“If there was anything Mao wouldn’t want to see, it was tears. Mao said on one occasion, ‘I can’t bear to see poor people cry. When I see their tears, I can’t hold back my own.’
“Another thing which upset Mao was bloodshed.”
—From Mao Zedong: Man, Not God by Quan Yanchi1
Between 1979 and 1983, China made the dramatic transition from a socialist agriculture dominated by large collective farms to a more market-oriented agriculture dominated by small family farms. This report describes the experiment’s background in light of Nanhai’s recent development history, and lays out the details of Nanhai’s experiment. It includes analysis and recommendations based on Landesa’s fieldwork findings and comparative experience
