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Mao and Liu in the 1947 Land Reform: Allies or Disputants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Tanaka Kyoko
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Extract

The Civil War period from 1945 to 1949 is one of the least studied periods in Chinese Communist history. Even such fundamental facts as the formal organizational structure of the Party and government and holders of official positions in the leadership have not been well established. Nor has one of the most important policies of the Party at the time, agrarian reform, been sufficiently investigated. The alleged leadership split over important policy issues in the period constitutes another area which deserves more scholarly attention than has been given.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 75 , September 1978 , pp. 566 - 593
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1978

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References

1. Ishii, Akira, “Ryū Shō-ki hihan ni tsuite no ichi-kōsatsu,” Tōkyō Daigaku Kyōyō-gakubu Gaikokugo-ka Kenkyū Kiyō, Vol. XX, No. 2, pp. 151–76.Google Scholar

2. Frederick, Teiwes has written on this question in “The origins of rectification: inner-Party purges and education before Liberation,” The China Quarterly (CQ), No. 65, pp. 32–49, but his focus is placed more on early 1948 than 1947.Google Scholar

3. Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” p. 42.Google Scholar

4. Mao was officially elected by the Seventh National Congress of the CCP held in Yenan in April–June 1945 as the chairman of the Central Committee and Central Military Council. He was also elected by the First Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee held immediately after the Congress as the chairman of the Central Politburo and probably the head of the Central Secretariat. Donald, Klein and Anne, Clark, Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921–1965 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), Vol. 1, p. 683.Google ScholarMoreover, the Party Constitution adopted by the Seventh Congress declared that the CCP “guides its entire work by … Mao Tse-tung's theory of the Chinese revolution.” Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i, 1945–1957 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), p. 96.Google Scholar

5. See Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), Vol. IV (hereafter SW IV), p. 132Google Scholar, Note 3. In his diary of May 1945, Vladimirov referred to the five leaders as the “top five,” taking it for granted. Vladimirov, P. P., China's Special Area 1942–1945 (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1974), p. 413Google Scholar. See also Klein, and Clark, , Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921–1965.Google Scholar

6. Vladimirov, , China's Special Area, 1942–1945, pp. 387 and 409. Vladimirov also stated that Liu and Chou were in “silent rivalry” for power and neither of them was “too scrupulous at that” (p. 391).Google Scholar

7. “Resolution on certain questions concerning the history of our Party,” SW III, pp. 198–203. This article has been omitted from the Selected Works since 1969.Google Scholar

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10. Ishii, “Ryū Shō-kī hihan ni tsuite no īchī-kōsatsu,” p. 151.Google Scholar

11. For radicalization of the CCP agrarian policy from 1945 to early 1947, see Tanaka, Kyoko, “The Civil War and radicalization of the Chinese Communist agrarian policy, 1945–1947,” Papers on Far Eastern History, No. 8 (09 1973), pp. 49–114.Google Scholar

12. See ibid. pp. 84–99.

13. Ibid. pp. 70–80; Noma, Kiyoshi, “Dai-3-ji Kokunai-Kakumei-sensō-ki oyobi 1950-nen-ki no tochi-kaikaku,” in Yamamoto, Hideo and Noma, Kiyoshi (eds.) Chūgoku Nōson Kakumei no Tenkai (Tokyo: Ajia Keizaī Kenkyūjo, 1972), pp. 141–56.Google Scholar

14. See Li, Ming-hua, Chung-kung ti t'u-ti tou-cheng (Taipei: Kuo-chī kuan-hsi yen-chiu-so, 1965), p. 214.Google Scholar The only available texts of the 1946 land reform legislation are those of Shantung Province and the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region, in His, Ming (ed.), Ju-ho shih-hsien “keng-che yu ch'i t'ien” (Lin-i: Shantung Hsin-hua shu-tien, 1946), pp. 4–9Google Scholar and Yenan, Chieh-fang jih-pao, 20 12 1946, respectively.Google Scholar

15. This is based mainly on Han-tan and Wu-an Jen-min jih-pao reports and analyses; David, and Isabel, Crook, Revolution in a Chinese Village: Ten Mile Inn (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965)Google Scholar, Chs. 8–10 passim; and William, Hinton, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967), Part II, passim.Google Scholar

