浙江省宁波市人民政府


宁波市农村绿化条例


（２００１年５月２９日宁波市第十一届人民代表大会常务委员会第二十八次会议通过，２００１年９月３日浙江省第九届人民代表大会常务委员会第二十八次会议批准）


宁波市人民代表大会常务委员会公告（第１８号）

《宁波市农村绿化条例》已报经浙江省第九届人民代表大会常务委员会第二十八次会议于２００１年９月３日批准，现予公布，自公布之日起施行。

宁波市人民代表大会常务委员会２００１年９月１７日

第一章总则
第一条根据《中华人民共和国森林法》、《中华人民共和国森林法实施条例》及其他有关法律、法规，结合本市实际，制定本条例。
第二条本市行政区域内除宁波市城市规划区、县级市城市规划区、县人民政府所在地镇的城市规划区以及其他建制镇建成区以外区域（以下简称农村）绿化的规划、建设、保护、管理，适用本条例。
第三条本条例所称农村绿化，是指在农村进行植树、造林、种草、栽花、育苗及其养护等绿化活动。
第四条市林业行政主管部门主管本市的农村绿化工作，各县（市）、区林业行政主管部门主管本行政区域内的农村绿化工作。
计划、环保、农业、土地、城建、规划、水利、交通、民政等部门应当按照各自职责，协同做好农村绿化工作。
第五条各级人民政府应当加强对农村绿化工作的领导，把农村绿化工作纳入国民经济和社会发展计划，组织开展全民义务植树和其他绿化活动，提高全市农村绿化水平。
第六条对完成农村绿化任务和保护农村绿化作出显著成绩的单位和个人，由市和县（市）、区人民政府或林业行政主管部门给予表彰、奖励。第二章绿化规划和建设第七条市和县（市）、区林业行政主管部门应当遵循保护和改善生态环境、促进社会经济的可持续发展的原则，制定本行政区域的农村绿化规划，报同级人民政府批准后实施。
经批准的农村绿化规划必须严格执行，不得随意变更；确需变更时，必须经过原批准机关批准。
第八条各类农村绿化规划和建设应当达到下列标准：
（一）山地绿化：宜林山地绿化率在９５％以上；火烧迹地、采伐迹地、病虫害防治迹地等在一年内绿化；坡度２５度以上的坡耕地全部退耕还林；交通要道两侧宜林山地的森林郁闭度在０．６以上；
（二）平原农田绿化：农田林网控制率在９０％以上；
（三）公路、铁路绿化：高速公路沿线绿化带宽度每侧为２０米以上；铁路、新建的国道公路沿线绿化带宽度每侧为１５—２０米，有条件的地区加宽到２０米以上；省道和改建、扩建的国道公路沿线绿化带宽度每侧为５－１０米，有条件的地区加宽到１０米以上；县道、乡道公路沿线绿化带宽度每侧为３－５米，有条件的地区加宽到５米以上；
（四）公墓区绿化：绿化覆盖率在３０％以上；
（五）主要河道、海塘绿化：根据防洪安全要求和地形状况设置绿化带的位置、宽度及选择适宜的植物类型，有条件的河道、堤防、海塘背水侧绿化带宽度为５－１０米；
（六）集镇绿化：绿化覆盖率在３５％以上；
（七）村庄绿化：绿化覆盖率在３０％以上，村庄周围应留足绿化用地，营造生态公益林；
（八）新建基本建设项目的绿地面积占总用地面积的比例不低于３０％，扩建、改建的基本建设项目的绿地面积不低于２０％；
（九）生态公益林：不低于林业用地总面积的４０％。
第九条市和县（市）、区林业行政主管部门应当根据农村绿化规划制定分期实施计划，具体落实农村绿化规划。
第十条按照批准的规划和计划进行绿化建设，应当先进行绿化设计。
绿化建设应当按照设计方案进行，并遵守绿化技术规程，实行科学绿化。
第十一条集镇和基本建设项目的绿化设计，应当经林业行政主管部门审查并签署意见。
新建、扩建、改建基本建设项目，其绿化工程应当与主体工程同时规划，同时设计，并按照批准的设计方案进行建设。第三章绿化责任第十二条高速公路、国道、省道公路的绿化由公路主管部门和县（市）、区人民政府负责；县道公路的绿化，由县（市）、区人民政府负责；乡道公路的绿化，由乡（镇）人民政府负责。
公墓区的绿化由民政部门和乡（镇）人民政府负责。
水库、渠堰管理区域和江河干渠堤、海塘的绿化，由水行政主管部门和乡（镇）人民政府负责。
机场、港口、码头、铁路的绿化，由各主管部门负责。
风景名胜旅游区的绿化，由其主管部门负责。
集镇的绿化，由乡（镇）人民政府负责。
集体统管山、平原农田和村庄的绿化，由村民委员会或村集体经济组织实施；村民的自留山、责任山，由村民负责绿化。
机关、团体、部队、企业、事业单位的绿化，分别由各主管部门和单位负责。
第十三条各级人民政府和各有关部门应当根据本行政区域的农村绿化规划和计划，落实绿化责任单位，并通过绿化责任通知书，确认绿化责任单位的绿化任务。
林业行政主管部门负责督促、指导绿化责任单位完成绿化任务。第四章绿化用地第十四条各级人民政府应当根据农村绿化规划，统筹安排绿化用地，保证农村绿化规划的实施。
列入农村绿化规划的土地，作为农业种植结构调整用地，土地权属不变。耕地用作绿化用地的，土地类别不变；涉及到基本农田和蔬菜基地的，应按法定程序报批；造成农民实际收入减少的，应给予补偿，具体标准由各县（市）、区人民政府规定。
第十五条任何单位和个人不得随意侵占绿化用地。
因工程建设等确需征用、占用绿化用地的，建设单位必须恢复同等量的绿化用地；建设单位确实无法恢复同等量绿化用地的，应当缴纳相应的植被恢复费，由林业行政主管部门恢复同等量的绿化用地。
建设单位自行恢复同等量的绿化用地，应当经县级以上林业行政主管部门审核，报土地管理部门批准。
第十六条禁止毁林开垦。对原开垦山应根据实际情况逐步退耕还林，并由县级以上人民政府发给林权证，保障林木所有者的利益。
