Within and Against Peasantness: Backwardness and Filiality in Rural China

Economically the contradiction between town and country is an extremely antagonistic one both in capitalist society, where under the rule of the bourgeoisie the towns ruthlessly plunder the countryside, and in the Kuomingtang areas in China, where under the rule of foreign imperialism and the Chinese big compradore bourgeoisie the towns most rapaciously plunder the countryside. But in a socialist country and in our own revolutionary base areas, this antagonistic contraction has changed into one that is non-antagonistic; and when communist society is reached it will be abolished. [Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) 1937:345]