ABSTRACT
The readjustment of the early communes was codified in the sixty-article “Regulations on the Work of the Rural People’s Communes” passed by the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee on September 27, 1962. Rural small-scale industries appear to have a bright future. They make good economic sense for large, agricultural countries like China, however inefficient they might be for wealthier, more industrialized economies. In straightforward economic terms, China’s rural achievement since the 1950s has been impressive and the commune system has been instrumental to much of that achievement. In the late 1970s, however, China is importing on the average an amount of grain equivalent to one-half kilogram per person per month, that is, not very much. Imports seem to have more of an impact upon a few priority regions than they do upon China as a whole, and they seem to be more related to farm incentives than to necessary food supply.