在林地上进行开采砂石、取土、建造公墓等活动的，必须经当地县级以上林业行政主管部门审核同意，并依法办理其他有关手续后按照规定的地点、位置、面积和时间实施，同时应落实恢复绿化的措施。
第五章绿化资金第十七条绿化资金实行自筹为主、国家扶持的原则。各级人民政府应当增加对农村绿化的投入。
第十八条承担绿化责任和任务的部门、单位，应当安排必要的绿化建设及养护资金，并保证绿化建设及养护资金专款专用。
新建、改建和扩建的基本建设项目，应当把绿化所需费用列入项目总投资概（估）算。
承担绿化责任和任务的单位缺乏绿化用地的，可与其他单位联合绿化，也可委托林业行政主管部门落实绿化场地，所需费用由委托单位承担。
第十九条各级人民政府安排用于农村绿化的专项资金和林业行政主管部门依法收取的绿化费用，必须实行专款专用。
财政、审计部门应当加强对农村绿化资金使用的监督检查。第六章绿化保护第二十条各有关部门和单位应根据实际需要，建立绿化管理养护组织或配备管理养护人员，落实管理养护责任。
第二十一条生态公益林划定的区域由县级以上林业行政主管部门提出，报同级人民政府批准后公布，并树牌保护。
生态公益林应当保持林种结构稳定和景观稳定，禁止非抚育性或非更新性采伐。
对因保护和改善生态环境而划定的生态公益林，按照国家有关规定对所有者给予适当补偿。
第二十二条各级人民政府应当加强对古树名木和珍稀濒危植物的保护。古树名木和珍稀濒危植物由县级以上人民政府公布并建档挂牌，落实管理养护责任。
禁止损伤、砍伐、挖掘古树名木和珍稀濒危植物。
第二十三条禁止攀折树枝、滥挖树桩、在林木周围焚烧物品、倾倒垃圾和污水污物等损坏林木的行为。
第二十四条从事下列行为，必须经县级以上林业行政主管部门批准：
（一）生态公益林树种更替和林木更新；
（二）具有特殊价值的野生植物资源的采伐、采集、经营；
（三）非苗圃地的大树移植；
（四）因勘察设计、架设线路、铺设管道、修渠筑路、建造房屋等工程建设，或者为了排除对已设置的线路、管道、渠道的妨害，需要修剪、移植、砍伐林木的。
第二十五条在已有的公路绿化带的上下不得架设、铺设可能破坏绿化的电力线路、通信线路和其他各类管线；因特殊情况确需架设、铺设的，应当经林业、公路行政主管部门批准。
第二十六条进入林区的人员，应当遵守护林防火的有关规定，严格控制野外用火；高火险天气，禁止携带火种上山。
第二十七条风景名胜旅游区、公路和铁路两侧、水库周围及机关、团体、企事业单位、部队营区所属的林木发生病虫害的，由各主管部门和单位负责防治，林业行政主管部门负责检查督促和提供技术指导。第七章法律责任第二十八条违反本条例第十一条规定，绿化建设未经过绿化设计审查或者未按照绿化设计方案进行施工的，由县级以上林业行政主管部门责令限期改正或者采取其他补救措施，并可对绿化建设单位处五千元以下的罚款。
第二十九条绿化责任单位未按照绿化责任通知书的要求完成绿化任务的，由县级以上林业行政主管部门责令限期完成，逾期仍未完成的，可处未完成的绿化任务所需费用一倍以上二倍以下的罚款；对直接负责的主管人员和其他直接责任人员，由所在单位或者上一级主管部门给予行政处分。
第三十条违反本条例第十五条第一款规定，随意侵占绿化用地的，由县级以上林业行政主管部门责令其停止违法行为、赔偿损失、限期恢复植被，并可按侵占面积处每平方米十元至三十元的罚款。
第三十一条违反本条例第二十一条第二款规定，擅自在生态公益林区域内进行非抚育性或非更新性采伐的，由县级以上林业行政主管部门责令停止违法行为，并可处五千元以上二万元以下的罚款。
第三十二条违反本条例第二十二条第二款规定，损伤、砍伐、挖掘古树名木和珍稀濒危植物的，由县级以上林业行政主管部门追缴树木或其变卖所得，并处树木价值五倍以上十倍以下的罚款。
第三十三条违反本条例第二十三条规定，造成林木损坏的，依法赔偿损失，由县级以上林业行政主管部门责令补种损毁株数一倍以上三倍以下的树木，并可以处损毁树木价值一倍以上二倍以下的罚款。
第三十四条未经批准，从事本条例第二十四条所列行为的，由县级以上林业行政主管部门责令停止违法行为，追缴违法所得及实物，并对违法单位及个人处以树木价值三倍以上五倍以下的罚款。
第三十五条违反本条例第二十六条规定，在林区野外用火或携带火种上山不听劝阻的，由县级以上林业行政主管部门处十元以上五十元以下的罚款；违反规定在林区用火引起山火，达到荒火或森林火警程度的，责令其赔偿经济损失，并处五十元以上二百元以下的罚款；烧毁森林面积达到森林火灾程度的，责令限期补种树木，赔偿经济损失，并处五十元以上五百元以下的罚款。
第三十六条违反本条例有关规定，情节严重，构成犯罪的，依法追究刑事责任。
第三十七条林业行政主管部门的工作人员和其他国家机关的有关工作人员违反本条例规定，有下列行为之一的，由所在单位或者上一级主管部门给予行政处分；构成犯罪的，依法追究刑事责任：
（一）对责任区内盗伐滥伐林木、破坏绿化用地事件不予制止或制止不力的；
（二）不服从扑火指挥机构的指挥或者延误扑火时间，影响扑火救灾的；
（三）在绿化规划、设计审批、种苗供应、检查验收中弄虚作假、徇私舞弊的；
（四）挥霍浪费、挪用绿化资金的；
（五）违法批准征用、占用林地的；
（六）其他滥用职权、玩忽职守和徇私舞弊的行为。第八章附则第三十八条本条例自公布之日起施行。





Student:Dayong Zhou

dayong_77@hotmail.com


The Collectivizationa and De-collectivization in Rural China

周大勇 (Zhou,Dayong)

