Rural Survey Thoughts and Practice Activities of Dong Shijin

Siyuan LI, Peng YANG

School of Marxism, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China

Abstract The rural survey movement started in China in the 1920s and 1930s provided a solid support for understanding the rural areas, solving the crisis in rural areas, and saving and revitalizing the rural areas. At that time, various forces at home and abroad devoted themselves to this movement and made remarkable valuable research achievements. Dong Shijin was committed to the prevention and treatment of water and drought disasters and the survey of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers". His agronomic thought not only has great academic value in the rural survey movement, but also has practical reference for the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

Key words Dong Shijin, Rural survey, Rural revitalization, Implications

1 Introduction

In the 1920s and 1930s, in order to cooperate with the booming rural construction movement, China carried out a large-scale rural survey movement. This movement had many survey subjects and made remarkable achievements. In particular, the survey conducted by individuals based on intellectuals was the most striking. A large number of social investigators have made great achievements, such as Mao Zedong, Fei Xiaotong, Bu Kai and so on. So far, the academic community has had a lot of research and conclusions about the survey activities they had engaged in, but there are also regrets of "remaining talents" caused by other reasons, such as Dong Shijin. In recent years, Dong Shijin’s agronomic thought has formed rich research results, but the rural surveys he presided over and participated in have been brought aside or not elaborated. Therefore, it is necessary for us to sort out and summarize Dong Shijin’s rural survey thought and practical activities, and explore its position in the rural survey movement and the implications for the rural revitalization strategy.

2 Overview of rural survey of Dong Shijin

Dong Shijin (1900-1984) was born in Dianjiang County of Chongqing. In 1917, he was admitted to Beijing Agricultural College. After graduating in 1920, he obtained a doctoral degree from Tsinghua University and received a doctorate in agronomy from American Cornell University. He returned to China in 1925 and served as the president of Peking University, the dean of College of Agronomy of Sichuan Agricultural University, the dean of Jiangxi Agricultural College, and the director of the Sichuan Agricultural Improvement Institute. In 1949, due to the failure in the opposition to the land reform, he left the mainland China and settled in the United States in 1950 and taught at the University of California. In 1984, he died in the United States of America. The large-scale rural surveys that Dong Shijin participated in and presided over in the 1920s and 1930s mainly included the drought and flood disaster survey in North China, rural survey in Hebei Province, and the southern rural survey. Some of these surveys were macroscopic and some were microscopic. Some were carried out by social groups and some were undertaken by colleges and universities. However, regardless of their form, they were presided over by Dong Shijin and had the mark of Dong Shijin, and can be regarded as the personal behavior of Dong Shijin.

2.1 Drought and flood disaster survey in North ChinaThe Peiping Water Conservancy Research Association, established in September 1929, started the "drought and flood disaster survey in North China". At that time, Dong Shijin was the dean of the Agricultural College of Peiping University. As a member, he shared the survey work in Hebei Province. Due to the heavy workload of the Agricultural College, he invited the Institute Assistant Li Zhiguang to act on his behalf and assist him. The main materials of the survey were taken from the newspapers and various reports collected by China International Famine Relief Commission over the years, and were sorted out to forecast the general situation of the disasters in North China in recent years. This is a typical document survey method, it saves both time and effort. In the process of finishing, Dong Shijin deeply felt that "the occurrence of disasters in North China were frequent and fierce. In the past eight years, drought and flood occurred alternately" he said, "the hardships of the people of North China, the fate of uncertainty, and the horrible situation of drifting, were not difficult to imagine"[1].

Dong Shijin concluded that frequent droughts and floods in North China were mainly because rivers were not dredged, dykes were not repaired, channels were not opened, and forests were not planted[1]. In addition, the frequent occurrence of disasters was greatly connected with the uneven distribution of rainfall. If the floods can be prevented through human efforts, the drought is difficult to prevent, because the diversion irrigation was limited to financial resources. Through comparisons at home and abroad, he also pointed out that similar areas in foreign countries are mostly sparsely populated, so even they suffered disasters, they could barely survive. By contrast, the population density in these areas of China was similar to the country with the highest population density in the world. Each household had less than one hectare of farmland, which was difficult to support their survival. Once there was disaster, they would have to drift or even died.

