In order to win over peasants and political power, the German Social Democrats must first go from the towns to the country, must become a power in the countryside.

Engels "The Peasant Question in France and Germany" 1894

The scale of peasant uprisings and peasant wars in Chinese history has no parallel anywhere else. The class struggles of the peasants, the peasant uprising and peasant wars constituted the real motive force of historical development in Chinese feudal society.

CHAPTER

Mao, Chinese Revolution Chinese Communist Party,

FOUR

.PEASBT KOVRifEtiTS Ilf CHIMA: A STUDY 0¥

SOKB ASPBCTS OF THE YANAN PERIOD

and 1939

The Chinese peasant is not passive,· he is not a oo~ard. He will fight

when he is given a JtJethod, an organisation, l~adership, a workable

progrBmJtJe, hope - and arms. Ed·gar Snow, B-ed Star over China

From the generality of th~ory on peasants as outlined in the

previous two chapters, we should shift our attention to

critically evaluate a specific peasant society. Here modern China

is an obvious choice, as an agrarian-based country with a

tradition of peasant struggles at different periods of history.

Peasant movements in China formed one of the most significant

aspects of the social, political and economic life of the

majority of the people. As one of the major expressions of the

existing conditions, these struggles need to be high-lighted.

Specifically the modern period witnessed innumerable changes,

external as well as internal. The Industrial Revolution led the

western countries to explore markets in China, India and other

countries for the raw material (for foodstuffs, cotton, tea, etc)

and the investment of capital (in railway construction, etc).

Within a short span these countries ~ere led into Lhe framework

of either colonialism (with political control) or semi-

colonialism (with most of the features of imperialism but without

exercising s:t:at-e p.ouer). Thus t_hrough ··gun-boat" diplo"!lac-y an:d

the Opium Wars, etc., Britain, France, G-ermany and ot.he:-rs carved

out "sphere-s of influence" over most of the Chinese territory.

Japan went further by successfully waging the 1894-94 war and

the subsequent expansion into the Northeastern provinces of

China_. Inter_n_ally too the Qin-g dyn:asty was depleted with the

outbreak of many peasant revults, Taiping rebellion, Boxer

movement and so on. The subs~quent establishment of the republic,

the Russians renouncing of concessions in China after the 1917

Revolution and the Northern Expedition against the Warlords,

establishment of the Nationalist government, the two united

fronts between Community Party of China (CCP) and the Guomindang

(GMD) in 1921-27 and 1936-45 interspersed with encirclement and

extermination campaigns, the civil war and the establishment of

the Peoples' Republic of China (P.R.C.) were also well known.

Within all these events peasantry became not only an active part

and participle but also one of the decisive factors. Specifically

the role of the peasantry of Shaanxi, (Gansu and Ningxia included

depending on the availability of material) in the making of

modern China is significant. As the forerunners of the epoch­

making changes in this agrarian society, their role needs to be

scrutinized carefully along, of course, with other aspects.

A. Historiography:

Before we delve into these aspects, it is pertinent to know

the viewpoints of the historians, economists, sociologists and

others of the dynamics of peasant economy and politics in a very

brief way as we have already outlined in th-e two chapters above

the gen_er1!.1 con-t:ext o.f p<S-a:sarrt:ry in the scholarship. lnde-ed the

historiography on China c-an be fitted in to one or the other

paradigm reviewed earlier. Wher-eas for some Sinologists numbers

(and hence peasants) were of little consideration, the pioneering

study of the mod-ern-Cbine.se peasant revolts and the activities of

the secret societies st-arted trickling in, thanks to the work of

Jean Chesneaux, the repor-ts of Edgar Snow, Agnes Smedley, Jack

Belden, William Hinton and others who have broadened our

2H?J

horizons. And so were the comprehensive works of Chen Hanseng,

Fei Xiaodong, Tawney and others with their emphasis on the

distributional aspects of the peasant life. The non-recognition

of the P.R.C. and the subsequent Mac Carthian regime in the

United States too evoked response among Sinologists. One aspect

of this was the "threat of Conmunism" syndrone echoed in the

works of the otherwise informative accounts of Doak Barnett and

other historians from Taibei and other places. The earlier

collectivization of agriculture and the "Stalinist" phenomenon

and its impact on China also provoked a lively debate in the

China Quarterly journal and elsewhere between two different

schools. One led by the one-million-against-the-inclusion-of-

China-in-the-U.N.O. of Karl Wittfogel with his "Oriental

despotism" thesis and the CCP's "totalitarian" perspective, which

was buttressed by the examination of documents from the seized

"Red bandits collection" at Taibei by Tooliang Hsiao [Zoliang

Xiao] . The other schoo 1 was that of Benjamin Schw-a.rtz, Conrad

Brandt and others, with the centra.l the-sis th-at tbe ri_se of Mao

Zedong should be traced tOl<a.rds h' .. 1.5 "originality" in

"discovering" peasants as the leading forces of the revolution.

Now after a reading of the above two chapters, this "originality"

thesis is not convincing and has to be shelved. But what is more

misleading -W-as the impli-cations of tne "originality" t-hesis. That

is, if one accepts that Mao and others were the first ones to

modify Marxism to specific Chinese conditions, the third world

peasantry has to forego the rich practical experience of the CCP

211

and its

according

elsewhere!

theoretical lineages

to this school, this

The next trendsetter

from classical Marxism. For,

"originality" cannot be copied

was the thesis of Chalmers

Johnson. He argued that the external factors Japanese

imperialism - was the most important factor for the rise of the

"spontaneous peasant nationalisn" which was harnessed by the CCP

in mobilizing peasants in the second united front with GHD with a

noderate land programme so as not to disturb the rural class

configurations. However, this thesis was effectively demolished

by Donald Gillin and some Japanese historians who also worked on

the same Manteisu socio-economic land surveys. But one result of

these polemics was to place the peasant uprisings and the

revolutionary peasant bases at the centre-stage of academic

discourse with some inspiration from the Vietnam war. One

indication of this was the 1978 symposium of the base area

studies, initiated in the early 1970s by the publication of the

accounts of the first and the largest border region the Shaanxi­

Gansn-Ningx;,. B.c:rder Region Government by Mark Selden. Since then

th~ w-as a c·ons-id-:erable academic output on the revolutionary

peasant bases as exemplified in the works of Peter Schran,

Patricia Stranahan, Watson Kathleen Hartford, Kamal Sheel and

others. Perhaps this is also a reflection of the gaifang gaike

("opening re_f-o_rm") P-Olicies after 1978 in

number of local archives were thrown

China when gradually a

open to researchers.

Nevertheless we are still handicapped by the fact that some of

the crucial neibu cankao (internal reference material) of the

212

relationship between the CCP and peasantry are still out of our

purview. As far as the agrarian economy is concerned there has

been a considerable academic activity, thanks to the innumerable

Nongcun diaocha (rural surveys) and investigations, apart from

the census reports and other statistical data relating to the

crops, social impact of the economic policies and so on. The

doyen of the historiography on the Xiao shengchan (small-scale

production) of the peasantry was John Lossing Buck, who added a

distinct flavour to his investigations which can be compared to

the nee-populist paradigms in the West. That tradition was

continued in the works of Mark Elvin (who also propounded the

"high-level-equilibrium trap" in forstalling capitalist

development in medievial China), Ramon Myers, Dwight Perkins and

others in different degrees. In Japan, Sin on logy on the pe-asant

socio-economic conditions and protest forms is also vibrant.

Whereas the Tokyo school (represented by Nitda Noboru and others)

argued that the Chinese society during our period w~s feudal, the

Kyo-to school (represented by Ka~a.-:ehi Ju.z:c and cthe::-s) c:ent~mied

that ca-pitalist features were spreading in a-g:ri_cultur-e in C"nina.

If this is in brief a broad sweep of the historiography

outside of P.R.C., the Chinese historiography was mainly moulded

by the considerations of the various fractions within the

Communist Party. Aftcer the Zhenitfar..g (rect~if-iC"ations) camp,aign

and the adoption of the "Resolution on Sone Que-stions of Hi.st.ory"

at Yanan and the establishment of a Oepart~ent for Party History

at the Peoples University in Beijing, the history of the

213

Communist Party and its relationship with different classes

(including peasantry) was given a fillip. Especially the output

on the history of the Chinese peasant wars, the role of the

peasantry in the Chinese feudal social formations, the impact of

the advent of the western powers on the agrarian socio-economic

aspects and so on are commendable. However one major problematic

inthe Chinese historiography is the handling of the historical

material- i.e., the different and differing emphases on the two

basic aspects. Shtshi (historical facts) and pinglun (historical

interpretation) evaluation and the demarcating line between these

two have been defined variously at different periods of the

history of the P.R.C.1

(ii) Agrarian Socio-Economic Structure and Dynamics:

The roots of the peasant protests in modern China lay in the

1 See for an introduction to this aspect, Gillin, D. '"American and Chinese Communism: An Historical Interpretation" in Chinese Communism and the United States: Proceedinits of a mini­symposium (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona State University, 1975) pp 7-25; Coleman, tf. ""Chinese Communist Rural B_as_e A_r_e.a:s, 1922-1949: Repo-rt on t-he Ha:rva:r_d Wo:rkshop·· Chinese Re:pub.l iczm -stud_ies Newsletter Vol.4, no. 1 (Oct. 1978) p:p 1-7; tty disserta-tion "Peasantry and the Chinese Revolution: Some Theoretical Considerations" Unpub. M.Phil dis.s., Jawahaxlal Nehru University, 1989, pp.25-30, 48-55; Dirlik. A. ""Chine-s-e Historians and the Marxist Concept of Capital ism: A Critical Examination·· Modern China Vol.8 no.1 (1982) pp 105-32; Harrison, J.P. Communists and Chinese Peasant Rebellions: A Study in the Rewriting of Chinese Hi.st.ory (London: Victor and Go,lla."1cz, 1970); S-ullivan. L. R. "The Controversy over "Feudal Despotism: Po_l_i-t ics and Histox_iograp_hy in China. 1978-82" Australian Journal o-f Cbj-nes:e Affairs (hereafter AJ.C.A) No.23 (Jan. 1990) pp 1-32; and Weigelin­Schwiedrz ik, S. , "Party Historiography in the Peep le · s Republic of China" A.JJ:.A No.17 (Jan. 1987) pp 77-94; Wang Tingke "On Certain Questions in Historical Research on the Anti-Japanese war: A symposium held by the Chinese Modern History Association" Lishi Yaniiu (Historical Journal) No.2 (1986) pp 180-86.

214

rural socio-economic structure and the changes wrought by the

internal and external factors. These have to be studied at the

national as well as at the regional (provincial) level. That is a

comparative account of the developments in the agricultural

economy and the societal changes at the national level and that

of the Northwest region including Shaanxi & Gansu (and Ningxia)

would give us a broad idea of the peasant condition conditions.

These regions were one of the core areas in the origin of the

Chinese civilisation. Indeed fragments of the Chinese

civilisation can be found in the loess-highlands by the

archaeologists. This was determined as the Gansu culture dating

from about 2500-1800 B.C. Colonialisation of the hinterland

started from these lands to the South through the river valley. 2

Qin dynasty was established in Xian which unified the entire

country. From then on throughout the centuries peasants

contributed for the building and consolidation of empires and

their downfa11 through taxes, rents, levies, rebellions and so

c;;. Sh-aanri p:!'1YVin_ce occupied an are:a c_f r_ough1y about 3. 74% of

t:he tot:al are-a of China, Gansu 7.81% and Ningxia a-bou-t 4.6'8% with

an avera-ge population of 10.62 million, 5.44 million and 0.38

million respectively between 1921-31. The provinces of Shaanxi,

G_ansu and Ningxia were divided into various administrative

district.s (10 i~n Shaanxi, 9 in Gansu out of a total of 189 in

Chirra); Counties (92 in Shaanxi, 69 in Gansu and 13 in Ningxia

2 See Scholz, H. "The Rural Settlements in the 18 Provinces of China" Sinologica Vol.3 (1953) p.38.

215

forming a part of the 1979 counties in China); with 2

municipalities (one each in Shaanxi and Gansu) and 3

administrative bureaus (1 in Shaanxi and 2 in Gansu).

Administratively the Qing dynasty appointed a governor for the

Shaanxi province and a general-in-chief, stationed at Xian and a

governor-general for the Gansu province who had under his

jurisdiction Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai, but stationed at

Lanzhou with authority over both provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu.

Under these officials were a number of other magistrates and

officials to the Xi..en (county) and c..u.n. (village) levels. Their

duties included, among others, to survey the lands, prepare

census reports, reclaim lands, collect grain taxes and other

levies imposed from time to time, to suppress the activities of

the secret societies and other peasant rebellions that threatened

this ''law and order" . The cultivated land of China showed a

remarkable increase over the centuries. From about 549 million

M.u.3 in 1661 to 6£17 ni~~.ion in 1685, 683 million in 1722, 741

;d 11 io.n L'1 176€, 91..1 million in 1887 to about 1. 57 billion Mu in

1914 but d-ropped in the l.ater years. Howev~r, this is not to the

expected levels of the population growth in the last four

centuries.• So also the rate of collection of the diding (land

3 '!here is s:ome confusion regarding the measurement units of the cul_tiv.a.b.l-e land in China. The.re is no un~i:fu-rm or a standa-rd Jte.a-sur-ement for land. Different provinces made use of d_iffer:ent units at various times. Roughly one acre is equal to about 6 . .0721:3 t1u. or Shi Mu.

4 See Feldwick, W. Present daY Impressions of the Ear East· and Prominent and Progressive Chinese at Home and Abroad (Shanghai: The Globe Encyclopaedia Co., 1917, pp. 130-32; Lee,

216

hble I China (22 Provinces till 1937 and 15 froe 1937-1945) Acreage and Production of different crop5 in Hillion Shi ~ ind "illion Picul5 respectively --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Crops 1931-37 1938 1939 1948 1941 1942 1943 1944

~ p ~ p A p A p A p A p A p A p

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------lllNTER CROPS llheat 118 169 111 282 114 198 118 211 125 115 133 219 141 199 146 248 Barley 51 83 51 98 511 91 58 85 51 73 53 89 55 81 55 92 Field peas 33 41 31 43 33 47 33 43 33 37 33 42 34 37 33 43 Broad beans 29 44 3.8 47 29 52 29 47 29 41 31 47 31 43 30 49 Rapeseeds 42 36 43 35 46 43 54 48 5b 45 56 44 59 48 61 49 Oats 2.34 2.96 2.28 3.11 2.39 3.37 2.31 3.14 2.35 2.87 2.39 3.19 2.38 2.91 2.33 2.91 Sub-total 269 - 271 - 276 - 288 - 298 - 311 - 323 - 331 -

SUMR CROPS Rice 211 726 286 747 217 763 198 618 198 643 212 635 199 iJiq 2H 674 Slutirmos rice 19 62 17 58 17 56 15 43 14 41 13 36 12 J3 11 34 S..oliang 16 32 16 33 15 34 15 31 15 29 1~ 24 15 28 14

.,,. 41

IIi llet 17 25 16 23 15 23 14 21 14 21 14 14 14 17 14 17 Prose llillet 7.25 10 7.13 9.26 7.12 9.64 6.84 8.63 6.1l3 11 b.96 9. 58 i.2o li i.12 9.3-4 Corn 29 59 32 78 33 71 33 67 35 66 35 58 3il 64 36 67 Soybeans 23 39 22 36 22 37 23 3S 22 34 22 29 22 33 21 32 s.teet pot. toes 22 216 25 276 25 248 27 256 28 277 29 242 31 291 31 31 Cotton 18 4.83 17 4.68 18 5.83 21 6.17 21 5.38 21 4.53 21 5.67 23 5.11 PNnuts 9.24 19 9.16 21 9.46 22 11 22 18 22 11 21 1il 21 11 21 Sesae 9.29 6.9 9.15 5.45 9.77 8.1 11 8.22 11 7.35 9.81 4.84 11 6.75 11 7 •. 13 Tobacco 6.17 9.27 6.15 8.93 6.18 9.81 6.62 11 6.12 8.51 5.89 7. 56 5.93 8.25 5.89 8.J.4 Sub-total 389 - 385 - 386 - 384 - 383 - 387 - 386 - 38q -

6RMD TOTAl 659 - b56 - 663 - b73 682 - m - 711 - ,,0 I •, -

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------NOT£: A = Acreage, P = Production; Rounded-up figur~s; Figures for S"D - controlled areas.

