A Tenth Aniiversary Appraisal: Collectivisation in Retrospect: The “Socialist High Tide” of Autumn 1955–Spring 1956

Abstract

In July 1955 Mao Tse-tung made one of his rare public policy statements when he addressed party secretaries of provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions “on the question of co-operativisation.” It proved to be one of the most important speeches in recent Chinese history, terminating a dispute about the nature and timing of agricultural socialisation which had been going on inside the Chinese Communist Party for three years. Coming from Mao, this was not merely a contribution to the debate, but the final, authoritative pronouncement on what policy should be. Its impact was swift and dramatic. At that time only 16.9 million (14·2 per cent.) of the 120 million peasant families in China were members of co-operatives, almost all of which were semi-socialist in character. Hardly any fully socialist collectives existed. But between autumn 1955 and spring 1956, a “high tide of socialism in the countryside” transformed most of Chinese agriculture, replacing the traditional small privately-owned farms by large co-operatives and collectives. By May 1956,91·2 per cent. of China's rural households had joined co-operatives, 61·9 per cent. of them collectives.