Through a lot of surveys, Dong Shijin fully realized the enormous pressure caused by excessive population to the environment, and scientifically explained the causes of natural disasters in North China, and came up with his countermeasure to "reduce the direct burden of land"[1]. He proposed four specific measures: birth control, population restriction; immigration; development of various sources of wealth, such as manufacturing and mining, in order to indirectly obtain the food produced by other areas; and establishing transportation to facilitate the exchange of goods between different places and the transportation of food. In the opinion of Dong Shijin, "These measures can improve the people’s living standards. If there is a disaster, the people only need to save a little, not to be displaced or starved to death. Although they cannot be exempted from droughts and floods, they can reduce the disaster, so the root of the disaster, thus the solution depends on these measures"[2]. Apart from the above various measures, Dong Shijin also proposed using the artificial rainfall method to alleviate the drought, but due to technical limitations, the artificial rainfall "had not reached the realm of application in the field"[3].

2.2 Rural survey in Hebei ProvinceAlthough the survey of the droughts and floods in North China had given Dong Shijin an overall understanding of the rural situation in North China, but what one learns from paper seems to be only superficial knowledge, it still needs other survey methods to complement each other. In May 1930, during his tenure as head of the Department of Agricultural Economics of Peiping University, he opened a "rural survey" course for three consecutive hours a week to cultivate survey talents. He also guided the teachers and students of the Department of Agricultural Economics to carry out field survey in the villages near Luodao Village where the university was located, for about half a day, but failed to achieve satisfactory results. To make up for the regret, he organized the survey in the same year. Besides, he personally formulated the survey form and entrusted the China International Famine Relief Commission to send rural credit cooperatives across Hebei, including 43 counties, 242 villages, 24 568 households, and the survey population exceeded 130 000. The survey items involved population, cultivated land area, land rent situation, family farming situation, and occupational distribution. The survey focused on "seeking the overall situation of the economy of most rural households" rather than "acquiring the details of agriculture and income and expenditure of a few farmers"[2]. Due to the recognition of the local rural areas by the China International Famine Relief Commission, the credibility is high. For the matter entrusted by China International Famine Relief Commission, the villagers did not doubt and were willing to cooperate, and the survey achieved the expected results. Through this survey, Dong Shijin obtained a deeper understanding of the actual situation in rural China. "In the first place, the farmer’s cultivated land area and all the land area were extremely small. In the second place, there were few people who absolutely had no land and few people who rented land of others. In other words, in the households surveyed, although the land was not rich, its distribution was considered very uneven; this fact could represent the situation in most parts of North China"[2]. Dong Shijin believed that the root cause of this situation lied in "there were more people but less land. At the same time, most people could only rely on farming to make a living. The warlord’s bureaucratic exploitation intensified the degree of poverty"[2]. The rural economic situation left a deep impression on Dong Shijin and also established his basic views on China’s land issues.

He found the "involution" of agricultural production: there were too many "workers and ignorants" in the countryside, and although they were hard-working and enduring, their production efficiency was extremely low. The reason was that agricultural laws were not perfect. The most fundamental reason was that the farm was too small, but the population was too large, and the industry was too underdeveloped to absorb the surplus population and liberate farmers from the land. He thought that, farmers had nothing else to do, thus had to do farming work. Mr. Wu Jingchao believed that only when agricultural technology advances and liberates farmers from agriculture, may farmers engage in other kinds of businesses. "In my opinion, as long as other kinds of industries are developed, farmers will get out of agriculture, and the change of agricultural production technology will not be a problem"[4].

