ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four problems related to China’s agricultural policies during the first decade of the People’s Republic: the functions and procedures of land reform, the evolution of agricultural collectivization policies, the organizational features of various farm institutions, and the social and economic consequences of those early initiatives. The first step in the socialist transformation of the Chinese countryside was land reform. China’s policy was apparently intended to win the support of the farmers in order to ease the overthrow of the anti-Communist forces in the rural areas. Since no compensation payments were involved in China’s land reform, the peasants felt less need to sell grain and tended to increase their home consumption. The result was a severe food crisis in the cities. Although China’s industry could not provide agricultural machinery in large quantities, it was possible and necessary to arouse the socialist enthusiasm of the poor and lower-middle peasants and first accomplish collectivization.