Source_: National Agricultural Research Bureau Statistics ind other surveys c.Dapiled_ froa the China Handilooi: 11137-19.,5 !.. ! coeprebensive survey of aajor develop1ents in China in eight nars crf !!IJ 19%, tninest llinrstry of I-nim:aation (Me. York: ll.acapo Press, 1975); lhong--Quononqye_JJ.ngJl fllllan .shi Lu-e (~ by 1lt: hu Cll.an.g) (Zhejiang Ren•in Chubarrsne, i9B"4) p.296; Zhong -QJ!Q. iindai noo1Jyt? jinqji shl (Zhongguo R~ntin daxuo Chubanshe 1986) p.219; Zhong~ jindai nongye jingi shi (Sang Suisheng ed). (ffongye Chubanshe, 1986) p.176; and lhongquo jindai shi ziliao xuanji 6th vol. (Jin I>ejun & Du Jiarf]un (eds) (Beijing: R~ntin daxue Chubanshe, 1989) 1 1.463.

-------------- --------

M.H.P. ~Economic History Q.f_ China: lli.t.h Special Reference

Agriculture (New York:. AMS Press, 1969) p.437.

217

taxes).

Ever since the Qing state declared the first census in 1652

the collection of land tax formed a major item in the state

budget till roughly the integration of China into the world

market in the late-nineteenth century. Thus the collection of

land taxes stood at about 21 million taels 5 in money and another

6 million of grain in kind in 1652 to 29 million in cash and 7

million in grain in 1722 to 43 million in 1793 but dropped to 31

million in 1892-94. This formed approximately a third of the

entire revenue collections till the revenue from customs

displayed the former as a major aspect of the state revenues.s

These land taxes were either Zhengshuj (regular statutory taxes)

or fushui (irregular taxes). In addition the state levied a

varietable taxes including the muiuan (the new land levies),

danbai (adhoc miscellaneous levies), fuiia shui (surcharges -i.e.

for instance the wastage - fees for the amount of grain lost in

15 According to the Chinese measurement of money 1 t..a:e.1. (11) = ~0 ~ =- 100 Candareems = 1000 li.. The ta:e>-1 is nc:t a c-ci:n but ci_rcula:ted in the fo·rm of a n·at·ive ord~er, barrk rrot-e o::t s_ilv-er. (usually one ounce of silver). There are dif""fe-r-ent kinds of t-a,els

a kupjng (treasury), a haikwan (customs), or as Shanghai international tael. The value of these vary. The exchange rate was 100 Hk tl = 101.64 Kuping taels; 100 Kuping taels = 109.60 Shanghai tael. Haikwan tael was abolished on 10.3.1933 and replaced by a standard dollar ( 100 H-K taels = standard $ 155.80). See Feldwick, Ibid_. pp. 132-33; and Wright, S.F. Chine,se Customs Revenue Since the Revolution of 1911 (Sb11n:gh:ai: K-elley and W:alsh, 1935) p. -439.

e See the calculation of the official publication on land tax (Huidjan; Board of Revenue and the ''Red B,o.o.k" estimates) cited in the Supplelllent to the London and China Express Sept 10, 1896 in the newspaper clippings on China: R~venue. Taxes (1885-S9) prepared by the Beijing Academy at the National Library of China (Beijing) (hereafter Newsoaper cliopings).

the transportation of Coazhe grain tribute to the capital).

After the fulfilment of this quota of land tax, the provincial

level government was allowed a fixed share of the total collected

from the land produce for running the administration and duties.

However, this is not the final land tax collection. There were

also the ~ - level grain assessments, the military-grain

assessment and so on. In the twentieth century, when the expenses

of the Republic government increased due to the building-up of

the military, payment of the indemnities and repayment of the

loans, these taxes also increased. For exanple land taxes were

collected in advance (Yuzheng). Other taxes included: Keshui

( .. cruel tax"), etc. However this taxation was not imposed on the

countryside uniformly and in one rural survey during the 1930s it

was found that in about one-third of the cultivated land of

China, no taxes were remitted at all. 7 This is interesting

because the dizhu (landlords) and other landed gentry with their

mintuan (militia) possessed "hereditary rights" in evading taxes.

The land r..egj ster:s often show evidence of exempt ion granted to

the larg-e househo ld:s ( wJIDve) . e

As for the statistics on the local government finances of

Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, there are some difficulties in

compiling them. Foremost is that of reliability of data as there

7 See Buck, J .L_. "Fact and Theory about China ·s Land" Foreign Affair'S. Vol.28, no.1 (Oct 1949) pp 92-101, p.97.

8 Se-e Muramatsu Yuj i, .. A Documentary Study of Chinese Landlordism in late China and early Republic Kiangnan" Bul1etin of th-e Schoo 1 of Oriental and African Studies Vo 1. 29( 1966) pp.566-99.

21.9

hardly seem to be any unified system of collection either under

the Qing dynasty or the Republican period.B Nevertheless we can

grasp the broad trends in this aspect. In the 1793 land tax

assessments, the average diding plus tribute per ~ of Shaanxi

amounted to 0.0639 tael in the total tax rate of 0.0825. The

figures for Gansu were 0.0373 tael in the total tax of 0.0474 in

the same year.1° The actual yield of the land tax as reported

by the governors, taking a rough average of the three years 1892-

94: for Shaanxi 1.62 million taels as per the Revenue Board's

regulation but the actual yield was 1.55 million taels. For Gansu

during the same period as against 0.28 million taels estimation,

about 1.55 million taels was collected.11 In 1896 the ··Red

Book" estimates pointed out that of an expected revenue

assessment of 1.65 million taels for Shaanxi, about 1.10 millions

were deposited. Figures for Gansu were 0.28 million taels.12

This tax burden on the peasantry grew as we proceed towards the

twentieth century. We witness an increasing tendency towards the

imposition of this tax as the ex.pendit.u.re on the milit-ary als_o

See for the problems in the wide (and wild) calculation local government officers in estimating the r-evenue

receipts, etc. Jerome Chen, "Local Government Finances in Repub 1 ican China" Republic China Vol. 10, no. 2 (Apr i 1 1985) pp. 42-54.

of a

the

1 " Cited in Bernhard_t, K. _Rents. Taxes a:nd P--eca.Slffit Resistance: The Lower Yamtzi Reg ion, 1-8-4:0-1_9:50 ( St:a:nf'-ord-: Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 45.

1 1 See the supplement to the London and Ctrio-a Express Feb. 19, 1897, (in Newspaper Clippings).

12 China Mail Oct. 21-22, 1896 (in Newspaper Clippings).

220

grew almost in the same proportion. Thus in 1911 it stood at 48

million taels. But in the subsequent years, evaluated in dollars

this grew from $ 82 million in 1913 to $ 97 million in 1916 but

dropped to $ 90 million in 1920. However, there was an increase

in the subsequent years so much so that in 1941-42 about 20% of

the total harvest of rice and wheat was extracted as land tax in

China. 13 This is perhaps one of the major reasons for the

outbreak of the peasant revolts in many parts of China.

Other factors for these struggles lay in the internal

structure of the agrarian economy itself. Shaanxi, Gansu and

Ningxia are one of the most backward areas with very few

industrial establishments and the transportation system, and

other infrastructural requirements still at an embryonic stage.

Nevertheless due to the development of the h~~dicraft industry

and growth in the cultivable acreage and production of food crops

and commercial crops as a result of reclamation of wasteland and

the provision of irr.igation facilities (especially in the river

valleys o.f Wei, et.c. - in the region around Centr_al Shaanxi)14,

13 See Eastman, L. ''Peasants, Taxes and Nationalist Rule, 1937-1945" in Symposium on the HistorY of the Reoublic of China (Tai.bei, 1981) (herea-fter Symposium) vol.IV, pp.238-51. He informs us that the standard conversion rate for land tax in 1943 in Shaanxi was 4 shi dou per YUan- (p. 250). In Sbaanxi, in Suide district, during the 1930s taxation increased more than eight times accorrl:in:g to the GMD's intelligence report. See Selden, M. T:he Yanan Way in Reynl:utinnary C.hi_na (Cambridg-e, Mass, : Harvard Un i ver:ri.ty· Press, ~971) p .15. This was a gen-eral phenom.enon of increasing taxation, c~llection of the same in advance and so on. See North China Dai lv N.eRs (hereafter cited as 1i.C.Illi 23-4-1929.

14 See for the government's efforts towards the irrig.ation sector Shaanxi wei lie yuguang gai ai huaiiiu ( A book on Irrigation System in the Weihe and Yu aras of Shannxi) (Nanjing:

there was some chance for the growth of a simple commodity

economy in the nineteenth century. Even though over the centuries

there was a decline of the agricultural production, especially in

the mountainous zones15, with the cultivation of specialised

crops like groundnut, cotton, sesamum and others (see Tables II

and III), there emerged an internal market to trade these

products. However, as Fang Xing argued, this nascent capitalist

tendencies could not displace the previous ·agrarian socio-

economic structure. The reasons, he points out, lay in the fact

that most of the handicrafts were integrated with the

agricultural economy, with the landlord-merchant-usurers sections

in the crucial aspects of the distribution system in Shaanxi.lB

n.p. 1933).

:!. 5 For instance, the total agricultural production cf Shaanxi declined from 373,286 tons in 1661 to 291,149 in 1685 but slightly strengthened to 306,546 in 1724 and declined in 1766 to 209,552 tons. However, Gansu proved to be the opposite case with an increase in production from 103,088 tons to about 350,929 tons 1n 1766. See 7hongguo iin sanbai nian shehui iingii shi lunii (collected essays on the Socio-Economic History of China in the la-st 300 year~s) vol.l (Zhong Gang bian ed.) (Hongkong: 1972) p. 204. T·!:-re cu_lt~i-;;:atlE la11d. area also declined for Shaanxi by about 21% bet~e-en 1933-34. S-ee Zhongguo ; indai ncngye 11rqt,, shi (Modern Chinese Agricultural Economic History (Sang Guisheng ed.) (Beijing: Nongye Chubanshe, 1986), p.195.

lB See Fang Xing "Explorations into the Growth and Decline of the Rudiments of Capitalism in Shaanxi Area during the Qing dynasty" Jingii Yaniiu (Economics Journal) no.l2 (Dec. 1979) pp. 59-67. This reminds one of the theore-tical debate on the "sprouts of c~apitalism" in China and elsewhe-r·e (especially by Mark Elvin ·s ''High Level equilibrium trap" and Li W·enchi, Fu Yiling, Song Yuanqing and others). See Modern China vol.B, no.3 (July 1980); 311-16; Social Sciences in China (hereafter S.S.C vol. 2 nos. 1 and 4 ( 1971). One Japanese historian, Kawachi Juzo, arguing against the contention that Chines~ society was feudal, examined the landlords of the Ha clan in Hizhi county of Shaanxi and came to the conclusion that this clan declined from being a

222

T~ble II Three Northwest Provinces 1931-37 Average production of foodgr~ins ~nd itreage (in 1111 oetric tons, 1111 hectires)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------II heat Barley Field peas Broad beans Rapeseeds Oats

Province A p A p A p A p A p A p

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Shaanxi 878 758 283 184 135 99 9.1 6.8 141 50 3.6 1.7

15 54 ,~ 48 35 6ansu 4bb 375 92 75 87 65 17 4.J

Ningxia 19 19 6.4 8.7 20 22 1.86 1.8 1.1 8.50 1.93 1.85

Total 21154 71742 6738 7871 3588 3198 2884 3018 3978 2473 1035 880

Rice Glutinous rice Saoliang "illet Prose aillet Corn P r ov inc e A P A P A P A P A p A p

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shaanxi 73 153 18 32 94 107 219 225 155 144 3.t. .. ~ 2.4 ... 7 93 1117 184 2~3 210 238 Sa.nsu .. .,

Ningxia 6.2 5.1 3.5 2.5 4 .1 5.2 14 18 30 38 4468 .;.11'1 7111 ~ • 5366 6648 1617 1580 Total 1i829 45595 1941 .. '.1.\JI,.

Soybeans Sweet potatoes Pea nuts Sesaee TotaH Province A p A p A p A p

Sh.lar:n )t u:

'"'·' i.O ~26 B.~ m 38 lc 1219 6ansu ~ 38 9.7 59 @.06 @.65 &.66 0.35 m6 Ningxia 1.6 ") ") 1.26 @.10 112 ..... Total 5235 61192 2345 18525 t·~, h.4 2739 1449 85@ 85443 --------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------

Roundethlp figures. . . • !"-•+..,., ""'" ..... _ crrms ,.., ... r +n be oaittl'!l. S!!i> another taill!! for cotton 10 ShaanXl. f .... t.. .. ull Ot1- "-'-L1frf •-_,.. ~ \.W - .

Sour-~: fiat~ • .c.!i:t -&overnsent lbmstry oi !ntertar Statistics, citPd in Stren~ T.H. AgriruJtural ResoUTU: of China (fu Yort: Cornell University Pnss, 1~1i pp. 374-77.

166 2112 89 w.

2.3 2.6 4711 6H7

large landhold-er to a small landholder. In another article, using J .L .. Buck's stat is-tics, he argued that land reforms (r-edi:str-ibution of landlord's land) is not the solution. See Kawachi Juzo "Nijusseki Chigoku no Jinushi ichi zoku" (one landlord linage in twentieth-century China) Toyosbi Kenkyu vo 121, no.4 (1963a) PP 139-70 and his "1930-nendai Chugoku no nogyo scisan ryoku Kozo to saikin no doke" (The structure of forces of agrarian production in China in the 1930s and recent changes) i.e. Keizaigaky Zassbi vol. 49, no.S (1963b) pp 1-29.

223

Table III Acreage and production of diffrrent crops in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ninxia provinces in 1943 (in 111ft Shi llu and 1010 piculs)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~INTER CROPS Wheat Barley Field peas Broad beans Rapeseeds Oats Province A p A p A p A p A p A p

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Shaanxi 18777 17982 3138 3029 2057 1829 279 163 1819 546 94 71 Gansu 8491 9463 1571 1938 m4 1369 370 419 1343 898 659 732 Ningxia 414 511 125 214 3!8 534 27 38 15 12 22 34 China Total 141963 199196 55345 81142 34367 37925 31936 43871 59976 48527 2388 2916

SUIItiER CROPS Rice Glutinous rice 6aoll ang llillet Prose l'lillet Corn Province A p A p A p A p A p A p

Shaanxi 851 2115 161 3b8 1235 19@9 3174 4785 268 3845 3358 5817 Sansu 71! 144 19 32 1432 2311 2131! 3218 -r10 ., .. ' ~16 1735 36ea Ningxia 11!3 136 51 61 8 151 212 328 SIB 8il8 27 45 Chlnii lotai 199e95 619488 121'i81 33273 15181 28855 14887 17915 ]'1~1 ... ' 42ee 369:·5 6.48<1'1

Soybeans Sweet potatoes Cotton Peanuts Sesa1e Tobacro Province A p A p A p A p A p A p

Shaanxi 742 946 354 2880 3316 817 164 325 671 359 313 361 Sansu 582 765 171 1196 ., .. 65 2 ~ 12 9 28!/ .,...,.

