Research On The Reations Of Modern Northeast Rural Employment (1911-1945)

Modern rural employment relationship in northeast China mainly refers to therelationship between landlord and farm labor from the Revolution of1911to thefounding of People’s Republic of China in1945. This study includes the classificationof farm labor, working time as well as salary and welfare.From late19thto early20thcenturies, the Northeast Frontier facing increasinglyserious crisis in the beleaguered background, the Qing government was determined toimplement the Migration in the Northeast, the new policy of land reclamation. Duringthe land development process, most parts of the land were occupied by landlords andbureaucrats as the farm labors cannot afford to buy them, which formed the ownershipof the land. Meanwhile, large scale of farm labors had to meet the basic needs of life sothat they had to be hired by landlords or to rent land to make a living. Thecontradiction between the land ownership and most people’s basic needs has becomethe prerequisite for the formation of the employment relationship and the developmentof it.Throughout the development of employment relationship in the northeast, twomain situations have been formed: traditional employment relationship since Republicof China and the inner employment relationship created by Japan in the northeasternChina. Firstly, the employment since Republic of China has gradually taken shapeduring the long-term development. Although the specific problems in different areaswere various, the general trend was all most the same. There are two kinds of farmlabor: the year farm labors who are paid by skill and the short-term labors who aremainly month labor and daily labor. Year labors had jobs all the year around but theyhad no freedom with low salary. Short-term labors were usually hired during theharvest season with high salary and freedom but their life was stable. Generallyspeaking, the landlords and farm labors were equal but they were not in reality. Farmlabors were exploited to work hard with poor living condition and their rest time waslimited so they were bound to the land. From other related studies, it can be seen thatalthough farm labor were paid by cashes and their salary kept increasing, their life was still miserable due to the high price which also kept increasing. The inner relationshipamong the exploiters was all most the same as it in other northeaster areas. The methodof payment and the classification of the salary developed faster than other areas. ManyManchus and Korean Chinese were employed and exploited. Therefore, the ruralemployment relationship in the northeast of China carries the characteristic of bud ofcapitalism on the surface, but it was feudal in nature.