Violent Land Reform of China
BY：MAO Jiansheng (茆家升)
【Abstract: Historical truth tells us that for thousands of years, the primary conflict in rural China was not between landlords and peasants but between successive government authorities and the rural populace due to exorbitant taxation, arbitrary seizure of land and property from peasants—including small and medium landlords—and wanton infringement upon laborers themselves, thereby provoking conflicts. Chinese landlords, especially small and medium ones, had complex sources of land and wealth; not all were acquired through exploitation. Many were skilled farmers and adept managers. They were also the main providers of land dividends. In the longstanding conflicts between the government and peasants, they played a buffering role and served as a balancing force, which was an important factor in the long-term relative stability of Chinese rural areas. Confiscating the land and property of landlords and rich peasants through violent means is unconstitutional and illegal. Regardless of when the "Property Law of the People's Republic of China" (《中华人民共和国物权法》) was promulgated, no one has the right to arbitrarily seize others' property. Brutally treating so-called struggle targets to the extent of wanton torture and killing of innocents is blatant criminal behavior.】
Violent land reform initiated a century of great turmoil in parts of the world, with China suffering heavily. The instigators were the fallacious doctrines of class struggle, violent revolution, and the elimination of private ownership propagated by Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong (马克思、列宁、斯大林、毛泽东)!
For thousands of years, China has been a nation founded on agriculture. The focal point of various social conflicts ultimately converged on land and its products. Specifically, until the period before the Reform and Opening Up, China's industry, commerce, and scientific and cultural undertakings were all underdeveloped, and the survival of the Chinese people primarily depended on land. Therefore, this substantial "cake" of land inevitably attracted covetous eyes from all sides and inevitably led to various conflicts and incidents over how it should be divided, even sparking wars such as peasant uprisings.
For more than sixty years, traditional education has told us that the focal point of rural conflicts was the vicious land annexation by the landlord class and their cruel exploitation and oppression of poor peasants, leaving the people destitute. Therefore, it was necessary to organize poor peasants, including village ruffians and idlers, to use violent revolutionary means—even terror tactics—to carry out ruthless struggles against landlords and rich peasants, seize their land and property, and even physically eliminate them. It was believed that such actions would lead to a great development of productive forces, and peasants would be able to live good lives. Therefore, Mao Zedong (毛泽东) called this "rogue movement" "very good!"
However, historical truth tells us that for thousands of years, the main conflict in rural areas was not between landlords and peasants but between successive government authorities and the rural populace due to exorbitant taxation, arbitrary seizure of peasants' land and property—including arbitrary infringement upon laborers themselves—thereby provoking conflicts. Those oppressed and exploited by the government included all peasants, as well as small and medium landlords. When conflicts intensified to the extreme, peasant uprisings would erupt. The rebellions led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang at the end of the Qin Dynasty, the Yellow Turban Rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhang Shicheng, and Yang Yao at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the White Lotus Society during the mid-Qing Dynasty, and Hong Xiuquan at the end of the Qing Dynasty—all were conflicts between peasants and government authorities. As for so-called "tenant revolts" triggered by landlords' exploitation and oppression of poor peasants, leading to large-scale uprisings, not a single instance is recorded in historical materials.
Chinese landlords, especially small and medium ones, had complex sources of land and wealth; not all were acquired through exploitation. Many were skilled farmers and adept managers. They were also the main providers of agricultural wealth. While they exploited peasants through forms such as leasing and hiring labor, they themselves were also exploited by successive governments.
In the conflicts between government authorities and peasants, small and medium landlords generally stood with the peasants. They should be considered the petty bourgeoisie in rural areas, and even those of larger scale, as long as they did not collude with the government to harm peasants, should be considered the middle class in rural areas. They played a buffering role in the longstanding conflicts between the government and peasants and served as a balancing force, which was an important factor in the long-term relative stability of Chinese rural areas. Their exploitative behaviors could be changed through peaceful means, such as the land reform in Taiwan. If they are all regarded as monstrous evils that must be firmly suppressed until their physical elimination, it will cause great social turmoil and regression and great destruction of productive forces. China's violent land reform is empirical evidence of this.
The violent land reform that spanned several decades was erroneous both in theory and practice. Its theoretical basis and guiding ideology were Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) works published in the 1920s, which can be called the essence of so-called Mao Zedong Thought: "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society" (《中国社会各阶层分析》) and "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (《湖南农民运动考察报告》). These two articles are typical examples of "using theory to replace history"; they are arbitrary works without scientific textual research and are products of ideology. Using them to guide China's revolutionary practice has brought endless harm.
First, confiscating the land and property of landlords and rich peasants through violent means is unconstitutional and illegal. Regardless of when the "Property Law of the People's Republic of China" (《中华人民共和国物权法》) was promulgated, no one has the right to arbitrarily seize others' property. As for brutally treating so-called struggle targets to the extent of wanton torture and killing of innocents, it is blatant criminal behavior. No matter how beautiful the rhetoric used to cover it up, how powerful the propaganda offensive, or how strong the backing of the state apparatus, it cannot change the truth of the facts.
Mao Zedong (毛泽东) was the initiator of the great disaster of violent land reform. It was precisely through violent land reform and continuous political movements that Mao completed the transition from a one-party dictatorship to a leadership dictatorship. From then on, Mao Zedong could act lawlessly and commit all sorts of evil in China, finally becoming the greatest tyrant in Chinese history. The Chinese people suffered endless hardships in the inferno of Maoist communist tyranny, with countless deaths. It was not until Mao died that a glimmer of hope appeared. But Mao's ghost lingers, still harming the world; eliminating Mao's residual poison is a heavy and long-term task.