Abstract: the process of de-collectivization took place 25 years ago, however it was uncompleted, which determined that china has to make great effort to continue his rural reform, in order to liberate the peasant and the status of rural region as the Party promised. In China, the non-privatization reform occurred along with the de-collectivization was a uncompleted reform, which remains the defects of both collectivization and small-scale peasant economy, therefore it restricts the development of the rural society, however, the current system seems unable also reluctantly to change it. This paper intents to introduce the process of the collectivization and the most important rural reform in this century, namely the de-collectivization, the demonstrates the progression of de-collectivization, its characters as well as the problems left to be solve.
Keywords: collectivization De-collectivization collective ownership incomplete

Foreword
I am pleased that I am allowed to write the term paper about China. China was influenced by Marxism and walked in detour of history for half century. Before Marxism bankrupted in former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe countries, China had adopted a different way to reform from those countries. Because of the difference in aspects of historical evolution, political forms and natural environment, it’s hard to compare the rural society of China with these former socialism countries directly, also, the progression of collectivization and its end are different in two continents.
Rural china before collectivization
Collectivization was a mark system of the socialist state. Although in the era of Utopian socialism, Robert Owen for example has already attempted to set up the collective farm, but it wasn’t pursued by force strength of government. Even the founder of communism Marx didn’t agree that communism could be realized in undeveloped countries with extremely poor productivity . It was Russia, the serf country, in which Communist took power without adequate preparation; collectivization was implemented by force, in order to consolidate the rule in grass-root countryside. This experience has influenced China and Eastern Europe, because one of the merits of the collectivization lies in being easy to be managed, the other lies in being easy to deprive peasants.
