Fanshen
Page 79
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As Ch’i Yun, Hsieh Hung, and I travelled the tortuous road from Lucheng over the mountains to Licheng, Szuhsien, Wuan, and Hsingt’ai, peasant armies were already gathering on the borders of every revolutionary bastion in the North. They were moving into position for the great autumn offensive of 1948. Across the vast wei ch’i board of China the lines were filling up. After 20 years of encirclement and counter-encirclement, the contest between the white chips and the red chips was surging toward final decision.
The People’s Liberation Army struck first at Tsinan, Shantung. There, in eight days and nights of fierce September combat, Ch’en Yi’s peasant volunteers overpowered 100,000 Kuomintang conscripts and captured the once bold “Tiger of Shantung,” Wang Yao-wu.
The contest then shifted temporarily to the Northeast. In quick succession Chinchou, the gateway to the region, Changchun, the administrative capital, and Shenyang, the industrial capital, went down. Chiang Kai-shek personally took charge of the battle but nevertheless lost 400,000 of his best troops in three weeks.
No sooner had the dust settled north of the Great Wall than the battle for the Central Plains began. This battle, known as the Huai-hai campaign because it was fought between the Huai River and the sea (toai), developed into one of the largest conflicts in the history of warfare. More than half a million men took part on each side, and the fighting, which lasted for 65 days, resulted in the complete annihilation of the Kuomintang armies between the Yellow and the Yangtze Rivers.
But even this great victory did not exhaust the energy of the revolutionary forces that winter. While the Huai-hai campaign churned toward its culmination, the People’s Army of Northeast China joined the People’s Army of North China to take Tientsin, surround Peking, and force the surrender of still a third half-million men—the armies under General Fu T’so-yi that represented the last major hope of the collapsing counter-revolution. For the Nationalists, Fu’s surrender meant the loss of everything north of the Yangtze River, at a time when the South had been all but drained of combat-ready troops.
The Armageddon of Chinese feudalism thus reached its climax and its denouement all in the space of a few short months. Between one monsoon and the next, the main forces of the landlords and the compradores built up over many decades, supplied, trained, and advised in the field by United States officers, were crushed one after the other by the peasant battalions of the Chinese Communist Party.
This triple blow brought about one of those great qualitative transformations that have periodically shaken history and changed the course of world events.
The victories put land reform on the program of a continent, on the agenda of hundreds of millions. It was only a matter of time before the scattered remnants of Chiang’s beaten legions were completely wiped out or driven from the mainland. Then, in tens of thousands of villages from the Po-hai Gulf to Hainan Island, peasants who owned nothing but the rags on their backs began to form Poor Peasants’ Leagues, to classify the classes, to settle accounts with their landlords, and to march step by step down the road pioneered by their brothers in such obscure northern hamlets as Long Bow—the great road to fanshen.
Appendix A
Basic Program on Chinese Agrarian Law Promulgated by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, 1947.
North Shansi, October 10: The following is the full text of the basic program on Chinese Agrarian Law promulgated on October 10th by the publication of the program.
Resolution:
China’s agrarian system is unjust in the extreme. Speaking of general conditions, landlords and rich peasants who make up less than ten percent of the rural population hold approximately 70 to 80 percent of the land, cruelly exploiting the peasantry. Farm laborers, poor peasants, middle peasants, and other people, however, who make up over 90 percent of the rural population hold a total of approximately only 20 to 30 percent of the land, toiling throughout the whole year, knowing neither warmth nor full stomach. These grave conditions are the root of our country’s being the victim of aggression, oppression, poverty, backwardness, and the basic obstacles to our country’s democratization, industrialization, independence, unity, strength and prosperity.
In order to change these conditions, it is necessary, on the basis of the demands of the peasantry, to wipe out the agrarian system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation, and realize the system of “land to the tillers.” For 20 years, and especially in the last two years, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese peasants have obtained enormous achievements and rich experiences in carrying out land reform. In September of this year, the Chinese Communist Party convened a nationwide agrarian conference, and at the conference did detailed research into conditions of the Chinese agrarian system and experience of the land reform, and enacted the basic program on Chinese agrarian law to serve as a proposal to the democratic governments of all areas, peasants’ meetings, peasants’ congresses and their committees. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is in complete accord with the basic program on agrarian law, and is furthermore publishing it. It is hoped that the democratic governments of all areas, peasants’ meetings, peasants’ congresses, and their committees will discuss and adopt this proposal, and futhermore will work out concrete methods appropriate to local conditions, to unfold and thoroughly carry through a nationwide land reform movement, completing the basic task of the Chinese revolution.
Central Committee Chinese Communist Party
October 10, 1947
Basic Program:
Article 1: The agrarian system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation is abolished. The agrarian system of “land to the tillers” is to be realized.