How to fully evaluate that far-reaching and extensive violent land reform, which involved a wide range of areas, may still require some time. I am merely making some historical retrospection and pondering certain issues. Errors are welcome to be criticized and corrected.
This article is the first of a series on violent land reform. The full text consists of four parts, each with its own focus.
I. The Bloody Land Reform in the Jin-Sui Region in 1947 Pioneered Nationwide Violent Land Reform After 1949
After the founding of the People's Republic, China underwent an overwhelming number of events: land reform, suppression of counterrevolutionaries, the Three-Anti and Five-Anti campaigns, the Three Major Transformations, purges, the Anti-Rightist Movement, the Anti-Rightist Deviation Movement, the Great Leap Forward, the People's Commune, the Four Cleanups, culminating in the ten-year catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. Each political movement, regardless of its primary revolutionary target, severely impacted all walks of life across the country. Regarding violent land reform, the most severely affected and transformed was China's vast rural areas.
The land reform movement—more accurately, violent land reform—was a massive campaign that unfolded vigorously after the establishment of the new regime. From Mao Zedong (毛泽东) to top leaders at all levels, everyone personally took charge and mobilized, even compelling people from all sectors, including leading figures of various democratic parties, public security, procuratorate, courts, the military, and other state apparatus, as well as venerable scholars and technological elites, to fully participate. Large teams of land reform work groups marched into every corner of the countryside and, together with local poor peasants and hired laborers who were active in land reform, used violent means to turn rural China upside down. They thoroughly crushed rural landlords, rich peasants, and some affluent middle peasants, confiscated their land, oxen, farm tools, and various so-called floating assets, and even physically eliminated them, distributing their wives and daughters. The number of landlords killed was between one and two million; those labeled with various epithets and detained or controlled were countless. This great revolution and turmoil touched upon property and the physical body and, of course, included the soul—namely, ideology. As in the title of Zhou Libo's (周立波) Stalin Prize-winning book, it was a "Hurricane" (《暴风骤雨》). In fact, such a title cannot fully express the brutality of this movement; changing it to "Bloody Storm" might be closer.
How to evaluate and summarize this bloody storm that occurred more than half a century ago may still require some time. But Zhou Libo's novel "Hurricane" (《暴风骤雨》), Ding Ling's (丁玲) land reform-themed novel "The Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River" (《太阳照在桑干河上》), and He Jingzhi's (贺敬之) drama "The White-Haired Girl" (《白毛女》), which is also closely related to land reform, all won the Stalin Literature Prize. This indicates that China's violent land reform was not uniquely Chinese in character; its origins are evident. Even if it cannot be said to be a complete copy of the Soviet model, asserting that China was imitating Stalin's agricultural policies in the Soviet Union—so-called "taking the Soviet road, this is the conclusion"—should not be considered inaccurate. Stalin's agricultural policies were precisely about thoroughly plundering the countryside, including eliminating rich peasants and brutally suppressing all those who opposed agricultural collectivization, using methods such as exile, arrest, and execution. He once used 25,000 Soviet Communist Party members to escort millions of peasants who opposed agricultural collectivization to the bitterly cold and barren lands of Siberia, leaving them to fend for themselves. Many died tragically during the forced relocation due to unbearable abuse.
Why did the great dictator and murderous Stalin uniquely value China's two novels about land reform and a drama reflecting land reform? It was no accident. It at least shows that the violent land reform implemented by the Chinese branch of the Communist International was recognized by Stalin and the Communist International and was in the same vein as the Soviet Union's thorough plundering agricultural policies. Some online articles suggest that it was the Communist International's representative in China, Borodin (鲍罗廷), who decided to use ruffians and hooligans to carry out land reform.
The vast land of China was engaged in the same task—violent land reform—so there should have been a wealth of authentic records. Unfortunately, apart from some scattered materials and general overviews, very few detailed records have been preserved. Why this is so will be discussed later. However, the land reform movement that occurred in the Jin-Sui region under the Yan'an Border Region Government shortly after the victory over Japan is one of the most representative cases of violent land reform and has relatively complete historical records. Understanding what happened during the violent land reform in Jin-Sui can give us a general idea of the situation during the nationwide land reform.
Below is an article from the internet, presumably by someone belonging to the Maoist left, titled "Why Did Yang Mingxuan Report Liu Shaoqi's Land Reform in Jin-Sui to Mao Zedong?" (《杨明轩为什么向毛泽东告刘少奇们晋绥土改的状？》, hereinafter referred to as "Yang's Article"), which can tell us some truths about violent land reform. Who was Yang Mingxuan? He was the Vice Chairman of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, a renowned democratic figure.
The land reform in the border region is officially recorded in the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" (《毛泽东选集》). On May 4, 1946, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a directive aimed at changing the previous policy of rent and interest reduction in rural areas to a policy of confiscating landlords' land and distributing it to peasants, abbreviated as the "May Fourth Directive" ("五四指示"), which was formulated under the leadership of Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇). Prior to this, the policy was to "unite all forces that can be united" to resist Japan. Now, it was necessary to incite the vast number of peasants to hate landlords and, by extension, hate the Kuomintang to win the peasants over and defeat the Kuomintang. Although the "May Fourth Directive" was the beginning of leftist excesses and openly confiscated landlords' land without legal basis, the directive still mentioned generally not touching rich peasants' land, not touching middle peasants' land, leaving landlords, bullies, and traitors with the necessary land for livelihood, and generally minimizing killings—some relatively moderate aspects.