.i.i ,.1 L ,_\j,&.

Ningxia 30 50 B 2 ~ 4 .. China Total 22880 33334 31906 298284 215b5 ~·676 11382 21384 11038 6752 5938 8'lct .. .;.

~ = ~re~: 0 = Production

Source: National Agricultural Research Bureau's Statistics co1piled fro• China Handbook 1937-1945

/

At this juncture we should shift our attention to the

related aspects of the composition of different sections of these

provincial agrarian social structure. The total percentage of

the peasantry in the total population in Shaanxi during the

period 1921-31 was 73% with roughly about 377.4 peasants per sq.

km. In Gansu province these figures amount to 73.7% of peasantry

and 277.8 per sq. km. The un-inhabitable terrain of Ningxia is

well-illustrated by the fact that peasants formed about 71% of

the population with 222.5 persons per sq. km. during this

period.17 In order to cope-up with the limited land resources

a varietable land tenurial system emerged in these three

provinces over centuries. Although the rate of tenancy is higher

in South China rather than in the North,1 8 these arrangements

have considerably influenced the rural society in these three

provinDss. Hence we should probe into the tenurial arrangements.

The Yongdian (permanent tenancy system) in these areas have two

levels of land ownership. They were: d..i ( ·bot tom· or subsoil)

connotes that the landlo-rds posse-ss the !'ight to t-he subsoil

whereas the dian hu (tenant; ·dian non&· for t-he tenant far-mer)

can claim only M..ia.n ('face'), the surface soil. Now this

arrangement was perfected over the centuries by the customary

17 See Zhong guo iindai npngye iingji shi tao lun (The Hod ern Chirres'e Economic Histgory) (Beijing: Renmin Daxue Chubanshe, 1986) pp. 275-76. In Shaanxi province wce·t land crops (for paddy, wheat, etc) occupied an area ratio of about 2.119. The ratio for the dry crops is much more higber i.e. 5.081 (Ibid; p. 106).

18 See Buck, J.L. Land Utilization in China (New York: Paragon Book Reprints, 1964) 1st Pub. 1937. Table 22. p. 196.

225

practices. The dianzu (land rent) payable to the landlord by the

tenant in lieu of

was divided into

arrangements in a

the utilisation of the surface soil for crops

different forms, reflecting the prevailing

particular area. But these can be broadly

divided into a fixed land rent (dingzu) (subdivided into fixed

rent in kind - ~ - or a

relatively commercialised);

rent in cash in regions which are

fenzu (sharecropping), i.e. a rent

according to the harvest output of the other arrangements between

the landlord and the tenant; labour rent and others. Ncrmally

where cash crops like cotton,• tobacco, groundnut, etc., were

grown the usual land rent was in the form of cash. In other areas

sharecropping either of a pure variety (based on 50:50

distribution of the crop) or of a "modified" variety (based on

the vagaries of the nature and output, etc.) -was the usual mode

of the land rent. These customary practices, between the

landlords and tenants needs to be probed further because it is

here that one can find one of the most intense conflicts.

By th:e fix.e.d rent system the landlord gives the "surface

soil" to th·e tenant·s and collects a fixed a1nount of rent frol!l the

tenant. The land may be leased either by one tenant or a group of

tenants. The amount of rent paid to the landlord usually exceeds

the total am.ount of agricultural production if the rent is high

and in c·a-s€-s w-b-e,r-e rent is l_ow it still amounts to over 60-70% of

the production. This exceedingly high rent not only aggravates

the living conditions of peasants but also contributes in the

deterioration of the relations between the landlords and peasants

226

and results in clashes.

In the sharecropping system the landlord can either supply

land or land and agricultural tools or capital. By the first

system the landlord does not collect a fixed amount of rent, and

takes only a certain proportion of the tenant's production. But

the most crucial aspect of this system - which often proved

disastrous for the tenants - was that the lease period was not

fixed and the landlord has the right to take back the land

whenever he pleases.

The leasing of land to the tenants by the landlords (or even

sometimes by the rich peasants) was either because they could not

cultivate the land either due to shortage of family labour, or a

due to change of occupation ( "absencee" landlords), or

destruction wrought by wars, etc. Though the average rent

deposits per ~ were higher in Jiangsu, Guizhou, Sichuan,

Guangdong and other provinces (incidentally areas of the most

intense struggles), that of Shaanxi "as no better. Even though it

was about 1. 5 yu:a:n per _!ii.l it re_flected a higher percent of

drainage of the saving-s of the tenant-s. 1s

1e See_Zhongguo iindai nongye iingii shi tao lun p.195. The percentageof tenantsw differed in each province. According to Unno Fumio, 1n Shaanxi, out of the 12 countries and 65 households suTveyed, 16.64% were tenants and above 83% owners. Se-e his "1930 neu.dai kyu Chug,oku n i oker_u t~ochi shoyu to kosaku kankei ni t-sui.t-€ - shoyu no shuchu to shiyo no bunsan·· (in Japanese) (The Relationship between Landholding and Tenancy in 1930s China - Concentration of Ownership and Division of Use). Tochi Seido Shigaku vol.66, (1975) pp 53-71 (p.58). According to Dwight Perkins Shaanxi reported about 16-23% of tenants from 1912-36, whereas for Gansu it was 26% in the 1930s, in Ningxia about 27% in 1931-36 period. See Perkins, Agricultural Development in China 1368-1978 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

227

According to one rural survey of 1934 the percentage of

fixed rent in commodities in Shaanxi province was 59% that of

sharecropping 25.9% and cash rent 15.1%. Figures for Gansu were:

fixed rent 51.2%, sharecropping 34.5% and cash rent 14.3%. For

Ningxia - fixed rent 18.5%, sharecropping 35.4% and cash rent as

high as 46.1%. 2~ Interestingly during this period the share of

the landlords in the provincial income showed an increase. Thus

for Shaanxi landlords netted an average of about 23.6% of the

total annual income. But these figures for Ningxia amounted to a

staggering 56.1%.21

In order to understand the socio-economic structure further

it is pertinent to look into the production of different crops in

China in general and Shaanxi, Gansu and Nangxia in particular.

Press, 1969) p.91.

2~ Ibid. p. 182. See also p. 199 for the percentage of peasant households taking cash loans and foodgrains.

2 1 See Zhong guo nong min fu dan jianshi (A S1mple History of the Chinese Peasant Burdens) (Xun Gang, ed.) p.308. See also p. 340 for the source of the income of t·he landlc·:--ds in ,_:Lifferent sectors. Huramatsu Yuji informs us that in Jiangnan ar~a of the total collections of rents from the tenants, landlords have to pay to the government as land tax of about 13% of the rent. They also exercise administrative and police powers for their area and form a "semi-state power". See Huramatsu op. cit.; in Ningxia it was reported that in the nineteenth century Christian missionaries from France and Belgium drove out Mongolians and built up Church estates. These Fransisc:an missionaries controlled about 50-0 square Li_ of land. About the exact amount of rent collected by landlords there are varying figures. One CCP source revealed that the landlords in Hide and Suide collected 2,000 to 3,000 dan (3,000 piculs or about 600 tons) of millet in rent income annually, from 2,000 tol 3,000 Shang of land (1 shang = 3-5 liu_), or (say) 6,000 to 12,000 III.U._. See Wang Guar.lan in Snow, E. Random Notes on Red China (1936-1945) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957) p.37.

228

For the nature and extent of the different periods stimulates the

growth of specific sections in the rural society. Even though the

terrain is difficult and rugged, these provinces grew a varitable

crops. The major crops grown in these three provinces were wheat,

barley, field peas, broad beans, rapeseeds, oats (as winter

crops) and rice, glutinous . ' r1ce, gao liang (sorghum), millets,

corn, soybeans, sweet potatoes, cotton, peanuts (as summer

crops). A close scrutiny of the data on the production of

different crops on the whole show~that the staple food of the

Chinese, i.e. rice and glutinous rice fared badly in terms of

acreage and production from 1931-44. Gaoliang (sorghum), which

is used to make a sort of wine in the North, was also affected.

And so do millets, soybeans, sweat potatoes etc. However during

the same period there was a remarkable growth in the cash crops,

reflecting the spread of commercialisation monetisation of the

agrarian economy, etc. Cotton, groundnuts and to some extent

tobacco penetrated the place of food grains [See table IV and V].

As we have stated above the percentage of wet land with

irrigation facilities, etc., was less in Shaanxi (but not in

Gansu) in comparison with the dry land. As a result there was a

lopsided development of the crops in different regions. In

Central Shaanxi: 22 ~ were relatively prosperous with

irri~tion facilities and growth of commerce and trade through

the rivers and the limited railway line built at the dawn of the

twentieth century. Apart from the traditionally grown crops, as

shown in the tables, there was a considerable growth of the cash

229

Table IV Shaanxi Cotton Area and Production Area in 1000 Ku and crop i.n 1000 piculs and production in Xage

Year Area Crop Mu % Picul %

1918-19 1919-20 355 3.9 1920-21 1284 4.5 294 4.4 1921-22 2406 8.5 430 7.9 1922-23 1867 5.6 477 5.7 1923-24 1642 5.6 462 6.5 1924-25 1642 5.7 468 6.0 1925-26 1316 4.7 772 10.2 1926-27 1447 5.3 371 5.9 1927-28 1443 5.2 358 5.3 1928-29 1282 4.2 265 3.3 1929-30 1209 3.2 135 22.9 1930-31 1822 5.3 379 22.1

Source: Compiled from Cotton Industry and Trade in China (H.D. Fong ed. ) Vol.l, Industry Series No.4 (Tianjin: Zhihli Press, 1932) p.26.

230

Table V Shaanxi Cotton Area and Production 1932-42

-----------------------------------------------------------Year Planted area Production

(000) Shimu Index (000) Shipiculs Index (1937 = 100)

-------------------------------------------------------------1932

1933

1934

1935

1936

1937

1938

1939

1940

1941

1942

2,977

3,502

4,305

4,718

4,883

4,618

3,895

3,817

3,671

3,590

3,229

64

75

94

102

105

100

84

69

79

77

70

476 57

840 101

1,004 121

l, 333 133

l, 063 128

832 100

997 120

104

670 81

945 114

769 92

Source: Economic Facts Vol.III, No.18, March 1943, p.72

231

crops, like tobacco, cotton, groundnut and others as a result of

the fillip given to the production of these crops by the export

sector, especially during the World War I and the subsequent

events. Tobacco cultivation (in which the British-American

tobacco companies had stakes) is a high labour intensive crop and

usually out of the purview of the peasants ability to cultivate

it extensively. Hence it has to be cultivated in smaller

proportions of land. Cotton (which was introduced into China

through Japan from India) too has similar constraints due to the

vagaries of the international market. However the growth in

cotton acreage and production was impressive, especially as a

response to the demand during the World War I and II. Shaanxi

produced about 5.3% of total Chinese cotton between 1931-37

(average acreage of 4 million shi ~ and a production of 0.85

million shi piculs of lint cotton). Host of this was shipped out

of this province. Weinan was the major centre for cotton and

other commercial crops, but the oasis-like settlements in Gansu

and the dry sem::i-des·ert areas of no.rth Shaanxi al_so contributed

cotton. When prices of cotton fell as a result of the Japanese

occupation of China there was a decline in the cultivation of

cotton. Wheat cultivation took the place of cotton after

1941. 22 However as a result of cotton cultivation, there grew

a base for spinning and we·avin.g industry. In 1935 the pe_rcentage

of rural households in this industry were 37.2% in Shaanxi and

22 See Fuding Ko and Yinyuan Wang ""The Production and Prices of cotton in Shaanxi" Economic Facts vol.III no.18. March 1943. pp.71-8eJ.

232

11.2% in Gansu.23 Now this is an interesting phenomenon

because of the fact that this aspect might give rise to the

commodity production, further commercialization of agriculture

and an internal division of peasantry into a capitalist rich

peasant and middle and poor peasants. Statistics in fact did show

a differentiation of peasantry based on the growth or decline in

the extent of cultivation of these crops. The official rural

surveys of Shaanxi in the late 1920s early 1930s point towards

such a portend. Statistics collected from the four village

households in the rich agricultural belt of Weinan ~ (Wang

Jia, Xia Tai, Zhuang Jia and Wuzi), 5 village households in Feng

Yu ~ (Xiao Shao Ao, Jun Jia Wu, Xiao Dian, Shijia Wu and Nan

Wu) and in the relatively backward northern 4 villages in Suide

Xien (Wo mabo, Li kou Chuan, Lie Jia Bo, Xidan Yu) indicate the

differentiation of peasantry and other rural sections into

landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants and poor peasants in

addition to the farm hands, etc. (grouped under "others'') (see

Table VI). This shows considerable regional variations reflecting

crop production. Thus generally speaking, poor peasants

predominated all these Xien in Shaanxi. Landlord households were

reported from Weinan and Suide (in the latter the Ha clan was

very influential landed element). Rich peasantry formed a

significant section in te-rms of influence in Weinan and Feng Yu

reflecting the commercialization of agriculture in these parts of

23 Kraus, R.A. Cotton and Cotton Goods in China 1918-1936. Ph.D. thesis. Harvard University.Feb. 1968 (pub. by New York: Garland Publishers, 1980), p.8.

2.33

Table VI Shaanxi Province

4 villages in Weinan Xien

Shaanxi province

Category

Landlords Rich peasants Middle Poor Others

Total

5 Cun. of the

Category

No. of households 1928 1933 Diff.

3 3 0 15 14 -1 67 57 -10

114 136 +22 5 7 + 2

206 217 +13

Feng Yu Xien

No. of households 1928 1933 Diff.

% age of population 1928 1933 Diff

1.47 1.38 -0.09 7.35 0.45 -0.90 32.8 26.2 -6.58 55.8 62.0 +6.79 2.45 3.23 +0.78

100 100 0

% age of population 1928 1933 Diff

----------------------------------------------------------------Landlords 0 0 0 Rich peasants 15 5 -10 Middle 36 26 -10 Poor 214 241 +27 Others 3 4 + 1

Total 268 276 +8

4 ~ of the Suide Xien

Category

Landlords. Rich peasants Middle Poor Others

Total

No. of households 1928 1933 Diff.

5 4 -1 9 9 0

41 31 -10 197 217 +20

13 11 - 2

265 272 +7

0 0 0 5.60 1. 81 -3.79 13.4 9.42 -4.01 79.8 87.3 +7. 47 1.12 1. 45 +0.23

100 100 0

% age .o-f pc-pu l.a t.i.orr 1928 1933 Diff

1.89 1.47 -0.42 3.40 3.31 -0.09 15.4 11.4 -4.07 74.3 79.7 +5.44 4.90 4.04 -0.86

100 10'0 10

Sourc~: Shaanxi Xiang Zhang Cun Diao Ja (compiled by Xing Zheng Yuan Zhang Cun Fu Xing Wei Yuan hui bian) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934) pp 4; 42 and 79.

