ABSTRACT
When the contract-responsibility system for farming was introduced in Sichuan, Qiaolou was among the last villages to abandon collectivisation. Instead of implementing the state-mandated reforms, which would diminish their control over the economic life of the village, the leaders were endeavouring to strengthen their power by establishing a new non-agricultural collective sector. The finance for the new sector was provided from a capital accumulation fund established previously by the village when it was a brigade under the commune system.