However, many parts of the directive were vague, allowing great arbitrariness in implementation. For this reason, Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇) sent a telegram to the Central Bureaus of various regions with instructions: First, in activities such as anti-traitor, rent reduction, and bully elimination, try not to publicize the peasants' desire for land; second, vigorously publicize the crimes of traitors, landlords, evil gentry, and bullies, and find more tragic stories similar to "The White-Haired Girl" (《白毛女》) to arouse peasants' hatred toward the landlord class, and thereby arouse hatred toward the Kuomintang.
These two tactics were very effective, not only accumulating manpower and material resources to fight the Kuomintang but also avoiding the fundamental demand of peasants for "land to the tiller," leaving a backdoor for the future confiscation of all land by those in power.
Immediately afterward, on July 17, 1947, Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇) presided over a National Land Conference in the Hebei Liberated Area. At the conference, Liu pointed out that in many liberated areas across the country, such as Shandong, Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei), Jin-Sui (Shanxi-Suiyuan), and others, the land reform was not thorough and that "intense struggle is necessary to solve the problem."
Less than two months after the conference, on September 13, a "Outline Land Law of China" (《中国土地法大纲》), which made landlords in the liberated areas tremble with fear and was even more radical than the directive, was produced at the National Land Conference.
Inconceivably, before the land conference had even concluded, the Jin-Sui Border Region had already taken action. A bloody, lawless, and brutal violent land reform, involving wanton torture and numerous deaths, was grandly staged. Following the spirit of "All power to the peasant associations" ("一切权力归农会") as instructed in Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (《湖南农民运动考察报告》), township peasant associations were established ahead of time. The peasant associations issued a "Notice to Peasants" (《告农民书》), the first five clauses of which were:
The landlord class must be thoroughly crushed. Regardless of big or small landlords, male or female landlords, landlords from this village or outsiders, as well as landlords pretending to be poor or in disguise, everyone can be struggled against... As long as everyone wants to struggle against them, they can be taken to struggle against... No matter who they are, everyone can punish them as they see fit.
The feudal exploitation and oppression by rich peasants must also be eliminated. All surplus property of rich peasants must be taken out. For rich peasants who are extremely sinful, everyone can punish them as they see fit.
Among the peasants, a few bullies, enemy puppets, and landlord lackeys can be punished as everyone sees fit.
Middle peasants must hand over surplus land for redistribution.
Hired laborers and poor peasants are the most resolute elements in implementing land equalization. Among these people, minor faults cannot be used to label them as rascals, fools, or lazy people.
The "Notice to Peasants" emphasized at the end: "The Communist Party and Chairman Mao (毛主席) have approved us, and we have the right to supervise, review, criticize, punish, commend, and educate. Since the people's court has government support, we can struggle, punish, and remove people from office." (See Jin-Sui Daily (《晋绥日报》), September 24, 1947)
This is truly a precious historical document. What a statement: "Everyone can punish them as they see fit!" Its value lies not only in telling us what violent land reform was but also in showing us what "mass dictatorship" means. Why, during the Cultural Revolution, could every unit and school arbitrarily struggle against, beat, and ransack people, set up so-called "cowsheds" everywhere to detain people, and even, like in Dao County, Hunan, where so-called "poor and lower-middle peasant courts" could arbitrarily kill people! Moreover, they could kill however they wanted, kill as many as they wanted! The root of all this lies in what was said in the "Notice to Peasants" decades ago: "Everyone can punish them as they see fit." But that's a topic for later. Let's first see how "everyone" punished the struggle targets during the land reform in Jin-Sui.
"Yang's Article" tells us: "In the land reform, the methods used against landlords and rich peasants were myriad and extremely cruel. In addition to beating with sticks, stabbing with awls, tying with ropes, smashing with stones, scalding with hot tongs, throwing lime into eyes, and inserting candles into ears to light them, there were many other methods. For example, 'grinding the ground' involved stripping a person naked, pushing them onto the ground covered with spinach seeds and charcoal dust, and dragging them back and forth by their feet. 'Sitting in a thorn cabinet' involved placing a naked person into chopped date tree thorns, then covering the lid and shaking it back and forth, causing the whole body to be pierced and swollen. 'Throwing from the Four-Sided Mound' referred to pushing the person off a three-zhang-high beacon tower, with stones and pebbles laid below. If the person didn't die, they would be pulled up and pushed down again. If they still didn't die, they would simply smash their head with a big stone until their brains burst out." (Reading this, I weep uncontrollably.)
A pharmacy owner named Zhou Er was stripped of his upper clothes, dragged backward with his head touching the ground, and made to run wildly. A woman sat on him, pressing down a millstone, dragging him along a path covered in brain matter and blood—a horrific sight.
An enlightened gentry named Liu Xiangkun was innocently beaten to death. To distance himself, Liu's son even added two more knife wounds to his father's corpse. In Xing County, a famous person included in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong named Niu Youlan (牛友兰), who had destroyed his home and donated all his houses, land, factories, shops, and money to support the Anti-Japanese War, could not escape disaster. When struggling against him, because his surname was Niu (which means "cow"), someone actually used wire to pierce through his nose, breaking the nasal cartilage and causing Old Niu to bleed profusely, shocking everyone at the scene. At that time, Niu Youlan's son, Niu Yinguan, who was the Deputy Director of the Jin-Sui Border Region Administrative Office, actually swaggered around, leading his father through the streets for public humiliation. Unable to bear the humiliation, Niu Youlan went on a hunger strike and died in grief three days later.
