Landlord Class

The class that made use of the land to exploit and oppress the peasants, the ruling class in the feudal society. The landlord class was another exploiting class after the collapse of slave society, it owned land and other means of production, enjoyed feudal privileges in every respect, economy, politics, culture, education, etc., tied the peasants to the land, and exercised cruel economic exploitation and political oppression. Engels pointed out that throughout the Middle Ages large, the property in land was the prerequisite by means of which the feudal nobility came to have quit-rent peasants and corvée peasants. Mao Zedong also pointed out that a landlord is a person who owns land, does not engage in labor himself, or does so only to a very small extent, and lives by exploiting the peasants. In different countries and different periods, landlords have different names, such as feudal lords, manor-owners (seigneurs), serf-owners, lords and so on.

The emergence and development of the landlord class has undergone a historical process. After the transition from slave society to feudal society, the landlord class entered the arena of history as a new class and promoted the development of society and history. Landlords are bound up with the patriarchal system. Feudal society presented very different features in the West and the East.

As the West entered the Middle Ages, theology reigned over everything, human reason was ignored, and religious theology was not only the spiritual pillar of the feudal state, but also reigned over the intellectual life of the people. What served as the economic foundation of feudal society was feudal or estate property, and the main form of property in the feudal epoch was feudal landlord private property; it was characterized by the landlord’s property in land and the use of serf labor bound to the land. In addition, there was also private property of individuals with small capital engaging in labor themselves and commanding the labor of their journeymen.

In feudal society, there were complex class relations. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels pointed out that in the Middle Ages there were feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. With the development of productive forces and the progress in science and technology, the bourgeoisie rose rapidly and the feudal system and the landlord class died out with it.

In China, an Oriental society, the rulers constantly strengthened the despotic centralism, and landlords played an important role in this process. At the same time, the landlords, due to hereditary or other means of obtaining wealth, bought large amounts of land and enjoyed various privileges, and oppressed the peasants. China’s feudal society has always been a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy, and even in modern times, capitalist economy arose, but its innate conditions were insufficient, leading to a deformed development afterwards, slow development of capitalist industrial and commercial economy, and no weakening in the strength of the landlord class. The collection of rent was the landlord’s main form of exploitation; in addition, he may lend money, employ labor, or engage in industry or commerce. But his collection of rent from the peasants was his principal form of exploitation. Warlords, bureaucrats, local tyrants and evil gentry were the political representatives of the landlord class and exceptionally ruthless members of the landlord class; persons who assisted landlords in collecting rent and managing property, who depended on landlord exploitation of the peasants as their main source of income shall be put in the same category as landlords. Although the replacement of the class of slave-owners by the landlord class was a great progress in history, and at that time represented the advanced relations of production, and the peasants also gained a certain degree of freedom, in modern times, the landlord class was the principal social basis of the imperialist rule in China, and was the class that politically, economically and culturally fettered the progress of Chinese society without having the slightest progressive role to play. Therefore, the landlord class was the target of the revolution as a class. In the economically backward, semi-colonial and semi-feudal society of China, the landlord class and the comprador class were wholly appendages of the international bourgeoisie, depending upon imperialism for their existence and development. These classes represented the most backward and most reactionary relations of production in China and hindered the development of the productive forces. Their existence was utterly incompatible with the purpose of the Chinese revolution. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese people won the victory of the new-democratic revolution, overthrew feudalism, smashed the feudal-despotic system and the peasants stood up and became the masters of the country. In mainland China, the landlords have also died out with it as a class.