Benefited from this survey in Hebei, Dong Shijin formed his own basic understanding of the production methods and the thought of Chinese farmers: "The farmer has no sense of business, does not have to adopt business methods, and also their intellectual knowledge is poor and habits are closed."[5]The "conservative ignorance" is a big reason for the poverty of farmers: over-emphasis on food self-sufficiency leads to a single production structure, and commercial trade can not be carried out[6]; besides, farmers are "very inert", "content with temporary ease and comfort[7], reluctant to reform, and satisfied with family type life[8]. Poverty is due to the fact that the people’s educational level is not enough and the civilians’ livelihoods are difficult because the people’s educational level is too low. Dong Shijin believed that in order to solve the problem of civilian livelihood, it is required to first raise the "level of intellectual knowledge of the people"[9], that is, "the education that can increase their ability to use their brains and qualifications. The old mind of the countryman must be changed into a new mind. The ancient style countryman must be changed to a modern style. The education they need most is the education that best achieves this goal "[10]. He hoped that through this kind of education, it can create "universal modern farmers" and thus become an important political force. He firmly believed that since the workers’ organizations at that time have caused worldwide influence, "the emotional relationship between farmers in all countries is by no means the same emotional relationship between labors. If the International Labor Organization (ILO) still has the power to influence the world situation, the power of international farmer organizations will become greater"[11].

2.3 Southern rural surveyDong Shijin was born in Taiping Town, Dianjiang County. During his return to his hometown in 1931, he surveyed the agricultural and rural economic situation in Sichuan. He deeply felt that Sichuan, which once was called Land of Abundance, was "in the danger of bankruptcy, the economic situation of the farmers became worse and worse, the financial situation became tight, the interest was high, and no other place had more serious situation than Sichuan", "The population was dense, the life was difficult, and the unemployed people were numerous"[12], reflecting the hidden social crisis.

In this survey, the matter Dong Shijin had the deepest impression was that Sichuan was overpopulated, which caused the excessive land reclamation. InLifeRecordsinCountryside(Xiang Ju Za Ji), he wrote: there was a scene in Sichuan that had the deepest impression on people, that was the situation of land reclamation. From gorges up to rivers, along the bank, nearly most parts of land had been reclaimed, even the land with slope up to 70 to 80 degrees. On stones, even the sediment had been reclaimed. The vertical plane of the bank fields was nearly covered with plants. From Chongqing to Chengdu, on mountain slopes, looking from the distance, it seemed they were desolate, but walking to the place, we would find that from the foot to the top of the slope, all had turned into farmland. The slope in Longquan Post Station was high and steep, but at the half slope, there was still paddy field. At the top of the slope, there was dry farmland. The ideal of "no idle land" could be deemed to be achieved in the whole Sichuan Province. However, in areas such as slope and cliff, the productivity was extremely low and the farming was very difficult, they were only suitable for afforestation and grazing. In places with sparse population and easy livelihood, no one would open up such land. In other words, the farmland with such harsh farming conditions was the characterization of dense population, hard livelihood, and no use of labors[13].

Obviously, this intensified the impression of his previous literature survey. In his eyes, the situation of overpopulation was very serious. The large and growing agricultural population had to be confined to a limited amount of land, squandering their labor, and the cultivation of new farmland would not work.

In 1934, Dong Shijin founded Jiangxi Agricultural College and personally served as the dean. During this period, he carried out a survey in several counties in Jiangxi and Anhui provinces. During the survey, Dong Shijin found that: "In the counties he passed through, as long as the soil is good and the terrain is suitable, the land would be cultivated without the need for construction equipment, most of them have been reclaimed," and even the situation of excessive reclamation, "in the Taihu and Qianshan counties, the mountains have been planted, and as a result, the stone sands are turned and the rivers are blocked, making the fertile fields turn into deserts, or the mountain torrents cause mudslides and landslides, and the farmland came to nothing completely"[11]. In view of such situations, he believed that agricultural production had reached the maximum level allowed by the means of subsistence. Nearly 40% of the farmers accounting for 88% of the total population of the country at that time were not able to cultivate enough land, and they had to find other means for survival. However, in recent years, the village handicraft industry had been overwhelmed by the new machinery industry, and farmers had gradually lost their part-time business, which was a major reason why rural life was getting harder and harder[5]. Therefore, Dong Shijin’s starting point of thinking about how to "prevent poverty" is how to "use legally" the labor of "working hard but no avail"[8]. In his opinion, "a country like China with a dense population and a narrow arable land should better be engaged in agricultural production that requires less machinery but requires a lot of manpower to avoid mechanical competition"[14]. Through this clue, the solution to "prevention of poverty" offered by him is "to use the land, capital and labor used for the production of food in other products with greater interests", that is, "using fast and low-cost transportation equipment, and the vast market and abundant labor, the most valuable production on the most lacking ground, without confinement to the production of food they eat"[6]. That is to develop a kind of "profit-making agriculture", "change our farmers into industrialists, implement agricultural cooperation, and produce crops with the best interests in accordance with the local conditions, and exchange goods through market trade, to realize free supply and demand of agricultural products[15].