Article 2: Landownership rights of all landlords are abolished.
Article 3: Landownership rights of all ancestral shrines, temples, monasteries, schools, institutions and organizations are abolished.
Article 4: All debts incurred in the countryside prior to the reform of the agrarian system are cancelled.
Article 5: The legal executive organs for the reform of the agrarian system shall be the village peasants’ meetings, and the committees elected by them; the assemblies of the Poor Peasants’ League and organized and landless and land-poor peasants of villages, and the committees elected by it; ch’u, hsien, provincial and other levels of peasants’ congresses, and committees elected by them.
Article 6: Except as provided in Article 9 Section B, all land of landlords in the villages, and all public land, shall be taken over by the village peasants’ associations, and together with all other village land, in accordance with the total population of the village, irrespective of male or female, young or old, shall be unifiedly and equally distributed; with regard to the quantity of land, surplus shall be taken to relieve dearth, and with regard to the quality of land, fertile land shall be taken to supplement infertile, so that all the village people shall obtain land equally; and it shall be the individual property of each person.
Article 7: The unit for the distribution of the land shall be the hsiang or administrative village equivalent to hsiang. But ch’u or hsien peasants’ associations may make certain necessary adjustments between various hsiangs, or equivalent administrative villages. In areas where the district is extensive and the population sparse, and for the purpose of convenient cultivation, compartivly small units below the level of the hsiang may be taken as units for the distribution of the land.
Article 8: Village peasants’ associations shall take over the landlords’ animals, agricultural implements, houses, grain and other properties, shall further expropriate the surplus animals, agricultural implements, houses, grain and other properties of rich peasants; and these shall be distributed to peasants lacking in these properties, and to other poor people, and furthermore an equal portion shall be distributed to the landlords. The property distributed to each person shall be his personal property, thus enabling all the village people to obtain proper materials for production and for life.
Article 9: Methods for dealing with certain special lands and properties, provided as follows:
Section A: Woods and hills, irrigation and waterworks, land in reeds, orchards, pools, waste land and other distributable land shall be divided in accordance with the ordinary standards for land.
Section B: Great forests, great hydraulic engineering works, large mines, large pasture land, large waste lands and lakes shall be administered by the government.
Section C: Famous sites and historic spots shall be securely protected. Special libraries, antiques, works of art, and so forth, which are of historic or academic value, and which have been taken over shall be inventoried and turned over to the high government of the area.
Section D: Ammunition, arms, and those large quantities of money, valuables, and grain left over after satisfying the needs of the peasants shall be inventoried and turned over to the high government of the area for settlement.
Article 10: Methods for dealing with certain special questions in the distribution of the land, provided as follows:
Section A: Poor peasants with only one or two persons in the family may be given land equivalent to that of two or three people by the village peasants’ meetings, in consideration of prevailing conditions.
Section B: Rural laborers, individual professionals, and their families, in general, shall be given land equivalent to that of peasants; but if their profession is sufficient for constant maintenance of all or most of their living expenses, they shall not be given land, or shall be given a partial portion of land, as determined by the village peasants’ meetings and their committees in consideration of prevailing conditions.
Section C: For all personnel of the People’s Liberation Army, democratic governments, all people’s organizations, whose home is in the countryside, they and their families shall be given land and properties equivalent to that of peasants.
Section D: Landlords and their families shall be given land and properties equivalent to that of peasants.
Section E: For KMT army officers and soldiers, KMT government officials and personnel, KMT party members and other enemy personnel, whose homes are in rural areas, their families shall be given land and properties equivalent to that of the peasants.
Section F: For all national traitors, collaborators, and civil war criminals, they themselves shall not be given land or properties. If their families live in the countryside, have not taken part in criminal activities, and are willing to cultivate the land themselves, they shall be given land and properties equivalent to that of the peasants.
Article 11: The government shall issue deeds to the ownership of the land given to the people, and moreover recognize their right to free management, buying and selling, and under specially determined conditions to rent out the land. All land deeds and all notes on debts from prior to the reform of the agrarian system shall be turned in and shall be null and void.
Article 12: The property and legal operations of industrial and commercial elements shall be protected from encroachment.
Article 13: For the sake of making the land reform thorough and complete, people’s courts shall be established to try and punish those who resist or violate the provisions of this law. The people’s courts shall be organized from personnel elected by peasants’ meetings or peasants’ congresses and from personnel appointed by the government.
Article 14: During the period of the reform of the agrarian system, for the sake of maintaining the order of the agrarian reform and protecting the wealth of the people, the village peasants’ meetings or their committees shall appoint personnel, by definite procedure to take necessary steps for carrying out the responsibilities of taking over, recording, liquidating and holding all transferred lands and properties, to guard against damage, waste, corruption and destruction. The peasants’ associations shall forbid anyone from, for the sake of interrupting equitable distribution, deliberately butchering animals, felling trees, destroying agricultural implements, irrigation and waterworks, buildings and construction works, or crops or other materials; and the act of thieving, seizing, secretly giving away to others, concealing, burying, dispersing, or selling their goods. Violations shall be tried and punished by the people’s courts.
