The practical process and historical experience of the Communist Party of China in developing the rural collective economy

Peng Haihong is a master's tutor at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Originally published in "Research on Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theory", Issue 5, 2023

The rural collective economy can take root, sprout, and grow in China without the party's leadership and the party's rural policies formulated in different historical periods. During the period of the New Democratic Revolution, our Party organized peasants through cooperatives to promote agricultural production and improve their lives. During the period of socialist revolution and construction, our party led the peasants to realize the collectivization of agriculture through cooperativeization, and the vast number of peasants entered the socialist society. In the new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, our party has led the vast number of peasants to reform and develop the rural collective economy, and the vast number of peasants have enough food and clothing to become moderately prosperous. In the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, our party has led the vast number of peasants to develop a new type of rural collective economy and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. In the new era and new journey, in the process of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, we must adhere to the collective ownership of rural land and continuously expand the economic strength of rural collectives; The rural collective economy will continue to shine brightly and make greater contributions to accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas and realizing common prosperity for peasants and rural areas.

[Keywords]Communist Party of China; rural collective economy; Cooperative; A new type of collective economy

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to comprehensively promote rural revitalization, emphasizing the development of a new type of rural collective economy. The ability of the rural collective economy to take root, sprout, and grow in China is inseparable from the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the rural policies formulated by the Party in different historical periods. Looking back on history, it explores the theoretical and historical roots of the emergence of collective economy in rural China; Examine the historical logic of the emergence and development of China's rural collective economy; Tracing the historical context of China's rural collective economy and looking forward to its future development trend is of great significance for the development and expansion of rural collective economy and the comprehensive promotion of rural revitalization in the new era.

I. The New Democratic Revolution: "Organizing" the Peasants through Cooperatives and the Cooperative Economy

At the beginning of its founding, the Communist Party of China was aware of the backwardness of the individual peasant economy, and in the course of the revolution, it constantly organized the peasants and sowed the seeds of developing the rural collective economy.

First, leading the peasants to carry out the cooperative movement became an important part of our party's leadership of the peasant movement at that time. During the period of the First Civil Revolutionary War, our Party had not yet explicitly put forward the great significance of cooperatives in the transformation of rural society, but it had already recognized the role of cooperatives, especially the three types of cooperatives for consumption, trafficking, and credit, in freeing the peasants from exploitation and extortion by landlords, merchants, and usurers. In practice, our party has led the peasants to carry out a cooperative movement, demanded that peasant associations at all levels establish consumer cooperatives in the rural areas, and put forward a series of principles for the establishment of cooperatives. Under the leadership of the party, some local peasant congresses adopted resolutions on the development of cooperatives.

Second, it is necessary to organize peasants to set up cooperatives, which will become important economic organizations in the revolutionary base areas under the leadership of our party. During the Second Civil Revolutionary War, our Party not only regarded the mutual aid and cooperation organizations as economic organizations for the peasants to get rid of the exploitation of landlords and usurious merchants, but also realized that mutual aid and cooperation were an important method for developing agricultural production and an important way to ensure the leadership of the proletariat over the peasants. Our party also realized that the conditions for developing state-owned agriculture and collective agriculture were not yet available at that time, but in order to solve the problems of extreme shortage of grain and extremely backward agricultural production, in the revolutionary base areas, our party called on and organized the peasants to establish cooperatives to overcome the shortcomings of the shortage of rural labor and backward agricultural production tools, and set up a special people's commissariat of the national economy to lead and manage the work of the cooperatives.

