London; New York: Routledge, 2016. xxii, 350 pp. (Tables.) US$148.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-138-85658-5.
Teiwes and Sun set out to chart the political sequence of events that led to the decollectivization of agriculture in China, and in doing so they have provided us with a significant reevaluation of Hua Guofeng’s policy approach and period of rule. Breaking with earlier scholarship, Teiwes and Sun view Hua as far more “pro-peasant” in his approach than Deng Xiaoping. Rather than viewing the politics of decollectivization as a struggle between Hua as a radical and Deng as a reformer, or as the result of peasant power, they argue that the key shift in policy entailed an attempt by Deng and reformers such as Zhao Ziyang to reduce the state deficit by ending Hua’s higher spending on agriculture. From the reformers’ perspective, peasants were a burden on the state, a burden which would be reduced by a return to household farming.
Chapter 1 reconsiders Hua’s rural policies, arguing that Hua was as much a moderate as Deng in his views on the Dazhai model, but that Hua took a more traditional view on rural reform, with a focus on agricultural development, meaning capital construction, mechanization, scientific farming, rural industrialization, and an easing of the peasant burden. The chapter also disputes the notion that certain provincial governments were in “a struggle against Hua’s continued agrarian radicalism,” instead arguing that “interactions of central and local developments were self-reinforcing” (36). Chapter 2, focusing on the months before the Third Plenum of 1978, further marginalizes Deng’s role in rural policy developments, showing that Hua played a “major role” in rural policy through the year following the plenum (49). Chapter 3 concentrates on the emergence of different forms of production responsibility in what the authors call the second stage of reform in 1977–1978, in which these responsibility systems became “a new part of the collective structure” (73). By the end of 1979, this process had led to a sharp increase in grain production (9 percent that year) and an even sharper increase in rural incomes (19.9 percent per capita) (119).
Yet as chapters 4 and 5 relate, by the end of 1981 Party policy had shifted towards household contracting. This is not a study of peasant initiative and influence over the shift in policy; although, the authors largely agree with Jonathan Unger (“The Decollectivization of the Chinese Countryside: A Survey of Twenty-eight Villages,” Pacific Affairs 58, no. 4 [1985]) that in the end the state imposed household contracting, even if it was already emerging in various places from peasant and local experimentation (128). Rather, Teiwes and Sun show that increasing concern over the rising state deficit was crucial in bringing about the shift in rural policies, with agricultural modernization a leading cause of financial problems. Premier Zhao Ziyang, a “deficit hawk,” in particular linked agricultural expenses and the state deficit, viewing agricultural spending as a “burden on the country” that necessitated a shift to household production responsibility in some areas (150). Deng and other leaders followed in their support for the household responsibility system as a temporary measure in some areas to reduce the burden on the state. Despite increasing production, state resources for agriculture—the heart of Hua’s rural modernization program—were to be scaled back. As state investment in agriculture dropped dramatically in 1981 (203, table 4), the household responsibility system spread rapidly. The Number One Document of 1982 enshrined the household responsibility system, even if it suggested that peasants in different areas could choose different systems; the principle of adapting policy to local conditions “faded” over the year, and pressure from the top for production teams to follow increased over time (255–256).
The conclusion returns to questions of historiography and the politics of narrative. Teiwes and Sun argue that in early 1980, “Deng was as committed to collective agriculture as was Hua” (260), and Deng’s “most significant policy intervention” was his support for Zhao’s policy of reducing the agricultural burden on the state (267). The normal reform narrative is upended. Looking forward, while grain production again rose in 1982 and 1983, setting the stage for urban reforms, it began to decline in 1984. In response, the Number One Document of 1986 returned to the issue of state investments in agriculture, although they did not reach the levels implemented by Hua. Putting this story into a longer-term perspective, the Party’s more recent return to the issue of scaling-up agriculture after twenty years of the household responsibility system shows how interim policies can become entrenched and set up for unintended consequences.
This new narrative relies on interviews and a close reading of documents and speeches to detail who said what when, thereby constructing a precise chronicle of the political process of rural reform. This meticulous analysis of Party leaders’ stance on rural issues pays off, providing us with the most compelling story of the origins of rural reforms yet. How we label the stances Party leaders take is important, as the rural reforms have been regarded as a key moment in debates on the PRC political economy, with the revolt of the peasantry against collective agriculture considered as proof of socialism’s failure. The labels we place on leaders—“conservative,” “radical,” “reformer,” etc.—have a powerful effect on the stories we tell. And here, it is questionable whether Hua’s approach should be called “pro-peasant,” as the authors do, or rather whether he should be called an agricultural modernizer. The authors demonstrate that Hua was concerned about the burden on peasants in the late 1970s, yet his main concern was the stagnation of agricultural production, creating a bottleneck for continued economic development. While the former designation gives Hua more moral force in the narrative, the latter is probably more accurate, if prosaic. Nonetheless, Teiwes and Sun have dismantled a key story about the reform period, and their work should be read by all interested in recent Chinese history or politics, not just those focused on rural issues.
Alexander F. Day
Occidental College, Los Angeles, USA