China was a backward country, which suffered from ignorance and war for centuries. Throughout the centuries some 80 to 90 percent of the Chinese population were farmers and live in one of some 900,000 villages, which have an average population of from 1,000 to 2,000 people. Villages were not self-contained, self-sufficient units. Clusters of villages centered on small market towns, which linked them to the wider economy and society by providing not only opportunities to buy and sell but also opportunities for entertainment, information, social life, and a host of specialized services. The traditional Chinese elite, often referred to in English as the gentry dispersed across the country and often lived in rural areas, where they were the dominant figures on the local scene, normally ruled villages. Although they held land, which they rented to tenant farmers, they neither possessed large estates like European nobles nor held hereditary titles. However, they traditionally interpreted central policies and national values for villagers. As in feudal relationship, the peasants and gentry live depend on each other. Gentry provided land to poor peasants and tenant, and work with rich and middle peasants to secure the order in village, for instance opening school and building basic infrastructures to maintain there social status. In Chinese history, at the beginning of very dynasty, the land relationship between landlord and poor peasants were comparably fair, that meant, peasant have parcel farmland to live on. But land tended to be concentrated on end every dynasty, then there might be a peasant uprising led to a new dynasty and retribution of land. This is the basic clue of social evolution in China before communist period.
After the Chinese Communist Party came into power in mainland, it had to keep its promise, which it made during the period of war to encourage the peasant to join the army, that it would gave peasant their own land. The first major action took place from 1940s to early 1950s. June 1950, a new Land Reform Law of new People’s Republic was promulgated and stipulated nullification of the feudal land ownership system, and institutionalization of the system of land ownership by peasants, in which the Party sent agents to every village to carry out the land reform policy. This in itself was an unprecedented show of political power and the resolution of transform an old society. The reform was successful, because the peasants supported the policy; most of them had been waiting for the reform for long time. In the light of the reform law, land were redistribute from the landlords, land-owning trusts or wealthier families to the poor segments in the same village; village elites, who might be expected to go up against the Party and its programs were brought down; new leadership was established by poor peasants who showed the most loyalty to the party's goals; instead of kinship group or patron-client ties, class status became new relationship among villagers.
the process of Collectivization
However, the Party’s leaders were not satisfied with the privatization of land, at one hand, such ownership, according to the doctrine of socialism, should have been abolished in the state of socialism, at another hand, private ownership of small peasantry had no function of property accumulation for the country. At that time, in order to accelerate the construction of socialism, China had launched The First Five-Year Plan after the Soviet model; heavy industry development was profound stressed since the leaders of Communist Party regard socialist country as a country with developed industry sectors. However, the situation in early 1950s was not ideal for a new country. Pressing of needs for food in a country with burgeoning population, domestic capital for investment, and purchase of Soviet-supplied technology, capital equipment, and military hardware. To satisfy these needs, collectivize agriculture was put forward. Collectivization was regard as a method to turn countryside to stabile backing, which can be managed as semi-military and had rare contact with outside, so that the government could press the price of agricultural products by means of scissors difference between cities and countryside, and seize huge numbers of profit from agriculture economies to support the industrialization in city. At the same time, the government had already nationalized banking, industry, and even trade. Private enterprise was already virtually abolished in national wide.
Despite internal disagreement as to the speed of collectivization, preliminary collectivization was launched since 1952. China's peasantry saw Chairman Mao and the Communist Party as heroic much more than Russia's peasantry had seen Stalin and the Bolsheviks as heroes, and through 1956 the peasantry cooperated with the Party. There was none of the resistance and warfare that had accompanied the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union.
The collectivization of agriculture was basically completed with the establishment of the people's communes in 1958. The People’s Commune system was defined as a unity of politics and production, in which all members of the commune jointly owned property. Essentially, the commune system was based on private contract of its members and the principle of voluntaries and mutual benefit, however, it turned out yet as coercive institutional arrangement, which was made by government with political power. In the movement to achieve the People’ s Commune, peasants had no choice whether or not to join.
Communes were designed as large, embracing scores of villages created by combining some 20 or 30 advanced producers' cooperatives of 20,000 to 30,000 members on average, in some cases the membership varied from as few as 6,000 to over 40,000. It was instituted as an organization with functions of the lowest level of local government and the highest level of organization in agricultural production. Communes consisted of three organizational levels: the central commune administration; the production brigade , and the production team, which generally consisted of around thirty families. This kind of institution was an organization of hierarchies, in which the commune acted as political unit and top manager, the brigades played role of co-coordinators between the commune and the basic production teams. The production team was basic units of production and accounting. Since the people’s commune system was a tool established to extract resources from agriculture sector for industrialization, as a result, it neglected peasants’ incentive completely. In order to let the people’s commune system run, the central government designed an relative effective mechanism to encourage managers in each hierarchy to work enthusiastically, yet, in each level, the managers were treated differently and there was a clear difference in aspects of identity and welfare between the managers of the commune and of the brigades or production teams.
