Duan Wen, Ma Rui, ‖ Look at the practice and exploration of the "three rural areas" work by the Sichuan party organizations from the perspective of the century-old party history

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Looking at the Sichuan Party organization from the history of the party for a hundred years

Practice and exploration of the work of "three rural areas"

Duan Wen Ma Rui

I. Before the founding of New China, the Sichuan Party organizations understood and practiced the work of "three rural areas."

(1) During the period of the agrarian revolution, the Sichuan Party organizations had a preliminary understanding and practice of the "three rural areas" work

The "Eighty-Seven" Conference was held in 1927, stressing that armed struggle and the establishment of political power must be supported and participated in by the peasants, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, and that the revolutionary struggle can be carried out in order to have a universal and stable mass base. The Communist Party of China opened up rural base areas, launched an agrarian revolution, and embarked on a road of "encircling the cities from the countryside." Since then, peasants and rural issues have gradually become one of the key points of the work of the Sichuan party organization.

Beginning in 1928, party organizations at all levels in Sichuan took the agrarian revolution as the main channel to convey and implement the spirit of the "Eighth Seventh" Central Committee, supported and led the peasant masses in the vast rural areas in the struggle against donations and grain, confiscated the weapons and cash of landlords in various localities, cracked down on landlord bullies and reactionary vigilante groups, carried out various forms of "peasant violence," and tried to establish their own peasant armed forces. From March 1928 to the end of 1930, there were more than 20 peasant uprisings led by the Sichuan Party organization. These armed struggles attempted to establish base areas, which were the practice of the concept of "armed division of workers and peasants" in Sichuan, which dealt a heavy blow to the Kuomintang warlords and the feudal landlord class in Sichuan and expanded the political influence of the agrarian revolution.

From 1931 to 1935, the Sichuan Party organization also led more than 30 armed struggles. The armed struggle during this period was based on the revolutionary base areas of Sichuan and Shaanxi, Xiang'e, Sichuan, and Qianqian and the main Red Army, and in accordance with the characteristics of the uneven development of the agricultural movement in various localities, the armed struggle of the four resistances and the armed struggle of the peasants was launched, with the aim of establishing revolutionary armed forces and supporting the consolidation and development of the Soviet region and the Red Army.

During the period of the agrarian revolution, the Sichuan Party organizations successively put forward such propositions as "confiscating the land of reactionary warlords, corrupt officials, and local tycoons and inferior gentry and distributing it to the landless peasants," "the tillers have their own land," "confiscating the land of the landlord class and handing it over to the peasants," "opposing rent increases and taking purges," "arming the peasants," and "returning all rural political power to the peasant associations." For example, in 1930, the Central Committee issued the Sichuan-Shaanxi Provincial Soviet 'Resolution on the Question of Land and Peasants in Soviet Areas," stressing: "Correctly resolving the problem of land and peasants is the most important issue in soviet regional policy." "In practice, the work of dividing up the land among local tycoons is generally carried out.

After the establishment of the revolutionary regime, the struggle to fight against the rich and the poor and to open warehouses for grain relief was widely carried out, so that the peasants who were hungry and cold had food, food, clothing, and clothing, and confiscated the property of the local tycoons and inferior gentry and distributed it to the masses. Specific work such as dividing up the land and not paying rent is also carried out. In particular, the establishment of the sichuan-Shaanxi revolutionary base areas has brought about earth-shaking changes in the lives of the poor people in the Bashan Mountains of Northern Sichuan and the Wuling Mountains in southeastern Sichuan.

The education of the Communist Party, the influence of the Red Army, and the personal experience of the peasant masses have greatly enhanced the political consciousness of the peasant masses, and they have understood that the only way to change the state of suffering and suffering is to follow the Communist Party and the Red Army to make a revolution. They went from passive to active, from spontaneous resistance to conscious struggle. In the course of the revolutionary struggle, the peasant masses understood why they wanted to overthrow the warlords, why they wanted to overthrow the Kuomintang, why they wanted to overthrow the local tycoons, and for the first time they felt where their interests and demands lay.

(2) During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Sichuan Party organization thought and understood the work of the "three rural areas."

In April 1935, due to the traitorous rebellion, the organization of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China was destroyed and the party members were arrested, and by December 1937, there was no provincial party organization of the Communist Party of China in Sichuan, and the party organizations at all levels were also destroyed by the enemy, leaving only more than 60 party members in the province scattered and hidden to persist in the struggle, and the party's activities entered a low tide period.

On the eve of the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1936, the Shanghai Party organization successively sent party members back to Sichuan to carry out intelligence united front work, develop party organizations and party members, and prepare conditions for the recovery of the Sichuan party. During this period, the party's work was mainly centered on national unity and joint defense against foreign enemies.

