From "Combatting Local Tyrants" To "Examining Classes": Revisiting Land Reforms In South Jiangxi And West Fujian

From1927to1934, China witness the the birth and growth of ChineseSoviet revolution. The newborn red regime went hand in hand with anothercrucial social transition in Soviet separatist territory--the land reform. In thistransition, the previous ideological and theoretical “classes” and “classcomponent” found their way into the local community, and we witness amorphological development from “combatting local tyrants, grabbing theirproperty” to “holding massive meetings and divide classes”, characterized bytightly knit organizational techniques and habitual procedures. Previous studieson land reforms in Soviet area, both macro and micro level historical studiesincluded, failed to take this as a point of departure to explore the origins anddevelopments of the political regime and culture of Communism in China.Seeing from the perspective of historical sociology, the thesis delves intoseveral crucial land-dividing practices happened during1927-1934in sovietareas in South Jiangxi and West Fujian, examines the origin and logic of“examining classes” and further reveals the unique nature of culture and politicswhen Communist Party of China took over armed force and established newbornregime.Through the search, examination and rediscovery of archives and localhistories, the study rewrites a history of regime, of which “examining classes”plays the most crucial role. Several findings of this study are listed below: thecore propaganda techniques of the “examining classes” were mixtures of twoseparating historical traditions: one of them being legacy from the belligerentpeasant movement seminars, or, the so-called “peasant movement faction”; theother being objective rules of “calculation of classes” introduced from Sovietexperiences. While the legacy of “peasant movement faction” could be tracedback to Jinggangshan separatist era, starting from1928, the tradition of“calculation of classes” was brought back by Guanlan Wang from Soviet Unionand incorporated into land reform practices, and the “class component” gotobjectified and actualized in this latter process. This mixture of two traditions further complicated the “Anti-Kulak strategy” ordained by the Soviet Union andthe Communist International.The thesis further points out the fact that fierce friction and mismatchbursted out when class-centric ideologies and techniques were brought intocontact with concrete characteristics of a local community, culminating in theconflicts between general class theories and concrete social genealogy oflineage/Tu-ke frictions, and that objective division of classes failed to carry outpropaganda. This failure further led to the merging of “peasant movementfaction” and “class calculation faction”, and a procedure of propaganda wasworked out in the process. Balanced between the poles of ideological pledgesand constraints, and that of local conflicts and high-ranking rivalries, thepractices of CPC revolution in its early stage impressed us with its profoundsophistication.