Article 15: For the sake of guaranteeing that all measures of land reform shall be in accord with the will and interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, the government shall take the responsibility for securing earnest democratic rights for the people; securing full rights for the peasants and their representatives at all meetings freely to criticize and impeach all cadres of all kinds and levels; and full rights at all appropriate meetings freely to remove and change and to elect all cadres of the government and peasants’ organizations. Anyone who infringes on the above democratic rights and powers of the people shall be punished by the people’s courts.
Article 16: In places where the land has already been equally distributed before the promulgation of this law, and provided that the peasants do not demand redistribution, the land need not be redistributed.
Appendix B
Supplementary Measures for Carrying Out the Basic Program on Agrarian Law
Draft Promulgated by Hopei-Honan-Shansi-Shantung Border Region Government on Dec. 28, 1947
1. “Landownership rights of all ancestral shrines, temples, monasteries, schools, institutions and organizations are abolished,” as provided in Article 3. This includes land ownership of churches.
2. “To cancel all debts incurred in the countryside prior to the reform of the agrarian system,” as provided in Article 4, does not include debt relations contracted in commercial buying and selling.
3. “In accordance with the total population of the village,” as is said in Article 6, denotes the present population at the time of even distribution of land. All even distribution should be made according to the present population with the only exception as provided in Section A of Article 10, i.e., “Poor peasants with only one or two persons in the family may be given land equivalent to that of two or three people by the village peasants’ meetings, in consideration of the prevailing conditions.”
4. Supplements to Article 6:
(a) All the newly reclaimed land since the 34th year of the Chinese Republic should be owned by the reclaimer, and exempted from even distribution.
(b) Land of the rich middle peasants may be taken, in consideration of the prevailing conditions, according to the principle of taking surplus to relieve dearth and fertile to supplement infertile; but their houses and properties should not be touched.
(c) Refugees and migratory persons should settle in one place and receive a share there. No duplicate shares should be extended to them in two places.
(d) Refugees not at home and no longer heard of should be given land according to law, and not properties. Such shares of land should be put under the charge of the peasants’ associations and be tilled for the time being by the poor and hired peasants or other poor people; no rent should be paid but only taxes. But the period for keeping such shares of land is limited to three years (beginning from the date when land is distributed). If they don’t come back before the time limit, such shares should be reallocated. If they come back to receive the shares within the time limit they must produce credentials of the peasants’ assembly of the village where they come from, if it is in the Liberated Areas.
(e) Land of the mosques should be dealt with by the Moslems themselves according to the principle of even distribution of all land in the respective villages.
5. Supplement to Article 7:
In areas where the population is dense and the land is scarce and where the poor and hired peasants cannot have enough means to live on after the distribution, migration may be encouraged on the principle of voluntariness.
6. Supplements to Article 8:
(a) In case the landlords also rent out houses in town or townlet, such houses should be confiscated and distributed as well. In general the principle should be to distribute them to the poor
people in the said town or townlet. Method of distribution should be decided by the people’s assembly (or its committee) of the said town or townlet. In case of some dispute arising with the village, solution may be made in co-ordination with the county peasants’ congress (or its committee). If the tenant of such houses is carrying on industrial or merchant business by means of them, the relationship with him should be dealt with in accordance with the accustomed measures on renting houses; the principle is not to influence the carrying on of industry and commerce.
(b) Extra fruits seized by cadres since the Anti-Traitor and Settling Accounts Movement should be recalled.
7. Supplement to Section A of Article 9:
Forests, mulberry patches, bamboo patches, irrigation and waterworks, land in reeds, orchards, pools, swamps, and lotus pools should be dealt with through the public discussion of the peasants in the respective places. Those which may be evenly distributed should be so; in case that even distribution is not advantageous for managerial purposes, joint-stock management may be adopted.
8. Supplements to Section B of Article 9:
(a) Mines which are being exploited by the government or are going to be exploited should not be distributed; the already discovered mines which government does not work for the time being may be distributed to peasants for management, and should be recalled when it is necessary to work the mine; when recalled, the local government should make adjustment with the land for the peasants by some other means and make proper redemption for the losses in production.
(b) Public land attached to the tracks along the original railroad line, land ready to be used for the railroad which is going to be built, and land belonging to the present agricultural stations, public buildings, parks, mausoleums, and appointed highways and waterways should not be distributed. The usage of such lands should be decided by people’s assemblies on different levels together with the governments. Nobody is permitted to retain land at his own will on any pretext whatever.