Tractor Plows the Fields
'Tractor Plows the Fields'
Yangjiabu, Shandong
44 x 34 cm
reprint of ca. 1950s
Under the imperial dynasties, farming had always been encouraged, and nianhua printers represented that encouragement in their 'pictures of ploughing'. From this image can see that the modern communist state continued to encourage agriculture, but replaced the traditional ox with a modern tractor. This represented the communist's program of industrialization, and also the move toward communes where small private plots of land were turned into large communally owned fields where a tractor would be an effective tool. In spite of such propaganda, tractors were few and far between.
