After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, why did the Communist Party of China overthrow the Kuomintang army, which was armed to the teeth, in only three years? There are many reasons, but the land reform movement of the Communist Party of China is also an important reason. The redistribution of resources through agrarian reform has established a relationship between the Communist Party and the peasants as a community of interests and a community of shared future; selective incentives for supporting the army and giving preference to family members have overcome the "free-riding" dilemma of collective action; and the application of various micro-mobilization techniques has eliminated specific obstacles to the process of mobilizing and joining the army. As a result, the Communist Party not only succeeded in obtaining the human resources needed for the war, but also integrated the vast number of peasants into the system of state power, successfully achieving the goal of rural governance. The agrarian reform movement during the War of Liberation did a good job of fulfilling its political mission of mobilizing the people and absorbing resources in order to win the war. To this end, I interviewed veteran cadres who had participated in the land reform movement in several major liberated areas.
The veteran general who participated in the land reform in the Central Plains Liberated Area told me:
In the early days of the Chinese Liberation War, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) completed a counterattack in strength in just three years in the face of the huge gap in the Kuomintang's modern armaments, and land reform became the key to this great victory. In the 5,000-year history of agrarian civilization, Chinese peasants worked hard, but they were deeply exploited by the feudal land system. Before the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the landlords owned most of the land, and the poor peasants had a difficult life. In order to break the shackles of this feudal land system, the Communist Party of China issued the "Instructions on the Land Question" on May 4, 1946, and launched a large-scale land reform campaign in the liberated areas of the country. In Tohoku, the movement was particularly rapid, as Japanese colonial rule led to massive land annexations and miserable peasant life. The implementation of the agrarian reform enabled the poor peasants to turn over and break the shackles of the feudal land system. In the Northeast, peasants organized self-defense units, armed uprisings, defending the fruits of their land. Women were active in the land reform process, improving their social status and becoming the leaders of the land reform task force.
This agrarian reform movement had a profound impact on the war of liberation. The peasants joined the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to defend their land, and in the early days of the Liberation War, when the PLA was seriously understaffed, an important role in land reform was played. In the northeast, the entry of peasants provided solid logistical support for the PLA and laid the foundation for the later Armageddon. During the War of Liberation, more than 2 million Kuomintang soldiers surrendered to join the PLA, and land reform was the key reason for their defection. When the peasants heard that their hometown had been allocated land, they joined the People's Liberation Army one after another, and the victory of the Liberation War was unstoppable. To sum up, land reform became the source of the miracle of the Liberation War, breaking the feudal shackles and stimulating the fighting power of the peasants. This great historical change not only changed the fate of the peasants, but also wrote a glorious chapter in the War of Liberation.
The veteran general who participated in the land reform in the Hebei, Shandong, and Henan liberated areas told me with a smile:
The Kuomintang soldiers were still fighting, and when they heard that their hometown had been allocated land, they collectively defected. He said: In modern history, land reform is an important turning point in the course of China's history. For the peasants, who have been oppressed by the landlord class for a long time, land is the foundation of their survival and the most basic right they pursue. For thousands of years, farmers worked the land, however, their harvest was often usurped by the landlords, causing them to starve and cold. Agrarian reform, on the other hand, aims to break down this structure of inequality so that peasants can truly benefit from their labor.
In June 1946, when the Chinese Liberation War officially broke out, the background was complex and far-reaching. In terms of military strength, the size of the Kuomintang army at that time far exceeded that of the Communist Party. The Kuomintang had a massive military force of nearly 4.3 million, including the army, air force, navy, and irregular army. In contrast, the total strength of the PLA is about 1.27 million, including both field and local troops.
In the early days of the war, due to superiority in troops, equipment, and experience, the Kuomintang army won on multiple battlefields, forcing the PLA to make a strategic retreat. But as time went on, the tide of the battle gradually changed. By 1948, the PLA had achieved a major victory in the Liaoshen Campaign, and the Kuomintang troops began to appear demoralized and surrendered.
So why is this big shift happening?
First, the agrarian reform strategy played a key role. When the Kuomintang soldiers learned that the land in their homeland was beginning to be redistributed to the peasants, they had deep doubts about the meaning of the war. Many soldiers began to express dissatisfaction with the rule of the Kuomintang government, choosing to surrender or switch sides.
Second, the PLA's humane policy towards captured and surrendered soldiers has also won the hearts of the vast number of soldiers. Unlike the Kuomintang's harsh treatment, the PLA treated them more humanely. Those who were willing to join the PLA were accepted, while those who did not want to stay were given financial support to return home. This policy effectively reduced hostilities and attracted large numbers of Kuomintang troops to join the PLA.
In the context of the Chinese Liberation War, in addition to the regular army, countless peasants and young people also came forward to fight for the establishment of New China. According to the data, 1.48 million peasants volunteered to participate in the war in the liberated areas of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, while 590,000 enthusiastic young people in Shandong participated in the war, not to mention the 7 million migrant workers who worked the front line.
This kind of military-civilian cooperation is extremely rare in China's long history. This not only endowed the PLA with tremendous manpower and material support, but also created a solid social foundation for its victory.
After receiving the full support of the broad masses of the people, the PLA gradually changed the passive situation in the early stage of the war, and on the contrary, put the Kuomintang army at a disadvantage and gradually retreated to the south bank of the Yangtze River. At this point, Chiang Kai-shek gradually realized that the situation was not good, and he began to plan a retreat, intending to abandon the southern troops and turn to Taiwan.
The rapid turn of the war was inseparable from the land reform of the time. In 1946, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a clear directive on the land question. After the National Agrarian Conference of 1947, large-scale agrarian reform began in the liberated areas. These reform measures have won the hearts and minds of many peasants and provided them with abundant logistical resources.
When the Battle of Eastern Henan broke out in June 1948, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) successfully annihilated more than 90,000 Kuomintang troops with its strong popular will and strategy. By April 1949, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had bravely crossed the Yangtze River and successfully liberated Nanjing, finally ending the Kuomintang's rule on the mainland, despite not having the upper hand in equipment and troops.
However, during this time, due to the devastation of the war and a variety of other factors, the food supply in Chinese society was very tight. In 1946, the average person had access to only 200 kilograms of food, far less than normal subsistence needs. This harsh environment made life very difficult for the peasants, and they were anxious about hunger, but even so, they still firmly supported the People's Liberation Army and contributed to the establishment of New China.