Third, laws and regulations on cooperatives should be preliminarily formulated to form a legal guarantee for cooperatives and cooperative movements. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, our party had initially realized the power of social transformation and the socialist significance of the cooperative economy. Mao Zedong believed that the peasant cooperatives had not only achieved a revolution in the production system, but also had a socialist element, and issued a call to "organize" the peasants in the base areas. Mao Zedong pointed out: "Once this kind of production group becomes a habit, not only will the production volume increase greatly, all kinds of creations will come out, politics will also progress, culture will also improve, hygiene will also be exquisite, hooligans will also be reformed, and customs will also change; It won't be long before the tools of production will improve. At that time, our rural society will be built on a new foundation step by step. "In order to solve the economic difficulties in the base areas, our party vigorously supported and led the cooperative movement in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningbo, Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei, Shanxi-Hebei, Shandong, Shandong, Central China, South China, and other anti-Japanese base areas. The First Congress of Border Cooperatives convened by the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border District Government passed the Resolution of the First Congress of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Area Cooperatives; On the basis of summarizing the work experience of cooperatives, the Administrative Committee of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region promulgated the Draft Law on Cooperatives in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region, forming a relatively complete regulation on cooperatives. Subsequently, the government of the border region also convened a joint meeting of cooperatives to sum up the experience of cooperatives in development and clarify the basic policy of cooperatives to "help the people" and the basic direction of serving the masses. During this period, the cooperatives under the leadership of the Party made great progress. According to the statistics of the Jin-Cha-Ji Anti-Japanese Base Area, there were 14 cooperatives in the region in 1938, which increased to 5,056 in 1940, and by the time of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the number of cooperatives had grown to 7,401, with 1,128,000 members and 138 million silver yuan.

Fourth, organize and lead small peasant producers through cooperatives. During the War of Liberation, although cooperatives were still collective labor organizations based on the individual economy, they became an important form of our party in organizing the masses economically in the liberated areas. Our Party has come to realize that this primary form of cooperatives is still basically capitalist in nature, "but there are already the germs of socialism" and "the germ of collective farms", and the direction of development is "an agricultural economy that can be gradually led in the future to the development direction of cooperatives", and it can go through a number of stages of development and "develop into cooperatives of the Soviet style called collective farms". This kind of cooperative economy in rural areas has developed rapidly in the liberated areas, especially in Northeast China and North China, and its types include various forms of cooperatives such as production, consumption, transportation, supply and marketing. The governments of the liberated areas regard the cooperatives, especially the vast supply and marketing cooperatives, as a bridge and link between small producers and the state-run economy. Our party believes that only through cooperatives can a state under the leadership of the proletariat exercise effective leadership over tens of millions of small producers in the economic field and smoothly carry out the national economic construction of the new democracy. "The proletariat must adopt economic methods acceptable to the small peasant producers in order to organize and lead the small peasant producers economically. This economic method is the cooperative, that is, the supply and marketing cooperatives, the production cooperatives, and the collective farms in the future. ”

In the middle and late stages of the War of Liberation, our party clearly proposed to lead the individual economy of the working people to gradually move toward collectivization through the cooperative economy, so as to realize the transformation from new democracy to socialist society. The "Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference," which was adopted before the founding of New China and played the role of a provisional constitution, clearly defined the cooperative economy as an "economy of a semi-socialist nature" and regarded it as "an important component of the entire people's economy," proposed that "the people's government should support its development and give it preferential treatment," and stressed that "in all areas where land reform has been thoroughly realized, the people's government should organize peasants and all labor forces that can engage in agriculture to develop agricultural production and its sideline business as the central task." It is also necessary to guide the peasants to gradually organize various forms of mutual labor assistance and production cooperation in accordance with the principles of resources and mutual benefit."

2. The period of socialist revolution and construction: the mobilization of peasant power through agricultural collectivization

Changing the feudal landlord class land ownership system into the peasant land ownership system and realizing that the vast number of peasants "have their own land" is one of the historical tasks and basic programs of the new democratic revolution, and it is one of the historical tasks and basic programs of the socialist revolution to enable tens of thousands of scattered peasants to embark on the socialist road and to change the peasants' individual economy into a collective economy. This historical process can be summarized in the following four aspects.

First, through land reform, "the tiller has his land". When the People's Republic of China was founded, two-thirds of the country still had no land reform, and feudal land ownership still dominated. By the spring of 1953, land reform had been completed in the vast majority of the country, with the exception of some minority areas. More than 300 million landless or landless peasants have acquired about 700 million mu of land and a large number of means of production, completely freeing themselves from the exploitation of the landlord class. The vast rural areas of China have undergone earth-shaking changes, and the small-scale peasant economy, which is dominated by small plots of land, has gradually become the main mode of production in the rural areas at that time. Under these conditions of a small-scale peasant economy, there was a certain polarization in the countryside, and there were fears that the countryside would slide towards capitalism. At the policy level, there have been several debates within our Party about the future of China's vast rural areas after land reform. The essence of the debate is whether the rural areas after the land reform should begin the transition to socialism. It was precisely these controversies that prompted Mao Zedong and other party and state leaders to realize the need to "strike while the iron is hot" and guide the peasants onto the road to socialism.