It is after extensive and in-depth survey that Dong Shijin concluded that the biggest problem facing China’s rural areas lies in the "poverty, ignorance, and weakness". He believed that this is a fundamental problem for Chinese agriculture and farmers, and it is necessary to "eliminate poverty" and "handle with ignorance and weakness" simultaneously. From the perspective of present situation, higs opinions are full of remarkable insights.

3 Characteristics of rural survey of Dong Shijin

Compared with other surveys of the same period, the rural survey conducted by Dong Shijin showed the characteristics of long time, large span and deep penetration, especially in the following three aspects.

3.1 Always focusing on the countryside and paying attention to the production and life of Chinese farmersJust like the promising intellectuals such as Mao Zedong and Fei Xiaotong in that period, Dong Shijin always focused on the countryside. By contrast, the early Chinese Communists focused on the life of farmers, they mainly used the class analysis method. The survey was for the needs of the struggle strategy and taking the road of countryside encircling the cities. Dong Shijin was concerned not only with the lives of ordinary Chinese farmers, but also focused on production methods and looking for ways to get rid of poverty. This is actually reaching the same goal by different roads. All are to solve the rural problems and ultimately to achieve the prosperity and revitalization of the rural areas.

As the academic circles have recognized: without understanding rural economy, it is impossible to know Chinese society, to know Chinese people, to know Chinese farmers’ lives. This is not only a pass we can not avoid, but also the most basic means and approach of our understanding of Chinese society and solving Chinese social problems. Most scholars rationally recognized this based on the needs of reality, while Dong Shijin was born with it.

He was born in a wealthy rural family. His father Dong Shixun and his mother Ms. Xiong worked hard and worked hard and the bought a house in the countryside and lived a good life. In his childhood, Dong Shijin lived in the countryside. He was "interested in the nature of the countryside, and he was willing to engage in production and live an independent and free life"[16]. He had natural sympathy for the farmers and was eager to change the lives of poor farmers who were unable to eat and live. This laid the foundation for his ambition to study agriculture and build the rural areas. In the middle school period, "he was glade to talk with other classmates about learning of agriculture, and even conducted study all night"[17].

Perhaps just because of this natural feeling, Dong Shijin tirelessly devoted to the activities of improving the rural economy, changing the lives of farmers and reforming the rural landscape. And the survey left his remarkable personal mark. In nowadays, the fact that such surveyors are naturally connected to the blood and emotions of the rural areas is hard to see, so it is even more valuable.

3.2 The combination of Chinese and Western survey methods and suiting measures to local conditionsIn Western social survey theory, social survey is almost synonymous with "questionnaire + statistics". Field survey is regarded as a research method mainly for anthropology, and is rarely used in social surveys. However, in China, Mao Zedong and other scholars took the form of finding a few people to open a survey symposium. Fei Xiaotong just stayed in a village for a period of time. The way of dissecting the sparrows was so great that people understood it in a period of time. Social surveys were inseparable from field surveys, and some people outside the academic circle even believed that social surveys were field surveys.

