> However we're defining it, communal farms didn't exactly jump-start
> indigenous accumulation, did they?
Well, actually they did -- at a fearsome human price, which I don't want to downplay or belittle. The complexity here is that the communal farms were a massive failure and hurt the peasantry, but they were accompanied by major state mobilizations which helped the peasantry -- massive spending on health care, literacy, schools, irrigation systems, etc. It wasn't until 1979 that Deng Xiaoping's rural reforms finally unleashed the potential of the latter, by dissolving the communes and setting up the household responsibility system -- a hybrid or mixed economy, with some market aspects and some socialized aspects.
-- DRR