Second, the collectivization of agriculture should be realized through agricultural cooperatives. The development of agricultural cooperatives has gradually become the consensus within the party so that the vast number of peasants can embark on the socialist road and develop into new socialist peasants. Since 1952, in accordance with the requirements of the development of the rural productive forces, our party has led the broad masses of peasants to organize scattered small peasants through the organization of temporary mutual aid groups, perennial mutual aid groups, primary agricultural production cooperatives, and advanced agricultural production cooperatives. Under the form of mutual aid groups, the organized peasants broke family boundaries and practiced mutual labor assistance in some major production links, while the ownership of the main means of production such as land and agricultural products remained unchanged and remained the sole ownership of the peasants, so they were only regarded as a form of economic organization that included the germ of socialism. Although the primary agricultural production cooperatives practice common labor, they still do not change the nature of peasant ownership of land and other major means of production, and there are labor and land dividends in the distribution of products, so they are defined as a semi-socialist form of economic organization. The high-level agricultural production cooperatives implemented the collective ownership system of land and other major means of production and abolished land remuneration, and the peasants who joined the cooperatives realized the equality of production relations and complete distribution according to work, so they were regarded as a completely socialist form of economic organization. High-level agricultural production cooperatives are entrusted with political, economic, and social management functions, and undertake multiple tasks such as the unified purchase and marketing of agricultural products, the distribution of agricultural materials and funds, and agricultural services, and almost all activities of the rural economy.

As the agricultural cooperative movement continued to develop, by the end of 1956 the high-level agricultural production cooperatives had become the basic and almost the only form of production organization in the countryside. This also marks the basic completion of the task of socialist transformation of agriculture. Through the agricultural cooperative movement, the Communist Party of China has fulfilled the historical task of establishing a socialist system in the vast rural areas and enabling the vast number of peasants to embark on the socialist road. The mode of agricultural production and operation has changed from small-scale production of one household at the beginning of liberation to large-scale production based on high-level agricultural production cooperatives, and thousands of scattered peasants have been organized into newly born collective economic organizations, that is, members of cooperatives. In 1957, after rectification and adjustment, the scale of high-level agricultural production cooperatives was basically determined to be one village and one cooperative in villages with more than 100 households. The production team is about 20 households. In short, through the agricultural cooperative movement, China's agriculture has realized the transformation from privatization of the means of production to collectivization. The collective economic system has become the basic economic system in China's rural areas.

Third, establish a system of "three-level ownership, team-based". Under the leadership of our party, the organized peasants have aroused tremendous forces for the construction of socialism. From the winter of 1957 to the spring of 1958, there was an upsurge in the rural areas of the country in carrying out large-scale farmland and water conservancy construction. In the course of carrying out large-scale farmland and water conservancy construction, the peasant masses and rural cadres in various localities have made some changes to the organization and system of agricultural production cooperatives. In some areas, several agricultural production cooperatives have been united to form "big shrines" and the scope of operations has been expanded. Some areas automatically break down community boundaries, township boundaries, and even county boundaries to carry out great cooperation; In some areas, collective welfare undertakings such as public canteens and childcare organizations have been established. Some of the "big shrines" that have been merged in various localities are called collective farms, some are called cooperative farms, some are called state-run farms or communist farms, and some are called socialist compounds or socialist families, and in some places there are large shrines named after "communes." Subsequently, the "Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Establishment of People's Communes in the Countryside" stipulated the inevitability and scale of the people's communes, certain economic policies of the communes, and the name, ownership and distribution system of the people's communes.

