The dark reality of old Xizang: Serfdom under theocratic rule (Part I)

Editor's note: CGTN's First Voice offers timely commentary on breaking news, providing clarity on emerging issues and refining the global news agenda with a distinct Chinese perspective. Recently, the PBS program Frontline aired a documentary titled Battle for Tibet, which amplifies the one-sided narratives of "exiled Tibetans" to distort the portrayal of Xizang, sow division, and incite ethnic tensions. In response, First Voice published a rebuttal grounded in historical facts, exposing the harsh realities of old Xizang and the suffering endured by serfs. The article also sheds light on the true nature of the Dalai group – not as "peaceful religious leaders forced into exile," but as defenders of a feudal serfdom system. This marks the first part of the article.

After fleeing abroad, the Dalai Lama and his followers have repeatedly defended the system of serfdom that existed in Xizang before the democratic reforms of 1959 and even glorified the lives of serfs and theocratic rule. They claimed that "Tibet never experienced famine in history, and beggars were extremely rare," that "Old Tibet was free and peaceful," and that it was "a pure and harmonious religious sanctuary." They have also portrayed monasteries as "disciplined educational centers and knowledge hubs, exemplifying the traditional Tibetan way of life," while depicting the Dalai Lama himself as a "peaceful religious leader forced into exile."

But do these claims align with historical facts? A wealth of historical evidence proves that the Dalai Lama's group has fabricated lies to deceive those with limited knowledge of the region. Historically, Xizang before 1959 was under a feudal theocratic serfdom system for centuries. This oppressive system persisted until the democratic reforms, during which over a million serfs lived under brutal exploitation and enslavement and endured extreme misery.  

The system of serfdom was a form of feudal oppression in which serfs had an extremely low social status. They were bound to the land, deprived of personal freedoms and entirely dependent on feudal lords or serf-owners, who controlled every aspect of their lives.

Serfdom, as a typical feudal system, emerged in medieval Europe and persisted in some countries until the mid-19th century. It harks back to the time of Roman slavery, and historians often refer to the era of rampant church domination and serfdom in medieval Europe as the "Dark Ages."

In the 19th century, movements to abolish slavery and serfdom swept across many countries and regions. Slavery was abolished in nations such as Britain, Russia and the United States. In 1861, the Russian emperor Alexander II officially issued the Emancipation Manifesto to abolish serfdom. In 1862, the then American President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and in 1865, the U.S. Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, formally outlawing slavery. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, declared that "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."  

Historical facts overwhelmingly demonstrate that the Dalai Lama was not only a religious leader but also the supreme ruler and primary beneficiary of the feudal serfdom system in Xizang. The true purpose of his escape was to protect the theocratic serfdom system and safeguard the interests of the feudal aristocracy. The Dalai Lama's group represented the ruling elite of serf-owners rather than the oppressed serfs.  

Xizang society before 1959 was rigidly hierarchical. The 13-Article Code and the 16-Article Code, which had been enforced in the region for centuries, explicitly divided people into three main classes and nine sub-levels, stating: "People are classified into upper, middle and lower ranks, with each rank further divided into upper, middle and lower subcategories. These distinctions are determined by bloodline and social position." "Human worth is based on social rank; thus, life's value varies accordingly." "The life price of a high-ranking noble is equal to their weight in gold." "The life price of a low-ranking serf is a single piece of straw rope."

Before the democratic reforms, the theocratic serfdom system in Xizang made society even darker than medieval Europe. Its defining characteristics included the following.

Land and resources monopolized by the serf-owning class

Despite making up less than 5 percent of the region's population, the three major land-owning groups – government officials, aristocrats and monasteries – along with their agents, monopolized nearly all arable land, pastures, forests, rivers, and livestock.  

According to statistics gathered prior to democratic reform, a staggering 99.7 percent of all the 220,000 ha of cultivated land in old Xizang 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.

There were 197 hereditary noble families in Xizang before the democratic reforms, with the most powerful among them each controlling dozens of estates and thousands of acres of land. The 14th Dalai Lama's family was among the wealthiest, owning 27 manors, 30 pastures, and over 6,000 serfs. The Dalai Lama alone owned 160,000 taels (one tael = 30 grams) of gold, 95 million taels of silver, over 20,000 pieces of jewelry and jade ware, and more than 10,000 pieces of silk clothing and rare furs.

Serfs treated as personal property of landlords  

The serf-owning class not only controlled all the land but also exercised complete ownership over the serfs, treating them as hereditary property. A well-known folk song described this harsh reality: "Wild beasts roam the mountains freely, but below the mountains, not a single person is without a master."

The self-owning class regarded serfs as their personal property, with absolute power to buy, sell, transfer, gift, mortgage, or exchange them at will. Serfs were not allowed to marry without their master's permission. If a serf was to live outside the estate after marriage, his or her family had to pay a ransom fee. If a serf sought work outside the estate, they had to pay a labor tax to signify their continued servitude. Serfs were bound to the land and forced to perform unpaid labor for their lords and pay numerous taxes and levies. Serfs who attempted to flee were severely punished, often suffering foot amputation, flogging or other cruel penalties. Slaves lived under total subjugation with no personal freedoms or legal protections.  

American anthropologists Melvyn C. Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall, based on field research in the 1980s, wrote in their book Nomads of Western Tibet: The Survival of a Way of Life that "Tibet's system greatly benefited the landowners by effectively allocating labor to their estates." Canadian Tibetologist A. Tom Grunfeld wrote in his 1987 book The Making of Modern Tibet: "Historically there was very little class mobility in Tibet, and for the most part serfs were forced to accept the position they found themselves in at birth. There is no evidence to support the images of a utopian Shangri-la."

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on X, formerly Twitter, to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)