Through the entirety of the book many quesitons are posed to the reader implicitly or explicitly, but out of all of those here are 3 of some of the important ones:

1 – Is the approach China took toward agricultural and industrial development still applicable to third world countries today?

2 – Is the line struggle in the story a net positive for the village? Is it driving the development of the village and by extension country forward or does it work to hold it back?

3 – Had the land reforms and the propagation of collectivist thinking not taken place, could China have continued its development? Even, could it have reach the heights it did today?