Mao and Collectivisation

During the later 1920s, collectivisation was introduced in the Soviet Union. This
was introduced very rapidly, within the course of a year. It led to a rapid fall in
agricultural production, and to famine in which somewhere between six and ten
million peasants died. One key reason for this was that there was significant
peasant resistance, especially from the richer peasants known as kulaks. Richer
peasants destroyed crops, tools and animals rather than share them in a
collective farm. Stalin rounded up opponents and, although numbers are hard to
determine, as many as 10 million kulaks may have been deported to camps.
By the early 1950s, inequality was growing in the Chinese countryside. Although
land had been redistributed, poorer peasants were being forced to sell their land
in order to survive. Mao felt that the creation of collective farms was the solution.
How can you avoid a similar experience in China?
Will you allow peasants to retain any land which is theirs alone, or must
all land be shared?
How will you persuade peasants that collectivisation is a valuable
policy?
Are there ways in which the policy can be introduced gradually?
Should collectivisation even be a priority?
This last question divided the Communist party

Mao it is crucial to drive collectivisation forward:

-

Collectivisation may allow agricultural production to increase. This will

allow Chinese agriculture to feed the countrys people. If production
increases, this will also allow China to earn important foreign currency
which can be used to develop Chinese industry.

Although land reform has given the poor peasants more land, and so made
the countryside more equal, inequality is creeping back. Some of the
poorest peasants are being forced to sell their land in order to survive, and
this is allowing richer peasants to strengthen their positions. Only by
introducing collective farms, in which all private property is abolished, can
the return of inequality be prevented.

Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun and Li Fuchun collectivisation is not the priority:
-

Collectivisation will only be really successful once the peasants have

access to modern inputs such as machinery and agricultural chemicals.
There is therefore little point in introducing collectivisation until industry
has been developed further.

The priority is to ensure that the countryside is as productive as possible,

so that profit from the countryside can be used to support the towns and
industrial development. Agriculture may be most productive if inequality is
allowed to persist.

Steps to collectivisation

1952 Mutual Aid Teams introduced Up to 10 peasant households grouped

together to share labour, tools and animals

1952-3 Agricultural Producers Cooperatives these grouped 30 50 peasant

families. They farmed the land together, although each family retained the
ownership of their land, and profits were shared on the basis of land ownership,
so those with large land holdings received a large proportion of the profits.

1955 Higher stage APCs introduced 200-300 households. Profits were no

longer shared on the basis of land ownership, so the largest landowners were no
longer guaranteed the greatest share of the profits. Peasants still, in theory,
owned the land, and they were allowed to keep private plots for their own use.