The commune was defined as administrative organ and executed the central government’s orders, and paid from central government’s budget, therefore the managers in the level of commune were “state cadres” , that means they were formal governmental officials and got wage monthly. These state cadres could be promoted and became officials of governmental divisions in higher level. Brigades and production teams were collective economic organizations, their running expenses came from production teams’ tribute. Managers in brigades level were called “collective cadres” . They were remunerated in their own production teams according to their labor quotas. Their wage was paid in the form of products instead of money. Managers in production teams were“team cadres”, they were also members of the production team. They worked as peasant like their workmates, and were paid in products according to labor quotas. Team cadres could be promoted to collective cadres. Collective and team cadres had little possibilities to be promoted and became members of state cadres. Nevertheless, as collective and team cadres had some privileges. For example, collective managers had the power of assigning state’s delivery quotas and production tasks among production teams, they determined who could enrolled in state-owned factories, universities and army. The production team managers executed the power of assigning work and distributing products among collective members. Furthermore, in the period of many political movements and class struggles, the identity of cadre could protect their families, relatives and themselves from being denounced and bullied (Tan, 1999).
At beginning, the commune itself was decorated as the representation of socialist society and had all merits of public ownership. Although nearly all the private property had been deprived, peasants had to praise the new system profusely. it was true, most poor peasants found that their lives changed, by eating in the public dining they didn’t need to worry about their own budget anymore, and by working together, they were not necessary to try their best. Following propaganda appeared in newspapers everyday:
The public dining halls are distributed in a way that members need walk only a few minutes from their homes to take their meals. On the freshly whitewashed walls of the one on Shihfuchien Street, a typical establishment, there is a big slogan in red, which reads, "High Spirits for Higher Production!" Its kitchen, to which the visitor is drawn by the aroma of food and the clatter of pots, is managed by Tu Hsiu-chen, the first volunteer cook, who has since learned large-scale catering from the chef at one of the city's restaurants.
The walls of the spacious dining room are decorated with paintings, as a home might be. Its tables and chairs, though simple, are scrubbed to a shining cleanliness. The food is fresh and tasty -- vegetables are grown by the commune itself. The staff make a special point of studying the diet and preferences of old people, children, nursing mothers and members with ailments. There is a separate room for parents with small children, provided with low tables for the little ones.( People’s Daily, 1958)
However, in practice, this ideal, extremely centralized form commune didn’t keep running well in most areas. Very soon it became clear that in most cases the communes were too clumsy to carry out successfully all the managerial and administrative functions that were assigned to them. The cooperative led to low-efficiency, the advantages of large-scale productivity didn’t arrive as peasants anticipated, productivity began to drop and discontent emerged. The reason lies in insufficient utilization of resources and lack of incentive of peasants. At one hand, the output of cooperation comes from all members’ work, in which the tribute of single household is difficult to be measured. So that opportunism like shirking happened naturally very frequently. An effective way to prevent shirking is to have all members supervised, but the seasonal work and spatial diversity of agricultural productive activities make it difficult to totally supervise. At the other hand, although brigade and production team cadres were obliged to complete state’s planning and all kinds of deliveries, the control right and residual claim of the people’s commune system were in the state’s hand, these cadres at grass-level could not design any reasonable incentive mechanism to encourage peasants to work hard and produce according to reasonable natural condition, such as soil, irrigation and farm year. The way left for brigade and team cadres was to punish peasants by struggling against them or maltreatment. But the brigade and team cadres also belonged to members of production teams, they and their families lived in the same community with their subordinates as well, so punishing peasants could also make themselves in trouble. Moreover, under the property rights structure of the commune system, the rest of output was not belong to the commune, brigade or even production team, but to the governments of higher level. This made the supervisors’ effort unrelated to any reward. As a result, even the supervisor himself has not enough incentive to work and shirk himself sometimes. In a word, under such conditions of poor supervision, in which all the work was distributed equally among all members at the lowest level--production team, shirking became every member’s rational choice and further weakening the efficiency of the system (Lin,1990).
