"Stealing Is Not Stealing":the Political Logic Of The Policy Deformation Of Rural Grass-Roots Cadres In The Collectivization Period

During the collectivization period,through land reform,agricultural cooperation and other movements,the state power carried out all-round political integration of the rural society,and the intervention of the political power on the economic and political life penetrated to all levels of the grass-roots society.Rural grass-roots cadres are the important media for the state to control rural areas and play a management and supervision role in rural production and life.The state regulates cadre behavior through constant ideological education and frequent cadre rectification movement.The fieldwork found that in the early days of the people’s commune,the "stealing of collective grain" by members of the Y Brigade was very common.When the cadres first discovered that the commune members stole grain,they held the attitude of prohibiting it,but their attitude and behavior gradually changed in the process of interacting with the farmers,from prohibiting to acquiescence,and even developed to connivance and collusion.As the authority figures in the rural field,the flexibility and participation of the grass-roots cadres in dealing with the farmers’ stealing of grain led to the spread of the behavior of stealing grain in the production team.At the level of cadres,stealing grain was no longer regarded as "stealing",and the phenomenon of "stealing grain is not stealing" appeared in the scope of Y Brigades.Under the collective ownership in the commune period,grain was a national first-level strategic material,and the state firmly grasped the power of grain control through the policy of monopoly purchase and marketing.Stealing collective grain was a major crime against the law.As village managers,the production team cadres should supervise and deal with the theft,but turn a blind eye to the theft of grain by the members.This phenomenon can be regarded as the "flexibility" of the production team cadres in the actual implementation process.Under the background of high political integration and movement pressure,why did the production team cadres,or why did they dare to connive the villagers to steal the production team’s food and materials?What is the political logic of cadre flexible behavior?This is the core question to be answered in this study.Based on the behavior of the people’s commune period of rural grassroots cadres as the research object,based on the case study and field practice,using the process-the event analysis,further describes the behavior of stealing food appeared in responding to the farmers and rural grassroots cadres stealing food alternative behaviors of phenomenon,and discusses the process,the interaction between cadres and farmers.In addition to the endogenous motivation of cadres’ flexible behavior,we also focus on the influence of farmers’ rights on cadres’ behavior.It is found that the grassroots cadres will adopt flexible implementation to adjust the policy,so as to make the policy more in line with the local interests and their own interests.This paper explains the unique political logic of the flexible behavior of the cadres in production teams from three aspects:the"identity",the "rational choice" and the checks and balances of the peasants on the cadres under the movement governance.Political campaigns launched by the state to purge cadres gave the peasants "informal"authority to supervise them.The political movement in the period of the people’s commune was characterized by "governing the people by the people",while the peasants actively used the supervision power to check and balance the cadres when their own survival was threatened.This supervision produced deformation in the local practice and made the cadres appear flexible behavior to safeguard the local interests.In a word,the means used by the state to integrate and regulate cadres have become an important reason for the occurrence of flexible behavior of cadres.At the same time,the emergence of cadre flexible behavior is inseparable from the background of movement governance,the cadre’s own identity and its assessment of risks and interests.