The Agrarian Reform Movement

At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the CPC led the reform movement of abolishing the feudal land ownership and realizing the land ownership system of the peasants in the newly Liberated Areas, which was one of the three major movements, along with the resistance to the United States and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, and was also a basic task of the Chinese democratic revolution. At the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China, feudal land system still existed in two-thirds of the whole country. In the newly Liberated Areas and areas to be liberated, such as East China, Central South, Southwest and Northwest China, with an agricultural population of about 290 million , the feudal land ownership was still severely hampering the development of social productive forces. Therefore, carrying out the land reform in the new Liberated Areas was one of the major tasks for the continuation of the new democratic revolution and one of the important conditions for the fundamental improvement of the state's financial and economic situation. According to the provisions of the “Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference”, the state must "systematically transform the feudal and semi-feudal land ownership system into a system of peasant land ownership.”

In January 1950, the CPC Central Committee issued the “Instructions on Establishing Land Reform Committees in People's Governments at All Levels and Organizing Agricultural Associations at All Levels to Direct the Land Reform Movement” and launched the preparations for implementing the land reform in the new Liberated Areas in batches. The CPC Central Committee clearly defined the general line and policy of land reform in the new Liberated Areas: relying on the poor peasants, uniting with the middle peasants and neutralizing the rich peasants, systematically and separately eliminating the feudal exploitation system, and developing agricultural production. The basic content of the land reform in the newly Liberated Areas was to confiscate the lands of the landlord class and distribute it to the peasants who have no land and few land, and to change the system of feudal exploitative land ownership into the system of peasant land ownership. For the landlords, a certain amount of land was also allocated, so that they became newcomers in labor.

On June 30, the Central People's Government Committee passed and promulgated the implementation of “Agrarian Reform Law of the People's Republic of China”, became the guideline for the newly Liberated Areas of the country.

The Land Reform Law stipulated: "The feudal and exploitative land ownership system of the landlord class is abolished and a peasant land ownership system is implemented, thereby liberating the rural productive forces, developing agricultural production, and opening the way for the industrialization of the New China.” It was also stipulated that the past policy of expropriating surplus land and property of rich peasants would be replaced by a policy of preserving the economy of rich peasants in order to better isolate landlords, protect the middle peasants and small land renters and stabilize the national bourgeoisie. In the final analysis, this new policy aimed to make the recovery and development of production. Beginning in the winter of 1950, the land reform was carried out in phases and batches under the central leadership. Each period generally went through steps such as mobilizing the masses, delimiting classes, confiscating and distributing landlords' land and property, reviewing and summarizing, and mobilizing production. All local governments sent land reform teams to the countryside to lead the land reform movement.

A large number of cadres, intellectuals (including university professors) and members of many democratic parties signed up to join the Land Reform Task Force and devoted themselves to the great struggle for land reform. Local land reform teams were deep into the countryside to visit the poor peasants, cultivate activists, and gradually mobilize the masses to establish peasant associations with the poor and the peasants as the core, as the executive organs of land reform. Subsequently, class delimitation was carried out, face-to-face struggles against the landlord class were launched to expose their evils, defeat their prestige, and suppress the most criminal elements among them and those who sabotaged the land reform.

On the basis of victory in the struggle, the peasant associations confiscated the land and property of the landlords and distributed them to the peasants who have no land and few land, and conducted a review after the distribution was completed, and the People's Government issued land certificates to guide the peasants to develop production. By the end of 1952, the agricultural population that had completed land reform, including the old Liberated Areas, accounted for more than 90% of the total agricultural population of the country. By the spring of 1953, and reform was generally implemented on the mainland of China, with the exception of Xinjiang, Xizang and other ethnic areas, as well as Taiwan Province.

The land reform completely eliminated the feudal exploitation system and enabled more than 300 million peasants throughout the country to share about 700 million mu of land and a large number of means of production without compensation, and they had no longer pay land rent of more than 30 million tons of grain to landlords every year. This is the most significant, thorough and large-scale reform of the land system in China for thousands of years, and the feudal land ownership has been completely eliminated since then. This was the most significant, thorough and large-scale reform of the land system in China for thousands of years, and the feudal land ownership system was completely abolished from then on.