Jinggang Mountains Land Law

“Jinggang Mountains Land Law” is the first land law, which was formulated by the Communist Party of China based on the experience of the agrarian revolutionary struggle from the winter of 1927 to the winter of 1928. It was officially promulgated by the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Government in December 1928.

The "Jinggang Mountains Land Law" consisted of 9 articles and 14 paragraphs, mainly in the following terms; the scope of confiscated land and the issue of ownership, the quantity and regional criteria for the allocation of land and mountain forests, and the method of land tax collection.

(1) Regarding the scope of confiscated land and the target of distribution. It is stipulated that "all confiscated lands shall be owned by the Soviet Government" and shall be assigned to the peasants for individual cultivation, and in special cases or when it is advantageous to the government, both methods of "assigning peasants to cultivate together" and "organizing model farms by the Soviet Government" shall be used. All land, after confiscation and distribution by the Soviet Government, is forbidden to be bought and sold"; "Rural handicraft workers, if they wish to share their land, will receive half of the amount of land received by each peasant". "The officers and soldiers of the Red Army and the Red Guards, those serving in the government and all other public bodies, shall be allocated land, and if the peasants receive the amount, the Soviet Government shall hire someone to cultivate it instead."

(2) Regarding the criteria and methods of land distribution. It stipulated that "the population shall be the criterion; men, women, and children shall be equally distributed"; in special circumstances, "the labor force shall be the criterion". The regional standard for land distribution stipulates that "distribution shall be made by commune", and in case of special circumstances, several communes or districts may be used as units.

(3) Regarding the land tax collection method. It stipulated that the land tax levy is mainly 15%, and in special circumstances, 10% or 5% can be applied with the approval of the Soviet Government; in case of natural disasters and other special circumstances, the senior Soviet Government approves the exemption of land tax. "Land taxes are collected by the prefectural Soviet Government and placed at the disposal of the senior Soviet Government."

These provisions stipulate different levy rates under different conditions reflect the principle of tax fairness of differentiated treatment. In a commentary added by Mao Zedong in 1941 for the book Rural Investigations edited in Yan'an, it was noted that this land law was formulated in the winter of 1928 in Jinggang Mountains (Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area). This is a summary of the experience of the land struggle during the whole year from the winter of 1927 to the winter of 1928, before which there was no experience at all.

There were several mistakes in this land law: (1) Confiscating all land instead of only landlords' land; (2) The ownership of land belongs to the government rather than to the peasants, and the peasants have only the right to use it; (3) Prohibition of land sales. These were all mistakes in principle, which were later corrected. Regarding common farming versus labor as a criterion for land distribution, it was declared not to be the main method. The main method of dividing the land between private farming and population was implemented because the former was felt to be inappropriate at that time, but many comrades advocated it, so it was later changed to use only the latter as the standard. Hiring people to plow the fields for the Red Army personnel was later changed to mobilizing farmers to plow for them.