthusiasm, and elected organs and governments at various levels. For the first time in the history of Tibet, local governments at various levels were elected in a democratic way through people’s exercise of their right to vote and to stand for election. By July 1965, general elections had been basically completed. Among the 2,600-plus deputies elected to the people’s congresses, 2,200 were former impoverished serfs. In Gyantse County, voters called their electoral certificates “masters’ certificates”. They saw elections as joyous events and actively participated in the elections of deputies to the people’s congresses.

On August 25, 1965, the bill to establish the Tibet Autonomous Region, tabled by the State Council, was approved at the 15th Session of the Standing Committee of the Third National People’s Congress. From September 1 to 9, 1965, the First Session of the First People’s Congress of Tibet was held. At this session, the Tibet Autonomous Region was established, and the People’s Committee of the autonomous region came into being by election. Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme was elected chairman of the Committee. A large number of liberated serfs held leading posts in organs of political power at various levels of the Region. The establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the organs of self-government of the Region realized the historic leap from theocratic feudal serfdom to people’s democratic socialism, and signified that Tibet had set up a people’s democratic government and begun to exercise thorough-going regional ethnic autonomy. In 1979, the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region was elected at the Second Session of the Third People’s Congress of the Region.

According to the Constitution and the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy of the People’s Republic of China, people of all ethnic groups in Tibet fully enjoy the right to vote and to stand for election. Since 1978, Tibet has held 11 elections of deputies to the people’s congresses at township level, 10 at county level, and eight at the level of municipalities having subordinate districts. The people in Tibet can directly elect, in accordance with the law, deputies to the people’s congresses at county (district) and township (town) levels, and these elected deputies will then elect deputies to the people’s congresses at the autonomous regional and national levels. Through the people’s congresses at various levels, the people of Tibet exercise their right to participation in the administration of state and local affairs.

Currently, there are 35,963 deputies to the people’s congresses at all levels in Tibet. Among them, deputies from the Tibetan and other minority ethnic groups account for 92.18 percent. Upholding the organic unity of Party leadership, the running of the country by the people, and law-based governance, the People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region and its Standing Committee guarantee and develop the rights of the people of all ethnic groups to be their own masters through legislative and institutional channels, ensure that the people of all ethnic groups enjoy broad rights and freedom, and expand citizens’ orderly political participation. They provide support for the deputies to the people’s congresses to perform their duties in accordance with the law. Maintaining close ties with the deputies and the people, they take responsibility for the people and accept their oversight. They work to safeguard the fundamental interests of the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet and promote well-rounded human development.

Since the establishment of the autonomous region in 1965, the People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region and its Standing Committee have enacted or approved more than 300 local regulations, resolutions, and decisions of a regulatory nature. In so doing, they have fulfilled the rights of autonomy of the localities enjoying regional ethnic autonomy. Now, work in various respects in Tibet has been law-based, and great progress has been made in promoting rule of law in the Region. On January 19, 2009, the Second Session of the Ninth Regional People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region voted and adopted the Decision of the People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region to Establish the Commemoration Day for the Liberation of One Million Serfs in Tibet. According to the decision, March 28 was designated as the day to commemorate the event.

– The rights of the people of all ethnic groups to participate in the deliberation and administration of state affairs have been fully guaranteed.

To fully ensure that people from all walks of life have the right to participate in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was established in December 1959. According to the Charter of the CPPCC, the CPPCC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee performs the duties of political consultation, democratic supervision, and participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, and plays an important role in democratic reform, socialist construction, and reform and opening up in Tibet. Focusing on formulating the 13th Five-year Plan of the Region, accelerating the construction of key projects, developing industries with local characteristics and strengths, and developing non-public economic sectors, the 10th CPPCC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee alone made 2,401 proposals, among which 2,347 were accepted for deliberation. At the sessions of the CPPCC committees at all levels in Tibet, people of all social strata have broad participation and play their role to the full extent. For instance, among the 518 members of the 11th CPPCC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee, 80 – the highest number – are representatives of religious groups (Buddhist associations), and 64 are from ethnic minority groups, the second-highest number.

Community-level democracy is developing and improving. After democratic reform, people’s governments at all levels were established in Tibet. In 1980, direct elections were held at township level all over Tibet, and they were expanded to county level starting from 1984. In 1987, the Tibet Autonomous Region issued the Decision on Strengthening the Development of Community-level Power Organs and the Decision on Strengthening Community-level Party Organizations in Farming and Pastoral Areas. Through years of experimentation, Tibet has gradually developed and formed community-level democratic systems in farming and pastoral areas. In rural areas, the system of villagers’ representative meetings has been established. In urban communities, community residents’ congresses and community committees have been set up, providing a solid organizational guarantee for the self-governance of urban residents. In enterprises and public institutions, the system of employees’ congresses is widely practiced. As of the end of 2018, there were 5,756 community-level workers’ unions, having 497,082 members.

Through democratic reform, people from all walks of life in Tibet have gained the right to participate in the administration of state affairs. In July 1959, there were 565 members of the upper class working in the executive organs of the government at district and prefectural levels. Among them, 415 were aristocrats, officials of former government, or religious figures. In the People’s Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region, a former serf owner and a former serf were successively elected to the post of vice chair. They were Kyibuk Phuntsog-Tseten and Lhagpa Phuntshogs. Both of them were born at the Kyibuk Manor prior to the liberation, and they became colleagues participating in decision making in the people’s government of the autonomous region. Through democratic reform, women were empowered with political rights. They took an active part in political affairs by participating in elections of the people’s congresses of various levels, serving as leading officials at various levels, and establishing women’s organizations. Pasang, a former vice president of the All-China Women’s Federation, and Tseten Dolma, a former vice president of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, are outstanding representatives of women participating in the management of public affairs. Thangme Konchog-Palmo, a former vice chairwoman of the CPPCC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee, was born into an aristocratic family in Lhasa. She made the following comments: “Under the feudal serfdom of the old society, even the wives of the kalons of the local government had no political rights, which were enjoyed exclusively by men. After the peaceful liberation of Tibet, men and women became equal. Women are empowered with rights. This was a huge change.”