Research On Land Reform In The Old District During The Liberation War

The central issue of China's modern revolution is the peasant problem,and the core of peasant problem is land ownership.During the War of Liberation,Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government,under The May 4~thh Instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and guidance of Chinese Land Law Outline,led the masses in the old liberated areas to carry out land reforms,aiming at realizing"peasants have their fields".The reforms transferred landlords land ownership to farmer land ownership,eliminated the feudal and semi-feudal exploitation system,basically solved the land ownership problem,and laid a solid mass foundation for the victory of the new-democratic revolution.Jia County,located in the northeastern part of Shaanxi Province and adjacent to Kuomintang area,was one of the old liberated areas under the leadership of Chinese Communist Party,and also one of the garrisons of CPC Central Committee after it moved to northern Shaanxi.As a land-scarce place,Jia County obviously had land concentration problem.Due to the high rent,the burdens of sharecroppers and landless peasants were much heavy.At the beginning of the outbreak of Liberation War in 1946,Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government adopted peaceful land reform policy,which was to acquire land from landlords by issuing land-based public debt,then sell debts to sharecroppers and landless peasants.By taking into account the interests of landlords and peasants,and continuing to maintain a united front relationship with small and medium-sized landowners,the problem of peasant land ownership was properly addressed.The attitudes of landlords and peasants towards peaceful land reform and land bond policy were complicated.Attitudes of landlords could be divided into three types:instinctively passive resistance,sincerely positive support,pretended positive support and self-interested seeking.After land acquisition,the attitudes of poor peasants were also complicated.The first type was active acquisition,grateful to the land reform policy of Communist Party of China;second was that some poor peasants who had not acquired good land were still dissatisfied with acquisition policy;third was those peasants who lost incapacity were unwilling to follow the policy or peasants who worried about"regime shift"were afraid to follow;fourth was peasants who used to rent more lands in the past,but had to return some of them,were dissatisfied with the policy.However,although the land problems of peasants were initially solved after the peaceful land reform,the land occupancy per landlords decreased,the land ownership relation continued to develop to the benefit of the poor peasants and farm labourer,there were still some problems.Landlords still occupied land with good quality and convenient locations,and the party ignored to fully mobilize peasants.The political and economic dislocation inevitably caused the abolition of peaceful land reform policy.After the promulgation of Chinese Land Law Outline in 1947,the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting in Yihe,and the Jia County Committee held a three-level cadre meeting to implement the spirit of the Central Land Conference and the Land Law Outline.The land reform in Jia County was widely over-intensified under the influence of"left"leaning concept of"do what the masses want to"and the impact from Jinsui border area.In Jia County,one's social class was determined by four factors,land occupancy,living condition,exploitation relation and origin.Some people were divided into improper social classes due to the three-generation family origin censor and the political attitude examination results;some people were deliberately classified into wrong social classes and all wealth were confiscated;some people were retaliated a personal hatred in the name of public interests.Through land reform,the arrogance of landlord class was dispelled,and peasants'class consciousness was raised.Peasants with little or no land generally acquired the land.The land ownership relation was once again changed to the benefit of peasants.However,the rich peasant class was over attacked,the interests of middle peasant class and part-time craftsmen and traders were violated.After the Northwest Bureau Yihe Conference and CPC Central Committee December Meeting,in order to solve the cadre problems that occurred in the land reform,Jia County carried out party rectification in public and private.In December1947,the CPC Central Committee held political bureau enlarged meeting in Yangjiagou,Mizhi County,making a decision to rectify deviation of the land reform.All classes in the rural area showed complexity of attitude to reform rectification in their own best interests.Landlords and rich peasants classes simmered below the surface,some even became audacious by fancying the"regime shift".Many poor peasants and farm laborers were negative to rectification policy,considered they would lose what they got from former reform.The middle peasants held most complicated attitudes;some breathed a sigh of relief due to the return and compensation policy;some haggled over their wrong treatment and resented poor peasants;some were afraid to become objects of reform again,so they gave out lands involuntarily.The land reform cadres who were overwhelmed by the policy changes must bear the mistakes and found themselves in awkward predicament.According to the central rectification policy,Jia County adopted a new method to redivide social classes,which was to make self-assessment and hold public discussion,crowdsource social opinions.Meanwhile,the government reorganized the poor peasant groups and associations,cleaned up bad cadres,absorbed activists,expanded mass organizations,and apologized to people being wrongly treated,returned the land,grains,and properties.Deviation and mistakes were over-all corrected,and social order was stabilized.In March 1950,peasants in Jia County obtained certificates of the land allocated to them.The land ownership was confirmed and the land reform was finally completed.Based on the case of Jia County,the in-depth exploration of its revolutionary and history archives,this dissertation breaks through the traditional"policy-effect"research paradigm and avoids policy descriptions,and explores the reasons why Chinese Communist Party won the revolution.This dissertation adopts the"New Revolutionary History"research method and country-society theory,which comprehensively applies the relevant knowledge and theory of many disciplines,including political science,sociology,psychology and historical anthropology.At the macro and micro level,this dissertation discusses land reform policies of the Communist Party of China during the Liberation War,and how these polices were carried out,implemented and changed at grass-root level in northern Shaanxi.It not only analyzes the mobilization methods for the CCP to lead farmers to carry out land reform,but also discusses how the peasants utilized the interaction and influence between traditional rural customs and CCP's land policies.By examining the tension between CCP's land reform policy and grassroots practice,it reveals the arduousness,tortuosity and complexity of the land reform in Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia old revolutionary base areas during the Liberation War.The case study confirms the general process and multi-faceted nature of the land reform in all old revolutionary base areas across the country.Through historical investigation of the whole process of land reform in Jia County during the War of Liberation,I believe that the land reform had changed the original land ownership relation in the countryside.The peasants had acquired land that they need for living,and the rural productivity was liberated after the confirmation of land right.The involvement of higher-level organizations is an important measure for strengthening construction of grass-root party organizations,not only for land reform and party rectification,but also the new time.It can supervise party organizations to implement the decisions of higher-level organizations,and also can effectively correct deviations during policy implementation.The timely rectification based on the interests of the people is an important part of CCP's mass movement and valuable experience gained during the period of the land reform.The local practice of land reform in Jia County was the result of"selective absorption"of policy by the rural grass-root political elites.The use of traditional rural culture such as clan relations and prestige is one of the ways by which CCP reformed the countryside.