Comparatively speaking, the survey forms and methods of Dong Shijin were diversified. There were both literature surveys about the droughts and floods in North China, and sample surveys such as Hebei rural surveys, that is, distributing pre-formed forms, questionnaires to farmers, and also used field survey methods and accounting survey commonly used in agricultural economic surveys supplemented by the communication survey method, for example, sending a questionnaires through theCommunicationNewsof China International Famine Relief Commission. In addition, there was a unique "residence" survey method. He once wrote with deep feelings: "I have always thought that I want to know the secrets of the countryside and the hidden feelings of the farmers. I only want to live in the countryside, and it is best to live in my own hometown. Through survey according to the forms, we could obtain only formal answers, and most of the answers were not straightforward answers. I want to find out the situation of the rural areas, I want to go back to my hometown to live for a few days-not to do a countryside survey, just to live, I hope to live in the countryside, just to naturally know the rural situations."[18]

It should be pointed out that "personally doing" and "field doing" are one of the most valuable legacy left by Mao Zedong and Fei Xiaotong’s social surveys. Similarly, Dong Shijin also called upon "going to the field". Certainly, any advanced means of collecting data could not take place of the face-to-face interviews and participation of semi-participation. However, it is an indisputable fact that the combination of various forms and methods will be more successful. In this sense, the implication given by Dong Shijin may be greater.

3.3 Focusing on the analysis and application of survey resultsDong Shijin wrote extensive books throughout his life. He has published such books asFoodsandPopulation,RuralCooperation, andAgriculturalEconomics, and published hundreds of articles in the newspapers and periodicals, including many articles that exerted a greater impact on the academic circle. Most of these works and articles were written in the 1920s and 1930s, almost in pace with his rural surveys, which proved that the relationship between the two was inseparable. His most important workAgriculturalEconomicswas published by Peiping Culture Society in 1933.LifeRecordsinCountrysidewas published inIndependentReview(issues 28-30 of 1932). Even the main materials ofDefenseandAgriculturepublished in 1947 were also derived from these surveys. As written in this book, "we once went up along the river, walked about 50 km, and all the soil we saw was sandy soil..."[19].

Although Dong Shijin did not establish a theory and summarize it for promotion, like Mao Zedong and Fei Xiaotong, Mao Zedong personally compiled and published the bookRuralSurveyin the 1940s as a theoretical tool, but overall we can still see that the weight of the survey results in Dong Shijin’s academic career is based on the fact that the survey has accumulated rich experience and available research materials. He found a practical basis for the "localization" of modernagriculturaleconomicsin China. According to the survey, he wrote the bookAgriculturalEconomics. The publication of Agricultural Economics also marks the formation of this agronomic thought. The book mainly discusses the importance of agriculture in China’s economy, the decline of agricultural income, farm management, Chinese tenancy and rent, agricultural machinery, agricultural labor, rural financial system, agricultural trade, rural China, agricultural cooperation, China’s food problem, China’s colonization, China’s agriculture and farmers’ fundamental problems and recommended solutions. Thus, it can be seen that Dong Shijin’s agricultural economics thought is not purely economic theory, but also includes his thinking on China’s economic problems.

It is based on the investigation, and diligent in thinking, diligent in writing, and timely transforming the results of the survey into academic achievements. Dong Shijin is finally a family. This tells us that we should be diligent in hands, feet, as well as mind.

4 Implications for rural revitalization in the new period

Dong Shijin’s rural survey thoughts and practical activities have brought us many implications. In the present period of succeeding in a well-off society and promoting rural revitalization, there are still at least three beneficial implications.

