Research On The Land Checking In Jiangsu Province:1928-1936

Most researchers attribute the failure of the land checking in the period of Nanjing National Government to the landlords' objections. This is not an empirical but emotional conclusion.The dissertation is divided into four parts. The first chapter mainly explores the cause of the land checking with an overview of checking in different provinces. First, such policy stems the heritages of Sun Zhongshan' s thougts. Second, the government would like to recode the land record .Third, the local administration wants to increase tax. Local governments establish institutions, make training programs and introduce machines. Such policy costs too much and leads to oppositions in villages. Otherwise, the central government changes the checking into simple reporting. The checking policy ends with few successful cases but most fruitless ones.The second chapter summarizes the land checking in Jiangsu Province. The first part gives an overview of all kinds of land authorities. Records in counties are also reviewed to analyze the reason why the outcome is not so satisfied. The second part compares the first stage and the second stage in the terms of techniques, cost and files.Given an simple summary fails to fully explain all the questions, the third chapter makes case studies. Three cases are given to explore the difficulties met with the county mayors. The first case is about the farmers' resistance to land tax in Jiangdou county. Thousands of farmers attack the local government for the increasing land tax resulting from the local government' s land checking. It meanwhile exposes many problems between the farmers and local government, such as the economical competition , the farmers' mistrust in the local government, the mayors' helplessness facing like resistance and the governments' internal problems. The second case is about the test of land checking in Jiangning County. It succeeds for the modern revolution of the administrative system and the support from chairman of Jiangsu province. The third case is about the land checking in Yixing County. It succeeds only because of the combat between the mayor and land registers. The three cases show that mayors, leaders of the land checking face not only the Challenges of the local communities but also themselves.Chapter four systematically analyses the essential elements reflected through the three cases in the perspective of the social structure. First element comes as well from the constraints of local societies as authorities' own position, which exerted a great influence on the work of land consolidation. Second, the government can hardly mobilize the farmers because many of them give fake records. And also the government didn' t reward the society so that the legitimacy can hardly been gained.The conclusion reviews the land checking in the wholesome background of national regime interfering the local society.