During the initial period of the Jiangxi Soviet, the CCP enacted its most radical land programmes when it began seizing the land of the landlords and rich peasants and distributing it to the middle and poor peasants. But maximising food production in an isolated community imposed limits on seizure and redivision of the land, and the lands of the rich peasants were soon protected.
In Yenan between 1937 and 1945, for the sake of the Anti-Japanese United Front with Chiang Kai-shek, the Stalinists renounced the revolutionary content in their agrarian programme and proclaimed themselves defenders of private property both in land and in industry. They declared their opposition to the expropriation of landlords (save those that had collaborated with the Japanese) and limited the peasant struggle to the reformist demands of lower rents (reduced by 25% but to be no more than 37.5% of the crop) and lower interest rates (less than 15% annually).[33] These reforms were important and their implementation greatly improved the lives of the peasantry, saving many from starvation, but the Stalinists did not use them as a means to build a revolutionary movement, rather to put a brake on it.[34]
After Japan’s surrender, cadres in the liberated areas found it difficult to square Party policy with the demands of the peasants who wanted revolutionary seizure of the land. In many villages where the 8th Route Army had only a notional presence, even the rich peasants rose spontaneously against the landlords and those who had collaborated with the Japanese. The peasants demanded a settlement of scores and in many cases this meant killing the landlords, but it always meant seizing their land.[35] So fierce was this movement that CCP cadres hid as peasants settled accounts and took revenge. Where they could, the landlords fought back, relying on thousand-year-old traditions and strong arm tactics. Some succeeded in forcing the peasants to momentarily take a step back, but new peasant leaders invariably stepped up to replace those who had been murdered, and led the masses forward.
With the breakdown of the truce and the advance of the Nationalist army during 1946-47, the CCP re-appraised and radicalised its agrarian programme, and acknowledged that the peasants were not satisfied with the reformist People’s Front policy. Under attack from KMT armies and pressured by the peasants, the CCP effected a left turn in its agrarian policy. During late 1946 a great show would be made of bringing landlords and rich peasants who had collaborated with the Japanese before village meetings where they would be judged, and if found guilty their lands seized and divided.[36] The CCP put on a radical face by seizing landlords’ “excess” land, holdings more than twice that of a middle peasant. Hinton has described in some detail how in individual villages, inexperienced cadre could be swept along by the general mood and take measures popular with the peasants – all landlords would have all their lands re-distributed. But official CCP policy still stopped well short of general land reform and these actions would later be condemned by the CCP leadership as “extreme leftism.”[37]
The CCP was on the horns of a dilemma, Mao had to explain why the Party had to balance between opposing forces and how to control dissent. Reforms were needed to arouse enthusiasm for the war effort which was good, but cadres had to ensure that the enthusiasm did not spill over into land expropriation, which was bad. To avoid this, the reforms must be modest: “this is not the time for a thorough agrarian revolution … our present policy should stipulate that the landlords shall reduce rent and interest, for this serves to arouse enthusiasm of the basic peasant masses …, but the reductions should not be too great.”[38] The hope of a Popular Front alliance with the KMT was more important to Mao than the demands of the peasant masses for land.
“Land to the Tiller” and the expropriation of pre-capitalist landholders has been the core demand of bourgeois revolutions, beginning with the French Revolution of 1789. In China, official CCP policy was that the distributed land was personal property with title deeds supplied by the government and its re-sale was permitted. Thus, the seizure and distribution of land was not the end of class divisions in the countryside, merely a new starting point. Richer peasants were allowed to buy land confiscated from the landowners, and hence take the first step to being a landlord, perpetuating the very practices that were supposedly being abolished.
The measures deliberately provided landlords with ways to evade the worst effects of land reform. For example, Mao insisted that the rich peasants and landlords who co-operated (i.e. by donating the least fertile part of their lands to the peasants’ association as a token of co-operation) should be treated leniently, could retain their moveable property, and should be left enough land to cultivate with family labour (just the policy which caused the Futian incident). The families of communist soldiers and cadres were allowed to retain 50-100% more land than the standard holding. This meant in practice that many landlords could retain most, if not all, their best land by sending one son to serve in the PLA. As land reform progressed it became increasingly clear that the most needy were benefitting least.[39]
In April 1947, Liu Shaoqi carried out a survey and found that in the Chin-Sui Border Region after two years of land reform, re-distribution had been fully satisfactory in only 200 of 1,500 villages. Many poor peasants remained without land. As part of its Popular Front policies the CCP had encouraged rich peasants in the rural base areas to join the Party, and Liu concluded that landlord and rich peasant elements had infiltrated into village Party branches, peasants’ associations, and local militias, and had successfully limited the land reform measures.[40] This was due not only to the limited nature of the land expropriations but also because many of those in authority, having acquired the best land and larger areas of land for themselves by underhand and/or dishonest methods, had little interest in continuing the process.
