Rural communes of China : organizational problems

This is a study of the organizational problems of the rural people's communes of China. The establishment of rural people's communes in the summer and autumn of 1958 was one of the most important landmarks in communist China's rural organization. They were a part of the big leap movement by which it was intended to lift China's agricultural backwardness into modernization and indus trialization. Through the big leap and rural people's communes the Chinese communists believed that they were going to achieve a breakthrough in economic development and catch up with the advanced countries of the world in a few years' time. The rural communes was one of the most important institutional changes that the regime brought about in order to achieve the twin goals of rapid economic growth and the resultant acquisition of political power on a global level. Far-reaching changes were made in the organization of agricultural production, the utilization of rural labour, the distribution of income, and the daily life of the peasants.

The experiment to change sharply the living and production mode of the peasant and to bring about agricultural development through mere socio-economic institutional changes without any substantial increase in investment in the agricultural sector failed with disastrous results. China was caught in the grip of an acute food and economic crisis and a sharp reversal of previous policies had to be ordered. Material incentives had to be given to the peasantry on a meaningful scale in order to revive agricultural production and sharp reversals had also to be ordered in the organ ization of production and the utilization of labour. Agriculture was given priority and heavy industry assigned a secondary place, and only thus did slow recovery begin. This study enquires into the background of the creation of communes, analyzes in detail the changes that were sought to be brought about in rural organization, their impact and consequences, the reactions of the peasantry and, finally, the reverse and the retreat, and deals at length with the new organizational measures that were adopted to overcome the agricultural crisis. A final chapter has been added to discuss developments during 1963-64; there have been no major changes since then. I am grateful to the authorities of the Indian School of Inter

national Studies for all the facilities afforded to me to complete my work, especially for enabling me to go to Hong Kong to make use of the wide-ranging materials there. My thanks are due to the Universities Research Service Centre and the Union Research Institute, Hong Kong, for their generous co-operation. I am also extremely grateful to the East Asian Research Centre, Harvard University, particularly to Professor John K. Fairbank, for inviting me for one year and for encouraging me to undertake this work. I also thank heartily Mr Girja Kumar and the staff of the Library of the Indian School of International Studies for their co-operation and courtesy. To my husband, Dr V.P. Dutt, I am particularly grateful for his supervision and assistance in the completion of this project.