Policy of Land Distribution

In the New-Democratic Revolution, the policy of CPC to solve the land problem of peasants. The land distribution policy of the CPC experienced a process of development and change.

During the Great Revolution, the Party did not put forward a clear land policy. After the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927, the Party carried out the policy of combining the land revolution and armed struggle, launched the masses in the countryside, established the rural revolutionary base area, carried out the land revolution, eliminated the feudal landlords' land ownership system, and realized that "land to the tillers”.

In December 1928, Mao Zedong led the formulation of the Jinggang Mountain Land Law, which stipulated that "all land confiscated shall be owned by the Soviet government”. Then in April 1929, the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army enacted the “Xingguo Land Law”, which changed "confiscating all land" in the “Jinggang Mountain Land Law” into "confiscating all public land and the land of the landlord class", which was a principled correction. In July of the same year, under the guidance of Mao Zedong, the “Resolution on the Land Question” adopted by the First Congress of the Party held in Western Fujian also stipulated that "the land of the self-employed peasants shall not be confiscated" and put forward the principle of "taking from the haves in order to give to the have nots" as the method of land distribution.

In February 1930, the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army of the CPC, the Special Committee of Guanxi Province and the Military Committee of the Fifth Army and the Sixth Red Army held a joint meeting (commonly known as the "February 7th Meeting"), criticizing the right leaning mistakes in some regions which delayed the struggle of distributing farmland, proposed that: first we should "divide" and secondly we should be "fast"; criticized the practice of distributing land according to farming ability and according to labor force which was prevalent in some regions, the meeting affirmed the principle of the equal re-distribution of land according to farming population.

In June 1930, the resolution on the issue of rich peasants which was adopted by the joint meeting of the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army of the CPC and the Special Committee of West Fujian, in addition to reiterating that the distribution of land should be based on the criterion of population, it also added the principle of "taking from the fat to pad the lean" as a solution to the problem that rich peasants kept fertile farmland fields for themselves.

In February 1931, Mao Zedong wrote a letter to the Soviet government of Jiangxi Province in accordance with the decision of the CPC Central Committee and in the name of the director of the General Political Department of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, instructing the Soviet government to order all levels of government to issue a notice, stating that after the land was distributed to the farmers, the farmers had the ownership of the land and could lease it for sale, except for paying land tax to the government, all of them belong to the peasants. Thus, the provisions of “Jinggang Mountain Land Law” based on the ownership of land related to the government rather than the peasants, the peasants only had the right to use the land, and the land transaction was prohibited.

After more than three years of agrarian revolution practice in the revolutionary base areas, the CPC had basically formed a set of practical and feasible distribution lines, policies and methods of agrarian revolution, mainly relying on poor peasants and farm laborers, uniting with middle peasants, limiting rich peasants, eliminating the landlord class, changing the feudal land ownership into the peasant land ownership, based on taking village as the main unit and distributing land equally according to population, and pointed out that on the basis of cultivated land, and carried out the principles of "taking from the haves in order to give to the have nots" and the principle of "taking from the fat to pad the lean" and other detailed policies.

Under the guidance of the Party's line, policy and method of the agrarian revolution, the vast number of poor peasants launched a fierce fire on the feudal land system that had ruled China for thousands of years, which enabled the Chinese revolution to persist and develop under extremely difficult conditions after the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927.

During the Anti-Japanese War, in order to realize the whole nation's Anti-Japanese War, the Central Committee of the CPC changed the term "land to the tiller" to "rent and interest reduction” as the basic policy to solve the farmers' land problem. The implementation of this policy not only alleviated the exploitation of peasants by landlords, but also mobilized the enthusiasm of peasants against Japanese aggression, laying a mass foundation for the victory of the War of Liberation against Japan.

During the War of Liberation, in order to meet the needs of the Civil Revolutionary War and the demands of the peasants for land, on May 4, 1946, the Central Committee of the CPC issued the “Directive on Land Issues” (the May Fourth Directive) and decided to change the policy of rent and interest reduction into confiscating the landlord's lands and distributing it to the peasants, and into implementing the policy of "land to the tiller".

With the progress of the War of Liberation, from July to September 1947, the Central Committee of the CPC convened a National Land Conference and formulated the “Outline Land Law of China”, which stipulated the abolition of the land system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation, the implementation of the land system of "land for the tiller", and in accordance to that, all landlords' land and public land in rural areas should have been equally distributed according to the whole rural population, and the surplus land and property of the rich peasants should have been expropriated and distributed to the peasants and other poor people.

In December 1947, the Central Committee of the CPC formulated the policy of land reform: "To rely on the poor peasants and unite solidly with the middle peasants to abolish the feudal and semi-feudal system of exploitation by the landlord class and by the old-type rich peasants.” It also stipulated that two fundamental principles should be observed in land reform: "Firstly, the demands of the poor peasants and farm labourers must be satisfied; this is the most fundamental task in the land reform; and secondly, there must be firm unity with the middle peasants, and their interests must not be damaged.” Thus, CPC ensured the success of land system reform in the Liberated Areas.

By the autumn of 1948, more than 100 million farmers acquired land in the Liberated Areas. The reform of the land system greatly increased the enthusiasm of the peasants for revolution and production and enhanced their political consciousness and organizational level. They actively participated in the army, supported the front line, and provided a continuous source of human and material resources for the final victory of the People's War of Liberation.

After the founding of new China in 1949, land reform was not carried out only in the new Liberated Areas. In June 1950, the Central People's Government adopted the “Draft Agrarian Reform Law of the People's Republic of China”, which was put forward by the Central Committee of the CPC. The “Land Reform Law” summarized the experience of the CPC in leading the land reform in the past, stipulated the policy of preserving the rich peasant economy according to the actual situation at that time, which became the basic legal basis for guiding the land reform in the new Liberated Areas. After that, the Government Council had successively formulated and promulgated the implementation of the relevant laws and policies.

By the end of 1952, land reform was basically completed in the whole country, except for some ethnic areas and Taiwan Province. Including the previously Liberated Areas, about 300 million landless farmers nationwide had obtained about 700 million mu of land free of charge, and the farmers were exempted from paying up to 30 million tons of land rent to landlords every year before the land reform.

The land reform movement destroyed the feudal exploitation system for thousands of years, eliminated the feudal landlord class, made the peasants become the masters of the land, greatly mobilized the political enthusiasm and production enthusiasm of hundreds of millions of peasants, and played a positive role in liberating the rural social productive forces, promoting the development of agricultural production, consolidating the alliance of workers and peasants, and building the grass-roots political power.