The Trend of Peasantry-differentiation in the Grain-cultivation Region of North China in the First Half of the 20th Century

Most of the studies of differentiation of peasantry in the villages of North China in the first half of the 20th century have, to date, been done within a framework of productive relations in semi-colonized, semi-feudalistic mode of economic development. However, viewed in light of the revival of small-scale production in China today, two questions are of particular relevance in village studies: 1. to clarify the direction of historical development of agricultural productive power in North China and 2. to link this development with the trend toward the differentiation within the village. This study examines four villages from the grain-cultivating region and correlates the extent to which the differentiation had occurred with the development of agricultural productive power. In the more backward villages, both agrarian and labor production largely continued, as before, to be conducted on a large scale, but, in the more advanced villages, small-scale agrarian production came to predominate. In North China, there was a trend where the dismantling of large-scale production accompanied the development of agricultural productive power. This trend is reflected by the fact that, in the more advanced villages, small-scale production increased and became the basis for productive power. Accordingly, the shrinking scale of production can no longer be unconditionally held responsible for the collapse of the village