People's commune
Encyclopedia
The people's commune was the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas of the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 during the period of 1958 to 1982-85 until they were replaced by township
Townships of the People's Republic of China
Townships formally township level divisions is the basic level of political divisions in China. They are similar to municipalities and communes in other countries and in turn may contain village committees and villages...

s. Communes, the largest collective
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...

 units, were divided in turn into production brigade
Production brigade
A production brigade was formerly the basic accounting and farm production unit in the people's commune system. Production teams were largely disbanded during the agricultural reforms of 1982-85. In the administrative hierarchy, the team was the lowest level, the next higher levels being the...

s and production teams
Production team (China)
A production team was formerly the basic accounting and farm production unit in the people's commune system in People's Republic of China from 1958 to 1984....

. The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions.

History

The People's commune was born during the Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...

, when Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

 had a vision of surpassing the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in a short period of time in terms of steel production. Mao also wanted to mobilize peasants to undertake huge water projects during the winter slack seasons in order to improve agricultural productivity.

Each commune was a combination of smaller farm collectives, consisted of 4,000-5,000 households, and larger ones could consist of up to 20,000 households.

The Peoples' commune was made official state policy in 1958 after Mao Zedong visited an unofficial commune in Henan.

Formation

In order to put this radical plan into action, Mao used the Anti-Rightist Movement
Anti-Rightist Movement
The Anti-Rightist Movement of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and early 1960s consisted of a series of campaigns to purge alleged "rightists" within the Communist Party of China and abroad...

 to silence his political opponents so he faced virtually no opposition when he finally implemented the People's communes. Using various propaganda campaigns, Mao gained the initial support of the peasants.

The People's communes were formed in support of the Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...

 campaign and remains an inseparable part of the campaign, as shown in the Three Red Banners
Three Red Banners
In 1950s, the General Line of Socialist Construction, the Great Leap Forward and the People's Commune were the three red banners by the Communist Party of China calling Chinese people to build a socialist state....

 propaganda poster.

Commune life

In the commune, everything was shared. Private kitchens became redundant, and everything in the private kitchen, such as tables, chairs, cooking utensils and pans were all contributed to the commune's kitchen. Private cooking was banned and replaced by communal dining.

Everything originally owned by the households, private animals, stored grains and other food items were also contributed to the commune. They were put to different uses as assigned by the commune. All farming activities were to be centrally assigned by cadres every morning. Even money was outlawed in some places. Everybody in the commune were assigned jobs by their commune leaders.

The communes exercised management and control of all rural resources such as labor and land. Because of poor governmental control over resources and bad weather in 1958, 1959 and 1960 famine became widespread amongst the countryside, with many food resources being exported to urban areas.

1958 CIA video

Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 era terminology such as Communist China/regime is being used in this film clip.
Life in People's commune, backyard furnaces, and factories.

See also

  • Work unit
    Work unit
    A work unit or danwei is the name given to a place of employment in the People's Republic of China. While the term danwei remains in use today it is more properly used to refer to a place of employment during the period when the Chinese economy was still more heavily socialist or when used in the...

  • Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China
  • Nanjie
    Nanjie
    Nanjie is a village in Linying County, Luohe prefecture, Henan, China, widely reported as the last Maoist village in China.It collectivised its agricultural production and industry in the mid 1980s - when the rest of the country was doing the opposite, introducing market reforms put forward by...

     - a village in Henan Province which has achieved a remarkable economic development by founding 26 collectives, sticking to the commune doctrine.
  • Kibbutz
    Kibbutz
    A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

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