A View From China

Publisher Summary A look at the pattern of change in the Chinese countryside during the post-World War II era has great utility for anyone seeking to investigate change in the rural areas of Eastern Europe over the same time span. In part, this utility stems from the fact that both China and Eastern Europe have undergone transformations at the hands of communist regimes and the ideological component lends an element of similarity to their experiences. But there are other factors involved as well. Because China was in 1949 and remains today an overwhelmingly rural society—about 80% of the mainland population still lives in the countryside—the issue of rural change has been a central one in research on the new China, and despite the severe problems connected with the acquisition of data, efforts to understand the process in China would appear to be much further advanced than those directed at Eastern Europe. Thus, an examination of the results of the work done on rural change in China can suggest possible avenues of fruitful investigation for students of the process in Eastern Europe. The transformations that the regime has effected have given rise to new patterns of conflict and cooperation in rural areas. The pattern of cleavage in rural areas seems to be determined by the current economic interests of production units—notably, the teams.