Land Reform and Social Change in Rural China – 1949 to 1953

The first part of the decade (until 1953) was occupied reproducing ‘New Democracy’ in parts of China (now the PRC) that hadn’t previously been ruled by the CCP. To recap: ‘New Democracy’ was a compromise designed to ease the transition to real CCP rule. This ‘Democratic dictatorship of the people’ was actually based on the promotion of Sun Yat-sen’s ‘three principles of the people’ stated in 1924: national independence, democracy and livelihood. Theoretically, Mao considered this arrival at freedom from external powers, democracy and material well-being and equity a stage of revolution that amounted to the completion of a bourgeois nationalist democratic and capitalist revolution left undone by Sun and the GMD (and a preparatory stage for Marx’s socialist phase of development guided by the party and the later Communist revolution).

Above all, the country needed to be well run to achieve those three goals. The idea was that feudalism and imperialism should be ended in this first period throughout the country (uniting rural and urban nationalist Chinese as the mission of national industrialisation would unite the nationalist Chinese in its cities). Only major feudal landlords and compradors would be adversely affected.

Land reform became national but it began mildly as dictated by the ‘New Democracy’ policy.

Social reforms also occurred as the CCP found its feet aiming to successfully rule a large country for the first time and feed its people both in the country and in cities.

Purity of ideology was a problem as it would be for any ruler and this period of Chinese history demonstrates clearly the tension between political-economic theory and practice. Consolidation of power and the economy was the first priority for the first four or five years of CCP rule. By 1953, however, Mao considered that the usefulness of ‘New Democracy’ and Capitalism was at an end.

The first stage of land reform occurred between 1949 and 1951. The aim was firstly to eliminate the landlord class. Mao had defined all the classes in 1933. He defined the landlord as follows (Selected Works, Vol. 1, pp. 137-9):

A landlord is a person who owns land, does not engage in labour himself, or does so only to a very small extent, and lives by exploiting the peasants. The collection of land rent is his main form of exploitation; in addition, he may lend money, hire labour, or engage in industry or commerce. But his exaction of land rent from the peasants is his principal form of exploitation. ... Warlords, officials, local tyrants and evil gentry are political representatives and exceptionally ruthless members of the landlord class. Minor local tyrants and evil gentry are also very often to be found among the rich peasants [the nearest class to the landlords in Mao’s theory]...

The remaining aims were: to fulfil the promise of ‘land to the tiller’, to extend the CCP organisational structure throughout rural China, to improve the productivity of agriculture and to consolidate rural support for subsequent collectivisation among the natural constituency for radical anti-feudal rule and policy, the poorest of the peasants. The initial redistribution would benefit virtually everybody so it was expected to be a win-win for the revolution. Productivity did in fact increase in this initial period of ‘land to the tiller’ fulfilment (as would be expected when poor peasants could now work land of their own and thus most fully benefit from their labours – it’s basic Capitalism 101). Maurice Meisner called the resulting situation a petty bourgeois utopia par excellence in his history of Mao’s China and after, entitled aptly enough Mao’s China and After: a History of the People’s Republic.

The reform first required the definition of all the rural ‘players’ so that redistribution could be carried out according to formal and just rules. Mao’s landlord definition is above but he also defined rich peasants, upper middle peasants, lower middle peasants, poor peasants and (rural) workers. These labels were then handed down through the generations as though they were the indelible marks of Cain long after the ancestor had been well and truly made one of the dispossessed if he had been a landlord or made relatively rich if had been a rural worker or poor peasant (in fact this attitude persisted until the death of Mao two and a half decades later in 1976). Here are the remainder of Mao’s definitions from 1933 (note that he had not yet completely divided up the middle peasant class but mentions a well-to-do class of the middle peasants that tends to do some exploitation that would later become known as the upper middle peasant class):

The rich peasant as a rule owns land. But some rich peasants own only part of their land and rent the remainder. Others have no land of their own at all and rent all their land. The rich peasant generally has rather more and better implements of production and more liquid capital than the average and engages in labour himself, but always relies on exploitation for part or even the major part of his income. His main form of exploitation is the hiring of labour (long-term labourers). In addition, he ... exploits other peasants by means of land rent, loan interest or in other ways...