234

Shaanxi.

However from this it is difficult to conclude that

capitalist relations of production have predominated over the

countryside. Indeed such a prospect was hardly visible during

this time. The tobacco companies, cotton textile industrial

managements, oil industries, etc do have an interest in the

production and export of the commodities and hence they manage

(or monopolise) the market price structures to an extent so as to

give a marginal subsistance returns to the small farmers and rich

peasants. However, the increasing extraction of surpluses from

peasants in the form of rent and taxes, the grain tax levies (in

wheat) by the GHD government, the tax debts (gian shou) and tax

embezzlements (foushou), the decline in the prices received by

farmers in comparison with the prices paid by farmers between

1938 and 1946, the decline in their real income (see tables VII

and VIII), the landlord-merchant-usurer nexus and debts, etc have

considerably scuttled this proce.ss of growth of capitalism in the

countryside, even though there was a differentiation of

peasantry. In fact t-he rich p'e-as-ants actually declined in six

provinces including Shaanxi24. Rather than investing in the

productive sectors, the rich peasantry were actually involved in

24 S.eoe Z.hong guo i in.dai nongye i ingi i sbi tao lun p. 121. Interestingly the number of the poor peasants increased in Shaanxi while that of middle peasants showed a slight decrease. According to the I""ur-al surveys during the 1930s the number of agricultural labourers increased in Shaanxi to about 20% and in Gansu and Ningxia to about 12% of all rural households. See Wiens, T.B. The Microeconomics of Peasant Economv: China, 1920-1940 (New York: Garland Publishers, 1982) p.80.

2'35

Table VII farmers and 100)

Index numbers of farm prices received and paid by purchasing power (weighted geometric average 1937 =

Shaanxi -------------------------------------------------------------

Year Farm prices reed Farm prices paid Purchasing power -------------------------------------------------------------

1938 97 124 78 1939 158 174 91 1940 308 336 92 1941 967 899 103 1942 2615 2226 120 1943 9439 10121 93 1944 18964 23687 80

Gansu

Year Farm prices reed Farm prices paid Purchasing power

1938 108 126 85 1939 137 169 81 1940 249 314 79 1941 748 750 100 1942 2022 2189 92 1943 7762 8597 90 1944 13628 24221 56

Ningxia

Year Farm prices reed Farm prices paid Purchasing power

1838 109 135 81 "'n~n 126 211 60 ...!...-..:JV-0

1940 22'8 379 60 1941 718 812 96 1942 1452 1974 74 1943 5318 8516 62 1944 12097 25311 40

Source: National Agricultural Research Bureau s Statistics compiled from the China Yea:rbcQk. 19;3] -~~

236

Table VIII Farm prices in Hunshan. Shaanxi (1936 = 100) ----------------------------------------------------------------Month Index number of prices

received by paid by farmers farmers

China average

Ratio of prices received to prices paid

----------------------------------------------------------------1935 July August Sept Oct Nov Dec 1936 Jan Feb Mar Apr Hay June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 1937 Jan Feb Mar Apr Hay June July Aug Sept Oct Nov

19:3'8 Jan Feb Mar Apr Hay June July Au:g Sept Oct Nov Dec

67.8 68.9 78.1 78.3 83.8 88.7 93.0 97.2

100.0 100.8 97.5 98.3 97.7 95.8

114.5 137.7 135.8 151.6 150.4 150.8 147.7 138.4 139.2 138.0 126.0 118.1 127.2 ~3-3 .1 123.1 128.0 128.9 132.0

145.2 163.5 148.3 159.7 171.6 161.8 165.5

90.1 91.2 93.9 96.9 98.3

101.2 99.5 99.3

101.8 99.2 97.1 89.2 97.1 96.7

105.3 116.1 111.8 117.7 126.3 127.9 118.5 118.1 120.6 117.8 131.3 131.3 132.4 134.2 131.2 135.3 138.7 131.4

179.9 183.5 169.4 177.9 191.0 206.7 209.9

99.1 98.5 90.6 94.3 93.8 94.8 96.1 99.5 99.7 99.5

101.7 99.0 96.4 93.6 98.0

102.7 105.5 112.4 109.8 113.3 115.6 115.9 113.0 112.1 114.0 114.4 119.3 123.1 123.4 122.4 121.1 123.1 126.7 131.4

118.0 120.5 97.4 86.6 89.6 90.6 92.4 96.1 99.4

100.5 101.2 97.5 85.0 99.0 96.6

103.3 106.4 109.3 115.1 119.4 114.2 110.8 111.2 111.8 112.1 110.3 103.4 95.6 92.1 97.1 97.9 93.1 94.8 90.5

-------------------------------------------------------------Source: Economic Facts Vol.II, No.l3, September 1939

237

usury and other sources of loan distribution. 25

Host of these are based on the longterm factors. In times of

famine, floods and destruction due to wars (especially in the

warlord era), the conditions of peasants become worse-depleting

their resources further. Thus the Great Northwest Famine during

the late 1920s not only took a tool of million of lives but also

shifted the cultivationof crops to opium in many parts of

Shaanxi. This also leads to the impoverishment of peasantry and

their indebtedness. Mortgages and transfer of land follow from

this. A famine investigation team from the League of Nations

reported that the impoverished peasantry's lands ultimately were

brought by the substantial landholders at throw-away prices. This

only led to the increase of absentee landlordism, especially in

Suide and other places. What added to the plight of peasantory

were: the farm prices received by the farmers showed a decline

whereas the cost of the prices of commodities increased over a

period of time in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia. As a result their

purchasing power de--elined sharply ( tb..ou.gh du_ri.rrg the heady-days

of 1941 there was some improvement (s-ee Tables \IIi.~. This was

also reflected all over China, when, with the increase in the

inflation and the drastic lowering of the peasants' real income A ffe.ncl i )(

(see Table!~ ), the condition of peasants deteriorated. This is,

in addition to the factors mentioned above, cne of the major

factors for the growth of peasant movements, in various parts of

20 See Wiens, Ibid, p.l28.

238

China .26

To sum up this brief analysis of the agrarian socio-economic

structure during the twentieth century in Shaanxi, Gansu and

Ningxia it was argued that though there was a peasant class

differentiation into rich, middle and poor sections, the nature

of this differentiation was different from that witnessed in

parts of Europe. This is because the semi-feudal elements in the

rural areas did not transform into progressive landlords of the

type England witnessed, but only lived off the surpluses from the

peasantry. Nor the rich peasants showed this inclination by

catering to the needs of commercialization but involved in non-

productive aspects of the agrarian economy. On the other hand

China increasingly came under the influence of imperialism,

especially in the agrarian sector. Agricultural products were

increasing for the Western countries and Japan to feed their

urban population, industry, etc. China, India and other countries

fitted into this system in various degrees. For example from

2s See The Lea-gue of Nation ·s expert A. Sta-mpair Re-port The North-Western Provinces and their Possibilities of Development cited by Snow, E. Red Star oyer China (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937) p.219; Droughts and floods were a perennial problem of Sbaanxi and Gansu provinces. From about 620-1619 AD, 91 droughts were reported in Shaanxi and in Gansu about 4; about 11 floods per century in Shaanxi in the Qing dynasty period and 8 in Gans.u. The frequency of famines increased subsequently. In the recent period this only aggravated situa-tion so much so that in Sha-anxi case'S of cann ib.a.I ism w-ere rep-orted. See Ha llory, W. H. China: Land of Famine (New York: American Geographic Society, 1926) pp.40-43; Poor peasants and agricultural labourers are the most vulnerable because of the lack of land, low wages etc. It was reported that in the 1930s the wages of the agricultural labourers in Shaanxi were one of tne lowest in China - about $32 annual wage/0.25 daily. See Wiens, op. cit. n.24, p.178. See also North China Daily News (hereafter [Cfr[), 25-3-1929; 22-5-1929.

239

about the late nineteenth century the share of agricultural

exports and imports ranged between 47% to 70% in the total trade.

Of this for most of the period exports formed an excess over

imports (except in the World War II period). This makes it clear

that China has entered into some of the aspects of imperialism

and that this was detrimental to the interests of peasants. 27

It is here that the intervention of the Communist Party becomes

significant. By educating, organising and leading the

impoverished peasantry, the CCP was able to threaten and

transform the agrarian sector.

(iii) Peasant Protest and the Communist Party

27 See Quan Weitian "The Pauperisation of the small-scale Peasant Economy in China in Modern Times" Zhong guo Renmin Daxue Xue bao (Chinese People's Universi~y Journal) vul.4 (1992) pp.l-10; Wang Wenchang argued that in Shaanxi during the late 1920s and early 1930s in Feng Yu ~ there was the phenomenon of peasants leaving villages. See his "The Problem of Peasants Leavin Their Villages in the First Half of the 1930s" Lishi Yaniiu No.2 (1993) pp. 96-lfll?; See also Li Shiyue "A Cont-emplat-i-on on the Definition · 5-e•mi-col.onj .. ~_, S:em.i-f.e.u:d:al' .. Lishi Yani iu No.1 ( 1988) pp. 52-60. The ques"tion of wtre-ther one can define Chinese society as "feudal" in the European sense is still a problematic and the historians have yet to come to a conclusion. But some of its most important features are still visible in the twentieth century China. See for a comparative study of Chinese and European feudalism, Keyao M.A. "Asian and European Feudalism: Three Studies in Comparative History" E.a..s..t. Asian Institute Occasional Papers, U·niver:si ty of Copenhagen, 1990. The J .. apane,se historian Unno F_umi.o a:rg,ued that after the defeat of China in the Opium Wars Chinese indust-ri.-al capital was hindered and its economy stagnated to make it a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country. During the period of his study 1933-35 the landlords and the rich peasantry were connected together loosely, ev~n though they were in opposition economically (see Unno Fumio, n.19)

240

To overcome the difficulties generated in the rural society,

peasants throughout the Chinese history have participated in

revolts and rebellions, often forming a part of the much

articulated banghui (secret societies) or becoming vumin

("bandits" and vagrants). These were well documented by the

Chinese historians and others. 28 There were many successes in

these movements (in toppling the dynasties, securing the right to

use the "surface·· soil as has been outlined above and so on).

Nevertheless the successive governments also tried to clamp-down

on these movements (such as, for instance, changing the legal

provisions so as to group peasantry under the list of the

landlord households by which they lost equality of representation

in the court of la~; discrimination in favour of fangiian shili -

feudal forces - during tenant struggles and so on). A shot-in-

the-arms for these establishments proved to be a lack of a

consistent ideology, organization and an army on the part of

peasants and hence their wars proved to be of a short venture.

This does n.ot mean that the effect of the p-e-asant wars on the

rural --s-o-ci.ety was dismal. On the contrary, by backing t·he

emerging sections, these movements did alleviate to some extent

the condition of peasants. In this sense they were politically

2e S-ee for the peasant wars during the pr-e-m-o:d.ern pe·:r:iod, Zhong Jruo nang min giyi lunii (Beijing: Xinhua, 1958); Zhong guo nonsz min zhanzheng shi (compiled by CAAS History Department Research Bureau) (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1990). The list at the end of the book gives in chronological order the peasant wars from 221 BC to 222 A:D (pp. 342-58). For the modern period see the monumental work by Chesneaux,J. Peasant Revolts in China (1840-1949) (tr. by Curwen) (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973).

241

conscious but that the seizure of state power was beyond their

means.

The Northwest China is no exception. Peasant revolts

throughout centuries either emerged or spilled over into these

provinces and secured solid constituencies among peasantry. For

instance peasant rebels were active during the Ming dynasty in

Shaanxi province, mainly in the northern region (especially

surrounding Yanan and other contiguous places). Between 1628-40

we can count as many as 250 engagements of peasant rebels with

the Ming-appointed governors' armies. The number of revolts in a

year sometimes would zoom to about 45. The number of fatalities

in these rebellions indicate the extent of mass-base in these

revolts. That is in the same period about 187,975 people were

killed in the act of suppressing these rebellions. The social

background of the leaders of these revolts - for instance of Wang

Jiayan, Shan Yiynan, Wang Zogua, Miao Mei and Zhang Sheng, Gao

Yingxiang - indicate that they were either army deserters or

emerged from the local small landlord or influential

sections.2e

In Gansu in 1761 there were sporadic activities of the

Buddhists against the local administration. The recruits for

these revolts were from the local people with the backing of the

Ming zun and Bai Yun secret societies. But what proved t-o be the

turning point in the peasant revolts during this period and

2e See Parsons, J.B. Peasant Rebellions of the Late Ming DynastY (Tuscan: The University of Arizona Press, 1970). The Association for Asian Studies: Monographs and Papers, No.XXVI.

242

influencing for over one-and-a-half centuries further was the

sending of a White Lotus secret society chief to this region as

exile in 1775. This society regrouped, organized and led

peasantry in Hubei-Sichuan-Shaanxi borders in the 1790s. Under

its influence the Miao rebellions lashed the borders of Shaanxi.

In 1815 the White Lotus society activated rebellions in Shaanxi

and in 1822 invaded eastern Gansu. Under strong repression from

the army troops this rebellion was soon clamped down. The 1860s

were again the period of unrest. The Taiping rebellion from 1862-

78 had its recruits in Shaanxi, especially after its leader Lan

Dashan invaded its southern parts in April 1862 and reached as

far as Xian. Though he could not capture this capital city,

Weinan fell and so also Huazhou. In the 1860s Nian Wars hit North

China, including the Shaanxi province. Its leader Zhang Zongyu

started for Shaanxi in Oct 1866 and defeated the governor's

armies at Xian in Jan 1867 but was soon repulsed towards Yanan.

But the Muslim Tebellions in this region proved to be of a

las:t_ing local in:flu:en.ce, in t.er..m.s of recru.it.nent, spread and

repression as was never seen in recent times. It broke out in

Shaanxi and soon spread towards Gansu and Xinjiang. The origins

of this rebellion can be traced to the unbearable provincial

government's taxation policies, pestilense and famine. It was

estima-ted th-at due to the-se rebellions about 0. 7 million Muslim~s

were killed in Shaanxi alone and on the whole about 14 millions

were killed in Shaanxi and Gansu.30

Now most of these movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries were anti-tax movements with substantial participation

of the peasantry. Another interesting feature of these movements

is the participation of the landlord sections. By carefully

diverting the demands of peasantry from rent reduction to the

reduction of the land taxes, these movements were able to

consolidate the rural base but soon petered out as the basic

issues of peasantry were not dealt with. For this, peasants have

to wait for the communist party members in the Shaanxi provincial

committee. But before we deal with this aspect we should know in

brief the development of the CCP's peasant policy from its

inception in 1921 in order to view it in a perspective.

Despite the division of Chinese modern history from the

1920s to l9A.eJs by the CCP into the First Internal Revolutionary

War (Northern Expedition), Agrarian Revolution and the Yanan

period as that of war of Resistance against Japan, one of the

m-ajor con-ce:r:ns of t~he CCP were that of the peasan_t.ry in al-l these

periods. CCP's policy towards different sections of peasants

underwent major changes in this period depending on the internal

and external factors, etc. Even before the establishment of the

CCP, Li Dazhao was arguing in 1919 that in such a predominantly

agrar-ian-b:a.s-e-d count_ry, the liberation of p-eas:antry should form

3~ See Wen-Djang Chu, The Moslem Rebellion in Northwest China 1862-1878: A Study of 'Government Minority Policy (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1966); See also China Mail April 10, 1896 (Newspaper clippings); ~' 13-4-1929 and 16-4-1929.

