In 1949 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ruled China, and most Chinese people were peasants. The CCP had won the Civil War with peasant support, so it had a huge debt to repay. It also had a plan to change how the countryside worked. This lesson follows that change, which was one of the biggest in China's history.
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Unlock This CourseBefore 1949 a small number of landlords and rich peasants owned much of the best land. Many poor peasants owned very little or none. They rented land, paid high rents and borrowed money at high interest. In bad years families could lose everything. The CCP had already carried out land reform in areas it controlled during the Civil War, and the peasants there had backed it. After 1949 it set out to do the same across the whole country.
The Agrarian Reform Law was passed in June 1950. It said that landlords' land, farm animals, tools and spare grain should be taken and shared out among poor peasants and landless labourers. The law was more careful with rich peasants, who farmed their own land. Much of their land was left alone, so that food production would not fall.
Party work teams were sent into villages. Villagers were sorted into classes, such as landlord, rich peasant and poor peasant. Meetings were held where peasants spoke about how they had suffered, and landlords were put on trial in front of the village.
The campaign was violent. Many landlords were beaten, lost everything, or were executed. Historians' estimates of the numbers killed vary widely. Landlords as a class were destroyed.
This was also political. Peasants who took part in trials had a share in the revolution and could not easily go back, so the new government gained loyal supporters in every village. By early 1953 land reform was almost finished, and about 300 million poor peasants had received land.
The CCP did not want millions of tiny family farms for ever. Small farms were hard to run with modern methods, and Communists believed in farming owned together. But the party moved in steps, so that peasants who had only just won their land would not rebel.
From the early 1950s families shared tools, animals and work in busy seasons. Each family kept its own land and its own harvest.
From late 1953 families pooled their land and farmed it as one unit of about 20 to 30 households. Each family still owned its land and was paid partly for it.
The land, tools and animals became the property of the whole group. Payment was only for work done, counted in work points. Peasants kept just a small private plot.
The pace was slow at first and then very fast. In 1955 Mao pushed for quicker change, and local officials hurried to meet targets. By the end of 1956 about seven out of every eight peasant households were in the larger collective farms. Within about six years most poor peasants had gone from owning little or no land, to owning their own land, to giving up ownership of it again.
Land reform changed who owned the land and ended the power of the landlords, which was a social and political revolution. Collectivisation changed how the land was farmed. What stayed the same was that China was still a country of peasants who depended on the harvest. The next big change, communes, is a separate lesson, and so is the new industry that the countryside was meant to feed.
Explain two causes of the move from land reform to collectives in China by 1956. [8 marks]
Remember: one cause alone cannot score more than half marks. For each cause, give precise facts and explain how it led to the outcome.
One cause was that small family farms could not produce enough grain for the plans of the new government. After the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950, about 300 million peasants farmed tiny plots with little equipment. The government wanted to feed growing cities and to build industry, and it needed more grain than these plots gave. Joining families into cooperatives and then collectives meant land could be farmed in larger units and the state could collect grain more easily, so the party pushed peasants from private farming into group farming.
A second cause was Communist belief. The CCP wanted shared ownership, not private farming. It feared that after land reform some peasants would do well while others fell into debt and sold their land, so that a new class of rich peasants would grow. Moving through mutual aid teams, cooperatives and finally collectives, with land owned by the group and payment by work points, removed that risk. This is why, by the end of 1956, about seven out of every eight households were in the larger collective farms.
What lifts this to the top level: each cause is developed with specific facts and clearly linked to the outcome.
Begin each paragraph with the cause ("One cause was...") and finish it with a sentence starting "This led to..." so the examiner sees the link every time.