On the eve of China's liberation, the land issue was a major factor affecting rural stability. More than two-thirds of the country's arable land is occupied by landlords and kulaks, who, although they make up a small proportion of the rural population, control the vast majority of the land resources. In contrast, most farmers can barely survive on a very small amount of land, and their total land holdings are less than 30 percent. As a result, farmers are generally living below the poverty line, and China's overall economy is sluggish, as evidenced by its GDP per capita data – much lower than in India over the same period.
In order to break this serious land inequality, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a new land policy on May 4, 1946, which explicitly stated that the landlords' land should be confiscated and redistributed to the peasants. The aim is to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and improve the living standards of farmers.
However, the implementation of land reform has not been without its challenges. Some peasants have been affected by feudal thinking for a long time and have doubts or do not understand land reform. This has led to certain difficulties in the promotion of reform.
In the winter of 1944, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China sent Li Xingmin to Jiyang, Shandong Province, to guide the peasant associations and mobilize the peasants to participate in the struggle against the landlords. The task facing Li Xingmin was very arduous, because in addition to the obstruction of the landlords, it was also necessary to solve the doubts and incomprehensions of the peasants.
In order to better solve these problems, Li Xingmin decided to hold a peasant seminar in Anzipo Village. It is reported that in the past 30 years, the village has been reduced from more than 90 households to only 27 households due to long-term exploitation and oppression by landlords. Families are broken up, people are lost, and some are even too poor to start a family. If this situation does not change, Anzipo Village may gradually disappear in the future.
During the seminar, many peasants were deeply touched by the descriptions of Lao Changgong, and they began to truly realize the importance and urgency of land reform. After a series of propaganda and mobilization, the peasants of Anzipo Village finally stood at the forefront of the land reform, and participated in this historic reform for their own future and the prosperity and development of the whole country.
In the process of promoting agrarian reform, in order to better popularize the meaning and purpose of reform, organizations at all levels have actively carried out propaganda to ensure that people have a deep understanding of the root causes of poverty and unify their thinking. However, this does not mean that the road to reform will be smooth sailing, and all kinds of external and internal obstacles are difficult problems that will test the determination and wisdom of reformers.
When the PLA and Kuomintang forces were at a critical juncture in the war, they shouldered the heavy responsibility of ensuring the smooth progress of land reform, in addition to the continuous military struggle. By the time the Huaihai Campaign broke out, land reform was already surging in large areas of the liberated areas.
The Kuomintang soldiers and junior officers had the same background as the PLA. Most of them were born into peasant families oppressed by the feudal system and were forcibly conscripted into the army by the Kuomintang, but in fact, the pain in their hearts was no different from that of the People's Liberation Army. When the peasants in the liberated areas sent letters sharing the good news of their homeland's rural reform, the perseverance of these soldiers began to waver.
In the ranks of the People's Liberation Army, there are many such national army transformers. They have chosen to stand with their fellow citizens for a better future. For them, it was more meaningful to be able to go home, to have a piece of land that truly belonged to them, than to fight for a Kuomintang regime that was already in turmoil.
By 1949, when the War of Liberation had won a decisive victory, land reform was spread throughout the country. This gigantic project enabled more than 300 million peasants to truly own the land they deserved and no longer be oppressed by the landlords. China's countryside began to usher in a real new life, and a series of feudal exploitation methods such as land rent and usury gradually disappeared.
The peasants of the new China can finally puff out their chests, they are no longer slaves who are subject to the control of others, but the masters of the new era. In order to further stabilize the countryside and ensure the interests of farmers, the Chinese government has formulated a series of policies that have laid a solid foundation for national construction in the next five years.
The land reform movement in the liberated areas was a large-scale land system reform movement carried out by the poor peasants led by the Communist Party of China in the vast liberated areas during the War of Liberation.
By the winter of 1946, the land reform movement was being carried out in all liberated areas of Hebei where the environment was permitted. In February 1947, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Central Bureau held a meeting to report on land reform work, which conscientiously summarized the land reform movement since the implementation of the "May Fourth Instructions", found out the deficiencies while affirming the achievements, and put forward the task of review. After the meeting, Jizhong, Jijin, Jidong, Chahar and other places began to review the land reform. From July to September 1947, the Communist Party of China convened a national land conference in Xibaipo Village, Pingshan County, Hebei Province, which was presided over by Liu Shaoqi, secretary of the Central Working Committee. The meeting summed up the experience of land reform in the previous period, formulated and adopted the "Outline of China's Land Law" for the thorough implementation of land reform, and officially promulgated it on October 10 with the approval of the CPC Central Committee. It stipulates: "Abolish the land system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation and introduce a land system in which the cultivators own their land", "abolish the land ownership rights of all landlords", "the village peasant associations shall take over the livestock, farm implements, houses, grain and other property of the landlords, and expropriate the surplus of the above-mentioned property of the rich peasants". All the landlords' land and public land in the village shall be taken over by the village peasant associations, and all other land in the village shall be distributed equally according to the whole population of the village, regardless of men, women, and children, and the amount of land shall be drawn to make up for the deficiency, and the quantity of land shall be drawn to make up for the deficiency, so that the people of the whole village will receive equal land and shall belong to each person." In light of their specific conditions, the major liberated areas have also formulated supplementary regulations for the implementation of the "Outline of China's Land Law," stipulating the steps, methods, and specific policies for land reform. At this point, the agrarian reform movement was rapidly set off in the vast rural areas of the liberated areas.
In December 1947, Mao Zedong published "The Present Situation and Our Tasks", and in January 1948, Ren Bishi published "Several Problems in Land Reform" to correct the "leftist" bias in the land reform movement. On April 1, 1948, Mao Zedong delivered a speech at the Jinsui Cadres Conference, proposing that the general line of land reform was: relying on the poor peasants, uniting the middle peasants, eliminating the feudal exploitation system step by step and distinctly, and developing agricultural production. In this way, the land policy of the Communist Party of China during the War of Liberation was more complete, and the land reform movement developed more healthily.
The land reform movement in the liberated areas satisfied the land demands of the vast number of peasants, aroused the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses at the bottom, gave the liberation war a source of political, economic, and military strength, and effectively guaranteed the victory of the people's liberation war. During the War of Liberation, land reform was carried out in areas with an agricultural population of 145 million, the feudal exploitation system was eliminated, and "the tiller has his land." After the founding of the People's Republic of China, land reform was carried out in the new district, which has a population of 3100000.
