“Soft” Resistance in Rural China: The Silent Voice of the Powerless
“Soft” Resistance in Rural China: The Silent Voice of the Powerless

Author(s): Silvia Picchiarelli
Subject(s): Sociology, Social history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
Published by: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci
Keywords: Chinese peasants; resistance; Maoist era; unified system of purchase and sale
Summary/Abstract: In 1953, the Chinese government introduced a monopoly on trade in grain, known as the “unified system of purchase and sale.” Although often underestimated by the academic world, the effects of this policy on the countryside were nothing less than devastating. Challenging conventional wisdom which deems the Chinese peasants completely powerless and subservient, this paper seeks to show that in fact they unswervingly resisted it. However, as my comparative analysis of primary sources dating from 1953 to 1955 and relating to villages in Shanxi province (northern China) has shown, the peasants rarely resorted to violent, large-scale rebellions to express their discontent. They were more inclined to employ invisible and unorganized resistance strategies, which were very similar to those identified by the American scholar James Scott in his study of a Malaysian village and defined as “everyday forms of peasant resistance.”

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