Full Reconstruction of the Fenxi Land Reform (1945–1949)

After the Fenxi county government was established in September 1945, it immediately began mobilizing the masses to carry out the land reform movement. In this process, indiscriminate beatings and killings were widespread, and the Guo Sike Incident 郭四颗事件 occurred, which caused a sensation in the Jin–Sui Border Region. Unlike the great majority of other such cases, however, this incident began with the settling of accounts with Guo Sike as a “traitor-bully” and ended with his remolding as an “anti-feudal vanguard.” A careful review of this process of change reveals that the CPC clearly magnified the ordinary, everyday life contradictions within rural society, thereby promoting the formation of class consciousness and fostering the masses’ collective identification with their class status. Thereafter, land reform in Fenxi County proceeded along the established line. In August 1947, Fenxi County conducted pilot land reform in three villages and then implemented these practices across the entire county. To ensure the sound development of land reform, Fenxi County successively carried out three rounds of Party rectification and deviation-correction activities, examining the cadre group and correcting “left” deviations that infringed upon middle peasants. On the one hand, land reform in Fengxi County achieved the goal of “land to the tiller”; on the other hand, the CPC regime gained peasants’ recognition.

Carry (investment) · Climax · Consciousness · Government (linguistics) · Land reform · Land use · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Land Rights and Reforms