Director Chen, who specializes in land reform in the liberated areas of Shandong, told me that since the beginning of the 20 th century, unprecedented historical changes have taken place in China's rural society, and the land reform movement led by the Communist Party is a crucial link in it. Different from the nationwide land reform after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the land reform in the liberated areas before the founding of the People's Republic of China was carried out against the background of fierce competition between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. In order to meet the needs of the war, the Communist Party should arouse the enthusiasm of the broad masses of peasants for political participation and their hatred of the Kuomintang through extensive and in-depth mass movements, with the help of such means as complaining grievances and settling accounts, so as to turn them into a powerful supporting force for the party; it must also draw a large amount of economic resources (public grain, field endowments, etc.) and human resources (conscription, war service, etc.) from the rural society with the help of the political legitimacy obtained by land redistribution, so as to lay a solid material foundation for winning the war.
As for the land reform movement during the Liberation War, scholars have accumulated quite a wealth of research results, some of which describe the evolution and implementation of the CCP's land policy from the national level, some of which focus on the practice of land reform at the grassroots level and the operation of power from the village level, some of which discuss the importance of land reform to the development of agricultural economy from an economic perspective, and some of which analyze the profound impact of land reform on the change of rural power from a political perspective. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between land reform and the CCP's resource extraction. With the help of existing research results and archival materials, I explore the relationship between land reform and the military movement during the Liberation War from the perspective of rational choice, in order to reveal one aspect of the political operation in the process of China's communist revolution.
1. Land reform: the construction of a community of interests and a shared future
The land reform in the liberated areas was carried out in a state of war, and the main purpose of the Communist Party's resource draw was to provide the necessary human and material support for the war, which became the most urgent and direct national will during the land reform period. Both the Communist Party itself and later researchers regarded war mobilization as the primary goal of land reform during the War of Liberation. On May 4, 1946, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China promulgated the "Instructions on the Land Question" (i.e., the "May Fourth Instructions"), which officially changed the policy of "rent reduction and interest reduction" during the Anti-Japanese War to "the tiller has his land", which marked the full development of the land reform movement in the liberated areas. Four days later, Mao Zedong emphasized in his speech on the CCP's land policy, "If the land problem is solved in the liberated areas with a population of 10,000,000,000, the people in the liberated areas will be able to support the struggle for a long time without getting tired." After the civil war officially broke out, Mao Zedong once again pointed out that "wherever the Central Committee's instructions of 4 May were resolutely and swiftly carried out and the land question was thoroughly and thoroughly resolved, the peasants stood together with our party and our army against Chiang's attack," while the peasants "stood on the sidelines."
Many researchers have also noted the important role that agrarian reform played in the war of liberation. Zhou Xirui pointed out that one of the important reasons for the PLA's military victory was that the land reform consolidated the peasants' support for the CPC. Huang Zongzhi believes that starting from military strategy, a village divided into two poles by the class struggle is more likely to provide all kinds of resources needed for war, so class division is actually a powerful weapon to win the war. Han Ding, an American who once participated in the land reform in North China as a member of the task force, also wrote in his usual enthusiastic tone:
In the final analysis, however, the final victory depended on the willing support of millions of peasants for the revolution. The key here is the land issue. As soon as their land was acquired, thousands of peasants would voluntarily join the regular army, and they would provide convoys and stretcher teams for the front, while at the same time organizing irregular fighting units everywhere in the liberated areas. The ownership of land not only inspires in the common people at the front and in the rear a determination that can hardly be shaken by any terror or frustration, but also enables the masses of the people to exert their boundless creativity and make great efforts to harass and ambush the enemy commanders. Land ownership is the basis for the formation of a soundproof wall that blocks the eyes and ears of the enemy and cuts off the enemy's intelligence, and it enables both regular and irregular revolutionary forces to concentrate, disperse, attack, and retreat with flexibility and freedom. In short, it was only when the peasants' need for land was met that they could develop enthusiasm and unity in the years to come.
In terms of the nature and ease of resource extraction, there is a large difference between the extraction of economic resources and the absorption of human resources. During the War of Liberation, although the burden of public grain and land endowment increased compared with before, the CCP's economic resources were not met with much resistance through the fairness of the distribution of burdens and the effective control of the expropriation process. In contrast, it is much more difficult to absorb human resources, because in the small-scale peasant economic system, the shortage of labor has always been one of the basic reasons restricting agricultural production in North China, and the fact that a large number of young and middle-aged laborers join the army or leave their husbands is bound to seriously affect the normal operation of agricultural production; on the other hand, directly participating in the war means putting one's own life in danger, which will naturally make the vast number of peasants see it as a daunting path. Therefore, the completion of the conscription task often shows the strong mobilization ability and superb political skills of the Communist Party.
Although both the Communist Party and the Kuomintang drew human resources from the rural society for the needs of the war, the logic of the two sides was very different. Under the subjective and objective conditions of having the backing of force and being in a time of war, the Communist Party can unconditionally accomplish these tasks by coercive means, but this practice is greatly restricted by two aspects: First, it runs counter to the ideology of the Communist Party itself and will seriously damage the legitimacy of its power; second, in order to ensure the fulfillment of its tasks, it must invest a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources to carry out and supervise it, and excessive costs will make the absorption of resources outweigh the losses. Therefore, in the military and political struggle with the Kuomintang, the Communist Party paid more attention to the support of the people and the legitimacy of its rule, and also paid attention to the strong ideological factor in the resource extraction of rural society, not only to obtain public grain, soldiers, and labor from the countryside, but also to try to gain the understanding and recognition of the peasants through the exchange of interests and propaganda and education, so as to seek the maximum legitimacy for this acquisition. Agrarian reform is the best means to achieve this goal. As one agrarian reform dossier put it, "The vast number of peasants can get enough land to be with us and defend their interests." "The basic strategy of the Communist Party in carrying out war mobilization is to translate its will into the will of the peasants through the ideological propaganda and material interests of the agrarian reform movement, so as to greatly reduce the resistance from the rural society and reduce the cost of resource extraction. According to the logic of "what you want to take, you must first deal with it", the Communist Party first deprived the original rural elite of all kinds of resources through forceful redistribution, and distributed them to the peasants, who made up the vast majority of the rural population, free of charge. From this, we can call for "consolidating the fruits of victory" and "defending the fruits of turnover" and logically turn the party's military and political needs into the needs of the peasants' own interests and security.
On the one hand, the Communist Party transferred the land and property of the traditional elite to the peasants without compensation by means of forceful redistribution, but the vast number of peasants knew very well that this redistribution must be premised on the military and political superiority of the Communist Party, and once this superiority was lost, the fruits of redistribution would be lost. Only by helping the Communists win the war could the peasants have the land property and political status they had just gained for a long time. This has formed a relationship of community of interests between the Communist Party and the peasants. In his analysis of land reform in Bolivia, Huntington pointed out that "peasant ownership of land makes them closely related to the prosperity and stability of the country", so land reform has a great stabilizing effect on the political system. What is pointed out here is precisely the community of interests that the land reform has built between the state and the peasants. In order to keep the land given to them by the state, the peasants had to pay a certain price to preserve their interests, which were stable and prosperous for the country in peacetime, and military and political superiority for the revolutionary parties in war, over the enemy.
