Chinese Modern History: Land Reform Movements
Second Essay Assignment
Yuan-tsung Chen’s The Dragon’s Village and Yu Liu’s “Why Did It Go so High? Political Mobilization and Agricultural Collectivization in China” both deal with the land reform movement in China. Chen’s book is a memoir; Liu’s article is a scholarly analysis. For this essay assignment, you are required to use Dragon’s Village to evaluate the argument presented in “Why Did it Go so High?” Does the evidence presented in Dragon’s Village confirm Liu’s findings, or call them into question? Note that in writing your essay, you are free to focus on a particular part or parts of Liu’s argument—there’s no need to evaluate the entire argument. (Indeed, you most likely do not have the background to evaluate her comparisons with the Soviet Union.) You should also feel free to discuss problems and limitations of Dragon’s Village as a source.
Your essay should be approximately 1200 words (about five pages) and is due on April 10, at 10 AM. Please do not bring a hardcopy to class. Instead, upload your paper using the “upload assignments” tab on Blackboard. Papers submitted after the deadline will be marked by the system as “late,” and will be downgraded. As on your last essay, you will be judged by the extent to which:
- You offer a sound and convincing argument;
- You demonstrate careful reading of the sources;
- You include ideas from lecture and other assigned readings as appropriate;
- You craft a well-written and well-constructed essay;
- You demonstrate understanding of the history presented thus far in class;
- You are able to write a paper that is free of careless errors.
Please be certain to cite the readings you use. Your citation format can be informal, but it should cite the reading and page number. For example, (Dragon’s Village, p. 25). No use of other than assigned readings is permitted. Do not use sources from the Internet. Please be careful to guard against plagiarism and other forms of cheating. If you have questions about what constitutes plagiarism please contact me or Nick Mason.
Chinese Modern History
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Chinese Modern History
Land reforms in China gained prominent in the 20th century. In her memoir “The Dragon’s Village” by Yuan-Tsung Chen and “Why Did It Go so High? Political Mobilization and Agricultural Collectivization in China” by Yu Liu, the authors discuss how these land reforms occurred in China. In these pieces, the authors’ extensively explore why land reforms occurred extensively and the reasons behind the acceptance of these reforms (Liu, 2006). For this reason, it is important to analyze Liu’s argument from his article using Chen’s book “The Dragon’s Village.”
According to Liu, in the traditional Chinese society, the villages were mostly self-ruled as opposed to being governed from above. The rural elites, lineage seniors, and landlords are the one that controlled the rural society and in some way exploited the locals (Liu, 2006, p. 733). Chen findings agree with Liu’s point of view about the rural landlords. According to Chen (54), the rural farmlands in China were under the control of the feudal landlords. The feudal landlords were appointed by the Guomindang government so that they could run the rural areas (Chen, 2013, p. 54). They considered themselves the elite, literate, and lords of the large majority of the rural illiterate. To control the rural illiterate, they rented out land to them at high prices, charged exaggerated interest rates on loans, and ensured that they amassed extensive amount of wealth. For example, Chen describes that when Ling-ling reached the rural China, she encountered one landlord named Landlord Chi. Landlord Chi became rich swiftly when he was given that post because he mistreated the peasants. He would force the peasants to take part in gambling and then they were only allowed to lose. Ideally, when Landlord Chi gave peasants farmland, all proceeds would go to him and the peasants could only survive on what they grew in their farms (88). Further, Liu declares that under the rural elites, the poor had few options in land ownership (Liu, 2006, p. 733). This is again emphasized by Chen in “The Dragon’s village.” Chen (2013, p. 99) notes that under the landlord system, the landless suffered worse than the rest. This is because the landless had no choice but to rent land from the landlords and for this, they paid dearly. In most cases, the landlords would take half or more of the entire harvest and then the landlords would ensure that these peasants were heavy indebted to them. Ideally, Chen notes that about five percent of the population in the rural areas was made up of the feudal landlords. However, despite their small percentage, they controlled more than 60% of the land (Chen, 2013, p. 69). In this way, Chen’s findings confirm that the rural areas were under the control of rural landlords or elites who mistreated the peasants or the poor.
Further, Liu claims that the idea of collective agricultural collective campaign became successful in China because the land reform system dismantled this power system. In other words, the land reforms aimed specifically at dismantling the power of the rural elite or landlords (Liu, 2006, p. 733). In the same way, it is clear that Chen’s findings show that the overall aim of the Communist Party was to end the feudal system. Ideally, Ling-ling is part of the group that dispersed to local China to go and implement the land reforms. The role of their work as land reformers is to help the government confiscate the lands that the feudal landlords controlled and then share this land among the landless and the poor farmers (Chen, 2013, p. 51). Chen argues that the operation was to be carried out among the areas seized from the Guomindang rule and this would affect approximately three million peasants. Further, about twenty-eight million landlords and their families were to be affected by the land reforms as their lands would be seized to be given to the oppressed poor. Chen points out that the role of the land reformers is to ensure that land, tools, as well as draft animals were confiscated and then the government would distribute these to the people who needed them. In such a case, it would explain why Liu findings show that collective agricultural system was highly popular in China at this period of time. People jumped at the idea of being able to own land that was not controlled by the feudal landlords (James Xiaohe, 2012).
Another argument that Liu presents in “Why did it go so high” is that the land reform was successful because of the way the Communist party created positive relations with the peasants (Liu, 2006, p. 734). The Communist Party ensured that the reformers it sent to these rural areas would spend a lot of time with the peasants and form positive, as well as trustworthy relations. The eviden...