16. See Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” p. 36; Tanaka, “The civil war,” pp. 108–109.Google Scholar

17. Crook, and Crook, , Revolution in a Chinese Village, p. 159Google Scholar; Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

18. Comrade Chiang Ch'ing (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977), pp. 199–216 and maps between pp. 142–43.Google Scholar

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21. When it was formed, the Working Committee seemed to have been called the Rear Area Committee and Mao's group the Front Committee. See Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 202; Chiang, pp. 338–39; and SW IV, p. 132, note 3.Google Scholar

22. See Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, pp. 204–205.Google Scholar

23. Chiang, “Tsai Mao Chu-hsi,” pp. 349–50.Google Scholar

24. Witke, Comrade Chian Ch'ing, pp. 212–14;Google ScholarYen, “Hsiung-chung tzu-yu,” pp. 126–30;Google ScholarChiang, “Tsai Mao Chu-hsi,” pp. 354–55;Google ScholarTi-san-tz'u kuo-nei ko-ming chan-cheng kai-kuang (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan she, 1954), pp. 115 and 190.Google Scholar

25. SW IV, p. 142. The text of the directive is in pp. 141–46.Google ScholarWilliam Whitson states that it was a speech delivered at a Central Military Council meeting. Chinese High Command (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 88–89.Google Scholar

26. SW IV, p. 148. See also Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, Map 1.Google Scholar

27. SW IV, p. 156;Google ScholarWitke, , Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, pp. 215–16.Google Scholar

28. See SW IV, pp. 177–226.Google Scholar

29. SW IV, pp. 156 and 220; Witke,Google ScholarComrade Chiang Ch'ing, pp. 215–16.Google Scholar

30. SW IV, pp. 227–38.Google ScholarSee Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” pp. 46–47.Google Scholar

31. SW IV, p. 132, note 3;Google ScholarWitke, , Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 218.Google Scholar

32. Chiang Ch'ing recalls that Li Wei-han, the director of the Party's United Front Department at the time, was in Mao's party, but it is not clear if he was always in it. See Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 203.Google Scholar

33. SW IV, pp. 130–31 and 132, note 3.Google Scholar

34. Ibid. p. 132, note 3.

35. Ibid. p. 231; Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 202.Google ScholarCh'en Yün and P'eng Chen are reported to have been Working Committee members, but P'eng had been in Hsi-pai-p'o village since the previous year and Ch'en probably did not travel with Liu either. See Pei-ching Ti-szu I-yüan Ching-kangshan Chan-tou ping-t'uan (ed.), Ta-tao Liu Shao-ch'i – fan ko-ming Liu Shao-ch'i-ti i-sheng (Peking, 1967), p. 9.Google Scholar

36. Although it is not known how Chu travelled, he was at Hsi-pai-p'o for some time before June, from where he took two trips to Central Hopeh, first in June and second in November. The purpose of the first trip is unknown, but both are likely to have been primarily for the operation to take over Shih-chiachuang. Chu's task, however, was not exclusively military. One of the purposes of his second trip was to investigate industrial and financial conditions. Curiously, in November and December when land reform was the main pre-occupation of CCP leaders, Chu attempted little even to gather information about it. See Ho Ch'i-fang, “Hui-i Chu Tsung-szu-ling,” Chan-cheng nien-tai ti Chu Te T'ung-chih (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan she, 1977), pp. 112–34.Google ScholarWilliam Whitson states that Chu attended the Military Council meeting called by Mao in late August at Chu-kuan-chai, but no evidence is shown. See Chinese High Command, pp. 88–89.Google Scholar

37. For a possible split between Mao and Liu over the May Fourth (1946) directive, see Tanaka Kyoko, “Naisen to Chūkyō tochi-seisaku no tenkan,” Part 1, Ajia Kenkyū, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, pp. 17–20.Google Scholar

38. James Harrison, , The Long March to Power (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. 409. The Selected Works include no articles exclusively or substantially on land reform written in 1946–47, whereas seven such articles written in the first half of 1948 are included.Google Scholar

