State Dominance and Peasant Resistance in Post-1949 South China

Abstract

South China in the first thirty years after 1949 went through drastic changes in the political and socioeconomic life of its peasantry. This research, based on corporate lineage and peasant localism, suggests that the southern peasantry maintained distinctive regional identities after 1949. The southern mode of corporate lineage developed a deeper political consciousness that extends beyond purely class considerations imposed by the state. The southern Chinese peasant society is still internally segmented and this segmentation is manifested in lineage, dialect, and religious groups. These southern parochial groups are coterminous and their divisions have persisted throughout the Communist era. This article explains the paths of the state dominance and the patterns of the southern Chinese peasant resistance in the post-1949 period.