The design of rural development : experiences from South China, 1949-1976

Rural Guangdong before 1949 was characterized by an exploitive system derived from the alliance of wealth and power among the landlords, clans, the rich and the gentry. This network of exploitive relations not only controlled the resources--i.e., land, credit and markets—which were most essential to the livelihood of the peasants, but also created numerous blockages in the system making it impossible to have any input injected from the outside trickle down. Rural development in Guangdong after 1949 began with the land reform movement, but it was only when collectivization was carried out through the establishment of cooperatives and rural communes, such exploitive relations were eradicated. A rural development strategy, however, did not emerge until after the fateful years of agricultural crisis and the Soviet pull-out. This strategy was aimed at the development of infrastructure for both agricultural and rural development through collectivization. It postulated that only when the infrastructure for agriculture was strengthened, could agricultural production be increased and funds and surplus for the development of supportive structure, such as rural industries, health care and education in the rural system be generated. And only when such supportive structure was developed and consolidated could new inputs be created to increase agricultural production further. It was through such a spiral process of generating, reinvesting and retaining rural surplus that rural development was implemented and realized. And it was in such a manner that rural development fulfilled various objectives to become an integral part of a strategy for development.