The CCP attempted to solve the problem with a ‘Wash Your Face’ campaign, the major aims being for higher cadres to persuade local cadres to give up some or all of their illicit gains, to restore party discipline and correct the errant behaviour of hooligan elements within the Party and militias.
In northern China the fluid nature of the fighting first against the Japanese army and then against the KMT and the ming tuan, meant that despite any official truces, a guerrilla war continued unabated with local militias the first line of defence of many villages. In the first stage of liberation there was a justified gratitude towards the militias which expressed itself, for example, as the provision of free meals. Unfortunately, given the political level of the militias and the Stalinist nature of many of these groups, in numerous villages this became the start of a creeping corruption.
One of the first tasks of the militiamen was to question landlords to identify who were KMT personnel and agents-provocateurs. The nature of the relationship between landlord and peasant, its intimacy, its casual cruelty and violence meant that the questioning sessions had a revenge element and often degenerated into beating the suspects, many of whom died as a result. Many landlords and their sons fled leaving their wives and daughters. Very rapidly rape became common practice. Soon it was being used against middle and poor peasant families who raised objections or awkward questions. All too often the militia moved from being a scourge of the gentry to being a scourge of the peasants. Too often the militia commanders were CCP members who closed their eyes to what was going on. Hinton explained that the Wash Your Face Campaign was an attempt to clear out these local despots.
As part of the campaign the conduct of all CCP cadres was to be reviewed at village meetings where the peasants were allowed to raise what criticisms they wanted with the promise that those cadres whose behaviour was unacceptable would be ejected from the Party. Initially, the process appeared to be working well and many cadres were suspended from the CCP, some even being held in jail. However, the criticisms of the CCP rapidly escalated to an extent that the leadership hurriedly intervened to bring the process to an end.[41] Simultaneously, the CCP understood it would soon be the national government and feared the Wash Your Face Campaign could undermine Party cohesion and discipline. Soon, most of the cadres who had been criticised and even those jailed were re-integrated into the Party. The first part of the Wash Your Face campaign was widely trumpeted to further establish Mao’s populist credentials, the final outcome kept quiet.
On 10 October 1947, soon after the Nationalists had seized Yenan and in a move to the Left to firm up its peasant support, the CCP adopted the Outline Land Law. This law was to be uniformly and rigorously enforced in those areas controlled by the PLA. This law formally sanctioned “Land to the Tiller” (Article 1), and provided for expropriation of landlords’ and rich peasants’ properties without compensation (Article 3). However, sequestered land was to be distributed so that each person in the village would own an equivalent area. It was intended that poor peasants would benefit, middle peasants would remain much the same but rich peasants and landlords would lose. Importantly the Land Law cancelled all prior debts (Article 4), but expressly permitted the unhindered transfer of money to invest in commercial or industrial enterprises (Article 12).[42]
Landlords and their family members would each receive an equal share, KMT soldiers would receive an equal share, even the family members of collaborators.[43] Party cadres in the village peasants’ associations were empowered and entrusted to implement the agrarian reform. They did this mainly though ad hoc “people’s tribunals” which were meetings of the entire village (Article 13).
Stalinism is an inherently corrupt system based on privilege, so the new land reform programme was often distorted to the benefit of Party members just as the previous land reforms had been. The many Party members from landowning families who had penetrated the ranks of the Party over the past decade were now joined by cadres who had become middle or even rich peasants. The Open Letter to the Members of the Party, published in January 1948 by the Central Committee of the Shansi-Shantung-Hunan region, described the situation: “…a section of the party membership … is composed of landowners and rich peasants who are protecting the property of their families and relatives” and in some areas “these elements occupy most of the positions in our party … (our) agrarian reform … policy appears to reflect the views of the landowners and the rich peasants.”[44]
During the war with Japan, outside of the CCP-controlled areas, concentration of land ownership advanced at a greatly accelerated rate. At the start of the war the Chinese village was already facing destitution; within KMT areas it emerged from the war completely ruined. Small, middle and even some rich peasants had to borrow to feed their families and as a result were largely bankrupted. Huge tracts of land fell into the hands of the big landlords, village usurers, officers of the Nationalist army, and local KMT officials, all of whom had close ties with the banking capitalists.[45]
At the end of the war with Japan, land ownership took a new and dramatic turn. The leading circles of the murderous and foully corrupt Kuomintang government were determined to enrich themselves no matter what the social cost. Using state-owned companies the government began to nationalise the land of collaborators in territories previously occupied by Japan, dispossessing large numbers of peasants and creating a new layer of speculators and parasitic owners. The breakdown of civil society due to the complete disorganisation of the KMT regime was completed by the severe drought of the summer of 1945. Villages in KMT areas were virtually depopulated as millions of peasants died of hunger. The situation was rapidly escalating towards the classic conditions for widespread peasant rebellion.