The People's Commune, a form of production organization, began as a vision of a few central leaders such as Mao Zedong for the future of China's rural areas, and soon became the realistic direction of China's rural development. The nationwide movement of the people's communes quickly spread widely in the rural areas of the country. By September 29, 1958, the country's rural areas had basically been communized: with the exception of Tibet, a total of 23,384 people's communes had been established in 27 provinces and municipalities, accounting for 90.4 percent of the total number of peasant households. Of these, 12 provinces reached 100%; The average number of households per company is 4,797, of which 94 counties in 13 provinces, including Henan and Jilin, have established county people's communes or county associations on a county-by-county basis. By the end of October, there were 26,576 people's communes in rural areas, and 99.1 percent of the total rural households participated. After several adjustments, by 1962, the People's Commune was finalized into a collective management system of "three levels (commune, production brigade, production team) ownership, with the production team as the basic accounting unit". The highly collectivized means of production, the highly centralized collective unified management and labor management, and the egalitarian distribution system have become the distinctive characteristics of this system. The People's Commune was not only the only form of production organization in rural China at that time, but also had the social management function of grassroots power.

III. The New Period of Reform, Opening Up, and Socialist Modernization: Reform and Development of the Rural Collective Economy

The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in December 1978 was a great turning point of far-reaching significance in the history of the Communist Party of China, opening up a new era of China's reform, opening up and socialist modernization. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and in accordance with the laws and requirements of the socialist market economy, the vast numbers of peasants in China have repeatedly broken the old system that constrained the development of the productive forces and established a new system for emancipating and promoting the development of the productive forces. The spirit of Chinese peasants who dare to think, dare to do, and dare to explore is vividly displayed. The basic management system in China's rural areas has gradually changed from "three-level ownership and team-based" to a two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining centralized and decentralized management. China's rural areas have undergone profound changes, which can be analyzed from the following three aspects.

First, it is necessary to implement the household responsibility system for the contract of production in the same household. The Third Plenary Session of the 11 th CPC Central Committee adopted a series of policies and measures for the development of agricultural production on the basis of emphasizing "three-level ownership and team-based", such as stressing that economic organizations at all levels must conscientiously implement the socialist principle of distribution according to work, calculate remuneration according to the quantity and quality of labor, and overcome egalitarianism; Members' self-reserved land, household sideline business, and bazaar trade are necessary supplements to the socialist economy, and no one is allowed to interfere with them; Organizations at all levels must resolutely practice democratic management, cadre elections, and open accounts; Wait a minute. Although this was only the beginning of the Party Central Committee's correction of the "leftist" mistakes in agriculture, the implementation of these policies and measures did bring about a turning point in agricultural production. At the same time, some rural grassroots cadres and peasant masses have begun to explore various forms of responsibility systems for agricultural production, such as guaranteeing production to groups, producing to households, and providing all the work to households. By the end of 1980, the number of production and lump sum production had increased from 1.1% to 14.9% of the total number of production teams at the beginning of the year. For example, nearly 80 percent of the social teams in Guizhou Province at that time implemented the package production to the households, and 40 percent of the production teams in the agricultural areas of Inner Mongolia also implemented the package production to the households. Subsequently, at the Fourth Session of the Fifth National People's Congress, the government work report delivered by the central leaders at that time directly stated that the various forms of production responsibility system practiced in the rural areas were "a new form of management and distribution of socialist agriculture under the specific conditions of the mainland." The legitimacy of various production responsibility systems, such as the provision of production to households and the provision of lump sum to households, has been preliminarily confirmed. After the second half of 1981, the package production to the household, "big package" throughout the country; By June 1982, 86.7 percent of the country's production teams were contracted by peasant households; At the beginning of 1983, it accounted for 93 per cent. At the end of 1983, 97.8 per cent of the basic accounting units were lump sum to households, involving 94.5 per cent of the total number of rural households. From 1982 to 1986, the CPC Central Committee successively promulgated five No. 1 Central Documents, continued to relax policies, invigorated the rural economy, and gradually established the basic position of the household responsibility system for the production of goods.

The comprehensive implementation of the household responsibility system has promoted rural reform. In November 1982, the Fifth Session of the Fifth National People's Congress proposed the establishment of township political power, and the people's communes were only used as an organizational form of the rural collective economy. In 1983, the No. 1 Document of the Central Committee proposed that the reform should be carried out in a prepared and step-by-step manner, that the system of responsibility for production should be implemented, especially the contract system for joint production, and that administrative cooperatives should be separated. In 1984, the separation of government and society was basically completed throughout the country. By the end of 1985, 83,182 township (town) governments and 940617 villagers' committees had been established across the country. With the separation of government and society and the establishment of township political power brought about by the full implementation of the contract responsibility system for court associations, the people's commune system withdrew from the historical stage.

