A re-interpretation of China\u27s rural socialist transformation: Lineages, power transfer, village leadership patterns in North China, 1920s-1970s

Although many scholars have studied the relation between the Chinese Communist State and peasants, little empirical research has explored the questions in depth: to what extend did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organization, as an intervening and normative power system, change or destroy the traditional village authority system, based mainly on lineage network? Under what circumstances did village party cadres make a significant impact on the development of the local collective economy; and play either a support or resistant role in implementing party policy at the grass-roots level? This study systematically re-examines, in historical and cultural perspectives, China\u27s socialist transformation and the CCP\u27s penetration into the peasant society of North China from the 1920s to the 1970s by analyzing the formation and functioning of party cadres at the village level. The core of the study is based on village data collected in 1988, spanning more than half a century, in nine villages of North China. This study concludes that the traditional authority system based on lineage organization had a strong influence on the institutionalization of the new village power structure under the CCP, and that the success or failure of brigade collective economy was highly determined by the leadership patterns