Breaking Through the Shackles and Achieving Liberation - The Agrarian Reform Movement during the Liberation War

Source: Economic Daily

"The situation has stabilized. In accordance with Chairman Mao's strategy, the people's army defeated the Uslion army of the Chiang Kai-shek bandits and made them unable to raise their heads in the northeast. The news of victory reached the countryside, and the mass movement exploded. ”

"The task force and the peasant union, in the dark and in the day, the river is constantly visited. The nagging meeting was also resumed. When fighting Han Laoliu, Liu Deshan, who had quietly slipped away, also returned home from the small shack on the side of the mountain. Lao Sun drove the old Du family's big car and often said to people: 'The team leader was picked up by me.' ’”

The novel "The Tempest" created by writer Zhou Libo vividly reflects 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 after breaking through the shackles of feudal production relations for thousands of years. The real scenes of history are even more unforgettable.

Practice of "the tiller has his own land"

With the deepening of the anti-rape liquidation and rent-reduction and interest reduction movements, the peasants' demands for solving the land problem have gradually become urgent.

In April 1946, after listening to reports by Li Yu, Deng Zihui, and other leading cadres from various localities on the situation of peasant struggle and the reactions of various strata, the CPC Central Committee concentrated on the issue of peasant land in the Liberated Areas. After repeated study and comprehensive opinions of cadres leading the peasant movement in various localities, the "Instructions on the Land Issue" (the "May Fourth Instructions") was officially issued on May 4 of that year. This document adjusts the policy of rent reduction and interest reduction that has been implemented since the War of Resistance Against Japan to the policy of "the tiller has his own land" and sends it to the liberated areas as an inner-party document for implementation.

The "May Fourth Directive" clearly defined the right of poor peasants, middle peasants and rich peasants to own land. For example, it is not unconditionally confiscated the land of all landlords; except for the confiscation and distribution of a very small number of traitorous lands, the land of ordinary landlords can continue to follow the diversified methods created by the peasants since the rent reduction and interest reduction, such as liquidation, rent reduction, interest reduction, and land donation, so that the peasants can obtain land from the landlords and implement the practice of "the tiller has his own land."

With regard to the policy boundaries for resolving the land issue, the "May Fourth Directive" stipulates that anti-Japanese soldiers, the families of anti-Japanese cadres, and enlightened gentlemen who belong to the landlord component should be handled with caution, given appropriate care, and left them with more land. Small and medium-sized landlords should be distinguished from large landlords and bullies, and their lives should be given considerable care. In general, the land of the rich peasants will not be changed, and the land of the middle peasants must not be infringed upon. There must be a principled distinction between the treatment of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie and the treatment of the feudal landlord class, and the method of solving the land problem in the countryside and opposing the feudal landlord class cannot be used against the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie.

The formulation and promulgation of the May Fourth Directive is a phased result of the CPC's implementation of land reform. The practice process of this policy shows that on the basis of firmly supporting the peasants' land demands, our party's tactics of struggle 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 Problem" at Northeastern University, saying: "Chinese 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 solved for thousands of years." At present, only the Communist Party in all of China has explicitly put forward the agrarian program of 'the tiller has his land', and in fact has done it thoroughly in accordance with this program. Because the Communist Party sincerely does things for the people. It can be seen from this that the land reform policy at that time vividly explained that our party always adhered to the unchanged original intention of wholeheartedly seeking the interests of the people.

Promote land reform according to local conditions

As soon as the "May Fourth Directive" was issued, party organizations at all levels 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 in place, the central bureaus, central sub-bureaus, and governments at all levels in the Liberated Areas dispatched a large number of cadres to form a task force and rushed to the vast rural areas to implement it in a flexible and diverse manner in light of the actual local conditions.

