Commune-Run Enterprises: Extension of National Development Logic in Rural Areas

Under the People’s Commune system, commune-run enterprises that operated rural secondary industries were both a continuation of the traditional Chinese rural “agriculture-industry combination” and an important part of the collective economy. Under the highly centralized planned economic system, commune-run enterprises were incorporated into the country’s macro-planning, serving, and obeying modernization and socialist ideas without independent development value and space. To achieve industrialization, develop agriculture, and improve the national economy, the state constantly encouraged and supported the development of commune-run enterprises. However, rapidly developing commune-run enterprises inevitably competed with agriculture and urban industry, exceeding the scope permitted by the state and affecting the national economic order, these enterprises were restricted and compressed. When the state’s development strategy had not been adjusted, the positioning of commune-run enterprises was always uncertain until the principle of “economic rationality” was established.