Mobilizing the Masses to Liquidate and Reduce Rent: Recalling the Development Work of Jingpeng County (5)
(November 1945 to January 1947)
Lu Di
The struggle to mobilize the masses for liquidation and rent reduction began in March 1946 after the county seat was regained again. On May 15, a joint meeting of district heads was held to discuss the work of liquidation and rent reduction, and to exchange experiences in mobilizing the masses.
On the 22nd, the county-level organs dispatched a large number of cadres to the countryside to cooperate with the district cadres to mobilize the masses to carry out the struggle for liquidation and rent reduction. At that time, traitors, bullies, and landlords confiscated their land and property and distributed them to poor peasants; Rent and interest reductions are implemented for ordinary landlords.
On 4 May, the CPC Central Committee issued the "Instructions on the Liquidation of Rent Reduction and Land Issues," and in June the county party committee held a meeting of cadres to convey and discuss the situation, and it was clear to everyone that the spirit of the "May Fourth" instructions was to abolish the feudal system and distribute the land concentrated by the landlord class to the peasants through the mass movement.
Therefore, the county party committee decided to reduce rents and interest rates for no time limit (including black land, usury, etc.), and the cultivators should have their own land. After the meeting, the leading comrades of the county all went deep into the rural areas to mobilize the masses to carry out struggle. Focusing on the third, fourth, and fifth districts, we will gain experience and gradually promote it.
In mid-July, the county party committee personally led Xinkaidi Village in the fourth district (Tuchengzi District) to organize three townships to unite to fight against the land advocate Binghui and the bully landlord Shao Fufu. In public, the old land deed was taken out, the acres of land were measured, a new covenant was signed, a large amount of land, livestock, and houses were distributed to the peasants, and military dependents were given preferential treatment.
Seeing the trend of the times, or out of luck, some landlords voluntarily donated land in order to deceive the masses and cope with the scenes of struggle, such as Jing Guodong (former principal of the primary school) in Tuchengzi Street.
At that time, I was squatting in District 3 (Xinglong District). In Tiejiayingzi Village, the masses of several nearby villages were organized to liquidate the fugitive landlord Liu Xixian. At the congress, many peasants complained about the miserable situation of exploitation and oppression of the peasants by the landlords, and the masses were extremely indignant and demanded that their land and property be distributed to the masses.
At the meeting, it was decided to give all the land to the masses, except for the appropriate land reserved for himself and his family. After the meeting, everyone was elated, actively joined the peasant association, organized the militia ranks, and defended the fruits of victory.
According to our investigations, the main forms of exploitation of the peasants by the landlords are the peasants and usury, and they take the vast majority of the grain harvested by the peasants through a year's hard work.
For example, Zhang Guolin, a tenant of Tiejiayingzi in the district, gave the landlord Tian Xiangyong Niqing, and two laborers planted eight stones of seeds for the landlord, and after the autumn, they paid 80 stones, and on the surface, they deducted 8 stones of seeds, and the rest was divided in half, but in fact, the tenants' income was very small.
Because when the hoe was opened, he borrowed 6 stone rations, went out with three points of interest, and returned nine stones after the autumn, and used the cloth of the owner's two clothes in the spring (according to the price of the cloth at that time to fold the ration for four buckets), the usury donkey rolled, and returned one stone and four buckets after the autumn. When the farm is busy, short-term workers are hired to pay wages of three stone of grain, and the cost of rice, oil and salt is one stone and five buckets, so seven deductions and eight deductions are used to get only ten stones and four buckets for each green.
What's more, there are many places of additional exploitation, and in the spring, when the young households go to work, they first do half a month's odd work for the landlord's family, regardless of the food, but also plant a few acres of vegetables for the landlord, and even the seeds are from the tenants, and the landlord can eat the vegetables he grows, take whatever he wants, and do not give a penny, and each young household uses two full working days to give the landlord enough to burn firewood. Each person pays 3,000 pounds of grass, pays all the money within 5 days, eats his own food, and works for the landlord.
The Japanese puppet military and police officials and landlords colluded to oppress the peasants, and the peasants were forced to work all day without food and clothing. After this mass movement, the harvest is not small.
As of September, rough statistics showed that 99 households had been liquidated in the county, more than 19,000 mu of land had been distributed to peasants, more than 18,700 people had taken part in the struggle to reduce rents in liquidation, more than 3,700 had joined peasant associations, more than 4,400 had joined trade unions (including rural workers), more than 300 had joined youth organizations, and more than 600 had organized militia self-defense units.
However, the development of movement is unbalanced, there are few more thorough, and there are more general states. Some areas (including blank villages) did not let go of the masses, and the cadres took over the substitution, resulting in a sandwich of raw food, which did not distinguish between the open and the covert; some distributed land and livestock to small groups but not to individuals, and some reserved too much land for the landlords, and some county and district organs and troops encroached on the fruits of the mass struggle, mainly some livestock and horses.
Nevertheless, through this mass movement, the cadres were tempered, the masses were mobilized, and experience was accumulated, which created conditions for the later mobilization of the masses on a wider scale to carry out land reform.
The liquidation of Mongolian landlords is mainly carried out by Mongolian cadres and the masses who rely on them. In accordance with the instructions of the higher authorities, in addition to confiscating their livestock land, the landlords of the Mongolian nationality who committed the most heinous crimes confiscated their livestock land, and at the request of the Mongolian masses, they were treated leniently according to the method of reducing rents and interest rates, and were not treated on an equal footing with the Han landlords, thus paying attention to the issue of ethnic unity between Mongolia and Han.