Abstract: This study employed the subaltern history method to rethink and analyze the decollectivization process in the Chinese rural society. By integrating the oral historical materials and written archives about a village in the Jianghuai region, different narratives were found in this village at varying levels interpreting the same historical event of decollectivization. One was the public transcript created by the elite of the state at the top level, which emphasized peasants and their actions as the driving force of the decollectivization. The copy by the local cadres, to some extent, used and extended the discourse logic of the state governance. The peasants’ public version got their own expected political ethics by deconstructing and reshaping the state ideology, and aimed at maximizing their benefits through catering to the needs of the state governance. Finally, in the private versions, the narratives of the peasants and local cadres subtly converged. Both showed that during the last period of collectivization, the action power of the village community was still temporary, diverged, and unstable, far from being a unified action body. To a large degree, it was contingent on the changes in the larger environment. Further examination revealed that it was out of the state’s control need to maintain the continuity of the political reign by the state and the consistency of the governance image for a smooth transition of the land ownership system that the subjective consciousness and behavioral action of the peasants were placed at an essential position in the primary history narratives by the state.

Key words:  village community , subaltern politics , power governance , the mass line , stratified narratio