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OverviewDuring and after the Cultural Revolution, radical leaders in the Chinese Communist Party tried to mobilize rural society for socioeconomic and political changes and move rural China to even higher stages of collectivism. David Zweig argues that because advocates of agrarian radicalism formed a minority group within China's central leadership, they acted in opposition to the dominant moderate forces and resorted to alternative strategies to mobilize support for their unofficial policies. The limited institutionalization of the system allowed the radicals to promote their principles through policy winds, speeches generated by newspaper articles, networks of political allies, and organized visits; they also linked their policies to ongoing political and economic campaigns. In spite of this radical ideology and frequent upheavals in the countryside, Zweig finds that Chinese peasants had no ideological affinity for Mao's theory of the continuing revolution and reacted to each policy change on the basis of how it affected their personal, family, or collective interests. Despite intense propaganda, cadres adjusted the impact of these radical policies so that the peasants' conservative mindset, entrepreneurial spirit, and desire to improve their own lot remained intact.Zweig examines the local realities of the radicals' program by describing the results of specific policies; he discriminates among the responses of officials at different bureaucratic levels, peasants of varying income levels and family structures, and villages with specific geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. He draws on his own field research in Chinese villages and interviews with Chinese college students and their friends who had lived in the countryside and emigres in Hong Kong who had lived and worked in rural China. Full Product DetailsAuthor: David ZweigPublisher: Harvard University Press Imprint: Harvard University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.50cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.635kg ISBN: 9780674011755ISBN 10: 0674011759 Pages: 288 Publication Date: 25 April 1989 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Out of Print Availability: Awaiting stock Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: Dilemmas of the Postrevolutionary Struggle 1. Agrarian Radicalism Defined: Theoretical Perspectives and Developmental Strategies 2. Policy Winds and Agrarian Radicalism 3. Periodization of Agrarian Radicalism 4. The Local Response 5. Brigades and Higher Stages of Socialism 6. Restricting Private Plots 7. Resource Expropriation and Equalization 8. The Making of a New Rural Order Conclusion: The Failure of Agrarian Radicalism Abbreviations Appendix: Types of Private Plots Notes Selected Bibliography IndexReviewsThe collectivization and subsequent decollectivization of rural China represent two of the most far-reaching social experiments of the twentieth century. Zweig's masterful survey of this experience should be of great interest not merely to Sinologists, but also to social theorists and development specialists around the world, and not least of all to Mikhail Gorbachev. -- Robert D. Putnam Harvard University Author InformationDavid Zweig is Assistant Professor of International Politics, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |