Land Reform: What is the Objective?

I have been fortunate enough to make the return to my small town in Hunan for the New Year. I arrive on a brisk February morning. I had lost the only winter hat I had during a previous reporting trip and the cold wind could certainly be felt rushing through the village where no building stands tall. I am one of the very lucky people able to make the trip back home. Though middle peasants here in our village, we are lucky. After witnessing life in the big city, the margin between my family and many others is quite slim in comparison. In the village, we are better off than many, but compared to those in the city, we are rather poor. 

One morning, my father told me to come with him and the rest of our family as a village meeting had been called at the communal area near the well where we would source the little water we had growing up. We arrived at the little square by the well to a murmur of people all gathered, waiting for someone to speak. This was unusual, rarely, if ever were large gatherings called in the village. I noticed a small group of what looked to be fit and capable civilians dressed in plain clothes huddled in a circle off to the side of the few hundred that had gathered [DeMare 44]. There was a special kind of murmur in the crowd, one of excitement but also curiosity [DeMare 61]. What seemed to be the group’s leader began to drone on and on about Mao’s ideologies and plans. Mao had said in prior years that, “If a school of one hundred persons does not have among its teachers, experts and students a leading nucleus of a few or a few dozen individuals which is formed naturally and not by compulsion) by those who are comparatively the most active, orthodox, and intelligent, the school will be difficult to manage” [Mao Talks at Yan’an and Methods of Leadership 120]. Many in the crowd, however, did not take to this well, and over the course of the hours-long speech, lost all interest [DeMare 61]. 

The day following the boring speech, we heard a knock on our front door, I recognized the man at the door as one from the meeting the prior day. My father explained to the man that we were middle peasants, who, did not live an easy life especially due to my 2 brothers being unable to work but were not starving. The man asked my father to share his thoughts on the village higher-ups like landlords, seemingly waiting for my father to speak negatively about the wealthy peasants [DeMare 24]. The man left about an hour of trying to dig up any sort of story that could be used against the landlords and wealthy peasants in the village. Our family stands to gain something from the poor peasants however we also stand to lose the little extra land we have should the large swaths of poor peasants gain more power. 

It is becoming more and more clear to me as to why Mao Zedong chose to have poor peasants speak bitterness and turn receive land in this way. Mao Zedong knows that power lies in the hands of the masses, in the case of China, the millions of poor peasants across the countryside. Land reform is far more than just turning land over. Were land reform solely about turning land over, Mao would have done this without any theatrics. However, the goal is to have our peasant population turn their backs on the wealthy peasants and landlords. Mao Zedong himself has said that an extra landlord is an extra enemy [DeMare 106]. By vilifying the landlords, Mao aimed to put the power in the hands of the peasants who would see land reform as far more than just receiving their share of the land. 

However, there are issues with the distribution of land here in the countryside. One of the most obvious problems and sources of tension is that there simply is not enough land to go around [DeMare 169]. The reality, dear readers, is that land reform can do a lot to give power to populations such as the peasants, but it cannot solve many of the problems facing China today. In many ways, land reform has been a greater source of problems than it has been of success in terms of moving China forward. 

Until next time,

Gao An Zhi