Chapter 58 "Confiscate all land and assign farmers to cultivate it"

This is one of the propaganda slogans drafted by the Hunan Provincial Party Committee in July 1928. At this time, in the Jinggangshan revolutionary base area, the division of land was not just a propaganda slogan, but had been put into practical action, and the agrarian revolution was vigorously carried out in the base area. The Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Government on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi was the leading organ of the border agrarian revolution, and a Ministry of Land was specially set up to take charge of this work.In the county, district, and township governments of workers, peasants, and soldiers, special land committees have also been established.

The Land Committee is elected by the Congress of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers, and generally consists of 5 to 7 members.When the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Government discusses land distribution, the Land Committee must first conduct research and propose a plan.To this end, the land committee must conduct investigations and studies on land issues, formulate plans for dividing land, and classify classes.Because whether to divide the land is determined by class composition.In view of the fact that "the agrarian revolution was mainly aimed at landlords and rich peasants" at that time, the division of classes was often relatively simple.

The leadership of the workers', peasants' and soldiers' governments at all levels over the agrarian revolution made the peasant masses naturally associate the issue of the agrarian revolution with the workers', peasants' and soldiers' governments.Du Xiujing, a representative of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee who came to the Jinggangshan base not long ago, commented: "The general public's understanding of the 'Soviet government' is based on the resolution of the land issue." In the newly established base areas, the lack of cadres and backbones is a prominent problem when the agrarian revolution is fully rolled out.For this reason, the Border Special Committee transferred and dispatched a large number of Red Army cadres to the villages of various counties to help and guide the work of dividing the land.

Wang Zifeng, who was sent to Getian Township, Ninggang County, recalled: "I was only in the pistol team for more than a month. Later, when the local government wanted cadres, some people were transferred from the army. Because when I was working for the Soviet government in District 13 of my hometown , used to engage in excessive land, so I was transferred out." "I helped distribute the land in Getian Village. An investigation committee was set up in the village to register the population and register the land." "At that time, we didn't understand the idea of ​​'supplementing the poor'. We confiscated the land from the landlords and distributed it to farmers who had no or little land. Taking a large village as a unit, we calculated how much land was needed by the average population, and adjusted and supplemented within this range. We confiscated all the land of the landlords, and confiscated the excess of the land of the rich peasants. After the division, we registered the name, the number of acres, and who used it according to the regulations, and then inserted a sign.... We helped farmers distribute the land in Getian Village. 3 acres of fields."

"Extracting fat to make up for thinness" is a very vivid expression. This was a principle of land distribution at that time, and it was proposed by Mao Zedong. When the base area initially determines the method of land distribution, it is generally based on the original cultivation. According to the average amount of allocated land, the excess land is taken out, and the shortage is made up. This is the principle of "taking more and making up less". However, the Jinggangshan area has a vast area, and there is a big gap between the poor and fertile land. In the process of implementing the method of "taking more to supplement the less", it was found that this method was beneficial to the rich peasants, but not conducive to the poor and hired peasants.This is because the land cultivated by rich peasants is generally better, while the land cultivated by poor and hired farmers is generally inferior. "Pump more to make up for less", and the good fields of rich peasants are often indistinguishable.Therefore, Mao Zedong put forward the principle of "taking out the fat and replenishing the thin", that is, the good fields of the rich peasants should also be taken out to replenish the cultivation of the poor and hired farmers, so as to truly meet the land requirements of the poor and hired farmers.

The method of "pumping fat and supplementing thinness" is not difficult. It is estimated based on the standard of 4 dan grains per mu of field, divided into upper, middle and lower fields, registered and compiled, and then divided according to the combination of upper, middle and lower fields.In this way, land distribution becomes more reasonable. Two important basic principles were also established for the division of fields in the Jinggangshan base area. The first is to allocate land in units of townships.What kind of scope should be used for statistics and calculations to determine the average number of land allocations is a problem that must be solved by the agrarian revolution in the base areas.On August 19, 1927, before the Autumn Harvest Uprising, Mao Zedong stipulated in the "Land Program" drafted for the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China that "districts should be used as units."However, in the initial land distribution in the Jinggangshan base area, the method of using the village as the unit was adopted.After a period of practice, I feel that the village-based method is not very good, and it is easy to be used by landlords and rich peasants.After investigation and research, Mao Zedong proposed to use the township as a unit for land distribution. Practice has proved that this method is more practical and the effect is better.

