The State, Village Communities, and Peasants: The “Third Realm” in Socialist China

Unlike past studies that have focused on the economic issues about rural collectives, this article reexamines the economic management of rural collectives by paying attention to both their economic and political attributes. Because of the land reform and the rebuilding of grassroots social structures under the leadership of the CCP, the intermediary organization connecting the state and the rural population underwent a transition from village/lineage communities (“the enlarged private”) to rural collectives (“the enlarged public”), hence the transformation of the “third realm” from the private to the public spheres at the grassroots level. The reform era since the 1980s, however, has witnessed the dual weakening of both the “enlarged private” and the “reduced public” in the third realm because of reforms in rural management and land systems. The “two-in-one” formation of state-society relations will be maintained in rural governance in the next two or three decades, which necessitates the reconstruction of the rural governance system through the rebuilding of the collective economy.