Did land reform win the villages by land or by violence?

The short answer

• An army that had already won. The Communist victory rested on an army of about five million. In the great battles of 1948–49 the PLA destroyed the Nationalist field armies, giving the new state a single force under one command across almost all China—something no Chinese government had possessed since 1911. The army also offered a way to govern: its units had political commissars, and generals ran the six great regions until 1954.
• A country exhausted by war and inflation. After eight years of war against Japan and three of civil war, many Chinese wanted order regardless of the ideology that brought it. The Nationalists’ gold yuan, introduced in August 1948, became worthless within a year. Under Chen Yun’s economic guidance, the new government gathered grain and cloth into state hands and balanced the budget. Inflation was controlled by early 1950. Stable prices helped win acceptance in cities where the Communists had lacked support.
• Land hunger and the landlord’s power. For much of rural China, land meant both livelihood and authority. Close to 480 million people lived in the countryside; in much of the south a minority of landlords owned a large share of the best land and charged tenants half the harvest or more. Landlords could also lend money, collect taxes and lead militias. Since the 1920s the Communists had learned in their base areas that a promise of land attracted recruits. National reform gave poor peasants across the provinces a reason to support the Party.
• The Cold War chose sides early. The United States still recognized the Nationalist government, and Mao saw a need for a great-power protector against American hostility. China’s February 1950 treaty with Moscow answered that need. When the Korean War began in June, President Truman sent the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait, freezing the civil war in place. The new state’s enemy across the sea helped justify vigilance, secrecy and campaigns against supposed hidden enemies at home.

What it changed

War arrives before the state is built. The government had scarcely begun building its institutions when war came. The Korean War started eight months after the proclamation, and in October 1950 China sent its army across the Yalu, the river border with Korea. Fighting the United States gave the government a reason and a receptive public mood for hunting enemies at home. The campaigns of 1950–53 became far harsher than the coalition of 1949 had promised, and citizens could be asked to show loyalty by denouncing, donating or enlisting.

Class labels that lasted a generation. A classification made during land reform could follow a family for decades. The label “landlord” entered household files and passed to children, affecting prospects at school, work and marriage. During the Cultural Revolution, such families were among the first victims of village killings. A state seeking to abolish class had created a hereditary underclass; the files outlived Mao.

The land given was soon taken back. Land ownership gave peasants a reason to support the revolution, but private ownership lasted only a few years. From 1953 the state purchased grain at prices it set; by the end of 1956 almost every household had entered a collective. The fields passed to cooperatives and, in 1958, to communes. What had helped win support for the Party was no longer held individually.

Two Chinas. The Nationalist Republic of China survived on Taiwan after the failed Kinmen landing and the arrival of the American fleet. It also retained China’s United Nations seat. Beijing’s struggle over which government represented China continued until it won the seat in 1971. The strait remains divided today, and the failed landing of 1949 still bears on East Asian politics.