De-collectivization
To prevent peasants from slow down, shrinking and escaping in work, and assure the system could keep on moving, the party collected all productive equipments and forbid members in people’s commune engaging in private production and business on the one hand, and at same time deprived peasants’ right of migrating from countryside to city or between districts by means of household registration on the other hand. Nevertheless, such policies had no effect on improving incentive of peasants, but they formed at least political press on very member of people’s commune, because it turned out that everyone’s only routine is to stay in the commune and finish one’s task. Without the right to leave or get better than others, peasants commonly chose to work with little effort, e.g. a passive method, to evade production tasks assigned by leader. Little accumulation and shirking made countryside widely fall into poverty , rare rural region had good conditions to develop industry or to improve commerce, infrastructures went worse, productivity sank quickly. The most serious crisis for agricultural collectivization happened between 1959 and 1961. GNP decreased from 213.8 billion Yuan in 1958 to 180.0 billion Yuan in 1962, with an average annual reduction of 15.1% in gross industrial production value and an average annual reduction of 19.3% in gross agricultural production value from 1958 to 1960. Owing to the serious shortage of food, a great famine took place in the whole country and at least 30 million residents died (Tan, 2000). Discontent with such system broke out, in some areas, peasants didn’t want to relied so heavily on orders from above and made so little allowance for local conditions or local initiative. The severe crisis forced the Party to adjust their policies. From 1961 on, commune functions were reduced to administration and co-ordination, production team was confirmed as the basic unit of accounting, certain production decision making was delegated to production teams, which were allowed to retain some income to overcome problems of egalitarianism; households again allowed to have small private plots and sidelines for planting vegetables, and a limited opening markets for transaction between urban and rural areas. However, these adjustments didn’t mean to change the system of people’s commune, but only to prevent peasants from rebel. From 1966 to 1976 China suffered the disaster of Cultural Revolution , there were large institutional swings took place in this period, in which co-operative moved from small to large and from team to brigade to commune again, local free markets, sidelines and private plots was prohibited again, and political factors had a great influence on production decisions.
In late 1970s, after the Leader Chairman Mao passed away, the requirement for improving agricultural productivity came alive. Administrators in provincial-level units with extensive regions of low yields and consequent low standards of living began experimenting with new forms of tenure and production. To avoid frontal conflicts of wide scope with government’s policies and the main ideology, a gradual approach was adopted. The first step of reform was to divide the production team into groups and to fix yield quotas for each group. Each group signed a contract with production team, the contractual items included the conditions of using land, laborers, farm tools and draft animals, the expenditure, labor contribution, rewards for excessive labor contribution and so on. After completing the tasks assigned by the production team, the output could be distributed among work groups according to their labor quotas. And then, the further solution was put forward, namely the typical form of fixing quotas called “all-round contract”, which was initiated by a few brave peasant secretly in Fengyang county of Anhui province. this contract regulated, household was allowed to cultivated a certain parcel farmland in the group, if grain quotas assigned by the state and the collective accumulation were accomplished, the household could own all the residual output. In the light of the contract, peasants were given directly stimulation to produce. The experiment was deemed successful and popular, and it soon spread to all districts.
At another side, political situation was appropriate with the reform form below. In the Eleventh National Party Congress, held August 12- 18, 1977 proclaimed the formal end of the Cultural Revolution, blamed it entirely on the Gang of Four , and reiterated that "the fundamental task of the party in the new historical period is to build China into a modern, powerful socialist country by the end of the twentieth century." The reformer Deng Xiaoping was elected as vice chairman and back to political stage and suggested a series of reform plans, though many contradictions still were apparent, change of policy was regarded as necessary. Rehabilitations of Deng's associates and others sympathetic to these reform plans were stepped up. Not only were some of those purged during the Cultural Revolution returned to power, but also individuals who had fallen from favor as early as the mid-1950s were rehabilitated. It was a time of increased political activism.
In November 1980, the Central Committee of Communist Party of China issued the document Some Issues of Further Reinforcing and Improving the Responsibility System in Agricultural Production. This article manifest the first time that the Party accepted the production responsibility systems developing in practice. In the document fixed output quotas of farmland for each group and responsibility contracts in some specialized obligations were indicated, at the same time, the fixed output quotas for household was also regarded as positive. Under the encouragement of government’s policy and related support measures, plenty of production responsibility systems developed very rapidly in rural areas. In 1981, a wide deeper reform called fixing the contribute quote for each household (bao gan dao hu), which was much more radical, was implemented. In accordance to the system, all collective lands in production teams were to be distributed among households based on their population or laborers. The households could manage the lands, made production decisions by themselves, and bore the results. When tasks assigned by upper government and the collective accumulation, e.g. a certain quantity of grain and livestock, were completed, the remained products could be owned by the households and not distributed among members in the production team. Moreover, if the household made sure that they have enough ration, they had right to sell the left grain to state owned agricultural enterprises or consume them as they want, usually feeding livestock or making wine for example. That meant the model from Fengyang was finally admitted by Party. In October 1983, the Party and the State Counsel issued the document Notice of Separating the Co-operative from Politics and Setting Up the Township Government and required the cooperative to separate from local government. The act ordered that the people's communes were replaced by administrative townships. By the end of 1984, 98% of production teams had taken the reform of Household Responsibility System. It was until then, the collectivization system was dismantled completely.
