Study On The "Seizing Back Confiscated Property Cases" Of Landlords And Rich Peasant In L County In 1950s

This paper examined how the problems of political campaigns were responded at the local and grassroots level through an analysis on how the �Counterattack Cases� of landlords and rich peasants were dealt with in L County,Shandong Province in the 1950 s.In 1951,1955,and 1958,the People's Court of L County concentrated on dealing with the �Counterattack Cases� of landlords and rich peasants for three times in the first and second Campaigns to Suppress the Counterrevolutionaries and the Rural Socialist Education Campaign.�Counterattack Case� means that the landlords and rich peasants obtained some land after the land reform or bought,sold,pawned land,farm animals,farm tools and so on for profit.These behaviors involved complicated situations: some families of landlords and rich peasants ran away during the land reform and then returned to the village and obtained some land for farming with the consent of village officials;some profited from selling,replacing or pawning the land that was retained after the land reform;some sold their own livestock and farm tools;and some resold grains.These behaviors were deemed as "counterattack",and the offenders of "Counterattack Cases" tried in 1951 were almost convicted by past behaviors rather than current ones.The past behaviors mentioned here,with the exception of a few,were not the so-called "political and historical issues",but the economic behaviors of several years before the campaign.Tracing back to the past misdeeds during political campaigns for conviction can be viewed as an action of "settling old scores".In 1955 and 1958,the offenders of �Counterattack Cases� tried at that time were mostly convicted of current behaviors and it could be described as �seizing the current�,which did not only mean that the offenders had current �counterattack� behavior,but also included the offenders' resistance to current policies.By summarizing the trial logic of �Counterattack Cases� in different periods of the 1950 s,the author expects to present the complex orientation of the contemporary judicial practices at the grassroots level.