Second, it is necessary to form a new basic agricultural management system. In 1986, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee formally proposed the establishment of a two-tier management system combining unified management and decentralized management. Since then, the Party Central Committee has stabilized the land contract relationship by extending the land contract period; Through the establishment and improvement of the agricultural socialized service system, the collective unified management will be strengthened; Measures such as guiding the orderly circulation of land contracting rights and promoting the operation of agriculture on an appropriate scale have been taken to continuously consolidate and improve the two-tier management system. In 1998, in order to adapt to the fact that peasant households have become the basic business units in rural areas, the "Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues Concerning Agriculture and Rural Work" changed the reference to the "household contract responsibility system" to "household contract management" and stressed the need to adhere to the two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining unified and separate management for a long time. Under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China and the practice of hundreds of millions of peasants, the two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining unified and decentralized management has been continuously improved. In 2008, the Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) clearly defined the two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining centralized and decentralized management as the basic rural management system. On April 25, 2016, Xi Jinping presided over a symposium on rural reform in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang County, Anhui Province, and pointed out: "The two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining unified and decentralized management formed on the basis of the agricultural production responsibility system such as large-scale contracting in Xiaogang Village is an important cornerstone of our party's rural policy. "Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and the basic rural management system based on the collective ownership of rural land, based on household contract management and the two-tier management system combining unified and decentralized management, has become the institutional foundation for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization.

Third, the rural collective economy has diversified its forms. With the deepening of the rural reform, some limitations have been increasingly exposed in the form of production organization based on household contract management. In this regard, Deng Xiaoping promptly stressed that "our general orientation is to develop the collective economy," "in the rural areas, we still have to let the peasants engage in the collective economy," and "we must eventually guide the collective economy," and so on, and put forward the idea of "two leaps" in China's socialist agricultural reform and development: "From a long-term point of view, there must be two leaps in the reform and development of China's socialist agriculture. The first leap forward was the abolition of the people's communes and the implementation of a responsibility system based on household production contracts. This is a big step forward, and it should be maintained for a long time. The second leap forward is to meet the needs of scientific farming and socialization of production, develop moderately large-scale operations, and develop the collective economy. It's another big step forward, and of course it's a long process. ”

In the new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, the broad masses of peasants have practiced the union of labor, capital, land, and other factors of production on the basis of voluntary and mutual benefit, and have explored and developed the rural collective economy through various forms such as specialized cooperatives, the joint-stock system, and the joint-stock cooperative system. A small number of rural areas with a relatively high level of productive forces and a relatively large amount of collective accumulation have not implemented land contracting to households, but have maintained a high degree of collective unified management on the basis of collective ownership of land and other major means of production, and have developed into a high-level collective economy, such as Liuzhuang Village in Henan Province and Xingshi Village in Heilongjiang Province. There are also some rural areas that have introduced the joint-stock system on the basis of adhering to the collective ownership system of rural land, so that the village-level collective economy can develop and grow with the help of modern enterprises, such as Hancunhe in Beijing.

In the course of rural reform, the party and the government have proposed on several occasions to extend the period of land contracts, and the proportion of land area contracted by rural households has basically remained stable at about 97 percent. Therefore, the most widespread form of rural collective economic realization in the country's rural areas is still based on the system of collective ownership of land and on the basis of household contract management. Under the premise of the basic rural management system, which is a two-tiered management system based on household contract management and combining centralized and decentralized management, some peasants have conformed to the development of the market economy and set up various forms of economic organizations, such as specialized peasant cooperatives and joint-stock cooperatives and joint-stock cooperatives, within rural communities or beyond community boundaries, thus raising the degree of organization. However, this has not fundamentally changed the situation in the rural collective economy in which household contract management is emphasized and collective management is neglected, nor has it changed the imbalance in the development of the rural collective economy between the eastern, central, and western regions. A study pointed out that in 2009, at least 75% of the country's village collective economy or above was created by wealthy villages, accounting for only 10% of the total, and 17.3% of the wealthy villages created 83.4% of the national village collective economy.

