On a cold winter night in 1978, 18 villagers in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang, Anhui Province, huddled into a dilapidated thatched hut, risking losing their heads, and pressed bright red handprints on the "state of life and death". This was the starting point of China's rural reform and a turning point in the fate of Xiaogang Village.
After the implementation of the "big package", the problem of food and clothing in Xiaogang Village has been solved, but it has been in a state of relative poverty for a long time. At the beginning of the 21st century, the environment of Xiaogang Village deteriorated and the collective economy declined. In 2004, Shen Hao, the new village secretary, promoted the "second land reform" and re-implemented collectivization. In the midst of difficulties and twists and turns, Xiaogang Village has had a bumper economic and social harvest. The 40 years of reform have been magnificent, condensing the blood and tears of hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants who have struggled unyieldingly, and also showing increasingly broad development prospects.
On that winter night in 1978, 18 brave villagers from Xiaogang Village secretly met in a dilapidated thatched house to discuss the feasibility of implementing the household contract system. This was an extremely dangerous move at the time, and it could be branded as a "right-leaning reversal of the case" and face jail time. In order to embolden each other and prevent someone from repenting temporarily, they signed a simple life and death certificate, saying that even if they died, they would fight to the end.
The life and death certificate clearly states that these 18 families voluntarily practice "big contracting", that is, the family unit carries out agricultural production. If it succeeds, everyone will share it;If you fail, you will also suffer the consequences.
That night, 18 villagers pressed bright red handprints on the life and death certificates. This marks an important step in China's rural reform. Since then, the agricultural production of Xiaogang Village has been liberated, and the villagers have been freed from long-term poverty and have achieved food and clothing.
However, the good times were short-lived. As the village grew older, new problems began to emerge in Xiaogang Village: environmental degradation, brain drain, and collective economic decline. In the 21st century, Xiaogang Village was jokingly called by the villagers as "getting up early in the morning and catching up with a late market".
In 2004, the newly appointed village secretary, Shen Hao, was determined to carry out reforms again. He proposed the implementation of the "second land reform" to promote the re-collectivization of land and the establishment of a cooperative system. This was met with a lot of resistance, and the villagers feared losing their land again. In this predicament, Guan Youjiang, an elderly man in the village, stepped forward and was the first to give up his land rights. This became a powerful argument for explaining the significance of collectivization to the villagers.
Through arduous efforts, the land in Xiaogang Village was gradually concentrated in the hands of cooperatives, and agricultural production gradually embarked on the road of large-scale. At the same time, relying on collective assets to develop tourism and build infrastructure, the village has taken on a new look. In 2017, the per capita net income of Xiaogang Village reached 180,000 yuan, a record high. After 40 years of reform, Xiaogang Village has undergone a transformation.
This incident quickly aroused heated discussions among netizens on the Internet, and some netizens believed that the re-collectivization of Xiaogang Village was a historical regression, and individual farms were the direction of development. Some netizens also believe that collectivization is conducive to giving play to the scale effect, which is an inevitable choice for the current rural development. Some netizens believe that the situation in different regions of China is different, and it is not appropriate to enforce a certain model across the board.
After 40 years of ups and downs, Xiaogang Village finally chose to return to the collective, which was not perfect, but opened up new hope. Every case on the road to poverty alleviation will inevitably have problems of one kind or another, but as long as we insist on putting people's livelihood first and find a development path that is in line with the actual situation of our village, Xiaogang Village and thousands of rural villages in China will surely usher in a better tomorrow.
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, Xiaogang has reappeared at the dawn, and we can't help but ask: how to further consolidate and expand the dividends of reform and make the development of rural areas more balanced and sustainable?This requires the whole society to think together. Everyone is welcome to leave a message to discuss!