Chinese Village, Socialist State: The Gamble

"Chinese Village, Socialist State: The Gamble" by Edward Friedman & Paul Pickowicz

During the 1950s, communists such as Geng Chansuo pushed hard for core communal form of agriculture and tried to get villagers to join co-ops. Geng thought that collective action was the only way to ensure prosperity and so promoted his own co-op and was fairly successful in convincing villagers to join him. A drought was developing in China, and Geng said that the only way to protect the country against the drought was by organizing the village better and tried to get villagers to participate in a communal well-digging project. Many villagers did not want to dig the wells however, and the plan produced only a few badly positioned wells.

Many people became discontent with Geng as leader and tried to have him ousted in the co-op election of 1952 while he was away, but their attempt failed and Geng was reelected as the director. Geng continued to bring more members into his co-op but the co-op system wasn't working properly. Geng, however, blamed a lack of cooperation for these failures and suggested something that had never been tried: a single production unit that encompassed an entire village. This suggestion was met with much hostility and controversy, but Geng was able to convince enough people with his tales of the Soviet Union's great success because of their cooperative efforts, that the plan moved forward. Geng oversaw the building of his dream but it was not an immediate success. Geng had promised that his co-op would produce 637 catties per mu, it only produced 237 (half the yield of 1951). Geng continued to blame these numbers on a lack of proper cooperation, but it was in large part because of the drought, planting crops too close together, and plowing too deep. Many peasants were skeptical about such a large scale organization, and only wanted to farm their own land. Villagers did not want to give up their land to public use, even with the promise that they could withdraw from the co-op at any time and get their land back. Despite Geng's conviction that his plan would bring prosperity, the lack of results along with scandals concerning officials receiving more grain than their share, caused government to stop Geng's project.

Guo Feng, the deputy director of the Hebei party Rural Work Department, ordered Geng to reduce the size of units, Geng resisted. 108 households left and only 287 stayed, but Geng held strong and Geng loyalists claimed victory over Guo Feng who left without entirely fulfilling his purpose.Geng's political rivals Wei Lianyu and Li Maoxiu were blamed for many of China's problems, acting as convenient scapegoats.