ABSTRACT
Hua Guofeng received the conference delegates and expressed views concerning the rural situation. He agreed that "in isolated households in mountainous and remote areas it is permissible to carry out baochan daohu". A leading Party historian argues that household contracting only became the central issue of rural policy in 1981. The process of rural reform can be conceptualized in three stages: from the more developmental and ideologically restricted Dazhai model to the more flexible concern with peasant interests in the Sixty Articles; the elaboration of responsibility systems beyond the communal three-level ownership of luoshi zhengce that notionally were a new part of the collective structure; and the emergence of household contracting as the dominant responsibility system and ultimately official policy. The document simply states that the rural situation was very good because of a series of good Party policies, the hard work of the peasants, and the good weather.
