Socialist Transformation of Individual Farming

Socialist transformation of individual farming was a necessary condition for ensuring industrial development and realizing national industrialization. After the land reform, on the one hand, with the rapid development of rural production, the peasants’ lives improved significantly; on the other hand, many peasants, especially the poor peasants and the lower middle peasants, were still facing great difficulties in production and operation due to the lack of farming tools, livestock and funds, and moreover, due to the instability of the small-scale peasant economy, the gap between the rich and the poor in rural areas begun.

In response to this situation, the CPC and the People's Government decided to take the policy of active leadership to educate, promote and help farmers to take the path of mutual aid and cooperation, without waiting for the political enthusiasm aroused by farmers in the land reform to cool down and the sharp polarization between the rich and the poor in the countryside to occur. Thus, after the land reform, the mutual aid teams quickly developed in the countryside in a fairly smooth way.

In December 1953, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China passed “The Resolution on the Development of Agricultural Producers' Cooperatives”, which summarized the experience of the Mutual Aid and Cooperative Movement and put forward several transitional economic organizational forms to guide peasants towards socialism. The first form was to build mutual aid teams, which included the rudimentary elements of socialism. The second form was to build primary level agricultural production cooperatives which had more public means of production on the basis of private ownership of land, livestock and large farm implements. In these cooperatives, the principle of combining land dividend distribution with distribution according to work was implemented. These cooperatives were semi-socialist in nature. The third was the high-level agricultural production cooperatives, in which land and other major means of production were collectively owned, managed in a centralized way and collective labor was carried out, and the principle of distribution according to work was implemented. These cooperatives had socialist nature.

This gradual transition was an important creation during China's agricultural cooperative movement. The CPC pioneered a path of agricultural cooperation with Chinese characteristics. Its basic principles and guidelines were as follows: Firstly, under China’s specific conditions, we should take the path of promoting mutual cooperation and cooperative building movement before we achieve mechanization and before we provide advanced machinery to farmers. After the land reform is basically completed, we must take "reorganizing the existing cooperatives to develop their quality" as a major task in rural work.

Secondly, we should make full use of and give full play to the two kinds of production enthusiasm of peasants after the land reform, and implement the policy of proactive development, steady progress, and gradual transition through mutual aid teams, primary level agricultural production cooperatives, and high-level agricultural production cooperatives, which are the organizational forms of mutual aid and cooperation from low level to a higher level.

Thirdly, in the development of agricultural mutual aid and cooperation, we should adhere to the principle of voluntary participation and mutual benefit and adopt the methods of persuasive demonstration and gradual promotion to develop and consolidate the number of cooperatives.

Fourthly, we should regard increasing production as a criterion to measure whether cooperatives are well run.

Fifthly, we should combine social transformation with technological transformation. After realizing agricultural cooperation, the state should strive to develop agricultural economy which is provided with advanced technology and equipment. Under the guidance of the Party's above-mentioned principles, the mutual aid and cooperative building in the rural areas advanced in a fast and steady way. After the summer of 1955, the movement of agricultural cooperatives accelerated, and a climax in the movement emerged. By the end of 1956, agricultural cooperatives building was basically completed. The number of farmers joining cooperatives accounted for 96.3% of the total number of farmers in China, and 87.8% of them had joined high-level cooperatives.

The socialist transformation of individual agriculture left some problems for a long time in the period after this movement because of its too urgent requirements, too rough work, too fast change and too simple and uniform form. Nevertheless, in general agricultural cooperatives movement was successful. During the period of the agricultural cooperative movement, from 1953 to 1956, the agricultural productivity developed continuously, and the total agricultural output value increased by 4.8% annually on average. While peasants begun to live and work in peace and contentment, production developed and life improved. In a stable atmosphere of development, China's rural areas had encountered a historic transformation from thousands of years of scattered individual tilling to collective ownership and collective management. This was a great social change and progress in the Chinese history.

On the basis of collective ownership of land and other means of production, a long time was necessary to explore a way how to adopt a management mode and organizational form that was more conducive to mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers, and it needed to be continuously improved with the development of social productive forces in the rural areas.