On the other hand, the agrarian reform was carried out in the form of violent struggle on the basis of unprecedented class differentiation and class antagonism, and the traditional elite was not only deprived of their property, but also their political power, social status, personal dignity and even the safety of their lives, so that the contradictions and hatred between them and the peasants were pushed to the point that they could not be alleviated. In the course of land reform, leading institutions at all levels have repeatedly stressed that it is necessary to urge the peasants to "tear their faces against the landlords" through such means as complaining grievances and settling accounts, resulting in face-to-face struggles. To use the common saying in the land reform file, it is not only necessary to let the farmers "turn over", but also let the farmers "turn their hearts". In this situation, the American scholar Fan Lipei said very clearly: "Every action makes the next one easier, and cuts off the way out." A tenant, fearing reprisals or in order to maintain social harmony, may secretly pay the landlord the landlord's unreduced rent for a while. But once he had loudly reprimanded the landlord at the struggle meeting, he might have no way out. "The peasants have no way out, and their only choice is to stand firmly on the side of the Communist Party, because once the Communist Party loses on the battlefield, the peasants will lose not only the fruits of the struggle, but also face severe retaliation from the traditional elite, and they will not be able to return to their original state of life. This has formed a relationship of a community with a shared future between the Communist Party and the peasants.
Through various forms of propaganda, education, and guidance, the Communist Party succeeded in weaving the landlords in the villages and the Kuomintang on the battlefield into a unity, and the victory or defeat of the war determined the common interests and common destiny of the Communist Party and the peasants. In the phrase often used within the party, the will of the party and the state was transformed into "the demands of the broad masses of peasants" and thus gained unprecedented legitimacy.
2. Supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to family members: overcoming the dilemma of collective action
The construction of the relationship between the party and the peasants in the community of interests and the community of destiny has won the legitimacy of the Communist Party's resource extraction that the Kuomintang cannot achieve, however, legitimacy only provides the possibility for successful resource extraction, and more conditions are needed to turn it into reality. Economists have long pointed out the opportunistic tendency of "rational people" to behave in general, in the hope of a benefit and avoid paying for it, which is commonly referred to as the "free-rider" problem, which Olson calls the "collective action dilemma". While the broad masses of peasants have benefited directly from the agrarian reform, they also understand that only when the Communist Party wins the war can they maintain their vested interests and their own security for a long time. But under rational calculations, they will also consider that if they let other people join the army and help the Communist Party win the war, wouldn't it be more cost-effective to benefit themselves without contributing or taking risks?
In fact, giving the peasants access to the land they craved had a twofold effect on the Communist Party's human resource acquisition: it increased the legitimacy of human resource mobilization, and led to the peasants' motivation and possibility not to serve in the army. In the turbulent times since the end of the Qing Dynasty, China's rural society has been greatly damaged, the agricultural economy has declined, and social Xi has shifted from "Shangde" to "Shangli". [22] Coupled with the fact that the Beiyang warlords and the Kuomintang generally adopted heavy-line methods to recruit soldiers, weaker individual villagers often had no choice but to "accept their fate". The communist-led agrarian reform, which gave the peasants access to land and other means of production, gave them hope of making a fortune through labor, and the communist party emphasized propaganda and education for the sake of legitimacy and opposed coercion, and the balance of interests played an important role in the peasants' thinking, making them more reluctant than before to delay production and risk their lives to join the army and fight. Thus, although the principle of "taking" and "giving" in land reform has created a favorable premise for the absorption of human resources, the actual mobilization process is much more complicated. As one agrarian reform document put it: "It is a glorious task for the peasants to be armed to the front line to defend the fruits of victory, but it is necessary to carry out patient persuasion and mobilization." ”
Under these circumstances, the basic strategy adopted by the Communist Party was to develop the principle of "taking" and "giving" reciprocal exchange to the extreme, that is, to give more economic benefits and higher social status to the soldiers and their families in exchange for their support and devotion to the war, which was the "support for the army and preferential treatment for family members" that had long been regarded as one of the party's glorious traditions. The redistribution of resources in the process of land reform has established an abstract and macroscopic reciprocal exchange relationship between the Communist Party and the peasant class as a whole, giving the Party the legitimacy to demand resources from the rural society and the peasant class; and giving additional benefits and privileges to those who join the army and their families have further established a concrete and micro reciprocal exchange relationship between the Communist Party and the peasant households as individuals, making it a reality for the Party to directly solicit resources from individual peasants.
Giving more economic benefits to the families of military members is the core of this micro-reciprocal relationship. "The biggest problem in recruiting recruits is not to overcome the fear of enemy bullets or the hardships of war, but to convince them that their families will be well cared for, and that their livestock and crops will be well cared for," Handin notes. Therefore, during the period of land reform, the work of "preferential resistance" and "supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to family members" centered on substitution farming has always been highly valued by leading institutions at all levels, and its basic purpose is to calm the morale of the army and also help recruit more people to join the army. The "May Fourth Directive," which is the basic guiding document for land reform in the liberated areas, clearly stipulates that the families of anti-Japanese soldiers and cadres who are members of the gentry and landlords should be handled with caution and appropriate consideration during the movement, and mediation and arbitration should generally be adopted to leave them more land and save face for them. In the course of the implementation of land reform in various localities, it is generally emphasized that appropriate care should be given to the families of military martyrs, so that they can get more land than the average and more floating wealth, and some of them more clearly distribute the fruits in the order of martyrs' families, invalids (veterans), military families, workers' families, poor peasants, and middle peasants. According to a survey conducted in four typical villages in eastern Hebei, most of the 152 military and cadre households were poor peasants with 1.9 mu of land per capita before the land reform, and most of them were middle peasants with 3.1 mu of land per capita, exceeding the average number of villages and most of them were good land. [28] By the end of 1949, when the land reform in Wazi Village in Junan County was completed, there was more than three times as much land for military dependents as for the general public. On the eve of distributing the fruits of the struggle, the cadres of Xinzheng Village in Hebei Province immediately held a mass meeting and made it clear that "if they join the army immediately, they will share the fruits according to their subordinates." In this way, "the psychology of the party members and the masses who want to share more of the fruits of victory has been created, and the public opinion of the masses that they want to join the army has been created" and the task of mobilizing four fighters has been successfully completed. "Public opinion that wants to join the army" is precisely the result of the lure of practical interests that divide the fruits.
