Resolution on the Promulgation of the "Outline Land Law of China"

(October 10, 1947)

China's land system is extremely irrational. Generally speaking, the landlords and rich peasants, who constitute less than 10 percent of the rural population, possess approximately 70 to 80 percent of the land, brutally exploiting the peasants. Meanwhile, the hired farmhands, poor peasants, middle peasants, and other people, who constitute over 90 percent of the rural population, altogether possess only about 20 to 30 percent of the land, toiling all year round without adequate food and clothing. This grave situation is the root cause of our nation's being invaded, oppressed, impoverished, and backward, and is the basic obstacle to our country's democratization, industrialization, independence, unification, and prosperity. In order to change this situation, it is necessary, in accordance with the demands of the peasants, to abolish the land system of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation and to put into effect the system of land to the tiller. Over the past twenty years, and especially in the last two years, the Chinese peasants, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, have carried out land reform and have already achieved tremendous successes and accumulated rich experience. In September of this year, the Communist Party of China convened the National Land Conference, at which a detailed study was made of the conditions of China's land system and the experience of land reform, and the "Outline Land Law of China" was formulated as a proposal to the democratic governments, peasant congresses, peasant representative assemblies, and their committees in various localities. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China fully approves this Outline Land Law and hereby promulgates it. It is hoped that the democratic governments, peasant congresses, peasant representative assemblies, and their committees in various localities will discuss and adopt this proposal, work out concrete measures suited to local conditions, and launch and carry through the nationwide land reform movement, thereby fulfilling the basic task of the Chinese revolution.

October 10, 1947

In 1947, peasants in Hebei were copying the "Outline Land Law of China" onto a wall.

In 1947, Mao Zedong and Ren Bishi were studying the issue of land reform in northern Shaanxi.