Activities and affiliations

Agriculture and land policy People’s Republic of China 1915–1986 ↓ Left office 1980 · lung cancer

The peasant leader of the model village behind “In agriculture, learn from Dazhai”, who rose to vice-premier

The symbol of Mao-era self-reliance: after Mao's 1964 “In agriculture, learn from Dazhai” his brigade became the national model, and he rose to the Politburo and vice-premiership before the reforms sidelined him in 1980.

A barely literate peasant from Dazhai in Xiyang County, Shanxi, he terraced hillsides as brigade secretary and rebuilt the village after the 1963 floods without state aid. When Mao said in 1964 “In agriculture, learn from Dazhai” the village became the national model, and Chen became a Central Committee member in 1969, a Politburo member in 1973 and vice-premier for agriculture in 1975. The Dazhai model preached collective labour and self-reliance, but inflated statistics and coercion came to light; after the reforms began he left the vice-premiership in 1980, lived on a farm outside Beijing and died of lung cancer.

Agriculture and land policy People’s Republic of China 1916–2015 ○ Natural causes

“If you want rice, look for Wan Li” — the reform pioneer who let Anhui’s peasants contract land to households

“If you want to eat rice, look for Wan Li”: the reformist leader who first implemented the household-responsibility system in Anhui, then served as First Vice Premier (1983–1988) and NPC Standing Committee Chairman (1988–1993).

From Shandong, he was vice-mayor of Beijing after 1949, directing the “ten great buildings” including the Great Hall of the People, and was persecuted in the Cultural Revolution. Appointed Anhui first secretary in 1977, he tolerated the secret land division at Xiaogang village and with the provincial “six articles” allowed household contracting in the famine-stricken countryside, the starting point of rural reform. As vice-premier for agriculture from 1980 he dismantled the people’s communes, and he chaired the National People’s Congress Standing Committee from 1988 to 1993. Returning from abroad in May 1989, he endorsed martial law. He died in 2015 at 99.