39. SW IV, pp. 76–77, 116 and 123–24. Those of Mao's 1947 writings included in the Selected Works concentrated on military affairs, strategy and tactics.Google Scholar

40. Hung-tai-hui Pei-ching T'ieh-tao hsüeh-yüan Hung-ch'i kung-she she-hui tou-p'i-kai lien-lo-chan, (ed.), Liu Shao-ch'i tui-k'ang Mao Tse-tung szu-hsiang san-pai-li (Peking, 1967), p. 5.Google ScholarFor the text of the letter, see Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i tzu-liao chuan-chi (Taipei: Chung-kung yen-chiu tsa-chih she, 1970), pp. 185–87.Google Scholar

41. SW IV, p. 231.Google Scholar

42. Ibid.

43. Nieh Jung-chen, , “Cheng-tun wo-men ti tui-wu,” Ch'ün-chung, Vol. I, No. 49 (1 January 1948), p. 3.Google Scholar

44. In Liu Shao-ch'i tui-k'ang, p. 5, the date of the letter is given as 24 April 1947.Google Scholar

45. Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i, p. 186.Google Scholar

46. Ibid. pp. 186–87.

47. Ibid. p. 187.

48. Nieh, , “Cheng-tun wo-men ti tui-wu,” p. 3.Google Scholar

49. Ibid.; SW IV, pp. 231–32.

50. Nieh, , “Cheng-tun wo-men ti tui-wu,” p. 3.Google Scholar

51. See Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

52. SW IV, p. 232Google Scholar; Hinton, , Fanshen, pp. 419–72 passimGoogle Scholar; Teiwes, , “The origins of rectification,” pp. 40–41 and 48–49.Google Scholar

53. Hinton, , Fanshen, p. 321; The Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü Central Bureau Proclamation to Party members, Wu-an Jen-min jih-pao, 14 January 1948.Google Scholar

54. SW IV, p. 231.Google Scholar

55. Han-tan, Jen-min jih-pao, 6 June 1947.Google Scholar

56. SW IV, p. 231.Google Scholar

57. SW IV, pp. 231–32.Google Scholar

58. Nieh, , “Cheng-tun wo-men ti tui-wu,” p. 3.Google Scholar

59. The Chin-Ch'a-Chi jih-pao was the official organ of the CCP Chin-Ch'a-Chi Central Bureau. See its editorial of 26 November 1947 reprinted in Chung-kuo kung-ch'an-tang yü t'u-ti ko-ming (Hong Kong: Cheng-pao she, 1947?), p. 74.Google Scholar

60. Whitson, , Chinese High Command, pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

61. Whitson argues that Liu and Chu commanded the operation from Hsi-pai-p'o, but he does not explain why they did not go to Yeh-t'ao, Wu-an hsien, south-western Hopeh, the seat of the Chin-Chi-Lu-Yü Military Region head-quarters, to whose army corps was entrusted the first offensive on Central China.Google Scholar See ibid.

62. Nieh, , “Cheng-tun wo-men ti tui-wu,” p. 3.Google Scholar

63. Ibid.; Han-tan, Jen-min jih-pao, 4 June 1947.Google Scholar

64. The date of Mao's instruction is 20 July in Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i and 25 July in T'u-ti wen-t'i chih-nan edited and printed by the CCP North-west Central Bureau on 24 October 1947, p. 41, included in Yūshōdō microfilm materials on the CCP, Reel 6.Google Scholar

65. Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i, p. 185.Google Scholar

66. Witke, , Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 205Google Scholar; Yen, , “Hsiung-chung tzu-you” and “Wei-ta ti ch'üan-che,” pp. 92–110; Chiang, “Tsai Mao Chu-hsi,” pp. 342–43 and 349–50.Google Scholar

67. Wu-an, Jen-min jih-pao, 14 January 1948; Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 216.Google Scholar

68. SW IV, p. 231.Google Scholar

69. Harrison, , The Long March to Power, p. 413.Google Scholar

70. SW IV, p. 174, note 4. For the English text of the Outline Land Law and the Central Committee resolution, see Hinton, Fanshen, pp. 616–18.Google Scholar