This same Niu Yinguan later compiled a book titled Memorial Collection of Niu Yinguan (《牛荫冠纪念集》), in which he wrote: "I once saw a township head tied to a tree, being scraped to the bone by people using tree bark, dying tragically by the roadside."
The most severe were cases of distributing landlords' wives and daughters after physically eliminating the landlords.
The land reform movement, which lasted a year and a half, caused enormous damage to agricultural production in the liberated areas. In many places, there was almost no harvest, and countless people starved to death. According to the book Chronicles of Shanxi Through the Ages (《山西历代纪事本末》), "As of June 22, 1948, statistics show that in 290 villages across 8 regions in Xing County, 1,050 people were killed, including 380 landlords, 382 rich peasants, 345 middle peasants, and 40 poor and hired peasants; 863 people committed suicide, including 255 landlords, 285 rich peasants, 310 middle peasants, and 11 poor and hired peasants; 63 people froze or starved to death after being struggled against and driven out."
We are grateful to this unknown online author, even though we do not fully agree with some of his views, such as how Mao Zedong (毛泽东) and Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇) should each bear responsibility for violent land reform. We still want to thank him for providing these relatively detailed materials on the violent land reform in the Jin-Sui Border Region, allowing us to roughly understand what violent land reform—bloody land reform, dehumanizing and lawless land reform—was, and the series of serious consequences it brought, including the innocent tragic deaths of people from various strata and the severe damage to agricultural production, even resulting in no harvests, and so on.
II. Why Is Violent Land Reform Inevitable, and Why Must It Spread Nationwide and Extend to Agricultural Collectivization?
Was the violent land reform in the Jin-Sui region merely an isolated incident or a coincidence? Certainly not. It was driven by internal laws and external environments that led to its occurrence.
The internal logic and external environment were the necessities of revolution—in plain terms, the means required to seize power. From a populist perspective, it was a case of the ends justifying the means.
The current rulers were able to militarily defeat the Kuomintang and seize power primarily due to victories on two fronts. First, in political ideology and propaganda: the Kuomintang was inept at governance, operated as a one-party dictatorship, and disasters were rampant. Corruption was widespread, with officials large and small lining their pockets. Inflation soared, and the people lived in dire straits. Sun Yat-sen's (孙中山) Three Principles of the People and Five-Power Constitution were mere empty words; the populace was filled with resentment, and the regime had long since lost popular support—a collapse was only a matter of time. In contrast, the Yan'an government led by Mao Zedong (毛泽东) was relatively clean. Mao repeatedly expressed that they would implement democratic politics. As early as 1945, when Mao went to Chongqing to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石), he publicly told Reuters journalist George Kerr that a "free and democratic China" would emerge, with governments at all levels up to the central government elected through universal, secret ballots, responsible to the people who elected them. It would realize Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People, Lincoln's principles of government "of the people, by the people, for the people," and Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. It would ensure national independence, unity, and cooperation with democratic powers. When Mao's words spread, they lit up the eyes of people across the country. Mr. Mao had truly spoken well. For nearly a century, the Chinese people had overthrown feudal imperial rule and pursued democracy and freedom, sacrificing their lives and fighting invaders—all to establish such a democratic and constitutional nation. Mao's preemptive stance achieved the effect of defeating the enemy without a fight; China was indeed on the verge of a regime change.
Who could have imagined that half a century later, the defeated generals despised by the Chinese people would, on a small island, resolutely abandon one-party dictatorship after deep reflection, lift bans on political parties and the press, realize the freedom of speech, and embark on the path of democratic constitutionalism? Meanwhile, Mao Zedong, who had pledged his word, openly admitted upon gaining power that he was a great dictator, a hundred times more formidable than Qin Shi Huang! He then implemented bloody rule in China, harming countless Chinese civilians. During the Great Leap Forward alone, tens of millions of peasants starved to death! Listening to his words and observing his actions, the Chinese people finally recognized Mao Zedong's true nature. But that's a story for another time.
In a life-and-death struggle for power, relying solely on propaganda is far from sufficient. As they say, the weapon of criticism cannot replace the criticism by weapons.
To eliminate the enemy ultimately requires so-called revolutionary armed forces to eliminate the counterrevolutionary armed forces. Where did the revolutionary armed forces and funds come from? Even if we talk about "millet plus rifles," the millet, rifles, and various war assets, aside from minimal external aid like a few rubles, mainly came from the vast rural areas. Peasants not only provided the funds for war but also contributed themselves—that is, the soldiers.
It is accurate to say that the revolution mainly relied on land revolution, and it had to be conducted through violent, even bloody means. The rationale is not complicated. Consider that the political ecology and economic structure formed over thousands of years in rural areas were to be completely dismantled. Those with power and wealth in the villages not only had to hand over almost all their property but even their lives and family members—for example, their wives and daughters were distributed. Meanwhile, the poor and lowly in the villages, even ruffians and scoundrels, would dominate the countryside, becoming the new holders of power and wealth. Could such a radical upheaval be achieved without violent means? Similarly, without such earth-shaking methods, how could there be a continuous supply of soldiers and the concentration of wealth?