IV. A New Era of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Developing a New Type of Rural Collective Economy

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and the CPC Central Committee has clearly emphasized the need to uphold the system of collective ownership of rural land, carry out the reform of the rural collective property rights system, develop a new type of rural collective economy, and strengthen the strength of the rural collective economy. The rural collective economy has become an important force in winning the battle against poverty, and has become an important foundation for realizing common prosperity for farmers and rural areas and promoting agricultural and rural modernization.

First, strengthen the management of the "three capitals" of rural collectives. The "three capitals" of rural collectives refer to the funds, assets and resources owned by rural collectives, which are jointly owned by members of collective economic organizations, and are an important material basis for developing the rural economy and realizing common prosperity for farmers. Strengthening the management of the "three capitals" of rural collectives is conducive to increasing the property income of peasants and safeguarding the property rights and interests of collective economic organizations and the peasant masses; It is conducive to revitalizing the stock assets of rural collectives and continuously developing and expanding the economic strength of rural collectives; It is conducive to strengthening collective unified management and stabilizing and perfecting the basic rural management system.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee has paid more attention to improving the power of rural collective property rights through a series of policies and measures. In 2013, the No. 1 document of the central government required that "it is necessary to improve the management system of funds, assets and resources of rural collective economic organizations, and protect farmers' land contract management rights, homestead use rights, and collective income distribution rights in accordance with the law", requiring the exploration of various effective forms of collective economy in accordance with local conditions, and continuously strengthening the collective economic strength. Since then, the CPC Central Committee has repeatedly issued policies to strengthen the management of the "three capitals" of rural collectives. The party and the government have also explored ways to invest financial funds in the operational assets formed by agriculture and rural areas, and to quantify the equity to households, so that members of collective organizations can share the benefits of assets for a long time. The reform of the management of the "three capitals" of rural collectives has effectively stimulated the important role of the "three capitals" of rural collectives in the development of rural economy, the realization of rural revitalization, and the realization of common prosperity of farmers.

Second, it is necessary to carry out the reform of the rural collective property rights system. The rural collective property rights system is the core of the rural land collective ownership system, and its reform goals and directions are related to the protection of collective property rights and the implementation of collective ownership, as well as the implementation and protection of the property rights and interests of collective members. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee has made great efforts to promote the reform of the rural collective property rights system, emphasizing the need to "safeguard farmers' land contract management rights, homestead land use rights, and collective income distribution rights in accordance with the law". In 2013, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee clearly stated: "The establishment of a rural collective property rights system with clear ownership, complete power, smooth circulation and strict protection is an inherent requirement to stimulate the vitality of agricultural and rural development." ”

The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the reform of the rural collective property rights system. Xi Jinping clearly pointed out when the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform reviewed the reform plan for the rural collective property rights system: whether there is collective operating income or not, the premise of reform must be to find out how much the collective belongings are cleared and verified, which is a fundamental thing. We can't let a few people control and engage in black-box operations. In the course of reforming the system of rural collective property rights, we must always adhere to two nos: First, we must not engage in insider control and allow a small number of people to take the opportunity to encroach on the rights and interests of the vast number of peasant members; second, we must not allow foreign capital predators to take the opportunity to embezzle the assets of rural collectives. The "Opinions on Steadily Promoting the Reform of the Rural Collective Property Rights System" issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council put forward the significance and overall requirements of the reform of the rural collective property rights system, and put forward specific opinions and detailed requirements on comprehensively strengthening the management of rural collective assets, carrying out the reform of the property rights system of collective assets from point to point, exploring the effective realization form of the rural collective economy in accordance with local conditions, and effectively strengthening the party's leadership over the reform of the rural collective property rights system. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) clearly put forward the requirements of "deepening the reform of the rural collective property rights system, protecting the property rights and interests of farmers, and strengthening the collective economy".

Subsequently, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee in 2018 required the comprehensive implementation of the liquidation and verification of rural collective assets, the confirmation of collective membership, and the acceleration of the reform of the shareholding cooperative system of collective operating assets; Promote the transformation of resources into assets, capital into shares, and farmers into shareholders, and explore new forms and operating mechanisms for the rural collective economy; Adhere to the correct direction of the reform of the rural collective property rights system, give play to the role of village party organizations as the core of leadership over collective economic organizations, and prevent internal minority control and external capital from encroaching on collective assets.