Some Characters of De-collectivization and Problems left
No restitution
Yet, de-collectivization and the implement of the household responsibility system is neither a reform of the ownership of land nor a process of privatization. As we have mentioned above, after the Communist Party set up its own government in 1949, it started land reform and distributed lands to the poor from landlords and rich peasants. Peasant acquired parcels of land according to the labor forces, then land were registered under name of each household. Before the eve of collectivization, most of lands in rural China were legally privately owned. But when de-collectivization began, peasants did not get back their former lands again. The household responsibility system only distribute the right of manage and benefit of lands among households according to their population or laborers. So, the de-collectivization in China did not like that in most of East European countries such as Bulgaria, Czech, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, but like that in Albania. That is to say, there was no restitution of land. However, in former East European Countries, whether restitution was implemented or not, the de-collectivization had symbiosis with privatization. In China, although during the process of de-collectivization there were in reality some opinions that lands should be restituted, such voices were not accepted, nor even discussed.
The reasons why restitution of land in the de-collectivization of rural China did not happen may lie in some historic reasons. First of all, although peasants in China had private ownership over lands before the collectivization, large percent of peasants owned farmlands that did not belong to them before, they obtain them from political transformation. Theoretically, violence can’t consist the legal reason of transfer of ownership over real estate, therefore even after the terrorize during the land reform at beginning of 1950s, the private ownership of lands, which was made out by the communist government, had not yet became stable and commonly accepted. However, the former landlord class had rooted off during the political movement, land contacts and register books of land title had been destroyed, no one dare to challenge the power of Communist Party anymore. Since the collectivization began soon after the land reform, the new established owner relationship was broken again, when de-collectivization came about, without supports from the central government, most of peasants only took the household responsibility system as another chance of equally distributing lands, just like the land reform in 1949. As to descendants of former landlord class, they might have not forgotten the experience of their poor ancestors’: claiming private right before the Party which regarding public ownership as universal truth is a dangerous deal.
Secondly, different from most country in former communist east European countries , in which farmers’ nominal ownership of lands was remained, even though their lands were requisitioned in collective farms without any payment, and so that it was easy for peasants in these countries to take back the land when the collective farms went over. On the contrary, in China, private ownership of land was totally abolished as soon as the people’s commune system was set up, after 20 years, the collective ownership had already fest basis. As a result, the transaction costs of restitution so high as to wipe it out. That means, even a peasant want to take back the former farmland which belonged to them, it’s very hard to him to collect the relevant evidences to support his claim, moreover, there was no legal justice process to support such application. So normal farmer would rather to accept the Household Responsibility System.
Finally, the key reason lies in the socialism system itself. Even though the Communist Party of had poor performance in leading the country and its people to wealth and happiness during socialist revolution, Chinese people have taken socialism as the characteristic of the country for grant, after all the slogan “ Socialism saved China” has been deeply impressed. So that even after the Culture Revolution, most people still propped up the Party. The Party led the rural reform and decided the de-collectivization. However, the reform is a “liberation of the rural productivity”, which suit the requirement of the Party. Because the Chinese Communist Party insisted that his mission is to realize socialism, and socialism is based on public ownership system. Collective ownership was deemed as one form of public ownership in rural regions, so that as China kept on the road of realizing socialism, “land in rural areas belong to collective” was certainly remained after rural reform, and regulated in the Constitution of 1982, which is valid till now.
At the time of de-collectivization, the dissolution of people’s commune and the wide implement of responsibility system were regard as a great innovation. According to the statistic, The Household Responsibility System did bring about a more prosperous agriculture in China. From 1978 to 1984, grain output in China increased at an annual average rate of 5% and the gross value of agriculture by 7.7% (Lin, 1997). In contrast with former European countries, the de-collectivization seems bring more benefit to Chinese peasants at beginning. So that at that time, rare peasant did realize that such a reform without transformation of ownership was incompletely. However, The natural shortcomings of the de-collectivization would surely bring a series of problems.
institutional problem: land distribution
As we showed above, the de-collectivization ran smoothly and the introduction of Household Responsibility System has got a great success, although it could not address everything as only an institutional innovation. After several years of practice, it has been already proved that there are a number of weaknesses and limitations remained from the incompletely de-collectivization. One has to confirm, that the collective ownership and contract system led to the inequity in both economic and political features.
In economic view, during the de-collectivization, farmland was distributed to individual households in form of fragmented farming units. The principle of land distribution was derived directly from collective ownership. Farmland in a village was owned by all of its members collectively. As a result, every member had equal right to claim on distribution of the land according to certain norm, which was based primarily on the size of the peasant family. In reality of China with abundant population and limited land, the amount can be distributed to each household was very small. Moreover, land differed from each other in terms of soil fertility, irrigation conditions, location and so on. In many cases, a household had to obtain pieces of land from each of the grades. as a result, the sum was not only insufficient but also disjointed and scattered around villages. Large areas of cultivated land were wasted in the form of paths and boundaries separating households' contract field. A survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture indicated that in 1986, among 7983 sample villages from 29 provinces, average cultivated area per household was 0.466 ha (7 mu) fragmented into 5.85 plots, each plot on average 0.08 ha (1.2 mu) (Ministry of Agriculture of China, 1993) . This fragmented structure of family farming has remained largely untouched after implement of contract system and has detained the possibilities of using relatively advanced mechanical agricultural equipment and infrastructures.
