A HARD ROW TO HOE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CHINESE AGRICULTURE IN WESTERN JIANGSU, 1911-1937

This study examines the roots of the agrarian crisis that gripped China in the early twentieth century and set the background for rural revolution. The focus is a region in east-central China, the counties around Nanjing in western Jiangsu province. The study explores the rural dimensions of economic, political, social, and technological history of the Republican period.; The first part tests economic and social contentions that are common in the literature and evaluates the role of imperialism and landlords in the political economy of the region. The findings suggest that, contrary to contemporary opinion, rural crisis was not caused primarily by social institutions or classes; rather, a more critical factor was the crisis in agricultural production. A secular decline in crop yields, combined with population growth, created the real crisis and made a technological revolution in agriculture of the highest priority.; The second part tests the proposition, advanced by some Westerners then and now, that the technological transformation of agriculture was the appropriate alternative to revolution led by the Communists. Western Jiangsu, as the national center of agricultural experimentation and research for China in the period, is an ideal place for studying the process of "non-revolutionary" attempts at agricultural improvement.; This study concludes that a call for purely technological change was too simplistic: the political and social context was vitally important to the implementation of that change. A detailed examination of early attempts to develop a system of agricultural education and extension services shows how inhospitable the environment was. In addition, a probe of the political and social causes of what were always described as "natural" disasters--droughts, pest, and floods--reveals further ties between agricultural development and politics. The attitude of the government toward agriculture, as well as the attitude of the peasants toward the government and its representatives, were in need of fundamental change.