On the basis of the reform of the rural collective property rights system, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee in 2023 proposes to consolidate and improve the achievements of the reform of the rural collective property rights system, requiring the construction of an operating mechanism with clear property rights relations, scientific governance structure, stable business mode and reasonable income distribution, so as to protect farmers' fuller property rights and interests, broaden the channels for farmers to increase income, and enable farmers to share the fruits of rural reform and development.

Third, it is necessary to develop a new type of rural collective economy. The new type of rural collective economy is a new form of rural collective economy developed under the support of the theory, system and policy system of the separation of rural land ownership, contracting right and management right, and it is also a new form of realization of rural collective economy developed in the process of reform of the rural collective property rights system along with the clear membership of rural collective economic organizations, the clear relationship between collective ownership and property rights, and the continuous improvement of the property rights of rural collective economy. In 2016, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Steadily Promoting the Reform of the Rural Collective Property Rights System", which formally proposed the development of a new type of collective economy. On September 21, 2018, Xi Jinping presided over the eighth collective study of the Political Bureau of the 19th Central Committee, emphasizing that it is necessary to take the political direction of the rural revitalization strategy, adhere to the nature of collective ownership of rural land, develop a new type of collective economy, and take the road of common prosperity. On March 8, 2019, when Xi Jinping participated in the deliberations of the Henan delegation at the second session of the 13th National People's Congress, he pointed out that it is necessary to improve the power of rural collective property rights, develop and expand a new type of collective economy, and give a new connotation to the two-tier management system.

Rural collective economic organizations are the main body of collective asset management and are special economic organizations, which can play an important role in the management of collective assets, the development of collective resources, the development of collective economy, and the service of collective members. The new type of rural collective economic organization avoids the stereotype of some people in society as a "big pot of rice" and "egalitarianism" of the collective economy, and has the characteristics of clearer property rights, clearer rights and responsibilities, more direct interests, and better realization of collective interests and individual interests of peasants, and is more easily accepted by the broad masses of peasants. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important exposition on the "three rural" areas, the mainland's new rural collective economy has continued to develop, effectively reducing the number of "shell villages", strengthening the strength of the rural collective economy, and enhancing the material foundation for common prosperity of farmers and rural areas.

5. The historical experience of the Communist Party of China in developing the rural collective economy

Since the establishment and development of the rural collective economy and the system of collective ownership of rural land, our party has accumulated valuable historical experience, which deserves to be further summed up.

First, it is necessary to persist in taking the development of the rural collective economy as an important historical task. In different historical periods, the specific historical tasks of our party are different, but the original mission of seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation has never changed. The rural collective economy, which was conceived by the writers of the Marxist classics, was successfully practiced in the Soviet Union, took root in China, and continued to grow and develop, is naturally different from the private economy. Over the past 100 years, from the form of economic organization that helped peasants get rid of the exploitation of "usury and businessmen," to the mutual aid groups and semi-socialist primary cooperatives that included the germ of socialism, to the high-level cooperatives that were completely collectivized, to the two-tier management system based on household contract management and the combination of unified and decentralized management in the new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, and then to the new type of rural collective economy in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the genes of realizing common prosperity for all the people contained in the development of the rural collective economy have never changed. It is precisely because the superiority of the system of promoting the common prosperity of all the people embodied in the collective economy is highly compatible with the party's original aspiration and mission that our party has always regarded the maintenance and development of the collective economy as its important historical task.

Second, it is necessary to persist in permeating the party's leadership throughout the entire process of developing the rural collective economy. The party's leadership is the most fundamental political guarantee for the success of the revolution, the development of the cause, and the progress of society. The Communist Party of China (CPC) is the staunchest supporter and promoter of the socialist public-owned economy, including the collective economy. In the early days of its founding, our party made efforts to infiltrate the party's ideas and propositions into the cooperative economic organizations spontaneously established by the working masses through various means, so as to guide the cooperative economy to develop in the right direction. With the growth and development and the establishment of political power, our party directly leads the development of the cooperative economy, so that it develops in the direction of a united and cooperative mode of production; After the founding of the People's Republic of China, our party directly led the practice of agricultural cooperation and established a collective economic system in the vast rural areas. In the new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, our party has led the reform and development of the rural collective economy, and has established a basic agricultural management system in the vast rural areas, with the two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining centralized and decentralized management as the main content. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and our party has led farmers to carry out the reform of the collective property rights system and establish a new type of rural collective economy. In the process of the emergence and development of the collective economy, our party has always grasped the general direction of collective economic development, planned the overall situation of collective economic development, formulated a series of policies for collective economic development, and promoted the development of collective economy. The party's leadership runs through the entire process of collective economic development and is the fundamental reason for the endless growth of China's rural collective economy.

