LAND LAW PROMULGATED BY CHINESE REVOLUTIONARY MILITARY COMMISSION (1930)

[Text] Chapter I. Confiscation and Distribution of Land

Article 1. After rising up and overthrowing the regime of the evil gentry and landlord class, all private and group-owned--ancestral halls of the evil gentry and landlords, temple [religious] institutions and wealthy farmers--land and fields, mountains and forests, ponds and houses, must immediately be confiscated and turned over to public ownership by the soviet governments for distribution to farmers with little or no land and other poor people who need it for their use. In areas where there are only farmers' associations, where soviets have not been established, the farmers' associations may also carry out the confiscation and distribution.

Article 2. After investigation by the soviets, family members of evil gentry and landlords and reactionaries will be permitted to live in the villages, and those with no other means of making a living may receive distribution of an appropriate amount of land.

Article 3. Distribution of land will be made according to regulations to officers and soldiers serving in the Red Army as well as to those engaged in revolutionary work. The soviets will also assign people to assist their family members in farming.

Article 4. Those in industry and commerce in villages who can make their living will not receive land. Those who cannot make a living will receive an appropriate amount of land limited to that necessary to compensate for the deficiency and permit them to make a living.

Article 5. Land must be distributed to tenant farmers and unemployed wanderers who wish to have land distributed to them. Those wanderers who receive land, however, must break themselves of opium, gambling and other evil addictions, otherwise the soviets will recover their land.

Article 6. Those living away from their home villages will not receive land.

Article 7. The township shall be the basic unit for the distribution of land. The farmers of a township will put together for common distribution all land tilled by them in their own township as well as in neighboring townships.

Should there be three or four adjoining townships in which some townships have more land and some less--they will be considered a single township for distribution. Those townships with so little land as to be incapable of maintaining their livelihood, and which have no other means of production to maintain their livelihood, may combine three or four townships into one unit for distribution, but the township soviet must request and receive authorization from the district soviet.

Article 8. To meet the demands of the majority, and to expedite the receipt of land by farmers, men, women, old and young should receive equal distribution according to village population. The distribution method based on labor as the criterion should not be adopted.

Article 9. In principle, city merchants and workers will not receive land. When possible, however, appropriate amounts of land will be distributed to unemployed workers and poor people from cities who request it.

Article 10. To seek speedy destruction of feudal influences and to attack wealthy farmers, the distribution of land should be in accordance with the principle of taking from those with much to compensate those with little and taking the fertile to compensate for the infertile. Landlords and wealthy farmers should not be permitted to conceal land, not reporting it, nor to monopolize fertile land. After the distribution of land, wooden signs prescribed by the soviets will be erected in the fields, with the amount of production from the field and the present tiller inscribed thereon.

Article 11. All deeds covering land of evil gentry and landlords, wealthy farmers, and ancestral halls and temples shall be handed over within a limited period to township soviets or to township or district farmers' associations, and burned publicly.

Article 12. After the distribution of land, county soviets or district soviets shall issue farming certificates.

Article 13. Whenever anyone in a township dies, changes his occupation, or departs, the land distributed to him shall revert to the soviet for redistribution. When anyone arrives from outside the township or is born in the township, the soviet should find a way to distribute land to that person, but subsequent to the harvest.

Article 14. When land is distributed after an uprising and it is after planting by farmers, the production from the field shall be harvested by the farmer receiving the field, and the original tiller may not keep it [the production or harvest].

Article 15. Vegetable gardens, dams and fallow land (where miscellaneous grains can be planted) must be distributed. Large ponds not suitable for distribution shall be operated by the soviet or rented for a fixed price.

Article 16. Bamboo [producing] and lumber [producing] hills should be divided for calculation purposes into fields according to their production and combined with fields for distribution. Those with the characteristics of industrial capital [plant or equipment], employing labor, establishing factories and manufacturing, however, may be rented as entities and need not be distributed.

Article 17. Pine, fir and other mountain forests will be managed or rented by the soviets. When authorized by the soviet, however, and when the people of the township need to use wood for repairing embankments, constructing public facilities and houses, and for repairing buildings burned by the reactionaries, they may take wood from the forests.

