Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 7, 2021

A Sociological Retrospective of China’s Rural Development over the Past Century

(Abstract)

Lu Yilong

Our intention in looking back at the century-long history of Chinese rural development is to understand the relationship between the Communist Party of China and China’s rural development and recognize the Party’s great historical contribution to rural development and Chinese-style modernization. The historical significance of these contributions can be more fully demonstrated by looking back at the Party-led institutional innovation and reform. In order to solve the rural problems of old China, the Party led the peasants to choose the right path of revolution, abolished the old system, which fundamentally changed the fate of rural China. In the early days of the PRC, the Party, given that China was “poor and blank,” explored institutional reform in an extraordinary way in order to promote industrialization; promoted socialist transformation and construction in rural areas; and preliminarily established a national industrial system. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC initiated the great cause of reform and opening up, after which the countryside developed by leaps and bounds. In the 21st century, especially since the 18th Party Congress, we have attained a complete victory in the fight against poverty and in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, creating a miracle in human history of poverty reduction and rural development. In the new era, under the leadership of the Party’s new development philosophy and with the comprehensive promotion of the rural revitalization strategy, Chinese rural development will usher in a golden age of socialist modernization.