71. Article 6, Hinton, Fanshen, p. 616.Google Scholar

72. The peasants' associations were to be reorganized under the leadership of the poor peasants' leagues before exercising power in land reform.Google Scholar

73. This did happen. See Noma, “Daī-3-jī Kokunai-Kakumei-Sensō-ki oyobi 1950-nen-ki no tochi-kaikaku,” pp. 160–61 and 172;Google ScholarJohn Wong, , Land Reform in the People's Republic of China (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 49–51.Google Scholar

74. See Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i, p. 381.Google Scholar

75. SW IV, p. 164.Google Scholar

76. Ibid. pp. 164–65 passim.

77. Ibid.More specifically on this point, see Jen Pi-shih's speech, “T'u-ti kai-ke chung ti chi-ko wen-t'i,” delivered on 12 January 1948, in I-chiu-szu-ch'i nien i-lai Chung-kuo kung-ch'an tang chung-yao wen-chien chi (Hong Kong: Cheng-pao she, 1948), pp. 33–36.Google Scholar

78. Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i, p. 381.Google ScholarIn the 1970s, however, in the campaign to “learn from Ta-chai,” Liu's main “crime” in the 1947 land reform was shifted from egalitarianism to encroachment on middle peasant interests. Now equal distribution of land seems to be recognized as Mao's policy and Liu's “capitalist reactionary line” is considered to have been manifested chiefly in encroachment on middle peasant interests and harsh rectification measures. See, e.g., “Ch'iung pang-tzu” ching-shen fang kuang-mang (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan she, 1975), pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

79. “Remove the stones” (pan shih-t'ou) was a slogan widely used for the late 1947 rectification in the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region. “Stones” referred to village cadres who oppressed the masses and prevented “democracy” from prevailing and land reform from going through. See a Chin-Ch'a-Chi jih-pao editorial entitled, “Pan-tiao shih-t'ou cheng-tun tui-wu,” 27 November 1947, reprinted in I-chiu-szu-ch'i nien i-lai, pp. 76–78.Google Scholar

80. Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i, p. 850.Google Scholar

81. Hinton, , Fanshen, p. 616.Google Scholar

82. Ibid. p. 618.

83. Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i, p. 187.Google Scholar

84. The Chin-Ch'a-Chi documents of October–November 1947 give far more attention to rectification than land reform itself. See Nieh Jung-chen's speech in Ch'ün-chung, Vol. I, No. 49, pp. 3–4Google Scholar; P'eng Chen's speech, “P'ing-fen t'u-ti yü cheng-tun tui-wu,” Ch'ün-chung, Vol. I, No. 48 (26 December 1947), pp. 2–6Google Scholar; the Proclamation of the Peasants' Association to the Peasants, Ch'ün-chung, Vol. II, No. 1 (15 January 1948), pp. 8–9; and the two Chin-Ch'a-Chi jih-pao editorials mentioned above.Google Scholar

85. P'eng's speech, Ch'ün-chung, Vol. I, No. 48, p. 5.Google Scholar

86. See Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” pp. 42–47.Google Scholar

87. Witke, , Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 215.Google Scholar

88. Ibid.

89. The last of the three check-ups was sometimes ch'a tsu-chih, or to check up the organization, meaning to “purify” class composition of the Party branch and other organizations especially the peasants' association. See Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” p. 40.Google Scholar

90. Han-tan, and Wu-an, Jen-min jih-pao, July–November issues.Google Scholar

91. The Senior Cadres' Conference of the CCP North-west Bureau in November–December 1947 placed little emphasis on village cadre rectification, whereas middle and higher level rectification was the main purpose of the Conference. See Wu-an Jen-min jih-pao, 14 January 1948. In view of the military conditions in the area, a full-scale campaign for basic-level cadre rectification might be difficult.Google Scholar

92. Witke, , Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, p. 216.Google Scholar

93. SW IV, p. 164.Google Scholar

94. Liu Shao-ch'i wen-t'i, pp. 373–74, 375, 381 and 623.Google Scholar

95. William Hinton, has adopted the view that Liu Shao-ch'i and his “clique” were solely responsible for the “left deviations” in the 1947–48 land reform and rectification and Mao was against them. See China's Continuing Revolution (London: China Policy Group, 1969), pp. 8–10.Google Scholar

96. See Mao Tse-tung chi, Vol. X, pp. 87–90.Google Scholar

97. See ibid. p. 78. The Manifesto bore names of Chu Teh and P'eng Teh-huai, the commander and deputy commander-in-chief of the PLA respectively, but it was no doubt finalized, if not drafted, by Mao.

