The Research On Institutional Changes Of The Rural Credit Cooperatives In Shandong Province(1949-1978)

In 1929, when China International Famine Relief Commission hosted loans for digging wells in Shandong province, Shandong Rural Credit Cooperatives began to appear. After the founding of New China, under the guidance, boost and "soft" coercion of class discourse and mass movement, the Credit Cooperatives then spread across the province like a prairie fire. Incorporated into the Agricultural Cooperatives in the form of a credit department since 1958, until 1977, the institution which the Credit Cooperatives was the grass-roots organization of the national bank was established. The Credit Cooperatives had transferred from cooperative finance to collective finance, and then the stated-owned finance. Based on the existed research results, from the angle of combination of macro and micro, through the combining method of empirical and theoretical analysis, historicism and logicism, this dissertation would analyze the causes, development process and effect of the Credit Cooperatives’ institutional changes, and put the changes under the background of state and society during the period of highly centralized, regime and people, smooth order in the early stage and surging torrent later to conduct investigation. Thus, we could reveal the relationship between state power and the institutional changes of the Credit Cooperatives and might understand Shandong Rural Credit Cooperatives comprehensively and objectively.The early Shandong Rural Credit Cooperatives was developed by a variety of external forces, which were induced advocate by China International Famine Relief Commission, mandatory institutional arrangement by Shandong provincial government of the KMT, hand-in-hand cooperation of the Rural Construction Group and the provincial government, and strongly supported by the regime of Communist Party’s Shandong base. The former two forces attached great importance to the Credit Cooperatives, which received "abnormal" development, and obtained the "thriving" status; the third force which payed attention to the so-called "making production" made the Credit Cooperatives develop slowly; By comparison, under the environment of brutal war, soaring price and harsh living condition, the forth force was less to specialize in credit business, more to attach to production, textile, transportation and other comprehensive cooperatives in the form of sideline, making the unbalanced development, and mainly concentrating on Jiaodong, coastal area and southwest of Shandong.After the founding of New China, Shandong Rural Credit Cooperatives experienced forth stages——focus pilot, wide promotion, reorganization and consolidation and merger along with the merging of villages. Finally, the Rural Credit Cooperatives of Shandong was quickly accomplished in the end of 1956. As a policy tool for Communist Party to pursue the revolutionary ideals, the realization of Credit Cooperatives could not live without strong domination of the state, and to a large degree, it was the inevitable result of the national policy choices. As such, although Shandong Rural Credit Cooperatives liked the form of Western Credit Cooperatives on the surface, those decisive factors which were called cooperative finance had been alienated in actually fact.From "the combination of three cooperatives" under the background of "the Great Leap Forward" to "yifang yishou" during the period of the People’s Commune was the first stage of the institutional changes of the Credit Cooperatives, which was alienated from the cooperative finance to the collective finance. "The combination of three cooperatives" relied on the state power, political mobilization and the mass movement to change the credit system, the purpose of which was to solve the paradox in overanxious for quick result, impetuosity and rash advance, shortage of funds and material deprivation. Transferring the power of financial and commercial management system was expanding local administrative authority and the necessary step of enhancing enthusiasm and initiative of the local. Thus, the power of the state had been strengthened gradually, which horizontal extented to the field of rural credit and longitudinal sunk to the production brigade. The transformation from the collective finance to the state-owned finance was the reform or reconstruction by state power, with the help of common people, leading to the institutional changes of the Credit Cooperatives again. During the period of " four clean-ups movement" and the "Cultural Revolution", with the help of class discourse as the main "the new revolutionary creed" and common people who were represented by the poor and lower-middle peasants, the state power orderly reformed the Credit Cooperatives, and " fight, criticism, reform disorderly". In 1972, with the gradual expansion of the central committee of the communist party of China correcting the "left" errors, the Credit Cooperatives in the "anarchy" state were driven by three forces, namely self-rectification of the Credit Cooperatives, the recovery of the bank function and the strength of the bank’s leadership for the Credit Cooperatives, and it also began to consolidate, and eventually transformed into a grass-roots organization of the national bank, reflecting the mandatory institutional arrangements of the state.From the perspective of macro, the special policy environment to a considerable extent made a great constraint on the credit cooperative principle. Firstly, the trust pattern of difference sequence and the class distinction of intercourse, the two kneaded mutually, making the credit organization maintain a "limited" and "low" cooperative state. Secondly, the class discourse and the mass movement, while promoted the rapid launch of the Credit Cooperatives, also exposed their anxious and aggressive ills, making voluntary principle become disguised coercion. The absence of voluntary principle indirectly led to the suspension of democratic management principle, making the democratic management agency ineffective. Thirdly, during the period of the highly centralized planned economy, in order to meet the requirement of the funds and resources supplying for the priority development strategy of heavy industry, the state must have a monopoly control on the credit cooperative property, the cooperative principle based on private property rights thus severely weakened. From the microscopic point of view, the process of the Rural Credit Cooperatives’ institutional changes also showed the "non-reciprocal" interaction among the Credit Cooperatives, the Production Cooperatives (the Agricultural Production Cooperatives, the People’s Communes) and the national bank. The relationship from equality with each other on the surface to leadership and affiliation substantially between the Production Cooperatives and the Credit Cooperatives, and from professional guidance to departmental leadership between the national bank and the Credit Cooperatives fully interpreted the "variability" and "change" of the Credit Cooperatives from the cooperative finance to collective finance, and then the grass-roots organization of national bank.In conclusion, the institutional changes of Shandong Rural Credit Cooperatives occered in the period of the political and economic systems in highly centralization, which determined the "state" existed in these changes and played a dominating role. The paradox of "spreading and evolution" was one inducement of the institutional changes; while the state’s compulsory system arrangement was playing a decisive role. On the other hand, the institutional changes of Rural Credit Cooperatives were influenced by policy environments of that time, and it also externalized the "non-reciprocal" interaction among the Credit Cooperatives, the Production Cooperatives and the national bank, In brief, taking the institutional changes of the Credit Cooperatives as the breakthrough point, through the horizontal expansion of the state administrative power and longitudinal "sink", and the intervention of bottom of society by the state power, it could be revealed the relationship between state power and the institutional changes of the Credit Cooperatives. On this basis, it was further concluded that how to avoid "North Paradox" was the key to the institutional changes of the Credit Cooperatives.