Paradoxes of Post-Mao Rural Reform by Frederick C. Teiwes Warren Sun

Author:Frederick C. Teiwes, Warren Sun [Frederick C. Teiwes, Warren Sun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, China, Political Science, Public Policy, General, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317516156
Google: iGVACwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-12-22T16:12:10+00:00

As on earlier occasions,173 signs of central support encouraged sympathetic local leaders, or simply those feeling duty bound to implement the new policy, and resulted in provinces acting, although generally in a cautious step-by-step manner. Shaanxi was a province that had done little to adopt household responsibility systems and was among the opponents to Du Runsheng’s keynote speech at the September conference. However, it had not been entirely recalcitrant, with People’s Daily praising its responsibility system linking production to labor shortly after circulation of Central Document no. 75. Although this system was later described as similar to baochan daohu, prior to September 1980 controls on the approach were very strict. But with the issuance of the document, the restrictions were relaxed. Household contracting began to spread quickly, especially in the province’s isolated mountainous regions and impoverished areas. Subsequently, although the timing is unclear, it began to penetrate into the more prosperous central irrigated areas.174

“Pioneer province” Guizhou seized on the new situation more aggressively. It can, of course, be argued that Guizhou was ahead of the Party Center. A Guizhou historical account written nearly two decades later asserts precisely that: “[With Central Document no. 75] the Party Center cautiously adopted the opinions of the Guizhou Provincial Committee,” an explicit reference to the province’s July document endorsing baochan daohu.175 Now, in December 1980, the provincial leadership went further than Du Runsheng’s contorted September assessment of household contracting; in a report to the Center, Guizhou legitimized the practice by clearly defining it as “a form of production responsibility system in socialism.” At the time, Chi Biqing traveled to Beijing and discovered Hu Yaobang had read the Guizhou report and had referred it to Wan Li, commenting that Guizhou was adopting household contracting in the entire province, and “We should agree with their views and approach.” Wan Li subsequently told Chi that “you did well.” Although not an official decision, Chi Biqing took Hu’s and Wan’s comments as the Party Center’s approval of what they were doing in Guizhou, and subsequently baochan daohu spread not only further in the province’s poverty areas, but also to richer areas as well. The following May, the provincial committee again took a position beyond Central Document no. 75 by reporting that household farming was not only an effective measure for solving the subsistence needs of the peasants, but also a new starting point for realizing socialist agricultural modernization. As we shall see, by that time the Center was indeed starting to catch up with Guizhou, but the province’s boldness at the end of 1980 and into 1981 cannot be unrelated to the opening created by the September conference in which Chi played a prominent role.176

If one pioneer province was pushing forward ahead of the Party Center, another, the by far more renowned Anhui, adopted a much more limited response to Central Document no. 75. Here again the provincial leader was a key factor, in this case Zhang Jingfu. As we have discussed, when Zhang replaced Wan Li as

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