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Some Problems of China's Rural Communes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Gargi Dutt
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Extract

The rural people's communes, launched in the summer and autumn of 1958, purported to be a grand new social, political and economic organisation. They were supposed to be like “a fine horse, which having shaken off its bridle, is galloping courageously directly towards the highway of Communism.” An organisation had been created where collective living was actively promoted and the “Five-togethers” practised, where women were “freed from the drudgery of home life” and Idrawn into full time participation in the commune production, where labour could be shifted from area to area or even occupation to occupation according to needs and requirements, where the rural areas were not only the scene of agricultural production, but were also new centres of workshops producing steel and machine tools, and where the previous village, township and even county administration was now merged into the new commune administration, which thus undertook multifarious activities.

Type
The Rural Communes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 16 , December 1963 , pp. 112 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1963

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References

1 Kiangsi Daily, Nan Ch'ang, 11 26, 1959, p. 3.Google Scholar

2 The “five-togethers” were working together, eating together, living together, studying together and drilling together.

3 For a background to the formation of the communes, the changes that were introduced, the adverse effects they had on the peasantry, and the details of the 1958 resolution, see the author's article, “The Rural People's Communes of China,” International Studies, New Delhi, Vol. III, No. 1, 07 1961, pp. 45–64.Google Scholar

4 Ti-li hsüeh-pao, Vol. XXV, No. 1, 02 1959.Google Scholar

5 Ibid.

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7 The Communist Party issued directives in February 1959 as well as in August 1959 regarding “readjustments.”

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20 Mobilisation of the poor peasantry and concentration on development of poor brigades and teams to meet the challenge of the “rightists” was an insistent note in the Communist Party writings during this time.

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27 Ibid.

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31 Ibid. July 3, 1960.

32 Ibid.Editorial, August 25, 1960.

33 Lord Montgomery's article in The Sunday Times, Magazine Section, 10 15, 1961.Google Scholar

34 How serious the crisis has been can be seen from the fact that the authorities have yet to release production figures for the last three years.

35 See the resolution of the Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, January 14–18, 1961. Peking Review, No. 4, 01 27, 1961, PP. 5–7.Google Scholar

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37 Chou En-lai in his speech on the 13th anniversary admitted that the agricultural difficulties were caused both by serious natural disasters and “shortcomings and mistakes in our work.” Peking Review, No. 40, 10 5, 1962, p. 6.Google Scholar

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58 ibid.

59 For the régime's new approach towards private plots see article by Fang-yu, Yao in Ta Kong Pao, 06 12, 1961.Google Scholar

60 According to an instance quoted in People's Daily in one production brigade the income from sideline occupations constituted 14·7 per cent, of the total per capita income of the brigades, People's Daily, 02 2, 1961.Google Scholar

61 See, for instance, People's Daily, 06 2, 1961Google Scholar, June 21, 1961, July 18, 1961, August 17, 1961, and March 9, 1962.

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63 Ibid.

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67 Ibid.

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70 Ibid.

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77 Ibid.

78 Ibid. Editorial, April 22, 1961, p. 7.

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81 Ibid. April 28, 1961, p. 4.

82 Ibid. March 29, 1961, p. 4.

83 Ibid. May 20, 1961, p. 2.

84 Ibid. April 29, 1961, p. 7.

85 Ibid. April 4, 1961, p. 7.

86 Ibid. October 27, 1961, p. 7, Reproduction of the Editorial of Front Line, No. 20, 1961.Google Scholar

87 People's Daily, 12 14, 1961.Google Scholar