Policy of Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture

Agricultural cooperative movement refers to the socialist transformation of agriculture: Under the condition of the people's democratic dictatorship, the small peasant economy was gradually transformed into socialist collective economy through the building of cooperatives. This was an important part of the CPC's general line in the transitional period.

After the land reform, in many regions of China farmers began to explore ways to organize from the needs of production development and began to practice mutual assistance and cooperation among themselves. In February 1953, the CPC Central Committee made individual amendments to the “Resolution on Mutual Aid and Co-operation in Agricultural Production (Draft)”, which was launched in December 1951 and was issued as a formal resolution to the central bureaus and sub-bureaus and transferred to the provincial and municipal committees for implementation. This resolution called for the development of primary agricultural production cooperatives with leadership and emphasis in areas with relatively mature conditions.

In December 1953, the CPC Central Committee adopted the “Resolution on the Development of Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives”, which held that the primary cooperatives had shown their superiority in the trial run and initial development, proving that they were an appropriate form to guide the peasants to transition to a completely socialist high-level cooperatives, and an important link in leading the mutual aid and cooperation movement to move forward, and all localities were required to shift the focus of rural work to the establishment of primary level agricultural production cooperatives.

In the spring of 1955, in view of the shortcomings of oversupply of grain purchasing and oversupply of agricultural cooperative work, the Party Central Committee adopted the policy of "stop, shrink and develop" in different regions, and carried out necessary rectification and reduction of cooperatives.

From July 31 to August 1, 1955, in Beijing, the CPC Central Committee held a work conference which was participated by the Party committee secretaries at the provincial, municipal, autonomous region and county level. On July 31, Mao Zedong gave a report “On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture” at this conference. The report gave a correct summary and systematic exposition on the basic principles of agricultural cooperation in China, including the principle of voluntary, mutual help and mutual interest, the principle of overall planning, strengthening leadership, preparing for step-by-step development, and the policy of taking the increase in production as the primary criterion; the report also expounded on the important viewpoint that under the specific conditions of China agricultural cooperation can be carried out before large machines will be available for farmers.

For the individual farmers’ sector, it would be necessary to uphold the principles of voluntary participation and mutual benefit, and focus on the development of semi-socialist primary agricultural production cooperatives, and then they should be promoted to develop into socialist advanced agricultural production cooperatives.