Do farmers really miss the era of collectivization?

First, it is committed to collecting rural oral history in the second half of the 20th century.

The origin of the study of oral history: "History without folk voice is incomplete."

Xu Shuming: Mr. Guo has been doing fieldwork for nearly 15 years. Could you briefly introduce the background of your oral history research project?

Guo Yuhua: this project began in the middle and late 1990s, when Mr. Sun Liping was in Peking University, Mr. Shen Yuan and I were in the Academy of Social Sciences, Ying Xing was still studying at that time, and there was a small group of master's and doctoral students. We wanted to do an oral history study of Chinese social life in rural China in the second half of the 20th century, so Mr. Sun and I presided over such a project. The original idea was to find six villages in different parts of the country to collect interviews with farmers, and has been working on the implementation of this plan for several years, but only four villages have been opened up. That is, Hebei West Village, Shaanxi Ji Village, Sichuan Liuping Village (now belonging to Chongqing) and Northeast Shiwan Village.

Yuan Xunhui: why did you choose these villages? Is it just a simple sample?

Guo Yuhua: at that time, I hoped to select samples in different regions, both southern and northern. We want to choose the last two villages in the south, but we do not have enough strength, because there are many difficulties in choosing villages in the south-Guangdong or Jiangsu and Zhejiang-such as dialects. And after graduation, many of the students involved were no longer studying in this field, and there was not enough manpower, so the remaining two villages could not be opened up. In addition, although the surveys of the four villages are all based on the idea of oral history, the degree of completion is different. Jicun's survey is more comprehensive, basically covering its history in the second half of the 20th century. The investigation directions of several other villages have their own emphasis, some villages have done more comprehensive "land reform", while others have done more "co-operative transformation". The original intention of this oral history project includes two aspects:

First, China is in the process of social transformation. if we want to pay attention to today's transformation, we need to understand the state of Chinese society before the transformation. Many people think that the transformation has encountered a bottleneck and can no longer go on, and some even say that the reform is dead. This makes it more necessary to study the social form of China before the transformation-from 1949 to the reform and opening up, including the basic nature of its social system and its mode of operation in reality. Therefore, the study of any phenomenon in China, the problem of transformation can not be avoided, and the analysis of the process of transformation needs a historical context. In the past, sociology did not pay much attention to history, but when we now try to make up for this defect and look back on the history of the past, we find that there is a big problem with the present history, because it only includes the official history, that is, the historical account of the mainstream ideology. there are a lot of concealment, distortion, and even fabrication, so we need to present history from different levels. History needs different voices, and history with only one voice must be problematic and must be questioned. In the past history, whether it is official history or scholars, those most common villagers, village women, their experience and experience in the process of history is ignored. So at that time, we had an ambition: we wanted to know the experiences of these people and their understanding of this period of history, whether it was retrospective or retrospective, and our aim was to collect and record such a period of history. after all, history without folk voices is incomplete and untrue, and history cannot exist only in the only way.

Second, as researchers, we need to have a basic understanding and judgment of Chinese society, and be able to discuss it theoretically or academically, so we put forward the concept of "communist civilization". To define it, we need to see what is the logic of its operation of social life, and we need to understand its mechanism and logic through specific historical materials and personal narration, especially to present its mechanism and structure through a process study. This is a pursuit of academic theory.

At that time, we also knew that the progress of this project would be very difficult, because collecting history itself was a thankless task. The summary of the theory is not particularly bottomed. After collection and recording, it is still unknown whether one can achieve his theoretical ambition. It can only be gradually advanced from listening, recording, presentation and then to research and analysis.

This is the general background of our oral history research project.

From "leadership" to "relatives": the Establishment of Mutual Trust with villagers

Xu Shuming: the biggest difficulty in fieldwork is how to integrate into the life situation of farmers. Have you encountered any similar difficulties during the investigation? How did you solve it?

Guo Yuhua: in this regard, we have interdisciplinary advantages. The ethnographic method of anthropology requires researchers to integrate into local social life, so that they can look at and think about problems from the perspective of local people.

Of course, it also requires quite a long time of input and interaction, and it is impossible to get acquainted with farmers in one or two contacts and make them believe you and be willing to tell you everything.

Xu Shuming: can you give me an example?

Guo Yuhua: for example, in Jicun, when we first went to investigate, the local people still needed to pick water, because their caves were all halfway up the mountain, so they had to go down to the ravine, carry water from the well there, and climb back up the mountain. At that time, there were several people on our investigation team, and the landlord's water consumption increased a lot, and they had to pick more water to use it. We felt it was not good to put a burden on the landlord, so we went to carry the water ourselves. I can only pick that section of the flat road, because I can't pick it up the mountain, I can't pick it in the middle, but we only have one boy. I can only pick it to the bottom of the hill, and it's really hard for him to pick it up.