244

the basic programme of the Chinese. In his two articles on the

"Youth and the Villages" and (in 1925) "Land and the Peasants" Li

advocated struggles within the villages, for setting up peasant

associations etc. 31 Despite the predominant attention that the

working class drew in the first congress of the CCP, peasants too

figured in this meeting. Confiscation of the land of the

landlords became the major agrarian policy of the CCP from

1921. 3 2 In July next year Peng Bai organised the Haifeng-

Lufeng peasant association with 20,000 peasant households and in

the same month the Manifesto of the second congress of the CCP

promised to launch a nation-wide struggle against the remnants of

feudalism with the help of the democratic united front of the

workers, peasants and the petty bourgeoisie. The manifesto also

promised rent ceilings in its overall bourgeois-democratic

31 See Meisner, H. Li Dazhao and the Origins of Chinese Marxjsm (Cambridg~, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967) pp.238-40; Schra-m, S. The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tun.g (Harm:nndsw:-ax.l:h: Penguins, 19:69) pp 32-33. In this work, the questions relating to whether the CCP leaders in the early phase were Populists or not; whether a call was given by the CCP to fight from the city to countryside or vice-versa; whether Mao Zedong was the first Marxist to have given a call for the inclusion of peasantry into the Marxian concept of vanguard of the revolution; whether the CCP leaders were mere "agrarian reformer_s" in espousing the cause of peasantry, and other related issues are left out here. W·e think that a close scru-tiny of the two pr-ec:eeding cha:pbe'I':s and t-he following analysis would answer these questions.

3 2 See Tsoliang Hsiao [Zoliang Xiao] Chinese Communism in 1927: City ys. Countryside (Hong kong: 1970) p. 10; See also "Yida" gjanhou: zhang guo gongchandang diyici daibiao dahui gianhou zjliao x uanbian (Before and After the First Party Congress: Selected Materials) (Beijing: RenminChubanshe, 1980), pp 207-14.

245

perspective,33 which drew its inspiration from the Third

International's (Comintern - CI) decisions in Moscow that the

immediate struggle in the colonies (as was propounded by Lenin)

during this period was that of an intermediary stage. That is the

struggle would be launched against landlords and imperialism in

the first stage and then after this stage the working class would

fight against capitalism. In this scheme it was decided that the

CCP should cooperate with the GMD while retaining its

independence34. In the same year, 1923, Chen Duxiu analysed

the countryside into big, middle and small landlords, owner-

cultivators, tenants and so on but argued that only the factory

workers are reliable. The CCP Congress, however, emphasized the

role of peasantry in confiscating landlords land, self-governing

agencies, abolition of rents and taxes, based on the C.I.

directive in May. One CCP leader Deng Zhongxia went further. In

an article he argued that though peasants are politically

conservative, they would be "forced to take the road to

-revolu~tio:n ·· by the impact of the landlords exactions and

imperial ism-. "OuT sole mission" he contend:ed, was "going to the

3.3 Se:-e Tsoli_ang Hsiao, ibid p .11 and Brandt et D~o~:.loou.c<..~.u....,.m~~~..ew.un...i.tl..ioa:rw-.... -vL.-.... H~i...,swto<Joo~..r.._yL-___,~,ou.f----.lC.uhu..l.~..· nu..s;;:e.,i;:ls~e'--....~oC.uo.L~mw:m~~o~..ul.i., .un...~.i..a:sLIIlm ( Land on : George and Unwin, 1952) pp 63-65.

al. A Allen

34 See Gongchang Guoii youguan zhang ~ui ~emin~ di wen xian ziliao (Documents of the Communist International conce~ning the Chinese Revolution) (Beijing: CASS Publications, 1981) vol.I, pp.76-80.

people" [i.e. peasantry]··. 35 Peng Bai, who became the

president of the General Peasant Association of the Haifeng Kian,

organised about 100,000 peasants. In 1924 Deng Zhongxia again

wrote of the prospects of a "potential peasants revolution" and

raised the issue of building up peasant revolutionary armed

forces. The Peasant Movement Institute was established and Peng

Bai, and later Ruan Xiao xian and Mao Zedong started organizing

peasants in Guangdong. Zhou Enlai joined the Huangpu (Whampoa)

Military Academy to organise peasant self-defence corps and train

peasant army cadres in Haifeng and Guangning respectively. 36

By a resolution, the Executive Committee of the C.I. (ECCI)"s

seventh plenum in December 1926 has elaborated on the Chinese

3~ Chen Du Xiu cited in Chao Kuo-chun. A~rarian Policv of the Chinese Communist Party (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1960) p.14. S-e-e also M-eisner, n.31, pp.24:-42; Tsoliang Hsiao, n.32 pp .13-14. For Deng Zhongxia see Feng Jianhui, "Using the Countriside to Encircle the cities - a Historical Survey of the Chinese Communist Party's Strategy" S,S.C. vol.l, no.2 (June ~980) pp 162-81 (see for the quotation pp 162-3).

as UnLess otherwise st-a-ted the info·rna.-tion ab:ou± Peng B_a-_i, peasant .1wvenent, etc from 1921 to 1926 is based on Diyici guonei geming zhanzheng shigi de oongmjn yundoog ziloao (Documents of the Peasant Movement during the First Internal Revolutionary War) (Beijing: People's Publishers, 1983); Guaogdoog nongmjn yuodong ziliao xuanbian (Selection of Documents on the Guangdong Peasant Movement) (Beijing: People's Publishers, 1986) and Hunan noogmin yundong zjljao xuanbian (Selection of Documents on the Hunan Peasant Movement) (Beijing: Pe_op.l.e's Publishers, 1988). For Deng Zhongxia s=ee Feng Jianhui, ibid. The role of peasant associations in articulating the grievances of peasants, and checking the influence of the landlords inthe villages - and in a sense becoming the "dual power" in the countryside was important. This was realised in the Hunan countryside as early as March 1927, take a cue from Peng Bai .and others. See Mao, "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan'' Selected Works of Mao Zedong (SWMZ) vol.I (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1975) p.25.

247

situation. In this meeting Bukharin and Stalin spoke among

others. Whereas the former urged CCP to pay sufficient attention

to the peasant question, Stalin advocated establishment of the

peasant committees for organising peasantry and said that the

present stage is not suitable for the launching of the Soviet

governments in the rural areas (though he asked the CCP to keep

the peasant movement in check, so as not to disturb the CCP-GMD

united front, he said later that this was a mistake). The ECCI,

in its resolution, communicated to the CCP that the class

struggle in the countryside should be given a ··radical" twist

against imperialism and militarism, large landownership,

merchant, money-lending capital and in part to the kulak

peasants.37

1927 is a turning point in the history of the Chinese

p-easant movement, not only because of the s...c-ale and extent of the

peasant uprisings (about 200 peasant uprising occurred within two

to three years - some spontaneous and som-e organised by

the CCP as the following table reveals) but also a new twist was

given to the peasant question which perhaps catapulted it into

37 See Gongchan guoJla youguan zhongguo geming di wenxian ziliao vol.I pp.175-98 and also pp 281.-82. The Central Comnittee of the CCP passed a resolution in July 192-6 conce-rning the peasant movement wherein it ur_ged the l-o.c-al cadres n:ot to be dogmatic but flexible in dealing with '"the peasant class" issue and disseminate propaganda among the mintuan to oppose "bad gentry or local bullies" and be independent of the GMD organizationally. See Wilbur, C.M. and How, J.O.Y. (ed.) Documents on Communism. Nationalism and Soviet Advisers in China 1918-1927 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956) pp 296-302.

248

'1\)NN~... •

0

e (>"-0\/IN(.i"'\ t_.

c;,p1 Ttl\:l.S

~ Afft<.o'I'.\H..._"r€' C~t"\ to'\\) N \ .s.,... 8~~6" At..€~S.

the national scene. So far, effectively, CCP"s policy did not go

beyond the rent reduction campaigns. But from now on the CCP, 1n

various areas of China, seized the peasant issue with

seriousness. About 340 branches of the party were established in

about 850 villages in the Hai-Lu-Feng area alone. The Fifth party

Year Peasant Agitatioos Led by

Hay 1927 Hailufeng Area Peng Bai Dec 1927 Guangzhou Uprising Zhang Taitei, Suzhaozheng,

Ye Ting and Ye J ianying

Oct. 1927

Oct. 1927

Oct. 1927 Oct. 1927 Nov. 1927

Jan 1928

Jan 1928 Jan 1928 March 1928

Nanchang Uprising Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, He Long, Ye Ting and Liu Bocheng

Hainan Island Peasant Feng Baiju Uprising Queshan Peasant Uprising, Yang Jingyu Henan Qingjian uprising, Shaanxi Tang Shu & Xie Zichang Huar~a uprising, Eastern Hubei Huangan-Macheng Uprising, Wu Guanghao, Cao Xue kai, Hubei Pan Zhongru Ytyang-Hengfeng Peasant Fang zhimin Uprising, Jiangxi Southern Hunan uprising Zhu De & Chen Yi Hunan-Hubei Border Uprising He Long and Zhou Yiqun Western Fujian Uprising Deng Zihui, Zhang Ding cheng

and Gui Diren April 1928 Weinan-Huaxian Uprising Liu Zhldan,Xie Zich&.,g & Tang Shu July 1928 Pingj iang Uprising Peng Detilai, Teng Daiyum and

Huang Gonglue Aug 1928 Xinan District, Fuj ia...'1 Dang Zitrui & Zhaig Dincheng Aug 1928 Shimen & Lixian, Western He Long

Hunan April 1929 Eastern Sichuan Uprising Wang Weizhou Hay 1929 Shangnan Uprising Zhou Weijong, Qi Dewei and

Xu Qixu Nov 1929 Liuhuo Peasant Uprising Jing Jingtang Dec 1929 Baise Uprising Deng Xiaoping and Zhang Yunyi

congress in April-May launched a radical agrarian policy (the

249

1926 ECCI resolution could reach China in early 1927). Though

differences arose among CCP leaders and also with the CI

representative, the peasant question remained a predominant

issue.3e The June address of the CCP directed the Hunanese

peasants to overthrow the Changsha regime and form the "vanguard

of the entire peasant movement" in China. The programme was to

confiscate the land of the big landlords, reactionary warlords,

capitalist companies and church lands. but warned against the

confiscation of the all lands, specifically that of the

revolutionary solders· land. It came out with the configuration

of a peasant (including tenants, ownerpeasants and hired hands)

alliance with small landlords.3e However there were

differences in the provinces about the party's programme. For

example, Mao Zedong, though argued in April that they should

confiscate al.l land and . + 1.\.->S redistribution through the Soviets

according to the principles of "work ability" and "consumption

quantity" . This invariably drew flak from the party ceo tral. 40

Meanwhile :Ran.c;hang !Jpr isir..g bro.ke out on 1 August-4--1 and 1n a

38 See Diyici guonei ~emin~ zhanzheng shigi de nongmin yundong ziliao pp 136-223; Brandt et al. n.33, pp 91-97.

38 See Pak, H. (ed) Documents of the Chinese Communist Party 1927-1930 (Hongkong: Union Research Institute, 1971) pp 17-19.

40 Ibid. See for the re:s:olu_tions, exchange of letters between th-e party centr-al to tbose pu:rportedly written by M:ao, pp 87-89, 91-95.

41 See Nanchang giyi (Nanchang Uprising) (Beijing: Party History Materials Publication, 1987). In this movement a law was passed regarding the liberation of peasants, in which the ceiling for landlords land holdings was kept at 200 mu but was reduced it 50 and further to 20 ~ in the face of pressures from below. 1st

week days time an emergency meeting of the CCP took place which

called for the launching of armed uprising all over China,

especially in Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Jiangxi and other places.

The Autumn Harvest Uprising and other pea-sant Uprisings were

suppressed by the GMD government. About 50,000 party members were

killed in these pograms. An interesting feature of these

uprisings and the peasant movements subsequently was that in

Hubei the membership of the peasant associations crossed 2

millions in almost all the counties of Hunan, a majority of the

members of the peasant associations, set up by the CCP in the

rural areas for agitation, belonged to that of the tenants.42

From this period yet another important feature was that of

the establishment of base areas in order to effectively organise

and spread the peasant movement . It started with the

establishment of the Hailufeng Suweiai (Soviet) by Peng Bai in

Nov. 1927 (Peng Bai was killed in 1929), Hunan-Hubei-Anhui base

by the Fourth Front Army of Xiu Xiang qian and Zhang Guotao, a

soeccnd base in the same area by the 25th Army of the Xu Haidong

(who 'W'S.S t-0 shift his opera-tions to Sh-aanxi and Gansu in t:he

August was, incidentally, observed as the Worker Peasant Red Army day. See Zhong guo gongnong hongiun diYi fangmian iun zhanzheng ~ (Diary of the development of the Chinese Worker-Peasant Red Army) (Beijing: Peoples Publishers, 1958).

4 2 Se-e for Hubei, Diyic i guone i a:--emin~ zhanzhem! shi g ide nongmin yundong ziliao, pp 57-6.0. See, for Hunan, the figures given for various classes of the rural society. Hunan nongmin yundon-g ziliao xuan bian pp 144-48. See Honggi biao biao (Red Flag Flying) (Beijing) (hereafter HQBB) vol 6 (1958 Feb) p.15 for the tenacity of the CCP leaders in the survival of the 1927 reverses. See also Hao·s "Why is it that Red Political Power can Exist in China" Sll.l1Z. vol.I, pp. 63-72.

1930s), Lake Honghu in southeast Hubei by Ren Bishi and He Long,

Fang Zhimin's North Jiangxi base, Deng Xiaoping's Guangxi base,

Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi base of Peng Dehui, bases in Shaanxi by Gao

Gang, Jia Tuofu, Xi Zhongxun, Liu Zhidan, Xie Zichang and more

importantly, that of the Mao-Zhu De's base at Ruijin in the

Jiangang mountains (First Front Army). All the governments of

these base areas issued land laws and regulations governing the

manner in which the redistribution of the confiscated land of the

landlords and other issues relating to the mobilisation of

peasants and so on. 4 3 The first land law in the revolutionary

base areas was that of the Land Law of the Jinggang Mountains

(Dec 1928), and important laws include that of the Xingguo xian

Land Law (April 1928) and so on. A common feature of these laws

was that they grew out of the experience of land distribution in

these places under the direct. influence of Mao, Z hu De and

others. 44

4 3 See for an exhaustive review of these land laws in vc8.l:.ioous base areas from 1927-37, Guo De hong, "The DeveLopment of the Land Policy of the Chinese Communist Party during the Seoorrd Revolutionary Civil War Period (1927-37)" S.S.C. vol.2, no.l (March 1981) pp 17-54. See also the informative work by Jin Dequn, "Criteria for Land D istr ibu t ion Our ing the Second Revolutionary Civil War Period (1928-37)" S.S.C. vol.2, no.2 (March 1981) pp 55-67.

44 The Jinggan shan land Law (Dec 1928) was for con-fiscation o-f the land of .a.ll. land and turning it over to the Soviet governm-ent for redistribution according to the "per capita basis: eq-ual portions to each person - male or female, old or young". As a result of the adoption of this Law, this base a~a reported bumper harvests. See Tsoliang Hsiao, The Land Revolution in China. 1930-34: A Study of Documents (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969) pp 291-93 and Jin Dequn, ibid. pp 55-56.