The second is to distribute land equally according to population.The agrarian revolution in the border counties implemented the confiscation of all land for redistribution, and the distribution standard was based on population.Men, women, old and children in all villages all participate in the equal distribution of land. "Children get half of the land of adults, and handicraftsmen and landlords all share." This is different from the proposition in the resolution of the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China that "only confiscate the land of the landlord class" instead of "confiscating all land".This is because the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Moscow from June 18 to July 11, 1928. By the time its spirit spread to Jinggangshan, the agrarian revolution in the base area had already started in full swing, and all land was confiscated and redistributed.At this time, if it is changed according to the resolution of the Sixth National Congress, and the land that the poor peasants have already allocated is returned to the rich peasants and landlords, it will dampen the enthusiasm of the poor and hired peasants.Therefore, it was decided that "if the land is divided, forget it, and the division will be done according to the central policy in the future".

After the policy of subdividing land was basically determined, the subdivision of land in the Jinggangshan base area was fully rolled out, and results were quickly achieved.On June 15, 1928, Du Xiujing, a representative of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, introduced the land allocation in Jinggangshan in detail: "Now the land in Ninggang has been divided up, and Yongxin has also been divided. Method: Mostly take the township Soviet as the unit, and the district Soviet will send people to cooperate with the township Soviet to investigate clearly the land and population of each household in the township (if any underreported land is found out, the right to distribute the land will be cancelled), and then the township The Soviet counts the population and land to see how much each family is allocated, and determines how much it should enter and exit according to the original number of fields. After the allocation is made, a list is made, and a sign is inserted in each field according to the list, and it is officially assigned to it. Business. For example, in the past I cultivated a lot of fields, but now the distribution is less, and the original fields are distributed to others, and the farmers have to pull out the seedlings. Don’t be good to others. As a result, the wages will be paid by those who have the fields now, or the grain will be divided equally in the future. Yes. According to their method, each person can share eight loads of grain, the size of the population is the same."

The poor farmers who were assigned to the fields were very grateful, and they said: "In this way, long live the Communist Party!" Of course, they are also worried: "How about the local tyrants come back?" The poor peasants who have not yet started to divide their fields are eager to see through, and they ask from time to time, "Is the official business of dividing the fields coming?" The content of the above-mentioned report by Du Xiujing was published in an article signed by Juezai in the 25th issue of "Bolshevik" soon after, and he introduced it to the whole party.

In the low ebb of the revolution after the failure of the Great Revolution, when the country was full of white terror and the communists in many places had to fight tenaciously for survival, the Jinggangshan revolutionary base area successfully carried out the agrarian revolution. People are a great inspiration. After the peasants got the land, the work of the Soviet government did not stop there. They also had to urge the peasants to produce and resolutely put an end to abandonment. The "Proclamation of the Soviet Government of the Eighth Township, Third District, Ningkang County" reflected the Soviet government's requirements for the farmers who were given the land. You may wish to record the full text:

The government has now been established and will seize power from now on. Eliminate the reactionary revolution, hide the crime to implicate. Overthrow the feudal forces and strictly prohibit gambling and foreign tobacco. The Red Army helped us workers and peasants, and divided up the landlords' grain fields. The townships have been divided, and the work is done first. If there is freedom to abandon wasteland, it is inevitable to find out that heavy responsibility is inevitable. When the rice is ripe, geese and ducks are not allowed to be released into the fields. The special notice will be announced later, and everyone should follow it first. Of course, due to lack of experience, there are also some problems in the division of land in Jinggangshan: the slogan and practice of "confiscating all land" instead of "confiscating the land of landlords" is not in line with the relevant spirit of the central government, and artificially increases the opposition of the land revolution. It was not until the resolution of the Sixth National Congress of the Central Committee that it began to correct it.The method adopted is, "The ones who have divided the land have already settled down, and the division will be done according to the central policy in the future." Some "left" practices appeared, for example, in order to break some farmers' dependence on "waiting for official business", "various methods" including burning the original field boundaries were adopted, and the patient and in-depth work of mobilizing the masses was not enough. During the period when land was divided, some rich peasants stood in the position of large owner farmers and advocated joint farming in order to obstruct land distribution. Some even joined the revolutionary ranks and used the power of the "Soviet government" to attack poor peasants. Nevertheless, the agrarian revolution in the Jinggangshan base was basically satisfactory and achieved certain results.From April to July, in just a few months, the distribution of land in the counties on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi was basically completed.The deepening of the agrarian revolution greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the poor peasants, which not only liberated the rural productive forces, but also effectively supported the revolutionary war and accelerated the pace of construction of the revolutionary base areas. In the year when the farmers got the land, the crops in the Jinggangshan area got a good harvest, which ensured the border government's financial revenue to a certain extent.Mao Zedong said in a letter to the central government: "The land tax in Ninggang is 20%, which is half a percent higher than the central government's method. , Lingxian, and Yongxin are all in the separatist areas, all of which are mountainous, and the peasants are too miserable to collect taxes."