Therefore, when the land reform led by Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇) resulted in bloody methods like those in the Jin-Sui region, and democratic figures such as Yang Mingxuan (杨明轩), then Deputy Chairman of the Border Region, complained to Mao Zedong (毛泽东), Mao merely gave perfunctory replies, saying that minor deviations were normal in a large-scale movement and that things would gradually improve. In action, he slightly slowed down, fearing intensified conflicts and loss of popular support. The fundamental approach of violent methods remained unchanged.
Although the violent land reform was cruel and bloody, the border region government temporarily improved the conditions of the poorest social strata—for example, rural lumpen proletarians and poor tenant farmers gained significant elevation in social status and economic benefits. Subsequently, based on this, coupled with appealing goals, they acquired a large source of soldiers and wealth as capital for the civil war. Therefore, it is said that the Chinese revolution was completed by encircling the cities from the countryside, different from the Soviet model of urban uprisings. In modern history, the period from 1927 to 1937 is often referred to as the Land Revolution period. In fact, tracing back to the Jinggangshan period's "Seize the Landlords, Divide the Land," extending down to the border region's land reform in 1947 and the nationwide land reform after 1949, all were continuous land revolutions to consolidate the gains of the revolution and continuously obtain economic resources from the vast rural areas. In the past, it was to fight wars; later, it was to accumulate funds for socialist construction, including supporting the ever-growing expenditures of the dual systems of party and government.
After 1949, China's political ecology, economic structure, and revolutionary goals underwent significant changes. The crucial point was that what had once been the so-called source of revolutionary motivation had become a so-called burden and trouble for the ongoing revolution. For example, we had always opposed the Kuomintang's one-party dictatorship, scolding them for being autocratic and dictatorial, causing disasters everywhere, stifling democracy, restricting freedom, and violating human rights. Now that this undemocratic, unfree, and human rights-violating autocratic regime had been overthrown and condemned, did the new regime truly embrace freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, abandoning autocracy and dictatorship? Some say yes; others say no; still others declare that we absolutely will not adopt that set of democracy and freedom. Who is correct remains an unavoidable topic on China's path forward. Whether it's an absolute no or an inevitable path, it doesn't matter who says it; the most authoritative voices are the will of the people and the tides of the times.
I am more concerned about the changes in rural China after 1949. The new rulers faced an even more expansive countryside and, arguably, became more dependent on it. Although there was no longer concern about how to handle rural issues—since in a wartime environment, mishandling could lead to the populace turning their guns around—this possibility no longer existed. Even if there were still some so-called hostile elements in the countryside, they couldn't stir up significant trouble.
Addressing the so-called dependency and emphasis on the countryside—or rather, how the rulers could extract greater wealth from rural areas, including the labor force—became an urgent matter. After the regime change, the Kuomintang left behind a mess; the limited gold reserves were taken to Taiwan. The economy was riddled with problems, and everything needed rebuilding. Although subsequent transformations of industry, commerce, and handicrafts yielded some wealth, it was merely a drop in the bucket. A war named the "War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea" (抗美援朝) further emptied the limited coffers. How would the days ahead be managed? Everything required money; where would the money come from? Industrial products were scarce, scientific and technological achievements were nearly nonexistent, and mineral resources were extremely limited. The only place to obtain resources was the countryside.
China's rural areas were indeed impoverished, with little so-called surplus value to extract. However, the sheer base was enormous, numbering in the hundreds of millions. Even a tiny number multiplied by hundreds of millions becomes considerable. But how could all the wealth in the hands of peasants, especially the slightly better-off ones, be transferred to the rulers' hands? Without a violent revolution, this was impossible. In this regard, not only was there the precedent of the Jin-Sui land reform but also the model of Stalin's agricultural policies in the Soviet Union to draw upon. Thus, the vigorous, violent land reform, characterized by "struggles in every household and bloodshed in every village," was launched nationwide.
Speaking of violence, it's not only physical actions like those in the Jin-Sui land reform. Alongside violent behaviors, or even preceding them, was a propaganda offensive, which can be termed ideological violence. The rulers utilized various propaganda tools at their disposal to create overwhelming narratives from all angles about the necessity of land revolution, especially the imperative of violent methods, and absolutely disallowed any dissenting voices. To this end, they did not hesitate to mobilize or coerce various literary and artistic forces to build momentum, even fabricating fictitious stories like "The White-Haired Girl" (《白毛女》), "Zhou the Skinner" (周扒皮), "The Rent Collection Courtyard" (收租院), and so on, to argue the unforgivable sins of landlords and rich peasants, inciting public hatred and seeking justification for violently treating struggle targets.
To ensure the implementation of violent land reform policies, the rulers also provided strong organizational guarantees. First, they established grassroots governments throughout the most remote villages, thoroughly changing the political ecology of rural self-governance that had lasted for thousands of years in China. From then on, the rulers' power controlled the entire mainland without exception, allowing them to do whatever they wished. This, of course, was the fundamental guarantee for the successful implementation of various policies, including violent land reform.
However, violent land reform was an enormous undertaking, directly relating to the fundamental interests of thousands of households and the safety of lives. The rulers had to consider the attitudes of various social groups toward land reform and realized that relying solely on propaganda was insufficient. Therefore, they made a significant decision to dispatch large numbers of work teams to rural areas. The members of these teams were all-encompassing; besides officials at all levels, as mentioned earlier, they included intellectuals from all walks of life. This move not only ensured the implementation of violent land reform nationwide but also had the important task of educating, testing, and intimidating the various personnel involved in land reform.
