RED AND EXPERT AT TACHAI - SOURCES OF GROWTH ANALYSIS

China's development problems of the late 1950s to the early 1960s centred around the dearth of the necessary sources of growth with which to modernize the rural economy. In 1964 Mao selected Tachai, a production brigade in Shansi Province, to serve as the national model for other units in transforming traditional agriculture. Tachai's success in output and capital accumulation was attributed in the official press to 'hard work, self-reliance, and placing politics i.e. the thought of Chairman Mao in command'. Tachai's rates of growth are examined and evidence is presented to suggest that the central leadership channelled available technical aid and scarce technical inputs into Tachai in order to ensure the success of the model. It is further argued that the Tachai model and subsequent 'Learn from Tachai' media campaign have very effectively served to diffuse the technological change that Liu Shao-ch'i had previously advocated, as well as Mao's ideology. © 1979.