ABSTRACT
The call for modernization, diversification, a balanced economy, increased production, and attention to local conditions is nothing new in the various documents, speeches, and debates concerning Chinese agriculture. But such calls took on a particular urgency in 1980-as they admitted to the recognition that from 1958 to 1976 disappointingly little progress was made in most rural communities and that for some units production had not only stagnated but had in fact retrogressed. These failures, it is clear, cannot be primarily attributed to the supposed innate conservatism and backwardness of the peasants in the teams and brigades that make up China's rural villages. They also are failures that stem from bureaucratic misdirection, from lack of understanding, and from rigidity in policy-making at levels considerably higher than the local community and its peasant constituents.