The Xingguo Xien Land Law (April 1929) proposed the confiscation of the land of the public organisations and

252

To cut short this brief introduction of the otherwise

important and constructive but mainly experimentative events of

the late 1920s and early 1930s, it should be pointed out that as

a result of the pressure from below (i.e. from the "Red Peasant

Lances" and others) the landlord exactions during this period

were checked to some extent. The land redistribution process that

was carried out in parts of China give a fillip to an alternative

programme of rural reconstruction.•5 For the CCP, this

effectively strengthened its mass base. This can be shown from

the shift in the mass base of the party from the industrial

workers to that of peasants. In 1926 and 1927, workers formed

about 65-66% of the total membership of the party (which was

roughly between 12,000 in 1926 and 60,000 in April 1927). After

the suppression of the movement in 1927 by the GMD, the

landlords. This was a correction for some of the provisions of the Dec 1928 Law. See Hsiao, ibid. pp 293-95. In Western Jiangxi (in Nov 1930) in the land distribution programme, some interesting measures were adopted to lessen the inequalities. The first stage was that of "draw-on-the-plentiful-to-make-up-for­the-scarce" and in the se-cond stag-e" draw-on-the--fat-to-make-up­fo-r-the 1-e-a.n". How-eve-r, in the pro:c-ess, _ag,ri.--'ll t.ur-al 1-a.bour:-e:r~s faced resistance from the rich peasan-ts in t-he T-orm ::::f lo-w wages etc. See Tsoliang Hsiao, ibid, pp 31-32. In comparison the Provisional Land Law of the CCP, drawn up in 1930 by Li Lisan and others, propounded a collaboration with rich peasantry, denial of land to Red Army Men and hired farrmhands, etc with disastrous consequences. Nevertheless, it was opposed by many provinces. See Hsiao, ibid, pp. 125-27. The subsequent Land Law of the Soviet Public of Nov 1931 targeted the du hao (village bosses), rich peasants with usurious inter-ests and of a "counter revolutionary" quality etc. But in the redistribution process t_he poor peasants' and middle peasants' consent was to be obtained. See Brandt et al. n.33, pp.224-26. See also Mao, "The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains" Slil1Z_vol.I pp.73-104 (esp pp 87-90 and 104n).

4 5 In Jiangxi Soviet the Red Army's services were utilised in the farming operations. See aGaa, val 13, (Oct 1959) p 65.

253

percentage of workers in the party dropped by a staggering 9% in

1928. At the end of 1929 the Red Army's strength was 2000 but

this shot up to about 60,000-70,000 after it moved to the Ruijin

base in 1930. From then on, membership of the party was to rise

by leaps and bounds as the tables indicate clearly. Who formed

these Red Army troops? Mao Zedong declared emphatically in 1945,

in one of his major works, that "soldiers are peasants in

military uniform".48 Despite the low percentage of literate

peasants in the Red Army47 and the difficulties they faced in

the operations and so on, peasant recruits rose to the level of

full-scale officers4e.

Another important feature of this phase was that peasant

policy became the dominant discourse of the CCP. Indeed, in

solving this question not only were the deliberations of the CCP

increased but many important heads were to roll. Within a short

span of time from 1926 to the 1930s, Chen Duxiu was removed

because of concentrating on the workers and cities only (among

cthe~ reasons), Qu Qub.ai was to serve for a brief period from the

sec-ond half of 1927 to the summer of Hl28, Li Lis-an's "rich

peasant line" drew flak from the ECCI and has to leave from

important positions and the ershi ba shu (the 28 Bolsheviks from

Russia) - beaded by Wang Ming - were to leave after they went to

4 6 See s..M.l1.Z. vol. III "On Coalition Government" p 250. See also Zhongguo nongmin yundong gishi p.58 for the variation in the number of different peasant classes for 5 years.

47 See Haaa vol3 (Aug 1957), pp 89-95 (esp. p.90).

4 8 See HaBa vol.1 (May 1957) pp 52-94 (esp pp 57-59).

254

the other extreme: that of opposing rich peasants and hence of

the "ultra-left line".4B At the same time the "fortunes" of

other CCP members were to a great extent conditioned by the

peasant question. Mao Zedong, Zhu De and others in the provinces,

whose changed positions were vindicated, were to fill this slot.

Now the portends of the Chinese peasant policy were clear and

after the Long March and the setting up of the Shaanxi-Gansu-

Ningxia Border Region government, this phase was to influence the

CCP. The three stages of class struggle in the countryside, that

was developed (by Mao in 1933?)5~ i.e. land confiscation and

distribution; land investigation; and land construction - were to

form the bulwark of the CCP's policy in the new liberated areas

throughout the Yanan period and in the subsequent crucial period.

Having said that, we should not forget that the CCP is not a

peasant party, dictated lay the interests of the peasants.

Indeed, the CCP leaders time and again reiterated their socialist

affiliations.

shift OUI' at±ention ... ,..., ........ the Northwest

provinces, especially Shaanx-i. To resume in bri-ef, the findings

48 See Pak, n.39, pp 553-57, and Tsoliang Hsiao, Power Relations within the Chinese Communist Movement. 1930-34: A Study of Documents (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1961) pp 159-62.

M!1 See Pa-k, n. 39, pp 635-38 for the document "The Land Investigation Campaign is the Central Important Task in the Vast (Soviet) Areas". s~ also for overall information on this period, Zhong guo xio min zhu zhuyi gemiog shiqi dongshi (A History of the Chinese New Democratic Revolution) vol.2 (ed. by Li Xin, Feng Ming, Cha Shangxi, Zhen Xu Liu, Su Sihai) (Beijing: People's Publishers, 1962) esp pp 50-53, 64-77 and 201-04.

255

in the previous section, Central Shaanxi (called as Guangzheng

region) was relatively prosperous; Huang zhong-Yulin regions have

more landlords than any other region, etc. from the early

twentieth century, Qing Yuexiu (in the Wei valley), Lin Yuexiu

(in Northern Shaanxi), Qing Xindian (in the Hausheng region) and

later Feng YuXiang (in Central Shaanxi) and other landlords, and

big landlords controlled these regions, administratively as well

as financially. It was against these aspects that the Shaanxi

Sheng Wei (Provincial Committee of the CCP) (Shaanxi PC) was to

launch struggles with varying degrees of successes and failures.

The Shaanxi PC, which comes under the jurisdiction of the

Yangzi River Bureau of the CCP from Sept 1927, spearheaded the

peasant struggles not only in Shaanxi but also Gansu and the

adjoining provinces. It followed the policies of the CCP in the

agrarian and working cl,~s speres. However. due to the distance

and lack of communications the CCP's policy perspective

directives were delayed a number of times and hence the Shaanxi

PC o-ver:- a peri.od tim-e some el.ement of

manoeauvrability in its operations.61

51 This study is based on the accounts given by Gao Gang about the history of the development of the communist agitation in Shaanxi, Bianqu dang de lishi wenti qiantao (The history of the party in the border region and the exam in at ion of its questions) (Yanan: n.p. 1943); about Liu Zhidan by the journal, lliill..B., vo1.5 (Dec 1951) pp 10-8-18 which gives a graphic account of the activities of Liu Zhidan and the communist peasant activities year-by-year from 1920s till his death in the late 1930s in a battle in Shaanxi against the Japanese; Edgar Snow's account of the North West before the Long March, etc in n. 16 , pp 211-44; Shaanxi peasant movement in the Divici ~uonei geming' zhanzheng shiqi de nongmin yundong ziliao, p.639; Xibei geming shi (A historY of the Revolution in the North West) (ed. by Zhang

256

As we have already analysed, peasant movement was active in

Shaanxi and Gansu in the late nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries in different forms. CCP's policy from 1926 took a

different and radical course of action from the propaganda of

manifestos and representations in the early 1920s. Shaanxi PC

also was activated not only by the CCP's change of policy but

also because of the spontaneous peasant revolts that were

occurring in the countryside in Shaanxi. The early leaders of the

Shaanxi PC, Wei Yezhou, Li Zuzhou (who taught at the Yulin Middle

School and Suide Normal School respectively), and who were

influenced by the May Fourth Movement (like the early CCP

leaders), tried to build-up political consciousness among the

students and the youth, through the Socialist Youth corps, etc.

Gao Gang Liu Zhidan, Xie Zuchang, Wang Zuyi and others were

brought up and were to organise the peasant movement. In

accordance with the CCP's national policy of affiliating with the

GMD against the War lord· s in the N ort bern Expedition, Shaanxi

Gommun ist m.e.mhe_r_s also participated with the Guoniniun (Ncational

People· s Army) 's North West army under the "Christ ian General''

Feng Yuxiang. This effort in Shaanxi was also helped by Moscow

through Outer Mongolia. However after this effort, Feng Yuxiang,

though initiated some ad.ministrative and economic reforiil in

Zhende and Zhao 1991); Zhong guo 336-48; and the 58-61 and 80-88.

Ximin) (Xian: People's Education Publishers, xinmin zhu zhuyi geming shigi dangshi vol.2, pp analysis of Mark Selden, n pp 20-31, 50-53,

257

-• fe"~ANl I"\\\IE. ... €.~i~

\)_.o-a~ "f\o\6 G.\J\\1~ oF S"A."''-l'!C.\ v.c...

Shaanxi,62 imposed grain tax, household tax, tobacco loans,

etc. which aggravated the condition of peasants. Instead of

building-up a movement (i.e. a united front) from below, the

Shaanxi leaders identified with the GMD in the Expedition. Thus

concrete work among peasantry was not initiated in this phase.

As a result the spontaneous and sporadic struggles of peasantry

were clamped down easily. However after this, peasant revolts

were reported from Yulin, Yanan, Heyang, Zheng-Zheng, Buzheng,

Fubing, Gushi, Sanyian, Hua, Weinan, Lintong, Changan, Landian,

Chouzhi, Hu, Lizhnan, Chinyang and Nanzheng against excessive

taxation and levies. One interesting feature of these was that

even small landlords participated in this. Some of the movements

were led by the Shaanxi PC leaders in accordance with the Party's

Central Letter63 and in one county Li Xiang qui with the effort

of the Second and Third Ar.mi..es occupied a county seat through

peasant insurrection but was soon suppressed. In Qingq ian the

peasant movement was led by Tang Shu and Xi Zhuzheng in Sept.

1827; i.n C.ent.rB.l Shaanxi by Liu Zhidan, Tang. and Xie with 500

62 See Sheridan, J.E. Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-hsiang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966) especially, pp 103-7 and 244-9.

e.s See Pak, n. 39, "Letter to Shensi" Aug 14, 1927. pp. 287-9. While reiterating t~hat "the main revolutionary force" in Shaanxi was p-e-asantry, this letter as-ked the Shaanxi PC to consider that "the worker and peasant classes cannot consider themselves an objective force merely helping the people sense political power but rather they should have determination to prepare themselves to seize political power into their own hands. Therefore, in the course of revolution th~ worker and peasant classes should always place themselves in the position of master to lead all." (ibid. p.288).

258

others; in 1928 at Xunyi (on the borders of Shaanxi and Gansu) Xu

Zaisheng led the peasant movement and also established a Soviet

government but was soon suppressed. In South Shaanxi the Red

Spears were active for a long time. At this time the membership

of the Shaanxi PC rose to about 3000. The main slogan in this

phase were "Liquidate usury", "Resist levy", "Resist grain

(requisition)", and interestingly in order to attract the army

which was poorly paid, "pay Soldiers in dollars", "Give the land

to the tillers", "Village power to the peasant associations",

"Arm the peasai1t", etc.

However, as the Party Central was to castigate, the Shaanxi

PC's role in this phase was still "in the stage of a relatively

primitive and infantive struggle". The roots of this failure

were traced to the relatively unorganised struggle, combining

with tbe haoshen and laJldlords and that the local CCP arllY did

not work con-structively among the peasants. Specifically, though

several peasant uprisings erupted in the Guanzhong region, there

were hardly any struggles against the big landlords or their

mintuan, i.e. t.her·e was n..o confi-scation and red.istrib.u~t-Lon crf t:he

land of these landlords. Instead the demands focussed on the

"external" element - that of the campaign against excessive taxes

and levies. This could have hardly benefited the poor peasants,

hired farm labourers and the middle peasants who fo.r'tl~d a

majority of the population. It was in this context that the

Party's Central Directive of March 1928 argued, "unless the land

is redistributed, the feudal basis will not be altered

259

fundamentally, and all the actions will become comic and have

little bearing on the land revolution." 134

To remedy such a situation CCP went further and directed the

Shaanxi PC to observe the following points: confiscation of the

land of the big landlords and hoashen in order to relieve the

poor and throwing open their granaries to be distributed among

the famine-stricken peasants; to kill the big landlords and tax

collectors in areas of spontaneous struggles; to build peasant

guerilla bases with 3 to a dozen peasants in a unit with weapons

and give fillip to the mass struggles and form village

governments with open leadership" for continued expansion;

stressed the role of mass action and not military action alone in

the expansion of the movements; to infilterate the secret

societies (Red Spears and Big Swords) and bandits in order to

break their rank and file and to expand its mass base as the

social background of the Shaanxi PC members showed a predominant

membership from the intellectuals (40%), peasantry (other than

po.or peas_ant.s) who formed about 40% etc.

As a result, and in the face of increasing peasant activity,

Shaanxi PC members tried to organise peasantry in various forms

in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This phase witnessed the

strengthening of the organization and expansion through the

estab 1 ishment of base areas, Soviets at Shaanxi-Gansu borde~r

regions and Sichuan-Shaanxi border regions and so on. The

54 Pak, n.39, "Rectification of Opportunities in Shaanxi and the detailed Work Plan" march 18, 1928. pp. 407-24. See p. 417. [emphasis added]

260

central figures in this effort were Liu Zhidan, Gao Gang, Xi

Zichang and in the later years Xu Haidong. Liu Zhidan (who was

born at Bao an, did schooling from Yulin and military training

from the Hunagpo academy with considerable influence in the

Gelaohui Elder Brother secret society clan connections)

participated in the peasant movement in Shaanxi. He was perhaps

the earliest to fight uncompromisingly against landlords in Hua

Xlim. in the South and next in West Shaanxi. He was to play a

significant role in the expansion of the peasant movement in

Shaanxi. The North-West Shaanxi base was established with Gao

Gang as the political Commissar and Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang as

secretaries. The 1928 revolt of this base failed. A red army

unit was established in 1931 at Bao an and Zhongyang and in 1932

an ''anti-Japanese alliance" was formed, alongwith the Chinese

Workers pea.san.ts Red Army Shaanxi-Gansu Guerilla Troops and San

Yuan Central Shaanxi Weibai area. In 1933 the Shaanxi Soviet

with a regular administration was formed. In 1934 the North West

Revolut-i:o:na.ry Mil.Ltary C.cmmittee started functioning. In 1935

the Shaanxi Provisional Soviet Government was established with a

party training school, and a military headquarters at Anding.

When Xu Haidong arrived in Shaanxi with his 8000 troops of the

25th Red Army from Henan as a part of his stream of the Long

March, Liu Zhidan 's 26th and 27th armi.e's of 1000 Red partisans

combined with it to defeat the Northeast troops of the GHD's

General Wang Yizhe in Aug 1935. Th,is reorganised 15th Red Army

occupied a number of counties not only in Shaanxi but also in

261

Gansu and established peasant associations and Soviets in these

regions where the land programme was initiated.

