State, Peasants And Merchant-Landlords: The Liquidation Struggle In Land Reform In Nanchang County, Jiangxi Province (1949-1952)

Land Reform launched by Chinese communists has remained a hot academic topic since its occurrence, to large extent because of its significance in shaping post-1949 Chinese society. Many domestic and foreign scholars have had extensive discussions on this topic, and those previous studies enriched our understanding of Land Reform. This thesis focused on that the"liquidation"(qingsuan清算) issue of"merchant-landlords"(gongshangye jian dizhu工商业兼地主) in the early of P.R. China, which still had not been discussed. This special group has not yet attracted the scholars'enough concerns due to the absence of historical data and the limitations of research perspective. There have been some discussions on the movement of fanjianqingsuan(反奸清算)in 1945,but these studies are only stay in the general description of the historical process, and lack of in-depth analysis. Focus on the archival materials of Nanchang County, Jiangxi Province, this paper hopes to fill the short of the research of "merchant-landlords" and "liquidation", and contributes to Land Reform research.This paper will include the following parts: first, taking a discussion on the political identity of"Merchant-landlords"based on two different aspects, Policy and Practice, and the departure reasons of above two; second, analyzing the relationship between the"liquidation"and Communist Revolution; third, discussing why rural farmers came to city for liquidating"Merchant-landlords", and introducing the liquidation's organization and processes; four, analyzing the peasant's "liquidation" materials and the"Merchant-landlords"attitudes when they deal with the peasants'liquidation requirements.After analyzing my collected archives, this paper has got the following findings. The main status of"merchant-landlords"was not landlord, but merchant in the strict sense. To be more precise, he was a merchant who owns land in the countryside but has"civil right"in politically. They were protected by the"Agrarian Reform Law of the People's Republic of China", but in the practice of Land reform in Nanchang County,"merchant-landlords"were struggled as a rural landlord because of their land property, they actually became the class enemy"landlords", which constitute a clear departure between policy and practice. However, this "departure" is not simply a result of the grass-roots cadres'poor implementation of land reform policy, also not the peasants'pure economic interests, but can be seen as an institutional arrangement by the CPC for the need of revolution "pragmatism".The new regime can't suppress the masses'enthusiasm, but have to take their actual economic requirements into account, solving the peasants'food crisis and production difficulties due to the heavy burden of public grain. However, the rural landlord economy has been hit hard because of the high tax progressive tax and reduced rent and interest rates in many times, there are no benefits to obtain by struggling the village landlord, in fact, the landlords in village were almost bankrupt. There is no other choice to obtain economic fruit but have to liquidate the city "merchant-landlords".In essence, as for new regime, liquidating the city"merchant-landlords"goes against the economic development, the city industrial and commercial tax decline seriously, and give rise to the split between the urban and rural. But through "liquidation", an informal method of struggle, the CPC can be achieved in many goals which can't be reached with formal policy, such as "hidden land reform" in 1945-1946. In order to achieve economic "liquidation", peasants mobilize the masses to accuse landlords to collect "evil" material, which are consistent with the new regime's goal of social control and national reconstruction. At this point, the peasants'economic demands and the state's political aim achieve a "win-win" in the process of "liquidation" struggle.Liquidation is not only a political hit to the city"landlords", but more importantly, peasants gained massive economic benefits through the liquidation struggle, which effectively solved the peasants'life and production crisis caused by the heavy agricultural tax. In this sense, the"Liquidation"is not Land Reform, but a strategic method to solve the"Spring Famine", which indicated that the new regime solved the state's Home work with a political way. This finding can eliminate the misunderstanding that CCP is a totally political ideology Party, and tells us CCP has a strong feature of "Revolutionary pragmatism" in the early stage.