China’s 1950s Rural Collective Models | Generated by AI
These are three different types of cooperative organizations from Chinese economic history, particularly prominent during the 1950s collectivization period:
供销小组 (Supply and Marketing Group)
This was the most basic, informal level of cooperation. Small groups of farmers would band together to collectively purchase supplies (like seeds, fertilizer, tools) and sell their products. This gave them better bargaining power than individual farmers would have. Think of it as an informal buying/selling club - the participants still owned their own land and operated independently, they just coordinated for commerce.
供销合作社 (Supply and Marketing Cooperative)
This was a more formalized, larger-scale version of the supply and marketing group. These were official cooperative organizations that handled the commercial side of agriculture - procuring agricultural inputs, distributing them to farmers, and managing the sale of farm products. They operated stores, warehouses, and distribution networks. Importantly, these focused on commerce and distribution, not production itself. Many of these institutions still exist in China today, though their role has evolved significantly.
生产合作社 (Production Cooperative)
This represented collective ownership and production itself. Farmers would pool their land, tools, and labor to farm collectively rather than individually. There were different levels - elementary cooperatives where members still technically owned land but farmed together, and advanced cooperatives where land became collective property. This was about how farming was done, not just how goods were bought and sold.
The key distinction: Supply and marketing organizations dealt with commerce (buying inputs, selling outputs), while production cooperatives dealt with the actual farming work and ownership of productive assets.