In the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia 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-Ningxia Liberated Area at that time had basically disappeared, and the other half had been weakened after many rent and interest reductions, and many of them were enlightened gentlemen. In this case, in December 1946, the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region promulgated the "Draft Regulations on the Requisition of Land for Landlords", which stipulated that in addition to the landlords leaving the land for self-cultivation, the rest would be requisitioned by the government issuing public bonds, and the requisitioned land would be distributed to the peasants who had no land or little land. The public debt is delivered to the landlord as the land price and repaid in 10 years. Through this method, most of the land was returned to the peasants free of charge, and some of the land was transferred to the peasants in the form of public debt.

Looking at other liberated areas, according to incomplete statistics, by October 1946, 20 million peasants had acquired land in the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Liberated Area; by November 1946, 15 million peasants had acquired land in the Suwan Liberated Area; by the end of October 1946, 5 million peasants had obtained land in the Northeast Liberated Area; by the end of 1946, 19 million peasants had obtained land in the Shandong Liberated Area; and by the end of 1946, more than 1 million peasants in the Jinsui Liberated Area had obtained more than 3 million mu of land. From the end of June 1946 to February 1947, about two-thirds of the liberated areas solved the land problem and realized that "the tiller has his land".

It is undeniable that at that time, in the process of land reform, some problems also arose. For example, some cadres and activists have divided up more land, resulting in the problem of poor peasant land in some villages not being rationally resolved; in some areas, the land reform has not been thorough enough, and the landlords' prestige has not yet fallen, half-collapsed, 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 "Greeting the New Upsurge of the Chinese Revolution" on February 1, 1947, that places where the land reform is not thorough must be seriously inspected, filled in and completed, and that compensation and apologies must be made for violations of the interests of the middle peasants. By the first half of 1947, the Liberated Areas carried out land reform reviews, which basically solved these problems.

Promulgation of the Outline of China's Land Law

Through the in-depth reform of the land system, many liberated areas have basically solved the peasant land problem. However, it is undeniable that while the achievements in land reform have been remarkable, 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 held 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 the reform of the land system publicly promulgated by the Communist Party of China after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.

The Outline of China's Land Law clearly stipulates that the land system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation shall be abolished, the land ownership of all landlords shall be abolished, and the land system of "the tiller has his own land" shall be implemented. The "Outline" stipulates the basic principle of thoroughly dividing the land equally, that is, the land and common land of all landlords in the village shall be taken over by the village peasant association, and together with all other land in the village, according to the entire population of the village, regardless of men, women, old and young, uniformly and evenly distributed, the number of land will be more and the less will be supplemented, and the quality will be enriched and the thin, so that the whole rural people will obtain the same land and belong to each person. However, the "Outline" stipulates that the method of distributing all land equally infringes 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 the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia, Jinsui, and Northeast Liberated Areas, methods such as "breaking the old circles," "re-measuring," and "how much to flatten" were adopted to disrupt the land and redistribute it equally according to the population in the natural villages; in the newly opened liberated areas of Eyuwan, Jianghan, and southern Shaanxi, the movement to open up warehouses to help the poor, divide the land, and divide the floating wealth was rapidly launched. The novel "The Tempest", which was later written by the writer Zhou Libo, tells the story of the northeast region that took place in the period from 1946 to 1947.

This stormy land reform movement, with thunderous force, violently impacted the feudal land system for thousands of years, changed the old production relations in the countryside, enabled hundreds of millions of peasants to gain political and economic liberation, and thus burst forth with immeasurable revolutionary enthusiasm. They enthusiastically participated in the battle and supported the children and soldiers with grain, grass, clothing and other materials. Historical data show that in the three years, a total of 1.48 million peasants joined the army in the Luyu Liberated Area of Jinjin and Hebei, 590,000 young people joined the army in the Shandong Liberated Area, and 7 million civilian workers fought with the army. The vigorous land reform movement has provided a steady stream of human and material support for the victory of the whole country. (Economic Daily-China Economic Network reporter Lv Liqin, Liang Jianzhen )