ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a parallel analysis of the agricultural sector, assessing the extent to which it reflects and serves the interests of the peasants. A pattern of agricultural development that meets the self-perceived needs and objective requirements of the peasant producers, both currently and over the long term, can be referred to as socialist agricultural development. In one other important respect as well, state policies failed to mesh with the requirements of a socialist development model in agriculture. The analysis of China’s agricultural development from the standpoint of its impact on the class interests of the peasantry must be based on an analysis of institutional change and economic performance since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. The summer of 1955 marks a turning point not only in agricultural policy but indeed in the entire character of the Chinese approach to economic development. Socialist agricultural development, like socialist economic development in general, is characterized by its class orientation.