Land reform leaders also use political power and treatment as compensation for those who join the army and their families. Lingzi Village in Shandong Province was disbanded in 1944 because "the entire branch was controlled by the landlord", and all party members ceased to have relations. In 1945, when he "joined the army on a large scale," the members of the work team "asked him to join the army and rejoin the party," and several party members with a rich and landish element were thus restored to their organizational relations, while some poor and middle peasant party members "did not go to join the army at that time," so "the problem of party membership was not resolved." Agreeing to join the army allows them to rejoin the party, and if they do not join the army, they do not solve the problem of party membership, and the importance of the class component has taken a back seat here. Joining the Communist Party became a reward for joining the army, and the peasants provided the Communist Party with the human resources needed for the war effort, and the Communist Party compensated by allowing the Communist Party to rank among the ranks of the political elite at the grassroots level. Promoting military dependents to serve as cadres is another form of political compensation. For example, in Anguo County, Hebei Province, those who actively supported their sons to join the army were rated as "model fathers and mothers" and were given priority in being promoted to village cadres; Guo Wenxing of Beilou Village in the county's third district sent his son to join the army and was promoted to village security officer; and a woman from Mijiazhuang in the second district sent her son to join the army and was promoted to village women's director.
The use of various symbolic ceremonies to highlight the social status of military families is also necessary to create a village atmosphere of "glory in joining the army". An archive in Shandong Province gives a vivid description of this: On the eve of launching the campaign to join the army, the county and district governments sent the anti-war grain to the homes of the anti-resistance dependents "with various solemn ceremonies"; in some places, they made glorious plaques, glorious lamps, and glorious flags and sent them to the homes of the anti-war families; and in some places, they carried out public memorial activities to sweep the graves, which "not only educated the people, but also enabled the martyrs' families to receive unlimited comfort." Through these ritual activities, "the social status of the resistance was raised" and "the fighters were encouraged and comforted". The potential effect of this is naturally to let more farmers see the high honor that joining the army brings to themselves and their families, so that they can put aside their worries and join the ranks of enthusiastic participation in the army.
After an in-depth analysis of the "free-rider" dilemma, Olson proposes a basic strategy for solving this dilemma, which is to provide participants in collective action with a "selective incentive" (i.e., a benefit that cannot be obtained without participating in collective action). Feyerman and Gamson further distinguish selective incentives into extrinsic selective incentives and intrinsic selective incentives, the former is a material incentive based on the distribution of resources and power within the organization, and the latter is a spiritual incentive based on a sense of unity and loyalty. The Communist Party's work of supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to family members is playing a role in selective encouragement. Joining the army and their families get more material benefits and political power, which is an external selective incentive based on the premise of resource allocation within the organization: the public opinion atmosphere of "joining the army" and the sense of honor and identity obtained by the military participants are an internal selective incentive.
With the legitimacy of the land reform and the overcoming of the "free-rider" dilemma by the pro-army and preferential family members, the next thing the Communist Party has to do is to turn this favorable situation into a reality for the peasants to join the army through vigorous propaganda and careful mobilization.
3. The Campaign to Join the Army: Mobilization Strategies and Their Effectiveness
At the end of 1948, the East China Central Bureau of the Communist Party of China issued the "Instructions on Mobilization to Join the Army", emphasizing that conscription should be based on the principle of "voluntary participation" and pointed out that "the issue of joining the army must be a broad mass movement, full political mobilization, and meticulous organizational work." This not only reflects the huge difference between the KMT and the CCP in terms of the legitimacy of resource extraction, but also reveals the basic strategy of the CCP in absorbing human resources. During the War of Liberation, the Central Military Commission and the leading organs of each region generally determined the number of conscripts according to the actual needs on the battlefield, and then distributed them with reference to the specific circumstances of each locality (such as the number of population, economic situation, degree of party control, and the completion of land reform). Immediately, the conscription task was issued through administrative channels, from each region to each county and sub-district, and finally each village would be assigned a certain quota for joining the army. After the task is assigned to the village, it becomes the "central work" of the village, and all kinds of organizations in the village, including the party branch, the village political power, the poor peasant league, the peasant association, and the work team guiding the land reform in the village, must revolve around mobilizing to join the army. At this time, it is necessary to put aside the coercive administrative means and accomplish the task by following the mass line and launching a mass movement. The central link of mobilization to join the army is to "encourage the upsurge of joining the army, organize and control the activists, and use various methods such as self-declaration and public discussion, conscience review, and other methods among the masses to create a mass conscious movement."
The timing of mobilization to join the army is a good example of the Communist Party's use of mobilization strategies. The material stimulus of agrarian reform is a powerful driving force for mobilizing peasants to join the army, but the exact timing of the campaign to join the army often has a great bearing on the effectiveness of mobilization. The distribution of the fruits of the struggle is an important link. Until the fruits are distributed, the peasants have not received actual benefits and are hardly interested in joining the army, and the recognition and enthusiasm aroused by the peasants who share the fruits may also quickly fade. Therefore, the mobilization work for joining the army must be struck while the iron is hot and carried out quickly after the fruits have been distributed. According to the experience of the Bohai region, after completing the land reform, distributing the fruits, and carrying out the activities of supporting the army and giving preferential resistance, it is natural to propose to join the army, otherwise it will encounter resistance and fail. In the autumn of 1946, the eastern Hebei region carried out the "expansion of the army", at this time the peasants had just shared the fruits and were full of emotions, and soon mobilized more than 19,000 people to sign up, and finally more than 13,700 people officially joined the army. Around the same time, the central Hebei region mobilized more than 40,000 people to join the army within two months. [40] In 1947, Lijin County received the task of mobilizing 700 people to join the army, and the county party committee originally wanted to complete two-thirds of the land reform work, but in actual action, it was worried that the premature mobilization to join the army would make the masses uneasy and affect the progress of the land reform work.