Many middle peasants own land. Some own only part of their land and rent the rest. Others own no land of their own at all and rent all their land. All of them have a fair number of farm implements. A middle peasant derives his income wholly or mainly from his own labour. As a rule he does not exploit others and in many cases he himself is exploited by others, having to pay a small amount in land rent and in interest on loans. But generally he does not sell his labour power. Some middle peasants (the well-to-do middle peasants) do practice exploitation to a small extent, but this is not their regular or their main source of income.

Among the poor peasants some own part of their land and have a few odd farm implements, others own no land at all but only a few odd farm implements. As a rule poor peasants have to rent the land they work on and are subjected to exploitation, having to pay land rent and interest on loans and to hire themselves out to some extent. In general, a middle peasant does not need to sell his labour power, while the poor peasant has to sell part of his labour power. This is the principal criterion for distinguishing between a middle and a poor peasant.

The worker (including the farm labourer) as a rule owns no land or farm implements, though some do own a very small amount of land and very few farm implements. Workers make their living wholly or mainly by selling their labour power.

Records (based on the household) from 1941 to 1945 for the central Chinese counties of Xinxin, Erlian, Zhangtang, Xinsi and Baishui indicate that, on a China-wide basis, around 5 to 10 % of China’s rural population were probably considered landlords. The breakdown for the other five classes is: 10% rich peasants, 15% upper middle peasants, 15% lower middle peasants, 50% poor peasants and 2% rural workers. Here are the actual 1941 to 1945 figures for those five counties (again the middle peasant class is not further subdivided here):

	Xinxin	Erlian	Zhangtang	Xinsi	Baishui
Landlord (%)	7.6	7.1	2.3	9.0	5.1
Rich Peasant (%)	4.8	3.5	7.0	10.0	9.0
Middle Peasant (%)	31.0	47.1	34.5	30.0	13.2
Poor Peasant (%)	40.0	34.0	50.5	51.0	72.2
Hired Hand (%)	16.6	2.2	3.6	0.0	Not Known
Other (%)	0.0	6.1	2.1	0.0	Not Known

The classes that were considered acceptably ‘red’ (revolutionary) to the CCP were the lower middle peasants, poor peasants and workers.

The classes having been decided upon in Mao’s theory it was the job of the CCP ‘work team’ (often attached to an advancing army group) to enter a village, contact and mobilise the ‘red classes’, especially, from among the peasants, and organise ‘struggle meetings’ to identify and publicly expose the local tyrants and landlords and their alleged ‘crimes’. Land and other property (including any cash) would then be redistributed fairly equally among the peasants. The party would then recruit members and staff for the local headquarters and form and arm a local ‘people’s militia’ to defend the revolution and police the reforms (many of these militias were also ultimately deployed to fight in the Korean War of the early 1950s). These actions followed the pattern the CCP had already established in areas as they came to control them before the final 1949 victory.

These reforms were accompanied by ‘consciousness raising’ exercises designed to extinguish any tendency to accept feudal norms including serious and systematic humiliations of the landlords (from the ‘struggle meetings’ on, aimed at starkly convincing everyone they no longer had any power at all as a class), destruction of the self-help lineage and clan groups (usually managed by a family member of the landlord class) and redistribution of their property (e.g. schools, temples and family benevolent organisations), banning of the ancestor worship (often promoted by the groups) and other religious practices deemed feudal, the liberation of concubines (concubinage was banned) and the unbinding of women’s bound feet (binding was also now banned). Former temples were often put to utilitarian use as warehouses. Let the petty bourgeois utopia begin!?! Utopia it may have appeared for many but around 2,000,000 people of the rural classes were killed during the reform process of these few years.