Chinese Political History II: Chapter 1, Exercise 1 — Possible Solution
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TASK
The Third Plenum is often said to have launched reform, yet it still
prohibited household contracting in agriculture. Explain what that shows
about how the reform actually moved, using the Xiaogang episode and the
later official approval.

SOLUTION

WHAT THE PLENUM DID
- Dropped "class struggle as the key link" and moved the focus to economic
  construction; repudiated the Two Whatevers; rehabilitated purge victims.
- On farming, endorsed contracting to production groups but still
  prohibited contracting to households.

WHAT HAPPENED ON THE GROUND
- Eighteen households in Xiaogang, Anhui, signed a secret contract dividing
  the land among families (24 November or December 1978, depending on the
  source). That is household contracting, the very thing the plenum's
  communiqué forbade.
- The practice spread with the backing of some provincial leaders. Central
  approval came afterwards: Deng's remark in May 1980 that worries about
  the system were unnecessary, then the 1982 No. 1 Document establishing it.

WHAT THIS SHOWS
The plenum set a direction and cleared political obstacles (the focus on
economic construction, the rehabilitations), but it did not itself design
or approve the most important agricultural change. That change was tried
first by villagers, tolerated by provincial officials, and codified by the
centre only after results were visible. "Reform launched at the plenum" is
true of the priority shift, not of the specific policy.

CAUTION
The famous results (a 1979 harvest larger than the previous five years
combined, income rising from 22 to 400 yuan) come from later retellings and
were not checked independently, so use them as reported, not as audited.

ANSWER: The reform moved from below and was approved afterwards; the
plenum changed the climate, not the agricultural rules.