I've just read some documents of the current education campaign of the party (保持共产党员先进性教育活动) and the next five year plan [e.g.
http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/zhuanti/xjxjy/1064899.htm
] ; and I found it really insightful to look at 'rural reconstruction' and the three problems of the countryside from this perspective. The official discourse, especially the one about 'the new countryside' is very close to the one of the academics who are writing on these issues, to people like Wen Tiejun and others. The key notion promoted by the party is 'to construct a socialist, new countryside' (建设社会主义新农村). Economic cooperatives are explicitly encouraged by the party (if I take 合作组织 to be that?).
An interesting Chinese researcher on these issues is He Xuefeng. The Sannong Zhongguo website
http://www.snzg.net/ is based at his institute in Wuhan. From what I can tell of his work, it is all very much based on his research and personal experience, it also includes the experience of from the 50s until the 80s. In his book
新农村建设与中国道路
http://www.snzg.net/announcemore.asp?page=1 he outlines what 'rural reconstruction' could mean; in a way that does not ignore the people's communes, and a way that is at the same time largely compatible with the official discourse of the party.
He states at various points that scholarly discussions with foreigners are of not much use for the Chinese countryside, and that people who are too influenced by Western theory can not see the Chinese reality. (for example in his other, quite successful book, "Xin xiangtu Zhongguo, which is onine at
http://www.bbtpress.gxnu.edu.cn/homepagebook/603/index.asp; the chapter on 'methods' is particularly interesting
http://www.bbtpress.gxnu.edu.cn/homepagebook/603/a09.htm). Examples he gives for 'Western theory' are mostly those of liberal economics, who cannot understand the Chinese situation, who cannot understand that the people's communes also had their benefits, and who don't understand 'socialist reconstruction' now. His aim would be a research that is native, that is 'bentuhua'.
Now He Xuefeng's position is interesting in itself, I find, but what is clear from all that is that "rural reconstruction" in itself is far from beiing "alternative"; rather it is the official discourse in China now.
Hans