Dazhai Village as the Model of Agriculture

The revolutionary mass movement of boasting agricultural production which focused on Learning from the Dazhai Spirit in the agricultural front across the country from 1964 to 1980. The achievements of an agricultural production brigade in Dazhai village which worked at the foot of Taihang Mountain in Xiyang County, Shanxi Province, wherein the land was barren and the natural conditions were harsh, had caught the attention of Mao Zedong. The people of Dazhai had embarked the path of agricultural collectivization in 1953, and under the leadership of Chen Yonggui, Secretary of the Party branch, they carved the hills and combed out the stones in the soil, built canals and weirs, leveled the land, turned the barren land and deep ditches into productive fields, changed the face of poor mountains and deleterious waters, achieved abundant harvest of grain, handed over the surplus commercial grain to the state, becoming an advanced model in the agricultural front. They also combined the Dazhai spirit with the revolutionary ideals and beliefs of socialism and communism, the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, hard work and defiance to difficulties, the communist style of loving the country and the collective.

In 1963, the Shanxi Province was the first to begin the movement of Learning from the Dazhai. In January 1964, Dazhai's deeds and experiences were highlighted at the National Conference on Agricultural Work. In February, People's Daily published a long newsletter entitled "Dazhai Path" and distributed the editorial "A Good Example of Building Mountainous Areas with Revolutionary Spirit", calling on the whole country to learn from Dazhai. In May, at the Central Work Conference, Mao Zedong pointed out that agricultural work should mainly follow the spirit of Dazhai.

In December, Zhou Enlai issued the call of "Learn from Dazhai in Agriculture" in his "Report on the Work of the Government" of the First Plenary Session of the Third National People's Congress.

Since 1964, the movement of Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture was implemented as a nationwide campaign.

Later, in 1965, 1971 and 1972, the Red Flag magazine and People's Daily newspaper published editorials on several occasions to publicize typical cases related to agricultural work and so as to spread the Dazhai experience, in order to further promote the movement of Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture.

In December 1975, the CPC Central Committee convened the Second National Conference on Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture. After China began the implementation of the household responsibility system in agricultural production, on November 23, 1980, the CPC Central Committee approved the “Preliminary Summary of the Experiences and Lessons of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the CPC on Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture”, which comprehensively summarized the experiences and lessons of the Movement of Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture. At this point, the movement of Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture came to an end.

The early stage of movement of Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture was not only a masses’ revolutionary movement for agricultural production, but also a socialist education movement. During the movement of taking Dazhai as model each region took into account its specific conditions in the region, water conservancy projects were built, agricultural capital construction was carried out, and a lot of advanced agricultural production units had emerged, all of which greatly contributed to the development of agricultural production in China. However there also occurred some deviations in the movement of Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture, such as egalitarianism and rigid formalism, which had caused some negative effects.