This tactic was indeed formidable, achieving at least a triple effect:
First, intimidation. Most intellectuals came from so-called exploiting class families. To study and find a job in the city, avoiding the toil of farming required some economic strength at home. Originally seen as successful figures in the eyes of rural people, when they witnessed the violent land reform firsthand and realized they were revolutionary targets, any prior sense of superiority or success vanished instantly, replaced by a sense of original sin. Facts told them that their family background determined their social status—they had to behave properly and couldn't speak or act recklessly. Otherwise, once labeled as filial sons and grandsons of the landlord class, they would immediately be relegated to a different category. Indeed, in various political movements, those with bad backgrounds were the first to bear the brunt. From then on, family class status became Damocles' sword hanging over many people's heads. Countless individuals fell into the traps of political movements, never to recover; many lived in fear, spending their lives in timidity.
Second, a new art of governance. Mao Zedong (毛泽东) knew well that governing a vast China was impossible without the hard work of intellectuals. However, intellectuals had thoughts and opinions, which were the biggest obstacles to Mao's policy of keeping the populace uninformed. How could their talents be used without causing trouble? Placing the tight band of "family class status" on their heads was most effective. The so-called "theory of class status" is not solely based on class status; the so-called "children who can be educated" essentially meant that one's birth determined one's fate. You were born an outsider, a person to be monitored and educated—what else could you want or do? Unless you could be like Niu Yinguan (牛荫冠), who treated his own father like an ox, piercing his nose with a rope and parading him through the streets, forcing the enlightened gentleman Niu Youlan (牛友兰) to die of humiliation—that was the only way to express loyalty. Niu Yinguan indeed later became an official in Beijing and could write books in his old age.
Third, silencing the world's discontented voices. The violent land reform nationwide resulted in the deaths of as many as one to two million landlords and others. In many places, the brutality was certainly no less than that of the Jin-Sui land reform in the border region. Yet, similar reports have not been seen, nor have there been complaints to Mao Zedong (毛泽东) like those from the enlightened figure Yang Mingxuan (杨明轩) at the time. Why is this? After serious contemplation, I think this is still one of Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) clever tactics in governance. Mao knew that such nationwide violent actions would have enormous lethality, and the number of opponents would be considerable. If voices of opposition, or even actions, emerged everywhere, how could this movement be sustained? What to do? There was a way: dispatch large numbers of prominent intellectuals from various professions to the frontlines of land reform as work team members, have them personally struggle against and persecute people, and then have them write about their experiences participating in land reform—of course, from the perspective of praising it. At the time, there was a policy of avoidance: members of the land reform work teams did not return to their hometowns. Ostensibly to prevent them from being implicated, the main reason was to prevent them from being lenient or soft-hearted toward their relatives and fellow villagers. Deep in their souls, humans have selfishness, weakness, and even darkness. Many intellectuals, although they did not agree with violent land reform methods, were not yet personally targeted, and the propaganda was so overwhelming—who was willing or dared to defy the authorities and express dissatisfaction? Or even throw themselves from the ranks of those persecuting others into the ranks of those being struggled against and dictated over? During the Jin-Sui land reform, some Communist Party members and grassroots cadres who opposed violent land reform were mistreated or even beaten to death.
Since you have already physically committed yourself to the violent land reform actions and repeatedly declared that the movement's goals and methods were correct, even if you later have a conscience and harbor various dissatisfactions, could you still express your opinions? This is somewhat reminiscent of modern films like "The Warlords" (《投名状》). I wonder how many people at that time and now could see through Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) conspiracies and tricks!
Although violent land reform caused enormous harm nationwide, many poor peasants did receive bright red land certificates at the time, realizing their long-cherished dream of "land to the tiller." In the early 1950s, there was indeed a brief period of agricultural development. The lives of poor peasants also saw improvements.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. With the advent of agricultural collectivization, the land was returned to collective, effective state ownership. Everything became an illusion, and the suffering grew deeper.
III. What Were the Theoretical Foundations and Guiding Ideology of Violent Land Reform? A Critique of Mao Zedong's "Class Analysis Theory" and "Ruffian Movement."
The ideological and theoretical origins of violent land reform can, in distant terms, be traced back to Marx, Lenin, and Stalin (马克思、列宁、斯大林). Violent revolution, including violent land reform, is an important component of Marxist doctrine. It advocates using armed actions to smash the outdated state apparatus and establish a so-called advanced social system. In the communist manifesto, The Communist Manifesto (《共产党宣言》), it is proposed to eliminate private ownership. The Manifesto presents two principles:
First, it designates "small industrialists, small merchants, artisans, and peasants" as "reactionary" groups during the proletarian revolution because "they strive to turn back the wheel of history," asserting that after the proletariat becomes the ruling class through revolution, it should "use its position as the ruling class to forcibly eliminate old production relations."
The second principle is a nihilistic view of national culture, asserting that the communist revolution "in the course of its development, must break with traditional ideas." This passage was later translated as "must most resolutely break with all traditional ideas handed down from the past."
