Abstract: This paper intends to explore a question in the history of ideology through discussing the ideological expression infarmers’ mutual assistance and cooperation: How is that kind of cooperation in the middle of the 20th century comprehended in the revolutionary context of contemporary China? What did that idealized social practice designed for such cooperation look like, what kind of ideology did it express, and what logic did it follow? What situations in the rural areas were caused by bringing the ideology and logic into effect? What kind of transformation happened? What kind of paradox appeared during the transformation? I chose Cultivating Millet Log (Zhonggu Ji) to be my target of analysis, a novel written by the contemporary Chinese revolutionary fictionist Liu Qing, who is wellknown for his stories of the cooperation process in rural China.
Firstly, the paper explains why Liu Qing’s novel can by regarded as a subject of studying the history of ideology by examining the author’s creative ideology and methods based on socialist realism. Secondly, the paper analyzes Liu Qing’s novel Cultivating Millet Log (Zhonggu Ji) that was fabricated on the theme of peasants’ activities for mutual assistance and cooperation. According to the action topics related to the ideology and practice of mutual assistance/corporation as described in the novel, the author analyzes the logics and mechanisms for the formation and transformation of this ideological construction.
There are two major findings. First, in the mainstream ideological context of political and class analysis at that time, the strategy of “getting organized” intended to improve productive efficiency actually hit hard on the primary productive force, namely, the middle peasants, which in turn disparaged the rural economic ethics that had been functioning as the “element to stimulate labor” in the productive activities of the rural laborers. Second, during the practice of replacing “for the personal interest” with the idealisticmorality of “for the public interest,” the hidden logic to have “the government” replace“the public” was carried out, which consequently led to a new “differential mode of association” that centered around “governmentasagency.” Formation of the “organizational mode of association” was thus obstructed.

Key words: literature of socialist realism , the ideal of mutual assistance and cooperation , the reconstruction of rural society