We have received your report dated November 10, 1948. In all areas where land has already been equally distributed and the feudal economic base of landlords and rich peasants has been eliminated—though not yet entirely so—and where further adjustments to the land distribution are still needed, such as in regions like Huangjiachuan in Suide County—we should no longer undertake another round of land redistribution. Instead, we should adopt a rational system of land re-allocation to meet the remaining land demands of certain peasants who still lack sufficient holdings. To carry out another land redistribution in such areas would be a mistake. The policy you are currently implementing is correct.

In these areas, it is sufficient to establish poor-peasant groups within the peasant associations to safeguard the interests of poor and hired laborers. At the same time, in the committees of the peasant associations, as well as in the people’s representative assemblies and the government, poor and hired laborers together with the new middle peasants should occupy approximately one-third of the seats, thereby ensuring their leadership role, while the old middle peasants should also hold about one-third. This approach is sound and appropriate. However, attempting to organize poor-peasant leagues in regions where poor peasants are in the minority and new and old middle peasants constitute the majority, and then insisting on having them direct all affairs, constitutes adventurist commandism and violates the principles laid down at the National Land Conference. If any of your work teams or task forces are still acting in this manner, they should be immediately halted, recalled for retraining, and then redeployed to resume their work in light of local conditions.

(11) Do you have any “semi-old” areas in your region—zones situated between the new and old liberated areas—where the land question has not been resolved as thoroughly as in the old areas, yet is nonetheless better, or even significantly better, than in the completely unsettled or largely unresolved new areas? If such areas exist, their guiding policies should differ from those applicable to both the old and the new liberated areas. We urge you to examine this matter carefully and to telegraph us your findings.
Selected Documents on Land Reform during the Liberation War, Central Party School Press of the CPC, September 1981.