The Limits of Reform in China by Ronald A. Morse

Author:Ronald A. Morse [Morse, Ronald A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Political Science, World, Asian, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780865319813
Google: HK2bDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 4016828
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 1983-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

The Forces for Reform

Why have reforms in the agricultural realm, particularly with regard to the system of responsibility, been so successful? How is it that rural bureaucrats in most localities were unable to stem the tide of rural reform? Part of the answer lies in recognizing that pressure for change has come from two levels. Reformers in the party have been pushing these changes consistently since 1977. The first experiments occurred in Anhui and Sichuan. In 1977, Wan Li, who today is the member of the Secretariat responsible for agriculture, was then first party secretary of Anhui. At the same time 2hao Ziyang was running Sichuan. Both are closely aligned with Deng Ziaoping. Also, in poor areas peasants have been carrying out these policies in spite of local opposition. Press reports from 1979-1980 describe how peasants confronted local cadres with demands for change. County and commune officials were sometimes faced with a fait accompli which they could overturn only with a great deal of interpersonal conflict. In these localities pressure from above met with support from below, squeezing the middle-level bureaucrats who may have opposed the policy. Unlike some other movements for change in the countryside where the center's goals were anathema to peasant interests, the advocates of reform for this policy developed an unofficial coalition with peasants in the poor areas. Caught in this vise, the middle-level cadres could do little but accept the changes. They may have stalled for a while, but after the Party Secretariat authorized Central Document No. 75 in the fall of 1980, the pressures increased greatly.

At the same time, the movement has gone faster than anyone expected. In early 1980 Yao Yilin suggested that 10 percent of rural China would have household quotas. By the end of that year. People's Daily predicted that the number would hit 20 percent. But the "rush to freedom" of impoverished Chinese peasants continued unabated. An August 1931 conference in Kunming on the responsibility system admitted that 45 percent of the teams in China today had both types of household quotas. In essence we are witnessing the unbridled pursuit of peasant political and economic interest. As middle and local level opposition collapsed, peasants in the poorer areas have been going their own way. According to information I have collected from various press articles, the poorer provinces have definitely moved quickly ahead in implementing the more extreme forms of the household farming system.

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