The Great Reversal: The Privatization of China • 1978-1989

by William Hinton

The Great Reversal is the first critical study of the widely heralded reforms currently transforming China's economy. From his long experience in Chinese agriculture, Hinton first examines the course of agricultural reform over the past decade, then looks at its consequences in different areas of the countryside and considers its implications for the country as a whole. He raises troubling questions about China's capitalist future-the growing landlessness, increasing inequality, and above all, the destruction of the nation's natural resources and the collectively built infrastructure that was the great achievement of the revolution. In so doing he sheds new light on the sources of discontent behind the demonstrations that culminated in the Tiananmen massacre of June 1989. Recognized inside and outside China as an expert on the country's agriculture, Hinton spent five or six months there every year but one since 1978, when the wave of reform was first introduced. He witnessed the events of June 1989 first hand. This experience gives authority to an analysis that digs deeper and more widely than anything else available. His essays open up a new perspective on Mao and his successors, one that has been totally obscured by the Western media.

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Economics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[tara bomp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting set of essays on the period that go into a lot of detail about the ways the "reforms" have hurt most of the population, hurt future prospects through overuse of land and lack of maintenance of Cultural Revolution infrastructure projects, and hurt the independence of China through emphasis on foreign investment and the enrichment of a few top level bureaucrats. There are essays throughout the whole period and his views change a bit as he sees more of what the reforms do and end with an essay on his first-hand experience of Tienanmen Square and his appraisal of the student movement murdered by Deng as primarily left.

Obviously there's a lot that's changed since then and the ending, where he optimistically predicts the possibility of a resurgent socialism, is a bit depressing looking back. The multiple essays mean the book doesn't offer a comprehensive account and there's some duplication but in general the different essays cover a lot of different ground in decent detail. He talks about a lot of specifics for what could have been done to improve the co-operative system and the problems the reforms create on the ground rather than talking too generally and avoiding discussing actual problems experienced in agriculture, which is very nice and unusual.

If you're interested in the period, analysing the problems, and thinking of ways that socialism could have continued, then this makes great reading.

[Jeff McLeod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still love Hinton's direct, clearheaded style. This little book is an important corrective to narratives that portray Deng Xiaoping's market reforms as enthusiastically celebrated by China's peasantry, instead highlighting the calculations that Hinton saw the peasants making and the Party's commandism in imposing the reforms upon rural communes that were still functioning well in the 80s. A few essays delve into the problems facing Chinese agriculture since the breaking up of the communes, such as barriers to mechanization, over-grazing of grassland in the Northwest, collapse of rural industries, inflation, and growth of exploitation by a burgeoning rural petite bourgeoisie. I think a lot of problems he describes in this book probably contributed significantly to the massive rural unrest that Chinese reformers had to deal with in the 90s. Some of his predictions in the second-to-last essay hold up, some don't, but I especially think the metaphor of the "golden rice bowl, iron rice bowl, and clay rice bowl" of bureaucratic corruption, worker militancy, and peasant hesitancy to separate from the land, respectively, is still very relevant for describing class struggle in China from the 90s to the present. Finally, the last essay on the Tiananmen Massacre is really moving and contains a really compelling view of how the CPC eventually got the PLA to move into Beijing on the night of the crackdown.

[英雄史观 · Rating 5 out of 5]

韩丁、寒春、阳早，当年旅居中国的毛左