ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses rural policy, will follow Sullivan's periodisation. It argues that two sorts of policy position emerged during the second and third periods since the demise of the 'Gang'. One of these took its cue from the mid-1950s and the other from the early-1960s. The chapter deals with general strategy, will note the trend towards centralization. It discusses the rural administrative system, will focus on the decentralised operation of communal sub-units. The new stress on rationalisation implies much more than the centralisation of the rural financial network. It might be anticipated that agricultural research activity will also be increasingly centralised. The new policy for agriculture was set within the framework of 'centralised policy and dispersed operations'. This, however, was not the same framework which had informed the Yan'an model and the Great Leap Forward where operational authority had been decentralised to local areas.