Before officially signing up for the army, it is necessary to carry out sufficient propaganda and educational preparations, and create an atmosphere of excitement and enthusiasm in the village to join the army. The main contents of the propaganda and education generally include three aspects: First, through exposing the reality that the Kuomintang troops "frantically attacked the liberated areas and brutally killed the people" and launched the activities of "opposing Chiang Kai-shek and complaining about grievances," so as to arouse the masses' hatred for Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang; second, through "celebrating the turnover" and "returning the land to the homeland" Third, it is necessary to publicize the party's regulations on supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to family members, so as to ensure that the family difficulties of the soldiers joining the army are resolved and their marital relations are guaranteed, so that they will have a sense of glory and no worries about the future. From the following statements of the cadres and the masses, we can see the characteristics and effects of the propaganda for joining the army: "The poor are cold and hungry because they have no land, and there is no one to protect the land, and they are still not reliable. "The Kuomintang has harmed us, the Communist Party has saved us, and without the People's Liberation Army, where can we win victory?" "If we don't join the army, who will join the army?" "Oppose Chiang, protect the fields, and protect the rice bowl!" "If you want people to send people, money, and grain!" "Block the gate, protect the fields, and we will support the People's Liberation Army wherever it goes!" A file in the Bohai District provides us with a vivid picture of the movement to join the army:
In mid-January, the peasants were inspired to support the army and give them glorious lamps, glorious plaques, flag couplets, etc., to ensure that the military dependents had meat dumplings to eat during the New Year, and to help the military families to be buddies, and the military families were very honored and the masses were also very envious. During the Spring Festival, anti-Chiang, anti-specialty, anti-civil war, support for the party and the army were educated. Chiang Kai-shek fought the civil war and attacked the liberated areas in order to prevent the people from turning over, and set off an upsurge of joining the army and supporting the front under the call of protecting the land and protecting the family and the job. In terms of the division of labor, most of them are young and middle-aged people who join the army to support the army, and the elderly, women and children are subject to land reform review. At that time, the slogan was "Fight big Jiang in the front, and fight small Jiang in the rear". Cadres taking the lead and exemplary demonstrations are also an important means of mobilizing people to join the army. Compared with the Kuomintang grassroots administrators, the Communist Party grassroots cadres have a much greater responsibility, not only to shoulder the responsibility of propaganda organization, but also to rise to the occasion when the work is deadlocked, sacrificing their personal interests to accomplish the tasks of the party and the state. In the autumn and winter of 1946, 799 cadres and party members took the lead in joining the army in Xintai County, accounting for 26 percent of the total number of people who joined the army. During the Huaihai Campaign, 126 village cadres from five sub-districts of Gaomi County in Jiaodong took the lead in joining the army. Many party members, cadres, and activists who are reluctant to join the army are often forced by their superiors and the masses to "take the lead" in signing up. On the one hand, some grassroots cadres in Yuan Dynasty counties who participated in the land reform task force hoped to return home as soon as possible after the land reform was over, but on the other hand, they were "worried about joining the army and taking the lead." It can be seen that it is a very common phenomenon for grassroots cadres to take the lead in joining the army.
Typical demonstrations are an effective mass mobilization strategy of the CCP. In many archives and memoirs, moving deeds such as "sending a son to join the army", "sending a man to join the army", and "brothers competing to join the army" can be seen everywhere. Aunt Fan of Fu Ding Village, Rizhao County, had 3 sons, the eldest son and the second son died in 1945 and 1946 respectively, and in 1947 she sent her youngest son to join the army. Tan Guiying, a woman from Fengjiazhuang, Fushan County, Jiaodong District, took the initiative to mobilize her husband to join the army, and led 27 young people in the village to sign up for the army. In the 1948 army joining movement, 915 parents sent their sons to join the army, 127 wives sent their husbands to join the army, and 324 brothers rushed to join the army. The list goes on.
Through the exchange of "taking" and "giving" between the state and the villages and with the peasants, as well as meticulous and complicated propaganda and mobilization, the Communist Party set off an upsurge of enthusiastic participation in the army in rural society again and again, and successfully realized the mobilization of human resources for war. According to statistics, from the entry of the Liberation War in September 1945 to the end of the Huaihai Campaign in March 1949, the number of soldiers in Jiaodong District, Bohai District, South Central Lu District, Changwei Special Economic Zone, and Hebei-Shandong-Henan District (Shandong part) reached 286,000, 172,000, 129,000, 4,000, and 267,000 respectively, and a total of 957,000 people in Shandong Province joined the regular troops led by the Communist Party, and the irregular armed forces such as backbone regiments, garrison regiments, and militias in various places are even more difficult to count. As one memoir put it, it is precisely because of this "inexhaustible replenishment of soldiers" that the PLA can "become stronger and stronger the more it fights" and ultimately win the war.
Conclusion: From the theoretical perspective of "state and society", many scholars believe that China's rural society has undergone a transformation process from "autonomy" to "governance". The traditional rural social structure is a "dual-track" structure in which bureaucratic administrative institutions and rural autonomous organizations coexist, and the state mainly focuses on tax collection and does not care about how rural society operates. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty that this situation was changed by the process of "state power construction", and in the process, the modern requirements for "rural governance" gradually emerged. The construction of state power and rural governance in China began in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, but scholars have long pointed out that the efforts of these regimes to extend their power tentacles downward are far from successful, and their prominent manifestation is what Du Zanqi calls the "involution of state power."
It was not until the rural social reform under the leadership of the Communist Party that the goal of rural social governance was truly most effectively achieved in terms of social control and resource extraction, and land reform was a key link in it. During the War of Liberation, the Communist Party made full use of the favorable situation brought about by the land reform and mobilized sufficient human resources to win the war. First, through the redistribution of land and property, we can win the legitimacy of resource extraction, which is a macro reciprocal exchange between the state and the villages as a whole; second, through supporting the army and giving preferential treatment to their families, we will provide various selective incentives for servicemen and their families in exchange for the enthusiasm of the peasants to join the army, which is a micro reciprocal exchange between the state and individual peasant households joining the army; and third, through meticulous propaganda, education, and mobilization, the national will to join the army will be replaced by the vital interests of the peasants to protect their land and their families, and this is an important intermediary mechanism for the implementation of the state's will. The skillful use of micro-mobilization techniques such as emotional mobilization, atmosphere building, backbone leadership, and typical demonstrations in the mass movement has dissipated all kinds of resistance to mobilization and joining the army. In this process, the strengthening of the state's control over rural society and the absorption of rural social resources have formed a benign interactive relationship. While absorbing all kinds of resources needed for the war, the Communist Party also succeeded in further integrating the members of rural society into the system of state power, reshaping the unity and order of rural society on the basis of organization and ideology, and successfully achieving the goal of rural governance.
Fang Wu
Land reform is a profound social revolution in which the Chinese people, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, completely eradicate the feudal exploitation system, and is a basic task of China's democratic revolution. During the period of the democratic revolution, the Communist Party of China put forward a thorough agrarian revolution program and led the land reform in the liberated areas. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the old liberated areas in Northeast China and North China, which accounted for about one-third of the country's area, had basically completed land reform and eliminated the feudal exploitation system.
