January 18, 1941 • Xinhua News Agency, Yan’an, January 6. The major question of how to resolve China’s land problem in a just and equitable manner during the War of Resistance has long engaged patriotic figures and economists alike. This crucial issue has now received a comprehensive answer in the decision on the land policy for the anti-Japanese base areas, adopted by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on January 18. The decision is grounded in three fundamental principles: first, that the peasantry constitutes the basic force behind both the resistance against Japan and agricultural production and therefore deserves support; second, that the majority of Chinese landlords are patriotic, with a segment of enlightened landlords even favoring democratic reforms, and thus should be won over into an alliance; and third, that the rich peasants, together with the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie, represent relatively progressive forces in contemporary China, and that capitalist-oriented rich-peasant economies ought to be encouraged and rewarded. Accordingly, the decision stresses that landlords must reduce rents and interest rates, while peasants are required to pay their dues; it further calls upon the government to meet the legitimate demands of both peasants and landlords, safeguarding their respective personal, political, land, and property rights, and to fully implement the well-known “Three-Thirds System” in the composition of all levels of government.

The land question is at present China’s most fundamental and acute social problem. The Chinese Communist Party has already addressed and continues to address this issue. The present decision builds upon measures that have already been put into practice in various anti-Japanese base areas under its leadership in North and Central China. Consequently, it will undoubtedly exert a profound influence on political life throughout the country and on public opinion across all social strata. An observer in Yan’an points out that this not only represents a concretization, on the economic front, of the Chinese Communist Party’s policy of the united national front against Japan and of the New Democracy, but also marks the first large-scale realization of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s land and peasant policies. Major newspapers and magazines in Chongqing are currently devoting extensive coverage to the land question. Last November, the Ninth Plenary Session of the Kuomintang Central Committee resolved to establish a Land Policy Commission. The timely publication of this document by the CCP provides a fitting response to that initiative.

Of particular note is the fact that, in an annex to its decision, the CCP stipulates rent reductions based on the pre-war standard of 15 percent, which differs from the 15-percent reduction advocated by most KMT members. By contrast, the regulations promulgated by the National Government—specifically, the decree issued on March 30, 1929, as commented upon by the Yan’an Observer, which reduced rental payments to 375 per thousand of the total grain harvest and was scheduled to take effect on March 1, 1931—and the Principles for Protecting Tenant Farmers enacted by the Ministry of Interior in 1932, both reaffirm this very principle. Although these laws enjoyed broad support among the peasantry, impartial observers, and many adherents of the Three Principles of the People, regrettably they were consistently enforced only by the Chinese Communist Party after the outbreak of the war. The CCP maintains that, in order to unite all classes of the nation, launch a strategic counteroffensive, and achieve complete victory over the Japanese aggressors, it is essential not merely to undertake military and political reforms but also to pursue appropriate land policies that secure the active backing of the peasant masses.