The Study On The Middle Farmers During The Agricultural Cooperation Movement

Traditional Chinese farmers were characterized with pursuing actual fortunes cautiously, so their political and economic activities were also based on actual profits on the moment. During the agricultural cooperation movement, the Chinese farmers who devoted their heart to get rich and practical profits, especially the middle farmers as the main body of the Chinese farmers, presented a mismatch between their actual behaviors and psychological logic:giving up working on their own, instead of participating in agricultural cooperatives, initiating the boom of organizing agricultural cooperatives. All these actions seemed to be irrational for the farmers. From the perspective of combing performances and psychological logic of the middle peasants, this paper analyzed the complex impetus and mechanism hidden in the contradictions. And it is pointed out that the middle peasants’ behavioral and psychological transformations as well as their helpless choices were actually influenced by many factors such as political power, group pressure and economical temptations.After the land reform movement, the villages in China witnessed fundamental changes in economic institutions, political structure and social psychology. There was a tendency that the middle farmers had gradually become the majority of the rural population, with advantages in production materials and tools. So attitudes of the middle farmers, supporting or opposing, concerned the stability of the rural society and consolidation of the newly-born regime. In order to achieve socialist transformation, the Communist Party of China divided middle farmers into different subjects as reliable classes (referring to farmers who can be relied on without doubt) and united classes (referring to farmers who can be absorbed into the organization), according to the political and economic institutions in the villages. The essence of the class separation lied in dividing middle farmers into different parts so as to carry out political mobilizations in the countryside.Adjustments in the class policy meant redefinition of the middle farmers’ identities, exerting great influence on them. Besides the political pressure, group pressure, political propaganda, preferential policies and etc. all limited the living space of the middle farmers and restricted their choices. So in the early stage of the agricultural cooperation movement, the low-middle peasants first joined rural assistance units, while most upper-middle peasants persisting in developing on their own. However, after entering into the high tide of the agricultural movement, even the well-to-do middle peasants became eager to go in for the cooperatives, surging the illusory climax of organizing and joining agricultural cooperatives. Under these circumstances, middle farmers were surrounded with huge pressures, so it might be helpless but wise for them to give up temporary economic interests, and integrate themselves into the development of agricultural cooperatives.During the times of the agricultural movement, faced up with the social environment which was controlled by the political power, the middle farmers had experienced great changes, from pursuing fortunes by themselves, obeying the claims of the party, to trying to drop out of their cooperatives. Ultimately, middle farmers, though pursuing fortunes wholeheartedly, would be totally merged into the wave of the agricultural movement.Through combing the process in which the political power gradually permeated the countryside, researching the complex changes of national policies, class actions and psychology, analyzing the interactions between the state strength and the social classes, this paper focuses on probing into the roots of the contradictions between actual behaviors and political psychology of the middle farmers, exploring the complicated operation structure and mode in the countryside. Reflections on the history are served as the mirror for the Communist Party of China. Deciders can learn from the history and make reasonable social policies to develop well-organized class interactions.