The Masses Mobilization In Xiangtan County During The Land Reform Period

The CPC thought that thoroughly mobilizing the masses is the basic guarantee of implementing the Land Reform route. Xiangtan County made a point of mobilizing the masses. After launching a widespread propaganda and visiting the poor and hired peasant and raising the skeleton of them, the masses had raised and the landlord class had been overthrown basically in the initial period of the Land Reform. But at the same time the mobilization had not been deep-going, in many districts the poor and hired peasant had not controlled the grass-roots unit political power, the landlord class had not been overthrown totally, faced with these problems and under the CPC's instruction, the Xiangtan County government launched a Land Reform Reexamination movement which took"defending the country and guarantying the field divided"as the core. During the later period of reexamination, attacking"the feudal fortress"movement had been carried out. the mass was root and branch mobilized eventually.During the entire Land Reform process, mobilizing the masses especially mobilizing the poor and hired peasant and stimulating their enthusiasm to struggle against the landlord and grasp the grass-roots unit political power was an extremely difficult job. First, the poor and hired peasants were afraid of the landlord fighting back. Secondly, because of short-sighted complexity and beening satisfied with the land divided, they would not raise up. Thirdly, with the influence of the patriarchal clan relations and the traditional village ethics, the masses could not transform their understanding and their emotion to the track of class struggle and learn to master the political affairs very quickly. In addition, the landlord class threatened and hooked in the masses with all sorts of tricks, many township cadres were lack of working ability and skill. These factors deepened the complexity and aggravated difficulties to mobilize the masses. Confronted with these problems, the Xiangtan County Land Reform Committee analysis the situation summarized and adopted many fruitful mobilization strategies during each different stage. They completed the task and had done a good job at last. The majority of the Land Reform Work Team could made a good comprehend of the policy of CPC, they overcome a great deal of difficult in their practice, even ate and slept and worked with the poor and hired peasant, they created deep friendship with the masses, and had left behind many touching facts. Their diligent work made the job.After the thorough masses mobilization, the landlord class was defeated completely and their influence in the village disappeared, the poor and hired peasant come to the power and the countryside grass-roots unit political power of the CPC consolidated. the relationship between the CPC and masses strengthened and CPC's mass base in village enlarged. The masses' ideological awareness changed, their mental outlook enormously enhanced. But the Land Reform masses mobilization based on class struggle, in addition some faults had been made in the movement, which deepened the social class opposition consciousness and laid down foreshadowing for the long-term class struggle afterwards. At the same time, the roaring success of the Land Reform masses mobilization also could easily cause the CPC producing excessive dependence on the mass movement, Taking the mass movement as a principal mean to govern the country and to carry out policies, could easily causes high degree of authority concentration which does not favor the construction of a modern country under the rule of law.