[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The killings often occurred during land reform when it was discovered that there was simply not enough land to go around.Even if a village’s “landlords” – or simply above-averagely rich peasants –were entirely expropriated, many peasants still could not reach the middle-peasant status of self-sufficient holdings.Many of these village struggles had little to do with landlordism as the CCP had painstakingly tried to define it, and more to do with simple wealth.In the midst of the civil war, a violent struggle between haves and have-nots, regardless of their theoretical relationship to the means of production, served to intensify mobilization at the cost of increasing divisiveness and anxiety.Such explosions of peasant anger suggest long-suppressed grievances finally coming to the fore, expression of which the CCP made possible.Villages were torn apart in “struggle sessions”and “speak bitterness” meetings – though reconstructed by denying those labeled landlords, rich peasants, and pro-Japanese traitors any rights in their communities.Given the success of the moderate policies of the war years, why would the Communists return to radical land reform? Part of the answer lay in the view that rent reduction was only a first step, inevitably to be followed by a stricter land-to-the-tiller program (which would in turn eventually be replaced by collectivization).Radicals also pointed out that in 1946 villages356War and revolution, 1937–49were still places of rich and poor.In that sense, land reform was the beginning of the revolution.But more important was the situation on the ground.After the Japanese were defeated and the civil war was under way, the CCPfaced the possibility of counter-revolution.At least in some areas, in spite of all attempts to soften rural elite opposition over the preceding years, landlords greeted early discussions of coalition government and a return of the Guomindang with glee.One landlord told one of his workers, “Heh! Still pressing us to pay grain tax.Fuck you.Chee! The Guomindang armies will be here in a minute.Gonna cut your little prick off! Chee!”25 Land reform, then, was less about economics than about political mobilization.The CCPknew that many peasants feared the return of the GMD and would have preferred not to commit themselves publicly to the CCP.The civil war was thus a class war and a rural–urban war; the alliances of the preceding era were no longer useful.Once fully-fledged land reform was pursued again after 1946, peasants had to continue fighting for their gains: if the GMD returned, they might be killed.Radical land reform was an enormous gamble.It was designed to produce a rural society of middle peasants who, however, lost the conservatism natural to landowners by participating in revolutionary action.One did not gain land during land reform simply by being poor.One was expected to demand it in a process of class affirmation that was required as long as any chance of the GMD’s returning remained.In reality, new middle peasants often wanted only to farm their fields, and cadres complained no one volunteered to join the Red Army.But villages that had undergone land reform were inevitably committed to the revolution.In the strategically critical provinces of Manchuria, where the Japanese had successfully prevented base areas from being formed, the CCP had little time to cultivate peasant support when the civil war broke out in 1946.Land reform tended to be carried out directly by cadres under the protection of Communist armies.26 There was no time to carefully investigate land ownership patterns and the local economies of the various villages, to recruit peasant activists, or to organize meetings that would attract mass support.This naturally gave traditional rural elites opportunities to subvert land reform, while ordinary peasants simply remained unmobilized.Landlords might lie about their holdings, bribe cadres or supply male cadres with women, or join, even lead, the peasant associations.None the less, anti-Communist forces in the Manchurian countryside remained unorganized and leaderless in the wake of Japan’s defeat.Communist-led violence across 1947 weakened traditional patterns of dominance and deference and destroyed community cohesion.Land reform did at least bring increasing numbers of peasants into the political process, finally mobilized as full members of their communities [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.The killings often occurred during land reform when it was discovered that there was simply not enough land to go around.Even if a village’s “landlords” – or simply above-averagely rich peasants –were entirely expropriated, many peasants still could not reach the middle-peasant status of self-sufficient holdings.Many of these village struggles had little to do with landlordism as the CCP had painstakingly tried to define it, and more to do with simple wealth.In the midst of the civil war, a violent struggle between haves and have-nots, regardless of their theoretical relationship to the means of production, served to intensify mobilization at the cost of increasing divisiveness and anxiety.Such explosions of peasant anger suggest long-suppressed grievances finally coming to the fore, expression of which the CCP made possible.Villages were torn apart in “struggle sessions”and “speak bitterness” meetings – though reconstructed by denying those labeled landlords, rich peasants, and pro-Japanese traitors any rights in their communities.Given the success of the moderate policies of the war years, why would the Communists return to radical land reform? Part of the answer lay in the view that rent reduction was only a first step, inevitably to be followed by a stricter land-to-the-tiller program (which would in turn eventually be replaced by collectivization).Radicals also pointed out that in 1946 villages356War and revolution, 1937–49were still places of rich and poor.In that sense, land reform was the beginning of the revolution.But more important was the situation on the ground.After the Japanese were defeated and the civil war was under way, the CCPfaced the possibility of counter-revolution.At least in some areas, in spite of all attempts to soften rural elite opposition over the preceding years, landlords greeted early discussions of coalition government and a return of the Guomindang with glee.One landlord told one of his workers, “Heh! Still pressing us to pay grain tax.Fuck you.Chee! The Guomindang armies will be here in a minute.Gonna cut your little prick off! Chee!”25 Land reform, then, was less about economics than about political mobilization.The CCPknew that many peasants feared the return of the GMD and would have preferred not to commit themselves publicly to the CCP.The civil war was thus a class war and a rural–urban war; the alliances of the preceding era were no longer useful.Once fully-fledged land reform was pursued again after 1946, peasants had to continue fighting for their gains: if the GMD returned, they might be killed.Radical land reform was an enormous gamble.It was designed to produce a rural society of middle peasants who, however, lost the conservatism natural to landowners by participating in revolutionary action.One did not gain land during land reform simply by being poor.One was expected to demand it in a process of class affirmation that was required as long as any chance of the GMD’s returning remained.In reality, new middle peasants often wanted only to farm their fields, and cadres complained no one volunteered to join the Red Army.But villages that had undergone land reform were inevitably committed to the revolution.In the strategically critical provinces of Manchuria, where the Japanese had successfully prevented base areas from being formed, the CCP had little time to cultivate peasant support when the civil war broke out in 1946.Land reform tended to be carried out directly by cadres under the protection of Communist armies.26 There was no time to carefully investigate land ownership patterns and the local economies of the various villages, to recruit peasant activists, or to organize meetings that would attract mass support.This naturally gave traditional rural elites opportunities to subvert land reform, while ordinary peasants simply remained unmobilized.Landlords might lie about their holdings, bribe cadres or supply male cadres with women, or join, even lead, the peasant associations.None the less, anti-Communist forces in the Manchurian countryside remained unorganized and leaderless in the wake of Japan’s defeat.Communist-led violence across 1947 weakened traditional patterns of dominance and deference and destroyed community cohesion.Land reform did at least bring increasing numbers of peasants into the political process, finally mobilized as full members of their communities [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]