Third, it is necessary to respect the dominant position of the peasant masses in the collective economy. Upholding the supremacy of the people is an important historical experience of the Communist Party of China over the past 100 years. Respecting the dominant position of the peasant masses in the collective economy is a concrete embodiment of "people first" in this field. First of all, from the point of view of generation, the collective economy is an economic form in which the working masses consciously and voluntarily organize themselves under the leadership of our party. In this process, our party respects the wishes of the masses, adheres to the principle of voluntariness and exemplary methods, and mobilizes the enthusiasm of the masses to promote the development of the collective economy by demonstrating the superiority of the collective economic system. Second, from the point of view of its nature, the collective economy is a form of public ownership of the means of production in which some working people jointly own the means of production. The members of collective economic organizations are all working people, and it is an important way for the working people to achieve common prosperity through labor cooperation. Thirdly, from the point of view of the operating mechanism, democratic management is practiced within the collective economy. The operation and management of the collective economy by the members of collective economic organizations through such procedures as democratic election, democratic management, democratic decision-making, and democratic supervision embodies the status and sense of ownership of the peasant masses as the owners of the means of production, and is a concrete embodiment of the people being the masters of the country in the field of rural economy. Finally, from the perspective of development results, the rural collective economy truly embodies the fact that development depends on the peasant masses, development is for the peasant masses, and the fruits of development are shared by the peasant masses.

Fourth, we should make unremitting efforts to explore effective forms of realization of the rural collective economy. From the perspective of ownership of the means of production, the rural collective economy refers to a form of public ownership in which the land and other main means of production in the rural areas are collectively owned by some rural laborers. From the perspective of external form, the rural collective economy can be collective ownership of farms, enterprises, shops and other economic organizations; Sometimes it is also a general term for the total number of people or the economy on the basis of the scope of the village group, that is, the village collective. From the point of view of the mode of operation, the collective ownership of the means of production can adopt different forms of production organization, and the form of realization of the rural collective economy should also be diversified rather than unique. In the course of developing the rural collective economy, our party has explored and put into practice various forms of realization, such as agricultural production cooperatives, a two-tier management system based on household contract management and a combination of centralized and decentralized management, joint-stock cooperatives, and a new type of rural collective economy. At present, this kind of exploration is still in progress, which is the inherent requirement of deepening rural reform, promoting rural development, and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, and it is also the inevitable choice for the rural collective economy to adapt to the development requirements of the new era and continue to grow and develop.

Fifth, it is necessary to attach importance to bringing into play the multiple functions of the collective economy. The rural collective economy is not only an important part of the national economy, but also an economic force for the vast number of peasants to shake off poverty and develop and become rich, and is also an important support for the party to carry out rural work and promote the development and progress of rural society. The Communist Party of China has never regarded the rural collective economy as a simple economic organization that is dispensable, important or light, but has seen its multiple functions such as educating and transforming the masses, rallying the will of the people, uniting the masses, and consolidating the grassroots foundation, and has stimulated its inherent potential, making it an institutional foundation embedded in the vast rural areas of China and an important part of the mainland's basic economic system. Looking back on the process of the emergence and development of China's rural collective economy, it shows that this system is not easy to come by, and it also reflects its profound transformation and impact on China's rural farmers. At the same time, it is precisely because it is deeply rooted in the party's struggle that the rural collective economy has gone through ups and downs but has radiated new vitality in the new era.

In the new era and new journey, in the process of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, we must adhere to the collective ownership of rural land, vigorously develop a new type of rural collective economy, and continuously expand the strength of rural collective economy. In the new journey towards the second centenary goal and the process of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, the rural collective economy will also shine and make greater contributions to accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas and realizing the common prosperity of farmers and rural areas.