Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap FamineChina's Great Leap Famine of 1959-61 resulted in 30 million deaths, making it easily the worst famine in human history. Yet unlike the Cultural Revolution - that other massive catastrophe of Mao's rule - the Great Leap Forward has received scant scholarly attention. This is partly because victims of the ensuing famine were inarticulate farmers and partly because many key players in that inglorious era are members of the current elite who tightly guard the archives. Despite these impediments, the author has marshalled an impressive array of historical documents to provide the first comprehensive treatment of the political causes and consequences of the Great Leap Famine. The Famine is important because it furnished the crucial historical motives for dismantling the rural collective institutional structure in post-Mao China two decades later and motivating tens of millions of ordinary Chinese to enact the reforms. |
Contents
The Political Significance of Decollectivization 2 The Rise | 6 |
The Path to Disaster | 21 |
Level of economic development and commune messhall | 61 |
The Great Leap Famine and Rural Liberalization | 71 |
The Cultural Revolution Interlude | 98 |
Gross value of agricultural output GVAO and gross value | 105 |
Index of procurement prices 195183 | 115 |
Structural Incentives for Rural Reform | 121 |
Reform Euphoria Policy Myopia and Rising Rural Discontent | 183 |
Contrasting growth patterns for rural industry and crop | 184 |
Rural Industrialization Political Empowerment | 213 |
Rural Enterprise Sector Under the Austerity Program | 220 |
Interests Perceptions and Policy Change | 226 |
Conclusion | 234 |
Main Sources of Data for Analyses of the Great Leap Famine | 257 |
Bibliography | 311 |
The Great Leap Famine and brigade accounting rate 1981 | 139 |
The Political Struggle over Reform | 144 |
345 | |
Other editions - View all
Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change ... Dali L. Yang No preview available - 1996 |
Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change ... Dali L. Yang No preview available - 2022 |
Common terms and phrases
adopted agrarian radicalism agricultural production Anhui Beijing Brigade Accounting Rate Central Committee Chen Yun Chinese leadership collective economy collectivization commune mess halls contracting output Cultural Revolution Dazhai Deng Xiaoping density of party document elite famine severity grain output grain procurement growth Guangdong Guizhou Hebei Heilongjiang Henan household contracting household responsibility system Hua Guofeng Hunan Ibid income increased individual farming institutional change Jiang labor land leaders Leap Famine Leap Forward levies Li Peng Lushan conference Mao Zedong Mao's million tons NJZWH NMRB official party secretary Peng people's communes per-capita percent percentage political practice problems production brigade production teams provinces RMRB rural areas rural China rural enterprise sector rural industries rural policy rural reforms Shandong Shanxi Sichuan Sixty Articles social socialist Third Plenum tion township urban village Wan Li Wang yuan zeren tian ZGTJNJ ZGZSN Zhang Zhao Ziyang Zhongguo Zhou Enlai
References to this book
At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters Benjamin Wisner No preview available - 2004 |