ABSTRACT
The Chinese agricultural sector led the dramatic transition from feudal social relationships. After coming to power, the CPC instituted a historic land reform that ended private feudal relationships in the countryside and fostered the growth of the ancient class process (productive self-employment). However, the transition to the prevalence of productive self-employment was short-lived. During the GLF in the late 1950s, a form of state feudalism was instituted:
peasants were bound by a strict registration system under the People’s Commune on the land which they neither owned nor had control over. They were unable to move freely, because the strict residential registration system coupled with a strict rationing system in an environment of scarcity made it impossible for peasants to make a living in areas other than their own registered residential area. Since the land on which they were bound was publicly owned and managed, peasants were virtually reduced to slaves of the land in the locality…peasants were forced to sacrifice their own interests to support industry and urban residents. They were forced to sell goods and products to the state at discount prices, to plant grain instead of profitable economic crops, and to submit to a set of exchanges that built relative prosperity in the cities while confining peasants to the penurious countryside.