98. While the other regions in North China held their own land conferences immediately after the National Conference in order to discuss the new policy and arrange its implementation, the Chin-Sui Border Region called no such conference. The reason was obviously that Chin-Sui had had such a conference in June.Google Scholar

99. The Chin-Sui Border Region had kept close contact with the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region since its formation during the Resistance War. In the Party organization, the two Border Regions were controlled by the Central North-west Bureau, whose sub-bureau for Chin-Sui was in Hsing-hsien near northern Shensi border. From late August 1947 Mao was in the areas less than 100 miles from Hsing-hsien across the Yellow River. Moreover, in the autumn of 1947 onwards, if not earlier, travel between northern Shensi and Shansi did not seem to have been difficult for the Communists. See Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, pp. 214–15. It was the case of Ts'ai-chia-ya in Hsing hsien that Jen Pi-shih used as an example of “left deviation” when he delivered an important speech on 12 January 1948 to attack “excesses” in land reform.

100. See Teiwes, “The origins of rectification,” pp. 44–46Google Scholar. For the English text of Liu's writing, see collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i, 1945–1957, pp. 119–22.Google ScholarFor Mao's comment on it, see Mao Tse-tung chi, pp. 125–26.Google Scholar

101. Virtually all CCP sources on land reform in 1946–47 suggest this. See for example Chin-Ch'a-Chi jih-pao editorial, 26 November 1947, and “Hsin-hua Chin-Sui tsung-fen-she chi-che p'ing ‘kao nung-min shu’ chih i-i yü chia-chih,” in Chung-kuo kung-ch'an tang yü t'u-ti ko-ming, pp. 73–75 and 30–32 respectively; two Ta-chung jih-pao editorials, 12 September and 8 November 1946, in Hsi Ming, Ju-ho shih-hsien “keng-che you ch'i t'ien,” pp. 10–13 and 59–61 respectively; and Han-tan and Wu-an Jen-min jih-pao reports and analyses in the second half of 1946.Google Scholar

102. SW IV, p. 164.Google Scholar

103. The figures shown below are at best rough and meant only to show the general conditions. Available statistics are fragmentary and the land-ownership situation varied from village to village.Google Scholar

104. See Ramon Myers, The Chinese Peasant Economy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), passim.Google Scholar; Tanaka Kyoko, , Mass Mobilization: The Chinese Communist Party and the Peasants, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Canberra: 1972), pp. 35–40.Google Scholar

105. As Myers has pointed out, Marxist agricultural economists tended to exaggerate the importance of uneven distribution of land-ownership in the land problem. It is not surprising that CCP leaders and cadres had the same inclination. See Myers, The Chinese Peasant Economy, Ch. 2.Google Scholar

106. See the examples reported by the Crooks, Revolution in a Chinese Village, pp. 142–43 and 167–68.Google Scholar

107. Apparently, Party leaders believed that the landlord-rich peasant elements' sneaking into the Party ranks had taken place largely in the Resistance War years. See SW IV, p. 166Google Scholar; Nieh, , “Cheng-tun wo-men ti tui-wu,” p. 3;Google ScholarChin-Sui jih-pao editorial, 27 November 1947, in Wei ch'un-chieh Tang ti tsu-chih erh tou-cheng (Hong Kong: Cheng-pao she, 1948), pp. 33–35.Google Scholar

108. An official CCP history written before the Cultural Revolution confirms this. See Hu Hua, Chung-kuo ko-ming shih chiang-i (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan she, 1962), p. 536.Google Scholar

109. In the north-east, where the land-population ratio was far more favourable, equal distribution worked better than in China proper.Google Scholar