In December 1939, Comrade Mao Zedong wrote an article entitled "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China", which clearly pointed out that the poor peasants are the vast peasant masses without land or insufficient land, are the semi-proletariat in the countryside, the broadest motive force of the Chinese revolution, the natural and reliable ally of the proletariat, and the main force of the Chinese revolutionary contingent. Both the poor peasants and the middle peasants can be liberated under the leadership of the proletariat; and the proletariat can lead the revolution to victory only by forming a solid alliance with the poor peasants and the middle peasants.

In 1947, the Outline of China's Land Law was promulgated, establishing a private ownership system of peasants with equal differentiation, which met the needs and desires of the broad masses of peasants for land. During this period, under the leadership of the Southern Bureau, the Sichuan Party organization, in addition to vigorously developing the democratic movement, took rural work as its main task. On the one hand, it is necessary to attach importance to and strengthen the building of the political infrastructure in rural areas, jointly carry out the work of the peasant movement with local party organizations in Guang'an, Dazhu, Quxian, Daxian, and other places, establish a "two-sided political power," and carry out armed struggle; on the other hand, mobilize and train a number of party members, progressive young students, and other progressive personages to use their respective social relations to go deep into the rural areas to serve the peasants in a legal and illegal way, contact the peasants or vigilante groups, and establish a deeper mass base.

Ii. After the founding of New China, the Sichuan Party organizations explored and practiced the work of "three rural areas."

(1) During the period of new democratic reform, Sichuan party organizations further pondered and practiced the "three rural areas" issue

In the early days of the establishment of the people's power, various parts of Sichuan began to carry out pilot land reform work. In 1950, the Land Reform Law of the People's Republic of China was promulgated and implemented, which further standardized and refined the land system from the legal level, and further guaranteed the ownership of farmers. In the same year, the Military and Political Committee of the Southwest Region promulgated the "Interim Regulations on Rent Reduction", which stipulates that "those who rent land shall not receive rent in advance or any disguised exploitation other than rent." ”

From November 1950, the four administrative districts of western Sichuan, northern Sichuan, eastern Sichuan, and southern Sichuan carried out pilot land reform work in one or two townships. On the basis of the pilot experience of land reform, the whole sichuan immediately launched large-scale land reform. By May 1952, the quanchuan land reform movement was basically over, abolishing the feudal landlord land ownership system, liberating the rural productive forces, promoting the recovery and development of the rural economy, enabling the peasant masses in Sichuan, who were deeply exploited and oppressed, to obtain land and other basic means of production, to get rid of the feudal patriarchal law for thousands of years on the personal shackles, to realize the demand that "cultivators have their own land" for many years, and greatly improved the political consciousness and organizational level of the peasant masses.

(2) During the period of socialist construction, the Sichuan Party organizations deeply pondered and practiced the "three rural areas" issue

In 1956, the Party Central Committee promulgated the National Agricultural Development Program (1956-1967), which pointed out a bright future for Sichuan's agricultural production. In 1957, the Party Central Committee put forward the principle of "taking grain as the program and developing in an all-round way." In 1961, the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee proposed that agriculture must be placed in the primary position and the principle of "adjustment, consolidation, enrichment, and improvement" must be tried on a trial basis. In 1962, the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee put forward the general policy of national economic development of "agriculture-based and industry-led". At this stage, the Sichuan Party organizations' understanding and practice of the "three rural areas" issue mainly include the following aspects:

First, we should always attach importance to grain production and increase grain production.

In 1957, the provincial party committee advocated the cultivation of double-cropping rice in the province. From the founding of New China to 1957, Sichuan's grain output increased by an average of about 400 million catties per year, which was the first golden period of grain production since liberation. From 1958 to 1960, Sichuan also vigorously strengthened the construction of farmland water conservancy, and a total of 3952 reservoirs and 360,000 small weirs and ponds were built in the province, and by 1962, the effective irrigation area of farmland reached 20.54 million mu. During the special period, the Sichuan Revolutionary Committees at all levels and the Chengdu Military Region also repeatedly demanded that "grasp the revolution and promote production" began to be built, and by 1970, more than 4 million mu of cultivated land in more than 10 counties, such as Qionglai, Pujiang, Mingshan, and Zhongjiang, had been irrigated by water conservancy. From 1969 to 1973, Sichuan's grain production began to pick up.

Second, we should always attach importance to agricultural production and recognize that agriculture is the foundation of industrial and socio-economic development.