Subsequent theories proposed by Lenin and Stalin, such as class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as the concept of continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, are continuations of this theory. These so-called profound theories may seem very correct and ideal on the surface, possessing strong allure and deception. During Mao's era, they were extolled extravagantly, seemingly as universally applicable truths. In recent years, they have been less emphasized because all countries that practiced these doctrines eventually moved toward autocracy and dictatorship, bringing only turmoil, famine, slaughter, bloodshed, stagnation of production, and the demise of culture. Why? Because "so-called violent revolution means no democracy, no freedom, no rationality, no supervision, no checks and balances! Violence demands slaughter, terror, conquest, absolute power, and absolute obedience, achieved by depriving people of life to realize the conqueror's will... Can large-scale bloody massacres and armed conquests in the name of advancing social progress conform to the universal principles of human society?" Therefore, some say that Marxism-Leninism is nothing but a cult!
II. Why Is Violent Land Reform Inevitable, and Why Must It Spread Nationwide and Extend to Agricultural Collectivization?
Whether or not it is a cult is not for anyone to decide; further historical proof is required. However, over two millennia ago, the Chinese philosopher Mencius (孟子) said, "I would not, for the sake of gaining the whole world, do anything unjust or kill an innocent person."
Returning to China's decades-long land revolution, or violent land reform, aside from foreign doctrines, what theoretical guidance did the Chinese rely on? Did it bring blessings to the long-suffering Chinese people, or did it plunge them into even deeper misery?
We must mention two significant works by Mao Zedong (毛泽东) written in the 1920s: "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society" (《中国社会各阶层分析》, March 1926) and "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (《湖南农民运动考察报告》, March 1927). These two seminal pieces occupy the first and second positions in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong (《毛选》), rightly considered crowning achievements. Arguably, they best represent Mao Zedong's true thoughts and can be regarded as the essence of "Mao Zedong Thought" (毛泽东思想).
What exactly do these two works discuss? Nowadays, few people read them closely, including many so-called Maoists online; those who have seriously studied them are certainly few. They should read them carefully. I believe that if Mao's supporters have any remaining conscience and genuinely seek the truth for this hardship-laden land to end its shackles of autocracy and stride toward the broad road of democratic constitutionalism—and not merely engage in power games and political opportunism—they will recognize what kind of person Mao Zedong was and what he truly brought to China.
What do these two essays, which guided China for decades, actually say? Let's attempt a brief interpretation:
First, let's look at "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society". This article has always been considered the theoretical basis for the so-called classes and class struggle. It begins: "Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution." (Selected Works of Mao Zedong, One-Volume Edition, p. 3; hereafter page numbers only.)
He then enumerates which classes are the revolutionary forces, such as the proletariat; which classes are allies or wavering but can be won over, like the petty bourgeoisie and semi-proletariat; and which classes are the main targets of the revolution, to be ruthlessly struggled against and even physically eliminated, such as the landlord class and comprador class; and who are secondary targets, like the middle bourgeoisie. In sum, everyone belongs to a class; in a so-called class society, every person is branded with a class label from birth, and their fate is predetermined. You either overthrow others or be overthrown; you can strive to win others over or be won over yourself. Class struggle is omnipresent; when determining the many social contradictions, the method used is class analysis, and the solution relies on class struggle. As Mao Zedong later put it, "Class struggle must be talked about every year, every month, every day," and "With 800 million people, can we do without struggle?"
For decades, China lived within this enormous meat grinder of class struggle: you were either the grinder or the ground; today, you grind others, and tomorrow, you might be ground. With the methods of class analysis and the theory of class struggle, you can understand why the violent land reform in Jin-Sui and nationwide was so cruel and bloody, why there were continuous political struggles across China, why so many Chinese citizens suffered various persecutions, why people who might have been inherently kind became so inhumane, becoming cold-blooded experts at persecuting others. They were all paragons in class struggle and so-called line struggle or vested interests; many of them had their hands stained with the blood of innocents. Few among them felt remorse, which is precisely the tragedy of our nation.
Next, let's discuss "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan." If the previous article on class analysis was a theoretical program, this report is the practical application of taking class struggle as the key link. Many of its important arguments were included in "Quotations from Chairman Mao" (《毛主席语录》), some even set to music and loudly proclaimed everywhere. For instance, during the Cultural Revolution, when raiding homes, persecuting, beating, or even killing people, the most commonly heard quotations and songs were: "A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay... A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another!"
The article begins by calling on peasants to organize: "All power to the peasant associations," and "In the villages, the peasant associations wield absolute power" (p. 14). Those who oppose the peasant associations "should be cast into the opposite camp" (p. 15). "Knock them down to the ground and trample them underfoot... All the power of the gentry must be overthrown, even trampled underfoot... To right a wrong, we must exceed the proper limits; otherwise, the wrong cannot be righted" (pp. 16–17).
Mao Zedong's so-called organization involved mobilizing village ruffians, hooligans, idlers, and some disgruntled petty intellectuals, as well as poor peasants rallied by the promise of forcibly seizing the land and property of the wealthy to form peasant associations. They launched violent revolutions, initiating total attacks against all wealthy individuals in the villages, regardless of how their land and property were acquired. According to Mao, "All who have land are tyrants; there is no gentry who are not bad." All the wealthy, indiscriminately, were class enemies, utterly unforgivable, and must be thoroughly overthrown.
Essentially, "every village must, for a time, create terror..." Then, they would divide up their land, houses, and property and subject the wealthy to ruthless struggle—from wearing tall hats and being paraded through villages to physical elimination. As Mao said, "A crowd storms in, kills pigs and takes grain... doing whatever they please, creating a terror throughout the countryside" (p. 16). Mao referred to all this as a "ruffian movement" (p. 18), stating that it is "excellent rather than bad" (p. 15), and described the attacking momentum as "a violent typhoon; those who go along survive, those who resist perishing" (p. 14).
