Land Reform Movement

The Land Reform Movement, also known by the Chinese abbreviation Tǔgǎi (土改), was a mass movement led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Mao Zedong during the late phase of the Chinese Civil War after the Second Sino-Japanese War ended in 1945 and in the early People's Republic of China,^[1] which achieved land redistribution to the peasantry. Landlords – whose status was theoretically defined through the percentage of income derived from exploitation as opposed to labor^[2] – had their land confiscated and they were subjected to mass killing by the CCP and former tenants,^[3] with the estimated death toll ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions.^[4]^[5] The campaign resulted in hundreds of millions of peasants receiving a plot of land for the first time.^[3]

Land Reform Movement

土地改革运动

土地改革運動

Tǔdì gǎigé yùndòng

ㄊㄨˇ ㄉㄧˋ ㄍㄞˇ ㄍㄜˊ ㄩㄣˋ ㄉㄨㄥˋ

Tu³ ti⁴ kai³ ko² yun⁴ tong⁴

Tu³di⁴ gai³ge² yun⁴dung⁴

tóu deih gói gaak wahn duhng

tou² dei⁶ goi² gaak³ wan⁶ dung⁶

By 1953, land reform had been completed in mainland China with the exception of Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, and Sichuan. From 1953 onwards, the CCP began to implement the collective ownership of expropriated land through the creation of Agricultural Production Cooperatives, transferring property rights of the seized land to the Chinese state. Farmers were compelled to join collective farms, which were grouped into people's communes with centrally controlled property rights.^[6]

Destruction of the Chinese landlord class (1949–1953)

China

1949–1953

Massacre, classicide

200,000 – 5,000,000

1.5^[71]–6^[72] up to 12.5^[73] million sent to Laogai camps

Landlords, rich peasants

Chinese Communist Party and radicalized peasants

Maoism, economic inequality, class struggle

In 1978, historian Benedict Stavis estimated that 200,000 to 800,000 were killed during land reform, part of an estimated 400,000 to 800,000 killed during land reform and zhenfan.^[4]

[81]

In 2006, historian wrote that estimates range from 200,000 to 2,000,000 for those killed during land reform.^[82]

J. A. G. Roberts

In 1954, Xu Zirong, the Deputy Public Security Minister, published a report concluding that, during zhenfan, "712,000 counter-revolutionaries were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and 1,200,000 were subject to control at various times", for a total of 2,620,000 arrested. In 2008, historian argued that "the actual number of executions was much larger than the reported 712,000" because local officials concealed executions after Mao mildly criticized excessive killing in 1951.^[83]

Yang Kuisong

In 1957, Mao gave to senior CCP officials in which he stated that 700,000 had been killed from 1950 and 1952, and another 70,000 to 80,000 from 1953 to 1956, for a total of 770,000-780,000.^[84] Some historians, such as Daniel Chirot, claim that Mao Zedong estimated that 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 had been killed.^[85] However, Mao's full quote includes both deaths and repressions: "Two to three million counter-revolutionaries had been executed, imprisoned or placed under control in the past",^[86] because he was citing Xu's report.^[83]

an influential speech

Some time before 1961, then- Zhou Enlai told sympathetic journalist Edgar Snow that 830,000 "enemies of the people" had been "destroyed" before 1954, during land reform and zhenfan.^[87]

Premier

In 1987, historians , Fairbank, and MacFarquhar estimated that 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 were executed in the land reform movement.^[88]

Twitchett

In 1999, historian estimated that 2,000,000 people were executed from in China from 1950 to 1952, including both land reform and zhenfan.^[89]

Maurice Meisner

In 1992, social scientist estimated that several million died from land reform and zhenfan.^[80]

Steven W. Mosher

In 2002, historian wrote that "somewhere between 2,000,000 and 5,000,000 landlords had been killed".^[90]

Lee Feigon

Vice Chairman of the Central South Military and Administrative Council, estimated that 15% of China's 50,000,000 landlords and rich peasants had been sentenced to death, 25% had been "sent to labor reform camps for remolding through manual work" and 60% to "participation in production work under supervision".^[73] Not all of those sentenced to death were executed and therefore there is no way of knowing the exact number of performed executions.^[91]

Deng Zihui

In 1952, the of the AFL-CIO, which was funded in whole or part by the CIA, released a report allegedly compiled by Wei Min of the Democratic Revolutionary League, which claimed that 14,000,000 to 15,000,000 were killed during land reform and zhenfen. The report cited no sources.^[92]

Free Trade Union Committee

History of agriculture in China

Agriculture in Taiwan

Land reform in Taiwan

Criticism of communist party rule

Dekulakization

History of the Chinese Communist Party

History of the People's Republic of China

Land reform by country

List of campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party

List of massacres in China

Mass killings under communist regimes

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The China mirage: the hidden history of American disaster in Asia

Chen, Fu; Davis, John (1998). . Land Reform. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

"Land reform in rural China since the mid-1980s"

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Ten Mile Inn: Mass Movement in a Chinese Village

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ISBN

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University of Washington Press

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ISBN

(2018). Red Swan: How Unorthodox Policy-Making Facilitated China's Rise. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press of Hong Kong. ISBN 978-962-996-827-4.

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Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village

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An ideological history of the Communist Party of China

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Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history

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Village China under Socialism and Reform : A Micro History, 1948-2008

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"Mao's China: The Worst Non-Genocidal Regime?"

Moise, Edwin E. (1983). . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807874455.

Land Reform in China and North Vietnam : Consolidating the Revolution at the Village Level

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Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping

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Where Chiang Kai-Shek Lost China: The Liao-Shen Campaign, 1948

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University of Washington Press

Posters from the Stephan Landsberger collection. There are other posters on the topic in other sections of the site.

Land Reform Movement