The land programme of the Shaanxi province was to have a

different flavour from that of the one advocated by the CCP. For

instance, the "Instructions for Equal Distribution of Land" in

the Sichuan-Shaanxi base differed on one of the aspects of the

confiscation of the land. That is it was careful not to encroach

upon the interest of the middle peasants but should be given land

where they possess insufficient land. Northern Shaanxi

Comnunists refused to follow the "ultra-left" policies of Wang

tHng and in the "equal distribution of land, the land of the

middle peasants should not be touched".55 In 1932 in the

central areas of Shaanxi in the land programme, land and grain

which was considered to be in surplus was distributed, with the

result that though the membership of the peasant association

increased to about 1000, the rich peasants interests were

affected dr-astically and this put a break on the growth and

expansion of t.he pe.asan t m_ovem.en t in to ne-w areas.

To sum up this phase the-se experiments on the lan-d qu-estion

were to go a long way in the land distribution programmes from

1935 onwards, that effectively tried to threaten and transform

rural Shaanxi and prepare the way for the arriving Long March

vet-erans. As a result of the post 1927 efforts of th-e Shaanxi

05 See Li Liuru Land Questions in the Soviet Areas cited by Guo Dehong, n.43, p.41; and Cai Shufan, A Preliminary Study of the Land Problem in Suide and Hizhi Counties cited by Jin Dequn n.43, p.64.

262

PC, guerilla bases/Soviets were established at Shenmu, Fugu, Bao

an, Qingbian, Anbian, Anding, Qingyang, Hoshui and so on. After

the "Xian Incident and the establishment of an united front

between the CCP and GMD against the Japanese occupation of parts

of China the peasant policy of the CCP was to undergo changes in

the Border Region governments. CCP agreed to the following

proposals in the united front tactics:

1. renouncing for the time being the carrying out of its

programme of confiscation of private property and the overthrow

of the existing government;

2. cooperation with the government to resist the Japanese (by

this the CCP agreed ro dissolve the Red Army and join the Central

Army);

3. national resistance and united China;

4. Sun Yat-ssn·s principles alone can bring salvation to

China.5e

Whereas before the outbreak of the War of Resistance the

rrai:n cont·radi.ct ion was between the "basic masses and the

fangiian shili (feudal forces), during the War of Resistance this

policy was shifted to involve enlistment of the support of the

ee See CCP"s "Working with Government in Present Danger" North China Herald, Jan 5, 1938. See also North China Herald, Jan 12, 1938 for further proposals of the CCP, of its Seventh Annual Conference, which also includeci, signi£icantly, mobilisation of the labouring classes for active participation in the anti-Japanese war. See also North China Herald, Nov 30, 1938. See Mao "The Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party in the period of Resistance to Japan" May 1937. s.K.I1Z.. Vol.I, pp. 263-83 for a theoretical discussion of the change in the nature of the internal and external contradictions in China after the Japanese invasion.

263

Zhongiian fenzi (intermediate elements) including the upper petty

bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie, rich peasants, small landlords

and later, even, the "enlightened gentry" . In other words it was

a sort of renmin Zhenxian (People's Front) against the Japanese.

The Jan 28, 1942 "Decision of the Central Committee on Land

Policy in the Anti-Japanese Base Areas·· outlined the programme of

the CCP towards peasantry, etc. The stipulations were: reduction

of land rent and interest rates, guarantee of rent and interest

collections, maximum rent was to be about 37.5% of the total

produce of the land. In this united front tactics the goal was

to ··reduce feudal exploitation by the landlords" and mere

importantly - and this phrase was to give CCP enough space to

initiate class struggles in the countrywide covertly - "guarantee

the civil liberties, political rights, l~~d rights, and economic

rights of the peasants.·· r.,., this war effort, the CCP -..-ent

further, to give fillip to the agricultural and industrial

production, by stating that the capitalist mode of production is

··.m:orce pT-ug .... ess ±v·e arethod in p:resen t-day China." 5 7

Now with this perspective, the Shaan-Gan-Ning Boanqu

(Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia) Border Region government (hereafter SGNB)

which was established at Yanan was to function from 1937 till

1947. This region was surounded by the GMD's te.rri-tories to a

gr-eat extent and barriers were imposed on the free movement of

people and material. Nevertheless though this blockade became

effective in the early 1940s, the CCP could manage to send its

57 See Brandt, et al. n.33, pp. 276-85.

264

., .... ----, f ... ,_.,, I ,,

I r

guerilla forces through the porous borders into the Janapese-

controlled areas and establish base areas behind the enemy lines.

This was to become an effective weapon in the days when Japan

withdrew after World War II. Officially, however, this base at

Yanan was designated from Sept 1937 as a garrison area with 23

Xien (which number was to increase/decrease depending on the

military situation). The Red Army was reorganized, also

according to united front tactics, as the Eigth Route Army (and

then later, as the Eighteenth Route Army). During this period of

twelve years many experiments were carried out by the Border

Region governments at various places. CCP at Yanan directed,

con so 1 ida ted and expanded these measures in the agrarian,

military, political and other spheres and was later to be called

as the Yanan doaly (way) or Yanan zuofeng (workstyle).

The Yanan period witnessed many changes in the policies of

the CCP. In the initial years of 1937-41, there was

reorganization the government of the former Soviet base,

l.oopho les in the previous land distribution

programme, sume bold political and military measur-es ~ere

initiated, and so on. The next crucial phase which coincided

with a strict economic blockade from the GMD government,

compelled the CCP to launch "production drives" and mobilisation

o-f pea-sants for this effort and a general softening of t-he

policies in agriculture and so on were carried out from about

1942-45. This phase was carried out carefully by the CCP so as

not to antagonize most of the rural classes and hence was also

265

crucial. The next period from 1945-49 was the period of the

decisive civil war and the offensive on the peasant question.

Before we analyse the basic policies of the SGNB towards

peasants and their participation in the mass mobilisation efforts

against the Japanese, a few more words about the basic data of

this region. There does not seem to be an uniformity of opinion

on the aspects of the area, population, percentage of different

classes in the rural society and so on. One contemporary source

mentions this for SGNB as 129,608 sq. metres area (but decreased

to 98,960 sq metres area in 1943 as a result of the GMD's

campaign) and a population of about 2 million (which also

decreased to about 1.5 million in 1943).58

Another source gives a systematic division of the SGNB into

five subregions of Yanan, Suide, Guanzhong, Longdong, Sanbian and

Yanan city, the number of villages, administrative villages,

population in all these regions, etc. (see the table IX). In the

beginning there wer-e 15 x..i.en but by 1941 it rose to 1941 as a

result o-f t:he e.xp:ansjon of the te-rritory L'1 wars. Even though

SGNB was to be unde-r tne nationalist government as a provinc·ial

government, it was more independent in its functioning. It had

various committees to look after the internal affairs, finance,

education and a political security bureau. The Secretariat dealt

58 See Shaan-gan-ning biangu fuyuan de shouming (Area and Population of the Shaan-gan-ning border region) (Yanan: n.P. 1944 ?) See also Shaan-gan-ning biangu shilu (A Record of the SGNB) (Yanan ? Liberation Society Publication, 1939) pp. 1-5 for the area and population figures.

266

Tible IX Basic Data about the Shaan-San-Ning Border Region 6overn1ent

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Place Area Village Ad1ini Natural Households Population

strati ve village lien llo1en Total

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Yanan c:ity 4 13 85 2,&75 6,539 28,832 12,371 Yanang 11 51 386 711 16,151 34,691 29,475 64,165 Anding 7 41 145 1143 11,998 27,989 24,394 52,383 Zi zhang 8 47 21!8 1871 12,926 36,362 33,179 69,541 Zhidan 7 48 175 481 5,897 17,293 15' 411 32,694 Yan Zhang b 33 113 489 6,197 18,673 16,121 34,793 Yan Zhou 8 51 283 778 12,432 38,382 35,288 73,678 Su Shi 5 24 75 356 4,744 12,612 18,527 23,129 San Guan 5 28 71 275 3,715 8,698 7,224 15,922 Dou 18 47 161 514 8, 726 19,722 22,368 112,891 Nanni111an 2 6 21X 212X 635 656 1,210 Subtotal 66 355 1615 ~28 81,795 215,846 194,541 419,587

Sui de 11 79 315 662 31,396 77' 164 71,186 147,258 ftifei 9 59 387 1840 18,494 48,833 44,477 92,511 Jia 11 53 226 578 21,887 53,484 48,979 112,383 llubao 4 26 111 215 8,475 21,342 18,263 38,685 Sing Suo 7 38 178 497 13,323 32,398 31,499 63,897 Zi Zhou 9 57 252 1859 22,298 57.315 55,493 112,888 Sub-total 50 312 1459 4&61 114,265 288,656 268,656 557,453

lin zileng . ., .. 73 186 4,911 12,662 8,770 21,432 ., .. ., Hn Nie 5 27 sax 357X 7,867 18,119 15,496 33,515 Chi Shui 5 33 186l 277X 9,281 22,498 21,9SB 43,485 Bo 6 35 123X 386X 8,787 16,744 43,196 29,840 Zhong lin .. 16 24 b6 1,131 1,933 1,315 3,241 ,)

Sub-total 23 134 414 1272 31,865 71,858 59,655 131 '513

Suani-an 7 42 131 475X 11,674 33,175 29,918 63,.il43 He-S:inli I '30 f ,_,.~ 321X 7,511 24,115 2LJJ1 «,286 l..L_,l.A

Hua zhi 5 34 117 ~6 4,996 18,321 15,169 33,491 llu zi 8 6b 117X 482X 7,415 29,769 26,445 56,214 tiei 7 45 118X 384X 7,672 12,485 11,425 23,830 Oi Yuan 6 34 lllX 3il2X 9,326 33,165 21,744 54,989 Sub-total 41 257 b87 2461 47,593 158,900 124,872 275,772

Dingbian 8 45 177 1256 7,387 21,429 21,388 45,817 lingbian 8 47 186 1Bil3 9,998 31.152 28,28i 58,332 11uqi 6 33 ° 112 7bl 4,857 21,595 14,914 3b ,5119 Zhi 5 26 1f7 523 5,883 14,611 12,655 27,265 Anbian 6 32 125 682 1,5b7 21,67b 19' 771 41,446 Sub-total 33 183 677 5825 34,794 111,362 97,117 288,369

Total 216 1254 4852 18738 312,987 844,361 751 '714 1595,065 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Source: Shaan-gan-ning !iangu canyi hui wenxian huiji (Beijing: Kexue Chubaushe, 1958) p.379.

with the public relations matters. 6 a

As we have seen above land problem was one of the most acute

aspects of the agrarian situation in Shaanxi and other places.

To mitigate such a situation, revolutionaries in Shaanxi PC

carried forward land revolution in some areas thoroughly but

could not complete the process in other areas owing to other

matters. Thus before the establishment of SGNB the land

revolution was completed in the Yanan subregion (including

Qiungbian, Anding, Ansai, Bao an - renamed as Zhidan in memory of

Liu Zhidan later -, Yanan, Ganzhaun, Yanzhang, and Yanzhuang),

but partly in parts of Suide (i.e. Fugu, Shenmu, Jia xien, Suide,

Mizhi, Dingbian, Fu xien, Lozhuan, Xunyi and Zhunhua). In Gansu

only in two regions - Qingning, and Ningxien land distribution

was carried out but not in the Huan xien. Likewise in Ningxia,

land revolution was partly carried out in Y.anzhi. Yulir.,

Hangshan, Wubao, Qingqian (in Shaanxi), Qingyang, Hoshui,

Zhenyuan in Gansu were completely left out of the perview of land

revolution. N.o~ after the estab.lishment of the SGNB all these

land programmes were given a legal form with no further

~a See Shaan-gan-ning biangu di Yiiie zhan yi hui shi lui (Minutes of the first meeting of the SGNB) (ed. by the govt.) ( Yanan: n. p. 1939). Se-e the first chapter, for the 'i'lork report of Lin Boqa, chai.rman of the SGNB. See also Shaan-gan-ning bianqu shilu (1939 ibid) ch. two for the organisations and functions of the government. Lin Boqa looked after finance with the help of his deputy Zao Quju; Internal Affairs Committee by Zai Shufan; Education by Xu Deli; Political Security by Zhou Xing. See also Niu Xinghua, ··'on the Position of Shaan-gan-ning Border area in Chinese Revolutionary History", Yanan Daxue Xuebao (Yanan University Journal), vol.15, No.1, (1993) pp 45-52.

268

confiscation of the landlords' lands. 60 This meant, among

others, that (in the united front tactics) the SGNB was

constrained to work with the landlords with whom it had to clash

previously. The way out was found in the slogan iianzu iiaozu

(i.e. reduce rents and pay rents) in order to, at the same time

conciliate the landlords but also the crucial contituency of

tenants. Further the CCP has to give fillip to the rich peasants

ambitions for the much-needed productive drive in the early

1940s. This would mean postponing the critical demands of the

agricultural labourers. Thus, the poor peasants (who were mostly

tenants) and the agricultural farm hands, who, as we have seen,

were the main beneficiaries of the land revolution, have to wait

for this phase to come to an end. However, this does not mean

that the CCP was adamant or ignorant of their plight. On the

contrary; the CCP was sensitive to this issue which was also

coupled by the impact of the growth of the party bureaucracy in

the region. This phase was characterised by various scholars in

diff,e.ren:t ways_. Conrad Brandt and others thought that t-his was a

"moderate .. , "reformistic" period with no major changes in the

agrarian sphere. Whereas Mark Selden was of the opinion that the

"local activists" were to initiate struggles from below and

mobilise peasants after the Zhengfang (rectification) movement.

Chen Yun,gf-a went fur-ther in cont-ending that, in the cent-ral and

ee See ibid. pp 85-88 for the land laws of the SGNB and the stipulations to be observed in the land programme after 1937. See also Mao, "Proclamation by the government of the Shenzi-Kansu­Ningsia Border Region and the rear headquarters of the Eighth Route Army" May 1938 Slil1Z. vol.II pp.75-77,

259

Eastern provinces of China, the CCP was organising peasants in a

.. con t r o 11 e d reb e 11 i on again s t t he s tat u s q u o " . The recent

assessment by Pauline Keating seems to be more objective, with a

close scrutiny of some of the rare documents. Keating's

objective here was to trace the impact of the rent reduction

campaigns which might have "con tr ibu ted to a process of

continuing revolution, revolution in which peasant culture as

well as rural power structure began to change."Bl

When the SGNB was formed there were hardly any census

reports conducted by the communists. A large revenue used to be

collected from the production of opium in the north Shaanxi

district especially in Sanbian. However after the SGNB was

established, opium cultivation was banned, thus affecting the

revenues of the government. In the War of Resistance period the

Anti-Japanese Salvation public grain levies were collected as a

way out. Here the levy on production was not based on the

structure of landholdings but, nevertheless, those farm

households '9i th no su_r_p_lus whatev·e_r w-ere exe:mpt.ed fro.m the taxes.

Instead it was imposed on the "well-off" peasants at a

progressive rate. Though the amount was collected in grain, it

Bl See Brandt et al. n.33. p.275; Mark Selden, The Yenan Way. . . n. t.3 Chen Yung-fa Making Revolution: The Communist Movem-ent in Centr-al and Eastern China 1937-1945. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). Chen based his study on the basis of the internal materials of the CCP captured and preserved at Taibe i; See also Keating, P. "Beyond Land Revolution: The Rent Reduction Campaigns in the Shaanganning Border Region, 1937-1946" Papers on Far Eastern History (Australian National University) (hereafter EEE.H_) No.36, (Sept 1987) pp 1-54.

