Unruly and Insubordinate Chinese Peasants?

The following account may be interesting, but is certainly atypical.

According to John Gittings in his book Real China From Cannibalism to Karaoke (1996), the Communist Party had suggested that economic reforms have encouraged peasants to become unruly and insubordinate.

A handbook produced at the local level noted that in the old days, peasants depended on the collective for everything, and local cadres could easily discipline those who stole or shirked their responsibilities.

But now that peasants are able to produce for themselves, things have changed where peasants could reportedly defy the cadres, or even resort to strong-arm tactics

"The Party has become ineffective," the handbook admits, "and some Party branches play no role at all ... Problems are especially serious with family planning, state purchases of grain, taxation, house building, and planned crop production ... The masses have no respect for the cadres and retaliate against them. They even abuse the cadres' families, beat them, steal their crops, cut down their trees, and threatened their property."

While this account may be true, incidents like these probably account for a tiny even insignificant proportion compared to the large number of cases of cadres bullying and applying strong-arm tactics to peasants.