The veteran general who participated in the land reform work in the Soviet-Chinese liberated areas said:
The land system in old China was extremely irrational, and the landlords and rich peasants, who accounted for less than 10% of the total rural population, accounted for about 70~80% of the cultivated land in the rural areas, and they brutally exploited the peasants in this way. However, poor peasants, hired peasants, and middle peasants, who account for more than 90% of the total rural population, only occupy 20~30% of the cultivated land. This was one of the main causes of poverty and backwardness in old China.
The landlord class not only carried out brutal economic exploitation by virtue of the large amount of land it occupied, but also colluded with bureaucrats and spies to arbitrarily humiliate and prey on the common people. Many big landlords still maintain "regimental defense" as a tool to suppress the working people. Therefore, resolving the land issue and confiscating the landlords' land to the working people has become an urgent demand of the working people after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
In order to overthrow imperialism and feudalism and accomplish the basic tasks of the democratic revolution, the Communist Party of China led the peasants in the struggle to overthrow the local tyrants and inferior gentry and to oppose heavy rents, heavy interest, heavy mortgages, and heavy taxes during the First Civil Revolutionary War. 1. The first time was during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1941), when the land policy of landlords reducing rent and interest was implemented, and farmers paid rent and interest. 2. The second time was the period of the People's Liberation War. At the end of June 1946, the Kuomintang reactionaries tore up the armistice agreement and the CPPCC resolution and brazenly launched an all-out attack on the liberated areas. At the beginning of the war, there was a huge disparity in the strength of the armies of the People's Liberation Army and the reactionary forces of the Kuomintang. On May 4, 1946, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Instructions on the Liquidation of Rent Reduction and Land Issues", also known as the "May Fourth Instructions". The "May Fourth Directive" sounded the clarion call for land reform, allowing the peasants to realize their dream of having their own land. The "May Fourth Directive" aroused the enthusiasm of the vast number of peasants, enabled the People's Liberation Army to gain the support of hundreds of millions of peasants, and enabled the Communist Party of China to finally win the victory in the War of Liberation. 3. During the ten-year civil war, the struggle against local tyrants and the division of land and the movement of land survey were carried out in the revolutionary base areas, and the agrarian revolution was carried out. The "May Fourth Directive" was also issued. That is, the "Instructions on the Land Question" issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on May 4, 1946, referred to as the "May Fourth Instructions". The directive decided to change the policy of rent reduction and interest reduction to confiscation of landlords' land and distribute it to peasants. The "May Fourth Directive" opened the prelude to land legislation in the liberated areas and pointed out the direction for the realization of an agrarian revolution in which the cultivators had their own land. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Instructions on Liquidation, Rent Reduction and Land Issues", which is known as the "May Fourth Directive".
Break through the fetters and be liberated. In 1947, the Communist Party of China convened a national land conference, which decided to carry out land reform in the liberated areas and formulated the Outline of China's Land Law. The outline stipulates: confiscate the landlords' land, abolish the land system of feudal exploitation, implement a land system in which the cultivators own their land, and distribute land equally according to the rural population. In the course of land reform, the CPC implemented the general line of land reform in relying on the poor peasants, uniting the middle peasants, preserving the rich peasants, eliminating the feudal exploitation step by step and separately, and developing agricultural production.
In 1950, the Central People's Government promulgated the Land Reform Law of the People's Republic of China, abolishing the feudal land ownership system and implementing the land ownership system of the peasant class. In order to reduce resistance, isolate and divide the landlord class, and to help stabilize the national bourgeoisie and restore and develop the rural economy at an early date, the policy of economically preserving the kulak economy and politically neutralizing the kulaks was implemented. At the end of 1952, the land reform was basically completed throughout the country, and more than 300 million landless or landless peasants were allocated land; the feudal exploitation of the land system was completely abolished, the rural production relations were thoroughly changed, and the productive forces were promoted; the vast number of peasants became the masters of the land and turned over politically and economically; the rural productive forces were liberated, opening up the road for the development of agricultural production and the industrialization of the country; the workers' and peasants' alliance and the people's democratic dictatorship were further consolidated; the social foundation of the reactionary clique of the United States and Chiang was destroyed; and the rural productive forces were greatly liberated. The rapid recovery and development of agricultural production activities has prepared the conditions for the country's industrialization construction; the completion of the land reform has completely destroyed the feudal land system that has existed on the mainland for more than 2,000 years, and the landlord class has also been eliminated; the peasants have turned over, acquired the land, and become the masters of the land. This is the consolidation of the people's political power, the great liberation of the rural productive forces, the rapid recovery and development of agricultural production, and the preparation of conditions for the country's industrialization. The completion of the land reform has completely destroyed the feudal land system that existed on the mainland for more than 2,000 years, and the landlord class has also been eliminated; the peasants have turned over and acquired land and become the masters of the land; the productive forces in the rural areas have been liberated, the peasants' enthusiasm for production has been greatly enhanced, and conditions have been created for the development of agricultural production and for the fundamental improvement of the state's financial and economic situation; the workers' and peasants' alliance and the people's democratic dictatorship have been further consolidated; and the development of agricultural production has provided sufficient raw materials and a broad market for the development of industrial production, thus opening up the road for the country's industrialization。 The new policy of dealing with the kulaks, which had previously been a blow or restriction, was adopted this time to preserve the kulak economy economically and to neutralize the kulaks politically.
The novel "The Storm" written by writer Zhou Libo vividly describes the magnificent scene of land reform during the Liberation War, and vividly shows the great changes that have taken place in China's rural areas to break through the shackles of thousands of years of feudal production relations. And the real scenes of history are even more unforgettable.
General Liu, who led the nation's land reform work, told me:
With the deepening of the anti-traitor liquidation and rent and interest reduction campaigns, the peasants' demands for solving the land problem have gradually become more urgent. There is an urgent demand that "the tiller has his land".
In April 1946, after listening to the reports of Li Yu, Deng Zihui and other leading cadres in various localities on the situation of the peasant struggle and the feedback of various strata, the CPC Central Committee concentrated on discussing the peasant land issue in the liberated areas. After repeated study and the synthesis of the opinions of leading peasant movement cadres in various localities, the "Instructions on the Land Question" (i.e., the "May Fourth Instructions") were officially promulgated on May 4 of that year. This document adjusted the policy of reducing rents and interest rates that had been practiced since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression to the policy of "the tiller has his own land" and sent it to all liberated areas as an intra-party document for implementation.