Under such system, farmers turned to be short-term in action. According to the distribute rule of land in household responsibility system, land is to distribute depended only on villager status, babies and villagers' new-comer such as newly married bride from other villages were all eligible claimants, which having equal rights to share equal amounts of land in this village; on the contrary, when a villager left or died, the right of land claim would automatically withdraw. As population increased, villages had to readjust the distribution structure, which further subdivided the farmland . The endless redistribution of farmland resulted in many problems, including: 1) the situation of a small and fragmented farming structure further deteriorated; 2) worrying about the risk of losing their land as well as investment, farmers had little incentives to improve land conservation and agricultural infrastructure - irrigated land, one of the most significant components of agricultural infrastructure in China, remained almost unchanged during the 1980s; 3) farmers over-exploited the soil to pursue short-term profits; 4) the course of land redistribution was also costly, it required labor and time in organization and execution. (Chen, 1999)
Another problem is that farmland was generally badly endowed with the appropriate human capital. Since egalitarianism was the general leading principle rule, which gave little consideration to interfamily differences such as labor capability, education and individual preference . As a result, some large households with a incomplete labor force could have comparably much more land to cultivate, meanwhile other smaller households, above all those specialized in agriculture, could have only inadequate land for full employment. Such kind of problem was much worse in rural areas experiencing rapid township or village industry and urbanization. In those region there was often deterioration in the agricultural labor force since most of capable labors tended not to work at home as a farmer. There were many who did not give priority to cultivation and at times even let the land lie unused. Consequently, the farmland was underutilized .
Upon preceding analyzing, we can see that, in order to pursue egalitarianism on surface in distribution of land, in the process of the de-collectivization sacrificed economic efficiency. Thus, if the land was private, then those difference arouse from distribution will decease after enough time, because the free market will lead to equal efficiency through the choose of market. However, such political background lacked from beginning on, so that the shortcoming of a non-privatization de-collectivization can’t be corrected or even be enlarged because of problem of political system.
One of the main reason is political structure over the collective ownership. First at grass-root level, it was usually the village head, who takes the power to decide distribution since decentralization. So that the cadre family or their relations will surely benefit from the distribution. Having a cadre in the family seems to be a certain prerogative in using their political status to accumulate wealth. At one hand, Village cadres may allocate more fertile parts of the village land to themselves and determined more favorable grain sales quotas for themselves. And also, cadres have more opportunity to build personal relationship with higher level and other important departments, rural credit banks or transportation companies for example, so that they have more chance to obtain material benefit than normal peasants. As we see, most of collective enterprises and private economies in rural areas have tight relationship with local governments, at the basic level, with villager cadres, most rural enterprisers are villager leader themselves. Furthermore, cadres and their relations generally tend to break the policy of birth control, because they are capable to support more family members, and their kin will strengthen their economic and political power in return.
At another hand, though according to the election regulation of rural cadre in china, these village cadre should be elected directly by villagers, who have common interest in the community, this rule has been almost never put into practice. Under one Party system and public ownership system, all important resources are gathered in the Party’s hand, as a result, instead of election, the opinion from higher level plays a significant role, in order to carry ort the policy of Party efficiently. In fact, two factors determine the candidates in appointment of village head, one is the relationship with official of higher level, and the other is kinship. Consequently, cadre family takes all advantages to maintain their power and status through such appointment. So, cadres in rural China don’t represent the benefit of their village members, but the power of the Party as well as the family, there is no possibility for peasants to claim equality or save their from suffering as a peasant.
In a word, after a short flourish in rural China, which came along with the de-collectivization and the implement of Household Responsibility System, most peasants have to face the irrational occupation and distribution system of farmland and the political system, which is impossible to change. Besides there was strict limitation prevent peasants from abandoning their responsible land and rushing into cities, so that the peasants found it is hard to change their situation or turn it more better and free. This may explain why in rural china exists always the tendency of over population but the income of household began to decrease only after less than 10 years from the de-collectivization. As a result, land reform in China has emerged as a difficult issue in rural areas of exchange between social equality and economic efficiency. It seems obvious that since the mid-1980s the wide rural society has been caught in this predicament: where social equality or equity worsened, and at same time economic efficiency held back.. According to statistics, average net income in countryside has been slowed down for years. In 2000, the household average income only reached 272 dollars, but the Gini coefficient in China base in urban and rural areas rose from 0.21 in 1978 to more than 0. 46.