ABSTRACT
The most important rural subsidy to local cadres in Mao's time was the near-elimination of the price of land. Fields during the Maoist period were supplied to rural teams on the basis of institutions that evolved from the land reform of the 1950s. "Agriculture is the root" was a Maoist slogan that emphasized the importance to the revolutionary state of peasant support and tax grain. But China's reforms, which meant the end of revolution, also began in the countryside. Especially after the benefits of agricultural extension in Mao's time had been spread, future growth in rural China depended on some decentralization of payments. This change occurred in waves, often as indirect rather than direct effects of policies. Rural industries were the most presentable outcome of this entrepreneurial ism, and their resources created new local power. They sprang from a green revolution, and they have quietly changed China's political structure.