Article 18. Hills producing firewood will be managed by the soviet governments for public use.

Article 19. To meet the requirements of poor farmers, all confiscated land should be distributed to them, and it need not be retained by the soviets. Under certain conditions, however, that portion of the land which cannot be completely distributed may be used to establish model farms or be rented temporarily. At the same time a portion of such buildings should be retained for public enterprises.

Chapter II. Cancellation of Debts

Article 20. All debts owed by workers, farmers and poor people to the evil gentry and landlords and rich peasants shall not be repaid, and all bonds and loan agreements shall be handed over to the soviets or farmers' associations for burning.

Article 21. All debts new and old owed by the evil gentry and landlords and merchants to the government or to workers, farmers or poor people must be repaid in full.

Article 22. Old trading accounts owed by workers, farmers and poor people to merchants prior to the uprising, irrespective of whether they were commercial or high-interest, or whether they were personal accounts, shall not be repaid.

Article 23. In principle, with respect to accounts incurred by workers, farmers and poor people among themselves, what was borrowed prior to the uprising shall not be repaid. This excludes only no-interest loans made with the objective of friendly assistance, and which the borrower is willing to repay.

Article 24. Wherever workers, farmers and poor people have pawned or mortgaged articles or houses to evil gentry and landlords, wealthy farmers or pawnbrokers, the items given as security shall be recovered unconditionally.

Article 25. Financial associations and grain associations shall all be disbanded.

Article 26. Under the soviet regime, high-interest loans are prohibited. County soviets will prescribe appropriate interest rates according to the monetary situation in the local area. The rates should not, however, exceed that received from ordinary capital under the general economic conditions in the area.

Chapter III. Land Tax

Article 27. To meet requirements for overthrowing the counterrevolutionaries (such as to expand the Red Army and Red Guard units); to support governmental masses (such as establishing schools and dispensaries; aiding the crippled, the aged and infants; repairing roads and embankments, etc.), the soviets may levy land taxes on farmers.

Article 28. In keeping with the principle of protecting poor farmers and joining with middle farmers to attack wealthy farmers, land taxes may be levied only after soviets have been established, the masses have realized practical benefits, and the higher-level soviet has approved.

Article 29. Land taxes will be levied by classes according to the annual harvest of grain from the land distributed to the farmers.

For each additional tan of grain harvested, an additional 1.5 percent in land taxes shall be collected.

Article 30. Income and expenditures from land taxes must be centralized at the high-level soviet government. Lower-level governments may not collect and disburse freely. Expenditure standards shall be determined by the high-level government according to the amount of revenue and the urgency and significance of the requirements of the governments at various levels.

Chapter IV. Wages

Article 31. Wages of handicraft industry workers and tenant farmers in farming villages which have been too low in the past should be raised. Henceforth, wages shall be determined by the soviets according to two standards--the rise or fall of prices of commodities and the abundance or paucity of farmers' income. County or provincial soviets must approve wages prescribed by township soviets.

o Collection of Red Bandit Secret Documents, Chapter 5. Edited and printed by Organization Section, 1st Bandit Extermination Propaganda Division, General Headquarters of the Army, Navy and Air Force. 10 September 1931.

* Collection of Red Bandit Reactionary Documents, Volume 3, 1935.

--- Notes

1. Each person who received distributed land who harvests less than 5 tan of grain shall be exempt from land taxes.

2. Each person who received distributed land who harvests 6 tan of grain will be taxed 1 percent.

3. Each person who received distributed land who harvests 7 tan of grain will be taxed 1.5 percent.

4. Each person who received distributed land who harvests 8 tan of land will be taxed 2.5 percent.

5. Each person who received distributed land who harvests 9 tan of grain will be taxed 4 percent.

6. Each person who received distributed land who harvests 10 tan of grain will be taxed 5.5 percent.

7. Each person who received distributed land who harvests 11 tan of grain will be taxed No percentage listed.

8. Each person who received distributed land who harvests 12 tan of grain will be taxed 8 percent.