Agriculture is the main source of basic social production and living materials, an important source for meeting the basic needs of the people, an important source of industrial raw materials, an important market for industrial products, and an important guarantee for promoting socialist industrialization. Since October 1952, in order to accelerate the agricultural cooperative movement of organizing the peasant masses to exchange production experience on a voluntary basis and realize mutual assistance in labor, animal power and agricultural tools, the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China has established a rural working committee to lead the agricultural mutual assistance and cooperation movement. At this stage, after rectification, suspension and adjustment, the province's agricultural production mutual assistance and cooperation movement has basically maintained the momentum of healthy development of development, consolidation, re-development, and re-consolidation. This form of development has improved labor efficiency and yield per mu, which is conducive to solving the difficulties encountered by individual farmers in terms of labor, agricultural tools and technology, and is very popular with farmers, and this unique form of mutual assistance and cooperation in Sichuan once developed to more than 40,000.

In 1956, the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to carry out a province-wide reform of the farming system; in March of the same year, the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting of cadres at and above the three levels of county party secretaries to propose the experience of overcoming two "egalitarianisms"; in May, the provincial party committee further required the leading cadres of the party committees at and above the county level to make up their minds to go deep among the masses, squat down, and personally conduct systematic investigations and studies.

Since 1969, the Provincial Revolutionary Committee has re-emphasized "grain as the guideline, diversified management, and all-round development", and in the process of developing diversified management, pig production, cotton production and social enterprises have been well developed. The development of diversified operations has increased peasants' incomes, and a gratifying situation has emerged in the production of small-scale agricultural and sideline products in various localities.

In 1975, Comrade Deng Xiaoping stressed that Sichuan should establish the idea of "agriculture first." The Sichuan policy cannot be changed at will, and if it is changed, the masses will not trust it. Sichuan must develop agriculture within a few years. The provincial party committee and the provincial government have clearly recognized the nature of the social enterprises that have appeared in large numbers in rural areas as belonging to the collective economy, which has actually begun to find a new way out for the development of the rural economy within the scope permitted by the planned economic system.

Third, we should always attach importance to the demands of the peasant masses.

The agricultural population accounts for the overwhelming majority of Sichuan's population, which is the actual situation in Sichuan, and whether it is in the period of revolution or construction, we must proceed from the reality of the peasants. After the founding of New China, the Party Central Committee put forward that the peasants are an important relying force for socialist construction and the broadest and strongest mass base of state power. A series of measures, such as land reform, the building of rural political power, the implementation of the policy of unified purchase and marketing of grain, the establishment of agricultural mutual aid groups and agricultural cooperatives, the popularization of socialist education in rural areas, the launching of rural investigation and research, the establishment of poor and lower-middle peasant organizations, the launching of the "three histories" education, and the promotion of farmland water conservancy construction, are all aimed at meeting the needs of the peasant masses. In particular, the restoration and development of agricultural production, which began in 1976, has been placed in the top priority of the entire economic work.

In the spring of 1977, the provincial party committee required the rural areas to increase production and income in the distribution of that year, work more and get more, distribute cash, and benefit the members of the society. Since the beginning of the year, the income received by the peasants from collective distribution has increased year by year. The issue of distribution has become the focus of the work of the provincial party committee and the provincial government, and all localities in the province have conscientiously implemented the principle of taking into account the three aspects of the state, the collective, and the individual, and adhered to the policy of "pressing the middle and ensuring both ends."

(3) During the period of reform and opening up, Sichuan Party organizations re-understood and explored the work of "three rural areas"

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, China's economic system reform is mainly in the countryside, with economic development, socialist modernization construction in an all-round way, starting in 1978, the provincial party committee made provisions on the rural economic policy, the implementation of "contract work to the group"; in October, to the whole province to promote the Guanghan County Goldfish Commune "group operation, fixed production contract work, overproduction rewards" experience, the rural land rights system reform. The general direction of rural reform at this stage is to step by step eliminate the shackles of the "Left" and liberate the peasants and rural productive forces, thus laying the initial foundation for the modernization of Sichuan's rural areas; the essence of the reform is to establish the main position of peasant households and household operations through the appropriate separation of land ownership and use rights under the premise of keeping the land ownership relations and the form of collective management unchanged, emphasizing the mode of agricultural production and operation with the market as the mainstay, and making new breakthroughs in the positioning of planning and the market.

In 1982, the Minutes of the National Rural Work Conference (also known as "Document No. 1") formally affirmed the household contract management system for rural land. In January 1983, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued "Several Issues Concerning the Current Rural Economic Policy" (that is, the second Central Document No. 1), which pointed out that the household contract management system "is a new development of the Marxist theory of agricultural co-operation in China's practice." The 1984 "Circular on Rural Work in 1984", the "Ten Policies on Further Revitalizing the Rural Economy" in 1985, and the "Deployment of Rural Work in 1986" in 1986 were all about rural policies for five consecutive years. These five "No. 1 documents" have become a special term in the history of China's rural reform - "five No. 1 documents".

