Production Cooperatives: Organization of Farmers’ Collectivization

In the early 1950s, the production cooperative, as the most important organizational carrier in the rural collectivization movement, not only embodied the state’s will to transform small farmers to achieve national industrialization and rural modernization but also reconstructed rural society. Even today, aftershocks still occur. This article selects a common small village in West Henan as the object of description and discusses three aspects of the production cooperative. First, it was an agricultural production organization. The production cooperative realized the orderly conduct of agricultural production activities through a complete set of organizational systems and the formulation and arrangement of production plans. As an important factor linking production labor and product distribution, work points played a crucial role in cooperatives. The direct goal of participating in production was transformed into obtaining work points. Therefore, planned cooperation gradually replaced traditional mutual aid cooperation based on labor exchange. Second, the production cooperative controlled the agricultural production attached to the land, thus controlling the farmers’ “rice bowl.” Any activity in the production cooperative strongly affected the subsequent product distribution. Finally, after a family gradually lost its production function, the production cooperative became the only “organizational guarantee” in the hearts of villagers. By utilizing this recognition resource, the “collective” was able to be completed in rural China.