Under the guise of equalizing wealth and seeking welfare for the poor, Mao Zedong openly advocated autocracy, dictatorship, violence, terror, bloodshed, lawlessness, and doing whatever one pleases! Mao was truly an anomaly in society, a calamity sent to plague the Chinese nation. This generation of Chinese was indeed deeply unfortunate!
Imagine if, according to Mao's class analysis and social model proposed over 80 years ago, the Chinese people could live a single day in peace. If, in the 1920s, Mao's remarks—contrary to modern civilization—were mostly empty talk, then after 1949, each point was to be implemented, marking the true beginning of nightmares for the Chinese people. It had already begun during the border region era; in a sense, the violent land reform in Jin-Sui was a prototype. Look at the violence, bloodshed, slaughter, irrationality, and lawlessness during the Jin-Sui land reform—which of these cannot find answers in Mao's theoretical works? It is beyond doubt that Mao's theory of violent revolution was the guiding ideology of the violent land reform in Jin-Sui. Although Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇) was specifically responsible for the Jin-Sui land reform, the guiding ideology was still Mao's theory of violent revolution. Therefore, when the democratic figure Yang Mingxuan (杨明轩) complained to Mao Zedong about Liu Shaoqi, Mao merely brushed it off. That was being polite; had it been during the Anti-Rightist Campaign ten years later, wouldn't it have been ironclad evidence of "rampantly attacking the Party"? Mao and Liu were aligned on the issue of violent land reform.
For a long time, I wondered why the theories of class analysis and class struggle, as well as the methods of violent revolution—including violent land reform—could become the Chinese communist "Bible," the so-called "Mao Zedong Thought." How did it form? The formation of Marxism has three sources; then what are the origins of Mao's thought?
Recently, I consulted the Chronicle of Mao Zedong (《毛泽东年谱》). Mao was born into a farming family and received limited education, only partially completing a secondary normal school. His scientific knowledge seemed never to surpass that of a middle school student—for instance, during the Great Leap Forward, he didn't know that steelmaking required coke. In his youth, he was restless and dissatisfied with reality, aspiring to achieve something significant. Early on, he was a follower of Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, later admiring Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu. During his time wandering in Beijing, lacking academic foundation and publications, his social status was low; he was looked down upon by people like Hu Shi (胡适) and Fu Sinian (傅斯年), which sowed seeds of hatred toward intellectuals. During the first United Front between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, Mao was appreciated by Wang Jingwei (汪精卫) and served as the acting head of the Central Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang. These two works by Mao were written during that time. He took a two-month leave, asking Shen Yanbing (沈雁冰, also known as Mao Dun 茅盾) to act on his behalf, went to Hunan for social investigations, and then wrote "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society." It was first published on January 1, 1927, in the inaugural issue of Chinese Peasants (《中国农民》), titled "An Analysis of the Various Classes Among Chinese Peasants and Their Attitudes Toward the Revolution." The content differed from what we see today. At that time, Mao divided rural society into eight classes: large landlords, small landlords, self-sustaining peasants, semi-self-sustaining peasants, "semi-proletarians," poor peasants, hired peasants, and rural artisans and vagrants. As for "semi-proletarians," lacking access to the original text, it's unclear what he meant.
Notably, Mao's discussion of attitudes toward the revolution referred to the attitudes toward the Kuomintang's national revolution that practiced the Three Principles of the People without involving the Communist Party or socialism. Neither article mentioned terms like Marx, Lenin, the Soviet Union, or the Soviet Communist Party. It can be said that Mao was speaking from his position as the acting head of the Kuomintang's Central Propaganda Department. For example, in the "Revolutionary Vanguard" section of "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan," Mao wrote: "The peasants have undertaken important work for the national revolution... During the first period, the rich peasants heard rumors such as Jiangxi was utterly defeated, Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石) injured his foot and flew back to Guangdong, Wu Peifu (吴佩孚) retook Yuezhou. They believed the peasant associations wouldn't last long" (p. 19). Isn't this openly speaking in support of Chiang Kai-shek? Doesn't it indicate that Mao's so-called "revolutionary vanguard," the peasant associations, were originally established for Chiang Kai-shek? If these associations continued their activities, one can hardly imagine what role they would have played just months later during Chiang Kai-shek's April 12th counter-revolutionary massacre. I wonder, if such an article supporting Chiang Kai-shek wasn't written by Mao Zedong, what fate would its author have met during the Cultural Revolution.
When drawing conclusions from social investigations or researching modern and historical events, one must "derive theory from history," not "replace history with theory." The most crucial basis is a wealth of facts, namely historical materials. As Fu Sinian (傅斯年), director of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, said, history is the study of historical materials. Mao Zedong neither received formal academic training nor mastered the fieldwork methods essential for sociological research. Relying on hearsay and personal biases, he spoke arbitrarily—how could he reach scientific conclusions? These two so-called seminal works are, at best, arbitrary writings that "replace history with theory" and are largely ideological pieces. They hold no academic value and provide no meaningful original materials. Yet they were printed and distributed in the tens of billions of copies, used as guiding ideology, and harmed China and other countries for decades—a true tragedy of the times!
First Draft: December 2010
Third Draft: April 2011
Fourth Draft: January 2014