Assessment of “Why Did It Go So High" Using Dragon's Village

An Assessment of “Why Did It Go So High" Using Dragon’s Village Name Institutional Affiliation An Assessment of “Why Did It Go So High” Using Dragon’s Village “Why Did It Go So High” and Dragon’s Village are vastly different texts written at different times. However, they share the commonality of attempting to explore the impact of land reforms in China and how political mobilization and agricultural collectivization in China were implemented. In essence, both texts attempt to highlight the process through which land reforms were executed and how they managed to become successful in the end. However, it must also be noted that there is a stark dissonance between the contexts and perspectives of these two texts. While Liu’s article looks to historically analyze the factors that contributed towards the success of the land reform movement in China, Chen’s book provides an account of the process through which the land reforms were implemented in China. The result is a glaring difference in terms of perspective, which further makes it difficult to reconcile the findings of both authors. While Liu’s article hails the land reforms as a massive success in hindsight, Chen’s book paints the horrible conditions and actions that resulted in the implementation of said land reforms. Nonetheless, it is quite clear that Dragon’s Village not only confirms some of Liu’s findings but also provides deeper context on the ways in which land reforms were implemented in China. Impacts of Land Reform Land reform was an important tool in the development of a new China. It essentially transformed the entire country into a productive one that not only effectively utilized the land, but also one with much less conflict surrounding said land issues. This was an important issue insofar as building a new China is concerned, particularly because it worked to ensure that the government controlled how land was used and not the rural peasant families (Liu, 2006 p. 733-734). In this way, the government managed to re-concentrate social power from the rural peasant families and back to the government. Liu affirms the importance of this re-concentration to establishing a new and united China ruled in totality by the Communist Party. Her article finds that by eliminating traditional self-rule among the peasantry in rural China, the government could impose the rule of the Communist Party among the people, effectively ensuring that the entire country moved forward in a similar direction, as opposed to having different centers of power (Liu, 2006 p. 735). However, it must also be acknowledged that this process was a difficult one. As espoused in Chen’s book, many of the rural landlords had a difficult time relinquishing the power that they had insofar as land ownership is concerned, which translated into numerous attacks on the cadres promoting land reforms as well as the peasant villagers that supported them (Chen, 1980 p. 49,63). The result is a life filled with suffering, revenge, and secrecy. Furthermore, the new land reforms implemented by the Communist Party essentially overturned the entire system of land ownership in China where ruling elites lorded over the peasantry. By replacing such elites with party loyalists, land reforms were impl...