4.1 Still focusing on three issues concerning agriculture, farmers and rural areas in thoughtTo understand Chinese society, it is required to start from knowing China’s rural areas and farmers, which is inseparable from the field survey. Mao Zedong began the rural survey and found the path of the Chinese revolution. Fei Xiaotong’s rural survey started since the 1980s found the fundamental solution to China’s rural modernization. In comparison, Dong Shijin’s rural survey made a great contribution to his agricultural thought. It is the rural survey that makes him deeply feel that without knowing the actual situations of rural areas and farmers, it is impossible to understand Chinese society. Such idea is still applicable to the present situation. At present, the central government and State Council issuedSeveralOpinionsonAdheringtothePriorityDevelopmentofAgricultureandRuralAreasandDoingaGoodJobin"ThreeRuralIssues". The editorial inPeople’sDailyof February 20, 2019 pointed out that agriculture is still a short leg of "synchronization of the four modernizations", and the countryside is still a short-board for building a well-off society in an all-round way. Only by stabilizing the foundation of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", can we win the initiative to effectively cope with various risk challenges and strengthen the spirit to do a good job in overall work. Ensuring the successful completion of the 2020 rural reform and development goals and tasks is the solemn commitment of the Central Party Committee to all the people, especially the hundreds of millions of farmers, it is directly related to the quality of the well-off society and the quality of socialist modernization, and concerns the prestige of the party in the people. We must persist in resolving the issues concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers as the top priority of the work of the entire party, focusing on key points, complementing short-term and strong foundations, promoting the overall revitalization of the rural areas and accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas."[20]This requires us not to change our efforts, and always adhere to the priority development of agriculture and rural areas.

4.2 Using research and survey to fight poverty and revitalize the rural areasIn the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed a strategy for rural revitalization in light of the current goal of socialist construction. In the new historical period, farmers are not merely satisfied with the growth of the number of agricultural products, but have a higher pursuit of quality of life. The specific implementation of the rural revitalization strategy should not take for granted the actual situation of the rural areas. Only through detailed field survey and research, can we truly grasp the actual situation of rural areas and agriculture and the problems existing in the development, so as to truly understand the needs of farmers, and then grasp the general direction of rural development, so that the policies that benefit farmers can be implemented. Only farmers that take up a larger portion of the whole population, may we really realize the goal of building the moderately prosperous society. In the past five years, the central government has invested more than 280 billion yuan as special fund for poverty alleviation to help more than 68 million farmers get rid of poverty. The incidence of poverty has dropped from 10.2% to 3.1%. Those poor people who have not gotten rid of poverty are mainly deep poverty-stricken people. It is very difficult to help them to get rid of poverty and the costs for their poverty alleviation are high. In his 2018 government work report, Premier Li Keqiang proposed of resolutely fighting the battle for targeted poverty alleviation and helping 10 million rural poor to achieve poverty alleviation. The targeted poverty alleviation lies in the target. The ways of finding reasons for poverty of farmers are inseparable from social survey. Only through social survey to obtain real and objective materials, may we find the real cause of rural poverty. The targeted poverty alleviation also lies in the precision. In accordance with different reasons for different poverty-stricken areas. It is recommended to strictly select rural cadres, and carry out systematic and scientific education for them, so as to adapt to local conditions, develop precise measures according to the characteristics of each region, and finally achieve poverty alleviation. In the work of poverty alleviation, we must mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers and stimulate the creativity of farmers. Only when the problem of poverty alleviation of the farmers can be resolved, can the foundation and premise of rural revitalization be realized.

4.3 Rural survey should be realistic and have a real sense of truth"Survey and research is the heirloom of our party and the basic skill for doing a good job." In the new era, we still have to practice this basic skill. (i) Doing research should insist on seeking truth from facts, adopt scientific social survey methods, find out the reality, and grasp the truth. We should listen to both sides. Not like Dong Shijin who did survey through living in the countryside, we should personally go to rural areas, to communicate with farmers, so as to obtain the first hand materials. (ii) The survey objects should be comprehensive. In particular, when conducting a sample survey, it is necessary to consider the situation of each region in a practical and realistic manner, and pay attention to the representativeness of the samples. In the selection of the survey site, Dong Shijin considered that China has a vast territory, it is necessary to select a typical and representative area, and finally selected rural areas in the north and south. (iii) Survey should have true feelings. In the survey, the surveyors can popularize the keywords in the terminology, communicate with the farmers in an approachable language, and fully communicate with the farmers, thus making clear the the real rural situation.

Through overview of the rural survey thought and practical activities of Dong Shijin, it can be proved again that survey is the foundation and mother of success. To succeed and make our dream come true, we must take the first step, have the clear objective, do solid work, and work hard. In the new period of implementing the rural revitalization, it is of great practical and academic significance for reviewing the rural survey and practical activities of Dong Shijin.