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Agrarian Policy and Communist Motivation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

What is the best hypothesis to explain the development of the Chinese People's Republic since 1949? Perhaps that, in the view which has dominated the Chinese Communist leadership, the policies of the Yenan period (1935—45) were a deviation from the preferred line of development; the true road was that along which the Party had started in the period of the Chinese Soviet Republic (1931–34) and to which it returned as soon as its power was sufficiently consolidated. This can explain both the considerable practical differences between Chinese-style and Russian-style Communism during the Yenan period and also the failure of predictions based on the assumption that the trends of the Yenan period would continue.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

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References

1 This statement is based on studies by Professor Chao Tso-liang of Taiwan University who has been working on the very large collection of Communist publications obtained during the campaigns against the Chinese Soviet Republic.

2 Jen-nun Jih-pao (People's Daily) editorial. October 11, 1957 (translated in Survey of China Mainland Press No. 1635, published by the U.S. Consulate General, Hong Kong). Again a survey of fanning in Hopei province stated that only 16–35 per cent, of collectives had reached or surpassed the productivity of well-to-do middle peasants (SCMP 1626). And later Teng Tzu-hui, Director of the Communist Party's Rural Work Department, called on collectives to catch up with the productivity of middle peasants within five years (Jen-nan Jih-pao, 11 14, 1957, SCMP No. 1659).Google Scholar

3 Article in Ts'ai-cheng (Finance), No. 10, 05 24, 1959.Google Scholar (Translated in Extracts from China Mainland Magazines, No. 176, published by U.S. Consulate General, Hong Kong.)