270

was requested that this may be paid in cash in order to avoid the

transportation costs, etc. The main slogan during this campaign

wa.s ""Those who are rich donate their money, those who are strong

offer their strength". Roughly rich peasants were taxed to about

20% of their produce and landlords about 40% of their surplus.

As a result of these policies the revenue of the SGNB increased

from 70,000 Yuan in 1937 September to 160,000 Yuan in November of

the same year. Yet another effort that was made by the CCP to

mitigate the condition of peasants and at the same time to

mobilise them in the War-effort, was to reclaim wasteland which

was abundant in that period. Thus arable land increased,

directly with the help of the Red Army personnel from about 8.43

million sq. metre in the pre-Japanese War period to about 10

million in 1939, 16 million in 1941, but declined in the

subsequent period to about 15 million in 1945. Nevertheless the

production of grain showed an increase from 1.2 million piculs in

1937 to 1.3 million in 1939 to 1.5 million in 1942 to about 1.7

mll . .l.lon in 1944. And so do the grain collected from the various

~ural classes. Though it remained at 10,000 piculs in 1937 and

1938 despite increases in grain production and acreage but

subsequently shot up to about 50,000 in 1939, 200,000 in 1941 but

dropped to about 125,000 piculs in 1945.82

s2 See Feng Zhenxiang and Huang Taoan (eds) Shaan-gan-ning bianqu geming shi (A History of Revolution in the SGNB) (Xian: Normal University Publications, 1991), data on page facing 616; See for the share of different crops in the agricultural production, Jiefang Zhanzheng shigi Shaan gao nin!: biarl.9..l.L...___c_a_i zheng jingi shi _ ziliao xuan11 (Selected Materials on the Financial History of the SGNB during the liberation War) (ed. by

271

As a result of this effort, SGNB invited peasants from

various parts of Shaanxi and even from other provinces to settle

down on the reclaimed lands. In 1937-40 about one million persons

migrated to Yanan at its contiguous areas, though their number

decreased to 86,000 by 1941-45 period. 6 3 This effort of

opening-up wasteland and contribute to production went a long way

in decreasing tensions between landlords and tenants, etc. in the

rural society at least in the early phase. However, in this phase

too, the CCP did not forget the importance its class policies.

For instance, in the extensive rehabilitation of the population

on reclaimed lands it was stipulated that the local level bodies

should follow the ·· sansanzhi ·· pol icy. That is in the colonisation

of the waste land and also in the newly liberated areas the three

equal policy should be observed. Here the first 1/3rd of the land

should be made available to the armymen and their families, the

second 1/3rd to the non-Party left intellectuals and finally the

other 1/3rd land was given to the "neutral" people - i.e. to

Xing gu:ang, Z.hang Yang, Zhe:: Wt:ji.n:; (X:ian: Sanqu-an Publications, 1989) See vo l. 2, p. 176; See als·o Sci'n·-an P. Guerilla Economy: The Development of the Shensi-kansu-Ninghsia Border Region. 1937-1945 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1976) p. 186 for the agrarian taxation and p.l88 for the tax collected in kind. See also Kang ri zhanzheng shiqi shaan-gan-ning bianqu zhaizheng jingii thi gao (The Financial Economic History of the SGNB during the Anti-Japanese War) (ed. by Xing Guang, Zhang Yang, Chen Shaji and Liu Wuyan~) (Xian: Northwest University Publications, 1988) pp 54-61.

B3 See Schran, ibid. p.99. See for the flow of refugees into the Yanan county from 1938-42 in Mao Zedong·s "Economic and Financial Problems" in Watson, A. Mao zedong and the Political Economy of the Border Region: A Translation of Mao's Economic and Einancial Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) pp 59-250 see p.80.

272

those who do not have party affiliations, etc. 64 As a result

of this policy the clout of the CCP expanded and remained intact.

We have seen above the varietable forms of tenancy

arrangements prevailing in Shaanxi in the pre 1935 period. Now

the CCP was confronted with these arrangements, a solution of

which could trigger 'rural harmony'. In the rural surveys that

the CCP functionaries carried out in the SGNB, emphasis was

placed on the collection of data on the subtleties of the

different forms of sharecropping, joint farming and homestead

rental systems. In this period, instead of any radical settlement

of these tenurial systems, the CCP targeted the ··labour service"

arrangements by which the landlords demanded services from their

tenants above the contractual arrangements agreed upon, while at

the same time praising the rich peasant "nature" of these aspects

and the rent reduction campaigns in early phase of the SGNB. 65

This was projected to benefit the tenants, landlords and the

government as rents were reduced, landlords were "incorporated"

int-o the sy_s:tem (through of course without some of t-heir

"landlordism" i.e. their pre-capitalist extra-economic

64 See Kangri zhanzheng shigi Shaan-gan-ning bianqu tongyi Zhanxian he san sanzhi (The 3 equals policy during the Anti­Japanese war United Front in the SGNB) (edited by YananLocal Committee of the United Front, etc.) (Xian: Shaanxi People's Publishers, 1987) p.381. See also Wang Yongxiang, "The Three Equal Divisions System in Anti-Japanese Base Areas Analyzed" Nankai xue bao (Nankai Journal) vol.2 (1992) pp 70-75.

e::. See Keating n.61 for the rent reduction campaign and the problems th~reof in the unitea front tactics (see pp 12-21); Keating also analyses in brief the impact of the local pressures from tenants on the CCP's Policy.

273

coercion, etc) and the government because it led to shifting

attention to the growth of production and so on. Nevertheless the

CCP also criticised, through struggle campaigns, against the

excessive nature of land rent exactions, usury, embezzlements and

other evils. Yet another aspect through which the CCP tried to

diminish landlords hold over the rural society - in political and

cultural sphere mainly and to some extent in the economic

sphere - was through the popular assemblies convened through

elections from the local level, in addition to gaihui (assemble

for meetings), plays (yangke being one of the most popular

plays), posters, helifudan (reasonable bearing of responsibility

of taxation as we have outlined above in brief). 8 B

In the next phase of the movement 1n SGNB, due to the

problems generated by the economic blockade of the GMD, inflation

and so on, the CCP started the production movement, coinciding

with the rectification movement of the CCP. The Senior Cadres

Conference of 1942 called for the people to participate in

production - agricultural and industrial - as "production is the

ee See Shaan-gan-ning biangu canyihui wenxian huiji (Collection of Records of the SGNB Consultative Assemblies) (Beijing: Science Publications, 1958) for the activities of the assemblies. Related to taxation in Anding li.en in 1939 rural people were asked to participate in dai~enQ - i.e. that their lands be tilled by others for atleast one month a year without asking for a material reward [ibid.p.9]. Though land conrisc-a.tions were ba-nned this aspect as well as the confiscati_on of the land of "traitors" (i.e. collaborators of the Japanese), fixing of interest rates at 1% per annum, and the declaration of a moratorium on all debts in 1938 went a long way in curtailing the landlords influence in the rural areas. See also Li Zhengrui .. Agrarian Taxation and the Peasants· Burden in the Peoples· Revolutionary Bases During the Years of the Anti-Japanese War" Jingji Yanjiu (Economics Journal) no.2 (1956) pp 100-15.

274

material basis of all kinds of work". The slogan in this period

became that of "abundant clothing and sufficient food". Self-

sufficiency became the watchword in this period. For the

execution of such a policy, the SGNB promulgated tenancy

regulation in which rent reduction campaigns, rent reduction

assemblies were given a fillip at the local level; agricultural

loans were disbursed to peasant families for purchasing drought

animals for ploughing, agricultural tools and implement,

encouragement of cotton cultivation, etc., encouraging refugees

to settle on the reclaimed land, reforming idlers so that they

can participate in production, encouraging moral incentives (like

Labour Heroes), mutual aid in labour based on individual economy

and the principle of voluntary participation, establishment of

cooperatives in various spheres; and pressing the troops into

creating model villages of self-su£fici_ency a.'1d so on. 87 For

instance the 359th Battallion under Wang Zhen (of the 120

Division of He Long) of the army was asked to participate in the

moveJrtent in 1943 in Nanniwan, a. place w-here the Muslim rebellion

was suppressed and the area was largely depopulated. This

battallion has to start from the scratch with no agricultural

implements and so on. As the display board at the Nanniwan

revolutionary museum indicates, wasteland was reclaimed from

87 See the Lin Boqu's work report in, Shaan-gan-ning bianqu dieriie zhanyihui zhongyao wenxian (Important documents of the Second Heeting of the SGNB) (Yanan: Govt. Publications, 1944) ch.7 pp.55-60. This meeting passed 51 resolutions concerning various issues including that of tenancy and other agrarian matters; See Keating, P. ··communist Perspectives on Rural Hutual Aid Customs in North Shaanxi" EEEH. No.37 (Harch 1988) pp 65-92.

275

about 2450 ~in 1940 to 12000 mu in 1941, 26200 1n 1942, 100,000

in 1943 and 261000 in 1944 with a corresponding increase in the

production of millets, tobacco, rice wheat, corn, cotton and even

oxen, sheep and agricultural implements.se

It ·wi'fs at-this-juncture, the rectification movement was also

initiated. Along with this simultaneously was the movement of

"improve the army and simplify the government" (incidentally at

the suggestion of a non-communist landlord elected to a high

government office by the people) 88 and Yongzheog aiwin fa zhao

shengchang ("Love the people", "Increase production", "Su?port

the government") movement. In these movements it was stipula.ted

that the party bureaucracy be reduced in numbers so that the

grain tax collection can also be reduced, a close cordial

relationship between the army and peasants cultivated. The

retrenched or retired soldiers gere asked to assume leadership

roles at the basic level in administration and production. The

families of the soldiers who participated in these were also

given some preferential treatment in the allotment of land or

c t her iTrcBnt i ve:s . 71Z;

88 See also, in addition, the efforts of the army inthe production drive in SGNB in Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily) Nov 16, 1943, and Hay 19, 1944, and Gunther Stein's account during those days, The Challenge of Red China (London: Pilot Press, 1945) ch.B.

as See Stein, ibid. p.77.

70 See Yongzheng aimin fazhan shenchang wen xuanii (Collection of documents of increase production', 'love the people·, ·support the government·) (Yanan: Eighth .Route Army Propaganda Department, 1944) see pp 1-5 for the 10 major policies of reducing costs and increasing production; Junmin zhiiian

276

The effect of all these were visible at the end of the anti-

Japanese period. Not only was production-agricultural and

industrial - increased, and thus improved the living conditions

of peasants, soldiers, etc., but also that of the party's

influence among the people improved which can be gleaned from the

fact that when the CCP gave a call for recruitment, peasants

started pouring in. Also, for instance, the much needed

footstuffs were in abundant supply and cotton production which

was almost nil shot up to about 3 million catties in 1944

(figures for grains were already mentioned). Textile weaving was

given a leash of life fro~ a. mere 7370 bolts in 1938 to about

105,000 bolts in 1942, the 1942 grain tax collection reduced to

that of a third of the 1941 figures. The number of cooperative

zcc~ed tc about 250,000.71

Tht.:s thrcugh the cont~adictions i~

the rural society, in the period of resistance against the

(Between the Army-People) (Yanan: Lienfanjun, 1946) pp 51-61 for t-he idea that army and people constitute an ''united family" pp 1-33 for helping people in product ion; Junmin guanxi (Army-People Relations) (Yanan: Guangming Publishers, 1946) pp 25-26 for reducing people's misery; pp 27-29 for the economic help. See also Guanbing guanxi (Bureaucrats relations) (Yanan?: Dongbei Shudian, 1947) pp 30-37 for handling the "reform of backwardness". See also Mao "Spread the Campaigns ... in the base area" s:i1i.S_ vol.III pp 131-35.

71 The Jiefan~ Ribao reported during the period 1942-44 the cases of those soldiers who went to the villages and played a significant role. See issues of March 3, 1942, Dec 12, 1942 and April 4, 1944. Grain tax collections were reduced according to the Jiefang Ribao in Jin-cha-Lu-Yu border region (see Dec 4, 1942). See for the increase for cotton production, etc., in Schran, n.62, pp.120, 208. See also Mao in Watson, n.63, pp. 67, 83. See also Mao's "Production is also Possible in the Guerilla Zones" s.1U1Z_ vol.III pp.197-200.

277

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p~t:.H. Cl.\::.'t\{ (.~

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• ~~~~11-1,.. ~~~'I"~L~

- C...~\l1-l\»T ~'-~~ Mt€itS

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Japanese, the CCP was able not only to keep in check the rural

tensions so that it would not stifle the United front tactics,

but also to become self-sufficient and more importantly to

mobilize peasants for the seizure of state power in the late

1940s. As we have seen, the land rent and taxation policies were

to be modified so that the pressures from below from poor

peasant-tenants and farm labourers can be incorporated. If there

was no full-scale land revolution in this area, there were also

no full-scale compromises towards the landlords. Neither was this

a "reformistic" phase as class struggles were launched in various

forms other than confiscations, etc. Nor the rich peasant

capitalist entrepreneurship was allowed to go out of hand. In

fact when Zhang Wentian, who toured the Shenfu, Mizhi and Suide

in Shaanxi province and Xing county in Shanxi province in the

early 1942 to March 1943, advocated that the ·new s~yi~ or

capitalism"' be given a fillip by guiding the landlords to develop

into capitalists, etc from the weakened traditional economy, Mao

Zedong, rejected the formula in his report to the CCP politbureau

in Sept 1948. 7 2 Nor soldiers were given preferential treetruent

in the land allotments, etc. completely. Here there were some

critical comments from the cadres and adjustments made. 7 3 But

what was most impressive of all was that peasants were mobilized

72 See Zhang Wentian·s "On a Problem in the Development of the New Democratic Economy inthe Rural Areas" Comments by Li Xiangqin and Zhang Zhaoxian, CCP Research Newsletter No.5 (Spring 1990) pp 17-20:

73 See Jiefang Ribao Feb 21, 1944.

278

through the rent reduction campaigns, taxation policies, proper

elections to assemblies with powers on administration, taxation,

etc., and so on into the village self-defence squads, Village

Committees for Armed Resistance against Japan, Farmers National

Salvation Associations, Farm Labourers Unions, etc. in various

bases. On the support of these CCP could build 16 base areas all

over China with identica.l (but confirming to the local

conditions) struggles of rent and taxes, etc. Thus it would be no

exaggeration to call this period as the most important phase in

the CCP's and peasants struggle to seize the state power. What

happened after 1945 could only be termed as the consolidation and

expansion of the constitutency that the CCP has painstakingly

tried to build. The decisive arm of the CCP - Eighth Route Army

and the New Fourth Army - were to be filled by the peasantry to a

g.rr:>at extent. No doubt, the land orogramme became again

aggressive and radical from 1946 Hay with the party's directive

to seize land belonging tc the "bad gentry" and "tyrants" and

more by the July 1947 '~Out l.in e c r La_.!! d. Law" , 7 4bu t the

preparation ground for this was laid in the Yanan period.

7 4 See Liu Shaoqi, "Directive Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi (Beijing: 1984) vol.I pp.372-78; Zhou Enlai, Consolidation of the Party in the Old Areas: Selected Works of Zhou Enl~i Feb Languages Press, 1981) vol.I, pp.322-31.

279

on the Land Question", Foreign Languages Press,

··Agrarian Reform and and Semi-old Liberated 1948 (Beijing: Foreign