When they went to investigate the next year, some people in their village began to try to dig a well in their own house, and then bury a deep water pump to the mountain, so that there would be tap water. After several members of our team discussed, we paid for it, and the landlord's family did the work and drilled a well in the cellar containing potatoes at the foot of his mountain. At that time, he invited Mr. Yin and Yang, because he did not know where to draw water, so it could only be decided by Mr. Yin and Yang after observation. In this regard, we all feel very funny, but it seems that we really hit the luck of the University. once we got the water, the water quality was quite good, and then we buried the deep pump and laid the pipe. For fear of the freezing of the water pipes in winter, laying pipes is also a big project. First, we have to build a water cellar on the mountain at the top of their cave, pump the water to the mountain, and then bury the pipes on the mountain to send the water to the landlord.

In fact, you don't need to do anything to interact with farmers, but rather to interact with each other in a friendly, sincere, trusting and mutually beneficial way. Later, I became more and more familiar with the people in the village, and the young people in some villages wanted to find a job in Beijing, and we would also help. The relationship with them has become like a relative. At the beginning, they will think that we are outsiders and come from Beijing, they will think that we are from above, no matter how to explain that we are teachers and students, not leaders, it is useless.

In the process of slowly building trust, some of their folk belief activities will also turn to us for help, such as worshiping the Dragon King, Guanyin and so on. At the beginning, they also had some worries, thinking that people from outside would not support these "superstitious and backward" things. on one occasion, when building a temple in the village, when remaking the tablet of the gods, they needed someone to write on the tablet, and they couldn't find the right person in their village. At that time, I was in the village with teacher Luo Hongguang of the Academy of Social Sciences. the former party branch secretary-- after he retired, he became the head of the temple fair and was in charge of the "social affairs" of the village-- he came to us and asked timidly, "you are all doctors." can you write for us? " We both said "yes" with one voice at that time, and it was only after we agreed that there was a problem. Neither of us knew how to write calligraphy. I said, "Let's practice quickly." I went to our landlord's fourth-grade girl, borrowed a brush and ink from her, and practiced calligraphy in the newspaper. I found that it didn't work even if I practiced it. How could I practice it in such a short time? Later, I thought about it for a long time, and finally called up the font of Han Ding official script from the notebook computer, which was very beautiful, and it was most appropriate to write the tablet. We thought of a lot of ways to draw it on the board, did not sleep one night to draw out all the words on the five tablets, and dared not let others see it, so we had to secretly do it in the house. After dawn, we put the tablet on the windowsill. As soon as the sun rose, the old secretary came. I was very happy to see it and said, "it's so well written." it's really a doctor. " We dare not say that it is traced.

In the long run, they also know that we are sincere and willing to interact, benefit and make friends with them, and there will be no obstacles to communication, and the interview will become a routine.

Second, can communism be called a form of civilization?

Understanding "Civilization" from the Perspective of Daily Life

Xu Shuming: you just mentioned the origin of the study of oral history. It hopes to put forward a new interpretation of contemporary Chinese history. Then the analytical concept of "communist civilization" is compared with the more popular study of the history of the founding of the people's Republic of China. Where is its innovation?

Guo Yuhua: this concept was not just put forward today. when we first started to do oral history, we discussed this concept many times. At that time, Mr. Sun and I wrote relevant articles. I think that there must be a concept that can cover this period of history that we are going to study today. Some people define it as "communist culture" or "party culture". But I don't think it's enough. The scope is very narrow. Of course, there will be a lot of debate about the concept of "communist civilization". Some people say that it is not civilization, but barbarism. This can be clarified from two aspects:

First of all, it involves the concept of "civilization". In the past, the understanding of "civilization" is commendatory, emphasizing that civilization is relative to barbarism, and that civilization has the meaning of enlightenment and awakening. But today we can understand it as a neutral concept, which is the form of expression in which culture develops to a certain extent. This is not defined by us. Elias's "process of Civilization" already uses the concept of "civilization" in this way. He mentioned, for example, that the British and the French despise each other, saying that each other's behavior is uncivilized, and that the Civil in Civilization there means "politeness", affirmation and pride of their own culture. And we might as well not take the commendatory meaning of the understanding.

Secondly, it involves the specific connotation of civilization. When we mention the word civilization in the past, we often think of the great achievements of material civilization (such as the Great Wall, pyramids) or spiritual civilization (ideas, theories, masterpieces, etc.). In addition, another very important aspect is institutional civilization, which means the organizational and institutional framework on which society depends, as well as its specific mode of operation under this structure. Of course, this is also the connotation of civilization. Usually people tend to ignore the ordinary people under the framework of civilization, their way of life, behavior patterns, thinking, speaking and expression, in fact, these are all related to civilization.

Therefore, our understanding of communist civilization is based on the investigation of the daily life of ordinary people and understand civilization from the perspective of the grass-roots level. If we only make a commendatory and grand understanding, we will ignore the living conditions of the overwhelming majority of people in society. Compared with the western capitalist civilization, the communist civilization is very different, because its cultural foundation, institutional arrangement and even national character are different. Therefore, using the concept of "communist civilization" to refer to the period of history that we want to analyze, it is established and has the maneuverability of research. Since we can construct history from the daily life of ordinary people, we should also be able to understand the logic of civilization from the actions and words of ordinary people.