Farmers, State Power And Modernization

China is a country dominated by peasant agriculture, where the state and the peasantry serve as the backbone of society. That is why the national construction of China should bring into consideration the relationship between the state and the peasantry.A resource as well as a type of power for the state and the peasantry alike, land can be used to optimize the relationship between national construction and the peasantry by adjusting state land policies. The thesis, thus, discusses China's land policies, examines the political significances of different land policies and clarifies how the land policies in different periods optimize the relationship among the peasantry, the state regime and modernization.To that end, the main body of the thesis includes five chapters. Chapter One makes a historical review on the establishment and evolution of the land policies of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and reveals the political significances of CPC s land policies: to mobilize the peasantry and to take over the state power. CPC, through gains and losses, was convinced that the essential problem of China came from the rural areas rather than the cities, and achieved the final victory by applying different land policies that thoroughly mobilized the peasantry.The second chapter focuses on the land reform at the early years of PRC, trying to explain why the reform helped liberate the peasantry and stabilize the new state regime. CPC, on the basis of the land policies of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and with the help of the land reform, eliminated the class of landlords as a whole, liberated the peasantry, returned land ownership to the peasantry and won the support of them. At the mean time, the old rural regime was destroyed, and was replaced by a new one dominated by the peasantry, which made possible the ruling of the rural areas directly from the central government.Chapter Three discusses the significances of the change from the private ownership of land to the collective land ownership. One of theresults of the land reform was that land began to be on the move and could be bought and sold freely. Thus the private ownership of land clashed with the socialist national construction, including the construction of a socialist society and the modernization/industrialization construction. Classic Marxist writers noted that the ruling proletarian party should eliminate class exploitation and construct a socialist society that will eventually lead to the formation of a communist society. Therefore the private ownership of land should be transformed into the collective ownership. Furthermore, the socialist society, according to the classic Marxist writers, is more advanced than the capitalist society in the sense that it has a more advanced and modernized industry, which determines that industrial development is especially important when constructing socialism in a relatively underdeveloped country. As the centralization of land resources is the premise of industry development, the private ownership of land, again, should be transformed into the collective ownership of land.The peasantry, in fact, were passionate toward the socialist construction and were reluctant as well to deliver their newly-gained land to the collectivity. At the same time, natural disasters and lack of market mechanisms both contributed to the rise of volunteer "contract" farming, which led to the interference of the government and the commune system enforced by the state.Chapter Four reviews the development of the household contract, responsibility system and discusses the state-peasantry relationship. Since the commune system impaired the agricultural productivity and the stability of the rural areas, "contract" farming was accepted by the state after 1978 and the household contract responsibility system became a formal land policy. The success of this policy owed to the separation of land ownership and land access rights, which encouraged the peasants to take better care of land.The fifth chapter focuses on the fine-tuning of land policies set in an era of opening and reform. The establishment and improvement of the market system requires that land be on the move to achieve best collocation of resources. Meanwhile, industrialization and urbanization have takenaway a great amount of farming land, resulting in graver concern about food security, the living standard of the peasantry, etc.From above it is clear that land serves as the core element in balancing the relationship among the peasantry, the state, the market and the modernization construction. For the peasantry need enough land for survival but are reluctant to be bound by land, while the task of the state is to guarantee food supply.The thesis thus concludes that land policies can effectively optimize the relationship among the peasantry, the state regime and the modernization construction. When land policies conform to the requirements of all these three aspects, the national construction achieve more; when any one aspect is overlooked, problems occur.