The "May Fourth Directive" clarified the rights of poor peasants, middle peasants, and rich peasants to own land. For example, instead of unconditionally confiscating all landlords' land, except for confiscating and distributing the land of a very small number of big traitors, the land of ordinary landlords can be treated in a variety of ways, such as liquidation, rent reduction, interest reduction, and land donation, which have been created by the peasants since the rent and interest reductions, so that the peasants can obtain land from the landlords and practice the practice of "the cultivator has his land."
With regard to the policy boundaries for resolving the land issue, the "May Fourth Directive" stipulates that anti-Japanese soldiers, families of anti-Japanese cadres, and enlightened gentlemen who belong to the landlord should be handled with caution and taken appropriate care of, and leave them more land. Small and medium-sized landlords should be distinguished from big landlords and bullies, and their lives should be taken care of. In general, the land of the rich peasants should not be changed, and the land of the middle peasants should never be infringed upon. There should be a principled distinction between the treatment of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie and the treatment of the feudal landlord class, and the methods of solving the land problem and opposing the feudal landlord class in the countryside should not be used against the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie.
The formulation and promulgation of the "May Fourth Directive" is a phased achievement of the CPC's implementation of land reform. The process of putting this policy into practice shows that on the basis of firmly supporting the peasants' land demands, our party's struggle tactics are more in line with objective historical conditions, more scientific and effective, and more in line with the actual interests of the common people. In November 1946, Zhang Wentian delivered a speech entitled "The Peasant Land Question" at Northeastern University, saying: "China's history is the history of the peasant revolution, but in the past there was no Communist Party, no correct leadership, and no clear political program of 'the tiller has his land', so the peasants' demands have not been resolved for thousands of years. At present, only the Communist Party of China has explicitly put forward the agrarian program of 'the tiller has his land', and in fact it has done so thoroughly. This is because the Communist Party is sincere in its efforts to serve the people. It can be seen that the land reform policy at that time vividly interpreted our party's original intention of always adhering to the interests of the people wholeheartedly.
As soon as the "May Fourth Directive" was issued, party organizations and governments at all levels in the liberated areas immediately took action to further mobilize the masses and carry out the reform of the land system in depth. After the outbreak of the all-out civil war, in order to effectively implement the policy, the central bureaus, central sub-bureaus, and governments at all levels in the liberated areas dispatched a large number of cadres to form task forces and went to the vast rural areas to implement the policy in a flexible and diverse manner in light of the actual local conditions.
In the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Liberated Areas, for example, the main practice there was to distribute part of the land to the peasants by requisitioning and transferring part of the land to the landlords. As an old base area, the land ownership rights of landlords and rich peasants in half of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Liberated Area had basically disappeared, and the other half had been weakened after many rent and interest reductions, and many of them were still enlightened gentlemen. Under these circumstances, in December 1946, the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Region promulgated the Draft Regulations on the Requisition of Land from Landlords, stipulating that the landlords should issue public bonds to purchase the rest of the land except for the land left by themselves, and distribute the requisitioned land to landless or landless peasants. The public debt is paid to the landlord as the land price, and the principal is repaid in 10 years. In this way, most of the land was returned to the peasants without compensation, and a part of the land was transferred to the peasants in the form of public bonds.
Looking at other liberated areas, according to incomplete statistics, by October 1946, 20 million peasants had been granted land in the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan liberated areas; by November 1946, 15 million peasants had been granted land in the liberated areas of Jiangsu and Anhui; by the end of October 1946, 5 million peasants had been granted land in the northeast liberated areas; by the end of 1946, 19 million peasants had been granted land in the liberated areas of Shandong; and by the end of 1946, more than 1 million peasants had been granted land in the Jinsui liberated areas. From late June 1946 to February 1947, about two-thirds of the liberated areas resolved the land problem, realizing that "the tiller has his own land."
It is undeniable that some problems also arose in the process of land reform at that time. For example, some cadres and activists occupy more land than they share, with the result that the problem of poor peasant land in some villages has not been rationally resolved; in some areas, land reform is not thorough enough, and the prestige of the landlords has not fallen, has been half-fallen, or has risen again, and some landlords still occupy more and better land. In this regard, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China stressed in its instructions on February 1, 1947, entitled "Greeting the New Upsurge of the Chinese Revolution" that the incomplete land reform must be carefully inspected, filled in and made up, and that compensation and apologies must be made for infringing on the interests of the middle peasants. By the first half of 1947, the liberated areas carried out land reform and review, and these problems were basically solved.
As a result of the in-depth reform of the land system, the peasants' land problem has been basically solved in many liberated areas. However, it is undeniable that while land reform has achieved remarkable results, one-third of the liberated areas have not yet carried out land system reform. To this end, from July to September 1947, the Central Working Committee of the Communist Party of China convened a national land conference in Xibaipo Village, Hebei Province, and adopted the Outline of China's Land Law (Draft). On October 10 of the same year, the Outline of China's Land Law was officially promulgated, becoming the first programmatic document on land system reform publicly promulgated by the Communist Party of China after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
The "Outline of China's Land Law" clearly stipulates that the feudal and semi-feudal exploitation of the land system shall be abolished, the land ownership of all landlords shall be abolished, and the land system of "the cultivator shall have his own land" shall be implemented. The "Outline" stipulates the basic principle of a thorough equal division of land, that is, all landlords' land and public land in the villages shall be taken over by the village peasant associations, and all other land in the villages shall be distributed equally according to the entire population of the villages, regardless of men, women, and children. However, the Outline provided for the equal distribution of all land to infringe on the interests of the middle peasants, and was later adjusted during the land reform in the newly liberated areas and throughout the country.
In order to implement the spirit of this document, the liberated areas quickly responded positively and launched a mass movement centered on land reform. For example, in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningbo, Jinsui, and the northeastern liberated areas, such methods as "breaking the old circles," "re-measuring," and "leveling the land to a lesser extent" have been adopted to disrupt the land and redistribute it evenly according to the population. Writer Zhou Libo later wrote the novel "The Storm", which tells the story of the Northeast region from 1946 to 1947.
This stormy land reform movement violently attacked the feudal land system that had existed for thousands of years with a thunderous force, changed the old production relations in the rural areas, and enabled hundreds of millions of peasants to achieve political and economic emancipation, and thus burst out with immeasurable revolutionary enthusiasm. They enthusiastically participated in the battle and supported their soldiers with food, grass, clothing and other materials. Historical data show that in the past three years, a total of 1.48 million peasants have joined the army in the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Liberated Areas, 590,000 young people have joined the army in the Shandong Liberated Area, and 7 million migrant workers have joined the army. The vigorous agrarian reform movement provided a steady stream of manpower and material support for the national victory.