Agricultural Strategies and Rural Social Changes in Communist China since 1949: A Macrosociological Assessment

Abstract

This paper examines the nature and changes of Communist China’s agricultural strategies and the respective impacts on the agricultural-rural sector since 1949. By analyzing the origin and changes in the agricultural strategies adopted by the communist regime, it can be assessed that the prevailing character of Communist China’s strategy on agriculture has been to take ＂squeezing＂ as an instrument for overall economic growth, The rural social structure has been induced to change in a direction the squeezing strategy required. Under the squeeze, agriculture as a socio-economic sector had not been developed and modernized and, as a result, the rural population has been exploited vis-a-vis the policy of urban-industrial development in the past thirty-years growth experience. It is important to point out that the communist regime had in deed turned its back on the countryside after they seized power in 1949. The ＂revolution＂ based on the countryside did not bring about a just, fair, and equal development and well-being for the Chinese peasants as had been promised by the communists.