As the Nationalist armies collapsed it became clear that the CCP would soon form a government. The blueprint for the economy was to be Mao’s New Democracy which meant the nationalisation of only:
“the big banks and the big industrial and commercial enterprises … the republic will neither confiscate capitalist private property in general nor forbid the development of such capitalist production as does not ‘dominate the livelihood of the people’…. A rich peasant economy will be allowed in the rural areas. Such is the policy of ‘equalisation of land ownership’.”[46]
The official Party line was further elaborated in a speech by Jen Pi-shih on 12 January 1948 opposing hostile treatment of landlords because it might “adversely affect the productive labour force in the countryside.”[47]
With governmental power near at hand, the party leadership swung hard to the Right. Only three months after the introduction of the Outline Land Law, Jen Pi-shih demanded an end to land re-distribution until the peasants had been properly educated. Six days later, Mao himself weighed in against “left excesses”, urging that “newly rich peasants” in the liberated areas should be treated as “middle peasants”, that former landlords and rich peasants could be reclassified as middle or poor peasants, that no one should pursue landlords into the towns, that poor peasant associations should be compelled to admit rich peasants, landlords and the enlightened gentry:
“there has been an erroneous emphasis on ‘doing everything as the masses want it done’ … one-sidedly propagating a poor peasant-farm labourer line … the democratic government should listen (to) the middle peasants, the independent craftsmen, the national bourgeoisie and the intellectuals.”[48]
This change in line was ideologically driven. The combined strength of the PLA, over 90% of the peasants, students and workers was more than sufficient to take power against KMT forces that were dissolving. But the CCP had the perspective of revolution by stages and this schema was now artificially imposed on the actual revolution.
The turn in land policy required local cadre conferences to explain the new line. There was great confusion in the ranks of the Party and a substantial degree of hostility. To sweeten the pill the leadership instructed that henceforth the families of cadres would receive the same support as those of soldiers fighting at the front. Cadres would now be released from a substantial burden and freed to concentrate on Party work. Those who had been found to have stolen goods during the land re-distribution would face no charges if they returned the goods. Those cadres still being held in jail on, e.g. rape charges, would be freed on making an apology.[49]
As the PLA moved into the southern provinces, the limitations of the new policy conflicted with the wishes of the peasants. The most serious problems were in Hunan where, before Party cadres could intervene to stop them, the peasants’ associations expropriated the landlords’ lands and the people’s tribunals handed down death penalties. Here class war was labelled a “left deviation” and Communist leaders called for moderation, but seizure and redistribution of land and harsh treatment of the landlords and rich peasants continued in many liberated areas.[50]
In the spring of 1948, Mao insisted that in the areas which had newly come under PLA control there was no urgency in introducing agrarian reforms which should, in any case, be carried through only on condition that the “Party cadres were adequate both in numbers and quality to grasp the work of land reform and must not leave it to the spontaneous activity of the masses.”[51] On 24 August 1948, the New China News Agency officially announced that the existing agrarian reform programme was ending and from then on the peasants would have to be satisfied with a reduction of rent, taxes and interest to usurers (Chao Kuo-chun, Op. cit.). The cut back in land reform derived directly from the class collaborationist approach of New Democracy.
Officially, policy returned to reducing rents and interest rates and the Stalinists showed the other side of their political face. As in Yenan, rents and interest rates were reduced so as not to exceed 37.5% of the crop and less than 15% respectively, but now the CCP and PLA enforced payment to the landlords and village usurers. By these means, the Communists attempted to prove to the landlords and capitalists that they were better and more efficient defenders of private property than the KMT, in the hope this would enable an alliance with the ‘national’ section of the bourgeoisie.[52]
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Chao Kuo-chun, Agrarian Policy of the Chinese Communist Party Asia Publishing House. 1960.
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Glass, China … Op. cit.
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Tanaka Kyoko, The Civil War and Radicalization of the Chinese Communist Agrarian Policy, 1945-1947, Papers on Far Eastern History, No. 8, 1973, p49-114.
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Sullivan, W. Land Reform Plans in China, Far Eastern Survey, 1950, 19(4)33-38.
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Hinton, Op. cit. p573.
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Mao Zedong, On Policy, 25 December 1940, SW II, p.446.
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Tanaka Kyoko, Mao and Liu in the 1947 Land Reform, The China Quarterly, No. 75, 1978, p566-593.
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Ibid.
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Hinton, Op. cit. p281-2.
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Hsieh Yueh, Mao Tse-tung’s “Revolution”, Report on Chinese Stalinism, 1949, w.m.org.
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Saich, T. The Rise to Power of the CCP, Sharpe, 1996, p1295-8.
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Hsieh Yueh, Op. cit.
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Glass, China … Op. cit.
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Mao Zedong, New Democracy, 1940, w.m.org.
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Shao-Chuan Leng, Pre-1949 Development of the Communist Chinese System of Justice, The China Quarterly, No. 30, 1967, p93-114.
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Wang Fanxi, Op cit.
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Hinton, Op. cit. p572-583.
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Shao-Chuan Leng, Op. cit..
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Wang Fanxi, Op. cit.
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Glass, China … Op. cit.