The Outline Land Law of China

“The Outline Land Law of China” is the agrarian revolutionary program of a thoroughly anti-feudal nature formulated by the Communist Party of China during the Liberation War.

After the People's Liberation Army shifted to a strategic offensive in 1947, a campaign to reform the land system in the Liberated Areas was required to be carried out more generally and deeply.

In order to promote the further development of land reform in the Liberated Areas, from July to September 1947, with the support of Liu Shaoqi, the Central Working Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a National Land Conference in Xibaipo Village, Jianping County, Hebei Province, and formulated the “The Outline Land Law of China”, which was approved and published by the CPC Central Committee on October 10 of the same year.

There are 16 articles in “The Outline Land Law of China”: It was stipulated that "the land system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation is abolished and a land system of land for the cultivator is implemented", openly raising the revolutionary banner of abolishing the land ownership system of feudal landlords.

It also provides that "Except for the land managed by the government according to the regulations, all landowners' land and public land in the villages shall be received by the village farmers' associations, and together with all other lands in the villages, shall be uniformly and equally distributed according to the entire population of the villages, without distinction between men, women, and children, and the quantity of the land shall be drawn to compensate for the small amount, and the quality of the land shall be drawn to compensate for the concealed."

This provision was generally conducive to satisfying the land demands of the vast number of peasants, first and foremost the poor and hired peasants, but the equal distribution of all land could easily lead to infringement of the interests of the middle peasants, so it was changed when the land reform was carried out in the newly Liberated Areas and nationwide.

It also stipulates that the village peasant congresses and their elected committees, the assemblies of poor peasant groups organized by the landless peasants in the villages and their elected committees, and the district, county, and provincial peasant congresses and their elected committees are the legal executive organs of the land reform, and stipulates that people's tribunals can be organized to ensure the implementation of the policies and decrees of the land reform and maintain the revolutionary order. In this way, the mobilization of the peasants themselves to fight against the landlords and obtain land was combined with the promulgation of decrees by the government to support the struggle of the masses, thus ensuring that the land reform movement could be carried out thoroughly.

“The Outline Land Law of China” was a thoroughly anti-feudal agrarian revolutionary program that embodied the land reform line of the Communist Party of China, guiding hundreds of millions of peasants to join the torrent of China's democratic revolution and promoting the rapid climax of land system reform in the vast countryside.