History glossary
collectives
shared agricultural or production units created by socialist reorganization of rural life.
- Category
- Economic unit
- Region
- China
- Date range
- especially 1950s-1970s
What it means
Collectives were shared agricultural or production units created as the Communist state reorganized rural life. In Mao's China, peasants were pushed from private farming into cooperatives, collectives, and later larger commune systems.
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