Letter to Liu Shaoqi Regarding the "Report on the Question of Land Reform"
(June 29, 1950)

Comrade Shaoqi:

I have read this document[1]. Please deliver it to Qiaomu[2] before 8 p.m. today, to be published tomorrow together with the Land Law.

Among capitalist countries, only France, during Napoleon I's era and earlier, distributed land relatively thoroughly. Britain saw capitalism invade the countryside and destroy the feudal land ownership system—this was not land reform like ours. Germany and Italy were generally similar, but even less thorough than Britain, still preserving many feudal remnants. In Japan, the feudal land system persisted severely until after Japan's surrender, when the Americans carried out an extremely incomplete "land reform"; serious feudalism still exists today. The United States never had feudalism; from the very beginning, European immigrants brought capitalist agriculture into being, hence its rural market is particularly vast. Only during Lincoln's[3] era, with the emancipation of the serfs[4] in several southern states, was there a struggle against slavery. The histories of various countries are thus highly complex, and for the most part differ from our current situation, where land reform precedes industrial development. Therefore, it is best not to include a section on international history. The only countries whose international history aligns with China's are the Soviet Union and the various new democratic states.

Mao Zedong
June 29

[1] Refers to Liu Shaoqi's "Report on the Question of Land Reform," delivered on June 14, 1950, at the Second Session of the First National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
[2] Qiaomu, i.e., Hu Qiaomu, then Director of the General Administration of Press of the Central People's Government.
[3] Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. He advocated preserving the unity of the federation and gradually abolishing the slavery system, issuing the "Emancipation Proclamation" in 1862.
[4] The term "serfs" here should read "slaves."