In order to implement the requirements of the PARTY Central Committee and the State Council, the provincial party committee and the provincial government have also issued a number of documents. For example, in 1982, the provincial party committee and the provincial government issued the "Instructions on Developing Diversified Rural Operations," which called on all localities to readjust the agricultural structure, comprehensively develop agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline and fishery industries, develop the side industries of members' families, and gradually develop the comprehensive operation of agriculture, industry and commerce. In 1983, the provincial party committee issued "Several Policies and Measures for Developing the Rural Economy", which required adhering to the principle of household operation and further stabilizing and improving the responsibility system for agricultural production. The enthusiasm that has been shackled on the rural land for many years has been ignited, the breath of production has been pervasive everywhere in various parts of the province, the long-suppressed productive forces have been released, the peasants' enthusiasm for production has increased, grain production has markedly increased, the situation of long-term wandering in various rural industries has ended, township and town enterprises have flourished, and major changes have taken place in the rural economic structure.

From October 1984 to October 1992, Sichuan's rural reform was further deepened, and rural reform has improved. At this stage, the focus of Sichuan's agricultural marketization reform has shifted to the field of circulation, and the core is to reform the traditional system of unified purchasing and marketing, establish a "dual-track system" model for the circulation of agricultural products, and gradually form and improve the degree of marketization of agricultural product circulation. At the same time, the circulation system of agricultural production materials has also begun to reform accordingly, and market factors have begun to be substantively introduced into agricultural growth, thus taking an important step in agriculture from a planned economy to a market economy.

From October 12, 1992 to October 2002, this stage was the stage of deepening market reform and accelerating the establishment of a socialist market economic system. In the new round of rapid economic growth, a large number of agricultural production factors have been transferred to non-agricultural fields, agricultural production has been under great pressure, and the supply of grain and other agricultural products has once again appeared, and the situation of soaring prices has emerged. In deepening rural reform, the provincial party committee and the provincial government have always adhered to policies that conform to the objective reality of the rural areas and the fundamental interests of the broad masses of peasants, especially to stabilize the two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining unified and decentralized management, so as to effectively lighten the peasants' burdens; at the same time, deepen rural reform in accordance with the requirements of establishing a socialist market economic system, and inject vitality into agriculture and rural economic development.

From October 2002 to October 2007, this period was a period of comprehensive deployment for the reform of China's economic structure in the new stage of the new century, a period of further deepening the reform of the economic structure, and a period of promoting comprehensive economic and social development. The focus of Sichuan's rural reform has also shifted to gradually changing the system of dual economic structure between urban and rural areas, coordinating urban and rural development, and further establishing a unified, open, competitive, and orderly modern market system. Major breakthroughs have been made in the reform of the agricultural system, and a two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining unified and decentralized operations has been established; the circulation of grain and other agricultural products has been comprehensively liberalized, and the market system for agricultural products and production factors has been gradually established; agricultural taxes have been abolished, direct subsidies have been imposed on peasants, and a policy system for strengthening agriculture and benefiting peasants has initially taken shape; the scope of public finance coverage in rural areas has been gradually expanded, and the institutional framework for coordinating urban and rural development is being built.

From November 2007 to October 2012, in the face of the new changes that have taken place in rural areas, the new situation facing agricultural participation in international cooperation and competition, the new problems facing rural economic and social development, and rural reform has entered a period of tackling tough problems and strategic opportunities. Rural reform, as a key link, is further promoting Sichuan's comprehensive reform at a new starting point in the overall situation.

In the new era, the Sichuan Provincial CPC Committee and the Sichuan Provincial Government have rethought and made new arrangements for the "three rural areas" work, further clarified the relationship between agriculture, rural areas, and peasant issues on the overall development of social undertakings, and further clarified the protection of peasants' material interests and democratic rights, which is the starting point and foothold of the "three rural areas" work; adhere to the orientation of market-oriented reform, break the dual structure of urban and rural areas, and make overall plans for the integrated development of urban and rural areas. The "three rural areas" work has faced different development requirements at different stages and put forward different priorities and goals. In February 2021, the issuance of the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization and Accelerating the Modernization of Agriculture and Rural Areas pointed out the direction for the CPC Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and the Sichuan Provincial People's Government to do a good job in the current and future "three rural" work.

(Author: Duan Wen, Chief of the Comprehensive Section of the Party History Research Office of the Mianyang Municipal Party Committee; Ma Rui, Fourth-level Researcher of the Office of the Party History Research Office of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee)